Does education lead to a less resourceful workforce?

"How can someone be willing to be jobless for 2 years?" I asked myself as I half watched CNN at the gym this morning. The story, which at this point interviewed an unemployed 2008 graduate Public Relations major from the University of Miami, aimed to describe the difficult job market for college graduates. Perhaps it is just my upbringing, but I cannot imagine (given financial necessity) refusing to, as a last resort, apply to jobs for which I was overqualified. This wasn't the first, or second, or tenth time I'd heard such stories covered in national news. Like less skilled labor workers, college grads, tradesworkers, business owners, and professionals have all taken hits due to the economy. Unlike unskilled labor, though, these workers invested significant time or money in qualifying themselves for their trades, via education, apprenticeship, or job experience. These workers do not want to forfeit these investments to find work "anyone could do", and understandably so.

Unfortunately, one of the necessities of survival of a corporation under capitalism is fluidity (for those supplying the market). The labor market is no different: if you want to be employed, you must be willing to supply labor for which there is demand. Once labor becomes skilled labor, or educated labor, it loses much of this elasticity, to the detriment of the worker if the market fluctuates. This idea, that experience and education can make one less employable, seems at odds with my intuition, or at least with the cultural and economic values I've been marinating in since birth. This is the time during which we hope every English major's mantra ("It's not what you learn in college, Dad, it's that you learn how to learn") becomes reality. Rather than thinking of a college degree as training for a job, or training for a particular career as training for only that career, we might instead categorize these as general education and general work experience, respectively. But then, in this market, where most industries are flooded with overqualified applicants, this just might not be good enough.