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Is College Really Worth It?

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Re: Is College Really Worth It?

#61

Post by trimski »

nostrademons wrote: post #21

So, I'm not certain that college is really worth it, but there're a lot of misleading statistics in the infographic: 1. The cost of attending a private vs. public university does not include financial aid. For many middle-income kids, the actual price of attending a private university is often less than that of attending a state school, because the private university may give you a full ride based on need, while the…

The financial aid available at top-tier schools is very generous, because so few low-income students make up the undergraduate body. If I recall correctly, at the top 120 colleges in the United States, only 3% of the student body come from families in the bottom quintile of household income.

As a result, schools such as Harvard[1] and Stanford[2] pay for all tuition for students with a household income of less than $60,000.

[1]: http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/financial_aid/inde...

[2]: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/finaid/undergrad/

Re: Is College Really Worth It?

#63

Post by luckydude »

Hi,

Small tech company founder, still the guy who hires and manages the engineers. Just some background.

I used to think that Google's desire for graduate degrees was sort of elitist and not necessary. I've changed my mind, and here's why.

I work in a woodshop as a way to relax and have found an analogy for the education thing. I've come to believe that a well educated mind is sort of like a well organized shop; a self educated mind is like a messy shop.

There is no judgement intended, both neat and messy shops can produce excellent work, just as a self-educated person can produce just as good work as a formally educated person.

The difference is speed. At the risk of stretching the analogy, in a neat shop you can find tools quickly and make things quickly. A formally educated person uses the education to quickly make choices about how to solve problems whereas a self-educated person has to rederive a lot of those choices.

I've personally witnessed this in engineers that have worked for me and I'm moving towards wanting formally educated people. If you want to do well in the tech industry, I'd strongly urge you to get a formal education and cover the basics. If you have a CS degree and pointers bother you, you got a crappy degree. Ditto for basic language design, compiler design, OS design.

Just my two cents and you should probably ignore it because while I have a masters in CS, I also have a messy shop :)

Re: Is College Really Worth It?

#64

Post by Oompa »

chrischen wrote: post #15
Oompa wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's educational and gives you a place you could meet future co-founders as well. I feel like people look at college from a purely educational perspective, which isn't exactly correct. If you're going to college just for the education, you're in the wrong place, if you ask me.

Then again then college isn't the only way you can do those things. Perhaps if college didn't exist, there could be something filling the void that's not only more efficient at educating, but at fulfilling those things too.

This is very true. However, just because college does exist doesn't mean something better can't show up. It seems to me college is the best place to get all of these things in the same place quickly.

Re: Is College Really Worth It?

#65

Post by boff »

endtwist wrote: post #20
markpneyer wrote: post #2

Not if you're smart and motivated it's not. I went to High School with a guy named Chris. He dropped out of college to do programming work, and I stayed on, eventually going to grad school. Now he's the founder of GitHub and I'm some no-name programmer working for a financial company nobody's ever heard of.

Sheerly out of curiosity, outside of your anecdote, what evidence or credentials do you have to make that claim? Now, I'm not saying you're unqualified or wrong to make that claim — I merely would like to know what you're basing that statement upon. I see a lot of people make statements like this one based on a few prominent data points, completely ignoring the vast number of data points that don't fit their claim. I…

Totally agree with the above. Everyone can remember when success is achieved but no one seems to care about the thousands who fail trying to do the same thing. That is why medicine, my field, is no longer practiced anecdotally but based on evidence.

Re: Is College Really Worth It?

#66

Post by nostrademons »

trimski wrote: post #61
nostrademons wrote: post #21

So, I'm not certain that college is really worth it, but there're a lot of misleading statistics in the infographic: 1. The cost of attending a private vs. public university does not include financial aid. For many middle-income kids, the actual price of attending a private university is often less than that of attending a state school, because the private university may give you a full ride based on need, while the…

The financial aid available at top-tier schools is very generous, because so few low-income students make up the undergraduate body. If I recall correctly, at the top 120 colleges in the United States, only 3% of the student body come from families in the bottom quintile of household income. As a result, schools such as Harvard[1] and Stanford[2] pay for all tuition for students with a household income of less than $…

Right. Which means that if you are a lower-income student with the academic chops to make it into Harvard or Stanford, it very much behooves you to go. You get a fully subsidized education, and it probably makes much more of a difference to your bottom-line earnings than if you were a child of upper-income parents that's always figured you were going to Harvard.

Re: Is College Really Worth It?

#67

Post by teeja »

"Worth it"? Depends on what "it" is. There was a time when college wasn't about vocational education ...

Is it worth spending 4 years learning about the history of your country and culture? Seeing a lot of great movies or concerts? Hanging out and enjoying life without lots of burdens before joining the rat race? Having the time to explore a lot of options to find out what you're really good at, or maybe discover some field or some country or some culture that you didn't know existed that changes your whole life?

College is what you make of it. It can be more than being trained like a lab rat. Some people even find friends who hire them later on!

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