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ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

economist.com

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Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#181

Post by emodendroket »

treehau5 wrote: post #173
emodendroket wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too have studied several languages, both in high school and in college, as well as some dabbling on my own. The classes alone are not enough, no. But they are a tremendous resource and make it much easier to get where you want to go. You might be able to reach similar levels of language proficiency without the courses but the biggest problems are 1) finding hours and hours a day to drill writing characters and othe…

But are you fluent in those languages? Sorry I am not trying to come off a presumptuous, I am just trying to emphasize the distinction because I think it is important to bear in mind. If the goal is fluency, do you think that traditional education has succeeded for you? Also how long have you been studying languages? I ask because I am curious if you think that the web, and later, apps, like Duolingo for example, can…

I'm hesitant to give too much detail for fear of outing myself here, but: In a few, yes (or at least at one point; I'm sure I've dipped in fluency). In others I am less accomplished. I think traditional education has been very successful for me. I'm not going to argue that it's not possible to graduate with a Japanese degree without being able to carry on a conversation -- it is -- but I think a university program is still a very effective way of not only attaining fluency in the language but also some level of erudition as far literature/culture/etc.

I started studying in middle school. I haven't tried the online stuff you're talking about. I'm not sure that they would be just as good.

Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#182

Post by totalrobe »

jhspaybar wrote: post #81
bisRepetita wrote: post #67

This study, like pretty much all the ones I have read on such topic, seems to compare income people going to college vs people not going to college. And they attribute all the benefits and ROI to college. While often it just measures that people that are smarter and motivated (because they can and want to go to college) do better financially than the one less smart and less motivated. I wish I could find a study of s…

I consider myself smart and motivated, I was in sales for about 8 years by choice rather than going to college. I was good at it, but 2 years of college(a double major), and a few years in industry and I'm now making 5x what I did. It's an anecdote sure, but I haven't changed at all, my degree simply qualified me for a different industry.

5x? If you hustled, sales in many industries should have gotten you to six figures in 8 years.

Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#184

Post by mywittyname »

optforfon wrote: post #31

So does this mean that the mediocre and expensive private colleges end up paying off a lot more than state schools? (the "I" being higher and therefor the "R" being higher too) That's deeply unsettling...

This was the takeaway that I had too. I'm surprised to see your comment is not at the top of this thread.

If a more exclusive college (x-axis) is proportionally more expensive, then this graph suggests that everyone, regardless of field, is better off going to a more expensive college. Getting a 12% annualized return on a $100k private bachelors is better than getting the same return on a $30k public university education.

Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#185

Post by saint_fiasco »

dboreham wrote: post #99
saint_fiasco wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think another way to study this would be to give free scholarships to half a group of random people and see if they earn more money than the other half of the random group.

We could call it....Scotland: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/f... Disclosure: I am a beneficiary of Scotland's free university system, long ago.

It's not quite the same because the admission system is not random.

The grandparent commenter was concerned that 'people who go to college' may have better outcomes not because of college but because they are smarter or wealthier. In Scotland's case the admission is based on grades so it still leaves open the possibility that college graduates are just smarter than everyone else instead of better educated.

Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#186

Post by existencebox »

tptacek wrote: post #154
existencebox wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could not disagree more thoroughly. The fact that I've had the opportunity to learn about a broad range of domains in addition to my technical focus has allowed me to not only have a better understanding, appreciation, and direction in my interactions with the broader world, it lets me draw parallels between similar scenarios in distinct fields, learn from the experiences of others, see novel solutions to entirely…

I don't know that we have to litigate whether general learning is worthwhile; I think we only have to deal with the question of whether it's worth tens of thousands of dollars that millions of incoming college students don't really have. If you could cut a full year off the work needed for a professional degree by losing "which native Americans lived in Virginia", and thus spare millions of students the expense of a…

Let me be clear, I was perhaps addressing the parent more literally than I should have, in the broad sense of cross-domain learning for the sake of learning.

I agree wholeheartedly that the opportunity cost of that learning should be taken into account, but my earlier point was made with the implicit assumption that there are methods that don't come with such an overhead. (e.g. choosing to take Latin during my CS degree would not have meaningfully changed my costs had I cut it out, and the benefits have become increasingly clear over the years. Most of this learning, however, I'd say has taken place outside of any institution that incurs a monetary cost, and the minor time-cost is largely what I was defending)

Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#187

Post by treehau5 »

emodendroket wrote: post #181
treehau5 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But are you fluent in those languages? Sorry I am not trying to come off a presumptuous, I am just trying to emphasize the distinction because I think it is important to bear in mind. If the goal is fluency, do you think that traditional education has succeeded for you? Also how long have you been studying languages? I ask because I am curious if you think that the web, and later, apps, like Duolingo for example, can…

I'm hesitant to give too much detail for fear of outing myself here, but: In a few, yes (or at least at one point; I'm sure I've dipped in fluency). In others I am less accomplished. I think traditional education has been very successful for me. I'm not going to argue that it's not possible to graduate with a Japanese degree without being able to carry on a conversation -- it is -- but I think a university program is…

If you ever are interested in german, I highly encourage the learn section of deutsche welle, it's among the best.

If while you are there, and are aware of any similar websites like that for any other language I would love to know!

Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#188

Post by ethanbond »

xiaoma wrote: post #156
ethanbond wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhh... no they're not "essentially the same." The value of being in the same room as knowledgeable people is interacting with them. If there's something that is unclear or that you want to delve into, you have an interactive way to do so. This whole "self-learning is just as good!" is ridiculous. If it was, it would already rule the world. People trust accreditation for a reason.

It already does rule the world. The greatest writers, actors, musicians, engineers, salespeople, marketers and entrepreneurs nearly all mastered their craft outside of brick an mortar institutions You have a PHD in drama? Good for you. I'd rather watch a high school drop out like Leonardo DiCaprio. You have a PHD in computer graphics? That's nice, but once again a dropout beat you to it. He currently leads Oculus Rif…

Oh good, so all you have to do is be a prodigy!

Sure, maybe the top 1% is self-taught (probably not, though, you're just selecting for your point). How about the next 15%?

Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#189

Post by kamaal »

emodendroket wrote: post #179
kamaal wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Why is that "the right question?" Because you need skills to be employed. The ridiculousness of the situation is such a plumber is probably spending their time more valuably than say who studied Norse Mythology. Note I'm talking more in economic terms only. Sure the person who studied Norse Mythology knows more than a plumber, but you need a plumber more often than you need some one who knows Norse Mythology. >>Why…

It's less than self-evident that the main purpose of education is or should be providing training to do jobs at taxpayer or personal expense.

If you are not doing a degree to get a job, why complain that you don't get paid enough for that degree?

Re: ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where

#190

Post by tehabe »

cableshaft wrote: post #79
tehabe wrote: post #12

On one hand it is nice to see that the school doesn't matter as much as people think but on the other hand it is sad that people see their studies only through the eyes of ROI. As if education has no value of its own. I'm probably just naive and an idealist.

Naivete and idealism is how we have a whole generation saddled with student loans they can barely afford to pay, forcing them to stay in jobs they'd rather not have, delay buying a home or getting married for decades. I know some people on the other end of six figure student loans (I'm not, thankfully, but I'm still going to be paying mine off for four or five years still). These people are not doing what they'd like…

I remember the long fight against tuition fees in my country and how we argued that tuitions wouldn't improve anything except leaving students with a lot of debt and problems. It would disadvantage so called "orchid subjects" and other subjects which didn't promise a great career. Utilisation of education would become more important than education. Even the switch to the Bachelor/Master system was/is seen as part of this development. Especially since it lead to a much more school like university. Which is the opposite of Humboldt's idea of research and studies being one.
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