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College Unaffordable Even in Higher Income Brackets

nytimes.com

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Re: College Unaffordable Even in Higher Income Brackets

#181

Post by [deleted] »

quaffapint wrote: post #180
atarian wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not send your future kids to community college and then have them transfer?

That's the plan for our son who will be going in a couple years. He doesn't know what he wants to do, so why pay much more (not that its super cheap, but cheaper than many other options). I myself transferred schools multiple times - the greatest thing is the credits transfer, but the gpa does not, so if you screw up a few classes in the beginning, you can reset that. In the end people really only look what you list…

[deleted]

Re: College Unaffordable Even in Higher Income Brackets

#182

Post by sotojuan »

tn13 wrote: post #150
sotojuan wrote: post #17

In my experience the middle and higher income brackets (middle and upper middle suburban class) is the bracket that is hurt the most by college costs. Too rich for substantial need-based financial aid, too poor to pay without big loans. The only answer is merit scholarships, but those can't go for everyone, so you end up with moms taking their kids to 1000 summer activities so they're competitive :-) Here's a possibl…

American kids are not doing the cost-benefit analysis and they alone are to be blamed for it. For example. For many prospective college students, the trades might be a much more lucrative option. Using the example of plumbing, the average plumber earns $53,820 per year with the employer paying the apprentice a wage and training. (This money is for expert plumber. When adjusted to experience etc. it is around $20k per…

If you're raised in a suburban middle/upper middle environment you're told to go to college from day one by parents, teachers, friends, etc (especially parents). In some families there's actually little choice, but even if the student had the choice, it's a hard one to make in such a culture especially at age 17/18. That said, community college -> college is a safe and affordable option.

The opposite happens too—I know a lot of working class kids who didn't bother with even applying to college because it was unheard of in their communities. They went straight to work in trades and such.

PS: Petroleum Engineering is seasonal and not that good of a career choice as it depends too much on oil prices. I lived in Houston, an oil city. Many of my peers who did Petroleum Eng are out of work or with way lower salaries than advertised. Also, if you go to a state school you can graduate with little or no debt!

Re: College Unaffordable Even in Higher Income Brackets

#183

Post by intopieces »

rayiner wrote: post #126
intopieces wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think a reality that will hopefully soon catch up with societal stigma in the United States is that college isn't right for everyone. That's the problem, not the solution. College should be for everyone. There's no reason why a person who becomes a plumber or peace corps volunteer or electrician can't also go to college and learn those things, among other topics. In 2015, only 33% of American adults had a college…

College is a waste of time and money for almost everyone who attends . In the 1960's, less than 10% of Americans had college degrees. Yet, we still had engineers and accountants and insurance adjusters, etc. Very few people, even white collar workers, learn anything essential in college. The push for more and more college is a huge wealth transfer from the middle and lower-middle class to the upper-middle class profe…

>College is a waste of time and money for almost everyone who attends.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics disagrees [0], As do the hiring managers at even lower level positions [1]

[0]http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm [1]http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/09/09/report-employ...

Re: College Unaffordable Even in Higher Income Brackets

#184

Post by rayiner »

intopieces wrote: post #183
rayiner wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College is a waste of time and money for almost everyone who attends . In the 1960's, less than 10% of Americans had college degrees. Yet, we still had engineers and accountants and insurance adjusters, etc. Very few people, even white collar workers, learn anything essential in college. The push for more and more college is a huge wealth transfer from the middle and lower-middle class to the upper-middle class profe…

>College is a waste of time and money for almost everyone who attends. The Bureau of Labor Statistics disagrees [0], As do the hiring managers at even lower level positions [1] [0] http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm [1] http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/09/09/report-employ...

Correlation, not causation. Going to college doesn't make someone smarter, harder working, or more ambitious. Employers just use it as a signal for those things.

Re: College Unaffordable Even in Higher Income Brackets

#185

Post by intopieces »

rayiner wrote: post #184
intopieces wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>College is a waste of time and money for almost everyone who attends. The Bureau of Labor Statistics disagrees [0], As do the hiring managers at even lower level positions [1] [0] http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm [1] http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/09/09/report-employ...

Correlation, not causation. Going to college doesn't make someone smarter, harder working, or more ambitious. Employers just use it as a signal for those things.

>Going to college doesn't make someone smarter, harder working, or more ambitious.

And the BLS didn't measure those qualities, they measured earnings and unemployment. I suppose it's a waste of time if you don't value money or being employed.

Since 3 out of 4 adults reported that money is the primary cause of stress in their lives [0]...it seems that doing the thing that makes it less likely to be unemployed might not be a waste of time after all.

[0]http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-biggest-cause-of-stress-in-a...

Re: College Unaffordable Even in Higher Income Brackets

#186

Post by gozur88 »

jamesroseman wrote: post #151
tinduck wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. A top tier college will get you out in front of more employers. I did my undergrad at a lower tier state commuter school, and I got my master's at a top 10 school in CS. It's night and day difference in how recruiters will treat you.

I would tentatively add a caveat to that. > A top tier college will get you out in front of more employers... ...when you don't have anything more impressive than your college choice on your resume. Harvard students will always beat out comparable state school students to get that Microsoft phone interview. But they won't always beat out the student who ran a full-scale web app after sophomore year to help students p…

>If you use a resume as a litmus test for "smart programmers" as opposed to those faking it, you're undoubtably going to get a bunch of people who went to the best possible schools.

Yes, and that's exactly what happens at the most desirable companies.

>Maybe there's someone just as smart at your local state school who couldn't afford CMU who would bring a completely different mindset and style of thinking, but you'll never find them.

If you're really a stand-out, IQ-wise, you can go to the top tier schools even if you have no money. The people who get screwed are the people who are pretty smart but not exceptionally so.

Re: College Unaffordable Even in Higher Income Brackets

#187

Post by tptacek »

radarsat1 wrote: post #172
tptacek wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've evaded my point. I'm saying, you can get a music degree without paying to do it at a top tier university. With remunerative degrees, you can at least make the argument that selective schools gate selective employers, and so expensive colleges can be a necessity. But it's harder to make that argument for music or art. The question isn't whether you should study art. It's how much of a premium you should pay to…

That's a fair point. I guess we should ask then why people do it. Is it because they are stupid? (Maybe, sometimes.) Or is there something about elite schools that are attractive for musicians, despite the risk of not getting a remunerative career out of it? Should we be doing something about that? In any case, you seem to be narrowing the domain more and more here, from "education is difficult for people to afford",…

"Stupid" is not the word I would use, but I have no trouble believing that status signaling which might be genuinely important for law schools (for a career as a corp lawyer, go to a top-tier school or don't bother at all) might routinely be improperly applied to other fields.

Put yourself in the mind of a 16 year old (I'm a parent to one, so I might have an easier or a harder time doing that). Kids mostly have no idea at all what their career is, but they're all attuned to the admissions/status game.

I'm not narrowing the argument, so much as I'm trying to support the argument that fewer kids should take on large debt (and stress!) getting into elite colleges; more should go to lower-tier or even community colleges until they have a better idea what they want to do, and then transfer to the Right School when they can make an informed decision.

Again, I might have an idiosyncratic view of this, since I didn't really go to college at all (I went for a single summer semester when I was 19).

Re: College Unaffordable Even in Higher Income Brackets

#188

Post by throwawaysocks »

rayiner wrote: post #175
throwawaysocks wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GMU is a commuter school ranked outside the top 100 GMU is R1. R1 unis compensate faculty unusually well compared to other institutions, regardless of other social prestige indicators. R1-level compensation is not typical of US universities, period. > The average salary for a full professor in the U.S. is $135,000 You've grossly mis-interpreted this data. Notice that the data breaks down salaries by the type of ins…

> Notice that the data breaks down salaries by the type of institution (phd-granding, masters-granding, bachelor-only) . > The average for a full professor is far closer to $91,935 because the vast majority of faculty/instructors in the US work at non-Ph.D. granting institutions. Okay, fair point. But schools that don't grant a doctoral degree are also the cheapest institutions (elite liberal arts colleges aside)--th…

> My argument isn't that "professors are paid too much."

Well, okay.

> It's that we have too much higher education.

This seems well-covered in other threads. I'll just say two things:

1. A secondary education from a typical US high school is woefully insufficient for most well-paying jobs in the USA, and this is only likely to become more true over time.

2. Employers are on balance unwilling to invest in educating and training workers.

The argument about what to do is one we should perhaps have, and has been had in other threads, but it is most important to realize the need for something beyond high school.

Re: College Unaffordable Even in Higher Income Brackets

#189

Post by jamesroseman »

gozur88 wrote: post #186
jamesroseman wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would tentatively add a caveat to that. > A top tier college will get you out in front of more employers... ...when you don't have anything more impressive than your college choice on your resume. Harvard students will always beat out comparable state school students to get that Microsoft phone interview. But they won't always beat out the student who ran a full-scale web app after sophomore year to help students p…

>If you use a resume as a litmus test for "smart programmers" as opposed to those faking it, you're undoubtably going to get a bunch of people who went to the best possible schools. Yes, and that's exactly what happens at the most desirable companies. >Maybe there's someone just as smart at your local state school who couldn't afford CMU who would bring a completely different mindset and style of thinking, but you'll…

I'd wager there are more people who have snuck into top-tier universities than there are people who are there without paying/accruing massive debt. This is also ignoring the fact that Ivies and other top-tier universities are overwhelming homogenous.

More to the point, the thing everyone in a top-10 school has in common is that they're really good at looking good on paper. It says near nothing about what they'll contribute on a team, how they'll function with other people, or base programming skill. My only point is that if a company seeks diversity, they should seek it in all avenues.

Re: College Unaffordable Even in Higher Income Brackets

#190

Post by tw04 »

I'd say a bigger problem is parents encouraging their kids to go to college to do what they enjoy instead of encouraging them to go to college for a profession that will pay the bills. If you want to "do what you enjoy" for a living, and it pays $25k/year in salary... maybe don't spend $100k on college...?
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