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On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return

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Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return

#131

Post by adjkant »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #40

My tuition costs in 1995 were $2500/year for an engineering degree. So given the numbers the OP used, he would be wrong. In today's environment, however, I might be inclined to agree. When I went to school, I could get a minimum wage job for the summer, and pay for tuition and dorm fees for the year. Education costs are wildly out of whack and something needs to be done to cut down these costs, because at this rate,…

Financial aid, scholarships, or community college followed by 2 years at a known school is still pretty worth it.

Example: You can go to the University of Alabama on an automatic full tuition scholarship if you have high enough standardized test scores. It's not the only one with a similar program.

Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return

#132

Post by mrep »

smsm42 wrote: post #69
krakensden wrote: post #46

As a culture, we really need to stop telling 17 year olds to not worry about money, go to college, and figure something out. There is always someone ready with a romantic appeal to a classical education, and it is so frustrating for me. Wasting four years is a huge cost. Years, decades of debt is a huge cost. Going to college with no plan about money? The costs are assured. Plus, the degrees people are actually getti…

I don't regret time spent getting higher ed, but I 1) worked while studying 2) didn't end up with debt 3) didn't do it in the US. I honestly have no idea what I would do in US with 100k+ debt load projected at the end of college. I wasn't that financially educated at 17-18... I don't think any common school even cares to give such tools to people. I guess I am lucky I hadn't have to face this problem, but I am kind o…

Average student debt in the US is only $37,172 [1] which is not insurmountable to pay off.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_debt#United_States

Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return

#133

Post by jjtheblunt »

krakensden wrote: post #46

As a culture, we really need to stop telling 17 year olds to not worry about money, go to college, and figure something out. There is always someone ready with a romantic appeal to a classical education, and it is so frustrating for me. Wasting four years is a huge cost. Years, decades of debt is a huge cost. Going to college with no plan about money? The costs are assured. Plus, the degrees people are actually getti…

One reality that was a glaring counterexample to your assertion, likely still is, is as follows. Universities are the only place young folk can get unfettered access to top notch capital investments, as would folks in vocational schools. Think supercomputers and other engineering pursuits, for example. Your argument likely stands in non engineering pursuits that I'm unfamiliar with, I have to agree.

Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return

#134

Post by afarrell »

brohoolio wrote: post #94
vowelless wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, one should wonder why college is so expensive in the US in the first place. Even without any subsidies, non-American tuition is a fraction of the cost of the big universities in the US. Why? Why are book so expensive here? Why is so much money spent on buildings, stadiums and hiring football coaches? The highest paid public employee in 39 states in the US is a college sports coach! [1] Throwing mor…

Sports often generate enough revenue to cover the costs for the top tier schools. Top ranked universities use sports to build donations from alumni, brand awareness, etc. If you want to tackle a good portion of the high cost of higher education tackle medical costs. It influences the cost of everything in the US. If you earn $50,000 a year the university is paying another $10,000 - 20,000 for insurance.

How do you do that without massive numbers of voters losing their jobs? The US spends 17% of its GDP on healthcare. Europe spends an average of 10%[1]. Do you know what it is called when a country loses 7% of its GDP? Recession.

How do you incentivize a group of politicians to intentionally do that?

[1] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS

Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return

#135

Post by pmiller2 »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #81
vowelless wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, one should wonder why college is so expensive in the US in the first place. Even without any subsidies, non-American tuition is a fraction of the cost of the big universities in the US. Why? Why are book so expensive here? Why is so much money spent on buildings, stadiums and hiring football coaches? The highest paid public employee in 39 states in the US is a college sports coach! [1] Throwing mor…

College is expensive because debt is cheap because of the expansion of pensions and retirement accounts as a proportion of the economy.

You had me at easy credit, but lost me with the reasoning.

Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return

#136

Post by whyenot »

Tuition at a California State University is only $5,472 a year. That is pretty darn close to free. Many other state schools have low tuition. Nearly 500,000 students in California attend a CSU. Almost twice as many students as attend a UC school. Yet, in these kind of analyses, these low cost state schools always seem to get the shaft when in fact they educate a tremendous number of students at very low cost.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/opinion/sunday/americas-g...

Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return

#137

Post by madsbuch »

vilmosi wrote: post #86
madsbuch wrote: post #61

In Denmark the cost of a masters degree is negative 45487.64 USD (That is, you get paid). And so it should be (at least!) in all countries.

I doubt it's negative. You can make that money working at McDonald's in Denmark in 3 years. I still think college is worth it long term, but it's not really a negative cost, it's an investment.

Well, the cost for the student is negative. :-) A danish student get paid roughly 600£ a month, and there is not tuition. Classical European.

Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return

#138

Post by SPBesui »

pmiller2 wrote: post #98
SPBesui wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But all you're really saying with sports coach comment is that, among people in a sector that is not profit-oriented or known for high wages, the highest paid employee is the biggest differentiator of success ("amateur" participants notwithstanding) for a lucrative entertainment business. That's not really surprising on its face.

Except that college sports aren't really a "lucrative entertainment business." See http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2014/dec/22/ji...

Agreed – see my comment lower down the thread. But even some athletic departments that are net in the red have football programs that make money on their own. Their coaches are paid market value, more or less.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=72825141901

Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return

#139

Post by jonathankoren »

Only an educated man with a high wage job would come up with this crap. It fit the old template of, "Only suckers do what's expected. I'm too smart for that. Here's my plan that conveniently ignores all practicalities."

Putting aside the gatekeeping that prevents non-college educated people into high wage jobs. Putting aside the unskilled jobs have seen real earnings decline over the past decades. Putting aside that skilled non-college jobs actually require post-high-school education. One huge reason why people who don't go to college don't do this is... (Wait for it...) They don't have the money to invest.

The reason why people graduate from college with a load of debt, is because they didn't have the money to pay for college. If they had the money to pay for college, they wouldn't have the debt. This is obvious.

So where are these people going to get the money to invest? A bank? No one is going to entrust money to a high school grad to invest. For gatekeeping reasons, if no other. Second, why would a bank make such a loan, since they have their own investment arm? This makes no sense, and has no public benefit.

We know this doesn't work, because you can simply ask your older fry cook at McDonald's if they're raking in the dough with their investments.

Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return

#140

Post by barrkel »

brohoolio wrote: post #94
vowelless wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, one should wonder why college is so expensive in the US in the first place. Even without any subsidies, non-American tuition is a fraction of the cost of the big universities in the US. Why? Why are book so expensive here? Why is so much money spent on buildings, stadiums and hiring football coaches? The highest paid public employee in 39 states in the US is a college sports coach! [1] Throwing mor…

Sports often generate enough revenue to cover the costs for the top tier schools. Top ranked universities use sports to build donations from alumni, brand awareness, etc. If you want to tackle a good portion of the high cost of higher education tackle medical costs. It influences the cost of everything in the US. If you earn $50,000 a year the university is paying another $10,000 - 20,000 for insurance.

This is of course self-reinforcing. The reason they want lots of donations from alumni is because it increases profits. But they can only get those donations if the alumni have very fond memories of college. Thus they need to spend donated money on making students feel like they're part of something special, something they'd want to contribute back to. And that increases costs further.

(I went to a humble college, got a degree that doesn't do much more than tick boxes on job or visa applications, and enhanced it with self-study to get an effective education. I feel no obligation to send donations back to my college.)

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