On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return • Hacker News Board

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

#361

Post by averagewall » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 2:08 AM UTC

debaserab2 wrote: post #337

forkandwait wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wasting four years is a huge cost. At college I: learned calculus, computer programming, advanced mathematics, urban planning, how to communicate like a grown up, and those are just the big topics. I also took acting classes and learned social skills and made lifelong friends. When I graduated, a professor arranged my first professional job which was an order of magnitude better than any blue collar gig I had ever…

> Now, I think there is a problem when naive, often blue collar people, go to college and don't know how to make the most of that experience Huh? Isn't anyone going to college almost always a "blue collar" worker due to the fact that they don't have an education suitable to a white collar environment yet? It sounds like you were in a great position to make an informed decision about how to get the most out of your ed…

I think he might mean blue collar culture. If your parents are blue collar workers and you grow up hearing about how bad and arrogant rich people are and professors living in ivory towers who don't know anything about the real world, you're probably going to have a harder time embracing that environment than someone who's been exposed to professionals as role models since childhood.

That's part of the cycle of poverty. Poor people push themselves away from opportunities so they can stay in their preferred culture which they've convinced themselves is better.

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

#362

Post by splitrocket » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 2:09 AM UTC

"Probably the most dangerous thing about college education, at least in my own case, is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract arguments inside my head instead of simply paying attention to what's going on right in front of me. Paying attention to what's going on inside me. As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head. Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come 2 gradually to understand that the liberal-arts cliché about “teaching you how to think” is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: “Learning how to think” really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about “the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.” This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in the head. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger. And I submit that this is what the real, no-bull- value of your liberal-arts education is supposed to be about: How to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default-setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone, day in and day out."

David Foster Wallace: This is Water http://www.metastatic.org/text/This%20is%20Water.pdf

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

#363

Post by sillysaurus3 » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 2:10 AM UTC

alexchantavy wrote: post #358

College and academia as a whole is meant for higher learning and knowledge - not necessarily to allow people to make more money. That many higher paying jobs require skills associated with a college education is a side effect.

If only the world was like this. I wish it were.

Sadly you need at least $5k/yr to be able to participate in your higher learning and knowledge, and this excludes a majority of people from broken backgrounds.

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

#364

Post by johnfn » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 2:11 AM UTC

throwawayjava wrote: post #258

johnfn wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the hypothetical breaks down once you consider it as a proposal, ...again, that's why you don't do that with hypotheticals intended to be social commentary. The article is saying "wow, college is sure overpriced for the amount of money you invest."

> ...again, that's why you don't do that with hypotheticals intended to be social commentary. Good social commentary helps us identify and solve problems. I don't think this particular commentary puts us in a good mindset for understanding or solving the problems with higher education funding in the united states. > The article is saying "wow, college is sure overpriced for the amount of money you invest." The articl…

I don't know how to convey to you any more that this is a hypothetical rather than a real thing worth considering as much as you are doing.

Like your entire argument is "the S&P is pushed forward by people who go to college." Not to be rude, but that has no relevance whatsoever to the article. The article could have said to invest in real estate or god forbid bitcoin. The specifics don't matter.

Again not to be rude but I often feel like people on here have this disease that doesn't allow them to generalize from specifics. ;-)

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

#365

Post by sillysaurus3 » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 2:13 AM UTC

splitrocket wrote: post #362

"Probably the most dangerous thing about college education, at least in my own case, is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract arguments inside my head instead of simply paying attention to what's going on right in front of me. Paying attention to what's going on inside me. As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive instead of ge…

In hindsight much of Wallace's work seems like a plea for help. The paragraph you quoted might've been how he wishes he could've ended up.

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

#366

Post by ajdlinux » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 2:22 AM UTC

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #89

Alex3917 wrote: post #71

Skipping all of school has even higher returns. If you just invested all the money that would normally go to pay for your K-12 school and college each year, then by age 25 or so you'd have enough money to retire. The problem is that even if your parents home school you, they're generally not allowed to just not pay millage.

The core problem is that K-12 schooling largely isn't for the benefit of children, but for the state. That's why the state pays for it and not private tutoring in child-lead learning. It's awfully convenient to have a populace indoctrinated into a shared set of cultural norms.

It's awfully convenient for a society to have a populace with a shared set of cultural norms.

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

#367

Post by intrasight » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 2:25 AM UTC

I think the key phrase is "on average". If everyone invested in index funds instead researching and investing in individual companies, there would be no market to index. Likewise if everyone did the "average" thing with college - perhaps skipping it and banking the funds (in an index fund), there would be no higher education, and no new companies to bring to market.

The only thing worse than anecdotes when making a decision is averages.

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

#368

Post by anon182429 » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 2:26 AM UTC

staticelf wrote: post #106

mncolinlee wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already provide free college to the best performing students and those students very likely achieve much higher ROI. I benefitted from a four-year tuition, room, and board scholarship from my college, as did my brother and sister from theirs. However, only a fraction of a percent receives academic scholarships and a good portion of scholarships go to star athletes instead. The German system is nearly comparable. O…

There could be tons of reasons on why you would score badly in your younger years. That shouldn't mean that you should be excluded from a chance to college IMO. I performed pretty badly before my high school (gymnasium) but after that I performed well as I found what I was interested in. But I didn't have like the best scores but I still have a good education in IT and works as a competent programmer today. Perhaps I…

You're not excluded, you just have to pay because you didn't prove you were responsible. I don't see how that is a problem.

I don't want to pay for the idiots in my classes who would show up late, cheat off others, and obviously not care during highschool. They don't deserve to take my money and waste it on a very expensive education.

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

#369

Post by mowenz » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 2:27 AM UTC

Isn't it possible to create ultra low-cost, bootcamp-style, world-class degree programs in STEM fields?

Self-study on your own an outline provided, then take a highly competitive entrance exam to get into the bootcamp. Finish and get your world class degree.

It sounds like the type of non-profit I should invest in if I were a 1%'er.

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

#370

Post by white-flame » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 2:40 AM UTC

rubber_duck wrote: post #220

habitue wrote: post #200

I think a lot of people are looking at this as "maybe this article is offering advice" instead, the way I'm looking at it is this is giving us a rough quantification of what we all know intuitively: that college is so expensive it's reaching a natural ceiling. The way this manifests in reality isn't millions of people all doing a cost/benefit calculus like this and coming to the rational conclusion they can skip coll…

Going to college is not really a cost benefit calculation - there are plenty of degrees with low job market demand and a lot of them are popular. Part of the reason why there is such pressure on the prices, sort of like palliative care vs. spare no expense for the aging population drives up medical prices.

Just picking apart a few nits:

Medical care is part of survival. Going to a university for job training is part of survival (and as an aside, I think it's an inappropriate use of academia in the long view). But going to a university for life betterment, intellectual pursuit, or even just ego is a luxury. So there's no real price pressure on the latter, only the former.

I would say that just having the magic paper is what low market demand degree pursuers want, regardless of the major. But that means the paper itself has high market demand, even if the actual field of study doesn't, so it still comes down to cost-benefit calculations. The reason they chose that specific degree is to lower the exertion cost of the beneficial degree.