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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

#391

Post by chongli »

didgeoridoo wrote: post #354
qwertzzz wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In high school I: learned calculus, computer programming, and how to teach myself topics I found interesting. At college I: learned advanced mathematics (in direct violation of my advisor's advice), discovered that most people are in fact bad at what they do (still trying to unlearn this one), and realised that my professors consistently keyed 10-15% of the questions on exams incorrectly [1]. I went to professors' of…

> This professor was a well-respected researcher in his field. Well, there's your problem.

Seriously. Top schools have dedicated teaching profs for all their main undergrad classes and they treat them like gold. This load up on adjuncts and grad students to teach the undergrads shenanigans will not last.

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

#392

Post by nitwit005 »

whyenot wrote: post #136

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:/…

Where "free" means 21888 + book and supply cost + 4 years of income?

Could you lend me a couple hundred free things?

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

#393

Post by learc83 »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #159
whyenot wrote: post #136

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:/…

There's still opportunity costs to consider. For example, in the Netherlands tuition is about 2k a year (the rest is subsidised). Education is top-notch (pretty much all of our universities are top 5% worldwide), although we don't have any of the top 0.1% institutions that educate a relative handful of students. (e.g. Harvard with 2k students per year) But despite cheap tuition fees, the average person would spend 5…

In the US, an 18 year old kid fresh out of high school is going to get about $8 an hour. You also won't likely be able to find full time employment right off.

After taxes, you'd be lucky if you took home $40k in 4 years. Considering that virtual no 18 year old is saving their wages, you'd likely just work 4 years with almost nothing to show for it.

On top of that, parents and other family are more likely to help out a kid who's in college vs one who is working.

That's not to say there aren't many viable alternatives to college like trade schools and apprenticeships. Electricians, plumbers and elevator technicians make decent money.

Also were are you gettting $45k? Everything I can find says average income in the Netherlands is about $30k.

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

#394

Post by BoiledCabbage »

Cyph0n wrote: post #389
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regarding buildings and marketing: you have to work hard to attract the absolute top students, especially in a huge education market like the US. Now you may argue that students shouldn't be so superficial, but they are, so universities have to deal with that when competing at the national stage. Yes but that isn't actually making education better overall, it just means you're taking in better students. It's a zero…

So you're proposing regulation of the higher education market? Not a good idea at all, my friend. Look, public universities in other advanced economies like Japan, Germany, and France probably spend just as much as a typical US state university, yet tuition is basically free. We can argue about how to improve education all day, but let's fund it first so our students don't have to worry about their debts for years. H…

> Not a good idea at all, my friend.

Do you have any justification for this? Or should this just be accepted because you said it's not a good idea?

I don't see an argument anywhere in your post saying why not. Other than as a general rule you are against taxes. Does that mean we should eliminate the fire dept and police dept as well because they're funded by taxes? Or is it only services that already exist are grandfathered in and new services shouldn't be created?

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

#395

Post by rebuilder »

kchoudhu wrote: post #374
wmeredith wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to say this. My wife left the private sector four years ago to work in higher ed. This was a huge epiphany to both of us after she had been there a while and we could see the big picture from the inside. Sure there are a couple other factors at play, but it's small potatoes, comparatively. If you look at the big state schools and the support they receive from the community, they've systematically had thei…

Doesn't explain what's happening in private higher education though.

If public higher ed. has its capacity and/or quality cut, wouldn't that increase the demand for private education?

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

#396

Post by speeder »

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…

My whole life adults around me (school teachers included) kept telling me I was a genius, that I should go to college, and then I would become rich.

When I turned 18, I asked people around me to let me study on my own for a year, before I joined a college.

Got a big flat no. People told me to just choose a private college if needed, but that I should go to one no matter what.

I am now 29, unemployed, still in debt.

College didn't even taught me calculus 1, I am learning that on Coursera.

I've yet to see someone convince me that going to college was good idea, it caused lots of problems (including health ones, when I joined college I weighted 85kg, I left college weighting 125kg and horribly sick), gave me no solutions.

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

#397

Post by pishpash »

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…

You're thinking of college by looking at the average. College doesn't work like that. It never did. You'll always find a "Jim" that went to college and did fantastically well for it. Elitism works like the lottery, or the Netflix prize, or the Olympics. When the aggregate resource spent is averaged out per head, it's never worth it. But for the winners it is always worth it.

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

#398

Post by sarchertech »

gozur88 wrote: post #385
learc83 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First you have to factor in the fact that public schools are a competing good, so when public tuition rises private tuition will as well. Then you have to realize that tuition increases at private schools are misleading. You have to look at what people are actually paying not what the sticker prices. At Harvard, for instance, 70% of students receive financial aid, so they are paying $12k a year on average (not the $6…

But private schools have to compete with each other. If this was really about increased demand from students who would have otherwise gone to public schools, what we'd see is an increase in the number of private schools, not an increase in tuition.

Assuming the number of private schools that students want to go is in no way supply limited, which is an incorrect assumption.

How long does it take to build and staff a private school? How long to get it into US News top 500?

Even something like increasing the number of students admitted to existing private schools is tricky because they are tracked on their admission percentage.

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

#399

Post by ue_ »

afuchs wrote: post #305
ue_ wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How might one get experience? For example, I want to try programming for a client, but I don't even know where to find such a thing. I've programmed for a while by myself, but I have no connections. And to get experience, many companies want you to have experience, so that becomes a catch-22. This is why I viewed having a degree as having a foot in the door, as it were.

Generally, open source projects or volunteer work. Unfortunately, taking time to do unpaid work can be a burden for those working low-wage jobs, or who otherwise exist near or below the poverty line.

Thanks for the answer.

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

#400

Post by MarkMc »

thefourthchime wrote: post #192

TL;DR; Didn't go to college, at first people thought it was a liability, but after working my way up people are blown away. Here is my experience: Dad got a masters in Math, couldn't get a job, became a Taxi driver and then took 6mo of community college and got a job writing BASIC in the mid 1980s. Dad didn't encourage me to go to college, I was a bad student, but taught myself coding and really liked it. Had a C ave…

That's a great story - you obviously have a natural talent for coding. But it's still difficult to assess the counterfactual: Perhaps if you had gone to college you would now be earning $250k with bonuses at Google?
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