This article neglects the fact that people don't get money to gamble.
Student loans are, along with home loans and a select few others, the only financial leveraging tools available regardless of one's background.
On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return
471–480 of 669 posts
Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return
#472I 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…
And college got expensive partly through policy choices. Offering easy loans tends to make people price insensitive, so tuitions go up and a lot of that money goes to things like increasingly fancy buildings and making textbook publishers' shareholders rich. Meanwhile often less is going to state schools that, with low in-state tuitions, were historically a way up for a lot of people. (An older friend went to Berkele…
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Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return
#473Earlier 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…
Is your degree at 30 your only degree, or did you also go straight out of high school? I think OP's main point is the "straight out of high school" part. Or maybe my bias makes me think that. A lot of kids have no idea who they are and what they really want to do. I was one of them. I got a degree in graphic design. I'm a horrifically bad designer and absolutely hate doing it, but that's just where my wandering, unkn…
I'm the same. Straight out of high school I wasn't mature enough to make the most out of higher education. Clocked up 50k in debt and wasted 3 years. Got older woke up and went back worked hard and got an Engineering degree. That was a life changer and with scholarships was much cheaper than my first attempt.
I didn't want to go straight to collage, but the when I said that to my parents they were very afraid, so I went. But actually I needed to take time to grow up a bit. 18 for me was too young. I don't know if it's wise giving people so young such access to loans.
Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return
#474- educated people live longer (Harvard study etc. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/educated-people-live-longe...)
- the S&P is possibly driven by people who went to college and started companies; if nobody did that, where would it be?
- average results tell the individual nothing about his/her best choice, so the headline is a bit detrimental. There are successful UHNW entrepreneurs both with and without college degrees and plenty of unsuccessful people with college degrees
- note that Payscale uses median pay to calculate ROI from colleges; all extremely successful people with very high incomes are not reflected in the data.
Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return
#475- educated people live longer (Harvard study etc. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/educated-people-live-longe... ) - the S&P is possibly driven by people who went to college and started companies; if nobody did that, where would it be? - average results tell the individual nothing about his/her best choice, so the headline is a bit detrimental. There are successful UHNW entrepreneurs both with and without college de…
they are reflected in the data. as outliers.
Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return
#476Earlier quoted context omitted.
"butthurt americans" Please don't put insults like this in HN comments. Just one can ruin a whole thread.
Why? Does it offend you? People are just commenting stupid shit like "ITS NOT FREE OMG, TAX PAYERS PAY FOR IT" when it's so obvious that's exactly what I mean. Free for the student, not for the society.
It lowers the discussion quality, it distracts from the underlying topic, and it's also against the site rules.
"Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3.""
Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return
#477On average, US is the happiest country in the world. /s
Use proper statistics that are geared towards heavy tailed distributions which income adheres to.
A good start would be a median.
Not too mention pure ROI ignores the fact that on the stock market you lose everything, investing in education is supposed to result in intangibles like gasp better education and adaptability to the market. In other words, lower risk.
2% gain for risk of losing everything in one bad go is a bad deal.
Of course just like bad investments in the market there are also bad investments in education.
Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return
#478I'd rather see a median figure than an average.
A single ultra successful person's income will make up for a full suburb of people who are struggling using averages.
Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return
#479Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is that worse than producing an overabundance of literature majors that have very little ROI?
It means the education system is design to pump out workers rather than thinkers. Taking this to the logical conclusion, why teach science, history or sport in high schools? Low ROI. Stuff that! Why not make the coding bootcamp start at kindergarten. And why not let parents pay for such schools so they can choose the best ROI for their kid.
The latter point is actually good, but it is not just about coding bootcamp. Many great athletes were also discovered very early, musicians etc.
Generally it is about playing to the strengths. Customized education.
Re: On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return
#480I 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…
I believe the cost-benefit analysis you speak of desperately needs to become part of public consciousness sooner rather than later. We can't rely on students to have the maturity and direction to maximize their college experience, but we also cannot rely on them to succeed without any educational structure for precisely the same reasons. There should be something in place, but it is often predatory under the current…
> Privatize student loans entirely, and give them eligibility for bankruptcy.
Considering most college graduates have nothing but tons of debt behind them on their graduation day (and that's if they graduate, a fairly big maybe in the US), the incentive to declare bankruptcy the day after graduation is extremely strong.
No private investor is going to rush to profit from this questionable opportunity, and aspiring college student will be left with advice to "work a few years, save up, and then see what happens" or "talk to your parents about home equity loans".