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

#491

Post by somberi » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 8:40 AM UTC

One of my nephews graduated from one of the Top-5 US universities with a B.S Degree in Computer science, last week. It costed him ~250K USD for the entire course (living expenses, all included). He got an offer from one of the Top-3 tech companies in the Valley and the salary he will be making, makes it possible for him to pay back the entire university expenses in 2-3 years.

This is just a small sliver, and I understand this is no way representative of university education. But in this small sliver, it seems like University education is amazing in the value it offers, purely in a dollar sense.

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

#492

Post by headmelted » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 8:45 AM UTC

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…

We've had free access to college courses via the web for quite some time now (Coursera, edX etc.), but they have not yet usurped the status quo in the way many (myself included) had hoped.

I figure there's two factors behind this:

1) People want a "college lifestyle". It wouldn't really matter much to me, but I know this is something kids leaving home care about, so it's surely a massive factor.

2) People NEED to have a piece of paper with a fancy stamp. This to me is the biggest problem, and I don't know of an easy solution.

To share my own anecdotal story:

I was working on freelance projects prior to going to university (this is some time ago now). I won't say I didn't learn anything there, but certainly I went to many lessons covering material I was already familiar with, in much greater depth, from my own learning. As there was no way for me to get a job interview without the degree, I stayed put and ran up years of student debt.

The first issue lies with the student. The second lies with the industry at large.

Maybe this is how that happens - the dawning realization that higher education doesn't begin and end with college - and folks start to really look at the other options seriously.

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

#493

Post by ianai » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 8:52 AM UTC

white-flame wrote: post #373

almostApatriot1 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 'non-professional' courses are taught well, they can be a huge asset. I personally learned quite a bit from the couple in-depth history courses I took because they taught me how to research, how to understand information, and how to understand the context in which information is presented.

Sure, life betterment is great to have. However, with 6 figure debts involved, is it worth bulldozing most people in society through that model, when those skills can also be found elsewhere? There are lots of people out there who simply aren't academically minded, regardless of how otherwise smart they are or aren't. We shouldn't be seeking to shovel everybody through this model because not everybody is compatible w…

I think it is if we give people an option to default on student loans. There has to be a way to send a negative signal. Even something like a "one year out, one year in" option. i.e. If after your first year out of college you don't have a "decent job" then you may go back for a year of retraining no questions/bills so long as you're on campus. Costly for society? Sure, but much better than increased DOD spending.

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

#494

Post by MagnumOpus » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 9:00 AM UTC

Steeeve wrote: post #435

goobynight wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that 7.1% average doesn't mean 7.1% every year. Anyone that didn't panic sell during the crash has recovered. There are ways to handle the risk of a crash. #1 is to not play the high risk-high reward game if you are near retirement or already in retirement. You can't handle big swings at that point, since recovery could take 10 years and you're already 70. #2 is to have a liquid emergency fund, so you don't…

> Anyone that didn't panic sell during the crash has recovered. What does 500 shares of Pets.com sell for these days? All the people who had pensions heavily invested in Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Enhanced Leveraged Fund came out OK after a bit of time? --- Investment carries risk at all levels. The longer you play the market, the more likely it is that you'll get burned at some point. Professional inv…

You are building strawmen. The suggestion was to "invest into the stock market", not to "gamble on the single riskiest stock you can find".

If an amateur invests their money into a passive index fund or even a diversified equity fund like, say, Fidelity Magellan, they would have done well over any 20-year span. Nuff said.

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

#495

Post by pixl97 » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 9:08 AM UTC

ggchappell wrote: post #467

icantdrive55 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have an answer either. I do think they should make student loans bankrupt-able. It's time. Oh yea, and put a hiring freeze/salary cap on all administrative personnel for any school that accepts federal loans. The best teachers I had were at community colleges, and usually had summer jobs. I never figured out what most of the administration did besides irritate the better teachers.

> I never figured out what most of the administration did besides irritate the better teachers. As a teacher who has experienced that irritation, I hear you. But I also know that multitudes of administrators are a necessity in the modern world. There are a number of reasons for this; one of the biggest is regulatory burden . Pick your favorite downtrodden group. Some politician makes a speech about how Group X has go…

But they also come at a cost. And much of that cost is administrative.

T.I.N.S.T.A.F.R

There is no such thing as free regulation. Some people tend to forget that when they say "We should make a law that says..."

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

#496

Post by pixl97 » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 9:12 AM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #335

tedivm wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Administration costs have risen quite a bit, and are even used as political gifts. Mitch Daniels, former governor of Indiana, stacked Purdue's board with his contributors and supports and when he left the governor position they made him president of Purdue. The detachment from the administration of schools and the actual education portion is a big issue.

They also gold plate all of their new facilities. Not enough to have a normal hand dryer. Gotta have it covered in custom graphics.

> Gotta have it covered in custom graphics.

Unless they are going out of their way to spend a lot of money, the cost of those graphics is actually pretty cheap in comparison to the entire device. It's probably things like marble floors where the cost between one material choice can be 3x-10x the cost of another that would increase costs.

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

#497

Post by alkonaut » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 9:21 AM UTC

madengr wrote: post #291

alkonaut wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free higher education is usually seen as the biggest helper of social mobility. In the US there is one more fundamental issue that needs to be addressed: the use of local school funding in school districts. Had schools been properly funded with more funds going to schools that need more resources (I.e schools where parents don't have higher education get more money per student than schools where they do) then having…

Spending more does not help. Spending per pupil in Washington, DC is possibly the highest in the nation, with the most abysmal performance.

> Spending more does not help. Spending per pupil in Washington, DC is possibly the highest in the nation, with the most abysmal performance.

Perhaps even more needs to be spent, or the money is spent the wrong way? It would otherwise seem as though DC students are impossible to teach - which seems odd.

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

#498

Post by kebman » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 9:29 AM UTC

Seems he gently skipped over the fact that getting a job is supposed to be easier if you have college. Thus he would have to take into consideration all those people who can't get a job without it, or who would have to accept sub-par employment with low pay.

Suppose also that you will only do well in College, and thus be elligible for those well-paying jobs afterwards, if you already did very good at primary school. If we suppose that only pupils with high grades from primary school can "make it" with College, then that would also be another point that I think the article explored only weakly.

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

#499

Post by tmbsundar » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 9:30 AM UTC

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…

Doesn't work in Medicine, Law and host of other fields which require hard core "physical assets" (tangible) things to teach for which includes dissecting stuff, attending patients, arguing cases etc.,

In coding all you need to learn is a PC and some connectivity. That;s all.

The only conclusion we can draw from your experience is that in coding/ software self-taught path can take you to places. But, cannot be generalised for all college going.

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

#500

Post by luckydude » Mon, Jun 05, 2017, 9:30 AM UTC

"On average". That includes a bunch of degrees that, while perfectly fine, aren't going to generate a lot of money for most people. An english degree, in the hands of the right person, could make boatloads. For most people, it won't. The ROI for $200K+ english degree is awful.

On the other hand, a CS degree, robotics, genetics, biology (medical), any of those, again, in the hands of the right person, will far outpace the S&P, it has for me.

But I can't say it enough, the person needs to be

    a) motivated
    b) reasonably intelligent
    c) lucky

If that sort of person gets a degree and a masters or a PhD, I think the ROI can be better.