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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

#511

Post by lmm »

gozur88 wrote: post #386
ethbro wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Above and beyond that, and to crib on one of the grandparent comments re: "Eventually, demand will decrease if prices continue increasing": If the minimum barrier to employment is having a college degree, then people will continue doing whatever they have to in order to get a college degree. The only way you're going to change demand is if decent jobs start being created that don't require a bachelor's degree. And I…

>The only way you're going to change demand is if decent jobs start being created that don't require a bachelor's degree. And I don't see that happening... I do. At the lower end, if employers can't afford to pay people enough to make their loan payments, they'll start hiring people without debt.

But there are already more applicants than jobs. Labour is a buyer's market at the moment.

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

#512

Post by MichaelBurge »

supremesaboteur wrote: post #508
twotwotwo wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So since state interference is the cause for unaffordable tuition costs, more state interference will fix the problem ?

"Since programmers caused all the bugs, more programmers will fix them?"

Well, yes; software is on average more reliable today than 15 years ago.

This has the same structure as your argument and is incorrect, so you have to add something specific to government to repair the argument structure.

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

#513

Post by lmm »

bbcbasic wrote: post #462
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #445

Earlier 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.

Well, why not?

If those "thinkers" were really contributing something valuable, that will show up in ROI. If you don't agree with that measure, how do you propose to eliminate completely useless classes and make space for better alternatives? Do you just assume that any classes that are part of the status quo must be valuable?

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

#514

Post by mseebach »

Rapzid wrote: post #443
cbhl wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the 100 people you would know would be biased towards Math grads, and less towards English or Environment majors, right? Survivorship bias means you would be less likely to be in touch with collage drop-outs.

Which, is something you'd expect a college graduate to realize...

The problem is, they need to realise it ~6 years before they're a college graduate.

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

#515

Post by mseebach »

bjourne wrote: post #423
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…

Was it college that was a waste, or you who wasted an opportunity? If you focus on all the bad stuff, such as lazy professors and unmotivated students then of course you will have a bad time.

Not the OP, but I think the point is that yes, they did waste an opportunity. That opportunity was to not go to college.

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

#516

Post by jrs95 »

learc83 wrote: post #294
twotwotwo wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This article from 538 argues that almost 3/4 of the rise in tuition is accounted for by a drop in state support. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fancy-dorms-arent-the-m...

But would this have been possible without the federal money being available? I don't think the two are necessarily separate.

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

#517

Post by ggh5 »

Problem: college tuition is too damn high.

Solution: universal, free or heavily subsidized access to quality higher education.

So, Americans, number 1 war economy and slaughterous rulers over our blood and minds, what exactly is your major political malfunction preventing this?

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

#518

Post by jrs95 »

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…

That's assuming that these degrees are actually necessary for these people to do their jobs, which isn't the case the majority of the time in my opinion

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

#519

Post by jononor »

matchbok wrote: post #440
stale2002 wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to create a new college. All that has to happen is for EXISTING colleges to realize that they can make a ton more money by expanding in size. Obviously, this doesn't happen overnight. You have to hire new employees, buy more land, and build more buildings. But I'd argue that this process would happen a lot, lot quicker than "create new college". Colleges are already expanding all the time.

You don't think they know that? I'm sure they do. But the other option is to stay the same size, but charge much more. Either way, more money. Only one solution demands building more classrooms and housing.

The more you charge the more valuable you are seen to be.

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

#520

Post by jrs95 »

khuey wrote: post #282
meric wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty reliable. Sit on the sidewalk with a bowl in front of you for a day.

Ah but now you've invested your time.

I'll just do it while I work on my MacBook. Problem solved!
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