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

#641

Post by gozur88 » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 6:05 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #611

exclusiv wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American dream isn't about becoming C-level or running the country. College is oversold but the American Dream is alive if you go to a cheap school and buy a house in a smaller city or burbs. There are plenty of great cities and emerging ones with jobs and reasonable cost of living. However, if you choose to buy crap you don't need and succomb to debt, that's not America's fault. That's yours. But yes it's dead i…

> There are plenty of great cities and emerging ones with jobs and reasonable cost of living. Which cities? How long will it be until they too turn into LA, NYC, and SF (While being surrounded by oceans of hopelessness and poverty)?

Is there a place you can live that doesn't need plumbers or electricians?

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

#642

Post by Rainymood » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 8:11 AM UTC

cletus wrote: post #219

The real problem here is the culture of telling people how amazing they are without them actually having achieved anything, which is really the basis for the negative views people have about millenials. For example, the hordes of people who chase their dreams of becoming famous by acting, singing or, worst of all, just for being famous (aka the Kardashians). The dark side of all this pops up as many of these people g…

>The real problem here is the culture of telling people how amazing they are without them actually having achieved anything, which is really the basis for the negative views people have about millenials.

But at what point can you laud someone for something? When have you really "achieved" something? There is (most likely) always someone smarter, faster, better, or more well-accomplished than you.

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

#643

Post by vkou » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 9:12 AM UTC

gozur88 wrote: post #641

vkou wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are plenty of great cities and emerging ones with jobs and reasonable cost of living. Which cities? How long will it be until they too turn into LA, NYC, and SF (While being surrounded by oceans of hopelessness and poverty)?

Is there a place you can live that doesn't need plumbers or electricians?

Never lived in a place that didn't need doctors or CEOs, either. "Become a tradesperson" is useful advice for an individual, and completely useless as a solution to the economic problems of non-coastal towns.

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

#644

Post by lmm » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 9:23 AM UTC

bbcbasic wrote: post #638

lmm wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Value for society != Roi There are so many examples of this I don't know where to begin. Ok I'll start: Fracking.

Externalities are a small, specific issue and we have ways of dealing with them. Again, how do you propose to measure this "value for society"?

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

#645

Post by bbcbasic » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 10:18 AM UTC

lmm wrote: post #644

bbcbasic wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Value for society != Roi There are so many examples of this I don't know where to begin. Ok I'll start: Fracking.

Externalities are a small, specific issue and we have ways of dealing with them. Again, how do you propose to measure this "value for society"?

Externialities. Like climate change? Yep we've got that under complete control.

Another good example of chasing the mighty fractionally reserved greenback:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14495950

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

#646

Post by replicatorblog » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 10:46 AM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #629

replicatorblog wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That line of argument would be more persuasive if it explained why tuition has increased at private colleges? Suffolk University is an unimpressive college in Boston that is at risk of losing its accredidation, yet charges $37K/year for tuition. Harvard, arguably the best college brand in the world, costs $43K. It seems like there should be a bigger delta between the two, right? Why not? Might it have something to do…

Or might it have something to do with the fact that Harvard has a massive multi-billion dollar endowment. Tuition is a tiny fraction of their income. 70% of Harvard students receive financial aid from the institution, and they pay an average of $12k a year total. Harvard clearly isn't charging a market rate for tuition. Also government backed loans aren't nearly enough to cover tuition plus housing at these schools,…

Is there any literature that explains why the costs continue to rise on a yearly basis? If one buys into the disinvestment hypothesis it seems like the public university traditions should have plateaued at some point once the <$10K difference in state funding and private tuition normalized. Especially considering we've seen dramatic cost reductions in IT and a profusion of programs like MITx, Khan Academy, and others that should allow colleges to reduce costs.

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

#647

Post by exclusiv » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 1:44 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #643

gozur88 wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a place you can live that doesn't need plumbers or electricians?

Never lived in a place that didn't need doctors or CEOs, either. "Become a tradesperson" is useful advice for an individual, and completely useless as a solution to the economic problems of non-coastal towns.

I'd urge you to explore some other great cities like Nashville, Minneapolis, Chicago, Austin, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Denver and all the suburbs and even small towns surrounding them.

You're so hung up on the CEO thing which is irrelevant. We don't need more CEOs just like we don't need more lawyers and doctors. And you mention doctors - those are needed in any town of size anyway. My own grandfather was a doctor in a rather small town outside of Little Rock and he did very well for himself and sent 4 kids to college, one to med school. His son is doing the same thing now as a doctor in Memphis.

The American Dream is alive and well: it's just changed. It's no longer "graduate college, get a good job, buy a home and be set for retirement"

Too many people just aren't adapting and are frustrated because they are sinking themselves with poor decisions like crippling debt.

I know people w 200k school debt that graduated with degrees targeting jobs that tap out at around 80k that are way more competitive than any tech or marketing occupation. Makes no sense.

My uncle makes 100+k selling tools out of a town of 6k people. My father in law makes 150k+ in HVAC out of a suburb of about 50k people. They both own their homes outright. One didn't go to college.

People don't want to learn general crafts like sales and they don't want to learn crafts that get their hands dirty. Their parents keep pushing them into college which provides less and less value and tons of debt.

The American Dream doesn't go away just because less people are realizing it. It goes away because people are being stubborn and we have a nation of financially ignorant and wreckless citizens.

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

#648

Post by ethbro » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 1:55 PM UTC

gozur88 wrote: post #623

lmm wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Right, but people with loan payments can't take jobs that won't allow them to make the payments. If they can't take those jobs, the jobs will go to people without degrees.

Well, a bit more than 10% are, based on the student loan delinquency rate.

The worry I have is that if the automation worries are born out, then you're going to have an inflexible debt loan (student loans) meeting a market that offers fewer jobs (due to automation).

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

#649

Post by moomin » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 3:01 PM UTC

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #613

moomin wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious point: let's say that, to you personally, investing in the stock market and going to college are a wash. They're not a wash for the state. The state gets more taxes from your higher-paying job. The chances are you're also helping to support some lower-paying jobs as part of your industry. So it's not unreasonable to expect the state to contribute to actually making this happen. The benefits are actually much…

>The state gets more taxes from your higher-paying job. That's if you accept the higher-education-as-training model. Under the higher-education-as-signaling model, the primary effect of education is to choose how to allocate a fixed set of high paying jobs. If there's 100 slots for new lawyers this year, then the difference between sending 150 and 151 students through law school is an additional unemployed lawyer.

There's a case to be made for that in particular professions, and there's no way the state should be funding the dodgy law colleges that have sprouted all over America. But then, if you subscribe to that model you should also believe that you should be able to disavow education loans in the event of bankruptcy.

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

#650

Post by throwawayjava » Tue, Jun 06, 2017, 3:25 PM UTC

tutufan wrote: post #618

throwawayjava wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...is a stoic enough soul to live on truck drivers' wages for 24 years Truck drivers make decent money. $40k, usually closer to $50k+ if you're experienced without accidents. Much more importantly, you don't need to be in an office building in a high rent area every morning. If your spouse also works, those salaries buy a REALLY nice house in Nowhere, MS/WI/KS! "Has the nerve and patience" might be a better way of…

Possibly true, but I cannot think of a worse occupation to get into right now, with self-driving trucks on the horizon. (Also, I have a trucker in the family, and the financials are harder than they look.)

> but I cannot think of a worse occupation to get into right now, with self-driving trucks on the horizon

I don't think this is necessarily true. Fully self-driving trucks are at least a generation out. I wouldn't seek a huge multi-decade capital investment into trucking for sure, but individual drivers aren't terribly exposed to such long-term risks.

And even if SDF gets here sooner than expected, if you work for a company it's kinda whatever. Getting a CDL is a pretty small up-front investment compared to most jobs that both pay well and are in demand. As long as you're not an independent operator (=capital investment), you're not really making a huge investment aside from your time (for which you're well-compensated after the first year or so).

> (Also, I have a trucker in the family, and the financials are harder than they look.)

Certainly for OTR and especially for independent operators. And like I mentioned, injury/accident/economic downturn are huge threats. Trucking with a second family income remains a viable path to a middle class lifestyle, but you're right -- there's a good reason a lot of people choose other paths.