College May Not Be Worth It Anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#11

Post by anoncoward111 » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:14 PM UTC

paulpauper wrote: post #2

The NYTimes republishes a variant of this articles almost every month https://www.google.com/search?q=site:nytimes.com+college+wor... The usual answer is "it depends"

it's already a shame that the answer isn't 100% yes, 100% of the time.

back in the 70s, tuition was payable with a summer job and job prospects were decent enough despite geopolitical and economic headwinds

these days, the same problems plague the job market, but every year of college costs 1 year of salary, unless you qualify for stackable forms of financial aid

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#12

Post by awalton » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:14 PM UTC

paulpauper wrote: post #2

The NYTimes republishes a variant of this articles almost every month https://www.google.com/search?q=site:nytimes.com+college+wor... The usual answer is "it depends"

Which is probably a good thing, since it will slowly beat into the minds of upper-levels at corps and recruiters that a College Degree shouldn't be the minimum bar applicants need to reach, and maybe some of these companies will start removing the "has degree" band reject filter.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#13

Post by scottmcleod » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:14 PM UTC

Pssst for most careers it hasn't been worth it for 20 years

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#14

Post by SolaceQuantum » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:14 PM UTC

> What all this suggests is that the college-degree premium may really be a no-college-degree penalty.

The most relevant conclusion here is that. However, I notice this article doesn’t explore the wealth of labor that only needs an associates or trade certification.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#15

Post by ameister14 » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:14 PM UTC

"The authors (of the study) don’t speculate as to why this is the case"

...but the author of the opinion piece will be happy to.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#16

Post by baybal2 » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:14 PM UTC

I think, they were late with that realisation for like 10 years.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#17

Post by hockeybias » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:15 PM UTC

VikingCoder wrote: post #7

I assert the expense of college is an awful burden to put on someone who must finance most of it through debt. It's a gamble. You can improve your odds of a happy outcome in that gamble by looking at the Student Loan Default Rate for any given major at any given college, and picking the best program for you (with the lowest default rate possible.) But if you are a child of parents who can finance your college? Absolu…

Feeling the Bern here...

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#18

Post by ericb » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:15 PM UTC

chasing wrote: post #8

The issue isn't that college is pointless, it's that tuition is too high and wages too low. You should support politicians with a plan to counter this trend. Education is important. Raising the overall level of education in this country should be a much larger goal that it seems to be.

> Raising the overall level of education in this country should be a much larger goal that it seems to be.

On one level, I totally agree. At the same time, well-meaning attempts to make college loans available to everyone for everything seem to have massively bloated the cost of education to a crippling degree. I think the key is in the how of the approach.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#19

Post by bkovacev » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:15 PM UTC

Nowadays, in my honest opinion, tuition cost in an institution is not proportional to the "amount" of knowledge that you are getting out of it, but is rather proportional to the statistical chance of you acquiring a life-changing connection that will help you succeed in life - whether that's a chance you start a startup or getting that "dream" job + a statistical chance you will get hired based off of the institution's "brand".

I could be wrong, but my idea is that nowadays - schools are just brands, rather than an educational environments, but there are exceptions of course.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#20

Post by projectramo » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:15 PM UTC

Thought experiment: would college be "worth it" if it were free?

That is to say, would it be a valuable use of time and effort?

I am sure there are people who can study hours of literature, philosophy, political science, math and physics on their own. I am sure they would write papers and find others to discuss them.

For the rest of us there is only college.

(You might ask: valuable to what end? Worth what? And that is a good question but the answer is much longer.)