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College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

nytimes.com

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Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#51

Post by whataretensors »

School is a waste of time and resources for the talented these days. You can learn anything you want online by the best people.

It's becoming training for state-run communism. No choice, only negative reward signals, march at the same speed as the average.

Of course if we tell people the truth - your outcome can essentially be predicted by measuring IQ, which stabilizes around age 7. SAT score is essentially a makeshift game-able IQ test, like our interview processes.

The whole system is based on falsities. You can't make people smarter. You can only confuse and unforgivably indebt them. Like several of my friends who 'failed out' of engineering. It's so incredibly damaging and places debt and blame on the individual, even 10 years later some of my close friends have not recovered financially or emotionally. It's like if your best friend focused on playing professional basketball, encouraged by peers and parents, and nobody bothered to mention to him that he's 5'1".

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#52

Post by citilife »

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…

> Veterinarian programs specific limit how many students they accept, because if they didn't, their graduates wouldn't be able to afford a living wage. Other majors need to catch on.

Medical schools do the same thing, but that's also what's causing a burden on the medical system. I truly blame most of the medical expense increases in the U.S. on them and medicare (which sets a base price and everyone else must make up for).

Basically there was a medical school student freeze[1][2] from early 90's through 2010. Now, it's finally starting to increase, still much less than population.

[1] https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/total-medical-scho...

[2] http://aamcdiversityfactsandfigures2016.org/report-section/s...

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#53

Post by mkirklions »

anoncoward111 wrote: post #11
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

People hate when I talk about working fulltime in the factory on the midnight shift and going to school fulltime.

I didnt get 'the college experience'. But I didnt have any college debt, I became a hardened adult that didnt cry when plant people got pissed. I dont complain. If something needs to get done, I do it.

Graduated in 3 years with my chem engineering degree at age 21.

People will always complain about something. "You should pay for a dorm, food, education from top individuals, books, knowledge, all for spending 200 hours in the summer at a clothing store".

I did a factory full time midnight shift job, all year, lived off campus + commuted. Ate at home too.

This comes at the cost of the 'College Experience"

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#54

Post by jpeg_hero »

How do you know you live in an SF bubble?

> A third of Americans aged 25-29 have a bachelors degree

I know one persons without a degree.

> earn only a bit more than do people with only a high school education: $38,376 a year versus $35,256

At my company an annual raise of less than $25k is seen as an insult.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#56

Post by zulln »

projectramo wrote: post #20

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…

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

Just to add another perspective/angle on it, university is free to attend in many other countries (you even get paid to study, although not much). People still discuss whether it is worth it and I would agree the question is interesting, but just interesting to keep in mind.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#58

Post by mkirklions »

whataretensors wrote: post #51

School is a waste of time and resources for the talented these days. You can learn anything you want online by the best people. It's becoming training for state-run communism. No choice, only negative reward signals, march at the same speed as the average. Of course if we tell people the truth - your outcome can essentially be predicted by measuring IQ, which stabilizes around age 7. SAT score is essentially a makesh…

Failed out of engineering= they didnt care

I agree that most education should be learned on the job, but college is a filter to keep the lazy out of jobs that require the dedicated.

Engineering was insane because they wanted people that would drop what they are doing to go to mexico with 7 hours notice. The dude that dropped out of engineering school is planning on fishing this weekend, hes not going anywhere his boss asks.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#59

Post by jellicle »

optimuspaul wrote: post #31
anoncoward111 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There are still many colleges that you cost less than a years salary. Other than that nitpick I agree. Economics aside I think that college doesn't actually prepare people for working in the real world. But the only thing that really does that is actually working in the real world.

I think previous commenter is saying every year of full-time college costs you a year of salary, in addition and on top of any tuition or other expenses it may cost you. Few students manage to work full-time and make real progress towards a degree.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#60

Post by facing_worlds »

bluGill wrote: post #32
ericb wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That is the problem with politics: the unintended effects are always an issue. Of course everything else has this issue as well. The only difference is most of us start small, and if it works we expand. You can't do that easily for national programs.

What makes you think its unintended? Someone profits from all the student loans issued.
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