College May Not Be Worth It Anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#81

Post by rixrax » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:34 PM UTC

mkirklions wrote: post #40

the_new_guy_29 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on how you spend that time. Studing hard pays off, slacking off - not. This should be a common knowledge. It more or less boils down to this and not status or race...

This is true for everything. People shouldnt blog, unless they are going to do hard work making the content useful. People shouldnt be a contractor, unless they have fantastic skills in a sector. If you are going to work hard and think hard, you will have success in nearly any market. If you copypasted the example android Hello World app, you arent going to succeed in the programming market.

From the mouth of John Cleese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvVPdyYeaQU

I realize I am not in tune with times, but it somewhat irks me that a lot of (generally) younger folk at work want to blog about every single task they've accomplished or assigned to. Often turning these seemingly routine tasks into heroic efforts described in the blog postings. I guess it's called career growth. :)

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#82

Post by tjr225 » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:34 PM UTC

mkirklions wrote: post #53

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

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 someth…

Cool Anecdote - but I don't see your point. It's still more expensive than it used to be, and you can't expect every 18 year old to make the same perfect decisions you did. I worked my ass off too and still came out with debt - and I could do my cushy white collar job now without any of the education I payed so much for though I doubt I would've been given the opportunities I have been given if I didn't have the degree on my resume.

Also, cheers from another Michigander - I went to Western.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#83

Post by ManFromUranus » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:35 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.

All the solutions that would actually solve these problems are politically unpalatable, all the politicians that would / could provide these solutions would be run out of town.

Also Educated != smart. You can have plenty of educated people but still have bad outcomes in society. If only smart people could vote then that would go a long way to fixing society, but again, a solution like that is immediately off the table. So there are ways and means to fix any and every problem, the problem is nobody will use the tools or they are not even smart enough to know that the wrench is for turning bolts in the first place (the don't even realize the solution in staring them in the face in other words.)

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#84

Post by mkirklions » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:35 PM UTC

ManFromUranus wrote: post #49

mkirklions wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true for everything. People shouldnt blog, unless they are going to do hard work making the content useful. People shouldnt be a contractor, unless they have fantastic skills in a sector. If you are going to work hard and think hard, you will have success in nearly any market. If you copypasted the example android Hello World app, you arent going to succeed in the programming market.

Most people blog to have a blog and don't realize their insights aren't useful. So you're advice is not useful since telling dumb people not to do dumb things is a waste of time, they're too dumb to know what they're doing is a waste of time or doesn't have any useful insights. Sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, you being so smart and all.

Do they think they are being useful?

From twitter posts, it seems like they know their crap is the same as everyone else, but they want the Adsense money.

Idk, twitter Personal Finance is a cesspool of shitty adsense/amazon affiliate filled blogs.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#85

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:35 PM UTC

nicholas73 wrote: post #68

mkirklions wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 someth…

And where is that factory now?

[deleted]

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#86

Post by pg_bot » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:36 PM UTC

I'm guessing there is a lot of money to be made using moneyball techniques to hire people. There are likely many candidates out there that would excel at professions, but don't have the ability to signal it to employers.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#87

Post by deadmetheny » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:36 PM UTC

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

>every year of college costs 1 year of salary

This is point-blank wrong, unless you're only talking about elite private schools. Most state schools cost around 1-1.5 years of full-time salary, discounting room and board since you have to pay for somewhere to live independently of if you attend university. If your goal is to simply get a degree, you can do it for less than $50k (which is definitely still off compared to the 70s, I agree).

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#88

Post by NicoJuicy » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:36 PM UTC

mkirklions wrote: post #53

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

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 someth…

Well, college experience includes networking...

Not everything can be reached through HN, it's an echo chamber of similar minded people

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#89

Post by bob_theslob646 » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:36 PM UTC

It's simple, try and get the best education you can for as cheap as possible.

I have not read the article, so forgive me if they state it there, but a large contributor to the problem of "must go to college" are employers.

It's amazing to me that software is the only industry that accepts people for what they can do and have done whereas other industries require explicit requirements.

Yes, training can be expensive, but kids learn so much faster when they care.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#90

Post by eanzenberg » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:37 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.

Is it though? As a value prop for the average student it is immensely positive expected return. Even more-so for prestigious schools.