College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

I completely agree with this, college for college sake is not responsible, college to get better at an area of knowledge that the economy is funding, is a win-win. (graduate gets a job, economy gets another productive worker).

At the local high school where kids are going to college as the first in their family, there is a discussion about degrees and employability. The local community college runs a 2 year machining and manufacturing program that, when I used it to develop a better understanding of CNC machining, generally saw all of their graduates who were looking for work get hired.

My point is: don’t require it. Just encourage people (perhaps in guides you submit to job-search programs or the like, or even in a newspaper PSA) to get the IQ tests done themselves, and then bring the proof of their IQ with them as an unrequested document. Basically, make it a social more that people should bring IQ test results to the employer, whether or not the employer wants them.

Also, don’t actually call it an IQ test. Get a third party that tests IQ and then issues a branded certification named after the IQ tier you fall into. Like CompTIA certifications: you could be a holder of a “FooTesting Genius Certification”, and employers could ask for that.

You know, like a college degree. Except shorter.

They don’t just need to re-do the testing; they need to waste six years and another $300k of tuition to learn things they already know, before anyone will be willing to test them.

The statistics in this opinion piece are cherry picked to hell.

"People who have dropped out of college — about 40 percent of all who attend — earn only a bit more than do people with only a high school education: $38,376 a year versus $35,256."

A small difference between college drop out salary vs high school diploma salary only says that the key is to actually get a degree. half of a degree is worth much less than half of what a full degree is worth. That doesn't say anything about how much a degree is worth really.

"They found that for Americans born into middle-class families, a college degree does appear to be a wise investment. Those in this group who received one earned 162 percent more over their careers than those who didn’t."

Ok great but then they go on: "But for those born into poverty, the results were far less impressive. College graduates born poor earned on average only slightly more than did high school graduates born middle class."

Now they are comparing poor college grads to middle class high school grads. Why not compare to poor high school grads. Poor people may have the choice to go to college or not, but they certainly don't have a choice to be born into the middle class.

"25 percent of college graduates now earn no more than does the average high school graduate." So the bottom quarter of the college grad distribution is lower than the top half of the highschool distribution. This shows the overlap, but again isn't comparing apples to apples. Whats the difference in median incomes?

"Nearly 30 percent of Americans without a high school diploma live in poverty, compared to 5 percent with a college degree, and we infer that this comes from a lack of education. But in 28 other wealthy developed countries, a lack of a high school diploma increases the probability of poverty by less than 5 percent"

For americans they compare poverty rates for highschool grads and college grads. Then for the 28 other countries they compare highschool grads to non highschool grads.

The only stat that actually speaks to the worth of a college degree is that those born into the middle class earn 62% more income if they have a college degree. The rest of the statistics are so inappropriately misrepresented that it seems the author is intentionally being dishonest and the NYT shouldn't publish it, opinion or not.

I have three children who have completed 2-1/2 bachelors degrees in the last 6 years. Within the next three years I expect that to be 3 bachelors and one masters.

All of this will have been achieved with zero debt and no financial assistance from parents.

Each child is expected to put in 1200+ hours of employment per year of school. This grosses them $12K+ of salary even as freshmen. They choose schools that cost University of Chicago tuition costs >$50K/year. [0] UofI-Chicago runs ~$17K. [1] Prairie State College in Chicago costs Here's your first college test: Which one offers a better value?

If you can't afford food, rent, and tuition for $15K/year, you're not looking hard enough. If you think you should spend $75K/year right out of high school... college may not be a good idea for you.

This is not so different from my experience decades ago. I used to opt out of traveling home for Thanksgiving because I could work double shifts during the holiday. Every hour over 1200 helped to pad things.

I recently recommended to a high school student that they enter an essay contest worth $1000. I thought they could win. They thought it was too much effort. They might burn up 4 hours! A loan application only takes 30 minutes.

[0] https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/cost-aid [1] https://admissions.uic.edu/undergraduate/tuition-financial-a... [2] http://prairiestate.edu/apply-reg-pay/tuition-and-fees/index...