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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

#361

Post by ams6110 »

H1Supreme wrote: post #231
SilasX wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, my HS counselor, in speeches to students at assemblies (c.1999), was constantly saying "It doesn't matter which college you go to, but you absolutely must get a degree."

As a 1999 graduate, I can verify the "College is the only way to succeed" sentiment from that time. Most of my class had applied for and been accepted well before we graduated. Sadly, many of them acquired lots of debt, and not much else. I advise any young people I get to talk with about post high school education to not jump head first into a degree program. Life won't pass you by if you take a year or two to formu…

A lot of 18-year-olds are not really very mature these days either. Kids are generally more sheltered, less independent, and have less experience managing their own lives than previous generations. That is why universities now have huge bureaucracies to deal with students who are physically adults but emotionally unprepared to manage their lives and take responsibility for their behavior, actions, and decisions without parents guiding everything.

So taking a year or two to figure out how to be an adult is not the worst approach to take.

If more people decide to delay or seek alternatives to college, the higher ed bubble will burst. Universities will not be able to afford the administrative staff they are carrying if enrollments decline.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#362

Post by eggpy »

thatcat wrote: post #329
eanzenberg wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree with the US decision. I want my MDs to pass some baseline aptitude set by US regulation and if a governing board decides a country cannot meet that then those doctors need to re-apply.

Why? US health care is proven to be inferior to that of many European countries. I suspect the reason that AMA limit access to US markets for foreign trained doctors is because limiting the supply of doctors in the US would likely increase the average salary for current US doctors.

Because it sets baseline standards. Yes, I think everyone knows the US does not have the best healthcare in the world. But I also think it's 100% appropriate to say if you want to practice medicine in this country then you must meet our standards. Just like a drivers license might not be valid in any country you visit outside your own.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#363

Post by VikingCoder »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #267
VikingCoder wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe let people pay for Art History degrees if they want to. And the free program should be based on Merit, and career demand.

"And the free program should be based on Merit, and career demand." Who chooses what defines "Merit"?

The accredited colleges.

If you get accepted to their program, it's free for you.

Accreditation means auditing to standards and performance.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#364

Post by VikingCoder »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #323
VikingCoder wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, make it a huge contributing factor in promotion, moving to project management, etc. But not a pre-req for day one, earning a salary. Hell, let's make some Continuing Education demands on STEM.

Again, I strongly disagree. Make it a requirement before writing a single line of code. The impact this industry has on the world is such that ethics training is a must.

Anyone should be able to write code.

Accepting a pull request (code reviews) should require training.

Launching code requires even more training.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#365

Post by oh_sigh »

VikingCoder wrote: post #317
oh_sigh wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The median vet pay is $89k[1]. You don't need to work for the USDA to make 6 figures. [1] https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/veterinarian/sala...

If median vet pay is $89k, then by definition much less than half of vets are making 100k. So, how is it "easy" to make 100k+?

Maybe I'm an optimist, but I find it easy to do slightly above average in most tasks that I have some semblance of control over.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#366

Post by 18pfsmt »

Frondo wrote: post #115
mtberatwork wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that there was a time when you could have worked that factory job during the summer to pay for the next year's tuition. I'm sure you would concede that this is much more reasonable than working a full time job on top of a full time university load.

An ex had a grandfather who put himself through school, including dental school and the extra 3 years for a specialty in orthodontics, working a summer job. And he complains about his grandkids needing to go into debt. They don't realize how the world's changed in the last 50 years...

My grandfather put himself through dental school at the University of Toronto in the '20s by doing traveling magic shows in the summer.

I put myself through a state CS program in the '90s by bartending and selling pot, while guiding whitewater trips (and selling pot) in the summer.

Things have changed, but not that much.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#367

Post by stvswn »

Just because college may be a great choice for social mobility at the individual level doesn't mean it can scale to everyone. I believe that anyone who gets into Harvard should finance it with as much debt as they like, regardless of their major. It'll be worth it. If you are accepted into a non-competitive-admissions school, you need to make an informed cost-benefit analysis. The relative ubiquity of financing options makes this a bit distorted for an inexperienced young person, effectively lowering the perceived cost. For some reason we believe that lowering the cost function for students will lead to increased demand for college education will lead to increased supply of graduates will lead to... increased supply of good jobs? It's a flawed idea, because it turns out that what really matters, as a young person, is your resume's strength relative to your similarly inexperienced peers, and a mediocre record at a mediocre school is not going to set you apart.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#368

Post by jeffreyrogers »

QuotedForTruth wrote: post #277

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…

I think you're being too harsh. Lots of marginal students are encouraged to go to college and many of them study things like history or communications that aren't good investments. These marginal students drop out at high rates, but still have 10s of thousands of dollars in student debt. Because most of the benefits of going to college only occur if you actually graduate with a degree it's a waste for these students to spend 2 to 3 years in school where they aren't learning anything relevant to their future employment.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#369

Post by stvswn »

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.

I'm not so sure about the idea that education is important for its own sake, the way you framed it -- that somehow if we make everyone go to more schooling we'll have a better citizenry. They may learn the wrong things, they may learn nothing, they may learn useless things. What's relevant is comparing the 4 years they spend not earning experience and money to what they could have been doing, and what they would have been learning there, and how they would have been improving themselves in that case. Are you saying that the median student is a better citizen if he spends 4 years doing mediocre work at a mediocre school vs. 4 years learning a trade? That we'll all be "better off" if the plumbers learn literary criticism before they learn plumbing?

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#370

Post by jeffreyrogers »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #64

Ignoring financial reasons, I think that university is absolutely worth it. It's 3 or 4 years of your life where you've (often) just left home, it's the first time in your life that you're actually free to do what you want. It's an incredible place to learn about yourself and grow, where the consequences of fucking up usually aren't as severe.

Only if you're smart. Only about half of college students graduate and an even smaller percentage graduate on time.
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