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Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

businessinsider.com

31–40 of 187 posts

Re: Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

#31
post #7

A lot of current jobs directly tied to some sort of college degrees will be automated out of existence in the near future.

This is a silly statement - I’d say a lot more jobs currently tied to NOT needing a college degree will be automated out of existence. Jobs that require creativity and critical thinking will be the ones that survive (I believe that’s the quote from the recent Last Week Tonight). Those tend to be college educated jobs.

How about Accountants? Turbo Tax automated many of the individual needs for accountants, and plenty of investing / portfolio management advice can be found online for free. The last big push is for enterprise / business / high net worth individuals to automate their accountants.

It's not to say accountants won't exist at all: we still need them as Subject Matter Experts to make changes to the software. But we won't need huge numbers of them like we do today.

Re: Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

#32
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a cynical statement with no truth behind it. How do you explain the stat that college grads make a million dollars more over a lifetime? Almost everyone on Wall Street has a degree, would you call that zero marketability? Doctors all have degrees...zero marketability?

Average physician has lower lifetime earnings than a UPS driver. Most of the difference comes from time spent in training instead of earning, and ... financing a giant pile of school debt. If one of your exemplars has lower lifetime earnings than a UPS driver, your point may be on shaky ground.

[deleted]

Re: Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

#33
A college degree is not some terminal credential to make you into a coding cubicle robot the rest of your life. It goes more towards helping you be a more well-rounded person, for the short time in your life while you are more than just profit to the machine. US execs aren't helping anybody out when they push this anti-college garbage.

Re: Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

#35

Just curious, how does apple's recruiters shortlist people if they are not looking for college degrees. We need some criteria for sorting through the haystack..right? Or is it just a standard motivational talk which we just read ,feel good, nod our heads and move on?

How about accomplishment and impact instead of credentials?

Re: Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

#36
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a cynical statement with no truth behind it. How do you explain the stat that college grads make a million dollars more over a lifetime? Almost everyone on Wall Street has a degree, would you call that zero marketability? Doctors all have degrees...zero marketability?

Average physician has lower lifetime earnings than a UPS driver. Most of the difference comes from time spent in training instead of earning, and ... financing a giant pile of school debt. If one of your exemplars has lower lifetime earnings than a UPS driver, your point may be on shaky ground.

Would you prefer to work as a UPS driver or as a physician? It's like looking at a country's debt while ignoring everything else. Yes, Greece has less debt (inc. per capita) than the US, but you can't seriously suggest it is better off for it. Your estate might be better off with higher lifetime earnings but not necessarily you while you still alive.

Re: Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

#37
post #29

>The Apple CEO also said he believes that it should be a requirement for every kid in the U.S. to have some level of coding education before they graduate high school. Apple launched its Everyone Can Code program in 2016, a curriculum designed to help students from Kindergarten to college learn coding. >Apple is one of several corporations that doesn't require a college diploma for certain jobs Does anyone else feel…

If they are actually going to pay less, what's stopping software engineers from switching companies? Someone qualified to work for Apple is probably also qualified to work for other tech giants, so if it's really Apple's motivation to pay less, why not just apply elsewhere?

Re: Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

#38
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a cynical statement with no truth behind it. How do you explain the stat that college grads make a million dollars more over a lifetime? Almost everyone on Wall Street has a degree, would you call that zero marketability? Doctors all have degrees...zero marketability?

Average physician has lower lifetime earnings than a UPS driver. Most of the difference comes from time spent in training instead of earning, and ... financing a giant pile of school debt. If one of your exemplars has lower lifetime earnings than a UPS driver, your point may be on shaky ground.

This is BS. I won't even ask for a citation cause I know none exist.

Re: Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

#39
post #17

Colleges are turning into 'adult daycare centers'. Encouraging people to go into six-figure debt, so that they can get a degree that has zero marketability (except of course to continue on in college), is a deeply cynical enterprise. At least drug sellers and casino owners are open about what they do.

>Encouraging people to go into six-figure debt

That is just wrong, the average student debt in the US is ~$30,000. It still a lot for a 22-year-old to have, but that is far shy of ~$100,000. It holds for some degrees or personal situations, but in the macro sense isn't accurate.

>they can get a degree that has zero marketability (except of course to continue on in college)

I do think this is true for a good number of degrees, but I think it simply points to a larger issue with the system as it stands now. The fact that for most jobs, even if you don't need a degree, most businesses won't even look at you if you don't have a degree.

Like you are saying, the system encourages a "deeply cynical enterprise" by creating this ginormous industry of college degrees, loans, etc. all so students can simply signal to businesses their "competence" or whatever you want to call.

So much for an efficient market!

Re: Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

#40
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a cynical statement with no truth behind it. How do you explain the stat that college grads make a million dollars more over a lifetime? Almost everyone on Wall Street has a degree, would you call that zero marketability? Doctors all have degrees...zero marketability?

Average physician has lower lifetime earnings than a UPS driver. Most of the difference comes from time spent in training instead of earning, and ... financing a giant pile of school debt. If one of your exemplars has lower lifetime earnings than a UPS driver, your point may be on shaky ground.

I believe this is the site he is referring to

http://www.er-doctor.com/doctor_income.html

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