151–160 of 161 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be problematic for rich people who do not need loans, and destroy the trust on schooling system. Diplomas need to be irrevocable except for serious procedural issues.
Yeah, good point, universities never revoke degrees over objectionable behavior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cosby#Rescinded_honorary_...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
High school is a guided path, there are choices to be made but everyone comes out of it with a similar set of skills and knowledge. College is self-guided and people can choose the degree they want to pursue. The problem today is that there are a lot of people who pursue degrees with little regard for the cost and the applicability of the degree they're pursuing. If they do that now, when they have some skin in the g…
> Sure, they don't have debt (the rest of us will foot the bill), If taxpayers only agree to foot a much smaller bill, universities will be forced to cut all the frivolous stuff and get serious about education. I'm all for taxpayer-funded college but not at the prices these colleges charge at present. You don't see college football and all the other non-educational nonsense in Germany (using that because it's an exam…
I saw something at one point that said that colleges now are luxurious compared to the colleges of 30/40/50 years ago. The implication there was that once students had easy access to student loans, state schools in particular no longer focused on being cost effective. Anecdotally, I live in a town with a state school (Illinois State), and the apartments that have sprung up on campus over the past 10-15 years are insane compared to what I saw in college. Flat screen TVs in every unit, pools, etc. This is probably the most extreme example, but there are many similar: https://thelodgeonwillow.com
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, I see. So we should have free practical education. Free engineering universities and such, but not free ... let's call them, humanities universities? I'd be ok with that. If you want a humanities degree, then you have to pay. Maybe those still have student loans, but not big ones.
What are these "good" degrees, and what are the "bad" degrees? Have you actually looked at data or are you just going off gut feeling here?
Good degrees: medical (nursing, nutrition, etc), computer science, most engineering degrees, math.
Bad degrees: most of the liberal arts degrees. English, theatre, journalism etc.
These are broad generalizations, obviously. There are people with "bad" degrees who make a good living. There are people with "good" degrees who are struggling. But when I see people complaining that they have huge amounts of debt and are unemployed or underemployed, it's almost universally people who have the degrees I labeled bad.
Some of the issue seems to be just a general lack of planning - they decide to pursue a degree in X, but don't really have a plan for what kind of job they want. Some of the issue seems to be a stubbornness to accept that maybe the thing they got a degree in (often their "passion" - a concept that needs to die) may not be the thing they build a career on. Someone who got a degree in theatre because they really loved being in plays in high school, for example (an actual example I saw recently in a Humans of New York post). They probably need to accept that theatre is a hobby (at least for them), and pursue a career in something else.
An actual example from someone I know who went through this process with her daughter: The daughter had decided she wanted to go to an out of state school and major in journalism, and then move to some specific city to work when she was done with school. Her mother sat her down and they ran the numbers on what the school would cost vs what her parents could help her with financially, what the average person with a journalism degree makes out of college, and what the cost of living was in the city she wanted to live in was. The numbers didn't add up. The college was expensive and would have left her with lots of debt, the journalism degree didn't leave her with very many choices in terms of careers, and the cost of living in the city she wanted to live in was pretty high. So, they talked it through and the daughter ended up doing two years of community college (much cheaper) before going to a less expensive in-state school, she got a degree in english (yes, I labeled it a bad degree - it's probably not in this case), and opted to live in a cheaper city once she'd graduated (she's still in college). This is the activity that's missing from most college-bound kids lives.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We teach kids they can be whoever they want to be, then stick them with a massive bill and say 'ha ha only kidding you miserable debt slave.'
The first half of that sentence is the problem, in my opinion. We treat all college degrees as having equal value and offer loans for massive sums of money, with no regard to their likely ability to pay it back. $150k to get a law degree? Ok, that's likely to work out. $150k to get a degree in Russian Literature? Or theatre? That's not a good investment. Of course there are people who have degrees like that and they…
Is this somehow Bob's fault for being born into the wrong circumstances? Obviously not. But if the aspirational messages that we provide to all people in society are only true for a privileged few, then the communication of same to a larger mass of people for whom it is not is a form of fraud perpetuated on those least able to detect it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People are reasonably worried about the difficulty of changing schools mid-stream and whether they'll be able to pick up smoothly at the more prestigious school or be at an academic or social disadvantage relative to those who did their whole degree there. Also, these choices are faced primarily by young people who have no college experience and often little life experience in things like fiscal management. Meanwhile…
What "broader view" is there for employers to take? The parent comment is correct: if you do 2 years at community college and then 2 years at UMD, you're going to have a UMD degree. There's nothing for the employer to have an opinion about.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first half of that sentence is the problem, in my opinion. We treat all college degrees as having equal value and offer loans for massive sums of money, with no regard to their likely ability to pay it back. $150k to get a law degree? Ok, that's likely to work out. $150k to get a degree in Russian Literature? Or theatre? That's not a good investment. Of course there are people who have degrees like that and they…
But why should everything be subject to laws of supply and demand? That's just slavery with extra steps. Alice is rich and got to follow her passion (even though it maybe took a long time), Bob was born poor and so any passion on his part must be subordinated to his ability to be employed by Carol regardless of opportunity cost. Is this somehow Bob's fault for being born into the wrong circumstances? Obviously not. B…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know that it's worked elsewhere, but that doesn't mean it will work here (without some cultural changes). I'm not saying college shouldn't be free - maybe it should - but I'm saying that the problems we have today with underemployment aren't going to be fixed by free tuition. We first have to undo decades of treating trades as a lesser class of work, and telling everyone they have to go to college and "follow their…
Aren’t employment rates in the U.S. doing pretty well at this point? I think the companies struggling to find people are skilled labor—the likes of which require 4 year degrees for a lot of their positions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first half of that sentence is the problem, in my opinion. We treat all college degrees as having equal value and offer loans for massive sums of money, with no regard to their likely ability to pay it back. $150k to get a law degree? Ok, that's likely to work out. $150k to get a degree in Russian Literature? Or theatre? That's not a good investment. Of course there are people who have degrees like that and they…
But why should everything be subject to laws of supply and demand? That's just slavery with extra steps. Alice is rich and got to follow her passion (even though it maybe took a long time), Bob was born poor and so any passion on his part must be subordinated to his ability to be employed by Carol regardless of opportunity cost. Is this somehow Bob's fault for being born into the wrong circumstances? Obviously not. B…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But why should everything be subject to laws of supply and demand? That's just slavery with extra steps. Alice is rich and got to follow her passion (even though it maybe took a long time), Bob was born poor and so any passion on his part must be subordinated to his ability to be employed by Carol regardless of opportunity cost. Is this somehow Bob's fault for being born into the wrong circumstances? Obviously not. B…
Why shouldn’t it be subject to the laws of supply and demand? If my passion is Russian Literature, you’re saying that someone (who?) must create a demand for that so that I can make a living pursing my passion?