Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

slate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 463 posts

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#161

Post by starpilot »

abnry wrote: post #40
rayiner wrote: post #16

These parents are heroes. > A couple months ago, my 17-year-old daughter’s guidance counselor called her into his office to ask pretty much the only question that adults ask high school seniors: “What colleges are you applying to?” When Ella tossed off a handful of universities, he said, “Have you thought about going to art school?” This is goddamn malpractice. > Like most parents, who save on average $18,000 for the…

There is a place for encouraging students to go to art school... the catch is that they need to have obvious signs of world class talent.

"World class talent" is hard to define in art. Was Jackson Pollock's work as an art student clearly "world class"? What about color field paintings? Anna Karenina was dismissed on its release as trifling. Art, perhaps by definition, is subjective.

An objective criteria might be to pursue art if you don't have to pay tuition. I knew someone who decided as a teenager that he wouldn't pursue music unless he didn't have to pay for it. This worked out mostly - his undergrad and graduate programs were full ride scholarships, he really was extraordinary. Except when he was auditioning for orchestras at the end, he spent almost a year unemployed and flying back and forth across the country on his own dime. He had to buy a separate seat for his instrument because he couldn't trust it being checked as baggage. He was incredibly good, but he told me that 80% of the people who auditioned were just as good, and past a certain level of ability, it was basically random who got picked. So this guy was perhaps "world class," but even at the end it was a dicey period where he was not sure he could be employed.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#162

Post by nradov »

abnry wrote: post #40
rayiner wrote: post #16

These parents are heroes. > A couple months ago, my 17-year-old daughter’s guidance counselor called her into his office to ask pretty much the only question that adults ask high school seniors: “What colleges are you applying to?” When Ella tossed off a handful of universities, he said, “Have you thought about going to art school?” This is goddamn malpractice. > Like most parents, who save on average $18,000 for the…

There is a place for encouraging students to go to art school... the catch is that they need to have obvious signs of world class talent.

Does it take world class talent to convince someone to pay $120K for a banana taped to a wall?

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/david-datuna-banana-art-ba...

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#163

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

baron816 wrote: post #155

There’s some weird things about this article. 1) Their daughter likely would’ve qualified for quite a bit of financial aid, which potentially could have brought a fancy art college to within reason for her. That she never even applied to her dream schools means she will never know if they would’ve been competitively priced. 2) Collectively, student debt is $1.6T, but that doesn’t tell you much about the per graduate…

Median payment seems like a misleading statistic because there are many repayment plans: the default is 10 years for student loans; but income-based repayment could extend that. Affordable monthly payments across the board is good for all graduates, but it doesn't necessarily imply it's $222/month for 10 years for all debtors.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#164

Post by nugget »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #78
falcolas wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all doctors. Not all lawyers. Only the cream of the crop in those respective fields, and only after 20+ years in the field. Of course, that assumes a normal mortgage, with no “payments go to interest only” or other malarkey.

But to be able to play at the top of the field you'll have to have attended something like Penn Law or Yale Medicine. SUNY Downstate won't cut it.

It's somewhat backwards in medicine. Many top grads stay in academics where the prestige is high but the pay is low. With the exception of elective plastics and dermatology, the highest earning physicians tend to be from middle of the road schools and work in rural areas after graduation (commonly from surgical sub-specialties).

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#165

Post by everdev »

simonsarris wrote: post #140
honkycat wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this trade school obsession is foolish. Everyone cargo-cults it as "pragmatic" without actually analyzing what the jobs entail and what you can actually expect to make. Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. You EARN that pay in the trades, and being an electrician is dangerous. The work is hard on your body. A lot of electricians end up on disability. I wasn't very academic growin…

> Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. This is becoming less and less true for lots of cohorts. I suspect it will stop correlating for everyone soon. From a few days ago: "Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns" by Center for Household Financial Stability, St Louis Fed https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/files/pdfs/hfs/is-college... > The college wealth premium is…

I went to a 4-year college, but earned almost all of my money from self-taught programming and design skills.

It's hard to justify the ROI on college.

At $25k/year for a low-tier college, you'll spend $100k (if you don't need loans). If you take that $100k and put it in the market (avg. 7% annual returns) with 0 contributions for 45 years, you could spend every penny you make and retire at 63 with $2.1M.

At more expensive colleges ($50k/yr+) the math seems less and less in your favor.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#166

Post by learc83 »

rayiner wrote: post #139
mnm1 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but you're gambling that you will survive and that you will survive intact. A life full of PTSD or without legs or arms or eyes isn't worth a million a year, let alone $60 to $125k. Then there's the very real possibility of dying. Not to mention the high risk of suicide afterwards. Given those risks, I can't see how the military is a good option.

Mortality rates in the military are actually lower than in the civilian world: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22694586 > Crude mortality rates are lower among U.S. military members than their civilian counterparts; service members must be healthy when they enter service and deaths from illnesses are relatively infrequent. Suicide rates for veterans is on the high end, but comparable to other highly physical prof…

It's not mortality you should worry about, but life altering injury.

My stepdad, my next door neighbor, and 3 of my friends all have some kind of long term chronic injury caused by military service.

In fact I only know 1 guy well who's ex military who doesn't have at least a moderately severe problem related to his service.

Military service is either a noble sacrifice, or it's a good job. It can't be both simultaneously.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#167

Post by NPMaxwell »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #142
NPMaxwell wrote: post #2

I did the same with my boys -- now both software engineers (duh). When raising children, are you going to omit how Physics affects your life? No, you'll tell about hot stoves and heavy objects on the other side of levers. You tell them about chemistry and biology: frying pan fires, food going bad, drink fluids when you're sick. We tell them about history and sociology: this group of people came to this country when t…

> that group came because they were granted land by a government. We omit money and how it works You also omit the part where the people already living there got genocided I guess.

Yes. I would categorize genocide by relatives as something that most people would not want to face -- it's "probably another topic" It's a mistake to omit that too.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#168

Post by [deleted] »

honkycat wrote: post #134
seattle_spring wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Part of the reason you go to school as a young person is that you do not have a family to feed or a house to pay off. If you go to art school as a young person, you won't have the problem of paying off a house because you won't have a job that qualifies you for a mortgage.

Agreed, I would never recommend someone go to art school unless they are absurdly talented ( and at that point: The school would probably give you a scholarship. )

[deleted]

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#169

Post by eitland »

beatgammit wrote: post #144
honkycat wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this trade school obsession is foolish. Everyone cargo-cults it as "pragmatic" without actually analyzing what the jobs entail and what you can actually expect to make. Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. You EARN that pay in the trades, and being an electrician is dangerous. The work is hard on your body. A lot of electricians end up on disability. I wasn't very academic growin…

Personally, I think learning a trade should be an option in high school. A trade is better than a high school diploma both in pay and practical usefulness, whereas "college prep" is almost always useless. If you learn a trade and dislike it, you should have as much time as possible to pivot to something else. I think high schoolers should have two choices: - Associates Degree track at a local university - apprentices…

Sounds a bit like what we have in Norway where you have (roughly) three choices for your 11 to 13 free years in school (1 - 10 is mandatory and while you can choose Montessori and a couple of other options they all share the same subjects):

- Vocational: 2 or 3 years followed by 2+ years as an apprentice in a real company, often with a master craftsman where the apprentices pay increases from approx 30% of full pay and up towards full pay during the time you stay. In return for the limited pay they have to take time to teach you and they cannot easily let you go before your apprenticeship has ended.

- Study preparations: three years of languages (typically the two Norwegian ones, English and German but some people will choose French or Spanish or something instead of or in addition to German.) Students who aim for engineering or medicine studies will typically add math, physics and another sciency subject: chemistry and biology were popular back when I went to school.

- leave school and get a job (or more and more likely it seems: fall behind)

As for why I say roughly, there's been a very nice option where you could get certified as a craftsman and get enough subjects to enter engineering in four years.

Also there are some options for transitioning from vocational to other studies. Going the other way is pretty hard and probably involves getting a job as uncertified worker in the field, then work for 5 years, takes some courses and pass the certification test.

Note: I'm not saying this is unique. It would surprise me if something like this isn't common in many other countries.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#170

Post by NPMaxwell »

hajile wrote: post #71

And here we have once again why the government shouldn't be subsidizing student loans and shouldn't exclude them from bankruptcy. We need to quit incentivizing sub-prime loans. Unlike the housing crash where the houses retained most of their value and could be sold later, you can't sell your degree to pay back the money. If you're getting a necessary degree, it's very uncommon to default on your loan because you'll b…

The issue with bankruptcy is not "excluding" students from bankruptcy. It's applying bankruptcy law fairly to every debtor.
Post reply on HN