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Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns [pdf]

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Re: Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns [pdf]

#171

Post by wojcikstefan »

fxtentacle wrote: post #169

I wonder if HN is a good place to discuss this, because we have a pretty niche group of ppl here. A big chunk of the HN crowd seems to be self-taught highly intelligent and highly motivated young guys who as a result became astronomically good in their craft. For those people, potential employers will go out of their way and bend their own corporate hiring rules to get the no-degree candidate past HR. And then there'…

You seem to make a lot of assumptions about people who do and do not visit/participate on HN. Is it based on a feeling or is there some data available on that topic?

Re: Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns [pdf]

#172

Post by kortilla »

wojcikstefan wrote: post #171
fxtentacle wrote: post #169

I wonder if HN is a good place to discuss this, because we have a pretty niche group of ppl here. A big chunk of the HN crowd seems to be self-taught highly intelligent and highly motivated young guys who as a result became astronomically good in their craft. For those people, potential employers will go out of their way and bend their own corporate hiring rules to get the no-degree candidate past HR. And then there'…

You seem to make a lot of assumptions about people who do and do not visit/participate on HN. Is it based on a feeling or is there some data available on that topic?

Ignore the assumption. The question remains valid. If the assumption is wrong there are more people to answer it.

Re: Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns [pdf]

#173

Post by andrepd »

seem_2211 wrote: post #46
orange3xchicken wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few people pursuing PhDs are doing so to maximize earning potential. Disregarding the mental toll of a PhD (one problem being that too many people want to be paid to think than there are available positions), I totally disagree with the parent poster's claim that graduate school is a rip-off. Just being in an an academic environment, being able to take classes, & studying around really smart people and doing research…

The argument you put forward doesn't make sense. It's not a ripoff to make close to minimum wage for a number of years (and possibly take on high levels of student loan debt), all to work in a field where there is an oversupply of labour that depresses wages? Ok...

It's an economic ripoff, his oiubt is that people still want to do it, for reasons other than €€.

Re: Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns [pdf]

#174

Post by vasilipupkin »

anoplus wrote: post #136
ransom1538 wrote: post #18

A person in our family is a specialized nurse. Two years of school, then some more training. $60hr any hour they "wish" to work. Saturdays/Sundays are $90hr, so is any hour after 8 hours. The demand is so high he just rejects work. If he wants to work in American Samoa or Miami: hired. I hired a person to install a garage door. $900 for an hour of work. My plumber wont show up for a 30 minute $300 job. I will call ag…

> The demand is so high he just rejects work. I think as we advance in the information age, maybe degrees are less about helping you actually get the job done, and more about serving as a mean for companies (and countries) to roughly filter high surplus of candidates. Add the fact its easier today to apply for job posts, its very hard for recruiters to filter intelligently at reasonable time. My guess is if everyone…

There is a reason there is a shortage of nurses. Not everyone finds excitement in dealing with sick people all day. Also, most highly paid nurses do have a B.S. in Nursing.

Re: Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns [pdf]

#175

Post by vasilipupkin »

dahart wrote: post #127
cm2012 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but those people could have earned that much without going to college. If you just take the correlation between college and income, all it tells you is that colleges skim the top percent of society, which we knew already. The question we're trying to answer is that if you have the choice to go to college or not, should you?

I believe I understand the question & goal, and maybe this is the right way to go about it, but I’m not sure. It somewhat strikes me as the wrong question -- people don’t choose college equally at all income & IQ levels, and some of the factors that (statistically) lead people into to choosing to go are already accumulating before they’re even born. As a result, the hypothetical solution that hides the factors that l…

Controlling for IQ here is difficult because the higher your IQ is, the more you would be attracted to learning for learning’s sake in the first place.

Re: Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns [pdf]

#176

Post by kortilla »

seem_2211 wrote: post #98
prepend wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have friends with stem phds who aren’t making tons of money. But, I think in general, stem degrees pay well. I try to use reliable data sets [0] to help understand because anecdotes are hard for me to make decisions. The data are almost always a few years old so they aren’t perfect and could miss a new trend. But it’s the best I know how to use. [0] figure 4 shows stem 3rd highest after health and management https:…

Fair enough. When it comes to career advice, I prefer anecdotes to large data sets, because there are far too many variables, and it's too easy to torture numbers.

I take it you didn’t go the STEM route then. ;)

More seriously, anecdotes are terrible when giving advice to fresh high school seniors on their way to graduation. When people think of degrees in certain fields, they gravitate to the successful people (“I’ll study acting and make millions like the famous actors I know”, etc). They don’t think of and aren’t even aware of how many people get those degrees and fail hard.

That’s why they need to see the placement and salary stats to understand what their up against. Once they understand a French Comparative Literature degree has approximately no economic value, then they can make that decision knowingly. Papering over that by pointing out the one leader that happens to have that degree does more harm than good.

Re: Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns [pdf]

#177

Post by kortilla »

caenorst wrote: post #149
vonseel wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zuckerberg and Gates would have been elite if they’d never worked a day in their lives. Perhaps it's just me, but in the Zuckerberg case specifically, I'd think quite a bit of luck and timing had to do with it. If Zuckerberg had been born 10 years later after the obvious social network ideas were already created? Or if he had gone to a no-name college (or none whatsoever) and Facebook had never taken off the way it d…

They seems obvious to you now but they weren't at that time. Not that I am a Zuck fan at all but he deserve credit for that and that probably demonstrate some creativity and vision from him. No ?

MySpace existed. Facebook didn’t really add much beyond that to think that others wouldn’t have come up with the same idea in Zuck’s absence. In fact, the lawsuits from the Winklevos twins would seem to imply just that.

Re: Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns [pdf]

#178

Post by tome »

anonymoushn wrote: post #164
seem_2211 wrote: post #12

I have a degree from a no-name university in New Zealand. I'd do it again for a few pragmatic reasons. 1: Lots of companies will reject you on sight without a degree. I don't think it's a good thing, but it is reality. 2: With a degree your ability to move overseas dramatically improves. I moved to America after graduating. I flat out couldn't have done that without a degree. Points based systems immigration systems…

For knowledge workers who could have begun a similar career without college, the cost of the degree should also include the money they would have made by working 4 additional years at the end of their career (probably one of the highest points?)

> For intelligence workers

You probably mean "knowledge workers" :)

Re: Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns [pdf]

#179

Post by TheGallopedHigh »

wojcikstefan wrote: post #171
fxtentacle wrote: post #169

I wonder if HN is a good place to discuss this, because we have a pretty niche group of ppl here. A big chunk of the HN crowd seems to be self-taught highly intelligent and highly motivated young guys who as a result became astronomically good in their craft. For those people, potential employers will go out of their way and bend their own corporate hiring rules to get the no-degree candidate past HR. And then there'…

You seem to make a lot of assumptions about people who do and do not visit/participate on HN. Is it based on a feeling or is there some data available on that topic?

Sometimes data is not the only thing you need. Example: the statistical significance of a parachute to avoid death or trauma when jumping from a plane. “Conclusions: parachute use did not death or major trauma when jumping from a plane...”

https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/363/bmj.k5094.full.pdf

Re: Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns [pdf]

#180

Post by kortilla »

vonseel wrote: post #139
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$60 or even $90/hour isn’t that great if its all 1099 income. It isn’t bad either, but the extra payroll taxes and the need to buy an individual plan (if your partner doesn’t get you into a group plan) make it pretty normal.

Suddenly makes you feel very bad for all the people out there making $15-20ish an hour.

Not sure you understand. 1099 income means they aren’t an employee. That’s not the arrangement for people making $15-20. Those folks are regular employees so they receive that income after benefits, payroll taxes, etc.

As a 1099 employee you need to be clearing at least double the equivalent employee hourly wage because there is so much overhead. Remember, a contractor doesn’t get a single day of paid vacation.

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