Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education • Hacker News Board

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#321

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

gwd wrote: post #113

nimbius wrote: post #64

Disclosure: i never went to college, I went to a trade school. Colleges really only started scaring the heck out of me when I started enjoying my career. After spending a day wrenching in a garage, we'd hit miller time and head down to the Soapbox Bar and Grill. Over the span of a month or two ordering buckets and shooting pool I learned our bartender Javon had a masters in biology and his fiancee Cortisha who bussed…

> He had some massive college bills too and i didnt understand how those worked, but you cant get rid of them like you can a car loan. This is the thing that is really the most shameful and outrageous thing about the US system. Our entire K-12 educational system and our culture is set up to paint a college degree as a ticket to "the good life". Then an 18-year-old, potentially with parents who aren't great at math bu…

> All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy

That'll just make loans even more expensive for everyone else.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#322

Post by devit » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #179

gwd wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He had some massive college bills too and i didnt understand how those worked, but you cant get rid of them like you can a car loan. This is the thing that is really the most shameful and outrageous thing about the US system. Our entire K-12 educational system and our culture is set up to paint a college degree as a ticket to "the good life". Then an 18-year-old, potentially with parents who aren't great at math bu…

> All of us should be regularly lobbying our lawmakers to make student loans dischargeable by bankruptcy, just like any other loan. The reason they aren't dischargeable is because what bank in their right mind would give a loan to an 18 year old with no collateral? They only guarantee they get that it will be paid back is the fact that it can't be discharged. Student loans would dry up overnight if they could be disc…

Maybe it could be a percentage of all taxable income, kind of like giving out equity in the student themselves as a person?

Although of course there is no reason for college in general to be particularly expensive.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#323

Post by daseiner1 » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

md2020 wrote: post #169

renewiltord wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wonderful. I checked your profile and couldn't tell where you go. Would you mind sharing?

University of Michigan

go blue baby, when i was a student in the CoE and having the standard "I'll never make it!" anxiety I'd take a peak at that report every now & then and feel just fine, lol

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#324

Post by lallysingh » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #287

staticautomatic wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this attitude disturbing. The only things stopping real change in America are people who don't want it to happen and people who have been tricked into believing it can't.

I want real change, I just don't believe this is the change that makes sense. Changing the way colleges are paid for would make sense. Capping tuition would make sense. Making you pay a portion of your income back to the college for the rest of your life (or maybe just 20 years) would make sense. But allowing student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy would do more harm than good without other systemic changes.

> But allowing student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy would do more harm than good without other systemic changes.

Why?

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#325

Post by yardie » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

clairity wrote: post #48

methehack wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in state tuition at a public university is often still a very good deal w/o nearly the debt profile.

in states with good public universities, the best value is 2 years at a good community college, then 2 years at the state school. even 2 years at a good state university is getting ridiculously expensive ($60K+).

From others experience it's 2 years at good community college and 2.5-3 years at the good state university. I've yet to see state college take all the credits from a transfer.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#326

Post by ashtonkem » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

nimbius wrote: post #64

Disclosure: i never went to college, I went to a trade school. Colleges really only started scaring the heck out of me when I started enjoying my career. After spending a day wrenching in a garage, we'd hit miller time and head down to the Soapbox Bar and Grill. Over the span of a month or two ordering buckets and shooting pool I learned our bartender Javon had a masters in biology and his fiancee Cortisha who bussed…

College, and the push to send everyone to it, makes much more sense when you view College as both an economic proposition, and a part of social class.

The economic aspect has been well covered here, but the social class has not. Social classes are a set of shared values, habits, and beliefs that help cluster people together into a sense of shared social membership. It is completely distinct from economic class, with some of the “lower” classes regularly having more income and net worth than the “upper” social classes.

In America, a large portion of the push to send everyone to college has been a push for the supremacy of middle class norms and values over working class norms and values via college. College is literally an indoctrination process into the middle social class, it’s where you learn the norms and values of that class and socialize exclusively with other members of said class.

As you’ve discovered, social class and economic class are not one and the same, and you yourself as a member of the working class actually make significantly more money than members of the middle class who went to college but did not reap any economic benefits from the process.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#327

Post by loteck » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

tharne wrote: post #153

gwd wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He had some massive college bills too and i didnt understand how those worked, but you cant get rid of them like you can a car loan. This is the thing that is really the most shameful and outrageous thing about the US system. Our entire K-12 educational system and our culture is set up to paint a college degree as a ticket to "the good life". Then an 18-year-old, potentially with parents who aren't great at math bu…

> There's a reason many ancient religions forbid loaning money at interest entirely; It's sad that most cultures understood the danger and fragility that debt brings, and yet we've all somehow how forgotten it. We even have terms like "good debt".

Debt is simply a way to "materialize" risk. There are certainly good risks and bad risks. Leaving good risks untaken is one way to miss out on experiencing growth.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#328

Post by potta_coffee » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

teh_infallible wrote: post #264

0xffff2 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that bad? Humanities departments are already shrinking without any changes because there's just no demand. It doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to me that if you are determined to get a degree in philosophy, which has virtually no job prospects outside of teaching the next generation of philosophy students, you have to go do that at one of a handful of schools that carve out a niche for themselves with a philosop…

As someone who majored in English, I assert that the emphasis on STEM and shift away from the humanities is causing serious problems in our society. Specifically, having a population lacking in critical reading skills makes everyone more susceptible to propaganda, and less able to critique and assess flawed arguments in writing. If you want to know why, for example, our political “debates” are shallow circuses of mis…

Funny, I was exposed to more propaganda in university than anywhere else. Are you saying that only humanities majors are educated enough to recognize propaganda?

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#329

Post by egl2020 » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

ryeights wrote: post #124

cousin_it wrote: post #86

Tech companies should take the lead on this. Say loud and clear: we no longer ask about education, and no longer take education into account when hiring, starting today. Devalue the sheepskin.

How else do you propose companies should assess new hires, especially young ones? And while the cost of tuition these days (IMO) outstrips the value of a college education, that’s not to say that value is zero.

I did a lot of interviewing of new grads when I worked at a FAANG. I had the luxury of not needing a prior, and I looked at the resume only after conducting the interview and submitting my recommendation. I rarely looked even then. The degree might have helped or hindered your getting through the early part of the funnel, but was irrelevant once you got to me.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#330

Post by wtvanhest » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

OldHand2018 wrote: post #198

wtvanhest wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Law schools are the worst offenders in the education industry. Only a small percentage of law students end up at big law where the salaries can support the debt load, but almost everyone leaves law school with a mountain of debt.

> Law schools are the worst offenders in the education industry. They also are some of the best too. My wife went to a top-tier school and I remember the controversy when it was discovered that almost 50% of the tuition was actually given to the medical school. The justification was that they were a top school, they would charge what the other top schools charged, and they had a moral imperative to make the medical s…

Top-tier law schools get the majority of big law slots and are usually a pretty good balance. Anything outside the top 8-10 law schools and the % of graduates who go on to big law is VERY, VERY, VERY small.