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

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

#371

Post by 7leafer » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 7:07 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…

People aka the New Oil must have skills, not knowledge. This narrative has been coming out of the woodwork recently. Like, lumberjacks over dendrologists all the way.

If we translate this motto from the newspeak, it would be this: the New Oil must flow smoothly without asking uncomfortable questions about the piping.

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

#372

Post by code4tee » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 7:07 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #187

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…

I work in AV development, and the number of refugees from the hard sciences is astonishing. I guess I don't blame them, but it's weird to have a physics PhD report to you and be able to use only a fraction of the skills she spent a decade and hundreds of thousands of dollars gaining. This isn't quite a complaint: adopting math and physics PhDs (first as a mentor and now as a TLM) that are seemingly unproductive has b…

Most STEM PhDs (and especially in the hard sciences) are funded from mostly government sources. It’s seen as the country making an investment in top talent.

Nobody (who is any good) in the USA pays money for a STEM PhD. You get paid to do these degrees, albeit not a lot but a lot better than paying yourself!

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

#373

Post by snowAbstraction » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 7:07 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #210

Swizec wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s a lifehack: Attend college in Europe then move to USA for that high paying job. Works really well. Cheap to free education, better skills because you’re not just living the college life and professors have little incentive to make it easy. It’s great. Hell you don’t even have to fully graduate to get most of the benefit.

Aren't European colleges the same price as American colleges if you're not European?

It depends on the country and sometimes the institution and program. Here is a price list from a Swedish university with the approx. USD amounts being between $10,000 to $30,000 depending on the program:

https://www.slu.se/en/education/application-and-admission/tu...

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

#374

Post by abnry » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 7:08 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…

The government will give out a loan to students for basically any reason, as long as their family doesn't make too much money. Think about the insanity of that kind of investment practice. No "business plan", no estimates of ROI, no collateral, little to no grade submissions. It's a bad way to invest.

If a student is going to get a loan, what I think the government and banks should do is require them to file a proposal explaining how they plan to recoup the cost of their education using real, hard market data. If you want to become a archaeological historian, you need to research what sorts archaeology jobs are in your neighborhood and what they will make.

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

#375

Post by Chromozon » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 7:08 PM UTC

brewdad wrote: post #10

My kid will be making his college choice in the coming year. As such, he's getting mail from colleges pretty much every day. The mailer from Vanderbilt really struck me as to the wrongheaded thinking of university leaders. On one side was this amazing blurb: "Vanderbilt financial aid packages DO NOT INCLUDE LOANS. IT'S FREE MONEY....65% of Vanderbilt students received some type of FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE" Tell me why co…

I went to Vanderbilt and graduated in 2013. Their financial aid covered everything up to what FAFSA said my parents could afford- the EFC (expected family contribution) value. Tuition+room/board at the time was $56k, and EFC was $8k, so Vanderbilt covered the full 48k difference with no loans.

Vanderbilt has a very large endowment, and there is a lot of money earmarked for financial aid. I received $30k+ in scholarships that I never personally applied for, and I was able to graduate without loans.

On the flip side, if the EFC is very high and your family cannot afford it, you will have to get loans from another source.

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

#376

Post by irishcoffee » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 7:08 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…

You're unfortunately disproving your own point.

> 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.

Do I need to point out all the flaws in this sentence or can you critically read your own writing?

> If you want to know why, for example, our political “debates” are shallow circuses of misdirection and name calling, look at the state of the humanities.

Would you agree that the majority of politicians are lawyers, or at the very least non-STEM majors? What you're claiming then, is that humanities majors create and participate in "shallow circuses of misdirection and name calling"

Was that the point you were hoping to make?

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

#377

Post by kaibee » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 7:08 PM UTC

jackcosgrove wrote: post #281

jedberg wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is that bad? It depends on your point of view. Should college be a trade school or should it stick to it's roots of broadening one's horizons? I found my philosophy classes quite enlightening. They were required for my degree in CogSci. If my school didn't have a philosophy major, it wouldn't have a philosophy department, and I would never have had those classes. Also, there are some majors that lead to professiona…

> Should college be a trade school or should it stick to it's roots of broadening one's horizons? The term "liberal arts" means "free arts". The root of this term is that Athenian society was composed of a small class of free families and everyone else was a slave owned by those families. The free families were wealthy enough to afford a liberal education for their free sons. Everyone else had to work. Those are the…

We have robots instead of slaves now. We, as a society, can afford to provide a liberal arts education to everyone. In fact, we already do, for grades 1-12. I think the main issue is that that education fails people who could progress through it faster (and those who need more time in certain areas).

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

#378

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 7:09 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…

Considering that humanities majors tend to believe in socialism does not burnish their critical reading skills and resistance to propaganda.

The reality of the history of socialism is one of failure.

And yes, I do understand that everyone thinks that those who disagree with them are ill-informed and susceptible to propaganda, and those who prefer socialism will think that of me :-)

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

#379

Post by abnry » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 7:09 PM UTC

gwd wrote: post #318

jedberg wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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? If it's a bad bet for the bank , it must be far worse of a bet for young adults. That's the point -- right now we're essentially suckering millions of naive young adults into a life of wage slavery by giving them a "bet" which they are completely unequipped to evaluate; and many of t…

I agree with what you are saying, except that we shouldn't say students are unequipped to evaluate the "bet" merely for being young and inexperienced. If we wanted to, we could train students to be much better at evaluating such a bet.

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

#380

Post by 0xEFF » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 7:12 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…

Psychology and the social sciences have another explanation: Politics is mostly about how people feel and has little to do with how or what people think.