But spends more time on an anecdote about the author's son to demonstrate that "Happiness is possible without College", which is a different matter entirely. And one would hope the latter is true, since 2/3 of the US population does not attend college.
A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
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Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#12Colleges have become massive businesses whose purpose is to jam kids through to graduation (thus maximize tuition fees). Most kids don't really want to be there. Both parties are incentivized to "get through it". When a large number of young people have degrees obtained this way, is it any wonder the value is diminished? It's a shame, because I loved (and continue to love) higher education.
Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#13Most successful people have X. Government: “Let’s give everyone X!” Over time the value of X is diluted, loses its status signaling, and overall quality degrades. Successful people move to Y.
Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#14Most successful people have X. Government: “Let’s give everyone X!” Over time the value of X is diluted, loses its status signaling, and overall quality degrades. Successful people move to Y.
Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#15Life is a long haul ride, requires a lot of things to get through it well. College education is obviously one part of it. It would help people to realize any thing one does has an expiry date to it. This is why you need to have a system to remain consistent at some broad goals. Things like good eating, exercise, personal finance, relationships, reading and learning have to be done consistently, and have to be done th…
Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#16As far as webdev goes, you could do a bootcamp and be earning money within 6 months to a year. That's money that's hopefully going into your pension fund and earning interest while your peers are still in class.
Or you could learn to code using cheap and/or free resources. College isn't the only place to learn things nowadays and I think a lot of people haven't caught up with that yet.
I used to think nothing could beat the college experience for bonding but I think the formula of lots of people doing the same thing every day in a niche environment they want to be in is easily repeatable. I'm still in contact with digital nomads I hung out with in Bansko two years ago and I was only there for a month. But it was an intense month of seeing each other every day, just like college.
Oh and don't worry about not finding a dev job if you don't go to college. Employers are coming around slowly and there are lots of success stories out there: www.nocsdegree.com
Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#17If you are facing minimum of £27k tuition debt in England which AFAIK gathers interest from day one I would probably skip it. And it's even worse in the US. As far as webdev goes, you could do a bootcamp and be earning money within 6 months to a year. That's money that's hopefully going into your pension fund and earning interest while your peers are still in class. Or you could learn to code using cheap and/or free…
Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#18Life is a long haul ride, requires a lot of things to get through it well. College education is obviously one part of it. It would help people to realize any thing one does has an expiry date to it. This is why you need to have a system to remain consistent at some broad goals. Things like good eating, exercise, personal finance, relationships, reading and learning have to be done consistently, and have to be done th…
Does it follow that you see basically no value in community colleges and other "low-prestige" public institutions whose participants are predominantly from outside of any aspirationally-aristocratic subculture?
I'm talking more on the lines of normal people, from normal families. For people like us, education means some thing very different. Its like initial exposure to an experience we must maintain all life.
Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#19Colleges have become massive businesses whose purpose is to jam kids through to graduation (thus maximize tuition fees). Most kids don't really want to be there. Both parties are incentivized to "get through it". When a large number of young people have degrees obtained this way, is it any wonder the value is diminished? It's a shame, because I loved (and continue to love) higher education.
Is it really true that, in the US, many college students don't want to be there but go nonetheless, despite having to pay absurd amounts of money? Where I study, uni is basically free, and I've met very few people in my degree who don't want to be there. This seems absurd to me.
If anything, I'd say the rate of people attending college despite not wanting to can only have increased since then. The assumption that college is an absolute necessity for a comfortable middle-class life has only in the last few years come into serious question, and still has yet to face anything like the inquisition it deserves.
Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life
#20The article spends a little time, in the middle on the headline assertion "College does not guarantee Happiness" But spends more time on an anecdote about the author's son to demonstrate that "Happiness is possible without College", which is a different matter entirely. And one would hope the latter is true, since 2/3 of the US population does not attend college.