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A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

theatlantic.com

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Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#41

Post by itsoktocry »

atomflunder wrote: post #12
itsoktocry wrote: post #7

Colleges 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.

>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?

Judging by the number of people who don't show up to class or otherwise just "get by", it's absolutely true. People "go to college" because they're told it's their meal ticket into the middle class. This is the point of the article.

Ask the average person if they'd rather pay to have the paper degree and not have to attend any classes, or get the education for free but not receive any paper credentials. You'll have your answer.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#43

Post by harimau777 »

Pete-Codes wrote: post #16

If 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…

My concern would be whether people who take the bootcamp or self taught approach would have the grounding in engineering and CS theory that someone with a degree has.

I tend to feel that under-emphasizing these things are why the software industry has so much of a problem with poor designs, low code quality, and missed deadlines.

Maybe it would be possible to create a two year degree that would fill in those gaps.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#44

Post by mac01021 »

astura wrote: post #36
mac01021 wrote: post #11

The 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.

I agree. This article is very light on content and I'm kinda surprised something this banal and content-less even made it to an actual publication. Also, the guy's son graduated high school two years ago, he's 20-21 years old, practically everyone is happy at that age, let's hear about his life satisfaction at 40. That's ignoring the fact that two years is hardly enough time to evaluate the long term outcome of a maj…

But then

"It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is only because they only know their own side of the question."

   -- J S Mill

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#45

Post by astura »

itsoktocry wrote: post #41
atomflunder wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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? Judging by the number of people who don't show up to class or otherwise just "get by", it's absolutely true. People "go to college" because they're told it's their meal ticket into the middle class. This is the point of the article. Ask the average person if they'd rathe…

>Judging by the number of people who don't show up to class or otherwise just "get by",

I mean, I've heard of this happening a lot in community college, but in my private university I didn't regularly see this behavior, and certainly not in the upper level classes.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#46

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Pete-Codes wrote: post #17
Pete-Codes wrote: post #16

If 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…

Oh and this article could have been written 15 years ago.

think of the money they could have made writing the article 15 years ago, and then selling it with a few word changes and a new title every year.

Is a College Degree Worth It?

College Degrees are no longer worth it!

College Degrees - not worth the paper they're printed on.

A College Degree - what does it really get you?

And so on and so forth.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#47

Post by ptero »

The article seemed underwhelming to me. TLDR: college doesn't guarantee future happiness (uhm, what does guarantee it?) some kids would be happier just going to work.

That's fair, but while some kids would thrive going to work after college many more would be hampered by a lack of a college education for the rest of their lives.

Probably US specific but, in most schools, education sucks and all good colleges (not just super expensive; state schools, too) offer a solid STEM background to fix the damage after lousy schools. College should not be necessary, but in the US it kind of is.

So to make college optional, fix schools: reduce hours and drudgery, focus on consistent STEM background, give extra support to kids that excel in a subjext. My 2c.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#48

Post by atomflunder »

itsoktocry wrote: post #41
atomflunder wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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? Judging by the number of people who don't show up to class or otherwise just "get by", it's absolutely true. People "go to college" because they're told it's their meal ticket into the middle class. This is the point of the article. Ask the average person if they'd rathe…

>Ask the average person if they'd rather pay to have the paper degree and not have to attend any classes, or get the education for free but not receive any paper credentials. You'll have your answer.

This is an interesting thought, however I don't think it is a good test for whether someone wants to be in college/uni or not. It is reasonable to enjoy the education and be realistic about the value of the paper certificate at the same time.

The overall point about social pressures etc. is well taken though.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#49

Post by Donthatme »

atomflunder wrote: post #12
itsoktocry wrote: post #7

Colleges 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.

From my experience, it is a pretty simplistic take.

A lot of people enjoy the social aspect of college (from parties to having a cohort that is interested in the same things they are).

The money issue roughly fell into three buckets: 1) students not worrying about money because they have rich parents, 2) students not worrying about money because they have student loans, and 3) students worrying a lot about money because they have student loans.

From my experience going to undergrad at a state university in the midwest, a lot of students would prefer to have a well paying job immediately after high school and not go to college. However, a lot of those same students would rather go to college than stay in their small hometown where job prospects are bleak.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#50

Post by jimhefferon »

gspr wrote: post #27
hectorr1 wrote: post #4

Most 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.

I mean there's a lot more to university than "success preparation". While university is indeed no guarantee for success, it does seem to help a lot with your understanding of the world and your ability to think critically. I'm lucky enough to come from a country with free decent universities, so maybe it's easy for me to say, but I can't even put a price on how my education changed every single part of how I think an…

> could have taken hold

Yes, especially if all or at least most colleges considered it a high priority to educate people in what used to be called citizenship.

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