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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

#261

Post by dgb23 »

culopatin wrote: post #117
vladletter wrote: post #68

Well, this article may target white people. You can do a bootc amp and be paid. When you're part of a minority, you need a college degree to live.

Can you expand on this? I'm a minority with no degree and I'm curious about your perspective.

I think it is conventional knowledge that if you are a minority you are often forced to overcome discrimination and are being judged more harshly. I mostly second-hand experienced this because half of my family are immigrants from a country that had "low-status" when they got here.

Just to be sure: if you are young/new please don't take this as discouragement. The less it applies to you the better. And if you face discrimination then take pride in your accomplishments in spite of adversity.

But I find OP's assessment overly specific...

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

#262

Post by geodel »

leetcrew wrote: post #136
bradly wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We give everyone in the U.S. high school education and we don't make the claims you make above. Why would higher education be different? The purpose of free higher ed for all is not to guarantee everyone a good life–it is to try and give everyone an equal chance at a good life. If higher ed is highly correlated to escaping poverty and upward economic mobility, then college costs raising at a rate 11 times faster than…

> If higher ed is highly correlated to escaping poverty and upward economic mobility, then college costs raising at a rate 11 times faster than average income is a form of classism. this is true if you look at the sticker price, but does the actual cost for a low-income family grow at that rate? I'm having a hard time finding a source that shows by year what a bottom quartile family would have paid for tuition at an…

I think this is bullshit. Why would institutes put such high sticker price or why wouldn't they put price clearly based on income level. No one likes when hospital do not give clear price for treatments, same applies for university.

Would it better if stores listed loaf of bread at $300 and then people can negotiate the price from there?

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

#264

Post by simplify »

bhupy wrote: post #243
csharptwdec19 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you covered part of the problem in the second half of your statement. In the US, part of the problem is that by making education debts non-dischargable in bankruptcy, and by the aforementioned proliferation of degrees that may qualify as 'nice to have' rather than 'increase earning potential'. The end result is a lot of people who got a college degree that doesn't really pay for itself, and instead leads to 2…

Making education debts dischargeable in bankruptcy sounds good in theory, but against what collateral do you take out a college loan? Most bankruptcy includes collateral liquidation. What's to stop someone from obtaining a useless degree that doesn't contribute to the nation's economy, and then discharges the debt in bankruptcy? I think a big part of the problem is that debt is so readily issued for degrees that over…

> What's to stop someone from obtaining a useless degree that doesn't contribute to the nation's economy, and then discharges the debt in bankruptcy?

Nothing, and that's exactly why education debts need to be dischargeable like anything else.

Dischargeable loans makes loan companies have actual responsibility and consequences in deciding who to give loans to. Otherwise, they blindly give out loans (why not, there's no risk!), putting all that much money in the system, which college institutions are happy to absorb in higher tuition.

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

#265

Post by throwawaygh »

flyingfences wrote: post #92
throwawaygh wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have ever interviewed a fresh grad who didn't study "Cracking the Coding Interview" Goodhart's Law. > or did not have a few "side projects" under their belt IME: end-of-course projects at places like MIT and Carneige Mellon are often much more impressive than the CRUD web app or copy-pasta Jupyter notebooks I tend to see from e.g. coding bootcamps or especially self-taught applicants. And students usually ha…

> end-of-course projects at places like MIT and Carneige Mellon Very few students study at places like MIT and Carnegie Mellon. They typical CS program, even the typical "good but not exemplary" CS program, does not direct students to produce "projects" on nearly the same level. I even went to a college that has a well-regarded senior capstone project for its traditional engineering majors, but the CS equivalent felt…

Certainly, but lots of places do.

The non-flagship state uni a lot of my friends went to had fantastic project-based coursework in CS. Acceptance rate is like 70% and tuition is very affordable.

Agreed that ENG departments tend to do better at this, especially at mid-tier state schools. CS departments need to take project-based work and especially capstones much more seriously.

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

#266

Post by throwaway894345 »

bhupy wrote: post #243
csharptwdec19 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you covered part of the problem in the second half of your statement. In the US, part of the problem is that by making education debts non-dischargable in bankruptcy, and by the aforementioned proliferation of degrees that may qualify as 'nice to have' rather than 'increase earning potential'. The end result is a lot of people who got a college degree that doesn't really pay for itself, and instead leads to 2…

Making education debts dischargeable in bankruptcy sounds good in theory, but against what collateral do you take out a college loan? Most bankruptcy includes collateral liquidation. What's to stop someone from obtaining a useless degree that doesn't contribute to the nation's economy, and then discharges the debt in bankruptcy? I think a big part of the problem is that debt is so readily issued for degrees that over…

It seems like we should make the debt conditional on the degree pursued. How much you’re allowed to take out in federal loans ought to be a function of the pay associated with that degree. I’m sure it’s not a perfect system, but it seems a lot better than the status quo or solutions that involve burdening society with the economic liability of a glut of (economically) low-value degrees.

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

#267

Post by chaostheory »

dhairya wrote: post #255
chaostheory wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very few people I know actually have careers directly related to their undergrad majors.I majored in Creative Writing and interdisciplinary (politics, philosophy, and economics) studies. I strongly feel that path is only an affordable luxury if you come from a upper middle class background and up. Most people can't afford to experiment with higher education given its high monetary cost. You guys might not agree, bu…

I'm conflicted in responding to this. What you described was not my experience. I come from an underprivileged background and was fortunate to escape my social location. Part of it was luck though which is not replicable. But I agree that it is harder to take risks coming from a low-income background where the cost of bad choices is amplified. Risk taking is risky though. That's the tragedy, it's hard to escape your…

> I usually tell students to double major (or minor) if they are privileged to go to college. We as a society have moved away from the idea of renaissance person who has experience in many disciplines towards hyper-specialization

We moved away from that because higher education has gotten exponentially more expensive. I'm sure there are some valid reasons for that (e.g. increasing graduate student TA pay?) as well as terrible ones (e.g. an increase in both administrative execs along with administrative exec pay), but that's what's directly hurting the motivation for experimentation. Only the well-to-do have that privilege now. For others, it's risk and not harmless experimentation.

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

#268

Post by kleer001 »

chosenbreed37 wrote: post #183
kleer001 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/233578 "The only major personality trait that consistently leads to success is conscientiousness."

I don't think contentiousness is the same thing described in that post. But I agree that it is an excellent trait to have.

It's not. Conscientious is a very specific set of behaviours.

I was offering an easy answer to the confused wondering of the Atlantic article. The path to success is known. Apparently not as well known as I would have thought. No need to point to the fact that the heterogeneous mess of a "College Degree" as being not a factor.

Yes, there's lots of ways to not succeed. Why not do a very little bit of shallow research and shout out to the roof tops what actually does work?!

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

#269

Post by umvi »

EarthIsHome wrote: post #220
Upvoter33 wrote: post #157

Nothing is a guarantee of a good life. A good life requires so many different elements, but mostly comes down to one thing: what you put into it, esp. in regards to improving the lives and welfare of others around you. Do this, and you will find that your own life gets better and better. Be kind, do work to help others, care about people and their lives (and not just your own) and you'll find that life will turn out…

> Nothing is a guarantee of a good life. But lack of things and capital will never get you a good life. If you are starving, no matter what you put in or how kind you are to others, you cannot have a good life. If you are home insecure, you cannot have a good life. Period. I'm going to define "good life" to mean food, housing, and health security. While you're right that nothing is guaranteed, the wealthier you are,…

Is anyone in the USA actually starving? That's a common thing brought up, but calories are so cheap in the US that most poor people are actually morbidly obese, not starving. Even if you were starving, you could easily subsist panhandling at some traffic intersection. How long does it take to panhandle $10? An hour or two? And with that you could buy a 15 pound bag of rice which is like a months' worth of carbs.

Starvation is a problem for Africa, not the USA.

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

#270

Post by iguy »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #266
bhupy wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making education debts dischargeable in bankruptcy sounds good in theory, but against what collateral do you take out a college loan? Most bankruptcy includes collateral liquidation. What's to stop someone from obtaining a useless degree that doesn't contribute to the nation's economy, and then discharges the debt in bankruptcy? I think a big part of the problem is that debt is so readily issued for degrees that over…

It seems like we should make the debt conditional on the degree pursued. How much you’re allowed to take out in federal loans ought to be a function of the pay associated with that degree. I’m sure it’s not a perfect system, but it seems a lot better than the status quo or solutions that involve burdening society with the economic liability of a glut of (economically) low-value degrees.

My suggestion to achieve this is to cap repayments (of non-dischargable loans), perhaps at 15% of taxable income, and written off 20 years after signing. That would make lenders very interested in the outcomes of various courses. And their offers to prospective students would convey useful career advice, too.
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