A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by mcguire » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

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.

"But he did have plans: He found a job across the country on a wheat farm in central Idaho. This wasn’t a hobby or a whim. He became part of a community of honest, hardworking people. He worked from dawn until well past dark through his first harvest, driving a combine, fixing fences, and picking rocks out of the soil. In the winter he found a job apprenticing to an expert cabinetmaker, and started his own small business hauling firewood.

"After his second harvest, with money in the bank, our son joined the Marine Corps, a dream he had had for several years. He finished boot camp and is now at infantry school in North Carolina. He wakes up at 4 a.m., is tired all the time—and is happy. He is, as a translation of the second-century Saint Irenaeus puts it, “a man fully alive.”"

Happiness is possible without college, but geeze, I think I'll pass on that road.

(On the other hand, I know people who have taken roughly that road; he discovered he didn't like ranching (and it didn't pay squat) and joined the Navy, spent 8 years and two deployments in. Seems to have worked out pretty well. On the other hand, he recently completed a bachelors at a for-profit school (that mostly exists to absorb GI-bill benefits, AFAICT) and wants to go back for a masters for some reason.)

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

#332

Post by KMag » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 7:30 PM UTC

omginternets wrote: post #30

I barely skimmed the article, but I don't find this surprising for a few reasons (some of which have been mentioned elsewhere in the comments): - "University degree" is a heterogeneous thing. While there is such thing as non-economic value, the strictly economic value of a college education tends to cluster around a small subset of degrees. - Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who g…

> - Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who get degrees. Far from fixing inequality, this has instead diluted the value of university degrees.

I know enacting social change is much much harder than throwing money at problems, but I wish America figured out a way to really strengthen the cultural admiration for the hard-working craftsperson archetype.

Pete Buttigieg took a lot of flak for pointing out that many jobs in America don't require a college degree, and there should be nothing shameful about learning a skilled trade instead of going to college. We have a vast over-supply of many college majors, and (I'm told) big shortages in many skilled trades. There are way too many people with 4-year degrees from top-100 schools working cash registers in retail, when they'd have far less debt and higher income (and a good chance of later becoming successful small business owners) if they'd gone to trade school instead of college.

It's honestly classist to push 4-year degrees so hard. There's something noble about optimizing your own happiness while providing valuable services, despite much of America considering skilled laborers to be a class below cashier workers with useless 4-year degrees. I wish we as a society could better appreciate skilled laborers.

We don't have much positive to show from decades of flooding the college tuition markets with cheap credit / crippling debt and implicitly pushing hard the notion that going to trade school is settling for second-best.

There's something to be said about removing the crippling personal debt from the act of flooding the education markets with money, but without cultural changes, I think a big effect would be further ballooning of college costs. I fear the crippling debt will just get hidden as accelerating the ballooning of government debt without moving the needle much on inequality.

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

#333

Post by thereisnospork » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 7:30 PM UTC

geodel wrote: post #262

leetcrew wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Because international students (have to) pay sticker. The schools can't (or won't) discriminate on price explicitly so this is what they do.

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

#334

Post by supernova87a » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 7:31 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #311

supernova87a wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, if you're 55 now, you grew up in basically the golden age of US growth and the easy value of a college degree at relatively cheap tuition. And you had friends back then who were saddled with college debt that led to dead end jobs? The situation, is way, way worse now. Orders of magnitude worse.

Yes, I know. That's why I added the qualifier I did: I'm aware that not stating I did this decades ago could be misconstrued as saying "You fools just need to live at home and go to the local college. Problem solved!" I'm not interested in being thusly misconstrued.

No I wasn't meaning to miscontrue you for others to read, and I did see your caveat which is appreciated.

I just felt bad for the people who even back then were having trouble with student debt. And to think they were in a relatively lucky age -- everyone is in that boat now, with far less hope of getting out of the hole.

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

#335

Post by tracker1 » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 7:32 PM UTC

marcusverus wrote: post #329

dumbfoundded wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real value of a university is the community. What you're describing is basically a new textbook. It doesn't replace the people you interact with. Going to a great college doesn't mean great classes with awesome course material. It's other classmates you study with, it's the TAs that hold office hours, the professors too, sometimes.

There's no reason that this couldn't work via an online community. Online courses don't do anything to foster this kind of connection, because they have always been a lazy facsimile of the in-person college course experience. If they tried, online courses could easily foster these kinds of relationships and unlock a ton of potential. I also think that this is a larger societal problem that should be but has not been…

My only counter to that is socialization in person is a lot different than socialization online... I notice that from my daughter to a lot of younger people in general that spend more time interacting online or via phone apps vs. in person have far more anxiety regarding interactions in person.

As to TFA, I think that for a lot of people trade schools are a better option, and should often be encouraged. I'd like to see more general education regarding retirement planning etc as well earlier on, as this is a place a lot of people get stuck, esp. in the US.

Another issue is that people should be guided towards educational paths that have demand in the workplace. Does it make sense to go 200k into debt for a job that pays 38k/year, or graduate 10k students for a career path with only 100 openings. Some of this onus is on the students and parents, but the schools themselves could do much better with this. Some reform on funding might help, but it's a touchy subject.

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

#336

Post by devalgo » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

rgblambda wrote: post #214

devalgo wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always parrot this but how many Doctors do you know with no degree? Take a poll at Google engineers and see how many are actually self taught and have no degree. How many Wall Street bankers/traders/etc have no degree? How many US Senators have no degree? How many World Leaders in history have had no formal education? Not counting dropouts, what percentage of Billionaires have no college education? The reality…

> You can argue what the root of this is whether it's the added knowledge or signalling of the degree, or intrinsic self motivation of the person, etc. but that fact still remains. More discussion on "the root of this" might lead to the above changing.

I agree, but it hasn't changed yet. Despite the "teach truckers to code" kind of rhetoric and survivorship bias of self taught coders.

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

#337

Post by d4mi3n » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #315

" Higher education is often described as an investment. But it’s still unclear if it pays off in happiness. " Nothing, nothing will guarantee happiness. Or a good life. Make the best decisions you can, by which I mean try to make decisions that you will not regret later. (Have I made a crap-ton of mistakes in my life? Sure 'nuff. Would I make different decisions if I could, even knowing what I know now? Probably not.…

> Make the best decisions you can, by which I mean try to make decisions that you will not regret later. (Have I made a crap-ton of mistakes in my life? Sure 'nuff. Would I make different decisions if I could, even knowing what I know now? Probably not.)

I can't agree with this enough, and it's a very powerful mindset. As a personal example, there was some point in my mid/late 20s where how I made decisions changed. Less of "will I regret doing this" and more "will I regret NOT doing this".

It's amazing how much happier and content with my life I was when I removed speculative regret (what if..?) in favor of actual regret. Turned out I regretted a lot less and enjoyed much more when I actually got out and did.

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

#338

Post by arcticbull » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #315

" Higher education is often described as an investment. But it’s still unclear if it pays off in happiness. " Nothing, nothing will guarantee happiness. Or a good life. Make the best decisions you can, by which I mean try to make decisions that you will not regret later. (Have I made a crap-ton of mistakes in my life? Sure 'nuff. Would I make different decisions if I could, even knowing what I know now? Probably not.…

I find the idea of a "guarantee of a good life" very strange, and super myopic. There are no guarantees in life, everything is probabilistic. Based on other people's outcomes you can do your best to infer which decisions increase the likelihood of your desired outcome. Want to be rich? I can't guarantee that -- though I would say give what other self-made rich people did a go: move somewhere where you're in the path of money, with other like-minded people.

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

#339

Post by vaidhy » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 7:35 PM UTC

I have been reading through the comments and I am very curious about a few things -

1. What "bullshit" degrees people are talking about? Are they the liberal arts studies? If so, as a society do we not see value in the fine arts? Expertise in music, language, anthropology, history, etc do not necessarily lead to a well-paying job.. but they give intellectually satisfaction in and of itself.

2. IMHO, the pay you are likely to earn should never be a judge of value of a degree. A degree gives you an opportunity to learn something in depth. As long as you are able to reach that, the degree is valuable. The sad part of being in US (and other places) is that the depth is not valued. Trying college fees to ability to earn is an incorrect optimization.

3. If I were a poet, an author or a painter, do you think I should expect that I will be able to pursue my passion on a nominal pay (maybe as a teacher/tutor, basic income from government etc)? Most of the "golden age of civilizations" had this property. When everyone needs to fight for survival, that reflects poorly on the state of things and it is more of a dog eat dog world.

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

#340

Post by tracker1 » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 7:35 PM UTC

marcusverus wrote: post #329

dumbfoundded wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real value of a university is the community. What you're describing is basically a new textbook. It doesn't replace the people you interact with. Going to a great college doesn't mean great classes with awesome course material. It's other classmates you study with, it's the TAs that hold office hours, the professors too, sometimes.

There's no reason that this couldn't work via an online community. Online courses don't do anything to foster this kind of connection, because they have always been a lazy facsimile of the in-person college course experience. If they tried, online courses could easily foster these kinds of relationships and unlock a ton of potential. I also think that this is a larger societal problem that should be but has not been…

On social networks... I think we may see a resurgence of community bulletin boards online... more focused on subject of interest than over region/locality.

For all the flack that Facebook gets, you may also be surprised to find some very specific interest groups, I wish they had not removed the live messenger chat for groups specifically though..