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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

#361

Post by clairity »

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."

no, what it's done is uncover the hypocrisy of the meritocracy underlying western narrative--when university degrees were exclusive to the upper class white guys, degrees exhibited a "meritocratic distinction". naturally, only smart and capable people got degrees, not just people in a fiercely-defended and exclusive club.

but when educational attainment became more wide-spread and democratic, the club moved on and abandoned the university degree as a useful in-group signal. economic value was with in-group membership, not in the degree itself, a decidedly unmeritocratic, and unequal, system.

it's made this relationship more apparent, elucidating why inequality has persisted despite wider degree attainment.

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

#362

Post by triceratops »

rayiner wrote: post #88
stillbourne wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should bring back the guild system. Start a job as an apprentice, mentor with a journeyman, progress your way up, mentor apprentices while learning from others higher up, gain sufficient knowledge to build your masterpiece, graduate as a master in your field, mentor journeymen. Move on.

Guilds are awful for immigrants and racial minorities, who are often the new entrants excluded by the guilds. Many “Jewish law firms” exist to this day because Jews were excluded from existing WASP law firms.

Guilds reflect the societies they are in. Society had more bigotry in the past, and so did the various institutions within it.

Also, it's weird that you call out guilds for being discriminatory but then give an example of discrimination in employment. We have fair employment laws to prevent this type of behavior and arguably could have "fair guild membership" laws if it became a problem.

It's fair to argue against guilds for driving up prices by limiting membership.

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

#363

Post by AsyncAwait »

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.

This can be hard as a young adult, when everyone in a position of authority is telling you your entire childhood that not getting a degree means you're a failure.

It's kind of a lot to ask of 18 year olds to truly be able to weight the significance of a student loan for example.

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

#364

Post by bobbydroptables »

simplify wrote: post #316
lozaning wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be a very easy decision I think. Can you rebuild your credit in less time than it would take you to pay off your loans? If you're still going to be paying your loan off in 7 years, bankruptcy would be an easy choice.

What if you need do anything significant with your money in those 7 years? Like rent an apartment? Have a car to get to work? The debt doesn't just magically go away. Chapter 7 requires liquidating assets, and chapter 13 requires paying some loans back anyway. And besides, I don't see why loan companies couldn't require cosigners to reduce risk on these college loans.

>Like rent an apartment? Have a car to get to work?

Then you rent an apartment or buy a car. Are you implying you can't do this after bankruptcy? It's much easier to do these with a bankruptcy on your "record" than with a $1000 monthly payment.

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

#365

Post by contravariant »

vaidhy wrote: post #339

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 l…

When did liberal arts become fine arts? Not that the examples you give are wrong, but they're not fine arts.

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

#366

Post by luxuryballs »

vaidhy wrote: post #339

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 l…

even then the value is not in the degree but the value produced by the person, someone with the highest perceived value degree can still end up wasting it if they can't deliver, real world value is always found in actual output, a degree of any kind ultimately has no value

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

#367

Post by KMag »

iguy wrote: post #270
throwaway894345 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A few years ago, I read that at least two big-name U.S. universities announced plans to pilot something like this, where tuition was free, and they'd get a fixed percentage of employment income (wages plus bonus, etc.) for a fixed number of years after graduation.

The university takes on the risk, but they have much more information about their students and their degree programs than students, governments, or private lenders, so they're probably best placed to be making informed risk decisions. Under the current systems, the government and the student take on the risk, while the university and the private lenders get the rewards.

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

#368

Post by 29athrowaway »

vaidhy wrote: post #339

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 l…

You do not need to go to a music conservatory to be a musician. And among the musicians with the highest net worth, few have formal training.

Take for example, Metallica. To my knowledge, none of them have formal training, yet each member has a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars.

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

#369

Post by linuxftw »

vaidhy wrote: post #359
andreilys wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?" I don't see value in graduating with 6 figure debt for those degrees. In the words of Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting: “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.”

I do not believe in this over-simplification. However, the point about going to debt for those degrees is a question specific to US at this point in time. We should talk about free college education or heavily subsidized one, but this same group here has been heavily against these ideas because they are socialist. However, happiest countries in the world seems to be mostly social democratic[1] and for one, if possibl…

> We should talk about free college education or heavily subsidized one

It already exists. It's called the internet. You can learn almost everything you need, and in much greater detail, than a traditional 'higher education' offered by a brick and mortar institution.

The problem is only convincing the gate keepers.

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

#370

Post by KptMarchewa »

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…

>he's 20-21 years old, practically everyone is happy at that age

lol

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