Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble) • Hacker News Board

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#121

Post by billybob » Tue, Apr 19, 2011, 11:19 AM UTC

entangld wrote: post #62

gruseom wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that da Vinci very likely never said that, your invocation of his authority is ironic. http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=argumen... http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Leonardo_da_Vinci Edit: I retract that last bit. Quoting someone isn't necessarily arguing from their authority. But it almost certainly isn't Leonardo.

I could care less who said what. I have thousands of quotes. The quotes help me learn whose books I should read. I copied and pasted that quote because I had it. The words are more important than where they came from. I don't have much respect for authority in the first place. I would just rather spend more time debating actual arguments than arguing about credentials. RE: Leonardo - Well until we find out who said i…

"I don't have much respect for authority in the first place."

Really? Let me ask you a few questions, then. When was the American Revolution? What are the electrically charged parts of an atom? How does central banking work? How do red blood cells bind to oxygen?

If you will only accept as fact information that you have personally verified, you will know a very small collection of facts. The sensible thing to do in many cases is to appeal to authority: the collective opinion of experts in a field.

Heck, even in one's own area of specialty, one can't know everything. I can't personally evaluate every possible programming language or database in the world before choosing something; I take a clue from common opinion and narrow my search from there.

Really, this is one of the things that makes civilization possible.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#122

Post by foamdino » Tue, Apr 19, 2011, 11:49 AM UTC

arohner wrote: post #33

shii wrote: post #25

These kinds of posts always pop up in a row, like a volley of arrows. Bemoaning education as failing students, falling in value, rising in cost, etc etc etc. What actual concrete alternatives are there for alarmed students (such as myself) that read these types of posts, jump through all the hoops, and still face a massive bill from Podunk U to get a BS or BA? Most of you all here have already gone through the rites…

The current system is completely broken for people who don't get useful degrees, but only annoying for people who do get useful degrees. 1) Have a plan. Go into college with a measurable goal. Say "I'm going to get a degree in X, because that will help me get into my desired profession". Don't say "I'm going to go to become a well rounded person". 2) Get a useful degree. Generally, a useful degree is something that i…

First define useful? I have an undergrad technical degree and yes it was useful to me. I do however have an appreciation of the arts and, if time and funds permitted, would gladly study multiple undergrad and masters courses in philosophy, economics (art or science, depends on where you go), history and linguistics.

There is a technical snobbery that demeans all 'art' as useless and elevates all technical degrees to, IMO, an unworthy height.

Your definition of useful seems to be 'produces economic value to the graduate'. Another person could have a very different definition of useful.

Taking the point back on-topic, if your view of education is something that allows you to earn more during your working life, then I can understand some people questioning it.

I enjoy learning for its own sake, not for some bauble held out in front of me - maybe that's because I'm wealthy enough (relatively speaking) to have been able to study what I like without worrying about practical issues.

I live in a country where people see education (typically business degrees and technical subjects) as a means to an end - quite rightly as often their families have sold everything they own to be able to afford to send one child to get a 'good education' and then expect that child to be able to support the family in the future.

I teach undergrad IT, so I do have a dog in this particular 'education isn't worth it' fight. /rant off

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#123

Post by marknutter » Tue, Apr 19, 2011, 11:53 AM UTC

Of course it's a bubble. Just like the housing crisis, there's been a huge amount of speculation when it comes to higher education. The belief is that if we give out cheap and easy loans to as many students as we can they will not only be able to easily pay those loans back but also become much more valuable in the long term, just like all the McMansions in the housing market. The Universities respond to all this easy cash by raising their prices to try to distinguish themselves from other Universities and the students respond to this by accepting an ever increasing debt load because of their undying faith that they will land a high paying job when they graduate.

The Universities aren't on the hook for these loans, which makes it even worse than the housing crisis. The students are on the hook, but they won't be able to pay them back, which means it will fall on the US taxpayer's shoulders to bail everybody out. The solution would be to stop issuing these cheap loans to all but the most qualified students entering into the most useful fields (science/engineering and not art-history/sports medicine). Once the money party stops, Universities will be forced to lower their prices, and cheaper education will become more prevalent as smaller institutions scramble to fill the huge increase in demand for cheap, effective education.

But no, we have a "right to education." Sigh.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#124

Post by foamdino » Tue, Apr 19, 2011, 11:59 AM UTC

blahblahblah wrote: post #52

sardonicbryan wrote: post #5

Posts like this -- without any actual data/standards -- annoy me. I suspect that she perceives the quality of college education to be worse because she perceives the quality of college graduates to be worse. This may even be true. However, if this is the case, I don't think it's realistic to expect the standard of college graduates to be on par with what they were a generation ago or whenever she went to college, sim…

I agree. She's way off base. If you search for worldwide rankings of universities, although answers vary depending on the source, higher education in the United States is universally well-regarded and the only other country that can really be considered to be a competitor for the #1 slot in overall quality of higher education is the United Kingdom. If we're "failing to educate" then the rest of the world is also fail…

I suspect (and I've heard tell, but I have no data to support this), that the UK universities cannot afford the same salaries as their US counterparts.

If your a prof and you have two offers (let's stay technical as it's HN):

1 Cambridge - £90,000/year (~$160,000) and you can go and watch the boat race (yay)

2 MIT (or caltech, berkley, princeton etc etc) - $400,000/year and you can live somewhere where it doesn't rain for 10 months of the year

Now which would you choose?

NB - figures pulled out of my ass, but I suspect that the ratio is probably accurate enough (ie US unis can afford to pay 2* UK).

One of my professors talked about the day he hoped the UK system would allow universities to become private institutions (they're quasi-private now in that 'foreign' students are charged a lot more than 'home/EU' students where the fees are capped)

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#125

Post by praeclarum » Tue, Apr 19, 2011, 1:05 PM UTC

College is an opportunity to learn. Better colleges are better opportunities. It's on the kids' backs whether they actually take the time to learn or slide through the system. If you didn't learn, it's most likely your fault, not the college's.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#126

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 19, 2011, 1:40 PM UTC

cj wrote: post #15

hugh3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right -- she skips the discussion of her personal experiences and jumps straight into the generalizations. "Our higher education system largely fails to educate... It’s nothing less than a deep institutional, cultural, societal and indeed humanitarian crisis." Really? I could have sworn that I learned a bunch of stuff about physics and pure mathematics in my four years of intensively studying physics and pure…

The vast majority of graduates do not leave college having intensively studied anything as rigorous as physics or mathematics. Most leave college with a degree that they didn't work very hard to earn. College offers the opportunity to do what you did and work your ass off, but most have no such desire.

[deleted]

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#127

Post by Shorel » Tue, Apr 19, 2011, 1:45 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #64

maqr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You had me up to here: > You don't really know if it's worth what you spent, because the seller is purposely keeping you in the dark about the value, continuing to assure you that this type of purchase at these rates is absolutely necessary. This isn't like buying a car or a house. My degree has no monetary value, as far as I can tell. I'd love to sell it to the highest bidder, but it's non-transferable. I essentiall…

In my opinion, there's already a term for all this debate around the education 'bubble': "Buyer's remorse". Half of it is buyers' remorse, the other half is sour grapes. There are three types of people in the world: those who went to university and are glad, those who went to university and regret it, and those who didn't go to university and want to be reassured that they didn't miss anything important. Only folks i…

So, are drop outs part of the second or third group?

Also: I believe guys from those categories have a right to be informed about the outcome of them all.

To me one important part of higher education is to meet people, make long lasting contacts, and this article is missing that.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#128

Post by colomon » Tue, Apr 19, 2011, 2:01 PM UTC

NY_USA_Hacker wrote: post #108

Okay, we are debating the value of education in college and beyond. My qualifications: I hold a Ph.D. in some topics in applied math from a world class research university. Before the Ph.D. I taught math in one university and computer science in another. After my Ph.D. I was a professor in an MBA program at a Big Ten university and a research scientist in an industrial computer science lab. Now I'm an entrepreneur. T…

You might want to try a Google search on the phrase "You can always tell a bigot"...

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#129

Post by jacabado » Tue, Apr 19, 2011, 2:18 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #64

maqr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You had me up to here: > You don't really know if it's worth what you spent, because the seller is purposely keeping you in the dark about the value, continuing to assure you that this type of purchase at these rates is absolutely necessary. This isn't like buying a car or a house. My degree has no monetary value, as far as I can tell. I'd love to sell it to the highest bidder, but it's non-transferable. I essentiall…

In my opinion, there's already a term for all this debate around the education 'bubble': "Buyer's remorse". Half of it is buyers' remorse, the other half is sour grapes. There are three types of people in the world: those who went to university and are glad, those who went to university and regret it, and those who didn't go to university and want to be reassured that they didn't miss anything important. Only folks i…

Only one of those three types writes a posts like this, the one you didn't attacked.

Re: Peter Thiel Is Wrong About Higher Education (It’s Worse Than A Bubble)

#130

Post by entangld » Tue, Apr 19, 2011, 2:24 PM UTC

billybob wrote: post #121

entangld wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could care less who said what. I have thousands of quotes. The quotes help me learn whose books I should read. I copied and pasted that quote because I had it. The words are more important than where they came from. I don't have much respect for authority in the first place. I would just rather spend more time debating actual arguments than arguing about credentials. RE: Leonardo - Well until we find out who said i…

"I don't have much respect for authority in the first place." Really? Let me ask you a few questions, then. When was the American Revolution? What are the electrically charged parts of an atom? How does central banking work? How do red blood cells bind to oxygen? If you will only accept as fact information that you have personally verified, you will know a very small collection of facts. The sensible thing to do in m…

You read too much into that statement.