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For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

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Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#91

Post by byrneseyeview »

MaysonL wrote: post #84
byrneseyeview wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like it or not, college is about more than job training. For a lot of people the social life is a big part of it, the first part of life away from parents, but still with some security, and about intellectual exploration It's funny, but I got a whole lot more of that stuff after dropping out. Am I really going to learn more from a place where I don't pay the rent, buy stuff with a meal card, work fifteen hours per we…

The Wall Street Journal may or may not be irredeemably right-wing, but I'd bet on it. Also, looking at Murray's record on number-crunching, and I do mean The Bell Curve , betting on it to be anything more than BS with lipstick would be a losing proposition.

I don't understand your comment. Do you know who Barbara Ehrenreich is? If they are irredeemably right-wing, what is she doing on their editorial page?

Murray considers himself a libertarian; Ehrenreich is a socialist. Neither is strictly 'right-wing'.

And which errors from The Bell Curve are repeated in his column? I didn't spot any glaring mistakes, but perhaps I did not read as carefully as you did.

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#92

Post by byrneseyeview »

trominos wrote: post #78
byrneseyeview wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this plan is that it will just make every college vocational. The problem with this view is that some people just want the vocational part, and bundling it with something they don't want, but for which they will be charged, just makes them worse off. Being able to buy A or B is better than only being able to buy A and B. It would be pretty annoying if some forward-thinking politician realized that a…

Yeah, but if college's function of "preparing you for work" is taken over by vocational schools, it's not clear that there will still be a market for our current conception of college. And I'm sure that a lot of you will say that that's an indication that college is mostly a waste, but I don't think that that follows, necessarily; although I haven't been to college yet I feel vaguely that it'll be more rewarding than…

If colleges provide a service that's worth the price they have to charge, they'll stick around. But arguing that we should avoid credentials and vocational school because they could compete with college is like wanting to ban hybrids because you look forward to driving an SUv, and figure that if hybrids become too popular, SUVs will be obsolete and you won't get one. A rational person would ask why your preference for SUVs over hybrids should force everyone else to be wasteful.

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#93

Post by invisible »

stcredzero wrote: post #81
Alex3917 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having trouble finding it right now, but there was a good argument posted here a while back for requiring a certification proving that programmers know how to write secure code. The analogy was that the market can already sort out good chefs from bad chefs, but that there should be a basic certification to prove that you understand food safety.

The thing is, the market only sorts out egregious programmers. The security certification is a wonderful idea! I think that would be a great place to start. (And end, perhaps.) The test for this could be entirely empirical. An applicant could be required to place $1000 in escrow, and implement a web application on the guild's servers. They would be required to add certain features. During the test, anyone would be we…

Although I did laugh, I have to ask if this was this a joke? So $1000 or $100 is what you pay (depending on if you fail or succeed)? Aside from the monetary figures you mentioned, sure it sounds like a great idea for a staffing business.

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#95

Post by trominos »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #92
trominos wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but if college's function of "preparing you for work" is taken over by vocational schools, it's not clear that there will still be a market for our current conception of college. And I'm sure that a lot of you will say that that's an indication that college is mostly a waste, but I don't think that that follows, necessarily; although I haven't been to college yet I feel vaguely that it'll be more rewarding than…

If colleges provide a service that's worth the price they have to charge, they'll stick around. But arguing that we should avoid credentials and vocational school because they could compete with college is like wanting to ban hybrids because you look forward to driving an SUv, and figure that if hybrids become too popular, SUVs will be obsolete and you won't get one. A rational person would ask why your preference fo…

Okay.

But what if everybody (or almost everybody) prefers SUVs? And I guess we need to extend the analogy a little more: what if everybody needs a car, and their parents are buying them one, and the parents choose primarily based on cost, and hybrids cost less? But everybody wants an SUV. Maybe everybody wants an SUV to the extent that they'd be willing to personally pay for the difference in price, if they had the money. Oh, and maybe the SUVs are actually better for the environment.

...This analogy is terrible.

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#96

Post by un »

william42 wrote: post #89
un wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're assuming outsourcing is bad for individuals in the US, whereas most indications are the opposite, it increases their wealth. The point about the nongrad IT worker is that he would be able to create more wealth than he would as a local service worker (in the same way as offshore workers do). Increasing production (and hence wealth) from all workers, whether offshore or in US is better for society than allow…

"But you're assuming outsourcing is bad for individuals in the US, whereas most indications are the opposite, it increases their wealth." Evidence? I'm curious, mainly because I always hear about the Rust Belt and how it's been screwed over by outsourcing.

The decreasing cost of manufactured goods, increase in quality of them, and the increase in GDP that has occurred over the past 30 years. (You can argue much of this can be attributed to technology, but a large share of it is due to outsourcing - most things in dollar stores and walmart are not due to technology but outsourcing).

The rustbelt is caused by their inability to compete with the better quality Japanese cars (and Japanese salaries are higher than in the rustbelt, you can't make the cheap labour for that).

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#97

Post by kingkongrevenge »

un wrote: post #96
william42 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But you're assuming outsourcing is bad for individuals in the US, whereas most indications are the opposite, it increases their wealth." Evidence? I'm curious, mainly because I always hear about the Rust Belt and how it's been screwed over by outsourcing.

The decreasing cost of manufactured goods, increase in quality of them, and the increase in GDP that has occurred over the past 30 years. (You can argue much of this can be attributed to technology, but a large share of it is due to outsourcing - most things in dollar stores and walmart are not due to technology but outsourcing). The rustbelt is caused by their inability to compete with the better quality Japanese ca…

Real median wages are flat or down in the US for the last 30 years.

You can talk about the theoretical upsides to global free trade all you want. I'm a believer. But 2 billion people jumped into the labor pool and the reality in the US is that they made a wave that drowned a lot of people. Real wages are depressed. That's not to say there's any real alternative to full open participation in the global market, but your free-market cheer and pom-poms don't capture the full reality from a US worker perspective.

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#98

Post by sh1mmer »

un wrote: post #61
sh1mmer wrote: post #49

The most valuable part of college for me (in terms of my career prospects) was not the degree I got, although it was a good degree. The most valuable thing about college for me was the support, money, facilities that the college provided to me while I was there. They enabled me to do plenty of things I wouldn't have been able to otherwise. When I was at college I worked on plenty of OSS, created a web site for Nasa,…

What about the children of poorer families who don't have the luxury of going to college. The above would be fine if parents/students were paying the full cost of the facilities, but in most cases its government/charity subsidized.

I'm British so the government paid the vast majority of my University fees. The rest were paid for by government loans, which I am now paying back.

It really is possible for poorer families to have kids in University in Britain. It's a shame that isn't true everywhere.

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#99

Post by sofal »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #37
jon_dahl wrote: post #9

This is better than most "college is a waste" articles, but it repeats a common mistake: thinking that people are hired for their skills. When I'm hiring, I don't want someone with a "web design" certificate or a "Python programming" certificate, or (worse) a "sales and marketing" certificate. I want someone who is smart, passionate, loves to learn, thinks creatively, knows how to write, and is enjoyable to work with…

And all else being equal, wouldn't the test help you? If you can, it's probably best to hire based on things like passion and creativity. But if your main python developer quits two weeks from your launch date, it might be more convenient to hire someone who already knows the language, and can prove it.

Related post from Jamis Buck: http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/2006/11/10/just-say-no-to-certif...

Re: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

#100

Post by sofal »

gills wrote: post #79

This is a self-solving problem one way or another. The employers that use low-information predictors of productivity will go out of business and whatever system the remaining businesses are using will drive the educational system. Either that, or the inevitably-higher credit standards in the near future will help to give the college system a population haircut, which will weed out quite a few of those who don't reall…

Sometimes the illusion of competence is the only thing you need to succeed.
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