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More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

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Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#471

Post by silisili »

endisneigh wrote: post #444
indymike wrote: post #314

There are three problems that colleges need to fix. 1) Skilled trades pay better than most bachelor's degree track jobs. My kids can make more money with a six month apprenticeship than they will with all but a few 4 year degrees. If you can drive a forklift, you can make $45K/yr... which is identical to what an firsty year teacher makes. 2) There are better options than college for many. One of my daughters did a si…

Im very skeptical of this post: 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no compari…

Re 1, at least in the US, it's very dependent on market and path.

I have two family members who have been pipefitters for 20 years. Both make more than I do as a software engineer. Another is a doctor, and makes more than they do. But another does boat repair, and makes more than the doctor.

If the last decade is any indication, skilled labor - especially those not afraid to own their own business, are set to make a killing. It's nearly impossible to even get people to come out for normal household jobs anymore - they're all way too busy with more lucrative clients.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#472

Post by epistasis »

disambiguation wrote: post #452
epistasis wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, fentanyl is terrible! So are cars, and I spend most of my non-family, non-work time advocating for city planning that will let people who chose so to avoid cars. That does not lessen the impact of 3000 deaths among people who did not take on that risk.

What kind of plans do you advocate for? Are any of them on the order of magnitude of measures we've taken against covid?

The level of car blindness in the US is at such insane levels that any advocacy for living that isn't car dependent is pretty much a completely radical take that people reject out of hand. So political movement is often limited more by what is possible rather than what the right course of action is.

But these are not equivalent things, cars are nowhere near as deadly as Covid, this pandemic is likely going to cause 25 years' worth of car deaths because of a subset of the population is too morally and logically weak to adopt small measures.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#473

Post by rootsudo »

endisneigh wrote: post #444
indymike wrote: post #314

There are three problems that colleges need to fix. 1) Skilled trades pay better than most bachelor's degree track jobs. My kids can make more money with a six month apprenticeship than they will with all but a few 4 year degrees. If you can drive a forklift, you can make $45K/yr... which is identical to what an firsty year teacher makes. 2) There are better options than college for many. One of my daughters did a si…

Im very skeptical of this post: 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no compari…

I'm not surprised at all - people with degrees try to find reasons to think they're better then the rest.

1. Many trades also are your own business, and can immediately scale for income - many plumbers, electricians, etc are millionaires with a small team of employees less than 15.

2. Google offers free marketing certification for this reason as well, it's not impossible for marketing/seo people to make 100k annually. It's very, very common.

3. Many colleges are not worth it and is debt- look at most state schools and you'd see a semester costs minimum $45,000. Yes there's community colleges.

4. Even community colleges require loans, and have programs of financial aid that is really "apply for fafsa, apply for stanford loans and then have pipelines for private debt.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#474

Post by ejb999 »

Goronmon wrote: post #203
ejb999 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>IMO 30k in student debt is very manageable, currently have the thing paid down to like $12k and I like knowing I can reach into savings at any time and wipe out this debt if need be. Absolutely - $30K in debt is completely reasonable imo; if after 4 years in college you have not improved your job prospects enough to cover that payment, then you probably didn't work very hard, or didn't pick a marketable major. Most…

Most of these 'college debt is out of control' stories being pushed in the press, are usually focusing on outliers - i.e. people that borrowed $250K for multiple useless majors and now work at Starbucks because they chose badly. Public policy shouldn't be based on edge cases like this; not do we want to reward people for making bad decisions. That's quite the story you've created for yourself. I'm sure it makes it ea…

Not a story at all - check for yourself what the median student debt is - people who owe $250K are outliers, not the average college graduate.

Pushing these $250K horror stories, is self serving to people who want all loans forgiven - even for those people who owe much less, and who can easily afford to make payments; of course people who owe money, would prefer to get let off the hook, who wouldn't.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#475

Post by mikem170 »

teawrecks wrote: post #447
mbesto wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's start with having the President not pledging for "college for all" https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2017/01/17/obama...

Meanwhile in most of Europe, college is free. I wonder how their attendance rates have fared in comparison.

It is my understanding (based on what I know of Germany) that only certain degrees (mostly STEM) are free, and available to students who qualify (academically).

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#476

Post by jnwatson »

j4yav wrote: post #466
scruple wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my early 40s. I dropped out of university. I've been programming professionally, in a wide range of contexts and in various industries and niche markets, for over 15 years. I still deal with the stigma associated with not having a college degree. It's not as frequent today as it was when I was at year 1-5, but it still comes up often enough that I get the sense it will never go away.

Curious how it comes up? I’m 42 and dropped out at 16, and it has just never come up, nobody has ever asked me once. I’m not doubting your experience, just curious where our paths differed since it’s such a stark contrast. I’m not a programmer but worked in ops, then product management, then CPO. Maybe it’s something to do with that?

I'm with you. In my professional career, I've had 2 bosses that never went to college. Never been an issue.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#477

Post by pbhjpbhj »

seibelj wrote: post #432
VikingCoder wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what I don't get - Where the hell is the money _going_? Are Colleges and Universities pocketing the money? Are they publicly traded and distributing dividends? Are they building rockets? I know some of it goes back to financial aid, and some goes to football coaches... But we're talking about so much freaking money, and I just can't visualize where it's going.

On a related note - who in their right mind thinks donating to their college is a good decision? I don't understand why rich people keep donating buildings rather than donating parks to their communities. When I begin to donate money for serious, colleges are getting exactly $0. The money will go to places and people that actually need it.

When you have an organisation full of people creating worth that you can cream off, you've bought a few houses, yacht, fast cars. You get to a point where you realise you're not leaving anything of value behind and think "if I pay for a university building then I've created a legacy of education for generations to come".

TL;DR it's like a shiny name plaque for billionaires.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#478

Post by pcthrowaway »

feoren wrote: post #301
bart_spoon wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus the amount and quality of alternative learning resources is very high, at least in some fields. I know coding bootcamps get a bad rep, often justified, but at the same time my buddy went to college for a degree in HR and I went for STEM. He ended up hating HR, did a 9 week boot camp, managed to get a job, and after a few years of experience is in roughly the same place as me and is thriving. It took him a little…

It may seem right now like someone who did a 9-week bootcamp is in the same place as you, but the differences will start to show up after a few years. I have degrees in both CS and Math, and I often say that I got the most benefit from my CS degree in the first ~5 years of my career, and from my Math degree since then. The tech your buddy learned in bootcamp will get stale and he'll have to start over; meanwhile your…

I graduated 10 years ago, and I don't feel like my degree benefits me much other than marginally in reputation.

I learned more practical skills from free online classes and tutorials than I did from my entire university program, and I can think of maybe a handful of times I've thought about complexity analysis. But I've also entirely avoided whiteboard interviews, so perhaps myself and prospective employers have selected for my weakness in academic computer science concepts.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#479

Post by munificent »

commandlinefan wrote: post #226
ChicagoDave wrote: post #28

I have 3 college-aged kids and one nearly there. Their universal concern is the cost. It has become prohibitive. Colleges assumed the trend of charging $25k to $50k per year would be sustainable. They were dead wrong, especially given the horrendously predatory loans backed by the government and barred from bankruptcy. If we fix the college financial system, enrollment would likely skyrocket.

> Their universal concern is the cost. I have a senior in high school right now and although I think you're right - he's concerned about a potential quarter-million dollar tuition bill before this whole thing is over - he's also concerned about the whole selectivity of it all. From the outside looking in, you never know what's important and what's not. He has this feeling (and I'm not sure I can dispute it) that the…

The degree is only part of the value proposition of a college, though. The actual education you get (not just the paper proving it), the meaningful experiences you have, the social connections you forge, and the opportunities you encounter in the environment are all hugely important.

I went to college and dropped out, so the value of my non-existent degree is literally zero. But I got a ton of value out of my time there. I met a lot of friends, grew significantly as a person, and found a job opportunity that started me on my career path.

I still think college is way too expensive these days, but if you think of it as only purchasing a degree, you're missing a lot.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#480

Post by RC_ITR »

silisili wrote: post #471
endisneigh wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im very skeptical of this post: 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no compari…

Re 1, at least in the US, it's very dependent on market and path. I have two family members who have been pipefitters for 20 years. Both make more than I do as a software engineer. Another is a doctor, and makes more than they do. But another does boat repair, and makes more than the doctor. If the last decade is any indication, skilled labor - especially those not afraid to own their own business, are set to make a…

It's kind of a political meme that welding is the key to everyone getting a middle class lifestyle, because good welders get paid a good amount.

The joke ofc being that there is a 'shortage' of welders because it's actually very hard to become a good welder. If, somehow, we got a bunch of people to become really good welders, it would just go to being a low paid profession.

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