I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears • Hacker News Board

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#121

Post by wpietri » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

abecedarius wrote: post #87

wpietri wrote: post #6

This is kind of a weird mix of points. Ignoring his political axe-grinding, I think the value of a college degree is increasingly in question for many fields because the price has risen wildly for decades without a corresponding increase in market value. (Except perhaps for elite-institution degrees, which are more about the brand and the network than what people actually learn.) I think we haven't seen at least a pa…

A degree doesn't cost the company. An in-house bootcamp and apprenticeship program does. Once the less-legibly-promising new hires are equally productive, they now have a resume making them legibly good to the company's competitors in the job market, so it can't make up its investment by underpaying. ("Programmers are happy and tend to stay" is something the competitors can do too.) I'm not saying don't do it, or tha…

> A degree doesn't cost the company.

Degrees cost companies through increased wages. Student loans get paid somehow, after all.

> This was gratuitous. I didn't even see any politics in the thread.

You not seeing things is not the same as things not existing. I do see it, and wanted to focus this bit of discussion on the question of degree value, not the assorted other stuff there.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#122

Post by wpietri » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 9:49 PM UTC

mgh2 wrote: post #112

wpietri wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they signal? Like generational wealth and elite connections? [1] I have definitely seen hiring managers lean very hard on pedigree so they didn't have to do the actual work of evaluating candidates. It was basically the same deal with a lot of certifications, like Scrum/Agile and Java certs. I also think that your bucketing people such that Harvard = smart and state school = "the opposite" is a great example of…

Nope, intelligence matters at the end if that person works hard too, there is no ceiling unlike the opposite. Intelligence or/and hard work alone can only carry you so far, there are so many other factors that lead to success (ex: luck) As a business, you bet your risks against the person who has been vetted vs. the unproven one.

I get why on HN saying "intelligence matters" seems like an uncontroversial opinion. Under the right circumstances and ceteris paribus, it can help. But it doesn't always. Indeed, as a person who is officially very smart, that has often been a problem for me. E.g., the way smart people can easily learn to perform smartness rather than doing the long-term smart thing. Or our tendency to value theory over experience and book smarts over street smarts. Early on, being smart also helped me avoid learning discipline and gumption, two things without which smartness may not do a lot of good.

And anyway, you're again, not very smartly, ignoring the point that a fancy degree doesn't correlate particularly well with smartness, so the whole intelligence thing is a bit of a sideshow to the actual discussion here.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#123

Post by ceeplusplus » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 9:54 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #20

itake wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> STEM students are subsidized by liberal arts students Can you provide more context for this? How is the cost of teaching a STEM student higher than the cost of a liberal arts student? The classrooms are roughly the same. STEM student labs might be more expensive to manage, but that equipment is/(can be?) funded by research grants.

STEM professors have to be paid a lot more than liberal arts professors (due to competition for STEM talent). Equipment for teaching isn’t covered under research grants, but might come from overhead on those grants, but more likely from donations (from big corps), grants, or tuition.

STEM professors bring in billions of dollars in research grants, of which the university takes over 50% for "administration". If you aren't aware labs have to pay a big cut of any grant income they get to the school. It used to be that in exchange the school would maintain buildings, fund build outs of equipment, etc. but nowadays it's wasted on DEIABCDXYZ vice chancellors of provosts.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#124

Post by mgh2 » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 9:55 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #122

mgh2 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, intelligence matters at the end if that person works hard too, there is no ceiling unlike the opposite. Intelligence or/and hard work alone can only carry you so far, there are so many other factors that lead to success (ex: luck) As a business, you bet your risks against the person who has been vetted vs. the unproven one.

I get why on HN saying "intelligence matters" seems like an uncontroversial opinion. Under the right circumstances and ceteris paribus, it can help. But it doesn't always. Indeed, as a person who is officially very smart, that has often been a problem for me. E.g., the way smart people can easily learn to perform smartness rather than doing the long-term smart thing. Or our tendency to value theory over experience an…

Show some proof, otherwise it is just an opinion

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#125

Post by ceeplusplus » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 10:00 PM UTC

ulrashida wrote: post #25

spywaregorilla wrote: post #4

Seems like a pretty unremarkable collection of surface level observations if you ask me

Got the same impression. The narrative presented indicates the writer has minimal appreciation for what degrees in fields other than their own actually provide. Good luck being able to practice engineering if you haven't got a degree! The licensing bodies for professions won't care a fig about your life experience.

There is very little that an undergraduate degree in gender studies, media studies, history, etc. provides, even if these subjects can be considered useful in general. On the surface you are learning about the humanities but in practice the classes have such low standards that you learn neither the writing and argumentation skills needed to excel in academia nor the deep understanding of past works that is the reward of the humanities.

I say this as someone who went to a school with highly ranked humanities programs. My business communication class taught me more about communication than any rhetoric/history/media studies class. My high school AP English Language class taught me more about persuasive writing than any writing class in college.

If undergrad humanities programs are to be taken seriously they need to drastically increase their rigor and actually instill skills in their students.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#126

Post by crackercrews » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 10:33 PM UTC

sometimeshuman wrote: post #94

crackercrews wrote: post #52

Definitely agree that removing the SAT appears to be related to the upcoming supreme court case about affirmative action. COVID was a good reason to delay it for a couple years. But schools are pushing it out further. That makes no sense. It seems the SAT is increasingly considered "racist" because it reveals racial disparities in learning. What's next? Get rid of the driver's license test because it turns that white…

As an ancedote, I was told by my low income peer group that you get 600 points just for filling out your name on the SAT and that 800 points could get you into a great school like MIT. So I assumed it was a pass/fail exam in a sense and left early during the verbal part because I found it condescending and boring. Before the exam, I couldn't understand why the higher income kids were paying for SAT training classes.…

You get 200 points per section automatically. [1] And to get into MIT you'd need at least 1,000 points, no matter your race.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#127

Post by walkhour » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 10:36 PM UTC

Tretiotrr wrote: post #57

In Germany you study for free. There was a video (perhaps even from kurzgesagt) which describes how critical it is for our society to allow as many people as easy access to knowledge as possible and not only for obvious reasons but also to increase the chance for all of us that the hidden genius is finding a cure for cancer. You can even study for free in Germany as an non German. You know what happens? Those people…

What do you think about German kids being sent to different kinds of highschools at age 10.

Most of the people attending Hauptschule don't attend university [0]. In some regions 60% of the children attend it. Aren't you concerned that the person who could discover the cure for cancer is in Hauptschule right now?

Imagine a Germany in which the rest of your life isn't determined at age ten.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauptschule

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#128

Post by walkhour » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 10:43 PM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #54

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creditors would be on the hook - not colleges - if students default.

Taxpayers are the creditors for 92.6% student loans. https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-statistics#:~:te... .

Thank you for this data

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#129

Post by Ekaros » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 10:47 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #97

tessierashpool wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that is entirely a guess, though. there's actual documented evidence of colleges admitting less Asian-Americans and Jews than the test scores of either group would suggest, and Altman refers to this phenomenon in the thread. > It seems the SAT is increasingly considered "racist" because it reveals racial disparities in learning. What's next? Get rid of the driver's license test because it turns that white kids pass i…

>the SAT's a way of laundering discrepancies in generational wealth, which is indeed due to racist public policy as well as racist private actions. it may be intended not that way, but that's how it functions. But what are SATs being replaced with? "holistic admissions"? A poor kid can prepare for the SAT by studying his ass off, with mostly free/cheap materials from the internet. How can you do the same with "extrac…

From my viewpoint in Europe I never understood the whole extracurricular, hobby or even the essay or recommendation letter part of admission process. All of those felt like nothing to do with actual capability to study. If SAT is a bad idea, replace it with field specific national entrance exam.

Other fun alternatives, just outright auction off certain number of admission slots. Or just award slots randomly to all applicants.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#130

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 11:00 PM UTC

ceeplusplus wrote: post #123

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

STEM professors have to be paid a lot more than liberal arts professors (due to competition for STEM talent). Equipment for teaching isn’t covered under research grants, but might come from overhead on those grants, but more likely from donations (from big corps), grants, or tuition.

STEM professors bring in billions of dollars in research grants, of which the university takes over 50% for "administration". If you aren't aware labs have to pay a big cut of any grant income they get to the school. It used to be that in exchange the school would maintain buildings, fund build outs of equipment, etc. but nowadays it's wasted on DEIABCDXYZ vice chancellors of provosts.

> of which the university takes over 50% for "administration".

Hence why I said "overhead from research grants."