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

#181

Post by phkahler » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 11:38 PM UTC

rahimnathwani wrote: post #149

mind-blight wrote: post #58

I'm concerned that the majority of "should we fix college or should we circumvent college" conversations don't bring up one of the scariest parts of our current economy: STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. All of the conversations I've seen implicitly assume that this is good, and that the solution to farmer workers (or other low paid workers) escaping poverty is to train them as so…

> We really need farm workers, and most of them live in poverty. How are both of these true? If a job pays poorly, doesn't that suggest there are many people willing and able to do those jobs, relative to the need for the job to be done? Maybe this results from some market distortion? But AFAIK the main market distortion in the farming industry is the opposite: subsidies that make farming more attractive than it woul…

>> If a job pays poorly, doesn't that suggest there are many people willing and able to do those jobs, relative to the need for the job to be done?

No. This notion of relentless competition is insane. One school district was paying a janitor barely a living wage. The standard response was "he could improve himself / get a degree, and find a better job. That shifts all blame on him an ignored the fact that the district expects to pay a non living wage for that position, they'll just find someone else if he left.

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

#182

Post by wolverine876 » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 11:38 PM UTC

acidbaseextract wrote: post #81

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…

Polymatter recently had a great video on the way the college ranking system is a hustle for foreign student money, and just how heavily it distorts colleges incentives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQWlnTyOSig

Who or what is Polymatter? Why do you trust them?

It would be useful if people said why they trust whatever they are linking to. Random stuff on the Internet isn't worth the time.

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

#183

Post by sokoloff » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 11:39 PM UTC

com2kid wrote: post #142

mind-blight wrote: post #58

I'm concerned that the majority of "should we fix college or should we circumvent college" conversations don't bring up one of the scariest parts of our current economy: STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. All of the conversations I've seen implicitly assume that this is good, and that the solution to farmer workers (or other low paid workers) escaping poverty is to train them as so…

America is a country that loves the free market country, yet no one seems to be talking about supply and demand to fix college prices. Double the number of large quality state universities. Re-index public university tuition to what they were in 2000 + inflation. Mandate that funding comes with X number increase in tenured professors. Re-instate public funding for state universities to what it was in 2000 + inflation…

Room and board is already more expensive than the in-state tuition on an average basis. You could further reduce tuition and fees, but it costs a lot to be housed and fed (and to forgo earning a full-time income for 4 years).

Could you realistically get room and board down below $8K/year with more spartan dormitories and meal plans? Maybe, but not by much I don't think.

https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college

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

#184

Post by trutannus » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 11:40 PM UTC

shagie wrote: post #17

anotherhue wrote: post #5

Twitter 'threads' are bad and people should feel badly for creating/posting them.

I nearly completely agree with you. The one thing that a twitter "threat" enables that is poorly supported in other formats is the ability to have comments on a particular sentence. The worst part of the twitter as a long form platform is when a single idea extends beyond the limitations of a single tweet.

That also causes replies to sections of text taken out of context to get more traction than they should, feeding the "dunk" culture on Twitter. I'm not sure being able to reply to and highlight an out of context chunk of text is a useful thing for communication at all really.

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

#185

Post by gruez » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 11:40 PM UTC

wenmoon wrote: post #147

gruez wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. >We really need farm workers, and most of them live in poverty. I love having more engineers, scientists, and doctors, but we desperately need non-STEM work to be a viable option This is basically a non-problem because of the supply/demand mechanics of the labor market. If farm workers' job gets sufficiently bad from a value proposition perspecti…

during the peak of the COVID labor shortage, many producers did increase wages but found that they still couldn't get workers. also in North America at least, many/most laborers are undocumented immigrants. white collar workers aren't quitting the desk to go out in the field..it is backbreaking work. if the labor pipeline dries up (which is a very real thing as immigration has decreased in North America/the US) then…

>if the labor pipeline dries up (which is a very real thing as immigration has decreased in North America/the US) then no one will be doing that job.

>i suspect the amount of money that farms would need to pay workers to fix these shortages would drive all producers into bankruptcy

I definitely think it's the latter rather than the former. Producers being driven to bankruptcy is an issue, but that seems like it's something that's going to happen regardless if we made "non-STEM work to be a viable option". At the end of the day, if it's a shitty job, then you'll have to pay more to get people to show up.

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

#186

Post by thaumasiotes » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 11:40 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…

> 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.

It's not like other industries haven't already solved this problem. Law firms will finance your law school and make you pay them back if you leave the firm.

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

#187

Post by ALittleLight » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 11:40 PM UTC

rahimnathwani wrote: post #149

mind-blight wrote: post #58

I'm concerned that the majority of "should we fix college or should we circumvent college" conversations don't bring up one of the scariest parts of our current economy: STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. All of the conversations I've seen implicitly assume that this is good, and that the solution to farmer workers (or other low paid workers) escaping poverty is to train them as so…

> We really need farm workers, and most of them live in poverty. How are both of these true? If a job pays poorly, doesn't that suggest there are many people willing and able to do those jobs, relative to the need for the job to be done? Maybe this results from some market distortion? But AFAIK the main market distortion in the farming industry is the opposite: subsidies that make farming more attractive than it woul…

Half of agriculture workers are immigrants. I'd guess that the harder and less lucrative jobs are going disproportionately towards immigrants and especially undocumented immigrants (about a quarter of the agriculture workforce). I think, rather than pay higher wages and give benefits to American labor, our society imports people from poorer countries to do demanding jobs for low pay.

https://research.newamericaneconomy.org/report/immigration-a...

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

#188

Post by wolverine876 » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 11:41 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.…

> Are most kids from lower socio-economic backgrounds still clueless about the college admissions process, the difference between colleges, and scholarships. It seems like that is the part that needs to be fixed

There's been a lot of research and work on that, though I don't know what progress has been made. You can find NY Times articles from a few years ago.

> eliminating SATs is shortsighted

Why does the above make SATs any better? They don't predict college outcomes, and they are structured and written in ways that favor wealth, thus providing bad data on students (other than their wealth). Why use them?

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

#189

Post by wolverine876 » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 11:41 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #178

sometimeshuman wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

I grew up a low income student as well but why kind of bullshit were they feeding you? My athlete friends were well aware you needed a 950 for any kind of NCAA consideration. It didn’t matter how good your grades or athleticism if you couldn’t pass that hurdle you were relegated to juco. If anything most of the high school counselors in predominantly poor and black schools just don’t push very hard. They would tell y…

It would be very interesting to hear your personal experience. But how can you make general statements about all poor schools?

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

#190

Post by charrondev » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 11:42 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #171

mind-blight wrote: post #58

I'm concerned that the majority of "should we fix college or should we circumvent college" conversations don't bring up one of the scariest parts of our current economy: STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. All of the conversations I've seen implicitly assume that this is good, and that the solution to farmer workers (or other low paid workers) escaping poverty is to train them as so…

> STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. People repeat that but what is it based on? Most of the population, including most people who have economic stability and freedom, have not had STEM jobs and very likely will not have STEM jobs. More importantly, college is about much more than job training. College prepares people to be adults in every way, not to be a resource for corporations…

> College prepares people to be adults in every way, not to be a resource for corporations.

As If you have to go to college to become an adult.

A lot of college programs seem like their purpose is for some very wealthy and sheltered children to become “cultured”, but that is completely unrelated to the skills needed to be a functioning adult or to take significant responsibilities in your life.