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

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

#731

Post by AussieWog93 »

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.

Why STEM and not tradesmen? Plenty of decent trade jobs out there that can lead to serious $$$ if you're hard-working and competent enough to manage self-employment.

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

#732

Post by hef19898 »

imgabe wrote: post #312

Higher education in the US is trying to fulfill so many roles it's unsustainable. - teaching marketable skills so people can get jobs - teaching "how to think" and learning about art and culture - Performing cutting edge research - minor league sports teams The large state schools are trying to fulfill all these conflicting roles. We should probably break them out to separate entities. If you have a physicist who's a…

If you exclude the sports teams, which to a non-US observer seem to have enough funding to pay millions for their coaches, basically free (as in no tuition fees for most studies) universities in Germany do. Just saying...

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

#733

Post by randomdata »

octoberfranklin wrote: post #719
randomdata wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We really need farm workers, and most of them live in poverty. Do we, though? As a farmer and software developer, I struggle to find enough farm work to do. I'd take on more work if I could. Everyone and their brother wants to be farmers, though, so there is hot competition and a lot of us end up with only a small piece of the pie. Per hour it pays more than software. There just aren't that many hours. I would like…

With respect, OP isn't talking about hobby farms here. Five acres is a great lifestyle and some nice tax benefits, but not a career.

I work just shy of 500 acres, for what it's worth. While that may still be a hobby, you're off by a couple of orders of magnitude.

Still not a career, perhaps, but that's kind of the point here. I could easily handle thousands of acres if it were my career. However, obtaining thousands of acres to work is effectively impossible. Every other farmer is also desperately trying to get their hands on those acres.

If we want farming to be a viable, full-time career for people then we need far fewer people involved in the industry, not more.

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

#734

Post by AussieWog93 »

holdenc wrote: post #591

While I agree that 200K in debt for a BA in English is not a wise choice, there's a whole class of families that can afford the 200K out of pocket, and will happily pay it for a top school. I have a child, and will do it for the following reasons: - You only get one chance to be 18 - 22 years old. College is a great way to improve your appreciation of culture, society, and build social skills, prior to taking a full…

> When was the last time you had a chance to try your hand at literary criticism, or game theory, or learning a new language? How did it go the first time you had to ask for help with an intellectual problem?

Just to be a contrarian (on HN, of all places!), I'm in my late twenties and know a couple of people who are at least a little bit bitter/regretful that they spent their early twenties learning game theory and literary criticism rather than how to function as an adult.

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

#735

Post by kkjjkgjjgg »

shafyy wrote: post #680
WoodenChair wrote: post #605

Sam Altman makes a lot of grandiose predictions and statements. For example, in 2019 he said “Human radiologists are already much worse than computer radiologists. If I had to pick a human or an AI to read my scan, I’d pick the AI.” [0] However, most people with domain knowledge in this space still would not want their scan not to be read by a human. The AI radiology apps are generally narrowly focused and useful for…

Sam Altman and his buddies are incredibly out of touch with the real world. In a related tweet, he said [0]: > A version of college replacement I'm super interested in: Find the smartest and most driven 18 year olds in the world, and give them 'tenure'--say a decade+ of salary, resources to work on whatever they want, and a smart peer group--in exchange for small % of future earnings. Completely agree with your state…

Didn't he also make a lot of money already? So at least also good at making money.

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

#736

Post by colonwqbang »

esperent wrote: post #615
CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exact opposite actually. It's a good for-profit enterprise that fails when it's narrative twists it into a public good. The problem isn't that university doesn't work. The problem is that the federal government has propped it up with so much poorly underwritten debt that the prices have ballooned beyond value delivered. That would be fine if the audience taking the debt was rational. But the discourse around univ…

There's plenty of examples of universities being run as not-for-profit and doing just fine. Pretty much all of Europe since the concept of a University has existed, for example. Sure, you can nitpick problems with European universities and they are not perfect. But nobody is going into debt slavery in Europe from getting a degree and nobody is talking about the collapse of European universities. So maybe the problem…

The problem with the European model is that it creates an economically regressive system. The less affluent citizens who didn't attend higher education are paying for us who did attend. This is usually motivated by the idea that society as a whole benefits from us educated people so much that they should pay for it. I find this idea a bit offensive.

I would actually prefer a system financed purely by student loans. It does put a lot more responsibility on the prospective student to judge the quality of an education programme and the opportunities it affords. Some programmes would no longer be sustainable if they were not given free of charge. I think that would probably be a good thing.

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

#737

Post by esperent »

maccolgan wrote: post #665
esperent wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems more likely that 50k is the actual cost and you're getting a 95% subsidy. Which seems reasonable - should a government be expected to subsidize international students? Not sure where I stand on that. Besides which, I think EU countries do subsidize students from other EU countries so an Irish person can study in Sweden, for example, without paying high fees (need to confirm this). Also, $50k is way higher th…

The subsidies are irrelevant, US college degrees can indeed cost around 50k, if European universities have the same cost (despite having lower GDP PPP per capita) that's a even larger problem, except the taxpayer is in trouble.

> except the taxpayer is in trouble.

This completely ignores the huge benefits that come from socialized education (and healthcare, public transport and to so on). These are only a net negative when considered over a very short time frame. Long term, having a healthy, highly educated, low debt society is hugely beneficial to that society, especially when you stop looking at things through the narrow lens of "the economy" and consider the overall health of the society instead.

Even when you look at just the economy, yes, the US has higher GDP per capita, but it also has higher income inequality so that doesn't say much about what the average "person on the street" is getting. All measures of the economy have problems, but GDP per capita is one of the worst when it comes to judging how well off people in a country actually are, and it feels like people use it mostly just for scoring points. Median income, access to housing, healthcare, education, public transport, pollution levels, ease of doing business or interacting with government, corruption, freedom of the press, levels of racism and prejudice against minorities, and so on, all of these are at least as important considerations as GDP when considering the wellbeing of a country's citizens and I don't think any country in the world scores highly on all fronts.

EDIT: actually I saw you said GDP PPP per capita which is better than pure (nominal) GDP. But in that case, the US is quite far from the top - it's actually 13th, while Ireland is 5th and UK is 26th

https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/

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

#738

Post by throwawayacc2 »

Quote from the thread

> (A personal anecdote: I was invited a few years ago to speak at a college but I was asked to give a 'privilege disclaimer', essentially stating that if I didn't look like I did I wouldn't have been able to succeed...

I don’t know how other people feel about this but personally when I see things like this I get extremely annoyed. What the disclaimer is actually saying is “white people can’t succeed on their own”. Don’t try to twist it because this is what it’s being implied. The implication of the disclaimer is “If you are white, you cannot succeed on your own, the only reason for your success is dumb luck”.

How is this different from saying “blacks can’t succeed on their own, if you see a successful one, that’s just dumb luck”. Please, tell me.

The whole discussion on “privilege” is ridiculous, racist, offensive and is nothing but a grift from losers too dumb and lazy for STEM who went to gender studies instead to make money.

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

#739

Post by kkjjkgjjgg »

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…

Do we really need farm workers? Then why is nobody paying them? I think most stories about poor farmers is about farmers who want to farm in a more traditional way, while actually most stuff is produced in huge enterprises that don't need as many people to run anymore?

Nothing against farmers, just would like to see the real picture.

In any case, if farmers are needed and still don't get paid, there has to be a reason, and it presumably isn't the markets.

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

#740

Post by devwastaken »

Tuition and living costs have artificially doubled since 2010 across the board, if not tripled.

If you went to school more than 5 years ago it is entirely different. Classes are held online, even on campus. Almost everything is done digitally and online.

Student suicide, depression are sky rocketing. COVID rules have completely changed how campus living works - students would rather be on TikTok than be forced to wear masks or get forcibly "quarantined" (legal jail cell). Yes, that is real, it goes on every day. Students are not allowed to protest universities, the law in all states is written in such a way that you have no tenant rights, no representation, and the University can do as they please. They reap the benefits of a private org (predatory contracts) while socializing the cost (grants/loans)

That money from housing and tuition is absorbed into a black hole, it is not used for student programs. It is not used to improve education. We cannot get basic equipment. We cannot provide a proper education.

Universities have been overrun by blue types that are now forcing even more unnecessary and politically motivated classes, promoting activism and specific kinds of beliefs as if they are academic. They're cherry picking academic knowledge for what aligns to their politics.

The core competencies are underfunded, students don't receive the help they need, and are overshadowed by the admins shiny new false humanities programs.

Students this summer will go homeless because they cannot pay for summer housing. Uni housing charges exorbant artificial pricing well above market. Again, private profits, social costs.

Students cannot afford an education, and even those that do don't get a quality education outside of a few top universities. This is unsustainable, but various beliefs prevent us from doing the right thing - defunding.

We need a mass firing and reorganization of American education.

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