Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

811–820 of 1001 posts

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

#811

Post by unicornmama »

nvarsj wrote: post #753
throwawaycities wrote: post #451

I think the writing on the wall is clear regarding student loans. The entire notion of taxpayer funded student loans is a scam on both taxpayers and students. It’s a system that allows the colleges/universities to charge any tuition they want and guarantees there will be an artificial demand. For about a decade at least 1M student loan holders default per year. Long before the defaults reached that high, everyone inv…

I think you're being too optimistic. Collapse of student loan debt most certainly won't bring down tuition. What will happen is the government/taxpayer will shoulder it and everyone's quality of life will decrease overall. The same thing happened with the mortgage crisis of 2009 and the massive government bailouts - and look, the housing market is a giant bubble again, and completely unaffordable if you're not alread…

In the GFC the derivatives were the TNT that blew up the world. The amounts owed by the losers were orders of magnitude higher than the underlying.

While the fuse may be set for student loans and housing, today’s banks are not levered to the level in the GFC, nor does there appear to be a vast derivatives bomb in waiting.

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

#812

Post by bob1029 »

devwastaken wrote: post #740

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 wea…

Everyone in education I have spoken with says we should just nuke it from orbit at this point. Like, physically torch all the school buildings and go back to the drawing board on how to teach people shit in 2022 and beyond.

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

#813

Post by SantalBlush »

magpi3 wrote: post #674
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…

Perhaps he is wrong about many things, but your post comes across as an ad hominem that doesn't respond to any of his points.

Putting this guy's twitter posts on HN is an ad hominem in itself. Why should anyone care what this guy thinks if not for ad hominem?

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

#814

Post by darkerside »

shafyy wrote: post #775
eterevsky wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would question if Altman is good at anything He leads OpenAI > 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. Why do you think this is a bad idea?

> He leads OpenAI And OpenAI has strayed away from their initial "vision" considerably. > Why do you think this is a bad idea? Because it's a very libertarian and capitalistic view of how life and society should work. It's very one dimensional. 18-year-olds should not be put in an environment where their goal is to make money for a sicko in Silicon Valley who then takes a percentage of their future earnings. 18-year-…

18 year olds are adults. What you're saying is very paternalistic and patronizing.

Everybody who wants to should be encouraged to enjoy their lives, travel, and learn. That's not unique to 18 year olds. And if some have already done a lot of that or are just driven for entrepreneurship, that's a choice they should be able to make.

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

#815

Post by te_chris »

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #623
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…

this is a cathartic, beautifully worded comment. there is an incredible tolerance for charlatanery here so long as the charlatan is rich. it drives me insane

And this is wonderful use of language also. "there is an incredible tolerance for charlatanery here so long as the charlatan is rich" Beautiful and concise.

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

#816

Post by mac01021 »

droidist2 wrote: post #318
xyzzyz wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think Americans were less adult in, say, 1930s, when only small fraction of them went to college?

I mean, they looked more adult. If you look at a high school year book from decades ago the seniors look like they're in their 30s. Maybe this means time is speeding up, or that life was harder then which aged them, like how outdoor cats often look all haggard. Then again was life really that much harder in the 1960s?

Are you sure it's not just that their hair and fashion styles are those of a previous decade and that that triggers the "this person is old" neurons in your brain?

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

#817

Post by lbriner »

One thing mentioned about standardised tests and correlation with socio-economic status is a largely unsolvable problem imho.

Ultimately, money can buy you most things. However you test someone, their family wealth is more likely to result in better access to standard and additional education, possibly more exposure to other clever children/adults to encourage and teach you and a home life that is sometimes? more conducive to learning compared to the people at the bottom of the ladder.

You can't buy top-level intelligence but you can mostly buy your way into any insitution. Therefore, I think it is a straw man (as the OP says) to remove something that exists in life.

Sure, there are things like IQ tests which are supposed to be about objective intelligence but they are both too abstract to draw out whether an individual will actually do well in e.g. comp-sci or physics and can also be trained on.

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

#818

Post by socksset »

uncomputation wrote: post #608
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…

There was an article on HN a few weeks ago talking about the slowing pace of “innovation” in the modern world, the lack of an Einstein or a Bohr or a Feynman. I have no evidence of this and maybe the entire notion is unfounded in the first place but I think this framing: - teaching marketable skills so people can get jobs - teaching "how to think" and learning about art and culture is part of the problem. When you go…

I would look at it more as what would Einstein, Bohr or Feynman be doing right now?

There is a really good chance they would be lured away to Wallstreet to work at a hedge fund or Silicon Valley to work on the latest CRUD application.

Especially Einstein. There is no way he would have ever been a clerk today. He would be doing something that Physics would be a massive pay cut.

I don't think the point is that these people don't exist today but the point is that people of this level can make so much more money than doing physics. It wasn't that long ago that a University Professor was a high end job that a person could afford a second vacation home and a ton of status came along with the position.

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

#819

Post by [deleted] »

Barrin92 wrote: post #759
jmeister wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok? 1. That’s his job as an investor. Getting one big outlier prediction right makes up for a hundred wrong ones. 2. These predictions tend to provoke interesting debates(that’s probably Sama’s intent here).

>That’s his job as an investor however unlike in his job as an investor when he makes stupid takes on twitter he isn't going to lose 100k each time. If he did he would probably vet his tweets a bit more. The reason markets work and Twitter doesn't is because there's no negative consequences for posting without thinking.

[deleted]

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

#820

Post by jmeister »

WoodenChair wrote: post #613
jmeister wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok? 1. That’s his job as an investor. Getting one big outlier prediction right makes up for a hundred wrong ones. 2. These predictions tend to provoke interesting debates(that’s probably Sama’s intent here).

> Ok? That’s his job as an investor. Getting one big outlier prediction right makes up for a hundred wrong ones. But he's not acting as an investor here. He's acting as an influencer on Twitter. And when a public figure consistently makes poor predictions, I think they should be called out for it.

I mean that it’s what VCs always do. Just as macro investors and political scientists throw out wild prognostications about global affairs all the time.

It’s the equivalent of a painter doodling in his notebook. Some of them will turn into paintings.

Post reply on HN