College has been oversold • Hacker News Board

Re: College has been oversold

#81

Post by angersock » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 4:05 PM UTC

rwl wrote: post #51

"Most importantly, graduates in the arts, psychology and journalism are less likely to create the kinds of innovations that drive economic growth. Economic growth is not a magic totem to which all else must bow, but it is one of the main reasons we subsidize higher education." I think this is a completely misguided assumption. Maybe this is true these days. But it wasn't always true, and it shouldn't be true. Higher…

With all due respect...

"I think this is a completely misguided assumption. Maybe this is true these days. But it wasn't always true, and it shouldn't be true."

What the past state was does not matter a great deal in these issues--today's problems are what stand between us and the food on our tables. If you read that economic growth as not being responsible for funding of higher education, you are similarly incorrect. At the national level it's about having strong soft power and at the personal level about it's about "keeping up with the Joneses" re: income.

"Higher education, especially in the liberal arts, is for training students to become good community members, citizens and leaders."

It was my impression that high schools and parents were the mechanism for indoctrinating youths into community values. Moreover, without playing too hard to personal experience, if my classmates at uni are tomorrow's leaders I'm a great deal concerned.

"It's about giving them the cognitive, rhetorical, and even emotional skills required to solve the hard problems that we face as a society. And there is a lot more to solving those problems than promoting "innovation" or "economic growth"."

What are these "hard problems"? Hunger? Disease? Working boring jobs to shuffle little bits of paper around? I'd wager that the root of your "hard problems" is ultimately scarcity in one form or another, and the only way to address that is through technology, and the only way to get that is through STEM training.

"We subsidize higher education because producing citizens with those skills is valuable to our society."

You echo your given quote here--you instead handwave the "skills" involved whereas the quote specifically suggests that economic growth is the valuable criterion to pick skills with.

"Are liberal arts programs perfect? No. Do they cost too much? Maybe. Would it be good for society to have more people going into STEM fields? Probably. Does all this mean that liberal arts education is "oversold"? Certainly not."

I agree, disagree, agree, and disagree again.

Liberal arts programs seem to consist primarily of a great deal of reading and research, augmented with the professional musings of an elder in the field. Is my impression incorrect? If it is not, is there a particular reason why it costs so much when that material is so cheaply available? I'd appreciate clarification on this matter.

"Indeed, it is rare to see people express just how valuable the liberal arts are, and why."

You know, there is at least one simple explanation that suggests itself for explaining this phenomena...

Re: College has been oversold

#82

Post by anamax » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 4:07 PM UTC

marklabedz wrote: post #8

forkandwait wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making everyone get through 2 semesters of calculus and a real probability class would help both their well roundedness and employee-ability. The lack of numeracy and scientific background among otherwise well educated people is shameful.

As is the lack of critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills from the other side. EDIT: In response to some of the questions below, please let me clarify. When I said "other side" I was meaning a lack of well-roundedness. I was NOT trying to pit STEM grads against liberal arts grads. I do not intend to state that STEM graduates don't know problem solving or critical thinking. Far from it. However in…

> However in my experience, [problem solving or critical thinking] are discarded too quickly - similar to how Liberal Arts grads tend to discard even the limited quantitative toolsets they've acquired.

Are you really claiming that Liberal Arts grads don't discard their problem solving and critical thinking?

I ask because I don't see them demonstrating either, at least compared to STEM folk. So, either they didn't learn them or they discard them quickly.

Re: College has been oversold

#83

Post by angersock » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 4:08 PM UTC

cq wrote: post #60

That graph in the OP is dishonest. Here's the actual data that wasn't cherry picked (and taken directly from the same data source as the OP, using the excel file provided by the US government and charted in excel): http://i.imgur.com/YTFMo.png Here are the tables from the report, if you'd like to do your own analysis: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/2010menu_tables.asp

Thank you for the additional information! That chart did seem somewhat limited.

Re: College has been oversold

#84

Post by msluyter » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 4:09 PM UTC

This is a popular theme these days. I think the college education used to serve several purposes: a) serving the Liberal (big L) ideal of creating the sort of well rounded, educated, informed citizen upon which democracy depends, b) vocational training, and c) indirectly, signalling fitness in a modern workforce.

A) and b) aren't totally at odds, but they're not exactly aligned. When the economy was healthy enough and tuition was low enough, that misalignment was basically overshadowed by the signalling value of a degree. Even your liberal arts degree would show you were of value to corporate america. But now, the misalignment is becoming magnified by high tuitions, the poor economy, and increasingly specialized and technical job requirements. You can achieve a) via your philosophy degree, but you'll never find a job. So the signalling value of a non-technical degree has been largely lost (top ivy-league schools excepted).

I don't have a good answer, but I'd argue that we shouldn't abandon the notion that education should be in part about creating a well rounded citizenry capable of critical thinking in pursuit of more economically grounded college education.

Re: College has been oversold

#85

Post by nobody31 » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 4:13 PM UTC

Eeko wrote: post #75

nobody31 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Successful go to elite college, successful only hire from elite college, therefore to be successful you go to elite college. Of course this system eventually breaksdown. But for Eton school it's worked since 1440, for Oxford since 1096, Cambridge since 1284 - but eventually it will break down.

> But for Eton school it's worked since 1440, for Oxford since > 1096, Cambridge since 1284 - but eventually it will break down. Universities pretty much had the monopoly for highly specialized knowledge until very recently. The companies, public and students waking up to the fact that knowing your rhetoric & poetry ain't so valuable any more IS the system breaking down. Right now. You'll rather hire from HN than fro…

Yes it was different in the middle ages, it has changed now. Only 10% of UK government ministers went to Eton and only 70% to Oxford and Cambridge so the power of the old-boys network is disappearing.

Re: College has been oversold

#86

Post by Homunculiheaded » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 4:15 PM UTC

Hyena wrote: post #80

I have a degree in art history and have been applying to graduate school in computer science. I have had ample opportunity to reflect systematically on my choices in undergrad and what I've done since graduating. While early drafts of personal statements have made claims like "mistake", those drafts never make the cut. No one ever oversold college to me. Liberal arts education went precisely as my professors describe…

I have an English degree an am wrapping up a CS master's relatively soon (going very part time for essentially free). I've never regretted my English degree, and have actually found that it has provided me a lot of really useful skills working in more technical areas. Not to mention that as you go higher and higher up in the level of classes, the ability to write and communicate becomes increasingly more important.

Everyone one I know that has become reasonably successful with an English degree has also added some type of more pragmatic masters on top of it. IMHO this should be how we view liberal arts, a solid base to build more pragmatic skills off of. Additionally I find when you look at great technical minds you usually find a solid knowledge of the humanities along with it (usually not through formal education of course), the term 'quark' is pull from Finnegan's Wake, Feynman was a passionate fan of Tuvan throat singing, the quoted the bhavagad gita after the first successful nuclear bomb test etc.

Education definitely needs reform but the simple "less humanities more sciences" formula would do potentially more harm than good.

Re: College has been oversold

#87

Post by llimllib » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 4:17 PM UTC

nekojima wrote: post #40

quanticle wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am willing to posit that a lack of statistical knowledge does more harm to critical thinking than a lack of rhetorical knowledge.

I'd suggest that 9 times out of 8 many STEMs have contextual biases that fail to account for general knowledge that otherwise would strengthen their argumentative position.

> 9 times out of 8 many STEMs

So, 112% of the time 60% of STEMS ? What a strange way of phrasing it.

Re: College has been oversold

#88

Post by TheCapn » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 4:18 PM UTC

gaustin wrote: post #69

bretthoerner wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As opposed to "Oh you got a CS degree", well programmers get to sit in this cubicle and get paid $50k until we outsource the whole thing to India. If you're making $50k you're being screwed. Also, a small percent of people (business students, poetry majors) ever go down the VP track. As a CS major I'm much, much better off in pay, quality of life, career stability than my friends who got business degrees. Never min…

> If you're making $50k you're being screwed. I'm being screwed then. I have a CS degree and a business Masters degree. I'm a "senior" developer and make $55k. The primary employer in my area is the Montana State government. Programmer pay here tops out at about $60k/year. Low-end programmer salaries are about $35-$40k. In the private sector you'd be lucky to get $70k/year. My wife and I are thinking about moving, bu…

Agreed. My area's companies typically offer $50k for entry level developers. You can swindle more out of companies if they've been looking for someone for long enough or you have a special skillset that interests them.

I have one friend who got $75k off the bat but that was a job in a company that employs 4 programmers for the entire company (national) and is energy industry related.

Re: College has been oversold

#89

Post by cageface » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 4:19 PM UTC

joshklein wrote: post #27

I have a similar conclusion but slightly different reasoning. And I want to defend liberal arts majors a bit, since I'm one of them. To me, the problem is that most people don't view college as an investment in their future, but rather as a temporary place to delay choices. Certainly, it is positioned as an investment by educators, and it is probably true for science & engineering degrees, but do students approach it…

A degree in Philosophy or English, let's say, is a luxury that would be incomprehensible to many in the developing world. If I were to suggest to the Vietnamese I know here, for example, that they spend their tuition on something that doesn't directly correlate with a roof over their head or food on their table they'd worry about my mental health.

Thanks to globalization that luxury is going to start to seem just as extravagant to Westerners.

Re: College has been oversold

#90

Post by maratd » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 4:21 PM UTC

jtbigwoo wrote: post #59

maratd wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Really, it's a cultural problem. No, it's an economic one. > I have a liberal arts degree from an "elite private university". Ok. Let's make the assumption that you're at least moderately intelligent and would be able to get a job for 40K from the bat. 40K * 4 = 160K College tuition is 40K itself at an "elite private university". Then you add living expenses, books, food, etc. and you have another 25K. That's 65K.…

You're working with the edge case in your example where a really smart person can get an amazing job right out of high school. It's more instructive to look at the average case: - In the current economy, the number of high school grads making $40k/year is vanishingly small. It's more likely he'd be making 25k or less if he has a job at all. - 25k for living expenses and books for a college student is way too high unl…

> You're working with the edge case

The only people on this site, by definition, are edge cases. I really don't like mental masturbation, so I was really speaking to everyone reading this thread.

Your post absolutely applies for the average person.

Even for the edge cases, I'm not implying you shouldn't go to college. There is still the social aspect to consider. But, honestly, it's about time people started thinking about the option of not going to college. It's not such a terrible option and does not spell immediate doooooom.