College has been oversold • Hacker News Board

Re: College has been oversold

#151

Post by Apocryphon » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 6:21 PM UTC

mikecarlucci wrote: post #118

losvedir wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with this: > That learning curve is often too steep given our secondary education system . . . we need to redesign our education system taking this objective and the preparation of our students into account. However, I vehemently disagree with this: > If we want to increase graduation into STEM fields . . . I place the blame squarely where it belongs: on STEM departments No, no, no, no, no! This wo…

I don't think anyone is talking about creating "STEM-lite" grads but maybe there are qualified people who for one reason or another can't pick up calculus as fast as the school wants. Or didn't get a complete enough background in high school. Or is 18 years old and living away from home for the first time and just made a few bad decisions. Failing a class first semester really puts pressure on changing majors. Studen…

I have to wonder if STEM courses that have routinely have tests that set the curve at 40% is really a good thing or not.

Re: College has been oversold

#152

Post by mahyarm » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 6:21 PM UTC

re_todd wrote: post #123

kabdib wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't get calculus until I went to a junior college. I think that JC cost me about $800 for a year -- living with parents helps. After a year at the junior college (which I define by "They had a little IBM mainframe, and punch cards") I was a lot more ready for the Large Cow College (30K students, much beefier mainframe with actual terminals for post-first-year courses). I'm convinced it's calculus that separates…

I don't know why more people don't recommend community/junior colleges. You can cut the price of education almost in half if you start out 2 years at a JC.

I think it's better to enroll in a 4 year university, and then take all the classes you can at a local JC and transfer them over. That way you avoid yet another admissions gauntlet and will be checking if things transfer for every class.

Re: College has been oversold

#153

Post by cjy » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 6:25 PM UTC

maratd wrote: post #38

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…

> 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.…

I agree with you that the cost of education is very high, but you need to look at the marginal cost. A person has to eat and pay rent regardless of whether they are in school. You can't count that 25K as the marginal cost of school.

Re: College has been oversold

#154

Post by dustyscreams » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 6:31 PM UTC

harryh wrote: post #125

keiferski wrote: post #3

A liberal arts education is just as worth it today as it was 300 years ago. The current problem is that the cost of a liberal arts degree has spiraled out of control. There's no reason why an English or Philosophy degree needs to cost $15k a year. Making everyone an engineer or scientist isn't the answer.

> There's no reason why an English or Philosophy degree needs to cost $15k a year. Sure there is. It's called Baumol's Cost Disease. Now of course some of those engineers & scientists are working on things like khan academy and other methods of attacking that problem. The downside is that the demand for English or Philosophy majors will only further erode (what do you do with a philosophy degree when there are fewer…

If student loans were dischargeable in bankruptcy lenders would think much harder about the wisdeom of lending $40k/year for liberal arts degrees. Colleges would have to reconsider what they charge for such degrees and students would have an important market signal when choosing a course of study.

Re: College has been oversold

#155

Post by yummyfajitas » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 6:36 PM UTC

king_jester wrote: post #113

yummyfajitas wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How light a workload do teachers need? As it stands now, full time teachers [1] work only 38.5 hours/week (on average). http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf I'm not sure how increasing pay, further reducing work hours, and completely eliminating accountability will do anything other than buy teacher's loyalties in an election year. Incidentally, there is also little evidence that postgraduate degrees in e…

Could you explain your source for the statistic you used on an avg. 38.5 hour work week for teachers? The only relevant information I found in the linked PDF was chart 2, which has the following footnote: NOTE: The calculations of hours worked are based on data collected about how survey respondents spent “yesterday.” Thus, average weekly work hours are an extrapolation based on the activity for 1 day. That footnote…

I got it by eyeballing Table 10 to get about 5.5 hours worked/day, multiplied by 7.

Assuming the sample is statistically representative, the hours/week calculation is accurate. Across the population as a whole, it is a mathematical identity that:

Sum(Sum(hours(day, teacher), all teachers), days in week) == Sum(Sum(hours(day, teacher), days in week), all teachers)

In a statistical sample, the equality will be approximate due to sampling error, and it's worthy of a note. Maybe the ATUS did a bad job, but in general I assume they do an adequate job absent evidence they did not. Do you have better data?

Re: College has been oversold

#156

Post by jhamburger » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 6:37 PM UTC

Eeko wrote: post #124

jhamburger wrote: post #110

A lot of people seem very smug about ridiculing liberal arts majors for their life decisions. Please realize that most of us working in software are also lucky enough to be paid well and love what we do, we followed our hearts AND our heads. Imagine a world where there were no software jobs and you needed a PhD in french poetry to get a real job?

Very true. None of my pals who chose software really came in for the money. Though I know a few lawyers and MDs who claim to be in purely for the cash. I don't know should we even wish for that kind of culture (comes with financial prestige...) in STEM-education But the thing is, there is a lot of people who know they'd rather be playing with children in a kindergarten, doing archeology or reading books all day - but…

"Part of the problem is, that libart-schools are filled with kids who thought stuff will just work itself out, like it has always happened for them. Romantically just following ones dreams to the end."

Part of it is that, but part of it is our parents giving us incomplete advice. The message is always, "go to college and everything will work itself out" and their kids get the impression that choosing a major is sort of a personal decision that doesn't have any tremendous impact.

Re: College has been oversold

#157

Post by garenp » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 6:42 PM UTC

Sorry, have to agree with the general sentiment that it's not so much "College" that's been oversold, as it is liberal arts degree programs that won't likely lead to a "good" paying job that has a decent ROI.

That's not to say that education in the arts isn't valuable, it's jut not as immediately useful and measurable to the bottom line from the perspective of an employer.

Re: College has been oversold

#158

Post by pingswept » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 6:44 PM UTC

redthrowaway wrote: post #145

joshklein wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of things we do here would make them question our mental health. Say, pretending like you really need more than that $40,000 job the English major can get that lets him live in a small but safe apartment in a fine neighborhood (that has plumbing, electricity, and sanitation) in a non-center-of-the-world American city, and shop for all the groceries he needs in the market 10 minutes away. Anyway, for a community…

Except that the case of Jobs is a perfect illustration of the grandparent's point: he dropped out of Reed College because he couldn't justify the expense to himself. He audited the calligraphy class, and slept on floors and couches. So he didn't go $100k into debt to take those classes with the expectation it would land him a good job; he sat in on them because he was interested in them but recognized they were a bad…

Sure, Jobs audited the calligraphy class, but he was able to do so because there was a liberal arts college running the class. The point is that the calligraphy class had substantial value later on, at least in the mind of Steve Jobs.

Re: College has been oversold

#159

Post by pixcavator » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 6:48 PM UTC

maratd wrote: post #38

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…

> 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.…

>>Half a mil to learn about Poetry Writing. Sorry, but that's just silly.

Except it's payed for by your taxes. Who is silly here?

Re: College has been oversold

#160

Post by gaustin » Wed, Nov 02, 2011, 6:55 PM UTC

gyardley wrote: post #105

gaustin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

$50K in Missoula is probably $80K in San Francisco and $100K in NYC, and that's without taking discrepancies in federal, state, local, and sales taxes into account. A senior developer in SF or NYC is still coming out ahead - probably due to the sheer amount of competition for them - but not quite as much as you'd think at first glance.

The biggest difference to my mind, the one that bugs me most, is the opportunity cost. Sure, I have no commute, low mortgage for a big house, no sales tax and easy access to some of the most beautiful unspoiled wilderness in the entire world. The downside is that there are virtually no jobs/startups here that I find interesting.

You either adjust your expectations when you live here, or you go somewhere else.

I am somewhat worried that when I do decide to leave that my wages will be pegged artificially low because of the cost of living difference. But I figure I can always convert my salary to the local equivalent when asked what my current salary is.