Gen Z is giving up on college • Hacker News Board

Re: Gen Z is giving up on college

#161

Post by HDThoreaun » Tue, Sep 12, 2023, 4:48 PM UTC

friend_and_foe wrote: post #157

HDThoreaun wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The education isn't the point of college though. Employers are more interested in the credentialism than the education for the vast majority of jobs. Even in software engineering which works hard to avoid credentialism via leetcode and the like it's quite important. It's difficult to even get an interview at many(most?) firms without the degree.

Yeah, and part of what I'm saying is, if credential is more important for a job that capability then it's inefficient additional overhead, unless credential actually proves capability such as with CS or engineering, or medical school for now. With the rise of free education these credentials will go the way of the dinosaur and these institutions that rely on it aren't going to last unless they adapt to the new landsc…

The point of the credential is to show that you're the type of person who can succeed in a tough environment. Whether doing well in undergrad actually shows that you can succeed in the face of adversity is up for debate, but that's the main point of the diploma for most majors and it's not clear to me how you would replace it.

In fields that aren't based on hard knowledge credentialism is even more important as it's less clear what to test for in interviews.

Re: Gen Z is giving up on college

#162

Post by dahart » Tue, Sep 12, 2023, 9:10 PM UTC

ecf wrote: post #160

dahart wrote: post #18

> Four years after graduating, according to recent data from the Higher Education Authority, a third of students earn less than $40,000 — lower than the average salary of $44,356 that workers with only a high-school diploma earn. Red flag here, this seems like a super misleading and bogus comparison. There is no good reason to compare the bottom third of graduates to the whole pool of non-graduates other than to try…

> Red flag here Impressionable students believe they can go to college, do little to no work actually comprehending the material they’re going to be using in their field of choice, and then go all “shocked pikachu” when they graduate and are unemployable. It’s not a college problem. It’s a student problem. They believe just because they have a degree that they’re entitled to high paying jobs when a degree isn’t that…

I like the phrase ‘shocked pikachu’, I’m definitely borrowing that some time. ;)

Yeah it could be that expectations have gotten lazy. It was always the case that you get out what you put in, so if people are coasting more, then outcomes probably reflect that.

The Fed’s paper does say that the income premium for college degree remains relatively robust, as it always has. The part that they call out as changing over time is the relative savings the college educated have by the time they retire. They don’t know why though, and spending and savings habits might be changing, so the wealth premium going down might not indicate that college is less special.

Re: Gen Z is giving up on college

#163

Post by friend_and_foe » Wed, Sep 13, 2023, 3:00 AM UTC

bdamm wrote: post #158

friend_and_foe wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can build skills and network with people on your computer, for free.

There is no doubt that some people can succeed without the structure of a college institution, but many people do NOT . And not everyone knows the tricks for connecting with quality and knowledgeable people who are invested in your personal success. College provides a path for that. I don't think it says anything negative about people who choose to follow a college degree path. Rather, it speaks to the talent of peop…

Well, from the current state of things, those people don't succeed with the institution either, which is why all the fuss.

College is rather expensive for networking, rather time consuming and grueling if the education isn't the pitch. You say college is for the networking. That's not what the institutions are putting on the label.

Re: Gen Z is giving up on college

#164

Post by readthenotes1 » Wed, Sep 13, 2023, 3:34 AM UTC

HDThoreaun wrote: post #152

readthenotes1 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That affects the value of a college degree as well, of course. I believe there have been studies that show that graduates who are unlucky enough to be job searching during a one or two-year recession have a lifelong income deficit compared to those who don't

Do high school grads not face the same issue?

Not sure, but they won't have traded 4 years and $200k for a high salary future

Re: Gen Z is giving up on college

#165

Post by theodric » Wed, Sep 13, 2023, 6:54 PM UTC

friend_and_foe wrote: post #110

theodric wrote: post #85

Attending university was extremely valuable to me: I got to escape my parents, hang out with other people of compatible interests, experience broadband for the first time, and best of all, meet my wife. Oh, and employers sometimes filter on 'has degree' vs 'no degree' when selecting who to interview. It hasn't seemed to matter that my degree (music, specifically music performance) was completely irrelevant to my chos…

It's hard to gauge what point you're making. You supposedly paid for class, if you could've skipped class and gotten all the benefit you got from it, did college give you the benefit, or was it just getting out in the world and being around people your age?

I'm saying that my life as I know it would be dramatically different, and probably worse, had I not gone to university, but all of the benefits I assign to having gone are peripheral (friends, spouse, weak employability marker) rather than direct (I learned something in class, related to my area of focus, that I was able to apply to my benefit in life). So it was worth going, but not because of The Great Education I Got There.