191–200 of 302 posts
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College isn't just for web programmers.
Seriously. You'd think no one has to learn to use equipment that costs several tens of thousands of dollars and whose sale is rigorously controlled by the US government. /nuclear engineer
And also medicine, biology, most of engineering, etc
Sad, yeah.
It seems funny but in college you get the possibility to meet people that excel within any field of knowledge (mentors or other students that can become your partner in a startup for example). People in college have TIME to hang out together, that is crutial. I took already some online courses and is not the same. They are just a complement in any education. Sorry.
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Fuck college. It's not the only way to learn, to meet people, or to show your expertise, capabilities and accomplishments anymore. We have this thing called the Internet now. Write a book. Put a PDF online. Record a video of yourself giving an intelligent speech or showing some useful talent. Put it on YouTube. Write software. Put on GitHub. Answer technical questions well on StackExchange (or whatever for your parti…
There are certainly people who have the self-motivation, drive to learn, and grade themselves accurately using self-teaching tools -- but I think you'll find those people are few and far between. Also, most of the useful information I obtained in my degree was which resources are the best.
Would you trust a doctor that only learned on the internet to operate on you?
Here's a revolutionary idea: let's make bankruptcy easier. I've paid more than I borrowed, and I still owe more than I've paid. I have dozens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, and I'm on the doorstep of defaulting on some of it. Mark Cuban's right. The money is insanely easy for everyone to get. Sallie Mae, AES, and the rest are happy to give students money. Colleges are happy to take money from students,…
So when this debt is dismissed from your balance sheet who repay's the lender? Apart of the reason of the low cost to borrow for student loans is baked in the non-dismissal of the debt. It lowers counter-party risk for the lender therefore they will give a lower rate to the borrower. If you allow student loan debt to be dismissed with bankruptcy then you increase counter-party risk and increase the cost of those loan…
Or maybe the answer comes in capping the amount that can be paid back on amounts given, so that after paying for $x for $y borrowed, or paying for Z years, it doesn't matter how much you have left (thanks to compound interest), the debt is considered "paid".
Either way, loans will be harder to get, yes. Fewer people will be able to afford school at its current prices. Schools will have to make a choice of cutting back significantly, or trying to cater to those students who can't afford loans that would have paid for Ivy league schools. Community colleges will have to be community colleges again, vocational schools vocational.
I do know that currently, schools don't care where the money comes from, and lenders (and guarantors) don't really care where it goes to, and each loan that is too much for the borrower to pay back essentially becomes a money printing press. We keep paying, and many keep going further in debt to them.
Our system now can not last forever. A quick Google tells me that in the past 35 years, tuition has risen >900%. That number will continue to balloon as large as possible, until there is reason for it to stop. Maybe those alternative education models Cuban mentions vaguely (we probably know well what we means), but maybe this is what changes it. Allowing bankruptcy.
As long as possible, schools will continue to take as much money as they can get, to offer more, and bigger. And so far, lenders/guarantors seem content to let every person take that loan, and put a noose around their necks, as we've been told since we were children "go to school, do well, go to college, do well, you will do well in life". And as much as people here may value independent drive and self-teaching, I think we can agree that "the system" very much encourages people to attempt a college degree.
At least when the multi-billion dollar banks got into trouble, they had two options: go bankrupt and strike a deal with those they owed, or get bailed out. People only have one, "keep paying." And at some point, that just becomes indentured servitude.
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If that's all your resume says, then you're probably right. But there should be something on there that indicates that you can do the job otherwise you wasted your time applying. The point is that education says nothing about being able to do the job in many cases. If you are applying for an engineering position and you have MIT on your resume, that is certainly going to imply that you very likely have what it takes.…
Unfortunately, "went to MIT" is both easily recognizable and easily verified. "Built a fusion reactor in my basement" is neither of those things. Similarly, "check out my GitHub" has many of the same problems. I'm sorry, but most employers don't have time to look you up on GitHub to crawl through all your commits. That will happen if you get past the first cut, but it won't do anything beforehand. Sure, you can put "…
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The comment is incorrect. Student loan growth far outpaces the number of new students: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/08/chart-of...
Your link doesn't support your claim. Worse, your link doesn't even consider the idea. All it says: > Obviously the number of students didn't grow by 511%. Why is it obvious? Show my a source.
"In 2008, college enrollment was at an all-time high with 18.6 million students enrolled, up 22 percent from 15.3 million in 2000."
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The point is that education says nothing about being able to do the job in many cases. I work with students for development projects. We don't get to pick them, they pick the projects we propose. Here's a question that tells us in seconds whether we're going to have a tough project with a lot of pussyfooting or one that'll go mad with ideas: Do you have tech-related hobbies? Most barely have a few hobbies but some ar…
I wonder how many accountants, lawyers and doctors have "hobby" projects in their respective fields. And whether they get asked that in interviews.
Your average lawyer/doctor/accountant ends up in a very predictable career, just like your average engineer.
People who end up in politics tend to have a degree in law or finance and debating as a hobby. For jobs in politics, that's the kind of folk they look for, not just the "I have the right degree so hire me" types. Look at doctors who work in non-profits abroad: you'll find people with a very active engagement in social groups in their youth (I know a few in that profession) .
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4 years and $50-100k of debt is in no way an efficient way to surface those signals. I agree that some things like research can't be done online. But I don't think those will remain at the university either. Graduate/research degrees must represent such a small % of a university's revenue that when the majority goes away they simply won't be able to survive. Just ask the RIAA if they can survive by selling mp3s when…
At research universities most of the budget comes from research, and most of the work in research gets done by grad students. Undergrad programs are an afterthought.
And from what I can see most of the budget comes from and is devoted to college football.
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> If not, of course they aren't motivated. Most of them won't be using calculus in their daily life, they don't see it as valuable. But that's my point, and I'm attempting to bolster the original article's point. I have a room full of calculus students, many of whom don't terribly need or want to learn calculus. Then why are they there ? In many cases you can trace this back to some ambition for which calculus is a p…
>Then why are they there? Because it's a state requirement, more than likely. > In many cases you can trace this back to some ambition for which calculus is a prerequisite for some reason or other. Doubtful. Not unless they're a STEM or Finance major. > But in many cases, they are there because they feel they are "supposed" to be there, or else they feel that a college degree will get them a better job. Your class is…
You're just wrong about this. Introductory calc classes are some of the larger classes offered at a lot of universities.
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Today the same institutions provide education and certify skills. If nothing else, it's an obvious conflict of interests that's tolerated only because historically there was no other practical way around it. The war for talent and the online classes will soon disrupt that - you'll be able to give interviews/tests in a 2-day examination and get a paper saying what you really know (like SAT is for pupils). And when tha…
> 4-year outdated programs A good STEM program teaches you how to think, and that never gets outdated. Colleges offer a smorgasbord of courses to take. If you select courses for the easiest route to a degree, you won't be that employable. If you select courses that will give you the best foundation for your chosen career, that'll do much better. For example, although I got a degree in engineering, I made sure I also…
I've never seen evidence that specific courses matter much for employment post college. Do you have data on this?