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I can see: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp... looks like the US is 20-30% more expensive than other developed countries but that isn't a huge difference.
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I would imagine in Europe they select more carefully the students whom will go to College. Here in the US we've told students that everyone must go to College. We now have too many people in College and many of them aren't going to be successful once they are in. It's not sustainable. In many of our public universities, the graduation rate is well below 50%
> I would imagine in Europe they select more carefully the students whom will go to College. Here in the US we've told students that everyone must go to College You imagine wrong. Pretty much everyone goes to university in most and European countries. Even in wildly tourist dependent places, a degree in tourism is a normal thing for a young person to pursue before going to work at hotels/restaurants.
It‘s a pretty efficient (and quite unique) system. People learn to do their job at a normal company and attend school for usually two days a week. And they can still switch to the university track later without starting from the beginning.
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I feel like the key thing missing from this discussion are the employers who still demand these degrees. Let's say we reformed both higher education and student loans - does that have any meaningful impact on the demand side beyond pushing the salaries of degree holders up (thus increasing the value of a degree, thus making larger loan values easier to justify, thus...)
Most good employers, especially in tech, don't require degrees these days.
I'm not convinced American universities are unusually expensive. Its an costly business. Does anyone have good figures for what the cost/student is globally? I can see: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp... looks like the US is 20-30% more expensive than other developed countries but that isn't a huge difference.
When I think not huge, I think low single digits. Not “most of the way to a third”
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Well, the OP did say “the bulk of” — some people, like you, are surely carrying debt for non-lucrative degrees. But the pipeline of lawyers, doctors, MBAs, etc. is quite a bit larger than self-pay philosophy PhDs, and a large fraction of those professional degrees are full-freight, $70k/year (plus living expenses!) of pure debt.
Not all lawyers and doctors are the same. Consider public defenders. And physician compensation can vary dramatically depending on whether they're a general practitioner or specialist, rural or urban, etc. Ironically, the ones we need the most are paid the least. Of course, that's assuming students finish their degrees and get jobs. Plenty of people drop out of school, and they don't get refunds! Law students fail to…
1) Move most good careers that do not require a college degree out of the country for the benefit of shareholders 2) Tell everyone born between 1980 and 1995 that they'll be unable to compete in the global marketplace if they don't get at least some post-high school education, and imply that the mere presence of a degree will help instead of having a specific type of degree 3) Have next-to-zero standards for public f…
>>> 1) move most careers...out of the country....to the benefit of shareholders. You've hidden very carefully the causality in this sentence. Who moved them? Why? Its perhaps implied that since shareholders benefited, that they did it. Yet a careful examination reveals quickly the elephant in the room in that thesis: why did outsourcing now, and not before, if the benefit to shareholders has always been there? why di…
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I don't like this type of comment because it's makes it seem like that this was all planned like this on purpose (by some cabal of evil schemers, I suppose?), but without the need to provide any evidence that that's indeed how it went, because nothing of the kind of is explicitly claimed. Things can go wrong without people scheming to do evil. It's not helpful to twist "these and these circumstances combined to produ…
It would actually be worse if we accidentally built this machine to trap and drain a generation of their productive capacity? And of course there is a cabal of evil schemers, they have hardly bothered to hide themselves, e.g.: > Mudsill theory is the proposition that there must be, and always has been, a lower class or underclass for the upper classes and the rest of society to rest upon. > The theory was first artic…
When people imagine a world of we didn't outsource factory work, they assume it will be exactly like ours but where all unemployed English majors become unionized factory workers. In reality, any policy comes with trade offs. People like Steve Jobs would have entered blue collared work, like their parents. Consumer electronics would be significantly more expensive when made by domestic labor, and that means there would be less competition and innovation in this space.
1) Move most good careers that do not require a college degree out of the country for the benefit of shareholders 2) Tell everyone born between 1980 and 1995 that they'll be unable to compete in the global marketplace if they don't get at least some post-high school education, and imply that the mere presence of a degree will help instead of having a specific type of degree 3) Have next-to-zero standards for public f…
For number 2, how did you come up with the very narrow 15 year window of birth from 1980 to 1995? I was born in 1963 and for the entirety of my upbringing it was a forgone conclusion that the lack of post high school education had a dire and inescapable consequence in future earning and socioeconomic status.
It was "Go to a top-N college, major in one of these very carefully enumerated majors that tend to result in good career trajectory (business, engineering, medicine, and so on), and maintain a very good GPA throughout." The messaging was very clear, from parents, teachers, and guidance counselors: Don't go to film school or a Tier-2 university and major in history, if you want a career.
I'm not sure when the "Go to any school, and do whatever" messaging started but it was not happening in the 90s when I was in high school.
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> I left my philosophy PhD program (without a PhD), I still have massive student loan debt In humanities fields, if the department thinks you belong in the program, they pay you to attend. They'll give you fellowships, TAships, and RAships. If they don't give you those, they're telling you not to attend. This is a harsh truth.
That's not generally true. I attended a state university, and the department simply didn't have the funding to pay for its graduate students. However, I did in fact receive some TAships and lectureships while I was there, and even a dissertation fellowship. They didn't pay well though.
I mean, maybe? I know a number of state schools, certainly not all of them, but plenty that can afford paid spots for PhD students in the humanities that are certainly enough for someone to support themselves on. It doesn't pay as well, nearly as well, as jobs that humanities student with a good GPA from a good university can get in the private sector, but its not bad at all.
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> It's worth noting, by the way, that the United States has a shortage of medical doctors. That's a pipeline problem. What the U.S. actually has is a severe bottleneck in available places at medical schools and for residency training.
That’s only because doctors collude to limit the number of available residency places. I programmers were smart, they would: 1. Lobby the government to prohibit anyone from practicing programming without a license. 2. Limit the number of licenses granted each year