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Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

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Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#121

Post by creato »

energy123 wrote: post #118
Aeolun wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can provide the piece of paper at a fraction of the cost too. Nearly all of Europe does, I believe.

That doesn't have prestige value. Prestige comes from scarcity and the ability to exclude the lower caste. If people want to play those exclusivity games that's up to them. What's wrong is asking the taxpayer to fund it under the false mask that the entire product is education.

The scarcity in Europe (at least the two countries I'm familiar with) comes from a standardized test. If you don't do well on the test, you don't go to college.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#122

Post by nashashmi »

Total cost of ownership is 4 years x $15k-$25k (for a cheap public school) + missed income from working that same four years ($35k x 4 years). This is equal to $220k +/- $20k of lost money.

Now compare this to income differential. Starting grad income is $80k(?). At 4% raise per year compared to 3.5% raise per year for a non-college employee. Over 43 years.

My math comes out to the college grad is still making more money despite the initial sunk cost.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#123

Post by anonymouskimmer »

crossbody wrote: post #51
Aeolun wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can provide the piece of paper at a fraction of the cost too. Nearly all of Europe does, I believe.

Did Europe find a cheat code that gets free $$$ for education? Nothing is free - once you graduate you are hit with 50% tax that gets back all you "free" tuition costs many, many times over. Not saying education should not be subsidized via taxes (I think it's good overall), but it's not free at all - the price is just hidden and spread out over many years (similar to student loans but less visible).

From what I understand European education and degree programs are typically much more structured and narrow, and thus finish a lot faster. A student who finishes K-Ph.D. in the US will have a lot more breadth of exposure than such a student in most of Europe, if I recall what I read on the topic a while ago correctly.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#124

Post by venturecruelty »

pdonis wrote: post #108
yoyohello13 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A happy side effect of that university degree was a more rounded education, which now many young adults will be missing out on. Absolutely! So many people bemoan taking general Ed classes, but knowing the basics about economics, literature, science, art, math, history is valuable if you want to think critically about the world.

Why do you need to pay to go to college to learn the basics of all these subjects? The same information is available for free online.

Teaching is a deliberate act, and it cannot be replaced by a Google AI summary.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#126

Post by jjmarr »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #113
jjmarr wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Healthcare costs, and hence health insurance premiums, are the same with or without an employer intermediary. If you read the fine print of a health "insurance" plan at a large company, you might discover healthcare costs are directly covered by the employer and the insurance company just administers the plan according to "set rules". In practice, this operates as blame as a service.

Sure, but the doctors/medicine/hospitals/liability are not any cheaper. So the healthcare isn’t cheap, but the employer is able to gain more control over their employees by tying a piece of their non employee life to the employer creating more friction to prevent people from shopping for jobs with higher pay, and the employee is getting a small tax benefit.

Yes, but the same insurance company will screw with your coverage depending on your employer.

My mom's plan randomly denied my medications all the time as a student. My current job's plan always provides coverage.

Both were the same insurance company, but she's in a different field with a more stingy employer.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#127

Post by venturecruelty »

ungreased0675 wrote: post #23
carlosjobim wrote: post #2

College degrees now have negative value for hiring. A company wanting to hire a reliable and competent worker will avoid college graduates.

Seems like you’re hurting some feelings. I’m a manager in a unique field where people come in with many educational levels. There is little correlation between educational credentials and job performance. A variety of previous jobs and having lived a few different places seems to correlate more with performance.

Sure, get the high school dropout to build your bridge for you. See how well that non-traditional hire works out.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#128

Post by veqq »

petesergeant wrote: post #117
jswelker wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And resultingly, if you do go to college and immerse yourself in the educational experience, you come out with superpowers compared to your peers. Getting companies to see those superpowers in a hiring pipeline of course is a different story

Do American colleges not give degree grades? In the UK your degree class (grade) is moderately important for your first job

All serious applicants have the maximum grade, in the US system.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#129

Post by nradov »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #105
jswelker wrote: post #102

Higher ed is like employer based health insurance in that they are both weird path dependent historical accidents. People want cheap healthcare, and it got shoehorned into an odd employer fringe benefit system that really is not at all related healthcare in any intrinsic way. People want job training, and it got shoehorned into extra departments at liberal arts universities intended as aristocrat finishing schools. J…

> People want cheap healthcare, and it got shoehorned into an odd employer fringe benefit system that really is not at all related healthcare in any intrinsic way. Healthcare costs, and hence health insurance premiums, are the same with or without an employer intermediary. The only difference is with an employer intermediary, the insured gets to pay their premium with pre-tax income. The cost of the health insurance…

Right, the federal tax code is structured to give advantages to employer sponsored health plans. But it doesn't have to be that way. A better approach would be to eliminate those plans and force everyone to purchase individual or family plans through state ACA marketplaces using pre-tax dollars.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#130

Post by eli_gottlieb »

pdonis wrote: post #106
lovich wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was told in college that the US system of healthcare being tied to your employer was the result of companies looking for fringe benefits to offer when tax rates were at their highest for the high income group. However I can’t find evidence of that now that I’m looking so if someone could confirm one way or the other that this was true or not, I’d appreciate it

It started during WW II when the US government put wage and price controls in place so that companies could not compete for employees by offering higher wages. So they competed for employees instead by offering employer-paid healthcare as a benefit. Then after the war, when the wage and price controls were repealed, the employer-paid healthcare system, instead of going away, kept getting more elaborate.

As with a lot of things, such as vacation time, Americans seem to prefer to provide certain social goods as employer benefits because that way it seems more like a reward for competitive merit, which one can show off as a status symbol, than like a universal social good.
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