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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

#181

Post by AxiomaticSpace »

nashashmi wrote: post #122

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 m…

This assumes that every college grad is guaranteed a decent starting income. It seems that on average new grads are struggling more now than they used to to get jobs in their fields, especially higher paying jobs. And that perception is probably magnified by internet horror stories such as every 3rd post on r/cscareers.

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

#182

Post by blindriver »

"Adjusted for inflation" concept is broken in this instance.

One of the reasons why inflation is so high is because college costs have skyrocketed, so citing that they have increased after taking into inflation is like circular logic.

Banks lent an unlimited amount of money to students because they knew they couldn't discharge the debt in bankruptcy, and the schools jacked up prices because they knew students had the money. College costs more than doubled in a 10 years period but the services or even the number of students enrolled didn't even get without a ballpark of doubling. They just enriched themselves off student loans.

The only way to fix this is to let student loans be dischargeable from bankruptcy again, and let banks and colleges take the fall. Right now it's another instance of us peons playing a game of "heads you win, tails i lose."

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

#183

Post by mc32 »

collinmcnulty wrote: post #143
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…

This view seems to be common, but I think it misses what incredible alchemy comes from making people who come in for “job training” (like I did) spend 4 years in close proximity with research, academic freedom, liberal arts, and at least an attempt at some kind of intellectual idealism separate from economic incentive. It’s peanut butter and chocolate that has served democracy and its people well by having a middle c…

What they crank out today suffers from grade inflation. No longer is 'C' the average grade. Kids and parents who pay over 100k for their diploma all demand above average grades. It's not as bad as presenting a diploma from a Caribbean diploma mill, but they're not what they used to be.

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

#184

Post by crossbody »

mbesto wrote: post #166
crossbody wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does. In large part due to Baumol's cost disease - higher overall incomes in productive sector like tech drive up costs for sector with low productivity growth - so professors and admin staff in US make 2x salaries compared to Europe (cost of living adjusted). Also, have you seen EU student amenities and dorm sizes?

I'm trying to follow you. I don't get how Baumol's has a higher degree of effectiveness in the US than it does in the EU? Are you saying there are more tech companies and therefore tech roles in the US than EU and thus those drive up non-tech wages even though they aren't as productive?

Exactly

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

#185

Post by rfrey »

nashashmi wrote: post #122

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 m…

I'm not sure where your numbers come from. In my region job prospects are not much better for a liberal arts grad than a high school graduate, and much, much worse than someone with a trades education.

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

#186

Post by wtetzner »

fragmede wrote: post #163
pclmulqdq wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American colleges give out a GPA, which used to mean something but has now been inflated to the point of meaninglessness. 60% of my college class 10 years ago had a 3.5/4 or higher. The median grade at Harvard is an A. I am told that since COVID, B grades and below now require a written explanation by the professor at several schools.

Given that the bar for getting into Harvard is rather high these days, shouldn't we expect the median grade in Harvard to be fairly high? If C students aren't allowed into Harvard these days, doesn't it make sense they aren't giving out Cs?

Wouldn't a C in Harvard mean "average for a Harvard student"?

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

#187

Post by anonym29 »

fragmede wrote: post #163
pclmulqdq wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American colleges give out a GPA, which used to mean something but has now been inflated to the point of meaninglessness. 60% of my college class 10 years ago had a 3.5/4 or higher. The median grade at Harvard is an A. I am told that since COVID, B grades and below now require a written explanation by the professor at several schools.

Given that the bar for getting into Harvard is rather high these days, shouldn't we expect the median grade in Harvard to be fairly high? If C students aren't allowed into Harvard these days, doesn't it make sense they aren't giving out Cs?

I've interviewed Harvard CS grads for SWE roles at big tech who couldn't write a working program for fizzbuzz, for defanging an IP address, or for reversing words in a sentence, in a language of their choice, with leetcode's provided instructions, in half an hour, with unlimited attempts, gentle coaching from me, and the ability to use the internet to search for anything that isn't a direct solution (e.g. syntax).

Yes, more than one.

Either the bar for getting into Harvard cannot possibly be as high as it's made out to be, someone's figured out how to completely defeat degree-validation service providers, or Harvard is happy to churn out a nonzero number of students wholly unprepared for meeting extremely basic expectations for the prototypical job of their chosen degree.

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

#188

Post by collinmcnulty »

rayiner wrote: post #161
collinmcnulty wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This view seems to be common, but I think it misses what incredible alchemy comes from making people who come in for “job training” (like I did) spend 4 years in close proximity with research, academic freedom, liberal arts, and at least an attempt at some kind of intellectual idealism separate from economic incentive. It’s peanut butter and chocolate that has served democracy and its people well by having a middle c…

That's historical revisionism. The percentage of American adults over age 25 who have a college degree was only 20% as recently as 1990. When America was truly at the top of the world in the 1950s and 1960s, it was under 10%. A high fraction of college attendance is better correlated with the 21st century decline in America's situation.

I think widening the aperture outside the USA shows how big societal progress has come out of universities of the type we now recognize, starting with 1800s Germany. Even within the USA, the technological and social progress that percolated on universities had big impacts beyond the people actually enrolled and were essential in providing the basis for the employment of many other Americans.

Finally, it’s worth qualifying the idea of America’s decline. The USA is still THE powerhouse economy of the world. We have huge problems with unequal distribution and things are seriously politically messed up, but in terms of raw productivity, we are doing gangbusters. And solving the political and inequality issues call for a more educated populace, not less.

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

#189

Post by seanmcdirmid »

anonym29 wrote: post #187
fragmede wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the bar for getting into Harvard is rather high these days, shouldn't we expect the median grade in Harvard to be fairly high? If C students aren't allowed into Harvard these days, doesn't it make sense they aren't giving out Cs?

I've interviewed Harvard CS grads for SWE roles at big tech who couldn't write a working program for fizzbuzz, for defanging an IP address, or for reversing words in a sentence, in a language of their choice, with leetcode's provided instructions, in half an hour, with unlimited attempts, gentle coaching from me, and the ability to use the internet to search for anything that isn't a direct solution (e.g. syntax). Ye…

If you don’t cram for leetcode, you won’t pass a leetcode interview. It takes some kids a few interviews to figure that out, even they are from elite school like MIT. You were just their learning experience.

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

#190

Post by jswelker »

sagarm wrote: post #175
jswelker wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting combo, but after working for a decade in higher ed, there is a real division and enmity between the liberal arts and sciences and the "career" programs. The latter is seen as an illegitimate degree mill. The former as a freeloader that does not pull its weight financially. It is an uneasy partnership of convenience.

I had the impression that liberal arts students were highly profitable for universities, because they had no expensive labs.

It depends highly on logistics like class size. Many programs brag about small class sizes, which are great for students but anathema to university bean counters. These programs often try to subsidize the small program specific courses with huge gen ed courses, making the whole student body effectively subsidize these underperforming programs. Real nasty fights occur over which courses to include in the gen ed program because every department wants a piece of that pie to prop up their poor numbers. And this dynamic is definitely much worse in humanities.

Edit: also instructor composition, meaning the proportion of instructors in a program who are senior/tenured vs new vs adjuncts. Class size and instructor salary are nearly the whole equation.

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