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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

#321

Post by ggm »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #214
rayiner wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

are you saying that your kids should not go to college? okay, now do you see why your statistic is meaningless, even if it is true? who answers “yes” to the first question? (hardly anyone).

A minor nit. "Should not" is on a path from "don't have to" and "can chose not to"

When the fintech boom in the 80s and 90s kicked off, quants aside, many had zero tertiary education. The benefit of a university then became access to social circles, and a bit of spreadsheets. I have friends who worked in this sector, and the associated industries wiring it up and nobody cared about your degree if you weren't dining with merchant bankers.

I think the WH is proving at best education is marginal value to hucksters.

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

#322

Post by DiscourseFan »

venturecruelty wrote: post #114
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can provide the piece of paper at a fraction of the cost This isn’t socially useful.

And what we're doing now is? Telling 17-year-olds to take on six figures of debt and then replacing them with ChatGPT while making it impossible to discharge their debt?

Just because Comp Sci and many STEM degrees in general are losing value does not mean that university overall is not worthwhile.

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

#323

Post by anal_reactor »

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

This is the dumbest idea ever because it forces students to take easy classes instead of interesting ones.

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

#324

Post by DiscourseFan »

venturecruelty wrote: post #119
wyldfire wrote: post #90

Americans attend college as a (1) rite of passage and to some extent (2) to have access to an influence network of peers and alumni. For elite universities, it's conceivable that #2 provides some real opportunity. But in general #1 dominates the dollars spent on this experience and it's really too bad.

Only because that's what college has become. I loved studying my field for four years, free of most of the vicissitudes of life that would otherwise prevent me from being able to focus on an education. I guarantee you a lot of people would like to get a degree simply for the sake of learning, and to become a better person. Hell, I'd take a few classes if it didn't cost like $800 per credit hour. This whole "college a…

I also studied something I found fascinating, but I also had friends that I still talk to and meet up with today. Its both possible to enjoy your studies and have a social life.

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

#325

Post by seec »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #256
collinmcnulty wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 quali…

>things are seriously politically messed up I would argue universities played a big role here. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=social+justice... The theory of "elite overproduction" suggests that if you train too many aspirants for the same few elite jobs, they will foment instability in order to get the jobs they feel entitled to. That's what happened when we tried to get everyone going to college. Wha…

That's because they are "elite" in their credentials, not actually elite in their competences/qualities.

By definition you cannot have an elite that is comprised of a large part of the population. The problem is that education institutions have an incentive to bring in more and more people for the money and the power it affords them but that's completely contradictory to the goal of production elite individuals.

A true elite is only possible if you select for the top individuals each year and it cannot be determined solely by the capacity to pay for the school.

A good implementation would use qualities from both US and EU style institutions: education at no cost but very selective process that only accept around 5% of each generation. Otherwise you are just wasting money/ressources on people that will never pay back, whether it is paid by the taxpayer in the EU or by the individual/family in the US is an implementation detail.

And when it comes to "liberal arts" education, in a world where information is extremely cheap/free, it makes absolutely no sense. It was always about credentialism. The reality is that it was about assigning a fake value to people who are kinda useless. The primary selection features are obedience and industriousness which are not necessarily valuable qualities if they are not focused on worthwhile goals but it's very useful for the powers in place. Anybody knows that working hard isn't that desirable when the objectives are not useful. But this is exactly why we get DEI and other dysfunctional policies/systems.

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

#326

Post by seec »

danans wrote: post #207
rayiner wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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%. Due to automation and the great advance of technology, the floor for most jobs has risen such that the skills/knowledge that a 1950s school dropout had would be insufficient for anything but the most menial jobs today. Outs…

Hard disagree. Most useful skill and knowledge is still learned on the job. The "education" is just a selection process. And not only it is a pretty bad one, it is extremely costly.

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

#327

Post by Aeolun »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #83
Aeolun wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make money not a consideration in applying for college? Not by handing out whatever the universities are asking for of course, but by giving them a fixed $X per student.

That might have worked if we had established that right after WWII, but it would never get off the ground now. The current system is too entrenched.

You have a president that’s willing to wage war on institutions of higher learning. If anything this is the only time it’s even been remotely possible.

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

#328

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

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…

Thanks, I thought this was a very insightful comment that helped me think about the problem differently.

I would add, though, that I think "co-op universities" have a good solution. That is, places like Northeastern and Drexel when the undergrad program is 5-ish years and a good portion of that time is working in paid co-op positions. This ensures that students graduate with at least some real-world experience in their field but still get the benefit of classroom study and the full college experience.

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

#330

Post by petesergeant »

anal_reactor wrote: post #323
petesergeant wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is the dumbest idea ever because it forces students to take easy classes instead of interesting ones.

> it forces students to take easy classes instead of interesting ones

The UK system doesn't really let students choose which classes to take

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