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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

#341

Post by apparent »

menaerus wrote: post #331
apparent wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers look very different for a private school, which could run up to $100k for tuition, room, and board. It is almost unimaginable that attending a private college could have a positive expected value at that cost. For one thing, the incoming students will typically have stellar credentials and abilities. This means that they would not have the average outcome of a high school grad who gets no further educatio…

People who can afford themselves going to private schools have a reason why they prefer spending 100ks vs less. Prestige schools gets you a prestige job so "It is almost unimaginable that attending a private college could have a positive expected value at that cost" isn't necessarily true.

The thing is, prestige and cost do not go hand in hand. The most expensive schools are not the most prestigious. I think Vanderbilt was the first school to hit the ignominious milestone of $100,000/yr, and they're not Ivy League, Ivy+, or perhaps even Ivy++ (if such a classification existed).

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

#342

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

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).

The taxation is conditional on earning enough income though, which aligns incentives better.

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

#343

Post by viccis »

jghn wrote: post #298
viccis wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I've seen this with a lot of my friends who did a similar thing. HR employees screening you out alone is a huge problem. I have some middle and upper middle class gen X and older friends giving their children TERRIBLE advice about how degrees aren't worth it anymore and you get more out of getting started in your career ASAP than spending 4 years in school. The problem is that a BS now is like a high school dipl…

> The problem is that a BS now is like a high school diploma when they grew up > gen X / boomer Those 2 generations aren't even remotely close in terms of shared experience of what high school diploma was like when they grew up.

Well that specific example paragraph was about financial aid, not the value of a high school diploma, so I fail to see your point.

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

#344

Post by terminalshort »

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…

People can operate heavy equipment and even fly planes without a fancy sounding degree, so I don't think some stupid office job is so complex that a HS grad can't handle it.

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

#345

Post by viccis »

nebula8804 wrote: post #300
viccis wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I've seen this with a lot of my friends who did a similar thing. HR employees screening you out alone is a huge problem. I have some middle and upper middle class gen X and older friends giving their children TERRIBLE advice about how degrees aren't worth it anymore and you get more out of getting started in your career ASAP than spending 4 years in school. The problem is that a BS now is like a high school dipl…

>Another example of bad gen X / boomer advice is to knock out core credits in community college and transfer to university later. They don't understand that your only shot at getting significant scholarships and financial aid is when you enter as a 1st time freshman. I know someone with brilliant kids who made National Merit Scholar this year who is already setting their kids aims low by advising them to do this when…

Many private colleges like Rice cover 100% of costs for all students with parents under a fairly high salary. Almost 40% of MIT students have financial aid that's equal or greater than their tuition. This is starting to get more and more common for elite colleges and universities.

I got a full ride plus stipend to a pretty good but not great school, but one of the things I wish my parents pushed me on harder was applying to schools like MIT where I didn't bother applying because I didn't want to be saddled with debt. This was a couple decades back, and it's so much easier to get a full ride now if you can make it in (admittedly much harder now).

My point isn't to write off community college. It's that a talented and accomplished high schooler should set their sights higher because the old idea that all these elite colleges are unaffordable is rapidly changing.

Also, I am not sure if you know people taking CC courses recently, but they are often taught in a way that gives you what you paid for at $0. Prerecorded canned lectures, infuriating and curiosity crushing online worksheets, etc. I know multiple people who were excited to do free CC when it was made free for older (30+) students whose academic aims were immediately stamped out within one semester because there was no college instruction. Just endless online worksheets. These things exist in other higher ed paths too, but truly not to the extent that I've witnessed.

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

#346

Post by terminalshort »

ajashdkjhasjkd wrote: post #222
hc12345 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the world has severed the two. A lot of what you'd consider key parts of the university experience just doesn't exist in most of Europe or the highly developed parts of Asia. In practice, it's attaching job training to a very, very expensive resort, regardless of who is paying for it. It's pretty nice, in the very same sense that spending 4 years in a beach resort ls also great, but one needs to be absurdly w…

> Most of the world has severed the two Yes, and the US system is the envy of the world and is responsible for the overwhelming majority of wealth generated in the US over the past few decades. I'm not sure how that's an argument against the US Higher Ed system. Edit: The real issue you seem to be pointing to is the cost of attending universities in the US. There are 2 parts to this. 1 is the costs of running a unive…

> Yes, and the US system is the envy of the world and is responsible for the overwhelming majority of wealth generated in the US over the past few decades

Citation needed on both counts

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

#347

Post by maxglute »

collinmcnulty wrote: post #188
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.

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…

> in terms of raw productivity

In terms of dubious financialized metrics of productivity, i.e. debt + fx driven growth. Which is valid indicator, but also the same inflated indicator that suggests 2025 tertiary that cost 200% 1980 tertiary (income/inflation adjusted) is somehow more productive and not parasitic. The entire problem is spreadsheet doing gangbusters is dependenant on increasingly inequitable CoL extraction to prop up GDP flows. US economy would appear much less powerhouse if not for all the disproportionate financiailization/rent extraction from inelastic sectors (rent/education/health etc) aggregated over past 40 years over functionally comparable value goods/services.

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

#348

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#349

Post by zkmon »

Education in modern times is only about training and certifying workforce so that employers can easily filter the prospective employees.

If that training and certification can be made available via other easier means, that's the end of brick-mortar universities with grand campuses. The dinosaur has to evolve into a bird.

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

#350

Post by DaSHacka »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #271
wavemode wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not sustainable to sell a product that most people only buy because they were trying to buy something else (or because they're forced to for societal reasons). That sort of approach is exactly why "Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost" (as the title states)! People are wising up to the truth, and now it's harming the credibility of the system as a whole.

> It's not sustainable to sell a product that most people only buy because they were trying to buy something else (or because they're forced to for societal reasons). Like a car in the United States, outside of perhaps five metro areas?

What do you suggest people were trying to buy, instead of cars?
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