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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

#351

Post by kopirgan »

IIRC Mark Andreessen once said colleges esp ivy league ones, simplify the job of recruiters by acting as filters. Saves them the bother. So they attached lots of value.

I guess that's true even now but in a perverse sort of way. As markers of indoctrination and unsuitability for productive corporate roles.

Employers probably decided to avoid them.

That's not fair to a large number of students but the old system of colleges being markers of intelligence, suitability etc was not fair to large number of others either..

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

#352

Post by seec »

xethos wrote: post #132
crossbody wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The students bear costs but no benefit to themselves? No higher wages? My point is that it doesn't matter in principle if one takes a loan and pays it down over time vs. one is taxed at much higher % and that tax "pays down" a phantom student loan of "free" education. It does introduce a risk and hence the incentive for loan takers to choose their degree wisely though. Which should lead to better allocation of labor…

I actually included the graduate as a beneficiary ("a well-paid, highly taxed contributor" or "the graduate" in the counter), but more importantly: The entirety of society benefits from a well-educated populace. That's one reason even those without children pay for public education. Following that, if everyone benefits, why is the graduate taking on all the risk (via a non-dischargeable student loan) instead of sprea…

This can only be true if the society gets richer over timer from this process. Considering that EU has actually become poorer and the gap is becoming larger every year passing, your theory of benefits from a well-educated populace is not well funded.

In the EU, the risk has been loaded onto everyone but the benefits are meager at best, and inexistent in practice. This is the typical problem of socialist system where everyone bear the cost but the benefits are only distributed to those in power or those who could manipulate the system for their own benefits.

If that wasn't true, France wouldn't be in the political turmoil and economic disaster that it is today. Unsurprisingly, France has been dominated by marxist adjacent ideologies, co-opted by the "resistants", the real winners of WW2. The US won on the ground but largely lost the ideological battle, we are now seeing the result of that invisible battleground.

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

#353

Post by overfeed »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #213
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.

Correlation-only is sloppy analysis. The inheritors and descendants of those that directly created the problem are screaming at the colleges as the problem. But that’s ass backwards: Create the long-term financial opportunity and the college problem will disappear overnight. The correlation is because rational actors will follow the only leads available to make money, survive, and raise a family. Edit: I edited the t…

> The inheritors and descendants of those that directly created the problem are screaming at the colleges as the problem

Not to mention rank-and-file American conservatives who see universities as bastions of liberal thought/power, and create threadbare, post-hoc arguments as to why universities have to be dismantled or politically reeducated when partisanship has to be disguised.

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

#354

Post by jpalawaga »

stack_framer wrote: post #115

I dropped out after my university added various "studies" courses to the required list. I took just one such course—gender studies—which was utterly abysmal. There was zero tolerance for debating ideas or considering opposing viewpoints. You either assimilated with the group think, or you were castigated for your heresy. It was indoctrination, not education.

I will give you an upvote to offset the negative expressions. I've heard of at least one instance at a very well known Bay Area university in such a class.

From what was described to me, and I trust this person to not misrepresent their experience, was that they were essentially told 'hi, cis white male, sit down and don't say a damn thing, this isn't your place to talk'. And then go on to essentially present a curriculum that was essentially a myriad of thinly-veiled misandry, compounded by extremely clear classroom rules/culture where any opposition was decidedly unwanted by the lecturers.

I'm the first to champion equal rights and equal opportunity, but that that sort of thing was going on in higher ed left a bad taste in my mouth.

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

#355

Post by lurk2 »

roenxi wrote: post #307
monero-xmr wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but if the US truly has the best military (and it does 100x) then when push comes to shove, the US will destroy anyone who tries to undermine it. Very dangerous game to oppose it. Being able to construct things quickly is important, but if the US can militarily seize nearly every country on earth in days, the power is not necessarily where the kit is located

The US military isn't that scary; the evidence to date is that it's ability to destroy counties ends somewhere around Iran's strength. The modelling I've seen is that any US-China war will take place in Asia and China will probably win it unless the US gets a lot of help (always possible). And the US has already been undermined by the likes of China, Russia and India and there isn't a lot they can do about it in the…

> the evidence to date is that it's ability to destroy counties ends somewhere around Iran's strength.

Only if Geneva enters the equation.

> the US has already been undermined by the likes of China, Russia and India

What is India doing on this list?

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

#356

Post by [deleted] »

monero-xmr wrote: post #282
rayiner wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is a great example of how you don’t need most of the population enrolled in universities. > The USA is still THE powerhouse economy of the world. The US was a powerhouse economy when it could build the world’s largest navy almost overnight. Since the 1980s, the U.S. economy has become highly financialized. It’s disputed how much American economic dominance is real versus on paper today.

I agree with you, but if the US truly has the best military (and it does 100x) then when push comes to shove, the US will destroy anyone who tries to undermine it. Very dangerous game to oppose it. Being able to construct things quickly is important, but if the US can militarily seize nearly every country on earth in days, the power is not necessarily where the kit is located

[deleted]

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

#357

Post by seec »

creato wrote: post #121
energy123 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not exactly true. Funnily enough, you are extremely dependent on your sociological background. If you come from a poor family and do very well, you'll get a full ride for sure. But if you do well but come from a well-off family that refuse to pay for your education, you are fucked. It's only university attendance that is (mostly) free. you still need to finance housing and life costs. Since most good universities are in expensive cities and student loans are not much of a thing, it is an extremely selective process that targets both class standing (from a money standpoint) and parental implication.

There was a study on one of the most selective school in France and actually diversity of background has gone down in the last 20 years. Europe is highly politicised and it was always about selecting for ideologically compatible behavior. Otherwise education wouldn't need so much government intervention/support, even if said education would be paid for by the taxpayer (everyone could get some amounts of credits, that they could spend on their institution of choice).

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

#358

Post by roenxi »

Qwertious wrote: post #338
roenxi wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US military isn't that scary; the evidence to date is that it's ability to destroy counties ends somewhere around Iran's strength. The modelling I've seen is that any US-China war will take place in Asia and China will probably win it unless the US gets a lot of help (always possible). And the US has already been undermined by the likes of China, Russia and India and there isn't a lot they can do about it in the…

>The US military isn't that scary; the evidence to date is that it's ability to destroy counties ends somewhere around Iran's strength. The US military's "ability" is very contextual - for instance, the US could easily obliterate Iran with a MIRV or two, but for various geopolitical reasons they choose not to. Likewise, the US navy is of limited use against Iran due to the literal mountain range between their only co…

If we're assuming a nuclear war then the US military is comparable to a bunch of other militarys. And the "various geopolitical reasons", on examination, includes possible outcomes like the US being pummelled through the stone age and out the other side, or more mild ones like New York being flattened. It isn't really much of an option in any foreseeable scenario where their goose isn't already being cooked.

So yes they are scary, but they aren't that scary relatively speaking. We've left the brief era where the US could exert military supremacy over the globe and it is ambiguous who has the "best" military among the major powers [0]. Militarys are generally a tool for self-destruction anyway so the term is a bit ambiguous, most of the big empires fall because they get too enamoured with military solutions over economic and diplomatic excellence.

[0] Does the US military even perform to spec? There is clearly a lot of corruption and I've seen it described on HN as a disguised welfare program.

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

#359

Post by K0balt »

danans wrote: post #263
bombcar wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our immigration policies pretty strongly indicate we still need those less educated people doing work, we just don’t want to pay anything resembling reasonable wages for such.

I agree that our system relies heavily on uneducated migrants for menial labor. However, uneducated people in the 1950s regularly got jobs in factories that paid enough for a single income to support a family. That opportunity for uneducated Americans won't come back, regardless of our immigration policies.

It’s likely that automation is about to turn the world on its ear vis-a-vis low skilled employment. The cost of human sustenance and care is surprisingly high compared to electricity, steel, carbon fiber, and silicon.

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

#360

Post by baiwl »

viccis wrote: post #292
cherrycherry98 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing the government provides is free. It's paid for with taxes that are forcefully collected and would have been spent or invested privately otherwise. I'm not someone who's against taxes but it's a myth and propaganda that the government can just magically provide free stuff. I'm ok with the government providing things but I want them to be honest about what the costs are.

>Nothing the government provides is free. Yes it is. "Free" doesn't mean "has no cost paid by anyone" and never has in these discussions. It means "at no cost to the student". Apologies if English isn't your first language.

…but there is cost to the student or their family. The difference being that paying for it or not is not an option. You can’t just say “I won’t go to uni, so I won’t pay for it”
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