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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

#441

Post by bko »

jltsiren wrote: post #200
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…

The job training you get at 20 is often obsolete when you're 40. For example, many women of my parents' generation trained for jobs in the textile industry. But eventually the jobs disappeared, as Finland got too wealthy. A bit more abstract education would have made it easier for them to find a new career. But not too abstract. From my point of view, the weird parts of the American educational system are the high sc…

Job training is a lot more than learning how to use equipment. It's about showing up on time, dealing with coworkers and being a productive member of a team. That's best learned on the job and is a big reason people don't like new grads. Its like going out on a date with someone that has never had a girlfriend. Let someone else break them in and screen them.

Higher ed unfortunately almost desocializes a lot of people. They live in a bubble and become insufferable obsessed with politics and social issues that are disruptive and inappropriate in the workplace

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

#442

Post by kopirgan »

armchairhacker wrote: post #362
kopirgan wrote: post #351

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 co…

Do you know any employers actively avoiding students from Ivy-league colleges? I agree that colleges have acted as filters, but the value of degrees has been deflated, even in Ivy leagues, because they’re easier and more common. I think a degree still acts as a filter though; getting a job is hard with a degree but nearly impossible without. EDIT: There’s the Thiel fellowship, which requires not having a degree, but…

I don't "know" that's why I said guess. I doubt if they'll ever say this. Even in today's USA.

But there's enough SM comments to make a guess.

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

#443

Post by [deleted] »

fpoling wrote: post #418
stefs wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's true that it was possible to support a family on a single unskilled laborer income in the '50s, their standard of living was far below anything most people would accept today.

A single income family in US with the husband working at a factory in fifties and sixties could afford a home with washing machine, dish washer, TV and a phone. Surely the home was smaller, but it was easier to clean, the TV screen was tiny, but then the family can go to a cinema. There was no internet, but for information one could go to the library. So how it was far below what people in US could accept today?

[deleted]

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

#444

Post by closewith »

kiba wrote: post #334
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…

America doesn't and shouldn't fight China or Russia alone, so I don't know why we're talking about that. Russia is basically on its way out as a military power. It can't even conquer Ukraine. As for China, you don't fight China alone. What do you think military bases in Japan are for? Anyway, for the world's sake, China shouldn't start a war, but sometime you just can't stop stupid.

Okay, as Devil's Advocate, you could say the same about the US. It was unable to conquer Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria.

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

#445

Post by expedition32 »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #306
ajashdkjhasjkd wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>Most of the rest of the world subsidizes student tuition so students dont pay much out of pocket. And they also severely restrict who can attend university. Of course this is a non-starter in the current US political environment.

In my country the only restriction for university is that you have a highschool diploma.

Getting into the medical faculty is harder because the government does pay for everything and training doctors is expensive- for those the university picks the best and brightest.

The government also has programs in place to send out students to Harvard and MIT as the future elite of the nation.

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

#446

Post by Swenrekcah »

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.

The problem is that almost everyone is now expected to get a degree which necessarily devalues the whole thing.

It is now necessary to get a doctorate if you want to really signal academic prowess, but that comes with an incredibly high opportunity and personal cost.

Society really needs to just accept that just over half of the population is never going to maka a good doctor, engineer, physicist, etc. and that is perfectly OK. We readily understand that very few people can become professional athletes and don’t think any less of those that can’t.

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

#447

Post by firesteelrain »

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.

The correlation is backwards. America’s mid-20th-century dominance was not the result of having only about 10 percent college graduates. It came from unique post–World War II advantages: intact industrial capacity, massive federal investment like the GI Bill, NSF, DARPA, and the interstate highway system, and the fact that global competitors were rebuilding from destruction. The GI Bill greatly expanded access to higher education and economists widely credit it with boosting productivity, innovation, and the growth of the middle class. Rising college attainment in the 1990s and 2000s coincides with globalization, offshoring, and wage stagnation, which makes this a correlation problem rather than evidence that more education causes national decline.

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

#448

Post by tonyedgecombe »

the_gipsy wrote: post #376
kiba wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America doesn't and shouldn't fight China or Russia alone, so I don't know why we're talking about that. Russia is basically on its way out as a military power. It can't even conquer Ukraine. As for China, you don't fight China alone. What do you think military bases in Japan are for? Anyway, for the world's sake, China shouldn't start a war, but sometime you just can't stop stupid.

America is on a isolation downward spiral. Russia will conquer Ukraine, any other prediction at this point is absurd. See point one, America is alone now, it will take decades to repair the damage.

>Russia will conquer Ukraine, any other prediction at this point is absurd.

They have been moving across Ukraine at a literal snails pace.

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

#449

Post by bildung »

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…

> The USA is still THE powerhouse economy of the world.

Things look decidedly different if you exclude the ad companies (Google, Meta, ...) and associated shovel sellers, see the WaPo article about the S&P 493 from a few days ago.

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

#450

Post by kopirgan »

walthamstow wrote: post #380
armchairhacker wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know any employers actively avoiding students from Ivy-league colleges? I agree that colleges have acted as filters, but the value of degrees has been deflated, even in Ivy leagues, because they’re easier and more common. I think a degree still acts as a filter though; getting a job is hard with a degree but nearly impossible without. EDIT: There’s the Thiel fellowship, which requires not having a degree, but…

I don't know about actively avoiding, but I have worked for multiple companies in London who prefer not to hire at the 'top' end of candidates (hence hiring me!), because they'll cost more and can have cultural issues like not be very fun people or thinking themselves to be above the self-taught and weird-career guys who didn't get a first from Imperial.

There's lot of anecdotal chatter and also mainstream media coverage on this.. It's a genuine concern.

But bigger issue is in USA where general jobless numbers are lower, with several sectors facing shortages, why is there the issue of grad unemployment at all.

The correct answer is important because politicians are filling the vacuum with false narratives to suit their base.

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