The Great College Hoax • Hacker News Board

Re: The Great College Hoax

#41

Post by sanj » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 7:05 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #30

You had me right up until "bachelor's degree in history".

There was a time when I felt that way. But somewhere along the line I married a woman who's got a degree in History and Literature. I can see your eyes rolling already. It gets worse: she never even (gasp!) took Calculus.

But the fact is that she's smart. Crazy smart. Quoted by the Supreme Court smart.

And she sees the world through glasses that are very, very different than my own. Our discussions are not about whether X > Y, but whether Y is even a measurable, meaningful value; whether this is the right question to be asking; what X means in a legal sense; what that implies for the how we build policy; and whether we can help people get understand Y.

This morning we argued about Robert Reich's premise of restructuring the economy and whether you could blame stagnant wages at the feet of Microsoft.

Every day that I talk to her I see nuances where I hadn't before. I get smarter.

I'd even go as far as to say I get smarter at a faster rate than I have talking to vast majority of the technical people I've ever interacted with.

Re: The Great College Hoax

#42

Post by unalone » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 7:18 PM UTC

vaksel wrote: post #17

unalone wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of the people who thinks there's some worth to being in a place with people who all want to learn. College isn't about money. It's about being open to explore. I'm in a class about religion, another about creative (physical) design, one about interactive multimedia, one about advanced PHP work. Each semester I'm hoping to learn more about things I don't already know much about. It's not about the degree. I ha…

if you are open to explore, whats stopping you from learning all those things on your own? If you want to learn, you can get some books from the library or hit the net and learn it on your own. You don't need to get into debt up to your eyeballs to achieve that. You are taking only 12 college credits..do you really think you can't spend 12 hours a week to learn that stuff on your own? If you are learning on your own,…

Damn, my edit disappeared. Apologies for the double post.

The other problem with that is that I wouldn't know where to begin finding a job. I'm not satisfied with much. If I'm not working on my ideas, creating them as I see fit, I'm not happy. So I can't think of many jobs I could take that really would make it worth not going to college.

Re: The Great College Hoax

#43

Post by acgourley » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 7:18 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #37

blankity_blank wrote: post #9

What the hell were the couple in example #1 doing with their $200K income? If they wanted to pay off their debt in 10 years, they'd need about $2800 a month, assuming the rate was the full 12% the whole time. I agree with a lot of the article, but a couple of idiots who pissed away the fruits of their education on too many vacations and fancy cars (obviously not any real investments, otherwise they could have refinan…

Uh, even for two people with six-figure salaries --- and speaking from experience here --- two thousand eight hundred dollars a month is a shitload of money. It's a second full-sized house in a nice neighborhood, or the rent on two apartments, or (wait for it) seven BMW 315i car payments.

Yes it's a lot of money, but it also leaves them with a lot of money left every month. I don't know exactly what your net income in CA on 200k is (and if they filed jointly, etc), but they should take home at least 10k a month.

They still have 7k a month to live on. I don't see the problem.

Re: The Great College Hoax

#44

Post by fiaz » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 7:18 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #24

fiaz wrote: post #20

This article needs to explicitly state: 1) education is valuable 2) education has become too expensive (implicitly stated) 3) the "hoax" is that of how our credit/debt system works, not about the collegiate system Already people on this thread are jumping the gun and stating that college sucks and you don't need it. But this is a subjective view and should be taken as such. The only fact that I can get from this arti…

I think the problem is with those 18% loans (covered by your 3rd point, I think). What the hell? Who pays that kind of interest rate? The article states: A correlation between B.A.s and incomes is not proof of cause and effect. It may reflect nothing more than the fact that the economy rewards smart people and smart people are likely to go to college. I would say that there is likely to be a strong correlation betwee…

Your quote from the article highlights yet another fallacy - that if you are educated you will make more money. This is marketing at its worst.

It's because of this reasoning I'm surrounded by people who studied CS as a major and learned Java because it was projected to pay well (hint hint about the age level of developers I'm working with lately). The result is that I fix the mistakes of people who possess coding skills that I wouldn't even qualify as AP high school level. My point here is to highlight the idea of choosing an education that compels you to develop yourself into a "somebody" instead of being an "anybody".

Education is polish for the mind. It's best used towards developing yourself as an individual. Unfortunately it has devolved into a tool to charm money out of the system.

Re: The Great College Hoax

#45

Post by unalone » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 7:19 PM UTC

robg wrote: post #23

eli wrote: post #16

Totally offtopic, but I hate it when people link to the Printer Friendly version. It's a whole lot harder to read on a widescreen monitor. If you don't want to see ads on the regular site, install AdBlock like everyone else.

Some people, like me, prefer single-page over multi-page.

Ugh, but the complete lack of margin was painful.

Re: The Great College Hoax

#46

Post by poppysan » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 7:24 PM UTC

acgourley wrote: post #43

tptacek wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, even for two people with six-figure salaries --- and speaking from experience here --- two thousand eight hundred dollars a month is a shitload of money. It's a second full-sized house in a nice neighborhood, or the rent on two apartments, or (wait for it) seven BMW 315i car payments.

Yes it's a lot of money, but it also leaves them with a lot of money left every month. I don't know exactly what your net income in CA on 200k is (and if they filed jointly, etc), but they should take home at least 10k a month. They still have 7k a month to live on. I don't see the problem.

I live in CA and am struggling at just under 6 figures. Childcare and Mortgage on an (average 500K) home is the majority of my salary. Here is the problem. With over 80% of my net going to living expenses, there is no extra 2800 to go to school loans.

Thank heavens I have no loans, just have to pay my wife's off....

Re: The Great College Hoax

#47

Post by poppysan » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 7:26 PM UTC

coglethorpe wrote: post #22

> a bachelor's degree in history Strike one. > took out $60,000 in student loans Strike two. College isn't a bad idea. Majoring in subjects that lead to careers with more job seekers than jobs and taking out student loans is are bad ideas.

It cant be too bad if they are pulling in 200K a year....

Re: The Great College Hoax

#48

Post by acgourley » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 7:27 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #24

fiaz wrote: post #20

This article needs to explicitly state: 1) education is valuable 2) education has become too expensive (implicitly stated) 3) the "hoax" is that of how our credit/debt system works, not about the collegiate system Already people on this thread are jumping the gun and stating that college sucks and you don't need it. But this is a subjective view and should be taken as such. The only fact that I can get from this arti…

I think the problem is with those 18% loans (covered by your 3rd point, I think). What the hell? Who pays that kind of interest rate? The article states: A correlation between B.A.s and incomes is not proof of cause and effect. It may reflect nothing more than the fact that the economy rewards smart people and smart people are likely to go to college. I would say that there is likely to be a strong correlation betwee…

My girlfriend has some student loans that made me inhale sharply through my teeth when she described them to me.

Her and her family are not good at finance or math, and they got swept into the popular way of looking at college in America: Get into school, take loans, finish school, pay off loans.

That was all true for a long time, but interest rates have risen sharply for loans in the last 5 years, and the value of a degree (especially a liberal arts degree) has fallen.

I'm not making excuses for them, I'm just offering a data point. My feeling is that we're about to see a shift in the popular view of college, but these views always lag the reality. Because of this lag, newly graduating students are going to have it worst of all.

Re: The Great College Hoax

#49

Post by acgourley » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 7:36 PM UTC

poppysan wrote: post #46

acgourley wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it's a lot of money, but it also leaves them with a lot of money left every month. I don't know exactly what your net income in CA on 200k is (and if they filed jointly, etc), but they should take home at least 10k a month. They still have 7k a month to live on. I don't see the problem.

I live in CA and am struggling at just under 6 figures. Childcare and Mortgage on an (average 500K) home is the majority of my salary. Here is the problem. With over 80% of my net going to living expenses, there is no extra 2800 to go to school loans. Thank heavens I have no loans, just have to pay my wife's off....

Wouldn't you say that a large part of a mortgage payment is actually an investment? If you were faced with large student loan payments, you could just decide to rent rather than take on a huge investment.

Again, I don't see the problem.

Re: The Great College Hoax

#50

Post by tptacek » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 7:37 PM UTC

acgourley wrote: post #43

tptacek wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, even for two people with six-figure salaries --- and speaking from experience here --- two thousand eight hundred dollars a month is a shitload of money. It's a second full-sized house in a nice neighborhood, or the rent on two apartments, or (wait for it) seven BMW 315i car payments.

Yes it's a lot of money, but it also leaves them with a lot of money left every month. I don't know exactly what your net income in CA on 200k is (and if they filed jointly, etc), but they should take home at least 10k a month. They still have 7k a month to live on. I don't see the problem.

Assume they're living in a house and they have one child. Then:

$2800 for loans.

$3500 for mortage and escrow.

$1300 for child care (both work).

$1000 for food and day-to-day living expenses.

$1000 for utilities, Internet, services and recurring expenses --- parking, commute, health care copay and (with most employers) dependent coverage, etc.

I get $9600. Survivable? Of course. You can clearly survive in America with a $2800/mo student loan burden offset by a $200k/yr income. But:

* It's not "comfortable"; for instance, they aren't putting away money to put their kid in college.

* It's not resilient; they're fucked as soon as one of them loses their job.

* It's not flexible; for instance, they might literally not be able to afford to have a second kid.

Now, they don't have kids, I get that. But the moral of the story was, their student loan debt load was so high they couldn't stay married. They're smart enough to make 200k/yr, they're smart enough to do this math.