481–490 of 565 posts
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If it's economically advantageous shouldn't the private sector be able to fund it for a profit already?
It is (already). Private sector employees pay off their loans from the money paid by their private sector employers.
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It depends on who gets to define "meaningful". There are a lot of things that I think are meaningful that you probably don't. And while many would say that STEM automatically qualifies, I don't think that really holds up to scrutiny.
I think it’s quite easy to decide. If the students at the end of the study can contribute to the society as tax payers to fund the next generation, then what they have studied is meaningful. It doesn’t have to be STEM necessarily.
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Unless I'm misunderstanding, that calculation sounds fundamentally wrong if it's comparing median college graduate earnings after 4 years against high school graduate earnings in general. After 4 years the median college graduate is still early in their career and likely hasn't hit their maximum income potential, but they're being compared against high school graduates at every stage of their careers, including those…
It's 25-34 year olds: > To calculate the earnings premium for undergraduate programs, the threshold is the median U.S. Census Bureau earnings of a working high school graduate, aged 25-34 who were not enrolled in postsecondary education during the year of the associated measured earnings, in the state in which the institution is located unless the institution enrolls more than 50% of its students from out of state, i…
Only looking at the first few years of a career for undergraduates has another problem I mentioned in a different comment. Not all professions have high starting salaries even if your lifetime earning potential is significantly improved. As far as I can tell this methodology, if applied to graduate degrees, would conclude medical school isn't worth it as an example.
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The full reason is that preventing bankruptcy is the only way to keep interest rates low and make the loans widely available. If bankruptcy was allowed then the obvious play would be to take the loan, max out credit cards right before graduation, then declare bankruptcy before you get your first job. Lenders would respond by increasing interest rates dramatically and restricting loans to those who had assets. This wo…
…and in effect tuition would go down.
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I'm mostly speaking to the students, but certainly there are faculty that would apply to as well. If we're talking about some intangible benefit to society for having lots of educated people, I would interpret that as being in service to civic contributions, so yes I would expect that means a liberal arts education should teach Western canon, and certainly it should not undermine it. If not in service to economic uti…
What does it mean to undermine it? Is your position that no matter what the rigorous application of some research method produces that you should always come to a predetermined conclusion that some particular form of western liberalism fro the 17th century is the best? Or is it possible to place these texts in complex and even critical dialog with other texts? Can you be specific about which "values and traditions" y…
I didn't say we should forcefully propagate anything; I said we shouldn't fund things that aren't useful somehow. Some basic values would be that e.g. governments derive their authority from the citizenry, and should therefore always act in the interests of the citizens. If the citizens aren't seeing some benefit, then they shouldn't be taxed to fund a thing. Assuming people disagree on whether they want something, it follows that government should be as local as possible, so if we do fund such things, we shouldn't do so at the federal level unless there is widespread agreement (e.g. maybe we all agree to fund STEM degrees for their economic utility but there is disagreement on social science so those are done locally).
Or that as a high level idea, our entire system is predicated on the idea that people are qualified and able to define their own destiny and self-govern, which is generally in opposition to the idea that we are determined by various privileges and circumstances that require all sorts of compensatory adjustments. Basically, if you want to flourish, just go do that. Again, the books are all there. Most if not all of them are free. We already have 13 years of free, compulsory schooling to learn how to read them.
Or the idea that rights should be principled (e.g. carry some symmetry), not arbitrary. c.f. elsewhere in the thread about natural rights. And by extension, that some systems (e.g. ours) are better than others.
The context here is targeting programs that do not produce economic benefit, so that is hobby study, yes. There's nothing wrong with hobby study. I read textbooks all the time for fun. I think we should encourage everyone to do a lot more of it instead of e.g. Instagram. But I also have a day job.
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> I've known many engineers who practiced math avoidance. None of them were worth much as engineers. I have an engineering degree and did "real" engineering (electronics/semiconductors) before switching to SW. Almost all my engineering courses required calculus knowledge. None of my real engineering jobs benefited from it. And I say that as someone who tried to find any and every excuse to use calculus at work. I lov…
> None of my real engineering jobs benefited from it. At Boeing, there were two parallel engineering groups. The design group, and the stress group. The design group did things by eye, the stress group did the math. I was in the design group. I did the math for my work (and so did a couple others), and we got the good assignments as a result. the stress group normally required a master's degree, but they invited me t…
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That is interesting! Wish more countries emulated the German education system as affordable education (and healthcare) is a basic necessity and a human right. I especially like the German vocational training "earn and learn" programs - not just the paid internship part but also how the course content is 20-30% theory and 70-80% practical. India, in association with the Indo-German business chamber, has now started of…
> I was surprised that Germany doesn't offer a similar pathway to a Bachelors in Engineering for its vocational program students. Germany does, though in a different way: Normally, to study, you need an Abitur (Allgemeine Hochschulreife) high school diploma from your school [1] to study at a university (Hauptschulabschluss or mittlere Reife (these kinds of high school diplomas are hard to translate into English)). Re…
In India, you have two paths to earn a Bachelors degree in Engineering - the most popular one is to complete 12 years of schooling (i.e. high school), and then join a college / university to study Engineering for 4 years. Or, you can complete 10 years of schooling, and then join for a vocational Engineering program in a Polytechnic College. These are usually 3 years program. Once you get a Diploma from the Polytechnic college, you then become eligible to join the usual 4 year Engineering Bachelor programs. But, as you have already completed 3 years of Engineering study in a Polytechnic College, you are allowed lateral entry directly to the second year of the Bachelor Engineering program. This means that under both pathways, you get a degree in the same number of years - 12 years of schooling + 4 years for the Bachelors course = 16 years or 10 years of schooling + 3 years for Diploma Engineering course + 3 years for the Bachelor's course = 16 years. (Note that in both cases, this is in a regular day college, and not a part-time or evening college. Those who have done their 3 years Diploma Engineering courses, but also have to work due to financial constraints have the option to study part-time for a Engineering Bachelor's degree in evening classes too. But these usually are 5 or 6 years program if I remember right).
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> None of my real engineering jobs benefited from it. At Boeing, there were two parallel engineering groups. The design group, and the stress group. The design group did things by eye, the stress group did the math. I was in the design group. I did the math for my work (and so did a couple others), and we got the good assignments as a result. the stress group normally required a master's degree, but they invited me t…
Sure, and 99% of engineering jobs aren't like Boeing's.
Math is also needed to engineer a building that won't fall down in an earthquake, or is susceptible to dynamic instability in a wind storm. Same for a bridge. And a submarine. And so on.
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Then the electorate does not deserve that generated activity and it will happen somewhere else
That's an odd way to say "a country that elects stupid people deserves to collapse". It's true, but it's an odd way to say it, and also quite pessimistic.
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Yes they would as there’d be no cost to them while all of them on the taxpayers.
Spherical cows. You are applying economic theory in a vacuum. Sure, we joked at the time we could just declare bankruptcy and keep the degree. However, show me sources showing that this was a real problem. It wasn't. Simply, people were not playing the game that way in any serious way. I am pretty sure I have never met a single person who declared bankruptcy purely to avoid a student loan.