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Seriously, this post again? These are not black and white issues like every article on HN would lead you to believe.
The college experience is still pretty worthwhile, but the consequences of taking out loans in order to attend college are gettin uglier. My wife and I are both working in service fields - I am a teacher, and she is a counselor. We are both good at what we do. But we are at our income ceilings. We are paying as much in student loan payments as we are in housing costs. some of my colleagues will be in debt for the res…
"Going to college is not the same straightforward decision it used to be." Honestly, (and you've basically said this), taking out significant loans to go to college is not the same straightforward decision it used to be. I understand that for some people it's simply not possible to go to college without taking on debt. I don't think this is the case for the vast majority of people. If someone would have made 18 year…
One reason I returned to Europe.
The college experience is still pretty worthwhile, but the consequences of taking out loans in order to attend college are gettin uglier. My wife and I are both working in service fields - I am a teacher, and she is a counselor. We are both good at what we do. But we are at our income ceilings. We are paying as much in student loan payments as we are in housing costs. some of my colleagues will be in debt for the res…
When you look at the problems our democracy has, probably the biggest one is the "low information voter." The ignorant electorate that says they want government out of our lives, but keep your hands off Medicare and Social Security, for example. == Puhleeeeeeez.
PS: I suspect you are being down-voted because you are not making your meaning clear.
I believe that a college education (lectures and assignments, at least) can be replicated online. I just don't see that anyone's done a particularly good job of it yet. There are lots of bits and pieces floating around, but not much overall structure.
I also find it worrisome that what are effectively lottery winners are supposed to be role models, be it Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg or, for that matter, rock and movie stars. Winning the lottery is not a good goal to set for a society or a generation (cf. Kant).
> (cf. Kant) Sorry, but what do you mean there?
„Handle nur nach derjenigen Maxime, durch die du zugleich wollen kannst, dass sie ein allgemeines Gesetz werde.“
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."
Everyone can't win the lottery.
As a current college sophomore, I agree, education is important. However, I strongly believe that a degree does not define a person as educated. As long as you continuously have a general thirst for knowledge and act on it, you'll build your way to becoming an educated individual.
PS: I have learned to respect craft skills over the years. Those skills do not normally earn degree level certification in the UK (exceptions being surgeons, opticians and dentists).
" Got a chance to reboot my education, which was something I really needed to do. I had a professor in my freshman year of college who showed me that my mind could do math. And from there, I took charge. " How important do we think Maths education is?
If I consider the math courses I took in college undergrad (I was a C-S major) there are some that are useful in everyday day life like pre-Calc (aka. algebra + trig) when I build a new deck or figure out how much grass seed to buy. Others courses such as Calc I and II are useful in understanding the issues and trends around me, both business and political. But the vast majority are valuable to me every day as I work on systems software: Mathematical Logic and Discrete Math, Graph Theory, Linear Algebra with Differential Eq & Intro to the Theory of computation.
How can you not think Mathematics is important to tech?
" Got a chance to reboot my education, which was something I really needed to do. I had a professor in my freshman year of college who showed me that my mind could do math. And from there, I took charge. " How important do we think Maths education is?