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Extreme Saving: A Man, His Van and Five-Figure Debt

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Re: Extreme Saving: A Man, His Van and Five-Figure Debt

#31

Post by benjamincburns »

mahyarm wrote: post #21
benjamincburns wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Value is only quantifiable in the context of a purpose. Is a liberal arts degree valuable as an instrument to garner income? Statistically, no. Is it valuable as a set of experiences which help to better understand the world we live in? Absolutely. But does that make it valuable enough to justify the cost? I dunno. Ask Ken Ilgunas.

Is that secondary value best given by a college experience or finding it yourself then?

That's an optimization problem. As such it doesn't really fit the context of what I was trying to say.

To put my point differently, this is an example of a market which trades extrinsic value for intrinsic value. Sure, some mechanisms are certainly better than others for this purpose, but as is the nature of intrinsic value, "better" can only be defined on a very individual basis.

Re: Extreme Saving: A Man, His Van and Five-Figure Debt

#32

Post by breadbox »

fein wrote: post #23
nchuhoai wrote: post #20

I have always been a proponent of a more vocationally-oriented system like we have in Germany, it was outragous for me to see how much money people spend on "monterily worthless" degrees. Yet, I point out America's college system as the single best competitive advantage over the rest of the world. I so far couldn't find the words for it, but he put it soo greatly: "Plus, I was graduating with a degree in English and…

Ah yes, but the end of that last quote leaves a bit more: "Why should we mock people who want to learn about their world and learn about themselves?" Because you don't need a damn Liberal Arts degree to do that. It didn't cost me 5 figures to learn about my ego and my id; It cost me 5 figures to get a CS degree while doing so. I also mock those with children, but only because I currently don't know a single person in…

And your pregnant friends are thinking the exact same thing about you.

Re: Extreme Saving: A Man, His Van and Five-Figure Debt

#33

Post by figbucket »

rayiner wrote: post #24

> "I have little patience for critics who don’t see the value in a liberal arts education. We don’t mock people who have children -- and there’s no practical value to having children." Uh, once Social Security goes bankrupt the practical value of having children will be the same as it always has been: someone to help take care of you when you're old and feeble. And on a macro scale, there is tremendous practical valu…

If you work out savings of not having children and put the money in a decent savings plan you'll probably have enough to pay for better qualified care multiple times over what any children may provide (or not they're not obliged to help).

Re: Extreme Saving: A Man, His Van and Five-Figure Debt

#34

Post by roc »

sliverstorm wrote: post #6
jnazario wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i came here to say something like this, albeit a lot less tactfully. that said, i admit that i'm torn. on the one hand, we definitely need people to study history, language, writing, etc. the arts, and the liberal arts, are what help define a culture and help us develop that culture, those values, and pass them down and create a rich history. i wish our society valued that more, or rather appreciated what we have (an…

It seems to me the problem is not that we don't value history, language, etc- it's that it has become commoditized, as so many people get degrees in those fields. That probably drives down wages and drives up tuition.

Tuition is rising, across the board, without much regard for marketability of degrees. It's more a function of the way society values school 'brands' and the way government guarantees abet this behavior by allowing essentially anyone to borrow as much as they want for whatever they want.

(Want to get a run-of-the-mill BA from an outrageously-expensive private college? Just sign here.)

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that the government should cap loans by degree-marketability or restrict school selection by a grading of school outcomes, but either a massive social re-valuation of tuition needs to happen, or things along those lines are going to need to be approached.

Our economy can't really grow when every young person is buried under student loan debt for years and years. Particularly not as we've transitioned to defined-contribution retirement plans. A decade of paying off student loan debt would either then be followed by large 'catch-up' contributions to make up the difference -- further delaying/retarding productive economic engagement -- or be underfunded, leading to higher social safety net expenditures when those workers retire without sufficient savings.

Re: Extreme Saving: A Man, His Van and Five-Figure Debt

#35

Post by rayiner »

figbucket wrote: post #33
rayiner wrote: post #24

> "I have little patience for critics who don’t see the value in a liberal arts education. We don’t mock people who have children -- and there’s no practical value to having children." Uh, once Social Security goes bankrupt the practical value of having children will be the same as it always has been: someone to help take care of you when you're old and feeble. And on a macro scale, there is tremendous practical valu…

If you work out savings of not having children and put the money in a decent savings plan you'll probably have enough to pay for better qualified care multiple times over what any children may provide (or not they're not obliged to help).

Well in this hypothetical, the post-apocalyptic scenario that bankrupts Social Security also renders savings worthless. Having a kid is very robust against something like hyperinflation, lol.

In any case, that solution doesn't scale. Every form of retirement savings is just a way to earmark the production of someone else's kids (so long as human labor is needed for things, that is). If you invest in Google stock in lieu of having kids, you better hope that everybody doesn't get the same idea because then Google would have nobody to work there, and its advertising affiliates would have no working-age people to advertise to.

Re: Extreme Saving: A Man, His Van and Five-Figure Debt

#36

Post by [deleted] »

figbucket wrote: post #33
rayiner wrote: post #24

> "I have little patience for critics who don’t see the value in a liberal arts education. We don’t mock people who have children -- and there’s no practical value to having children." Uh, once Social Security goes bankrupt the practical value of having children will be the same as it always has been: someone to help take care of you when you're old and feeble. And on a macro scale, there is tremendous practical valu…

If you work out savings of not having children and put the money in a decent savings plan you'll probably have enough to pay for better qualified care multiple times over what any children may provide (or not they're not obliged to help).

[deleted]

Re: Extreme Saving: A Man, His Van and Five-Figure Debt

#37

Post by lern_too_spel »

benjamincburns wrote: post #7
mindstab wrote: post #3

More anecdotal evidence that the value of America arts degrees is far less than their over inflated cost

Value is only quantifiable in the context of a purpose. Is a liberal arts degree valuable as an instrument to garner income? Statistically, no. Is it valuable as a set of experiences which help to better understand the world we live in? Absolutely. But does that make it valuable enough to justify the cost? I dunno. Ask Ken Ilgunas.

Absolutely not. What did he learn that was worth $32k to him that he couldn't have learned at a cheaper school or by himself? Networking in his field is of little or no value.

Re: Extreme Saving: A Man, His Van and Five-Figure Debt

#38

Post by lern_too_spel »

benjamincburns wrote: post #7
mindstab wrote: post #3

More anecdotal evidence that the value of America arts degrees is far less than their over inflated cost

Value is only quantifiable in the context of a purpose. Is a liberal arts degree valuable as an instrument to garner income? Statistically, no. Is it valuable as a set of experiences which help to better understand the world we live in? Absolutely. But does that make it valuable enough to justify the cost? I dunno. Ask Ken Ilgunas.

Absolutely not. What did he learn that was worth $32k to him that he couldn't have learned at a cheaper school or by himself for free? Networking in his field is of little or no value.

Re: Extreme Saving: A Man, His Van and Five-Figure Debt

#39

Post by lern_too_spel »

benjamincburns wrote: post #7
mindstab wrote: post #3

More anecdotal evidence that the value of America arts degrees is far less than their over inflated cost

Value is only quantifiable in the context of a purpose. Is a liberal arts degree valuable as an instrument to garner income? Statistically, no. Is it valuable as a set of experiences which help to better understand the world we live in? Absolutely. But does that make it valuable enough to justify the cost? I dunno. Ask Ken Ilgunas.

Absolutely not. What did he learn that was worth $32k to him that he couldn't have learned at a cheaper school or by himself for free? Networking in his field is of little or no value.

Re: Extreme Saving: A Man, His Van and Five-Figure Debt

#40

Post by comrade_ogilvy »

sliverstorm wrote: post #6
jnazario wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i came here to say something like this, albeit a lot less tactfully. that said, i admit that i'm torn. on the one hand, we definitely need people to study history, language, writing, etc. the arts, and the liberal arts, are what help define a culture and help us develop that culture, those values, and pass them down and create a rich history. i wish our society valued that more, or rather appreciated what we have (an…

It seems to me the problem is not that we don't value history, language, etc- it's that it has become commoditized, as so many people get degrees in those fields. That probably drives down wages and drives up tuition.

At no time and no place did a history degree really pay off in terms of monetary compensation for knowledge of history. It was always commoditized, because precise knowledge of historical facts is not greatly compensated for, as the norm.

It paid off in terms exercising a mind in the craft of delving into an ambiguous question, forming complex ideas out of evidence, and expressing those ideas in a more concise and accessible form. A history degree is about as a good a "pre-law" or "pre-sales and marketing" degree as any other.

As a society, we benefit from people knowing a bit of history. But that is one reason we have public schools, theoretically.

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