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The college-for-all model isn't working

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Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#71

Post by Trezoid »

salient wrote: post #11

Perhaps, but what's definitely not working is the guaranteed loans from governments, which gives universities access to virtually unlimited funds. If the government wouldn't give loans for college, US tuitions would probably be 10x less, just like they are even in the most expensive universities in Europe or elsewhere.

I strongly disagree. In the Australian system everyone gets a higher education loan from the government(with interest locked to the inflation rate and repayment only required if and when taxable income passes a certain threshold), and yet our tuition rates are much lower than in the US.

For example, I just finished a Bachelors degree in a STEM field at a relatively middle of the road university and my total education debt comes out just short of $30k.

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#72

Post by WalterBright »

sounds wrote: post #63
mortenjorck wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A major benefit of college is a baseline of domain knowledge that will serve you in your professional career, but indeed, that’s also a major benefit of a technical program. The real disconnect is that college is also (or at least is supposed to be, or has traditionally been) a schooling in the liberal arts. Four years spent learning to think critically about society and culture as well as one's area of specializatio…

Yup. Where the grandparent said "employers think college degrees are more valuable than they probably are," you've highlighted the disconnect between what employers think they're getting from a college grad (certain skills) and what colleges actually do (teach students to think, to learn, to read). That's not High School 2.0. In fact, High School seems to be the right place for vocational training. It's the pinnacle…

While I took mostly STEM classes in college, I did also take a couple accounting classes. If you don't know the basics of double entry bookkeeping and the jargon that goes with it, you're a bit crippled when working in any sort of business.

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#73

Post by interstitial »

ctdonath wrote: post #35
interstitial wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subsidy and demand, you mean.

As the upper limits of cost are reached, people will explore every avenue for obtaining funds for paying for what they demand, including borrowing from their own future (mortgage), pooling money for odds-based distribution (insurance), and confiscating money from others just this side of being theft (tax-funded subsidies). When you run out of other people's money, you find something else suitable to spend the limited…

Well, said. Have you written any more on this subject?

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#74

Post by chongli »

conjecTech wrote: post #57
nickthemagicman wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other option is college for the rich. So it's working better than the alternative.

How is that the only other option? How about college for those that will increase their economic productivity beyond the added cost?

Or how about an acknowledgement that it's becoming harder and harder for people to compete against machines?

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#75

Post by voidlogic »

cheesylard wrote: post #56
cortesoft wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a computer programmer, this really hasn't been my experience. I did not get a degree in a computer related field (have a BA in Philosophy), but have had no problems getting a job. I just showed the work I did for personal projects, and landed a job in weeks. I have since hired many developers, and I only look at education experience if there is nothing else that shows they can do the work. I have hired many people…

As a 19 year old programmer who just dropped out, this eases my anxiety. A lot.

Beware, if you are outside of the Bay Area getting a degree is comparatively more important to employers... At least until you have oodles of XP.

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#76

Post by [deleted] »

ignostic wrote: post #16

It's a joke among engineers that you need to graduate from college so that you can start learning. My college experience (non-technical bachelors) was just a joke, period - high school 2.0. Still, I wouldn't have the good job I do now if I hadn't completed my degree. We keep running into this problem where employers think college degrees are more valuable than they probably are. Part of that is impressed culturally,…

[deleted]

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#77

Post by WalterBright »

randomdata wrote: post #46
enraged_camel wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of bullshit seems to be widely believed on HN. I work in the engineering department of a software company and I'm closely involved with recruitment and interviews. I'll tell you this: the vast majority of people (over 95%) we turn down are unqualified, period. Meaning, we wouldn't hire them even at half the salary level advertised for the position. It has nothing whatsoever to do with what we're willing to…

In the presence of a shortage, the value of an employee approaches infinity. I expect that you are really constrained by the amount of money your company can afford, else you'd just walk over to Google/Facebook/Microsoft/whoever and walk out with their best employees in hand. Almost nobody is going to turn down a multi-million dollar offer, if it even takes that much.

Then Google/Facebook/Microsoft/whoever is without that talent. How does this prove there's no shortage?

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#78

Post by darkstar999 »

jonjanzen wrote: post #43
fleitz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fixed costs, overhead, etc, etc. Training people is super expensive when you don't even know if your company will exist in 5 years. Generally, you don't want your DBA discovering the 3rd normal form halfway through a project.

With the apprenticeship model you have a junior DBA working with a senior DBA who knows 3rd normal.

This assumes that you can afford a senior DBA and have time to deal with a junior. And the senior has teaching skills. And so on. I'm not sure apprenticeship works in some industries.

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#79

Post by randomdata »

tbrownaw wrote: post #51
Iftheshoefits wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Unqualified" by what standard? What makes you think your standards are appropriate for the positions you're offering? And what makes you think your salaries are "very generous?" Lot's of companies think their salary/benefits packages are "very generous" when they're anything but. Without context your post is a giant meaningless assertion. Software developers aren't (typically) stupid. They have a reasonable idea of…

What I've seen is supposedly-experienced programmers who can't write FizzBuzz, or claim database experience but don't know why a cross-join is bad or what it is, or who claim to be experts at $TOOL but can only recite a handful of memorized answers and just pick whichever sounds closest to the question. Software developers (supposedly) aren't stupid. Applicants for software development positions on the other hand...

I'll admit, I had to look up what a cross join was, despite being quite familiar with the subject once I understood the terminology. I'm sure you apply much more rigour to your hiring process, but at the same time, it is difficult to know who is throwing out great candidates (I'm not suggesting I am one) over silly little things like this. How do we know if people are hard to find because people are actually hard to find, or people doing the hiring are terrible at their job?

Re: The college-for-all model isn't working

#80

Post by 67726e »

digitalzombie wrote: post #58
ignostic wrote: post #16

It's a joke among engineers that you need to graduate from college so that you can start learning. My college experience (non-technical bachelors) was just a joke, period - high school 2.0. Still, I wouldn't have the good job I do now if I hadn't completed my degree. We keep running into this problem where employers think college degrees are more valuable than they probably are. Part of that is impressed culturally,…

I've seen, heard stories of, and worked with the self taught programmers out there with out the degree. This is base on my experience, but most of them are bad. They lack vocabularies and such that when they try to convey what they're doing or what they want other people to do or hell just to communicate with the team it takes a fucking long time and in the end might not even get anything done. They also want to get…

That's the funny thing about anecdotes. You get to cherry-pick examples and make broad allegations from those cherry-picked examples. I'm a self-taught developer, and I've worked with plenty of "credentialed" developers that were either lazy as hell, having only gotten into software for the money, or were flat-out incompetent, again having only gotten into the industry for the money. That doesn't mean most folks with degrees are shit developers, it just means those ones were.

I think the real difference between the good developers and the bad is more a result of "passion" for the field. If your only care is about getting the job and the salary that comes with it, you may very well spend a lot of time and effort getting to that point, but you probably won't go beyond that. On the other hand, the guys on my team, myself included, are all passionate. Now that doesn't mean "slaves away for ungodly hours" or even that they spend their time working on side-projects. The common-denominator is that we very much enjoy the line of work. We try to be "craftsmen" and not just a desk-bound office rats. Some jobs allow you to get to a point where you just don't have to put forth much effort unless you actively try to be the best. Software development/engineering/ is not one of those fields.

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