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Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

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Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#81

Post by matthewmcg »

r00fus wrote: post #40
hacknat wrote: post #25

Everyone talks about the great network-effect from going to a good school. As someone who went to one of these supposedly great "network-effect-ey" schools I say it's bullshit. As a thought experiment, think of your own college experience. Do you really keep in touch with that many people? Of the people you do keep in touch with, can any of them open opportunities for you that are at all relevant to your field? Peopl…

> Ivy league degrees are simply the best door-openers out of all the door openers you can get. Once you're in the door they're as useless as the other degrees are. I present a counterpoint - I know someone who's a Stanford Law JD, and she's gotten quite a few doors opened (or opened wider) because of her degree. In fact, she wouldn't have made partner (smaller law firm) so fast without it. Also many places like speci…

Professional degrees are a special case. Law firms, in particular, are strongly credential-oriented.

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#82

Post by nostrademons »

michaelochurch wrote: post #70
hnnewguy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ten years out, those numbers look more like $250k and $150k. If there are managers willing to pay an employee 40% more based on an education received a decade prior, there's a huge economic advantage to be had hiring those of "lower pedigree".

No one consciously cares, at that age, where people went to school. What happens is that the ones with pedigree are more likely to be selected for leadership positions early on, and appear "on merit" to be worth more, after several years of higher-quality work experience. In reality, they were just able to get themselves promoted faster. After ten years, though, they legitimately have a higher quality of work experie…

I agree that you've basically nailed the dynamic in the career-development market, but I'll point out that there are a number of career resets you can use to escape it. Grad school. Founding a startup. Independent projects. Moving into a different field entirely.

These often aren't objectively worth it under the value system of your old career, but they essentially throw a monkey wrench into your career and make anyone reading it go "Huh? Why did they do that, and what does it mean for me and my company if I hire them?" And that, in turn, gives you an ability to reframe your story on your own terms. If you're behind in somebody else's value system, it makes no sense to continue molding your career to their value system. Instead, pick your value system and then seek out positions that play to your strengths.

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#83

Post by thedufer »

loganadams_ wrote: post #10

I have a tough time with this article. I understand what it is trying to say. The costs are ridiculous. But what I see among my friends is that those who went to large public flagship schools got lost, and had a much tougher time. However, those who went to smaller private schools on scholarships built better connections with professors, and tended to do better long run.

I think you're conflating the public/private divide with the college/university differences. I went to a public college, which avoids the issues inherent in enormous universities without the skyrocketing costs.

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#84

Post by eli_gottlieb »

benesch wrote: post #19
loganadams_ wrote: post #10

I have a tough time with this article. I understand what it is trying to say. The costs are ridiculous. But what I see among my friends is that those who went to large public flagship schools got lost, and had a much tougher time. However, those who went to smaller private schools on scholarships built better connections with professors, and tended to do better long run.

Interesting. That's directly opposite what I've seen. My close high school friends nearly all went to Ivy League-quality schools: Yale, Penn, MIT, Caltech, etc. Some of us are happy. Most of us are succeeding. A few of us are excelling. (Personally, I'm struggling. I have this irrepressible notion that liberal arts are a waste of my time, no matter how hard I try to subscribe to the learning-for-learning's-sake theor…

>(Personally, I'm struggling. I have this irrepressible notion that liberal arts are a waste of my time, no matter how hard I try to subscribe to the learning-for-learning's-sake theory, which is not great for grades.)

Think of it as learning the vocabulary you can use to communicate your STEMlord ideas to the peasants/mortals ;-).

>In the end, it's an optimization problem. What is higher education optimizing for? Salary? That seems myopic. Happiness? That seems overly hedonistic. Maturity? Impact upon the world? Good luck measuring that.

The graduate's optimization power.

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#85

Post by saraid216 »

benesch wrote: post #46
saraid216 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a "better life"--which is an inherently unquantifiable notion. Spoken like a true liberal arts major. A better life is pretty easily quantified. The part that gets you tied up in knots is deciding what "better" means. You stop a thousand people on the street, I guarantee you that a ridiculously overwhelming majority can give you an easily quantifiable answer to the question, "What is a better life?" The answers won…

Heh, I'm a computer science major to my core. Spoken like a CS major at a liberal arts school, I suppose. I suspect we agree. If you could universally define "better life," you could quantify it. But you can't. We're also bad--really bad--at analyzing ourselves. Right now, I'd love to be spending 60 hrs/week programming and less time writing papers. But I bet I'll feel differently in a decade. > And no. College is no…

> Higher education has become increasingly accessible to the economically disadvantaged, not less.

The FAFSA is not a college-led program. Colleges have had to adapt to it and other grants and loans, but the accessibility is not at all what college has been optimizing for.

Indeed, the question of optimization you posed was not about accessibility, either. It was about outcome. Read up on the Occupy protests if you haven't heard about them; the one in Hong Kong only just dispersed.

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#86

Post by xvirk »

michaelochurch wrote: post #2

I tend to wish this were true, because it would be better for the world even if neutral-to-negative for me. In truth, though: pedigree shouldn't matter, but it does. Among the top 100 offerings or so, the differences in quality of education are very small. The differences in quality of students are pretty small. But connections matter, and even if Harvard student's aren't all shockingly brilliant, the dumb ones are c…

Although it sounds reasonable, I'm not sure whether this way of contacts/pedigree is needed everywhere. For example in (continental) Europe people are treated more equally, probably because majority of good universities are public.

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#87

Post by eli_gottlieb »

geebee wrote: post #78
bowlich wrote: post #63

I only skimmed the article after the first couple of paragraphs. The whole $42,000 price tag for a private college is quite a misnomer. My sister went to Michigan Tech, I went to a private liberal arts college. After four years, she has more debt then me. Your public institution is about as stingy as it can come with it's funding. That $18,000 price tag is going to end up being your final price. If you are a good stu…

A very high percentage of UC students pay no tuition. "In an email to NPR, a Berkeley spokeswoman said about 40 percent of undergrads there don't pay any tuition at all." http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/24/366370724/cal...

I remember back in my undergrad, "tuition" was approximately 1/4 of what students actually had to pay. The rest was "fees". Strangely enough, tuition wasn't allowed to rise faster than inflation, but our "fees" got larger and multiplied each year.

How about at Berkeley?

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#88

Post by geebee »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #87
geebee wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very high percentage of UC students pay no tuition. "In an email to NPR, a Berkeley spokeswoman said about 40 percent of undergrads there don't pay any tuition at all." http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/24/366370724/cal...

I remember back in my undergrad, "tuition" was approximately 1/4 of what students actually had to pay. The rest was "fees". Strangely enough, tuition wasn't allowed to rise faster than inflation, but our "fees" got larger and multiplied each year. How about at Berkeley?

yeah, universities can be sneaky about that

http://registrar.berkeley.edu/feesched.html

looking at this, it isn't too bad at berkeley.

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#89

Post by michaelochurch »

xvirk wrote: post #86
michaelochurch wrote: post #2

I tend to wish this were true, because it would be better for the world even if neutral-to-negative for me. In truth, though: pedigree shouldn't matter, but it does. Among the top 100 offerings or so, the differences in quality of education are very small. The differences in quality of students are pretty small. But connections matter, and even if Harvard student's aren't all shockingly brilliant, the dumb ones are c…

Although it sounds reasonable, I'm not sure whether this way of contacts/pedigree is needed everywhere. For example in (continental) Europe people are treated more equally, probably because majority of good universities are public.

The public universities in the U.S. are quite good as well. It's not about quality of education.

When a society is expanding, pre-existing social class matters little, because the focus is on the future rather than the past. When it's stagnant or contracting, like Silicon Valley, you see the importance of pedigree start to grow rapidly.

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#90

Post by gmarx »

bowlich wrote: post #76
gmarx wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My apologies in advance for being pedantic on the web but I think there is a chance a HackerNews reader would appreciate this: "Misnomer" means something is improperly named. It doesn't mean merely misleading.

Thanks for the correction. I will note it for my future use.

You're welcome
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