Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 98 posts

Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#61

Post by smrtinsert »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #43
gtrubetskoy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "get by" you mean survive, then, certainly. But are they living a good comfortable life and are able to afford good food, a second car, good health insurance, good dental care, music lessons for the children, a decent family vacation and a well maintained house? Doubt it. Every hard working educated parent deserves this and being able to put their kids though college in a civilized society that the USA claims t…

"Every hard working educated parent deserves this..." Why do they deserve this? And how do you define 'educated'? And who should provide these things if the market doesn't (i.e. how can it be fixed)?

In the future, when your job gets outsourced to China for a fraction of what you earn currently, ask yourself the same questions.

Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#62

Post by irremediable »

reqres wrote: post #8

As somebody who's spent some time studying the impact of various levers (income, educational achievement, maternal education etc) on university/college enrolment I'd like to throw in an economist's perspective that the NY Times did not include in the chart. You may draw the conclusion from the chart that income prevents the poorest from attending university because they can't afford the fees. This is highly misleadin…

Very well-written. I'm a UK citizen, and although I'm fairly left-wing, the tuition fees really don't bother me. So long as we ensure there's sufficient credit available on good terms, they just aren't a problem.

Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#63

Post by reamworks »

This is nonsense. If you correct for Socio-economic status, you'll find the best predictor is IQ. You can give a kid an IQ test at age 10 and know whether or not he'll graduate college.

Since IQ is heritable, kids from more successful homes will be more successful.

Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#64

Post by untog »

reamworks wrote: post #63

This is nonsense. If you correct for Socio-economic status, you'll find the best predictor is IQ. You can give a kid an IQ test at age 10 and know whether or not he'll graduate college. Since IQ is heritable, kids from more successful homes will be more successful.

If you correct for Socio-economic status

...which is the entire point

Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#65

Post by massysett »

ninv wrote: post #33

I do not understand why poor people have kids. There should be a guideline for married couples, which tells them that if family income is less then 90K in NYC, you can not afford to have kids, if it is more than 120K then they can have one kid etc. "Having kids" not for everyone. Kids degrade your lifestyle, drain you financially and limit your chances if you are poor. It's a SCAM.

If that's what you think, having kids is certainly not for you, regardless of what any "guideline" would say.

Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#66

Post by stegosaurus »

Yakimoto wrote: post #44
stegosaurus wrote: post #30

So do we keep bikeshedding and tweaking little levers or do we actually try and fix the fundamental problem? I can't be the only one who is tired of seeing all of these snippets about small parts of a large system. We need to deal with wealth inequality. We live in a world... hell, we live in countries, in cities with 10 orders of magnitude wealth difference. A western person earns 10e6 - 10e7 over a lifetime, revenu…

>do we actually try and fix the fundamental problem? >I can't be the only one >We need to deal with wealth inequality. Shill harder.

Reading my post again I can see why you would think that.

I just feel frustrated, that's all. It feels like the premise is just so obviously silly.... like these articles are just fluff. Am I insane?

Of course people with wealth do better at everything. It's definitional. That is what wealth is... better schools, better food, better holidays... bigger better more. I don't see the value in continually studying how bad the poor have it and how well the rich have it.

It feels to me like a textbook example of a fruitless endeavour. Like trying to make a human powered bicycle that's faster than a fighter jet, or something. It's just... daft! Even if you think of a way to do it it's bloody silly. Stick both people in the same vehicle.

Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#68

Post by balls187 »

astine wrote: post #24
jawns wrote: post #10

A lot of great comments here on the content and presentation. I'm really interested, also, in the technical aspects of how this was put together. For instance, the app was able to recognize the shape of the line I drew. On my first attempt, it correctly identified that my line was an S shape; then when I started fiddling around, it was able to identify that my line was (roughly) straight. I wonder what method they us…

I just a took really quick look at the javascript they used and it looks like they matched the lines to a limited set of line shapes based on various heights. So, if the low income part of the line is between these certain values, the medium low income between these, etc, then they show this result. Here's a list of the possible results: [{ key: "kindaSShaped", sentence: "Your line looked a little bit like an S, with…

I got the "you are weird" value.

Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#69

Post by peachysanchez »

To some extent, it is true that finances (or the lack of) play a big part in whether or not a student goes to university. However, if you were born under those circumstances, like I was, the best thing to do is to work hard to make sure you reach that goal. I was born in an environment where attending university is not a necessity but a privilege. People from our neighborhood would rather have their children working after high school. Why? Because working rakes in money for the household, while attending school means having to spend out of what is left of your household's allocated budget. I thought differently. I knew that if I thought the way my parents did, it will be a never-ending story. My son and his sons will suffer the same fate. I didn't want that. While I was still in high school, I knew I wouldn't be able to attend further schooling so I started to save. After graduating, I tried hard to look for scholarships. While waiting, I enrolled myself in http://preply.com/en for some private tuturing because it was more affordable. I didn't want to get left behind. As of the moment, I am still waiting, I am behind by 1 year but I believe that I will get there. If I ever get into university, I will have proof that sometimes, it's only just a matter of working hard for your dreams. If not, I will make sure that my son does.
Post reply on HN