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

I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 1001 posts

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#11

Post by zdragnar »

wpietri wrote: post #6

This is kind of a weird mix of points. Ignoring his political axe-grinding, I think the value of a college degree is increasingly in question for many fields because the price has risen wildly for decades without a corresponding increase in market value. (Except perhaps for elite-institution degrees, which are more about the brand and the network than what people actually learn.) I think we haven't seen at least a pa…

Price and value are decoupled for college degrees. STEM students are subsidized by liberal arts students, and many liberal arts degrees are not, by themselves, economically valuable (I said this as someone with just such a degree).

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#12

Post by itake »

zdragnar wrote: post #11
wpietri wrote: post #6

This is kind of a weird mix of points. Ignoring his political axe-grinding, I think the value of a college degree is increasingly in question for many fields because the price has risen wildly for decades without a corresponding increase in market value. (Except perhaps for elite-institution degrees, which are more about the brand and the network than what people actually learn.) I think we haven't seen at least a pa…

Price and value are decoupled for college degrees. STEM students are subsidized by liberal arts students, and many liberal arts degrees are not, by themselves, economically valuable (I said this as someone with just such a degree).

> STEM students are subsidized by liberal arts students

Can you provide more context for this? How is the cost of teaching a STEM student higher than the cost of a liberal arts student? The classrooms are roughly the same. STEM student labs might be more expensive to manage, but that equipment is/(can be?) funded by research grants.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#14

Post by oatmeal_croc »

lokar wrote: post #3

One thing that would help with the standardized test issue would be to set a threshold (based on what data show is needed to do well in the program) and have a random lottery of everyone who meets that bar.

Random lotteries for people meeting bars is a terrible idea. Look at the H1b wreck we have today where bodyshop companies exploit the system by gaming the lottery. Not to mention the stress, uncertainty and powerlessness of the actual applicants.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#16

Post by zdragnar »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #4

Seems like a pretty unremarkable collection of surface level observations if you ask me

The point about not forgiving debt without solving the underlying problem seems to be missing from much of the student debt debate.

Though, the most surprising thing to me was needing to provide a privilege statement in order to speak at the college event.

How the hell can anyone provide any sort of nuanced insight into the privilege and challenges they faced in a "disclosure"? It reeks of enacting a miniature struggle session to undermine the speaker before they even have a chance to talk.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#17

Post by shagie »

anotherhue wrote: post #5

Twitter 'threads' are bad and people should feel badly for creating/posting them.

I nearly completely agree with you. The one thing that a twitter "threat" enables that is poorly supported in other formats is the ability to have comments on a particular sentence.

The worst part of the twitter as a long form platform is when a single idea extends beyond the limitations of a single tweet.

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#18

Post by jameshart »

wpietri wrote: post #6

This is kind of a weird mix of points. Ignoring his political axe-grinding, I think the value of a college degree is increasingly in question for many fields because the price has risen wildly for decades without a corresponding increase in market value. (Except perhaps for elite-institution degrees, which are more about the brand and the network than what people actually learn.) I think we haven't seen at least a pa…

Question: do elite institution degrees confer any addition to market value commensurate with their cost, or do they simply select for people who already have high market value?

Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears

#20

Post by seanmcdirmid »

itake wrote: post #12
zdragnar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price and value are decoupled for college degrees. STEM students are subsidized by liberal arts students, and many liberal arts degrees are not, by themselves, economically valuable (I said this as someone with just such a degree).

> STEM students are subsidized by liberal arts students Can you provide more context for this? How is the cost of teaching a STEM student higher than the cost of a liberal arts student? The classrooms are roughly the same. STEM student labs might be more expensive to manage, but that equipment is/(can be?) funded by research grants.

STEM professors have to be paid a lot more than liberal arts professors (due to competition for STEM talent). Equipment for teaching isn’t covered under research grants, but might come from overhead on those grants, but more likely from donations (from big corps), grants, or tuition.
Post reply on HN