Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants • Hacker News Board

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#121

Post by 908B64B197 » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

lhorie wrote: post #119

awillen wrote: post #7

I think this is generally a good thing. I believe there are really two positive things that can come out of going to college - either you get a name-brand degree that opens doors and gets your resume looked at, or you get useful skills that enable you to go down a particular career path (e.g. CS degree). Obviously in some cases it'll be both. The reality is it's really tough to make any case that a humanities degree…

> Those schools that are providing substantial negative value to their students ought to go under I don't think this is a good way to go about it because there is still demand for schooling and if the market's answer to bad quality is having schools go under, it just becomes a game of whack-a-mole with new bad schools popping up to fill the gap in supply. I think a better alternative is having more schools have tuiti…

There's always the option of doing a little bit of basic research before spending a significant amount.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#122

Post by medium_burrito » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

xiaolingxiao wrote: post #116

908B64B197 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does a classics degree cost the same as a CS degree when the market value of a classics degree is basically zero? Because it has a large numbers of applicants. It's offer and demand. > Universities also get a lot of their prestige from research and the majority of their effort is typically not spent on undergraduate education. This means professors are not typically rewarded for being (or even expected to be) e…

> Something I've noticed and take this with a grain of salt as this is a sample=1 observation is that the better researchers (more publications, better funded labs) were generally also better teachers. In engineering/math, I've seen it swing both ways. Some professors couldn't be bothered to teach, because are so busy w/ their research and/or jaded w/ the University: implicit assumption is to baby the undergrads and…

You are right on the mark on the PI being a sales-man/woman/*. People forget how basically the purpose of a leader is to sell the product, and sell it hard.

Think of a research group like any other business. You have to create a product and sell it, except the product is publications and publicity.

Related, university presidents are fundraisers first, ie selling their nonprofit to donors, in exchange for buildings, chairs, spots on committees (for poors), fuzzie-wuzzies, etc.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#123

Post by medium_burrito » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

kop316 wrote: post #104

DC1350 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with community colleges is that you completely miss out on any meaningful networking. As long as all the best students see it as beneath them, you'll have a hard time meeting people in a community college who can actually help your career

I think your comment misses my original intent. If people might value education for its own sake (which is what I was replying to), then I have found Community Colleges to be the perfect place for this. But to address your point: > The problem with community colleges is that you completely miss out on any meaningful networking. As long as all the best students see it as beneath them, you'll have a hard time meeting p…

I suspect community colleges are a fantastic way to recruit people who one would not find otherwise. People taking classes at night and holding down a full time job, and doing well, just out of interest- that's someone who has potential.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#124

Post by cbm-vic-20 » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

lumost wrote: post #58

leetcrew wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both will leave a student heavily in debt to the tune of 150-300k unless you have a very weird financial situation, no US student is going into anything like that much debt to go to either of those two schools. it looks like you got those numbers by just taking the tuition and multiplying it by four. both schools offer substantial aid packages for eligible families. the average yearly tuition contribution for MIT i…

I left Umass Amherst with ~75k in debt in 2010. At the time the list price was 30k. If your family exceeds the cutoffs for financial aid, but for various reasons cannot provide for college expenses - you are going to go into a lot of debt. One of my friends from the time managed to take 120k for an english major that left them with a $12/hr job at graduation.

How does that happen? I come from a time where my private university tuition (before grants, financial aid, etc) was around $25k/yr, and I understand things are different today.

I don't know all the ins-and-outs of today's student loan options, but say that 120k is taken at 5% spread across 20(!) years, the monthly payment on that kind of loan is around $800/mo. Did this person not have a clear idea of what recent college grads with English degrees make? I mean, it seems like a serious misjudgment to bury themselves in that much debt without a very clear path out of it.

I'm not suggesting the "learn to code" or "only STEM degrees matter" trope, but if you really want to become a writer, or a teacher, or anything else where an English degree is required, you can get that at a much more affordable price: I know someone from a "poor" family who did exactly that, but went to UMass Dartmouth and now has a successful, average middle-class life as an editor. They did not need to go to six-figure debt because they knew they would have a really hard time paying that off...

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#125

Post by pkaye » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

lumost wrote: post #2

Colleges should have more price stratification than they do. At present the price difference between MIT and Umass Amherst out of state is only 41%. Both will leave a student heavily in debt to the tune of 150-300k, the difference likely doesn't materially matter to the student as they are looking at is as a ticket to a better life.

The average student loan debt is around $33k. Median debt is around $17k.

https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-student-loan-debt

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#126

Post by ip26 » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 6:54 PM UTC

DC1350 wrote: post #83

A huge generational change is that young people can just google "best X" for every life decision instead of caring about what they're exposed to organically. What job to do, city to live in, how to dress, etc. They can also find a community and detailed guides for achieving pretty much anything they want, so the special in-group knowledge isn't a barrier anymore. Anyone familiar with the whole tech interview prep cul…

This comment has a critical undertone but I think it's pretty much right. Thinking back, when I was 17 and applying for college, deciding what schools you should apply to was a really murky process. Most people pretty much depended on reputation & word-of-mouth, and nobody even talked about schools outside the state. On top of that, a 17 year old has had little time to accrue knowledge of various schools. Whereas today you can find an endless trove of information from your bedroom to feed your decision.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#127

Post by evilduck » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #46

awillen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the four year thing is a great point. I got a psychology degree, which definitely could've been done in three (I know this because I switched sophomore year). I have friends in hard sciences whose mental health probably would've been waaaaaay better if they spent 5-6 years on their degree.

It might be different now, but I remember my computer engineering degree could have probably been done in 3 years, if not for 1. the artificial dependency/prerequisite tree requiring you to take certain courses in a certain order and 2. all the required filler courses you needed to take in order to meet the university's arbitrary definition of well-roundedness. I just want to learn how to write compliers and how a MO…

TBF you can learn how MOSFETs and compilers work on your own too, you don't need college courses for those either. A higher education degree is a package deal and isn't necessarily intended to be a vocational training course, for better or for worse.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#128

Post by MattGaiser » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

DC1350 wrote: post #83

A huge generational change is that young people can just google "best X" for every life decision instead of caring about what they're exposed to organically. What job to do, city to live in, how to dress, etc. They can also find a community and detailed guides for achieving pretty much anything they want, so the special in-group knowledge isn't a barrier anymore. Anyone familiar with the whole tech interview prep cul…

> it's harder to win without gaming the system.

I would argue that the people who succeed at that are pretty bright anyway, but are just applying their skill in an undesired way.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#129

Post by cldellow » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 7:04 PM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #17

awillen wrote: post #7

I think this is generally a good thing. I believe there are really two positive things that can come out of going to college - either you get a name-brand degree that opens doors and gets your resume looked at, or you get useful skills that enable you to go down a particular career path (e.g. CS degree). Obviously in some cases it'll be both. The reality is it's really tough to make any case that a humanities degree…

There is so much broken with modern universities and incentives around pricing - why are all degrees four years? Why does a classics degree cost the same as a CS degree when the market value of a classics degree is basically zero? I wrote a little about it in the context of Lambda School, but it mostly applies: https://zalberico.com/essay/2019/04/08/lambda-school.html “The current university system in the US is a mes…

For what it's worth, the things you call out don't seem to be the case in the Canadian public university that I attended, the University of Waterloo.

> why are all degrees four years?

UW offers three-year degrees. A four-year degree typically gets you an Honours Bachelor degree, whereas a three-year degree is a General Bachelor. On a resume it'd still be written as "B.A.", and the reviewer would have to know to inquire, or to infer from the absence of "B.A. (Hons)".

> Why does a classics degree cost the same as a CS degree?

Similarly, my software engineering degree now costs $17,100/year. An arts degree costs $7,700/year. (Data: https://uwaterloo.ca/future-students/financing/tuition)

It would be interesting to understand how they set the prices.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#130

Post by taurath » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 7:05 PM UTC

evilduck wrote: post #127

ryandrake wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be different now, but I remember my computer engineering degree could have probably been done in 3 years, if not for 1. the artificial dependency/prerequisite tree requiring you to take certain courses in a certain order and 2. all the required filler courses you needed to take in order to meet the university's arbitrary definition of well-roundedness. I just want to learn how to write compliers and how a MO…

TBF you can learn how MOSFETs and compilers work on your own too, you don't need college courses for those either. A higher education degree is a package deal and isn't necessarily intended to be a vocational training course, for better or for worse.

But of course businesses do treat it as a vocational course if they gatekeeper based on that degree. The actual value on the job is different than in the interview room, a fact that perpetuates inequality. I’m a counterpoint in that I’ve no degree but have done well, but I can’t find myself recommending self learning because the barrier to initial entry to industry is so high.