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The looming college-enrollment death spiral

theatlantic.com

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Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#121

Post by gottorf »

Spooky23 wrote: post #112
dylan604 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a bunch of tech peeps are overweight physically out of shape with other health effects as bad as what you're saying about trades. Humans get old. I know plenty of trades people that do hard work and think cushy office gigs are hell on earth and that type of work sucks ass. Just because it's not your preferred career doesn't mean you should denigrate those that do. Besides, if there were no trades, you'd have no p…

Im not denigrating anyone. I worked dairy farms from age 7 to 23. It’s a brutal lifestyle and I’ve seen my share of hardworking, broken 50 year olds trying to make it mostly on the lesser paying job their wife is left with because raising kids with a dad who’s out the door at 5am and home at 7pm is brutal.

I think the notion that's being challenged is that a college degree is an automatic way out of "dad who’s out the door at 5am and home at 7pm", no matter what the degree is for and who is getting the degree; or that being credentialed and unemployed is better than that.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#122

Post by PearlRiver »

glial wrote: post #92
aorona wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but why

Well, for one thing, critical thinking and communication skills seem to be in short supply.

Students in America don't have jobs. You can be motherfucking Einstein but you will still have to be a waiter in a cafe to contribute to society and pay for your student room.

When you are 20 you don't need sleep.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#123

Post by gottorf »

linkregister wrote: post #83
dylan604 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet the primary reason students attend universities in person is the parties, the co-eds, and the start of life from outside the direct supervision of parental units. Let's be honest, all of this education stuff is secondary to that.

This seems like the conclusion someone would come to by watching 1980s college movies, not someone who looked at data. Community colleges, vocational schools, and commuter students represent a large proportion of college students, and are removed from the Animal House experience. The primary goal for attending college, as stated by both students and parents, is for preparation for entrance into the workforce and adul…

> The primary goal for attending college, as stated by both students and parents, is for preparation for entrance into the workforce and adult life.

Let's observe revealed preferences, not stated ones.

> One can go to the engineering or computer science building in almost any U.S. or Canadian university and observe a student population that doesn't party on a regular basis.

This is a small fraction of the total college population.

Most people in college are only there because it's the default next step after high school. In fact, a lot of people in graduate school are only there because it's the default next step after a bachelor's degree.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#124

Post by gottorf »

lamasery wrote: post #70
kakacik wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discussions and concerns we simply dont have in Europe. There are costs, but nothing significant from public schools themselves, rather just accommodation, food, travel etc. Some folks still go to private ones, but those are mostly not for extra prestige but rather different focus, or those who are not that great students themselves. Unpopular here, but I judge degree of development / maturity of societies on 2 major…

> Unpopular here, but I judge degree of development / maturity of societies on 2 major factors : 1) how it can take care of the vulnerable members in need - mostly heathcare, with som basic social support to help you bridge between jobs, plus obviously (mostly self-earned but managed by state) retirement; and 2) how well it invests into its future via education on all levels. Education aint luxury but empowering basi…

> which would you choose? The ones you're more-inclined to choose are the better ones

Funny how despite all that, more people choose to come to the US from those "mature" societies than the other way around.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#125

Post by gottorf »

erelong wrote: post #114

Deregulation is the simple fix: quality of education and cost has predictably gone up due to regulation, as well as costs of doing business

I don't know if "regulation" is the right word. In the end, what happened was that the foremost power in the world, the US federal government, having observed that college grads earn more than non-college grads, flipped cause and effect on its head and decided that everyone must go to college for better life outcomes. A tremendous amount of time, money, and resources went into making that happen.

Against this backdrop, there was no world in which the price of higher education wasn't going to go dramatically up.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#126

Post by gottorf »

HillRat wrote: post #10
rtkwe wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under the current admin's policies shrink. After that who knows.

That's really the key problem facing US universities, from land-grant colleges to the Ivies: everyone depends at least in part on closing budgetary gaps with global students who pay full freight. Current Administration policies, both specifically targeted at foreign students and more generally at higher education and immigration, are poisoning the seed corn colleges and universities rely on. The only good news, relat…

> Europe is evidently constitutionally incapable of taking advantage of what is a genuinely one-in-an-imperial-lifetime chance to drain intellectual capital from the United States

Perhaps you're already implying this, but for Europe to drain intellectual capital from the US, it would have to offer a hell of a lot more than cheap college for foreign students.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#127

Post by gottorf »

glial wrote: post #92
aorona wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but why

Well, for one thing, critical thinking and communication skills seem to be in short supply.

Have you observed a lot of critical thinking and good communication from recent college grads?

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#128

Post by gottorf »

munificent wrote: post #103
akramachamarei wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US tax system is substantially more progressive than you might think.¹ It seems unwise to make it even moreso. The tough pill to swallow, if we are to follow in e.g. Sweden's footsteps, is that you need to tax the middle class a lot more if you want the government to provide more services. By the way, this whole discussion completely ignores that the country is BROKE. Why are we contemplating building a new patio…

> The US tax system is substantially more progressive than you might think.¹ It seems unwise to make it even moreso. I disagree, and I don't think linking to a conservative think tank a particularly compelling counterargument. My metric for whether a tax system is progressive enough is pretty simple: is inequality high and getting higher? Then the tax system should be more progressive. Some amount of inequality is he…

> I don't think linking to a conservative think tank a particularly compelling counterargument

Do you only ingest ideas from places that you're already inclined to believe? How do you get challenges to your beliefs?

> is inequality high and getting higher? Then the tax system should be more progressive.

> Some amount of inequality is healthy.

What amount of inequality is just right, then? On one hand you suggest that we should redistribute to lower inequality, but on the other you seem to see some kind of beneficial role, or at least a neutral role, of inequality in a society.

> The top 10% owning 80% of all wealth in the US is not.

Countries as diverse as Sweden, the Philippines, and Nigeria all have worse inequality in wealth than the US[0]. On the other end, countries like Iceland, Myanmar, and Turkmenistan have similarly low wealth inequality. I might posit that wealth inequality doesn't even make the top 10 of what makes a health society that's nice to live in.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_we...

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#129

Post by lamasery »

gottorf wrote: post #124
lamasery wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unpopular here, but I judge degree of development / maturity of societies on 2 major factors : 1) how it can take care of the vulnerable members in need - mostly heathcare, with som basic social support to help you bridge between jobs, plus obviously (mostly self-earned but managed by state) retirement; and 2) how well it invests into its future via education on all levels. Education aint luxury but empowering basi…

> which would you choose? The ones you're more-inclined to choose are the better ones Funny how despite all that, more people choose to come to the US from those "mature" societies than the other way around.

It’s not a blind roll of the dice, then. Among other factors that make it pretty different.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#130

Post by secabeen »

nebula8804 wrote: post #110
mcmcmc wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So community colleges?

God I wish community college would be subsidized. Some states now cover it for your first degree which is a great start and some also are now starting to subsidize courses for retirees but man I would so love to just go and do like random courses I have no intention of pursuing a career in. European universities are not resorts like in the US and community college keep that small footprint mentality as well. They hav…

They are! The State of California contributes the following to the system: -- Total CCC Funding Is $20 Billion in 2026-27 Under Governor’s Budget.

https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2026/5150/2026-27_CCC_030506.pdf

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