> What a time to start an alternative to college! The world really needs it.
Think we also need an alternative to schools.
I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears
131–140 of 1001 posts
Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears
#132Some kid is going to stand up and say: “You can throw me in jail or cancel my degree but I’m not paying my student debt… who’s with me?” And then the whole house of cards that is higher education collapses.
Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears
#133I'm concerned that the majority of "should we fix college or should we circumvent college" conversations don't bring up one of the scariest parts of our current economy: STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. All of the conversations I've seen implicitly assume that this is good, and that the solution to farmer workers (or other low paid workers) escaping poverty is to train them as so…
>STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. >We really need farm workers, and most of them live in poverty. I love having more engineers, scientists, and doctors, but we desperately need non-STEM work to be a viable option This is basically a non-problem because of the supply/demand mechanics of the labor market. If farm workers' job gets sufficiently bad from a value proposition perspecti…
> This is basically a non-problem because of the supply/demand mechanics of the labor market.
You’ll have to back-up that assertion.
Supply/demand mechanisms fail the labor market badly. By law of supply and demand, professions introduce artificial scarcity to boost their income; and the market responds either through some combination of: Immigration, automation, consolidation (less businesses), cut-corners
Farming has aspects of all three, and it’s a major national risk.
Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
A degree doesn't cost the company. An in-house bootcamp and apprenticeship program does. Once the less-legibly-promising new hires are equally productive, they now have a resume making them legibly good to the company's competitors in the job market, so it can't make up its investment by underpaying. ("Programmers are happy and tend to stay" is something the competitors can do too.) I'm not saying don't do it, or tha…
> A degree doesn't cost the company. Degrees cost companies through increased wages. Student loans get paid somehow, after all. > This was gratuitous. I didn't even see any politics in the thread. You not seeing things is not the same as things not existing. I do see it, and wanted to focus this bit of discussion on the question of degree value, not the assorted other stuff there.
> Degrees cost companies through increased wages.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)#Job-mar... for the model behind my comment.
You’re a hiring manager choosing between Alice and Bob. Alice has a degree, Bob doesn’t; you estimate they’ll be equally productive, and it’s common knowledge that your competitors will judge them the same. Do you offer Bob less, since he doesn’t have student loans to pay off? You can if you like, but then Bob will go work for your competitor.
> You not seeing things is not the same as things not existing. I do see it, and wanted to focus this bit of discussion on the question of degree value, not the assorted other stuff there.
You can mention having further disagreements without making it a gratuitous diss.
Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears
#135Some kid is going to stand up and say: “You can throw me in jail or cancel my degree but I’m not paying my student debt… who’s with me?” And then the whole house of cards that is higher education collapses.
Someone currently in college told me that if you just don't pay them, they simply start forgiving then. Unofficially. I don't know how true that is.
Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears
#136Twitter 'threads' are bad and people should feel badly for creating/posting them.
I prefer them to long winded blog posts with fluffy personal anecdotes that read like a novella. Twitter threads are so bad that nobody wants to write more than they have to.
Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
>STEM jobs are the main viable path for economic stability and freedom. >We really need farm workers, and most of them live in poverty. I love having more engineers, scientists, and doctors, but we desperately need non-STEM work to be a viable option This is basically a non-problem because of the supply/demand mechanics of the labor market. If farm workers' job gets sufficiently bad from a value proposition perspecti…
> This is basically a non-problem because of the supply/demand mechanics of the labor market. You’ll have to back-up that assertion. Supply/demand mechanisms fail the labor market badly. By law of supply and demand, professions introduce artificial scarcity to boost their income; and the market responds either through some combination of: Immigration, automation, consolidation (less businesses), cut-corners Farming h…
He justified it with his next sentence:
> If farm workers' job gets sufficiently bad from a value proposition perspective, then people will leave the occupation and employers would be forced to pay higher wages to attract workers.
Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
> ...are just more academically inclined than others... It's not "races", it's culture. We should just remove this whole idea of "race" from our understanding of social phenomena, all it can do is mislead. There are African, Black subcultures like the Igbo and Ashanti that achieve to the highest levels academically (including in the West!) and Asian subcultures that don't place any focus on education, and struggle as…
I have lived in a USA urban metropolitan area most of my entire life.. Asian and Black are not nearly descriptive enough terms.. there are massive variations in the populations.. as the post above said.. its not sufficient, and directly misleading, to distinguish people in education.. secondly, "White Males" repeatedly get left out of special offers and incentives, and there are tons of those special incentives, for decades.. the educational spectrum of "White Males" is also huge .. its a real mess and people get angry about the topics right away when discussing them..
Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears
#139Definitely agree that removing the SAT appears to be related to the upcoming supreme court case about affirmative action. COVID was a good reason to delay it for a couple years. But schools are pushing it out further. That makes no sense. It seems the SAT is increasingly considered "racist" because it reveals racial disparities in learning. What's next? Get rid of the driver's license test because it turns that white…
Quoted post unavailable.
Yikes
Re: I think US college education is nearer to collapsing than it appears
#140Some kid is going to stand up and say: “You can throw me in jail or cancel my degree but I’m not paying my student debt… who’s with me?” And then the whole house of cards that is higher education collapses.
No, because the debt is owed to the government or to private lenders. Once the money is issued from the lender to the school for tuition, the school has no further exposure to any risk. Total scam.