A generation of American men give up on college • Hacker News Board

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#141

Post by lelanthran » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:05 AM UTC

DasIch wrote: post #65

wasmburger wrote: post #59

I wonder if it could be because masculinity is being challenged on campus in the current era. Why would a male who has issues with women want to go to a place where he will be challenged to change his views in sensitivty and toxic masculinity courses? Conversely, why would a male who does not have issues with women go to a place where he will be labeled as having toxic masculinity? It's not like these issues haven't…

The term “toxic masculinity” does not and is not intended to imply that masculinity itself is toxic.

> The term “toxic masculinity” does not and is not intended to imply that masculinity itself is toxic.

That's funny, really. I always only ever encounter it used by people who smear any and all masculinity as "toxic".

Do you have a link to a place "toxic masculinity" is used to describe a minority subset of the male population?

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#142

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:06 AM UTC

zapnuk wrote: post #130

baron816 wrote: post #63

A lot of this is driven by narratives—A narrative that college isn’t worth it anymore. A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more. I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. They need to feel like they’re part of society. Nothing good can come of an entire gener…

I wonder how woman feel reading such comments. Men dominated better paying jobs and positions of power since forever. It took 50+ years between equal rights before the law to equal opportunities in the labour market and education. Men still have every opportunity a woman has. In addition, they are still recognized more for leading positions. They also dominate about every trade related job. Yet, they are 'left withou…

My grandmother worked as a mechanic for the phone company in the nine-teens. Her sister did whatever she wanted, she started and ran her own business.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#143

Post by tchaffee » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:06 AM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #63

A lot of this is driven by narratives—A narrative that college isn’t worth it anymore. A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more. I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. They need to feel like they’re part of society. Nothing good can come of an entire gener…

Is it a "narrative" that college isn't it worth it anymore or is that largely based in fact in the US? Especially when it comes to specific degrees that don't have a demand in the workplace. The cost of higher education in the US has financially crippled millions. And trade jobs pay well for far less education costs. Doing a cost / benefit analysis would seem the wisest choice.

The bigger problem to me is that with such a high cost for university education, our future electricians won't have one. Whereas in Europe they very possibly might. I know which society I prefer to live in and it's not the one where people are less educated.

What narrative about uniform privilege? Can you give some sources?

I've also never heard privilege explained as making life "just easy". I've heard just for example that life can still be hard but your skin color is not one of the things making your life hard.

I'd be interested in reading these narratives that are so different from the narratives I've read about privilege.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#144

Post by perryizgr8 » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:06 AM UTC

ceilingcorner wrote: post #113

COVID has accelerated this big time. Why spend $5,000 a semester to watch a Zoom lecture from an average professor when you can open YouTube in a new tab and see a world-class professor share the same information for free? It makes no rational sense. The moment that a serious, legitimate credential system appears, every average university will disappear overnight. We'll be left with an oligarch class that attends the…

> Why spend $5,000 a semester to watch a Zoom lecture from an average professor when you can open YouTube in a new tab and see a world-class professor share the same information for free?

Because most employers will not even consider your application without a degree.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#145

Post by jmeister » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:06 AM UTC

throwtheworld wrote: post #99

baron816 wrote: post #63

A lot of this is driven by narratives—A narrative that college isn’t worth it anymore. A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more. I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. They need to feel like they’re part of society. Nothing good can come of an entire gener…

> A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. This is very perspective dependent. I’m a black college student now and every conversation with friends back home includes some mention of dropping out because it’s not for us as well. When you see people with equivalent resumes already coasting by in the job market because they could get their last names and LinkedIn photos past…

I’m sorry, in 2021, companies and universities are bending over backwards to hire black candidates.

This falls in the “earth is not flat” category in 2021, I will not bother posting evidence, as a litmus test of the HN crowd.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#146

Post by twic » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:10 AM UTC

orwin wrote: post #102

Bayart wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a legacy of socialist regimes enforcing gender ratios. Gender disparity is usually proportional to freedom of choice. ie. countries where there's less pressure to choose a particular field are more disparate in their gender ratios across disciplines.

I'm not sure about that, i've hear Professor Emeritus Mallard talk about his youth in the genetical field and the first use of computers to assist geneticists, he told me that he basically never saw men doing computer work, and that changed in the 80s, along with the culture.

The story i've heard is that the olden days, operating a computer was seen as clerical work, just like being a secretary, so ideally suited to women.

Then we got 8-bit microcomputers in every home, and operating a computer became a technical hobby, so ideally suited to boys.

The generation of boys growing up playing with computers, and girls not playing with computers, swamped any existing biases in the industry.

I wonder if the communist countries had the former phase, but because not so many homes had computers, not the latter.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#147

Post by thinkingemote » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:10 AM UTC

DasIch wrote: post #65

wasmburger wrote: post #59

I wonder if it could be because masculinity is being challenged on campus in the current era. Why would a male who has issues with women want to go to a place where he will be challenged to change his views in sensitivty and toxic masculinity courses? Conversely, why would a male who does not have issues with women go to a place where he will be labeled as having toxic masculinity? It's not like these issues haven't…

The term “toxic masculinity” does not and is not intended to imply that masculinity itself is toxic.

That's how it's used and understood though.

I agree it was never intended to, but the reality is different. It should be dumped and a new term used.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#148

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:11 AM UTC

crazy_horse wrote: post #97

effingwewt wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Survivorship bias with a N=1 doesn't change the absolute fact that most if not all degrees are worth far less than the debt taken on. Why your personal story is pertinent here is beyond me, OP was talking about the person in the article. It's not dramatic at all when we have 1.73[1] trillion in student loan debt, with an average of 39k each student. Starting your professional career years in debt is the definition of…

The new student also has the option of choosing a not worthless degree, greatly increasing their odds.

Yup. It's trivial to google "starting salaries for XXX" before committing to a major and the loan.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#149

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

pwthornton wrote: post #35

frankbreetz wrote: post #10

On the other side: A stat shared at my most recent tech companies meeting, they are trying to hire more women. 5000 people applied for a single position and 15 of them were women. This was for a high paying tech job.

One thing I am starting to wonder about is if there is a systematic guidance counseling failing in high schools and colleges. There are so many well paying tech jobs that we just aren't getting that many candidates for. Forget not having a great gender ratio, it is often hard to find a lot of candidates for my openings. If I can't offer sponsorship, it can take awhile There clearly seems to be a lot more knowledge in…

> a lot more knowledge in some countries about which jobs lead to high paying careers

The knowledge is there and completely trivial to obtain. Google "starting salaries for XXXX major".

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#150

Post by mercy_dude » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #63

A lot of this is driven by narratives—A narrative that college isn’t worth it anymore. A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more. I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. They need to feel like they’re part of society. Nothing good can come of an entire gener…

> A narrative that college isn’t worth it anymore

Is it entirely false though? What benefit does a college degree in sociology does to a person (and even broader society) when the person will likely be in over 100k+ debt?