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

The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

blogmaverick.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 302 posts

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#141

Post by ArmstrongRSBC »

lordlicorice wrote: post #132
mkramlich wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuck college. It's not the only way to learn, to meet people, or to show your expertise, capabilities and accomplishments anymore. We have this thing called the Internet now. Write a book. Put a PDF online. Record a video of yourself giving an intelligent speech or showing some useful talent. Put it on YouTube. Write software. Put on GitHub. Answer technical questions well on StackExchange (or whatever for your parti…

It's hard to overstate the value of a university education... Why are you so vehement? Never went to college?

The cost of a college education is an overstatement of its value.

How many recent grads outside of engineering do you know? Now how many of them are gainfully employed?

Now how much did they pay for school and how much pay and experience did they miss out on by not working for the time they were in school?

I just went through the post graduate job cycle along with a huge batch of my peers and any of us will be the first to tell you that college is broke. The only reason I am employed is because of projects I put together myself, online, outside of the scope of a university education.

If you are looking to meet girls and learn how to drink to excess by all means college is a great place to do it. Otherwise college education in the liberal arts is a complete waste.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#142

Post by tikhonj »

vladd wrote: post #135
lordlicorice wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certificates are fine for IT work, but they can't replace degrees for programmers. A degree at a good school shows that you're smart, not just knowledgeable.

Google seems to be able to figure out smart folks in 5-6 hours with pretty high accuracy.

Isn't Google also notorious for being biased towards the "top" schools, caring about GPAs and turning away a ton of smart people? That's what I've heard, but I've no first-hand experience.

So many smart people apply to Google that they could (at least historically--maybe it's different now) get away with a hiring process optimized for false negatives over false positives. This is only fair, but also probably makes them a poor example as far as hiring practices go.

So yes: they can figure out if you're smart in 5-6 hours. But they can't do the converse reliably.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#143

Post by learc83 »

bricestacey wrote: post #84
learc83 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>reduce the price of a more desirable students who are less able to pay. A very small percentage of the total financial aid comes directly from the school, so this is not what is happening. The vast majority of financial aid is from the state and federal government which is not financed by tuition. They are using the extra money by and large to fund additional administration expenses, a new football team and other pr…

Georgia State is a few thousand per year for state students. Who cares if it doubled? Edit: Southern state schools should be the model. They're 1/4 or cheaper the cost of private schools and often a better education.

It cost me a little less than 4.5k a year in tuition and fees in 2007, now its up to around 9k. Additionally tuition used to max out at 12 hours now it maxes out at 15.

It's still a great value compared to a lot of schools, but if the prices keep going up at anything near that rate it won't be for long.

Also I don't think its 1/4 of a private school. Total cost of attendance is around 20k, total cost of attendance at Harvard is around 50K (room board, tuition and fees).

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#144

Post by toemetoch »

grannyg00se wrote: post #51
jellicle wrote: post #43

Mark Cuban writes: "As an employer I want the best prepared and qualified employees. I could care less if the source of their education was accredited by a bunch of old men and women who think they know what is best for the world. I want people who can do the job. I want the best and brightest. Not a piece of paper." So, I suppose I could be wrong, but I would be willing to bet a great deal of money that Mark Cuban d…

If that's all your resume says, then you're probably right. But there should be something on there that indicates that you can do the job otherwise you wasted your time applying. The point is that education says nothing about being able to do the job in many cases. If you are applying for an engineering position and you have MIT on your resume, that is certainly going to imply that you very likely have what it takes.…

The point is that education says nothing about being able to do the job in many cases.

I work with students for development projects. We don't get to pick them, they pick the projects we propose. Here's a question that tells us in seconds whether we're going to have a tough project with a lot of pussyfooting or one that'll go mad with ideas:

Do you have tech-related hobbies?

Most barely have a few hobbies but some are pretty much involved in every electronics/software niche they come across.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#145

Post by LockeWatts »

impendia wrote: post #95
LockeWatts wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have found that a great many of the students have not mastered high school algebra. Why should they have? It doesn't take 'mastery' to pass a class, it takes proficiency. Expecting perfection in all previous classes from students is silly. >Many of the students aren't all that motivated, and resented me for asking a lot of them. Are you teaching Math majors? If not, of course they aren't motivated. Most of them wo…

> If not, of course they aren't motivated. Most of them won't be using calculus in their daily life, they don't see it as valuable. But that's my point, and I'm attempting to bolster the original article's point. I have a room full of calculus students, many of whom don't terribly need or want to learn calculus. Then why are they there ? In many cases you can trace this back to some ambition for which calculus is a p…

>Then why are they there?

Because it's a state requirement, more than likely.

> In many cases you can trace this back to some ambition for which calculus is a prerequisite for some reason or other.

Doubtful. Not unless they're a STEM or Finance major.

> But in many cases, they are there because they feel they are "supposed" to be there, or else they feel that a college degree will get them a better job.

Your class isn't all of college. They are in your class because it's a requirement. Nothing more.

Just because they dislike like your class doesn't mean they shouldn't go to college.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#147

Post by InclinedPlane »

ntkachov wrote: post #24
impendia wrote: post #16

I am in my first year as a mathematics professor at the University of South Carolina. Having moved here from Stanford, I've noticed several things. (1) Many students are woefully underprepared. In my calculus classes I have found that a great many of the students have not mastered high school algebra. And these are the students who pass our placement exam, and aren't obliged to take one of our many algebra and precal…

Most students are crap at math. That's a fact. There is 0 encouragement to spend high school refining math skills. Also don't confuse motivation with laziness, priorities, or time management. To a psych major, calc might seem like one of those bullshit classes you have to take. To an EE Major it might just be more hours of work that could be spent sleeping.

That's a horrible way to look at a college experience. As a student you're paying good money to get an education. If you treat it as a monetary transaction in exchange for a credential then you are unlikely to get your money's worth.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#148

Post by kitsune_ »

lordlicorice wrote: post #132
mkramlich wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuck college. It's not the only way to learn, to meet people, or to show your expertise, capabilities and accomplishments anymore. We have this thing called the Internet now. Write a book. Put a PDF online. Record a video of yourself giving an intelligent speech or showing some useful talent. Put it on YouTube. Write software. Put on GitHub. Answer technical questions well on StackExchange (or whatever for your parti…

It's hard to overstate the value of a university education... Why are you so vehement? Never went to college?

In Switzerland, which traditionally has seen a low rate in college degrees, and has relied on its apprenticeship system for a long time, we have seen an explosion in new college titles with the bologna reform.

You want to be a janitor? Congratulations, you can now get a master in "facility management". Teaching special needs children? You better get started on that degree! You want to be a librarian? Well, what about getting a degree in "information management"?

You got a degree in communications and have freelanced for a couple of years as a copy writer? What you gonna do? Ah right, you start to teach "corporate PR" at a university. Demand is that high that I could probably start teaching shit like Java, which I don't even know, in a heart beat. Without having any pedagogic qualities whatsoever.

We live in a day and age where everybody wants a slice of that big fat cake. Everyone is entitled to 10k a month. Everybody wants a designer apartment, a BMW. Every year, a new smartphone, vacations in the Maldives. Living the dream. On top of that, costs are rising across the board, mandatory health insurance is killing everyone. Prices are inflating. So what you gonna do? Ah, right, you get a degree, it doesn't even matter which one. Shit, three years ago my mom got a degree (she was a Kindergarten teacher). She is 53 now.

I really don't know how this could last. Maybe it can last for a small country like Switzerland, but I have a very bad feeling. A lot of the people will one day wake up and realize that just because the studied something, they're not going to earn 200k a year, even not 10 years down the road, yet they already live a lifestyle that assumes this to be true.

edit: My girl friend proof reads master theses for people. You wouldn't believe the shit she has to read and correct. Without outside help, many people would fail miserably. If you pay enough you will get your degree in one form or another. And that is precisely what is going on.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#149

Post by linuxhansl »

One more example why "let's fix the problem by providing cheap money" never actually fixes the problem. The "cheapness" of the money will just be priced into the goods (houses or education in this case).

(As an aside, the same is true for the tax-deductible interest on mortgages nonsense. People think they actually save money, when in fact that advantage is immediately priced into the houses.)

Where I am from university education is free. Of course seats are limited, so you need to be reasonable smart (but by no means a genius) to get in. Not ideal either, but at least your education is not defined by your wealth or your willingness to go into debt.

Re: The Coming Meltdown In College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Soon

#150

Post by kabuks »

talmand wrote: post #98
DTrejo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He might mean things like http://www.khanacademy.org/ and http://devbootcamp.com/experience .

Not trying to complain since it looks like a good program, but why does Dev Bootcamp lump Jquery, Coffeescript, SASS, HAML, AJAX, and others under Advanced Rails Technologies? Shouldn't that be Advanced Web Technologies or are they just simplifying things for their Rails program?

I appreciate the question. I like your naming better. Will change it.
Post reply on HN