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

College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 437 posts

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#151

Post by deadmetheny »

DamnYuppie wrote: post #117
deadmetheny wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>every year of college costs 1 year of salary This is point-blank wrong, unless you're only talking about elite private schools. Most state schools cost around 1-1.5 years of full-time salary, discounting room and board since you have to pay for somewhere to live independently of if you attend university. If your goal is to simply get a degree, you can do it for less than $50k (which is definitely still off compared…

Your argument is only valid if you are assuming that tuition is paid for out of pocket. If you have to finance that $50k, you will most likely end up paying closer to $80k. The 80k assumes a 15 year repayment at current rates, if they can pay more and get it done in 10 years it drops down to under $70k.

The $50k is assuming financing. Nobody realistically pays for college tuition out-of-pocket unless they were lucky and their parents set up a fund for it.

Source: myself and literally every single college person I know who attended public universities in the Midwest

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#152

Post by [deleted] »

bluGill wrote: post #28
VikingCoder wrote: post #7

I assert the expense of college is an awful burden to put on someone who must finance most of it through debt. It's a gamble. You can improve your odds of a happy outcome in that gamble by looking at the Student Loan Default Rate for any given major at any given college, and picking the best program for you (with the lowest default rate possible.) But if you are a child of parents who can finance your college? Absolu…

If somebody is passionate about art history, then they should get a degree in art history regardless of job prospects. You are limiting their ability to get the education they want. Now I will agree that somebody getting an art history type degree shouldn't be taking loans to get it, they should be paying for it out of their pocket. However we should not limit somebody from pursuing their interests just because their…

[deleted]

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#153

Post by cookiecaper »

chasing wrote: post #8

The issue isn't that college is pointless, it's that tuition is too high and wages too low. You should support politicians with a plan to counter this trend. Education is important. Raising the overall level of education in this country should be a much larger goal that it seems to be.

Formal university settings are not the only way "education" can be conferred/obtained.

Would a person who only knew apprenticeships trust someone who sat through 4 years of theoretical lectures, book learning, and "sample projects", when their expectation is that trained apprentices have worked side-by-side with masters in "the real world" for many years, doing real work that real people depended on?

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#154

Post by bluedevil2k »

mythrwy wrote: post #48
bluedevil2k wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Student loan interest rates should be tied to the major. Engineering major? $0 down, 3.5% interest rate. Art History major? 25% down, 15% interest rate.

Sounds like a recipe for an astronomical default rate.

It would theoretically lead to a lower default rate, as it would dissuade "art history" majors from pursuing that low-paying profession. As it stands now, the people who pursue higher paying majors are subsidizing those who pursue the lower paying majors. You can't seriously say that an engineering major is the same risk as an art history major. Then why should they pay the same interest rate? You aren't going to claim that everyone should pay the same mortgage rate, right?

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#155

Post by justin66 »

wilsonnb wrote: post #145
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what extent is it still news. It's not just this topic, it's a whole range of subjects. e.g. the same articles are written and rewritten on housing all the time. And the notion I get sent an article by a friend, see it on FB, twitter, a debate, the paper itself and the half dozen that will cover it by referring to the article in an opinion piece, doesn't help. I'm finding it increasingly more difficult to get mean…

To be fair, this is from the opinion section. It's not news. Most of the articles you are talking about are probably opinion pieces as well. I do think they should do more to differentiate between news and opinion pieces.

It says "Opinion" right at the top, not to mention in the URL.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#156

Post by always_good »

e_tm_ wrote: post #111
chasing wrote: post #8

The issue isn't that college is pointless, it's that tuition is too high and wages too low. You should support politicians with a plan to counter this trend. Education is important. Raising the overall level of education in this country should be a much larger goal that it seems to be.

I agree that 'education' is critically important. But it is important to clarify: education in what is important. I think there is massive difficulty in forming any sort of consensus approach to define a proper baseline of 'education' that works for everyone. Our school systems are frankly not designed for it, and it seems a utopian ideal that they may be 'corrected' to do so. Considering the diversity of motivators…

I generally disagree with your clarification.

University was mostly a core of classes that everybody needed to take, free electives that let me take whichever classes I wanted, and then degree courses which were a subset of my classes.

We over-fixate on the major in these discussions because we look at the crazy American education prices and then think in $/major. But otherwise I'd say university does a decent job of making people credentialize in generally important concepts. And this process helps you in life, like being able to think and speak intelligently on any topic.

I think it's the gross expense of uni that causes us to push people into majors like STEM that can be directly transmuted into dollars. But I don't think that's best for society. And it's an unhealthy approach to education.

For example, if I could redo university, I would've majored in philosophy. It's just obnoxious that I had to make that decision somewhere within age 17-20.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#157

Post by prometheuspk »

VikingCoder wrote: post #114
tejaswiy wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the argument is to not prevent people from getting art history degrees - just to make all art history courses in the US artificially limit the number of students they take in to match the actual demand. So if someone's super passionate about art history and is also able to meet the (presumably) more stringent entry criteria, they will still be able to get that degree.

Or maybe let people pay for Art History degrees if they want to. And the free program should be based on Merit, and career demand.

Thats what they do for high demand degrees like Engg and Medicine in Pakistan. In Govt. colleges education is virtually free if you are admitted on merit, else you can go for self finance

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#158

Post by titanix2 »

adamnemecek wrote: post #73

America needs apprenticeships. E.g. in Czech Republic you can attend these vocational schools instead of high schools and there's less of a stigma to attending them. There are schools for programmers, nurses, car mechanics. Particularly the programmer ones let you do learn idk, basic networking, 3d programming and some basic entrepreneurship (accounting etc). I believe it's one of the reasons it has the lowest unempl…

In CR, like most of Europe, you also have free or almost free higher education. So, attending college is more a question of meeting the intellectual requirement and choosing the right domain than paying for it.

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#159

Post by nkrumm »

citilife wrote: post #52
VikingCoder wrote: post #7

I assert the expense of college is an awful burden to put on someone who must finance most of it through debt. It's a gamble. You can improve your odds of a happy outcome in that gamble by looking at the Student Loan Default Rate for any given major at any given college, and picking the best program for you (with the lowest default rate possible.) But if you are a child of parents who can finance your college? Absolu…

> Veterinarian programs specific limit how many students they accept, because if they didn't, their graduates wouldn't be able to afford a living wage. Other majors need to catch on. Medical schools do the same thing, but that's also what's causing a burden on the medical system. I truly blame most of the medical expense increases in the U.S. on them and medicare (which sets a base price and everyone else must make u…

The limiting factor is not the spots for medical students, but rather for residents and fellows, who are primarily funded through medicare/medicaid and the VA.

An interesting post on this is here, although it somewhat contradicts the popular notion that graduate medical education is limited by funding: https://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/gme-federal-fun...

Re: College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

#160

Post by overcast »

jpeg_hero wrote: post #54

How do you know you live in an SF bubble? > A third of Americans aged 25-29 have a bachelors degree I know one persons without a degree. > earn only a bit more than do people with only a high school education: $38,376 a year versus $35,256 At my company an annual raise of less than $25k is seen as an insult.

Sorry what? At minimum your company gives $25,000 pay increases, per year? What's the starting salary, a $1,000,000? Can I apply for the janitors position? I'll clean the toilets for a guaranteed additional $25,000+ every year.
Post reply on HN