Why I’m Giving $1.8B for College Financial Aid • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I’m Giving $1.8B for College Financial Aid

#161

Post by nickthemagicman » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 12:44 AM UTC

palunon wrote: post #131

nickthemagicman wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your view of college seems to be very media influenced. Just like 99.9% of Arabic people aren't terrorists, 99.9% of college students aren't 'safe space triggered social justice warriors'. Maybe you should grab a statistics class at a nearby college. ;). The media has really painted college students in a bad light. There's such a wide variety of students and personalities. It's a great place to share ideas and form n…

> Just like 99.9% of Arabic people aren't terrorists Yeah, sure, one in a thousand Arabic person is a terrorist...

Assuming there's 1 billion Arabic people on the planet...all you need is 100,000 members of what the U.S. classifies as terrorist groups to have 1 in 1000.

ISIS already fills up 35,000 of that 100,000. You still have Hamas, al Queda, and many more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_designated_terrorist_g...

Re: Why I’m Giving $1.8B for College Financial Aid

#162

Post by Retric » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 2:26 AM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #160

Retric wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not saying he needs to pay more. I am saying the charitable deduction like all deductions are effectively just another form of spending. We hand out money to people buying a Tesla Model S’s, or paying a mortgage payment. Agree or disagree with the idea, just understand it’s not free.

Except 'Not collecting money' and 'spending money' are not quite the same thing. Almost, but not quite.

IRS considers debt forgiveness income. https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc431.

So, legally they are the same thing.

PS: Though with various caviots as the law is never that simple.

Re: Why I’m Giving $1.8B for College Financial Aid

#163

Post by chiefalchemist » Wed, Nov 21, 2018, 8:33 PM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #27

chiefalchemist wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't expect the edus to say no to easy money. And the students are raised to think they are entitled tto success, whether they are cut out for that path or not. It's PC to say "everybody gets a degree." The reality is, that's a very expensive empty promise.

We should really improve K-12 education. The fact that kids are not qualified for college after 18 years in public school is a travesty.

It's not they aren't qualify. It's that they are not wired (think personality type) for typical, mainstream, status quo, (typically) office / lab work.

Yet, the fact is, knowing this, we as a culture continue to insist square pegs force themselves into round holes. Drugs use is up? Depression / mental illness is up? Perhaps we open our eyes (and minds) to helping young adults becomes something that's meaningful - and career worthy - to them instead of forcing them down a path they don't want to go.

The fact that a fair percentage of people end up __not__ working in their major 10 years down the road seems to be saying something as well.

Re: Why I’m Giving $1.8B for College Financial Aid

#164

Post by DannyBee » Sun, Nov 25, 2018, 7:48 PM UTC

gnulinux wrote: post #112

synaesthesisx wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed - I've interviewed candidates with no CS degree that outperformed ones from Harvard etc. In fact many of the best ones were self-taught...

I'm finding it very hard to believe a student who did well in MIT or Berkeley can "on average" be outperformed by someone who is self-taught. I'm not suggesting all students in top schools are good, or nobody self-taught is good, but in my experience there is a strong correlation. I'm also surprised that (1) people had a differing experience in this thread and (2) I'm downvoted for expressing my experience. Disclaime…

Fwiw:

Most new grads suck at coding. The self taught are often a little better.

The algorithms and data structures part is a toss up. Maybe they are good at class and bad in interviews, but ... On average I haven't seen the correlation you have.