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Two-thirds of American employees regret their college degrees

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Re: Two-thirds of American employees regret their college degrees

#21

Post by jvreagan »

legitster wrote: post #13

In WA, there is a program where you can finish the last two years of high school at a community college and graduate with a two year degree for free. It was probably the best decision of my life. I basically got to trial and error all of my interests for free much earlier and cheaper than everyone else. And it went against the guidance of my school counselors. They thought community college would hurt my chances at g…

My eldest has chosen the CC route, started by graduating HS early and been taking CC classes in the spring and now summer. So far so good, and is really teaching him about where he wants to take his education.

Wish I would have done this 25+ years ago, as someone who does indeed feel like my college degree from a "Prestigious School" was not worth the time and money investment.

Re: Two-thirds of American employees regret their college degrees

#22

Post by lacampbell »

paultopia wrote: post #14

We've got to stop letting 18-22 year-olds make incredibly expensive life/career decisions with zero information.

The problem isn't the young age of these decisions, the problem is that childhood now lasts until your mid 20s, as opposed to ending in your late teens.

When you have visibly aging people in their 30s saying stuff like "adulting is so hard gaiz!!", the problem is the culture.

Re: Two-thirds of American employees regret their college degrees

#24

Post by phil248 »

This is truly shocking to me. I'd have thought that most people value the experience of college so immensely that it was worth the cost. I'll be paying student debt for the rest of my life, but in retrospect I'd have happily paid double for the experiences and perspectives I gained.

Re: Two-thirds of American employees regret their college degrees

#25

Post by AnimalMuppet »

Ill_ban_myself wrote: post #2

There is a worthwhile discussion to be had about the cost of college tuition and actuarial tables of different degrees and their earning power and how that relates to pay structure for graduates and for professors and how college programs are run. Trying to have that discussion on hacker news starting from a primary source consisting of a CBS News poll is like trying to get to the moon on a North Korean rocket with s…

If you want to measure economic potential vs cost, what you propose is reasonable. If you want to measure regret, it's not. Regret could have more causes than cost vs payback. (It's interesting, though, that loans were the primary regret, and choice of major was also high.)

Re: Two-thirds of American employees regret their college degrees

#26

Post by takk309 »

not_a_moth wrote: post #4

I regret the four years part at least. I believe undergrad really only needs to be 2-3 years tops.

I have two Civil Engineering degrees (BS and MS) and have been working in the field for some time now and I think the opposite, CE should be a minimum 5 year program. The people I see as fresh undergraduates do not know enough to do the job but those with master's degrees do. I guess it is forcing those that do the hiring to select for those who have more schooling.

Re: Two-thirds of American employees regret their college degrees

#27

Post by AnimalMuppet »

perfunctory wrote: post #20

Maybe they don't regret their degrees but their jobs. The current job market totally disregards the passions and aspirations of our generation. Maybe we should treat enrolment per degree as a sort of voting system and allocate financial resources accordingly. After all students are drown from the society, so their aspirations are society's aspirations. Unfortunately capital allocation decisions are made by managers w…

You want to let students' aspirations guide jobs, rather than what companies need? That seems really unlikely to work out well for the society.

Society needs companies that can actually produce stuff that people need and want, worse than they need companies that create jobs that fulfill everyone's aspirations.

Re: Two-thirds of American employees regret their college degrees

#28

Post by bargl »

bradlys wrote: post #17
legitster wrote: post #13

In WA, there is a program where you can finish the last two years of high school at a community college and graduate with a two year degree for free. It was probably the best decision of my life. I basically got to trial and error all of my interests for free much earlier and cheaper than everyone else. And it went against the guidance of my school counselors. They thought community college would hurt my chances at g…

> And it went against the guidance of my school counselors. They thought community college would hurt my chances at getting into "Prestigious Schools". I mean, they're not wrong. You will statistically be less likely to get into those schools. Once you're a transfer student, your acceptance rates go down significantly for prestigious private colleges. (And some public universities too) If your goal is to graduate fro…

The program doesn't require you to be a transfer student. You actually get a HS and AS/AE degree at the same time. So you have the option to be a transfer student but you also have the option to go through the normal application process and have your credits treated as HS classes.

All that said, it is probably still more likely to hurt you on an application to some programs. Now they've got to compare apples to oranges rather than an easy AP student to another AP student.

I did the program and got into most of the schools I wanted to but missed out on one that I really wanted. I saved myself 1 years worth of college, and could have saved more if I'd planned a little better (taken engineering physics instead of normal physics) and a few more classes that would have transferred directly. Overall I saved about 2x on credits as much some of the AP students, which would have been 3x if I'd known better.

Re: Two-thirds of American employees regret their college degrees

#29

Post by bargl »

legitster wrote: post #13

In WA, there is a program where you can finish the last two years of high school at a community college and graduate with a two year degree for free. It was probably the best decision of my life. I basically got to trial and error all of my interests for free much earlier and cheaper than everyone else. And it went against the guidance of my school counselors. They thought community college would hurt my chances at g…

This program is called running start. It's amazing. All you pay for is books.

IF you transfer in state the college has to take the credit. If you transfer out of state you're typically treated as an AP student. (My experience 15 years ago).

Re: Two-thirds of American employees regret their college degrees

#30

Post by legitster »

Ill_ban_myself wrote: post #2

There is a worthwhile discussion to be had about the cost of college tuition and actuarial tables of different degrees and their earning power and how that relates to pay structure for graduates and for professors and how college programs are run. Trying to have that discussion on hacker news starting from a primary source consisting of a CBS News poll is like trying to get to the moon on a North Korean rocket with s…

If I remember correctly, the previous administration proposed a program where schools and degrees were valued based on their potential earnings but the collective pushback from universities killed the idea.
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