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A generation of American men give up on college

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Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#21

Post by torstenvl »

albntomat0 wrote: post #16

“Over the course of their working lives, American college graduates earn more than a million dollars beyond those with only a high-school diploma, and a university diploma is required for many jobs as well as most professions, technical work and positions of influence.” From the article. There are folks getting useless degrees and/or taking on too much debt, but getting a college degree on the whole is worthwhile.

Far too many variables to draw any clear conclusions, in my opinion. Have there been any of these studies that show the effect holding constant when controlling for high school GPA, SAT/ACT, and IQ?

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#22

Post by sergiomattei »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

I went to pick up a book at the circulation desk at my uni close to the first day of classes and of the people in front of me and in back of me there were 9 girls and 0 boys in line. If the class were gender-balanced the odds of that would be 1/512; I have no idea what it means ("girls are much more interested in using the library?") but I think it's significant.

It means exactly nothing. They could be a study group, they could be all be part of a club, I could go on...

There is zero significance to that observation.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#23

Post by dragonwriter »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

I went to pick up a book at the circulation desk at my uni close to the first day of classes and of the people in front of me and in back of me there were 9 girls and 0 boys in line. If the class were gender-balanced the odds of that would be 1/512; I have no idea what it means ("girls are much more interested in using the library?") but I think it's significant.

> If the class were gender-balanced the odds of that would be 1/512

If each arrival at the desk were an independent draw from the full class, then, sure, the chance of any given set of 9 arrivals having 9 women would be 1/512. (Though the chance of the sequence of 10 including 9 women and 1 man is 10/1024, or about 5 times more likely; by cherry-picking the set of arrivals to consider, you are añready making the set around you seem more unlikely than it is.)

Of course, if they were where independent the case, there’d also be a non-negligible case of a repeat in that set of arrivals; the fact that you chose a set in line at the same time demonstrates that they aren't a set of independent events. So the whole basis of your 1/512 even on the cherry-picked set is invalid.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#24

Post by zsmi »

torstenvl wrote: post #21
albntomat0 wrote: post #16

“Over the course of their working lives, American college graduates earn more than a million dollars beyond those with only a high-school diploma, and a university diploma is required for many jobs as well as most professions, technical work and positions of influence.” From the article. There are folks getting useless degrees and/or taking on too much debt, but getting a college degree on the whole is worthwhile.

Far too many variables to draw any clear conclusions, in my opinion. Have there been any of these studies that show the effect holding constant when controlling for high school GPA, SAT/ACT, and IQ?

What is the experiment you're proposing? I didn't follow.

What about just measuring the ROI of the degree? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/your-money/college-degree...

"All of the largest programs in electrical and communications engineering, for instance, allowed most of their graduates to recoup their educational investment in five years or less. But many programs in some fields, like drama and dance, show no return on investment, the report found, meaning most of their graduates are earning less than a typical high school graduate."

So this study more or less backs claim that some degrees offer a positive ROI while others do not. As to whether or not a given degree is "worthwhile," I'd leave that as an exercise for the reader. :)

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#25

Post by PaulHoule »

dragonwriter wrote: post #23
PaulHoule wrote: post #2

I went to pick up a book at the circulation desk at my uni close to the first day of classes and of the people in front of me and in back of me there were 9 girls and 0 boys in line. If the class were gender-balanced the odds of that would be 1/512; I have no idea what it means ("girls are much more interested in using the library?") but I think it's significant.

> If the class were gender-balanced the odds of that would be 1/512 If each arrival at the desk were an independent draw from the full class, then, sure, the chance of any given set of 9 arrivals having 9 women would be 1/512. (Though the chance of the sequence of 10 including 9 women and 1 man is 10/1024, or about 5 times more likely; by cherry-picking the set of arrivals to consider, you are añready making the set…

yeah i am a p-hacker who can do any kind of statistics so long as it is nonparametric statistics because i only know the binomial distribution

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#26

Post by david38 »

otoburb wrote: post #15
mikewarot wrote: post #12

Unless you're going to be a Professional Engineer or some other licensed individual, or you're getting a free ride, college isn't worth it any more. Going deep into debt for a credential that doesn't have a reasonably large future value is a huge mistake many are pushed into making.

According to the article women still believe the trade-off to be worth paying for and attending college since their application numbers are still holding steady. Are most of them making a huge mistake? I guess it depends heavily in the credential(s), but I think there has to be a deeper reason for falling and unbalanced undergraduate enrollment amongst men.

Women are known to chase institutional accolades more than men when given the opportunity. It is in line with a general preference for more security.

Will it work today? Probably. There are few women in the trades. If you can get a cheap degree, it is likely better than no degree.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#27

Post by frankbreetz »

chuckee wrote: post #13
phendrenad2 wrote: post #8

This is because in our society, it's more acceptable for men to drop out and get into some skilled trade, like plumbing or climbing telephone poles. People just won't accept that women can also do that. So there's a lot of pressure to make sure your female children go to college and get a degree.

I see. And there's no non-college educated professions where women are prevalent? It's plumbing or bust? Of course clearly when women were under-represented in college, that was due to misogyny. And now that they are over-represented, it's also due to misogyny. No matter what the facts are, the conclusion is the same. There's a word for that.

I am having trouble coming up with a single high paying, no degree required job that is majority female. Please let me know if I am missing some.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#29

Post by 1123581321 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

I went to pick up a book at the circulation desk at my uni close to the first day of classes and of the people in front of me and in back of me there were 9 girls and 0 boys in line. If the class were gender-balanced the odds of that would be 1/512; I have no idea what it means ("girls are much more interested in using the library?") but I think it's significant.

It is interesting; disregarding nitpicking about the calculation there could be multiple potential reasons that all are connected to the heart of the matter:

- women more likely to study and solve logistical study problems together

- men more likely to pirate books

- men less likely to be out during normal hours

- men less likely to choose majors requiring library books

- and of course, higher college enrollment by women

I am not saying any of these were necessarily in play in your situation, but some probably are and colleges and employers should be thinking about them.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#30

Post by chuckee »

frankbreetz wrote: post #27
chuckee wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see. And there's no non-college educated professions where women are prevalent? It's plumbing or bust? Of course clearly when women were under-represented in college, that was due to misogyny. And now that they are over-represented, it's also due to misogyny. No matter what the facts are, the conclusion is the same. There's a word for that.

I am having trouble coming up with a single high paying, no degree required job that is majority female. Please let me know if I am missing some.

It does not need to be majority female - I'd say 30% female is more than enough to consider a job being accepting of women. But okay:

"The average Plumber salary in the United States is $58,659" - https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/plumber-sal...

"The national average salary for Human Resources is $65,314 per year in United States." - https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/human-resources-salary-SR...

"Forbes cited HR Manager as a “best paying job for women” in 2011, with over 70 percent of the profession dominated by females." - https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2012/07/11/why-human-res...

"At the administrative level, 30 percent of human resources assistants had an associate degree as of 2013, 26 percent had a high school diploma and 21 percent had at least one year of college experience" - https://work.chron.com/education-requirements-human-resource...

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