Let me propose the radical idea that a college education is not solely justified by it's monetary value.
women. beer.
Is college worth the cost?
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Re: Is college worth the cost?
#22For me, college was absolutely worth the cost. Focusing on more than just the money, I met dozens of current and potential business clients. My side work as a freelance web developer has come mostly through people that I met in college. I went to a community college paid for entirely by scholarships, so the cost to me as far as money goes was only that of the books. The largest cost to me, though, was the time invest…
There's another cost, some jobs you just won't be able to do when you have a wife, kids, and lots of loans to pay every month. At college age is part of the very short time in your life where you are free from all this and can easily focus on something harder than virtually anyone else. Of course, the majority of people will never consider even performing at this potential. But could it be different if college as we…
Shotgun weddings and medical emergencies aside, nobody's going to force anybody to get married, have kids, and take on a heavy debt burden. Screw the Joneses. And this isn't to say you should be a bachelor for life; I'm sure there are women out there who value freedom and a man who's willing to make sacrifices and go his own way in search of that freedom.
Re: Is college worth the cost?
#23Mine was free. However, a flaw in my character led me to believe that a) It was trade applicable 2) They would teach me to build things. I studied electrical engineering, and it was mostly applied mathematics and physics with little systemic perspective. If I had to do it all over again, I would have studied pure mathematics, comp sci, and physics and built things on my own. But hey, free is free.
Re: Is college worth the cost?
#24Take it from someone who quit. If you want to climb the corporate ladder than definitely go to college and sell your parents house to finance it. It will be worth it. I've seen it work. If you want to build your own ladder (as what I am doing now), then I suggest you check that college thing again.
I look around and I see my friends who graduated from school and they all make 1.5 to twice what I make a year, but not for long. The difference shows sometimes in our lifestyle and the way we look at the future. They see title, I see users. They see corporate car, I see users. They see 401k, I see Acquisition. Their biggest dream is to make Project manager or CEO. Fuck it I am CEO, and my wildest dream is to get that call from Sergey asking me for advices.
Re: Is college worth the cost?
#25Private, no. (Northwestern and NYU are up to $48K a year just in tuition. Are you kidding me?) Public, especially an in-state school if your state is fortunate enough have a quality one, definitely yes. College: still the best four years of your life. (Then again, I've yet to live the four years one would experience after selling a startup for big money. Maybe we could get input from pg or that Broadcom guy who built…
You do know that a lot of people going to private schools aren't paying full-price, right? Need based financial aid grants are often available (ie not loans) and sometimes they are substantial. I've known people who have paid less for a private school than they would have at a state school.
You know a lot of people are paying full price.
Re: Is college worth the cost?
#26Take it from someone who quit. If you want to climb the corporate ladder than definitely go to college and sell your parents house to finance it. It will be worth it. I've seen it work. If you want to build your own ladder (as what I am doing now), then I suggest you check that college thing again. I look around and I see my friends who graduated from school and they all make 1.5 to twice what I make a year, but not…
Cool post. Do you have a website going right now? What do you do?
Re: Is college worth the cost?
#27Re: Is college worth the cost?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a fair outer bound to place. I just like to be really clear about the fact that people don't necessarily pay sticker price at private schools. I've volunteered for my alma mater at college fairs and there are a lot of people who are interested and then freak when they see the tuition. I have to imagine that there are an equal number who don't even stop by our table because they've done just enough research to th…
How about a "nutrition chart" requirement for each college of any type? It would disclose the lower, more average charge per student over 4 years computed by each college using federal standards. Secondly, the government should run the loan program themselves for public universities, since it's a lot cheaper for it to offer loans than to subsidize banks to do the same.
The government used to have more involvement in the student loan programs. My father started up a non-profit under the state board of regents to service guaranteed student loans in Utah in the late 70s or early 80s after the feds passed some big program. They did quite well for a few years, until the regents made them transfer everything to various banks and shut the thing down because it had the potential to be fabulously profitable.
Re: Is college worth the cost?
#29Re: Is college worth the cost?
#30This article includes one of the most misleading statistics concerning higher education: "People with bachelor's degrees... still earn an average of about $1.2M more than high school graduates over a 40-year career". Yes, there is a correlation between higher education and higher salaries -- no, this does not imply causation! There are many confounding factors: People who are more intelligent, have parent(s) who purs…
As noted, these influences can be very disentangle from any real-world analysis.
There was an interesting study a few years back that looked at the "outcomes" of a cohort of people who had all been admitted to an Ivy League school. Part of the study group attended and graduated from the Ivy League school they were admitted to. The control group ended up matriculating elsewhere for whatever reason.
Past studies showed at a significant improvement in earning potential for Ivy League grads, but they didn't have a distinguished control group. What this recent study found was that for most students of similar qualification (all judged to be Ivy League material by the admissions boards at Ivy Leage schools), attending an Ivy conferred no obvious advantage compared to attending a non-Ivy.
The only difference was for students who came from more challenging backgrounds, those whose families may have flirted with poverty and/or didn't have significant educational attainment. In those cases, attending an Ivy conferred some advantage over going elsewhere.