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Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

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Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#201

Post by jswelker »

petesergeant wrote: post #117
jswelker wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And resultingly, if you do go to college and immerse yourself in the educational experience, you come out with superpowers compared to your peers. Getting companies to see those superpowers in a hiring pipeline of course is a different story

Do American colleges not give degree grades? In the UK your degree class (grade) is moderately important for your first job

The only entity that has ever cared about my college GPA has been other colleges when I signed up for grad school. And even in that case it is just a "stat check" in gamer parlance. 3.0 or greater, yes. Lower, no. That kind of thing.

Zero employers have ever asked to see my college GPA after graduating almost 17 years ago.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#203

Post by EgregiousCube »

parpfish wrote: post #96
wyldfire wrote: post #90

Americans attend college as a (1) rite of passage and to some extent (2) to have access to an influence network of peers and alumni. For elite universities, it's conceivable that #2 provides some real opportunity. But in general #1 dominates the dollars spent on this experience and it's really too bad.

reason (3) is social signaling. elite schools aren't only desirable because they set you up with big opportunities. they are the way for high-school overachievers to signal to everybody how smart and good they are. elite schools could probably make bank if they just sold a stamp-of-approval from their admissions committees that just said "you are smart enough to get admitted, but were not lucky enough to win the lott…

100%, but it's even worse than that. "X got into Stanford" is the new "X is a Stanford graduate" because of grade dilution - and admissions dilution has soured even the former.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#204

Post by anonzzzies »

I went to uni to learn to learn. It helped that it was free, but it was a rigorous education with formal proofs (starting in week 1), proper research, scientific writing etc. Very few people will learn that outside universities, and, while not strictly needed for most jobs, it really helps as a tool to shut 'talkers' up to this day. Socially it was good as well; got my first and second project for my tiny company I set up in uni from the father's of two study mates: the first project was 100k, the second 1.6m (both guilders at time), so there is that; I would have never known these people otherwise.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#205

Post by anonym29 »

There is nothing a college can teach you that you cannot learn for free online. The social environment can be replicated for free. You're not paying six figures for an education, you're paying six figures for exactly two things:

1. Someone to write lesson plans for you

2. A piece of paper that tells the world you are capable of conforming with the sometimes-frustrating impositions of an institution for 4 years without making too much of a fuss in the process

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#206

Post by anonym29 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #189
anonym29 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've interviewed Harvard CS grads for SWE roles at big tech who couldn't write a working program for fizzbuzz, for defanging an IP address, or for reversing words in a sentence, in a language of their choice, with leetcode's provided instructions, in half an hour, with unlimited attempts, gentle coaching from me, and the ability to use the internet to search for anything that isn't a direct solution (e.g. syntax). Ye…

If you don’t cram for leetcode, you won’t pass a leetcode interview. It takes some kids a few interviews to figure that out, even they are from elite school like MIT. You were just their learning experience.

If you can't solve FizzBuzz in half an hour with a language of your choice while being able to look up syntax, your problem isn't that you failed to cram for leetcode, it's that you don't know how to write code.

There's nothing inherently wrong with not being able to write code, but you probably shouldn't be applying for software engineering roles where the main responsibility of the job is ultimately to write working code.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#207

Post by danans »

rayiner wrote: post #161
collinmcnulty wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This view seems to be common, but I think it misses what incredible alchemy comes from making people who come in for “job training” (like I did) spend 4 years in close proximity with research, academic freedom, liberal arts, and at least an attempt at some kind of intellectual idealism separate from economic incentive. It’s peanut butter and chocolate that has served democracy and its people well by having a middle c…

That's historical revisionism. The percentage of American adults over age 25 who have a college degree was only 20% as recently as 1990. When America was truly at the top of the world in the 1950s and 1960s, it was under 10%. A high fraction of college attendance is better correlated with the 21st century decline in America's situation.

> The percentage of American adults over age 25 who have a college degree was only 20% as recently as 1990. When America was truly at the top of the world in the 1950s and 1960s, it was under 10%.

Due to automation and the great advance of technology, the floor for most jobs has risen such that the skills/knowledge that a 1950s school dropout had would be insufficient for anything but the most menial jobs today.

Outside of a few sectors like agricultural or physical service labor, our economy just doesn't need less educated people anymore.

That doesn't mean everyone needs a 4 year degree, but to make a sustainable living at least a degree from a trade or service school focused on some advanced technician skill is required, and that must be followed by apprenticeship and licensing. In the end, it requires as much time as University, but might cost less if the education is at a public community college.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#208

Post by doctorpangloss »

jltsiren wrote: post #200
jswelker wrote: post #102

Higher ed is like employer based health insurance in that they are both weird path dependent historical accidents. People want cheap healthcare, and it got shoehorned into an odd employer fringe benefit system that really is not at all related healthcare in any intrinsic way. People want job training, and it got shoehorned into extra departments at liberal arts universities intended as aristocrat finishing schools. J…

The job training you get at 20 is often obsolete when you're 40. For example, many women of my parents' generation trained for jobs in the textile industry. But eventually the jobs disappeared, as Finland got too wealthy. A bit more abstract education would have made it easier for them to find a new career. But not too abstract. From my point of view, the weird parts of the American educational system are the high sc…

economies and national policies are complex. only the most straightforward things, like ending patriarchy, wars and modifying interest rates, have firm evidence of causing this or that thing on a national scale. nobody knows if so and so nuanced educational policy really matters in an intellectually honest way.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#209

Post by hc12345 »

collinmcnulty wrote: post #143
jswelker wrote: post #102

Higher ed is like employer based health insurance in that they are both weird path dependent historical accidents. People want cheap healthcare, and it got shoehorned into an odd employer fringe benefit system that really is not at all related healthcare in any intrinsic way. People want job training, and it got shoehorned into extra departments at liberal arts universities intended as aristocrat finishing schools. J…

This view seems to be common, but I think it misses what incredible alchemy comes from making people who come in for “job training” (like I did) spend 4 years in close proximity with research, academic freedom, liberal arts, and at least an attempt at some kind of intellectual idealism separate from economic incentive. It’s peanut butter and chocolate that has served democracy and its people well by having a middle c…

Most of the world has severed the two. A lot of what you'd consider key parts of the university experience just doesn't exist in most of Europe or the highly developed parts of Asia. In practice, it's attaching job training to a very, very expensive resort, regardless of who is paying for it. It's pretty nice, in the very same sense that spending 4 years in a beach resort ls also great, but one needs to be absurdly wealthy to choose this model if an equivalent was available without all the features that most of the world has abandoned. The US system would already have been in trouble years ago if it didn't have a government license for being the safest, more reliable way to immigrate into the US. Get rid of the F1 practical training to work visa pipeline, and see many US institutions in serious economic trouble. We can keep trying to keep it working as-is by pushing other people's money into the expensive vacation environment, but without major subsidies, we are already seeing more people realize that the risks are way too high when you have to get loans to attend. There is no idealism separate from economic incentive in institutions that charge 60K per year, plus often a whole lot more for mandatory on-campus housing, without financial aid.

But as it's normal with failing institutions, they'll be extended, kicking and screaming, until they completely collapse instead of reform, like almost every other country in the world already has.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#210

Post by jswelker »

jjmarr wrote: post #126
lotsofpulp wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the doctors/medicine/hospitals/liability are not any cheaper. So the healthcare isn’t cheap, but the employer is able to gain more control over their employees by tying a piece of their non employee life to the employer creating more friction to prevent people from shopping for jobs with higher pay, and the employee is getting a small tax benefit.

Yes, but the same insurance company will screw with your coverage depending on your employer. My mom's plan randomly denied my medications all the time as a student. My current job's plan always provides coverage. Both were the same insurance company, but she's in a different field with a more stingy employer.

It's especially fun if your employer is in a field with an aging employee population--like higher ed ironically. The insurer gives the same premium rate to all employees, meaning everyone is in the same risk pool. The old and or unhealthy employees make insurance more expensive for everyone at the employer. I've had situations where the exact same insurance plan cost two hugely different amounts of money after switching employers just because of average employee age differences. Really quite perverse.
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