Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants • Hacker News Board

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#241

Post by swat535 » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

dbspin wrote: post #146

cldellow wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, the things you call out don't seem to be the case in the Canadian public university that I attended, the University of Waterloo. > why are all degrees four years? UW offers three-year degrees. A four-year degree typically gets you an Honours Bachelor degree, whereas a three-year degree is a General Bachelor. On a resume it'd still be written as "B.A.", and the reviewer would have to know to inqui…

Wow. As a European I had no idea that Canadian education was so expensive. Was under the mistaken impression that it was largely free, like health care. Obviously much cheaper than the US - which is life destroyingly expensive. But the figures you cite are still pricey enough to exclude enormous numbers of people from higher education.

The government will basically offer financial aid to everyone and the interest rate on those are really low. My friend got a law degree for ~40k CAD and he got it all from financial aid. Now that he is working, he is paying it off with a comical interest rate.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#242

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #195

awillen wrote: post #7

I think this is generally a good thing. I believe there are really two positive things that can come out of going to college - either you get a name-brand degree that opens doors and gets your resume looked at, or you get useful skills that enable you to go down a particular career path (e.g. CS degree). Obviously in some cases it'll be both. The reality is it's really tough to make any case that a humanities degree…

"from a lower or even mid-tier college is a worthwhile investment " I always found this idea amazing, we just accept that univerities are not really there for education but instead a giant sorting machine to separate plebs from (rich/talented/dilligent/take your pick). They don't work like a normal market, there best company grows their production, and supplies millions with the best goods. Oxford/Harvard take their…

>They don't work like a normal market, there best company grows their production, and supplies millions with the best goods.

If it was currently possible to take a group of 18 year olds, and transform them into highly motivated, highly intelligent people, I assume it would exist for sale.

Unfortunately, the construction of a person seems to be highly complex, and is subject to genetics, home life and parental wealth, childhood experiences, peer and other influences, etc.

Until then, humans will continue to use shortcuts for assessing the probability of one's future ability to "succeed" (however one wants to define it), one of which is attaining admittance at certain institutions.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#243

Post by worker767424 » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

Miraste wrote: post #75

Jtsummers wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, worse, many office jobs that were satisfied with high school diplomas or 2-year degrees in 1980 were requiring a bachelors by 2000. Even when the degree was irrelevant. Seriously, data entry does not require a history degree. At one place I worked nearly every one in the data entry positions had a history degree, and all had 4-year degrees of some kind. (NB: Talking about in the US)

High school standards in the US have reached a point where I would not trust someone with only a high school diploma to be able to do data entry. Bachelor's degrees aren't a perfect credential but they're a passable filter, in lieu of building a much more extensive hiring process for low-level jobs.

Seriously. If you're working class or higher, you have to try to not get a high school diploma.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#244

Post by andrewmcwatters » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

sct202 wrote: post #4

lumost wrote: post #2

Colleges should have more price stratification than they do. At present the price difference between MIT and Umass Amherst out of state is only 41%. Both will leave a student heavily in debt to the tune of 150-300k, the difference likely doesn't materially matter to the student as they are looking at is as a ticket to a better life.

The top colleges have very complicated pricing schemes and are basically free to middle and lower income students, for example a student to MIT only pays if their family earns more than $90k a year which is above the median household income of $68k.

I always think about how absurd these pricing models are. Ah yes, if you're living lavishly at $90k per annum you, too, earn the privilege of paying for your education.

I suppose at some point someone has to pay. But you're not rich at $90k. And I just don't see many of those households earning between $90-250k a year wanting to pay for such a privilege.

From my perspective, you've got to be either very rich, or very poor going into those schools, because there's no reasonable room for those in-between unless you're taking out significant life-changing debt to do so.

And after it's all said and done, you're overwhelmingly statistically unlikely to be making so much that the debt didn't even matter.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#245

Post by mavelikara » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 9:20 PM UTC

mitchdoogle wrote: post #180

dbspin wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. As a European I had no idea that Canadian education was so expensive. Was under the mistaken impression that it was largely free, like health care. Obviously much cheaper than the US - which is life destroyingly expensive. But the figures you cite are still pricey enough to exclude enormous numbers of people from higher education.

US education is hardly "life-destroyingly expensive". It's more than the rest of the world, but it is definitely manageable to pay for it yourself with student loans. If you have financial aid (billions of dollars in aid is out there for good students in financial need). More cost-conscious folks can save thousands more by splitting an undergraduate degree between a low-cost 2-year college (community college, junior…

Availability of credit does not make a purchase less expensive.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#246

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

econnors wrote: post #151

keiferski wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to me like further polarization. Only those that can afford the elite colleges (or be “smart” enough to get in) will be educated, while the rest will skip any personal development and just go right into the market. Educating people in the skills necessary for being good citizens doesn’t cost that much. Most of the books required are free. Yet somehow the common response to “college is expensive” is “get rid of…

> Only those that can afford the elite colleges (or be “smart” enough to get in) will be educated This is how it is today. The only difference is people are paying $40k+ x 4years to "be educated" but they're not actually learning valuable skills. > Yet somehow the common response to “college is expensive” is “get rid of it” instead of “make it less expensive.” We've already tried making it less expensive. Students ca…

[deleted]

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#247

Post by ghaff » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

jankyxenon wrote: post #232

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"from a lower or even mid-tier college is a worthwhile investment " I always found this idea amazing, we just accept that univerities are not really there for education but instead a giant sorting machine to separate plebs from (rich/talented/dilligent/take your pick). They don't work like a normal market, there best company grows their production, and supplies millions with the best goods. Oxford/Harvard take their…

In many other countries, top academics and researchers are at large public universities. Maybe it would be money well-spent for the public-sector to poach top academics from private intuitions. It would lead to salary inflation, but might be the most cost effective way to sap prestige and inject into good public universities.

It happens. University of Texas. At least parts of the University of California system. UMass Amherst is a pretty good school. At least main campuses of the upper tier of state universities can provide good educations. What's probably also true is that you can go to Ohio State and either take advantage of it or cruise through partying and taking X for jocks courses.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#248

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #239

agar wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flipping this around, put yourself in this situation: you have five open positions, and expect 300 applicants. You have approximately 1 hour per day to interview, and need to fill the positions in 10-15 business days. You would like to find people with the following characteristics: They can follow complex instructions with minimal oversight, they finish what they start, they have good social skills to work with coll…

Past work experience, letters of reference, relevant training program/certification. This is assuming there is not a degree program that can be seen as preparatory for the position. A 4-year degree is a useless indicator when it's irrelevant to the workload. It tells you the person was willing to spend $40-80k (in much of the US) for a piece of paper that didn't prepare them for the job you're hiring them for.

Young people don't have past work experience, hence the need for them to put themselves through a college to serve as a signal for what they might be capable of.

Obviously, once you have work experience and letters of reference, no one cares about your college. But you're not going to have that when you're 18.

University is also a social exercise, which can serve to signal that you are okay or at least exposed to the type of cultural norms that might exist at an employer that is already full of similarly college educated people.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#249

Post by andrewmcwatters » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #25

I sense that the fundamental purpose for going to College has changed from "getting an education" to "building your brand" as an individual. I don't work in Human Resources, but as a software developer I do spend a lot of time around my company's recruiters and I'm involved in the hiring process. A candidate's alma mater has an outsized impact on the likelihood they will advance to the next step of the hiring process…

Yeah, that's not how it works for a majority of jobs in America. I'm 100% sure that's true for top companies in world cities, but it just isn't true even in most of the top 100 cities in the US. And believe it or not, there really are top companies that look at actual accomplishments and skillsets and not your CV. Incredulous, I know.

You'd be very mistaken if you think there aren't managers out there with the power to do their own hiring. It's not hard.

Most companies are lucky if they can even find someone ranging from competent to excellent for a given role. It's hard enough to do that. And if you land on an excellent candidate, most don't know how to retain them, because it's not economically feasible to do so. They leave, because they're consistently looking to maximize their earnings, or they're smart enough to start their own business.

Re: Interest surges in top colleges, while struggling ones scrape for applicants

#250

Post by foolinaround » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 9:29 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #158

ryandrake wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be different now, but I remember my computer engineering degree could have probably been done in 3 years, if not for 1. the artificial dependency/prerequisite tree requiring you to take certain courses in a certain order and 2. all the required filler courses you needed to take in order to meet the university's arbitrary definition of well-roundedness. I just want to learn how to write compliers and how a MO…

>> I just want to learn how to write compliers and how a MOSFET works, but you want me to take university-level theater? I could learn theater on my own if I wanted to. Ya, and the acting students can learn about "compliers" online too. Outside of a garage startup, an engineer is useless if they cannot integrate into a larger team through the spoken and written word. I've run into BS students who haven't read a book…

while communication skills are essential, needing a theatre program is a stretch.

Students should just join a toastmasters