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

nytimes.com

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

#251

Post by worker767424 »

devwastaken wrote: post #162
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…

It's not just humanities degrees that are the problem. The problem is the market is not actually in "high demand" like higher education advertises. Graduating CS students across the U.S. are turned down by employers constantly and end up working in a job that doesn't require their degree nor does it use any skills from it. I have multiple friends in this exact situation. We need to remove federal student loans for co…

Could you elaborate on CS graduates getting turned down? I've seen how much trouble companies have hiring, so the only reasons I'm coming up with are these graduates aren't willing to relocate or they studied CS because it pays well, but they're not actually that good at it. Something very underappreciated, and possibly the cause of the classic CS class bimodal distribution, is how many students live the stuff outside of school, so someone academically good at CS ends up competing with someone who has random open source projects, sysadmins a linux server, knows how to set up a network, and has a CS degree.

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

#252

Post by foolinaround »

agar wrote: post #207
taurath wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But of course businesses do treat it as a vocational course if they gatekeeper based on that degree. The actual value on the job is different than in the interview room, a fact that perpetuates inequality. I’m a counterpoint in that I’ve no degree but have done well, but I can’t find myself recommending self learning because the barrier to initial entry to industry is so high.

Have you considered that one reason businesses gatekeep based on the degree is /because/ of the well-roundedness that comes from a university education instead of a trade school or online learning? Many benefits are difficult to quantify, but still measurable during an interview: presentation skills, discussions of how you overcome obstacles, demonstrable research into the hiring organization, insightful questions yo…

the business just did not have a good filtering (recruitment) function - either time or expertise, and so decided to use other signals, like college degrees, etc.

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

#253

Post by lotsofpulp »

jaykru wrote: post #134
ip26 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment has a critical undertone but I think it's pretty much right. Thinking back, when I was 17 and applying for college, deciding what schools you should apply to was a really murky process. Most people pretty much depended on reputation & word-of-mouth, and nobody even talked about schools outside the state. On top of that, a 17 year old has had little time to accrue knowledge of various schools. Whereas tod…

the information available and advertised to most 17-year-olds (back when I was browsing: US News, College Confidential) isn't much of an improvement. In my case the former relies on a bunch of bunk data and weird metrics for evaluation, while the latter mostly revolved around very coarse word-of-mouth reputation.

What is an improvement is information about income and job placement from various institutions and degrees.

It's almost trivial to chart one's income possibilities based on where you graduate from and what degree you get. The knowledge about how to get into a tech job, or a high finance job, or get into medical school, or get hired by a top legal firm is available to everyone whereas it was limited before to those who knew people who knew these things.

We know what cities and suburbs of those cities will lead to maximal probabilities of "success", we know which schools have the highest achieving kids (or the ones with the richest parents), etc. It saves a lot of time to be able to filter real estate listings by greatschools.org metrics before.

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

#254

Post by Jtsummers »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #248
Jtsummers wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I listed relevant training/credentials. 2-year degree programs and 1- or 2-year training programs used to be more common than they are now, and should be restored as a reasonable entry into more white collar jobs.

> 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.

That's actually not the case, unfortunately. My wife is fluent in two languages, can read and communicate in a couple more but isn't fluent, has 12+ years of experience, and letters of reference from CFOs and CEOs from major international corporations, and is struggling (here in the US) to get a non-minimum wage job in a medium sized city (we'd be better off if we were in a larger city, but this is where my work is right now).

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

#255

Post by mywittyname »

cldellow wrote: post #129
gonehome wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is so much broken with modern universities and incentives around pricing - why are all degrees four years? Why does a classics degree cost the same as a CS degree when the market value of a classics degree is basically zero? I wrote a little about it in the context of Lambda School, but it mostly applies: https://zalberico.com/essay/2019/04/08/lambda-school.html “The current university system in the US is a mes…

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…

> UW offers three-year degrees.

Some engineering programs are a five-year bachelors, due to a requirement to have a 1-year internship. Yet, other universities offer a 5-year BS+MS engineering program.

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

#256

Post by mcguire »

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…

"Do the best universities have best teaching technique, or are they best because they pick brightest students and they contribute nothing special?"

They tend to attract the best teachers. And by "teachers" I do mean the best researchers in the given field. Which in turn attracts the brightest students.

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

#257

Post by aarongray »

mcguire wrote: post #256
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…

" Do the best universities have best teaching technique, or are they best because they pick brightest students and they contribute nothing special? " They tend to attract the best teachers. And by "teachers" I do mean the best researchers in the given field. Which in turn attracts the brightest students.

The best researchers are rarely the best teachers

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

#258

Post by mcguire »

yTh0 wrote: post #177
Balgair wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eidolon is a now defunct online magazine specifically about the classics. The last thing they did was publish a 'fail' essay. In it the head editor, who holds a PhD from Princeton in the Classics, goes through all the challenges, mis-steps, and lessons they all learned. 'Fail' essays in tech are a dime a dozen. But in the classics, they tend to be rare. As such, Eidolon's essay is a goldmine. Two things stuck out to…

I can’t tell if things like this are real issues or “but think of the horse and buggy driver!” problems. We were teaching kids to read, ethics, morals, long before we had PhDs. Obsession with normalizing agency to abide fiscal concerns is the real issue here. Let wealth collapse by refusing to buy into the idea we owe deference to those that hold wealth. Teach the classics. Write open source. None of it has to be don…

"We were teaching kids to read, ethics, morals, long before we had PhDs."

I think I'd like some evidence for that.

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

#259

Post by RealityVoid »

keiferski wrote: post #235
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…

The funny thing is how people constantly bemoan the state of politics, yet consistently argue for evaluating degrees entirely based on their financial outcome. As if an educated citizenry will just appear from the ether. The connection between the two seems pretty obvious to me.

That is a good observation, but one that I see very few people make.

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

#260

Post by alasdair_ »

908B64B197 wrote: post #89
gonehome wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is so much broken with modern universities and incentives around pricing - why are all degrees four years? Why does a classics degree cost the same as a CS degree when the market value of a classics degree is basically zero? I wrote a little about it in the context of Lambda School, but it mostly applies: https://zalberico.com/essay/2019/04/08/lambda-school.html “The current university system in the US is a mes…

> Why does a classics degree cost the same as a CS degree when the market value of a classics degree is basically zero? Because it has a large numbers of applicants. It's offer and demand. > Universities also get a lot of their prestige from research and the majority of their effort is typically not spent on undergraduate education. This means professors are not typically rewarded for being (or even expected to be) e…

>Because it has a large numbers of applicants. It's offer and demand.

I suspect a lot of this is because of enormous amounts of risk-free (to the schools) money from the government.

Also, different degrees definitely cost different prices - the cost of an MBA is far higher than the cost of a masters in history, for example.

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