Income-sharing agreements let students trade future earnings for investment • Hacker News Board

Re: Income-sharing agreements let students trade future earnings for investment

#261

Post by int_19h » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:58 PM UTC

skookumchuck wrote: post #209

travisporter wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People may not value it but can I argue that society improves as a result? I personally treat rental cars, bikes and public bathrooms the same as anyone else. I don’t trash them but don’t clean them meticulously. I still value their presence.

I attended public high school, where everything was free, and a private college, where everyone paid to attend. What a difference. High school was populated by people "doing their time", who wanted to get by doing as little as possible, thought it was cool to be disruptive, cut classes, etc. They definitely dragged the whole thing down for the others. College was different. People paid to be there, the work was hard,…

Money is not the only way to pay. In fact, it is often the easiest way to pay.

I studied in a university in a country where you have a dual-track system - either you get in for free, but have to pass a far more rigorous exam (since you're competing against everybody else who is trying to get in for free), or you pay and get your spot. The people who paid their way in - or rather, whose parents paid their way in - tended to do that "doing their time" thing you described. The people who were studying for free were far more determined to make all the efforts that they had to put into passing the entry exam worthwhile.

Re: Income-sharing agreements let students trade future earnings for investment

#262

Post by tracer4201 » Sun, Apr 14, 2019, 5:21 AM UTC

exodus_de wrote: post #91

tracer4201 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents didn’t have mountains of wealth. We grew up in a home where sometimes my mom forced me to go to school even when I was feeling sick because I could get one of my meals there. In your view of the world, people like me essentially wouldn’t have access to opportunity that would be reserved for the wealthy folks. You shouldn’t have to care about me individually, but if there are enough people like me, it takes…

> In your view of the world, people like me essentially wouldn’t have access to opportunity that would be reserved for the wealthy folks. That is just not true. Historically, working your way through college was completely feasible. It still is feasible, unless you need one of those fancy 50,000$-100,000$ degrees, in which case you need a loan. In Germany, a lot of students are working and living modestly through col…

That’s exactly what I did. It took me a long time and various jobs on the side along with serious will power to graduate with a degree in computer science and mechanical engineering.

My first semester, I took pre calculus instead of calculus 1 because my high school didn’t offer anything higher than trig, and growing up in poverty and going through and underfunded school district were the main reasons. My second semester I was in a data structures course and my professor was confused when I asked him to tell me what the sigma symbol was because I had never seen summations before.

I would like to assume people post generally on this forum in good faith, but your comment is incredibly ignorant and out of touch with reality. The wealthy send their kids to preschool. On the other hand, those of us who go through a regular K-12 system in middle America don’t have the proper prerequisites to succeed in college. We aren’t taught about finance, credit, the economy, investing, etc. Math and STEM education in general takes a back seat. Taking loans for college can be pointless unless you’re 100% motivated to learn not just what your college courses offer but the prior knowledge you need to wrap your head around the concepts.

Re: Income-sharing agreements let students trade future earnings for investment

#263

Post by caddytodaddy » Sun, Apr 14, 2019, 11:35 AM UTC

cowpig wrote: post #170

caddytodaddy wrote: post #47

There’s lots of things to reasonably debate about this. This is already an accepted practice for coding boot camps like AppAcademy, which I attended. At the time I couldn’t get a good job and was running out of savings. I was an adult cleaning golf clubs with high school students. Couldn’t get anyone to even look at my resume. AppAcademy’s application was purely merit based, they just wanted to know you could solve p…

I'm curious: how much was AppAcademy was responsible for you getting a job? What do you think your odds would have been if, e.g. you did a coursera track or followed some online tutorials to build your first app instead?

They didn’t help much at all, but the program was still new. Their support might be better now, not sure. I do think taking the program highly highly increased my chance of employment. I would not have made the right choices about what to take, my pace would have been much slower, and my self confidence for actually applying for jobs would have been way less. I am confident about this because I was taking Coursera courses and online tutorials before the AppAcademy program. Coursera is awesome and I learned some great stuff. I also realized that I was good at programming, which gave me the confidence to apply to AppAcademy. But AppAcademy was truly a boot camp, very intense, and pushed me through everything I needed to get a job. And I was also contractually obligated to at least try to get a job.

Re: Income-sharing agreements let students trade future earnings for investment

#264

Post by rexpop » Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 12:06 AM UTC

Matticus_Rex wrote: post #208

rexpop wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're all net contributors. Even "the poor," who spend their lives in the jobs to which they're corralled. Dollar-for-dollar, perhaps they pay fewer individual taxes, but hour-for-hour their labor's just as constitutive of the commonwealth. Moreso, perhaps.

"If I define the terms differently, I can say whatever I want."

I don't think it's absurd to talk about the value of time.