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I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

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Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#271

Post by snowwrestler »

vorpalhex wrote: post #242
snowwrestler wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should realize that primary and secondary school are already provided "free" to anyone, and the reasons that works are just as valid for college. There's nothing magically impossible about using taxpayer money to provide 16 years of education instead of 12.

It benefits us as a country to have an electorate who can read and write and have a basic understanding of civics and history. It doesn't necessarily appear to benefit us the same way to have a bunch of folks spend 4 years getting English degrees to make mom and dad happy. There are a lot of benefits to college, but a lot of those benefits go away when college stops becoming a choice and starts becoming mandated stat…

How about if a bunch of folks spend 4 years getting English degrees because sophisticated communication is a critical skill when your entire economy is based on information?

It's really striking to me how the arguments against college for all today mirror the arguments against secondary school for all 120 years ago.

Hopefully the parallel continues and our great grandkids can take their advanced education for granted the way we take secondary school for granted today.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#272

Post by bhupy »

rayiner wrote: post #241
slowhand09 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no free. Free means Janet's dad who didn't go to college get to pay additional so Bill's son goes for free. When resources are free, they become either worthless or completely over-utilized. If you make college free, that means colleges will still charge for classes, still charge for books, still charge for dorm rooms, etc. They'll send their bills to the government, to pay with increased tax dollars. They'l…

> Looks like a major redistribution of wealth, from taxpayers to educational institutions. :-/ This is my surprised face. This is my beef with free college. It's a huge amount of public money going to benefit people who don't need it, all for an extremely tenuous promise of upward mobility. Kids growing up in real urban poverty aren't going to college, tuition-free or not. The hurdles keeping them from upward mobilit…

There's some mainstream literature (with data) that corroborates this point of view: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-10-30/free-c...

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#273

Post by Kinrany »

everdev wrote: post #165
simonsarris wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. This is becoming less and less true for lots of cohorts. I suspect it will stop correlating for everyone soon. From a few days ago: "Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns" by Center for Household Financial Stability, St Louis Fed https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/files/pdfs/hfs/is-college... > The college wealth premium is…

I went to a 4-year college, but earned almost all of my money from self-taught programming and design skills. It's hard to justify the ROI on college. At $25k/year for a low-tier college, you'll spend $100k (if you don't need loans). If you take that $100k and put it in the market (avg. 7% annual returns) with 0 contributions for 45 years, you could spend every penny you make and retire at 63 with $2.1M. At more expe…

> I went to a 4-year college, but earned almost all of my money from self-taught programming and design skills.

College has other benefits like signalling and networking though.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#275

Post by asdff »

hajile wrote: post #207
lsc wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some of my kids seem like they enjoy academics, but others do not. I'll be pushing the latter toward trade school. Average IBEW (electrical union) pay is about $20/hr for an apprentice and $33 for a journeyman. $40,000 to $66,000 with ZERO DEBT right out the gate is nothing to ignore (and that pay can easily double -- especially in your younger years -- if you're willing to travel and put in those extra hours). It s…

College doesn't make someone smart. College doesn't make someone choose to be productive. The decisions that lead to being smart and productive start early in childhood. Unfortunately, dollars spent on early education don't seem to have much of a correlation with success later in life.

The biggest correlation on success later in life is how wealthy your parents are. Chances are you would be living in a safer neighborhood with better role models and exposed to more opportunities for further success, while being relatively insulated from opportunities for self-destruction.

College functions to get you out of your class bubble and expose other opportunities that you wouldn't otherwise have living at home. You play college right like many do, you advance up that economic ladder, and in the process set up your future kids for trivially easy success.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#276

Post by teddyc »

mmmBacon wrote: post #76
hajile wrote: post #71

And here we have once again why the government shouldn't be subsidizing student loans and shouldn't exclude them from bankruptcy. We need to quit incentivizing sub-prime loans. Unlike the housing crash where the houses retained most of their value and could be sold later, you can't sell your degree to pay back the money. If you're getting a necessary degree, it's very uncommon to default on your loan because you'll b…

Additionally student loans should be something you can refinance. When I took out loans in the early 90s, interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans were about 8%. As interest rates dropped during the course of my education, I was locked into that interest rate and the only way to get a lower rate on those high interest early loans was to consolidate loans. Loan consolidation doesn’t get you a market rate new intere…

My student loans have auto re-financed to lower interest rates with no action on my part. But I got them in the 00's, maybe the rules changed.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#277

Post by dragonwriter »

jki275 wrote: post #251
dragonwriter wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The odds are very low. The odds are very high for post-9/11 veterans (and higher the more of their period of service is post-9/11 within that group), who are more likely to have been deployed and seen combat than veterans of earlier eras (both because of optempo and organizational changes that have increased the teeth to tail ratio of uniformed services as support functions have been moved to contracted support.) T…

No, they’re not. I retired last year. I deployed to Afghanistan multiple times. I’m literally someone who experienced the life you’re trying to tell me about. Your studies are mostly bullshit written to drive an agenda.

> Your studies are mostly bullshit written to drive an agenda.

It could be that that's true of of a variety of scientific studies from diverse sources with no reason to have common agenda, or it could be that that's just true of your unsubstantiated pseudonymous anecdotal ranting in an internet discussion board.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#278

Post by cscurmudgeon »

criddell wrote: post #54
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m pretty sympathetic to the perspective that the solution is not dealing with it. “I want to go to art school” is at the same level as “I want a pony” or “I’m gonna marry a rich girl”; it’s not originally intended as a serious life plan, and you’ll only start to see it as one if the people around you encourage it.

I don't see anything wrong with going to school for an education rather than training. Frankly, I wish there were more kids working on a liberal and fine arts education. It's one of the reasons I'm a big fan of the free-college-for-all plans being pushed by some politicians.

Definitely. As long as we can get some guarantees that a good fraction of people who study for free contribute back to society without being treated like slaves.

All carrot with zero stick is not good just like all stick and zero carrot is not good.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#279

Post by seanmcdirmid »

seibelj wrote: post #237
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife went to art school and is (somewhat embarrassing to me) supporting our family with her job at Amazon while I (a CS PhD) am looking for work. We even qualify for a mortgage with her income. (Lesson: UX designers are as important as programmers)

That’s surprising to me. Why is it so hard to find a job with your CS PhD? Are you trying to get a specific research-oriented job?

There aren’t a lot of PL positions open right now, and I didn’t network as much as I should before. Along with the standard problems in applying for jobs (high stakes leetcode, ghosting after multiple successful rounds of interviewing, etc...), that I can’t just apply to a lot of positions means that it takes a bit longer than I would like.

I also have the luxury of waiting for a better opportunity rather than just taking the first one that matches.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#280

Post by asdff »

jawns wrote: post #104

Perhaps one way to help college-bound teenagers make these sorts of decisions is not by asking, "What careers most interest you?" but "What lifestyle do you want to live as an adult?" and then work backward from there. Teens who envision themselves living in a two-bedroom Manhattan apartment and dining out frequently could then be counseled to pursue jobs that earn enough to support that lifestyle. And teens who woul…

Interesting angle to think about. A lot of high schoolers are applying to majors basically blind of what the job at the other end is like. Everyone wants to be a doctor or a lawyer until the slow realization of the realities of these career paths hit, and in a panic they change to business or econ, wrangle excel macros in a cubicle until 65, and wonder where it all went wrong.
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