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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

#291

Post by fzeroracer »

djaque wrote: post #136
honkycat wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this trade school obsession is foolish. Everyone cargo-cults it as "pragmatic" without actually analyzing what the jobs entail and what you can actually expect to make. Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. You EARN that pay in the trades, and being an electrician is dangerous. The work is hard on your body. A lot of electricians end up on disability. I wasn't very academic growin…

The other issue is the health toll many of the trade jobs have. See what 40 years of running cable on your hands and knees as an electrician will do to you vs a cushy desk job.

A lot of what I've seen is that people in the trades will encourage their kids to go for the desk jobs because the trades are hard on your body and dangerous to boot.

It always seemed like the cargo culting around trade school doesn't come from it as a career option but rather because it comes from a bias against traditional colleges. In reality what we should be doing is making both the trades and college free so that students have their choice of career and education rather than trying to pigeonhole them down one path because education has transformed from a societal good to one purely for work.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#292

Post by asdff »

baking wrote: post #228
baron816 wrote: post #155

There’s some weird things about this article. 1) Their daughter likely would’ve qualified for quite a bit of financial aid, which potentially could have brought a fancy art college to within reason for her. That she never even applied to her dream schools means she will never know if they would’ve been competitively priced. 2) Collectively, student debt is $1.6T, but that doesn’t tell you much about the per graduate…

My biggest issue with it was that you are in the "too well-off to get aid but not well-off enough to pay cash" gap, then you should be expanding the number of schools you are applying too, not reducing. In-state and out-of-state public schools, and a wide mix of small to large private schools in both the "reach" and "safety" categories to see what kind of financial offers you get. With the caveat that if it turns out…

If cash is king you need to start busting your ass freshman year of high school. Four years of pushing it and you can net an easy scholarship that will take out a chunk of the cost, or even get a full ride and be able to go anywhere you'd like.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#293

Post by aspaceman »

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…

Why the criticism of an English degree? It's an important, critical and incredibly useful subject. Especially in our increasingly connected and writing-centric world. You get an advanced workforce by making it advanced in all aspects, not just the ones that you arbitrarily value.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#294

Post by Balanceinfinity »

bgorman wrote: post #287
Balanceinfinity wrote: post #283

A degree from an expensive private school or out of state school is a luxury item, and parents need to treat them like the Jaguar or Porsche with a comparable value. If your child got their license and asked for a Range Rover, would you plunk down $100,000? Then why on earth would you do it for an undergraduate degree to an expensive school. If anything, the money should be saved for graduate school, where the big pa…

An undergraduate degree from an elite school helps with networking and gives the student a "brand" that will help with getting all subsequent jobs. Same phenomenon for business school- the curriculum isn't much better but the connections and brand are much better.

That misses the point. Jaguars are better (and more fun) than a Ford Focus. The question is whether the branded school is worth the delta, and the answer is that in most undergrad programs, it isn't. Let's take an example: Steve wants to go to school for Computer Science. He'd really like to go to Duke, but he also gets in at UC Irvine in California. If he's really good, he'll get good grades at UCI, and he can go to Duke for a Masters (maybe on a free ride). If he's only an average student, then he had no business going to Duke because he wouldn't really be able to leverage the high powered degree anyways (a C+ average from Duke isn't opening a ton of doors). Let's change the hypo and make the major French Literature. Now, we know Steve will never be able to repay Duke tuition with that degree, no matter how many influential people he meets or how good his grades are.

The upshot: it's not that Duke isn't better than UCI - it clearly is. The point is, is it a good investment. And it rarely is...unless you have the extra money and can do it without the debt and without limiting your future options. That's what makes it a luxury item.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#295

Post by sebastianconcpt »

I loved this part:

To give my daughter a hard no on something she really, really wants—and that I in theory want for her!—makes me feel like a monster. While other parents cheerfully promise that “if you get in, we’ll figure out the money part,” I’m over here sounding a Greek chorus of caution and lament. Sometimes I long to just say yes. Saying yes feels good. Yes makes people happy.

On the other hand, saying no is part of my job as a parent. Hasn’t it been my role all along to steer my kid toward smarter but seemingly less desirable choices? Carrots instead of Kit Kats, an early bedtime instead of an all-night YouTube binge? Children naturally hate those kinds of limits. They may temporarily hate us. But they’re too young and myopic to see how this one decision could make their lives harder for a long, long time. We can.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#296

Post by oarabbus_ »

pnathan wrote: post #115
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…

This is a good approach for some. I am - and have always been - disinclined to do work I don't really enjoy. Some people - I have a good friend like this! - don't have that bit flipped in them, and for those people, your approach would be fantastic . but without a doubt, the material economic reality needs to be discussed early on in high school.

>I am - and have always been - disinclined to do work I don't really enjoy.

Sounds like you live a life of privilege then. Guess what, 99.9% of humans over the course of history have done work they didn't really enjoy.

It's a good approach for everyone. When people can't afford rent suddenly "work you don't enjoy" isn't such a big deal anymore.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#297

Post by tptacek »

snowwrestler wrote: post #281
rayiner wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This might come as a shock, but AOC is a member of Congress now. (It's silly to judge the value of a college education by the jobs that people get the first few years after college.)

Well, that covers 435 Boston University grads. What about the rest of them?

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#298

Post by oarabbus_ »

I know HN is really sensitive about this, but this sounds like a very culturally white thing. Many other cultures have a mentality of "get an employable major, period" and we are now seeing how superior that mentality really is, considering the impending generational student debt crisis.

If you have rich parents who can support you for life and set you up with an inheritance, knock yourself out with the Art major (like the daughter in the article). If you don't, then pursue your passions and expect a difficult life... or just choose a more employable major or career path.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#299

Post by loopdedoo »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #253
roenxi wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also another aspect to the correlation-causation argument. The kids in college are presumably the smart ones in the cohort. We expect them to have much better outcomes than the rest based on intelligence even without getting a degree.

Does intelligence correlate to either education or wealth? I didn't think it did...

Intelligence strongly correlated with education (~0.5), and adult intelligence is mostly determined by genetics.

https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/39/5/1362/802787

The correlation between intelligence and income also substantial, but seemingly not quite as strong. The correlation between intelligence and wealth is weaker still.

https://www.bcaresearch.com/images/Peter_PPT_presentation%20... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#300

Post by fzeroracer »

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…

I mean, you're essentially arguing that people like me (people that grew up in deep poverty) wouldn't benefit from a college degree, but here I am. A software engineer because I was able to afford college through benefits and grants that made it near-free. I didn't go to a top tier college. I went to the local community college and used that to go to the local University to get a degree in CS.

Well, here I am. Are you saying I don't exist? Without my degree which opened quite a few doors, I'd be still back home in poverty.

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