Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

America's College Towns Go from Boom to Bust

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 72 posts

Re: America's College Towns Go from Boom to Bust

#41

Post by somenameforme »

nyokodo wrote: post #19
somenameforme wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people are, in general, in denial of what reduced fertility will bring. Consequences lag effect by decades so it's not exactly a secret what the future will hold. For instance most don't realize that Japan is still in the 'good ole days', relative to what awaits them in the future, even as places like Tokyo start to shrink today. I also think people don't realize how fast things start happening once they do…

> And North Korea is going to win, simply by continuing to exist. Except their fertility is below replacement also and as a poverty stricken repressive regime that relies on food aid from South Korea, China, and probably Russia lately the latter having their own terminal demographic crises… they might not out-survive the south for long. 1. https://www.newsweek.com/how-north-korea-news-births-compare...

Your article gives North Korea a fertility rate of 1.78, which is substantially higher than even the US at 1.62. South Korea is an entirely different world at 0.75. So you're looking at a population change per 20 years of -11% in North Korea, -19% in the US, and -62% in South Korea!! None of these are good of course, but the timeline of decline and collapse are quite different. All numbers from here, which is just a cleaner representation of UN numbers: https://www.worldometers.info/population/world/

In the end I think the future will become much like the past in that fertility is essentially the point of a nation. What is a few generations of fading prosperity when the longterm cost is the very survival of said civilization? It's just a nonsense deal that nobody would ever agree to on a macro scale, but that most of all Western civilization is trending towards.

Re: America's College Towns Go from Boom to Bust

#42

Post by keiferski »

alex43578 wrote: post #40
keiferski wrote: post #9

Now really seems like an opportune moment for one of these third-tier colleges to rebrand itself as a trade school but aimed at students that would have otherwise gone to college (and not the traditional trade school audience.) I bet there is a ton of demand for a trades-based education but in a college experience wrapper.

I disagree. The changes a school would need to make to the school, the curriculum, and the faculty to switch from teaching accounting or gender studies to welding or HVAC would mean you'd be pasting an expensive University of Misc State logo and mascot onto a whole new enterprise, implicitly putting a premium on an educational path that's really all about ROI.

I think many people would be willing to pay that premium for a college experience. And from the college's point of view, changing focus is certainly better than shutting down completely.

Re: America's College Towns Go from Boom to Bust

#43

Post by somenameforme »

999900000999 wrote: post #29
somenameforme wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people are, in general, in denial of what reduced fertility will bring. Consequences lag effect by decades so it's not exactly a secret what the future will hold. For instance most don't realize that Japan is still in the 'good ole days', relative to what awaits them in the future, even as places like Tokyo start to shrink today. I also think people don't realize how fast things start happening once they do…

South Korea probably already has immigration reform ready to go. They’ll just do everything else before letting people meaningfully immigrate. A “Korean” in 2100 might have Filipino, Indian, African ancestry. In fact the way things are going Africa will probably end up as the nursery of the world for a few decades. Then birth rates will collapse there too. The robots should be ready then

Think about the implications of what you're suggesting in practice. You're not going to attract tens of millions of desirable migrants. They literally don't exist. And this is even more true as South Korea is but an extreme example of a trend happening through most of all Western bloc nations.

So you're going to end up having to import people with relatively little education, skills or experience, who don't speak, read, or write the language, have no knowledge of the culture, dramatically different working/cultural values, and so on. Europe was, in many ways, a trial run for this sort of scenario on a far smaller scale than what you're talking about, and the results have not been good. Immigration is not really a sustainable solution.

Re: America's College Towns Go from Boom to Bust

#44

Post by somenameforme »

lilwobbly wrote: post #20
somenameforme wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Burn out and body damage from trades is not really factually based, especially not compared to something like software. You can actually quantify this. For instance the median age of a construction worker is 42. [1] In some states it's pushing near 50. By contrast in software there is extreme defacto age discrimination. I don't think it's usually real age discrimination but simply companies don't really value experie…

Body damage math isn’t even close. BLS puts non-fatal injuries in construction at 2.3 cases per 100 FTEs. For computer systems design it’s 0.1 – that’s a 23× gap.whole job takes a toll over time. The median age of 42 just means a lot of sore 40-somethings can’t afford to quit yet. Age alone doesn’t tell you how their knees and backs feel after 20 years of rebar. Not sure how many people you know in the industry but m…

Here's the full table. [1] 2.3 is an extremely low rate for any job where you use your body in any way whatsoever. For instance it's the same rate as e.g. working in retail at a furniture store, and substantially less than the 3.6 rate for those working in retail at hobby/toy/game stores.

And yeah obviously software has plenty of room to transition into management and other late career roles. The same is true of the trades where common later stage transitions involve starting your own shop (with a career of connections/clients made it's not the big undertaking it might sound) or moving onto teaching. But it's the same problem in both cases, a small minority of people will achieve such transitions.

[1] - https://www.bls.gov/iif/nonfatal-injuries-and-illnesses-tabl...

Re: America's College Towns Go from Boom to Bust

#45

Post by glimshe »

mmooss wrote: post #11
decimalenough wrote: post #8

The title is misleading. As the article itself notes, "Large flagship universities—blessed with strong academic reputations and high-profile sports programs—continue to boost local economies". It's the second and third-tier institutions located in economically depressed areas, like the one profiled here (Western Illinois University’s Macomb campus), that are suffering. After all, why would you fork out a lot of money…

> why would you fork out a lot of money for a diploma that's worth little and won't even connect you with local job opportunities? To learn, to sharpen your mind, to grow and change yourself.

Which you can also do through reading and even YouTube nowadays.

College is great but 1) Not for everybody and 2) only the rich can pay 50K-400K to "sharpen their minds" without a high-paying job in the other end.

We need more middle class jobs that don't require a 4-year college degree

Re: America's College Towns Go from Boom to Bust

#46

Post by 999900000999 »

somenameforme wrote: post #43
999900000999 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Korea probably already has immigration reform ready to go. They’ll just do everything else before letting people meaningfully immigrate. A “Korean” in 2100 might have Filipino, Indian, African ancestry. In fact the way things are going Africa will probably end up as the nursery of the world for a few decades. Then birth rates will collapse there too. The robots should be ready then

Think about the implications of what you're suggesting in practice. You're not going to attract tens of millions of desirable migrants. They literally don't exist. And this is even more true as South Korea is but an extreme example of a trend happening through most of all Western bloc nations. So you're going to end up having to import people with relatively little education, skills or experience, who don't speak, re…

When you’re 90 and need someone to give you a sponge bath, cultural differences don’t matter much.

You do get weird stories like Filipino nurses treating elderly WW2 era Japanese soldiers. I’m sure it’s only awkward for a moment.

You could have said the same thing about any new immigrants anywhere. How will the Irish fit in Boston?

How will Ukrainians make it in Chicago?

Re: America's College Towns Go from Boom to Bust

#47

Post by keiferski »

keiferski wrote: post #42
alex43578 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The changes a school would need to make to the school, the curriculum, and the faculty to switch from teaching accounting or gender studies to welding or HVAC would mean you'd be pasting an expensive University of Misc State logo and mascot onto a whole new enterprise, implicitly putting a premium on an educational path that's really all about ROI.

I think many people would be willing to pay that premium for a college experience. And from the college's point of view, changing focus is certainly better than shutting down completely.

Just to add to this: I did a little research into this idea and there seem to actually be a few places like this already - Thaddeus Steven’s Institute of technology is one.

Re: America's College Towns Go from Boom to Bust

#48

Post by somenameforme »

999900000999 wrote: post #46
somenameforme wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about the implications of what you're suggesting in practice. You're not going to attract tens of millions of desirable migrants. They literally don't exist. And this is even more true as South Korea is but an extreme example of a trend happening through most of all Western bloc nations. So you're going to end up having to import people with relatively little education, skills or experience, who don't speak, re…

When you’re 90 and need someone to give you a sponge bath, cultural differences don’t matter much. You do get weird stories like Filipino nurses treating elderly WW2 era Japanese soldiers. I’m sure it’s only awkward for a moment. You could have said the same thing about any new immigrants anywhere. How will the Irish fit in Boston? How will Ukrainians make it in Chicago?

I think the Irish are a great example. We often think it was some huge migration because they had a really tough time integrating in spite of being near to completely culturally compatible. But the interesting thing is that that migration was negligible in size. The largest impact probably came after the Great Hunger in Ireland after which about a million migrants came to the US. [1] So that's a million migrants in a population of 31 million - 3.2%.

In fact for all the talk about the US being a nation of migrants we never had a foreign born population exceeding 14.8%. [1] And that was in 1890 after which a large number of anti-migration bills began being passed, culminating in a low of 4.7% in 1970. It's now up to 14.3% and once again issues are emerging at almost the exact same threshold. Go figure.

---

So now let's consider your idea. South Korea is trending towards a scenario where they will eventually be losing 62% of their population every 20 years. And obviously that is exponential - it's not like it slows down, not unless they start having babies again. To maintain this decline with immigration would require literally just replacing just about the entire former population of South Korea with migrants.

You're talking about migration on a scale unimaginably larger than anything before, with what by necessity would be an extremely low quality of migrant, simply owing the massive numbers needed. So the idea of using immigration to "solve" this is essentially just proposing populating an 'abandoned' land with whoever wants to come. And of course that's possible, but obviously this is not a solution to anything by any reasonable meaning of the word 'solution.'

[1] - https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collections-Research/Folklife-Co...

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...

Re: America's College Towns Go from Boom to Bust

#49

Post by ckemere »

Musing - Universities historically were easy to create in rural/underdeveloped areas with cheap land. (Particularly the ag/tech variant funded by the federal government.) A very small number aggregated enough people to generate sustained urbanization. The rest have always been tenuous in the sense that they exist because of a state-federal consensus that they are worth subsidizing. Without this, urban/suburban universities are more likely to sustain themselves.

Further thought - on the timescale of history, professors have always been (lower) middle class. Perhaps we should not be surprised to see a return to the mean…

Re: America's College Towns Go from Boom to Bust

#50

Post by somenameforme »

chneu wrote: post #39
trilbyglens wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sitting in a chair is also pretty terrible for your health. :)

The difference is one can then workout or take breaks, stand, or a variety of things to offset the sitting/sedentary time. The trades can really destroy your body and there isn't really a way around this besides changing the working conditions.

The problems aren't in the regular physical work. Our bodies were made to work and get stronger and more resilient with exertion. An average tradesman without some secondary issue like alcoholism is going to be in far better shape than your average programmer. The issue is that in the trades, and any physical work, there's always a chance of some freak accident. Fortunately these are extremely rare, and getting ever rarer over time, but they do exist. By contrast in software the worst somebody's going to have is falling out of their chair or slipping on the floor.
Post reply on HN