More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years • Hacker News Board

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#421

Post by larkost » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 5:33 PM UTC

zapataband1 wrote: post #365

jimmyjazz14 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the first two are problems colleges need to fix I think its more of a matter that we need to change our mindset about who should be attending college maybe some people would be better off going the trade school route.

Yeah we I read somewhere that in Germany 60% of students go into trades and they have seriously beefed up their programs. But yeah there is a stigma here in the US about trades, I think that's partly due to the social consequences of having insane wealth gaps and worshipping billionaires.

Not only that, but depending on which state you are in in Germany (and Austria) you get routed at around 4th grade. If the teachers decide that you are academically fit for it then you go on to the Gymnasium, which prepares you for college, often with some focus for your class (e.g.: mathematics, arts, or science). If those same teachers decide that you are not up to college, but are still smart enough for something skilled, then you go on to Realschule, which still has some focus on academics, but is steering you to something like being a secretary, or a generic office worker. And finally there is the Hauptschule track. Here you are being groomed for something more involved with labor. The academics are not nearly so rigorous, and there is almost always the expectation that you will be steered into an apprenticeship for the final 4 years of what we (in the U.S.) would have as High School. Some of these apprenticeships can be quite prestigious (e.g.: the BMW technician school in Munich), but many of them are pretty pedestrian (e.g.: learning to run agricultural equipment).

For most people this routing when they are 10 (or so) decides what routes are open to them later in life. There are exceptions to this (my host sister went to Realschule, and later took the Abiture, the the test that got her into college), but they are pretty rare.

I have always been a bit leery of choices made so early in life, but it works pretty well in Germany.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#422

Post by rootusrootus » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 5:34 PM UTC

Der_Einzige wrote: post #96

rootusrootus wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relatively, yes, I believe so. But Oregon State still tells me to budget 30K/year for a resident undergrad. About half of that is living expenses, half is school.

WTF. My wife did the online OSU program and all we pay is in-state tuition (even if out of state!). She's an international student too! You will not be paying 30K a year for OSU e-campus. More like 10-15K a year or so.

> You will not be paying 30K a year for OSU e-campus. More like 10-15K a year or so.

Yeah, last time I looked it is the same tuition as if you were using the in-person facilities. I think that's too much for an online program. I paid less than $10K for my master's degree at Georgia Tech. That works out to about a third of what OSU is charging for the online undergrad CS degree, if my math is right. For online videos recorded once and watched many times, I think it should not cost anywhere close to what sitting in a room with a professor does.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#423

Post by hungryforcodes » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 5:34 PM UTC

Is it telling that there is no breakdown by gender? Men seem to have been abandoning education for a while now.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#424

Post by zip1234 » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 5:34 PM UTC

bagacrap wrote: post #71

ChicagoDave wrote: post #28

I have 3 college-aged kids and one nearly there. Their universal concern is the cost. It has become prohibitive. Colleges assumed the trend of charging $25k to $50k per year would be sustainable. They were dead wrong, especially given the horrendously predatory loans backed by the government and barred from bankruptcy. If we fix the college financial system, enrollment would likely skyrocket.

The loans are exactly why the colleges were able to continue jacking up the prices. As with homes, people will pay as much as institutions are willing to loan them. In both cases the currently low interest rates allow the loan principal to be much higher (given that folks calculate cost based on recurring payments). If you remove the student loan system then tuition would become cheaper. However that does unfairly im…

At least in a house loan they will check your income and job before giving you the loan. For college they will give anyone a loan for an immense amount of money without verifying anything.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#425

Post by tryptophan » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 5:35 PM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #403

indymike wrote: post #314

There are three problems that colleges need to fix. 1) Skilled trades pay better than most bachelor's degree track jobs. My kids can make more money with a six month apprenticeship than they will with all but a few 4 year degrees. If you can drive a forklift, you can make $45K/yr... which is identical to what an firsty year teacher makes. 2) There are better options than college for many. One of my daughters did a si…

> kids that had a job, any job before age 18 make 35% more than their peers over their lifetime Just as with claims about college, there is a huge selection bias in this observation. (A substantially higher proportion of youngish Americans obtain a bachelors degree than have a job before age 18.) Edit: Let’s be clear: there is obviously a huge selection bias when talking about college as well, which should not be ign…

Yes, but it is interesting which bias gets ignored and which one gets pointed out.

> Collage increases earnings!

"Yay lets send everyone to collage and give out >1T$ of loans"

> Early work experience increases earnings!

"Confounding factors and selection bias!"

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#426

Post by ryan93 » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #211

yxwvut wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the only tenable solutions are 1) a ceiling on the loan amount tethered to public college costs to increase price elasticity and prevent runaway costs, along with a quota on loans to address the 'future ability to repay' issue with many majors/low caliber schools 2) free public college (or equivalent private college voucher) Giving out loans with no cap on how much schools can charge and with no ability-to-re…

Option 2 is the only tenable solution. Option 1 is just more of the same we have now. Either society puts their money where their mouth is and actually pays for people to be educated, or they can choose to keep taxes lower and let people fend for themselves. Either of these options is fine, but the bullshit blank check taxpayer funded loans non dischargeable in bankruptcy is only good for politicians and taxpayers to…

What do you mean educated. Like 80% of degrees are useless. My Econ degree is a primary example of useless degrees.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#427

Post by justinator » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

deltree7 wrote: post #384

zapataband1 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah we I read somewhere that in Germany 60% of students go into trades and they have seriously beefed up their programs. But yeah there is a stigma here in the US about trades, I think that's partly due to the social consequences of having insane wealth gaps and worshipping billionaires.

Huh? From Peter Thiel to Bill Gates to Steve Jobs to Zuckerburg, most billionaires don't push the college propaganda and have shown/encouraged path without college education. It's only the pseudo-social scientists who can't do proper data analysis (finding out the real confounding variable) that push the college propaganda

Don't forget Elizabeth Holmes!

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#428

Post by aquanext » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

If I had it to do over again, I never would have taken out such big loans; instead I would have opted for the cheapest community college. But I was young and had never managed money before. I had no understanding of what I was signing up for. I actually went to a super overpriced art school ($30k/year) and realized about halfway through that I was never going to be able to pay it back. So I left and started working. That was probably the right decision because paying back $60k plus interest has been insane. I've spent all this time (15 years so far) paying back everything and still have $30k left (all interest!) and I can't imagine if I had to pay back $120k + interest. If I had stayed, by this point, I would have fled to a third-world country and changed my identity to avoid having to pay it back long ago – or killed myself.

It is criminal what they have done to people. Absolutely criminal.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#429

Post by throw10920 » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

indymike wrote: post #314

There are three problems that colleges need to fix. 1) Skilled trades pay better than most bachelor's degree track jobs. My kids can make more money with a six month apprenticeship than they will with all but a few 4 year degrees. If you can drive a forklift, you can make $45K/yr... which is identical to what an firsty year teacher makes. 2) There are better options than college for many. One of my daughters did a si…

Your first three points are very strong and insightful, but I somewhat object to your fourth. Individuals get loans for things that pay off in the long-term regularly - cars and houses, for the most part. I don't see any reason why college should be different, especially because the alternative is for taxpayers to subsidize it.

The real issues are twofold: first, student loans are underregulated and very predatory in a way that car loans and mortgages are not; second, like you said in your third point, college is way overpriced, with the cost of it going up about an order of magnitude over the past few decades with no discernable increase in quality (see the excellent Consideration On Cost Disease for more[1]).

If education was 10x cheaper and student loan rates were 3-5% a year, you wouldn't need the public to fund education - and even if you wanted to, it'd be a far easier time selling that idea than trying to convince people to fund undergraduate degrees to the tune of $100k+ per student.

[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost...

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#430

Post by lapsedacademic » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

randomsilence wrote: post #331

Why does the market not work for colleges? There are plenty of adjunct professors who don't earn much. Why don't they join forces and create their own university? If they focus on education and limit spending on administration and sports, they could offer high quality, affordable education.

Three things:

1. There actually aren't many low-paid adjuncts in hot fields. The CS and Eng departments subsidize the Math department, and STEM+finance+premed+nursing subsidizes all of the humanities. A philosophy adjunct is probably doing way better ad juncting than they would off on their own. And the instructional staff in the in-demand fields are generally well-paid.

2. The low paid (and usually not that low paid) adjuncts within in-demand departments are generally there as a retirement gig... if they wanted a stressful empire building type of job, they'd go into industry.

3. Runway. Adjuncts who aren't semi-retired have no access to capital and here's a really long lead time until an institution is regionally accredited. You can't take a dime of federal grant money, GI bill money, private scholarship money, student loan money, etc. until you're accredited.