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

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

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 1001 posts

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

#491

Post by belval »

qaq wrote: post #265
belval wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably my Canadian experience talking, but this sentence: > 85% of graduates have less than $50,000 in student loans. Paid off over 20 years, that’s really not much. It is pretty terrifying that you manage to mentally justify going in debt for 20 years over your college education. I understand that given a good job it's easy to pay it back, but I never even borrowed even a tenth of that to complete my engineer…

But there is no magic you are paying higher taxes and that’s not for 20 years it’s forever

Honestly (I know that's not true of all states) but I worked in California and the taxes I was paying there were higher than my taxes in Quebec/British Columbia.

Yes taxation is higher, but I still feel like we get a lot more bang for our bucks here.

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

#492

Post by ffwszgf »

larkost wrote: post #421
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.

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…

This would never be allowed in America. the notion of “merit” in the US is associated with white supremacy and the idea that you can divide kids by their skills/grades will get you in trouble, especially if you do it that early.

If for whatever reason the demographics at each track are not the same as those of the nation it will get called racist and shut down quick.

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

#493

Post by seibelj »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #477
seibelj wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a related note - who in their right mind thinks donating to their college is a good decision? I don't understand why rich people keep donating buildings rather than donating parks to their communities. When I begin to donate money for serious, colleges are getting exactly $0. The money will go to places and people that actually need it.

When you have an organisation full of people creating worth that you can cream off, you've bought a few houses, yacht, fast cars. You get to a point where you realise you're not leaving anything of value behind and think "if I pay for a university building then I've created a legacy of education for generations to come". TL;DR it's like a shiny name plaque for billionaires.

I get it - and I agree with the reasoning - but I want to leave a shiny new park with my name on the plaque, not a building in an overpriced university.

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

#494

Post by kapp_in_life »

Goronmon wrote: post #261
standardUser wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I am not thinking of twenty years ago, I accurately stated the cost of tuition today, which generally does not include renting a place to live, on-campus or otherwise, or a meal plan.

Having a place to live and food to eat seems to me to be pretty important part of your education.

But is explicitly not tuition. If you weren't in school you would still need to eat and live somewhere.

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

#495

Post by abeppu »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #108

This is nearly a strictly American problem. Much of the rest of the world has realized that society requires and is capable of supporting advanced education for all -- after all we want humanity to be advancing , right? America is still stuck in this alternate universe where it's a great privilege to have the opportunity to learn, which is of course true to some extent, but they really put it on a pedestal there. Com…

> America is still stuck in this alternate universe where it's a great privilege to have the opportunity to learn, which is of course true to some extent, but they really put it on a pedestal there.

I think the facts don't really support the idea of it being a "great privilege" in the sense of being inaccessible to most. E.g. if you look at this table of tertiary education by country, in OECD countries plus a few others, the US is in the top 10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_...

In the section below that, if you look at 4-year degrees or higher, more Americans have a 4-year equivalent than Israelis, Swedes, Canadians, Norwegians, French, German etc.

We're not an outlier in how many of us go to college, just in how much of people's lives they end up paying for it.

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

#496

Post by silisili »

endisneigh wrote: post #482
silisili wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re 1, at least in the US, it's very dependent on market and path. I have two family members who have been pipefitters for 20 years. Both make more than I do as a software engineer. Another is a doctor, and makes more than they do. But another does boat repair, and makes more than the doctor. If the last decade is any indication, skilled labor - especially those not afraid to own their own business, are set to make a…

How old are you and how old are they? If we’re talking anecdotes I guarantee I know people that make more than all the people you’ve mentioned combined and went to college. It doesn’t mean anything. Let’s talk medians here.

We're all within 7 or so years of age, except the boat repair who is considerably older.

This isn't a contest IMO, we all do more than OK. But it's definitely not fair to say that college pays more than trades. Both have huge swaths of pay ranges, from effectively zero, to millions. But if you're optimizing for making as much money as possible, I'd argue you're doing it wrong anyways.

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

#497

Post by spaetzleesser »

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…

"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."

With the forklift you will stay at 45k forever and probably make less every year whereas for the teacher this is a starting salary and will go up. Talk to real blue collar workers and from most you will hear a not very rosy picture. Pay stagnates, management treats them like crap, terrible working conditions, very hard on the body so getting older is difficult.

Unless you are a business owner or in a very good union blue collar jobs aren't much fun.

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

#498

Post by muffinman26 »

larkost wrote: post #421
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.

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…

It actually doesn't work that great in Germany. The college dropout rate is about 28% (https://researchgate.net/publication/267340378_Student_Drop-...). The Hauptschule and Realschule routes seem much better designed than the US, but in terms of predicting who is suitable for college Germany isn't doing a very good job.

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

#499

Post by rurp »

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 regardless of degree.

I'm surprised by the magnitude but I can see why this would be the case. Working teenagers probably correlate with having parents who value work. Plus it teaches some valuable skills early on. An entry level job can throw all sorts of uncomfortable challenges at you, which you are expected to handle in stride.

I'd say there's a societal benefit as well, due to the empathy it promotes. Most people work very different jobs as an adult than they would as a teenager. Having more perspective on what other workers experience makes one more kind and reasonable in general.

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

#500

Post by joconde »

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…

> Also, in-state tuition for state schools is much less than $50k/yr so try going to Cal and/or your best local public school and supplement with self teaching (e.g. via public/free lectures from MIT)?

Unrelated question: does "Cal" mean Berkeley here? Do you really need to "supplement it with self-teaching"? I don't really understand why state schools are viewed that way, since Berkeley consistently ranks world top-10.

Post reply on HN