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

#531

Post by endisneigh » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:31 PM UTC

light_hue_1 wrote: post #485

endisneigh wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im very skeptical of this post: 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no compari…

> 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no comparison can be made. Plenty of coding bootcamps have great placement rates and great salaries. For example, the median salary at Boston's Launch academy is $72k. The median salary for Fullstack Academy Grace Hopper in NY is $90k. https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf... https://static.s…

2. Your stats are incomplete- how many of these people already have degrees? What’s the breakdown between that and wages? What’s the median pay for college graduates who go into the same professions?

3. Not cheap compared to what exactly? College graduates generally get paid more money over the lifetime.

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

#532

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

spaetzleesser wrote: post #497

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 a…

[deleted]

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

#533

Post by carlmcqueen » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

lokar wrote: post #490

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…

What do teachers and forklift operators make after 10/20/30 years?

My wife has a doctorate in occupational therapy and works as a hand therapist, when pay is the only metric looked at you really do miss a lot.

The body condition of construction workers, fork lift operators and even welders is worn down and in pain.

Not to mention, they have to live with unfair medical standards. When she does hand strength assessments for workers comp the number is based on natural average. So lets say a normal office worker squeezes on the test at a score of 100, a construction worker squeezes at 320. Workers comp says they can return to work if they can squeeze at like 120. Which terrifies the construction workers but they won't get any more time off.

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

#534

Post by ksdale » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

stocknoob wrote: post #431

granshaw wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is the social stigma of not having a college degree. Not sure how to fix that

Yep. The GP thinks parents consider their child being a forklift driver vs teacher as equivalent outcomes if they pay the same?

Would you be ashamed if your child was a forklift driver? The world needs people to do useful things, and we shouldn't shame people for doing useful things.

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

#535

Post by upsidesinclude » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #444

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…

Im very skeptical of this post: 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no compari…

What? you slam that post for not supplying the information and yet state >[trades] are not welcoming to women at all / last time I looked at ANY trade, they are begging women to come WORK. Maybe that's what you meant though

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

#536

Post by selimthegrim » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

rootsudo wrote: post #473

endisneigh wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im very skeptical of this post: 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no compari…

I'm not surprised at all - people with degrees try to find reasons to think they're better then the rest. 1. Many trades also are your own business, and can immediately scale for income - many plumbers, electricians, etc are millionaires with a small team of employees less than 15. 2. Google offers free marketing certification for this reason as well, it's not impossible for marketing/seo people to make 100k annually…

Stafford loans are not a thing anymore since 2010.

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

#537

Post by hardtke » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #444

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…

Im very skeptical of this post: 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no compari…

> In addition many are not welcoming to women at all

Economists are now finding that as more women move into a profession, the pay goes down. Similarly, when computer programming moved from a female dominated profession (early days) to male dominated (now) the pay went up. Medical fields that have higher proportions of women have lower pay. Along these lines, as college skews more female (college grads are like 60/40 female/male now) the "college grad" professions are having a declining wage premium compared to non college grad jobs.

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

#538

Post by dhairya » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

This article is predicated on the assumption that immediately going to college after graduating high school is important. The pandemic skews the decision calculus greatly for many students ranging from safety to finding short-term employment enough for their current situation.

If college is important factor in improving economic outcomes, it shouldn't matter if you go to college at 18 or take a few years go at the age of 21 or even later in life. We have this stigma around adults who get a college degree later in life. I've met a several people who went to college as older adults (one at the age of 26 and the other at the age of 30) and ended up having highly lucrative careers. My mom got her masters at the age 55 (and rightfully lorded over my sister and I that if she get her degree with straight A while holding down a job, being a mom and in her 50s, then we have no excuses).

I believe college is valuable (though greatly overpriced in the US) but you don't need to be a young adult to attend. In terms of the labor effect of having fewer college graduates available for the labor market, honestly most jobs don't really require a college degree (including office and white collar jobs). Employers tend to use college degrees as cheap filtering signal instead having better hiring processes. Most entry level jobs have onboarding and training where college knowledge is not a perquisite for success.

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

#539

Post by xyzzyz » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

lapsedacademic wrote: post #387

starwind wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There shouldn't be a divide between skilled trades and bachelor's degrees. If I could add a creative writing minor to math degree, why was it impossible for me to add an aircraft maintenance certification through my school?

> why was it impossible for me to add an aircraft maintenance certification through my school? Because schools can't bullshit maintenance certification curricula and aren't willing to pay qualified faculty. See also: the alarming number of schools where CS and Data Science courses are still taught by mathematics faulty (because they can't find CS faculty who are willing to work for $70K). This model of "pay unqualifi…

> Because schools can't bullshit maintenance certification curricula and aren't willing to pay qualified faculty.

Yeah, the crucial thing that most people miss in these discussion is that most schools don’t actually effectively teach what they claim to be teaching. Teachers and students go through the motions, but the students don’t actually end up learning much of anything, and the teachers who nevertheless give them passing grade face no consequence. If a typical high school started offering aircraft maintenance certification, instead of increasing the graduates value on job market, it would simply make the certification to be held as worthless.

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

#540

Post by endisneigh » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:37 PM UTC

indymike wrote: post #523

endisneigh wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im very skeptical of this post: 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no compari…

> 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. I'm not sure what you mean by limited window unless we are talking about professional athletes and some categories of manual laborers. > In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades This is rapidly changing. Also, there are also skilled trades that are mostly women (e…

> I'm not turning this into an ad for the school my daughter went to. Cost was literally 1/2 of he first year salary over $40,000. It was capped at a maximum amount. She ended up paying about $6k, but it was contingent on her getting a job that payed better than $40k.

You already have. I want to see the graduation stats.

> It didn't matter what education level they attained, across the population the outcome was consistent. Having a job while young made a huge difference - almost as much as having a degree.

Where’s the link?

Sorry but your point is way too centered on your anecdotes. Fact remains that college graduates make more money.

https://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2011/c...