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

#561

Post by UncleOxidant » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:53 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…

> Skilled trades pay better than most bachelor's degree track jobs.

Is this a problem that needs fixing? We don't have enough plumbers & electricians (for example), many in those fields are retiring and until lately there haven't been enough people entering those trades to replace those retiring. Now we're probably going to start seeing people enter those trades at a higher rate than in the recent past. These are very good paying jobs and often it's hard to find a plumber or electrician when you need one.

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

#562

Post by throwaway0a5e » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:54 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #460

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've not really addressed the spirit of the question, they're not asking about aircraft maintenance really, they're asking why academic courses and more hands-on practical/technical courses can't be mixed? I guess in the UK you'd try for an apprenticeship with day release to college for the academic elements (or take a job in a technical field and do an Open University or other distance learning course for the acad…

I tried to and answered the way I did because I think a lot of people vastly underestimate the time and effort required to get certified for a trade. “Why can’t I just add an MD to my engineering degree?” seems like a ridiculous question, but “Why can’t I add a plumber’s or electrician’s or AMT license/certificate to my degree?” is treated as “well, that’s a good question; you ought to be able to!” (They specifically…

Certification time varies greatly.

A pretty good set of AWS welding certs can be done in 6wk of night classes.

You can't get paid money to install a toilet in some states until you've started as the jobsite bitch, worked your way up and payed years of your life into the system to get in a position to even be eligible to take the test.

The latter tends to only happen after regulatory capture.

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

#563

Post by vmception » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:55 PM UTC

jjulius wrote: post #558

vmception wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren't colleges problem. Its coincidence that for the last 60 years people felt like they needed college, while colleges insist that people want to be there for obscure higher education for the sake of pursuing obscure higher education. Turns out this was true for hundreds of years before inclusion was even a concept, and will exist for the next hundreds of years as people find another option.

>There aren't colleges problem. Its coincidence that for the last 60 years people felt like they needed college... Colleges - especially for-profit colleges - have certainly contributed to that feeling.

I agree that many parties have seized on the opportunity presented, and I am just as apathetic to which institutions will cease to exist in any disruption to their finances. the concept will remain around.

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

#564

Post by mmcconnell1618 » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:55 PM UTC

honksillet wrote: post #385

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…

Government needs to get out of the student loan game entirely.

Medicare in the US has negotiated rates they will pay for medical services. The "retail" price is very often extremely high but knocked down to what the government agrees to pay for Medicare patients. A similar system for college loans would allow the government to still offer loans but with caps on how much colleges could charge for tuition to students with government loans. The problem is uncapped tuition and loan terms that allow lenders to offer tremendously large sums of money to students in a low risk way because the students can't declare bankruptcy or discharge the loans in any easy way.

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

#565

Post by indymike » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:55 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?

It is a crime that teachers are paid so poorly. No judgement was intended about career choices (I'm the GP).

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

#566

Post by scruple » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:56 PM UTC

j4yav wrote: post #466

scruple wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my early 40s. I dropped out of university. I've been programming professionally, in a wide range of contexts and in various industries and niche markets, for over 15 years. I still deal with the stigma associated with not having a college degree. It's not as frequent today as it was when I was at year 1-5, but it still comes up often enough that I get the sense it will never go away.

Curious how it comes up? I’m 42 and dropped out at 16, and it has just never come up, nobody has ever asked me once. I’m not doubting your experience, just curious where our paths differed since it’s such a stark contrast. I’m not a programmer but worked in ops, then product management, then CPO. Maybe it’s something to do with that?

I'm a Senior II and tech lead at work and I've always been on the programming track.

Around ~22 months ago, I had a cold call from someone in HR asking me, "Did you finish your degree?" It was unusual. I'm not sure where they got the idea that I was "working on it" in the first place. This was happening around the same time that we had been acquired, so I imagine that it was related.

More recently, around the end of last summer, a mid-level on my team had apparently heard from someone else that I didn't have a degree and was probing me about my experience, etc.

It also came up in conversation during the Christmas holiday, with some friends, while playing an online game. This group of friends is also in tech, though they're a little younger than I am. In that conversation, they were surprised to learn that I didn't have a degree but held patents in the CV space (work done on a bootstrapped start-up that myself and a friend/co-founder worked on in the early/mid 2010s).

There are other examples from the past but I don't really hang onto these sorts of things.

I would add that I don't think any of these were bias or malicious or anything like that.

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

#567

Post by ClumsyPilot » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:58 PM UTC

throw10920 wrote: post #429

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…

"the alternative is for taxpayers to subsidize it."

You already are subsidising it by providing loans that cannot be paid off before death.

Just need to add debt prisons and we'll be back at 18th century class society.

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

#568

Post by zetta0 » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:58 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…

I feel like another caveat to college is that it is mentally exhausting. I went to a state college for 2 years and dropped out and pursued IT certifications. In my career and I am currently sitting at 75k after a year of experience. I'm also more knowledgeable than my coworkers who finished their graduation by a longshot. My 6 certifications covered more than their entire curriculum. The current college system is very broken.

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

#569

Post by ghaff » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 6:58 PM UTC

lapsedacademic wrote: post #453

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've not really addressed the spirit of the question, they're not asking about aircraft maintenance really, they're asking why academic courses and more hands-on practical/technical courses can't be mixed? I guess in the UK you'd try for an apprenticeship with day release to college for the academic elements (or take a job in a technical field and do an Open University or other distance learning course for the acad…

they're asking why academic courses and more hands-on practical/technical courses can't be mixed? I think they did answer this: it's because hands-on practical/technical skills are hard to learn and people who can teach them are generally expensive.

I'd add that while a full certification is quite hard to learn and takes a lot of time, schools absolutely have hands on courses. I have a mechanical engineering degree and two of my courses were very hands on with machine shop and building something for a contest.

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

#570

Post by BeetleB » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 7:01 PM UTC

paulpauper wrote: post #264

JohnTHaller wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 7% (3.2 million) of federal student loan borrowers have over $100,000 in debt. Many of these are likely law (avg $145,500), pharmacy ($179,514), veterinary ($183,302), medical ($201,490), and dental ($292,169).

right, and those jobs also tend to pay the most

Law is very bimodal. The median engineer likely makes more than the median lawyer.

Pharmacy: If you get a doctorate and work in a hospital (e.g. in ER), you'll get good pay. The average pharmacist in the pharmacy: Not as much in the future. And there's been a lot of wage pressure due to:

1. Amount pharmacies have to pay to obtain the drugs (i.e. what drug manufacturers charge).

2. Amount insurers will pay for medicine. These are contractual. So if you have insurance and go in, there's an upper bar on what the pharmacy can get from you.

The profit a pharmacy makes is between these two numbers, and that margin has shrunk a lot in the last decade. The upshot? Pharmacies are cutting staff, and cutting hours. In my state, there are towns with no pharmacies at all - they had to shut down as they were losing money.