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The looming college-enrollment death spiral

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Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#61

Post by rootusrootus »

zdragnar wrote: post #35
rootusrootus wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all of the STEM majors are near or over the 50% mark as well. I am not seeing that? Computer Science, to use an easy example, is 19.1% underemployed. Bad, but not 50%. Even restricted to 'recent graduates' it does not look that grim? If I'm misreading the data, please correct me. I have kids approaching the age where they will be considering post-secondary choices so I am trying to keep an eye on things.

Edit: apologies, I just noticed my original comment said "all" instead of "many". That definitely isn't case as you noted. Original: Animal and plant sciences: 53% Biochem: 42 Biology: 51 Chemistry: 42 Engineering technologies: 44 Medical technician: 47 Miscellaneous Biological Science: 47 Miscellaneous Technologies: 49 Those were the ones that caught my eye. I'm assuming the "miscellaneous" categories are for higher…

To my own discredit, I do often forget the S in STEM ;-). Thank you for improving the completeness of my knowledge with data.

I've long been under the impression (might be quite wrong, of course) that a number of science fields suffer from a problem where bachelor's degrees have very little practical value because the career expectation in the field is a graduate degree.

This is probably bias on my part since my most direct exposure to the phenomenon is a couple of my extended family members who got degrees in biology but then exited higher education. They can't get jobs in biology, they are stuck working jobs that would have been just as attainable right out of high school.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#62

Post by rootusrootus »

ryandrake wrote: post #53
mcmcmc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd interpret that as 11% of CS grads are finding appropriate jobs (not underemployment) within a set amount of time after graduation. That data from the fed includes all people aged 22-27 with a bachelor's degree. Where that number is coming from, or what that time frame would be I'm not sure. But I do think it would be more interesting to see the amount of time recent grads spent unemployed or underemployed vs a pr…

That's the way I interpreted it, too. A CS grad working at Home Depot stocking shelves or an accounting grad working at Starbucks would not count toward unemployment figures, but it's probably not what anyone would consider a properly-employed college graduate. Sample size of <10, but a lot of my friends are at the age where their kids are graduating from undergrad recently, and pretty much zero of them are working i…

> probably not what anyone would consider a properly-employed college graduate

Agreed, but wouldn't that be captured as 'under employment'? The stats are there for that, too, seems to be close to 20%.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#63

Post by irishcoffee »

seniorThrowaway wrote: post #18

I think college's value proposition and entire model has been eroded. Major school's CS grads are finding jobs upon graduation at an 11% rate (I don't have the primary source on this, but it is published by a site I read that never fudges these kinds of things, going back many years). AI probably has a lot to do with that, but it's exposing something more fundamental. CS wasn't supposed to be a programming boot camp…

I said this a week ago, and it swung in votes like crazy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47655525

“ I don’t know about anyone else here, but college was not educating because I was at college. I did all of the reading and studying on my own. The classes weren’t very interesting, most of my TAs didn’t speak the native language well at all, nor did half the professors. I enjoyed my time, I made a lot of lifelong friends, and figured out how to live on my own. My buddies that enrolled in boot camp instead of college learned all those same skills, for free. Education won’t be ruined or blemished my LLMs, the whole thing was a joke to begin with. The bit that ruined college was unlimited student loans… and all of our best and brightest folks running the colleges raping students for money. It’s pathetic, evil, and somehow espoused.

I remember my calc teachers, married, last name gulick, university of maryland. The calc book was sold as the same book for calc 1/2/3. The couple, gulick were the authors. Every semester they released a new edition, the only thing that changed was the problem set numbers. So, if you took calc 1/2/3, you spent $200/semester for the same fucking book. Magical times.”

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#64

Post by coredog64 »

layman51 wrote: post #55
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #27

If you are choosing to still attend college, my advice would be to get an A.B.E.T-accredited degree, to fall back upon (I have a non-BE science degree from a prestigious US institution == essentially worthless). Being an engineer vs. being an engineer tech is a substantially life-quality difference. But only if you choose to attend (I would not re-attend).

Is this related to the exam that some college graduates could take to become professional engineers?

Necessary but not sufficient: My aerospace engineering degree is from an ABET-certified school. However, I skipped the class (and test) that puts you onto the track of being able to call yourself a professional engineer.

I would also suggest looking at the ABET certification interval for different campuses. It was a point of pride on our campus that we had a longer interval compared to the more established campus. We got the longer interval because ABET trusted our program to not need constant supervision.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#66

Post by ryandrake »

rootusrootus wrote: post #62
ryandrake wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the way I interpreted it, too. A CS grad working at Home Depot stocking shelves or an accounting grad working at Starbucks would not count toward unemployment figures, but it's probably not what anyone would consider a properly-employed college graduate. Sample size of <10, but a lot of my friends are at the age where their kids are graduating from undergrad recently, and pretty much zero of them are working i…

> probably not what anyone would consider a properly-employed college graduate Agreed, but wouldn't that be captured as 'under employment'? The stats are there for that, too, seems to be close to 20%.

Yea, I'd call that underemployed. Does that mean 80% of recent college grads are employed in their area of study? I would be shocked if that were true.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#67

Post by chromacity »

colechristensen wrote: post #36

University is too expensive, bloating administrative budgets and "prestige" architecture combined with professional sports teams have led everyone astray from the two goals: advancing the forefront of human knowledge and preparing young people with the education to be free in their world. Instead we're going to very expensive camp where most of the people flaunt laws for fun (there's no reason alcohol should be illeg…

> It's not at all surprising people are leaving, university degrees are becoming minimum quarter million dollar participation trophies.

The vast majority of college degrees are nowhere near that. Average in-state tuition in the US is something like $9,000.

Now, some people want a trophy from Stanford, but that's a separate topic.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#68

Post by Gagarin1917 »

Aurornis wrote: post #34
seniorThrowaway wrote: post #18

I think college's value proposition and entire model has been eroded. Major school's CS grads are finding jobs upon graduation at an 11% rate (I don't have the primary source on this, but it is published by a site I read that never fudges these kinds of things, going back many years). AI probably has a lot to do with that, but it's exposing something more fundamental. CS wasn't supposed to be a programming boot camp…

> Major school's CS grads are finding jobs upon graduation at an 11% rate (I don't have the primary source on this, but it is published by a site I read that never fudges these kinds of things, going back many years). I think you may have misread something. 11% is closer to the unemployment or underemployment rate for recent grads, not the employment rate. There may have been a short window during the intense layoffs…

Jee I wish OP would have linked the source instead of just… alluding to it and promising that it’s reliable.

“… a site I read…” Lol

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#69

Post by dmitrygr »

cschmidt wrote: post #24
dmitrygr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with global students who pay full freight Some do, some pay nothing: https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2023/05/31/minnesota...

Those are not global students. Those are people who are already living in the state. Foreign students typically pay the most tuition possible with no financial aid, subsidizing everyone else.

so all those foreign students could become "not foreign" by merely coming here for a tourist visit and overstaying? Quite the idea. I will suggest to a few college-age friends to claim to be illegal. Why pay more when you can pay less? Plus, there is no way to verify a LACK of citizenship or of SSN.

Re: The looming college-enrollment death spiral

#70

Post by lamasery »

kakacik wrote: post #25
convolvatron wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there was almost certainly a demand issue with graduates of technical schools. Also increased privatization leading to some really awful scammy institutions. I personally went to college and washed out, and would have been much better served by getting schooled in the trades, but I think this is really a pretty bad multi-dimensional corner we've backed ourselves into (primary, secondary, and post-graduate schooling,…

Discussions and concerns we simply dont have in Europe. There are costs, but nothing significant from public schools themselves, rather just accommodation, food, travel etc. Some folks still go to private ones, but those are mostly not for extra prestige but rather different focus, or those who are not that great students themselves. Unpopular here, but I judge degree of development / maturity of societies on 2 major…

> Unpopular here, but I judge degree of development / maturity of societies on 2 major factors : 1) how it can take care of the vulnerable members in need - mostly heathcare, with som basic social support to help you bridge between jobs, plus obviously (mostly self-earned but managed by state) retirement; and 2) how well it invests into its future via education on all levels. Education aint luxury but empowering basic need. The question then is, how much does given country wants to empower potentially all its citizens.

The test of Rawls' "Veil of Ignorance" is a pretty good way of cutting through the details and getting to what matters: if you had to be reborn as someone in any country (or, had to choose between two, if we wanted to e.g. rank them), and you couldn't control anything about the circumstances (race, social status, money, intelligence level, disabled or not, et c.) but were leaving it up to a die roll based on the demographics of the place—which would you choose? The ones you're more-inclined to choose are the better ones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position

And yeah, stuff like ensuring the worst-likely-case for a resident isn't that bad, and that you get a significant helping hand to improve your lot, helps a ton to make a country more appealing, in this sort of thought experiment. Far, far more than e.g. making sure the few very-best-off really run away with the prize (which improves the appeal of such a place basically not at all).

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