> Yes, and the US system is the envy of the world Where in the world have you polled?? because this is categorically opposite to my experience discussing the US college system
I dunno, google any university ranking and you will find the top ten has many from the US?
I don’t know any such rankings which measure envy, I’m afraid. It’s all based on numbers of papers published, etc.
Do you think people in other countries envy the us college system based on rankings? If so I strongly recommend a trip abroad and striking up a few conversations with prospective or enrolled students. In my experience the topic of cost and non dischargeable student loans comes up often. Rankings very rarely.
> People want job training, and it got shoehorned into extra departments at liberal arts universities intended as aristocrat finishing schools I really wish the computer science degrees and even online courses spent like 30 mins on the history of computer science. The entire existence of this field has been dependent on those non job-training liberal arts degrees.
How has the existence of the computing industry depended on baristas with Women's Studies degrees? Because the history I know has it being 99% created by men with engineering skills doing paid work for large corporations.
Capitalists have sucked all available liquid assets from the economy and are shocked-- shocked to learn what happens when people don't have enough money to buy non-essentials.
Look forward to an article like this about every economic sector every few months
I partied my way through an easy major with nothing to do with my job. The people who didn't have no "superpowers" that I don't. The degree is a bunch of status signalling bullshit.
It sounds like you’ve rationalized your lazy work in college by convincing yourself it wouldn’t have made any difference if you had worked harder.
I don't need to rationalize what is already rational. My degree isn't even related to my job, so why would working harder at it have paid off?
I've interviewed Harvard CS grads for SWE roles at big tech who couldn't write a working program for fizzbuzz, for defanging an IP address, or for reversing words in a sentence, in a language of their choice, with leetcode's provided instructions, in half an hour, with unlimited attempts, gentle coaching from me, and the ability to use the internet to search for anything that isn't a direct solution (e.g. syntax). Ye…
>Harvard is happy to churn out a nonzero number of students wholly unprepared for meeting extremely basic expectations for the prototypical job of their chosen degree From one of my professors who did their graduate work at an Ivy, apparently there are a lot of rich kids who can't be failed because their parents donate so much money to the school. But I don't think Harvard has ever had the best undergraduate reputati…
From the people I know that studied at places like Harvard and Yale (which since I'm Canadian isn't a huge sample size), I've been told that there are essentially two different streams of undergrads there - those on legacy admissions and those who qualified otherwise (either via brains, affirmative action, or other means). I was left with the impression that the legacy admissions are mostly people who've coasted through life. The rest are a full spectrum of people.
Most of Harvard's endowment is via alumni, so it doesn't surprise me in the least they continue with it.
The downward "is it worth it" trend over the last 12 years is partly due to the continued upward climb of college tuition. Some schools are now at $100,000/yr for tuition, room, and board. In order for this to be "worth the cost" they would have to have a strongly positive expected value in terms of future earnings. And a positive EV isn't sufficient. It would also need to have a very low chance of negative EV. Other…
> Of course, only the wealthy pay full price for college, but when you ask people if college is worth the cost, they may be anchored to those prices even if their own kids would end up paying less. They’re paying less, but they can also only afford to pay less. I went to college with many people who were paying heavily reduced tuition rates and it was still a significant financial burden for them. So even if the expe…
If rich families had to take on the same financial burden as middle class and poor families, they would be paying millions in tuition.
Which, honestly, isn't that bad of an idea. Means-testing for everyone.
are you saying that your kids should not go to college? okay, now do you see why your statistic is meaningless, even if it is true? who answers “yes” to the first question? (hardly anyone).
A minor nit. "Should not" is on a path from "don't have to" and "can chose not to" When the fintech boom in the 80s and 90s kicked off, quants aside, many had zero tertiary education. The benefit of a university then became access to social circles, and a bit of spreadsheets. I have friends who worked in this sector, and the associated industries wiring it up and nobody cared about your degree if you weren't dining w…
It's about who you know not what you know is sadly true.
Let's not pretend that 4 years in an average US/European university creates a renaissance Uber man.
Exactly. In a man who wants to construct a septic for a house pays a man with backhoe who understands the nuances to make it happen. Concrete and diesel are bought, etc, etc, etc. Let's say $5k USD added to GDP. In US same thing happens. But the man is compelled by threat of law to pay for engineering studies, permits, as are the man with the backhoe and the man making the concrete, etc, etc. $10k is added to GDP. Ha…
I haven't been in a car accident for 15 years, not even fender benders, that doesn't mean I shouldn't take insurance. As someone from a random developing nation car accidents deliver crippling debt and destroy lives there frequently because insurance is not mandatory. The developing nation blindly ignore the externalities of not having insurance (instead of spreading the cost throughout society, only a few people bea…
Compare against the typical OCED nation, US spending ~18% gdp on health, about ~8% higher than OECD average, i.e. 2T+ rent extraction per year for net lifespan that is statistically worse than OECD average. 6 months of US excess health spending buys you entire HSR system in China that's frequently being panned as overbuilt and wasteful. Meanwhile look at recently built Brightline Florida, with ~120 deaths per billion passenger km, normalize that to EU, JP, PRC HSR billion passenger km, you'd get 15k, 50k, 310k fatalities per year. Imagine PRC losing Cincinnati every year due to rail deaths. Now Brightline extra dumpfire execution but just to highlight at some point there's too much red tape, and red tape doesn't always buy you value. Sometimes the system is so broken and you end up the worst of both world quadrants: high cost rent extraction & less than first world outcomes because the accumulation of redtape itself is leading to substandard outcomes. AKA premium medicore. Extra worse in some sectors when it's not simply opportunity cost inefficiencies, i.e. you lose on something else. A sclerosic money flow recycling maximizer can also makes the thing it's pumping money into worse than expected.
Not sure why the down votes. Severing health insurance from employers would be a huge win. It's just such a massive task that the efforts to address it like Obamacare aren't enough even remotely.
As a Canadian, for all the faults of our healthcare system, the fact that I don't have to stick with a job to maintain healthcare for myself or my family is a massive amount of freedom I take for granted.
You don’t have to stick with your job in the US either, you just have to earn enough money to buy it yourself from healthcare.gov. But that goes for everything, from food to shelter to utilities, etc.
Probably half the jobs in the US don’t pay enough for the employee regularly see a doctor. It might protect them for the $500k emergency heart bypass, but they are not going to be able to afford the $10k out of pocket costs or the ongoing healthcare expenses after they lose their job.
That's what taxes are for. Subsidizing public good. Affordable access to good education is a good outcome from the heavy taxation I pay.
For sure. The main benefit is that it allows smart, hardworking but poor students to get a degree and utilize their brainpower productively for the benefit of all. That's great. Just don't say it's "free" - those who get the education pay back all they got via taxes (which in it's end effect are like paying down a student loan).
People without a degree: Work and pay high taxes for years while their peers are studying, and then continue to pay high taxes to pay for the high salaries of degree holders who used their degrees to get government "jobs".
People with a degree: Get free education and free stipends, then get paid by the tax payers for the rest of their lives in their cushy government "jobs".