Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost • Hacker News Board

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#661

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

collinmcnulty wrote: post #143

jswelker wrote: post #102

Higher ed is like employer based health insurance in that they are both weird path dependent historical accidents. People want cheap healthcare, and it got shoehorned into an odd employer fringe benefit system that really is not at all related healthcare in any intrinsic way. People want job training, and it got shoehorned into extra departments at liberal arts universities intended as aristocrat finishing schools. J…

This view seems to be common, but I think it misses what incredible alchemy comes from making people who come in for “job training” (like I did) spend 4 years in close proximity with research, academic freedom, liberal arts, and at least an attempt at some kind of intellectual idealism separate from economic incentive. It’s peanut butter and chocolate that has served democracy and its people well by having a middle c…

[deleted]

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#662

Post by pfdietz » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 5:17 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #565

pfdietz wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strategic motivation? If one assumes the US is going to be globally involved, yes, but that's begging the question. Economic motivation? Not so much now, with the US being a dominant oil producer, and with petroleum itself losing importance. Even then, it's questionable if this could justify the full cost of the US military. I think the original motivation was two fold: it was a combination of some sort of moral obli…

I don't see much evidence that's the US wants to defend the world from authoritarians. Some of their closest allies are authoritarian countries.

Expansionist authoritarians, which in the post war world was communists.

Why would the world need defending from non-expansionist authoritarians?

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#663

Post by snowwrestler » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 5:18 PM UTC

jswelker wrote: post #102

Higher ed is like employer based health insurance in that they are both weird path dependent historical accidents. People want cheap healthcare, and it got shoehorned into an odd employer fringe benefit system that really is not at all related healthcare in any intrinsic way. People want job training, and it got shoehorned into extra departments at liberal arts universities intended as aristocrat finishing schools. J…

People don’t want “cheap healthcare,” people want to be healthy.

And people don’t want “job training,” people want to be educated and have a fulfilling life.

Of course college looks too expensive if it is just “job training.” But that is not what college is.

College proved its immense value first, and then because of its obvious value, employers started looking for it. But you’ve let the cart get in front of the horse, by thinking that the value of a college education is simply that employers are looking for it.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#664

Post by rayiner » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 5:18 PM UTC

K0balt wrote: post #381

vasco wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your view the benefits of university are that rich people go there? Did I somehow completely misunderstand?

It’s unpopular to say, but a disproportionate amount of value is of course derived from people who are both educated and have immediate access to resources to fully exploit that education as well as the risk tolerance to innovate in the process, and the social status to build strong trust and social bonds with other similarly prepared people…so although it pains me to say it, yes? It is certainly plausible that the m…

> We recognise the ridiculousness of people owing $90,000 for a truck when they live in a dilapidated trailer on a rented lot. We understand that a man who lives hand to mouth but wears a half of kilogram of gold around his neck is probably not making the best life decisions. We ridicule the faux-intellectual with their ridiculously stilted props. But somehow, we are convinced to dress up our children like heirs to the crown and send them to finishing school for their jobs in retail. It’s a profound mis-investment. It’s also worth noting that it is way more expensive to provide an education to the intellectual proles than it is to educate brilliant and hungry minds. We are shovelling money (distilled human effort) into a furnace of misery in the service of vanity.

This is a fantastic analysis.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#665

Post by lapcat » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 5:18 PM UTC

ta20240528 wrote: post #626

baiwl wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand this thing you do in the US of forcing you to do completely unrelated courses. You want to study computers and they put you through liberal arts or gender studies bullshit that is basically worthless. Why?

What’s telling is they don’t make the liberal arts student take any hard science electives.

This is false.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#666

Post by boplicity » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

apparent wrote: post #288

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…

Some schools are $100k/year for room, board, and tuition, and yet those expensive schools are very much optional. It's a red herring to point them out.

There are still affordable schools. And staying in a dorm with expensive room and board remains optional at many institutions. Heck, some people still live with their parents.

The state school I went to is still just around $10k/year tuition, and I got a broad education that opened many doors for me. (I was in the humanities, but there are very good science programs there as well.)

Of course it's crazy to sink $400k into a degree for most people. And for many, many people, it is completely un-necessary! You can still get a relatively affordable 4 year degree.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#667

Post by thelastgallon » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 5:22 PM UTC

College is for partying. It is the right age to party, raging hormones and all that. Frats, sororities. It is the most fun/$. Escape out of parents control. Do what you want with whoever you want. Anybody looking for education is looking at the wrong place, most everything is available to self-learn.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#668

Post by hollerith » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 5:22 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #234

collinmcnulty wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think widening the aperture outside the USA shows how big societal progress has come out of universities of the type we now recognize, starting with 1800s Germany. Even within the USA, the technological and social progress that percolated on universities had big impacts beyond the people actually enrolled and were essential in providing the basis for the employment of many other Americans. Finally, it’s worth quali…

Germany is a great example of how you don’t need most of the population enrolled in universities. > The USA is still THE powerhouse economy of the world. The US was a powerhouse economy when it could build the world’s largest navy almost overnight. Since the 1980s, the U.S. economy has become highly financialized. It’s disputed how much American economic dominance is real versus on paper today.

The last great economic expansion or at least economic reconfiguration was internet services (which of course is mostly distinct from financial services) and the US ended up with a very dominant trade position in internet services.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#669

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 5:25 PM UTC

crossbody wrote: post #649

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call bullshit on this. There are lots of reasons why US academics earn so much more than their european counterparts, but the income level of US tech employees is not high on the list, if it is on the list at all. Also, Baumol's doesn't predict that wages in low productivity growth sectors will rise, it merely notes that the costs in such sectors do not fall, which means that whatever the sector produces (good, ser…

I asked Gemini 3 if your statement is true and got this, as expected: "That statement is false. In fact, the prediction that wages will rise in low-productivity sectors is the central mechanism of Baumol’s Cost Disease"

Somebody asked Gemini 3 yesterday about a piece of music I was looking for. It said:

> Based on the details you provided—specifically the overlap with the poem "AM" (from Be Bop or Be Dead) and "Set The Tone" (from Bernie Worrell's Blacktronic Science)—the track you are most likely looking for is: "Music" by DeadbEAT (featuring Umar Bin Hassan) Released in 1992/1993 on the album Wild Kingdom, this track was a cult hit in the acid jazz/trip-hop scene of the 90s and later appeared on compilations like the influential Red Hot + Cool (1994).

Very good, except that there is no album called "Wild Kingdom" by an artist named Deadbeat, and while Hassan does appear on "Red Hot + Cool" it is on a differently named track written by himself.

So forgive me if I call bullshit on Gemini 3 as well.

However, in this instance, it is a correct summary of the most visible popular summaries of Baumol's cost disease, so there's that.

I don't think it captures the essence of what Baumol (& Bowen) were writing about, but I accept that my presentation was misleading.

Re: Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost

#670

Post by secabeen » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 5:26 PM UTC

potato3732842 wrote: post #538

maxglute wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in terms of raw productivity In terms of dubious financialized metrics of productivity, i.e. debt + fx driven growth. Which is valid indicator, but also the same inflated indicator that suggests 2025 tertiary that cost 200% 1980 tertiary (income/inflation adjusted) is somehow more productive and not parasitic. The entire problem is spreadsheet doing gangbusters is dependenant on increasingly inequitable CoL extract…

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…

> 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.

The piece you're missing is that the man has to pick between 10 indistinguishable men with backhoes, of which some unknown percentage are charlatans who will dig a hole, put some pipes in it, then disappear with the money. The original man will now have a puddle of human waste next to his house, no septic system, and be $20k poorer ($10k+ in cleanup, then $10k to someone to build an actual system).

Regulation ensures that the charlatans can't operate and that everyone who pays $10k for a septic system actually gets one that works for decades. This also protects the original man's neighbors who also suffer when his property develops a cesspool. Regulation also protects against well-meaning but incompetent operators, who are also common when regulation is weak or non-existent.