False advertising for everything is pretty much the norm. I get fatigued just navigating through all of the rackets out there.
I do not know how people who skip the fine print manage to survive these days.
False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm
71–80 of 259 posts
Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm
#72The real problem with higher education is really how we finance it. Give the lenders the ability to discriminate based on major and borrowers the ability to default easier and all of a sudden you’ve got some banks seriously motivated to ensure students get economic return on their investments. Besides, it just shouldn’t take a decade or more for someone to discharge a bad debt. Student debt seems uniquely oppressive…
Or instead, like most other advanced societies, we could stop trying to quantify higher education in purely personal economic return on investment grounds and consider an educated populace a public good.
If education rather than credentialing was the overwhelming driver, a priority should be providing education to people without credentialing built-in, in a form factor that's a lot more flexible than a classic four-year degree. Ideally, it should be easy for people to educate themselves on their own pace, even as they are doing other things at the same time (like working). I somehow expect a system focused just on education like this would not have the ballooning costs we see now.
The incessant obsession with multi-year degree-granting programs specifically is a lot more about the degree than the education.
Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm
#73The real problem with higher education is really how we finance it. Give the lenders the ability to discriminate based on major and borrowers the ability to default easier and all of a sudden you’ve got some banks seriously motivated to ensure students get economic return on their investments. Besides, it just shouldn’t take a decade or more for someone to discharge a bad debt. Student debt seems uniquely oppressive…
Or instead, like most other advanced societies, we could stop trying to quantify higher education in purely personal economic return on investment grounds and consider an educated populace a public good.
I've been in these 'advanced' societies, and often they have a lower rate of bachelors degrees (with lower requirements) than the US. They track individuals early on to non-college career paths.
Also, the quality of the education is not the same.
Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm
#74This is at least congruent with my own experience on the provider side of the college equation; perhaps most interesting to me is the extent to which the grad school side is amiss: https://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-should-know-befo... . It does seem like the current system cannot go on forever.
Wait. 10 years is seriously the MEDIAN time to graduate an english lit. PhD?
That's awfully long.
Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm
#75The real problem with higher education is really how we finance it. Give the lenders the ability to discriminate based on major and borrowers the ability to default easier and all of a sudden you’ve got some banks seriously motivated to ensure students get economic return on their investments. Besides, it just shouldn’t take a decade or more for someone to discharge a bad debt. Student debt seems uniquely oppressive…
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Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm
#76The real problem with higher education is really how we finance it. Give the lenders the ability to discriminate based on major and borrowers the ability to default easier and all of a sudden you’ve got some banks seriously motivated to ensure students get economic return on their investments. Besides, it just shouldn’t take a decade or more for someone to discharge a bad debt. Student debt seems uniquely oppressive…
If you can default on education loans what are they going to take as collateral? Your knowledge? What would stop every new graduate defaulting? Do you think your idea might lead to greatly increased costs for everyone due to the risk?
Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also think more jobs should be trades. Data analyst (not machine learning, but running SQL queries, etc), marketing, bookkeeping, sales, etc, dont need 4 year degrees. 1 year bootcamp could get people reliable jobs.
What bothers me-- assuming there's still a preference for a full degree over a bootcamp certificate-- is that even clearly career focused degree paths are still burdened down with an "academia" mindset that feels dated and quaint. The old "college is about being well rounded/learning how to learn" narratives made sense 50-100 years ago, when people were going to university as more a "cultural elite" thing. The rich 2…
> I'm surprised you aren't seeing legitimate universities responding to the market and producing a 2-3 year BSc program, stripped of almost all general-studies courses.
Funnily enough this is how it works in the UK. All BSc/BA degree are 3 years long without any GenEd requirements.
Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't agree 100% with the OP, but there are some students that are indeed just net negatives on the class and in general. My state used to pay 100% of your state college tuition if you maintained a 3.0 GPA. A lot of students in my freshman dorm stayed until the 30 hour re-evaluation period and then disappeared forever. They partied, never went to class, never studied, and withdrew from most of their classes. They'd…
> As a teacher, how do you handle these students? Many people don't believe in working hard today for having a better life tomorrow. They think they might as well get stuck by lightening and die. Should we blame them for this kind of thinking? This why the idea of a weflare state seems to saddle the ones who work with more work at the expense of those who are not willing to do anything. Today, the ones who get most b…
Those who benefit most from the welfare state are probably the people who hit a rough patch in life and instead of ending up homeless and desperate get a chance to recover back to contributing meaningfully to society.
Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
That implies that college is only important for skill transfer towards an occupation. Historically, part of college was to help an individual grow personally and intellectually, to learn not just what to think, but how to think clearly, in order to better engage with civil society as an active participant. It's always a little off-putting when I see people suggest that higher education is just for a job, and discount…
The viewpoint that college is a place for vocational education seems to be a very common viewpoint here on HN, a similar viewpoint seems to be that it's normal and easy to pack your life up and relocate so XYZ city because cost of living is low and wages are high, or some other reason. I guess being a tech-centred community this is to be expected. I don't know about others, but for me university was an important expe…
I personally found that 13 (5-18) whole years of education was more than enough time to determine, at least academically, what I wanted to do in life. If you want to 'find yourself' take a gap year and do some self-study or self-reflection, without paying the inflated fees. Heck you can do a degree and still attend lectures in a different course even if you are not enrolled, if you seek to broaden your horizons.
Did you need the university framework to grow as a person, or maybe it was the independence, that allowed that growth?
Re: False Advertising for College Is Pretty Much the Norm
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
...what!? A semester was 30k USD? My entire two degrees was maybe 25k CAD. Why would anyone ever in the right mind even try to go to school if it costs that much? Surely you meant 3k. You can't possibly get a credit limit for 30... Good God I hope not... Can you?
30k USD per semester is on the high side. There are plenty of state schools that have in-state tuition that ends up being about 30k USD for all 4 years. Not everyone is lucky enough to live in a state with a good one, however.
30k-60 a year is not uncommon