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

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

#71

Post by OGEnthusiast »

linguae wrote: post #68
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that printing money creates more money, but doesn't create any more stuff. College degrees (theoretically) create more educated people. If you just "hand out" degrees, that doesn't happen, but if you actually teach people, then it does.

I agree with you. The problem is that many young Americans for the past 30+ years has been told that a bachelor’s degree is the prerequisite for a job that pays well enough to afford a middle class lifestyle, which I’ll define as being able to afford owning a home in a safe neighborhood and being able to provide for a household without living paycheck-to-paycheck. What happens when a large number of college graduates…

> The problem is that many young Americans for the past 30+ years has been told that a bachelor’s degree is the prerequisite for a job that pays well enough to afford a middle class lifestyle, which I’ll define as being able to afford owning a home in a safe neighborhood and being able to provide for a household without living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Told by who?

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

#72

Post by crossbody »

surgical_fire wrote: post #67
crossbody wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Europe find a cheat code that gets free $$$ for education? Nothing is free - once you graduate you are hit with 50% tax that gets back all you "free" tuition costs many, many times over. Not saying education should not be subsidized via taxes (I think it's good overall), but it's not free at all - the price is just hidden and spread out over many years (similar to student loans but less visible).

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).

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

#73

Post by tolerance »

OGEnthusiast wrote: post #71
linguae wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. The problem is that many young Americans for the past 30+ years has been told that a bachelor’s degree is the prerequisite for a job that pays well enough to afford a middle class lifestyle, which I’ll define as being able to afford owning a home in a safe neighborhood and being able to provide for a household without living paycheck-to-paycheck. What happens when a large number of college graduates…

> The problem is that many young Americans for the past 30+ years has been told that a bachelor’s degree is the prerequisite for a job that pays well enough to afford a middle class lifestyle, which I’ll define as being able to afford owning a home in a safe neighborhood and being able to provide for a household without living paycheck-to-paycheck. Told by who?

Well for starters, perhaps the older homeowners who live in safe neighborhoods and provide for [young Americans] without living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Their parents.

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

#74

Post by AngryData »

roenxi wrote: post #30
Cheer2171 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why would you go to grade school and high school at institutions that produce graduates like that? Do you not know how U.S. K-12 public schools are funded by local property taxes, which means the quality of a child's education is a direct causal relationship of the wealth of their neighborhood? Why don't these children just grow up in richer neighborhoods?

The quality of an education isn't proportional to the amount of money spent; learning is remarkably cheap if a school wants to focus on outcomes. There's a bit of give in where the teacher sits on the bumpkin-genius scale (although even then, the range of salaries isn't that wide in the big picture). Although forcing the funding to go through a collective rather than letting people choose a school and pay on in indiv…

The top end may not be limited by money, but the bottom of education is, especially when it comes to public k-12 schools.

I doubt most people would even believe the differences until they saw them, I wouldn't of believed public school could vary that much until I personally saw it. Going from some middling school with a half dozen rich properties around, versus a truly poor rural school, showed me how true it is. The better middle school was teaching topics that the poor rural school didn't even broach until senior year. Our civics book from the late 2000s talked about the civil rights movement as an ongoing and building issue too keep an eye on, and half the school books had kid's grandparents name signed in them. Our calculus class, which was downgraded to pre-calc after a few years because so many kids failed college calc entrance exams, had a teacher bragging about how it only took her 3 tries to pass calc 102 in order to qualify for that teaching position. You certainly didn't get very many good teachers when they pay was that far below the national median wage, and it was sad to watch them struggle to afford things as simple as whiteboard markers, or copy paper in order to print student assignments on, because yes the school couldn't afford and didn't supply copy paper for teachers to print assignments on other than a literal single ream of paper to last the entire year.

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

#75

Post by OGEnthusiast »

tolerance wrote: post #73
OGEnthusiast wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that many young Americans for the past 30+ years has been told that a bachelor’s degree is the prerequisite for a job that pays well enough to afford a middle class lifestyle, which I’ll define as being able to afford owning a home in a safe neighborhood and being able to provide for a household without living paycheck-to-paycheck. Told by who?

Well for starters, perhaps the older homeowners who live in safe neighborhoods and provide for [young Americans] without living paycheck-to-paycheck. Their parents.

Yeah that's unfortunate then, America has changed so much in the past 10-15 years that advice that was worth following for the previous generation is just totally useless for the current circumstances. I don't think the parents had bad intentions though, they were just overly-optimistic in assuming the prosperity they enjoyed would continue indefinitely.

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

#76

Post by surgical_fire »

crossbody wrote: post #72
surgical_fire wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Absolutely. I never would say it is "free". But in many ways it is a matter of what one values.

I had opportunities to move to the US and likely make 2x-3x what I make here and pay less taxes. I chose moving to Europe instead. It is the sort of society I prefer to live in.

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

#77

Post by fuckinpuppers »

Doesn’t help when leaders are trashing it and classifying things as not “professional” to further put up more barriers to entry. Along with the constant attacks about them being indoctrination centers, pulling funding for being too liberal, or not pro-Israel enough, or whatever else this administration has officially been able to strongarm many institutions about.

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

#78

Post by SanjayMehta »

Beijinger wrote: post #60
11101010001100 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may come across as bragging to some. You can decide if that is fair.

Well, if someone feels extremely inferior, true. Many mothers claim their child is gifted. In this case, I believe it. It is not my son, unfortunately. I am just in a roommate situation. I give him math challenges sometimes. Today I started introducing equations with 2 unknowns.

My father taught me simple algebra when I was around 8 using puzzles.

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

#79

Post by satvikpendem »

crossbody wrote: post #51
Aeolun wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can provide the piece of paper at a fraction of the cost too. Nearly all of Europe does, I believe.

Did Europe find a cheat code that gets free $$$ for education? Nothing is free - once you graduate you are hit with 50% tax that gets back all you "free" tuition costs many, many times over. Not saying education should not be subsidized via taxes (I think it's good overall), but it's not free at all - the price is just hidden and spread out over many years (similar to student loans but less visible).

Europe has a much lower expenditure per student compared to the US.

https://www.aei.org/articles/the-crazy-amount-america-spends...

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

#80

Post by tolerance »

OGEnthusiast wrote: post #75
tolerance wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for starters, perhaps the older homeowners who live in safe neighborhoods and provide for [young Americans] without living paycheck-to-paycheck. Their parents.

Yeah that's unfortunate then, America has changed so much in the past 10-15 years that advice that was worth following for the previous generation is just totally useless for the current circumstances. I don't think the parents had bad intentions though, they were just overly-optimistic in assuming the prosperity they enjoyed would continue indefinitely.

> they were just overly-optimistic in assuming the prosperity they enjoyed would continue indefinitely.

What worries me is how they came to believe this in spite of the last 10-15 years of change in the country…while possibly raising around 3 generations of high school graduates throughout.

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