Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

711–720 of 730 posts

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#711

Post by dahart »

vxNsr wrote: post #699
dahart wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not fair to say. Read some of the literature. The Fed study isn’t even professors.

The first name on the study was a Wash U professor for over 25 years. The 2nd name has so far spent a significant amount of her life in academia. Only the 3rd author appears to have spent most of his career in public service.

Nonetheless now they all work for the Fed, so these particular ex-professors lacked the supposed conflict of interest you imagined at the time of publication. Not that I think it matters at all. There are papers on the causality of education from career academics claiming anywhere from little to none, and I haven’t seen any papers claiming it’s very very high, so the broad outcome is exactly the opposite of what would happen in your imagined scenario if it were true and researchers were being defensive and biased about the value of education.

Your comment above is FUD, not based on knowledge of the research or the researchers, but pure speculation, which is why it’s not fair to say.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#713

Post by thomastjeffery »

latency-guy2 wrote: post #708
thomastjeffery wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one stops you from going to church, you are. And, as an atheist, why in the hell would I? If I attend a church, I will be expected to participate . At the very least, whatever narrative that church focuses on will be the topic of a significant portion of conversation. That is entirely contradictory to the "third place" I am talking about. Your insinuation that I am the problem for choosing not to embrace a churc…

I included at least 10 different items that you could have chosen as hobbies for a reason. Look, you're in the position you are because you don't like people. Just stop pretending like you actually want something to do socially. You don't. That's why you're here whinging about a conspiracy of a lost "third place". You left every group in the first place on your own. You are antisocial, and you don't want to live life…

You are making this whole thing incredibly personal. I'm not even talking about myself! I'm taking about interpersonal societal behaviors.

You are making all kinds of accusations about my own personal behavior. That's not what I'm talking about, either! Just because I don't go to church doesn't mean I'm "antisocial". I have friends, I interact in groups, and I'm literally writing an HN comment right now. My entire point is that none of that is the "third place".

> groups have always self sorted.

That is precisely when they move from the "third place" to the "second place": when they become explicit "groups".

> This isn't a discussion, once again. This is you inventing a problem.

One again, this is you refusing to just have a conversation. You are so intent on criticizing me, so that you can win some vain competition, that you have completely missed what I am talking about in the first place. If you can't find it in your worldview, it must not exist, or it must be a mistake. Why must there be judgement? Why must there be a winner? Not every idea fits into a narrative of competition.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#714

Post by kelseyfrog »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #580
cat_plus_plus wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Culture is a shared fiction of unity and greatness that enables great civilizations to overcome otherwise inevitable tribal warfare. So Native Americans and Pilgrims sat down together for a Thanksgiving feast with Turkey and mashed potatoes. Should we teach this to children despite there being more to the story? Well it depends, do we want descendants of Pilgrims and Native Americans to sit down for a Thanksgiving fe…

> Where left gets it wrong is treating children like adults when it comes to gore and sexuality and adults like children when it comes to free speech. And denying the primacy of objective reality (as best we know it, subject to intellectual inquiry and criticism) over subjective experience (which they say is inviolate and unquestionable).

The issue in a nutshell is that folks use the language of objective reality, science, and nature, as a political cuddle and then deny doing it. When that can stop we can actually sit down and have an adult conversation.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#715

Post by phendrenad2 »

knightofmars wrote: post #669
phendrenad2 wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really a massive data point? It seems entirely overblown by people trying to score political points.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/podcasts/ezra-klein-podca...

Okay, I listened to it. The disparity between male/female in college is indeed overblown by people trying to score political points.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#716

Post by TimTheTinker »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #714
TimTheTinker wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where left gets it wrong is treating children like adults when it comes to gore and sexuality and adults like children when it comes to free speech. And denying the primacy of objective reality (as best we know it, subject to intellectual inquiry and criticism) over subjective experience (which they say is inviolate and unquestionable).

The issue in a nutshell is that folks use the language of objective reality, science, and nature, as a political cuddle and then deny doing it. When that can stop we can actually sit down and have an adult conversation.

> folks use the language of objective reality, science, and nature, as a political cuddle

Did you mean "political cudgel"?

I agree people in power always have a collection of "facts" they pull out to "prove" things. Public arbiters of conversation (op-ed columnists, bloggers, etc.) ought to call those into question as a matter of routine.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#717

Post by kelseyfrog »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #716
kelseyfrog wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue in a nutshell is that folks use the language of objective reality, science, and nature, as a political cuddle and then deny doing it. When that can stop we can actually sit down and have an adult conversation.

> folks use the language of objective reality, science, and nature, as a political cuddle Did you mean "political cudgel"? I agree people in power always have a collection of "facts" they pull out to "prove" things. Public arbiters of conversation (op-ed columnists, bloggers, etc.) ought to call those into question as a matter of routine.

Haha, what a typo! That's funny, yes.

We're in the midst of epistemological de/re-territorialization between objective and subjective and frankly, when I hear or read people frame their opinions as fact/truth/reality/nature/science I instantly shutoff and encourage others to do the same. Specifically, I'm an anti-reificationist and if I catch a wiff of people reifying their symbolic universe, they instantly lose my respect.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#718

Post by Melatonic »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #26

College seems to have ~3 uses from students' perspectives: 1. A trade school for technical professionals who actually need specialist education (scientists, engineers, lawyers, doctors, etc.) 2. A finishing school for the elite 3. A blood sports arena for the brilliant to complete for professorships (almost all of whom will lose and be saddled with 6 figures of debt and 7 figures of opportunity cost) A lot of people…

I did one of those supposedly useless liberal arts programs and now work in a totally different field. But all the connections I made along the way are still super useful and I also gained a ton of other knowledge and skills along the way.

Would it be worth going into massive debt for? Probably not.

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#719

Post by everforward »

spacephysics wrote: post #359
rthomas6 wrote: post #264

Rant: I feel like most people haven't really thought about why colleges are so expensive now. It is because of the federally guaranteed student loans. It means there's pretty much no downside to banks loaning an arbitrarily large amount, because if the student doesn't pay it back, the government will. And since most 18 year old students have pretty much zero price sensitivity, and they now have unlimited funds, colle…

Fully agree. And to continue this, I think one step that would be accepted across the aisle (in lieu of total debt forgiveness) is to either severely cut or get rid of interest rates on school loans. The compound interest working against students is a major part of the predation in these loans. But banks need to make money? Have a one-time interest tacked onto the total loan amount that doesn’t change over time. This…

Getting rid of interest on loans dramatically changes incentives.

On loans with interest, the debtor is incentivized to pay as much as they can as quickly as they can to bring the principal (and resulting interest) down.

On loans without interest, the debtor is incentivized to pay as little as possible and let inflation bring down the value of the principal.

> But banks need to make money? Have a one-time interest tacked onto the total loan amount that doesn’t change over time.

Again, as a student, wouldn't it make more sense for me to just not pay for like a decade and wait for inflation to halve the real value of the loan?

Re: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships

#720

Post by khalilravanna »

ethbr0 wrote: post #543
khalilravanna wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love this thought. I’d also throw in that doing well in college can be as simple as trying tons of new experiences with the absurd low risk entailed with being a kid with almost total freedom and almost 0 real responsibility. Make friends, make memories, but most of all: make lots of mistakes!

Making mistakes is one of the most important parts of college, but sadly another one that's being torn down by over-zealous administration and campus policing. My father went to a small, rural school whose local police force generally took the approach that as long as it didn't hurt anyone "At worst, a night in jail and no record of the arrest." Even for what would be considered distribution of hard drugs now. When I…

It’s a bummer cause it’s so short sighted in how it cripples creativity and open minded thinking. Fear has never been a motivator for almost anything good.

Dumb example I’ll share for a laugh is when I went to university (graduated 2013) they would put you on the sex offender registry for peeing outside and even for going in the wrong gendered restroom. One time I got obliterated and desperately needed to puke. But I was in a dorm where every other floor had your gender’s bathroom. Given my luck I was on the wrong floor. So my choice was potentially end up a sex offender for puking in a girl’s restroom stall or puke in the stairwell thus stinking it up for weeks. Guess which choice fear motivated me to make. Sorry about the stairwell, guys.

Post reply on HN