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

#711

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 6:35 PM UTC

crossbody wrote: post #688

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hi…

LLM hallucinations are still a thing for ultra niche topics. Not a problem for topics that have sizeable wiki pages, like Baumol Effect. Here is the first paragraph from wiki: "...tendency for wages in jobs that have experienced little or no increase in labor productivity to rise in response to rising wages in other jobs that did experience high productivity growth"

The problem with this summary is that it's not actually what Baumol & Bowen were really focused on in their original paper.

It is what most people nowadays connect with "Baumol's cost disease", but in their paper, the way in which rising productivity sectors cause wage increases in stable productivity sectors was more of a detail than the central part of their thesis. The core part was the observation that certain kinds of economic activity cannot reduce costs through productivity gains, while others can; the wage connection between them was, well, not an afterthought, but more of a consequence of the very specific sort of economic system we live in. One could imagine a society with different ways of distributing resources to labor that didn't really have this feature, and yet the same sectors of this imaginary society's would still suffer from "Baumol's cost disease".

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

#712

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 6:37 PM UTC

wavemode wrote: post #694

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not sustainable to sell a product that most people only buy because they were trying to buy something else (or because they're forced to for societal reasons). Like a car in the United States, outside of perhaps five metro areas?

That's not for societal reasons, that's for practical reasons. People want to be able to get around. By contrast, many people don't want to be forced to take classes unrelated to their desired area of study.

It is for societal reasons, in that some societies devote significant resources to ensure that people can "get around" without private vehicles, and others do not. It is also for societal reasons in that the distribution of, for example, grocery stores, dictates that people doing desired/necessary work in rural areas generally need to travel significant distances in order to obtain food.

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

#713

Post by CMay » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 6:38 PM UTC

kmeisthax wrote: post #651

CMay wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is the second largest manufacturing power, the largest economic power and the largest military power, but those things aren't even what makes it a scary threat. There are things that make up the US that vastly increase its potential for self-organization when it is given an organizing principle. Yes, dynamism has taken a hit over the decades, but there are also a lot of aimless purposeless people right now tha…

> We're forcing our allies to become more independent, because they got too soft and we need them hardened up. That only makes the US stronger, because strong allies are better for all of us. It makes us a better deterrent against war happening in the first place. Translation: we are getting rid of our allies. It does not make sense for a country to pay another country their "fair share" for military protection. That…

We're not getting rid of our allies, but it's long past time that they invested more in the common defense and it's important that they do, because it could be a valuable contribution to deterring war. Focus less on the soundbites. Yes there's messy dealmaking happening, but there's what's said and then there's what actually ends up happening.

Solar and wind are only okay, but they aren't reliable and subsidizing them mostly benefits China since they are by far the major supplies. Yes, it creates American jobs, but those people could be doing more important jobs without creating a foreign energy infrastructure dependency. I don't think we actually care that Africa has solar panels from China, except that it makes them energy dependent on them and increases foreign trade in Yuan. It's more of a way to create Chinese jobs, which is a huge priority so they end up with an oversupply.

Traditional nuclear has potential, but the costs, extreme complexity and lengthy lead times hurt the scalability. The newer fusion projects are interesting and I'm hopeful, but even if they work they take forever and are hard to replace quickly once they're up. It's more likely that we'll have a variety of all of these things.

There have been advancements in geothermal that are amazing, cheap, quick, less encumbered by supply chain risks and require way less land so we should see that scale out over the coming decades.

We do also have abundant oil which helps to reduce inflation and exporting it can offset some oil instability in the market. Yes, oil is eventually going away and that is why a renewable energy push was important, but a lot of oil remains untouched. The US military could also operate for years on just oil reserves and can get priority access to it. It would make plenty of sense for major countries to set aside oil for strategic and military purposes long after it stops being used for general transportation.

As for Taiwan, it is fair that dependency on exports from China can cause countries to tow the line, but it would mostly be optics with nothing preventing other forms of support. Also, the pain of losing Chinese exports in many ways would be less than the pain of an expanding China that goes unchecked, so I think those influences are only strong up to a threshold.

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

#714

Post by erikw » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 6:38 PM UTC

naet wrote: post #191

nashashmi wrote: post #122

Total cost of ownership is 4 years x $15k-$25k (for a cheap public school) + missed income from working that same four years ($35k x 4 years). This is equal to $220k +/- $20k of lost money. Now compare this to income differential. Starting grad income is $80k(?). At 4% raise per year compared to 3.5% raise per year for a non-college employee. Over 43 years. My math comes out to the college grad is still making more m…

Anecdotally my wife came very close to finishing a 4 year degree but ultimately did not for various reasons (she comes from a very disadvantaged family...) and not having one has been a major burden or blocker for her pursuing all kinds of jobs. I am hoping to help her finish, but it is hard to restart later in life and lots of past credits will probably be lost or not count anymore due to various academic bureaucrac…

Have you verified that these "academic bureaucracy roadblocks" exist? Surprisingly, I was able to pick my studies back up after almost 20 years, and not only were all of my existing credits counted, but they also exempted me from new requirements that had been added in the subsequent 20 years.

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

#715

Post by _DeadFred_ » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 6:40 PM UTC

timmytokyo wrote: post #621

rayiner wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. was already the richest country in the world per capita by 1880–even at the peak of the British Empire. Most of its military achievements during the war—building up the world’s largest Navy and airforce from almost nothing within a couple of years—was a product of the industrial economy that already existed before the war. America’s preference for common wisdom over book learning is a strength, not a weaknes…

I see very little evidence for this abundance of American "common wisdom". If anything, America has always had a deeply anti-intellectual vein running through it, whether it was the Scopes monkey trial, the Know Nothing Party or what you see in the present political scene. Higher education, especially the affordable kind at public universities, has been a bulwark against the paranoid delusions that often dominate soc…

Huh? Little evidence? Prosperity in America was built by millionaires that drove 20 year old white pickup trucks (because base color was $100 cheaper). They were very "common wisdom". Almost all had to understand and operate within the commodities markets(where reason and empiricism meet head first with humanism and human behavior), head multi million dollar organizations, negotiate multi million dollar deals, and tried to build multi-generational (not next quarter) businesses.

And every one I knew made sure their children went to University and were educated, because they understood it's value. So did every farmer, factory worker, bus driver. Their kids didn't understand the value, they just new they had to go. Just like todays kids don't understand the value. I don't think that's changed, other than parents aren't forcing life choices on their kids.

You are either very young and only exposed to the modern Audi driving millionaires, or had zero interaction with the actual industrial/ag/creative space/inventor America pre 2008/pre MAGA brainworms. But these people used to exist and were building blocks of this country AND local communities (unlike their zero community loyalty replacement leased Audi millionaires).

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

#716

Post by ErroneousBosh » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 6:41 PM UTC

paulorlando wrote: post #17

Better than asking "is college worth the cost," and getting into ROI calculations per major is asking "could we provide a similar (or better) educational and social experience at a fraction of the cost"? To that the answer is yes.

If you want to make money, go and train to be a plumber.

If you're a kid and you want to be making money (or at least a comfortable living) in 20 year's time, become a farrier.

Because we are going to be ploughing with horses again soon, the way things are going. And even if we're not, a horse needs shod every couple of months and costs a couple of hundred every time.

I've never seen a hungry-looking farrier or scrap metal dealer.

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

#717

Post by pavluha » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 6:43 PM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #603

jillesvangurp wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a simple and effective escape hatch: study abroad. Europe, Australia, South America, Canada even. Some countries are more affordable than others but the most expensive (by far) option is staying in the US. From the point of view of developing your brain, leaving your country is a free education in itself. There is also the effect of embedding yourself in a network of expats made up of the best and brightest f…

There is an actually easy an effective escape hatch right here in the US: Community college to state school path. You can get a full bachelors degree for ~$35k. All four years, $35k. Not per year. Full degree. $35k. And that's before any scholarships or grants. Kids and parents are just insane though, and want to flex about the college they are going to from day one. Its become a ritualistic practice with social sham…

If I remember that right. It is not that easy to get into the state school in our state. UW engineering departments required GPA 4.0 last year. Kids who had GPA 3.9 or less had 0 chances getting into the UW engineering schools.

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

#718

Post by trashface » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 6:50 PM UTC

collinmcnulty wrote: post #196

mc32 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they crank out today suffers from grade inflation. No longer is 'C' the average grade. Kids and parents who pay over 100k for their diploma all demand above average grades. It's not as bad as presenting a diploma from a Caribbean diploma mill, but they're not what they used to be.

Agreed completely on this. I almost wonder if it’d be more palatable to add a grade above A, like a Japanese style “S”.

Many games already have an S-tier in class/stats/builds, whatever the criteria is. Would be funny if higher ed ripped that off. Life mimicking art and all that.

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

#719

Post by redwall_hp » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 6:52 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #568

CharlieDigital wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't prove knowledge gained, would that not indicate that the pursuit was fruitless? Regardless of your endpoint in that pursuit, you should have gained intermediate foundational knowledge along the way, even if you haven't arrived at your endpoint. If you cannot show mastery of that intermediate knowledge, then any kind of journey for knowledge would have failed.

"if you can't prove something, then it isn't true" is an obvious logical fallacy.

Extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence, however, is not. It's the foundation of the scientific method.

There's an obvious lack of logical rigor to jump from someone pointing that out to framing it as proving an untruth.

A is true if evidence B supports it ≠ A is only true if evidence B supports it.

But you can only claim A is true if B. Otherwise you're just blowing smoke around an unknown.

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

#720

Post by CMay » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 6:54 PM UTC

berdario wrote: post #705

CMay wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also add that the Vietnamese LOVE the US.

Despite what the USA did in its invasion of Vietnam, not because of it. Vietnamese are trying to not forget their history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Remnants_Museum (I'm not sure how many Vietnamese actually love USA, vs how many don't... I just want to remind that different people in the same society might hold different opinions, and the sentiment is certainly not monolithic)

I never really looked into it, but it looks like the vast majority of Vietnamese were born after the war so US culture and trade are way more important contributors to opinion. Vietnamese are some of the most pro-US people in the world.