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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

#741

Post by jacquesm »

roenxi wrote: post #358
Qwertious wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The US military isn't that scary; the evidence to date is that it's ability to destroy counties ends somewhere around Iran's strength. The US military's "ability" is very contextual - for instance, the US could easily obliterate Iran with a MIRV or two, but for various geopolitical reasons they choose not to. Likewise, the US navy is of limited use against Iran due to the literal mountain range between their only co…

If we're assuming a nuclear war then the US military is comparable to a bunch of other militarys. And the "various geopolitical reasons", on examination, includes possible outcomes like the US being pummelled through the stone age and out the other side, or more mild ones like New York being flattened. It isn't really much of an option in any foreseeable scenario where their goose isn't already being cooked. So yes t…

> If we're assuming a nuclear war then the US military is comparable to a bunch of other militarys.

What a nonsense. Really, if we're assuming a nuclear war then the remainder of the sentence no longer has any relevance.

Note that even the idiot in the Kremlin has been given reasons enough to consider that one off the table no matter how much he might want it (assuming he still can).

First strike is a non-starter for every sane country, so you better hope that sanity lasts long enough to get to the '.' at the end of your sentences. Because if it does not the best you can hope for is live near ground zero.

> Does the US military even perform to spec? There is clearly a lot of corruption and I've seen it described on HN as a disguised welfare program.

If you're aware of any American gear that has not performed in the last 12 months then maybe you should report it rather than to resort to 'just asking questions'.

So far all of the recipients seem to be fairly happy with the deliveries and most nations would quake in their boots if the USA set their sights on them with intent to punish, bar none, and to suggest otherwise is seriously ignorant.

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

#742

Post by viccis »

lurk2 wrote: post #399
viccis wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nothing the government provides is free. Yes it is. "Free" doesn't mean "has no cost paid by anyone" and never has in these discussions. It means "at no cost to the student". Apologies if English isn't your first language.

> "Free" doesn't mean "has no cost paid by anyone" and never has in these discussions. Calling these programs “free” obfuscates the issue because there are people (even college-educated people) who genuinely believe the government can just make something appear from nothing; they genuinely don’t understand that the resources have to come from somewhere, which means someone else who does not necessarily benefit from t…

>there are people (even college-educated people) who genuinely believe the government can just make something appear from nothing

Untrue.

>These kinds of quips are discouraged here.

"Free" has a specific meaning in English, and someone who doesn't speak it fluently might think that it means, for example, "appearing from nothing". Whereas a fluent English speaker of sound mind understands that "free" refers to the price in a transaction. No one thinks that the "free pizza" at an event was created at no cost to anyone in the supply chain that brought it there. They just understand that it means that they won't be charged for consuming it. But for some reason, I never hear people make a big deal about how "I can't believe you'd say free pizza when I know that your organization had to pay for it!" It's always when it comes to reactionary opposition to social services where this simple word immediately becomes so much more nuanced and impossible to comprehend for the layperson.

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

#743

Post by jacquesm »

CMay wrote: post #713
kmeisthax wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 the…

> We're not getting rid of our allies

Give Trump a few more months then? The USA has shown itself so far be unreliable, and if not quite an enemy also not quite an ally while demanding 100% loyalty the other way around. This obviously will not hold, you can not combine those two and expect a static situation as the outcome.

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

#744

Post by viccis »

yatopifo wrote: post #706
viccis wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nothing the government provides is free. Yes it is. "Free" doesn't mean "has no cost paid by anyone" and never has in these discussions. It means "at no cost to the student". Apologies if English isn't your first language.

TANSTAAFL

Obviously. But part of a democracy is voting on politicians who will choose what resources are distributed. Do you think "TANSTAAFL" every time you take a road without paying a toll?

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

#745

Post by lurk2 »

ReflectedImage wrote: post #725
lurk2 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when partisanship has to be disguised. The conservatives are right about the partisan bias of universities. See this survey by Mitchell Langbert. https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/31/2/homogenous_the_p... Anthropology and communications saw no registered Republicans. English, Sociology, and Art departments had a ratio of around 40:1 Democrat professors Republican professors, whereas in technical fields the rat…

This is a conservative problem. Conservatives are split into 2 groups. Conservatives who are in it for the money and conservatives who are in it because they don't know any better. College professor is not a well paying job for the level of skill required nor is it a job that someone who isn't very knowledgeable could do. That excludes most conservatives from the position.

> Conservatives are split into 2 groups. Conservatives who are in it for the money and conservatives who are in it because they don't know any better.

An inane assertion made without evidence.

> nor is it a job that someone who isn't very knowledgeable could do

So why is the bias the worst in the least rigorous fields?

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

#746

Post by abeppu »

randcraw wrote: post #544
abeppu wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't expect universities to sit still and do nothing. > The popularity of residential degree programs may be ending, due to insanely high cost. I think the problem is that universities _have_ been changing in the direction of _delivering less_ at the same time that they cost more. The article cites public schools doubling tuition in inflation-adjusted terms since 1995, but simultaneously: - student-faulty ratios h…

The author neglects to observe that doubling tuition over 30 years equates to only a 2.35% inflation rate. That sounds pretty close to the US inflation rate during that time, so increases in tuition cost have been held in check pretty well.

No, if anything the article has a copyedit error in saying twice in one sentence that the doubling is after inflation-adjustment.

> While there have been some small declines in tuition prices over the last decade, when adjusted for inflation, College Board data shows that the average, inflation-adjusted cost of public four-year college tuition for in-state students has doubled since 1995.

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

#747

Post by viccis »

nebula8804 wrote: post #422
viccis wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many private colleges like Rice cover 100% of costs for all students with parents under a fairly high salary. Almost 40% of MIT students have financial aid that's equal or greater than their tuition. This is starting to get more and more common for elite colleges and universities. I got a full ride plus stipend to a pretty good but not great school, but one of the things I wish my parents pushed me on harder was appl…

I understand where you are coming from in regards to elite university. Certainly if a student can get admitted into an ivy league they should at least inquire about eligible aid packages. I would assume someone with the intellect to get admitted there would put in the work to explore all options. Ivy league is a shrinking circle of spots and does not represent the majority of where exceptionally talented students go…

>Certainly if a student can get admitted into an ivy league they should at least inquire about eligible aid packages.

Bear in mind when I say "elite college", I'm not talking Ivy Leagues, as those have covered tuition for the non-wealthy students for a while now. I'm talking elite liberal arts colleges (Amherst, Swarthmore), elite private universities (MIT, Rice), etc. Many state schools cover a lot but your mileage varies dramatically, and it's often tied to fairly intense GPA requirements. Georgia Tech has a student suicide problem because of this, for example.

>This was ~15 years ago but during that time all the teachers at the CC had Masters degrees in their field and also had additional teaching credentials(some had PHDs).

It's much worse now. A lot of the core classes (calculus, first semester bio and chem, etc.) don't have teachers at all. You're given all of your instruction via canned videos and your homework and evaluation through online tests. There's often a way to contact a teacher of some sort, but they will mostly be terse and just link you to a resource to work on it yourself or direct you to a forum where you and your classmates can talk about it.

This isn't covid, this is from this year. A lot of this started with covid but has stuck around for budgetary reasons. YMMV but for a lot of places, this is how you cut costs to be able to easily offer free college. Some of the classes will still have teachers, but the big ones that people typically use CC for will be largely automated because that's what scales.

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

#748

Post by seanmcdirmid »

anonym29 wrote: post #585
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear I have no problem passing these interviews, I just spent a few weeks cramming leetcode and got a job at Google. Leetcode wasn’t the main reason I was hired, but it was a filter that I had to get through (I’ve never been given fizzbuzz before, but I assume that is just because it’s no longer in style and hasn’t been for more than a decade). You just don’t throw yourself into on the fly coding, you pra…

I'd agree with you 100% if these were Leetcode mediums and hards. They were not, these were quite literally the easiest LC easies I could find. While my career involves writing code, I am not a SWE, I have never done any formal leetcode prep, and I have no formal education in technology beyond a high school CS class. I have no college degree whatsoever, not even an associate's degree. I had a rule I stuck to when doi…

I don’t know much about Harvard except like Stanford computer science became the biggest major by far in the last couple of decades. It could be a lot of rich kids are choosing it’s a major without much of a passion for it. It could have also become the default major for people who are planning to got into politics, business, management, or even law (Harvard’s traditional strengths).

Don’t get me wrong, we don’t have much of a choice in evaluating especially junior hires. Even for senior hires you want to make sure they haven’t drifted through their last jobs without actually coding. But on the spot performances are different even for the simple stuff, they should practice coding questions on the fly regardless, and even the worst possible SWE candidate should be able to pass these with a bit of prep. With a lot of prep they could do leetcode, a still suck at the job when they get it.

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

#749

Post by viccis »

jcater wrote: post #535
viccis wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that specific example paragraph was about financial aid, not the value of a high school diploma, so I fail to see your point.

Well, I’ll elaborate as a Gen-Xer; what you describe about financial aid was the exact same scenario we faced. You are conflating the “exceptional” kid coming out if HS who is offered full rides (who clearly should take advantage of that and go straight into university with that full ride) with an average student who will have to pay for some or all of college. For the latter, community college for 2 years was and st…

It really depends. In many states, for the latter, there are state programs that cover tuition if the student can meet some GPA and enrollment minimums. I knew someone in such a state still telling their kids to start in CC because that's what they knew from 30 years ago and they haven't bothered to research how things work now.

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

#750

Post by viccis »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #310
viccis wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is this not rational behavior? If you think the purpose of an education is literally nothing more than the diploma, then yeah sure. If you think that I'm interviewing you for an entry SWE job (yes, we do this still) and you think I'm going to hire you because you hyperoptimized a compsci degree to minimize the work and learning you had to do and maximized your GPA, then you're going to blow the interview and wind up…

I'm with you. In their position I did the most of the educational opportunity I had, but then I didn't live in a world where people told me my job would soon cease to exist thanks to Claude and I spent every waking out flipping through short form videos. I can't relate to what that does to you.

This is part of the reason I make this point online. People need to understand that there are jobs available if you do the work to make yourself valuable, especially if you aren't demanding high compensated FAANG roles right out the gate. It's just that if you learn absolutely nothing and will be hired to do shit work for a year or two until you become baseline competent and will just leave as soon as you can pass FAANG interviews, companies would rather just pay people in developing countries like India or Colombia. They'll do bad work and, in the case that they do turn out to be great, leave to make more money. But at least they cost 5x less (the US system of employer covered healthcase isn't helping our workers' competitiveness in this either!)
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