More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years • Hacker News Board

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#761

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 10:50 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #226

ChicagoDave wrote: post #28

I have 3 college-aged kids and one nearly there. Their universal concern is the cost. It has become prohibitive. Colleges assumed the trend of charging $25k to $50k per year would be sustainable. They were dead wrong, especially given the horrendously predatory loans backed by the government and barred from bankruptcy. If we fix the college financial system, enrollment would likely skyrocket.

> Their universal concern is the cost. I have a senior in high school right now and although I think you're right - he's concerned about a potential quarter-million dollar tuition bill before this whole thing is over - he's also concerned about the whole selectivity of it all. From the outside looking in, you never know what's important and what's not. He has this feeling (and I'm not sure I can dispute it) that the…

[deleted]

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#762

Post by tailrecursion » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 10:53 PM UTC

spullara wrote: post #712

prirun wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the benefits of office jobs is that you get high pay, stable hours, relatively low stress and get to work in an air-conditioned room. So I would still prefer that over skilled trades even if the pay was the same. One of the downsides is your job can be easily outsourced to a country with lower wages, and with remote work here to stay (IMO), that is going to be even easier than before. There are no remote plu…

If we can get AR/VR into the mainstream I bet there will be remote plumbers that essentially pilot you to diagnose and fix things.

Interesting idea, and maybe we already have a step toward remote piloting in the form of Youtube videos that explain how to do various tasks: plumbing, home improvement, auto repair, hvac, and so on.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#763

Post by nfw2 » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 10:54 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #444

indymike wrote: post #314

There are three problems that colleges need to fix. 1) Skilled trades pay better than most bachelor's degree track jobs. My kids can make more money with a six month apprenticeship than they will with all but a few 4 year degrees. If you can drive a forklift, you can make $45K/yr... which is identical to what an firsty year teacher makes. 2) There are better options than college for many. One of my daughters did a si…

Im very skeptical of this post: 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no compari…

The study you linked is over 10 years old. Furthermore, it is using lifetime earnings as the core metric, which means they are pulling in data about people who earned their degrees like 50 years ago.

All the data that currently exists shows better outcomes for students that go to college. One would expect this even if college had no benefit to students because the population of students that go to college is pre-selected. Before they attend, students that go to college, on average, demonstrate better analytic skills than the students that do not go to college. They also, on average, have access to more existing wealth and other resources through their family.

In the absence of perfect data (which is almost always the case in sociology), it is reasonable to look at case studies to try to make sense of reality. It is not bad practice. It is what Harvard Business School does. It's what product managers and UX designers do when creating products. It's what marketing teams do when selling products.

Feel free to disagree with the interpretation of anecdotal data, but statements should not be dismissed out-of-hand because no p-value accompanies them.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#764

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 10:55 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #444

indymike wrote: post #314

There are three problems that colleges need to fix. 1) Skilled trades pay better than most bachelor's degree track jobs. My kids can make more money with a six month apprenticeship than they will with all but a few 4 year degrees. If you can drive a forklift, you can make $45K/yr... which is identical to what an firsty year teacher makes. 2) There are better options than college for many. One of my daughters did a si…

Im very skeptical of this post: 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no compari…

[deleted]

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#765

Post by asdff » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 10:57 PM UTC

syki wrote: post #29

baby-yoda wrote: post #16

colleges have been expanding with zero constraints for 20+ years - demand for degrees increased significantly, enrollment went up and up, student loans being federally backed were given out to anyone for any amount so tuition naturally increased substantially. seemingly limitless growth opportunity? now many are massively bloated organizations with declining utility and the need to maintain their perpetual growth - w…

Enrollment in higher ed decreased 7% from 2008 to 2018. It’s not true that colleges have been expanding with zero constraints. The increase in tuition at public colleges and universities has occurred with the decrease in public funding per student. At my system 20 years ago roughly 60% of the cost of education was publicly funded and now it is 40%. We’ve correspondingly increased tuition. https://nces.ed.gov/programs…

That's average, but when you look at what happens on the ground, the winners, like the name brand schools you've probably heard of before, are all expanding and building new dorms and labs and athletic facilities, and the losers, those random liberal arts schools in the middle of nowhere in new england and such, are closing down and selling off their property. It's hard to find a major university that isn't constructing some massive donor-backed capital project as we speak, and acceptance rates at major state schools across the board has been dropping like a stone; even schools like Cal State are becoming very competitive.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#766

Post by tapatio » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 10:58 PM UTC

silisili wrote: post #471

endisneigh wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im very skeptical of this post: 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no compari…

Re 1, at least in the US, it's very dependent on market and path. I have two family members who have been pipefitters for 20 years. Both make more than I do as a software engineer. Another is a doctor, and makes more than they do. But another does boat repair, and makes more than the doctor. If the last decade is any indication, skilled labor - especially those not afraid to own their own business, are set to make a…

"It's nearly impossible to even get people to come out for normal household jobs anymore"

Yup, residential clients are bottom feeders - avoid them at all costs - nothing but a hassle. The good money, and work, is with commercial clients.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#767

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 11:01 PM UTC

lapetitejort wrote: post #286

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure why they would be demonized Because they're in large part neither functional nor artistic. Both force one to think in novel ways. The certification-for-its-own-sake majors do not. There are reams of low-grade degrees in which the majority of teaching is in memorization, not mastering new ways to think. That doesn't advance society, particularly when it burdens young people with debt.

> There are reams of low-grade degrees in which the majority of teaching is in memorization I have a degree in physics with a minor in literature. I took one upper div lit class a quarter. I never memorized a thing. Instead I read a ton, both assigned and peer review, and wrote a ton, both essays and creative. My lit classes are far more memorable than my physics classes because I learned the skill of communicating m…

[deleted]

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#768

Post by withinboredom » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 11:03 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #688

01100011 wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a 46 year old I agree, but I'll say that most tradesmen I knew have either moved on to owning/managing or have switched careers. Overall they've done very well. Also, IME, tradesmen always have the nicest houses regardless of income because they or someone they can trade with will do top quality work for barely any compensation.

> As a 46 year old I agree, but I'll say that most tradesmen I knew have either moved on to owning/managing or have switched careers. Overall they've done very well. Suvivorship bias? I imagine that those that are still in the trades are managers/owners. Those that have blown out knees, but don't have the skills to manage/own/washed out a decade ago... Are not. There's not enough room in the trades for every person w…

Isn’t that covered by “switched careers?” Anyway, just to add to the anecdata here, my wife was a hair stylist in a nice part of town. Women/men would trade a weekend at their beach house (concert tickets, private jet access, etc) for hair cuts and color. She’s now “just a kickass mom.”

Point is, for a time, we had access to some 0.1er% shit that’d I’d never get to utilize in my “office job” while my wife would trade for some truly spectacular experiences with the spouses of CEOs and CTOs. Heck, she’s half the reason I got the network I have these days. There’s something to be said about someone saying nice things about you to a captive audience :)

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#769

Post by betwixthewires » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 11:08 PM UTC

welshwelsh wrote: post #655

silisili wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re 1, at least in the US, it's very dependent on market and path. I have two family members who have been pipefitters for 20 years. Both make more than I do as a software engineer. Another is a doctor, and makes more than they do. But another does boat repair, and makes more than the doctor. If the last decade is any indication, skilled labor - especially those not afraid to own their own business, are set to make a…

I'm sure there are some pipefitters who make a lot of money, but we should go by averages, not outliers. The average for "Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters" is $56,330 per year, according to the BLS. For "Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers" it's $110,140 per year. For "Physicians and Surgeons," it's $208,000 per year. We also need to consider that running your own business is a lot of…

You want to look at median numbers, not average numbers.

Also you want to look at real earnings, which take into account cost of credentials, tooling, ongoing education, things like that.

In particular, pipefitters make a significant amount more money than plumbers, so I'd gather that that number is skewed downwards.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#770

Post by csomar » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 11:09 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #444

indymike wrote: post #314

There are three problems that colleges need to fix. 1) Skilled trades pay better than most bachelor's degree track jobs. My kids can make more money with a six month apprenticeship than they will with all but a few 4 year degrees. If you can drive a forklift, you can make $45K/yr... which is identical to what an firsty year teacher makes. 2) There are better options than college for many. One of my daughters did a si…

Im very skeptical of this post: 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no compari…

1. So does many degrees (ie: Art and Humanity?). At the upper-level with Skilled Trades, you usually go by your own company/name and then you can make substantially more.

2. Probably a little. These boot camps are mostly a scam like many colleges today.

3. You can do college cheap. You can also get a scholarship if you qualify. You can do college the expensive way if your parents will pay for it. Taking a $100-200k loan for it is stupid.

4. Yes.

Which leads me to the conclusion: College degrees used to get you higher pay, people overbought that and someone filled the market, people now can't sell their college degrees for money. Worse, many of them have raked up debt to get that college degree.

Sounds familiar? This is like people buying the top in a crypto, realestate, stock-market bubble. But you add a few steps and the thing sounds legit. (Did you ever wonder why people buy MLM and not go directly and buy a Ponzi Scheme).