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

#761

Post by torginus » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 8:48 PM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #752

torginus wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they invaded Afghanistan to grab a Saudi national hanging out in Pakistan?

I think it had something to do with 9/11 being an act of war from Afghanistan against the US. Nations are responsible for the actions of groups inside their borders against other nations.

It was not an act of war since Afghanistan didn't have an official government - in practice the Taliban ran things - but the attacks were carried out by the Al Qaeda which was spread over the Middle East. The Taliban might have been sympathetic to it but they were not actively supporting them or had any official collaboration with them.

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

#762

Post by setr » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 8:48 PM UTC

yatopifo wrote: post #699

anonymars wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is FizzBuzz: 1. Output the numbers from 1 to 100 2. If the number is a multiple of 3, write Fizz instead of the number 3. If the number is a multiple of 5, write Buzz instead of the number 4. If the number is a multiple of 3 and 5, write FizzBuzz instead of the number Does that really sound like something requiring special practice and preparation? Assuming a decent interviewer would help out with the modulo ope…

Is it provided as you described or is it more like “please do FizzBuzz”? If it’s the latter, that would explain why some people may have trouble with this task… I think we both agree it’s ridiculous to test if the interviewee knows what FizzBuzz stands for, and yet… let’s just say i know a few people who treat interviews as a jargon recall context.

I don’t know what kind of psychopath would provide a problem with the expectation that you already know the problem by heart

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

#763

Post by lurk2 » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 9:04 PM UTC

viccis wrote: post #742

lurk2 wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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 pri…

> Untrue.

You know these people exist. Try asking them where the money is going to come from to finance this education and see if more than 10% of them can explain it to you.

> "Free" has a specific meaning in English

You’ve made a few allusions to the idea that the people pushing back on this reading of the word “free” speak English as a second language when there’s been no indication that this is true; it’s just something you’re saying to imply that these people are less intelligent than you. I would again encourage you to read the site guidelines. Posting like this is contrary to the spirit of the forum.

> Whereas a fluent English speaker of sound mind understands that "free" refers to the price in a transaction.

The price for whom? If a parent pays for their child’s education, it would be very uncommon for the child to say that his education was “free.”

Similarly, state-funded education is free to the college student. It’s not free for taxpayers who don’t attend the college. They are a party to the transaction because they are the ones paying for it.

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

#764

Post by skirge » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 9:05 PM UTC

jswelker wrote: post #102

Higher ed is like employer based health insurance in that they are both weird path dependent historical accidents. People want cheap healthcare, and it got shoehorned into an odd employer fringe benefit system that really is not at all related healthcare in any intrinsic way. People want job training, and it got shoehorned into extra departments at liberal arts universities intended as aristocrat finishing schools. J…

"job training" at school? Everyone known you learn how to work at work, where first day they say to forget everything you have been taught at school.

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

#765

Post by nebula8804 » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 9:07 PM UTC

dmurray wrote: post #500

nebula8804 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Schools typically have no space to squeeze it in. Here is a typical pathway for a CS student: https://catalog.njit.edu/undergraduate/computing-sciences/co... A 4 year cs degree dumps you into heavy math, physics, and intro CS + Data structures in your first year to weed people out who cant cut it. Second year teaches fundamentals of CS (discrete math, concept of languages, understanding algorithms at least at a basic…

> Schools typically have no space to squeeze it in. Here is a typical pathway for a CS student: https://catalog.njit.edu/undergraduate/computing-sciences/co ... That course has 28 credits in first year, 3 of which are spent on computer science (arguably 3 more on "Roadmap to Computing"). Second year has a little more. Third and fourth year are heavy on CS/SE topics, but still have some time allocated to others. I don…

I could concede that the "History or Humanities" elective in the 4th year could include an option for history of computing but I think the rationality of including that course in the first place is partly due to politics and accreditation requirements.

Its also possible that the department wanted to round out the students education by providing something not related to STEM each semester.

Note: these reasons I listed are just a guess based on my experience with the university.

I still find it difficult to justify the placement of this course as a hard requirement because of how the rest of the STEM courses are structured. YWCC 307 is a very fluid course so maybe it can be squeezed in there? Anyway my point is that it is tough and I still feel that way.

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

#766

Post by watwut » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 9:15 PM UTC

inemesitaffia wrote: post #593

watwut wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not like liberals would created religious colleges. Religious colleges were created by evangelicals and they have rules that explicitly punish things like "woman having male visitor" or "being gay" or "not being religious". If what you want is ideological purity of evangelical Christianity, then yes, you have to create own institution. Which is exactly what conservatives did. Because it is extremely valid for o…

This is nonsense though. When academics were pushed out of Soviet and Chinese universities they had to leave to other locations or stop being productive. The fact they can set up their own schools is a plus in the USA. The disparate impact is clear.

> When academics were pushed out of Soviet and Chinese universities they had to leave to other locations or stop being productive.

That is not what happened with Soviet nor Chinese academics. They did not started new ideologically pure universities. Maybe you should read more on history rather then making up an alternative one.

Moreover, these "new" universities are not run by academics.

> The disparate impact is clear.

The only disparate impact is affirmative action for conservatives. In fact, most universities you complain about are run by rich and conservative boards. They make decisions to please rich and conservative donors.

But, they accept gay, women are treated more equally and that is something conservative christians cant stomach.

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

#767

Post by lurk2 » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 9:16 PM UTC

immibis wrote: post #507

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…

Is this a problem? We expect universities to have a pro-truth, pro-reality, pro-knowledge bias, which are things the Republican party overtly rejects. We could expect that Republicans might not make it to universities as often, or they might not want to attend, or they might cease being Republicans upon learning facts and logic. None of this would be surprising and none of this would necessarily be a problem by itsel…

> We expect universities to have a pro-truth, pro-reality, pro-knowledge bias, which are things the Republican party overtly rejects.

The people you’re pretending to be harbingers of truth believe that men can get pregnant.

> or they might cease being Republicans upon learning facts and logic.

So why is the bias the strongest in the least rigorous fields (communications, anthropology, music) and weakest is the most rigorous (mathematics, engineering, medicine, physics)?

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

#768

Post by tanin » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 9:19 PM UTC

The fact that the student debt crisis is going on shows that colleges are not worth it. If it was, most would have been able to pay it back.

My impression is, unless you can get into a top X college, it isn't worth it.

This also depends on the cost of course. My university in Thailand back then was 1,000 USD per year, so that seems worth it, even tho it isn't in the top 20.

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

#769

Post by pdonis » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 9:20 PM UTC

jamesmontalvo3 wrote: post #683

pdonis wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a Google AI summary That's not the online material I was referring to. Many universities have their course materials available for free online. Not to mention other online learning sites.

I think the point is that if you’re going to get a degree in mechanical engineering, you need to study differential equation, and if you’re going to have a well-rounded education, you need to study some history. Both were a requirement in the past, but we’re moving more towards only the former being considered important.

The claim I was responding to was that one needs to go to college to get a "well-rounded education". I don't see why: the information is available for free online, and the value add of getting it by paying college professors to "teach" it to you is, IMO, highly questionable.

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

#770

Post by qcnguy » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 9:21 PM UTC

tovej wrote: post #484

qcnguy wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where public funding programs for research has begun to be funneled to startups instead of research groups. It is darkly amusing that in one post you claim "the left has not been popular since the 70s" whilst admitting that the EU is centrally planning new companies. That's very much the sort of thing the left did in the 1970s. > You cannot seriously suggest that the EU has moved left in any meaningful way ... the…

Centrally planning? My guy, the EU is not founding companies, it is giving existing companies subsidies. The profits of those companies will not be public, they are private. Nationalization and regularization are both on the decline. The opposite has happened: privatization of state monopolies and deregulatization. I also think it's hilarious that you think a) the EU is feminist, and b) that feminism is leftist. What…

> My guy, the EU is not founding companies, it is giving existing companies subsidies. The profits of those companies will not be public, they are private. I can vouch forst hand that research money is being funneled to startups and other private companies

Nobody claimed it isn't, but governments trying to pick winners by subsidizing startups is still the same old left wing politics. You don't see the USA spray grants around at the scale the EU does, do you? I'm pretty sure they don't directly subsidize startups at all.

BTW companies are routinely created in the EU specifically to access the 'free money' of grants. The act of offering subsidies creates companies. The profits - if any - will be taxed heavily. They are only partly private. We agree, though, that this is not as extreme as the 100% profit tax that occurs under nationalization.

> I also think it's hilarious that you think a) the EU is feminist, and b) that feminism is leftist.

The EU leadership class all demanded a female EU Commission president before Ursula vdL mysteriously failed upwards into the role without explanation:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/23/eu-leaders-cal...