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

#821

Post by TomasBM » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 5:42 AM UTC

boplicity wrote: post #666

apparent wrote: post #288

The downward "is it worth it" trend over the last 12 years is partly due to the continued upward climb of college tuition. Some schools are now at $100,000/yr for tuition, room, and board. In order for this to be "worth the cost" they would have to have a strongly positive expected value in terms of future earnings. And a positive EV isn't sufficient. It would also need to have a very low chance of negative EV. Other…

Some schools are $100k/year for room, board, and tuition, and yet those expensive schools are very much optional. It's a red herring to point them out. There are still affordable schools. And staying in a dorm with expensive room and board remains optional at many institutions. Heck, some people still live with their parents. The state school I went to is still just around $10k/year tuition, and I got a broad educati…

It's crazy how an affordable degree still means $40k.

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

#822

Post by TomasBM » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 5:47 AM UTC

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #707

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'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. I mean, good luck finding a job in the US when your degree is not from the us (or maybe Canada). Most industries don't hire folks with overseas degrees.

Really? Which industries wouldn't hire you if you had a non-American degree?

And is this about the content of the degree(s), or just brand name recognition?

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

#823

Post by wqaatwt » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 7:03 AM UTC

mystraline wrote: post #534

jleyank wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hawaii was a US territory as was Alaska (which was also attacked). As is Puerto Rico today.

An occupied territory, sure. The Japanese only attacked the occupiers (USA). They didn't go after any of the native peoples' cities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_Kingdom In 1887, King Kalākaua was forced to accept a new constitution after a coup d'état by the Honolulu Rifles, a volunteer military unit recruited from American settlers. Queen Liliʻuokalani, who succeeded Kalākaua in 1891, tried to abrogate th…

> They didn't go after any of the native peoples' cities

Well they had zero issues going after the native peoples in all the places they conquered (or even their own country, the stuff they did in Okinawa…). They just didn’t have enough bombs in Hawaii.

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

#824

Post by wqaatwt » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 7:07 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #307

monero-xmr wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but if the US truly has the best military (and it does 100x) then when push comes to shove, the US will destroy anyone who tries to undermine it. Very dangerous game to oppose it. Being able to construct things quickly is important, but if the US can militarily seize nearly every country on earth in days, the power is not necessarily where the kit is located

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 modelling I've seen is that any US-China war will take place in Asia and China will probably win it unless the US gets a lot of help (always possible). And the US has already been undermined by the likes of China, Russia and India and there isn't a lot they can do about it in the…

> China will probably win it unless the US gets a lot of help

Sure they’d win a land war on the continent. An amphibious invasion of Taiwan opposed by the US navy and air force would be a but trickier.

> undermined by the likes of China, Russia and India

To a large extent voluntarily.

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

#825

Post by wqaatwt » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 7:16 AM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #478

kiba wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America doesn't and shouldn't fight China or Russia alone, so I don't know why we're talking about that. Russia is basically on its way out as a military power. It can't even conquer Ukraine. As for China, you don't fight China alone. What do you think military bases in Japan are for? Anyway, for the world's sake, China shouldn't start a war, but sometime you just can't stop stupid.

I think very few, if any, countries in the world would be stronger than what we turned Ukraine into. You have a massive army being replenished by a constant slew of bodies, to the point of forcefully dragging people in off the streets, and then being armed with hundreds of billions of dollars in Western arms. But what gives Ukraine a particular superpower is their logistics. Most people don't realize is that war is e…

> You don't need to drag in people off the streets, close your borders, and continually lower the enlistment age

As you said Ukraine’s demographic situation was quite horrible before the war. Very few people in their 20s. Hence the conscription age being 27 earlier in the war. They lowered it to 25 later (which is kind of the inverse of what happened historically in other wars).

Russia had way more manpower, then the cannon fodder from North Korea and the foreign mercenaries. Russia can afford even 1:1.5 or 1:2 casualty rates (of course they have other concerns and seemed to be very politically unwilling to send actual conscripts there and the pool of willing volunteers is not infinite).

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

#826

Post by wqaatwt » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 7:22 AM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #563

somenameforme wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once the war ends and both sides can start clarifying their troop classifications. There's always going to be uncertainty because an MIA could be dead, or it could be some guy who successfully deserted and started a new life for himself somewhere. But as both sides return captured troops, exchange bodies, and so on - everything will be made much more clear. And there will also be less political motivation to lie.

Do you think Ukraine has more casualties than Russia? Or is it simply that Ukraine had a smaller population to begin with?

Probably not but it’s unlikely to be that massively different, Ukraine wasn’t that much less willing to engage in “meat grinder” style tactics earlier in the war. Even 1:1.5 rate would be pretty horrible given the demographic disparity.

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

#827

Post by wqaatwt » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 7:24 AM 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)

Vietnam had such massive population growth that there are very few people who even remember the war. On the other hand China was pretty much always ingrained into their “national consciousness” as a permanent massive threat.

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

#828

Post by anon291 » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 7:28 AM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #473

anon291 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there is. You can just hire them and train them. Most positions don't require college degrees. Everything you need to know for most jobs you learned in high school. At most you need a certificate program of some kind.

Construction, a few trades… Help me, I've run out of ideas without resorting to "Walmart Greeter". Most of those jobs went overseas a long time ago. Short of the couple I could think of, the rest of the jobs remaining that don't require some advanced education don't pay a "living wage". I'd love to see the US have a vocational "track" beginning in high school again. But that also requires we have the jobs for them wh…

Most office work. Finance. Insurance. Mortgage sales. Blue collar jobs. Inspection and compliance. Program management, project management, graphics design, marketing. A lot of software work that doesn't require proof based mathematics (most of it). Your lack of lateral thinking is not an argument.

Unless my kid was interested in a professorship or the hard sciences or a hard science aspect of engineering work or a specific certificate (architect), I would not encourage college. Seems like a waste of money making years. It can make sense if you're a first generation college person and you were not raised well off, but most people here are in the upper income brackets, so adopting the culture of the upper class is not really something they'd need to do

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

#829

Post by wqaatwt » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 7:29 AM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #492

bildung wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russia will conquer Ukraine, any other prediction at this point is absurd. Are you sure? They are advancing, sure, put look what they paid for to achieve this: 300k dead, 700k wounded, depletion of their souvereign wealth fund, 20%+ inflation, lower oil production and so on.

I think literally nobody knows the price either side is paying right now. And I do mean literally, including Trump, Putin, and Zelensky. The fog of war applies to participants, let alone outsiders who are basing our views on figures and claims that obviously going to be driven heavily by propaganda. But beyond this, I don't think this war is about Ukraine anymore than a war in Taiwan will be about Taiwan. It's little…

> Russia did not want NATO parked in their Achille's heel of the Ukrainian flatlands

Russia (i.e. Putin but also Russians in general) wanted to rebuild their empire from the beginning. Anything else is just an excuse.

> interests between them and the West

Of course this conflict has been mostly one sides till the 2014, with Obama and Merkel bending over backwards to appease Putin.

Also the implication that Russia has some God given right over dominion of half of Eastern Europe is a bit appealing..

> our will on Russia and establishing a hierarchy of dominance.

That is a very Ruso-Imperialist mindset. A society pretty permanently stuck in the 1800s politically and psychologically… e.g. Germany, France, Britain were somehow able to step over their ambitions and are doing relatively fine (even without having millions of foreigners subjugate)

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

#830

Post by anon291 » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 7:32 AM UTC

edot wrote: post #533

JKCalhoun wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Construction, a few trades… Help me, I've run out of ideas without resorting to "Walmart Greeter". Most of those jobs went overseas a long time ago. Short of the couple I could think of, the rest of the jobs remaining that don't require some advanced education don't pay a "living wage". I'd love to see the US have a vocational "track" beginning in high school again. But that also requires we have the jobs for them wh…

If you've ever worked at a random Fortune 500 company and looked around the office at people whose pinned apps are "Outlook, Powerpoint, Excel", those are jobs that can easily be done if you're moderately smart and learn a few things on the job. You have a reasonably well-defined set of goals, projects, and meetings, and you just have to talk to other people and move numbers around in Excel, then put them into Powerp…

Employers would let people be hired but any sort of employer based assessment opens the company up to accusations of discrimination. This was litigated. Many companies got in trouble decades ago. And then all companies turned to college degrees and the American consumer was fleeced for good