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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

#831

Post by anon291 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #164
btilly wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one case isn't the full story, but I firmly believe that it is a big deal. See https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/401/424/ for the case. The problem is that any hiring test that blacks and whites pass at different rates, is presumed racist. Never mind that the real issue might be that the blacks went to worse schools and received a worse education. Never mind that there is a big body of research showing…

You'll occasionally see people point out that requiring a college degree has all the same legal problems as requiring a hiring exam does. And those people are correct in terms of the judgments that impose our terrible precedents. They're all just as negative on degree requirements as they are on performance requirements. But as a matter of empirical reality, our enforcement system declines to prosecute employers who…

I mean we don't need laws like this. Precedents like this are actually dangerous because they make the law ambiguous, opening it up to selective enforcement. Instead the law should just be read as is and courts should not find new discriminations in ones not mentioned by the legislature

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

#832

Post by wqaatwt »

somenameforme wrote: post #558
tim333 wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree on the Russia Ukraine motivations. Ukraine is not part of NATO and was not going to become part of NATO. There were already two NATO countries bordering Russia near Moscow and St P if NATO had wanted to invade which they had no thoughts of doing. Russia lies constantly on this stuff. I think they basically regarded Ukraine their land as part of the Russian empire they were restoring.

It's not about immediate intentions, but about strategic options. Imagine Russia decided to form a military alliance with Mexico with the expected intention of deploying weapons on the Mexican border. If Mexico agreed to this, it would take approximately 0 seconds before the US invaded them under some whimsical pretext (drug gangs probably) and overthrew their government to prevent this. In fact this is, more or less…

> military alliance with Mexico

Ukraine never did that.

> it would take approximately 0 seconds before the US invaded

Very unlikely.

Also Mexico wasn’t never exactly that aligned diplomatically and politically with the US to begin with.

Russia on the other hand views that it has some inherent right to subjugate and dominate all of their neighbors and turn them into puppet states if not outright annex them.

> In fact this is, more or less, what the Cuban Missile Crisis

In fact this is outright drivel. The US hardly viewed Russia as their actual opponent before 2014-22. Remember Romney- Obama debate (and Obama generally bending over backwards to appease Putin most of the time).

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

#833

Post by wqaatwt »

ku-man wrote: post #625
rebolek wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for repeating Russian propaganda. But the truth is that Ukraine is sovereign nation and has every right to decide their future and give a fuck about Russia feelings. Russia is the aggressor and blaming anything on NATO is laughable propaganda.

"... the truth is that Ukraine is sovereign nation and has every right to decide their future..." In all honesty, would you hold that argument if Mexico decides to host Russian or Chinese troops?

In all “honest” how is that relevant when Ukraine never did that nor was US willing to deploy their troops there to begin with. To what end? Not a single US administration between 1990 and 2022 was particularly antagonistic or expansionist towards Russia..

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

#834

Post by victorbjorklund »

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…

Let me guess you also don’t think the Japanese killed, hurt, raped or did anything else bad to a single Filipino, right? Because they never hurt any one except the occupiers…

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

#835

Post by roenxi »

jacquesm wrote: post #741
roenxi wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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'.

I'm not thinking of anything specific, but if you want to talk gear it is notable that US gear has failed to stabilise the front-line in Ukraine so it obviously isn't that amazing. I'm reading fairly consistent reports that the US has lost the manufacturing base to compete against the Russians [0] and Asians [1].

Compare that to the nominal spending figures [2] and the official figures for how strong the US is appear to be overstating their ability to actually win in a conflict. The money spent doesn't seem to be going in to creating a strong military as much as overcoming deficits in their ability to produce stuff.

And "questions" in the plural generally means someone asked more than one question. It's "just asking a question" in the singular.

[0] https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/06/09/russia-outguns-nato-p...

[1] https://www.csis.org/analysis/china-dominates-shipbuilding-i...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest...

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

#836

Post by jonasdegendt »

armchairhacker wrote: post #780
deanishe wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if the university is free you must pay for food and housing. A one-person apartment in the local halls of residence costs under €500/month here in DE. A room in a shared flat costs a lot less.

That can still be too much. Someone studying abroad usually isn’t allowed to work, so they’re making zero income. If they come from a poor family, they have almost if not zero reserves. So everything must be either provided by the college or covered by grants/loans. Except some universities may allow foreign students to take on-campus jobs, which would probably pay enough. Or for a PhD, usually the university pays yo…

> Someone studying abroad usually isn’t allowed to work

Citation needed, because I'm almost certain not being allowed to work as a foreign student is the exception to the rule. A surface level Google search for Western European countries (BE/NL/FR/DE, typical places to go study abroad) shows me all of them allow non-EU students to get a job. You'll typically see these student workers in bars, restaurants, grocery stores, ...

RE the parent comment stating 500 EUR rent is potentially too much for a foreign student to afford, I can imagine it might be. But it's also too much to afford for plenty of native students, and a large share of them get these student jobs to be able to afford their student housing and the likes.

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

#837

Post by tovej »

qcnguy wrote: post #773
tovej wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men and women. Women were heavily involved in the engineering work at the beginning of the industry. The industry only became male dominated in the late 20th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_disparity_in_computing

They weren't heavily involved and to claim otherwise is historical revisionism.

They were heavily involved, computing was seen as a female profession. The human computers we had before digital ones were women, and they were very heavily involved until computers became profitable.

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

#838

Post by menaerus »

apparent wrote: post #341
menaerus wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who can afford themselves going to private schools have a reason why they prefer spending 100ks vs less. Prestige schools gets you a prestige job so "It is almost unimaginable that attending a private college could have a positive expected value at that cost" isn't necessarily true.

The thing is, prestige and cost do not go hand in hand. The most expensive schools are not the most prestigious. I think Vanderbilt was the first school to hit the ignominious milestone of $100,000/yr, and they're not Ivy League, Ivy+, or perhaps even Ivy++ (if such a classification existed).

Yeah, ok, but this doesn't invalidate what I said above. Completing the degree with MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and such will cost you ~$100k per year (give or take) but they will also open you a door of landing a prestigious job more easily than with the other colleges.

Entry level salaries for most of these folks are ~$200k/yr so having a ~$400k total cost for education, even though I agree it looks totally crazy when given without the context, isn't really _that_ crazy when you put it into a perspective of total expected income.

I think that if this hasn't been even remotely true, there would be no people taking the degrees there, no?

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

#839

Post by tovej »

seec wrote: post #684
tovej wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU is aggressively neoliberal or liberal-conservative, and that is the reason universities have begun to be more expensive. It's related to austerity, privatization, the aggressive revision of tax codes, and New Public Management. The left has not been popular in the EU since the 70s, which is why this development has gotten increasingly aggresive in the last few decades. You cannot seriously suggest that the EU…

Ah yes, the neoliberal boogeyman. Here is what Wikipedia has to say on the matter. > Neoliberalism is often associated with a set of economic liberalization policies, including privatization, deregulation, depoliticisation, consumer choice, labor market flexibilization, economic globalization, free trade, monetarism, austerity, and reductions in government spending. Do you agree with that definition ? If so, none of…

On that same wikipedia page you cite, we have the following on the EU: "The European Union (EU), created in 1992, is sometimes considered a neoliberal organization, as it facilitates free trade and freedom of movement, erodes national protectionism and limits national subsidies."

Ideological rhetoric doesn't change the fact that neoliberalism has taken an even stronger hold in the EU since it's inception. The market is being deregularized, and austerity measures are being implemented.

Reporting a single public spending ratio figure like your source does says nothing. I'll note that Finland is at the top. I'm Finnish, and Finland has been suffering through two right wing austerity governments during the last three election periods. Austerity brings the public spending numbers up, because it stifles growth. Finland has sold off many of it's public monopolies, including the electric grid, the phone network, and energy companies. The current government even tried to sell the waterworks.

Austerity is visible in fewer public support programs, cuts to unemployment benefits, student benefits, etc. This government even went so far as to give the richest Finns a tax break, further deepening the crisis.

You claim that green parties are left. This is sometimes true, sometimes not. In general, green parties in the EU lean liberal (right wing), as is the case in Finland. Maybe you're confusing left wing politics with liberalism again, which is what the previous poster did. This is an american view of politics. Immigration and social values are not left-right problems. These are culture war issues that the conservatives in the US have drummed up.

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

#840

Post by tovej »

seec wrote: post #739
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…

Well the common theme of leftist is that they are in complete denial of reality. This is how you get some dude that will argue with a straight face that EU problems absolutely come from neoliberalism when many of the biggest members are closing on 60% public spending to GDP ratio. I just can't imagine the cognitive dissonance at this point. I wish it would be simple ignorance or plain stupidity because it would mean…

Ok, you seem to be some type of conspiracy theorist.

I have lived in the EU my whole life, and have always followed politics with an analytical eye. I'm not a Marxist, I just follow politics closely because it is important for my job.

I wish you all the best, but I think you need to get out of whatever social.media sinkhole you got these opinions from first.

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