A generation of American men give up on college • Hacker News Board

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#91

Post by tfehring » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 7:07 AM UTC

zsmi wrote: post #24

torstenvl wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far too many variables to draw any clear conclusions, in my opinion. Have there been any of these studies that show the effect holding constant when controlling for high school GPA, SAT/ACT, and IQ?

What is the experiment you're proposing? I didn't follow. What about just measuring the ROI of the degree? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/your-money/college-degree... "All of the largest programs in electrical and communications engineering, for instance, allowed most of their graduates to recoup their educational investment in five years or less. But many programs in some fields, like drama and dance, show no re…

Not the parent commenter but I think they’re suggesting that the degree may not be the cause of the increase in earnings, but rather that the people who get college degrees have attributes (e.g. intelligence, work ethic, good K12 education, wealthy parents) that would lead them to out-earn their peers even without a degree.

To be clear, I don’t buy that argument. Obviously those factors explain some of the difference, but I think most of the highest-paying jobs in STEM and many of the highest-paying jobs in other fields (e.g. business/finance) require skills that would be hard to reliably obtain without a college degree or something similar.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#92

Post by dr_dshiv » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 7:07 AM UTC

doubleunplussed wrote: post #80

DasIch wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term “toxic masculinity” does not and is not intended to imply that masculinity itself is toxic.

I don't know anyone who believes this. Words mean what they're intended to mean and interpreted to mean, and that's how it's used in practice. Claiming otherwise is just a bald-faced "nuh-uh" when people who use the term are confronted with the double standard. If there wasn't at least a little bit of complicity in it being interpreted as a general diss on masculinity, the term would never have caught on, or a differ…

Yeah, but just man up and handle it. That's non-toxic.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#93

Post by torben-friis » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 7:08 AM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #63

A lot of this is driven by narratives—A narrative that college isn’t worth it anymore. A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more. I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. They need to feel like they’re part of society. Nothing good can come of an entire gener…

"Narrative" makes it sound like there's nothing behind. The extreme cost of college - and living in general, rents/home ownership, etc - and the decreasing edge it gives to owners of degrees isn't a fabrication by any stretch.

It's easier to think people are being misled than to think people are taking different decisions because their reality is actually different.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#94

Post by nickysielicki » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 7:09 AM UTC

Arainach wrote: post #60

throwcommonsns wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's this unfortunately prevailing attitude that you aren't successful in America if you aren't living in New York or San Francisco. It's absolutely bonkers. There are many other great places in this country besides those two cities.

If you can make NYC/SF money and save/invest a portion of your income, you can retire and do significantly better elsewhere. You can't do the opposite. If you can have a decent lifestyle in Ohio on 40k (big if, when you factor in retirement planning) you can still fundamentally never leave Ohio.

> you can still fundamentally never leave Ohio.

God forbid. Think of all the experiences you and your family will miss out on!

Lately all I want is to get as far away from people as possible. The internet has negated every advantage of these regions and of money broadly. You cannot buy a nuclear family.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#95

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 7:14 AM UTC

smitty1e wrote: post #74

baron816 wrote: post #63

A lot of this is driven by narratives—A narrative that college isn’t worth it anymore. A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more. I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. They need to feel like they’re part of society. Nothing good can come of an entire gener…

My brother in law is an electrician. I had enough EE in college to change a light switch without burning the house down. However, that book-learnin' fell apart when confronted with troubleshooting a strangely wired room, and I got very polite while asking him over to bail me out. These fellows eschewing the ivory tower, where being of European extraction and bearing a Y-chromosome on the college campus is an indictme…

[deleted]

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#96

Post by wwweston » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 7:16 AM UTC

doubleunplussed wrote: post #80

DasIch wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term “toxic masculinity” does not and is not intended to imply that masculinity itself is toxic.

I don't know anyone who believes this. Words mean what they're intended to mean and interpreted to mean, and that's how it's used in practice. Claiming otherwise is just a bald-faced "nuh-uh" when people who use the term are confronted with the double standard. If there wasn't at least a little bit of complicity in it being interpreted as a general diss on masculinity, the term would never have caught on, or a differ…

> I don't know anyone who believes this.

Anyone who actually knows what adjectives are and how they work believes this.

Or people familiar enough with the substance of the discussion to know it includes discussion of what healthy masculinity is. Here's an easy-to-digest example:

https://ifunny.co/picture/if-you-ever-find-yourself-confused...

> Do you think I could get away with calling it "toxic femininity" instead? Nobody would let that pass.

Oh, yes. Nobody would dare talk use the phrase toxic femininity. /s

https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/women-vs-women-toxic-femini...

https://thoughtcatalog.com/january-nelson/2020/07/15-example...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sex-sexuality-and-ro...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/drnancydoyle/2021/07/13/we-need...

https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanschocket2/toxic-femininity-exam...

https://www.yesweekly.com/opinion/toxic-femininity-the-under...

If you really think that femininity doesn't come under the microscope, then one can only assume you have no substantial familiarity with feminism.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#97

Post by crazy_horse » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 7:18 AM UTC

effingwewt wrote: post #85

jasonboyd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wut? Are those the only choices? Is there nothing in between? Lay off the drama. I don't feel like my degree was useless (and I'm not even working in the field I got a degree in) and I certainly didn't graduate with crippling debt.

Survivorship bias with a N=1 doesn't change the absolute fact that most if not all degrees are worth far less than the debt taken on. Why your personal story is pertinent here is beyond me, OP was talking about the person in the article. It's not dramatic at all when we have 1.73[1] trillion in student loan debt, with an average of 39k each student. Starting your professional career years in debt is the definition of…

The new student also has the option of choosing a not worthless degree, greatly increasing their odds.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#98

Post by torstenvl » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 7:19 AM UTC

tfehring wrote: post #91

zsmi wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the experiment you're proposing? I didn't follow. What about just measuring the ROI of the degree? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/your-money/college-degree... "All of the largest programs in electrical and communications engineering, for instance, allowed most of their graduates to recoup their educational investment in five years or less. But many programs in some fields, like drama and dance, show no re…

Not the parent commenter but I think they’re suggesting that the degree may not be the cause of the increase in earnings, but rather that the people who get college degrees have attributes (e.g. intelligence, work ethic, good K12 education, wealthy parents) that would lead them to out-earn their peers even without a degree. To be clear, I don’t buy that argument. Obviously those factors explain some of the difference…

Yes, that was my angle. And while I share your intuition to some extent, I maintain that it's difficult to get a scientifically sound conclusion without controlling for those variables.

Specifically, to refer to an average of $1,000,000 as a specific effect size, without controlling for the fact that many people with only a high school diploma would not earn more even if they had a college degree, seems suspect.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#99

Post by throwtheworld » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 7:21 AM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #63

A lot of this is driven by narratives—A narrative that college isn’t worth it anymore. A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more. I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. They need to feel like they’re part of society. Nothing good can come of an entire gener…

> A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them.

This is very perspective dependent. I’m a black college student now and every conversation with friends back home includes some mention of dropping out because it’s not for us as well. When you see people with equivalent resumes already coasting by in the job market because they could get their last names and LinkedIn photos past the screening and into an interview it’s hard to believe that’ll change post-graduation. And most of us are already in planning on entrepreneurship because we know we’re not what companies are looking for even with fancy CS degrees. It’s like if I’ll have to sell sneakers to make ends meet after college anyways I might as well drop out and use that money bootstrapping this inventory SaaS. Innovation out of desperation, I guess.

It’s no way to live. But I think we’re approaching an inflection point.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#100

Post by mpweiher » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 7:22 AM UTC

pharmakom wrote: post #56

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ll actually find similar gender disparities in China and India. Maybe not as pronounced as the USA, but it’s still there. Somehow there is something going on throughout the industry that crosses cultural boundaries.

From a sample of 3 countries (two with very traditional gender roles), I’m not convinced. In Eastern Europe software engineering was a female dominated field.

That's the gender-equality paradox, STEM version: the more gender-equal a society, the more the genders self-segregate occupationally.

It's important that this is not about any absolute value, but about the sign of the correlation. The "blank slate" hypothesis would predict that the correlation is positive, i.e. the more gender equal a society, the more equal the distribution.

The opposite is actually the case, the correlation is negative.

This strongly suggests that the statistical differences in occupational preferences have an innate cause. That difference is moderated by societal influence, not caused by it. When societal pressure are lessened or removed, the innate differences manifest more strongly.

And of course, it needs to be stressed that these are statistical differences, not categorical ones, just like the outcomes are statistical and not categorical.