And I always complain that sodtware engineering, while having a decent initial salary progression, is a dead end career path (gaant charts anyone?), and I should have studied law instead.
Maybe the grass is always greener...
Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering
91–100 of 113 posts
Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering
#92Interesting data, but I'm not sure the title is supported by the conclusion. The title reads "US students are fleeing law schools and pouring into engineering." This is backed up by data that shows law school enrollment declining and engineering graduate enrollment increasing. However, it's not exactly a secret that engineering graduate programs have higher international student enrollment than law schools. So we'd n…
Additionally, law schools have been in a bubble for at least the last 6-7 years, so seeing a decline as students realize this fact (and particularly hear anecdotes from people struggling to pay back their loans!) wouldn't be surprising to me and seems like it would make logical sense. I'm curious what the trends were with other academic bubbles to either confirm or deny this datapoint being significant.
Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering
#93One thing these stats don't capture is the effective tuition charged by law schools. Schools are raising sticker prices, but handing out more scholarships. From discussions with someone who tracks these things, effective law school tuitions have been dropping. Law school attendance for most students is being subsidized by richer students and by those who haven't figured out that law school at sticker is generally a s…
As a product of the system, agreed 100%. Also, the true cost should account for lost income while in law school. As opportunities improve for those students who could excel in other areas, the lost income exceeds the tuition cost.
If you know anyone thinking about applying, this site does a good job breaking down true costs:
http://www.lstscorereports.com/national/
A bit under $300,000 for most schools when you consider tuition and living expenses. That doesn't include interest on the debt.
It also doesn't consider the opportunity cost you mention. Finally, one thing most young students ignore is that they have to pay the debt back in AFTER-TAX income.
$300,000 in debt takes $450,000 in before tax earnings, assuming a 33% average tax rate.
Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering
#94Engineering has exploded with foreign students who will leave the US with a degree that prints money in their home country. Not so much in America. They need to look at the numbers closer to see where the US students are actually going.
There's even a trend for US grads relocating to developing economies. A lot of us (me included) have found very interesting work/life arrangements in places with lower taxes, lower rent and higher salaries (relative to cost of living of course). There's even a smallish trend of people expatriating to avoid crushing student loan debt. IMHO I'd expect that to increase.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/23/pf/college/student_loan_fugi...
Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering
#95Engineering has exploded with foreign students who will leave the US with a degree that prints money in their home country. Not so much in America. They need to look at the numbers closer to see where the US students are actually going.
There's even a trend for US grads relocating to developing economies. A lot of us (me included) have found very interesting work/life arrangements in places with lower taxes, lower rent and higher salaries (relative to cost of living of course). There's even a smallish trend of people expatriating to avoid crushing student loan debt. IMHO I'd expect that to increase. http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/23/pf/college/student…
As one of those people, I have to say taxes and prices are much lower in the USA than say china or Thailand. Especially when you get away from food and low end services.
I work in china but shop in the states on my visits back. As far as salary goes, I'm a bit below us levels but can save alot because I don't need, nor could I buy even I I wanted to, a car. Working in Swiss was like that also, things were just too expensive to buy so I was able to save alot.
Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, engineering students statistically score highest on the LSAT out of any undergraduate degree
I'm not surprised. The "logic" section of the LSAT (traditionally said to be the hardest part of the test) is much easier if you know some computer science/discrete math. A lot of questions can be quickly parsed into some sort of constraint satisfaction problem, and using the right tool (drawing truth tables/constructing a directed acyclic graph) means you can get to the answer much faster.[1] Since the LSAT is a tim…
I've heard the same thing from Philosophy majors though...
Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering
#97Sheep before, sheep now. Always too late.
Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems my joke is out of date: we've actually hit the 1985 number again! Whee! Granted total degrees doubled over the interval and CS is virtually flat but whee! http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_322.10.as...
Thanks. I'm surprised to see that computer and information sciences and engineering have dropped quite a bit since then as the percentage of degrees.
But has it dropped as a percentage of high school graduates? My impression is a lot of people who wouldn't have been able to get in to a university twenty years ago are going now, but they're getting the kinds of degrees you'd expect for people who barely made it in.
Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering
#99Engineering has exploded with foreign students who will leave the US with a degree that prints money in their home country. Not so much in America. They need to look at the numbers closer to see where the US students are actually going.
Can you elaborate with some stats or articles?
The US, as far as I know, is by far the highest paying country to software engineers in the world, starting by 2-3x to rich countries. I seriously doubt ANY software engineer can make more money in China than in the US for any similar position of responsibility.
Re: Students are fleeing US law schools and pouring into engineering
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Historically, the solid pay and good prospects have been a primary driving criterion for people going into engineering. The Silicon Valley idealists who want to "change the world with food delivery" is the new phenomenon, not the other way around.
> The Silicon Valley idealists who want to "change the world with food delivery" is the new phenomenon The Silicon Valley idealists who want to "change the world with food delivery" are (as a broad class, not every specific instance) largely PR faces created for marketing purposes by and for people who want to make lots of money, and know that having some kind of compelling mission (even if that "compelling mission"…
Employees, too.