Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

931–940 of 1001 posts

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#931

Post by quantified »

pb7 wrote: post #652
devwastaken wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Trades are overwhelmingly what people do when they don't go for a BA, and often have houses and children far before college graduates. Many more mechanics, plumber, hvac, electrical, welders, pipfitters, etc than we give credit for. 3. Scholarships are not based on intelligence. They are based on access to resources. Many good scholarships require references, achievements, good writing, and lower income. Hard to d…

>Trades are overwhelmingly what people do when they don't go for a BA, and often have houses and children far before college graduates. Having a house and children as soon as possible isn't a win. It's what happens when you lack imagination. There's so much more to life than pumping out kids at 21 in your 3/2 in fly over country.

Having a house and children only happens when you have the resources. People burdened by college debt can’t do these, or at least not usually in the fashion they want. For those people who even want houses and children, the sentence was directed at trades being a quicker route. Perfectly possible to live alone and waste income on rent with trades, and if you’re not heterosexual you’re not usually “pumping” out kids regardless. Digital nomad and similar lifestyles, not so much, but I’d argue that’s preference as much as imagination. Some people like family and community.

“Flyover country” is readily considered condescending. Might be an accurate description, but accuracy is not what makes it condescending.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#932

Post by joelbluminator »

bluGill wrote: post #641
Miraste wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why the GP linked a source with the national average for college graduates and non-grads. Certainly there are tradespeople who make a ton of money, but usually they make less than degree holders.

Average isn't useful though. Your expected pay after med school is very different from a music degree. Sure a few in music make millions per year, but most struggle to make anything, and a significant number who do get a good income are not in anything related to music. There are many different trades, with different income expectations. And of course if you are willing to own the business (not easy) is a factor, som…

Med isnt immune to automation or remote work as well (telemedicine)...its surprising a bit. I would be really surprised if there isnt tons of automation 10-20 years from now. Nurses are pretty well protected though.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#933

Post by austincheney »

indymike wrote: post #314

There are three problems that colleges need to fix. 1) Skilled trades pay better than most bachelor's degree track jobs. My kids can make more money with a six month apprenticeship than they will with all but a few 4 year degrees. If you can drive a forklift, you can make $45K/yr... which is identical to what an firsty year teacher makes. 2) There are better options than college for many. One of my daughters did a si…

Most people, both in the real world and on HN, cannot differentiate education from certification. That must be super disappointing to come to grips that you overpaid for a 4 year certificate when the self taught guy sitting next to you spent that time building out their career earning money.

A bachelors degree is not a license to practice or guarantee of employment. That is not the point of education.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#934

Post by afiori »

listenallyall wrote: post #929
indymike wrote: post #314

There are three problems that colleges need to fix. 1) Skilled trades pay better than most bachelor's degree track jobs. My kids can make more money with a six month apprenticeship than they will with all but a few 4 year degrees. If you can drive a forklift, you can make $45K/yr... which is identical to what an firsty year teacher makes. 2) There are better options than college for many. One of my daughters did a si…

> Young people should not be put in debt-bondage. Imagine America's financial health if we let young people start families and careers debt free. I agree college is far too expensive and the rate of inflation of college tuition is rather absurd. The reasons for such, are best debated in another thread. However, I'm skeptical that eliminating student debt would ultimately result in significantly better financial outco…

There is another option, make degree status a protected class so that degrees cannot be an in-name-only qualification.

This would remove the FOMO of college and significantly increase trades and bootcamps.

An idea partially inspired by this blog: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/06/against-tulip-subsidie...

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#935

Post by chongli »

vkou wrote: post #688
01100011 wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a 46 year old I agree, but I'll say that most tradesmen I knew have either moved on to owning/managing or have switched careers. Overall they've done very well. Also, IME, tradesmen always have the nicest houses regardless of income because they or someone they can trade with will do top quality work for barely any compensation.

> As a 46 year old I agree, but I'll say that most tradesmen I knew have either moved on to owning/managing or have switched careers. Overall they've done very well. Suvivorship bias? I imagine that those that are still in the trades are managers/owners. Those that have blown out knees, but don't have the skills to manage/own/washed out a decade ago... Are not. There's not enough room in the trades for every person w…

Suvivorship bias?

Definitely. There are a lot of young guys in the trades who no one should hire under any circumstances. They do drugs, drink, and even start fights on the job site. They get fired frequently and just move to the next job. There are so many of them that it makes for a toxic workplace for anyone getting into the trades.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#936

Post by whywhywhywhy »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #335
paulpauper wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you have a lot of kids who don't think that taking on tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars in debt is worth it for some Zoom classes. Yeah, but you are assuming people only go to college for its educational value , ignoring that college grads tend to have much higher wages and lower unemployment compared to high school grads. If you look at FIRE subs for example, almost everyone who attains ear…

> you have a lot of kids who don't think that taking on tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars in debt is worth it for some Zoom classes. > Yeah, but you are assuming people only go to college for its educational value , ... But that's exactly the point, a huge expectation of going to college is the whole college experience: building independence, lifelong friendships, extracurriculars, etc. 50k…

Keep seeing “the experience“ over and over in this thread.

Children literally taking out 5 and 6 figure loans for a glorified multi-year vacation with some half arsed “education” strapped to it.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#937

Post by chongli »

hardtke wrote: post #537
endisneigh wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im very skeptical of this post: 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no compari…

> In addition many are not welcoming to women at all Economists are now finding that as more women move into a profession, the pay goes down. Similarly, when computer programming moved from a female dominated profession (early days) to male dominated (now) the pay went up. Medical fields that have higher proportions of women have lower pay. Along these lines, as college skews more female (college grads are like 60/40…

Economists are now finding that as more women move into a profession, the pay goes down

How much of this is just labour side supply/demand? If you have an all-male profession suddenly open up to women then that effectively doubles the pool of candidates. You would expect wages to go down (a lot) in that case.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#938

Post by throw_nbvc1234 »

VikingCoder wrote: post #169
bagacrap wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The loans are exactly why the colleges were able to continue jacking up the prices. As with homes, people will pay as much as institutions are willing to loan them. In both cases the currently low interest rates allow the loan principal to be much higher (given that folks calculate cost based on recurring payments). If you remove the student loan system then tuition would become cheaper. However that does unfairly im…

Here's what I don't get - Where the hell is the money _going_? Are Colleges and Universities pocketing the money? Are they publicly traded and distributing dividends? Are they building rockets? I know some of it goes back to financial aid, and some goes to football coaches... But we're talking about so much freaking money, and I just can't visualize where it's going.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universit... is certainly one destination.

I remember when my public college was banned from starting new building projects due to state wide budget restrictions. The year the ban was lifted, half a dozen projects immediately kicked off.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#939

Post by [deleted] »

thebradbain wrote: post #634
endisneigh wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How old are you and how old are they? If we’re talking anecdotes I guarantee I know people that make more than all the people you’ve mentioned combined and went to college. It doesn’t mean anything. Let’s talk medians here.

Median income and age don't paint the whole picture, though, either -- you need to take into account things like student loan debt, or benefits, or even taxes (because it is not uncommon for trades, even for those personally pulling in 6+ figures, to be paid a good chunk of their compensation in cash that's not necessarily recorded anywhere). Learning a trade and going to college for a white collar job are two differ…

[deleted]

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#940

Post by wayoutthere »

indymike wrote: post #314

There are three problems that colleges need to fix. 1) Skilled trades pay better than most bachelor's degree track jobs. My kids can make more money with a six month apprenticeship than they will with all but a few 4 year degrees. If you can drive a forklift, you can make $45K/yr... which is identical to what an firsty year teacher makes. 2) There are better options than college for many. One of my daughters did a si…

The problem with the trades is that they burn out your body. And quickly — you have about 25 years of good work in you, so if you start at 18 your body is done by your mid-40s. From there it’s either moving on to manage / start your own shop, take a job for less money at a hardware store / parts desk, or collect disability checks and barely scrape by in early retirement with a broken body.
Post reply on HN