
America's Reverence for the Bachelor's Degree - elberto34
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/reverence-bachelors-degree/408346/?single_page=true
======
brightball
I always wonder if this is a symptom of a bigger problem that we created.

As soon as having a bachelors degree became almost an expectation, not having
one became a problem to be avoided. We have people borrowing money to go to
school because they think they have to...not because they necessarily even
need to. Many of the best programmers I know never even went to college...they
are just interested in the subject and taught themselves.

At the same time, we have a public school system that after 18 years with a
child...has not actually prepared them to get a job. That's borderline
criminal IMHO.

I always wonder what the effect would be of transitioning public high schools
to a structure closer to Cornell's one-course-at-a-time approach
([http://www.cornellcollege.edu/one-course-at-a-
time/](http://www.cornellcollege.edu/one-course-at-a-time/)). It seems like
giving kids the opportunity to deep dive into one thing (actually, learn it
instead of memorize stuff) would be more effective. At the same time,
scheduling of classes that taught real skills would a lot simpler.

Just imagine a gardening and cooking class where you could teach:

1\. Plant biology and genetics of seeds 2\. Chemistry and Soil Biology,
Composting, Decomposition. 3\. Use geometry to design raised bed frames 4\.
Learn some vocational carpentry to build raised bed frames 5\. Plant in
different environments, track growth, production, measures in a scientific
experiment 6\. Learn to cook some different recipes with what you've grown as
well as how different temperatures affect what you're cooking (caramelization
of onions, etc)

In a single intensive class you can bring together so many subjects and life
skills that seem otherwise unrelated on their own.

Heaven forbid you take it to the next level and get into programming a farm
bot.

~~~
freehunter
>Many of the best programmers I know never even went to college...they are
just interested in the subject and taught themselves.

The problem with that is, college teaches a lot of things that are not
directly related to core technical competencies. It's very easy to learn
programming on your own these days, sure. But it's a lot harder to learn
public speaking, finance, management principles, marketing, college-level
reading and writing, technical writing, time-management, political science,
biology, physics, and all of the other stuff that you're taught in college.

Going to a university or a college, I think, is still a very important thing.
It's not worth the money right now, which I hope will change, but I know a lot
of smart people who didn't got to college, people working in many different
diverse fields, and it's almost always possible to tell who did and who did
not go to a university. Do you want to be laser-focused on just being a
programmer, or do you want to have marketable skills outside of a pure
technology focus?

To put it simply: it's easy to learn how how a computer works and how to
program it to work for you. It's much harder and takes much longer to learn
how the world works and how to make it work for you. For 99% of the
corporate/enterprise jobs people will end up working, being the best
programmer is the world is far less important than every other skill you learn
in college. If we do away with traditional universities, we need to find a way
to replicate that other type of learning.

~~~
monkmartinez
> To put it simply: it's easy to learn how how a computer works and how to
> program it to work for you. It's much harder and takes much longer to learn
> how the world works and how to make it work for you.

I would argue strongly that university DOES NOT teach anyone how the world
works. Wet behind the ear college grads are worthless in most "blue collar"
professions, for example. If you get a degree in English Lit, what do you know
about the "real world" that a peer who has worked construction for 5 years
doesn't know???? How much more knowledge about the "real world" does a
journalism major know than a military veteran?

The first two years of "learning" at American universities are generally
filled with bullshit pre-requisites that serve almost no purpose in the "real
world!" The last two years are more specialized but hardly teach shit about
the "real world."

~~~
freehunter
Wet behind the ear grads are useless in white collar organizations too.
College doesn't teach you about your job, it teaches you about the wider
world. Being a military vet is an admirable use of your time, but the picture
it paints of the world is very different than that of a university education.
Likewise, I wouldn't want to debate a construction worker about the proper
building code for a multi-occupancy building, but I'm willing to bet one
semester of finance would far outweigh the knowledge that construction worker
has about why the building is being built like it is.

You make good points about getting a broader picture, but the notion that the
military or blue collar jobs are the "real world" is false, IMO. That's one
aspect of the real world, it is far from a broader picture of it. University
is supposed to present the other side, a far deeper picture of the other side.

And for the record... what I'm talking about is the pre-reqs. I'm specifically
saying those pre-reqs are not bullshit and are the most important part of a
university education. I just want to be clear on that. Job training is better
left to an internship/apprenticeship.

Finance and marketing and math and science and English classes are the real
benefits of college that you can't replicate on a construction site.

~~~
monkmartinez
> College doesn't teach you about your job, it teaches you about the wider
> world.

Playing devils advocate for a second...

How does college teach you about the wider world? By taking a bunch of tests
on subjects being taught by TA's (if you are lucky) or professors that
sometimes struggle with English?

Or

Cramming for tests and writing papers you don't want to write is learning
about the wider world?

Find me the Engineering major that would rather take 2 semesters of
humanities|Literature|etc or graduate sooner!

Find me the doctor students that wish undergrad was a like 2 years shorter!
Fuck it, make it 4 years shorter and call it a day! Strait to med school if
you have the aptitude.

> but I'm willing to bet one semester of finance would far outweigh the
> knowledge that construction worker has about why the building is being built
> like it is.

One semester of finance is craptacular, you wouldn't learn much. Better if you
had said Accounting... but most students don't pick accounting. You would do
far better listening to Dave Ramsey for a month, IMO. Seriously, where in the
bulk of College majors outside of Finance can I find the requirement to take a
finance/accounting/econ classes? I'll answer, NO WHERE!

The fact that you bring up finance is interesting because fully half of the
Colleges today would go bankrupt if their students knew ANYTHING about money!
Why would they go into such crazy debt for what they get in return? The subset
of college majors that actually have promising career futures ahead of them
are miniscule in comparison the "majors" offered at universities.

~~~
michaelmrose
Thinking that listening to a radio program is exactly the same or better as a
college course is the kind of thing you hear from people that haven't actually
gone to college.

This isn't to say you are yourself less intelligent but perhaps you lack
perspective?

~~~
wtetzner
> Thinking that listening to a radio program is exactly the same or better as
> a college course is the kind of thing you hear from people that haven't
> actually gone to college.

I've gone to college I agree with the GP that most gen. ed. college courses
are mostly useless. Just the way they're structured usually means you never
get a good picture of what you're learning and why. Instead, you usually learn
to do a bunch of exercises, with little context about what the point of the
exercises are.

~~~
cossatot
They also introduce you to a lot of topics you may not have studied on your
own, and give you the opportunity and resources to take them as far as you'd
like. I spent a _lot_ of years in universities and I never met a teacher who
wasn't willing to spend at least some time with an interested student, or
point them in the direction of materials for additional self-study.

Certain classes (particularly the calculus series and chemistry) were pretty
exercise-laden but I don't remember anything else that wasn't somewhat obvious
what the purpose was, or really many classes beyond science/math/foreign
languages with much exercise-type homework. It's obvious with language classes
why you're doing rote memorization. Calculus is pretty clearly an engineering
weed-out gauntlet, and I have no idea why university chemistry is universally
terrible. The context of humanities courses (kept separate from the
occupational relevance) was usually obvious. Want to learn what different
kinds of buildings are called? Take an architecture history course. Etc.

Mostly I remember undergrad classes as a bunch of 19 year olds who did about
2/3 of what they were assigned, and most of them took zero initiative. Sure,
the first floor of the library was packed at night, but there aren't any books
there. The stacks were basically ghost towns, and that is where the real
learning goes down.

------
mywittyname
I don't understand American's new-found fascination with vocational training.
Why is it they expect education to now provide people with narrowly focused
job training over the more traditional broad education?

Yes, college is expensive and I absolutely think something should be done to
resolve that. And certainly not everyone needs a BS to be productive citizens.
But societies "reverence" for the Bachelors degree was earned. Historically,
these programs equip people with the background and education necessary to
advance their careers.

Like many people here, I have a BSCS, and if computing became obsolete
tomorrow, I feel entirely confident in my ability to transition into many
other technical careers. My feeling is that a BS should be designed to open up
entire classes of career options for people. But I also feel that people who
opt for technical training in lieu of general education shouldn't be upset
when they find out they can't transition as easily into other fields that
require skills they may have never learned.

I honestly think this article serves as a cautionary tail to reinforce
Bachelors "reverence" more than it does to dispel it. A person who spent years
learning the depths of Italian cooking shouldn't be surprised when people
don't want him managing their businesses. Knowing how to field for truffles
and prepare them in a traditional way is nice, but it's not analogous to
knowing how to run the logistics of a business.

~~~
darpa_escapee
Vocational training is a wash if industries change to meet market demands,
which they always are. Your IBM mainframe certificate doesn't mean shit in
2017, neither does the 6 week course you took on Microsoft Access if the job
doesn't call for it.

Same thing applies to bootcamps. In 2-4 years, the frameworks and concepts
you've learned to implement web apps will have changed. In ten, it will be an
entirely different game.

~~~
curiouscat321
This is the biggest issue that rural America is facing right now. There's an
incredibly large voting bloc of people that had vocational training in mining,
manufacturing, etc, etc. Their training is now worthless and nobody has a
great plan to get them either a real education or more useful vocational
training.

~~~
monkmartinez
Real education? Like English literature, or Art History, or Communications, or
Dance, or Latin?

By real education do you mean STEM, medical or Law? Or something else?

------
btkramer9
I only got about a third away through this but the beginning doesn't make me
want to believe/empathize with the author at all.

"my nephew was set to graduate from Maryland’s Towson University with a degree
in political science. After six long years,"

Six years for a degree in political science. You have to actively try to take
that long to graduate. Maybe he changed majors.

"Holding up their son’s transcript, his adviser pointed out that he had taken
the same economics course twice—one year apart. My nephew hadn’t noticed."

Really? I've met plenty of people in college who would do things like this.
They all had no motivation or interest to graduate. They were there just
because their parents made them and could afford it. I think this defends the
authors point. However, using two people who clearly have no idea how to pave
their own path to a successful life should be used as an example to argue
against universities and trade schools.

Maybe the author is trying to say its the high schools fault for not teaching
them. I disagree. Everytime I've seen behavior like this it's because the
student just doesn't care or their parents have plenty of money and know
they'll be fine no matter how bad they do.

~~~
alikoneko
> Six years for a degree in political science. You have to actively try to
> take that long to graduate. Maybe he changed majors.

I disagree. Life circumstances can keep you from graduating as well.

I spent nearly 7 on a CS degree. There were a few hold ups. The biggest being
until VERY recently, I was unmedicated with Bipolar Disorder. I would sign up
for classes while manic, and barely scrape by or fail when depressed. It has
taken me 5 years to get a proper diagnosis and find the right meds. Meanwhile,
I still tried to do my best in the classes I was attending.

Another reason it took me so long, I attended community college and got a 2
year degree in programming I was told would directly translate to my BS in CS.
This was not the case. I found that my university only took certain credits
off of my AS, effectively putting me at about a year of coursework when I was
under the impression I had 2.

None of this was me _trying_ to take that long to graduate. I do take some of
the responsibility for it, I could have done better to get out of bed and go
to class some days. I could have done more research about PBSC's transfer
degree. I could have fought harder for the right diagnosis when I was 18 and
everything started happening.

~~~
btkramer9
Those are fair reasons. I assumed if anything like that came up the author
would have included them. Your experience with community college was probably
frustrating. It can be a good choice to help keep debt low but there's always
that "transfer factor"

------
hectorr
The stock photo for this article is an interesting choice. The graduate paid
zero dollars for his quarter-million dollar education, and was guaranteed a
job at graduation. In return, he owes them a full commitment for five years of
work, and partial commitment for another three.

The organization that promised to hire him ran the admissions process, set the
curriculum, and after training screened him into a particular path for at
least the first stage of his new career. He was surrounded for four years by
people who will be his professional peers for the entirety of his career. He
knows that the likelihood of him reaching the pinnacle of his profession is
increased substantially through this network.

Obviously the military is well set up to do this. I am surprised though that
other industries haven't attempted to build schools to train their respective
employee bases.

~~~
ghaff
In part, it's probably because other industries have a limited ability to toss
you in the brig if you decide to give your notice after a year.

There are trucking schools, mechanics school, cooking schools (as in the
article). But the trades in general tend to be more of an apprentice system.

Finally, some specialized companies do have extended in-house training. But
this sort of thing is definitely less common, in part because people skip
around jobs a lot more so there's going to be a lot of free-riding on a
company offering expensive training.

~~~
stevenwoo
You don't get automatically sent to the brig for not fulfilling your
commitment, IIRC, you have to pay the retail cost of your military academy
education, and if you don't do that, then you are in trouble

~~~
nhangen
There isn't any way to skip out that does not violate the laws of the UCMJ.
Getting dishonorably discharged is the result of that process, but it's not
like you can just cancel your contract, write a check, and walk out.

------
pascalxus
Also, there's this strange belief that getting more people through degree
programs will increase the number of people with higher paying jobs. The
number of high paying doesn't change simply because we're increasing the
number of degrees per capita - it merely devalues the degree - just as
printing money devaules currency leading to inflation. Companies don't just
decide to hire more candidates just because there's more of job candidates
available. Utlimately, they hire to create value based on market demand for
their products.

~~~
marcosdumay
> The number of high paying doesn't change simply because we're increasing the
> number of degrees per capita

It should. Not necessarily in proportion to the number of degrees, but having
more degrees out there should increase the number of high paying jobs.
Superior education should make people both more intellectually malleable and
capable of creating value in unforeseen ways.

If it doesn't, it would be evidence there's something very wrong with the
degrees.

~~~
pascalxus
What your saying may have been true hundreds of years ago when the number
intellectual jobs was much smaller and far less diverse.

But, today, professions are far more specialized than people realize. How much
of what you learned in your degree do you still remember? 1%? of that 1%, how
much do you actually use on a daily basis? and of that subset, how much of
that knowledge is things you couldn't have easily learned on the job.

------
arrty88
I don't mean to sound insensitive but why is it the institution's fault that
it took someone without passion or drive 6 years to graduate and why wouldn't
the same problems which persisted during college not continue to persist after
graduating?

I know plenty of folks that went to Towson and the only thing that they could
do after freshman year was funnel a beer. I know a few that went on to pursue
respected middle class careers in tech, legal, education, and health care.

When will our youth finally start taking responsibility for their own actions
or lack there of?

~~~
tonyedgecombe
>When will our youth finally start taking responsibility for their own actions
or lack there of?

Ha, people have been complaining about the youth for 2,000 years.

------
GrinningFool

        > After three years in a college-based apprenticeship 
        > program and three years of solid work experience, he 
        > was still the equivalent of a brand-new high-school 
        > graduate in the eyes of higher education.
    

So much this. I've considered getting a degree countless times over the years,
but have been prevented by the fact that my 2 decades+ professional experience
in the field counts for nothing in terms of meeting educational requirements.
And the more experience I get, the more painful that fact gets...

~~~
munin
> 2 decades+ professional experience in the field counts for nothing in terms
> of meeting educational requirements

Yeah, professors have experience with people like this. They're the students
that stop lecture to ask a 5 minute long "question" that somehow hits the high
points of their 20+ years of experience and doesn't really go anywhere, that
roughly ends up at the same kind of "when will we ever use this in the real
world" question that you'd expect from a 19 year old kid, when you're
lecturing on rings and fields.

~~~
thesagan
FYI there are experienced students who do not do this. Many, in fact. I think
I can recall only a few occasions where re-educating professionals did what
you're describing.

Most of my gripes with interruptions came from 18-20 year olds.

------
m23khan
I think the answer lies somewhere in having 2-3 years of mandatory civil
service for high-school grads which rotates them in various industries:
Construction, IT, Mechanical works, Tool & Die, Hospital volunteering, Office
clerks, building maintenance, etc.

In addition, high school should have 'guest' speaker from different lines of
work come in (engineer, scientist, mechanic, doctor, HVAC, florist, baker,
etc.) and tell grade 12 students about their job responsibilities, how much
money they make and advise students frankly about the job.

Only then the kids can decide with full knowledge what they would like to
pursue and their expectations would be realistic.

~~~
tomjen3
Lets harm all the kids who actually know what they want to do, have
construction, IT and hospital work done by uninterested stoners (because what
else are young people going to do when they have no options)?

~~~
imgabe
Would it really be a much higher percentage than the work done by uninterested
stoners now? Lots of people already have jobs they aren't particularly excited
about and just fell into. At least this way they'd get a chance to try out a
few different things first.

------
lordnacho
I think the problem is the idea that you spend the beginning of your life
learning things, and the rest of it doing things.

The current system does not leave much in the way of learning things (or at
least getting credit) later on. This is a problem, because your average 18-22
year old knows nothing about what work they'll find satisfying, or what work
will be in demand.

You also don't know what you'll actually be learning. For instance I did
management classes at a well know university. Did I expect to learn something
about how to manage? Yes. Did I learn anything about how to manage? No, that's
not what management class is about. I suspect many people had similar
experiences with their classes. To be fair engineering classes are not about
how to be an engineer either, so I don't think it's a science/humanities
thing.

What you do find out in uni is that pretty much anything academic can be
learned if you dedicate some time to it. Read a few books about economics, and
you'll know the major ideas of that field, presented in a somewhat coherent
fashion.

So what we need is a way for someone who's found an interest to be able to
pursue that. You work a bit as a coder, and you realise you should get a CS
degree. So you find a course, read, practice, do an exam.

What's important is people who've discovered this need tend to be in a
different life situation from ordinary college attendees. They might have work
already, family, and so on. So incentives need to align to allow people to
learn things without tearing up their whole life.

~~~
ianai
It's one thing to read a book and be able to follow along the central themes
and ideas. It's a whole other can of worms to be able to write that book.

------
mti27
TL;DR version of this article:

1\. Author complains her lazy nephew's approach to school (and resulting
Political Science degree) did not result in a good paying job.

2\. Author complains her other nephew's lack of a degree and previous chef
jobs did not result in a good paying job.

3\. Author advocates for community colleges, blames higher-ed for being "too
rigid" for her nephews, and says how much better Germany and other European
countries are at training.

~~~
nikdaheratik
I don't think you're quite in the spirit of the article there. How about:

1\. Author has a nephew who was forced into a degree program he didn't want
because he mostly hates school, but blue collar jobs don't pay enough anymore.
Neither do white collar jobs for people who don't enjoy classroom learning.

2\. Author has another nephew who also didn't like classroom learning, got a
degree in chef's school and made alot of progress in the field. However,
chef's don't get paid well either.

3\. Author thinks maybe the problem is there isn't a path for people who don't
like classroom learning and maybe Germany is better at this IDK?

Not to sound like some kind of socialist, but maybe the problem is many jobs
don't pay very well anymore?

------
MBlume
I think there's a case to be made that the decision in Griggs vs Duke Power
Co. (employers may not administer IQ tests) is the reason we're in this mess.
IQ is really important and correlates with lots of outcomes. Employers
therefore want to know it. They're not allowed to ask, but admission
to/success at an exclusive college correlates well with IQ, so they ask about
that instead. Means everyone spends hundreds of thousands of dollars and years
of their life to advertise something that could be measured in an hour.

------
arca_vorago
The problem boils down to a twofold issue to me: 1) Schooling is getting in
the way of education and 2) Schooling is misinterpreted by lazy employers as
education.

In this day and age, what we need is some sort of more granular description of
education and experience. I don't have a finance degree, but I've gone through
the Yale econ lectures online.... how do I reflect that knowledge gained when
all an employer wants is where did you graduate?

I see granular descriptions like this all the time on certain forums, down to
people listing their audacity courses, tech certs, etc.

We need to find ways to revive intellectual curiosity and a yearning for
knowledge in the masses, not stifle it by arbitrarily tying it down with
businesses wants, especially in an information age where much of it is freely
available online.

------
blizkreeg
I think much of the "useful" college experience can be shrunk to two years for
most majors. May be not more specialized fields like aerospace, physics, or
the like but even those can do just fine with a 3 yr undergraduate degree. But
CS, finance, any arts/commerce majors, liberal arts should totally not need
four long years.

~~~
bonesmoses
Which is, almost ironically, going back to vocational training instead of
standard Liberal Arts degrees. I triple-majored in Math, Physics, and Computer
Science because I had to be there for the whole degree, so why not. But all I
really needed, and all I use to this day, is the Computer Science portion.

We could probably eventually overhaul the system to that end, but I don't envy
those trapped in the transition period.

------
gozur88
Employers don't really have that much else to go on. In-house tests are a
legal minefield, and there are places you can graduate from high school
without learning how to read.

~~~
_rpd
I think this goes to the heart of the matter.

> In-house tests are a legal minefield

Does it need to be though? What about 3rd parties providing tests and
knowledge verification? There's been some developments on that front.

~~~
gozur88
It doesn't really matter who administers the tests. The problem is you're
opening yourself up to disparate impact lawsuits.

It's easier and safer for employers to use college rankings as a proxy for
intelligence.

------
segmondy
Yeah, America already has. The new reverence is for a Master's degree.

~~~
vocatus_gate
Masters is the new Bachelors.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
So, in 10 years, the PhD is gonna be all the rage?

~~~
lumberjack
Lots of people just get a Ph.D to have a higher starting salary and avoid a
possible glass ceiling later on. I'm planning on doing exactly that. It
depends on the job market in your location though.

------
jknoepfler
No it doesn't. It needs to up standards for a secondary degree and double down
on its investment in post secondary education. We need more literate,
culturally aware, mathematically and analytically capable, scientifically
knowledgeable humans, not less.

The fact that Americans are some of the least intellectually engaged people on
the planet is not proof that we need better alternatives to college. We need
better alternatives to intellectual disengagement.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
The high achievers are going to be well read anyways; if you stuffed everyone
accepted into Stanford into a room for four years instead of teaching them,
you'd wind up with a bunch of intellectually engaged and well-read
individuals.

It's the marginally-engaged folks that barely get into college that post-
secondary education makes a difference for. And, uhh, they kind of treat it
like a four-year party with less parental involvement.

IMO, the fact that Americans are some of the least intellectually engaged
people on the planet is a cultural problem that is basically fixed by the time
children have gone through primary education.

------
bonesmoses
Is it really a "reverence" though? When practically everyone and their dog has
one, it's the new minimum.

~~~
RubenSandwich
I wouldn't say 'practically everyone' has one. Only ~30% of the US population
holds one: [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/education/census-finds-
bac...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/education/census-finds-bachelors-
degrees-at-record-level.html). Just most of us on HN run in social circles
were that number is 85%+, that we feel like everyone has one.

~~~
bonesmoses
Isn't 30% is more than enough? If 3-4 people apply for a single position and
1-2 of them have a degree, then it's a fairly reasonable decision to ignore
the other two.

And the ratios I've seen are far more than 3-4 applications per position.

~~~
taxicabjesus
> If 3-4 people apply for a single position and 1-2 of them have a degree,
> then it's a fairly reasonable decision to ignore the other two.

Years ago I found a copy of "The Screwing of the Average Man" at a thrift
shop. According to Mr. Hapgood, getting preferential consideration for jobs
was always the reason wealthy families sent their children to college.

After WWII the proletariat class got congress to subsidize college so they too
could access jobs that had traditionally been reserved for the upper class.
Thus began the college price spiral.

------
taeric
You could read this as "America needs to get over the infatuation of entering
the workforce or college immediately."

Which, I should add, I'm not against.

------
typetypetype
Somewhere in the solution should be encouraging gap year(s) after high school.

~~~
irrational
I took two years off between high school and college (I ended up with 2
Bachelors and a Masters), but I don't think that has helped me in the least in
terms of employability.

~~~
freehunter
I'm not convinced a gap year is meant to increase your employability, rather
to help reset your mind after high school. It helps you find out who you are,
what you like and dislike, and helps determine if you really want to get that
communications degree or if maybe a finance degree is more what you're looking
for.

~~~
irrational
That's funny. Even after two years off, 2 bachelors, and a masters I still
didn't know what I wanted to do! I have a bachelors in Ancient Near Eastern
Studies, a second bachelors in Linguistics, and a masters in Educational
Psychology. But I work as a web developer for the sales team of a large
company. I was actually about four years out of college before I started
getting a feel for what I might want to do with my life (i.e., about 12 years
post high school). I'm very happy with what I do now so it all worked out.

------
paulus_magnus2
There should be a room for disruption. Start working right after school,
continue education at own paste at MOOC. Get company to allocate 10% time to
studying.

Technology (streaming) enables everyone to have MIT grade education for free
(theory part). Exams could be paid. The only labour intensive part of
education is the practical part. This could be paid or community based co-
study.

------
ianai
I think America needs to get over its reverence for the "free market".
Healthcare and education are critical needs. Without education we wouldn't
have modern medicine, food supply, clothing, housing, etc - you name it.
Without any and all healthcare we'd all be dying somewhere between 20-40, if
we're lucky. Yet, both "industries" experience ever increasing costs.
Consumers in both offset actualized needs with financial tools. Insurance only
works if a large majority of people do not use it. That's if you can obtain
and afford insurance. Education only pays off if your tuition expenses match
up with your employment options. That's assuming you manage to find work out
of college.

If you can't afford insurance then you're stuck paying out of pocket. By the
"one price" rule, doctors have to charge an individual the same they charge
insurance. An individual cannot strike a deal as easily with a provider as an
insurance company can - so they wind up paying 10-100x what an insurance
company would. Notice, that's not saying anything about what an insured person
would pay.

There's no corollary to that for education. People finance their education
(largely) with loans and up front. They're striking a deal based on what they
expect their future income to be. That future income, by the way, probably
won't be realized for the majority. For those it is, it may not be realized
until 5 or even 10 years down the road. By that point, the loan payments have
already started and may have already been scheduled to be paid back
completely.

America needs a new economic model. It needs an economic model that allocates
nails and food differently than it allocates healthcare and education. Right
now, it allocates immediate needs the same way it allocates 'possible
demands'. Financial companies estimate 'possible demands' on imperfect data
across imperfect realities. Because those two things are not the same, they
need to be handled differently.

------
wink
And here I was, thinking Germans and Austrians were kind of in love with their
academic degrees, but this sounds even worse.

But maybe the vocational training is better institutionalized here, so people
can actually earn enough as a craftsman or in the service industry.

------
WhiteSource1
Trump's victory showed the power of the uneducated. The Bachelors degree is
not only a technical degree but especially in America, with a general
education requirement, is also important to teach us citizenship, critical
thinking, and educate us beyond our own narrow field. Knowledge of basic
history (at least on a survey level) of our country and key places around the
world, a basic understanding of our political system, and general knowledge is
important to be better people and better citizens. Of course extremely smart
people might be able to get this on their own but most of us aren't Mark
Zuckerberg or Bill Gates.

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mercurialshark
I think the title "Reverence for the Bachelor's Degree," is inadvertently
misleading.

There certainly isn't profound respect or _reverence_ for a bachelor's degree
itself, from employers or anyone else. However, there is an expectation of
social and to some degree, field specific exposure.

Perhaps the point of the article is there are far more useful ways to gauge
someone's career/field specific potential than a bachelor's degree. And if
there are more practical assessment tools than not having a bachelor's degree
shouldn't be a barrier to entry.

------
svnsets
Things I learned in college:

\- How to borrow tens of thousands of dollars without any concrete evidence
that I would be able to pay it back

\- How to google (arguably a good skill, but not worth a five-figure price
tag)

\- How to write small

\- How to misuse big words

\- How to misuse buzzwords

\- How to use Dreamweaver (I later learned that the correct way to use
Dreamweaver is to uninstall it from your computer)

\- How websites were made in 2004 (this was in 2011-2013)

Things I was forced to learn after college to be even remotely relevant:

\- Every single aspect of my job as a lead software engineer

------
adrianratnapala
I think it is telling that the second nephew was a cook. When I think of
learning a trade I imagine fitters and turners. And here in Australia we do
need more of those skills -- but the chances are that service sector jobs will
be more abundant. And some -- like cooking can take the most successful ones a
long way.

That said, I would like to see aprentices rather than interns at my big
software company.

------
ThrustVectoring
The answer is simple. Make it generally illegal to ask or provide information
about your college education as part of interviewing for a job. If there's
bona-fide occupational requirement for specialized training, allow
certification by exam - the Fundamentals of Engineering exam or what actuaries
go through are good examples of this.

------
Overtonwindow
The Bachelors degree of yesterday is almost the equivalent to the Masters of
today in a lot of fields. It's sadly used as a gatekeeper, erroneously in so
many cases. Alas eventually, I predict, a new type of degree will emerge and
it will be a combination of the Bachelors and Masters, because the two will be
sufficiently diluted.

------
Afforess
The government needs to change education to a protected status, like gender,
religion, etc. Make it illegal for employers to ask for candidates educational
background and degrees. The core issue here is that companies use degrees and
education status as a filter and proxy for perseverance, intelligence, and
skill, which forces everyone who wants to be employed to obtain a degree. As
more job seekers obtain degrees, companies shift minimum educational
requirements higher. Higher requirements cause job seekers to obtain yet more
education, and neither companies nor job seekers can break this cycle. This is
a market breakdown and vicious cycle which needs intervention by the
government. (I fully expect libertarians to complain that the government
created this mess as a result of too much easy credit in the form of student
loans, and they may be right, but undoing that now is a lost cause and moot
point) If the government protects educational status, then degrees can't be
used to signal educational virtue, and they will cease to be obtained by
everyone. University education will revert back to those who desire education
for its merits and not its status.

~~~
cat199
> needs intervention by the government

It already _has_ intervention by the government.. this is called 'student
loans' which prop up US treasury bonds..

That the situation of requiring expensive degrees further implies increased
dependency on higher paying corporate jobs, in turn further centralizes
economic power, increases social pressure to purchase luxury consumer goods,
and also strengthens washington lobbying dollars doesn't hurt either..

------
Mc_Big_G
Bullshit. We need to make it mandatory and free for everyone just like a high
school diploma. Alternative option would be mandatory trade skill training.
The USA is currently fucked for the foreseeable future due to not caring about
education. Let's make it a priority instead of a gigantic military.

------
upofadown
Well it does serve as a nice class filter. Lower class people tend to not be
able to afford college...

------
randyrand
Whats that phrase? "Someone has to be a grave digger?

------
rc_bhg
Nah. It's a good system. I fear any alternatives.

------
aanm1988
> has been a collection of dismal white-collar jobs—in a call center chasing
> down delinquent customers for Baltimore Gas and Electric

That's not a white collar job.

~~~
chrisseaton
Why not? It's administrative work in an office environment. That seems white
collar to me. What do you think it is instead? It's not service work (pink
collar). It's not manual labour (blue collar).

