
Americans Losing Faith in College Degrees, Poll Finds - prostoalex
https://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-losing-faith-in-college-degrees-poll-finds-1504776601?mod=e2fb
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eksemplar
Dangerous trend. A large part of the reason my country (Denmark) is as rich as
it is because of education. We too talk about the value of certain parts of
academia, like Ancient Greek, and whether or not too many people go to the
university.

It's all become very cost-benefit, and while the discussion is a reasonable
one to have, most of our entrepreneurship comes from educational environments
and a lot of the benefits of education can't be directly measured.

I mean, there is a reason Tesla had to hire a Swedish company to do the
interior design of their cars and that Scandinavian design is increasingly
more influential in to world. We're not born better artists/designers, but we
do have a nurturing environment for those sort of things to grow and a way for
the designers to form easy partnerships with business degrees to be
successful.

I did project management and later general management autodidactic for a
while. It worked perfectly fine, but after taking a degree in management I
find myself wondering how the hell it ever worked.

Gut feeling, a clever mind and a willingness to learn on your own will get you
a long way, and you can absolutely succeed without education. But academia not
only teaches you tested methods it also teaches you why you use them and how
to determine which ones are best suited for a given situation.

~~~
Judgmentality
What did you learn from your management courses? Genuinely curious, as I've
always found that people with degrees in management were no better (and
probably slightly worse) than people that just figured it out. My evidence is
anecdotal and limited, so I'd be interested to hear what you found useful
about your program.

~~~
geomark
My anecdata from working quite a few years at big tech companies where most of
the staff began as technical and then some went off to get business degrees to
advance into management, is that the biggest change was they started using a
lot of business school buzz words and attached much more importance to
spreadsheets and presentations than they used to.

~~~
Judgmentality
"2/3 of HBS is BS" -Ben Rich, former Director of Lockheed Skunkworks

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lovich
I see a lot of people talking about the increasing cost of college being part
of the reason people are losing faith in degreees. I too, agree that this is a
large part.

However, did nobody else experience the dumbing down of colleges like I have?
I was told growing up that college courses were taught by educated,
experienced professors. Yet every year I was there though I got more and more
adjunct professors who were working second jobs at supermarkets to make ends
meet and TAs who were required to teach a course for their graduate degree but
should have never passed the course they were teaching in the first place. The
absolute worst I had was an economics course where some TA spent _every_,
_single_ class at the whiteboard muttering to herself and trying to draw the
charts in our textbook from memory but failing utterly to do so.

The entire class complained to the university and they didn't even respond. We
all just stopped caring because we given decent grades anyway and pushed
through in our degrees.

It is no wonder that people lose faith in the colleges when they let that
happen and still award you with a degree like you learned something

~~~
lsc
do you see the conflict inherent in arguing both that you want to spend less
money on a good and that you want the people providing that good to be more
skilled?

I mean, it's natural to want both of those things, and sometimes, there's some
inefficiency that can be fixed that makes things both better and less
expensive, but... not usually. Usually, if you want better workers to do a
task, you have to pay more, and that costs money.

My own impression is that instructor quality varies a lot by institution,
though I have never met a college professor who wasn't dramatically better
than what you'd expect based on pay.

~~~
lovich
Of course I can see the conflict. The problem is that universities have no
problem with such conflict. From their perspective they are charging more each
year per average student while spending less each year per average teacher.

Some of these schools are teaching things on the cutting edge, but how much of
that applies to undergraduate degrees? Most of what you get taught there has
been the same for decades if not centuries.

Universities have had rising costs, but much of that is due to things
tangential to actually teaching their students. My own college for instance
would completely rip out all of the flowers every few months and replace them
so that the campus looked nice to prospective students .

~~~
lsc
>Some of these schools are teaching things on the cutting edge, but how much
of that applies to undergraduate degrees? Most of what you get taught there
has been the same for decades if not centuries.

eh, I think there's a lot to be said for rubbing shoulders with industry
notables when you are learning the basics. It can be inspiring.

But then, there's also a lot to be said for teachers who are good teachers;
that can be inspiring too, in a different way.

>Universities have had rising costs, but much of that is due to things
tangential to actually teaching their students. My own college for instance
would completely rip out all of the flowers every few months and replace them
so that the campus looked nice to prospective students .

I went to a high school that... looked like a prison. I mean, how it looked
was certainly not the first thing I'd change, but it's certainly something I
would change. Look at any of the silicon valley tech companies... all of them
spend a lot of effort making their campus nice, and personally, I think
education is a lot more important to society than advertising.

~~~
lovich
My comment might have implied that these grounds were nice on the outside. The
grounds keeping was done anywhere that prospective students could see. On the
inside, the school was converting the study rooms in the dorms or pushing them
towards a local hotel because they accepted more students than there were
rooms for on campus.

I had to live on campus for one year and the room was 182 square feet for 2
people to live in with their bed, desks, clothes, and everything else for the
year. With this little space they would also kick you out during summer and
holidays so you got 8 months of the year there where they currently charge
6,838. It is not much better than a prison in terms of space or looks on the
inside. Even the mattresses were the same as the ones you'd find at a prison
or summer camp.

I still agree with you that education is important. Schools are no longer
selling an education though. They are selling an overpriced "college
experience" and giving you the same amount of knowledge that you could get
with wikipedia and some text books, and they charge extra for the textbooks

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rdl
If I had the choice of loans for a college degree or skipping the degree, I'd
personally skip the degree. My "hack" when I knew I couldn't pay for MIT was
to get accepted and then just not pay -- I got to take the classes up then got
retroactively deregistered around finals time. I kept that up for about 2y
until I found a great startup opportunity. If I had been saddled with
$100-200k of debt, I would have been pushed into taking a high cash comp/high
stability job rather than doing crazy startups. Ironically unpaid tuition
directly to the bursar vs a loan is just regular debt, and would be discharged
through bankruptcy (although MIT just forgave mine).

For the very rich (for whom tuition is still insignificant) or the poor and
minorities (who win from various forms of non loan financial aid), it seems
like college is a rational choice. Otherwise, unless you really need the
degree for a specific credentialed career (government, law, or medicine), I
would probably discourage college.

I do wish I could do a phd in infosec+economics somewhere today, but that is
really the only thing I can't readily do without an undergrad degree.

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thrden
Between the rising cost of a college degree, anti-free speech movements on
campuses, and the declining employability of non-STEM degrees it's not
surprising. Hopefully, this will work to reduce the overall cost of colleges.

~~~
csydas
Non-STEM seeking students really are not a majority in colleges. Per the
National Center for Education Statistics on conferred degrees, the number of
liberal arts degrees has been on a decline for quite a few decades while STEM
and more vocational degrees have been steadily increasing [1].

Slam universities for many reasons, but the students going aren't graduating
in arts; they're doing what employers say they want and still not getting
jobs.

Universities have many problems, but they still are useful. We have all these
STEM graduates but no one seems to be hiring them.

[1] -
[https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_322.10.a...](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_322.10.asp?current=yes)

~~~
lsc
Unemployment is at record lows. Where are you getting that people aren't
getting jobs?

~~~
flukus
Unemployment isn't the metric to look at. Just because someone is employed
doesn't mean the job is at all related to the degree. Our office cleaner is a
recent IT graduate.

Not to mention under employment and people that have just givin up.

~~~
lsc
People giving up is a different problem. If you have looked for work and
determined there is nothing for you out there, it's rational to re-evaluate
this periodically, no?

If you can't get on the computer once a month, spend some time on dice and
send a few resumes, the problem is not the economy; the problem is your mental
health.

I mean, I'm not saying those people shouldn't be helped; but having more jobs
available won't help them if they aren't looking. They need a psychologist or
social worker or something. Depression is way more treatable than it used to
be.

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NiklasMort
The American Education System is nothing but a slave factory for the bank
system. I mean whats the percentage of students in debt? Pretty sure above
50%. Want to be a MD to save lives? Sure here is your 250,000$ student debt oh
and don't forget malpractice insurance etc.

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anovikov
That's fine, that's how it should ideally be. Market seems to have reached
equilibrium now, with collages getting as much money as they possibly can.

~~~
rxhernandez
It's interesting how this forum seems to react so robotically to things that
adversely affect the lower class. Yes, it is good that it looks like people
will spend less money on something that might have a very poor roi depending
on your circumstances. No it is not okay, that the lower class was duped into
believing they needed a piece of paper to be financially secure in life and
that many went so far as to get literal pieces of paper from diploma mills
that only shows that they were duped. It is not okay that they are in debt for
substantial amounts of money they can't get out of.

Or let me put it another way. It's like a massive hurricane just ended and you
said: "That's fine, that's how it should ideally be. The hurricane lost its
energy for some reason that is intrinsic to hurricanes losing their energy."

I hope that this doesn't sound too emotionally charged as I have some very
close friends that act robotically to just about everything.

~~~
Moshe_Silnorin
Empathy breeds terrible policy.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Empathy and compassion are mandatory for sound policy.

Edit because of HN throttling: I haven't seen unsavory elected folks generate
sound policy yet, so I'm sticking to my statement.

~~~
icebraining
Maybe just compassion:
[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/02/paul_bloom_on_e.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/02/paul_bloom_on_e.html)

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tabeth
I'm surprised it took this long. The value is opaque. Education is just
selection bias. College should be free up front and cost commensurate with
your first few years of income. Incentives would then be aligned properly

~~~
vlunkr
Yeah! Where's that magic wand that makes it free again?

~~~
tabeth
"cost commensurate with your first few years of income"

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nether
Finally the obsession with white collar careers is ending. I much prefer the
German system of presenting trades and office jobs as equally valid. This is
the first step to revitalizing skilled trades in the US.

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maxxxxx
At least in the US the path that will most likely lead to a decent career is
still through college. As long as there aren't good vocational programs then
people losing faith in college is not a good thing. It's more that people are
losing faith in the whole system and just check out.

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avenoir
I wonder how much money is spent on students playing catch-up after enrolling
into colleges because they can barely read, write or do basic math. I've seen
plenty of this kind of thing in study groups during my 2 years of community
college and it was really fascinating to witness this level of illiteracy
especially having lived in Eastern Europe where even the poorest of poor
received good public education. It's absolutely awful and there had to be
significant money invested to keep that going. Our public schools are an
absolute disaster and cutting costs to higher education should start here. I
don't know what this entails. Perhaps paying teachers more in order to attract
more talent? Replace GEDs with night schools for adults without age
restrictions?

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sbr464
There simple needs to be a revolution in this space. I would say, from
personal experience, that Galvanize, a software bootcamp/school etc. is the
most organized & on point pushing to replace tradition CS programs. But CS is
only a micro slice of the job economy. Why can't their (or others) model of
short term/extremely focused programs be applied to other in-demand,
specialized, fields? Examples? Non-MD Psychiatrists that review specific
cases, other mental health specialties, highly technical
pharmacist/software/hardware/etc technical jobs (sry lack of clarity) but
taught in this new learning style vs 6-8+ traditional college curriculums.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> Why can't their (or others) model of short term/extremely focused programs
> be applied to other in-demand, specialized, fields? Examples? Non-MD
> Psychoatrists

We had these. They were called apprenticeships. [1]

[1] [https://www.dol.gov/apprenticeship/](https://www.dol.gov/apprenticeship/)

Companies became accustomed to making the rules though labor-wise over the
last decade (including externalizing the cost of an employee's education).
This is slowly changing due to a tight labor market [2] (forcing employers to
finally invest in their workforce) but it will take time.

[2] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-06/it-s-
boom...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-06/it-s-boom-times-
for-recruiters-as-u-s-job-market-tightens)

~~~
dragonwriter
> We had these. They were called apprenticeships

Apprenticeships tend not to be “short-term”.

~~~
toomuchtodo
A country cannot bootcamp its way to prosperity. Education takes time.

~~~
ux-app
>A country cannot bootcamp its way to prosperity. Education takes time.

I need this printed as a bumper sticker

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SmirkingRevenge
The traditional college path just isnt scalable enough anymore, at least for
undergrad degrees. Undergrad level education needs to be cheap and attainable
from anywhere. Moocs are getting us there, hopefully the trend continues.

~~~
lsc
I'm not saying that MOOCS aren't valuable; they certainly are, but they aren't
college. You don't get the socialization, among other things. This is super
obvious to me, as someone without an education who works with people who
mostly have very high end educations. It's a huge difference, even when I can
compete technically, it's really obvious that I am really different and
lacking the background the others have.

~~~
SmirkingRevenge
Yea, I agree - I think the challenge is to figure out how to get some or all
of those benefits for MOOC users - or those otherwise pursuing education off-
campus or remote settings. Lack of college-type socialization (and network
building) in MOOCS is a thing that can be solved.

Forking out 10's of thousands of dollars or more in tuition along with all the
other life-altering changes required to attend a university for 4 dedicated
years is really a poor value for a bit of socialization/networking, IMHO -
unless maybe you are at a _really_ elite university.

~~~
lsc
I think the "life altering changes" required to attend a university for four
years are... a big part of the point of going.

I think the cost, well, if that is worth it depends largely on what you value
and the marginal value of your dollar. I look around my hometown when I visit
my parents, not a particularly wealthy place, and I see a lot of those giant
trucks, any one of which could have covered four years at a public university.

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pzone
Good. People shouldn't make decisions about things like whether to go to
college on faith, they should make such decisions after earnest deliberation.

~~~
tsunamifury
Everyone should have access to an education. Period.

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0xbear
Hopefully a renaissance in vocational training will follow. We have plenty of
English major burger flippers as it is.

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LeicaLatte
Fair enough. Thanks to the internet, going to college to study is definitely
an antiquated idea.

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ransom1538
Get a list of jobs. Sort by desc the salaries. Scan for what you _could_ like.
Figure out what you need for that particular job and get that. Done.

~~~
dredmorbius
How many of those jobs will exist in 10 years, let alone 40?

~~~
KGIII
Which is yet another reason to keep learning and adapting. Going to university
should encourage continued intellectual curiosity, not be an end-point.

~~~
dredmorbius
Which isn't exactly sorting and ranking jobs by salary.

