

College: The biggest scam we'll ever buy - marcanthonyrosa
http://marcanthonyrosa.com/college-the-biggest-scam-well-ever-buy

======
JonnieCache
Education is what you make it.

If the grading structure is so rigid and foolish, then it ought to be trivial
to game it, leaving almost all your time free to get laid/start a
business/contemplate the human condition to your heart's content.

If you choose to spend your time trying to eke out as many marks as possible
from each minute spent cramming, then I'd wager you probably aren't
imaginative enough to be ultra-successful anyway. Aim to leave university
having done something so cool that your eventual grade is rendered irrelevant,
(ideally so irrelevant that you can drop out.)

 _"But these benefits cannot completely justify a system where creativity and
genuine learning isn't properly rewarded."_

If you're in your 20s and you still need to be "rewarded" by a teacher giving
you a shiny gold star then again, something is wrong.

EDIT: upon consideration, I am putting across a somewhat elitist view here.
Not everyone can be expected to "do something so cool that your eventual grade
is rendered irrelevant," to transcend their peers in order to gain value from
their degree; that's a contradiction. There are indeed many flaws in the
system and it is unreasonable to say "just hack your way around them for your
own benefit!" when we could just fix the system so one can take the normal,
average route though it and still get value from one's money/time.

In lieu of that though, I still think what I said stands, although I didn't
have to pay american tuition fees.

~~~
aidenn0
>Not everyone can be expected to "do something so cool that your eventual
grade is rendered irrelevant," to transcend their peers in order to gain value
from their degree; that's a contradiction.

Not everyone, but those who plan to be mentioned along with "Steve Jobs,
Alexander Flemming, and Adam Smith" certainly can.

~~~
JonnieCache
You can't design an education system just around those people though.

~~~
aidenn0
Right, but the original article was saying the education system is bad for
those people, and my point is your original comment wasn't elitist, it was a
valid response to the complaint in the original article.

~~~
JonnieCache
Also, I don't think the christ-figure of apple corp is in the same bracket as
the discoverer of penicillin and the author of wealth of nations, but I don't
imagine arguing about that is going to get us anywhere. Just wanted to
register my dissent.

------
achompas
I'd argue that college is the _perfect_ medium for learning about creativity:
creative opportunities don't fall into your lap. Your first novel, album, or
photography exhibit won't materialize from air--you have to _work_ towards
them. (That explains why I haven't made music yet!)

Students can be creative in writing or painting classes, robotics lab, go-kart
engineering shops, or even on their political science papers or statistics
projects. None of those are required (maybe the papers and projects), just
like writing a novel isn't a pre-requisite for _life_ , but students have the
option to participate.

Again, to beat a dead horse a little further: college is _what you make of
it._ If you memorize bold words, you're ready to file TPS reports; if you take
that pottery class or join the robotics competition, you're ready to enjoy all
of life's dimensions.

(Also, I flagged this because (a) it's another college-bashing piece and (b)
it has possibly the worst argument against college I've seen so far.)

------
kevinalexbrown
_Maybe, just maybe, the college system isn't as perfect as we'd like to
believe. Maybe, just maybe, we've been learning the entirely wrong lessons._

Maybe, just maybe, this theme is a little tired. I keep hearing this, and I
keep believing it. Cramming for tests does not a creative person make. But
neither does sitting around talking about your creativity. Ultimately
creativity comes from what we do and make, and college is nowhere near perfect
for that, but then again college can't optimize for _anything_ , because there
are far too many things it might prepare a student for, however well.

Incidentally, I don't believe college should be placed on the pedestal it
often is, to the point that wondering if it's "as perfect as we'd like to
believe" is the wrong question entirely. e.g.
<http://www.paulgraham.com/credentials.html>

------
kabdib
I never crammed for a test. Aside from courses that I liked (like History and
English) I never took anything outside of CS. I dropped out after ~ 3 years to
write software for a living.

This worked okay in 1982. I don't know if it would work now. I /do/ know that
when I interview someone I never really look at their degree or coursework
except as a starting point to figure out if they're a good hire.

There are two other people within fifty feet of me who have a similar
educational story. We work at a very large company and you've probably used
our products.

As far as I'm concerned, college is what you make of it. If you're going there
purely for a degree and you don't learn anything useful, that's going to be a
problem. If you go and learn something and can demonstrate that, you're good.
I don't care if you went to Podunk or MIT, I don't care if you have the piece
of paper or not; if you have the chops, you've won.

------
jwingy
The first two sentences of his last paragraph:

"Is college really a scam? Most likely, no."

Thanks for admitting your title was linkbait?

Also, it's fine if you're going to complain about the college experience, but
please offer alternatives. It's much easier to bitch than to come up with
solutions.

------
tryitnow
I am pretty much as anti-college as it gets, but this piece really doesn't lay
out the best arguments for why our higher education system is failing us.

This doesn't sound like an argument against college in general, it sounds like
an argument against really bad colleges.

The problem I have with college is that it tries to do two very different
things: 1) Prepare students for participating in the market economy 2) Provide
learning for the sake of learning

It's best to separate these two things. First of all, doing (1) shouldn't take
4 years for most people. And it definitely shouldn't be four years of
classroom learning interspersed with summer's of "real work."

And doing (2) is something that shouldn't be tied to how we sustain ourselves
economically (i.e. getting jobs). Learning for the sake of learning really
needs to be limited to those who: (a) have an aptitude for it (b) have the
passion for it Otherwise, you're pretty much wasting everyone's time.

How would this look in practice? I don't know, but I bet will start seeing
this pattern emerge.

The demand probably won't come from students. It will come from cashed up
employers who desperately want to hire, but see long lines of unemployed grads
who have no clue how to make themselves useful.

------
ImprovedSilence
God, college was fantastic! Talk about the greatest 4.5 years of my life.
Here's why:

I was in Engineering, where they drill math into your heads for the first 2
years, and you don't see a lick of a practical application for it, but looking
back, that was incredibly useful.

I found more creative outlets then I could possibly imagine. I had friends in
the fine arts who could teach me how to paint, and let me play around in the
photography darkroom. I dabbled in getting a minor in philosophy (but found
the meaning to life, and decided I didn't really need to go any further in
it..) I planned practical jokes and embarked on poorly thought epic adventures
with roommates. I wrote in my spare time (inspired to write out thoughts by my
philosophy teacher) I met friends who played guitar as well, and we made wrote
goofy songs that annoyed the neighbors, to blow of steam.

The social aspect was AMAZING. I participated on two club sports teams, joined
philanthropic causes and met some of the most inspiring people from all walks
of life, I threw the greatest parties and after-parties in the history of
life, (I was somewhat shy in high school though, THAT changed) I now have more
friends than I know what to do with, and an available couch to crash on in
every major city in the Northeast (and several in the Midwest and CA)

I was free. It's not like most of real life, with serious financial
responsibilities. No day was the same. If life sucked, in four months a new
semester would be here, and it would be different.

Lastly, it opened doors. I have a career that pays well (thanks, valuable
engineering degree) I have connections (be it social or business), and it was
so damn tough (at least at times) it gave me the confidence that if I put
enough effort into something, I can build it, and succeed. _Priceless_

edit: I didn't build anything awesome in college, or get a startup going, or
discover the cure for cancer, but it gave me tools to do so, the rest is up to
me.

edit #2: I spent a semester in Florence, Italy. I sat in museums and sketched,
I took a history and culture of food class, I was exposed to so much diversity
in thought/way of life/culture. I became exceedingly good at picking up non-
verbal communication, which is VERY useful in real life (Took my first Italian
class while there...). It was my first time living in a city, now I travel
frequently, and move with comfort in a city. Sans travel expenses, it wasn't
any more expensive than my public school tuition and room and board.

------
johncch
I'm not sure I get what this guy is getting at. I've been through 2 colleges
in 2 different countries (BA and MS) and am on my second job right now right
after my MS. Not to list my credentials or anything, but in general no matter
where I go, it's always a systematic thing that we as humans created and we
have to tackle. The biggest challenge in a job is not the job but the
organization.

Organizations aside, even in startup land or various just small companies as
you know it, there are restrictions, in different forms. Customer
satisfaction, for one. Investor pressure, as another, and they can be
restrictions, or challenges depending on how you see it.

My problem with college is that for most of the folks, when they get into
college, they don't really know what they want, with the new found freedom and
gets distracted by the various frat like bonding activities that goes on in
the campus.

///

I don't think creativity exists in some sort of pure unadulterated sort of
vacuum where an individual is "free". Philosophically speaking, no one is ever
"free". No one wants to be either.

Truly successful people are successful despite of the system. They are
successful because they know how to break out of the system. They understand
(metaphorically speaking) the system and how to cross the line so that the
create something new. That, is creativity.

Unfortunately, my opinion is that most people try the best to construct some
sort of structure to "teach the young", so to speak; I don't think there's any
malice in there. The truth is, you can't teach people to be creative. You can
teach people to be different, but if different becomes the norm, then
different is no longer different. To be truly creative, one needs to have a
good combination of observation, introspection, good working ethics (i.e. slog
through the details) and willpower.

------
Synthetase
I think I might have some perspective to comment on education. I dropped out
of a large public institution in a technical program to work in industry for a
while. Many of my motivations were similar to the authors complaints.

Is education a scam? I think it is what you make it out to be. If you major in
Communications and spend all night fratting it up, then yes you could have a
case that education was not useful to you. Even then you are deriving utility
because you are practicing your people skills and creating a network useful in
your future career.

I don't find his complaints about scut work particularly compelling. It
happens in industry. Get used to it and stop whining.

I think that the biggest problem nowadays is that we immediately push students
to college right after high school. For a subset of highly motivated students,
this is the right move and they often thrive in college. I do think the
majority could benefit from a year or two to find themselves. A semi-mandatory
national service program might be a great idea since it would carve out a time
for this express purpose. Students would no longer feel they were behind if
they did not immediately enter college. The time spent in college would also
be spent more productively.

Ultimately I plan on going back to school. I think there are something like
six genealogical hops between Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, and John Stuart
Mills. For better or worse, the most brillant minds who produce the ideas
which civilization are based around or usually found in universities. One
simply cannot get that kind of personal mental exposure to them in industry.

------
Forrest7778
You didn't explicitly go over how creativity is stunted other than saying it
isn't rewarded. College teaches you new facts, it is extremely objective in
it's teachings so that later on you can expand your ideas and creativity upon
what you learned subjectively. It s a great place to expand upon things that
have already been discovered in a structured manner allowing you to specialize
in a timely manner (as compared to learning on your own).

Maybe I'm just biased, but if you find my ideas odd please inform me of why
you believe so as I'd love to hear!

------
libraryatnight
To add to the chorus: college is what you make it. I haven't finished my
degree, financial reasons caused me to pause (27 now, going back will be
weird). But I'll be back. Honestly, even when I graduate I'll probably still
pop in for the occasional literature course or odd class I hear of that's
interesting. College is a great place for discussion, flexing new ideas, and
just general growth as a person. But, it's not for everyone.

I've seen a few articles like this pop up on HN and it always reminds me of
this article I read a few years ago:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/06/in-
the-b...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/06/in-the-basement-
of-the-ivory-tower/6810/)

I think it's worth mentioning that many of the reasons I enjoy college, and
college classes, are the same reasons I love coming to HN. I am not a
programmer, I do not work for a startup, I'm actually a literature student
working in a support role that has little to do with technical skill. I come
to HN because I enjoy a forum filled with intelligent discourse, where most
visitors understand that intelligent people can disagree.

edit: I should also add to that list of reasons I like to keep up with
computer and technical news, too :)

------
dgreensp
College, and school in general, is a strange game indeed. Probably the only
way to get through it unscathed (or with minor scars) is with an intense
amount of perspective, that is, not taking it too seriously. If you mold your
very being around "winning" at school, you are probably hurting your ability
to win at life -- to be successful or even fulfilled.

I wish I knew then what I know now, but I hope to teach my kids healthy
priorities and time management skills.

------
brockf
> Is college really a scam? Most likely, no.

Might want to re-title your article then.

------
polychrome
Maybe you should consider transferring then? College is there to increase your
breadth of knowledge. Ask yourself how many of your friends who never went to
college critically analyze the world around them or have well thought out
discussions about things bigger than themselves (cosmos, patterns in the
world, science, etc). Remember, SA is the exception!

Creativity comes from limits (and knowledge). In art schools, students are
told to only use certain materials for a reason. Why do you think we have
coding competitions where the winner has the fewest lines of code or can do
the most in 48 hours?

While I can understand your viewpoint, it just sounds like you need to either
change your major or school or both. I went to a university where we had to
co-op (read lots of internships that didn't involve getting coffee) and my
core classes depended on mostly group projects solving problems. It is
precisely because of this education and my breadth of knowledge that I have
ideas connecting completely unrelated ideas.

------
rtperson
This is such a shallow mush of generalities, that it's pretty much worthless
as a critique of higher education.

"these benefits cannot completely justify a system where creativity and
genuine learning isn't properly rewarded."

Anyone who has ever taught at the college level will quickly realize how wrong
that sentence is. Any undergraduate who shows the _slightest_ amount of spark,
imagination, initiative, and hard work gets rewarded (as they should) with
good grades. The ones who get punished are those who game the system by trying
to get the highest mark for the least amount of work. These latter are usually
the ones who complain that creativity (i.e., their own rank laziness) is not
being "rewarded properly" (because, ummmm..., the school isn't making the next
Steve Jobs... or DaVinci, or someone like that...).

You want your creativity crushed and your initiative smothered? Try _working
in a job_. School is an absolute blast compared with what the rest of your
life will feel like.

------
arturnt
I actually don't agree with this at all. Everyone loves to hate on college,
but personally and professionally on average there is a world of difference
between people that come from a good school and a bad school.

We are all lazy, I would rather have fun and party; that's a no brainer.
However, rigor and competition and some metric(grades) to compare students is
what pushes and motivates them to succeed. Creativity is possible in creative
subjects, if you take drama, music, or art grading is going to be very
different than in chemistry or physics. This has nothing to do with the
system, and more to do with subjects.

Not everyone thrives in the system, but not everyone gets joy out of learning
either. Problem is that there are a few good schools and a lot of bad schools,
so on average you'll hear poor experiences, but this is suffering from the
silent evidence effect.

------
crazygringo
> We can learn all we want, but GPA is the end-all on how well we understand
> material and, subsequently, prepare around it.

Interestingly enough, in the ten years and probably fifty job interviews I've
had since I graduated from college, not once was I ever asked for my GPA. (The
only time in my life was once for a summer internship, _during_ college.)

In college, I wasn't sure if my strategy of trying to genuinely learn, and not
cram for tests or cater to teachers' whims, would serve me or burn me. Turned
out it was very smart.

But that may only be because I went into software later on, where employers
care mostly about the skills you demonstrate in interviews. Whereas for people
in law and medicine, it appears your GPA matters a great deal.

~~~
achompas
I've been asked once. The person had just asked me how many ping-pong balls
fit into the room we were sitting in, so that should tell you something about
their interviewing abilities.

~~~
yzhengyu
It is actually one of those famous interview questions. Kinda like the
Microsoft one where they asked you why are manhole covers round. Totally
useless, since performance in an interview is not indicative on whether an
employee is a good fit or not.

~~~
achompas
I know! It's always defended as a way to "see how the candidate thinks," but
that only invites pop psychology assessments. Whatever, the person was a jerk
regardless.

------
fennecfoxen
Private collage + faculty dependent tuition concession, jerks. :) Nice
education, no debt. But we can't all be faculty dependents.

The computer-science parts were helpful but not super-helpful; Real Experience
was more helpful. The art minor was fun. I learned to appreciate some other
things like the mandatory English courses a while after I stopped taking them.
I don't know how to make students like my past self better appreciate those
things in advance so as to take advantage of them. I think it's a bit of a
problem for most students.

------
phamilton
It's only a scam if you pay too much for it.

At $2200 a semester (before scholarship), I'm paying roughly $100 a week to
use campus facilities and have access to my professors time. Considering I
spend 10 hours in class and my professors all have 5 or so office hours each
week, I think I'm getting a pretty good bargain.

Although, BYU is an exception. Most other schools aren't really the same bang
for your buck.

------
gavreh
This is clearly link bait.

Title: "College: The Biggest Scam We'll Ever Buy"

Conclusion thought: "Is college really a scam? Most likely, no."

------
brikis98
The purpose of school and college isn't training. It's education. People that
confuse the two will be very disappointed with the results.

------
gee_totes
This guy should have gone to Evergreen

<http://www.evergreen.edu>

