
My Valuable, Cheap College Degree - kestakhri
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/opinion/my-valuable-cheap-college-degree.html
======
up_and_up
I have a ~10K degree from UC Berkeley that I got in 2004.

Spent 2 years at Cabrillo College, in Aptos, CA - Tuition Cost: ~$1000

Spent 18 months at UC Berkeley, taking 16-21 credits per semester, including a
summer quarter, after a small scholarship ($4000) - Tuition Cost: $10,000

So $11,000

My strategy: Go to community college for 2 years, do well, get the Berkeley
Alumni Scholarship ($4000/year), take lots of classes, finish early. I have
$0.0 debt. Due to tuition increases not sure you could replicate this, but I
bet you could get close.

For those who get snobbish re community college, it really depends where you
go! At Cabrillo, a lot of my profs had Phd's from reputable schools and the
students were pretty sharp. You get great access to profs in the small
classes. Once I got to Berkeley I had no problem walking right up to the profs
there, was not intimidated. Plus you get a better perspective of the world in
Community College sitting next to the pregnant single mom, the retiree, the
recent immigrant and the lawyer turned Plummer in your Philosophy of Mind
class! Interesting discussion!

~~~
smokey_the_bear
What did you study? My father did the same thing as you, in the 1960s, and
still raves about how great the community college was - it was small enough
that he could do whatever he wanted in the chem lab because the prof knew him.
I've looked at the catalogues for community colleges though, and I don't see
how I could have gone there without drastically changing the amount of
material that was covered my degree. They just don't offer the math and
engineering classes that I took in my first two years.

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insaneirish
The moral of the article's story, and my experience interviewing lots of
folks, is that the quality of the student's desire to learn supersedes the
perceived quality of the institution.

Funny enough, I took "C Programming" at Thomas Edison (mentioned in the
article) the summer between 7th and 8th grades. I learned at home and took
proctored exams. 5 years later, Rutgers honored the 3 credits (though I also
had AP credit) for an intro programming class.

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codexon
I thought this comment there summed up the entire article succinctly.

 _A contrarian comment based on the interestingly paradoxical fact that our
sub-20K PhD found his path to happiness (if, indeed, that's what heading the
American Enterprise Institute represents for him) by recognizing he might best
pursue such a goal by becoming a tenured professor at a $45K per BA year
institution. I remain unimpressed by today's tutorial_

~~~
randallsquared
So, we can sum up that comment as "It's not what you learn, it's how much it
cost for your degree that matters in life"?

~~~
codexon
The way I took it is that his degree was valuable to him because he
participated in the overpriced college market, the very thing he is
criticizing.

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pm90
May I propose an alternate solution? Get your degree from India. Most of the
good universities have special considerations/ admission procedures for
foreign students.

There will be plenty of differences from a University in the West; but for
those with a sense for adventure, it might still be worthwhile

~~~
rayiner
Indian degrees get very little respect here in the U.S. even relative to
random "directional state schools." There is a reason Indian students almost
always do some sort of graduate education here in the U.S.

If you're an American and smart and capable, the way to go is to load up on
community college credits in HS, do a year of CC, then transfer to a state
school with reasonable tuition for the least year and change.

If you've got some programming skill, it should be even easier. I earned
enough during my summers in college programming to pay most of my in-state
tuition and cost of living at my state school, and it wasn't even a
particularly cheap one.

~~~
r00fus
It's not just Indian degrees, it's almost all foreign degrees from
institutions that aren't well known. My wife's close-to-MBA-level BAC+5 degree
from a reputable French university (ie, good but not Sorbonne) was pretty much
not considered when she was searching for employment in the states. After she
got an MBA here, she was much more employable.

~~~
gav
I've never had a problem with my UK degree in the states, though this may be
because I'm at the point where it's just a check mark next to "the candidate
has a relevant degree".

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guylhem
Yes, there ma be an education bubble out there, but it's easy to critize
education when you already have gotten it and the privileges it entails - such
as understand how it potentially is a bubble!

But even with that knowledge of the high risks of a bubble, and even if one
tries to forget the many studies proving education is a worthwhile investment
(for the increased salary benefits one gets - cf signalling theory) how munch
do you think the capacity to learn and create is worth? How valuable is it to
you?

Some people do not need any formal education to get that. But many do. And
even those who don't "need" a formal education can take great advantage of it
- for ex finding some golden insights with a marketable value, formalizing
their knowledge, or even better- learning how to create new knowledge (PhD)

There is a growing anti intellectual bias - even here on HN. Whatever, but
least leave aside your opinion and consider the facts.

(conflict of interest warning - I made an "investment" in my education, and
therefore I could have a biased opinion)

~~~
InclinedPlane
There absolutely is an education bubble. That doesn't mean that education is
worthless, far from it. Houses are never worthless even when there are huge
housing bubbles. The problem is the runaway, unsustainable cost.

I got my degree from a local state school in the mid 90s. And then I went back
and pursued another degree in a dual-major for another 3 years before finally
deciding I wanted to do something else and leaving school. That was a luxury I
had because school was so cheap, my parents paid for most of school and I was
able to graduate without any debt. Today that same educational experience at
the same school would cost nearly twice as much per year adjusted for
inflation. Which is just not supportable without taking on most of it as debt
for most people. And if you go to out of state tuition plus rent the costs are
enormous, and also unsustainable for even people from reasonably affluent
families.

Meanwhile, it's become oh so much easier to take on massive amounts of student
loan debt, which has no doubt helped fuel some of this bubble.

No matter how valuable an education is, and I consider mine plenty valuable,
when the cost doubles or more the benefit to cost ratio goes down
substantially. And that's the core problem of the education bubble today. It
used to be that moderately valuable degrees were still good, because they
could be gotten cheaply enough, but now every degree is hugely expensive so
the less valuable degrees now have a much lower RoI and are much less
worthwhile investments.

~~~
muzz
If there is "absolutely" a bubble, please explain the motivation for
individuals to participate in the "bubble"?

I.e. with the housing bubble and the stock market bubble, the motivation was
to buy those assets solely in anticipation of being able to sell them at
higher prices later on, thus being able to profit (and handsomely so).

------
ctdonath
My wife & I have five degrees between us (an Ivy League included), total cost
under $100k. The amount of tuition money out there waiting for recipients is
staggering, if you'll just look for it, study hard, and be flexible. And do
realize there is a difference between education and certification.

If you're paying list price for an education, you're doing it wrong.

~~~
codexon
Be a minority or the top 1% in your class of people likely depending on the
same thing?

~~~
muzz
If you are a student from a family with median income or below, Harvard and
Stanford waive tuition (and Stanford will cover room and board too).

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/02/21/us-education-
stanf...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/02/21/us-education-stanford-
tuition-idUSN2041220220080221)

~~~
codexon
I think everyone is aware of that by now. Someone brings it up every time
tuition comes up.

Given their acceptance rates, this is not an option for even a majority of HN
readers.

------
mitchi
To me it seems really silly to spend 100K to learn things that are only at a
Bachelor's level. People who did their bachelor's in other countries like
France or Sweden, for free, are learning the same things from scientific
papers right now. Even if the Bachelor degree is harder or better, there is no
difference in the end because it's only Bachelor level stuff.

Harvard or MIT cannot make you into a powerful machine. The most important
thing to achieve a big scientific career is to be born with the genetics and
the willpower to work. It seems that going to Harvard or Stanford takes care
of the latter part since you are betting your life on a few years of your life
and you are taking extraordinary debt to do so. If you're getting it all for
free, you probably won't work as hard right? But after a few years, if you go
to the master degree or the doctorate, what difference does it make? None.

~~~
zanny
The money isn't for the knowledge, its for the credentials. Having a degree
from a perceived "top" school is being oversold as extremely valuable when job
hunting. Actual skillset is irrelevant.

What ends up being really relevant is that a lot of the big gun companies
target schools, and recruit right from the graduating crop in person,
sometimes with barely an interview as long as the GPA is reasonable. _That_
has value bordering on that 100k price tag.

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bsg75
> Meanwhile, the average tuition for just one year at a four-year private
> university in 2011 was almost $33,000,

Why the focus on private universities? From the same data source, the cost at
a public institution is less than half that. (Public institution grad here)

Get a degree somewhere, and concurrently some relevant experience (paid or
volunteer), and you will be better suited for the future than someone who has
to invest 100% of their university career (or after) struggling to pay for it.

------
jstalin
Where can one get a 5K MA?

~~~
jackpirate
Apply as a phd so you can TA the whole time, then drop out with the masters.
You'll get paid for your MA.

------
therobot24
i did my undergrad at a commuter school (ended up with three bachelor degrees
for a total cost of ~$24k) and am now at top 10 for my PhD in a STEM field.
Even though i have no debt, i wouldn't recommend it. Comparing the school i
was at, and the one i'm in now is like apples and oranges. Even the
undergraduate classes i TA are much more difficult in terms of the amount of
knowledge and work required to pass than the smaller local school. Before i
figured that math is math, science is science, and the facts shouldn't really
change from school to school, but now i can really see a difference of who is
better prepared for cutting edge industry/graduate school.

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anshumans
From an economics standpoint, I'm curious why education has been skyrocketing
in price? Is it primarily due to demand, and universities are just jacking up
tuition because they can? Or are there other factors at play?

~~~
kestakhri
I think you'll enjoy this fascinating lecture and Q&A by Glenn Reynolds held
at the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism on your very question,
entitled The Higher Education Bubble and What Comes Next:
<http://vimeo.com/15821943> Check it out.

~~~
anshumans
Sweet, will check it out, thanks!

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drcube
Hasn't the largest increase in tuition costs come from paying so many new
administrators? Let's start there before we start cutting lectures and class
time.

~~~
muzz
Would love to see any hard data on what the actual new administrators are, and
how much the additional costs are. Raw numbers, not the % increase compared to
some year in the past.

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CleanedStar
"I disagree. I possess a 10K-B.A., which I got way back in 1994. And it was
the most important intellectual and career move I ever made."

And this is why your major accomplishments are being a professor at a third-
tier school like Syracuse, and being a commissar and hack for a think tank
funded by the Olins, ExxonMobil etc. What a surprise such a shlocky job is
done by someone who could barely make it through college and got a crap
degree.

~~~
RobotCaleb
Who are you to attack this man's accomplishments and demean his work?

