
Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018) - laurex
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/whats-college-good-for/546590/
======
justinzollars
I feel like everyone is doing social media marketing - or something equally
useless while the world around us is breaking down.

In the Bay Area, in San Francisco specifically, voters allocated funds to fix
or replace every single Bart escalator. The best hope we have for completing
this job is 7 years. Yes you read this correctly 7 years. The problem is we do
not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work. Money isn't the
problem.

Maybe more people should go into the trades - and not be funneled into higher
education. We desperately need better infrastructure, more housing, tangible
things. Not everyone is cut out for college.

~~~
twblalock
> Maybe more people should go into the trades - and not be funneled into
> higher education. We desperately need better infrastructure, more housing,
> tangible things. Not everyone is cut out for college.

This is a common line of argument, but you will find that many tradesmen hope
their children will go to college and get office jobs.

The trades are hard on the body. Some trades are hazardous. An injury or
medical problem that would be a hassle for someone with an office job can be
career-ending for people in the trades.

There aren't a lot of jobs for people in middle age who can't physically work
a trade anymore due to age or illness or injury -- it's about as bad as being
a laid-off factory worker.

The trades also get hit very hard in recessions as people build fewer things,
infrastructure spending gets cut or postponed, etc. That, combined with the
serious impact of medical problems and injuries I just mentioned, can make the
trades more financially precarious than they seem to be.

I'm not opposed to people going into the trades, but some of the pro-trade-
education arguments need a reality check. People need to know about the
downsides.

~~~
rumcajz
In Switzerland, most people go into trades. Higher education is not seen ad
having higher status in any way. Also, if you call a plumber to fix your
broken sink, it's going to be _really_ expensive.

~~~
FranzFerdiNaN
So most people go into trades and yet it’s still incredibly expensive to hire
a tradesperson? Sounds like the market is failing.

~~~
bdamm
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. It's a legit question.

~~~
krageon
Because we've all heard the "market" arguments hundreds of times here and they
never seem to have much to do with reality at all. It's gotten to the point
where I have real trouble assuming good faith when someone brings it up again.

------
_hardwaregeek
There's several issues I've noticed as a student. First, kids are told to go
to college immediately after high school. If college was high school 2.0, this
would be fine. But college is completely different from high school; it's
significantly more expensive, more free form and more rigorous (at least
compared to most high schools). I see so many students who clearly have no
clue what they want to do, why they're in college (beyond "my parents want me
to") or how to accomplish their goals.

Having seen the sheer quantity of kids struggling with simple stuff like
cleaning, cooking and not drinking themselves to death, I'm becoming more and
more in favor of a mandatory service at the age of 18. Maybe not military like
the IDF, but some sort of program where kids are forced to go away from home
and learn to be self sufficient. Little Bobby should learn how to scrub a pot
and clean a bathroom before he's entrusted with a 240k education. I took a gap
year and I was significantly more focused and disciplined than I was in high
school. And way better than the majority of my college peers.

But even worse than being unprepared for college, I feel like we've been
fostering a poor attitude towards learning. I grew up in an academic family,
so to me, learning wasn't a stage of life. Learning was an essential aspect of
being alive. Going to college wasn't some arbitrary merit badge that society
deems necessary. It was a natural extension of whatever field I wanted to
study. I see college as a tool; I need to learn certain topics in order to get
what I want in life. Of course, I'm very fortunate to have taken a gap year
and worked as a programmer. If nothing else, I know that I like programming,
I'm good at it and I'm willing to suffer through the painful parts. It's kinda
good to know that before I spent 240k on a CS degree.

~~~
Balgair
Some form of mandatory alternative civilian service may be of use here in the
US. Hypothetically, 'cutting the apron strings' may improve physical fitness,
national identity, common understanding, and widen the shared views of the
conscripts. Here in the US, the Vietnam war was the most recent event where
nearly every family and citizen was affected and were forced to interact with
each other.

Anecdotally, vets on campus tended to be more 'serious' than ones that were
not drafted. That said, most vets would have elected not to have undergone the
experience regardless of their level of involvement in the war.

Also, the costs of such programs are very high. If you look at military
conscription today, it is limited to countries with small populations or ones
that are actively threatened. Mobilizing, feeding, housing, and caring for
nearly 450,000 people is not an easy task. The net benefit of this
conscription is ambiguous as well. Denmark used to use their conscripts in the
care of the elderly and in wildland firefighting, but has since degraded that
from their service. Doing so here in the US may be of benefit, but not at the
costs that would be sustained. Such work is better left to the professionals,
typically.

I'm not even close to an expert in this field, but a cursory look at it
suggests that the cost/benefit ratio is not close. However, the same can be
said of nearly any educational endeavor, yet we know that on a decadeal
timeline it pays for itself many times over.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_civilian_service](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_civilian_service)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_service](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_service)

~~~
zanny
The problem is the mandatory part. Even the standard education is in large
part optional for both students and parents. Its a gross violation and
overstepping of fundamental liberties to have grown up free to turn around and
point at our descendants to then say they must be forced to serve.

The Vietnam Draft will go down in history as a gross human rights violation of
a generation of young adult men. That war was a proxy battle of world powers
to send their young to die to line the pockets of their militaries and their
contractors all in the name of ideological and economic conquest paid in
blood.

In contrast, the WW2 draft is vindicated in how influential US support was in
turning the tide on both fronts. US involvement invariably saved millions of
lives and helped stop tyrannical genocide across Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Violating the liberty of your citizens for that kind of end is probably
righteous, but don't let the widows and parents bearing the flags of their
fallen sons hear I said that - they died in large part to save the citizens of
other nations, not for their own.

I strongly support a public works program that anyone can enroll in for a
contracted number of years. Anyone lost entering adulthood should have
something to fall back on that can help them contribute to society - and we
sure as hell need it in the US, the infrastructure is crumbling disastrously
and the country is massive and can use a substantial amount of hard labor
maintenance. It is just that none of the financial incentives are there, or
regulations are perverse enough to skew away private capital from fixing many
of these issues. Regardless of why, we can see a ton of work we would like
done, but don't have the money to afford ourselves, individually, or even as
small businesses, but can accomplish collectively and publicly with something
like a revitalized civilian corp of engineers.

------
analog31
Kaplan can talk until he's blue in the face, but why aren't people going into
the trades right now if it's such a good idea? If it's explained by the market
value of a college degree, what's he going to do about that?

There are some negatives to working in the trades. For one thing, manual labor
takes a toll on your body. I've watched tradesmen work at my house and at my
workplace. If they're my age, they're broken and hobbling.

How can somebody survive that for long enough to have a decent retirement? How
do they survive recessions, which typically affect the construction industry?
An economist should be able to show us how to tip the balance. Show us.

~~~
i_s
> Kaplan can talk until he's blue in the face, but why aren't people going
> into the trades right now if it's such a good idea? If it's explained by the
> market value of a college degree, what's he going to do about that?

Because the government is subsidizing education. His suggestion is simple:
cut/lower the subsidies.

~~~
analog31
Okay, just make life harder for everybody. Nice.

How does subsidizing education, thus creating more college graduates,
_increase_ the value of a degree?

There must be some sort of monstrous arbitrage going on, where young people
have figured out a scheme for boosting their market value, and employers are
utterly clueless about it.

My own suggestions would be to provide better protections for blue collar
workers, such as better enforcement of workplace safety laws, stronger unions,
health care, pensions, and a generally stronger safety net.

~~~
i_s
> Okay, just make life harder for everybody. Nice.

If you spend less on one thing, you can spend more on other things (or tax
less), so I don't see how that follows.

> How does subsidizing education, thus creating more college graduates,
> increase the value of a degree?

I would think about it like this instead: subsidizing education lowers the
cost, making it more attractive than it otherwise would be compared to the
alternatives (e.g., trade school).

For example, if the government decided to subsidize Ford car purchases, more
people would buy Ford, right? Doesn't mean Ford cars became any better.

~~~
analog31
What I mean by the value, is what employers are willing to pay. Even Kaplan
admits that college graduates get paid more. The subsidy should drive more
people into college, but depress the wages of college graduates.

In fact, Kaplan admits that college increases pay more than it increases
productivity -- that it benefits graduates more than it benefits countries as
a whole, suggesting that something about college education enables people to
keep more of their own production.

~~~
i_s
> What I mean by the value, is what employers are willing to pay. Even Kaplan
> admits that college graduates get paid more. The subsidy should drive more
> people into college, but depress the wages of college graduates.

The fact that college graduates get paid more seems adequately explained by
the signalling model he presents. How else do you explain the big pay
differences for college graduates vs people who dropped out early? They are
bigger than you'd expect from just skill/knowledge gain.

> it benefits graduates more than it benefits countries as a whole, suggesting
> that something about college education enables people to keep more of their
> own production.

Kaplan would agree would you there, he thinks it makes sense for individuals
now to go to college, but as a society it doesn't make sense to subsidize,
because it is mostly just signalling, and there are cheaper ways to achieve
that.

An analogy he uses is that say you are at a movie theater, and you could see
better if you stood. It could be true, but it doesn't follow that everyone
could see better if everyone stood.

~~~
unimpressive
>The fact that college graduates get paid more seems adequately explained by
the signalling model he presents. How else do you explain the big pay
differences for college graduates vs people who dropped out early? They are
bigger than you'd expect from just skill/knowledge gain.

Well, one thing to consider is that you can structure things so that you avoid
all the hard classes until the end, and then leave without taking them. I
found myself in this situation and had to 'boss rush' all the hard STEM
classes at once, which wasn't fun and probably usually results in someone just
dropping out.

Confirming this isn't what's happening might be one explanation for the
sheepskin effect. (Of course, just because it _might_ be doesn't mean it is, I
think Occam's Razor favors Caplan here).

------
Simulacra
The key problem I think, with higher education, is that we force students to
take classes in the name of liberal education. If no one is required to take a
class, then students might not take that class, which leads to that
professor's usefulness, and perhaps career, coming into question. If anything
universities are increasing not only the number of classes a student has to
take, but also increasing seemingly-pointless labs and other classes taught by
graduate students, so they can then pay those GTA's. It's almost like a
pyramid scheme.

~~~
Zanni
That's a side effect of Caplan's main objection, that a college degree has
become a credential, used for signaling, and not indicating any real merit or
learning. Once students recognize that (and they have), they put in the bare
minimum to get the credential, and administrators respond by forcing new
minimums. It's still possible to get a good education if you choose your
institution, classes and professors wisely, but it's frustrating for motivated
students to be surrounded by slackers. In a good learning environment, you're
going to learn as much or more from your peers as from your teacher.

I highly recommend his book: The Case Against Education -
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076ZY8S8J](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076ZY8S8J).

~~~
boazbarak
I don't presume my institution is representative (nor that it isn't), but for
what it's worth, most students I see are not slackers at all. Students often
choose the harder courses, and many of them require a significant amount of
work (a typical CS course requires 12 hours of work outside lecture and many
require much more).

~~~
robmaister
I wasn't a slacker until I took a computer graphics class that consumed more
of my time than my other 4 classes combined, and I still failed it on a
technicality (out for a job interview the day partners were assigned for the
final project. Wasn't allowed to do the project alone, there were an odd
number of people in the class. If you fail any "section" of the class, you
fail the whole class. After back-and-forth with the professor, I contacted my
class dean. He said he'd contact the professor, didn't, told me it was too
late to change the grade, and then quit)

After that I realized grades were fairly arbitrary and explicitly aimed for Ds
in classes I didn't care about and settled for whatever in the classes I did
care about.

I've been doing graphics since high school, it was one of the few classes I
was really excited about, and it's what I'm currently getting paid to do. I've
never failed any other class.

In my opinion, the first two years of CS actually matter. Fundamentals like
data structures, algorithms, and maybe even operating systems classes are
great. Beyond that, most CS programs tend to be severely outdated - you'll
learn more from internships and co-ops than another 2 years of classes.

Of course, take that with a grain of salt since I did know exactly what I
wanted to do coming into college.

~~~
impendia
> I still failed it on a technicality (out for a job interview the day
> partners were assigned for the final project. Wasn't allowed to do the
> project alone, there were an odd number of people in the class.

University professor here.

Perhaps it's too late now, but I would encourage you to make a _strenuous_
effort to get your professor in as much trouble with the administration as you
can. I don't know who the "class dean" is -- but contact this person's
department chair, the departmental undergraduate director, the dean of
engineering, the dean of students, the provost, anybody, everybody. Whoever
will listen.

What you experienced is not okay. I'm sure it's not an isolated incident, but
it's also not the norm.

~~~
Gibbon1
Thing I learned about the two bad professors in the school of engineering I
went to was the Chair was beyond sick of their shit.

~~~
leetcrew
I had a similar experience when I finally made an effort to get to know the
higher UPS in my car department. they often know already who the problem
faculty are and are more than happy to help you deal with them. unfortunately,
I think most college students are unaware of how in-department politics work
and/or are just inherently unwilling to escalate things.

------
boazbarak
I have posted about this on [https://windowsontheory.org/2018/05/02/short-non-
review-of-c...](https://windowsontheory.org/2018/05/02/short-non-review-of-
caplans-case-against-education/)

I am of course biased as a faculty (though I think his policy prescriptions
would negatively effect public schools more than private universities such as
Harvard), but I think Caplan's analysis is extremely shallow.

First, note that if he's right, higher education should be an incredible drag
on the economy - we're taking 4 highly productive years out of the workforce.
Such an extreme conclusion shouldn't be that hard to test without resorting to
anecdotes and contorted reading of data. Educational policies and subsidies
vary so greatly between different countries and even states, that if it was
such a colossal waste we should be seeing it in the higher GDP or productivity
of the less educated countries and localities. (The article is in general very
US-centric for an issue that is not specific to the US at all.)

When a locality has less access to education, there would be naturally less of
a "credential arms race" and so more people that have just as much base talent
but did not go to college. Why aren't employers flocking to those places and
hiring high school graduates who would be so much cheaper?

I know one theory Caplan has is that completing college certifies "conformity"
and "tolerance for boredom": is spending 4 years and tens or hundreds or
thousands of dollars the only way to test for these properties?

Also (at least from my experience in the IDF) conformity and tolerance for
boredom are very important for the army, arguably moreso than many other
employers, yet they do fine with high school graduates.

~~~
analog31
>>> I know one theory Caplan has is that completing college certifies
"conformity" and "tolerance for boredom": is spending 4 years and tens or
hundreds or thousands of dollars the only way to test for these properties?

Working any entry level office job from age 18-22 would be a pretty good test.
I would not have survived it.

~~~
80386
Do people care about that?

This isn't a trick question. I've had two jobs for the last three years; one
was sporadic, part-time, and technical, and the other was full-time horrid
mostly-unskilled drudgery. I'm not sure whether or not to list the drudge job
on my resume.

Maybe I'll A/B test it...

------
thatoneuser
Higher education is insanely our of touch with reality. Literally, on any
given campus you'll hear "we don't produce jobs, we produce degrees" all while
they boast $$$ on their website over what you'll earn.

It's disgusting. I was a yuge Bernie fan in 2016 because he addressed one of
the biggest issues our society faces - why do we allow the universities to
endenture our youth?

There's simply no reason. The material is all online. Usually in a better
format than what your university is offering. Testing isn't something special
that only universities can offer. Hell at this point it's mostly grad students
teaching anyway... (Personal experience)

We should do away with university. Learn online, test at a local institute
(much more economic), but for the love of God let's give the 20 year Olds
dorms still cuz that's an experience we all need to have. Coed.

~~~
kypro
> but for the love of God let's give the 20 year Olds dorms still cuz that's
> an experience we all need to have. Coed.

If this is true could you explain what I missed out on?

~~~
ZeroFries
Depends on the type of person you are. I didn't like them much, but lots of
people had fun and formed great memories and friendships.

~~~
kypro
Why should tax payers be paying for, "people having fun"? I mean people have
fun, form memories and make friendships on holidays too.

~~~
qntty
I think the point is that we should preserve the tradition of young people
living in large houses together even if fewer people end up going to college.
Tax payers don't necessarily have to pay for it.

BTW, if you spent time living in a city near other young people, you probably
didn't miss out on much by not living in a dorm. Some people really thrive in
that environment, but personally I prefer the apartment-style living in an
area with a lot of young people (college campus or city with young people)
that I transitioned to after freshman year.

------
QuadmasterXLII
“Indeed, in the average study, senior year of college brings more than twice
the pay increase of freshman, sophomore, and junior years combined. Unless
colleges delay job training until the very end, signaling is practically the
only explanation.”

The author genuinely can’t conceptualize that people who fail out in the
fourth year might, on average, have learned less in the first three? The line
“practically the only explanation” even calls out the flaw in the author’s own
logic. Lol.

~~~
adrianratnapala
That's his point.

The advantage of getting through the fourth and final year is the signal that
it shows you are not one of those who did worse.

------
monster2control
I understand where the author is coming from, yet, perhaps because he is
constantly surrounded by well educated individuals, he failed to point out the
unmeasureable benefits of going to college. When a person is exposed to the
diversity of different people normally found at a college their view of the
world is expanded. This generally increases their empathy and broadens their
humanity.

You just don’t get the same exposure at a trade school or through an
apprenticeship. Perhaps the real solution is that colleges should offer
training in the trades. You’d benefit from classes on how to run a business
and do taxes and accounting if you’re in a trade and want to start your own
business.

And just because the direct access to the knowledge is not retained, doesn’t
mean the residual knowledge is completely lost. If I never learned Calculus
I’d have no idea where to start if I wanted or needed to pick it up again, but
because I did, I have a much easier time refreshing myself.

As a programmer, I jump from language to language often. When I haven’t used a
language in a while I forget a lot of it, but once I start using it again, I
recall and pick it up much faster.

So, while those researchers proved that if you don’t use it, you do indeed
lose it, they failed to see if a quick refresh of the material proved their
skills more than someone that never learned the skill at all. I’d imagine the
results would be as I’d expect and those that previously learned it did much
better than those that never learned it.

And finally, the author touched on what is more directly the issue. College
ciriculiums are simply not well designed. If more majors were designed like
engineering as his example, their would be more useful and their for used
knowledge acquired during a students years in college and therefore more
skills would translate into their field.

------
cdf2theworld
Student here - I was struck by the "summer learning loss" quoted in the
article. Everyone I talk to has this, myself included. The greatest reason for
this, personally, is subject diffusion. This is especially true from freshman
to junior year; we are required to take a dizzying number of classes that not
only have nothing to do with our job field, but also have nothing to do with
each other. I understand that it's important to "gain broad interests", but I
retained very very little until my junior year, when all of the irrelevant
courses had been completed. This issue may be coupled with the signaling
problem, in that not only is the senior year the only year of college that
employers care about (because you get handed a credential), but also because
you take so little away from school until that point.

I'd say that paying for college should be scaled with the earning benefit it
imparts, freshman year costing very little, and senior year costing a majority
of the total degree. Thoughts?

~~~
kiba
If there's "summer loss"? What about when you leave high school and college?

What happened to the notes you took for your classes at the end of the
semester? I suspect that they are thrown away and never seen again.

I suspect part of the problem with education is that we don't learn how to
learn, and that we done very little work on how to retain those skills and
connect them to our world.

~~~
cdf2theworld
I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are getting at. With the internet in
it's current state, notes from college years 1&2 are useless... I could go on
Wikipedia and YouTube and get the same, if not higher quality, information
about those subjects. FWIW, I still have all of those notes. The understanding
and intuitive development is what suffers, not having the information
available.

~~~
kiba
You do not develop understanding by merely looking up resources and reading
about it.

Reading something alone will create not create fluency and understanding.

That is why we take notes. They serve both as records of what we learned, a
learning tools, and a place to synthesize knowledge and understanding.

I also use wikipedia and lookup youtube videos, but I don't merely read or
watch about it. I engage in an active process of learning and synthesizing
information.

------
tfehring
It seems like the countercultural anti-college rhetoric that’s sprung up
recently is focused on the individual level, which makes sense. But I’m
concerned that it misses a broader and incredibly important point as a result.

Roughly a third of American adults have at least a Bachelor’s degree. I
(unsurprisingly) haven’t been able to find any hard data on this question, but
does anyone want to take a guess at what percentage of innovation they’re
responsible for? It’s certainly over a third - my shot in the dark is 90%.
Measure innovation however you see fit.

You can explain away some of that gap with factors like parental education and
wealth, but I’m not convinced you can explain away all of it. Skilled trades
may be great for the individual, but they don’t really drive innovation.
Neither do social media managers, of course - not every college graduate can
be a unicorn CEO - but I’m still convinced that college education is a
substantial net positive in expectation.

~~~
taftster
I don't know. You're making the leap to suggest that 33% of Americans are
responsible for 90% of the innovation. I don't think that's the case at all.
It's probably more like 0.1% of Americans are responsible for 90% of
innovation. Or in other words, 32.9% of the population of Bachelor degree
holders don't add any more innovative value than the 67% of non-Bachelor
holders.

Or to put it another way, there isn't a direct correlation between Bachelor's
holders and innovators. Sure there are some ridiculously smart people out
there, and probably most of them have some formal higher education. But their
education probably isn't what made them ridiculously smart; instead it was
probably their education that helped shape their thinking and possibly opened
some doors.

And of course there are many examples of innovations that came from people
without degrees. Many technology company founders that we would today consider
innovative did not necessarily hold a Bachelor's degree.

In short, I think your connection that 33% of Americans are automatically
innovative just because they have a degree is quite the stretch. A degree
doesn't have any correlation to ones aptitude for innovation.

~~~
tfehring
I think you’re either thinking of innovation more narrowly than I am or
underestimating the number of people who contribute to it. I don’t think you
can attribute, say, the development of a new drug to a single person in most
cases. Or the implementation of a machine learning model. Or the changes that
have led to massive improvements in the efficiency of clean energy in recent
years. Or, if you want to really stretch the definition of “innovation,” the
development of financial instruments to help investors better allocate capital
and manage risk.

The list goes on, of course. But what I want to illustrate is that
entrepreneurs with “a-ha” moments don’t have a monopoly on innovation. Far
from it.

Now, going through that list of innovations again, what proportion of the
people involved do you think have a Bachelor’s degree or more? I promise I
didn’t intentionally cherry-pick at all - I suspect the pattern will hold if
you come up with your own list, provided that you limit it to the last, say,
50 years. And at least in the examples I gave, the fact that the people
responsible overwhelmingly have college degrees isn’t incidental, it’s a
result of the fact that deep subject matter expertise is needed to push the
envelope.

------
minikites
>From kindergarten on, students spend thousands of hours studying subjects
irrelevant to the modern labor market. Why do English classes focus on
literature and poetry instead of business and technical writing? Why do
advanced-math classes bother with proofs almost no student can follow? When
will the typical student use history? Trigonometry? Art? Music? Physics?
Latin? The class clown who snarks “What does this have to do with real life?”
is onto something.

Yet another attack on the liberal arts that misses the point of education
entirely. An education in a variety of fields is about what it means to be a
person in a world among other people and the natural environment. It's what
makes democracy possible
([https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10858.html](https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10858.html)).
If we reduce education to mere employment training, we might as well revert to
medieval feudalism where your entire life is bound to your economic
production.

~~~
watwut
Overwhelming majority of students don't have classes on art, music, history,
physics or poetry. Majority of students who sign for advanced-math classes can
actually follow them enough (not necessary to A++ but enough to). There are
some minimums of these, but that is all there is to it, unless you decide to
sign for these or pick art major. I am not saying that everything was
practical or useful, but the way article describes the school amounts to
building a strawman. Most college students go for various business degrees and
those do have classes like business writing and technical writing. It might
have bad pedagogy, but the intent to teach those things is there.

The other thing is that I think that we should teach history, because what
happened in history is closely related to how world functions now. So having
rough idea that things happened (which is pretty much what high school history
teaches) is something good to have.

------
mirimir
> Why do advanced-math classes bother with proofs almost no student can
> follow?

Because they're for math majors. And less-advanced ones are filters for
potential math majors. Me, I hated that stuff. Engineering math actually
taught useful skills.

> I’m cynical about students. The vast majority are philistines.

I was a horrible TA. I was mainly an RA, but had to TA one semester. I had no
patience for the "what do I need to know for the test?" ones. Especially pre-
meds. But ~five kids loved me, because we all cared about the ideas.

It was actually easier as a professor, because I had TAs to deal with most
students. Only the ones who cared bothered to see me personally. Or maybe I
was just too rude to the others.

~~~
bjs250
Politely disagree. I'm going to take engineering math to mean ~4 semesters of
calculus (differentiation, integration, multivariable, and differential
equations) as well as maybe a Linear Algebra class and a discrete mathematics
class (probability, set theory, combinatorics). I would argue only the
discrete mathematics course is practically useful

Anecdotally, as an engineer in industry, I use very little of the engineering
math. Number sense and sort of general quantitative reasoning are used.

Let's suppose for sake of argument that I actually used engineering math
though. Analytic solutions to derivatives and integrals (2 semesters of
calculus) are largely useless because of applications like Wolfram Alpha that
will solve these problems for you. The small class of ODE/PDE problems that
are handled by analytic undergrad math classes will most often be solved using
numerical methods such as Runge Kutta. Linear algebra is actually super useful
in practice because you can use matrix solvers to solve systems of linear
equations -- but a first course in undergraduate linear algebra is often just
basic by-hand computations on matrix systems, and don't discuss higher order
concepts at more than a shallow level (spans, invertibility, spectral
decomposition, canonical forms, etc.)

~~~
mirimir
I'm old. There were no PCs then, so the analytic stuff was useful. What I
remember most about the pure math classes were proofs about whether or not
something was solvable. But never anything about how one might actually solve
anything. And far too much number theory. All too abstract for me.

~~~
bjs250
Yeah, well I totally agree on that end. Proofs are almost never practical for
anyone.

Number theory is also a huge bore

------
titanix2
> If schools aim to boost students’ future income by teaching job skills, why
> do they entrust students’ education to people so detached from the real
> world?

Well, precisely because university does not exist to increase future income of
its students. It's mostly about extending human knowledge in a formalized way
called science, and producing enough doctors to let the institution continues
in the future. If one aims to study practical skill there is dozen of other
options: engineer and business schools, vocational schools, etc.

I agree however that there is a worrying inflation of required degrees to get
an entry position anywhere and that's a waste of time and money for all
parties involved.

~~~
linuxftw
> Well, precisely because university does not exist to increase future income
> of its students

Then it's not worth subsidizing with government-backed loans and grants. That
money would be better spent elsewhere.

------
packetpirate
What a load of crap... "why do schools focus on unmarketable skills?" Gee, I
don't know? Maybe because we shouldn't be teaching kids that they only exist
to learn about a trade so they can be another cog in the machine? Because
there are things worth learning beyond just what's valuable to the job market
and every person should be given the opportunity to branch out and be diverse
in their studies?

Colleges give you all those supplemental classes so that you'll be well-
rounded. Sure, you'd graduate faster and spend less money if you only took the
classes that were immediately relevant to your career, but math proofs and
math in general aren't always practical... it's about training your brain to
solve problems, and the more abstract you can think about and approach a
problem, the more creative you can get with your solutions.

And it's not even just about skills... college is a whole different ball game
than High School in terms of meeting new people. High School is all about
cliques and for a lot of people (myself included) was fucking miserable.
College allows you to meet a diverse set of new people who may or may not
share common interests and for me, at least, allowed me to grow as a person in
ways that don't necessarily translate to anything "marketable".

Sure, not everyone is meant to go to college and the mentality that our
parents had when we were younger, that "you have to go to college or you'll be
flipping burgers for the rest of your life" is toxic, but those of us who do
want to pursue a career that requires a higher education shouldn't have to
spend the rest of our lives in debt just to do so.

~~~
linuxftw
> Because there are things worth learning beyond just what's valuable to the
> job market

That's just your opinion. Unfortunately, it's supported by the entrenched
education establishment, but that doesn't make it true.

The cold hard reality is, if you aren't college material, don't attend some
vocational school, and don't learn a trade, you're in for a life of hard labor
or burger flipping. It's going to be a completely crap life for most people.

> those of us who do want to pursue a career that requires a higher education
> shouldn't have to spend the rest of our lives in debt just to do so.

Yeah, one way to reduce costs would be to remove all the extraneous coursework
that's of zero value to society.

~~~
physicsyogi
> Yeah, one way to reduce costs would be to remove all the extraneous
> coursework that's of zero value to society.

Some of that "extraneous coursework", I'm thinking of things like theather,
drama, and dance, brings billions of dollars to the economy every year. For
example, Broadway alone generates billions in spending annually [1], with some
of that spending going towards the transportation, hospitality (hotel, food)
[2], and merchandising industries [3].

[1] [https://variety.com/2014/legit/news/broadway-economic-
impact...](https://variety.com/2014/legit/news/broadway-economic-impact-on-
new-york-2012-13-1201199054/)

[2] [https://www.americansforthearts.org/by-program/reports-
and-d...](https://www.americansforthearts.org/by-program/reports-and-
data/legislation-policy/naappd/the-impact-of-the-broadway-theatre-on-the-
economy-of-new-york-city)

[3] [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/theater/hamilton-inc-
the-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/theater/hamilton-inc-the-path-to-
a-billion-dollar-show.html)

(Edited for formatting)

~~~
manifestsilence
Music major here, played in Carnegie Hall. Now I'm a code monkey. Yes, the
arts have economic value to society. But even someone majoring in them in a
grad program isn't usually going to be making money directly on that stage,
much less someone who takes an elective.

I'd argue the real value of the arts in education is that they enrich the
lives of those people taking them. This is particularly true in grade school,
because it's usually free. Once you start to get into debt for these enriching
passions, it becomes a calculus of worth. The best way to enjoy the arts is to
have sufficient stress-free time to enjoy them, plus a small amount of
discretionary funds depending on the art. If you don't have that, you can be
an amazing artist with no time, energy, or money left to enjoy your own
talents.

I think also a major problem in our society is the centralization that easy
and prevalent media access causes in the arts. Instead of hundreds of local
artists, you only need one Lady Gaga. She's great, but there's also a huge
amount of value in taking in the arts of local people who you know or who are
part of your community. It fosters diversity, local community, and a sense of
pride and identity in a place. It also helps ensure that there will be more
quality superstars in the future, as everyone has to start somewhere.

Anyway, all this to say I agree, and then some. People just often focus on the
extrinsic value of the arts - economic or their side benefit to STEM
performance - when the intrinsic value for each person who partakes in them is
the most important. Sing in the shower :)

~~~
linuxftw
> Anyway, all this to say I agree, and then some. People just often focus on
> the extrinsic value of the arts - economic or their side benefit to STEM
> performance - when the intrinsic value for each person who partakes in them
> is the most important. Sing in the shower :)

The discussion isn't whether or not you personally find intrinsic value in
art. The question is, of how much utility is it to include this kind of thing
in an educational curriculum when there are many people struggling
financially.

When everybody's off public assistance and the unemployment numbers are at 0,
we should discuss enlightening some people with the fine arts. Until then, we
should be spending that money in order to train and educate people in a way
that will make a material difference in their lives.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> Why do English classes focus on literature and poetry instead of business
and technical writing?

Because they're trying to teach you English, as opposed to business and
technical writing?

Same goes for history, maths proofs, etc etc. They're not trying to teach you
how to get a job, but how to think mathematically, etc.

Not that school _succeeds_ in teaching those things. I don't think I learned
anything at school. But I did learn many of the things that school was trying
to teach me, on my own. Because the things that school tries to teach you are
actually useful, kinds of knowledge that cultivate the personality and make
you a better person in all sorts of ways.

We should try to change education to be more effective teaching you what it
does, not changing what it tries to teach you.

------
thenullfries
>“I have been in school for more than 40 years. First preschool, kindergarten,
elementary school, junior high, and high school. Then a bachelor’s degree at
UC Berkeley, followed by a doctoral program at Princeton. The next step was
what you could call my first “real” job—as an economics professor at..”

and

>”Suppose your law firm wants a summer associate. A law student with a
doctorate in philosophy from Stanford applies. What do you infer? The
applicant is probably brilliant, diligent, and willing to tolerate serious
boredom.”

I feel dedicated people with an above average IQ could achieve similar things,
but this sort of pedigree tends to speak more towards socioeconomic class than
sheer intelligence. Where intelligence and high socioeconomic class seem to be
a signaling with degrees from impressive schools.

Makes me wonder how many smart working class kids we are missing out on. The
high IQ kids who went to schools not ranked in the top 100, those that would
have excelled at MIT but for whatever reason never applied and now does who
knows what, not performing to their potential. We have so much inbreeding,
where we continually get the same kids from the same backgrounds missing out
on an entire segment of the population.

------
randomacct3847
Having worked in tech for a few years in non-tech roles (analytics, product) I
was looking for a code bootcamp because I didn’t want to look back and regret
not deeply learning in a way that I felt like I could not do with self study
alone.

I was skeptical but decided to start in SF earlier this month at the best
rated/most reputable one I could find.

Obviously still early on, but I can say that I’m already grasping concepts
better than I have just doing code academy/coursesa/reading SO alone on and
off over the years.

It’s very possible there isn’t anything special specifically about this
program, but if you basically commit to doing nothing but one thing for 16
hours a day (full day on site with projects, lectures, and then homework at
night) plus weekend study for weekly tests then you will get better at
anything.

Most colleges, though, aren’t really structured to support students to become
good at just one thing. Though I’d also argue they aren’t necessarily designed
to be job factories.

~~~
jaabe
You can take CS50 and following or the MIT MOOCs on edx.org and learn more
about CS in a few weeks than I did during my entire freshman year of the
university of Aalborg.

Sure it’s introductory, but so was my freshman year.

I don’t really agree with the article though, I enjoyed philosophy and history
as side tracks doing my entire schooling, and I use the creativity and
insights I got from those a whole lot more than I ever use economics or math.

------
_hao
I'm not from the US (born in Eastern Europe), but I'd like to share some of my
own experience.

I'm 26 now and I barely finished high-school because I thought it was a waste
of time and I was working on my own projects and learning everything I could
on my own about CS. My last year at school (turned 18 just before the start of
the school year) I found a job as a QA in a small outsourcing company and
didn't even attend classes. I didn't even care it wasn't a dev job. I wanted
to be around devs and see how it is to actually work in a real company.

Now the important question here is... Why would they hire me, a person that
can legally work, but not having a high school diploma? There were a couple of
factors that played in my favor. First - it was basically a contract for 1
year, with 3 months of trial period. I was supposed to take the place of a
woman that went in maternity. Second - I wanted a laughably low salary, really
low. To me it was a lot of money at that time, but I didn't know my worth.
Third - I did really well on the interview and I managed to prove to the
owners of the company that I can do this job.

They hired me.

I did my job well and after the trial period my boss pulled me to the side and
offered me a permanent contract. I said yes without even thinking. He said
that it's usually normal to ask for a raise after your trial ends and I asked
for something stupid like 5%. He smiled at me and gave me a 100% raise and the
position of a dev.

I got lucky. I've thought a lot about it, but I really think that luck was on
my side there. I obviously did the job good, and to this day it's the company
I've worked the longest for - over 3 years.

By the way I got A's on all of my final exams (had to book holiday to go and
take them haha) and got my diploma. After that I decided to enroll in
university, but it was just the same as in high school. After 1 semester I
couldn't escape the feeling that I was wasting my time. I continued, but in
the end I dropped out. I think I made a mistake enrolling in a CS course. I
should've went for something that's interesting to me, but not necessarily to
do as a living like Economics, Physics, Philosophy, History etc.

I like the idea of higher education and I'm still thinking about enrolling and
pursuing a degree in a different field, but I wouldn't go for a CS degree
again. My 8 years in the industry now have taught me everything I need to deal
with it.

EDIT: Grammar, spelling

------
ryanmcbride
Anecdotally the other day I was talking with two friends and former coworkers
we realized that one of us had completed grad school, one of us had a
undergraduate degree, and one of us was a college dropout(that one's me) and
we all have the exact same job at the exact same level.

------
egypturnash
> From kindergarten on, students spend thousands of hours studying subjects
> irrelevant to the modern labor market. Why do English classes focus on
> literature and poetry instead of business and technical writing?

uggggh _this_ , this market-driven bullshit that assumes "business" should be
the end goal of all human behavior

English classes focus on literature and poetry because maybe you should have
some sense of _beauty_ , because you should have some vague idea of what a
good fucking sentence looks like instead of just learning to write the
abominable circumlocutions of this year's dialect of Business English. Because
maybe reading stories about people in interesting moral dilemmas can help us
think about how we'd react in a similar situation and be able to say "hey wait
I am starting to act like that asshole in that one book, it sure didn't end
well for her, okay what else can I try then".

Because part of the job of education is to pass on a _culture_ to the next
generation along with raw knowledge.

> Why do advanced-math classes bother with proofs almost no student can
> follow? When will the typical student use history?

What's the old saw about people who don't learn history? They're doomed to
repeat it? Do you really want kids making the same mistakes your parents made,
because they didn't see any of the results? "Oh hey let's vote for this
obvious confidence man for the lulz, what's the worst that could happen", one
year later we have literal fucking Nazi groups rallying in the streets?

uuuggggghhh yes let's all just learn exactly what we need to learn to be
useful to some big corporate entity, let's learn nothing that will make us
ever question its inhuman, amoral, profit-first motives, I am sure this will
have absolutely no problems whatsoever.

~~~
potatoyogurt
I don't get it, I don't understand how the author of the article has a PhD if
this is what he thinks. Like,

> Why do advanced-math classes bother with proofs almost no student can
> follow?

Because that literally _is_ mathematics, and the point of working through them
is because students can actually understand them and learn to do the same
thing with new problems. How does he expect anyone to create or discover
anything new with just arithmetic 101?

There's a kernel of a good argument in that signaling probably is one of the
main values that students get from a college degree, but it's overstated to
such a degree that it crosses over into idiocy.

~~~
mrep
Economic signaling is a thing in economics [0] and it isn't talked about much
as while they are jobs that do "require" college degrees while not really
using the education taught and thus just essentially use it as a signal, most
economists think lots of useful concepts taught in school are used in higher
skilled jobs requiring degrees and thus aren't just used as a signal.

This guy likely just picked an economic topic that isn't talked about much and
wrote a book about it to sell his brand/make money by focusing on the minority
cases and using clickbait articles like this where he equates all college
degrees as useless signalling and thus not worth the cost of education to
promote it.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_\(economics\))

------
mnm1
College isn't just about jobs. I studied philosophy, got two diplomas in it
and now I write software for a living. Do I regret it? Of course not. I
learned a lot in college. I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about
learning, other people, and the world. I'm glad I didn't waste those four
years learning computers, something I was much better able to do on my own.
Yes, if the only goal is to learn job skills only, most colleges and most
majors shouldn't exist and they certainly shouldn't be pursued. I know it's
hard for the author to fathom, but there are other reasons to learn. Many
people enjoy learning and it improves lives in many immeasurable ways. It's so
shortsighted to look at a college education as simply a path to better jobs
that may or may not exist. Frankly, it's a stupid, small minded idea that
seems to be pervasive in America's culture of stupidity. Isn't our society
stupid enough without people railing against higher education? Perhaps if more
people could attend college, if the costs weren't astronomical we'd have a
better, more educated society and culture instead of the stupidity that
dominates. That's reason enough to encourage people to go to college, let
alone all the personal reasons mentioned above.

~~~
Kaveren
This article isn't the full picture of Caplan's view. I haven't read his book,
but here's a timestamped talk [0] at The Heritage Foundation where he
addresses this argument. To summarize, he says that he loves "useless"
knowledge but that it should be enriching (points to amount of busywork), and
that it requires that students are willing participants, which he argues that
many of them are not.

Caplan says that the book has an entire chapter dedicated to refuting this
argument, which I can't speak to.

[0] [https://youtu.be/kCLGURUubzc?t=1893](https://youtu.be/kCLGURUubzc?t=1893)

------
mikorym
I don't think this is true for science majors. Maybe this article is more
about the economics of your career.

But:

> ...students who excel on exams frequently fail to apply their knowledge to
> the real world... the same goes for students of biology, mathematics,
> statistics, ...

I think this holds better for high school. That's were we (myself, at least)
got into the "test-zone".

Looking back it feels like it was deceitful to emphasise tests.

However, the main point from my side is this: I happened to have a good math
lecturer at university (i.e., in _higher education_ ) that launched my
research orientated subsequent years. I don't know if the problem is "higher
education" or maybe just mentorship. I think it's a mixed bag for different
people.

------
hezag
> When will the typical student use history? Trigonometry? Art? Music?
> Physics?

Seriously?

------
firstplacelast
Make college available for everyone for free, but make asking for and talking
about degrees illegal in job interviews.

Force employers to actually vet people for what they know and can do and not
force otherwise capable people to jump through expensive hoops to display
pseudo-signals.

Not only will we be able to help people improve their skills as a society, but
I bet college enrollment goes down across the board because most jobs aren’t
that hard. Most jobs don’t actually need degrees, it’s just that degrees make
hiring much easier.

~~~
doitLP
> Force employers to actually vet people for what they know and can do

How do you propose to do that? At least with developers you can make the
candidate do some toy project or whiteboard but that process is woefully
flawed and controversial.

That’s tech, but what if you’re hiring for something more abstract, like Human
Resources or sales?

What if you just need a person who can learn quickly and is easy to work with?

Almost every job I was in changed significantly within a year of being there.
New tasks, new responsibilities, new teams. I grew with the changes or I left
when I wanted a change. Screening upfront for specific skills only in all but
the most narrow jobs will have limited usefulness.

It seems to me the best way to accomplish this is to have a clear statement of
the role, provide excellent on-boarding and make hiring and firing much
easier, so you can quickly end a relationship that’s not definitely not
working.

~~~
swiftcoder
> make hiring and firing much easier, so you can quickly end a relationship
> that’s not definitely not working.

Firing is already pretty darn easy in most states. At will employment is
pretty much designed to accomplish that.

------
hurryskurry
I've always felt this. College is the wrong place for most people. College is
for nerds who want to learn and do research, and things like that. It isn't
for someone who just wants to get a "real" job, nor it is really necessary.
You can learn almost anything on the job.

Because people feel like it's a waste of time they're not going to classes to
learn, and so it's simply a waste of time and money for most people.

------
bennesvig
> If schools aim to boost students’ future income by teaching job skills, why
> do they entrust students’ education to people so detached from the real
> world?

Because the aim of school is to teach compliance, to sit quietly for 8 hours a
day and do what you're told. I don't think it has ever been about learning
truly practical skills. I don't even remember taking basic finance classes in
high school.

------
Ericson2314
Most jobs are stupid and pointless to society in America (the exceptions tend
to make no money), so why would the education system that leads up to them be
at all good?

Once UBI creates a real job market can we consider the actual transformative
potential of education. Until then alienated labor makes us all stupid.

------
JHH_18
First, I love the Atlantic's writing .. so good. Second, I'm just a poor boy,
despite all the promises of the 60's. Please try to be kind to the community
college boys with more than 200 units. We did take-up the spear. Good speed.

------
waylandsmithers
All costs aside, I think this is discounting the benefit of a place for 18
year olds to go where they can make mistakes and grow up semi-independently
(or sometimes completely independently) for four years in a relatively safe
environment.

------
nobodyandproud
The article is making a roundabout case for trade schools.

But each business is like a fiefdom, with its very own set of very processes;
rules; and even acceptable styles of writing.

Trying to teach this is a losing prospect, as it can only come from
experience.

------
euske
Related article: [https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-the-College-Degree-
Is-...](https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-the-College-Degree-Is-a/245923)

