
College has been oversold - yummyfajitas
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/11/college-has-been-oversold.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
======
pflats
This is a consequence of the concerted effort by educators to increase post-
secondary enrollment in the United States. Presumably, the students likely to
enroll in a math or science program were (by and large) already heading to
college 25 years ago.

As a metric for high schools, students enrolling in and graduating from a
4-year college is one of the most important numbers in the all-important
school ranking. Students weak in the maths and sciences are encouraged to do
just this: finish Algebra II, finish Chemistry, enroll in a liberal arts
program, and choose a few "gimme" classes to cover whatever core curriculum
the school requires. This makes the high schools look a lot better in their
rankings, which is what matters to many superintendents and principals.

And then we get this.

~~~
hemancuso
Let me get this straight - you're arguing that increased college enrollment
over the past 25 years is some sort of conspiracy perpetrated by secondary
school administrators to better their own rankings?

~~~
jerf
Ever since society generally decided everyone needs to go to college, all
sorts of little incentives have been adding up all over the place to create
the effect of getting everyone in the system. That's not the single cause of
everything, it's a snapshot of a broader trend that has affected the entire
process from top to bottom. You could play the "zoom in on one aspect and mock
the idea it could be the cause" all day long with all sorts of little
causes... but that would just be a rhetorical game trying desperately to avoid
the totality of the situation which is clear as day.

------
keiferski
A liberal arts _education_ is just as worth it today as it was 300 years ago.
The current problem is that the cost of a liberal arts _degree_ has spiraled
out of control. There's no reason why an English or Philosophy degree needs to
cost $15k a year.

Making everyone an engineer or scientist isn't the answer.

~~~
forkandwait
Making everyone get through 2 semesters of calculus and a real probability
class would help both their well roundedness and employee-ability. The lack of
numeracy and scientific background among otherwise well educated people is
shameful.

~~~
marklabedz
As is the lack of critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills
from the other side.

EDIT: In response to some of the questions below, please let me clarify. When
I said "other side" I was meaning a lack of well-roundedness. I was NOT trying
to pit STEM grads against liberal arts grads.

I do not intend to state that STEM graduates don't know problem solving or
critical thinking. Far from it. However in my experience, those skills are
discarded too quickly - similar to how Liberal Arts grads tend to discard even
the limited quantitative toolsets they've acquired. (I'll concede its probably
not as prevalent among the HN crowd.)

Ultimately, its a lack of well-roundedness that limits all camps (I'm sure it
would be more accurate to consider more tightly-defined groups than just
liberal arts vs engineers.) Ideas are cheap, that's why we laugh at the
Wharton posts looking for "code monkeys" every few months. Just as problematic
though, is the greatest product but no ability to bring it to market and
sustain a viable business.

~~~
quanticle
I am willing to posit that a lack of statistical knowledge does more harm to
critical thinking than a lack of rhetorical knowledge.

~~~
_delirium
I'm a stats-heavy computer scientist, but I'd argue the opposite, that the
ability to construct and evaluate a rigorous _argument_ is the first thing
lacking: one that plausibly analyzes the domain, recounts opposing arguments
reasonably fairly, constructs counterarguments that are responsive to the
opponents' arguments, and uses logical argumentation along with empirical
evidence in a way that actually supports its points.

Statistics does fit into that, as one particular species of correctly using
empirical evidence. But most freshmen students aren't even constructing
coherent arguments in the broad sense; having a technical knowledge of
statistical theorems isn't the main bottleneck. This is actually a common
problem in my classes: technically-solid students who can't write a coherent
essay-length or blog-post-length argument in favor of or against a point. The
better students tended to have taken at least a Philosophy 101 course, which
taught them how to write a basic "argument for or against a position" paper.
Once you have that, there's a pretty good basis on which to expand the
argumentation toolbox with statistical arguments.

~~~
nobody31
So on one side you run a T-test to see if the correlation is significant.

On the other side you have the ability to phrase it as a question in the same
language as Aristotle.

~~~
achompas
_So on one side you run a T-test to see if the correlation is significant._

This is an incredibly gross simplification of applying statistical theory. I
suggest you pick up some texts on inference, Bayesian stats, and probability
theory to learn how stats != "running t-tests".

~~~
esrauch
He was clearly just picking one useful tool that stats provides, not stating
that it was the entirety of statistics.

I'm not making any statement about whether I agree with him, but if you
disagree you will have to claim that he is cherry picking one useful and one
useless skill, not just say that there is more to stats than t-tests.

------
chrisguitarguy
Well, I was one of the 90K people who graduated with performing a performing
arts (classical guitar performance) degree in 2008. The culture when you get
through with an undergrad performing artist degree is not, "go out into the
world and work!" it's more along the lines of, "go back to school and get more
degrees in an attempt to stay in school longer by working in academia." I know
this because I fell into it. A masters of music degree and a year of doctoral
school later, I quit. While I don't regret my time in school, I certainly
don't use any of the specific skills learned there.

There's this entire culture among artists where staying in a school
environment is the ultimate goal. Artists are entirely capable of driving
economic growth and doing really well for themselves, but the skills they get
in school are more related to staying in school than making a living outside
of it. That's really where the arts are oversold: "Come to my school and
you'll be good enough afterward to make a living doing exactly what you love!"
The reality is a lot more harsh, a fact never shared with students.

~~~
mentat
What economic factors do you think have created this environment for art? In
order to win you have to have 10k people buying your stuff?

------
joshklein
I have a similar conclusion but slightly different reasoning. And I want to
defend liberal arts majors a bit, since I'm one of them.

To me, the problem is that most people don't view college as an investment in
their future, but rather as a temporary place to delay choices. Certainly, it
is positioned as an investment by educators, and it is probably true for
science & engineering degrees, but do students approach it that way?

I have a liberal arts degree from an "elite private university", and I can
tell you that the school's approach was to give someone like me everything
they could possibly need to succeed, but to leave it up to me to do the actual
succeeding. My major's requirements had only 8 classes - 1.5 semesters. Our
"core curriculum" had a diversity of requirements, but all were easily gotten
around; the science core was easily satisfied by courses such as "Solar System
Astronomy", "Oceanography", or "Stars, Galaxies, and the Cosmos", as opposed
to Calculus 101 or what-have-you.

I took those classes, but I took those classes in all seriousness. They may
have been soft on the hardcore science, but they opened up the breadth of my
understanding of the world. Some others in my class did not - they were not at
school to invest themselves, and that was their right.

I think I'm much better at the work I do today because I took classes with
titles all the way from Quantitative Political Methodology, to Metaphysics &
Epistomology, to The Political Economy of Development, to Psych 101, to Poetry
Writing, to Arabic, to Computer Science 201, to The American Frontier.

But that's because I took all of those courses dead seriously. That's what
makes college a good investment. Well, and the life experience itself, but
that's not exactly an "investment" in the monetary sense.

If you don't approach school that way, you're not just wasting your money on
tuition - there's a massive opportunity cost. 4 years of failing at a startup
is certainly a better business education than an undergrad business degree
from my school.

Really, it's a cultural problem. It's like a stomach ache after eating too
much candy; things were so good for so long, we collectively forgot what it
was like to have to sacrifice and work for the things you want. Applying for
entrance to school and actually graduating doesn't have much of anything to do
with your education. That's something you have to work for.

Now, is it "in the state's interest" to promote, say, English majors? I think
that's a whole different topic. I think anyone who is asking the taxpayer to
fund their education needs to be ready to pay that back with directly
applicable skills, which would seem to suggest you mostly need scientists &
engineers.

~~~
maratd
> Really, it's a cultural problem.

No, it's an economic one.

> I have a liberal arts degree from an "elite private university".

Ok. Let's make the assumption that you're at least moderately intelligent and
would be able to get a job for 40K from the bat.

40K * 4 = 160K

College tuition is 40K itself at an "elite private university". Then you add
living expenses, books, food, etc. and you have another 25K. That's 65K.

65K * 4 = 260K

160K + 260K = 420K

Yup. Half a mil to learn about Poetry Writing. Sorry, but that's just silly.

I would much rather my kid spend his time working in a small business and
learning about entrepreneurship hands-on, than pissing away untold fortunes to
sleep in a class about poetry. You can slip the kid some Robert Frost after
work.

Trust me, if he has an inquisitive mind, he'll explore all the weird and
strange subjects on his own time. With the internet, he can even be challenged
by greater minds.

The best argument for college is the social environment, which can't be
replicated outside of it. Not education. The kids get that. That's why they
don't go to class.

~~~
joshklein
It sounds like we agree - my post was expressly derisive of the kid who sleeps
through his poetry class. Regardless, it sounds like writing poetry suggests a
romantic lark to you. To me, it was a lesson in how to convey powerfully
complex ideas in concise, but meaningful, language.

I didn't make a lot of money right out of school, but 3 years later I was
making a boatload. Why? Because I can write the kind of email that will make
someone who has a job I'm able to do agree to coffee with me, and pitch myself
successfully in that meeting. I'm a "go getter" who goes and finds my success,
because I'm the opposite of the kind of kid who goes to sleep in his poetry
class.

And by the way, I taught myself programming. That CS 201 class I took was a
java programming class where the instructors wrote a framework that we
learned. At the end of the semester, all I knew were a bunch of the functions
of their framework. Why would I need school to learn programming? Unlike my
major, CS had something like 20 required courses. That's at least half of your
whole university education, more once you find a particular area to focus in.

However, I took an economics class from a Nobel laureate and a history class
from a professor who lit the room with his enthusiasm for storytelling obscure
historical anecdotes. It's the difference between reading a textbook about
WWII and watching Band of Brothers. You can't get that stuff on your own.

Also to clarify: I partied my face off in college, too. But it was work hard,
play hard. I'm a student of life, not of how to optimize my bank balance
before I'm 30.

Regarding below comments: other than an internship I got during college from a
graduate of my school, I haven't experienced much nepotism from my university.
Most people have never heard of Washington University in St. Louis unless you
work in Medicine.

~~~
maratd
> It sounds like we agree

We agree in the sense that we both believe there is value in a good education.
Especially a liberal arts one.

I learned how to learn in college. By taking disparate subjects, I can absorb
new information with ease. That is the most tangible and valuable skill I
picked up. I got it by taking random subjects. The very definition of a
liberal arts education.

That said, the degree itself is worthless. I never had a resume. I started my
first business in college. That was 12 years ago.

For me, it might have been better to simply audit those classes or do
something on my own, and put the tuition in my pocket. I have a strange
feeling that applies to many people here.

~~~
billswift
For anyone really interested in liberal arts, you would probably be better off
doing it on your own, even if college was a lot cheaper than it is. Use your
money more for things that will repay the investment.

There are some really good resources out there for self-study. An easy one to
start with is Ron Gross's _The Independent Scholar's Handbook_ ,
[http://www.amazon.com/Independent-Scholars-Handbook-
Ronald-G...](http://www.amazon.com/Independent-Scholars-Handbook-Ronald-
Gross/dp/0201105152/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1320252225&sr=8-2).

But the much older (early seventies) book _This Way Out_ is even more
_useful_. My Amazon review:

This book is in 3 parts, the last 2 Experimental Colleges and Foreign Study
are too dated to be useful.

Part one is the best book for college-level self-study I have used. I first
read it in the early 1980s and have reread it several times since, it is only
135 pages but packed with useful advice. The biggest weakness for the current
user is that it has nothing on computers or the internet, but some of its
advice such as "Write lots of short papers. Long papers kill students and
tutors alike. Write lots of short papers. It will teach you too write and
that, as we will demonstrate later, is essential" could almost have been
written for the Web (most books on creating web pages emphasize short, to the
point writing). They also mention the absolute essential for self-education -
you must love to read, if you don't, then stay in college where they will
force you to read.

[http://www.amazon.com/This-way-out-alternatives-
traditional/...](http://www.amazon.com/This-way-out-alternatives-
traditional/dp/0525218009/ref=cm_cr-mr-title)

------
rwl
"Most importantly, graduates in the arts, psychology and journalism are less
likely to create the kinds of innovations that drive economic growth. Economic
growth is not a magic totem to which all else must bow, but it is one of the
main reasons we subsidize higher education."

I think this is a completely misguided assumption. Maybe this is true these
days. But it wasn't always true, and it shouldn't be true. Higher education,
especially in the liberal arts, is for training students to become good
community members, citizens and leaders. It's about giving them the cognitive,
rhetorical, and even emotional skills required to solve the hard problems that
we face as a society. And there is a lot more to solving those problems than
promoting "innovation" or "economic growth". We subsidize higher education
because producing citizens with those skills is valuable to our society.

Are liberal arts programs perfect? No. Do they cost too much? Maybe. Would it
be good for society to have more people going into STEM fields? Probably. Does
all this mean that liberal arts education is "oversold"? Certainly not.
Indeed, it is rare to see people express just how valuable the liberal arts
are, and why.

~~~
Permit
> It's about giving them the cognitive, rhetorical, and even emotional skills
> required to solve the hard problems that we face as a society.

I suppose the counter argument is: Do you think individuals graduating in STEM
fields don't pick up these skills? And if so, why are these skills limited to
liberal arts majors?

~~~
rwl
> Do you think individuals graduating in STEM fields don't pick up these
> skills?

That depends, I think, on what their program is. Many STEM programs leading to
a Bachelor's degree are still liberal arts programs, in name and in spirit.
Let's not forget that math and astronomy, at least, have been part of the
conception of the "liberal arts" since antiquity. The idea that there is a
sharp division between science and math, on the one hand, and the liberal arts
on the other, is a recent one.

Some STEM programs, however, are purely technical programs. Their value is in
a particular kind of technical training. I don't know, since I haven't gone
through one of those programs myself, but I would bet that students graduating
from such programs don't come away with the same kind of skills that a liberal
arts education provides.

In sum, I think the STEM/liberal arts distinction is a false dichotomy. The
real distinction is something like: as a student in a particular program, are
you primarily training to be a citizen, or a technician? You can, of course,
do both.

~~~
ceol
>I don't know, since I haven't gone through one of those programs myself, but
I would bet that students graduating from such programs don't come away with
the same kind of skills that a liberal arts education provides.

I would tend to agree with you here. STEM fields push logic and reason, but
then you get students who look at the most _practical_ solutions instead of
the solutions that might not be as practical but benefit the most or offer an
intangible benefit.

~~~
TheCapn
From my experience you are correct. STEM programs are about critical thinking,
problem solving and planning for undesired outcomes. An Engineer is taught how
to constructively deduce the situation so that a beneficial proposal can be
generated.

The classes I took that are "arts" classes or "business" classes taught models
and programs that are supposed to be blindly followed. I failed to see how
they were ever applicable because they ignored the "human factor" that exists
in all real world problems. I'm seeing lots of companies/depts fail because
they're being run by people who were taught these principles. They're
encountering issues and trying to apply a dated/loosely correlated model to
solve it and almost dumbfounded when it utterly fails.

------
jhamburger
A lot of people seem very smug about ridiculing liberal arts majors for their
life decisions. Please realize that most of us working in software are also
lucky enough to be paid well and love what we do, we followed our hearts AND
our heads. Imagine a world where there were no software jobs and you needed a
PhD in french poetry to get a real job?

~~~
Eeko
Very true. None of my pals who chose software really came in for the money.
Though I know a few lawyers and MDs who claim to be in purely for the cash. I
don't know should we even wish for that kind of culture (comes with financial
prestige...) in STEM-education

But the thing is, there is a lot of people who know they'd rather be playing
with children in a kindergarten, doing archeology or reading books all day -
but knew that following PURELY your heart is not the smart & rational thing to
do when we signed up. Part of the problem is, that libart-schools are filled
with kids who thought stuff will just work itself out, like it has always
happened for them. Romantically just following ones dreams to the end.

I honestly don't know how else we could be sharing the lesson of pragmatism to
the newer generation if we can't point out the consequences of everyone
chasing their hopes at the same time. An imaginative person figures out new
goals and dreams every day anyhow...

~~~
jhamburger
"Part of the problem is, that libart-schools are filled with kids who thought
stuff will just work itself out, like it has always happened for them.
Romantically just following ones dreams to the end."

Part of it is that, but part of it is our parents giving us incomplete advice.
The message is always, "go to college and everything will work itself out" and
their kids get the impression that choosing a major is sort of a personal
decision that doesn't have any tremendous impact.

------
tdfx
The scariest part is that all the people I know who have no confidence in
their intelligence ("Oh, I could never major in THAT, I'd have to take
Calculus! I hate math!") avoid the science majors and are majoring in
education. I think that being a teacher should require a 7-8 year graduate
education track similar to a doctor or lawyer, not a quick 4-year liberal arts
degree that most people shoot for so that they only work 9 months a year. I'm
not hopeful for the future on this one.

~~~
timjahn
"so that they only work 9 months a year"

Which, of course, they don't.

~~~
anamax
> Which, of course, they don't.

That's right - many of them have summer jobs.

~~~
_delirium
In some places that's possible, but in many places it's pretty impractical. At
the high school I attended, summer vacation is June 1 - August 22, but teacher
in-service days are: June 2-10 (end of semester wrap-up), July 11-15 (make-up
days for students who missed finals), and August 15-19 (pre-semester
preparation), which leaves two discontiguous 4-week breaks.

------
JimboOmega
Over this same time period, far more women have been going to college than
ever before. I wonder what the numbers would look like with women removed (for
the sake of a fair comparison)? I wish it was the case that the hard sciences
had just as many women as men, but it is not. At my school, engineering was
mostly men, while the liberal arts college was mostly women. I'd think most of
the growth in enrollment from women (which is most of the growth, I'd think)
is going to the "non-science" fields.

------
Hyena
I have a degree in art history and have been applying to graduate school in
computer science. I have had ample opportunity to reflect systematically on my
choices in undergrad and what I've done since graduating. While early drafts
of personal statements have made claims like "mistake", those drafts never
make the cut.

No one ever oversold college to me. Liberal arts education went precisely as
my professors described, with precisely the economic and social benefits they
predicted. No professor, no advisor, no student, no parent, no media outlet
ever stated that a liberal arts degree was the path to financial success. At
worst, the media has depicted having a college degree as more important than
what that degree is in, which remains true. The utility of the paper itself
remains quite high.

If we have a STEM graduation problem, I place the blame squarely where it
belongs: on STEM departments. I watched as engineering majors routinely failed
out, destroyed by calculus-based physics in the first year or thermodynamics
in the second. Half our ranks in art history were culled from that group; the
successful engineers usually had prior background. That learning curve is
often too steep given our secondary education system. The courses demand an
amount of time inconsistent with the experience of the average student; coming
from the right hand of the SAT distribution, they often did not need to put
much work into high school. If we want to increase graduation into STEM
fields, we need to redesign our education system taking this objective and the
preparation of our students into account.

It is a failure if the best we can do for $100,000 is turn mediocre hackers
into programmers, obsessive tinkerers into engineers.

~~~
losvedir
I completely agree with this:

> That learning curve is often too steep given our secondary education system
> . . . we need to redesign our education system taking this objective and the
> preparation of our students into account.

However, I vehemently disagree with this:

> If we want to increase graduation into STEM fields . . . I place the blame
> squarely where it belongs: on STEM departments

No, no, no, no, no! This would be a microcosm of the very issue we're talking
about.

"Graduation rate" is meaningless. We want to increase the population who are
STEM-literate. Like it or not, physics _is_ calculus-based. Thermodynamics
_is_ important. And, certainly, by the time people are adults and have gone
through over a decade of education, it should be within reach.

I don't blame the STEM departments at all, and would be aghast if they started
churning out STEM-lite graduates as the result of some misguided new policy to
increase graduation rates.

~~~
mikecarlucci
I don't think anyone is talking about creating "STEM-lite" grads but maybe
there are qualified people who for one reason or another can't pick up
calculus as fast as the school wants. Or didn't get a complete enough
background in high school. Or is 18 years old and living away from home for
the first time and just made a few bad decisions.

Failing a class first semester really puts pressure on changing majors.
Students go into he program hearing that a lot of people will drop, do poorly,
and are encouraged to drop. Someone earlier said schools should try and "weed
in" students rather than weed out.

Departments need to take their fair share of blame in creating an environment
that can be miserable for even the successful students. Not all the blame, but
some.

~~~
Apocryphon
I have to wonder if STEM courses that have routinely have tests that set the
curve at 40% is really a good thing or not.

------
geebee
I agree that the humanities can be very valuable for all kinds of reasons, and
people with this academic background certainly can be successful in the job
market. There are plenty of examples.

But you know all those articles fretting about how recent college grads are
struggling these days? They almost all have a quote from some student who says
"I went to college, I studied hard, I did everything I was supposed to do..."
and then reveals that this jobless graduate with 50k+ in student loans majored
in film, or literature, or political science.

I have trouble believing these students weren't at least somewhat aware of
what they were getting themselves into with those majors. These quotes never
come from a computer science or chemical engineering major. And while I
understand these majors don't appeal to everyone, I was a double English/Math
major (and I took a lot of CS-courses), and really, the Math and CS was much
more difficult - I couldn't get away with a few all nighters writing a paper a
few times a semester, it took daily, consistent effort, and a lot of it. Like
you, I took my humanities seriously, and I'm really glad I did. In many ways,
I think that the English major has been more helpful in my career as a
software developer than my math and even my CS classes.

But I don't think you can say "I did everything I was supposed to do, and I
still can't get a job" if you majored in "Slavic Literature". People have
known for decades that slavic literature majors have trouble getting jobs.

I graduated 20+ years ago, and even then we had that old joke:

the science major asks "why does it work" the engineering major asks "how can
I make it work?" the finance major asks "how much will it cost to make it
work?" the english major asks "would you like fries with that?"

~~~
colomon
I don't know. I've asked my wife about why she got her degree in English, and
she claims no one ever explained to her that wasn't a degree that was likely
to lead to a lucrative job. Whereas I was well familiar with the "fries with
that" joke, and never seriously considered majoring in music (despite my love
of it) precisely because I felt it wouldn't be a wise financial decision.
Difference in upbringing, I guess.

------
kpennell
One thing that is left out of this discussion is protective parenting. When
you're sheltered and protected until you're an adult, you are, in effect,
prepped and ready for college. You're ready to be told what to do, ready to
follow the course requirements, and do what the other students do.

A lot of the commenters on here keep saying how students would be better off
trying their hands at startups or reading/self-educating on the side--
basically anything but taking a huge debt load on for a poor investment.
You're asking people to think for themselves and find their own road.

When you've been sheltered and protected your whole life, you're not ready to
find your own road! You're ready to follow the rules.

Remember, Gen Y was a generation that was allowed A LOT less freedom than
previous generations. Kids who got to fool around on bikes, with tools, out in
the woods or around the neighborhood on their own, are anomalies.

Personal Anecdote: I grew up mountain biking by myself out the hills around my
town a lot from the time I was 12. I had a crew of friends who's parents also
let them mountain bike and camp by themselves. But most parents didn't. Most
kids never got any sense of independence or the chance to pull off their own
little projects.

So how is someone supposed to go from basically being babysat by videogames/TV
their whole childhood to winging startups or figuring out their own road
through life? Most don't have the basic life skills in place to allow them to
do so. So...they go to college. If they were lucky, they got a skill out of it
that then allowed them to get a job. But if they didn't, then they go to grad
school and bury themselves in even more debt.

Parenting Gurus are waking up to the problem of oversheltering and publishing
books like Free Range Kids and 50 dangerous things you should let your kid do.

------
va_coder
40k people got comp sci degrees in 1985, and in 2009 that number has not
changed! That's shocking.

------
_delirium
Is it actually "non-science in particular"? From what I can tell from
job/income statistics (depending on how you interpret them), the college
degree is actually _most_ valuable for people who intend to pursue non-STEM
careers. The unemployment rates are much lower, and average salaries much
higher, if you compare degree-holders to non-degree-holders among people
pursuing non-STEM careers.

Meanwhile, in computer science (to take my field), the degree has some
economic value, but I don't think nearly as much--- you can get a high-paying
tech job just by having a good github "resume". There's no real way to do the
equivalent in, say, history. You can write a bunch of freelance historical
newsletters, but HR screens want to see a degree in something, anything;
doesn't matter what, but must be a degree.

~~~
neutronicus
I think CS is somewhat of an anomaly among STEM fields in this regard. A
degree is an absolute must in, for instance, Civil Engineering.

------
msluyter
This is a popular theme these days. I think the college education used to
serve several purposes: a) serving the Liberal (big L) ideal of creating the
sort of well rounded, educated, informed citizen upon which democracy depends,
b) vocational training, and c) indirectly, signalling fitness in a modern
workforce.

A) and b) aren't totally at odds, but they're not exactly aligned. When the
economy was healthy enough and tuition was low enough, that misalignment was
basically overshadowed by the signalling value of a degree. Even your liberal
arts degree would show you were of value to corporate america. But now, the
misalignment is becoming magnified by high tuitions, the poor economy, and
increasingly specialized and technical job requirements. You can achieve a)
via your philosophy degree, but you'll never find a job. So the signalling
value of a non-technical degree has been largely lost (top ivy-league schools
excepted).

I don't have a good answer, but I'd argue that we shouldn't abandon the notion
that education should be in part about creating a well rounded citizenry
capable of critical thinking in pursuit of more economically grounded college
education.

------
cdcarter
A lot of the discussion here has broken down to arguing the merits of a
liberal arts vs. STEM education. I think that that line is a purely personal
decision, and the real argument here is career driven vs. "pursuit of
knowledge" driven education.

I attend a liberal arts school, but we are a career driven school, almost to
the point of being conservatory style. I take significantly more credits in my
degree program than I even have the option of in general ed requirements. I
spend more of my day in meetings for co-curricular and outside paid work than
I do in class, by design. Yes, I do take classes called "The Artist and the
Making of Meaning" that seem to have no...meaning, but I also already have
enough connections in my field to secure me a job that I would be happy in out
of college in at least three cities, if not more.

------
venturebros
I don't get why we as a society push so many kids into college telling them
it's the only way to get a good job then laugh at them when they graduate
because they got a degree in under water basket weaving.

They call it further education and not job training for a reason. College was
never meant to train a person for a specific field but to make a person a more
well rounded individual which would appeal to an employer.

It's no longer being sold that way yet it's still being ran that way which is
why we are seeing a huge issue. For profits are taking advantage of people
because they appear to offer the job training you would not get at a regular 4
year. Also thousands of recent graduates who are now working at places like
wal-mart and the like are scratching their heads because truthfully they were
lied to.

------
JamesPeterson
Here in Australia, liberal arts majors are subsidized less than STEM majors.
We also have a largely subsidized public university system in general - we
have just one private university (but many private colleges).

As an example of what this means, the University of Queensland located down
the road from me is often ranked in the top 50 worldwide.

Science courses at UQ are about half the cost of liberal arts majors.

I can study there and place tuition on what's essentially an interest-free
(plus inflation) government loan that I only have to begin paying back (at
4-8% of my gross salary, depending on earnings) when/if my salary goes above
~$47,000.

~~~
jlangenauer
When did that happen? When I did my degree (mechanical engineering at UQ, as
it happens) there were 3 HECS bands - liberal arts was the cheapest,
engineering/science/business was the middle band, and law/medicine was the
highest.

I understood that the difference in bands was due to the difference in earning
potential of the graduates.

~~~
JamesPeterson
Oh wow! I've just looked - and you are correct. This has blown me away. That
said, I swear I've read (somewhere) that arts courses are subsidized less. I
wonder if that simply means arts courses are substantially cheaper to run?

Thanks for picking that up for me.

------
brudgers
> _"in 2009 we graduated just 2,480 students with bachelor’s degrees in
> microbiology — about the same number as 25 years ago. Who will solve the
> problem of antibiotic resistance?"_

I suspect that the professional earning potential within microbiology of a
person with a bachelor's degree is probably lower than their earning potential
within the food service industry - and the odds of a person with only a
bachelor's degree being put in a position which allows substantial research
into a major problem are very slim, indeed.

------
joe8756438
I am very skeptical of the criteria for which the author evaluates a
successful career.

You cannot evaluate the success of an artist in the same way as an engineer.
First, Wages are an extremely inadequate measure for the contribution art
makes to society.

And looking at "innovations that drive economic growth" as a measure of the
collective success of college graduates takes a seriously narrow view of the
contributions necessary to foster a healthy economy.

~~~
anamax
> First, Wages are an extremely inadequate measure for the contribution art
> makes to society.

While wages may not be the right measure, the amount of money that people are
willing to pay seems somewhat useful.

Most "art" is crap and society would be better off if most "artists" were
grocery baggers instead. (No, I'm not harshing on grocery baggers - I'm just
picking a job that "artists" look down on.)

Yes, that might affect their self-esteem, but maybe they'll learn the dignity
of honest work.

~~~
joe8756438
Making art is not honest work?

~~~
anamax
> Making art is not honest work?

Making crap art isn't.

~~~
Apocryphon
Saying that the majority of "art" is crap is a very subjective opinion.

~~~
anamax
Are you claiming that there's an objective definition of "good art"? If so,
let's see it.

In any event, "subjective" doesn't imply wrong.

Are you claiming that a majority of art is not crap? Does your argument avoid
the "no true Scotsman" fallacy?

~~~
Apocryphon
How can you claim that the majority of art as crap? Did you do a survey? What
is your definition of art?

------
steve8918
It's pretty obvious that the cost benefit analysis of getting a non-
technical/non-business degree shows that it's not worth it, unless you can pay
for it in cash. Getting $100k+ in student loans for a degree in which you
can't pay off quickly will only lead to years of indebtedness.

At the current prices that students have to pay, it's simply not worth it. If
I had a kid that wanted to go into liberal arts, I would suggest that they
take a technical degree, and do night school for their liberal arts education,
and I would forbid them from getting student loans.

As the old Wall Street adage goes, the cure for high prices is high prices. At
some point, people will stop sending their kids to college if the prices keep
increasing like this, and then something will have to be done about it.
Unfortunately, it means that the current generation of kids will become the
new debt slaves until this education crisis is stopped.

------
gerggerg
lets not forget that all this increased enrollment increases the price of
education and puts a strain on resources for all of us. Not only were there
slightly less comp sci graduates but they grossly overpaid for their education
compared to graduates in 1985.

One of the biggest bummers about that chart is the increase in debt it
represents.

~~~
viscanti
False. Several complex factors are at play here, but supply/demand effects are
not the root cause. This Forbes article does a good job of explaining things.
[http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/01/rising-cost-education-
opini...](http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/01/rising-cost-education-opinions-
best-colleges-10-feldman-archibald.html)

TLDR; it turns out that comparing educational costs relative to the inflation
rate is inaccurate. Efficiency gains in almost every other domain have
artificially lowered the overall inflation rate. Artisinal fields like
education haven't had a 10x efficiency increase (we don't teach students any
faster than we did in the past), so their rates have increased at the true
rate of inflation (or what the inflation rate would be if no efficiency gains
happened in other domains).

~~~
gerggerg
2 things.

1) I don't know how you think you can start a discussion by shouting the word
false at someone.

2) While I should definitely have made my post seem more of a conjecture than
a fact the article you link to is also mainly conjecture. Be it though
conjecture of two experienced men.

When I went to college, nearly all the programs were impacted. Because of this
the schools needed to hire more (good) teachers. Teachers don't have a bulk
rate. All of the schools facilities experience more wear and tear and need to
be upgraded to handle more humans. The school i went to is still impacted.
More students than the school can handle increases tuition rates for all. You
don't pay less for an art degree than a comp sci degree.

------
beatpanda
I have and am earning some of those "useless" liberal arts degrees – an
Associate's in Social Science and a Bachelors of Science in Journalism.

However, unlike most of the computer science, business, and engineering majors
on my campus, my degree has put me in a position to manage an organization of
dozens of people where we ship a product four to six days a week, one that is
consumed and heavily scrutinized by thousands of people.

I've also written, deployed, and improved software as part of my education
that actually gets used at scale in the real world, not as a side project but
as a _requirement of my degree_.

As a result of that, I'm going to leave college with more real-world
experience than most of my peers.

 _Every_ college degree is what you make of it. Doing problem sets doesn't
automatically enable you to really _do_ anything, and studying in the
humanities or liberal arts doesn't prevent you from doing something
worthwhile, either. The main difference between people who have a valuable
college experience and those who don't is whether the individual took
advantage of the resources they had to make it valuable.

Also, this doesn't really need to be said, but without the liberal arts,
engineering is useless. You can build bridges all day long, but someone still
has to sell the thing to politicians and taxpayers and make the thing
attractive enough to convince people to pay the toll.

------
fecklessyouth
I really dislike posts like this that attempt to pigeonhole every college
experience into "college." There are such a huge gamut of academic
experiences, but whenever "college" is is addressed, its usually boiled down
to "humanities majors at large, expensive 4 year colleges."

This, of course, is one of many options. The kind of institution you attend is
just as important as whether you're a STEM or Humanities major. Size, core
curriculum, intellectual environment, difficulty, class style, and all the
other factors that separate colleges are huge factors on what you get out of
college.

What should you get out of college? Often, a posited counter-experience is
four years in the business world. Which would be useful in the short term, but
when are you going to radically improve your reading and writing? You're never
going to get the chance to devote yourself, 100%, to reading, writing, and
learning.

Of course, the reason liberal arts gets a bad rap is majors have lost sight of
reading and writing, and have turned into a pseudo-technical fields in larger
institutions. A proper liberal arts degree gives you the same skills
regardless of what you major, which is why liberal arts students like myself
at liberal arts colleges scoff at this categorization by major...I don't care
about majors.

Conclusion: Liberal arts degrees are worth the money...if they're done
properly.

------
jswinghammer
I agree that it's been oversold. I met many people in school who couldn't
compare and contrast essays that were in direct opposition to one another.
They shouldn't have been in school to begin with. I'm not sure I agree about
the science part though. Isn't the pay for scientists rather low for the most
part? Seems like my scientist friends are always poor.

Seems like we could use more engineers though.

~~~
geebee
Pay for scientists and engineers at the PhD level does tend to be low when you
consider the difficulty, time, and attrition rate of these degree paths
relative to the professions (JD, MBA, MD, etc). There was a big RAND study
that pretty much concluded that the "shortage" of PhD's in science and
engineering is market driven (ie., there are better options for very smart
people).

However, at the undergraduate level, I'd say that science and engineering
degrees are the best choice, provided you're inclined to do this kind of thing
(I don't think there's any point in grinding through a major if you hate it).
I really liked Marc Andressen's career advice on this subject, where he
strongly recommends technical degrees. His point is that these degrees enable
you to enter the workforce in a high-impact way from the start. I've found the
notion that you'll be pigeonholed as a "techie" to be wildly overblown -
instead, my ability to program out of school (and understanding of industrial
engineering) allowed me to get deeply into really important business processes
and meet all kinds of higher-ups because I had something valuable to offer
them. Rather than being putting me in a box, it was immensely career
expanding.

Andressen also talks about becoming a double/triple "threat" - combining
valuable skills in different areas. Ie, being an investment banker with a deep
understanding of molecular biology or a physician with a deep understanding of
information technology systems. You're really unusual if you do this.

So all in all, I can't recommend STEM degrees at the undergrad level more
highly - but I become more skeptical of the value of these degrees as you move
into MS or especially PhD level. BTW, I'm not knocking the value of a PhD in
CS, especially if you meet a lot of great people in your program. I just think
that STEM degrees are the clear winners at the undergrad level, whereas
professional degrees (or maybe no more degrees, there's plenty to learn
outside of universities) might be a better choice at the grad level.

------
dodedo
I'd like to see the gender dimension here. How were these ratios changed by
increasing numbers of women attending college?

------
Igor_Bratnikov
I think the problem goes even further than the article advertised. As someone
that has been un/fortunate to go through top eng school and then law school
there is a bigger issue at play for even really smart people. A lot of very
smart people get sold on the dream of a cushy law job after 3 years of what
really is a 1/2 decent educational process. Though many in better times would
get decent jobs most would grow complacent instead of hungry and settle for a
mediocre job. And this is talented people that if hungry could be achieving
much. Schools in general are a sales sham, schools that offer a potential of
high rewards are that much more of a sham since most of the sales efforts are
already done for them

------
brc
I don't have the answer, but I'm glad this topic is finally being discussed
properly.

More people need to take the realistic view of spending time in college for
what it will get them. The almost obligatory need for people to do any type of
higher education devalues the worth of all degree qualifications.

Moreover, education is ripe for startup innovation. Is there really a need to
x,000 community colleges when a lecturer from Harvard can be streamed online
in HD in real time to thousands or millions of students?

------
garenp
Sorry, have to agree with the general sentiment that it's not so much
"College" that's been oversold, as it is liberal arts degree programs that
won't likely lead to a "good" paying job that has a decent ROI.

That's not to say that education in the arts isn't valuable, it's jut not as
immediately useful and measurable to the bottom line from the perspective of
an employer.

------
michaelpinto
Oversold is the wrong word -- college is overpriced. Oversold implies that not
going to college is a good option, and it isn't. Overpriced on the other hand
implies that there's way too much money being charged today for the same
quality of education that was much cheaper years ago.

------
jhamburger
I think that advisors at private 4-year schools should have a responsibility
to strongly advise against a poor choice of major compared against a bad
student loan situation.

------
daenz
The article made the point that 50% more students are enrolling in college,
but amount of students in the STEM fields remained constant. Does anyone know
why this is?

------
SagelyGuru
Journalism is a smart choice of a perfect job. Nowadays you don't even have to
investigate and think.

------
RoastBeats
As a college-level instructor (with a PhD in those -- gasp -- liberal arts),
might I suggest two things?

First, the critical thinking I learned reading poetry better prepared me for
business management, web development, and entrepreneurship than any of my
Chemistry courses (I was also a Chemistry minor in Undergrad). I'd be happy to
go into the details, but this doesn't seem like the forum for that
explanation.

And second, again, as an instructor, one of the bigger problems in the
humanities is grade inflation and a sense of entitlement to A's. Whereas in a
Calculus class, grading is much easier to quantify (i.e. get X number of
questions right on a test, end up with Y grade), grading papers is a less
standardized practice. The result is overwhelming grade inflation (I can't
tell you the number of students I have who quite literally break down in tears
when they receive B's). Perhaps both the utility of humanities degrees and the
propensity for being willing to challenge oneself in a STEM course would be
increased if getting higher grades wasn't perceived as being easier in the
humanities.

~~~
rlovelett
I understand your premise and don't have any rebuttal to it that would include
facts and/or figures. But one thought did pop into my mind when reading your
comment.

I wonder if your feeling is a prevailing thought/sentiment among liberal arts
professors. And if it is then why don't you and your ilk just give out more
B's and C's? So what if they cry? If you think they deserve the B or C then
that is the grade.

But what do I know I only have a degree in Electrical Engineering.

~~~
RoastBeats
Have to agree with Neutronicus here. The prevailing example would be the "But
I'll never get into med school/law school if you don't raise my B+ to an A-"
argument which I hear at least three times a semester.

This gives us two solutions. First, is to convince naive kids that it's OK to
be something other than a lawyer or doctor. Seriously, any students reading
this comment, pay attention: There are plenty of other wonderful (and
lucrative) professions in the world. If you genuinely care about medicine or
law, you should certainly pursue those degrees. But if you're only concerned
with career earnings and/or prestige, well, I have plenty of out-of-work
lawyer friends.

Second, the academic industry (and it is an industry) needs to place less
emphasis on grading and more on education.

I can hear the objections now: "Wait... you mean schools don't emphasize
education?" Sigh... we'll save that for another discussion.

~~~
neutronicus
The problem is that assessment is a very valuable function of universities.
Industry relies on them as a filter. I don't actually believe that industry
values the training universities provide as much as it values the assessment
it doesn't have to do because of universities.

The universities are thus in sort of a bind. They do an enormous amount of
assessment, but the people who benefit the most from accurate assessment,
namely industry, don't bear the costs of it. Their actual customers, the
students who are ostensibly paying for an education, in essence demand an
inaccurately positive assessment instead, because it achieves what an
education achieves (get far enough in the door at a corporation that it would
be a pain to fire you) with less labor input from the students.

The universities can't just stop focusing on assessment - like I said, I think
it's actually more valuable than education. They need to be _replaced_ by some
industry-funded institution whose sole incentive is to provide accurate
assessment.

~~~
overgryphon
Industry doesn't rely on GPA as a filter. They rely on interviews, past
projects and work experience. Anything above a 3.0 (which is pretty low) and
no need to worry.

The problem is with law school, medical school, and so forth. That is where
GPA is seen as the ultimate-judge-of-worth rather than a mildly-interesting-
but-completely-insignificant-number like it should be.

------
cq
That graph in the OP is dishonest. Here's the actual data that wasn't cherry
picked (and taken directly from the same data source as the OP, using the
excel file provided by the US government and charted in excel):

<http://i.imgur.com/YTFMo.png>

Here are the tables from the report, if you'd like to do your own analysis:
<http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/2010menu_tables.asp>

~~~
esrauch
I don't understand, the graph that you linked too appears to demonstrate
exactly the same effect that the OP graph is. Could you explain what was
cherry picked?

~~~
estevez
Another point (perhaps not what the parent meant): the author pulls out
computer science from the mid-80s peak.

See here: <http://imgur.com/XUCku>

