
College May Not Be Worth It Anymore - dsr12
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/opinion/college-useful-cost-jobs.html
======
paulpauper
The NYTimes republishes a variant of this articles almost every month

[https://www.google.com/search?q=site:nytimes.com+college+wor...](https://www.google.com/search?q=site:nytimes.com+college+worth+it&rlz=1C1CHBF_enTR752TR752&ei=h6j9WuawLeba6ASAvKu4DA&start=10&sa=N&biw=1745&bih=818)

The usual answer is "it depends"

~~~
awalton
Which is probably a good thing, since it will slowly beat into the minds of
upper-levels at corps and recruiters that a College Degree shouldn't be the
minimum bar applicants need to reach, and maybe some of these companies will
start removing the "has degree" band reject filter.

~~~
aarongough
I don't have a degree and honestly have never had any issues with recruiters
or interviews for intermediate/senior 'software engineering' positions. I
never represent myself as having a degree, but I don't go out of my way to
point out my lack of degree either.

Never once in an interview have I been asked about my education. One nice
thing about software development positions is the interview process tends to
be merit based.

I have mostly interviewed with small/medium businesses in Toronto, but have
also done early stage interviews with Google where it was also not brought up.
I declined further interviews with Google because I didn't want to move, so
maybe it would have been an issue later on.

~~~
shaftway
I don't have a degree and it almost never fails to come up. Ultimately I
flunked out (for a variety of reasons). I've done a lot of A/B(/C/D/E) testing
with my resume:

\- Don't include education - I'm asked about it. Every. Single. Time.

\- Include the years I attended college - Asked why I didn't finish. Every.
Single. Time.

\- Include college in a misleading way - I did a summer extension program for
2 years while in high school at a similar college. I list both colleges, my
start year, my end year, and what my degree track was. I do not claim that I
have a degree, but nearly everyone assumes I do. I'm almost never asked about
it.

Any time I am asked about it I'm honest to the degree they need ("I had to
take a break from school due to family issues", which is true: my family had
an issue with the number of "F"s I was getting).

I've actually had managers who found out after being hired who told me "if I
had known that, I wouldn't have hired you"

Ultimately I think there are a lot of industries that a degree requirement is
a good thing (I really want my doctor to actually have an MD), a lot of
industries where certification is sufficient (I don't particularly think an
LMFT needs to have a full degree), but the vast majority of industries
shouldn't require it, and filtering for that is a cop-out.

I've been at Google for a number of years. Whether I had a degree was brought
up during the recruiter conversations; nobody cared.

~~~
vubuntu
>Ultimately I think there are a lot of industries that a degree requirement is
a good thing (I really want my doctor to actually have an MD), a lot of
industries where certification is sufficient .

Why only Doctors? Because human lives are involved? I assume by the same
logic, Civil Engineers also need to have a degree (they build bridges and
other life critical infrastructure)

There may be thousands of software products that are also life critical. Not
just the obvious ones like some medical hardware control program/firmware, Air
traffic control programs, Flight onboard software Self-driving car auto-pilot
software etc. So I assume those would require a qualified software engineer
with a degree.

But there may even be others that may not be so obvious immediately.

I have a degree and not been on the other side (not having a degree) and so
cannot identify with any injustice that is perceived by folks on other side. I
can certainly see somewhat equivalent when it comes to bachelors degree vs
Masters/PHD as I don't have those. So I am not sure where the lines should be
drawn to make it fair to everyone.

~~~
david38
Ha! Brings back memories. When I was an engineering student at UIUC, I was
taking a physics class where the Prof graded crazy hard, even by the standards
of the department.

His response was "one day you might build a bridge and can kill someone."

------
andrewvc
College is probably a great thing for some people, but it's been oversold.
It's not the destination, it's just one way of getting there.

One reason why it's so easy to sell, is that college is a near universal
experience for the middle and upper classes, and being an expensive
experience, people credit it with much of the personal growth that happens in
one's early 20s. They also credit it with making them good at their field.

"I really learned how to think in college"

"I really learned how to be apply myself in college"

"I really learned computer science in college, which wouldn't have happened if
I went via some other path.

etc.

It's far too painful for most people to think "I could have been an equally
skilled person if I'd spent that time doing something else".

I come from a long line of people who've succeeded without going to college.
When I tell people I've known for a while that I dropped out of a community
college they usually seem stunned and surprised that someone could actually
have a reasonably intelligent conversation with them (and be a decent
engineer) without that history.

My experience is that you can read books on the humanities, and CS, and get
work done AND not kill yourself in the process. Maybe the road is a little
longer in some ways, but you also come out of it without debt, and you get the
benefit of having a very different set of formative experiences than your
peers.

~~~
Distribution
I'm sure some can learn just as well on their own as in college, but that is
really not the main benefit of it. The main benefit is that the people at your
college are self-selecting: they have similar interests as you do, they have
similar ambition, they have similar abilities. If this college is a good one,
you are going to meet more brilliant, fun, and engaging people in your 4 years
than you would in almost any other scenario. Those people you meet will not
only make a huge impact on your own development as a person, but will continue
to do so long after you are no longer together. They will expose you to a
million things you would never be exposed to otherwise. On top of that, the
intensity of the experience (from living together, being on campus together,
going to parties together, etc.) is simply not comparable to more than a
handful of similar options.

Yes, you could stay home, or move elsewhere, and be one of a handful of people
like yourself. Or you could go and be surrounded by thousands of brilliant,
amazing people for years of the most formative years of your life.

The benefit of going to a good school isn't the classes, it's the people.

~~~
andrewvc
If you go to an Ivy, everything you wrote is incredibly true. Going to any Ivy
or other elite (or even semi-elite) school is a HUGE benefit if for no reason
other than networking.

As you move down the scale that becomes less and less true. People go, learn
whatever they learn, get few if any connections, and wind up with a pile of
debt.

So, we've created an incredibly regressive system.

One other thing to note. When people form those friend groups it's not _just_
about who's their intellectual peer, it's also about who came from similar
backgrounds etc. It's an engine of division as much as anything else.

I agree that the value is there for some individuals, but I disagree that this
is a good thing for society as a whole. If you get accepted to Harvard, it's
almost certainly worth your while to go. College still remains a finishing
school for the elites in our society. Some people bubble up from the
underrepresented portions of our society, but they remain the exception, and
will continue to be so until something changes.

I've included a couple links below that explain the disadvantages some groups
face when attending college.

[http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/27/blacks-
with-...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/27/blacks-with-college-
experience-more-likely-to-say-they-faced-discrimination/)
[https://www.vox.com/2017/9/11/16270316/college-mobility-
cult...](https://www.vox.com/2017/9/11/16270316/college-mobility-culture)

~~~
replicatorblog
This is a really important point. Often, elite discussions about the
importance of college come from people who fondly remember their time at
Harvard, and not those burnt by "schools" like the Boston Architectural
College which has a 100% acceptance rate and charges $20K a year, Or Suffolk
University which can barely hold onto its accreditation, but charges $37K a
year to study "international business."

By bucketing all these experience together as if they're the same experience
does a tremendous disservice to those who can least afford to make a six-
figure mistake.

------
VikingCoder
I assert the expense of college is an awful burden to put on someone who must
finance most of it through debt. It's a gamble. You can improve your odds of a
happy outcome in that gamble by looking at the Student Loan Default Rate for
any given major at any given college, and picking the best program for you
(with the lowest default rate possible.)

But if you are a child of parents who can finance your college? Absolutely. No
question. This is essentially a way to enforce Aristocracy.

I believe college should be free, and that colleges should limit their number
of students in any given program to some sustainable number, where the
graduates can actually earn a living.

Not to pick on them, but do we really need this many Art History Majors?

Veterinarian programs specific limit how many students they accept, because if
they didn't, their graduates wouldn't be able to afford a living wage. Other
majors need to catch on.

And then what if you don't get accepted to a program?

All I've got is Universal Basic Income. And progressive taxes to pay for it
all.

Any other thoughts? I welcome honest discussion, because I hope it will inform
my views.

~~~
bluGill
If somebody is passionate about art history, then they should get a degree in
art history regardless of job prospects. You are limiting their ability to get
the education they want.

Now I will agree that somebody getting an art history type degree shouldn't be
taking loans to get it, they should be paying for it out of their pocket.
However we should not limit somebody from pursuing their interests just
because their interests are not valuable to society.

~~~
tejaswiy
I think the argument is to not prevent people from getting art history degrees
- just to make all art history courses in the US artificially limit the number
of students they take in to match the actual demand.

So if someone's super passionate about art history and is also able to meet
the (presumably) more stringent entry criteria, they will still be able to get
that degree.

~~~
VikingCoder
Or maybe let people pay for Art History degrees if they want to.

And the free program should be based on Merit, and career demand.

~~~
prometheuspk
Thats what they do for high demand degrees like Engg and Medicine in Pakistan.
In Govt. colleges education is virtually free if you are admitted on merit,
else you can go for self finance

~~~
selimthegrim
And then what do you when most of the female medical students drop out and get
married because the degree was just a tool in rishta negotiations? Why should
working poor subsidize a status game?

------
QuotedForTruth
The statistics in this opinion piece are cherry picked to hell.

"People who have dropped out of college — about 40 percent of all who attend —
earn only a bit more than do people with only a high school education: $38,376
a year versus $35,256."

A small difference between college drop out salary vs high school diploma
salary only says that the key is to actually get a degree. half of a degree is
worth much less than half of what a full degree is worth. That doesn't say
anything about how much a degree is worth really.

"They found that for Americans born into middle-class families, a college
degree does appear to be a wise investment. Those in this group who received
one earned 162 percent more over their careers than those who didn’t."

Ok great but then they go on: "But for those born into poverty, the results
were far less impressive. College graduates born poor earned on average only
slightly more than did high school graduates born middle class."

Now they are comparing poor college grads to middle class high school grads.
Why not compare to poor high school grads. Poor people may have the choice to
go to college or not, but they certainly don't have a choice to be born into
the middle class.

"25 percent of college graduates now earn no more than does the average high
school graduate." So the bottom quarter of the college grad distribution is
lower than the top half of the highschool distribution. This shows the
overlap, but again isn't comparing apples to apples. Whats the difference in
median incomes?

"Nearly 30 percent of Americans without a high school diploma live in poverty,
compared to 5 percent with a college degree, and we infer that this comes from
a lack of education. But in 28 other wealthy developed countries, a lack of a
high school diploma increases the probability of poverty by less than 5
percent"

For americans they compare poverty rates for highschool grads and college
grads. Then for the 28 other countries they compare highschool grads to non
highschool grads.

The only stat that actually speaks to the worth of a college degree is that
those born into the middle class earn 62% more income if they have a college
degree. The rest of the statistics are so inappropriately misrepresented that
it seems the author is intentionally being dishonest and the NYT shouldn't
publish it, opinion or not.

~~~
jeffreyrogers
I think you're being too harsh. Lots of marginal students are encouraged to go
to college and many of them study things like history or communications that
aren't good investments. These marginal students drop out at high rates, but
still have 10s of thousands of dollars in student debt. Because most of the
benefits of going to college only occur if you actually graduate with a degree
it's a waste for these students to spend 2 to 3 years in school where they
aren't learning anything relevant to their future employment.

~~~
throwawayjava
_> I think you're being too harsh. Lots of marginal students are encouraged to
go to college_

Notice that _" don't go to college if you're going to drop out"_ is NOT the
article's fundamental claim.

 _That_ piece of advice would be above the author's criticism. But it also
wouldn't get a single upvote, let alone make the front page, because it's
prime facie obvious.

------
chasing
The issue isn't that college is pointless, it's that tuition is too high and
wages too low. You should support politicians with a plan to counter this
trend.

Education is important. Raising the overall level of education in this country
should be a much larger goal that it seems to be.

~~~
imglorp
Agree - I think we should consider a well educated base of voters, workers,
and neighbors as critical infrastucture along with roads and internet.

I think some decisions lately have highlighted an open hostility towards
science, education, and by implication, democracy. This needs to be reversed.

~~~
jacquesm
Well educated voters are the enemy of political parties that thrive on
soundbites and fear.

------
nimbius
speaking as a lead auto mechanic for a chain of shops, please for the love of
god quit sending everyone to college. You're making it impossible to find
anyone whos worked outside a starbucks.

It takes on average nearly a year for us to do any meaningful hiring. We dont
drug test, we dont do a background check in most cases, and we certainly dont
care about credit scores. If we did, we wouldnt hire anyone at all. we just
watch your work for the first 2-3 months to make sure you're not full of snake
oil.

we care about your experience, but we're more than willing to teach. Two of my
junior shop techs are changing oil and aligning tires, but before this one of
them had a masters in Biology and the other had an anthropology degree. As
someone who has always had a tool in hand I cant conceive of whats gone wrong
in the college sphere but it terrifies me to think of what drove a woman who
once worked on genetics to come work for me.

And for those of you out of college and out of work, please take a look at
using your hands. You wouldnt believe how many trades pay close to six figures
that are incredibly understaffed. Plumbers, ironworkers, mechanics,
maintenance techs, you name it. in most cases a lot of these jobs will pay you
to learn the trade. You might not get a cozy office chair, but at the end of
the day how many people can say they helped helped build a bridge or fix
someones flight home on the week of a big holiday?

~~~
throwawayjava
Checking in from an old auto town. Our region is exactly the opposite of
yours. We are saturated with jobless gear-heads but there's HUGE demand in
healthcare.

Shop techs around here make ~$10-15/hr, aren't guaranteed 40, no benefits,
never get overtime, and there's no upward mobility unless you start your own
shop (which for almost everyone requires taking out a big loan, and most
attempts flop). Finding work is easy, but you can do _MUCH_ better in the
service industry or in healthcare. Hell, I have a relative who _breeds dogs_
because it pays better than the auto work he can find after his last attempt
at opening his own shop failed.

But the hospitals are starving! With a Bio grad degree, the hospitals would
_pay you_ to get into nursing. From there, with the degree, it's easy to get
into a PA program. And there's insatiable demand for PAs.

 _> You wouldnt believe how many trades pay close to six figures that are
incredibly understaffed_

My general observation, at least in our region, is that six figures are a high
water mark, not an average. Six figures for the last ten years is A LOT
different from six figures for all thirty years. And even the last 10 years is
wishful thinking. But again, the recently closed factory might've put a huge
downward pressure on salaries throughout the trades in our region.

I think that "trades are the answer" is just as stupid as "college is the
answer". Inserting "community" into "just go to college" doesn't change the
fundamental problem with the advice, which is that it's suggesting a global
heuristic for a problem that has varying solutions from region to region and
especially from person to person.

It's not about "trades vs. white collar". It's all about knowing the
(regional) labor market.

------
meanmrmustard92
This massively misrepresents Tim Bartik's work on the topic. Bartik wrote a
long thread here:Check out @TimBartik’s Tweet:
[https://twitter.com/TimBartik/status/996865804179263489?s=09](https://twitter.com/TimBartik/status/996865804179263489?s=09)

~~~
sologoub
Reading the article I thought to myself that it’s a crappy piece that
oversimplifies the complex landscape and tries to draw sensationalist
conclusions... but after reading the Tweeter thread by the very scientist
who’s work is cited, the article looks intentionally false and a retraction
worthy.

Instead of saying that college is not worth it, why don’t we do MORE to make
it free?

Even if people don’t end up using their knowledge fully, simply giving them
the opportunity to have that knowledge may enrich their lives. There aren’t
social downsides to free education (so long as it’s not censored).

~~~
sigstoat
> Instead of saying that college is not worth it, why don’t we do MORE to make
> it free?

you don't make things more cost effective by changing who pays for them. you
just get more people taking advantage of the cost ineffective good.

~~~
sologoub
The article states nothing of the cost inefficiency, that is cost of producing
the good or service. Instead, the article tries to claim that the price of
education makes it a questionable investment, given the monetary returns.

Higher education can and is being delivered at reasonable costs across much of
the developed world, with many countries choosing to have taxpayers carry the
burden of funding education.

This common-pool resource approach (that is non-excludable, but still
rivalrous) to education does not prevent private education that exists as a
private good (that is both excludable and rivalrous), but it does ensure a
baseline.

As a society, we have decided that certain things should not be left to market
forces, because either the outcomes are morally objectionable to the majority
of the population (welfare for example), or we see a greater overall economic
return on investment by doing it en mass (healthcare, education, etc).

Healthcare is especially interesting - if we leave it completely to market, we
will likely have return of pandemics that are currently being kept at by via
vaccinations and mass treatment. If we allow an economic driver to avoid this
care, the diseases we largely think of as extinct can return.

Education can be thought of in the same view - if we provide everyone with a
solid baseline, and support future growth regardless of economic background,
it is likely that we will reduce the negative effects lack of education
currently has on society. Removing the debts will also help and provide a huge
social benefit, as well as spur additional economic activity.

~~~
sanxiyn
> we will reduce the negative effects lack of education currently has on
> society.

Such as...?

While I lament innumeracy of people for example, I observe even educated
people are mostly innumerate. I am pessimistic problems attributed to lack of
education will be solved by education because education is so ineffective.

------
ChuckMcM
The New York Times may not be worth it anymore :-)

It annoys me how they conflate focused learning and investment returns. If
they said "Cars may not be worth is anymore" because the best cars are beyond
the reach of most people to afford and those people would be better off riding
the bus. College is like this in other ways as well, when you don't have a car
you are constrained to the jobs you can get that you can ride a bike to or
take public transit to. When you don't have that third party accreditation of
study in a subject you are constrained to jobs where companies are willing to
train you through it. That is great if you didn't want to pay for college, it
sucks if they only train you on their stuff, once again limiting your
mobility.

College is an option generator. Just like a car is an option generator. More
places you can choose to go from where you are. The more options you have, the
higher the likelyhood that a good fit between you, your interests, and your
life goals will be found.

~~~
rossdavidh
I think it _can_ be an option generator. However, for some colleges and
especially some majors, it ISN'T. That is something which many kids don't
know, especially first generation college students who don't have parents who
went there first and know the unspoken rules regarding this.

About 1/3 of the majors are NOT "option generators", and putting them in the
same basket (esp. as regards if it's worth taking on debt to get it) is an
error. One that an ethical society would do more to steer very young adults
away from, or at least inform them of the difference between those two types
of majors.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I completely agree with this, college for college sake is not responsible,
college to get better at an area of knowledge that the economy is funding, is
a win-win. (graduate gets a job, economy gets another productive worker).

At the local high school where kids are going to college as the first in their
family, there is a discussion about degrees and employability. The local
community college runs a 2 year machining and manufacturing program that, when
I used it to develop a better understanding of CNC machining, generally saw
all of their graduates who were looking for work get hired.

------
Matticus_Rex
We have decent data on this, and college is still worth it (for the
individual) for all above-average students. Its social returns (which is some
of what she's getting at without the vocabulary for it) are near-zero or
negative, however, despite the many tropes about "an educated society" to the
contrary.

For a much, much deeper discussion of this issue and the factors involved,
read The Case Against Education by Bryan Caplan ([https://www.amazon.com/Case-
against-Education-System-Waste/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-
Education-System-Waste/dp/0691174652)). It's one of the more careful social
science books I've ever read, and while it comes to controversial conclusions,
even if you disagree with them you'll learn a lot about the issues by reading
it.

------
projectramo
Thought experiment: would college be "worth it" if it were free?

That is to say, would it be a valuable use of time and effort?

I am sure there are people who can study hours of literature, philosophy,
political science, math and physics on their own. I am sure they would write
papers and find others to discuss them.

For the rest of us there is only college.

(You might ask: valuable to what end? Worth what? And that is a good question
but the answer is much longer.)

~~~
maxk42
> would college be "worth it" if it were free?

I suspect the answer is "no" more frequently than you may expect.

The opportunity cost is four years of your life, four fewer years of full-time
work experience, and the income that comes with that work experience.

When I was in high school all these recruiters came from various colleges to
try and get us to sign up for their schools. I saw what almost none of my
peers saw: They were salesmen trying to generate revenue for their business.
They did not have my best interests in mind. They presented these lovely
little marketing sheets describing how much money you'd make with a degree in
X, Y, or Z. I realized then that I didn't know how much money was a lot or a
little, but I had an idea the numbers would be rosy. So I started asking
people I knew how much money they needed to live and how much they considered
a lot. I began cold-calling people in various roles I was considering and
asking if the numbers the college recruiters gave us were realistic for an
entry-level worker with a degree and no experience. Big shock -- they weren't.
In the end, I figured four more years of work experience would put me well
ahead of my peers who went to college and it has. That was nearly two decades
ago and I'm very well ahead of my peers now. There are some folks who just
don't have the discipline to learn things on their own -- for them, maybe
college is a good choice. There are others who need a degree by law to
practice their chosen field of work. That makes sense for them too. But for
the rest of us -- college may be considered harmful.

~~~
chillacy
Out of curiosity, what kind of job were you able to land without a college
degree? More and more jobs require a degree, even those that don't seem to
need it, just because more and more people are going to college.

Though if you're the type of person who's driven enough to do that cold
calling, I'm sure you'd find a way around it.

~~~
maxk42
I'm a senior web developer, typically skirting the line between individual
contributor and management.

------
amitmathew
This is a very poor article. College is, on average, worth it [1]. What the
article tries to articulate is that we're not seeing a comparable return on
investment for students from lower-income families. This is tied to worse
graduation rates. As one example, community college students graduate at
abysmal rates [2].

This is actually no big secret to schools. There is a big focus on trying to
improve retention rates. What might be interesting to the HN crowd is that
there are many startups trying to improve the situation in different ways,
like using analytics to identify at-risk students earlier [3] or getting
students engaged in campus events [4]. It's a tough problem, but colleges are
incentivized to fix it - higher retention leads to collecting more tuition.

[1] [https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2014/11/colleg...](https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2014/11/collegepayoff-complete.pdf)

[2] [https://nscresearchcenter.org/wp-
content/uploads/SignatureRe...](https://nscresearchcenter.org/wp-
content/uploads/SignatureReport13.pdf)

[3] [https://www.civitaslearning.com/](https://www.civitaslearning.com/)

[4] [https://www.oohlalamobile.com/](https://www.oohlalamobile.com/)

~~~
seem_2211
College is completely worth it^, in that it opens a ton of opportunities that
tend to be closed without it. College is more about social signaling and
entering into the professional class than it is about learning and scholarship
etc.

I'm not a fan of community colleges, in that they substantially increase your
likelihood of not graduating, or at best, not graduating on time (only 39% of
Community College students graduate in SIX years, which is shocking) [1]. I
know it's a broadly popular point on the internet to suggest going to a CC to
save money, but the risk factor is never mentioned.

I didn't go to University in America (although I now live in SF). If I were 17
again, and growing up in the US, I'd go to the best college I was able to get
into, regardless of the cost.

As an employee, Silicon Valley is sort of a meritocracy, but a degree is the
price of admission, unless you're very very good (and even then, you've made
it harder to job change). Go through this week's funding announcements on
TechCrunch and check where the founders went from, and I'll bet you my last
dollar, you'll see a couple from Stanford, a couple from Harvard, and then
maybe one or two from somewhere else.

^provided you graduate on time, and take advantage of networking opportunities
while you're studying.

[1] [http://hechingerreport.org/new-book-addresses-low-
community-...](http://hechingerreport.org/new-book-addresses-low-community-
college-graduation-rates/)

------
mythrwy
College is usually worth it but needs a reboot for this to really be true now.

Useless and wasteful bureaucracy is responsible for much of the increased
expense. Why should students be saddled with years (or decades) of debt to pay
for pension seeking, position protecting goof offs to waste time and
resources? That makes no sense at all.

Plus the "education" seems to have deviated somewhat into political
indoctrination to the point some students come out confusing the two. That
doesn't help.

So ya, if colleges would get back to the basics of a sane mandate and operate
efficiently it would be fantastic. "Free" college doesn't help because on the
current trajectory, the parasitism will expand to slurp up an infinite amount
of provided resources, and indoctrination will continue to grow at the expense
of education.

I'm not a fan of bootcamps in general, but something along those lines, a
group of people fed up with the nonsense and starting over seems could
possibly produce credentials that actually had worth other than being a
(largely social) signal. And presumably outside the current system these would
have to be affordable.

------
snikeris
> College graduates born poor earned on average only slightly more than did
> high school graduates born middle class. And over time, even this small
> “degree bonus” ebbed away, at least for men: By middle age, male college
> graduates raised in poverty were earning less than nondegree holders born
> into the middle class. The scholars conclude, “Individuals from poorer
> backgrounds may be encountering a glass ceiling that even a bachelor’s
> degree does not break.”

> The authors don’t speculate as to why this is the case, but it seems that
> students from poor backgrounds have less access to very high-income jobs in
> technology, finance and other fields.

Perhaps people born poor demand less money for their labor because if they're
making more than their parents ever did they're more content with their
current level of pay.

------
andrewvc
A lot of these problems would go away if we made student loan debt
dischargeable in bankruptcy.

We've created a system that reaps huge profits in encouraging people to go to
school, regardless if that's the right place for them.

If there's no counterweight to that profit motive, things will not change.

------
ggg9990
These articles always land all over the place because the reality is that
“college” is a pretty wide term covering everything from a CS degree at MIT
(worth millions) to a communications degree from Beaver College (probably not
worth much at all).

------
adamnemecek
America needs apprenticeships. E.g. in Czech Republic you can attend these
vocational schools instead of high schools and there's less of a stigma to
attending them. There are schools for programmers, nurses, car mechanics.

Particularly the programmer ones let you do learn idk, basic networking, 3d
programming and some basic entrepreneurship (accounting etc).

I believe it's one of the reasons it has the lowest unemployment rates in EU
[https://qz.com/index/1046172/this-country-has-the-lowest-
une...](https://qz.com/index/1046172/this-country-has-the-lowest-unemployment-
rate-in-the-eu/)

~~~
lamchob
Czech Rep. Is not the only country with this system, Germany has it as well.
In Germany we have the problem that a lot of parents want their kids to go to
college and dont do the apprenticeship programs. In recent decades there has
been a major shift in school attendance. Today, the majority of pupils attend
the A-Levels school, preparing for college. Some decades ago, most pupils were
attending the shorter school programs preparing for apprenticeships.

The result are full universities, with huge wave in Buiseness related fields.
And on the other hand the traditional trades like carpenters or electrcians
can't find new apprentices. Those who learned a trade now make tons of money
due to the sheer lack of qualified tradeworkers.

------
toomanybeersies
Ignoring financial reasons, I think that university is absolutely worth it.

It's 3 or 4 years of your life where you've (often) just left home, it's the
first time in your life that you're actually free to do what you want. It's an
incredible place to learn about yourself and grow, where the consequences of
fucking up usually aren't as severe.

~~~
madengr
I dunno, I would consider flunking courses, with that high tuition, to be
severe.

------
enitihas
The one advantage college will always have is that it is very difficult
otherwise to bring a high number of intelligent people for 3-4 years at the
same time and allow them to think freely. This will be difficult to replicate.

------
bkovacev
Nowadays, in my honest opinion, tuition cost in an institution is not
proportional to the "amount" of knowledge that you are getting out of it, but
is rather proportional to the statistical chance of you acquiring a life-
changing connection that will help you succeed in life - whether that's a
chance you start a startup or getting that "dream" job + a statistical chance
you will get hired based off of the institution's "brand".

I could be wrong, but my idea is that nowadays - schools are just brands,
rather than an educational environments, but there are exceptions of course.

------
jawns
I see a common thread in many of these comments.

It's a recognition that college just happens to be where bright and ambitious
young people tend to go after high school. And yes, there's value in the
education itself -- but one of the big and lasting benefits is the network of
other bright and ambitious young people you meet and form friendships with. I
know that was true of my own college experience.

So here's a thought.

Back before the Internet, it was hard for people with similar interests or
goals to connect with each other and organize themselves, and so they used
this "going to college" experience to help them meet other similarly bright
and ambitious people.

But now that we have the Internet, could it be possible to crowdsource that
kind of experience without needing to buy into the institutional college
experience?

Like, "Let's get together 50 to 100 other like-minded people, all move into
the same area, and meet regularly at the library or the coffee shop or whatnot
and help each other improve our skills."

------
jacquesm
There are two ways to interpret that, one way is 'let's not go to college' but
the better way to interpret it is 'let's make going to college cheaper (or
even free)'.

~~~
tropo
Colleges are not interested in that.

Accreditation won't allow the required changes. Of course, accreditation is
controlled by the existing members of the club; colleges don't want
accreditation to allow radical change.

Aside from that political difficulty, cutting the cost of a degree in half is
trivial: get rid of the non-major classes. I suppose this applies even to non-
STEM majors; there is little justification for making an English major take a
class on differential equations.

------
msluyter
Brian Caplan's recent book, "The Case Against Education," is relevant here.
His basic premise is that college is mostly signaling game that represents a
net burden on society. (Ie, the time/resources collectively spent jumping
through hoops to get degrees could be put to better use.)

------
somerando
Outside of work, I know a number of folks with degrees from Stanford,
Berkeley, Santa Clara. These folks are not in tech. They love to bust on San
Jose State University like its the worst thing ever.

At work, in tech, I know a number of folks with degrees from San Jose State
University. They are hard working and successful millionaires.

The folks in the first group would LITERALLY DIE if their kids went to San
Jose State University.

It makes me sad/angry for them that they feel there is NO OPTION other than to
get their kids into Stanford/Berkeley/Santa Clara at all costs.

~~~
hirundo
I got a teaching credential from San Jose State. The piece of paper helped me
get a demeaning job in the indoctrination industry. Other than that the
education was almost completely worthless. Except perhaps from the character
building of enduring endless drivel, and I didn't need to go to college for
that. Turns out the job wasn't worth the effort, and since then I've had a
decent career doing things that I learned independently.

College was close to free for me. At that price it was still way too
expensive. I doubt that is the case for the best students at the best schools.
But for the rest of us, I advise being highly skeptical of the value of a
modern college education. Especially of the education department at SJSU.

------
jjuhl
I'm almost entirely self taught. Started learning programming on my own on an
Amiga 500 when I was 13. Dropped out of high-school since that way of learning
did not appeal to me. Never had a lack of job offerings and I now earn the
same (or more) than my CS and engineering graduate co-workers. A degree is not
what matters, being able to learn and do the job is the important thing. How
you gained your knowledge should be irrelevant as long as you do truly have
it.

------
devdimi
Big surprise: people born rich will have more money no matter if they have
college degree or not.

What the article doesn't say is that all other things being equal it is still
worth it to have college education. I don't think that the right way to
motivate poor people is to tell them that even with degree they might be worse
off than the rich. Having a degree will be better for them than not having it.
Learning always pays off - be it in college or not.

------
bob_theslob646
It's simple, try and get the best education you can for as cheap as possible.

I have not read the article, so forgive me if they state it there, but a large
contributor to the problem of "must go to college" are employers.

It's amazing to me that software is the only industry that accepts people for
what they can do and have done whereas other industries require explicit
requirements.

Yes, training can be expensive, but kids learn so much faster when they care.

~~~
zamalek
This is because software development is one of the few industries where you
can learn the craft without putting lives at risk. For example, there is a
huge step from playing with Lego to building a load (and life) bearing bridge.
For some industries, self directed learning is completely inaccessible.
Medicine is a good example (you also really wouldn't want to hire based in
practical tests for that one, too).

~~~
chillacy
What about the folks who write flight control software? I'm not aware of those
jobs requiring applicants to pass the PE exam (there is one for software but
it's the least popular):

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

Whereas the CivEs overwhelmingly need this certification

------
vinceguidry
Every modern society needs it's signaling mechanic, otherwise it becomes
virtually impossible for people to want to take risks, eliminating all ladder
access for the underprivileged.

Signals only work if they're hard to fake. The expense of a college degree in
both time and dollars perversely increases its utility as a signal.

Of course, the price of a degree can only go so high before before people are
unwilling to pay it. But the natural tendency will not be for the price to
come back down, but rather for new, more accessible educational options to
show up with lower signaling values. It already happened before with the
difference between ivy league schools vs the rest and public vs. private.

Society will get even more stratified, with ever finer class distinctions
becoming an indelible part of your pedigree. Technology will make it ever
easier to buck the trend and become entrepreneurial, but even that will slowly
get folded into the system. We see this with how craft brewing ended up
getting rolled into the existing system, preserving the lion's share of the
profits for the big bottlers.

Ever-decreasing social mobility is the price we pay for advancement.

~~~
facing_worlds
Instead of cost being the authenticator of the signal academic performance \
intelligence could be like it is in some european countries wherw college is
low cost but admitance is based on high school performance.

~~~
vinceguidry
I like that option, but barring an order of magnitude more public investment
in higher education, I can't see it happening. We're stuck with the school
system we have, it seems.

------
stvswn
Just because college may be a great choice for social mobility at the
individual level doesn't mean it can scale to everyone. I believe that anyone
who gets into Harvard should finance it with as much debt as they like,
regardless of their major. It'll be worth it. If you are accepted into a non-
competitive-admissions school, you need to make an informed cost-benefit
analysis. The relative ubiquity of financing options makes this a bit
distorted for an inexperienced young person, effectively lowering the
perceived cost. For some reason we believe that lowering the cost function for
students will lead to increased demand for college education will lead to
increased supply of graduates will lead to... increased supply of good jobs?
It's a flawed idea, because it turns out that what really matters, as a young
person, is your resume's strength relative to your similarly inexperienced
peers, and a mediocre record at a mediocre school is not going to set you
apart.

------
treebeard901
For the longest time, I believed that college was not necessary and wanted to
prove a point.

I have done fairly well for myself but I have to admit that life would have
been a lot easier with it than without.

After realizing this several years ago, I still did not really attempt to
finally go back to school.

The problem now is that college is a market like any other. It's probably
close to the housing market around 2007. The cost has increased and the value
has somewhat diminished.

I do not have any statistics on the cost of college when adjusted for
inflation. There are a lot of other factors that make the cost so restrictive
when compared to even 20 years ago.

The education market will need to crash and reset. It's likely that technology
will speed this process along. With all that being said, take it from my 30+
years of trying to prove a point, it's worth it.

The myth of the Bill Gates college drop out starting a company like Microsoft
is exceedingly rare. As technology becomes more widespread and regulated, the
importance of a degree will only grow.

EDIT: formatting

------
Rotdhizon
This is a nothing article, the fact that it completely leaves out what degrees
are being obtained invalidates it to me. It says that a college graduate makes
only ~$3,000 more a year on average than a high school graduate? With how hard
they are dissing degrees, I assume they are talking about some worthless
degree like liberal arts.

"Why do employers demand a degree for jobs that don’t require them?" > This is
a common practice. Speaking from tech industry experience, you'd be hard
pressed to find a single job opening that didn't have a degree requirement
listed. The kicker? It's not actually a requirement, it's there for formality.

" Technology increased the demand for educated workers, but that demand has
been consistently outpaced by the number of people — urged on by everyone from
teachers to presidents — prepared to meet it." > If this is referencing the
tech industry, then this is an outright false claim. Tech industry job
openings to skilled applications is something like 2:1, if not 3:1 right now.
Since he just said technology in general, it might not be referencing the tech
industry. Talking about the job market in general, I don't have any insight
into that.

"The authors don’t speculate as to why this is the case, but it seems that
students from poor backgrounds have less access to very high-income jobs in
technology, finance and other fields. Class and race surely play a role." >
Absolutely false. Race _might_ play a small role depending on the state and
environment, but class sure doesn't. No respectable tech employer cares about
your financial upbringing, it's about what you have to bring to the table
right then and there.

It really all comes down to how you play your cards. If you have the chance to
attend college(which not everyone has the chance to do), you have to go with
what will open the most doors. You can't expect to spend 2 years getting
something like a liberal arts degree and expect to be making 6 figures. You
have to research, you have to understand what skills are in demand. I will say
that I am biased when writing this. As someone who grew up extremely poor and
found opportunity through a tech degree in a local college, I very well have a
world of opportunities now because of it. So it is infuriating that the author
dares to consider the idea of even community college not being worth it, when
it very well is one of the very few doors that leads to bigger and better
things for low income people.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
> It's not actually a requirement, it's there for formality.

This simply isn't true a lot of the time. It is sometimes, but there are
plenty of jobs that require highschool level skills but will filter out those
who don't have a degree just because they can. It's not that big a deal if you
select one candidate over the other because the former has done a 2 week
internship that made no difference in the qualifications, but did signal some
small extra thing that gave the candidate the edge. It's not okay if a diploma
gives a candidate the edge structurally, despite being useless for the
required job skills, and costs $40k for the individual to get. That's an
insane price we expect people to pay just to compete for a job.

> No respectable tech employer cares

It's not just that. It's the fact the vast majority of jobs are obtained
through your network. Class and race are just proxies for the probability that
a person has a weak network within a high-socioeconomic-class industry like
tech or finance. It's not necessarily a claim of blatant classism or racism by
the employer, but rather that your mom not knowing an uncle with a position
for you, or dad not showing you you need to do this internship and that
volunteer project and apply to that program to get recruited, or growing up
with friends who became plumbers and whose parents were plumbers too, is not
as conducive to landing a job as others with similar intelligence/credentials
but a different class background/upbringing/network is.

That having been said, I agree with your other points. These articles get a
bit tiresome. As always the answer is, it depends. College can be worth it,
but not for everyone and not by doing anything.

It sort of amazes me sometimes to speak to people who just never ran any of
the numbers. It should be mandatory for student loan applications to be data-
driven. i.e. any college in a state should be able to go to the state
educational board and obtain annual data for every accredited program or at
least workfield, and use that for the loan programs. So for example, the state
could track the average salary at 1, 5 and 10 years for an Art History major.
Plug that into a loan calculator. Then plug in the loan payments. And then
offer a comparative view, compared to not going to college, community college
and other majors in college. And then a student has to read through all of
that and make a conscious decision that yes, I'm going to borrow $50k, have an
estimated payback time of 45 years old and earn no more than minimum wage and
be expected to have a >50% chance of not being employed as an art historian in
the first place. I'm seeing this kind of data take off a little bit, but it's
still pretty poor and some universities skew the numbers. Government should do
more to standardise these things and mandate universities and students use
them.

~~~
throwawayjava
_> It is sometimes, but there are plenty of jobs that require highschool level
skills but will filter out those who don't have a degree just because they
can._

There's also "the minimum viable candidate" vs. "cheap value-add".

E.g., an admin asst that does the job as described vs. the admin asst that
occasionally helps with spreadsheets, does some basic graphic design work, and
proof-reads both user-facing and technical documentation.

Does an admin asst need a college degree? No. But I'll take the admin asst
with some art, accounting, and writing skills ANY day. Those skills completely
re-define the role and add tons of value at very low cost.

I've seen the same in tech roles. Given two candidates who are both obviously
capable of doing the primary duties of the job, the one with a deeper
background (either from college or self-taught) is obviously preferable
because versatility outside of the designated role is always a nice value-add.

------
uptownfunk
I think good colleges are worth it, but mediocre/poor colleges aren’t. Good
colleges are where you have high caliber instructors, a qualty network, a good
reputation, and good counseling/support system.. ie things that will help you
professionally. I’d amso factor in location/climate but not something I’d pay
for explicitly

------
macinjosh
News flash, it hasn't been worth it for at least 15 years. That is when I
graduated high-school. I toured some colleges, submitted my FASFA, and ran the
numbers. My family was lower middle class. My grades were above average but
not top of my class. I had two options: take out loans for college and go into
immense debt at age 18 or learn a marketable skill and go to work. I was
already self-learning how to code during high school.

I decided to avoid the debt and get to work. Best decision I've ever made. It
wasn't always easy but being debt free except for a mortgage that fits my
income has provided for a very comfortable life.

If you want to do something with your life that actually requires a college
degree, go for it, otherwise learn a trade and live your life without
unreasonable debt. During high school every adult in my life told me that I
could never make a decent living without a college degree. They were wrong.

~~~
rootusrootus
They may have been wrong in your case, but unless something has changed very
recently the numbers still tilt in favor of better long-term results _on
average_ for people with college degrees. I know plenty of successful people
without degrees but at a macro scale it's not good advice.

------
SirDickinson
College is not worth any more or less than before or after. If you can afford
the college and if you want to go to college, college is a great experience.
And for another thing, it's a great place for experiencing "pre"-job world.
Out of your hometown, there are really various kinds of people from every part
of the place. And college is a great place for meeting those people.

Associating with young, ambitious, hard-working people was a really refreshing
experience for me. And think about the democracy and the principle of it.
There's some amount of truth that more people can think better results. (spare
me from the everlasting discussion of populism and totalitarianism) I don't
think I learned that much from professors since I didn't go to college that
much.. :P But rather, I learned from my peers. And I even learned how to learn
from professors from my peers.

Another point: at that age span (of 19 - 23 and upwards), young folks are easy
to make mistakes and fall for victims of bad things, be overly confident of
their future. Being in a college prevents those unfortunate events from
happening to some extent.

And another point: Being young and curious, sometimes you might need to dig
deep into your curiosity and study about everything - being in a college means
you have lots of free time. So you are in this ivory tower for limited period
of time, it's up to you how to use that free (& paid by your parents or you,
which means it's not that free at all) time. And since you're still "student",
you're immune to many responsibilities also. It's somehow an opportunity for
you.

These were the benefits of college in my opinion. Of course, there are lots of
cons of college - being too expensive, only delays your chance to be in the
real adult world, college has become a school for job market decades ago so
why bother, etc.

I think it's one's choice to how to look at this double-edged sword &
opportunity that comes once in your lifetime.

------
ihsw2
Intelligent people otherwise wouldn't be qualified (read: get past the HR
drones and other keyword filtering algorithms) without that given piece of
paper.

Yes, people that receive bachelor's degrees may be highly effective and
talented regardless of having such a degree, but there are few (if any other)
means of attracting gainful employment to fully utilize such talents.

College may not reduce inequality via increasing the education level of a
given population but it does reduce inequality via providing a mechanism for
individuals to signal prospective employers, "here I am." This mechanism,
however, is exceedingly expensive but still probably worth it.

Enterprising individuals may however be inclined to "catfish" and outright lie
about their education history, as evidenced the other day by the article about
one such employer encountering a catfish.

------
jsat
Go to cheap state school and work reasonably diligently. Worth it every time.
Private school isn't worth it unless someone other than you (rich parents or
scholarship) is paying.

I got a full tuition scholarship at state school, and I'm reaping huge
benefits now.

------
pg_bot
I'm guessing there is a lot of money to be made using moneyball techniques to
hire people. There are likely many candidates out there that would excel at
professions, but don't have the ability to signal it to employers.

------
Mc_Big_G
It's only "not worth it" because the whole student loan system has caused the
cost of getting an education to skyrocket. Fix the system, take away extreme
profits for universities, give everyone who wants it a free college education
and it'll be more than worth it again. This would also increase the wealth of
the USA by several order of magnitude. Unfortunately, instead of investing in
our children and our future, we'd rather put money in the pockets of the rich,
as we always do.

------
sandworm101
>> It shouldn’t here, either: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
fewer than 20 percent of American jobs actually require a bachelor’s degree.

Ya ... well ... try applying for a job without one. In many fields university
education is expected. You can get in on the ground floor as a uneducated kid
and rise through the ranks of an organization but you will be locked in. Any
job applicant over 30 is expected to either have one or at least have a good
excuse for not finishing their degree.

------
iron0013
Pieces like this get posted all the time, and the comments are always the
same. Folks who don't think college is worthwhile bring anecdotes, while folks
who know that college is worthwhile bring facts and data, which show very
clearly that the financial returns to education are very real and very
substantial. And that's just the financial returns, it doesn't even touch upon
the social, personal, etc aspect!

------
badrabbit
Like any commodity,it's worth what people are willing to pay for it.

If your plan is to start a restaurant chain and get rich then a degree would
not be profitable. But if your plan is to make a mediocre salary as an office
worker then you need a college degree to make any kind of long term profit.

Not everyone should get a degree just like not everyone should buy a house,get
married and have kids. It depends on who you are,your enviornment and
priorities.

------
CoffeeDregs
This article lacks any nuance. College will always be worth it if you have
some combination of ambition, capability and intelligence necessary to couple
to an industry (or industries) of interest. College was never worth it if you
lacked that.

The big change that seems to happening is that a general purpose college
education is less and less valuable in the market. This is a result of
consolidation and specialization. Years ago, a general purpose degree could
land you on the management track at the headquarters of the regional
department store; now you need a specialized degree to even interest the
recruiter at GlobX in Seattle/SFC/NYC.

The exception of course is: experience. "In God we trust; all others bring
data" => "In reputable college degrees we trust; all others bring
_demonstrable experience_ ". Demonstrable experience for a developer is easy:
github.com. It's also easy for lots of other specialties.

A degree provides a claim of capability that varies with the degree provider.
Putting [particle simulation code] on github.com (or whichever specialized
site) provides a _demonstration_ of capability without regard to degree.

Some employers will require a specialized capability that only a degree can
provide (think GAAP accounting, which is insane/brilliant); some will search
for the capability itself. It's a shifting continuum and a discussion between
you and your kids; to say it's yes/no is to put on blinders in order to ignore
a changing world.

------
everdev
Growing up, I was told to go to college if I wanted to earn a good income and
provide for a family and it worked out that way for me.

However, when I hire, I never look at education, only work experience. I can't
recommend my kids spend $250k or more on college when they could get 4 years
of work experience or start a business with a little bit of training.

------
ameister14
"The authors (of the study) don’t speculate as to why this is the case"

...but the author of the opinion piece will be happy to.

------
Blackstone4
If I was facing the decision to go to US college, I would be considering
alternatives vs. paying full price at an Ivy League school.

Just think what you could do on a fraction of the cost.

\- Travel the world

\- Take online programming courses i.e. Golang on Udemy

\- Use some of the capital to start a small online business

I would then look into taking a software apprenticeship.

~~~
throwawayjava
_> vs. paying full price at an Ivy League school. Just think what you could do
on a fraction of the cost._

Or the most obvious and common choice:

\- go to literally any other college.

Also, of your alternatives, only one makes a lick of sense. Both

 _> Travel the world_

and

 _> Use some of the capital to start a small online business_

are 1) not actually options for anyone who has to take out loans for college,
and 2) FAR more financially risky than the college route.

(2) is the most important point. Is college a great option? Often, no.
However, are the plentiful _better_ options? Often, no. (And the ones that do
exist don't scale... not everyone can be a plumber.)

------
superkuh
Many workplaces require college degrees when they aren't required for any
direct reason because it shows the applicant is willing to bend over and take
it in the way a good worker should. It's peacock feathers signifying you're
willing to fit in.

------
SolaceQuantum
> What all this suggests is that the college-degree premium may really be a
> no-college-degree penalty.

The most relevant conclusion here is that. However, I notice this article
doesn’t explore the wealth of labor that only needs an associates or trade
certification.

------
jknoepfler
Half-assing anything usually isn't worth it. Given that most Americans half-
ass their educations, why would we expect doubling down on half-assery to pay
dividends?

If working hard towards a degree at a decent school stopped paying dividends,
that might be news.

~~~
ikeyany
> Half-assing anything usually isn't worth it.

The people who bullshit their way into high paying jobs beg to differ.

------
jpeg_hero
How do you know you live in an SF bubble?

> A third of Americans aged 25-29 have a bachelors degree

I know one persons without a degree.

> earn only a bit more than do people with only a high school education:
> $38,376 a year versus $35,256

At my company an annual raise of less than $25k is seen as an insult.

~~~
jcranmer
> At my company an annual raise of less than $25k is seen as an insult.

Did you drop a decimal point? A 5% raise would need a salary of $500,000 to
hit $25k.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Companies that want to have high retention of employees in hot job markets
will give raises of much higher than 5%.

------
daemonk
If we put aside the financial concerns, which admittedly is a significant
factor, what you get out of college is what you want to put into it. If you
see it as just a hoop to jump through, then perhaps it's not worth it.

------
nannePOPI
If they just had to rely on the free market, colleges would have closed a long
time ago. They can't improve anymore because they don't get any signal they're
doing a good job. If I'm doing a good job, I know because people will pay me
or I win (cold)battles in war. Instead in these peaceful times, colleges don't
have a way of knowing for sure they're doing good, except with self-
congratulations and educational theories.

At the same time, I think if it wasn't for State licenses, regulations that
force to have a degree and a culture that discriminate against people without
a state-supported college degree, we would see no advantages for the college
degree holder, at least with current colleges.

------
shiado
I wonder what schools and social strata those who make it as journalists at
the New York Times come from. Something tells me an associates from your local
community college won't cut it.

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jpm_sd
I think it's been clear for quite some time that "college for everyone" is not
worth it, at all.

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motohagiography
Question should be re-framed as, of what is an undergrad degree a "costly and
honest signal"?

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Grustaf
If you get an education with the sole purpose of generating higher net
earnings you deserve to lose money.

For most people it should hopefully be: "I want to be a lawyer, so I go to law
school", or "I am interested in engineering so I study engineering" \- you
study because you need the degree to get the job you want.

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scottmcleod
Pssst for most careers it hasn't been worth it for 20 years

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Grovara123
Clearly the author never went to the University of Miami.

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dontwaitesforme
Am I the only person that learned a lot in college lol

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jaequery
I agree college education seems to be getting less and less important.
Especially for computer related fields.

But on the contrary, how would it look like if a generation of kids were
taught to believe college is useless?

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Karishma1234
What was your first clue ? Not all college is worth it, most of the degrees
are pretty worthless and exist purely because of federal dole.

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Phillips126
My college experience was rather disappointing. As someone pressured into
going to College (Mom was a school teacher), I gave in and attended a 4 year
SUNY University (Oneonta, New York). I knew college wasn't cheap so through
high school I worked at a local grocery store making $5.20/hr. (minimum wage)
to earn as much as I could, which ended up being around $8,000. Our household
income was decent (~$130,000) but my parents made it very clear that all loans
will be my responsibility to pay back, I would be getting no assistance from
them. Perhaps they felt that I'd be more likely to graduate given the risk.

I've always had a strong interest in computer art (3d modeling / animation,
video games, special effects) and SUNY Oneonta was one of the few schools at
the time that offered a program in that field (without leaving New York). In
my free time through high school I would dabble in Photoshop, 3DS Max, Maya,
etc. I wouldn't say that I ever became exceptionally good, but my interests
continued to grow. I was genuinely excited for college.

The first thing I learned was wow, college is way more expensive than I
imagined! Students were required to live on campus, pay for the maximum meal
plan, unable to have a car for the first two years (relied heavily on public
transportation), cost of books, cost of art/class supplies, cost of food /
grocery items. With a full course load, finding the time to work a part time
job felt impossible. I spent most of my free time on school work and staying
up very late some nights working on large art assignments - painting, drawing,
mixed media, ceramics and so on. The first two years of college were mostly
"core" classes, meaning I wasn't able to take classes pertaining to my major
(computer art) until I've completed them. It was high school all over again,
almost identical classes.

Finally, 2 years down, 2 to go and I was excited to finally take some computer
art courses. I quickly signed up for 3d modeling, animation, web design,
anything I could get my hands on. Almost immediately, I was disappointed. The
courses being taught were below my current knowledge level (even advanced
courses). For example, the web design courses were still entirely using tables
for layout with Photoshop "slices" when the rest of the world was primarily
using divs/css. Everything was very outdated brief overviews of the basics. I
couldn't believe that such basic courses would result in me obtaining a major
in this field? It also made me feel inadequate when preparing to find a job
after school.

It was about this time that I took on an internship at a local web
design/development company (of about 5 people). My interests quickly changed
from Computer Art to Web Development. I really enjoyed building websites,
working with customers and trying new things. After my internship ended I was
hired by this company for $15/hr, which sounded really great out of school.
Not long after, the management eventually began struggling with finances and I
left that company, taking a graphic designer position to keep money in my
account. College ended and my total debt was ~$77,000, ouch...

Six months pass since graduating and my student loans are now coming in,
~$1,200 a month was my starting payment. I was making $14.86/hr. and life was
really hard. I did everything I could do to reduce my payments which
eventually dropped to ~$700 / month, but with rent, vehicle expenses, health
insurance, food, etc, I was missing payments and defaulted on one of my loans.
My credit was destroyed, I was living check to check (barely)... I resented
college.

Today, I am in my early 30's working as a Software Developer. My credit is
slowly repairing (just bought a house last year!) and I am making triple my
old salary. I wish that I had more time in college to truly learn what I
wanted to do and explore a bit more instead of taking the "core" classes the
first two years re-learning "western civilization" and "earth science". If I
could go back in time I'd get a proper Computer Science degree, instead of
being a Software Developer with a Bachelors of Arts. I know the position I
have now would not have been offered to me if I didn't have a college degree
(CEO is very fond of college graduates), but it certainly came at a cost... I
have two young kids now and I often wonder, will I also recommend they go to
college?

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whataretensors
School is a waste of time and resources for the talented these days. You can
learn anything you want online by the best people.

It's becoming training for state-run communism. No choice, only negative
reward signals, march at the same speed as the average.

Of course if we tell people the truth - your outcome can essentially be
predicted by measuring IQ, which stabilizes around age 7. SAT score is
essentially a makeshift game-able IQ test, like our interview processes.

The whole system is based on falsities. You can't make people smarter. You can
only confuse and unforgivably indebt them. Like several of my friends who
'failed out' of engineering. It's so incredibly damaging and places debt and
blame on the individual, even 10 years later some of my close friends have not
recovered financially or emotionally. It's like if your best friend focused on
playing professional basketball, encouraged by peers and parents, and nobody
bothered to mention to him that he's 5'1".

~~~
mkirklions
Failed out of engineering= they didnt care

I agree that most education should be learned on the job, but college is a
filter to keep the lazy out of jobs that require the dedicated.

Engineering was insane because they wanted people that would drop what they
are doing to go to mexico with 7 hours notice. The dude that dropped out of
engineering school is planning on fishing this weekend, hes not going anywhere
his boss asks.

~~~
whataretensors
> Failed out of engineering= they didnt care

I don't even know how to respond to this... my friends didn't fail out from a
lack of effort. You also don't know this but all of my old friends are Mexican
- so you are implicitly saying the reason they didn't succeed is because they
are lazy Mexicans. I don't think you intended to take this stance.

You likely got tricked with everyone else into believing in social
constructionist view that colleges push, everyone is the same unless you can
see the differences. Of course they push this because it removes all liability
from them for vetting students, and it places blame on failure to the
students.

Also I did graduate college and found only the math and advanced CS classes
useful(3rd year +).

Source, to show that these patterns are more than anecdotal:
[https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_coj.asp](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_coj.asp)

~~~
mkirklions
Nah, it had nothing to do with your personal racism toward your friends for
being Mexican.

If you didnt pass math and engineering, you didnt care enough.

Your friends treated college like high school or worse. If you did 100% of the
homework, read the chapter before class, studied for tests, you wouldnt be
failing out of college.

At worst case, the classes are hard enough you get a C or D in a class. But
that isnt enough to get kicked out of college.

Lets be honest here, if you put those kinda hours into engineering school, you
can expect to get As and Bs.

~~~
whataretensors
> Nah, it had nothing to do with your personal racism toward your friends for
> being Mexican.

Dude I'm Mexican. I showed you stats on high dropout rates of other hispanics
and you call me racist, meanwhile claiming all of those dropouts are lazy.

>If you didnt pass math and engineering, you didnt care enough[...] Lets be
honest here, if you put those kinda hours into engineering school, you can
expect to get As and Bs

More social constructionist falsities that university is based on. It's easy
to disprove, assuming you ever met any of the 99.9% of people who aren't good
at math.

~~~
mkirklions
Confirming laziness. Instead of taking responsibility for not studying enough,
you blame it on race.

Your friends shouldve studied harder. It sounds like you knew what needed to
be done.

~~~
whataretensors
With all due respect, you are indoctrinated into a culture of lies meant to
confuse you into thinking you aren't special, likely to prevent you from
negotiating or escaping.

We can't expect everyone to be athletes or bodybuilders. Not everything is a
test of will.

~~~
mkirklions
Math is a test of will.

As an extension engineering/programming is too.

------
baybal2
I think, they were late with that realisation for like 10 years.

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cryptoz
The article takes an exclusively financial look at 'worth it' and completely
ignores both education and human connection as an aspect of going to college.
I get that the author is writing about money and money alone, but the headline
is deceptive.

Additionally, I do understand that a lot of people go to college for the
purposes of getting a job. But that's not all college is, and pretending that
the only reason anyone values college is the salary level afterwords is
missing the most interesting pieces of the discussion. Things like,

-the arts are important for a society regardless of the financial profit from it (i.e., it would be 'worth it' to a society to not force each individual person to earn a living wage for their whole working life).

-college as a mechanism for meeting people, making connections, and learning about the world. Yes, some college experiences can be closed-minded, but that is not the norm.

-many other things. This author is so focused on money, they are missing the forest for the trees.

~~~
and0
You don't need to rack up six figures of debt to make human connections or
gain experiences. There are a number of ways to accomplish this without all
the debt and in arguably more useful ways than memorizing things you'll never
have a chance to use. Off the top of my head, I can imagine volunteer work or,
better yet, New-Deal-style programs with actual financial incentive would
offer the same ~magical experience~ of fraternity.

~~~
neuromantik8086
It doesn't make sense to go into debt, sure. But if you can get someone else
to pay for college (i.e., a generous scholarship) it's well worth it, and the
tuition costs pre-tuition spiral would definitely be worth it as well.

It's difficult to think of a better way to cultivate personal relationships
than college. Presumably you've chosen classes based off your own interests,
so the people you meet within those classes are good candidates for friendship
(via homophily). True, you could use subreddits to find folks with similar
interests, but in my experience those don't lead to the same kinds of
relationships you develop when you physically encounter other people.

Building a state park a la the New Deal CCC doesn't really create the same
sense of shared interest since no one's actually interested in the art of
bricklaying for the most part, and volunteering has a lot of turnover (mostly
due to folks using it as a resume item).

If you're at a SLAC, the number of people you see is limited so there's less
competition for attention when forming bonds and a lot of mere exposure
effect.

The value of college (at least at a SLAC) is arguably less about the classroom
lessons and more about having a decent method for finding other people you can
grow with.

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optimalKEK
I have a masters degree in Computer science and it really helps me every day
as a Wordpress Administrator.

