
Is a college degree still worth it? - edw519
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobs-educate-20100612,0,5466021,full.story
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patio11
A client is currently paying me a rather substantial amount of money to come
up with an authoritatively presented answer to this question, using BLS data
and some programming. (It figures that the number crunching would take one
week and the presentation layer would take three. _sigh_ )

Spoiler: College degrees are still worth it. Some are rather substantially
more worth it than others. If you feel yours isn't, you almost certainly
aren't majored in engineering or (certain flavors of) geology.

~~~
jerf
If it is possible to share the results with us, I'd like to see it when you
are done. I recognize that may not be possible. I think I have a good bead on
the general results, but specifics are nice, and concrete charts could even be
helpful for talking to college-bound seniors about what it is they need to be
doing in a way that "here, let me share my intuitions" aren't.

~~~
patio11
Thanks Jerf. They've previously indicated that they'd be thrilled to have me
show it off, and I'd be happy to write a "how I built this" or something for
my blog linking to the results.

Fair warning: it is marketing material, in much the same sense that one of the
NYT's data visualizations is marketing, except they have a business model
which benefits in a more direct fashion than the NYT does.

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bradleyland
Is a Hitachi EC25E compressor with NV45AB2S nailgun worth it? That would
depend upon whether or not I intend to be a roofer.

I was always suspicious of the assumption that a college degree was a default
requirement for success in the professional world. That is -- in part -- why I
rejected the notion and decided to drop out of college after year one.

A college degree is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. Too many
educators assume that if you are "smart", you must go to college. As if the
degree you receive is some sort of product that stands alone. The fact is, you
can't sell a degree on an open market, because the knowledge you gain isn't
transferrable. Circle back to the old argument of whether $50k would be better
spent on a 4-year degree or some form of traditional investment. The only
factual answer is "it depends".

When you go to college, you buy experience, knowledge, and a certificate that
says, "I know how to see something through to the end." In my view, the
significance of the latter has diminished significantly in recent years. When
college becomes something you do by default, the effort is no longer
superlative; it is average. This puts the emphasis more on the knowledge
aspect, and sure enough, knowledge heavy degrees deliver more value.

I once had dinner with a client where one of the VPs asked me where I went to
college. When I replied that I had attended for one year, then decided my
efforts were better spent elsewhere, she replied with, "Oh, you seemed smarter
than that." It stung a little, but in the conversation that followed, the
majority of the executives with which I was meeting came down _in favor_ of my
decision, rather than against it.

This conversation taught me a valuable lesson. Doing what everyone tells you
is the "right thing to do" isn't always the best answer. There are no one-
size-fits-all answers to life. You have to evaluate each scenario objectively
based on the circumstances at that moment, then reach your own conclusions.

~~~
spotter
> asked me where I went to college

Political protip: Answer his question. "I went to X University". Because...
you did, didn't you?

And if he asks you what you majored in: "I studied Y. But somehow I ended up
in this job! _hearty laugh_ ".

I have a degree but it amazes me that people who didn't go to college are
never able to glide past this one. It seems like the only people who really
ever bring up dropping out is the dropout. Only a very special kind of asshole
will continue to press you about graduation dates etc.

Having said that,... I have a sneaking suspicion that people who dropped out
like bringing it up just to say that they dropped out. You like bringing it up
and debating it and then having people "agree" with you eventually, because
you seek validation for the decisions you made.

It's called having a chip on your shoulder and the guy who said "oh you seemed
smarter than that" was clearly fucking with you cause he's seen it a million
times before.

~~~
pixelbath
I disagree. Why would you claim something falsely? It's possible they wouldn't
press further, but it's also possible the person would say "Oh, X University!
Was there Z when you went?"

Now, you could go on and tell me about how it's just that easy to make up
something else, like, "Hmm, I don't remember that," but I learned a long time
ago that making up facts about yourself can easily bite you in the ass. As
I've grown older, I generally try to steer away from doing this. Taking the
high road and being honest doesn't mean you have a chip on your shoulder.

The only "clearly fucking with" I got out of the grandparent post was the
degreed person taking a jab at the non-degreed person, and it's not the first
time I've seen a person with a lack of higher education insulted offhandedly
that way. It's almost like people with degrees have a chip on their shoulder,
or something... (I kid).

Now, to agree slightly with your post, I do sometimes mention that I have no
college education (nor did I finish high school). At the same time, I am paid
more than many people who do have degrees, but I am limited from many jobs
because I lack a degree of any sort. However, I don't try to debate whether my
way is better, because I know that learning works differently for different
people.

As for validation? You may have a point there, but it's amazing to ME that so
many people fail to realize that you can learn almost anything yourself. I
don't think it's wrong to be proud that you gained the same (or better, being
real-world experience) knowledge that another person had to pay $35,000 to
learn.

Please don't think I'm being dismissive of college education though. I miss
out on a great many things simply because it doesn't fall into my area of
interest (classic literature and ancient history being prime examples). By
getting a degree, you ensure that you're at least passingly familiar with the
same basics as everyone else.

I do intend to go back to school eventually, but I have very little pressing
need to earn a specific degree. If things keep going the way of MIT and free
online courseware, I may skip the degree portion and gain personal enrichment
without paying an institution for the privilege.

~~~
spotter
> falsely

Nothing about those answers are false. It's a truthful answer designed to
promote good will, not a lie. It's called having social skills.

His inability to play this game got him a stinging insult in front of a bunch
of the execs' peers. Way to go dude. I'm just offering advice on how to avoid
getting socially "stung", not on how to live your life in general.

> ability to learn anything yourself

I agree, I majored in economics and I'm a search engineer making over 200k. My
degree is nearly worthless to me.

~~~
pixelbath
You're right, they're not false statements.

Maybe it's just that I don't feel lacking a degree is something to be ashamed
of or glossed over. It's easy to get defensive when something you do is
outside the norm and you get called out for it.

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vaksel
the way I see it, is if you are doing engineering or any other technical
major, then yes it still is.

but humanities etc is a waste of money

unfortunately our culture has made getting a degree a prerequisite(everyone
got one), so now you need a college degree for jobs you wouldn't have needed
one in the past.

before, having a college degree was a means to increase your income
substantially, now it's just a checkmark that you got $40-160K in debt for.

~~~
_delirium
I think your second point actually points to why the first might be wrong.
There are huge ranges of jobs that a humanities degree qualifies you for that
you can't get without one--- even a bunch of stuff that's unrelated to the
degree, like HR or various secretarial jobs. In engineering, if you have no
degree, you at least have a _chance_ of convincing someone that you're a great
engineer by doing independent work, and even large companies like Microsoft
and Google do hire people without degrees. In the humanities, though, it's
very hard without a degree to convince someone that you're "just as good" as
other applicants who have degrees; you generally won't even get a second look.

So I'd almost say the opposite: that if you aren't going to do engineering, a
degree is definitely worth it, but if you are, it might be more questionable,
and depends on what exactly you want to do, and what your outside-out-school
credentials are.

~~~
swernli
> There are huge ranges of jobs that a humanities degree qualifies you for
> that you can't get without one--- even a bunch of stuff that's unrelated to
> the degree, like HR or various secretarial jobs.

I think that's exactly the problem. Why should that degree qualify you? It's
unrelated! That's what the article and some of the comments are trying to
point out: we shouldn't have careers where the college degree is treated like
a checkbox instead of being a relevant indicator of your ability in the field
in question. What does close examination of Chaucer or Shakespeare have to do
with being a secretary? Why would someone who doesn't have a degree in
Comparitive Literature make a worse secretary than someone who does? The
answer is that it shouldn't.

~~~
_delirium
Basically as a proxy for "is reasonably intelligent and able to apply
him/herself for some period of time to achieve goals". Not necessarily a great
proxy (and a very expensive one), but for a lot of semi-generic jobs it's the
best currently available. At the very least, it weeds out some of the people
the companies definitely _don't_ want to hire.

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socksy
It's interesting that the value of a degree is measured in increases in income
later on in your life. The traditional role of universities was as a place of
learning and for the advancement of knowledge through academia, not as a
social engineering tool.

~~~
hga
Well, as long as universities still do that (and they do, by and large),
what's wrong with them extending their mission to prepare people for our
current more complicated world where a lot of people need to learn more stuff
than any normal high school will teach?

My Silent Generation father got a business degree at the University of
Missouri in the mid-50s and that made a big difference in the '60s (and
beyond) after he did his service in the Navy. E.g. he was able to take a
company public and make it more successful, where in an extreme and unusual
counter example, some quasi-competitors status wise he'd gone to high school
with didn't have the skills needed to keep their company afloat and tried
pulling tricks that ended with them getting some vacation time in Club Fed.

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robojamie
Why is this such a consistent meme with the Hacker News/Slashdot crowd?

Do you think Eric Schmidt regrets his decision to pursue a Ph.D.?

~~~
SkyMarshal
Think we're taking undergrad only here, not graduate degrees. Though I suspect
the general finding probably still applies - science/engineering/math type
grad degrees pay off more than others.

~~~
swernli
Funny, because this particular article seems to argue the opposite. Two places
in particular stand out to me where the article raised the specter of
automation and outsourcing to scare people away from engineering-type jobs:
>Meanwhile, well-paying white-collar jobs such as computer programming have
become vulnerable to outsourcing to foreign countries.

and

>But he offers this advice: "Don't train yourself or your children [in work]
that a computer can do or a smart kid in China or India can do. Because that's
ferocious competition."

Why the gloom and doom over science/engineering/math fields, when it's those
fields that other articles have pointed to as the few with strong job
prospects? There is some serious inconsistency between this article and other
articles that have been posted around here lately, and the general tone leads
me to believe this was a last minute fluff piece put together by someone who
wasn't really paying very close attention.

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naz
If you want to emigrate it makes life a little easier.

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T_S_
If you of education as teaching you how to _get what you want_ , then go ahead
and run the numbers to decide. I believe it's better to think of it as helping
you learn _what to want_. In that case the numbers won't help you much and
that the humanities are probably undervalued.

Case in point. What is the value of studying history? Nobody is going to pay
you to vote to avoid the mistakes of the past. So it will never show up in a
study.

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phreanix
There is a difference between a college degree and a college education.

While I can say with a degree of confidence that experience has given me
enough of a skillset to hold my own against most college grads, there are
things that I wish I'd learned in an academic setting.

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glen
Yes, until it is disrupted.

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vecter
Yes.

