

Higher Education: Too many degrees are a waste of money. - martincmartin
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21600131-too-many-degrees-are-waste-money-return-higher-education-would-be-much-better

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nmkn
I think we just need to break that expectation of going to college right after
high school. Some kids really aren't ready, and then they make ill-informed
decisions (sign on to a fat loan, study something they're not sure about,
etc). Since graduating in 2007, I've had the misfortune of seeing my friends
struggle trying to figure everything. More times than not, a few regret
jumping into college right away, or wished they strongly considered other
alternatives before college.

Side story related to higher education: My friend's counselor suggested she
apply to school in this manner: Apply to 3 Ivy leagues, then 3 reputable out
of state schools, then 1 in state school.

What kind of advice is that to give to an 18-year old who only has an inkling
of what they'd like to do after college? I swear this guy misguided many
students.

~~~
danpalmer
I'm just coming to the end of my degree, but something that amazed me was just
how many of my school friends changed their degrees in the first year, or
dropped out of university all together. I think it must have been nearly 50%
of my friends changed significantly what they were doing within the first
year, many within the first semester.

My brother has also just started university and he told me he's seen exactly
the same thing. Of the 9 close friends that went off to university at the same
time as him, only 2 are still on their courses. A few dropped out, most
changed courses but won't be able to start the new courses until the next
academic year.

Very few people know what they want to do at 18, and many don't know what
studying their chosen subject will really be like.

I was really surprised by this because I knew what course I wanted to do at
university when I was 13, I thought it was Electronic Engineering, until I
found out that Computer Science existed, at which point I immediately
recognised that as what I wanted to do. I assumed everyone was like that, but
I have friends who at 21-23 are still trying to work out what they want to do.

~~~
polymatter
I'm 30. I have either been in full time education or full time job since I
graduated. I am still trying to work out what I want to do. I'm led to believe
this is normal.

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aestra
>An angry art history professor forced him to apologise, but he was right.

Oh come on. He apologized? Nobody can stick to what they say anymore?

Of course you aren't going to get a well paying job with a Spanish degree
unless perhaps you wanted to teach Spanish. That should be obvious, but for
some reason it isn't for kids these days.

For the last 20ish years all you hear is "you have to go to college." In
college you can study almost anything, so some people will pick useless
degrees because they are just checking off the box "college" without any
forethought whatsoever.

I am telling you, the cost of college scared me off so much that there would
be no way I'd go unless I was pretty sure that it would pay off. I did go, and
it did pay off, and I am now debt free, but while I was there I was constantly
thinking about all the debt I was accumulating without (at the time) any way
to pay off. It was a huge gamble on the future. It was heavy on my shoulders.
I don't know why other kids don't feel that way.

I knew an English major who didn't know the difference between you're and
your...

------
jpwagner
The greatest things I got as a direct result of my time at an undergraduate
university are my relationships, specifically my wife and daughter.

It just occurred to me how nonsensical a similar title would be: "Too many
families are a waste of money".

Maybe it's ok to not consider what we are calling "education" a purely
financial investment.

~~~
btrautsc
This is the reality for so many that is conveniently ignored by many posts
such as this.

My major (finance) has _almost_ nothing to do with my day to day work. But I
became best friends with my cofounder our freshman year, met his high school
friend and our third cofounder my sophomore year, met my wife my senior year,
and utilized our university network to hire our 4th cofounder & CTO after
graduation.

I've done two startups with the first two cofounders and by tapping into my
wife's network found our first angel investors.

Majors and degrees are important (I'd be in a different position if I'd gone
through with the switch to engineering sophomore year), but I met my wife in
my final finance credit senior year. I'll take the relationships - along with
a semi-practical degree.

[that is _if_ you insist on going to school - definitely not for everyone or
necessary]

~~~
pitt1980
problem is you're being charged for those relationships, in most cases at a
relatively exorbant rate

its not obvious what the replacement value of those relationships are

but you can probably meet and matain relationships with people without paying
tuition dollars to do so

in different words: "I met a great cofounder and wife at college" doesn't seem
to logically follow to "you have to go to college to meet a great cofounder
and wife"

so is seems like a stretch to really give the college (full? much?) credit for
those relationships

~~~
bluedino
>> "I met a great cofounder and wife at college" doesn't seem to logically
follow to "you have to go to college to meet a great cofounder and wife"

It sure helps. Where else in your life are you going to be surrounded by
thousands of other young people that you can date, or classes full of like-
minded individuals who you might start a business with?

~~~
pitt1980
there many many professional and hobbyist clubs where you can meet like mind
individuals that won't require you to spend the 10+ years in debt

similarly there are many many social organizations you can meet young people
to date, there are also establishments that sell food and beverages where
young people tend to congregate 2-3 nights a week

if all that fails, there are websites that let you contact people for both
purposes (albeit the signal to noise for those might be poor)

college is obviously convient for both purposes, but its a mistake, both on a
societal level and a personal level, to give college monopoly pricing power if
that's what you're in the market for

~~~
barry-cotter
_there many many professional and hobbyist clubs where you can meet like mind
individuals that won 't require you to spend the 10+ years in debt_

How many of them have entrance standards as stringent as the Ivy League? The
hardest part isn't what you do while you're there, it's getting in. And how
else are parents going to pay for their children to spend so much time around
the best class of plausible mates they can find for their children?

~~~
pitt1980
serious question - what is the value of stringent entrance requirements so far
has it applies to your personal network?

is it so that you don't have to spend resources maintaining a network with
those that don't meet them?

for what its worth, any professional and hobbyist club with close proximity to
a prestigous school will probably put you in contact with a number of people
in that school

you don't have to go to Harvard, MIT, Stanford wherever, to meet/ socialize
with students from that school

you probably have to be doing something of interest, to make yourself an
attractive socialization member from the other side of that equation, but that
probably true (though obviously to a lesser extent) even if your a student of
one of those schools

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easy_rider
It is normal here that about 50% change studies here (Netherlands) in the
first year. We even have some rules that make it easier to switch the first
half year, and you will get an extra year of scholarships. Because kids are
just clueless and usually pick whatever their friends pick. We get a few days
we can walk around at campus, and attend a few classes, but that's it.

Also. There are a lot of studies here I feel shouldn't even be university
level. However we must not forget that just being 4 years in college and
learning whatever you like has. We should never discourage learning. We might
want to encourage studies/trades that provide more benefits for our society
and economy as a whole. How about free tuition for such studies?

~~~
htns
I'm not Dutch, but I have allowed myself to be told that in the Dutch
university system nearly every applicant gets accepted, and those with
insufficient course credits get kicked out at the end of first year. Is there
even a hint of truth in that?

~~~
Leftb
It's mostly true. Most universities require that incoming bachelor's degree
students to have finished either a matching pre-university secondary education
program or pass a test (only for people of 21+ years old) that checks whether
a student has the required Dutch/English/math skills. After this, universities
are allowed to boot students that fail to pass 50, 80 or 100% of the courses
in the first or second year (actual percentages differ per university).

On the other hand, master's degree programs tend to require a bachelor's
degree that has sufficient overlap in terms of courses. So to start a Computer
Science master's degree, you'd probably need some bachelor's degree in
engineering, math or physics. If you for instance got a bachelor's degree in
Psychology, you'd probably need to attend several courses in order to be
allowed to join.

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spodek
As a holder of five degrees, I haven't found them to be a waste.

Well, three of them came in getting my PhD in physics. Along the way, I got an
MA and some degree called a Master of Philosophy (M. Phil. for short). So for
three of them I got paid with a stipend, though you could argue my opportunity
costs were greater than the roughly $27,000 per year I got paid.

Then I went back for an MBA. I'm still paying it off, but I've used it to
improve my quality of life more than I think I would have without that degree.
I work fewer hours than most people and consider myself consistently happier
and more effective than most people I know, in particular than I was before
the leadership classes I took.

Incidentally, they're all from Columbia, so they all happen to be Ivy League
degrees too.

~~~
aestra
>though you could argue my opportunity costs were greater than the roughly
$27,000 per year I got paid

Could be...

With the job market the way it is and stagnant wages and rising cost of
living, I know quite a few people who would love to make $27,000 a year and
would consider that a good income.

Some college graduates....

------
arnauddri
Higher Education is on the brink of a crisis. Most hard skills can be learnt
online nowadays via MOOCs for things like machine learning, maths, coding or
via youtube for things like mastering a particular tool.

I believe in the future higher education will focus on developing soft skills
like leadership, negotiation or majoring in a very specific topic through
PhDs.

Clayton Christensen has expanded a lot on the topic and provides very good
food for thoughts: [http://www.businessinsider.com/clay-christensen-higher-
educa...](http://www.businessinsider.com/clay-christensen-higher-education-on-
the-edge-2013-2)

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arethuza
Slightly off-topic, but there is a curious situation in the UK where people
doing one course at one university seem to have a disproportionate amount of
power:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11136511](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11136511)

[NB I'm _not_ implying that this is a bad, or indeed a good, thing - just I've
started paying much more attention to university courses now that my son is in
his mid teens!]

~~~
thaumasiotes
Somehow, I can't be too surprised that the top-level politicians are
disproportionately drawn from those who majored in politics at the country's
best university.

(Where are you from? To my (US English) ears, a "course" is a class, the kind
of thing that might happen every mon/wed/fri in the afternoons, but the
article you link is clearly talking about a "major" (as in "I majored in
politics & economics"). They refer to it as a "degree", which is also, to me,
completely normal use ("my degree was in politics & economics").)

~~~
NickPollard
In the UK most universities don't really have the concept of 'major' and
'minor' \- you simple have your degree, which might involve you doing other
learning around the subject.

In this context, 'degree' and 'course' are often used interchangeably. 'Degree
Course' in UK English is perhaps equivalent to 'Degree Program' in US.

To be perhaps more pedantic, your 'degree' might be the subject ('I have a
Degree in Computer Science'), whereas your course would be the particular
program ('I took the University of Bristol's Computer Science course'). In
this instance, the commentor is referring to not just any PPE Degree
qualification, but the PPE Course at Oxford.

~~~
thaumasiotes
I find your comment somewhat confusing. As I read it, you say that your
'degree' is the subject (this is also true in the US; 'degree' can be used
with exactly the same semantics as 'major') and the 'course' refers to the
university you studied at. But the comment I replied to refers specifically to
"one course at one university", which implies that those are separate
dimensions of variation; the same course might exist at different
universities. In US usage, that's not surprising; lots of colleges have e.g. a
"remedial algebra" course. If 'course' refers to the subject, that's also not
surprising; lots of colleges will let you earn a degree in math (though not,
one hopes, if you had to take remedial algebra). But if a 'course' is defined
by the university that houses it, it cannot possibly exist at more than one
university.

My main point is that it's not even mildly surprising that students from
Oxford should be disproportionately present in the UK government or anywhere
else of significance. I have a feeling that, as important as the effect of a
PPE degree may be, the effect of an Oxford degree is much stronger.

My minor point was that even after considering Oxford vs. no-name, it's not
particularly surprising to see people with politics degrees going into
politics.

------
danieltillett
'Solving' higher education is a really, really difficult problem. The size and
complexity is mind boggling. It is actually a much more difficult problem than
healthcare since with healthcare we have external models that can be copied -
with higher education we are not even sure what the problem is.

~~~
arethuza
Ironically, I think the solution to solving the higher education problem is
actually education of prospective students (and ideally their parents) on what
a University course is actually good and bad at and what is actually expected
of you as a student to maximize the value you can get from the experience.

People need to be given enough information to actually conclude that it might
not actually be a good idea for them. Of course, as with all manner of high-
value products getting sensible advice can be _very_ difficult.

~~~
thaumasiotes
I'd go the other way. Stop sending students to college while someone else
pays. People will do all manner of self-education for something they're
buying. College today is mostly just a weird, expensive coming-of-age ritual,
with (IMO) most of the cost in wasted time rather than wasted money. And not
sending your children to college is easily analogized to, under other
circumstances, not having your son circumcized or whatever the ingroup marker
is. As long as the value of college is "you're not a real person unless you've
done it", nobody's going to focus on course content.

~~~
arethuza
"Stop sending students to college while someone else pays."

I fear that might be going too far in the opposite direction - I went to
University in the UK in the 1980s and because my parents weren't very well off
I didn't pay a penny (fees were paid and I got a grant to live off during term
time). In terms of the amount I've paid back in taxes this was a _very_ good
investment (e.g. going to University meant I went on to do post-grad study
where I met the co-founder of the company I started _and_ met the guy who was
an angel investor).

~~~
danieltillett
I think this thread is proving my point. We are collectively a group of really
smart people and we can't agree on anything in regards what the problem is -
we can't even agree we don't know :)

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thearn4
The short version is that we need to do a better job distinguishing academics
from job training.

------
SomeCollegeBro
"Too many degrees are a waste of money. The return on higher education would
be much better if college were cheaper."

I find this highly ironic when my alma mater keeps raising the prices, yet
this year they somehow had a $9.7 Million shortfall:

[http://bangordailynews.com/2014/03/28/education/university-o...](http://bangordailynews.com/2014/03/28/education/university-
of-maine-to-cut-61-positions-dip-into-savings-to-address-9-7-million-
shortfall/)

I simply don't understand where the vast amount of tuition money is going.

~~~
thearn4
If it's anything like the colleges in this area, much of that money is going
towards endless construction of "student life" type facilities, designed to
market the campus towards visiting 17-year olds who will soon be able to
mortgage away their future spending power.

~~~
jrs235
Same thing happens which clinics and health providers... new and more new
buildings. And with two large competing clinics in town its costing the local
region more. Both are trying to out due the other. Every time I visit I look
around and think "this is what I'm paying for?" I'm okay with the 70's orange
chairs, I don't need a dozen fish tanks and bird cages, I'm guessing all that
cool looking glass facade is poor at insulating against outside heat and
cold...

EDIT: I suppose these "costs" are probably just a drop in the bucket compared
to other expenses. Doctor's salaries are higher do to competing for the "best"
doctors (similar to the situation in SV with Apple/Google/etc.) and I'm
guessing it's "wasteful" to have two or each machine (one at each
clinic/hospital) if they aren't currently being utilized "enough".

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danieltillett
I think we should be more worried about all the degrees that are a waste of
time.

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wil421
Went to the same school as the girl who got the Spanish degree, Kennnesaw
State University. I had no shortage of finding job opportunity. Its all about
the degree, most of the business school kids were finding decent jobs too.

Even though its a lesser known college most of us in STEM majors easily found
jobs with small-large companies in Atlanta.

Its all about your what your degree is in, not how many you have.

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james1071
Cambridge BA-zero cost Cambridge MA-cost me a postage stamp.

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teemo_cute
What is education? Think about it for a moment... Is it fancy phrases added to
our names like Dr, Phd, Md, etc. or is it something that we internalize and
apply in the real world for the betterment of mankind?

~~~
4684499
Degrees bring fancy titles. Education? Not necessarily.

