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If degrees are worth far less, yet cost far more than in the past - why do people pursue them as if they are mandatory? Intertia? Stigmatization of not having a

If degrees are worth far less, yet cost far more than in the past - why do people pursue them as if they are mandatory? Intertia? Stigmatization of not having a degree by society/government? I ask in all seriousness, as a large percentage of the most successful (and therefore best compensated) people I work with in tech don't have degrees.

Mikeb85 11y ago
> If degrees are worth far less, yet cost far more than in the past - why do people pursue them as if they are mandatory? A degree is the new high school diploma. It's game theory really. If no one has a degree, it's super valuable, so whoever gets one will have a huge advantage. So everyone gets one because it's the best individual decision. Today, since everyone has one, if you're one of the few that don't, you're at a massive disadvantage. So you still get one for fear of being left behind, even if the relative worth is far less. Tech (rather programming) is kind of an exception because it's easier to show what you're capable of, which allows you to bypass the requirement. There are plenty of trades and 'artistic' fields which allow for this as well. But for most fields, a degree is a sort of 'guarantee' of a minimum level of knowledge, dedication and even financial means. There's no Github for business people.
- mooreds 11y ago
  > There's no Github for business people. Is that the sound of opportunity knocking?
wvenable 11y ago
Because in a tight job market (which is what we have) they are mandatory. If you have 500 candidates and 250 don't have degrees you can eliminate half the applicants pretty easy. And you don't want to be in the easy-to-eliminate half. The question isn't who you work with now, it's what your HR department puts on new job postings. Do they say degree required?
drabiega 11y ago
Tech is unusual in this regard. Most of the jobs that don't require a degree are either terrible or require luck/connections to get into. Skilled trades are often put forward as an exception, but the people I've known in those sorts of positions usually were able to get into them because of some sort of connection: family, etc. If they were easier to get into their wages would drop.
dcole2929 11y ago
Because most people don't know any better. Millennials have literally spent their entire life time being told that a college degree is the only way to succeed in life. No one mentions what to major in or where to do it at. So they get bad degrees, go into overwhelming debt, and then can't find a job on top of all that. I know that a $50K college degree in UnderWaterBasketWeaving is probably a waste of money but at 18 I sure as hell didn't. And the worst part is that parents buy into and propagate the narrative too, because they don't know any better either. They grew up in a time in which a degree was actually a golden ticket to the middle class. And then there is the fact that in a lot of cases it is mandatory. My mom has been a secretary most of her adult life. Then she became a parelegal because of her overwhelming experience. It has become increasingly hard for her to change jobs as a Middle aged woman because most firms won't even look at someone without a bachelor job for a secretary position. Much less the better paying parelegal job she's become accustomed to. A 20 year old kid just trying to get that entry level position now has to compete not only with people like my mom with more years experience than he's been alive, but also with degree holding individuals.
MarkPNeyer 11y ago
It's the social signal a degree sends that people are paying for. That's the sad truth here. You don't go to stanford over a local liberal arts school because you'll get a massively superior education at Stanford - you go to Stanford so you can get to know other Stanford students who are more likely to be wealthy and connected. My dad went to stardford in the 70's, and he said when LaTex didn't have the physics symbol hbar, he just went over to Don Knuth's office and said hey dude, put an Hbar into this thing so physicists can use it. You won't get that kind of access as a local liberal arts or community college, and that kind of social access is worth far more than stuff you can learn for free on the internet.
willholloway 11y ago
This line of thinking was radical heresy pre-2009/occupy wall street. If older millenials made the argument to any parent/teacher/elder that college was an expensive boondoggle, the response would be something along the lines of "you will wind up dead or in jail". And if one had a strong enough self-confidence to not buy the prophesies of manacled destitution, there was the social side of the con to catch them. The social and hedonistic enticements. That longed for bacchanal known as the college experience, was always higher eds backup plan to lure younglings like the pied piper of hamelin into insurmountable debt. That's why they spend so much turning colleges into country clubs for the youth. There is no legitimate reason pure education needs to cost so much. Like the elves, dwarves and humans of middle earth, so we were, all of us, deceived. All that said. I loved college, it just did nothing for me economically. After I graduated and it was 2009, I would have rather had all the tuition money as seed cash for bootstrapping a career.

Mikeb85 11y ago

> If degrees are worth far less, yet cost far more than in the past - why do people pursue them as if they are mandatory? A degree is the new high school diploma. It's game theory really. If no one has a degree, it's super valuable, so whoever gets one will have a huge advantage. So everyone gets one because it's the best individual decision. Today, since everyone has one, if you're one of the few that don't, you're at a massive disadvantage. So you still get one for fear of being left behind, even if the relative worth is far less. Tech (rather programming) is kind of an exception because it's easier to show what you're capable of, which allows you to bypass the requirement. There are plenty of trades and 'artistic' fields which allow for this as well. But for most fields, a degree is a sort of 'guarantee' of a minimum level of knowledge, dedication and even financial means. There's no Github for business people.

mooreds 11y ago
> There's no Github for business people. Is that the sound of opportunity knocking?

wvenable 11y ago

Because in a tight job market (which is what we have) they are mandatory. If you have 500 candidates and 250 don't have degrees you can eliminate half the applicants pretty easy. And you don't want to be in the easy-to-eliminate half. The question isn't who you work with now, it's what your HR department puts on new job postings. Do they say degree required?

drabiega 11y ago

Tech is unusual in this regard. Most of the jobs that don't require a degree are either terrible or require luck/connections to get into. Skilled trades are often put forward as an exception, but the people I've known in those sorts of positions usually were able to get into them because of some sort of connection: family, etc. If they were easier to get into their wages would drop.

dcole2929 11y ago

Because most people don't know any better. Millennials have literally spent their entire life time being told that a college degree is the only way to succeed in life. No one mentions what to major in or where to do it at. So they get bad degrees, go into overwhelming debt, and then can't find a job on top of all that. I know that a $50K college degree in UnderWaterBasketWeaving is probably a waste of money but at 18 I sure as hell didn't. And the worst part is that parents buy into and propagate the narrative too, because they don't know any better either. They grew up in a time in which a degree was actually a golden ticket to the middle class. And then there is the fact that in a lot of cases it is mandatory. My mom has been a secretary most of her adult life. Then she became a parelegal because of her overwhelming experience. It has become increasingly hard for her to change jobs as a Middle aged woman because most firms won't even look at someone without a bachelor job for a secretary position. Much less the better paying parelegal job she's become accustomed to. A 20 year old kid just trying to get that entry level position now has to compete not only with people like my mom with more years experience than he's been alive, but also with degree holding individuals.

MarkPNeyer 11y ago

It's the social signal a degree sends that people are paying for. That's the sad truth here. You don't go to stanford over a local liberal arts school because you'll get a massively superior education at Stanford - you go to Stanford so you can get to know other Stanford students who are more likely to be wealthy and connected. My dad went to stardford in the 70's, and he said when LaTex didn't have the physics symbol hbar, he just went over to Don Knuth's office and said hey dude, put an Hbar into this thing so physicists can use it. You won't get that kind of access as a local liberal arts or community college, and that kind of social access is worth far more than stuff you can learn for free on the internet.

willholloway 11y ago

This line of thinking was radical heresy pre-2009/occupy wall street. If older millenials made the argument to any parent/teacher/elder that college was an expensive boondoggle, the response would be something along the lines of "you will wind up dead or in jail". And if one had a strong enough self-confidence to not buy the prophesies of manacled destitution, there was the social side of the con to catch them. The social and hedonistic enticements. That longed for bacchanal known as the college experience, was always higher eds backup plan to lure younglings like the pied piper of hamelin into insurmountable debt. That's why they spend so much turning colleges into country clubs for the youth. There is no legitimate reason pure education needs to cost so much. Like the elves, dwarves and humans of middle earth, so we were, all of us, deceived. All that said. I loved college, it just did nothing for me economically. After I graduated and it was 2009, I would have rather had all the tuition money as seed cash for bootstrapping a career.