4 ms·

But the hypothetical breaks down once you consider it as a proposal, which makes for a dubious social commentary. Hypothesis testing is far more valuable than p

But the hypothetical breaks down once you consider it as a proposal, which makes for a dubious social commentary. Hypothesis testing is far more valuable than pure hypothetical! Governments are willing to subsidize loans for education but not investing for at least two entirely rational reasons. First, an educated populous -- especially college educated, and especially in STEM fields -- is in the public interest. We need doctors, lawyers, engineers, and, yes, even well-rounded marketing/sales teams. Could we get all of those things without subsidizing education? Probably not in the quantities needed by American firms. Second, consider the sheer mass of each college-aged adult reliably pouring six figures into investment vehicles on their 18th birthday. It would take on a force of its own. In small quantities, this works out well for the non-student. In large quantities, the tail wags the dog. And anyways, where are all these lucrative investments that pay out decade after decade and that require nothing but cash money, quality of labor market be damned? I mean, they exist, but surely not in large enough quantities to sustain an entire society of passive income earners...

johnfn 9y ago
> But the hypothetical breaks down once you consider it as a proposal, ...again, that's why you don't do that with hypotheticals intended to be social commentary. The article is saying "wow, college is sure overpriced for the amount of money you invest."
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  > ...again, that's why you don't do that with hypotheticals intended to be social commentary. Good social commentary helps us identify and solve problems. I don't think this particular commentary puts us in a good mindset for understanding or solving the problems with higher education funding in the united states. > The article is saying "wow, college is sure overpriced for the amount of money you invest." The article suggests thinking about the cost of college in terms of payouts to single individuals without any systems-level analysis. On the basis of this perspective, we conclude college is absurdly overpriced. Perhaps college is overpriced. But not nearly as overpriced as this mindset would have us believe. That 7% ROI from the S&P 500 isn't powered by pixie dust. It'd powered by mostly degreed people using their degrees. Social commentary that distracts from the need for an educated populace and instead focuses solely on ROI to individual students is not good social commentary, IMO. So even if we consider this as pure social commentary, my critique is the same: it identifies a problem, but does so in a way that doesn't emphasize the most important root causes of that problem. (edit: also, I stand by my previous statement: IMO unreasonable hypotheses are almost always not useful hypotheticals.)
  - johnfn 9y ago
    I don't know how to convey to you any more that this is a hypothetical rather than a real thing worth considering as much as you are doing. Like your entire argument is "the S&P is pushed forward by people who go to college." Not to be rude, but that has no relevance whatsoever to the article. The article could have said to invest in real estate or god forbid bitcoin. The specifics don't matter. Again not to be rude but I often feel like people on here have this disease that doesn't allow them to generalize from specifics. ;-)
    - kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
      You can't generalize from specifics when the characteristics of the specifics are what makes the specifics work.
    - throwawayjava 9y ago
      > ...this is a hypothetical... Ok. And it's a bad hypothetical because it emphasizes individual roi instead of systems-level effects when discussing a problem where all the interesting action is in the systems-level effects. I understand it's a hypothetical. I think it's a distracting hypothetical. > Not to be rude, but that has no relevance whatsoever to the article It has every bit of relevance to the article because college is more than just an individual investment opportunity. The benefits of a large college educated population are enjoyed by an entire society. The real take-away from the article is that we apparently don't tax capital well enough because there's an absurd arbitrage opportunity for lazy people who have 200k in the bank. Or that the benefits of a college educated populace are high enough, and the cost also high enough, that we should be subsidizing college more than we currently are. Not that college is over-priced. The fact that your jump to the latter conclusion instead of the former is exactly the problem with this hypothetical. > The specifics don't matter.. Again not to be rude but I often feel like people on here have this disease that doesn't allow them to generalize from specifics. ;-) Look. Either I'm not supposed to generalize from this specific case, or else your entire complaint is really confusing. Generalizing from this specific leads to all the wrong conclusions.
  - jrs95 9y ago

johnfn 9y ago

> But the hypothetical breaks down once you consider it as a proposal, ...again, that's why you don't do that with hypotheticals intended to be social commentary. The article is saying "wow, college is sure overpriced for the amount of money you invest."

throwawayjava 9y ago
> ...again, that's why you don't do that with hypotheticals intended to be social commentary. Good social commentary helps us identify and solve problems. I don't think this particular commentary puts us in a good mindset for understanding or solving the problems with higher education funding in the united states. > The article is saying "wow, college is sure overpriced for the amount of money you invest." The article suggests thinking about the cost of college in terms of payouts to single individuals without any systems-level analysis. On the basis of this perspective, we conclude college is absurdly overpriced. Perhaps college is overpriced. But not nearly as overpriced as this mindset would have us believe. That 7% ROI from the S&P 500 isn't powered by pixie dust. It'd powered by mostly degreed people using their degrees. Social commentary that distracts from the need for an educated populace and instead focuses solely on ROI to individual students is not good social commentary, IMO. So even if we consider this as pure social commentary, my critique is the same: it identifies a problem, but does so in a way that doesn't emphasize the most important root causes of that problem. (edit: also, I stand by my previous statement: IMO unreasonable hypotheses are almost always not useful hypotheticals.)
- johnfn 9y ago
  I don't know how to convey to you any more that this is a hypothetical rather than a real thing worth considering as much as you are doing. Like your entire argument is "the S&P is pushed forward by people who go to college." Not to be rude, but that has no relevance whatsoever to the article. The article could have said to invest in real estate or god forbid bitcoin. The specifics don't matter. Again not to be rude but I often feel like people on here have this disease that doesn't allow them to generalize from specifics. ;-)
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
    You can't generalize from specifics when the characteristics of the specifics are what makes the specifics work.
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    > ...this is a hypothetical... Ok. And it's a bad hypothetical because it emphasizes individual roi instead of systems-level effects when discussing a problem where all the interesting action is in the systems-level effects. I understand it's a hypothetical. I think it's a distracting hypothetical. > Not to be rude, but that has no relevance whatsoever to the article It has every bit of relevance to the article because college is more than just an individual investment opportunity. The benefits of a large college educated population are enjoyed by an entire society. The real take-away from the article is that we apparently don't tax capital well enough because there's an absurd arbitrage opportunity for lazy people who have 200k in the bank. Or that the benefits of a college educated populace are high enough, and the cost also high enough, that we should be subsidizing college more than we currently are. Not that college is over-priced. The fact that your jump to the latter conclusion instead of the former is exactly the problem with this hypothetical. > The specifics don't matter.. Again not to be rude but I often feel like people on here have this disease that doesn't allow them to generalize from specifics. ;-) Look. Either I'm not supposed to generalize from this specific case, or else your entire complaint is really confusing. Generalizing from this specific leads to all the wrong conclusions.
- jrs95 9y ago