Just yesterday there was a thread [1] on the rising costs of college and if it is worth it. The general consensus on that link seemed to be that most can no lon

Just yesterday there was a thread [1] on the rising costs of college and if it is worth it. The general consensus on that link seemed to be that most can no longer afford learning for the sake of learning. Contrast that with this thread, where many appear to be taking the stance that college education, particularly one of breadth, is a crucial part of their education. Some posters have discussed the benefits of small liberal arts colleges. As far as I can see, the anecdotes from many here about education is a big part of why the cost has been able to rise so much - it can give a life-changing value for some. HN is a community of programmers, mostly. Ask many about a CS degree, and they won't tell you that the programming languages they learned in college are what makes them successful, but the way they learned to teach themselves as needed on topics in CS. Give a man a fish, yada yada yada. The same really goes for critical thinking and education in general. It's the reason a few in the thread yesterday talked about their loans being worth it. The hard part is getting a student to focus on learning to think/learn, to borrow from a post by @closure in this thread. There seems to be a lot of support behind pushing for critical thinking and this type of learning in high school, which I strongly agree with. I was lucky enough to get it in high school, and early at that. It made an absolutely huge difference in my approach to education. The question then arises: is it the responsibility of a college to teach a high-level of critical thinking, or should you enter with it? I don't have the answer, but I'm curious as to what people think. I go to (chose) a college that is very much pre-professional at the core, but it offers all of the resources I need for a full and fulfilling education. I have always seen college as a resource, but you have to know how to use it to get the most out of it. The problem is that most college freshman, and many college seniors, don't know how to do this, and critical thinking is probably a big piece of that. It's a bit of a circular problem - you need critical thinking skills to get the most out of college, but may need to also learn critical thinking at college. If we ever actually get to a point where we can do a proper overhaul of the education system as a whole, I think properly defining and executing these roles should be a key focus. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- PS: This is just a collection of thoughts/insights, not really a stance or an argument. Not sure what to make of all of this yet as a full picture. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14483409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14483409