4 ms·

Maybe the real problem is that we've developed this caste system over the last 50 years where people who don't get college degrees are excluded from careers tha

by 13of40 9y ago

Maybe the real problem is that we've developed this caste system over the last 50 years where people who don't get college degrees are excluded from careers that can sustain a middle class lifestyle. What if free college just moves the goal post and in a couple more decades nearly everyone has a Master's degree and you need a PhD to earn a decent living? What happens if the most talented segment of our work force ends up spending their most creative years trying to achieve meaningless credentials instead of actually contributing to the GDP? (Preemptive Edit: I know they have free college in some European countries, but maybe they have the same problem.)

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Interesting, if you think that education is a race to the bottom in credentialling though, what is your solution? If you were running a business wouldn't you prefer a PhD to a MS to a BS holding everything else equal?
- 13of40 9y ago
  I think it really depends on the job. I've managed people who were in entry level software jobs who had PhDs, and having the higher degree didn't translate into better performance.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    Yeah but that's what I'm saying, once you've hired them then you might find out different but purely within the hiring process a PhD is preferrable to a BS. And the predicament may be tough but if there is no solution to it, why even take it into consideration? That's why I asked what you would do about it.
    - 13of40 9y ago
      "All things being equal" is a very contrived situation. I think a better question is whether you'd pick a PhD candidate over a BS who, for example, could code a little bit better. (And for me the answer is I'd probably pick the BS, but I'd have to justify it to the people above me, which could be a challenge.)
      - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
        Well sure but "all thing being equal" is what someone who is considering whether to go for further schooling is considering. I'm me, I have all my qualities, would I be more likely to be hired (and get a higher wage) w/ a BS or w/ a PhD? That's why I pose it that way and that's why I ask for what your answer to this problem is, it's not about who you would pick, it's about what drives people to "overachieve" in their credentialling in the first place.
Chardok 9y ago
Honestly we need to completely rid ourselves of the notion that education should be preparation for a job and instead looking at it as a betterment of society in general.
wfo 9y ago
Well, the point of college isn't to do job training. There are trade skills for that. College exists in the exact state high school did before it was made free for everyone. It is a barrier for entry into "good" jobs and the middle-upper class. It is simultaneously a way for people to learn and become informed citizens, to get some context for the world around them and how it operates, to learn economics and philosophy and mathematics and physics and computer science if they are interested in it. After a while we said "no, everybody should go to high school and learn civics and math even though they aren't necessary for most specific jobs". Before that, we had the poor starting manual labor or apprenticeships at 12, never learning anything beyond their specific skill, while actually becoming educated and a citizen was reserved only for the rich. We decided to make our workforce and citizenry more thoughtful and educated and improved society as a whole significantly. It's time to do it again. Our world is much more complicated now, human knowledge has expanded vastly. College education is now the baseline for 'educated person' and that's okay. It's great, even. Thanks to free high school the poor can study math and history. If there were free college, the poor could study economics and philosophy and computer science too. How many talented people do we lose by shunting the poor (who are, in capitalism, always the vast majority of the population) into non-education job training when they are young because they can't afford to learn about the world?
vilmosi 9y ago
Free college doesn't necessarily mean that everybody gets to go though.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ToxicCorgi 9y ago
That's exactly what's happened and what will happen - setting goalposts and then moving them. In Europe, specifically Germany and France, it's common for people to go for a Bachelor's and Master's back-to-back since there aren't any student loans to worry about. While the lack of student debt from studying so much sounds all nice, the reality is you get a bunch of 26-28 year olds graduating with Master's degrees and ZERO working experience, bar some internships which may or may not be useful. There are two sub-problems here: "Free" education (not actually free when you see how much taxes are) allows Europeans to take their sweet time in graduating, so it's common for people to be done with their Bachelor's at 24 or 25, while their American counterparts graduate at 22/23 because of the (financial) pressure to finish on time. A combination of high taxes, encouragement from peers/uni to "study abroad" instead of work and from companies to keep their student status to stay interns, means there's also not much motivation to transition to full-time work. Make no mistake about education quality here, it's not better than America, in fact it might be worse. The population here complains a lot on their local education quality (though you'll rarely ever hear it on the Internet - see last paragraph on why). A lot of memorization from books for things you'll rarely, if ever, use after graduating, lots of partying and bumming around. "Study abroad semester" is nothing more than a proxy term for "4 month vacation for sex, drinking, parties and roadtrips while the taxpayer takes care of the host country's evil out-of-state tuition (usually US, Canada or Australia)" - see for yourself with those "Erasmus" (exchange) students from Europe doing their exchange program in America. There's a misconception commonly spread in Germany that staying as a student to work means you pay less taxes - kinda true, but technically it's because you get paid so little, you stay in the non-taxable <9000 EUR/year bracket - so you have people postponing graduation or enrolling in a new university without taking any courses after graduating to keep their student status. Student/internship wage exploitation is turning into an epidemic because of the large student population that remain students for such a long time paired with legal loopholes that allow many companies to get away with hiring a bunch of cheap students instead of one full-time employee. I've been living in Europe for a few years and they are not immune to the problems that Americans complain about. They do a good job complaining about America on the Internet while downplaying their own problems and spreading positive vibes (cough propaganda cough) on how Europe is superior/more human/ethical than America though.
- 9y ago

by 13of40 9y ago

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

Interesting, if you think that education is a race to the bottom in credentialling though, what is your solution? If you were running a business wouldn't you prefer a PhD to a MS to a BS holding everything else equal?

13of40 9y ago
I think it really depends on the job. I've managed people who were in entry level software jobs who had PhDs, and having the higher degree didn't translate into better performance.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  Yeah but that's what I'm saying, once you've hired them then you might find out different but purely within the hiring process a PhD is preferrable to a BS. And the predicament may be tough but if there is no solution to it, why even take it into consideration? That's why I asked what you would do about it.
  - 13of40 9y ago
    "All things being equal" is a very contrived situation. I think a better question is whether you'd pick a PhD candidate over a BS who, for example, could code a little bit better. (And for me the answer is I'd probably pick the BS, but I'd have to justify it to the people above me, which could be a challenge.)
    - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
      Well sure but "all thing being equal" is what someone who is considering whether to go for further schooling is considering. I'm me, I have all my qualities, would I be more likely to be hired (and get a higher wage) w/ a BS or w/ a PhD? That's why I pose it that way and that's why I ask for what your answer to this problem is, it's not about who you would pick, it's about what drives people to "overachieve" in their credentialling in the first place.

Chardok 9y ago

Honestly we need to completely rid ourselves of the notion that education should be preparation for a job and instead looking at it as a betterment of society in general.

wfo 9y ago

Well, the point of college isn't to do job training. There are trade skills for that. College exists in the exact state high school did before it was made free for everyone. It is a barrier for entry into "good" jobs and the middle-upper class. It is simultaneously a way for people to learn and become informed citizens, to get some context for the world around them and how it operates, to learn economics and philosophy and mathematics and physics and computer science if they are interested in it. After a while we said "no, everybody should go to high school and learn civics and math even though they aren't necessary for most specific jobs". Before that, we had the poor starting manual labor or apprenticeships at 12, never learning anything beyond their specific skill, while actually becoming educated and a citizen was reserved only for the rich. We decided to make our workforce and citizenry more thoughtful and educated and improved society as a whole significantly. It's time to do it again. Our world is much more complicated now, human knowledge has expanded vastly. College education is now the baseline for 'educated person' and that's okay. It's great, even. Thanks to free high school the poor can study math and history. If there were free college, the poor could study economics and philosophy and computer science too. How many talented people do we lose by shunting the poor (who are, in capitalism, always the vast majority of the population) into non-education job training when they are young because they can't afford to learn about the world?

vilmosi 9y ago

Free college doesn't necessarily mean that everybody gets to go though.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

ToxicCorgi 9y ago

That's exactly what's happened and what will happen - setting goalposts and then moving them. In Europe, specifically Germany and France, it's common for people to go for a Bachelor's and Master's back-to-back since there aren't any student loans to worry about. While the lack of student debt from studying so much sounds all nice, the reality is you get a bunch of 26-28 year olds graduating with Master's degrees and ZERO working experience, bar some internships which may or may not be useful. There are two sub-problems here: "Free" education (not actually free when you see how much taxes are) allows Europeans to take their sweet time in graduating, so it's common for people to be done with their Bachelor's at 24 or 25, while their American counterparts graduate at 22/23 because of the (financial) pressure to finish on time. A combination of high taxes, encouragement from peers/uni to "study abroad" instead of work and from companies to keep their student status to stay interns, means there's also not much motivation to transition to full-time work. Make no mistake about education quality here, it's not better than America, in fact it might be worse. The population here complains a lot on their local education quality (though you'll rarely ever hear it on the Internet - see last paragraph on why). A lot of memorization from books for things you'll rarely, if ever, use after graduating, lots of partying and bumming around. "Study abroad semester" is nothing more than a proxy term for "4 month vacation for sex, drinking, parties and roadtrips while the taxpayer takes care of the host country's evil out-of-state tuition (usually US, Canada or Australia)" - see for yourself with those "Erasmus" (exchange) students from Europe doing their exchange program in America. There's a misconception commonly spread in Germany that staying as a student to work means you pay less taxes - kinda true, but technically it's because you get paid so little, you stay in the non-taxable <9000 EUR/year bracket - so you have people postponing graduation or enrolling in a new university without taking any courses after graduating to keep their student status. Student/internship wage exploitation is turning into an epidemic because of the large student population that remain students for such a long time paired with legal loopholes that allow many companies to get away with hiring a bunch of cheap students instead of one full-time employee. I've been living in Europe for a few years and they are not immune to the problems that Americans complain about. They do a good job complaining about America on the Internet while downplaying their own problems and spreading positive vibes (cough propaganda cough) on how Europe is superior/more human/ethical than America though.

9y ago