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> Many of them can't fathom the idea of graduating from college and then not being able to find a job that pays a living wage. It is not only about finding a j

> Many of them can't fathom the idea of graduating from college and then not being able to find a job that pays a living wage. It is not only about finding a job (I believe with a "sensible" degree you will always find one), but about finding a job that pays well enough so that beside the costs of living (which are enormous in some regions) also the college debts can be paid back in a reasonable time.

sanderjd 9y ago
There is no workable definition of "sensible" here. A number of my friends graduated with journalism degrees in 2007. They couldn't find jobs in journalism. This probably seems obvious to you now, that journalism is not a "sensible" degree, but in 2002-2004 when we were choosing schools and degrees, every major city had two or more competing newspapers with healthy entry level hiring. The world changed. That happens. It is happening to some set of degrees right now, but we don't yet know what they are. Maybe computer science degrees will not be "sensible" in 2021. My point is just that a solution to this problem that requires teenagers and their parents to accurately predict the future of a complex society is not actually a solution at all.
- RhysU 9y ago
  This change in the economy is why college should be about education and not vocation.
  - sanderjd 9y ago
    Agreed 100%. I think the focus on delineating useful vs. useless degrees in this thread represents exactly the wrong approach to solving this problem.
    - bunderbunder 9y ago
      On the one hand, I agree completely. On the other hand, I don't think you can ignore the financials. It's not about "useful vs useless." All courses of study are useful. People are getting saddled with piles of debt that they can't manage, though, and US law doesn't allow you to declare bankruptcy from your student loans, so people can potentially end up screwed for life. Against that kind of a backdrop, to blithely charge students whatever tuition they're willing to pay, regardless of whether or not they can expect to be able to pay it, is heartless. So then the question arises, how do you increase the chances that nobody gets shackled with unmanageable debt for life? Changing the earning power conferred by different majors is a possibility. But, capitalism being what it is, that's going to require either changing the demand for those skills, or changing the supply of people who have those skills. It's hard to imagine how the former can be managed without some sort of government subsidy. There are myriad ways you could affect the supply side, though. Doing something to put universities on the hook for how much their students earn, such as having students pay a % of their income to their alma mater for a decade or two in lieu of all or part of their tuition, would certainly do it. Universities would hopefully respond by starting to limit the number of seats available in departments that feed into less lucrative career paths right quick, in order to make sure that every department is financially sustainable. That would, in turn, reduce the supply of people with those skills, which would translate into an upward trajectory in how much it costs to hire someone with those skills. But what is that kind of approach, if not a distinctly capitalist riff on the idea of "delineating useful vs. useless degrees"? And if not something like that, then what?
      - sanderjd 9y ago
        I keep wanting to reply to your comment because it's a good one that seems like it deserves more than just an upvote. But I also don't want to take the time to write the kind of response you deserve. So I'm leaving this meta comment just to let you know you weren't shouting at the wind and to thank you for your thoughts, which I found very interesting.

sanderjd 9y ago

There is no workable definition of "sensible" here. A number of my friends graduated with journalism degrees in 2007. They couldn't find jobs in journalism. This probably seems obvious to you now, that journalism is not a "sensible" degree, but in 2002-2004 when we were choosing schools and degrees, every major city had two or more competing newspapers with healthy entry level hiring. The world changed. That happens. It is happening to some set of degrees right now, but we don't yet know what they are. Maybe computer science degrees will not be "sensible" in 2021. My point is just that a solution to this problem that requires teenagers and their parents to accurately predict the future of a complex society is not actually a solution at all.

RhysU 9y ago
This change in the economy is why college should be about education and not vocation.
- sanderjd 9y ago
  Agreed 100%. I think the focus on delineating useful vs. useless degrees in this thread represents exactly the wrong approach to solving this problem.
  - bunderbunder 9y ago
    On the one hand, I agree completely. On the other hand, I don't think you can ignore the financials. It's not about "useful vs useless." All courses of study are useful. People are getting saddled with piles of debt that they can't manage, though, and US law doesn't allow you to declare bankruptcy from your student loans, so people can potentially end up screwed for life. Against that kind of a backdrop, to blithely charge students whatever tuition they're willing to pay, regardless of whether or not they can expect to be able to pay it, is heartless. So then the question arises, how do you increase the chances that nobody gets shackled with unmanageable debt for life? Changing the earning power conferred by different majors is a possibility. But, capitalism being what it is, that's going to require either changing the demand for those skills, or changing the supply of people who have those skills. It's hard to imagine how the former can be managed without some sort of government subsidy. There are myriad ways you could affect the supply side, though. Doing something to put universities on the hook for how much their students earn, such as having students pay a % of their income to their alma mater for a decade or two in lieu of all or part of their tuition, would certainly do it. Universities would hopefully respond by starting to limit the number of seats available in departments that feed into less lucrative career paths right quick, in order to make sure that every department is financially sustainable. That would, in turn, reduce the supply of people with those skills, which would translate into an upward trajectory in how much it costs to hire someone with those skills. But what is that kind of approach, if not a distinctly capitalist riff on the idea of "delineating useful vs. useless degrees"? And if not something like that, then what?
    - sanderjd 9y ago
      I keep wanting to reply to your comment because it's a good one that seems like it deserves more than just an upvote. But I also don't want to take the time to write the kind of response you deserve. So I'm leaving this meta comment just to let you know you weren't shouting at the wind and to thank you for your thoughts, which I found very interesting.