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I've been in serious debate with myself over whether to encourage my son to go to college when it is time. I guess it depends on what field I see him become int

by Pigo 9y ago

I've been in serious debate with myself over whether to encourage my son to go to college when it is time. I guess it depends on what field I see him become interested in. I could provide enough resources for him to learn enough to get an entry level job, if he chooses tech. But I guess I still have that romantic notion of him getting a well-rounded education in many subjects that I couldn't help him with, making friends, and meeting interesting professors. At least I could help him find a good college. I was the first person in my family to even graduate high-school, so I was flying blind. Besides the notion that so many jobs expected it when I was starting out, I'm not really sure what good it did for me. Put it this way, I couldn't even tell you where my diploma is. But once a month I still go online and pay for it.

hashkb 9y ago
Your son could have that at a state school for probably free (depending on the state, and with good grades), and work in a restaurant three or four nights a week to offset some other costs.
- lettergram 9y ago
  Ugh - depends what state school. My wife and I both went to University of Illinois (we are from Illinois). I worked 10 - 20 hours per week, and got some smaller grants, my wife got larger grants.. We still both have more debt than I care to admit... It's literally 20% of our overall monthly expenses. I found the connections personally invaluable and worth it. My wife is just starting her PhD at U of I, so we both agree it was worth it, but just barely.
  - wenc 9y ago
    I live in Illinois. I just looked up in-state tuition for UIUC = $17k/year. That is not cheap, but it's a lot less than many lower-ranking private schools. Loyola charges $21k. Roosevelt charges $26k. UIUC is a great state school, one of the best in the country. I'd say you got a good deal. But yes, definitely not close to free.
- epistasis 9y ago
  I would be very interested to know which, if any, schools make this possible.
  - bernardino 9y ago
    I find it’s doable to attend a college where you won’t pay tuition, but it will most likely be a semi-low-tier, state school and or your estimated family contribution must be zero. After spending a few years at a community college, I will (I think, I need more for or against opinions) be attending San Francisco State University in the fall. My tuition looks like it will be waived (tuition is about 8k for in-state students, 17k for out-of-state students) since I’m in-state and my estimated family contribution (via FASFA) is zero (family income is about 31k). I will then just have to take out loans for living expenses and hopefully work part-time to lessen them.
    - hackerman12345 9y ago
      I got great value from CC. But you'll want to make sure it not only has proper (regional) accreditation, but also a "transfer agreement" to the local university of your choice. This isn't 100% necessary, but it sure helps as a guideline to know what courses have value for your future program. The naming schemes at different schools can be confusing ("Am I supposed to take Technical Calculus 1 or Calculus 1 for Scientists and Engineers?") - so having the direct transfer numbers is helpful. The advisors at CC aren't always necessarily educated and may make assumptions like EE and EE Tech being the same program.. Finally, if you're going on to a BS, the AS is next to useless in my experience (besides resume fodder). It's the actual classes that transfer that are the value, and whether you finish at CC or not is not a big deal.. (though go ahead and do it if it's just like a few classes different). CC is cheap and there's sometimes interesting courses like archaeology or whatever so have fun with that. Cons: It can be a little more difficult to find a top quality internship while you're a CC student. You should still try to find one though, and join clubs and whatnot.. CC won't have FSAE but they do tend to have other stuff.
  - meri_dian 9y ago
    It's possible to graduate from an average state school with maybe $30,000 in debt, given modest parental support and working a part time job. That sort of debt is easy to deal with if you get work in a reasonably well paying field
- meri_dian 9y ago
  Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Going to one of your state schools is a good choice for a relatively low cost education. It's naive to think a college degree isn't valuable. Among a collection of candidates with and without college degrees, those with degrees will not only get preferential treatment, but also once they are deep in their careers those who do not have formal degrees will be held back from leadership roles. This is how the real world works much of the time, the idea that college is becoming less important is wrong. It's becoming more important.
  - greedo 9y ago
    They're probably getting downvoted because the cost of state schools is still too high to work your way through (without loans etc.)
    - Slansitartop 9y ago
      Probably depends on the state. Aren't California's as expensive as private schools now? Some other states still have reasonably priced state schools.
      - greedo 9y ago
        I live in the midwest, and our "premier" state school is $18k/year (including housing). Unless you're going to go to community college for your first two years and then transfer, it's very hard to not incur a substantial amount of debt in completing your degree.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  When I went to school in the early/mid 90s, tuition was low enough that I could basically support myself with a job and some minimal support from my dad ($1000/quarter). Those days are long gone, however.
  - limeblack 9y ago
    Yes and the full ride scholarships(scholarships in general) are that much more difficult to give. My father got a full ride to a state school back in the 80s but today with his grades it wouldn't happen.
    - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
      I didn’t get a scholarship (though I should have applied) and it was still affordable. This was at UW in a top 10 CS program.
ema 9y ago
My older brother has a master in physics, I spent less than 6 years in any kind of formal education. We both work as software developers and I do think my education is as well rounded as his. So on these fronts I don't think it makes much of a difference. That said I did develop anxiety problems that I might not have had if from age 9 to 15 I had spend as much time around a diverse set of peers as he had.
- dsacco 9y ago
  Do you mean you never graduated college, or that you literally only completed schooling up to middle school? With respect to well-roundedness: would you say your knowledge is also covers as much depth as your brother’s?
  - dozzie 9y ago
    Also: would he say the same?
  - ema 9y ago
    I went to school from 7 to 9 and then again from 15 to 18. It depends on the subject but on average the depth should be in the same ballpark. He definitely knows more math and physics than I do, maybe chemistry as well, I think I'm better at history. On languages, he's probably better at German than me (note it's our native language), I'm probably better at English than him because I use it more, I don't know how much high-school French he remembers but I assume not as much as I learned in the last few years, I speak Dutch (well somewhat) he doesn't. We're both not very musically inclined.
- Pigo 9y ago
  I recently got back in touch with a friend from highschool who's parents were really well off. They actually bought property on the East Coast just so that he could claim residency and get in-state with this really haughty college (I cannot remember which one). He now has several philosophy degrees and works at our old highschool as a librarian. He seems very unhappy with his life as well.
badpun 9y ago
> But I guess I still have that romantic notion of him getting a well-rounded education in many subjects that I couldn't help him with, making friends, and meeting interesting professors Interestingly, in my country (Poland) we never had such romantic concept. You always went to university to go deeply on one specific subject (which you chose when you applied to the uni) - the opposite of being well-rounded. Professors were never meant to be interesting. The one thing I see in common is the hope for making friends. I wonder if it's similar in other European countries.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  In Germany higher education is also very focused on one subject.
  - cafard 9y ago
    I can't speak to Poland, but at one time the German system saw to it that the students arrived at the university with a great deal more general grounding than one can count on in American schools.
    - bitL 9y ago
      That's what high schools are for (at least in theory).
- jimhefferon 9y ago
  I believe that part of the difference is that when the education systems gelled in the US there was in the air the perception that the US is this historically radical experiment in democracy and that it needed a citizenry that well-rounded enough to participate. I don't believe that there was as strong a sense for those things in other places. But it fit with the way that at least some people thought of the US, at the time.
- mrguyorama 9y ago
  As a recent graduate of an American college, I don't see it as giving me a "well rounded" education. Thanks to advanced courses in High School, I didn't even have to take a writing class. There were maybe 4 or 5 out of over 30 classes through my entire career that weren't directly related to my CS degree
maxxxxx 9y ago
Having a college degree makes finding a job much easier even if it's totally unrelated to the job. With a lot of employers without degree you are pretty much out of contention for a lot of jobs . It's kind of silly but that's the way it is. And a degree from a famous college opens even more doors. I still remember at a startup I worked at the VCs would talk to people from MIT or Stanford and ignore everybody else.
tryitnow 9y ago
If you're in the US then it depends on what state you live in. If he can get into one of the good in-state schools then it may be worth it - based on the social experience alone. Another way to look at is that if you set your son up to be a good critical thinker and emotionally mature then you can trust that he may make the best choice on his own without any encouragement one way or another.
- Pigo 9y ago
  This does make sense. If he is anything like me, he's going to do whatever the hell he thinks is best. I was the weirdo for going to college.
uberman 9y ago
You want your child to go to college because: 1) The average run of the mill degree results in twice the earnings and half the unemployment of those with just high school. 2) The average run of the mill degree results in a $900k lift in lifetime earnings (for men) over a high school diploma. The lift for women is not quite that much but that might have something to do with the types of degrees that each get. These numbers are averages so if your child completes a stem degree from say MIT, the lift in lifetime earnings is likely quite a bit more than that. Want more? Check out : https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm
- wojt_eu 9y ago
  This shows correlation but not causation. Hypothetically: people with certain background (social class) and traits (IQ) are more likely to go to college, and they would fare as well or better without college. I'd be very interested in stats of lifetime earnings difference that was corrected for selection bias.
  - uberman 9y ago
    Would a 1% sample of the US population that included level of education and earnings do the trick for you? https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_pums_csv_2016&prodType=document https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/... It is not going to have variables like "Social status of your parents" or "IQ" but it does have a rather extensive list of demographic variables to control for. Let me know what you uncover.
    - jessriedel 9y ago
      IQ, conscientiousness, and parental social status are probably the three biggest determiners of success, presumably none of which are being controlled for.
    - the_watcher 9y ago
      Sample size doesn't impact the fact that you shouldn't draw causal conclusions from merely correlative data.
avs733 9y ago
Whether they should or not is a different discussion but I'll put it this way... Employers (implicitly) use the ability to complete a college degree as a marker of basic competence and knowledge posession necessary to do entry level work. From their side it is simply a more efficient and easier way to assess candidates in bulk than any other approach. a BS is also a strong social marker of the ability for a student to complete a body of work and manage themselves independent of their parents...basically its an 'adulting' check mark.
- malvosenior 9y ago
  Employer here. I’ve never thought like this through the hiring process. I care about what people can build and not where/if they have a degree. The Github section of a CV is 10X more meaningful to me than the education section and I regularly hire people who don’t have degrees. Ymmv but I’m sure I’m not alone.
  - avs733 9y ago
    >>Ymmv but I’m sure I’m not alone. Absolutely agree this is really how it should be done. Education should also be competency based...but here we are with metrics that are validated in societal normativity rather than actual logic :) The issue is that the method I'm describing is that method used by large scale employers who have the power and sway to influence how colleges act.
mrfusion 9y ago
Community college could provide a lot of what you seek.
bitL 9y ago
Your kid will have many full online degrees on the level of conventional M.S., maybe even PhD, once he's adult. These days you have Georgia Tech's OMSCS/OMSA and Duke's MS in Health Analytics already; I am sure more will come.
- adenadel 9y ago
  I doubt there will be online degrees equivalent to a PhD (or calling itself a PhD). The coursework of a PhD is typically very similar to a master's in the same subject (maybe with a few additional requirements) but is usually just a primer for the real work doing our research. Conducting research is an inherently social exercise and the mentorship that is given during a PhD won't be easily replicable with an online program. I agree with the general point you're making though.
  - Pigo 9y ago
    This is one of the things I think about, the alternative options that may expand in the near future. But it kind of goes against half of what I want for him. You're not really breaking out of your parent's orbit and flying on your own when you sit on a computer at your parent's house. It seems like a good option for people who are past that age, living on their own. But I want him to go out and meet new people, make some mistakes and learn from them.
    - adenadel 9y ago
      One program that I got excited about a few years ago (unfortunately I was already an undergrad at the time) was Minerva [0]. It's relatively inexpensive, seems as if the coursework has a lot of rigor, and you get to do a bunch of traveling while in school. https://www.minerva.kgi.edu/ https://www.minerva.kgi.edu/
  - bitL 9y ago
    You already have external PhD programs at many universities, just their success rate is usually abysmal, which I believe is often due to non-MOOC basic classes they require. As you mentioned, those are often overlapping with advanced grad courses, so at least that barrier could be gone by time OP's kid is adult.
tytytytytytytyt 9y ago
> I'm not really sure what good it did for me. You don't feel like all the liberal arts classes made you a more well rounded person and gave you a broader perspective on life, etc., etc.?
losteverything 9y ago
Tell him to go. College and dorm living is where, in our family, we meet and fall in love with our spouse. The marriages that worked passed this on for 4 generations. This is an unspoken teaching to all that grow up in all of our roofs. For me, my kids, my siblings and our parents and (probably both gp) the best thing that happened in college was meeting our spouses.
raincom 9y ago
Managerial class wants people who have college degrees. So send your kid to a school that costs you less.
Z-Widwil 9y ago
This is something that I struggle with personally. I'm a junior dev and a part time student. I got the development job after working desktop support at the same company. My technical experience is entirely self taught. I only started going to school because my manager felt that I should receive a formal education as most of the senior devs have. My issues with it are the cost and the level of education I'm receiving. To give everyone an example, my first database class taught MS Excel and moved to MS Access. This is from a college that is charging me thousands of dollars a year. While at work, I've developed multiple enterprise applications and setup entire SQL Server environments. I feel like I'm receiving way more training from work than from school. This is supported by the extremely positive reviews I've received from senior devs and my manager. And when I say cost of school, it isn't just the amount that I pay out of pocket. It's the time as well. I spend about 16 hours in class each week during business hours. Another 10 to 12 hours at home is spent doing homework or studying. An entire day is spent each week dedicated to school while working 40 hours a week. This makes for a pretty stressful situation. I'm on the edge of breaking down, but I make great money so I feel like I can't complain. And yes, I know this is very specific to my situation. I could have chosen not to get a full time job and just gone to school instead. However, that would mean giving up starting a career early, which I think is much more valuable. If I can get a job without any education, the experience I have seems to be more valuable than the education. This leads me to believe that I should spend that 20+ hours learning independently instead of going to school. I'd save money that way, time, stress, and I'd likely be at a higher technical level than school has brought me to. I know this comment doesn't help you out very much. I just wanted to share my situation as someone in the position that your son may be in the future. If I would have known how much I would have learned from work, I would have chosen not to go back to school. The only thing keeping me from stopping is that the senior devs have degrees in higher education and, though most of them are twice my age, I feel like I should keep up with them. Each of them is extremely supportive of both my work and school and I feel like dropping out would be letting them down.
- ThrowawayR2 9y ago
  > ...my first database class taught MS Excel and moved to MS Access. This is from a college that is charging me thousands of dollars a year. Which institution and major?
sjg007 9y ago
It's all about your network. Going to a good school opens many doors. So yes tech but also get the degree. And if in tech do internships. Ideally and hopefully, your son can get scholarships to offset tuition.
always_good 9y ago
At least half of university is the social experience. There's more to life that credentializing in the work force. And university is over in a quick blip anyways, then it gets harder to get laid. Think of it as a way to make his mid-life crisis less probable.

by Pigo 9y ago

hashkb 9y ago

Your son could have that at a state school for probably free (depending on the state, and with good grades), and work in a restaurant three or four nights a week to offset some other costs.

lettergram 9y ago
Ugh - depends what state school. My wife and I both went to University of Illinois (we are from Illinois). I worked 10 - 20 hours per week, and got some smaller grants, my wife got larger grants.. We still both have more debt than I care to admit... It's literally 20% of our overall monthly expenses. I found the connections personally invaluable and worth it. My wife is just starting her PhD at U of I, so we both agree it was worth it, but just barely.
- wenc 9y ago
  I live in Illinois. I just looked up in-state tuition for UIUC = $17k/year. That is not cheap, but it's a lot less than many lower-ranking private schools. Loyola charges $21k. Roosevelt charges $26k. UIUC is a great state school, one of the best in the country. I'd say you got a good deal. But yes, definitely not close to free.
epistasis 9y ago
I would be very interested to know which, if any, schools make this possible.
- bernardino 9y ago
  I find it’s doable to attend a college where you won’t pay tuition, but it will most likely be a semi-low-tier, state school and or your estimated family contribution must be zero. After spending a few years at a community college, I will (I think, I need more for or against opinions) be attending San Francisco State University in the fall. My tuition looks like it will be waived (tuition is about 8k for in-state students, 17k for out-of-state students) since I’m in-state and my estimated family contribution (via FASFA) is zero (family income is about 31k). I will then just have to take out loans for living expenses and hopefully work part-time to lessen them.
  - hackerman12345 9y ago
    I got great value from CC. But you'll want to make sure it not only has proper (regional) accreditation, but also a "transfer agreement" to the local university of your choice. This isn't 100% necessary, but it sure helps as a guideline to know what courses have value for your future program. The naming schemes at different schools can be confusing ("Am I supposed to take Technical Calculus 1 or Calculus 1 for Scientists and Engineers?") - so having the direct transfer numbers is helpful. The advisors at CC aren't always necessarily educated and may make assumptions like EE and EE Tech being the same program.. Finally, if you're going on to a BS, the AS is next to useless in my experience (besides resume fodder). It's the actual classes that transfer that are the value, and whether you finish at CC or not is not a big deal.. (though go ahead and do it if it's just like a few classes different). CC is cheap and there's sometimes interesting courses like archaeology or whatever so have fun with that. Cons: It can be a little more difficult to find a top quality internship while you're a CC student. You should still try to find one though, and join clubs and whatnot.. CC won't have FSAE but they do tend to have other stuff.
- meri_dian 9y ago
  It's possible to graduate from an average state school with maybe $30,000 in debt, given modest parental support and working a part time job. That sort of debt is easy to deal with if you get work in a reasonably well paying field
meri_dian 9y ago
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Going to one of your state schools is a good choice for a relatively low cost education. It's naive to think a college degree isn't valuable. Among a collection of candidates with and without college degrees, those with degrees will not only get preferential treatment, but also once they are deep in their careers those who do not have formal degrees will be held back from leadership roles. This is how the real world works much of the time, the idea that college is becoming less important is wrong. It's becoming more important.
- greedo 9y ago
  They're probably getting downvoted because the cost of state schools is still too high to work your way through (without loans etc.)
  - Slansitartop 9y ago
    Probably depends on the state. Aren't California's as expensive as private schools now? Some other states still have reasonably priced state schools.
    - greedo 9y ago
      I live in the midwest, and our "premier" state school is $18k/year (including housing). Unless you're going to go to community college for your first two years and then transfer, it's very hard to not incur a substantial amount of debt in completing your degree.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
When I went to school in the early/mid 90s, tuition was low enough that I could basically support myself with a job and some minimal support from my dad ($1000/quarter). Those days are long gone, however.
- limeblack 9y ago
  Yes and the full ride scholarships(scholarships in general) are that much more difficult to give. My father got a full ride to a state school back in the 80s but today with his grades it wouldn't happen.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    I didn’t get a scholarship (though I should have applied) and it was still affordable. This was at UW in a top 10 CS program.

ema 9y ago

My older brother has a master in physics, I spent less than 6 years in any kind of formal education. We both work as software developers and I do think my education is as well rounded as his. So on these fronts I don't think it makes much of a difference. That said I did develop anxiety problems that I might not have had if from age 9 to 15 I had spend as much time around a diverse set of peers as he had.

dsacco 9y ago
Do you mean you never graduated college, or that you literally only completed schooling up to middle school? With respect to well-roundedness: would you say your knowledge is also covers as much depth as your brother’s?
- dozzie 9y ago
  Also: would he say the same?
- ema 9y ago
  I went to school from 7 to 9 and then again from 15 to 18. It depends on the subject but on average the depth should be in the same ballpark. He definitely knows more math and physics than I do, maybe chemistry as well, I think I'm better at history. On languages, he's probably better at German than me (note it's our native language), I'm probably better at English than him because I use it more, I don't know how much high-school French he remembers but I assume not as much as I learned in the last few years, I speak Dutch (well somewhat) he doesn't. We're both not very musically inclined.
Pigo 9y ago
I recently got back in touch with a friend from highschool who's parents were really well off. They actually bought property on the East Coast just so that he could claim residency and get in-state with this really haughty college (I cannot remember which one). He now has several philosophy degrees and works at our old highschool as a librarian. He seems very unhappy with his life as well.

badpun 9y ago

> But I guess I still have that romantic notion of him getting a well-rounded education in many subjects that I couldn't help him with, making friends, and meeting interesting professors Interestingly, in my country (Poland) we never had such romantic concept. You always went to university to go deeply on one specific subject (which you chose when you applied to the uni) - the opposite of being well-rounded. Professors were never meant to be interesting. The one thing I see in common is the hope for making friends. I wonder if it's similar in other European countries.

maxxxxx 9y ago
In Germany higher education is also very focused on one subject.
- cafard 9y ago
  I can't speak to Poland, but at one time the German system saw to it that the students arrived at the university with a great deal more general grounding than one can count on in American schools.
  - bitL 9y ago
    That's what high schools are for (at least in theory).
jimhefferon 9y ago
I believe that part of the difference is that when the education systems gelled in the US there was in the air the perception that the US is this historically radical experiment in democracy and that it needed a citizenry that well-rounded enough to participate. I don't believe that there was as strong a sense for those things in other places. But it fit with the way that at least some people thought of the US, at the time.
mrguyorama 9y ago
As a recent graduate of an American college, I don't see it as giving me a "well rounded" education. Thanks to advanced courses in High School, I didn't even have to take a writing class. There were maybe 4 or 5 out of over 30 classes through my entire career that weren't directly related to my CS degree

maxxxxx 9y ago

Having a college degree makes finding a job much easier even if it's totally unrelated to the job. With a lot of employers without degree you are pretty much out of contention for a lot of jobs . It's kind of silly but that's the way it is. And a degree from a famous college opens even more doors. I still remember at a startup I worked at the VCs would talk to people from MIT or Stanford and ignore everybody else.

tryitnow 9y ago

If you're in the US then it depends on what state you live in. If he can get into one of the good in-state schools then it may be worth it - based on the social experience alone. Another way to look at is that if you set your son up to be a good critical thinker and emotionally mature then you can trust that he may make the best choice on his own without any encouragement one way or another.

Pigo 9y ago
This does make sense. If he is anything like me, he's going to do whatever the hell he thinks is best. I was the weirdo for going to college.

uberman 9y ago

You want your child to go to college because: 1) The average run of the mill degree results in twice the earnings and half the unemployment of those with just high school. 2) The average run of the mill degree results in a $900k lift in lifetime earnings (for men) over a high school diploma. The lift for women is not quite that much but that might have something to do with the types of degrees that each get. These numbers are averages so if your child completes a stem degree from say MIT, the lift in lifetime earnings is likely quite a bit more than that. Want more? Check out : https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

wojt_eu 9y ago
This shows correlation but not causation. Hypothetically: people with certain background (social class) and traits (IQ) are more likely to go to college, and they would fare as well or better without college. I'd be very interested in stats of lifetime earnings difference that was corrected for selection bias.
- uberman 9y ago
  Would a 1% sample of the US population that included level of education and earnings do the trick for you? https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_pums_csv_2016&prodType=document https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/... It is not going to have variables like "Social status of your parents" or "IQ" but it does have a rather extensive list of demographic variables to control for. Let me know what you uncover.
  - jessriedel 9y ago
    IQ, conscientiousness, and parental social status are probably the three biggest determiners of success, presumably none of which are being controlled for.
  - the_watcher 9y ago
    Sample size doesn't impact the fact that you shouldn't draw causal conclusions from merely correlative data.

avs733 9y ago

Whether they should or not is a different discussion but I'll put it this way... Employers (implicitly) use the ability to complete a college degree as a marker of basic competence and knowledge posession necessary to do entry level work. From their side it is simply a more efficient and easier way to assess candidates in bulk than any other approach. a BS is also a strong social marker of the ability for a student to complete a body of work and manage themselves independent of their parents...basically its an 'adulting' check mark.

malvosenior 9y ago
Employer here. I’ve never thought like this through the hiring process. I care about what people can build and not where/if they have a degree. The Github section of a CV is 10X more meaningful to me than the education section and I regularly hire people who don’t have degrees. Ymmv but I’m sure I’m not alone.
- avs733 9y ago
  >>Ymmv but I’m sure I’m not alone. Absolutely agree this is really how it should be done. Education should also be competency based...but here we are with metrics that are validated in societal normativity rather than actual logic :) The issue is that the method I'm describing is that method used by large scale employers who have the power and sway to influence how colleges act.

mrfusion 9y ago

Community college could provide a lot of what you seek.

bitL 9y ago

Your kid will have many full online degrees on the level of conventional M.S., maybe even PhD, once he's adult. These days you have Georgia Tech's OMSCS/OMSA and Duke's MS in Health Analytics already; I am sure more will come.

adenadel 9y ago
I doubt there will be online degrees equivalent to a PhD (or calling itself a PhD). The coursework of a PhD is typically very similar to a master's in the same subject (maybe with a few additional requirements) but is usually just a primer for the real work doing our research. Conducting research is an inherently social exercise and the mentorship that is given during a PhD won't be easily replicable with an online program. I agree with the general point you're making though.
- Pigo 9y ago
  This is one of the things I think about, the alternative options that may expand in the near future. But it kind of goes against half of what I want for him. You're not really breaking out of your parent's orbit and flying on your own when you sit on a computer at your parent's house. It seems like a good option for people who are past that age, living on their own. But I want him to go out and meet new people, make some mistakes and learn from them.
  - adenadel 9y ago
    One program that I got excited about a few years ago (unfortunately I was already an undergrad at the time) was Minerva [0]. It's relatively inexpensive, seems as if the coursework has a lot of rigor, and you get to do a bunch of traveling while in school. https://www.minerva.kgi.edu/ https://www.minerva.kgi.edu/
- bitL 9y ago
  You already have external PhD programs at many universities, just their success rate is usually abysmal, which I believe is often due to non-MOOC basic classes they require. As you mentioned, those are often overlapping with advanced grad courses, so at least that barrier could be gone by time OP's kid is adult.

tytytytytytytyt 9y ago

> I'm not really sure what good it did for me. You don't feel like all the liberal arts classes made you a more well rounded person and gave you a broader perspective on life, etc., etc.?

losteverything 9y ago

Tell him to go. College and dorm living is where, in our family, we meet and fall in love with our spouse. The marriages that worked passed this on for 4 generations. This is an unspoken teaching to all that grow up in all of our roofs. For me, my kids, my siblings and our parents and (probably both gp) the best thing that happened in college was meeting our spouses.

raincom 9y ago

Managerial class wants people who have college degrees. So send your kid to a school that costs you less.

Z-Widwil 9y ago

This is something that I struggle with personally. I'm a junior dev and a part time student. I got the development job after working desktop support at the same company. My technical experience is entirely self taught. I only started going to school because my manager felt that I should receive a formal education as most of the senior devs have. My issues with it are the cost and the level of education I'm receiving. To give everyone an example, my first database class taught MS Excel and moved to MS Access. This is from a college that is charging me thousands of dollars a year. While at work, I've developed multiple enterprise applications and setup entire SQL Server environments. I feel like I'm receiving way more training from work than from school. This is supported by the extremely positive reviews I've received from senior devs and my manager. And when I say cost of school, it isn't just the amount that I pay out of pocket. It's the time as well. I spend about 16 hours in class each week during business hours. Another 10 to 12 hours at home is spent doing homework or studying. An entire day is spent each week dedicated to school while working 40 hours a week. This makes for a pretty stressful situation. I'm on the edge of breaking down, but I make great money so I feel like I can't complain. And yes, I know this is very specific to my situation. I could have chosen not to get a full time job and just gone to school instead. However, that would mean giving up starting a career early, which I think is much more valuable. If I can get a job without any education, the experience I have seems to be more valuable than the education. This leads me to believe that I should spend that 20+ hours learning independently instead of going to school. I'd save money that way, time, stress, and I'd likely be at a higher technical level than school has brought me to. I know this comment doesn't help you out very much. I just wanted to share my situation as someone in the position that your son may be in the future. If I would have known how much I would have learned from work, I would have chosen not to go back to school. The only thing keeping me from stopping is that the senior devs have degrees in higher education and, though most of them are twice my age, I feel like I should keep up with them. Each of them is extremely supportive of both my work and school and I feel like dropping out would be letting them down.

ThrowawayR2 9y ago
> ...my first database class taught MS Excel and moved to MS Access. This is from a college that is charging me thousands of dollars a year. Which institution and major?

sjg007 9y ago

It's all about your network. Going to a good school opens many doors. So yes tech but also get the degree. And if in tech do internships. Ideally and hopefully, your son can get scholarships to offset tuition.

always_good 9y ago

At least half of university is the social experience. There's more to life that credentializing in the work force. And university is over in a quick blip anyways, then it gets harder to get laid. Think of it as a way to make his mid-life crisis less probable.