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> This was mentioned in another comment but nothing about "education" is about actual education. It's primarily about credentialisim and not being locked out of

> This was mentioned in another comment but nothing about "education" is about actual education. It's primarily about credentialisim and not being locked out of a career with a high ceiling. Really? Learning how the history of your country has no value? Learning how to write properly, how to construct persuasive arguments is of no use? Learning how to break an argument down into smaller parts and analyze it for soundness has no practical application? Because those are just a small list of the many skills I learned in college. Not to mention higher level math, an understanding of biology, physics, and chemistry, and a deeper appreciation for arts and music. In a world flooded with propaganda and "sponsored messages", knowing how to keep a clear head and peel away the layers of misdirection is an incredibly important ability, one that a good education will teach. In a world where scientific debate in matters of public policy is of utmost importance, being able to understand the science being debated is a necessary skill for the voting populace. College is incredibly useful, I fail to understand why detractors insist that it has no value. I will readily agree that corruption is rife and the cost is increasing way to rapidly, while quality may very well be on the decline as universities attempt to push more and more students through, but an educated populace is by no means a bad thing.

u801e 9y ago
> Really? Learning how the history of your country has no value? Learning how to write properly, how to construct persuasive arguments is of no use? Learning how to break an argument down into smaller parts and analyze it for soundness has no practical application? Shouldn't these things be covered in high school? Perhaps having a 13th or 14th year of primary education would allow for these concepts to be covered in sufficient depth. Then universities could concentrate on specialized concepts pertaining to the student's major.
- com2kid 9y ago
  > Shouldn't these things be covered in high school? A number of factors. High Schools are very subject to political whims of the local area. Teachers are often not tenured (especially in smaller districts), and school board members are frequently elected officials. There are schools that still teach that America is literally blessed by God to rule over the earth. Those schools aren't going to teach about the Kent State Riots, or Pinkertons. They sure as heck aren't going to have a class on dissecting political speeches (from all across the spectrum) for logical soundness. (One of the best college classes I ever took!) These are the same schools that avoid teaching literally anything about sex (other than don't have it), and skimp out on other large portions of biology. > Perhaps having a 13th or 14th year of primary education would allow for these concepts to be covered in sufficient depth. The problem with mandatory education is that since everyone has to go through it, there is an expectation that everyone passes, which means courses get watered down until everyone does pass. Tests are put in place to prevent this, and then school becomes prep work for those tests, as metrics take over the entire system. Community Colleges are, IMHO, a good stepping stone.
  - dexterdog 9y ago
    Are you saying college courses don't get watered to to where nearly everybody passes? College (upenn for me) was trivially easy to pass. They need that sweet, sweet tuition money flowing in.
    - gowld 9y ago
      No they don't. They need those sweet grants and donations, and butts in seats justifies their presence.
      - deadmetheny 9y ago
        If all those butts in seats flunk out of classes, who's going to be giving them grants and donations? A record of failure isn't going to help any grant proposals.
    - smt88 9y ago
      My highly-ranked school was also trivially easy. I still learned a lot and was forced out of my intellectual comfort zone on many occasions. "Easy" hurts the goal of credentialing, but it doesn't really mean the education is poor. I also wasn't a STEM major. I know many STEM grads who had a hellish time getting good grades.
    - com2kid 9y ago
      Some classes were easy, some weren't. I enjoyed my history classes, the professor was amazing. All the tests were essay style, failing was hard, the only requirement was being able to demonstrate an understanding of the course material and being able to put together a well reasoned argument about different historical events. Often times we would be asked to explain our understanding of some major player's reasoning. Was the course "hard" in terms of drop out rate? No. Was it rigorous and thorough? That it was.
- jotm 9y ago
  Sadly, not in most western countries.
maratd 9y ago
> College is incredibly useful, I fail to understand why detractors insist that it has no value. This black and white approach is silly. Of course it has value. The question is whether the value that it provides is sufficient to offset the cost of the tuition, housing, food, books, AND opportunity cost of not working. You're easily looking at 150k at a public institution for an intelligent kid per year. Are you saying you can't figure out how to acquire all those skills you mentioned for less than 600k and 4 years spent? And are those skills necessary for everyone?
- deadmetheny 9y ago
  >You're easily looking at 150k at a public institution for an intelligent kid per year. Where on earth are you getting that number? Average student debt for a public university is something like $30k for the entire degree program, so your total cost might break $100k if you consider housing and books. Opportunity cost isn't money spent and you can't exactly stop eating if you skip uni, so it's pointless to even count those.
- lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
  Counting housing (a cost that's required regardless and often time more expensive since you need to live where the jobs are as opposed to where the college is) and opportunity cost (while not attempting to factor in the opportunity cost of not having a degree on the other end of the equation) is disingenuous to the extreme. Even a "model" student buying his books new each semester your total costs for a public school caps at 40k a year[0] (excluding housing etc). A large cost for sure, but that's before any scholarships and assuming a top tier school and an out of state student. The skills, networking, and opportunity to safely explore career options I think were worth that cost. YMMV. [0]https://www.finaid.gatech.edu/current-cost-overview https://www.finaid.gatech.edu/current-cost-overview
  - com2kid 9y ago
    > Even a "model" student buying his books new each semester your total costs for a public school caps at 40k a year[0] To be fair to the parent poster, ~30% of a public university's funding comes from taxes[0]. Add in tax breaks on the huge amounts of often urban land situated on prime real estate, and the overall cost to society is higher than just the tuition price. [0]http://uwimpact.org/uw-funding-overview/ http://uwimpact.org/uw-funding-overview/
maehwasu 9y ago
It has some value. Not 30-70K/year value, particularly when the debt is non-dischargeable.
- sokoloff 9y ago
  The debt is non-dischargeable to make the market for such debt work. There's nothing for a lender to repossess and nothing to prevent a student from a strategic default in the middle of the senior year or just after graduation. Tank your credit for a few years and walk away debt-free is a powerful motivation. Having access to student loans makes college accessible across the socioeconomic spectrum. It's not the only way, of course, but it's a way and non-dischargeability of the loans is an essential element in that market IMO.
  - thomastjeffery 9y ago
    That's a workaround to the problem, and a messy one at that. The problem is that work that does not require college education demands a degree as certification; forcing prospective employees - with no capital - to go into debt to satisfy an arbitrary hiring requirement.
jaredklewis 9y ago
I don't think the parent is arguing those things don't have value, but rather that the primary reason that people attend college is to get a degree. Imagine a world where all employers put no stock in degrees, but instead took upon themselves the laborious task of evaluating every potential candidate's skill in any given area such as math, persuasive writing, and so on. Assume a particular candidate had taken it upon themselves to learn a college education's worth of math outside of a university, such as by spending a lot of time in a library. In this fictional world, the candidate above would be equally valued by employers as a college graduate with similar level of knowledge. The fictional world above is very different than the world we live in. In today's world, the self-learner is unable to even apply to most jobs. The critique of credentialism is that a degree from Harvard (as in the piece of paper itself) is probably rewarded more highly in our market than having all the knowledge one could gain from studying there for 10 years. If attending a four year college did not result in a degree or other credential, how popular would it be? How many people would invest the money and time to learn for knowledge's sake?
- com2kid 9y ago
  > Imagine a world where all employers put no stock in degrees, but instead took upon themselves the laborious task of evaluating every potential candidate's skill in any given area such as math, persuasive writing, and so on. The cost of hiring this employee goes way up. There would be a huge gauntlet of (non-standard!) tests to try and figure out who knows what. (We are already approaching that point, but degrees serve as a first level filter.) Students would then pay for prep courses to pass these employment tests. At some point you have a 2 year tech school. The best of students who want to be more well rounded, and get the best jobs, would end up going to an institution that looks a lot like a modern university. The difference is that a student who is 100% dedicated to self learning could do it all on their own, which is a net win, but I suspect that for the majority, things would not change too much. > How many people would invest the money and time to learn for knowledge's sake? MOOCs are incredibly popular. Some of the most popular YouTube channels are educational. People give to the patreons of these creators.
  - jaredklewis 9y ago
thomastjeffery 9y ago
Must these things be learned in academia? My experience tells me "no". I don't think that anyone was considering college to be worthless; simply unnecessary for many. College is seen as a necessary credential for work, but really ends up putting people in debt instead. College isn't some magic that will make you significantly more proficient at every job; no matter how much our culture seems to think so. Lack of college does not define someone as uneducated, uninformed, or less qualified for the vast majority of work. It's unfortunate that our culture has trended to requiring people go into serious debt to accommodate such a notion.

u801e 9y ago

> Really? Learning how the history of your country has no value? Learning how to write properly, how to construct persuasive arguments is of no use? Learning how to break an argument down into smaller parts and analyze it for soundness has no practical application? Shouldn't these things be covered in high school? Perhaps having a 13th or 14th year of primary education would allow for these concepts to be covered in sufficient depth. Then universities could concentrate on specialized concepts pertaining to the student's major.

com2kid 9y ago
> Shouldn't these things be covered in high school? A number of factors. High Schools are very subject to political whims of the local area. Teachers are often not tenured (especially in smaller districts), and school board members are frequently elected officials. There are schools that still teach that America is literally blessed by God to rule over the earth. Those schools aren't going to teach about the Kent State Riots, or Pinkertons. They sure as heck aren't going to have a class on dissecting political speeches (from all across the spectrum) for logical soundness. (One of the best college classes I ever took!) These are the same schools that avoid teaching literally anything about sex (other than don't have it), and skimp out on other large portions of biology. > Perhaps having a 13th or 14th year of primary education would allow for these concepts to be covered in sufficient depth. The problem with mandatory education is that since everyone has to go through it, there is an expectation that everyone passes, which means courses get watered down until everyone does pass. Tests are put in place to prevent this, and then school becomes prep work for those tests, as metrics take over the entire system. Community Colleges are, IMHO, a good stepping stone.
- dexterdog 9y ago
  Are you saying college courses don't get watered to to where nearly everybody passes? College (upenn for me) was trivially easy to pass. They need that sweet, sweet tuition money flowing in.
  - gowld 9y ago
    No they don't. They need those sweet grants and donations, and butts in seats justifies their presence.
    - deadmetheny 9y ago
      If all those butts in seats flunk out of classes, who's going to be giving them grants and donations? A record of failure isn't going to help any grant proposals.
  - smt88 9y ago
    My highly-ranked school was also trivially easy. I still learned a lot and was forced out of my intellectual comfort zone on many occasions. "Easy" hurts the goal of credentialing, but it doesn't really mean the education is poor. I also wasn't a STEM major. I know many STEM grads who had a hellish time getting good grades.
  - com2kid 9y ago
    Some classes were easy, some weren't. I enjoyed my history classes, the professor was amazing. All the tests were essay style, failing was hard, the only requirement was being able to demonstrate an understanding of the course material and being able to put together a well reasoned argument about different historical events. Often times we would be asked to explain our understanding of some major player's reasoning. Was the course "hard" in terms of drop out rate? No. Was it rigorous and thorough? That it was.
jotm 9y ago
Sadly, not in most western countries.

maratd 9y ago

> College is incredibly useful, I fail to understand why detractors insist that it has no value. This black and white approach is silly. Of course it has value. The question is whether the value that it provides is sufficient to offset the cost of the tuition, housing, food, books, AND opportunity cost of not working. You're easily looking at 150k at a public institution for an intelligent kid per year. Are you saying you can't figure out how to acquire all those skills you mentioned for less than 600k and 4 years spent? And are those skills necessary for everyone?

deadmetheny 9y ago
>You're easily looking at 150k at a public institution for an intelligent kid per year. Where on earth are you getting that number? Average student debt for a public university is something like $30k for the entire degree program, so your total cost might break $100k if you consider housing and books. Opportunity cost isn't money spent and you can't exactly stop eating if you skip uni, so it's pointless to even count those.
lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
Counting housing (a cost that's required regardless and often time more expensive since you need to live where the jobs are as opposed to where the college is) and opportunity cost (while not attempting to factor in the opportunity cost of not having a degree on the other end of the equation) is disingenuous to the extreme. Even a "model" student buying his books new each semester your total costs for a public school caps at 40k a year[0] (excluding housing etc). A large cost for sure, but that's before any scholarships and assuming a top tier school and an out of state student. The skills, networking, and opportunity to safely explore career options I think were worth that cost. YMMV. [0]https://www.finaid.gatech.edu/current-cost-overview https://www.finaid.gatech.edu/current-cost-overview
- com2kid 9y ago
  > Even a "model" student buying his books new each semester your total costs for a public school caps at 40k a year[0] To be fair to the parent poster, ~30% of a public university's funding comes from taxes[0]. Add in tax breaks on the huge amounts of often urban land situated on prime real estate, and the overall cost to society is higher than just the tuition price. [0]http://uwimpact.org/uw-funding-overview/ http://uwimpact.org/uw-funding-overview/

maehwasu 9y ago

It has some value. Not 30-70K/year value, particularly when the debt is non-dischargeable.

sokoloff 9y ago
The debt is non-dischargeable to make the market for such debt work. There's nothing for a lender to repossess and nothing to prevent a student from a strategic default in the middle of the senior year or just after graduation. Tank your credit for a few years and walk away debt-free is a powerful motivation. Having access to student loans makes college accessible across the socioeconomic spectrum. It's not the only way, of course, but it's a way and non-dischargeability of the loans is an essential element in that market IMO.
- thomastjeffery 9y ago
  That's a workaround to the problem, and a messy one at that. The problem is that work that does not require college education demands a degree as certification; forcing prospective employees - with no capital - to go into debt to satisfy an arbitrary hiring requirement.

jaredklewis 9y ago

I don't think the parent is arguing those things don't have value, but rather that the primary reason that people attend college is to get a degree. Imagine a world where all employers put no stock in degrees, but instead took upon themselves the laborious task of evaluating every potential candidate's skill in any given area such as math, persuasive writing, and so on. Assume a particular candidate had taken it upon themselves to learn a college education's worth of math outside of a university, such as by spending a lot of time in a library. In this fictional world, the candidate above would be equally valued by employers as a college graduate with similar level of knowledge. The fictional world above is very different than the world we live in. In today's world, the self-learner is unable to even apply to most jobs. The critique of credentialism is that a degree from Harvard (as in the piece of paper itself) is probably rewarded more highly in our market than having all the knowledge one could gain from studying there for 10 years. If attending a four year college did not result in a degree or other credential, how popular would it be? How many people would invest the money and time to learn for knowledge's sake?

com2kid 9y ago
> Imagine a world where all employers put no stock in degrees, but instead took upon themselves the laborious task of evaluating every potential candidate's skill in any given area such as math, persuasive writing, and so on. The cost of hiring this employee goes way up. There would be a huge gauntlet of (non-standard!) tests to try and figure out who knows what. (We are already approaching that point, but degrees serve as a first level filter.) Students would then pay for prep courses to pass these employment tests. At some point you have a 2 year tech school. The best of students who want to be more well rounded, and get the best jobs, would end up going to an institution that looks a lot like a modern university. The difference is that a student who is 100% dedicated to self learning could do it all on their own, which is a net win, but I suspect that for the majority, things would not change too much. > How many people would invest the money and time to learn for knowledge's sake? MOOCs are incredibly popular. Some of the most popular YouTube channels are educational. People give to the patreons of these creators.
- jaredklewis 9y ago

thomastjeffery 9y ago

Must these things be learned in academia? My experience tells me "no". I don't think that anyone was considering college to be worthless; simply unnecessary for many. College is seen as a necessary credential for work, but really ends up putting people in debt instead. College isn't some magic that will make you significantly more proficient at every job; no matter how much our culture seems to think so. Lack of college does not define someone as uneducated, uninformed, or less qualified for the vast majority of work. It's unfortunate that our culture has trended to requiring people go into serious debt to accommodate such a notion.