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College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

• Grustaf 8y ago
  If you get an education with the sole purpose of generating higher net earnings you deserve to lose money. For most people it should hopefully be: "I want to be a lawyer, so I go to law school", or "I am interested in engineering so I study engineering" - you study because you need the degree to get the job you want.
• shiado 8y ago
  I wonder what schools and social strata those who make it as journalists at the New York Times come from. Something tells me an associates from your local community college won't cut it.
• paulpauper 8y ago
  The NYTimes republishes a variant of this articles almost every month https://www.google.com/search?q=site:nytimes.com+college+worth+it&rlz=1C1CHBF_enTR752TR752&ei=h6j9WuawLeba6ASAvKu4DA&start=10&sa=N&biw=1745&bih=818 https://www.google.com/search?q=site:nytimes.com+college+wor... The usual answer is "it depends"
  • the_new_guy_29 8y ago
    It depends on how you spend that time. Studing hard pays off, slacking off - not. This should be a common knowledge. It more or less boils down to this and not status or race...
    • mkirklions 8y ago
      This is true for everything. People shouldnt blog, unless they are going to do hard work making the content useful. People shouldnt be a contractor, unless they have fantastic skills in a sector. If you are going to work hard and think hard, you will have success in nearly any market. If you copypasted the example android Hello World app, you arent going to succeed in the programming market.
      • ManFromUranus 8y ago
        Most people blog to have a blog and don't realize their insights aren't useful. So you're advice is not useful since telling dumb people not to do dumb things is a waste of time, they're too dumb to know what they're doing is a waste of time or doesn't have any useful insights. Sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, you being so smart and all.
        • mkirklions 8y ago
          Do they think they are being useful? From twitter posts, it seems like they know their crap is the same as everyone else, but they want the Adsense money. Idk, twitter Personal Finance is a cesspool of shitty adsense/amazon affiliate filled blogs.
          • ManFromUranus 8y ago
            Some blogs are clickbait simply to capture clicks, or maybe the blog is to pad out somebodys resume and the content may as well be lorem ipsum boilerplate becasue nobody is ever going to read it anyway, but having a blog is better than not having a blog (most of the time). IF you have even ONE good article to show somebody then they tend to assume that your entire blog will have around that level of quality. So is wanting Adsense money stupid? No. Even if all the stuff is low quality then it may as well be MY low quality blog that gets all the his amirite? Thats what they're probably trying to do. IDK there are really too many reasons to enumerate... > twitter Personal Finance is a cesspool of shitty adsense/amazon affiliate filled blogs Why are you reading it then?
            • mkirklions 8y ago
              I basically dont read the crap anymore. I tried getting into twitter, but it turned out to be spam.
      • rixrax 8y ago
        From the mouth of John Cleese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvVPdyYeaQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvVPdyYeaQU I realize I am not in tune with times, but it somewhat irks me that a lot of (generally) younger folk at work want to blog about every single task they've accomplished or assigned to. Often turning these seemingly routine tasks into heroic efforts described in the blog postings. I guess it's called career growth. :)
    • s73v3r_ 8y ago
      "It more or less boils down to this and not status or race..." This is so far from the truth that it'd be laughable if it wasn't so sad.
  • sajithdilshan 8y ago
    Is it a cronjob?
    • mxschumacher 8y ago
      better than no job!
    • NeutronStar 8y ago
      It's a con job.
  • anoncoward111 8y ago
    it's already a shame that the answer isn't 100% yes, 100% of the time. back in the 70s, tuition was payable with a summer job and job prospects were decent enough despite geopolitical and economic headwinds these days, the same problems plague the job market, but every year of college costs 1 year of salary, unless you qualify for stackable forms of financial aid
    • optimuspaul 8y ago
      There are still many colleges that you cost less than a years salary. Other than that nitpick I agree. Economics aside I think that college doesn't actually prepare people for working in the real world. But the only thing that really does that is actually working in the real world.
      • jellicle 8y ago
        I think previous commenter is saying every year of full-time college costs you a year of salary, in addition and on top of any tuition or other expenses it may cost you. Few students manage to work full-time and make real progress towards a degree.
        • Bekwnn 8y ago
          Not to mention if they're working fulltime they're forfeiting a large part of the value of the degree. Half or more of the value I got from my degree involved out of class activities.
          • optimuspaul 8y ago
            It all depends on the type of college that you go to. I also think it's funny to suggest that a "large part of the value of the degree" is out of class activities. But if that is true it kind of supports my argument that a degree proves nothing. A degree doesn't reflect those out of class activities.
        • optimuspaul 8y ago
  • awalton 8y ago
    Which is probably a good thing, since it will slowly beat into the minds of upper-levels at corps and recruiters that a College Degree shouldn't be the minimum bar applicants need to reach, and maybe some of these companies will start removing the "has degree" band reject filter.
    • djrogers 8y ago
      I don’t have a degree and have never run in to an issue with that fact. Came up once in an interview about 20 years ago for a very early job, and that’s the last I’ve heard of it.
      • xkjkls 8y ago
        The problem is usually getting the first couple opportunities. You don't need a degree if you've been in the industry awhile, but if you're trying to get a prestigious job it gets really easy to be filtered into thrown out stack of resumes.
        • H1Supreme 8y ago
          This is the kicker. Getting your foot in the door is much, much easier with a degree. But, it doesn't mean it's the only way. I got my first programming gig, sans degree, with my portfolio. My boss commented that my website, and descriptions of my projects, is what got me the interview. Coming from graphic design, a portfolio is par for the course. But, I think some programmers will overlook the need for one. And no, I don't think Github projects serve as the same thing. A supplement? Yes. But, a proper site for your work can do wonders.
          • vkou 8y ago
            100% of my work has been internal-facing systems for large companies. Should I compose a portfolio of it? How will a hiring manager be able to differentiate it from a bunch of bullshit? As an artist, you can almost always point to something, and say: I did this. I designed that. I am credited on a blockbuster film. As a programmer, you can almost always talk a hot game about how you did something, but you can rarely tie that to proof. Are you saying that's the hiring manager's problem, not mine?
  • IkmoIkmo 8y ago
    To what extent is it still news. It's not just this topic, it's a whole range of subjects. e.g. the same articles are written and rewritten on housing all the time. And the notion I get sent an article by a friend, see it on FB, twitter, a debate, the paper itself and the half dozen that will cover it by referring to the article in an opinion piece, doesn't help. I'm finding it increasingly more difficult to get meaningful new news or rather, new insights from media channels. It's really frustrating.
    • wilsonnb 8y ago
      To be fair, this is from the opinion section. It's not news. Most of the articles you are talking about are probably opinion pieces as well. I do think they should do more to differentiate between news and opinion pieces.
      • justin66 8y ago
        It says "Opinion" right at the top, not to mention in the URL.
  • godelmachine 8y ago
    I swear to God I am fed up seeing articles like these come out every month. The Truth is, employers will always want people with degrees. If you can start your own gig, without any degree, then it's up to you.
• GloopMayblood 8y ago
  College - like a lot of things in life you get out the value that you put in in terms of work.
• Karishma1234 8y ago
  What was your first clue ? Not all college is worth it, most of the degrees are pretty worthless and exist purely because of federal dole.
• meanmrmustard92 8y ago
  This massively misrepresents Tim Bartik's work on the topic. Bartik wrote a long thread here:Check out @TimBartik’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/TimBartik/status/996865804179263489?s=09 https://twitter.com/TimBartik/status/996865804179263489?s=09
  • sologoub 8y ago
    Reading the article I thought to myself that it’s a crappy piece that oversimplifies the complex landscape and tries to draw sensationalist conclusions... but after reading the Tweeter thread by the very scientist who’s work is cited, the article looks intentionally false and a retraction worthy. Instead of saying that college is not worth it, why don’t we do MORE to make it free? Even if people don’t end up using their knowledge fully, simply giving them the opportunity to have that knowledge may enrich their lives. There aren’t social downsides to free education (so long as it’s not censored).
    • stevenwoo 8y ago
      It's an opinion piece so based on what I've read in the NYT(or the WSJ, doesn't matter the ostensible political leanings of the paper in question) there will never be a retraction and the editorial board will double down on backing the editorial.
    • sigstoat 8y ago
      > Instead of saying that college is not worth it, why don’t we do MORE to make it free? you don't make things more cost effective by changing who pays for them. you just get more people taking advantage of the cost ineffective good.
      • sologoub 8y ago
        The article states nothing of the cost inefficiency, that is cost of producing the good or service. Instead, the article tries to claim that the price of education makes it a questionable investment, given the monetary returns. Higher education can and is being delivered at reasonable costs across much of the developed world, with many countries choosing to have taxpayers carry the burden of funding education. This common-pool resource approach (that is non-excludable, but still rivalrous) to education does not prevent private education that exists as a private good (that is both excludable and rivalrous), but it does ensure a baseline. As a society, we have decided that certain things should not be left to market forces, because either the outcomes are morally objectionable to the majority of the population (welfare for example), or we see a greater overall economic return on investment by doing it en mass (healthcare, education, etc). Healthcare is especially interesting - if we leave it completely to market, we will likely have return of pandemics that are currently being kept at by via vaccinations and mass treatment. If we allow an economic driver to avoid this care, the diseases we largely think of as extinct can return. Education can be thought of in the same view - if we provide everyone with a solid baseline, and support future growth regardless of economic background, it is likely that we will reduce the negative effects lack of education currently has on society. Removing the debts will also help and provide a huge social benefit, as well as spur additional economic activity.
• VikingCoder 8y ago
  I assert the expense of college is an awful burden to put on someone who must finance most of it through debt. It's a gamble. You can improve your odds of a happy outcome in that gamble by looking at the Student Loan Default Rate for any given major at any given college, and picking the best program for you (with the lowest default rate possible.) But if you are a child of parents who can finance your college? Absolutely. No question. This is essentially a way to enforce Aristocracy. I believe college should be free, and that colleges should limit their number of students in any given program to some sustainable number, where the graduates can actually earn a living. Not to pick on them, but do we really need this many Art History Majors? Veterinarian programs specific limit how many students they accept, because if they didn't, their graduates wouldn't be able to afford a living wage. Other majors need to catch on. And then what if you don't get accepted to a program? All I've got is Universal Basic Income. And progressive taxes to pay for it all. Any other thoughts? I welcome honest discussion, because I hope it will inform my views.
  • bluGill 8y ago
    If somebody is passionate about art history, then they should get a degree in art history regardless of job prospects. You are limiting their ability to get the education they want. Now I will agree that somebody getting an art history type degree shouldn't be taking loans to get it, they should be paying for it out of their pocket. However we should not limit somebody from pursuing their interests just because their interests are not valuable to society.
    • VikingCoder 8y ago
      Fair enough. And I'm just talking out of my ass about my own theories, here. I still welcome conversation to try to inform myself. Roughly, I think we should think in terms of Trade Schools and Liberal Arts programs. I'm a huge fan of Liberal Arts programs, but I don't think they should be a pre-requisite for a STEM career. They also shouldn't be a pre-requisite for many jobs that people have today. We should all be much more in favor of Mentoring. Maybe Corporations should receive tax benefits for being good Mentors.
• chasing 8y ago
  The issue isn't that college is pointless, it's that tuition is too high and wages too low. You should support politicians with a plan to counter this trend. Education is important. Raising the overall level of education in this country should be a much larger goal that it seems to be.
  • ericb 8y ago
    > Raising the overall level of education in this country should be a much larger goal that it seems to be. On one level, I totally agree. At the same time, well-meaning attempts to make college loans available to everyone for everything seem to have massively bloated the cost of education to a crippling degree. I think the key is in the how of the approach.
    • bluGill 8y ago
      That is the problem with politics: the unintended effects are always an issue. Of course everything else has this issue as well. The only difference is most of us start small, and if it works we expand. You can't do that easily for national programs.
      • stochastic_monk 8y ago
        Not in America, at least. Many European countries have government-paid, top-tier public education for free to the students.
        • bluGill 8y ago
          Yes, but they have their own unintended consequences. As an outsider I have no idea what, but I've been around long enough to know they exist. They might or might not be worth it.
      • facing_worlds 8y ago
        What makes you think its unintended? Someone profits from all the student loans issued.
• cryptoz 8y ago
  The article takes an exclusively financial look at 'worth it' and completely ignores both education and human connection as an aspect of going to college. I get that the author is writing about money and money alone, but the headline is deceptive. Additionally, I do understand that a lot of people go to college for the purposes of getting a job. But that's not all college is, and pretending that the only reason anyone values college is the salary level afterwords is missing the most interesting pieces of the discussion. Things like, -the arts are important for a society regardless of the financial profit from it (i.e., it would be 'worth it' to a society to not force each individual person to earn a living wage for their whole working life). -college as a mechanism for meeting people, making connections, and learning about the world. Yes, some college experiences can be closed-minded, but that is not the norm. -many other things. This author is so focused on money, they are missing the forest for the trees.
  • hockeybias 8y ago
    I am a software developer with a Fine Arts major from a small liberal arts college. I am immensely grateful for my liberal arts background. Without it, I think I would be going through life a bit blind.
  • and0 8y ago
    You don't need to rack up six figures of debt to make human connections or gain experiences. There are a number of ways to accomplish this without all the debt and in arguably more useful ways than memorizing things you'll never have a chance to use. Off the top of my head, I can imagine volunteer work or, better yet, New-Deal-style programs with actual financial incentive would offer the same ~magical experience~ of fraternity.
    • neuromantik8086 8y ago
      It doesn't make sense to go into debt, sure. But if you can get someone else to pay for college (i.e., a generous scholarship) it's well worth it, and the tuition costs pre-tuition spiral would definitely be worth it as well. It's difficult to think of a better way to cultivate personal relationships than college. Presumably you've chosen classes based off your own interests, so the people you meet within those classes are good candidates for friendship (via homophily). True, you could use subreddits to find folks with similar interests, but in my experience those don't lead to the same kinds of relationships you develop when you physically encounter other people. Building a state park a la the New Deal CCC doesn't really create the same sense of shared interest since no one's actually interested in the art of bricklaying for the most part, and volunteering has a lot of turnover (mostly due to folks using it as a resume item). If you're at a SLAC, the number of people you see is limited so there's less competition for attention when forming bonds and a lot of mere exposure effect. The value of college (at least at a SLAC) is arguably less about the classroom lessons and more about having a decent method for finding other people you can grow with.
• scottmcleod 8y ago
  Pssst for most careers it hasn't been worth it for 20 years
• SolaceQuantum 8y ago
  > What all this suggests is that the college-degree premium may really be a no-college-degree penalty. The most relevant conclusion here is that. However, I notice this article doesn’t explore the wealth of labor that only needs an associates or trade certification.
• ameister14 8y ago
  "The authors (of the study) don’t speculate as to why this is the case" ...but the author of the opinion piece will be happy to.
• baybal2 8y ago
  I think, they were late with that realisation for like 10 years.
• bkovacev 8y ago
  Nowadays, in my honest opinion, tuition cost in an institution is not proportional to the "amount" of knowledge that you are getting out of it, but is rather proportional to the statistical chance of you acquiring a life-changing connection that will help you succeed in life - whether that's a chance you start a startup or getting that "dream" job + a statistical chance you will get hired based off of the institution's "brand". I could be wrong, but my idea is that nowadays - schools are just brands, rather than an educational environments, but there are exceptions of course.
• projectramo 8y ago
  Thought experiment: would college be "worth it" if it were free? That is to say, would it be a valuable use of time and effort? I am sure there are people who can study hours of literature, philosophy, political science, math and physics on their own. I am sure they would write papers and find others to discuss them. For the rest of us there is only college. (You might ask: valuable to what end? Worth what? And that is a good question but the answer is much longer.)
  • zulln 8y ago
    > Thought experiment: would college be "worth it" if it were free? Just to add another perspective/angle on it, university is free to attend in many other countries (you even get paid to study, although not much). People still discuss whether it is worth it and I would agree the question is interesting, but just interesting to keep in mind.
  • lev99 8y ago
    General thoughts on the advantages of institutional learning. * Experts know the relevant information, and learning from them is the best way. Colleges provide access to experts. * A good lecture can be just as informative or more informative than a good book. * Lectures can include information from published journals that haven't made it to textbooks yet. There is too many published journals to know what is the most relevant/interesting in the field without being an expert, and lecturers can provide required background information to understand bleeding edge ideas often written in ways off-putting to novices. * Many people study harder if they know they will be tested on their knowledge. * Assignments provide feedback on your work. * Math is something best learned in groups for most of the population. * Social interactions with other dedicated students can be encouraging. * College provides many resources that help aid studying & research. From libraries to uranium centrifuges. I'm not sure college is the best use of four years for everyone, but I am sure that it does provide real value.
  • maxk42 8y ago
    > would college be "worth it" if it were free? I suspect the answer is "no" more frequently than you may expect. The opportunity cost is four years of your life, four fewer years of full-time work experience, and the income that comes with that work experience. When I was in high school all these recruiters came from various colleges to try and get us to sign up for their schools. I saw what almost none of my peers saw: They were salesmen trying to generate revenue for their business. They did not have my best interests in mind. They presented these lovely little marketing sheets describing how much money you'd make with a degree in X, Y, or Z. I realized then that I didn't know how much money was a lot or a little, but I had an idea the numbers would be rosy. So I started asking people I knew how much money they needed to live and how much they considered a lot. I began cold-calling people in various roles I was considering and asking if the numbers the college recruiters gave us were realistic for an entry-level worker with a degree and no experience. Big shock -- they weren't. In the end, I figured four more years of work experience would put me well ahead of my peers who went to college and it has. That was nearly two decades ago and I'm very well ahead of my peers now. There are some folks who just don't have the discipline to learn things on their own -- for them, maybe college is a good choice. There are others who need a degree by law to practice their chosen field of work. That makes sense for them too. But for the rest of us -- college may be considered harmful.
• jpm_sd 8y ago
  I think it's been clear for quite some time that "college for everyone" is not worth it, at all.
• nannePOPI 8y ago
  If they just had to rely on the free market, colleges would have closed a long time ago. They can't improve anymore because they don't get any signal they're doing a good job. If I'm doing a good job, I know because people will pay me or I win (cold)battles in war. Instead in these peaceful times, colleges don't have a way of knowing for sure they're doing good, except with self-congratulations and educational theories. At the same time, I think if it wasn't for State licenses, regulations that force to have a degree and a culture that discriminate against people without a state-supported college degree, we would see no advantages for the college degree holder, at least with current colleges.
• Grovara123 8y ago
  Clearly the author never went to the University of Miami.
• Rotdhizon 8y ago
  This is a nothing article, the fact that it completely leaves out what degrees are being obtained invalidates it to me. It says that a college graduate makes only ~$3,000 more a year on average than a high school graduate? With how hard they are dissing degrees, I assume they are talking about some worthless degree like liberal arts. "Why do employers demand a degree for jobs that don’t require them?" > This is a common practice. Speaking from tech industry experience, you'd be hard pressed to find a single job opening that didn't have a degree requirement listed. The kicker? It's not actually a requirement, it's there for formality. " Technology increased the demand for educated workers, but that demand has been consistently outpaced by the number of people — urged on by everyone from teachers to presidents — prepared to meet it." > If this is referencing the tech industry, then this is an outright false claim. Tech industry job openings to skilled applications is something like 2:1, if not 3:1 right now. Since he just said technology in general, it might not be referencing the tech industry. Talking about the job market in general, I don't have any insight into that. "The authors don’t speculate as to why this is the case, but it seems that students from poor backgrounds have less access to very high-income jobs in technology, finance and other fields. Class and race surely play a role." > Absolutely false. Race might play a small role depending on the state and environment, but class sure doesn't. No respectable tech employer cares about your financial upbringing, it's about what you have to bring to the table right then and there. It really all comes down to how you play your cards. If you have the chance to attend college(which not everyone has the chance to do), you have to go with what will open the most doors. You can't expect to spend 2 years getting something like a liberal arts degree and expect to be making 6 figures. You have to research, you have to understand what skills are in demand. I will say that I am biased when writing this. As someone who grew up extremely poor and found opportunity through a tech degree in a local college, I very well have a world of opportunities now because of it. So it is infuriating that the author dares to consider the idea of even community college not being worth it, when it very well is one of the very few doors that leads to bigger and better things for low income people.
  • IkmoIkmo 8y ago
    > It's not actually a requirement, it's there for formality. This simply isn't true a lot of the time. It is sometimes, but there are plenty of jobs that require highschool level skills but will filter out those who don't have a degree just because they can. It's not that big a deal if you select one candidate over the other because the former has done a 2 week internship that made no difference in the qualifications, but did signal some small extra thing that gave the candidate the edge. It's not okay if a diploma gives a candidate the edge structurally, despite being useless for the required job skills, and costs $40k for the individual to get. That's an insane price we expect people to pay just to compete for a job. > No respectable tech employer cares It's not just that. It's the fact the vast majority of jobs are obtained through your network. Class and race are just proxies for the probability that a person has a weak network within a high-socioeconomic-class industry like tech or finance. It's not necessarily a claim of blatant classism or racism by the employer, but rather that your mom not knowing an uncle with a position for you, or dad not showing you you need to do this internship and that volunteer project and apply to that program to get recruited, or growing up with friends who became plumbers and whose parents were plumbers too, is not as conducive to landing a job as others with similar intelligence/credentials but a different class background/upbringing/network is. That having been said, I agree with your other points. These articles get a bit tiresome. As always the answer is, it depends. College can be worth it, but not for everyone and not by doing anything. It sort of amazes me sometimes to speak to people who just never ran any of the numbers. It should be mandatory for student loan applications to be data-driven. i.e. any college in a state should be able to go to the state educational board and obtain annual data for every accredited program or at least workfield, and use that for the loan programs. So for example, the state could track the average salary at 1, 5 and 10 years for an Art History major. Plug that into a loan calculator. Then plug in the loan payments. And then offer a comparative view, compared to not going to college, community college and other majors in college. And then a student has to read through all of that and make a conscious decision that yes, I'm going to borrow $50k, have an estimated payback time of 45 years old and earn no more than minimum wage and be expected to have a >50% chance of not being employed as an art historian in the first place. I'm seeing this kind of data take off a little bit, but it's still pretty poor and some universities skew the numbers. Government should do more to standardise these things and mandate universities and students use them.
• andrewvc 8y ago
  College is probably a great thing for some people, but it's been oversold. It's not the destination, it's just one way of getting there. One reason why it's so easy to sell, is that college is a near universal experience for the middle and upper classes, and being an expensive experience, people credit it with much of the personal growth that happens in one's early 20s. They also credit it with making them good at their field. "I really learned how to think in college" "I really learned how to be apply myself in college" "I really learned computer science in college, which wouldn't have happened if I went via some other path. etc. It's far too painful for most people to think "I could have been an equally skilled person if I'd spent that time doing something else". I come from a long line of people who've succeeded without going to college. When I tell people I've known for a while that I dropped out of a community college they usually seem stunned and surprised that someone could actually have a reasonably intelligent conversation with them (and be a decent engineer) without that history. My experience is that you can read books on the humanities, and CS, and get work done AND not kill yourself in the process. Maybe the road is a little longer in some ways, but you also come out of it without debt, and you get the benefit of having a very different set of formative experiences than your peers.
  • Rapzid 8y ago
    Haha, that's my experience too. I keep it to myself a bit better these days. Somebody asked me at my last role if I had my masters in comp science; "Hmm, not yet! I've been thinking about it though..." Sometimes when coworkers find out there is a remark like "Oh wow, I never realized that." Imagine after somebody had brought up their alma mater and I remarked "Oh wow, I never would have realized you went to college.."
    • cookiecaper 8y ago
      I dropped out of high school to take a web dev job at a local firm. If we're being honest, I've always had a little weakly-repressed pride over the fact. When people ask me about education, beyond just stating that I haven't gone to college, I usually mention that I dropped out of high school. Recently, a friend suggested that I avoid mentioning this to prevent stigmatization. I realize now there are probably a bunch of people who think badly of me for it, much to my bemusement. Until my friend mentioned it, it hadn't crossed my mind that anyone would interpret that as "this slob couldn't even finish high school".
• daemonk 8y ago
  If we put aside the financial concerns, which admittedly is a significant factor, what you get out of college is what you want to put into it. If you see it as just a hoop to jump through, then perhaps it's not worth it.
• deleted 8y ago
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• devdimi 8y ago
  Big surprise: people born rich will have more money no matter if they have college degree or not. What the article doesn't say is that all other things being equal it is still worth it to have college education. I don't think that the right way to motivate poor people is to tell them that even with degree they might be worse off than the rich. Having a degree will be better for them than not having it. Learning always pays off - be it in college or not.
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• andrewvc 8y ago
  A lot of these problems would go away if we made student loan debt dischargeable in bankruptcy. We've created a system that reaps huge profits in encouraging people to go to school, regardless if that's the right place for them. If there's no counterweight to that profit motive, things will not change.
• vinceguidry 8y ago
  Every modern society needs it's signaling mechanic, otherwise it becomes virtually impossible for people to want to take risks, eliminating all ladder access for the underprivileged. Signals only work if they're hard to fake. The expense of a college degree in both time and dollars perversely increases its utility as a signal. Of course, the price of a degree can only go so high before before people are unwilling to pay it. But the natural tendency will not be for the price to come back down, but rather for new, more accessible educational options to show up with lower signaling values. It already happened before with the difference between ivy league schools vs the rest and public vs. private. Society will get even more stratified, with ever finer class distinctions becoming an indelible part of your pedigree. Technology will make it ever easier to buck the trend and become entrepreneurial, but even that will slowly get folded into the system. We see this with how craft brewing ended up getting rolled into the existing system, preserving the lion's share of the profits for the big bottlers. Ever-decreasing social mobility is the price we pay for advancement.
  • facing_worlds 8y ago
    Instead of cost being the authenticator of the signal academic performance \ intelligence could be like it is in some european countries wherw college is low cost but admitance is based on high school performance.
    • ed312 8y ago
      Secondary education performance is often a function of time/money invested as well.
    • vinceguidry 8y ago
      I like that option, but barring an order of magnitude more public investment in higher education, I can't see it happening. We're stuck with the school system we have, it seems.
  • soVeryTired 8y ago
    Spoken like a true armchair economist.
• somerando 8y ago
  Outside of work, I know a number of folks with degrees from Stanford, Berkeley, Santa Clara. These folks are not in tech. They love to bust on San Jose State University like its the worst thing ever. At work, in tech, I know a number of folks with degrees from San Jose State University. They are hard working and successful millionaires. The folks in the first group would LITERALLY DIE if their kids went to San Jose State University. It makes me sad/angry for them that they feel there is NO OPTION other than to get their kids into Stanford/Berkeley/Santa Clara at all costs.
  • hirundo 8y ago
    I got a teaching credential from San Jose State. The piece of paper helped me get a demeaning job in the indoctrination industry. Other than that the education was almost completely worthless. Except perhaps from the character building of enduring endless drivel, and I didn't need to go to college for that. Turns out the job wasn't worth the effort, and since then I've had a decent career doing things that I learned independently. College was close to free for me. At that price it was still way too expensive. I doubt that is the case for the best students at the best schools. But for the rest of us, I advise being highly skeptical of the value of a modern college education. Especially of the education department at SJSU.
• whataretensors 8y ago
  School is a waste of time and resources for the talented these days. You can learn anything you want online by the best people. It's becoming training for state-run communism. No choice, only negative reward signals, march at the same speed as the average. Of course if we tell people the truth - your outcome can essentially be predicted by measuring IQ, which stabilizes around age 7. SAT score is essentially a makeshift game-able IQ test, like our interview processes. The whole system is based on falsities. You can't make people smarter. You can only confuse and unforgivably indebt them. Like several of my friends who 'failed out' of engineering. It's so incredibly damaging and places debt and blame on the individual, even 10 years later some of my close friends have not recovered financially or emotionally. It's like if your best friend focused on playing professional basketball, encouraged by peers and parents, and nobody bothered to mention to him that he's 5'1".
  • mkirklions 8y ago
    Failed out of engineering= they didnt care I agree that most education should be learned on the job, but college is a filter to keep the lazy out of jobs that require the dedicated. Engineering was insane because they wanted people that would drop what they are doing to go to mexico with 7 hours notice. The dude that dropped out of engineering school is planning on fishing this weekend, hes not going anywhere his boss asks.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    • whataretensors 8y ago
      > Failed out of engineering= they didnt care I don't even know how to respond to this... my friends didn't fail out from a lack of effort. You also don't know this but all of my old friends are Mexican - so you are implicitly saying the reason they didn't succeed is because they are lazy Mexicans. I don't think you intended to take this stance. You likely got tricked with everyone else into believing in social constructionist view that colleges push, everyone is the same unless you can see the differences. Of course they push this because it removes all liability from them for vetting students, and it places blame on failure to the students. Also I did graduate college and found only the math and advanced CS classes useful(3rd year +). Source, to show that these patterns are more than anecdotal: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_coj.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_coj.asp
• jpeg_hero 8y ago
  How do you know you live in an SF bubble? > A third of Americans aged 25-29 have a bachelors degree I know one persons without a degree. > earn only a bit more than do people with only a high school education: $38,376 a year versus $35,256 At my company an annual raise of less than $25k is seen as an insult.
  • overcast 8y ago
    Sorry what? At minimum your company gives $25,000 pay increases, per year? What's the starting salary, a $1,000,000? Can I apply for the janitors position? I'll clean the toilets for a guaranteed additional $25,000+ every year.
  • jcranmer 8y ago
    > At my company an annual raise of less than $25k is seen as an insult. Did you drop a decimal point? A 5% raise would need a salary of $500,000 to hit $25k.
    • TheCoelacanth 8y ago
      Companies that want to have high retention of employees in hot job markets will give raises of much higher than 5%.
• jaequery 8y ago
  I agree college education seems to be getting less and less important. Especially for computer related fields. But on the contrary, how would it look like if a generation of kids were taught to believe college is useless?
• jacquesm 8y ago
  There are two ways to interpret that, one way is 'let's not go to college' but the better way to interpret it is 'let's make going to college cheaper (or even free)'.
  • tropo 8y ago
    Colleges are not interested in that. Accreditation won't allow the required changes. Of course, accreditation is controlled by the existing members of the club; colleges don't want accreditation to allow radical change. Aside from that political difficulty, cutting the cost of a degree in half is trivial: get rid of the non-major classes. I suppose this applies even to non-STEM majors; there is little justification for making an English major take a class on differential equations.
• draw_down 8y ago
  They jacked up the price and a lot of grads can't get jobs anymore. So, yeah, maybe.
• toomanybeersies 8y ago
  Ignoring financial reasons, I think that university is absolutely worth it. It's 3 or 4 years of your life where you've (often) just left home, it's the first time in your life that you're actually free to do what you want. It's an incredible place to learn about yourself and grow, where the consequences of fucking up usually aren't as severe.
  • madengr 8y ago
    I dunno, I would consider flunking courses, with that high tuition, to be severe.
  • jeffreyrogers 8y ago
    Only if you're smart. Only about half of college students graduate and an even smaller percentage graduate on time.
  • chillacy 8y ago
    > where the consequences of fucking up usually aren't as severe. Helps to go to a private school, with the grade inflation, advisors who work their magic to keep you from falling off the wagon, generous academic probation, etc.
• ihsw2 8y ago
  Intelligent people otherwise wouldn't be qualified (read: get past the HR drones and other keyword filtering algorithms) without that given piece of paper. Yes, people that receive bachelor's degrees may be highly effective and talented regardless of having such a degree, but there are few (if any other) means of attracting gainful employment to fully utilize such talents. College may not reduce inequality via increasing the education level of a given population but it does reduce inequality via providing a mechanism for individuals to signal prospective employers, "here I am." This mechanism, however, is exceedingly expensive but still probably worth it. Enterprising individuals may however be inclined to "catfish" and outright lie about their education history, as evidenced the other day by the article about one such employer encountering a catfish.
• adamnemecek 8y ago
  America needs apprenticeships. E.g. in Czech Republic you can attend these vocational schools instead of high schools and there's less of a stigma to attending them. There are schools for programmers, nurses, car mechanics. Particularly the programmer ones let you do learn idk, basic networking, 3d programming and some basic entrepreneurship (accounting etc). I believe it's one of the reasons it has the lowest unemployment rates in EU https://qz.com/index/1046172/this-country-has-the-lowest-unemployment-rate-in-the-eu/ https://qz.com/index/1046172/this-country-has-the-lowest-une...
  • lamchob 8y ago
    Czech Rep. Is not the only country with this system, Germany has it as well. In Germany we have the problem that a lot of parents want their kids to go to college and dont do the apprenticeship programs. In recent decades there has been a major shift in school attendance. Today, the majority of pupils attend the A-Levels school, preparing for college. Some decades ago, most pupils were attending the shorter school programs preparing for apprenticeships. The result are full universities, with huge wave in Buiseness related fields. And on the other hand the traditional trades like carpenters or electrcians can't find new apprentices. Those who learned a trade now make tons of money due to the sheer lack of qualified tradeworkers.
  • titanix2 8y ago
    In CR, like most of Europe, you also have free or almost free higher education. So, attending college is more a question of meeting the intellectual requirement and choosing the right domain than paying for it.
• mythrwy 8y ago
  College is usually worth it but needs a reboot for this to really be true now. Useless and wasteful bureaucracy is responsible for much of the increased expense. Why should students be saddled with years (or decades) of debt to pay for pension seeking, position protecting goof offs to waste time and resources? That makes no sense at all. Plus the "education" seems to have deviated somewhat into political indoctrination to the point some students come out confusing the two. That doesn't help. So ya, if colleges would get back to the basics of a sane mandate and operate efficiently it would be fantastic. "Free" college doesn't help because on the current trajectory, the parasitism will expand to slurp up an infinite amount of provided resources, and indoctrination will continue to grow at the expense of education. I'm not a fan of bootcamps in general, but something along those lines, a group of people fed up with the nonsense and starting over seems could possibly produce credentials that actually had worth other than being a (largely social) signal. And presumably outside the current system these would have to be affordable.
• pg_bot 8y ago
  I'm guessing there is a lot of money to be made using moneyball techniques to hire people. There are likely many candidates out there that would excel at professions, but don't have the ability to signal it to employers.
• bob_theslob646 8y ago
  It's simple, try and get the best education you can for as cheap as possible. I have not read the article, so forgive me if they state it there, but a large contributor to the problem of "must go to college" are employers. It's amazing to me that software is the only industry that accepts people for what they can do and have done whereas other industries require explicit requirements. Yes, training can be expensive, but kids learn so much faster when they care.
  • zamalek 8y ago
    This is because software development is one of the few industries where you can learn the craft without putting lives at risk. For example, there is a huge step from playing with Lego to building a load (and life) bearing bridge. For some industries, self directed learning is completely inaccessible. Medicine is a good example (you also really wouldn't want to hire based in practical tests for that one, too).
    • chillacy 8y ago
      What about the folks who write flight control software? I'm not aware of those jobs requiring applicants to pass the PE exam (there is one for software but it's the least popular): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_and_Practice_of_Engineering_Examination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_and_Practice_of_Eng... Whereas the CivEs overwhelmingly need this certification
• macinjosh 8y ago
  News flash, it hasn't been worth it for at least 15 years. That is when I graduated high-school. I toured some colleges, submitted my FASFA, and ran the numbers. My family was lower middle class. My grades were above average but not top of my class. I had two options: take out loans for college and go into immense debt at age 18 or learn a marketable skill and go to work. I was already self-learning how to code during high school. I decided to avoid the debt and get to work. Best decision I've ever made. It wasn't always easy but being debt free except for a mortgage that fits my income has provided for a very comfortable life. If you want to do something with your life that actually requires a college degree, go for it, otherwise learn a trade and live your life without unreasonable debt. During high school every adult in my life told me that I could never make a decent living without a college degree. They were wrong.
  • rootusrootus 8y ago
    They may have been wrong in your case, but unless something has changed very recently the numbers still tilt in favor of better long-term results on average for people with college degrees. I know plenty of successful people without degrees but at a macro scale it's not good advice.
• sandworm101 8y ago
  >> It shouldn’t here, either: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fewer than 20 percent of American jobs actually require a bachelor’s degree. Ya ... well ... try applying for a job without one. In many fields university education is expected. You can get in on the ground floor as a uneducated kid and rise through the ranks of an organization but you will be locked in. Any job applicant over 30 is expected to either have one or at least have a good excuse for not finishing their degree.
• enitihas 8y ago
  The one advantage college will always have is that it is very difficult otherwise to bring a high number of intelligent people for 3-4 years at the same time and allow them to think freely. This will be difficult to replicate.
• motohagiography 8y ago
  Question should be re-framed as, of what is an undergrad degree a "costly and honest signal"?
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• uptownfunk 8y ago
  I think good colleges are worth it, but mediocre/poor colleges aren’t. Good colleges are where you have high caliber instructors, a qualty network, a good reputation, and good counseling/support system.. ie things that will help you professionally. I’d amso factor in location/climate but not something I’d pay for explicitly
• Matticus_Rex 8y ago
  We have decent data on this, and college is still worth it (for the individual) for all above-average students. Its social returns (which is some of what she's getting at without the vocabulary for it) are near-zero or negative, however, despite the many tropes about "an educated society" to the contrary. For a much, much deeper discussion of this issue and the factors involved, read The Case Against Education by Bryan Caplan (https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/dp/0691174652 https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/d...). It's one of the more careful social science books I've ever read, and while it comes to controversial conclusions, even if you disagree with them you'll learn a lot about the issues by reading it.
• jknoepfler 8y ago
  Half-assing anything usually isn't worth it. Given that most Americans half-ass their educations, why would we expect doubling down on half-assery to pay dividends? If working hard towards a degree at a decent school stopped paying dividends, that might be news.
  • ikeyany 8y ago
    > Half-assing anything usually isn't worth it. The people who bullshit their way into high paying jobs beg to differ.
• SirDickinson 8y ago
  College is not worth any more or less than before or after. If you can afford the college and if you want to go to college, college is a great experience. And for another thing, it's a great place for experiencing "pre"-job world. Out of your hometown, there are really various kinds of people from every part of the place. And college is a great place for meeting those people. Associating with young, ambitious, hard-working people was a really refreshing experience for me. And think about the democracy and the principle of it. There's some amount of truth that more people can think better results. (spare me from the everlasting discussion of populism and totalitarianism) I don't think I learned that much from professors since I didn't go to college that much.. :P But rather, I learned from my peers. And I even learned how to learn from professors from my peers. Another point: at that age span (of 19 - 23 and upwards), young folks are easy to make mistakes and fall for victims of bad things, be overly confident of their future. Being in a college prevents those unfortunate events from happening to some extent. And another point: Being young and curious, sometimes you might need to dig deep into your curiosity and study about everything - being in a college means you have lots of free time. So you are in this ivory tower for limited period of time, it's up to you how to use that free (& paid by your parents or you, which means it's not that free at all) time. And since you're still "student", you're immune to many responsibilities also. It's somehow an opportunity for you. These were the benefits of college in my opinion. Of course, there are lots of cons of college - being too expensive, only delays your chance to be in the real adult world, college has become a school for job market decades ago so why bother, etc. I think it's one's choice to how to look at this double-edged sword & opportunity that comes once in your lifetime.
• ggg9990 8y ago
  These articles always land all over the place because the reality is that “college” is a pretty wide term covering everything from a CS degree at MIT (worth millions) to a communications degree from Beaver College (probably not worth much at all).
• Blackstone4 8y ago
  If I was facing the decision to go to US college, I would be considering alternatives vs. paying full price at an Ivy League school. Just think what you could do on a fraction of the cost. - Travel the world - Take online programming courses i.e. Golang on Udemy - Use some of the capital to start a small online business I would then look into taking a software apprenticeship.
  • throwawayjava 8y ago
    > vs. paying full price at an Ivy League school. Just think what you could do on a fraction of the cost. Or the most obvious and common choice: - go to literally any other college. Also, of your alternatives, only one makes a lick of sense. Both > Travel the world and > Use some of the capital to start a small online business are 1) not actually options for anyone who has to take out loans for college, and 2) FAR more financially risky than the college route. (2) is the most important point. Is college a great option? Often, no. However, are the plentiful better options? Often, no. (And the ones that do exist don't scale... not everyone can be a plumber.)
• msluyter 8y ago
  Brian Caplan's recent book, "The Case Against Education," is relevant here. His basic premise is that college is mostly signaling game that represents a net burden on society. (Ie, the time/resources collectively spent jumping through hoops to get degrees could be put to better use.)
  • millermp12 8y ago
    Also Robin Hanson's elephant in the brain
• jawns 8y ago
  I see a common thread in many of these comments. It's a recognition that college just happens to be where bright and ambitious young people tend to go after high school. And yes, there's value in the education itself -- but one of the big and lasting benefits is the network of other bright and ambitious young people you meet and form friendships with. I know that was true of my own college experience. So here's a thought. Back before the Internet, it was hard for people with similar interests or goals to connect with each other and organize themselves, and so they used this "going to college" experience to help them meet other similarly bright and ambitious people. But now that we have the Internet, could it be possible to crowdsource that kind of experience without needing to buy into the institutional college experience? Like, "Let's get together 50 to 100 other like-minded people, all move into the same area, and meet regularly at the library or the coffee shop or whatnot and help each other improve our skills."
• embulldogs99 8y ago
  Her arguement is basically: If you are going to suck at school, dont go. Then she tries to use that to rationalize NOT going to school. How about all the people school has helped?
• ChuckMcM 8y ago
  The New York Times may not be worth it anymore :-) It annoys me how they conflate focused learning and investment returns. If they said "Cars may not be worth is anymore" because the best cars are beyond the reach of most people to afford and those people would be better off riding the bus. College is like this in other ways as well, when you don't have a car you are constrained to the jobs you can get that you can ride a bike to or take public transit to. When you don't have that third party accreditation of study in a subject you are constrained to jobs where companies are willing to train you through it. That is great if you didn't want to pay for college, it sucks if they only train you on their stuff, once again limiting your mobility. College is an option generator. Just like a car is an option generator. More places you can choose to go from where you are. The more options you have, the higher the likelyhood that a good fit between you, your interests, and your life goals will be found.
  • rossdavidh 8y ago
    I think it _can_ be an option generator. However, for some colleges and especially some majors, it ISN'T. That is something which many kids don't know, especially first generation college students who don't have parents who went there first and know the unspoken rules regarding this. About 1/3 of the majors are NOT "option generators", and putting them in the same basket (esp. as regards if it's worth taking on debt to get it) is an error. One that an ethical society would do more to steer very young adults away from, or at least inform them of the difference between those two types of majors.
    • ChuckMcM 8y ago
      I completely agree with this, college for college sake is not responsible, college to get better at an area of knowledge that the economy is funding, is a win-win. (graduate gets a job, economy gets another productive worker). At the local high school where kids are going to college as the first in their family, there is a discussion about degrees and employability. The local community college runs a 2 year machining and manufacturing program that, when I used it to develop a better understanding of CNC machining, generally saw all of their graduates who were looking for work get hired.
• snikeris 8y ago
  > College graduates born poor earned on average only slightly more than did high school graduates born middle class. And over time, even this small “degree bonus” ebbed away, at least for men: By middle age, male college graduates raised in poverty were earning less than nondegree holders born into the middle class. The scholars conclude, “Individuals from poorer backgrounds may be encountering a glass ceiling that even a bachelor’s degree does not break.” > The authors don’t speculate as to why this is the case, but it seems that students from poor backgrounds have less access to very high-income jobs in technology, finance and other fields. Perhaps people born poor demand less money for their labor because if they're making more than their parents ever did they're more content with their current level of pay.
• CoffeeDregs 8y ago
  This article lacks any nuance. College will always be worth it if you have some combination of ambition, capability and intelligence necessary to couple to an industry (or industries) of interest. College was never worth it if you lacked that. The big change that seems to happening is that a general purpose college education is less and less valuable in the market. This is a result of consolidation and specialization. Years ago, a general purpose degree could land you on the management track at the headquarters of the regional department store; now you need a specialized degree to even interest the recruiter at GlobX in Seattle/SFC/NYC. The exception of course is: experience. "In God we trust; all others bring data" => "In reputable college degrees we trust; all others bring demonstrable experience". Demonstrable experience for a developer is easy: github.com. It's also easy for lots of other specialties. A degree provides a claim of capability that varies with the degree provider. Putting [particle simulation code] on github.com (or whichever specialized site) provides a demonstration of capability without regard to degree. Some employers will require a specialized capability that only a degree can provide (think GAAP accounting, which is insane/brilliant); some will search for the capability itself. It's a shifting continuum and a discussion between you and your kids; to say it's yes/no is to put on blinders in order to ignore a changing world.
• optimalKEK 8y ago
  I have a masters degree in Computer science and it really helps me every day as a Wordpress Administrator.
• nimbius 8y ago
  speaking as a lead auto mechanic for a chain of shops, please for the love of god quit sending everyone to college. You're making it impossible to find anyone whos worked outside a starbucks. It takes on average nearly a year for us to do any meaningful hiring. We dont drug test, we dont do a background check in most cases, and we certainly dont care about credit scores. If we did, we wouldnt hire anyone at all. we just watch your work for the first 2-3 months to make sure you're not full of snake oil. we care about your experience, but we're more than willing to teach. Two of my junior shop techs are changing oil and aligning tires, but before this one of them had a masters in Biology and the other had an anthropology degree. As someone who has always had a tool in hand I cant conceive of whats gone wrong in the college sphere but it terrifies me to think of what drove a woman who once worked on genetics to come work for me. And for those of you out of college and out of work, please take a look at using your hands. You wouldnt believe how many trades pay close to six figures that are incredibly understaffed. Plumbers, ironworkers, mechanics, maintenance techs, you name it. in most cases a lot of these jobs will pay you to learn the trade. You might not get a cozy office chair, but at the end of the day how many people can say they helped helped build a bridge or fix someones flight home on the week of a big holiday?
  • jjuhl 8y ago
    That's the best comment I've read in this thread so far. Great attitude! Wish there were more employers like you.
  • throwawayjava 8y ago
    Checking in from an old auto town. Our region is exactly the opposite of yours. We are saturated with jobless gear-heads but there's HUGE demand in healthcare. Shop techs around here make ~$10-15/hr, aren't guaranteed 40, no benefits, never get overtime, and there's no upward mobility unless you start your own shop (which for almost everyone requires taking out a big loan, and most attempts flop). Finding work is easy, but you can do MUCH better in the service industry or in healthcare. Hell, I have a relative who breeds dogs because it pays better than the auto work he can find after his last attempt at opening his own shop failed. But the hospitals are starving! With a Bio grad degree, the hospitals would pay you to get into nursing. From there, with the degree, it's easy to get into a PA program. And there's insatiable demand for PAs. > You wouldnt believe how many trades pay close to six figures that are incredibly understaffed My general observation, at least in our region, is that six figures are a high water mark, not an average. Six figures for the last ten years is A LOT different from six figures for all thirty years. And even the last 10 years is wishful thinking. But again, the recently closed factory might've put a huge downward pressure on salaries throughout the trades in our region. I think that "trades are the answer" is just as stupid as "college is the answer". Inserting "community" into "just go to college" doesn't change the fundamental problem with the advice, which is that it's suggesting a global heuristic for a problem that has varying solutions from region to region and especially from person to person. It's not about "trades vs. white collar". It's all about knowing the (regional) labor market.
• khana 8y ago
  Precisely. Can you say YouTube?
• jjuhl 8y ago
  I'm almost entirely self taught. Started learning programming on my own on an Amiga 500 when I was 13. Dropped out of high-school since that way of learning did not appeal to me. Never had a lack of job offerings and I now earn the same (or more) than my CS and engineering graduate co-workers. A degree is not what matters, being able to learn and do the job is the important thing. How you gained your knowledge should be irrelevant as long as you do truly have it.
• badrabbit 8y ago
  Like any commodity,it's worth what people are willing to pay for it. If your plan is to start a restaurant chain and get rich then a degree would not be profitable. But if your plan is to make a mediocre salary as an office worker then you need a college degree to make any kind of long term profit. Not everyone should get a degree just like not everyone should buy a house,get married and have kids. It depends on who you are,your enviornment and priorities.
• jsat 8y ago
  Go to cheap state school and work reasonably diligently. Worth it every time. Private school isn't worth it unless someone other than you (rich parents or scholarship) is paying. I got a full tuition scholarship at state school, and I'm reaping huge benefits now.
• QuotedForTruth 8y ago
  The statistics in this opinion piece are cherry picked to hell. "People who have dropped out of college — about 40 percent of all who attend — earn only a bit more than do people with only a high school education: $38,376 a year versus $35,256." A small difference between college drop out salary vs high school diploma salary only says that the key is to actually get a degree. half of a degree is worth much less than half of what a full degree is worth. That doesn't say anything about how much a degree is worth really. "They found that for Americans born into middle-class families, a college degree does appear to be a wise investment. Those in this group who received one earned 162 percent more over their careers than those who didn’t." Ok great but then they go on: "But for those born into poverty, the results were far less impressive. College graduates born poor earned on average only slightly more than did high school graduates born middle class." Now they are comparing poor college grads to middle class high school grads. Why not compare to poor high school grads. Poor people may have the choice to go to college or not, but they certainly don't have a choice to be born into the middle class. "25 percent of college graduates now earn no more than does the average high school graduate." So the bottom quarter of the college grad distribution is lower than the top half of the highschool distribution. This shows the overlap, but again isn't comparing apples to apples. Whats the difference in median incomes? "Nearly 30 percent of Americans without a high school diploma live in poverty, compared to 5 percent with a college degree, and we infer that this comes from a lack of education. But in 28 other wealthy developed countries, a lack of a high school diploma increases the probability of poverty by less than 5 percent" For americans they compare poverty rates for highschool grads and college grads. Then for the 28 other countries they compare highschool grads to non highschool grads. The only stat that actually speaks to the worth of a college degree is that those born into the middle class earn 62% more income if they have a college degree. The rest of the statistics are so inappropriately misrepresented that it seems the author is intentionally being dishonest and the NYT shouldn't publish it, opinion or not.
  • joncrane 8y ago
    Well put.
  • Andre_Wanglin 8y ago
    >A small difference between college drop out salary vs high school diploma salary only says that the key is to actually get a degree. half of a degree is worth much less than half of what a full degree is worth. That doesn't say anything about how much a degree is worth really. But the debt remains whether you attain a degree or not. For marginal students, this is useful information as it should give them even greater pause before matriculation.
• Phillips126 8y ago
  My college experience was rather disappointing. As someone pressured into going to College (Mom was a school teacher), I gave in and attended a 4 year SUNY University (Oneonta, New York). I knew college wasn't cheap so through high school I worked at a local grocery store making $5.20/hr. (minimum wage) to earn as much as I could, which ended up being around $8,000. Our household income was decent (~$130,000) but my parents made it very clear that all loans will be my responsibility to pay back, I would be getting no assistance from them. Perhaps they felt that I'd be more likely to graduate given the risk. I've always had a strong interest in computer art (3d modeling / animation, video games, special effects) and SUNY Oneonta was one of the few schools at the time that offered a program in that field (without leaving New York). In my free time through high school I would dabble in Photoshop, 3DS Max, Maya, etc. I wouldn't say that I ever became exceptionally good, but my interests continued to grow. I was genuinely excited for college. The first thing I learned was wow, college is way more expensive than I imagined! Students were required to live on campus, pay for the maximum meal plan, unable to have a car for the first two years (relied heavily on public transportation), cost of books, cost of art/class supplies, cost of food / grocery items. With a full course load, finding the time to work a part time job felt impossible. I spent most of my free time on school work and staying up very late some nights working on large art assignments - painting, drawing, mixed media, ceramics and so on. The first two years of college were mostly "core" classes, meaning I wasn't able to take classes pertaining to my major (computer art) until I've completed them. It was high school all over again, almost identical classes. Finally, 2 years down, 2 to go and I was excited to finally take some computer art courses. I quickly signed up for 3d modeling, animation, web design, anything I could get my hands on. Almost immediately, I was disappointed. The courses being taught were below my current knowledge level (even advanced courses). For example, the web design courses were still entirely using tables for layout with Photoshop "slices" when the rest of the world was primarily using divs/css. Everything was very outdated brief overviews of the basics. I couldn't believe that such basic courses would result in me obtaining a major in this field? It also made me feel inadequate when preparing to find a job after school. It was about this time that I took on an internship at a local web design/development company (of about 5 people). My interests quickly changed from Computer Art to Web Development. I really enjoyed building websites, working with customers and trying new things. After my internship ended I was hired by this company for $15/hr, which sounded really great out of school. Not long after, the management eventually began struggling with finances and I left that company, taking a graphic designer position to keep money in my account. College ended and my total debt was ~$77,000, ouch... Six months pass since graduating and my student loans are now coming in, ~$1,200 a month was my starting payment. I was making $14.86/hr. and life was really hard. I did everything I could do to reduce my payments which eventually dropped to ~$700 / month, but with rent, vehicle expenses, health insurance, food, etc, I was missing payments and defaulted on one of my loans. My credit was destroyed, I was living check to check (barely)... I resented college. Today, I am in my early 30's working as a Software Developer. My credit is slowly repairing (just bought a house last year!) and I am making triple my old salary. I wish that I had more time in college to truly learn what I wanted to do and explore a bit more instead of taking the "core" classes the first two years re-learning "western civilization" and "earth science". If I could go back in time I'd get a proper Computer Science degree, instead of being a Software Developer with a Bachelors of Arts. I know the position I have now would not have been offered to me if I didn't have a college degree (CEO is very fond of college graduates), but it certainly came at a cost... I have two young kids now and I often wonder, will I also recommend they go to college?
• amitmathew 8y ago
  This is a very poor article. College is, on average, worth it [1]. What the article tries to articulate is that we're not seeing a comparable return on investment for students from lower-income families. This is tied to worse graduation rates. As one example, community college students graduate at abysmal rates [2]. This is actually no big secret to schools. There is a big focus on trying to improve retention rates. What might be interesting to the HN crowd is that there are many startups trying to improve the situation in different ways, like using analytics to identify at-risk students earlier [3] or getting students engaged in campus events [4]. It's a tough problem, but colleges are incentivized to fix it - higher retention leads to collecting more tuition. [1] https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/collegepayoff-complete.pdf https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/colleg... [2] https://nscresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/SignatureReport13.pdf https://nscresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/SignatureRe... [3] https://www.civitaslearning.com/ https://www.civitaslearning.com/ [4] https://www.oohlalamobile.com/ https://www.oohlalamobile.com/
  • seem_2211 8y ago
    College is completely worth it^, in that it opens a ton of opportunities that tend to be closed without it. College is more about social signaling and entering into the professional class than it is about learning and scholarship etc. I'm not a fan of community colleges, in that they substantially increase your likelihood of not graduating, or at best, not graduating on time (only 39% of Community College students graduate in SIX years, which is shocking) [1]. I know it's a broadly popular point on the internet to suggest going to a CC to save money, but the risk factor is never mentioned. I didn't go to University in America (although I now live in SF). If I were 17 again, and growing up in the US, I'd go to the best college I was able to get into, regardless of the cost. As an employee, Silicon Valley is sort of a meritocracy, but a degree is the price of admission, unless you're very very good (and even then, you've made it harder to job change). Go through this week's funding announcements on TechCrunch and check where the founders went from, and I'll bet you my last dollar, you'll see a couple from Stanford, a couple from Harvard, and then maybe one or two from somewhere else. ^provided you graduate on time, and take advantage of networking opportunities while you're studying. [1] http://hechingerreport.org/new-book-addresses-low-community-college-graduation-rates/ http://hechingerreport.org/new-book-addresses-low-community-...
• Mc_Big_G 8y ago
  It's only "not worth it" because the whole student loan system has caused the cost of getting an education to skyrocket. Fix the system, take away extreme profits for universities, give everyone who wants it a free college education and it'll be more than worth it again. This would also increase the wealth of the USA by several order of magnitude. Unfortunately, instead of investing in our children and our future, we'd rather put money in the pockets of the rich, as we always do.
• everdev 8y ago
  Growing up, I was told to go to college if I wanted to earn a good income and provide for a family and it worked out that way for me. However, when I hire, I never look at education, only work experience. I can't recommend my kids spend $250k or more on college when they could get 4 years of work experience or start a business with a little bit of training.
• superkuh 8y ago
  Many workplaces require college degrees when they aren't required for any direct reason because it shows the applicant is willing to bend over and take it in the way a good worker should. It's peacock feathers signifying you're willing to fit in.
• stvswn 8y ago
  Just because college may be a great choice for social mobility at the individual level doesn't mean it can scale to everyone. I believe that anyone who gets into Harvard should finance it with as much debt as they like, regardless of their major. It'll be worth it. If you are accepted into a non-competitive-admissions school, you need to make an informed cost-benefit analysis. The relative ubiquity of financing options makes this a bit distorted for an inexperienced young person, effectively lowering the perceived cost. For some reason we believe that lowering the cost function for students will lead to increased demand for college education will lead to increased supply of graduates will lead to... increased supply of good jobs? It's a flawed idea, because it turns out that what really matters, as a young person, is your resume's strength relative to your similarly inexperienced peers, and a mediocre record at a mediocre school is not going to set you apart.
• treebeard901 8y ago
  For the longest time, I believed that college was not necessary and wanted to prove a point. I have done fairly well for myself but I have to admit that life would have been a lot easier with it than without. After realizing this several years ago, I still did not really attempt to finally go back to school. The problem now is that college is a market like any other. It's probably close to the housing market around 2007. The cost has increased and the value has somewhat diminished. I do not have any statistics on the cost of college when adjusted for inflation. There are a lot of other factors that make the cost so restrictive when compared to even 20 years ago. The education market will need to crash and reset. It's likely that technology will speed this process along. With all that being said, take it from my 30+ years of trying to prove a point, it's worth it. The myth of the Bill Gates college drop out starting a company like Microsoft is exceedingly rare. As technology becomes more widespread and regulated, the importance of a degree will only grow. EDIT: formatting
• iron0013 8y ago
  Pieces like this get posted all the time, and the comments are always the same. Folks who don't think college is worthwhile bring anecdotes, while folks who know that college is worthwhile bring facts and data, which show very clearly that the financial returns to education are very real and very substantial. And that's just the financial returns, it doesn't even touch upon the social, personal, etc aspect!
• dontwaitesforme 8y ago
  Am I the only person that learned a lot in college lol
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