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There's a lot of effort put into Jen's anecdote but not once is what degree she received even mentioned. That is suspect and dishonest reporting. As a tax paye

There's a lot of effort put into Jen's anecdote but not once is what degree she received even mentioned. That is suspect and dishonest reporting. As a tax payer, I do not want to subsidize people's poor educational decision making. If you get a STEM degree, you can get a job. This article describes what's long been referred to as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_basket_weaving https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_basket_weaving Look at what fields are in demand and get an appropriate degree. Someone's failure to do that should not fall on the tax payers shoulders anymore than it already does.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
landryraccoon 8y ago
I can’t disagree more strongly with this attitude. You’re saying that children basically barely out of high school need to make decisions that are very high cost and impact the rest of their lives, then held accountable for them when they make a mistake. This is on top of the fact that in all likelihood both society and their parents and teachers pushed them hard that the only way to succeed in life is to max out on education. Blaming kids for choosing the wrong college is just a symptom of a broken system. How messed up is it that almost the very first decision a person has to make when reaching the age of majority is whether to take on tens of thousands in debt or more?
- mattnewton 8y ago
  I agree. If student loans weren’t protected from bankruptcy, lenders would be forced to learn the market and would signal to you the unfeasiblity of these choices by setting higher interest rates on loans for different colleges/majors. I think we’ve made the measure of success just the number of college degrees because it was correlated with a middle or upper class lifestyle for so long, but failed to understand the causal relationship there fully.
  - dba7dba 8y ago
    Yet another masterpiece work by the fabulously lucrative sector called lobby industry. Lucrative both for the lobbyists themselves and the banks. Bravo.
    - pnw_hazor 8y ago
      And the schools that set the price.
- bdcravens 8y ago
  If an 18 year old signs for a car loan, they are responsible. If an 18 year old commits a crime, they are responsible.
  - landryraccoon 8y ago
    If an 18 year old qualifies for a car loan then defaults the lender deserved it. You can’t default from educational loans, but if you could then you’d be right.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  > You’re saying that children basically barely out of high school need to make decisions that are very high cost and impact the rest of their lives, then held accountable for them when they make a mistake. Yes, I'm absolutely 100% saying this. We need to bring back the concept of personal responsibility. 18 year olds can go fight in wars, vote and drive. They are fully capable of making informed financial decisions. Basic algebra should be sufficient to see the math isn't going to work in your favor. It's possible it's a generational thing. Boomers burned draft cards, bras, dropped out and most definitely were not listening to their parents at 18. Gen X (my generation) was so disillusioned with the boomers that we ignored literally everything they told us. It's extremely foreign to me to hear the argument: "But our parents told us to go to expensive universities!" The generations prior to this would take that as an anti-command and done the opposite. When you're an adult (which you are at 18) you must take responsibility for yourself.
  - brandonmenc 8y ago
    > 18 year olds can go fight in wars, vote and drive. imo, we should probably raise the legal age of adulthood. > They are fully capable of making informed financial decisions. Yet so many of them obviously are not able.
    - smileysteve 8y ago
      There are plenty of older people who don't understand compound interest or progressive tax rates. Imo, consider the opposite, 2 years being an adult in the military or apprenticing at a job before college could provide the experience that sheltered children need.
      - brandonmenc 8y ago
        > consider the opposite, 2 years being an adult in the military or apprenticing at a job before college could provide the experience that sheltered children need. Just my personal opinion, but 20 year olds aren't really adults either. I think we need another legal category that is more than a minor but less than an adult to cover ages approximately 18-24.
- wolfgke 8y ago
  > You’re saying that children basically barely out of high school need to make decisions that are very high cost and impact the rest of their lives, then held accountable for them when they make a mistake. Perhaps I am too German to understand this problem, since in Germany, nearly every child is taught by their parents that you should only go into debt if you have really, really good reasons (i.e. almost never, except perhaps for buying a house/flat; and in this case it is a mortgage and not a credit). I believe this is really sound financial advice. > Blaming kids for choosing the wrong college is just a symptom of a broken system. Blame just doesn’t work. I think it is right to blame children for ignoring the IMHO sound financial advice (almost) never to take any credit.
  - landryraccoon 8y ago
    How much did college cost in Germany? School, like healthcare, is exhorbitantly expensive in the United States.
    - Mirioron 8y ago
      Not every college is free in Germany.
    - wolfgke 8y ago
      > How much did college cost in Germany? Most universities in Germany are public and thus quite cheap. But note that while they are quite good in terms of quality of education, there is hardly any handholding offered. Many Germans say that this is two birds with one stone: 1. Mostly free tertiary education 2. Students learn a lot of self-responsibility So it is a very different system from the one in the US. So it makes much more sense to compare US universities with the few private universities in Germany. Under https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19139246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19139246 I wrote something about that topic. TLDR: If a university does not make an offer that you can pay off your "tuition" by a fixed amount of the salary that you earn in the next 10-15 years after graduating, you should be wary, since this shows that the university does not believe that its respective course of studies will (in average) give a decent salary to its graduates.
- smileysteve 8y ago
  > You’re saying that children basically barely out of high school need to make decisions Yes, 18 year olds (adults) need to be able to make decisions. If they decide not to go to college, they also need to be able to work. And to clarify, some "kids" emancipate at 16.
  - smileysteve 8y ago
    16 year olds can also work, need to file their own tax returns, get a driver's license, are often given cars to use. If they make enough money, they can also start an IRA early.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  But they don't have to go to college then. They could decide to go to college when they're older. I think that colleges shouldn't admit you unless you have at least a year or two of with experience. This way people would actually know why they are going to college rather than just treading a familiar path.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
anitil 8y ago
Unfortunately there's a lot of terrible advice given to children. 'Follow your dreams' and the like. It's nice to talk about university as somewhere to expand your horizons, but people never mention the cost. The cost of 10-50k/year for tuition and an opportunity cost (in terms of not getting a full time job and working your way up) of another 50k+/year. Is that a fair price for a degree that won't get you a better job?
SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
> Jen enrolled in a one-year master’s program in public policy at an Ivy League university, where, despite having small scholarships and participating in work-study programs, she accumulated an additional $50,000 in federal loans. She got a degree in public policy, which I assume is government work. Also, I find the "If you get a STEM degree, you can get a job." claim to be disingenuous. Are the job markets actually overflowing for every letter in that acronym? Can someone who specialized in frog reproduction or proof theory be guaranteed a job?
cbhl 8y ago
It's not at clear that all Software is a net good for society; look at all the people addicted to Candy Crush and Loot Boxes, people's unwittingly sharing embarrassing photos because of Facebook/Google anti-patterns, and malware being spread through ad networks. I suspect the market has over-valued the outputs of computer science, and while that remains true, then software companies have as much as duty as, say, oil companies or banks to "give back to the community" to offset the negative externalities of their work. Put another way: If we find a way to run a fully-automatic people-less farm, that doesn't mean that farmers deserve to become destitute. In my opinion, we should be compensating farmers for their service up until now (maybe, like a pension) and then giving them the freedom to reallocate their time to the benefit of society as they see fit (which might mean taking vacations or it might mean starting a startup).
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Note that things that pay well do not necessarily correlate with what's good for society, and I don't think the parent comment was claiming that this was not true.
halfnibble 8y ago
I studied chemistry and landed a good job right away. But I wish people would not have told me, "Don't worry about the loan amount, you'll earn it all back after you graduate!" DO WORRY about the loan amount. There ARE cheaper college options. It doesn't matter how much money you'll make "someday", your future self would much rather have $10K in debt than $100K. Here I am, a 17-year-old kid who doesn't know any better being sold on an expensive private college. There are so many things I would do differently if I could.
tetromino_ 8y ago
> If you get a STEM degree No, only if you get a computer science, computer engineering, or electrical engineering degree. Job prospects for most other parts of STEM, especially anything having to so with real science, are significantly poorer. (Your choices are poverty and playing the academia lottery, or throwing away 99% of your hard-earned specialty skills and pivoting on the remaining 1% into coding or finance.)
_bxg1 8y ago
The great fallacy of capitalism is the idea that capacity for making money == value, and vice-versa. We need people working on subjects that aren't directly profitable, including but not limited to the public-service category mentioned in the article.
- pnw_hazor 8y ago
  We do not need a surplus of masters in public policy or museum studies majors, for example. The higher-ed industrial complex is generating a lot of waste/surplus w/o bearing any of the cost.
dba7dba 8y ago
STEM is not the answer to all. I mean, I love engineers to be in charge of tech companies, but that doesn't mean I want EVEYRONE to go to college just for STEM. Also, I actually know a guy who graduated from a top public university IN USA as a mechanical engineer, and could not get a job as an actual engineer for almost 15 years. He did not do bad, but he didn't go all out to be top of the class either. He did have odd jobs, but not as a mechanical engineer. He finally got a job as an actual mechanical engineer, after 15 years, including a stint in the US armed forces, which he did all because he didn't know what else to do.
mikeash 8y ago
Why focus on the individual? There are at least two entities who made decision here: the student and the lender. Of the two, the lender is in a much better position to make a smart choice. If you don’t want to subsidize poor educational decisions, that seems fine, but the way to achieve that is to stop giving out loans to people who won’t be able to repay them, not to criticize people for choosing the wrong major.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  I agree that student loans should be allowed to be defaulted through bankruptcy thus giving the lender a reason to be picky with when they hand them out. Focusing on the individual is useful because they're the ones making the decision to take the loan, thus are in a position to do something about it. No one is forced to take out a loan and the individual is the one who will pay for a poor decision. > not to criticize people for choosing the wrong major. It's not about criticizing, it's about people taking responsibility for their actions and making good decisions. It's just not a good idea to get 50k-100k in debt for a degree that doesn't have market value. It's really not that hard to see it either.
  - watwut 8y ago
    The moment the price go down just a bit due to some individuals deciding not to pay, those exact individuals will be called lazy, not enough risk takers, stupid and blamed for not having as much money as those who stayed.
    - malvosenior 8y ago
      That's pretty hypothetical but even if it were true, wouldn't not being in life crippling debt be worth some criticism from ignorant individuals? Personal responsibility isn't always easy and often you have to think for yourself and go against what other people are telling you to do.
      - watwut 8y ago
JarlUlvi 8y ago
her undergrad was sociology according TFA [ But it’s not. “I’m a black, first-generation college graduate who majored in sociology,” Jen told me, “and despite my background and literal coursework about structural racism and inequality, I’ve held this very romanticized view of higher education for most of my life ]

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

landryraccoon 8y ago

I can’t disagree more strongly with this attitude. You’re saying that children basically barely out of high school need to make decisions that are very high cost and impact the rest of their lives, then held accountable for them when they make a mistake. This is on top of the fact that in all likelihood both society and their parents and teachers pushed them hard that the only way to succeed in life is to max out on education. Blaming kids for choosing the wrong college is just a symptom of a broken system. How messed up is it that almost the very first decision a person has to make when reaching the age of majority is whether to take on tens of thousands in debt or more?

mattnewton 8y ago
I agree. If student loans weren’t protected from bankruptcy, lenders would be forced to learn the market and would signal to you the unfeasiblity of these choices by setting higher interest rates on loans for different colleges/majors. I think we’ve made the measure of success just the number of college degrees because it was correlated with a middle or upper class lifestyle for so long, but failed to understand the causal relationship there fully.
- dba7dba 8y ago
  Yet another masterpiece work by the fabulously lucrative sector called lobby industry. Lucrative both for the lobbyists themselves and the banks. Bravo.
  - pnw_hazor 8y ago
    And the schools that set the price.
bdcravens 8y ago
If an 18 year old signs for a car loan, they are responsible. If an 18 year old commits a crime, they are responsible.
- landryraccoon 8y ago
  If an 18 year old qualifies for a car loan then defaults the lender deserved it. You can’t default from educational loans, but if you could then you’d be right.
malvosenior 8y ago
> You’re saying that children basically barely out of high school need to make decisions that are very high cost and impact the rest of their lives, then held accountable for them when they make a mistake. Yes, I'm absolutely 100% saying this. We need to bring back the concept of personal responsibility. 18 year olds can go fight in wars, vote and drive. They are fully capable of making informed financial decisions. Basic algebra should be sufficient to see the math isn't going to work in your favor. It's possible it's a generational thing. Boomers burned draft cards, bras, dropped out and most definitely were not listening to their parents at 18. Gen X (my generation) was so disillusioned with the boomers that we ignored literally everything they told us. It's extremely foreign to me to hear the argument: "But our parents told us to go to expensive universities!" The generations prior to this would take that as an anti-command and done the opposite. When you're an adult (which you are at 18) you must take responsibility for yourself.
- brandonmenc 8y ago
  > 18 year olds can go fight in wars, vote and drive. imo, we should probably raise the legal age of adulthood. > They are fully capable of making informed financial decisions. Yet so many of them obviously are not able.
  - smileysteve 8y ago
    There are plenty of older people who don't understand compound interest or progressive tax rates. Imo, consider the opposite, 2 years being an adult in the military or apprenticing at a job before college could provide the experience that sheltered children need.
    - brandonmenc 8y ago
      > consider the opposite, 2 years being an adult in the military or apprenticing at a job before college could provide the experience that sheltered children need. Just my personal opinion, but 20 year olds aren't really adults either. I think we need another legal category that is more than a minor but less than an adult to cover ages approximately 18-24.
wolfgke 8y ago
> You’re saying that children basically barely out of high school need to make decisions that are very high cost and impact the rest of their lives, then held accountable for them when they make a mistake. Perhaps I am too German to understand this problem, since in Germany, nearly every child is taught by their parents that you should only go into debt if you have really, really good reasons (i.e. almost never, except perhaps for buying a house/flat; and in this case it is a mortgage and not a credit). I believe this is really sound financial advice. > Blaming kids for choosing the wrong college is just a symptom of a broken system. Blame just doesn’t work. I think it is right to blame children for ignoring the IMHO sound financial advice (almost) never to take any credit.
- landryraccoon 8y ago
  How much did college cost in Germany? School, like healthcare, is exhorbitantly expensive in the United States.
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    Not every college is free in Germany.
  - wolfgke 8y ago
    > How much did college cost in Germany? Most universities in Germany are public and thus quite cheap. But note that while they are quite good in terms of quality of education, there is hardly any handholding offered. Many Germans say that this is two birds with one stone: 1. Mostly free tertiary education 2. Students learn a lot of self-responsibility So it is a very different system from the one in the US. So it makes much more sense to compare US universities with the few private universities in Germany. Under https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19139246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19139246 I wrote something about that topic. TLDR: If a university does not make an offer that you can pay off your "tuition" by a fixed amount of the salary that you earn in the next 10-15 years after graduating, you should be wary, since this shows that the university does not believe that its respective course of studies will (in average) give a decent salary to its graduates.
smileysteve 8y ago
> You’re saying that children basically barely out of high school need to make decisions Yes, 18 year olds (adults) need to be able to make decisions. If they decide not to go to college, they also need to be able to work. And to clarify, some "kids" emancipate at 16.
- smileysteve 8y ago
  16 year olds can also work, need to file their own tax returns, get a driver's license, are often given cars to use. If they make enough money, they can also start an IRA early.
Mirioron 8y ago
But they don't have to go to college then. They could decide to go to college when they're older. I think that colleges shouldn't admit you unless you have at least a year or two of with experience. This way people would actually know why they are going to college rather than just treading a familiar path.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

anitil 8y ago

Unfortunately there's a lot of terrible advice given to children. 'Follow your dreams' and the like. It's nice to talk about university as somewhere to expand your horizons, but people never mention the cost. The cost of 10-50k/year for tuition and an opportunity cost (in terms of not getting a full time job and working your way up) of another 50k+/year. Is that a fair price for a degree that won't get you a better job?

SketchySeaBeast 8y ago

> Jen enrolled in a one-year master’s program in public policy at an Ivy League university, where, despite having small scholarships and participating in work-study programs, she accumulated an additional $50,000 in federal loans. She got a degree in public policy, which I assume is government work. Also, I find the "If you get a STEM degree, you can get a job." claim to be disingenuous. Are the job markets actually overflowing for every letter in that acronym? Can someone who specialized in frog reproduction or proof theory be guaranteed a job?

cbhl 8y ago

It's not at clear that all Software is a net good for society; look at all the people addicted to Candy Crush and Loot Boxes, people's unwittingly sharing embarrassing photos because of Facebook/Google anti-patterns, and malware being spread through ad networks. I suspect the market has over-valued the outputs of computer science, and while that remains true, then software companies have as much as duty as, say, oil companies or banks to "give back to the community" to offset the negative externalities of their work. Put another way: If we find a way to run a fully-automatic people-less farm, that doesn't mean that farmers deserve to become destitute. In my opinion, we should be compensating farmers for their service up until now (maybe, like a pension) and then giving them the freedom to reallocate their time to the benefit of society as they see fit (which might mean taking vacations or it might mean starting a startup).

saagarjha 8y ago
Note that things that pay well do not necessarily correlate with what's good for society, and I don't think the parent comment was claiming that this was not true.

halfnibble 8y ago

I studied chemistry and landed a good job right away. But I wish people would not have told me, "Don't worry about the loan amount, you'll earn it all back after you graduate!" DO WORRY about the loan amount. There ARE cheaper college options. It doesn't matter how much money you'll make "someday", your future self would much rather have $10K in debt than $100K. Here I am, a 17-year-old kid who doesn't know any better being sold on an expensive private college. There are so many things I would do differently if I could.

tetromino_ 8y ago

> If you get a STEM degree No, only if you get a computer science, computer engineering, or electrical engineering degree. Job prospects for most other parts of STEM, especially anything having to so with real science, are significantly poorer. (Your choices are poverty and playing the academia lottery, or throwing away 99% of your hard-earned specialty skills and pivoting on the remaining 1% into coding or finance.)

_bxg1 8y ago

The great fallacy of capitalism is the idea that capacity for making money == value, and vice-versa. We need people working on subjects that aren't directly profitable, including but not limited to the public-service category mentioned in the article.

pnw_hazor 8y ago
We do not need a surplus of masters in public policy or museum studies majors, for example. The higher-ed industrial complex is generating a lot of waste/surplus w/o bearing any of the cost.

dba7dba 8y ago

STEM is not the answer to all. I mean, I love engineers to be in charge of tech companies, but that doesn't mean I want EVEYRONE to go to college just for STEM. Also, I actually know a guy who graduated from a top public university IN USA as a mechanical engineer, and could not get a job as an actual engineer for almost 15 years. He did not do bad, but he didn't go all out to be top of the class either. He did have odd jobs, but not as a mechanical engineer. He finally got a job as an actual mechanical engineer, after 15 years, including a stint in the US armed forces, which he did all because he didn't know what else to do.

mikeash 8y ago

Why focus on the individual? There are at least two entities who made decision here: the student and the lender. Of the two, the lender is in a much better position to make a smart choice. If you don’t want to subsidize poor educational decisions, that seems fine, but the way to achieve that is to stop giving out loans to people who won’t be able to repay them, not to criticize people for choosing the wrong major.

malvosenior 8y ago
I agree that student loans should be allowed to be defaulted through bankruptcy thus giving the lender a reason to be picky with when they hand them out. Focusing on the individual is useful because they're the ones making the decision to take the loan, thus are in a position to do something about it. No one is forced to take out a loan and the individual is the one who will pay for a poor decision. > not to criticize people for choosing the wrong major. It's not about criticizing, it's about people taking responsibility for their actions and making good decisions. It's just not a good idea to get 50k-100k in debt for a degree that doesn't have market value. It's really not that hard to see it either.
- watwut 8y ago
  The moment the price go down just a bit due to some individuals deciding not to pay, those exact individuals will be called lazy, not enough risk takers, stupid and blamed for not having as much money as those who stayed.
  - malvosenior 8y ago
    That's pretty hypothetical but even if it were true, wouldn't not being in life crippling debt be worth some criticism from ignorant individuals? Personal responsibility isn't always easy and often you have to think for yourself and go against what other people are telling you to do.
    - watwut 8y ago

JarlUlvi 8y ago

her undergrad was sociology according TFA [ But it’s not. “I’m a black, first-generation college graduate who majored in sociology,” Jen told me, “and despite my background and literal coursework about structural racism and inequality, I’ve held this very romanticized view of higher education for most of my life ]