4 ms·

>The question is why are people completing unmarketable (or not sufficiently marketable) degrees? For the pursuit of knowledge. Universities are not job traini

>The question is why are people completing unmarketable (or not sufficiently marketable) degrees? For the pursuit of knowledge. Universities are not job training. You getting a good job with your degree is a bonus not the intend outcome for a university.

AmericanChopper 7y ago
That explanation likely accounts for some of the underemployment. How much, I’m not sure, perhaps a lot of it. Now, this still leaves people with a debt they may be unable to service. Which is still a problem, and raises its own set of questions. But it’s a completely different problem to any of the other potential explanations.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
That used to be called a "liberal education", which meant an education that was appropriate for free men, as opposed to slaves, who would be trained in a trade. Today, that corresponds to pursuing knowledge if you don't need the money. If you do, pursue something that pays. (Pursue as much knowledge as you can work in around the edges, but the main focus has to be on something that pays.)
- mamon 7y ago
  Ok, so are you saying that there should be no student loans on humanities degrees? Because that's the logical conclusion of what you're saying here. Would it make sense for the government to make a list of fields where they do back up student loans (which would probably be mostly STEM fields)?
  - ericd 7y ago
    Perhaps the loan requirements should be more stringent on fields that are unlikely to support repayment for people that aren’t in a financial position to repay them? Not very different to lending in other areas of life. Or remove the non-dischargeability and the govt backing at the same time, and let interest rates and lending requirements fall where they may.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    I'm talking about students, not institutions or rules. I'm saying that if you're a student, and you need to work for a living, pick your major with some wisdom, no matter how much you want to "seek knowledge". My position is "Student, protect yourself." I take no position on whether the rules ought to change to protect students. (Perhaps they should, because 18-year-olds probably will get carried away with the romance of "pursuing knowledge" and ignore the way the real world works...)
  - imtringued 7y ago
    There can always be a private loan market for student loans. Government guaranteed student loans basically happen out of goodwill. The assumption is that it will be a net benefit and therefore everyone should be given the opportunity. However this didn't turn out to be true. If the government keeps funding loans that will never be paid back then it won't be able to fund the loans that can be paid back. I don't really see why limiting certain degrees is seen as pure evil. In Germany some university degrees only accept a limited amount of participants. People with higher grades will be prioritized. This restriction however doesn't apply to the STEM degrees (not an exhaustive list) because they never get enough students. Therefore even if someone is poor and suffers from low intelligence, they are not barred from a degree that leads to a prosperous career.
    - cf141q5325 7y ago
      The description of the STEM/MINT situation in German universities is far too generalized. You have quite a few STEM/MINT universities and programs which require a numerus clausus, its just up to the university to set the NC. Many classical STEM/MINT programs dont have a problem with having a few hundred students each year instead of a few dozen since alot of those will fail in the first years where students just have to learn the basics of the field. Those courses are generally easy to teach and require little interaction with individual students. In the most prestigious technical universities having 70 to 90% of the students fail specific exams is nothing special. And studends are barred from the program after failing the 3rd try. You are also not completely barred with to low of an average entry grade from school, you will just have to wait longer to start your degree. That part is the case for every university and every program, STEM/MINT isnt a special case here. edited for more information
wutbrodo 7y ago
Man, this canard gets really tiring. Don't get me wrong: I was crazy about university as a place of learning and added a "useless" major & minor from a career perspective to take advantage of the opportunity to learn But 1) this doesn't reflect the priorities of the vast majority of people, 2) this wasn't to the exclusion of paying attention to what's marketable (ie my other major), and 3) it beggars belief to claim that any significant number of people are intentionally taking on high debt loads in order to play-pretend being an unemployable philosopher-aristocrat. Leaving aside whether society _should_ be providing the no-strings-attached opportunity for a broad-based education[1] as disconnected from economic productivity, it's beyond laughable to claim that students are actually making this choice en masse in the knowledge that their education is unmarketable. A misguided and anachronistic belief in the marketability of arbitrary degrees is a far more plausible explanation. [1] I certainly think it would be nice in the abstract, pending feasibility obviously
- cf141q5325 7y ago
  People are taking one of those courses because universities in the USA are basically companies. As a result you get marketing to sucker people into buying stuff they dont need and cant afford. That doesnt change the fact that we have those programs in the first place for the pursuit of knowledge in the hope that it will benefit society. That benefit doesnt have to be an economic one. A degree in your native language has arguably little financial value, but you only have to look to countries like France to see how much a society still collectively values their language. Investing in universities is historically something nations afford themselves in the hopes it will be of benefit to society. The idea of individuals investing into themselves is a rather American one. I would argue the only reason a large amount of US universities exist is because they have a special tax status and people get to take special loans to pay for their services. Alternatively you would just have companies providing job training. From the outside it looks like much of the problems with the US system stems from purposefully not communicating that difference to new students edit: To word it differently, the sole purpose of the teaching arm of a classical university is to enable the next generation to introduce novel ideas into their fields. Thats what a doctoral dissertation is. You advancing your field and adding to the collective knowledge.

AmericanChopper 7y ago

That explanation likely accounts for some of the underemployment. How much, I’m not sure, perhaps a lot of it. Now, this still leaves people with a debt they may be unable to service. Which is still a problem, and raises its own set of questions. But it’s a completely different problem to any of the other potential explanations.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

That used to be called a "liberal education", which meant an education that was appropriate for free men, as opposed to slaves, who would be trained in a trade. Today, that corresponds to pursuing knowledge if you don't need the money. If you do, pursue something that pays. (Pursue as much knowledge as you can work in around the edges, but the main focus has to be on something that pays.)

mamon 7y ago
Ok, so are you saying that there should be no student loans on humanities degrees? Because that's the logical conclusion of what you're saying here. Would it make sense for the government to make a list of fields where they do back up student loans (which would probably be mostly STEM fields)?
- ericd 7y ago
  Perhaps the loan requirements should be more stringent on fields that are unlikely to support repayment for people that aren’t in a financial position to repay them? Not very different to lending in other areas of life. Or remove the non-dischargeability and the govt backing at the same time, and let interest rates and lending requirements fall where they may.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  I'm talking about students, not institutions or rules. I'm saying that if you're a student, and you need to work for a living, pick your major with some wisdom, no matter how much you want to "seek knowledge". My position is "Student, protect yourself." I take no position on whether the rules ought to change to protect students. (Perhaps they should, because 18-year-olds probably will get carried away with the romance of "pursuing knowledge" and ignore the way the real world works...)
- imtringued 7y ago
  There can always be a private loan market for student loans. Government guaranteed student loans basically happen out of goodwill. The assumption is that it will be a net benefit and therefore everyone should be given the opportunity. However this didn't turn out to be true. If the government keeps funding loans that will never be paid back then it won't be able to fund the loans that can be paid back. I don't really see why limiting certain degrees is seen as pure evil. In Germany some university degrees only accept a limited amount of participants. People with higher grades will be prioritized. This restriction however doesn't apply to the STEM degrees (not an exhaustive list) because they never get enough students. Therefore even if someone is poor and suffers from low intelligence, they are not barred from a degree that leads to a prosperous career.
  - cf141q5325 7y ago
    The description of the STEM/MINT situation in German universities is far too generalized. You have quite a few STEM/MINT universities and programs which require a numerus clausus, its just up to the university to set the NC. Many classical STEM/MINT programs dont have a problem with having a few hundred students each year instead of a few dozen since alot of those will fail in the first years where students just have to learn the basics of the field. Those courses are generally easy to teach and require little interaction with individual students. In the most prestigious technical universities having 70 to 90% of the students fail specific exams is nothing special. And studends are barred from the program after failing the 3rd try. You are also not completely barred with to low of an average entry grade from school, you will just have to wait longer to start your degree. That part is the case for every university and every program, STEM/MINT isnt a special case here. edited for more information

wutbrodo 7y ago

Man, this canard gets really tiring. Don't get me wrong: I was crazy about university as a place of learning and added a "useless" major & minor from a career perspective to take advantage of the opportunity to learn But 1) this doesn't reflect the priorities of the vast majority of people, 2) this wasn't to the exclusion of paying attention to what's marketable (ie my other major), and 3) it beggars belief to claim that any significant number of people are intentionally taking on high debt loads in order to play-pretend being an unemployable philosopher-aristocrat. Leaving aside whether society _should_ be providing the no-strings-attached opportunity for a broad-based education[1] as disconnected from economic productivity, it's beyond laughable to claim that students are actually making this choice en masse in the knowledge that their education is unmarketable. A misguided and anachronistic belief in the marketability of arbitrary degrees is a far more plausible explanation. [1] I certainly think it would be nice in the abstract, pending feasibility obviously

cf141q5325 7y ago
People are taking one of those courses because universities in the USA are basically companies. As a result you get marketing to sucker people into buying stuff they dont need and cant afford. That doesnt change the fact that we have those programs in the first place for the pursuit of knowledge in the hope that it will benefit society. That benefit doesnt have to be an economic one. A degree in your native language has arguably little financial value, but you only have to look to countries like France to see how much a society still collectively values their language. Investing in universities is historically something nations afford themselves in the hopes it will be of benefit to society. The idea of individuals investing into themselves is a rather American one. I would argue the only reason a large amount of US universities exist is because they have a special tax status and people get to take special loans to pay for their services. Alternatively you would just have companies providing job training. From the outside it looks like much of the problems with the US system stems from purposefully not communicating that difference to new students edit: To word it differently, the sole purpose of the teaching arm of a classical university is to enable the next generation to introduce novel ideas into their fields. Thats what a doctoral dissertation is. You advancing your field and adding to the collective knowledge.