11 ms·

Two-thirds of American employees regret their college degrees

143 points by drocer88 7y ago

Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
There is a worthwhile discussion to be had about the cost of college tuition and actuarial tables of different degrees and their earning power and how that relates to pay structure for graduates and for professors and how college programs are run. Trying to have that discussion on hacker news starting from a primary source consisting of a CBS News poll is like trying to get to the moon on a North Korean rocket with sadness and starvation as your rocket fuel.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  If you want to measure economic potential vs cost, what you propose is reasonable. If you want to measure regret, it's not. Regret could have more causes than cost vs payback. (It's interesting, though, that loans were the primary regret, and choice of major was also high.)
- legitster 7y ago
  If I remember correctly, the previous administration proposed a program where schools and degrees were valued based on their potential earnings but the collective pushback from universities killed the idea.
  - jdm2212 7y ago
    The idea got killed because it's really hard to measure value added as opposed to just graduates' earnings (students who appear identical on paper self-select into schools and majors and later on careers based on non-measurable stuff). And if you basically just measure graduates' earnings, you're going to punish schools that take a chance on less prepared students, majors that cater to students with weaker backgrounds, etc. University administrators and professors aren't dumb. They know that good faith efforts to measure value added today will give way next month or next year to laziness and crude numerical targets. The end result will maybe be better numerical scores, but little substantive improvement in how well students are educated or prepared for life.
mrcactu5 7y ago
i got into a nice college, and they even gave us financial aid. the job market was unforgiving.
not_a_moth 7y ago
I regret the four years part at least. I believe undergrad really only needs to be 2-3 years tops.
- takk309 7y ago
  I have two Civil Engineering degrees (BS and MS) and have been working in the field for some time now and I think the opposite, CE should be a minimum 5 year program. The people I see as fresh undergraduates do not know enough to do the job but those with master's degrees do. I guess it is forcing those that do the hiring to select for those who have more schooling.
  - bowlich 7y ago
    A fresh graduate also isn't going to be able to walk out with a PE until they've held some kind of industry role. I would think that this is a good indicator that a fresh graduate isn't supposed to be ready-to-go but ready to be trained. It seems more like it's those doing the hiring who are slacking on their responsibility than the school.
  - tropo 7y ago
    Right now it is 1 year, plus another 3 years of filler. We could make it 5 with another year of filler, but I don't think that would help. Suppose we mandate another year worth of classes: Ancient Mesopotamian Art, Intersectionality in Sports, Flute Performance, Zoology, Sexual Development in the Infant, Ballroom Dance, French Existentialism, Phlebotomy, Astronomy, History of Jazz. Does this help? We already have 3 years of it. Chains of prerequisites are long enough that we might need 2 years by the calendar, but there is only 1 year worth of material. Going half-time for 2 years would provide the same benefit as the modern American 4-year degree.
    - observer12 7y ago
      This, I dropped out of college after doing the majority of the "core". I do well and can easily afford to finish without loans, but finishing requires a bunch of general education credits that I see no benefit from.
antidaily 7y ago
"Two-thirds of employees report regrets about their advanced degrees."
- gojomo 7y ago
  It's unclear what 'advanced' means in that bullet; most of the article seems to refer to undergraduate majors, or perhaps all post-secondary (after high-school) education. The confusing writing continues when the article gets to numbers for different areas-of-study, as it alternates between reporting percentages for "have regrets" and "no regrets". (The last 7 paragraphs would be clearer as a table taking 1/3 the space.)
- sct202 7y ago
  Also regrets are vague. I have regrets, but I don't know that I would do anything different.
- analog31 7y ago
  The survey report doesn't even use the word "advanced," so it looks like whoever wrote the article just doesn't know what an advanced degree is.
avgDev 7y ago
Before being an SE, I had many shit jobs and getting the college degree unlocked many doors for me. I went to a state uni, it was relatively cheap, I don't think I would make anything close to what I make now as I hate sales. However, I know smart people with art degrees, which are useless to them. Every competent person I have met when studying computer science is doing very well, would they achieve the same success without a CS degree? Maybe, but that degree definitely helps getting jobs at non-tech companies. I have no "regrats"
- observer12 7y ago
  In my experience tech companies tend to be the ones that are snobby about degrees. I know Fortune 50s (non tech companies) that don't care about degrees.
payne92 7y ago
Here’s the underlying survey report: https://www.payscale.com/data/biggest-college-regrets https://www.payscale.com/data/biggest-college-regrets
- gojomo 7y ago
  Thanks! The CBS write-up is really, really awful – from the headline (about respondents regretting "their degrees" as opposed to having a mix of debt/topic/networking/institution/etc regrets) to the confusing prose descriptions of alternating "regret" or "no regrets" levels. The raw tables, & accompanying descriptions, at your link are much clearer.
- ereyes01 7y ago
  This should really be the posted article, it has all the original data and conclusions.
- analog31 7y ago
  I looked through the article. I'd be skeptical about interpreting what people actually regret. Do they regret not choosing another major? Which major? Would they have been successful / happy in that major? Do they regret not going to a cheaper college? Do they regret not getting a job after high school? What job? Would they have been happy in that job?
chaostheory 7y ago
From the article: "Most satisfied: Those with science, technology, engineering and math majors, who are typically more likely to enjoy higher salaries, reported more satisfaction with their college degrees. About 42% of engineering grads and 35% of computer science grads said they had no regrets. Most regrets: Humanities majors, who are least likely to earn higher pay post-graduation, were most likely to regret their college education. About 75% of humanities majors said they regretted their college education. About 73% of graduates who studied social sciences, physical and life sciences, and art also said the same. "
- dr_dshiv 7y ago
  I'm really curious how they worded the questions.
- stargazing 7y ago
  Important to note the phrasing of this. 58% of engineering grads and 65% of CS grads still said they regretted their degrees - which isn't far off the numbers of those in the humanities.
  - daveslash 7y ago
    Yeah, their phrasing is atrocious on this...
  - tomohawk 7y ago
    This really surprises me. I would have expected maybe 30% based on so many people not making it through the program. At my school they had to get 2/3rds to drop by junior year or there would be too many in the program, and they never missed that goal. I saw very few make it through who were not genuinely interested in the subject.
    - hinkley 7y ago
      How many young devs have you met who you were sure were going to wash out? Many of them got the degree to have a comfortable life, not because it felt like a calling. All of those people are going to regret struggling through the CS program only to find out that the programming problems in school were trivial and the real stuff is messy and confusing as hell. I tell anyone who asks that they should get some sort of programming job as an undergrad. If you can't hack it, you can get some other degree in 5 years. If you can, you'll learn so much more from your classes, because you'll have the practical bits down pat and you can focus on the theoretical. One of my friends got a job junior year. I would ask him how long the homework took him and he would say something like 2 hours. Bullshit. It took me 10 and there were people in the lab a lot longer than me. There is no fucking way that's true. I stopped asking him because it just pissed me off. Senior year I got a job working at the same place, and within a couple months I was down to 4-5 hours. Ok, maybe he wasn't bragging. Maybe practice really is that important. By the time I left, with maybe a couple thousand hours of programming under my belt, I had one class with a shortage of machines (3D cards). I would sit in my apartment writing code in a terminal window on one of those machines, essentially blind, for two hours. When I'd get a clean compile I'd go over to the lab to debug for 40-75 minutes. Because doing the homework was just doing the homework, like a math class, instead of a huge production. Then I'd go back to work and stare at a complex memory corruption bug for 5 hours...
legitster 7y ago
In WA, there is a program where you can finish the last two years of high school at a community college and graduate with a two year degree for free. It was probably the best decision of my life. I basically got to trial and error all of my interests for free much earlier and cheaper than everyone else. And it went against the guidance of my school counselors. They thought community college would hurt my chances at getting into "Prestigious Schools". They also knew tons of kids who screwed off the minute they were given an ounce of freedom (you know, kids who would have wasted money at college anyway). Community college is the best. Everyone should do it. And it's actually designed for you to learn, not just get a degree. Take a year off, explore your interests, take an internship if you can. Then decide the degree you want to go for (if you actually want to at this point), and find an affordable place to do it. Too many of my friends got suckered into "there's a school in Vermont that offers the exact program I want, and they are offering me an arbitrary discount on their huge out of state rates".
- bradlys 7y ago
  > And it went against the guidance of my school counselors. They thought community college would hurt my chances at getting into "Prestigious Schools". I mean, they're not wrong. You will statistically be less likely to get into those schools. Once you're a transfer student, your acceptance rates go down significantly for prestigious private colleges. (And some public universities too) If your goal is to graduate from a top school, you're less likely to be accepted as a transfer student.
  - bargl 7y ago
    The program doesn't require you to be a transfer student. You actually get a HS and AS/AE degree at the same time. So you have the option to be a transfer student but you also have the option to go through the normal application process and have your credits treated as HS classes. All that said, it is probably still more likely to hurt you on an application to some programs. Now they've got to compare apples to oranges rather than an easy AP student to another AP student. I did the program and got into most of the schools I wanted to but missed out on one that I really wanted. I saved myself 1 years worth of college, and could have saved more if I'd planned a little better (taken engineering physics instead of normal physics) and a few more classes that would have transferred directly. Overall I saved about 2x on credits as much some of the AP students, which would have been 3x if I'd known better.
paultopia 7y ago
We've got to stop letting 18-22 year-olds make incredibly expensive life/career decisions with zero information.
- lacampbell 7y ago
  The problem isn't the young age of these decisions, the problem is that childhood now lasts until your mid 20s, as opposed to ending in your late teens. When you have visibly aging people in their 30s saying stuff like "adulting is so hard gaiz!!", the problem is the culture.
  - ChainOfFools 7y ago
    This makes me wonder how long a world of immortals would be sustainable.
- sdinsn 7y ago
  > with zero information Zero information? Young people have so much information: government job statistics, job growth predictions, free career advice, peer-led career forums, etc. They just ignore all of it.
  - Hermitian909 7y ago
    This is disingenuous, data you either don't know exists or lack the tools to parse is useless. Even if a young person does know it exists and can parse it, it is often the case that every authority figure in a young person's life is giving bad information. Often times your teachers, guidance counselor, school administrators, and parents are pressuring you to go to some middling 4 year institution. We spend 18 years training kids to treat the adults in their life as authority figures, expecting them to make their own decision against the desires of these authority figures is naive.
    - sdinsn 7y ago
      > data you either don't know exists It's quite easy to come across it with a Google search. > lack the tools to parse The only "tool" you need is the ability to read. > bad information Which is not "zero information" anyway.
fiftyfifty 7y ago
It's crazy to spend so much time and money in school and not have a plan for what kind of career you are going to get when you get out. Parents and educators are failing these young people in not guiding them into realistic jobs and careers. The process before anyone attends college should be to decide on potential careers and then pursue the schooling and other qualifications you need to succeed in that career. A study of the job market and relative availability of different jobs should play into that process as well. Unless you come from a wealthy family, before you spend a dime on higher education you should spend some serious time looking at websites like this one: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/ https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- killjoywashere 7y ago
  I'm a huge fan of the Occupational Outlook Handbook. That said, it's breakout of some interesting categories is fairly weak. Many medical specialties are simply not listed, while virtually every subset of engineering is listed, except software engineering (perhaps due to a lack of PE involvement?)
- spacegod 7y ago
  I did look and I still did not come out the other side ok. I think personality is an underrated factor. I would've been happier working at 7/11 for the rest of my life than having to go to university (which I hated) and then to a job I hated to pay it off.
apo 7y ago
Imagine how much more sane tuitions would be if these people had just done something else with their lives. Unintended consequences of federal loan guarantees: education becomes more expensive, leaving young graduates who should be finding their financial footing trying to understand what happened to them.
- downrightmike 7y ago
  Schools have all the info and yet they still are more than happy to sign kids into mountains of debt. Nothing would have lowered tuition because it doesn't take all of the money brought in to school the kids, most of the money is going into growing the school's endowment and to maintain their status as a charity so they don't pay taxes. So 58% of kids MUST take some form of aide or charity. And as society has plummeted, more kids are pushed into Uni and therefore tuition MUST be raised to keep the charity status. https://www.conradbastable.com/essays/the-uncharity-of-college-the-big-business-nobody-understands https://www.conradbastable.com/essays/the-uncharity-of-colle...
perfunctory 7y ago
Maybe they don't regret their degrees but their jobs. The current job market totally disregards the passions and aspirations of our generation. Maybe we should treat enrolment per degree as a sort of voting system and allocate financial resources accordingly. After all students are drown from the society, so their aspirations are society's aspirations. Unfortunately capital allocation decisions are made by managers who are rather detached from real communities.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  You want to let students' aspirations guide jobs, rather than what companies need? That seems really unlikely to work out well for the society. Society needs companies that can actually produce stuff that people need and want, worse than they need companies that create jobs that fulfill everyone's aspirations.
  - malandrew 7y ago
    This. So much this. Passions and aspirations are for hobbies. Jobs are about providing value to others in society in exchange for IOUs that you can exchange with others.
    - perfunctory 7y ago
      To reply with a personal anecdote. When I went to study computer science, Google did not exit yet. Facebook did not exist. Apple was an obscure company. World Wide Web was a hobby. My parents were genuinely worried I wouldn't be able to get a job. Fast forward. Had I been more realistic and chosen a degree that better matched the job market of the time I would probably be unemployed by now. Draw your own conclusions from this.
      - malandrew 7y ago
        Sometimes the two coincide. Had you been born 20 years earlier but still had the same passions, how might things have been different? Another fun thought exercise, what subject can someone go study today that would be a hobby right now that parents would worry about with respect to job prospects, but that in 5, 10 and 20 years will have its own Google, Facebook, Apple and World Wide Web?
Zaskoda 7y ago
My MS has certainly proven to be much more of a waste of resources than I ever expected it might be.
phil248 7y ago
This is truly shocking to me. I'd have thought that most people value the experience of college so immensely that it was worth the cost. I'll be paying student debt for the rest of my life, but in retrospect I'd have happily paid double for the experiences and perspectives I gained.
- cgoecknerwald 7y ago
  This seems like a unique perspective to me. Can you elaborate on those experiences you found most valuable?
  - phil248 7y ago
    I don't know how to explain how the college experience is amazing without writing several paragraphs. I honestly thought my sentiments were near-universal. For several years I got to literally pick a topic out of thin air and then have seasoned professionals teach me all about it three days a week. I got to live independently and among bright people all in my age group and craft whatever life I wanted within the relatively safe confines of a university. Then there's all the tradition and legend and adventure that goes with the average college experience. Meeting so many new people from so many different places and backgrounds... Hell, I'd pay triple.
    - hermitdev 7y ago
      This largely echos my experience. Moved from a small rural town to Chicago. Was surrounded by professors and industry professional instructors. Most of my non PhD instructors had decades of industry experience from the likes of Motorola, Comes or Bell labs/Lucent. Classes at my school were generally pretty small, except for a few weeder classes in freshman/sophomore years. I studied Electrical and Computer Engineering (got 2 B.S. degrees). All of the instructors in the EE department were extremely approachable and really cared about their students (at least about the students that cared for themselves and sought engagement). I had one professor that helped me move from a half tuition scholarship to a 3/4 tuition scholarship. The school I went to also set me up well to succeed professionally. Not just theory, but leadership roles, independent projects, interprofessional projects, etc. Not to mention the social aspects. I lived on campus my first 2 years, off campus my last 2 with a roommate. I got my internship end of my sophomore year as I replaced a graduating senior on my floor when I was an RA that year, and he referred me (he knew I was already dabbling in the tech stack he used). Spent 3 years working as an intern before I got my first salaried position in finance on a referral of my best friend from school. Spent 9 years at that job before moving on. Went from being a very junior dev in that role to owning several critical systems for trading at a hedge fund. Ive now spent 15 years in finance and have school to thank, though I never expected to be there. Hell, I wanted to design processors. But, do I regret going to college? Not one bit. Sometimes, I wish I'd finished my masters, but I don't need it for more than resume fodder. My work experience amd the companies I've worked for open far more doors. I get at least 5-7 emails from recruiters per week.
beezlebubba 7y ago
They found out their neighbor who has a high school diploma and manages the night shift at Taco Bell makes $25k/yr more than they do.
leftyted 7y ago
I regret my degree (though I'm doing fine). It's in History, but that's not the issue. The issue is that I wasn't mature enough or academically inclined enough when I was 18-22. I did very well in High School due to fear of disappointing my parents but I didn't do any work in college and now I regret it. I did learn how to program. I have a coworker who worked in a kitchen for a year after high school which spurred him to get a college degree. I think that's a good fit for lots of people and possibly would have been a better fit for me.
- jkmcf 7y ago
  Only took me 2 weeks of working in a kitchen to figure that out! Still chose the wrong major for me (physics), but it opened enough doors to have a sw dev career. What do you regret about the history degree? Job applicability or that it didn’t interest you enough to continue with it? The latter was my problem... I do wish I could have had two BAs, one in a blended-subject liberal arts...
tomohawk 7y ago
Does not surprise me at all. It was unfathomable to me the number of pretend students I met at school who were racking up bills discovering themselves while pursuing studies in subjects with little hope of remunerative employment. They seemed to outnumber the actual students, at least the 1st year or two. The fact that schools take advantage of unsophisticated customers with such shoddy products, and that this is heavily subsidized by taxpayer money - just ridiculous.
6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
>Most satisfied: Those with science, technology, engineering and math majors, who are typically more likely to enjoy higher salaries, reported more satisfaction with their college degrees. About 42% of engineering grads and 35% of computer science grads said they had no regrets. >Most regrets: Humanities majors, who are least likely to earn higher pay post-graduation, were most likely to regret their college education. About 75% of humanities majors said they regretted their college education. About 73% of graduates who studied social sciences, physical and life sciences, and art also said the same. I love the idea of free college. That said, I feel weird about subsidizing something people regret doing in the first place. If this doesn't provide $X value to you, having the tax payer pay that much for it instead of you paying for it seems weird. I hesitate to make a HN tech bubble comment, but it really seems like only making certain degrees free could make sense. Like, I'm a lot happier paying taxes to educate doctors than poets, even though there's value in having both.
- massysett 7y ago
  It makes even less sense to pay to educate doctors. Their earnings pay for the education many times over.
  - jacobsenscott 7y ago
    I don't think that's true unless you become a specialist. If you become a GP, or a pediatrician, or work in a rural area where docs are in short supply you don't make huge money.
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    On the other hand if earnings are so high perhaps you need more doctors so should encourage them.
- StephenCanis 7y ago
  Is it just me or are those two paragraphs worded in a way that makes the difference between most and least satisfied larger? If only 35% of computer science grads say they have no regrets does that not mean that 65% of them have regrets? That's pretty close to the 73%-75% for the "Most Regrets" group. Thought that was interesting framing.
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FatDrunknStupid 7y ago
Two-thirds of American employees regret their education? Bollocks. They regret the punitive cost. Modern slavery?
hellenawaweru 7y ago
Student loan debt of nearly to $1.6 trillion is quite alot. how will they be able to pay this in this error https://finance.uonbi.ac.ke/node/1081 https://finance.uonbi.ac.ke/node/1081

143 points by drocer88 7y ago

There is a worthwhile discussion to be had about the cost of college tuition and actuarial tables of different degrees and their earning power and how that relates to pay structure for graduates and for professors and how college programs are run. Trying to have that discussion on hacker news starting from a primary source consisting of a CBS News poll is like trying to get to the moon on a North Korean rocket with sadness and starvation as your rocket fuel.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
If you want to measure economic potential vs cost, what you propose is reasonable. If you want to measure regret, it's not. Regret could have more causes than cost vs payback. (It's interesting, though, that loans were the primary regret, and choice of major was also high.)
legitster 7y ago
If I remember correctly, the previous administration proposed a program where schools and degrees were valued based on their potential earnings but the collective pushback from universities killed the idea.
- jdm2212 7y ago
  The idea got killed because it's really hard to measure value added as opposed to just graduates' earnings (students who appear identical on paper self-select into schools and majors and later on careers based on non-measurable stuff). And if you basically just measure graduates' earnings, you're going to punish schools that take a chance on less prepared students, majors that cater to students with weaker backgrounds, etc. University administrators and professors aren't dumb. They know that good faith efforts to measure value added today will give way next month or next year to laziness and crude numerical targets. The end result will maybe be better numerical scores, but little substantive improvement in how well students are educated or prepared for life.

mrcactu5 7y ago

i got into a nice college, and they even gave us financial aid. the job market was unforgiving.

not_a_moth 7y ago

I regret the four years part at least. I believe undergrad really only needs to be 2-3 years tops.

takk309 7y ago
I have two Civil Engineering degrees (BS and MS) and have been working in the field for some time now and I think the opposite, CE should be a minimum 5 year program. The people I see as fresh undergraduates do not know enough to do the job but those with master's degrees do. I guess it is forcing those that do the hiring to select for those who have more schooling.
- bowlich 7y ago
  A fresh graduate also isn't going to be able to walk out with a PE until they've held some kind of industry role. I would think that this is a good indicator that a fresh graduate isn't supposed to be ready-to-go but ready to be trained. It seems more like it's those doing the hiring who are slacking on their responsibility than the school.
- tropo 7y ago
  Right now it is 1 year, plus another 3 years of filler. We could make it 5 with another year of filler, but I don't think that would help. Suppose we mandate another year worth of classes: Ancient Mesopotamian Art, Intersectionality in Sports, Flute Performance, Zoology, Sexual Development in the Infant, Ballroom Dance, French Existentialism, Phlebotomy, Astronomy, History of Jazz. Does this help? We already have 3 years of it. Chains of prerequisites are long enough that we might need 2 years by the calendar, but there is only 1 year worth of material. Going half-time for 2 years would provide the same benefit as the modern American 4-year degree.
  - observer12 7y ago
    This, I dropped out of college after doing the majority of the "core". I do well and can easily afford to finish without loans, but finishing requires a bunch of general education credits that I see no benefit from.

antidaily 7y ago

"Two-thirds of employees report regrets about their advanced degrees."

gojomo 7y ago
It's unclear what 'advanced' means in that bullet; most of the article seems to refer to undergraduate majors, or perhaps all post-secondary (after high-school) education. The confusing writing continues when the article gets to numbers for different areas-of-study, as it alternates between reporting percentages for "have regrets" and "no regrets". (The last 7 paragraphs would be clearer as a table taking 1/3 the space.)
sct202 7y ago
Also regrets are vague. I have regrets, but I don't know that I would do anything different.
analog31 7y ago
The survey report doesn't even use the word "advanced," so it looks like whoever wrote the article just doesn't know what an advanced degree is.

avgDev 7y ago

Before being an SE, I had many shit jobs and getting the college degree unlocked many doors for me. I went to a state uni, it was relatively cheap, I don't think I would make anything close to what I make now as I hate sales. However, I know smart people with art degrees, which are useless to them. Every competent person I have met when studying computer science is doing very well, would they achieve the same success without a CS degree? Maybe, but that degree definitely helps getting jobs at non-tech companies. I have no "regrats"

observer12 7y ago
In my experience tech companies tend to be the ones that are snobby about degrees. I know Fortune 50s (non tech companies) that don't care about degrees.

payne92 7y ago

Here’s the underlying survey report: https://www.payscale.com/data/biggest-college-regrets https://www.payscale.com/data/biggest-college-regrets

gojomo 7y ago
Thanks! The CBS write-up is really, really awful – from the headline (about respondents regretting "their degrees" as opposed to having a mix of debt/topic/networking/institution/etc regrets) to the confusing prose descriptions of alternating "regret" or "no regrets" levels. The raw tables, & accompanying descriptions, at your link are much clearer.
ereyes01 7y ago
This should really be the posted article, it has all the original data and conclusions.
analog31 7y ago
I looked through the article. I'd be skeptical about interpreting what people actually regret. Do they regret not choosing another major? Which major? Would they have been successful / happy in that major? Do they regret not going to a cheaper college? Do they regret not getting a job after high school? What job? Would they have been happy in that job?

chaostheory 7y ago

From the article: "Most satisfied: Those with science, technology, engineering and math majors, who are typically more likely to enjoy higher salaries, reported more satisfaction with their college degrees. About 42% of engineering grads and 35% of computer science grads said they had no regrets. Most regrets: Humanities majors, who are least likely to earn higher pay post-graduation, were most likely to regret their college education. About 75% of humanities majors said they regretted their college education. About 73% of graduates who studied social sciences, physical and life sciences, and art also said the same. "

dr_dshiv 7y ago
I'm really curious how they worded the questions.
stargazing 7y ago
Important to note the phrasing of this. 58% of engineering grads and 65% of CS grads still said they regretted their degrees - which isn't far off the numbers of those in the humanities.
- daveslash 7y ago
  Yeah, their phrasing is atrocious on this...
- tomohawk 7y ago
  This really surprises me. I would have expected maybe 30% based on so many people not making it through the program. At my school they had to get 2/3rds to drop by junior year or there would be too many in the program, and they never missed that goal. I saw very few make it through who were not genuinely interested in the subject.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    How many young devs have you met who you were sure were going to wash out? Many of them got the degree to have a comfortable life, not because it felt like a calling. All of those people are going to regret struggling through the CS program only to find out that the programming problems in school were trivial and the real stuff is messy and confusing as hell. I tell anyone who asks that they should get some sort of programming job as an undergrad. If you can't hack it, you can get some other degree in 5 years. If you can, you'll learn so much more from your classes, because you'll have the practical bits down pat and you can focus on the theoretical. One of my friends got a job junior year. I would ask him how long the homework took him and he would say something like 2 hours. Bullshit. It took me 10 and there were people in the lab a lot longer than me. There is no fucking way that's true. I stopped asking him because it just pissed me off. Senior year I got a job working at the same place, and within a couple months I was down to 4-5 hours. Ok, maybe he wasn't bragging. Maybe practice really is that important. By the time I left, with maybe a couple thousand hours of programming under my belt, I had one class with a shortage of machines (3D cards). I would sit in my apartment writing code in a terminal window on one of those machines, essentially blind, for two hours. When I'd get a clean compile I'd go over to the lab to debug for 40-75 minutes. Because doing the homework was just doing the homework, like a math class, instead of a huge production. Then I'd go back to work and stare at a complex memory corruption bug for 5 hours...

legitster 7y ago

In WA, there is a program where you can finish the last two years of high school at a community college and graduate with a two year degree for free. It was probably the best decision of my life. I basically got to trial and error all of my interests for free much earlier and cheaper than everyone else. And it went against the guidance of my school counselors. They thought community college would hurt my chances at getting into "Prestigious Schools". They also knew tons of kids who screwed off the minute they were given an ounce of freedom (you know, kids who would have wasted money at college anyway). Community college is the best. Everyone should do it. And it's actually designed for you to learn, not just get a degree. Take a year off, explore your interests, take an internship if you can. Then decide the degree you want to go for (if you actually want to at this point), and find an affordable place to do it. Too many of my friends got suckered into "there's a school in Vermont that offers the exact program I want, and they are offering me an arbitrary discount on their huge out of state rates".

bradlys 7y ago
> And it went against the guidance of my school counselors. They thought community college would hurt my chances at getting into "Prestigious Schools". I mean, they're not wrong. You will statistically be less likely to get into those schools. Once you're a transfer student, your acceptance rates go down significantly for prestigious private colleges. (And some public universities too) If your goal is to graduate from a top school, you're less likely to be accepted as a transfer student.
- bargl 7y ago
  The program doesn't require you to be a transfer student. You actually get a HS and AS/AE degree at the same time. So you have the option to be a transfer student but you also have the option to go through the normal application process and have your credits treated as HS classes. All that said, it is probably still more likely to hurt you on an application to some programs. Now they've got to compare apples to oranges rather than an easy AP student to another AP student. I did the program and got into most of the schools I wanted to but missed out on one that I really wanted. I saved myself 1 years worth of college, and could have saved more if I'd planned a little better (taken engineering physics instead of normal physics) and a few more classes that would have transferred directly. Overall I saved about 2x on credits as much some of the AP students, which would have been 3x if I'd known better.

paultopia 7y ago

We've got to stop letting 18-22 year-olds make incredibly expensive life/career decisions with zero information.

lacampbell 7y ago
The problem isn't the young age of these decisions, the problem is that childhood now lasts until your mid 20s, as opposed to ending in your late teens. When you have visibly aging people in their 30s saying stuff like "adulting is so hard gaiz!!", the problem is the culture.
- ChainOfFools 7y ago
  This makes me wonder how long a world of immortals would be sustainable.
sdinsn 7y ago
> with zero information Zero information? Young people have so much information: government job statistics, job growth predictions, free career advice, peer-led career forums, etc. They just ignore all of it.
- Hermitian909 7y ago
  This is disingenuous, data you either don't know exists or lack the tools to parse is useless. Even if a young person does know it exists and can parse it, it is often the case that every authority figure in a young person's life is giving bad information. Often times your teachers, guidance counselor, school administrators, and parents are pressuring you to go to some middling 4 year institution. We spend 18 years training kids to treat the adults in their life as authority figures, expecting them to make their own decision against the desires of these authority figures is naive.
  - sdinsn 7y ago
    > data you either don't know exists It's quite easy to come across it with a Google search. > lack the tools to parse The only "tool" you need is the ability to read. > bad information Which is not "zero information" anyway.

fiftyfifty 7y ago

It's crazy to spend so much time and money in school and not have a plan for what kind of career you are going to get when you get out. Parents and educators are failing these young people in not guiding them into realistic jobs and careers. The process before anyone attends college should be to decide on potential careers and then pursue the schooling and other qualifications you need to succeed in that career. A study of the job market and relative availability of different jobs should play into that process as well. Unless you come from a wealthy family, before you spend a dime on higher education you should spend some serious time looking at websites like this one: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/ https://www.bls.gov/ooh/

killjoywashere 7y ago
I'm a huge fan of the Occupational Outlook Handbook. That said, it's breakout of some interesting categories is fairly weak. Many medical specialties are simply not listed, while virtually every subset of engineering is listed, except software engineering (perhaps due to a lack of PE involvement?)
spacegod 7y ago
I did look and I still did not come out the other side ok. I think personality is an underrated factor. I would've been happier working at 7/11 for the rest of my life than having to go to university (which I hated) and then to a job I hated to pay it off.

apo 7y ago

Imagine how much more sane tuitions would be if these people had just done something else with their lives. Unintended consequences of federal loan guarantees: education becomes more expensive, leaving young graduates who should be finding their financial footing trying to understand what happened to them.

downrightmike 7y ago
Schools have all the info and yet they still are more than happy to sign kids into mountains of debt. Nothing would have lowered tuition because it doesn't take all of the money brought in to school the kids, most of the money is going into growing the school's endowment and to maintain their status as a charity so they don't pay taxes. So 58% of kids MUST take some form of aide or charity. And as society has plummeted, more kids are pushed into Uni and therefore tuition MUST be raised to keep the charity status. https://www.conradbastable.com/essays/the-uncharity-of-college-the-big-business-nobody-understands https://www.conradbastable.com/essays/the-uncharity-of-colle...

perfunctory 7y ago

Maybe they don't regret their degrees but their jobs. The current job market totally disregards the passions and aspirations of our generation. Maybe we should treat enrolment per degree as a sort of voting system and allocate financial resources accordingly. After all students are drown from the society, so their aspirations are society's aspirations. Unfortunately capital allocation decisions are made by managers who are rather detached from real communities.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
You want to let students' aspirations guide jobs, rather than what companies need? That seems really unlikely to work out well for the society. Society needs companies that can actually produce stuff that people need and want, worse than they need companies that create jobs that fulfill everyone's aspirations.
- malandrew 7y ago
  This. So much this. Passions and aspirations are for hobbies. Jobs are about providing value to others in society in exchange for IOUs that you can exchange with others.
  - perfunctory 7y ago
    To reply with a personal anecdote. When I went to study computer science, Google did not exit yet. Facebook did not exist. Apple was an obscure company. World Wide Web was a hobby. My parents were genuinely worried I wouldn't be able to get a job. Fast forward. Had I been more realistic and chosen a degree that better matched the job market of the time I would probably be unemployed by now. Draw your own conclusions from this.
    - malandrew 7y ago
      Sometimes the two coincide. Had you been born 20 years earlier but still had the same passions, how might things have been different? Another fun thought exercise, what subject can someone go study today that would be a hobby right now that parents would worry about with respect to job prospects, but that in 5, 10 and 20 years will have its own Google, Facebook, Apple and World Wide Web?

Zaskoda 7y ago

My MS has certainly proven to be much more of a waste of resources than I ever expected it might be.

phil248 7y ago

This is truly shocking to me. I'd have thought that most people value the experience of college so immensely that it was worth the cost. I'll be paying student debt for the rest of my life, but in retrospect I'd have happily paid double for the experiences and perspectives I gained.

cgoecknerwald 7y ago
This seems like a unique perspective to me. Can you elaborate on those experiences you found most valuable?
- phil248 7y ago
  I don't know how to explain how the college experience is amazing without writing several paragraphs. I honestly thought my sentiments were near-universal. For several years I got to literally pick a topic out of thin air and then have seasoned professionals teach me all about it three days a week. I got to live independently and among bright people all in my age group and craft whatever life I wanted within the relatively safe confines of a university. Then there's all the tradition and legend and adventure that goes with the average college experience. Meeting so many new people from so many different places and backgrounds... Hell, I'd pay triple.
  - hermitdev 7y ago
    This largely echos my experience. Moved from a small rural town to Chicago. Was surrounded by professors and industry professional instructors. Most of my non PhD instructors had decades of industry experience from the likes of Motorola, Comes or Bell labs/Lucent. Classes at my school were generally pretty small, except for a few weeder classes in freshman/sophomore years. I studied Electrical and Computer Engineering (got 2 B.S. degrees). All of the instructors in the EE department were extremely approachable and really cared about their students (at least about the students that cared for themselves and sought engagement). I had one professor that helped me move from a half tuition scholarship to a 3/4 tuition scholarship. The school I went to also set me up well to succeed professionally. Not just theory, but leadership roles, independent projects, interprofessional projects, etc. Not to mention the social aspects. I lived on campus my first 2 years, off campus my last 2 with a roommate. I got my internship end of my sophomore year as I replaced a graduating senior on my floor when I was an RA that year, and he referred me (he knew I was already dabbling in the tech stack he used). Spent 3 years working as an intern before I got my first salaried position in finance on a referral of my best friend from school. Spent 9 years at that job before moving on. Went from being a very junior dev in that role to owning several critical systems for trading at a hedge fund. Ive now spent 15 years in finance and have school to thank, though I never expected to be there. Hell, I wanted to design processors. But, do I regret going to college? Not one bit. Sometimes, I wish I'd finished my masters, but I don't need it for more than resume fodder. My work experience amd the companies I've worked for open far more doors. I get at least 5-7 emails from recruiters per week.

beezlebubba 7y ago

They found out their neighbor who has a high school diploma and manages the night shift at Taco Bell makes $25k/yr more than they do.

leftyted 7y ago

I regret my degree (though I'm doing fine). It's in History, but that's not the issue. The issue is that I wasn't mature enough or academically inclined enough when I was 18-22. I did very well in High School due to fear of disappointing my parents but I didn't do any work in college and now I regret it. I did learn how to program. I have a coworker who worked in a kitchen for a year after high school which spurred him to get a college degree. I think that's a good fit for lots of people and possibly would have been a better fit for me.

jkmcf 7y ago
Only took me 2 weeks of working in a kitchen to figure that out! Still chose the wrong major for me (physics), but it opened enough doors to have a sw dev career. What do you regret about the history degree? Job applicability or that it didn’t interest you enough to continue with it? The latter was my problem... I do wish I could have had two BAs, one in a blended-subject liberal arts...

tomohawk 7y ago

Does not surprise me at all. It was unfathomable to me the number of pretend students I met at school who were racking up bills discovering themselves while pursuing studies in subjects with little hope of remunerative employment. They seemed to outnumber the actual students, at least the 1st year or two. The fact that schools take advantage of unsophisticated customers with such shoddy products, and that this is heavily subsidized by taxpayer money - just ridiculous.

6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago

>Most satisfied: Those with science, technology, engineering and math majors, who are typically more likely to enjoy higher salaries, reported more satisfaction with their college degrees. About 42% of engineering grads and 35% of computer science grads said they had no regrets. >Most regrets: Humanities majors, who are least likely to earn higher pay post-graduation, were most likely to regret their college education. About 75% of humanities majors said they regretted their college education. About 73% of graduates who studied social sciences, physical and life sciences, and art also said the same. I love the idea of free college. That said, I feel weird about subsidizing something people regret doing in the first place. If this doesn't provide $X value to you, having the tax payer pay that much for it instead of you paying for it seems weird. I hesitate to make a HN tech bubble comment, but it really seems like only making certain degrees free could make sense. Like, I'm a lot happier paying taxes to educate doctors than poets, even though there's value in having both.

massysett 7y ago
It makes even less sense to pay to educate doctors. Their earnings pay for the education many times over.
- jacobsenscott 7y ago
  I don't think that's true unless you become a specialist. If you become a GP, or a pediatrician, or work in a rural area where docs are in short supply you don't make huge money.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  On the other hand if earnings are so high perhaps you need more doctors so should encourage them.
StephenCanis 7y ago
Is it just me or are those two paragraphs worded in a way that makes the difference between most and least satisfied larger? If only 35% of computer science grads say they have no regrets does that not mean that 65% of them have regrets? That's pretty close to the 73%-75% for the "Most Regrets" group. Thought that was interesting framing.

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FatDrunknStupid 7y ago

Two-thirds of American employees regret their education? Bollocks. They regret the punitive cost. Modern slavery?

hellenawaweru 7y ago

Student loan debt of nearly to $1.6 trillion is quite alot. how will they be able to pay this in this error https://finance.uonbi.ac.ke/node/1081 https://finance.uonbi.ac.ke/node/1081