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>There are lots of difficult fields to study that just don't pay well due to competition That may be the case, but speaking as a recent young person, the vast

>There are lots of difficult fields to study that just don't pay well due to competition That may be the case, but speaking as a recent young person, the vast majority of college students I met did no actual research regarding the employability of their majors. It's also a disservice to group soft and hard sciences together under STEM - because you end up with millions of children who can't hack it in math, but they hear that psychology or sociology are STEM and therefore a meal ticket, and end up taking out loans for a worthless degree simply because they had it drilled in their heads that they needed to go to college and major in something "useful".

syedkarim 6y ago
Why is this being downvoted? Strange. I graduated in 2007 and your observation is the same as mine. Students go to school without really thinking about what is next. I'm guessing that is a result of a middle/upper middle class upbringing. I noticed international students were a lot more driven, on average. I went to a small, liberal arts college that was not highly selective in admissions. Even with the talented and studious, very few had any real idea of what was next. Why do we encourage so much debt just for the supposed sake of edification. I will say, though, that it was a really fun time in my life. So maybe that's worth it?
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  I think lots of it is due to bad biased advice. True story, on my first day of college, at the convocation, the university president told his true story about how he decided to stay at university for an extra year "to study the classics" and what an amazing decision this was for him. He encouraged everyone to seek erudition. I wonder how many students accepted that as fact. Because it is indeed a great strategy if you are wealthy and have a social-network safety net waiting to bail you out with a nice job after graduation. But for working class students like myself, it is horrible advice. I couldn't have graduated a moment too soon, I need to help my mom with rent, pay loans, etc. You have wealthy "successful" academics and others giving advice that is noble but unrealistic and downright harmful in some cases.
tengbretson 6y ago
I truly believe that it should be illegal for state-funded universities to collect tuition from students that are "undecided" in their major.
- mikeg8 6y ago
  So students remain undecided as long as possible to enroll in as many undergrad classes as possible? your proposition makes no sense to me. I believe as an 18 year old, you need to begin seriously taking responsibility for your decisions, and if you choose to go to school, you absolutely should pay for it. the cost argument is totally separate, colleges should be much more affordable IMO, but there shouldn't be free rides for remaining "undeclared", that would have perverse incentives.
  - tengbretson 6y ago
    I guess what I said was too ambiguous. What I meant was that undecided or undeclared should not even be allowed to go to university
    - alistairSH 6y ago
      I'm not sure I agree with that. I was undecided for 2 years (of the typical 4 at a US institution). It wasn't a problem and didn't cost me anything. Expecting an 18 year old to commit to a program seems a bit excessive (yes, we do it for professional programs like nursing and engineering - but not all students are the same, both of those programs have high wash-out rates, and at least with engineering, if you get a job doing other things).
0d9eooo 6y ago
It's more complicated, and a deeper problem than that. For example, I'm one of those former psych majors, and though those majors are full of people who aren't good at math, there's also a lot of them who know more computer science and math than some of the comp sci majors I've worked with. In fact, a common problem for psych majors and other students is to take the first couple of psych courses, think it's a breeze, and then hit advanced courses with cognitive modeling, neuroscience, epidemiology, and genetics, and realize it is basically STEM. The problem with this is that everyone who took those first couple of classes, or didn't, has this stereotype of psych as all involving people laying around on couches discussing past lives or something. So you might have a psych major who did a thesis involving neural network models and cognition, maybe with some imaging involving a cutting edge system in the imaging center, working with physicists, and they will get looked down on by employers. Meanwhile the comp sci undergrad who barely gets python and did their group final project on some kind of toy webapp is qualified. I have family who are making significant money in web development who are actually English majors, who just happened to have the right connections at the right time. When I was in undergrad, comp sci was filled with a glut of unmotivated students who just wanted a degree for a job, and we were all being told that there wasn't going to be demand for comp sci degrees because there would be too many grads in it and you could always learn that stuff through different means. My father, who is now in medical administration with an MD, talked me out of biochem and biology degrees because he couldn't find employment with those degrees and had to go on to grad school. So what do we make of a degree? Does my dad's biochem degree suddenly become more valuable when it's a stepping stone to an MD program? Did that family member with a "worthless" liberal arts degree waste their money when they're making a comfortable income in the tech sector? The deeper problem is that people are seen one-dimensionally, as equal to some degree, rather than their experiences, like college is some glorified vocational certification program. Whenever we talk about "worthwhile" versus "worthless" degrees at some level what we're accepting is this idea that someone's skillset is defined by the degree, rather than the degree being an indicator of part of a skillset. Society used to see things in the latter way, and at some point it transitioned to the former.
- verall 6y ago
  I'd say a bigger problem isn't that undergraduate psych is easy, but rather just that _so many_ students that don't really know what they want to do take it, causing like a permanent glut of psych undergrads. My major was also very popular, but about 1/3 students in computer engineering drop or switch majors, most after the first year. Fair or not weedouts and things to reduce the glut of undergrads. At least at my school the graduation rate for the psych school was way higher.
chillacy 6y ago
Just to put numbers on that, nothing pays off quite like science and engineering: https://studentloanhero.com/featured/majors-students-debt/ https://studentloanhero.com/featured/majors-students-debt/

syedkarim 6y ago

Why is this being downvoted? Strange. I graduated in 2007 and your observation is the same as mine. Students go to school without really thinking about what is next. I'm guessing that is a result of a middle/upper middle class upbringing. I noticed international students were a lot more driven, on average. I went to a small, liberal arts college that was not highly selective in admissions. Even with the talented and studious, very few had any real idea of what was next. Why do we encourage so much debt just for the supposed sake of edification. I will say, though, that it was a really fun time in my life. So maybe that's worth it?

TuringNYC 6y ago
I think lots of it is due to bad biased advice. True story, on my first day of college, at the convocation, the university president told his true story about how he decided to stay at university for an extra year "to study the classics" and what an amazing decision this was for him. He encouraged everyone to seek erudition. I wonder how many students accepted that as fact. Because it is indeed a great strategy if you are wealthy and have a social-network safety net waiting to bail you out with a nice job after graduation. But for working class students like myself, it is horrible advice. I couldn't have graduated a moment too soon, I need to help my mom with rent, pay loans, etc. You have wealthy "successful" academics and others giving advice that is noble but unrealistic and downright harmful in some cases.

tengbretson 6y ago

I truly believe that it should be illegal for state-funded universities to collect tuition from students that are "undecided" in their major.

mikeg8 6y ago
So students remain undecided as long as possible to enroll in as many undergrad classes as possible? your proposition makes no sense to me. I believe as an 18 year old, you need to begin seriously taking responsibility for your decisions, and if you choose to go to school, you absolutely should pay for it. the cost argument is totally separate, colleges should be much more affordable IMO, but there shouldn't be free rides for remaining "undeclared", that would have perverse incentives.
- tengbretson 6y ago
  I guess what I said was too ambiguous. What I meant was that undecided or undeclared should not even be allowed to go to university
  - alistairSH 6y ago
    I'm not sure I agree with that. I was undecided for 2 years (of the typical 4 at a US institution). It wasn't a problem and didn't cost me anything. Expecting an 18 year old to commit to a program seems a bit excessive (yes, we do it for professional programs like nursing and engineering - but not all students are the same, both of those programs have high wash-out rates, and at least with engineering, if you get a job doing other things).

0d9eooo 6y ago

It's more complicated, and a deeper problem than that. For example, I'm one of those former psych majors, and though those majors are full of people who aren't good at math, there's also a lot of them who know more computer science and math than some of the comp sci majors I've worked with. In fact, a common problem for psych majors and other students is to take the first couple of psych courses, think it's a breeze, and then hit advanced courses with cognitive modeling, neuroscience, epidemiology, and genetics, and realize it is basically STEM. The problem with this is that everyone who took those first couple of classes, or didn't, has this stereotype of psych as all involving people laying around on couches discussing past lives or something. So you might have a psych major who did a thesis involving neural network models and cognition, maybe with some imaging involving a cutting edge system in the imaging center, working with physicists, and they will get looked down on by employers. Meanwhile the comp sci undergrad who barely gets python and did their group final project on some kind of toy webapp is qualified. I have family who are making significant money in web development who are actually English majors, who just happened to have the right connections at the right time. When I was in undergrad, comp sci was filled with a glut of unmotivated students who just wanted a degree for a job, and we were all being told that there wasn't going to be demand for comp sci degrees because there would be too many grads in it and you could always learn that stuff through different means. My father, who is now in medical administration with an MD, talked me out of biochem and biology degrees because he couldn't find employment with those degrees and had to go on to grad school. So what do we make of a degree? Does my dad's biochem degree suddenly become more valuable when it's a stepping stone to an MD program? Did that family member with a "worthless" liberal arts degree waste their money when they're making a comfortable income in the tech sector? The deeper problem is that people are seen one-dimensionally, as equal to some degree, rather than their experiences, like college is some glorified vocational certification program. Whenever we talk about "worthwhile" versus "worthless" degrees at some level what we're accepting is this idea that someone's skillset is defined by the degree, rather than the degree being an indicator of part of a skillset. Society used to see things in the latter way, and at some point it transitioned to the former.

verall 6y ago
I'd say a bigger problem isn't that undergraduate psych is easy, but rather just that _so many_ students that don't really know what they want to do take it, causing like a permanent glut of psych undergrads. My major was also very popular, but about 1/3 students in computer engineering drop or switch majors, most after the first year. Fair or not weedouts and things to reduce the glut of undergrads. At least at my school the graduation rate for the psych school was way higher.

chillacy 6y ago

Just to put numbers on that, nothing pays off quite like science and engineering: https://studentloanhero.com/featured/majors-students-debt/ https://studentloanhero.com/featured/majors-students-debt/