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A couple of points: not all colleges are created the same. Many state schools, particularly top-tier ones offer fantastic educations at an excellent price-point

A couple of points: not all colleges are created the same. Many state schools, particularly top-tier ones offer fantastic educations at an excellent price-point. They are a good value, and will remain so. Along with need-based aid and scholarships, they are amazing vehicles to reduce generational inequality (look at UCLA for example). I can only speak to the engineering (not software) side of things, but from lab work to project-based design classes, I gained skills, knowledge and experience from well-trained instructors in a way that I think would be very difficult to begin to replicate in a remote experience. Many, if not most students, can't learn effectively by themselves through online videos alone. Structure, assessments and regular interaction with teaching staff have real, measurable value. Finally, the social networks that universities provide students and alumni are valuable. We're social beings. These networks open students to possibilities and careers they may not have considered. Of course, there are negatives to this as well. Universities remain economic engines, particularly across wide swaths of semi-rural parts of the country. They create dynamic flows of people, ideas and capital that are undeniably important.

gnulinux 6y ago
I would personally consider the education I received in UC Berkeley when I was there studying CS, excellent. It was very challenging (in a way, it's impossible to exaggerate this), I found tons of help from TAs, my peers, professors were experts in their fields, labs were very useful to make me experience "real life" stuff and discussions were very useful to learn "theory" side of things, both of these occurring in the same class. I had a lot of research opportunities, and "hand-on" engineering opportunities. The only problem I can think of right now, it was occasionally hard to get the class you want; but with a few strategies it was manageable to get all the classes you want. I hear a lot of people who criticize college being "4 years of fun". I don't doubt this is the case for most people, but this cannot be further than my own experience (and my friends in Berkeley who studied some STEM field). When you have endless stream of homeworks, projects, midterms and often-times you need to make decisions so that you minimize the penalty you can get by spending too little time on a HW (as opposed to maximizing your grade), there was simply not enough time to socialize. Obviously there were many people who socialized and partied but their GPAs were low. Also obviously, there were people who socialized and partied also had high grades, but they were very brilliant and were probably 0.1% of the class. Most of us mere mortal souls spent weeks in library studying and perfecting ourselves. We can have endless discussions about importance (or lack thereof) universities, but given the correct setting, and correct motivation, they can be incredibly good tools. When I came to Berkeley my family was piss poor and I was a 1st generation college student. Fast-forward 3 years (I graduated in 3 years as opposed to 4) I found a 6 figure job doing what I love every day, programming. I think that's a very good deal. Controversial claim ahead: I think this discussion about universities' importance is uniquely American. I think we're simply discussing the wrong thing. Instead of questioning whether college is important for X, Y, we should be discussing how we can make every single American go to college. Yes this would mean having public universities where Americans can go without any cost, European style.
- machinehermit 6y ago
  I just don't agree we should be discussing how every American can go to college. I am a drop out. I really had no business ever going to college in the first place. I love what I do now but I had to figure things out on my own. Free college would have just been more free party time for me. You can run it a 1000 times and every time I am partying. What we need to do is make sure people like you don't put off college because it becomes too pricey. I also think I would have figured things out sooner if I would not have been pushed so hard by all these signals as a young man that college was a given.
- teslabox 6y ago
  > I think we're simply discussing the wrong thing. Instead of questioning whether college is important for X, Y, we should be discussing how we can make every single American go to college. Or we could help most people learn valuable skills in their first 13 years of schooling, so the only people who need/want to go to college are those who will actually benefit. I saw a submission in /newest last night about how one of the actual purposes of American K-12 education is 'childcare': https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23027408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23027408 "Like pretty much every everything about schooling in the US ever, it assumes that what schools do – and all that schools do – is educate. [...] The fact of the matter is our primary school system is state-subsidized childcare for the vast majority of parents who cannot afford to raise their own children in our ghastly economy. That's been the case for the last 40-plus years. This isn't new, and if it's news to you, o reader, it's only because nobody much in the US has wanted to admit this evidence of the US economy being terrifyingly more broken than we Americans are prepared to confront." While I appreciate that public schools are supposed to serve the interests of the public, the standard factory school model isn't doing anyone any favors. The United States' College/University system is a much more valuable institution than the K-12 as commonly exists today. The only reform really needed for K-12 is to transform it into an institution that exists to help children figure out what they're good at, and provide the resources to help them learn what they want to learn.
- goldenchrome 6y ago
  That sounds like masochism. I went to a decent public school, worked hard sometimes, partied whenever, and yet I work for the same kind of company as you. A good 25% of my class ended up the same way. If your goal is to make money, then I don't think hard work matters nearly as much as figuring out the social aspect of how to fit in with working professionals.
fancyfish 6y ago
I agree, as a Tier-1 dev. I went to a Tier-1 university and wouldn’t discount universities in Tiers 1-2 for the research, lectures, and resources they provide, in addition to the serendipitous environment where you will bump into other top-talent people. Below Tier 2 I would support online learning to an extent, but having regular lectures and group work is important to keep an 18 year old on track. Universities need to instead cut superfluous spending on sports programs, new buildings, and layers of administration.
- intended 6y ago
  This would only solidify the strangle,hold, tier 1 colleges have on education and job outcomes
commandlinefan 6y ago
> the social networks that universities provide students and alumni are valuable Colleges say this, but does anybody ever really find it to be the case? I suppose if you went to Harvard or Princeton this might be true, but as a representative of the other 90%, I've never interacted with anybody I went to school with (including a year abroad, a four-year degree, and a master's degree) in any way.
- mettamage 6y ago
  ===== UNIVERSITY AND ITS SOCIAL BENEFIT: my experience ====== I'm a Dutch person who went to both universities in Amsterdam. I know people who now work at: - McKinsey - Google - Adyen (not anymore) - The Dutch television - The biggest Dutch bank Don't get me wrong. It's hard to get a job that I want, because apparently I can't get a job at those great companies (prepping hardcore for Google at the moment, so who knows). And I'm not utilizing my network in the right way. But I do get to get a glimpse inside some of them. Besides that, I have met a person who helped me a shit ton financially, spiritually and intellectually. I've done the same for him (though less financially, unfortunately, but if the roles were reversed, I'd have done what he did). While he never went to a big name company, it definitely helped (more than anything else really). Did I count on it? No. Did I meet him during the first day of uni? Actually, seven days prior to the first day of uni (1 week non-stop partying first). So there's that. ===== THE UNIVERSITY EXPERIENCE ===== Also, I've experienced more or less everything a university has to offer, doing 2 bachelors and 2 masters + extracurriculars + student societies help with that. In a big way it did mature me a lot. I was different than most though, in the sense that I always did multiple studies and things at once. I wasn't beholdened to one "student identity". I was never a psychology or CS student, I was always both or more. In all fairness, high school was simply a prison. University felt more like a city, anything was possible. And more or less everything did come true. Here's a small selection: - Horrible education - The best spiritual lessons that any other person could ever teach me. The course was called: meditation and psychology, and it was a 75:25 mix of theology (Buddhism during the centuries, emphasizing meditation) and psychology/cognitive science of meditation. Before this course I had issues with meditation. After this course, I knew how to deal with all of them despite that they were never directly addressed. - The most epic parties, - And some pretty boring ones - Easy yet super interesting lessons, one was about the supply chain of a video game - Hard lessons that weren't useful and simply wasted time - Education that made me believe I was too stupid, only to persevere and realize that, to my surprise, there is no such thing. There is only perserverance, for my situation anyway. That was really empowering. What's currently less empowering is that potential employees don't seem to understand this. - Fickle friendships - Deep friendships - Shallow loves - 3+ year relationships - Lots of wasted opportunity costs - Amazing synergies that proppeled my education and job prospects (currently definitely not though) Don't get me started on my 5 theses. To close, it was everything: epic, painful, mundane, joyful, sad, enriching, numbing, stimulating. I can keep on going, I'll stop. ----------------- For anyone who's interested, here's how they went: - One master thesis was written in a weekend, published nominated for best paper award. - Another master thesis took 6 months and completely failed (I'm not the best at qualitative research) - My computer science thesis was the culmination of all my theses and it showed. It took a bit longer than normal and I had an attitude with academic references across the whole spectrum of science and philosophy (not that I know that much, I'm simply more T-shaped than most academics) - One bachelor thesis that was absolute horrible to do, we were basically unpaid labor. I wrote the thesis itself in 5 days, and was done with it. - My first bachelor thesis, that was an absolute blessing. In hindsight: a perfect thesis experience. It took 3 months (as it should) and I got an amazing result (I analyzed 12 million tweets and hypothesized that 70% to 95% must be positive, I was right with 84.5%). The algorithm was simple but benchmarked very well against sophisticated ones. It was awesome.

gnulinux 6y ago

I would personally consider the education I received in UC Berkeley when I was there studying CS, excellent. It was very challenging (in a way, it's impossible to exaggerate this), I found tons of help from TAs, my peers, professors were experts in their fields, labs were very useful to make me experience "real life" stuff and discussions were very useful to learn "theory" side of things, both of these occurring in the same class. I had a lot of research opportunities, and "hand-on" engineering opportunities. The only problem I can think of right now, it was occasionally hard to get the class you want; but with a few strategies it was manageable to get all the classes you want. I hear a lot of people who criticize college being "4 years of fun". I don't doubt this is the case for most people, but this cannot be further than my own experience (and my friends in Berkeley who studied some STEM field). When you have endless stream of homeworks, projects, midterms and often-times you need to make decisions so that you minimize the penalty you can get by spending too little time on a HW (as opposed to maximizing your grade), there was simply not enough time to socialize. Obviously there were many people who socialized and partied but their GPAs were low. Also obviously, there were people who socialized and partied also had high grades, but they were very brilliant and were probably 0.1% of the class. Most of us mere mortal souls spent weeks in library studying and perfecting ourselves. We can have endless discussions about importance (or lack thereof) universities, but given the correct setting, and correct motivation, they can be incredibly good tools. When I came to Berkeley my family was piss poor and I was a 1st generation college student. Fast-forward 3 years (I graduated in 3 years as opposed to 4) I found a 6 figure job doing what I love every day, programming. I think that's a very good deal. Controversial claim ahead: I think this discussion about universities' importance is uniquely American. I think we're simply discussing the wrong thing. Instead of questioning whether college is important for X, Y, we should be discussing how we can make every single American go to college. Yes this would mean having public universities where Americans can go without any cost, European style.

machinehermit 6y ago
I just don't agree we should be discussing how every American can go to college. I am a drop out. I really had no business ever going to college in the first place. I love what I do now but I had to figure things out on my own. Free college would have just been more free party time for me. You can run it a 1000 times and every time I am partying. What we need to do is make sure people like you don't put off college because it becomes too pricey. I also think I would have figured things out sooner if I would not have been pushed so hard by all these signals as a young man that college was a given.
teslabox 6y ago
> I think we're simply discussing the wrong thing. Instead of questioning whether college is important for X, Y, we should be discussing how we can make every single American go to college. Or we could help most people learn valuable skills in their first 13 years of schooling, so the only people who need/want to go to college are those who will actually benefit. I saw a submission in /newest last night about how one of the actual purposes of American K-12 education is 'childcare': https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23027408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23027408 "Like pretty much every everything about schooling in the US ever, it assumes that what schools do – and all that schools do – is educate. [...] The fact of the matter is our primary school system is state-subsidized childcare for the vast majority of parents who cannot afford to raise their own children in our ghastly economy. That's been the case for the last 40-plus years. This isn't new, and if it's news to you, o reader, it's only because nobody much in the US has wanted to admit this evidence of the US economy being terrifyingly more broken than we Americans are prepared to confront." While I appreciate that public schools are supposed to serve the interests of the public, the standard factory school model isn't doing anyone any favors. The United States' College/University system is a much more valuable institution than the K-12 as commonly exists today. The only reform really needed for K-12 is to transform it into an institution that exists to help children figure out what they're good at, and provide the resources to help them learn what they want to learn.
goldenchrome 6y ago
That sounds like masochism. I went to a decent public school, worked hard sometimes, partied whenever, and yet I work for the same kind of company as you. A good 25% of my class ended up the same way. If your goal is to make money, then I don't think hard work matters nearly as much as figuring out the social aspect of how to fit in with working professionals.

fancyfish 6y ago

I agree, as a Tier-1 dev. I went to a Tier-1 university and wouldn’t discount universities in Tiers 1-2 for the research, lectures, and resources they provide, in addition to the serendipitous environment where you will bump into other top-talent people. Below Tier 2 I would support online learning to an extent, but having regular lectures and group work is important to keep an 18 year old on track. Universities need to instead cut superfluous spending on sports programs, new buildings, and layers of administration.

intended 6y ago
This would only solidify the strangle,hold, tier 1 colleges have on education and job outcomes

commandlinefan 6y ago

> the social networks that universities provide students and alumni are valuable Colleges say this, but does anybody ever really find it to be the case? I suppose if you went to Harvard or Princeton this might be true, but as a representative of the other 90%, I've never interacted with anybody I went to school with (including a year abroad, a four-year degree, and a master's degree) in any way.

mettamage 6y ago
===== UNIVERSITY AND ITS SOCIAL BENEFIT: my experience ====== I'm a Dutch person who went to both universities in Amsterdam. I know people who now work at: - McKinsey - Google - Adyen (not anymore) - The Dutch television - The biggest Dutch bank Don't get me wrong. It's hard to get a job that I want, because apparently I can't get a job at those great companies (prepping hardcore for Google at the moment, so who knows). And I'm not utilizing my network in the right way. But I do get to get a glimpse inside some of them. Besides that, I have met a person who helped me a shit ton financially, spiritually and intellectually. I've done the same for him (though less financially, unfortunately, but if the roles were reversed, I'd have done what he did). While he never went to a big name company, it definitely helped (more than anything else really). Did I count on it? No. Did I meet him during the first day of uni? Actually, seven days prior to the first day of uni (1 week non-stop partying first). So there's that. ===== THE UNIVERSITY EXPERIENCE ===== Also, I've experienced more or less everything a university has to offer, doing 2 bachelors and 2 masters + extracurriculars + student societies help with that. In a big way it did mature me a lot. I was different than most though, in the sense that I always did multiple studies and things at once. I wasn't beholdened to one "student identity". I was never a psychology or CS student, I was always both or more. In all fairness, high school was simply a prison. University felt more like a city, anything was possible. And more or less everything did come true. Here's a small selection: - Horrible education - The best spiritual lessons that any other person could ever teach me. The course was called: meditation and psychology, and it was a 75:25 mix of theology (Buddhism during the centuries, emphasizing meditation) and psychology/cognitive science of meditation. Before this course I had issues with meditation. After this course, I knew how to deal with all of them despite that they were never directly addressed. - The most epic parties, - And some pretty boring ones - Easy yet super interesting lessons, one was about the supply chain of a video game - Hard lessons that weren't useful and simply wasted time - Education that made me believe I was too stupid, only to persevere and realize that, to my surprise, there is no such thing. There is only perserverance, for my situation anyway. That was really empowering. What's currently less empowering is that potential employees don't seem to understand this. - Fickle friendships - Deep friendships - Shallow loves - 3+ year relationships - Lots of wasted opportunity costs - Amazing synergies that proppeled my education and job prospects (currently definitely not though) Don't get me started on my 5 theses. To close, it was everything: epic, painful, mundane, joyful, sad, enriching, numbing, stimulating. I can keep on going, I'll stop. ----------------- For anyone who's interested, here's how they went: - One master thesis was written in a weekend, published nominated for best paper award. - Another master thesis took 6 months and completely failed (I'm not the best at qualitative research) - My computer science thesis was the culmination of all my theses and it showed. It took a bit longer than normal and I had an attitude with academic references across the whole spectrum of science and philosophy (not that I know that much, I'm simply more T-shaped than most academics) - One bachelor thesis that was absolute horrible to do, we were basically unpaid labor. I wrote the thesis itself in 5 days, and was done with it. - My first bachelor thesis, that was an absolute blessing. In hindsight: a perfect thesis experience. It took 3 months (as it should) and I got an amazing result (I analyzed 12 million tweets and hypothesized that 70% to 95% must be positive, I was right with 84.5%). The algorithm was simple but benchmarked very well against sophisticated ones. It was awesome.