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I think the root of the problem is the student loan system. You can get a student loan without any consideration for your creditworthiness, with the general com

I think the root of the problem is the student loan system. You can get a student loan without any consideration for your creditworthiness, with the general compromise that the debt is rather hard to discharge. This system makes sense because the loan is supposed to provide for an investment in your future. But for any course of study that does not measurably improve your future earning potential, this premise completely falls over. Young students know this, but it seems not to deter them, and nobody ends up winning except the universities that collect their tuition. As far as I’ve ever known, the primary objective of the student loan system was to facilitate social mobility, not subsidize the existence of humanities departments. Because it’s really hard to argue that it’s achieving the former in its current state. I also question how seriously a lot of young students take the obligations of having a student loan. I think it would be condescending to write it off entirely to a lack of maturity, but I really don’t get the impression that most of them are fully considering what the costs actually are. If you cut of the never ending supply of free money, I’m sure the universities would have to put more consideration into delivering value.

avmich 6y ago
> I think the root of the problem is the student loan system. I think if you'd solve this problem, you find there are other problems. I don't think loans are the root of the problems, but just one of them. One can try solving problems one by one, or approach them together; I think a more complex review is helpful.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  If you based student loan lending on the “creditworthiness” of the degree the loan was going to pay for, then you’d at least get rid of a lot of the problems that are caused by the student loan system. I guess my hypothesis is that the problems with the very expensive and economically worthless degrees are in fact created by that system. I have a lot of issues with the more economically valuable degrees too, but they do at least leave their victims with a highly increased earning potential. So I’d say the system is still mostly working as intended in that case.
  - avmich 6y ago
    > but they do at least leave their victims with a highly increased earning potential. So I’d say the system is still mostly working as intended in that case. Do you think increasing earning potential is the goal of education?
    - AmericanChopper 6y ago
      I think it’s the goal of the student loan system, which, as stated above, I have always understood to be a mechanism intended to improve social mobility. I think I can see what you’re getting at, and I don’t think it’s particularly relevant to my points on student loans. But I’ll ask you a couple of questions. Do you think the study of humanities topics requires the modern university humanities departments? Do you think it requires student loans? Do you think our society even derives any cultural benefit at all from churning out thousands of highly indebted humanities graduates every year, most of which never go on to put their education to any form of productive use?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - thu2111 6y ago
      Earning potential is a proxy for usefulness, which is in turn a guide for resource allocation. If you rule it out as a criteria then you're basically arguing to fund lots of useless stuff, which is a pretty common academic argument, but hard to justify when people have to get into life-long debt to fund it.
      - avmich 6y ago
        > Earning potential is a proxy for usefulness, which is in turn a guide for resource allocation. Ah, if only Warren Buffet was as useful as a handful of nurses. IOW, it's not a universally accepted opinion, by a long shot.
        thu2111 6y ago
ALittleLight 6y ago
When I was in school I would frequently run into people who would say things like "I'm studying English... So that means I'll be working in a coffee shop after I graduate, Ha ha". I always wanted to tell people to stop joking about that, because it was true. I wanted to say something like "Don't you get it? That is really going to happen, but you could change that now by studying something more employable." Though I never did because it seemed rude. I tend to think that most people will do what they feel they are supposed to do without really thinking things through for themselves. They feel they are supposed to go to college, so they do. People tell them to pick a major they are interested in, so they do. Lots of people don't seem to actually stop, think, and plan out major life courses.
- JackFr 6y ago
  Barista jokes aside, in my experience people studying English, etc. are doing something they enjoy. Their expectation is that their BA is merely a credential to get by the gatekeepers for the millions of jobs that require a college degree but really have no specific use for one.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    How many jobs actually exist that screen for “any college degree”?
    - robotresearcher 6y ago
      The key with a generic degree is that it admits you to specialized training afterwards, or careers with on-the-job training like civil servants. In the US there are this many people in these jobs that have any 4-year-degree as their entrance qualification to vocational training: 3.2 million teachers. 2.8 million civil servants 1.35 million lawyers. 0.25 million military officers. Those four alone are around 5% of all the jobs in the US (7.6/155 million).
    - thu2111 6y ago
      I think there's quite a lot, when you count the jobs where there's no specific degree requirement but HR/recruiting/middle managers will express a strong preference for candidates with degrees. Maybe not explicitly but their choices aren't usually rigorous to begin with, so such biases can easily creep in.

avmich 6y ago

> I think the root of the problem is the student loan system. I think if you'd solve this problem, you find there are other problems. I don't think loans are the root of the problems, but just one of them. One can try solving problems one by one, or approach them together; I think a more complex review is helpful.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
If you based student loan lending on the “creditworthiness” of the degree the loan was going to pay for, then you’d at least get rid of a lot of the problems that are caused by the student loan system. I guess my hypothesis is that the problems with the very expensive and economically worthless degrees are in fact created by that system. I have a lot of issues with the more economically valuable degrees too, but they do at least leave their victims with a highly increased earning potential. So I’d say the system is still mostly working as intended in that case.
- avmich 6y ago
  > but they do at least leave their victims with a highly increased earning potential. So I’d say the system is still mostly working as intended in that case. Do you think increasing earning potential is the goal of education?
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    I think it’s the goal of the student loan system, which, as stated above, I have always understood to be a mechanism intended to improve social mobility. I think I can see what you’re getting at, and I don’t think it’s particularly relevant to my points on student loans. But I’ll ask you a couple of questions. Do you think the study of humanities topics requires the modern university humanities departments? Do you think it requires student loans? Do you think our society even derives any cultural benefit at all from churning out thousands of highly indebted humanities graduates every year, most of which never go on to put their education to any form of productive use?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - thu2111 6y ago
    Earning potential is a proxy for usefulness, which is in turn a guide for resource allocation. If you rule it out as a criteria then you're basically arguing to fund lots of useless stuff, which is a pretty common academic argument, but hard to justify when people have to get into life-long debt to fund it.
    - avmich 6y ago
      > Earning potential is a proxy for usefulness, which is in turn a guide for resource allocation. Ah, if only Warren Buffet was as useful as a handful of nurses. IOW, it's not a universally accepted opinion, by a long shot.
      - thu2111 6y ago

ALittleLight 6y ago

When I was in school I would frequently run into people who would say things like "I'm studying English... So that means I'll be working in a coffee shop after I graduate, Ha ha". I always wanted to tell people to stop joking about that, because it was true. I wanted to say something like "Don't you get it? That is really going to happen, but you could change that now by studying something more employable." Though I never did because it seemed rude. I tend to think that most people will do what they feel they are supposed to do without really thinking things through for themselves. They feel they are supposed to go to college, so they do. People tell them to pick a major they are interested in, so they do. Lots of people don't seem to actually stop, think, and plan out major life courses.

JackFr 6y ago
Barista jokes aside, in my experience people studying English, etc. are doing something they enjoy. Their expectation is that their BA is merely a credential to get by the gatekeepers for the millions of jobs that require a college degree but really have no specific use for one.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  How many jobs actually exist that screen for “any college degree”?
  - robotresearcher 6y ago
    The key with a generic degree is that it admits you to specialized training afterwards, or careers with on-the-job training like civil servants. In the US there are this many people in these jobs that have any 4-year-degree as their entrance qualification to vocational training: 3.2 million teachers. 2.8 million civil servants 1.35 million lawyers. 0.25 million military officers. Those four alone are around 5% of all the jobs in the US (7.6/155 million).
  - thu2111 6y ago
    I think there's quite a lot, when you count the jobs where there's no specific degree requirement but HR/recruiting/middle managers will express a strong preference for candidates with degrees. Maybe not explicitly but their choices aren't usually rigorous to begin with, so such biases can easily creep in.