7 ms·

I barely skimmed the article, but I don't find this surprising for a few reasons (some of which have been mentioned elsewhere in the comments): - "University d

I barely skimmed the article, but I don't find this surprising for a few reasons (some of which have been mentioned elsewhere in the comments): - "University degree" is a heterogeneous thing. While there is such thing as non-economic value, the strictly economic value of a college education tends to cluster around a small subset of degrees. - Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who get degrees. Far from fixing inequality, this has instead diluted the value of university degrees. - All universities are not created equal. While it is possible (and even common) for employers to pay too much attention to the reputation of the school, it is also quite common for students to over-estimate the value of a no-name institution. I've found this to be moreso the case in the two European countries I've lived in for an extended period of time (France & England). - The exorbitant debt incurred by university tuition in some countries (which need not be named, I think) means the ROI on the university degree has to also be exorbitant. Have I missed anything?

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> Far from fixing inequality Was this the purpose? I thought it was to raise living standards by improving productivity. By and large, broader education has been successful at that. (It went off the deep end, in recent years, with the proliferation of bullshit degrees.)
- csharptwdec19 6y ago
  I think you covered part of the problem in the second half of your statement. In the US, part of the problem is that by making education debts non-dischargable in bankruptcy, and by the aforementioned proliferation of degrees that may qualify as 'nice to have' rather than 'increase earning potential'. The end result is a lot of people who got a college degree that doesn't really pay for itself, and instead leads to 20+ years of debt, or 10 years of indentured servitude to a non-profit.
  - bhupy 6y ago
    Making education debts dischargeable in bankruptcy sounds good in theory, but against what collateral do you take out a college loan? Most bankruptcy includes collateral liquidation. What's to stop someone from obtaining a useless degree that doesn't contribute to the nation's economy, and then discharges the debt in bankruptcy? I think a big part of the problem is that debt is so readily issued for degrees that overwhelmingly leave the recipient incapable of providing for society in gainful ways.
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      > What's to stop someone from obtaining a useless degree that doesn't contribute to the nation's economy, and then discharges the debt in bankruptcy? I assume lenders would take the degree being pursued, institution at which it’s being pursued and applicant’s academic history (and this likelihood of completing it) into account. Currently, there is zero incentive to do that work.
      - bhupy 6y ago
        That's a great point.
      - nitrogen 6y ago
        Some commercial lenders do consider degree/program.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      I mean, people got college educations before 1998, when student loans were made non-dischargeable except in cases of "undue hardship".
      - iguy 6y ago
        I never knew the date, 1998 sounds super-recent. But digging a bit, it sounds like that's the last step of many, with the first bankruptcy restrictions in 1976 (when the only concern imagined was medical & law degrees!) https://www.savingforcollege.com/article/history-of-student-loans-bankruptcy-discharge https://www.savingforcollege.com/article/history-of-student-...
- MrFantastic 6y ago
  Productivity has increased but I'd argue that because of technological leverage and not more college grads. A large portion of those creating the tech are self educated.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nikeshm 6y ago
Would you mind elaborating on your experiences in France and England? I'm curious about the situation there. I was under the impression that there are many effective non-college options in those countries (England's pretty robust apprenticeship system comes to mind), and that university is generally both hard to get into and relatively cheap to complete. I also haven't lived in either France or England, so I speak from a place of little knowledge.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  Almost half of school-leavers go to university in the UK. If you look at a normal school in a middle-class area it’s going to be about 90%. Seems like that can’t be ‘hard to get into’.
  - guitarbill 6y ago
    I'm not sure for how much this accounts, but the UK allowed polytechnics to call themselves universities. Of course, this then increases the number of people going to uni... but this might've been a bad idea. While there was a prestige issue with the name, they now have to compete on a similar playing field. Germany's interesting here, since they had/have Fachhochschulen (apparently translated to University of Applied Sciences). Some of which were very highly regarded, and offered a different focus that suited some people. Although after the Bologna Process, this difference is less clear, too.
- AQuantized 6y ago
  It's not hard to get into a university in the UK. It is quite hard to get into a 'top' university, and Oxbridge typically requires a fair bit of luck in addition to being very hard. There are pretty decent apprenticeships, but only so many people want to work trades regardless. It's not exactly a ticket to wealth or status like a degree might still be perceived.
  - pigscantfly 6y ago
    From an American perspective, it seems extremely easy to get into a 'top' UK university. Oxford and Cambridge admit around 20% of applicants. Compared to Princeton (6%), Stanford (4%), MIT (7%), etc. it seems like a cakewalk. Is there something I'm missing?
mcguire 6y ago
"- All universities are not created equal. While it is possible (and even common) for employers to pay too much attention to the reputation of the school, it is also quite common for students to over-estimate the value of a no-name institution. I've found this to be moreso the case in the two European countries I've lived in for an extended period of time (France & England)." From what I've seen over the last decade, this is incredibly true in the United States, particularly with the rise of for-profit schools offering online degrees. ("Oh, and X has a Ph.D." "Oh? Where from?" "I think it's the University of Phoenix." "Ok.")
908B64B197 6y ago
> it is also quite common for students to over-estimate the value of a no-name institution. I've found this to be moreso the case in the two European countries I've lived in for an extended period of time (France & England). Tuition in France is basically free from what I understood. Even if students over-evaluate the value of the school, the fact that it's free still makes it attractive. And I think that some universities are teaching only (no research) no?
- KMag 6y ago
  It's only free if you forget opportunity cost. Lots of people working behind cash registers with 4 year degrees would have been much happier going to trade schools and being well on their way to being small business owners/co-owners. There's no doubt that not having crippling debt is much better than having crippling debt. However, we have this cultural idea that being on the road to taking partial owneship of a small skilled labor business is inferior to being in a dead-end job with a 4-year degree. I fear that an over-emphasis on opening access to 4-year degrees implicitly reinforces this idea of 4-year degrees being universally better and that tradespeople have somehow settled for second-best, even if they have more income, a better work-life balance, and are providing absolutely essential services.
  - UK-Al05 6y ago
    Does the average tradesman have their own business though? I think we like to compare mediocre corporate drones to the most successful tradesman.
    - angrais 6y ago
      Yes, they do. Typically after a few years working.
KMag 6y ago
> - Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who get degrees. Far from fixing inequality, this has instead diluted the value of university degrees. I know enacting social change is much much harder than throwing money at problems, but I wish America figured out a way to really strengthen the cultural admiration for the hard-working craftsperson archetype. Pete Buttigieg took a lot of flak for pointing out that many jobs in America don't require a college degree, and there should be nothing shameful about learning a skilled trade instead of going to college. We have a vast over-supply of many college majors, and (I'm told) big shortages in many skilled trades. There are way too many people with 4-year degrees from top-100 schools working cash registers in retail, when they'd have far less debt and higher income (and a good chance of later becoming successful small business owners) if they'd gone to trade school instead of college. It's honestly classist to push 4-year degrees so hard. There's something noble about optimizing your own happiness while providing valuable services, despite much of America considering skilled laborers to be a class below cashier workers with useless 4-year degrees. I wish we as a society could better appreciate skilled laborers. We don't have much positive to show from decades of flooding the college tuition markets with cheap credit / crippling debt and implicitly pushing hard the notion that going to trade school is settling for second-best. There's something to be said about removing the crippling personal debt from the act of flooding the education markets with money, but without cultural changes, I think a big effect would be further ballooning of college costs. I fear the crippling debt will just get hidden as accelerating the ballooning of government debt without moving the needle much on inequality.
clairity 6y ago
> "- Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who get degrees. Far from fixing inequality, this has instead diluted the value of university degrees." no, what it's done is uncover the hypocrisy of the meritocracy underlying western narrative--when university degrees were exclusive to the upper class white guys, degrees exhibited a "meritocratic distinction". naturally, only smart and capable people got degrees, not just people in a fiercely-defended and exclusive club. but when educational attainment became more wide-spread and democratic, the club moved on and abandoned the university degree as a useful in-group signal. economic value was with in-group membership, not in the degree itself, a decidedly unmeritocratic, and unequal, system. it's made this relationship more apparent, elucidating why inequality has persisted despite wider degree attainment.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> Far from fixing inequality Was this the purpose? I thought it was to raise living standards by improving productivity. By and large, broader education has been successful at that. (It went off the deep end, in recent years, with the proliferation of bullshit degrees.)

csharptwdec19 6y ago
I think you covered part of the problem in the second half of your statement. In the US, part of the problem is that by making education debts non-dischargable in bankruptcy, and by the aforementioned proliferation of degrees that may qualify as 'nice to have' rather than 'increase earning potential'. The end result is a lot of people who got a college degree that doesn't really pay for itself, and instead leads to 20+ years of debt, or 10 years of indentured servitude to a non-profit.
- bhupy 6y ago
  Making education debts dischargeable in bankruptcy sounds good in theory, but against what collateral do you take out a college loan? Most bankruptcy includes collateral liquidation. What's to stop someone from obtaining a useless degree that doesn't contribute to the nation's economy, and then discharges the debt in bankruptcy? I think a big part of the problem is that debt is so readily issued for degrees that overwhelmingly leave the recipient incapable of providing for society in gainful ways.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > What's to stop someone from obtaining a useless degree that doesn't contribute to the nation's economy, and then discharges the debt in bankruptcy? I assume lenders would take the degree being pursued, institution at which it’s being pursued and applicant’s academic history (and this likelihood of completing it) into account. Currently, there is zero incentive to do that work.
    - bhupy 6y ago
      That's a great point.
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      Some commercial lenders do consider degree/program.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    I mean, people got college educations before 1998, when student loans were made non-dischargeable except in cases of "undue hardship".
    - iguy 6y ago
      I never knew the date, 1998 sounds super-recent. But digging a bit, it sounds like that's the last step of many, with the first bankruptcy restrictions in 1976 (when the only concern imagined was medical & law degrees!) https://www.savingforcollege.com/article/history-of-student-loans-bankruptcy-discharge https://www.savingforcollege.com/article/history-of-student-...
MrFantastic 6y ago
Productivity has increased but I'd argue that because of technological leverage and not more college grads. A large portion of those creating the tech are self educated.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

nikeshm 6y ago

Would you mind elaborating on your experiences in France and England? I'm curious about the situation there. I was under the impression that there are many effective non-college options in those countries (England's pretty robust apprenticeship system comes to mind), and that university is generally both hard to get into and relatively cheap to complete. I also haven't lived in either France or England, so I speak from a place of little knowledge.

chrisseaton 6y ago
Almost half of school-leavers go to university in the UK. If you look at a normal school in a middle-class area it’s going to be about 90%. Seems like that can’t be ‘hard to get into’.
- guitarbill 6y ago
  I'm not sure for how much this accounts, but the UK allowed polytechnics to call themselves universities. Of course, this then increases the number of people going to uni... but this might've been a bad idea. While there was a prestige issue with the name, they now have to compete on a similar playing field. Germany's interesting here, since they had/have Fachhochschulen (apparently translated to University of Applied Sciences). Some of which were very highly regarded, and offered a different focus that suited some people. Although after the Bologna Process, this difference is less clear, too.
AQuantized 6y ago
It's not hard to get into a university in the UK. It is quite hard to get into a 'top' university, and Oxbridge typically requires a fair bit of luck in addition to being very hard. There are pretty decent apprenticeships, but only so many people want to work trades regardless. It's not exactly a ticket to wealth or status like a degree might still be perceived.
- pigscantfly 6y ago
  From an American perspective, it seems extremely easy to get into a 'top' UK university. Oxford and Cambridge admit around 20% of applicants. Compared to Princeton (6%), Stanford (4%), MIT (7%), etc. it seems like a cakewalk. Is there something I'm missing?

mcguire 6y ago

"- All universities are not created equal. While it is possible (and even common) for employers to pay too much attention to the reputation of the school, it is also quite common for students to over-estimate the value of a no-name institution. I've found this to be moreso the case in the two European countries I've lived in for an extended period of time (France & England)." From what I've seen over the last decade, this is incredibly true in the United States, particularly with the rise of for-profit schools offering online degrees. ("Oh, and X has a Ph.D." "Oh? Where from?" "I think it's the University of Phoenix." "Ok.")

908B64B197 6y ago

> it is also quite common for students to over-estimate the value of a no-name institution. I've found this to be moreso the case in the two European countries I've lived in for an extended period of time (France & England). Tuition in France is basically free from what I understood. Even if students over-evaluate the value of the school, the fact that it's free still makes it attractive. And I think that some universities are teaching only (no research) no?

KMag 6y ago
It's only free if you forget opportunity cost. Lots of people working behind cash registers with 4 year degrees would have been much happier going to trade schools and being well on their way to being small business owners/co-owners. There's no doubt that not having crippling debt is much better than having crippling debt. However, we have this cultural idea that being on the road to taking partial owneship of a small skilled labor business is inferior to being in a dead-end job with a 4-year degree. I fear that an over-emphasis on opening access to 4-year degrees implicitly reinforces this idea of 4-year degrees being universally better and that tradespeople have somehow settled for second-best, even if they have more income, a better work-life balance, and are providing absolutely essential services.
- UK-Al05 6y ago
  Does the average tradesman have their own business though? I think we like to compare mediocre corporate drones to the most successful tradesman.
  - angrais 6y ago
    Yes, they do. Typically after a few years working.

KMag 6y ago

> - Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who get degrees. Far from fixing inequality, this has instead diluted the value of university degrees. I know enacting social change is much much harder than throwing money at problems, but I wish America figured out a way to really strengthen the cultural admiration for the hard-working craftsperson archetype. Pete Buttigieg took a lot of flak for pointing out that many jobs in America don't require a college degree, and there should be nothing shameful about learning a skilled trade instead of going to college. We have a vast over-supply of many college majors, and (I'm told) big shortages in many skilled trades. There are way too many people with 4-year degrees from top-100 schools working cash registers in retail, when they'd have far less debt and higher income (and a good chance of later becoming successful small business owners) if they'd gone to trade school instead of college. It's honestly classist to push 4-year degrees so hard. There's something noble about optimizing your own happiness while providing valuable services, despite much of America considering skilled laborers to be a class below cashier workers with useless 4-year degrees. I wish we as a society could better appreciate skilled laborers. We don't have much positive to show from decades of flooding the college tuition markets with cheap credit / crippling debt and implicitly pushing hard the notion that going to trade school is settling for second-best. There's something to be said about removing the crippling personal debt from the act of flooding the education markets with money, but without cultural changes, I think a big effect would be further ballooning of college costs. I fear the crippling debt will just get hidden as accelerating the ballooning of government debt without moving the needle much on inequality.

clairity 6y ago

> "- Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who get degrees. Far from fixing inequality, this has instead diluted the value of university degrees." no, what it's done is uncover the hypocrisy of the meritocracy underlying western narrative--when university degrees were exclusive to the upper class white guys, degrees exhibited a "meritocratic distinction". naturally, only smart and capable people got degrees, not just people in a fiercely-defended and exclusive club. but when educational attainment became more wide-spread and democratic, the club moved on and abandoned the university degree as a useful in-group signal. economic value was with in-group membership, not in the degree itself, a decidedly unmeritocratic, and unequal, system. it's made this relationship more apparent, elucidating why inequality has persisted despite wider degree attainment.