7 ms·

I agree college is overpriced, but I doubt Thiel's companies often hire people without a formal college education. He's really just stating the obvious here wit

by jb775 6y ago

I agree college is overpriced, but I doubt Thiel's companies often hire people without a formal college education. He's really just stating the obvious here without mentioning any viable alternatives.

cinquemb 6y ago
I don't think hes the type of person to offer the next religion that people should crowd into… maybe less focus on working for companies that filter on "formal college education" above all else, even if they are "his" companies (its debatable the level of control an owner has over the day to day operation of companies esp if you own a lot of companies [principle-agent issues]).
rsj_hn 6y ago
Agreed. And it's not just "overpriced", because "overprice" says you are not getting enough output per input. In this case, with higher education, the economy (and nation) needs skilled workers, and universities are not producing them in the quantities needed even as they graduate more and more students who have degrees that don't help them succeed in the job market. I think the solution should be a combination of things: 1. Make universities cheaper. Say fire 90% of non-academic staff, and force universities to have more academic staff than non-academic staff. Also make admission more rigorous, so they are more selective. Also get rid of the non-tenure track slave labor in academic staff. Ideally roughly 1/3 of the population should go to university, say 30% fresh from college students and 5% older students. 2. Provide vocational training so that people can have as option vocational education such as electrical work, carpentry, plumbing, machine tools, and yes, programming, day care, medical assistant, accountant, etc. Vocational training should be max 3 years of focused training with an apprenticeship period in the last year, and unlike universities, these vocational schools should be setup so that everyone can access at least a couple of vocational school options, at government expense. Ideally 2/3 of the population should go to a vocational school. 3. Stop providing government loans to universities entirely. Universities can provide scholarships and there should be government scholarships available based solely on merit. There should also be student aid based solely on financial need, but with high academic requirements, otherwise route the student to a vocational school, which should be fully paid for by the government. 4. Safety valve. If someone goes to a vocational school there should be an option to go back to university based on academic merit. Say a construction worker really takes to it and wants to become an architect, etc. The safety valve should be rare, say 5% max. 5. Online learning/certifications for people switching specializations roughly within the same field.
- blablabla123 6y ago
  I think other countries do well without such expensive universities, like Germany for instance where students are much more on their own. So I disagree with reducing "non-academic staff" and making admissions more difficult. In my opinion class sizes could be even larger and moved online completely. After all students only spend a fraction of their time in classes. Most of the time needs to be spent actually learning the stuff from the lectures, both alone and in groups with other students. Universities are there to facilitate the latter, it's just not possible with pure online learning - yet. To me most valuable are tutoring classes that are lead by staff or just more senior students, so it's possible to get qualified feedback and help with exercises and to actually understand things on a deeper level. At least for CS, Math, Natural Sciences. There is a tendency to automatize a lot of basic work. Speaking for myself, I moved out from home 15 years ago and had to hire someone to repair something at my place only once. And that was because they messed up an installation that was initiated by the landlord. Societies as a whole are economically much better off when people get a higher education and should strive to enable it for everybody who wants to get it. (Many people actually don't want to study.)
  - rsj_hn 6y ago
    The reason why education in Germany is affordable whereas education in the US is not, is precisely because we have 7-10 non-academic staff per academic staff, whereas Germany has less than 1. These proposals of reducing non-academic staff, increasing rigor, reducing time to graduation, etc, is an attempt to be more like the German model. You might want to look at this comment where I provide some numbers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23817814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23817814
    - blablabla123 6y ago
      Thanks for sharing, this is really interesting. Still, I wonder how German and U.S. universities compare for example in numbers of tutors. ("HiWis") I would estimate there is one per 20-50 students per course and they might fall into both groups since those helping out in 1st or 2nd semester courses might not have a university degree yet. Also the payment is typically quite low, although considered good enough for a first student job. They are actually quite an important part of studies like Physics and Mathematics. Regarding time of gradution/number students: in the past German model (which is now obsolete) where people studied for diploma, the typical lazy student would mean basically no extra cost for univsersities. Since this person usually doesn't occupy any lecture room or tutoring capacity... ;-) But the introduction of Bachelor/Master introduced quite some changes, in particular closer support for the students and more stringent time lines. But still, the Bachelor usually takes 3 years and the master an additional 2 years. Basically the curricula for diploma studies were just being split.

by jb775 6y ago

cinquemb 6y ago

I don't think hes the type of person to offer the next religion that people should crowd into… maybe less focus on working for companies that filter on "formal college education" above all else, even if they are "his" companies (its debatable the level of control an owner has over the day to day operation of companies esp if you own a lot of companies [principle-agent issues]).

rsj_hn 6y ago

Agreed. And it's not just "overpriced", because "overprice" says you are not getting enough output per input. In this case, with higher education, the economy (and nation) needs skilled workers, and universities are not producing them in the quantities needed even as they graduate more and more students who have degrees that don't help them succeed in the job market. I think the solution should be a combination of things: 1. Make universities cheaper. Say fire 90% of non-academic staff, and force universities to have more academic staff than non-academic staff. Also make admission more rigorous, so they are more selective. Also get rid of the non-tenure track slave labor in academic staff. Ideally roughly 1/3 of the population should go to university, say 30% fresh from college students and 5% older students. 2. Provide vocational training so that people can have as option vocational education such as electrical work, carpentry, plumbing, machine tools, and yes, programming, day care, medical assistant, accountant, etc. Vocational training should be max 3 years of focused training with an apprenticeship period in the last year, and unlike universities, these vocational schools should be setup so that everyone can access at least a couple of vocational school options, at government expense. Ideally 2/3 of the population should go to a vocational school. 3. Stop providing government loans to universities entirely. Universities can provide scholarships and there should be government scholarships available based solely on merit. There should also be student aid based solely on financial need, but with high academic requirements, otherwise route the student to a vocational school, which should be fully paid for by the government. 4. Safety valve. If someone goes to a vocational school there should be an option to go back to university based on academic merit. Say a construction worker really takes to it and wants to become an architect, etc. The safety valve should be rare, say 5% max. 5. Online learning/certifications for people switching specializations roughly within the same field.

blablabla123 6y ago
I think other countries do well without such expensive universities, like Germany for instance where students are much more on their own. So I disagree with reducing "non-academic staff" and making admissions more difficult. In my opinion class sizes could be even larger and moved online completely. After all students only spend a fraction of their time in classes. Most of the time needs to be spent actually learning the stuff from the lectures, both alone and in groups with other students. Universities are there to facilitate the latter, it's just not possible with pure online learning - yet. To me most valuable are tutoring classes that are lead by staff or just more senior students, so it's possible to get qualified feedback and help with exercises and to actually understand things on a deeper level. At least for CS, Math, Natural Sciences. There is a tendency to automatize a lot of basic work. Speaking for myself, I moved out from home 15 years ago and had to hire someone to repair something at my place only once. And that was because they messed up an installation that was initiated by the landlord. Societies as a whole are economically much better off when people get a higher education and should strive to enable it for everybody who wants to get it. (Many people actually don't want to study.)
- rsj_hn 6y ago
  The reason why education in Germany is affordable whereas education in the US is not, is precisely because we have 7-10 non-academic staff per academic staff, whereas Germany has less than 1. These proposals of reducing non-academic staff, increasing rigor, reducing time to graduation, etc, is an attempt to be more like the German model. You might want to look at this comment where I provide some numbers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23817814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23817814
  - blablabla123 6y ago
    Thanks for sharing, this is really interesting. Still, I wonder how German and U.S. universities compare for example in numbers of tutors. ("HiWis") I would estimate there is one per 20-50 students per course and they might fall into both groups since those helping out in 1st or 2nd semester courses might not have a university degree yet. Also the payment is typically quite low, although considered good enough for a first student job. They are actually quite an important part of studies like Physics and Mathematics. Regarding time of gradution/number students: in the past German model (which is now obsolete) where people studied for diploma, the typical lazy student would mean basically no extra cost for univsersities. Since this person usually doesn't occupy any lecture room or tutoring capacity... ;-) But the introduction of Bachelor/Master introduced quite some changes, in particular closer support for the students and more stringent time lines. But still, the Bachelor usually takes 3 years and the master an additional 2 years. Basically the curricula for diploma studies were just being split.