4 ms·

Higher Education’s Toughest Test

10 points by cwan 16y ago

tomjen3 16y ago
This piece assumes that the only reason to go to college is to use it as a social signal. I don't buy that, nor do I believe I could have learned as much as I did in college if I had had to learn it on my own. Now if I could have skipped High School and elementary school...
ssharp 16y ago
The idea of an education bubble seems a little dramatized, and link-baity. The devaluing of higher-education as a whole, by the world of startups, shows the tunnel vision that exists in the startup world. Sure, if I saw an exceptionally bright 17/18 year-old who could program, maybe that person would be better off starting a startup than going to school, but not everyone is an entrepreneur. Not everyone is a programmer who can take advantage of the low cost environment for web/software startups. Lots of good, high-paying jobs require college education. Data shows that a Bachelor's degree is a good investment.
- jgesture 16y ago
  Seeing all these types of articles as devaluing higher-education as a whole is going further than necessary and only considering phenomena such as Facebook, Microsoft or Apple (wildly successful software companies started by dropouts) is probably not going far enough. As far as actual learning goes, educational institutions are great in cases where the knowledge is hard to access, expensive or dangerous. If you want to be a doctor, you can't just go to and get a cadaver or an MRI machine to practice on, these are expensive. If you want to learn how to run a nuclear power plant, you can't go buy radioactive material to learn with, there are national security concerns with that. Learning how to fly a plane is dangerous and planes are expensive. But educational institutions can address all of these issues. Using the term bubble is perhaps an effort to sensationalize the issue, I'm not sure. In any case, I think it is certainly useful to look at fields where access to knowledge is easy, cheap and safe and ask if an institution is required for learning or if that's wrong thinking. It happens that writing computer programs is one of those cases. This is probably why all of these articles talk about software developers (them being posted on HN by programmings probably has something to do with it too :)). Saying that a system produces useful results is not that same as saying that a system is optimal. Cars in the 1950s could get you places a lot faster than walking, but that doesn't mean they got the best possible gas mileage. Computers in the 1980s did amazing things, things that would be at least impractical without them, but 1980s computers could've been a lot better, orders of magnitude better. So, stating that educational institutions have useful results is not necessarily a counterargument to the deficiencies in educational institutions. In fact, I don't recall reading any article in this recent string of education articles that claims that the problem with the higher education system is that it doesn't produce useful results. In fact such a statement is easily and, probably, objectively, verifiably falsifiable. So this isn't a question of useful vs non-useful. This is a question of optimal vs non-optimal.
aksbhat 16y ago
Following are the counterpoints to their argument: 1. decreasing ROI on a college degree: They are confusing between supply and demand. While it is possible in future that a college degree will no longer provide an edge over High-School diploma, yet this might lead to even more intense competition for top schools. They cite Law schools as an example, however there isn't a uniform decrease in enrollment. In fact a bad job market means that you need to go to even better/reputed university than before. Also it does not means that alternate signaling mechanism is going to alleviate this problem. The issue is the demand, assuming that in future the number of jobs available for college graduates decrease. This wont help alternative credential providing mechanisms. The reason people are hiring via git hub and stack overflow, is because there is an excess demand and low supply. If anything a bad job market will only lead to more competition for top universities. 2. MIT open course ware/ ITunes University etc. : While these websites make it easier for you to get access to the knowledge, yet they dont provide you other things which are needed, such as access to labs, examination etc. 3. Github / Stackoverflow : Systems such as Github and Stackoverflow tend to have Pareto distribution i.e. top 20% have 80% contribution/reputation. Even if you are building a credentialing system, it needs to have a distribution similar to the grade curve used in colleges. Also at the same time, you must make sure that there is "some" protection of academic integrity.
- pjscott 16y ago
  The uneven distribution of contributions doesn't matter so much on Github, since when an employer goes to scout out someone on Github, they're typically looking at the code itself, rather than the quantity of it.
  - aksbhat 16y ago
    Think of it this way, it is easier for anyone to write code for solving simple problem. however this does not makes you stand out from the crowd, also at the same time there is no guarantee that the same person wrote the code, i.e. it wasn't plagiarized. A good metric for measuring ability of git hub user is to look for followers of his repos. Github is useful only when someone is making large amount of contribution or significant contribution, such as solving a hard problem. A college can give someone A- in introductory algorithms and that gives you some confidence about his skills in algorithms. However github cannot provide this sort of credential, with same amount of confidence. Github can spot "exceptional" programmers, since large or significant contributions are more difficult to fabricate.
sliverstorm 16y ago
I clicked on this link hoping it might be about the toughest exam students ever take in Higher Education, instead of yet another article on the 'bubble'. I was baited.
- pjscott 16y ago
  The toughest exam students ever take in higher education depends on the student, and on what classes they take, as well as the circumstances. I remember a particularly difficult final exam in which I was distracted by a sudden thud from about five meters behind and to the left of me. A student had fainted from fright, falling out of her chair. She was ushered out of the room by a TA, to lie on a bench with her feet elevated for a while. Afterward, the rest of us turned uncomfortably away from the spectacle, back to our tests. I think, for that particular student, the toughest exam was that day. For me, it was about a year later, under circumstances embarrassing enough that I won't repeat them. For other students, other times. There's a surprising amount of variation from person to person.

10 points by cwan 16y ago

This piece assumes that the only reason to go to college is to use it as a social signal. I don't buy that, nor do I believe I could have learned as much as I did in college if I had had to learn it on my own. Now if I could have skipped High School and elementary school...

ssharp 16y ago

The idea of an education bubble seems a little dramatized, and link-baity. The devaluing of higher-education as a whole, by the world of startups, shows the tunnel vision that exists in the startup world. Sure, if I saw an exceptionally bright 17/18 year-old who could program, maybe that person would be better off starting a startup than going to school, but not everyone is an entrepreneur. Not everyone is a programmer who can take advantage of the low cost environment for web/software startups. Lots of good, high-paying jobs require college education. Data shows that a Bachelor's degree is a good investment.

jgesture 16y ago
Seeing all these types of articles as devaluing higher-education as a whole is going further than necessary and only considering phenomena such as Facebook, Microsoft or Apple (wildly successful software companies started by dropouts) is probably not going far enough. As far as actual learning goes, educational institutions are great in cases where the knowledge is hard to access, expensive or dangerous. If you want to be a doctor, you can't just go to and get a cadaver or an MRI machine to practice on, these are expensive. If you want to learn how to run a nuclear power plant, you can't go buy radioactive material to learn with, there are national security concerns with that. Learning how to fly a plane is dangerous and planes are expensive. But educational institutions can address all of these issues. Using the term bubble is perhaps an effort to sensationalize the issue, I'm not sure. In any case, I think it is certainly useful to look at fields where access to knowledge is easy, cheap and safe and ask if an institution is required for learning or if that's wrong thinking. It happens that writing computer programs is one of those cases. This is probably why all of these articles talk about software developers (them being posted on HN by programmings probably has something to do with it too :)). Saying that a system produces useful results is not that same as saying that a system is optimal. Cars in the 1950s could get you places a lot faster than walking, but that doesn't mean they got the best possible gas mileage. Computers in the 1980s did amazing things, things that would be at least impractical without them, but 1980s computers could've been a lot better, orders of magnitude better. So, stating that educational institutions have useful results is not necessarily a counterargument to the deficiencies in educational institutions. In fact, I don't recall reading any article in this recent string of education articles that claims that the problem with the higher education system is that it doesn't produce useful results. In fact such a statement is easily and, probably, objectively, verifiably falsifiable. So this isn't a question of useful vs non-useful. This is a question of optimal vs non-optimal.

aksbhat 16y ago

Following are the counterpoints to their argument: 1. decreasing ROI on a college degree: They are confusing between supply and demand. While it is possible in future that a college degree will no longer provide an edge over High-School diploma, yet this might lead to even more intense competition for top schools. They cite Law schools as an example, however there isn't a uniform decrease in enrollment. In fact a bad job market means that you need to go to even better/reputed university than before. Also it does not means that alternate signaling mechanism is going to alleviate this problem. The issue is the demand, assuming that in future the number of jobs available for college graduates decrease. This wont help alternative credential providing mechanisms. The reason people are hiring via git hub and stack overflow, is because there is an excess demand and low supply. If anything a bad job market will only lead to more competition for top universities. 2. MIT open course ware/ ITunes University etc. : While these websites make it easier for you to get access to the knowledge, yet they dont provide you other things which are needed, such as access to labs, examination etc. 3. Github / Stackoverflow : Systems such as Github and Stackoverflow tend to have Pareto distribution i.e. top 20% have 80% contribution/reputation. Even if you are building a credentialing system, it needs to have a distribution similar to the grade curve used in colleges. Also at the same time, you must make sure that there is "some" protection of academic integrity.

pjscott 16y ago
The uneven distribution of contributions doesn't matter so much on Github, since when an employer goes to scout out someone on Github, they're typically looking at the code itself, rather than the quantity of it.
- aksbhat 16y ago
  Think of it this way, it is easier for anyone to write code for solving simple problem. however this does not makes you stand out from the crowd, also at the same time there is no guarantee that the same person wrote the code, i.e. it wasn't plagiarized. A good metric for measuring ability of git hub user is to look for followers of his repos. Github is useful only when someone is making large amount of contribution or significant contribution, such as solving a hard problem. A college can give someone A- in introductory algorithms and that gives you some confidence about his skills in algorithms. However github cannot provide this sort of credential, with same amount of confidence. Github can spot "exceptional" programmers, since large or significant contributions are more difficult to fabricate.

sliverstorm 16y ago

I clicked on this link hoping it might be about the toughest exam students ever take in Higher Education, instead of yet another article on the 'bubble'. I was baited.

pjscott 16y ago
The toughest exam students ever take in higher education depends on the student, and on what classes they take, as well as the circumstances. I remember a particularly difficult final exam in which I was distracted by a sudden thud from about five meters behind and to the left of me. A student had fainted from fright, falling out of her chair. She was ushered out of the room by a TA, to lie on a bench with her feet elevated for a while. Afterward, the rest of us turned uncomfortably away from the spectacle, back to our tests. I think, for that particular student, the toughest exam was that day. For me, it was about a year later, under circumstances embarrassing enough that I won't repeat them. For other students, other times. There's a surprising amount of variation from person to person.