3 ms·

I think you are assuming that the person in question having a PhD would be better for society as a whole than the path he chose. I don't think that is necessari

by troupe 6y ago

I think you are assuming that the person in question having a PhD would be better for society as a whole than the path he chose. I don't think that is necessarily a given.

whatshisface 6y ago
The amount of extra money you can make, and by extension the value you create, by entering the workforce four years earlier dwarfs the value created by the four years of restaurant work.
- teachrdan 6y ago
  > he was paying for his own college so he had to work for a year (restaurant jobs) to pay for each semester of college. It wasn't four years, it was eight! The poor guy had to work a YEAR for every semester of college. The amount of value lost to society due to a lack of affordable education is unbelievable.
  - troupe 6y ago
    > The poor guy had to work a YEAR for every semester of college Is it unusual for people to pay off their college loans over 8+ years? It sounds to me like he prioritized avoiding debt. Education is absolutely affordable. You can take all kinds of college courses for free online from sites like EdX, Coursera, MIT's Open Courseware, etc. What is not free is a diploma. You have to pay for that. If you want an affordable diploma, you can go to schools that have low tuition in a lower cost part of the country. Last time I ran the numbers it wasn't hard to find a school where you could work part time during the year and full time during the summer and pay for tuition, books, and living expenses while graduating with $0 to $2000 in debt. You can do even better by starting at a community college or if you have some skill that is worth more than minimum wage. Education is more affordable now than at any point in history because so much of it is free. Diplomas can be expensive or they can be less expensive depending on how much you want to pay.
    - adamsea 6y ago
      Aaaaand none of that matters when it comes to getting a job, except, maybe, for certain areas of software development. And yeah he prioritized avoiding debt the same way a hungry animal prioritizes avoiding starvation.
      - Thorrez 6y ago
        What do you mean by "none of that"? troupe mentioned a lot of things, including ways to educate yourself and ways to get a diploma. Those seem relevant to me in areas besides just software development.
        adamsea 6y ago
        Oh - I may have missed a part of the post but the impression I got was that the resources / actions listed didn’t include the kind of accredited degrees which look good on a resume and that employers often care about. Like the online courses and such - few employers (I think?) put a lot of weight in those, especially relative to a decent college or university. Forgive me if I missed something.
inopinatus 6y ago
This is sheer wealth-class prejudice. Any fee-gated access to higher education represents a detriment to humanity. The notion that it's fine to maintain access barriers to the poor because they might squander their opportunity to benefit society is beyond crass; it is the offensively amoral age-old message to the downtrodden: be grateful for what we let you have at all. What this actually represents: a systemic means to preserve the stratification of power and wealth, and to hell with human progress 'cos I got mine. See also: barbaric healthcare practices, such as individual billing.

by troupe 6y ago

I think you are assuming that the person in question having a PhD would be better for society as a whole than the path he chose. I don't think that is necessarily a given.

whatshisface 6y ago

The amount of extra money you can make, and by extension the value you create, by entering the workforce four years earlier dwarfs the value created by the four years of restaurant work.

teachrdan 6y ago
> he was paying for his own college so he had to work for a year (restaurant jobs) to pay for each semester of college. It wasn't four years, it was eight! The poor guy had to work a YEAR for every semester of college. The amount of value lost to society due to a lack of affordable education is unbelievable.
- troupe 6y ago
  > The poor guy had to work a YEAR for every semester of college Is it unusual for people to pay off their college loans over 8+ years? It sounds to me like he prioritized avoiding debt. Education is absolutely affordable. You can take all kinds of college courses for free online from sites like EdX, Coursera, MIT's Open Courseware, etc. What is not free is a diploma. You have to pay for that. If you want an affordable diploma, you can go to schools that have low tuition in a lower cost part of the country. Last time I ran the numbers it wasn't hard to find a school where you could work part time during the year and full time during the summer and pay for tuition, books, and living expenses while graduating with $0 to $2000 in debt. You can do even better by starting at a community college or if you have some skill that is worth more than minimum wage. Education is more affordable now than at any point in history because so much of it is free. Diplomas can be expensive or they can be less expensive depending on how much you want to pay.
  - adamsea 6y ago
    Aaaaand none of that matters when it comes to getting a job, except, maybe, for certain areas of software development. And yeah he prioritized avoiding debt the same way a hungry animal prioritizes avoiding starvation.
    - Thorrez 6y ago
      What do you mean by "none of that"? troupe mentioned a lot of things, including ways to educate yourself and ways to get a diploma. Those seem relevant to me in areas besides just software development.
      - adamsea 6y ago
        Oh - I may have missed a part of the post but the impression I got was that the resources / actions listed didn’t include the kind of accredited degrees which look good on a resume and that employers often care about. Like the online courses and such - few employers (I think?) put a lot of weight in those, especially relative to a decent college or university. Forgive me if I missed something.

inopinatus 6y ago

This is sheer wealth-class prejudice. Any fee-gated access to higher education represents a detriment to humanity. The notion that it's fine to maintain access barriers to the poor because they might squander their opportunity to benefit society is beyond crass; it is the offensively amoral age-old message to the downtrodden: be grateful for what we let you have at all. What this actually represents: a systemic means to preserve the stratification of power and wealth, and to hell with human progress 'cos I got mine. See also: barbaric healthcare practices, such as individual billing.