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The defaulted loans are not for STEM careers, that have little trouble paying back, the problem is in humanities, arts, etc. colleges offered useless degrees to

The defaulted loans are not for STEM careers, that have little trouble paying back, the problem is in humanities, arts, etc. colleges offered useless degrees to people that do not need them except for vanity, without any plan about how to pay for them. This is one of the biggest scams in history.

xapata 4y ago
Yet, we shouldn't abandon humanities education.
- rayiner 4y ago
  We don’t have to abandon it. But we don’t need to subsidize it with public funding.
  - analog31 4y ago
    Choosing which degrees to support faces all of the problems of central planning. One problem is that if colleges are told to create more STEM degrees than the number of students who are already capable of studying for those degrees, it will encourage the creation of empty "STEM" degrees like "bachelor of arts in information studies" that are even more useless than an English major because everybody will know why those degree were created. It also creates boom-and-bust cycles. I graduated with a degree in physics, just as the Cold War collapsed and mandatory retirement for professors was outlawed. There was an absolute glut of physicists all looking for jobs at once.
    - rayiner 4y ago
      When you’re talking about public subsidization, you have to engage in central planning.
      - JamesBarney 4y ago
        Or at least should engage in central planning. If you're spending billions of dollars, maybe a little planning is a good thing, even if it's centralized.
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    We should subsidize it at community colleges with large cohort sizes and commensurate lower marginal costs. We should not subsidize it at schools trying to play the rankings game with artificially small cohort sizes and commensurate high costs to the taxpayer for no additional payoff. Why should we subsidize it at all? Because it's a public good.
    - rayiner 4y ago
      Calling things “public goods” is hand waving to gloss over value judgments. Why is teaching humanities a public good?
      - hackerlight 4y ago
        It's a public good because of non-excludable positive externalities on our polity, and that's not reflected in the market price due to market failure. The positive externalities are having voters that understand history, sociology, political science and economics. This is good because it prevents populism and because it creates voters who are able to critically evaluate public policy.
        xyzzyz 4y ago
        > This is good because it prevents populism and because it creates voters who are able to critically evaluate public policy. I certainly do not believe in the slightest that humanities graduates can “critically evaluate public policy” any better than, say, STEM graduates. In fact, they’re probably worse. They were the ones pushing Marxism on Americans back in the day and similar insanities today, like eg. demonizing and defunding the police. I believe that it makes them negative externality. Now, you may of course disagree. But the point is that there is no agreement that they are a public good.
        hackerlight 4y ago
        > I certainly do not believe in the slightest that humanities graduates can “critically evaluate public policy” any better than, say, STEM graduates. They are better at evaluating certain types of policies than STEM graduates. I've met a lot of engineers who are incapable of understanding what a social construct is, or the societal consequences of hate speech, or who don't know what market failure is, or who are totally ignorant of the history of slavery and the indigenous genocide, who don't know anything about international relations, or various other things which are just child's play for humanities graduates which all have deep relevance to certain policies. This shows me that a polity with just STEM graduates and tradespeople is a polity that can't function properly. Without humanities education (whether self-education or otherwise), the only response to Biden talking about "white supremacy" in his speech is pitchforks and fascism, because voters miss the reasons why Biden would make such an utterance. The only response to a carbon tax is pitchforks, because they don't even understand what a market failure is. The only response to transgender protection is pitchforks, because they don't even know what a social construct is. STEM graduates don't know what they don't know, and they label their blind spots as negative externalities out of a combination of supreme arrogance (primarily), ignorance and confusion. Policy evaluation isn't really the main point. The antidote to populism is the point. > demonizing and defunding the police. The topic of police demonstrates my point. It's only people from a humanities background that showed an interest in critiquing the police, and they were the ones running the studies on policing going back decades. The STEM folks had zero interest. They'd rather ignore the situation rather than study and address it. That's why society can't function with just STEM graduates. They don't know what they don't know. > But the point is that there is no agreement that they are a public good. I understand that fascists and nationalists and right-wingers are against humanities education because it provides an antidote to their toxic ideology. And that's about 30% of the population against it by default. Argumentum ad populum. That doesn't detract from the correctness of what I'm saying.
- aortega 4y ago
  I don't think we should abandon it, but if you want to pay 500k usd for you degree on french poetry in the 17th century, you should pay for it yourself.
  - Sakos 4y ago
    No.
  - marcellus23 4y ago
    Horrifying take. Typical of /hn/ when it comes to stuff like this, unfortunately.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      Suppose someone wants to spend the posited $500K on that degree. If not them, who should pay for it?
      - woodruffw 4y ago
        The premise here doesn't match reality: nobody wants to (much less is, to a rounding error) paying $500k for a degree. Nobody should pay for it directly. It should be virtually free to go to college, the way it is everywhere else in the developed world. It should be that way because it's single most obvious investment and high-returning investment any country can make in its future.
        aortega 4y ago
        >It should be virtually free to go to college If you are going to invest into something, it should be good investment that gives returns. An Useless degree clearly do not give enough returns not even to pay for itself.
        woodruffw 4y ago
        "Nothing is free" is an aphorism. Read the comment again: the direct cost of attending university in most developed countries is close to $0. In other words: it's free for the attending individuals, because the country understands that investing in education is in its own self interest. Whatever your particular country's failures are might be unfortunate, but they don't counteract the track record of success here. It might be worth considering whether both of our countries would do well to change, rather than presuming that your country's failure will also be mine's.
- ralph84 4y ago
  Humanities is reading and writing. There’s no need to pay $100k/year to read and write.
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    So reductionist, lol. Which desk jobs aren't fundamentally reading and writing?
    - jjtheblunt 4y ago
      radiologist
      - shigawire 4y ago
        If you think a radiologist is not writing you are incorrect
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    I guess programming is just pressing buttons then? No need to pay $100k a year to press buttons.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    so just like coding?
  - metamet 4y ago
    Humanities is not "reading and writing". It's largely the process of developing and practicing critical analysis and how to effectively communicate it. Yes, most humanities degrees involve a lot of writing about things written, but it's wrong (and patronizing) to say that the takeaway from the degree is merely the ability to read and write. Effective communication is a thing a lot of STEM students have a deficit in, to boot. It's not a coincidence that they're the ones often brandishing the humanities as wasted effort.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- gruez 4y ago
  Who suggested that? Even if you think that humanities education should be publicly subsidized, giving out student loans to anyone who applies (ie. without regard to academic performance or career prospects) is a terrible way of funding it. The lack of selectively ensures that the people who do the best (ie. can get a good paying job afterwards) receive the least aid because they have to pay back the loan, whereas people who do the worst get the most. Merit based scholarships and/or government grants for university humanities departments is a far better way of ensuring we get the most bang per dollar subsidized.
Sakos 4y ago
> colleges offered useless degrees This is such a weird perspective. Look at any modern business. A lot of employees will have studied something in humanities. There are valuable skills (particularly writing and communication) that are learned in these degrees that might not be seen as valuable by your average techie. The problem is not "useless degrees" (they're all useful, regardless of what you may think of them), the problem is insane cost of education.
- aortega 4y ago
  >There are valuable skills Depends on the business and the degree. They may be valuable, but they are not 500k usd valuable. >(particularly writing and communication) You should learn that in grade school.
  - Sakos 4y ago
    - dang 4y ago
      Obviously you can't post like this here and obviously we have to ban accounts that do so, so please don't do it again—regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    I think a vanishingly small fraction of liberal arts undergraduates are paying 500K USD for their degrees (even after you factor in all external costs), much less taking on that much in debt. (The rest of the comment is ridiculous -- it should be obvious that there is much more to learn about writing or communication than just what can be taught in grade school.)
    - aortega 4y ago
      > it should be obvious that there is much more to learn about writing or communication Are those skills valuable enough to warrant a 500k usd loan? clearly not, or else they should have no problem repaying it.
gruez 4y ago
>This is one of the biggest scams in history. What's the deception here? Was the government going around saying how much money you could earn from a humanities degree? Statistics about earning potential degrees of degrees were available for decades. Caveat emptor.
- Consultant32452 4y ago
  My government school did have messaging to that effect. I knew it was bullshit, but lots of people believed them.
  - gruez 4y ago
    Were they imploring people to get degrees with poor career prospects, or just degrees in general?
    - Consultant32452 4y ago
      They said something to the effect of "any" degree is valuable and can get you a good job.
- pxeboot 4y ago
  I don't know what you consider government, but the public schools I attended constantly told students that you had to go to college to be successful, no matter what degree you got.
  - gruez 4y ago
    >but the public schools I attended constantly told students that you had to go to college to be successful, no matter what degree you got. I'm not sure what the exact messaging your school told, but I imagine it's something to the effect of "degree holders earn x% more than non-degree holders on average", which is a true statement. The "on average" part might not been stressed, but anyone with rudimentary knowledge of how the labor market works (ie. some jobs pay more than other jobs) should be able to figure out that earning potential by degree varies.
bArray 4y ago
> The defaulted loans are not for STEM careers, that have little trouble paying back [..] Right, if you are going to take on tonnes of debt, it should probably before for a degree that has a reasonable chance of repaying the debt. > colleges offered useless degrees to people that do not need them except for vanity [..] Not useless, but it is difficult to get a profitable career in this subject areas. > This is one of the biggest scams in history. Not even remotely close, unfortunately. Tax is way worse. Your employer gets tax, you then get tax, anything your buy is taxed, if you don't spend it before you die you get taxed, if you try to leave it to somebody you get taxed, if you try to save money the government uses inflation to slowly tax it away from you. The next biggest scams are likely debt traps (checkout who owns the largest amount of debt of poorer nations right now and how they got there), followed by crypto (which is a glorified pyramid scheme - prove me wrong).
- aortega 4y ago
  > followed by crypto (which is a glorified pyramid scheme - prove me wrong). It is not wrong, but as long as it replaces the far, far worse pyramid scheme that is Fiat, I'm fine with it. But we digress :)
DebtDeflation 4y ago
> the problem is in humanities, arts, etc. Not even, really. Average student loan debt for new graduates (Bachelors) with loans last year was $28K. Even for someone with a humanities degree, that's far from an insurmountable debt to pay over 10 years. It's obviously higher for people getting graduate degrees, law degrees, medical school, etc., but so is their compensation. The stories you hear about people racking up $200K in debt to get a Bachelors in Art History range from extreme outliers to basically memes. I support reform, but there's so much misinformation in this space it's ridiculous. A one time debt forgiveness isn't even "reform" IMO, as we're going to be right back where we started in a few years.
TulliusCicero 4y ago
This is the point where people run in to say, "College is MORE than just career prep! It's about producing well-rounded citizens!" Which is a fine sentiment; the problem is that it makes no sense for people to be going deeply into debt to become well-rounded citizens. If you're gonna end up with tens of thousands of dollars in the hole at the end of an education, at the start of your adult life, then yes, it's reasonable to need that education to reliably produce economic dividends. Like, just think of all the other things that can help people become more well-rounded or better citizens, like community service, or international travel. Once you have the list in your head, think to yourself: how many of these would you recommend that young adults spend years of full-time labor in, and go into major debt to pursue?
- rch 4y ago
  I've been hearing the "college teaches you how to think" trope less often lately. Can't imagine why.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  > Which is a fine sentiment; the problem is that it makes no sense for people to be going deeply into debt to become well-rounded citizens. If you're gonna end up with tens of thousands of dollars in the hole at the end of an education, at the start of your adult life, then yes, it's reasonable to need that education to reliably produce economic dividends. I'll turn this around on its head: if we recognize the civic and social benefits of having a well-rounded population, then we ought to treat the current rash of students who knowingly go into debt for their degrees as performing a remarkably selfless act. Like so many problems in the US, this one is entirely self-inflicted: you can get a liberal arts degree for virtually nothing in much of the rest of the developed world. This hasn't caused crises anywhere else, and hasn't caused students to flock away from technical programs (which are also civically necessary). None of this has to be the way that it is.
  - TulliusCicero 4y ago
    Agreed, from a systemic perspective, shit is broken in the US and needs to be fixed. The government should be paying more, and also controlling costs better (US universities spend a lot more than universities in other countries). Bare minimum, loans that are protected in bankruptcy should have a limit to how much can be taken out based on the median earnings of those who earn that degree, and this should be annualized such that you can't suddenly hit a limit halfway into your degree. From an individual perspective, people should not be willingly going into large debt for poor or relatively uncertain financial prospects.
endisneigh 4y ago
I'm surprised this top comment has basically nothing backing it up. There are plenty of people with degrees in things like Geology, Psychology, Biology, and Architecture (all 'STEM') with a ton of loans. These degrees tend not to be that lucrative without further higher education.
- Jasper_ 4y ago
  When most people say STEM, they mean T, namely compsci, and they mostly mean a job at Google. S/E/M aren't as appreciated.
  - paganel 4y ago
    > and they mostly mean a job at Google. I don't wish ill on anyone, but hopefully the incoming recession will re-balance the incentives once more, it's crazy to see all this hate addressed at humanities on a website/forum set-up by a guy made "famous" (among the geek "elites") for writing a book called "Hackers and Painters". Must be those crazy high comps, they now allow them to ignore almost anything in life that's related to "painters".
- lampshades 4y ago
  Psychology as STEM is a stretch.
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    How is psychology not science?
    - aortega 4y ago
      Psychology is a pseudo science because it doesn't not make testable predictions.
      - endisneigh 4y ago
        It does tho lol.
Pxtl 4y ago
Yes, look at those broke-ass losers like... Checks notes Peter Thiel, who studied philosophy, or Jack Ma, who studied English. Bill Gates was pre-law until he dropped out.
sieabahlpark 4y ago
idontwantthis 4y ago
STEM majors are scams too. Just because you can manage to pay back a $200k CS bachelors in ten years doesn’t mean it was a good decision. It’s definitely not good for humanity.
- chii 4y ago
  it depends - $200k for a 4 yr education is too expensive ($50k a year?!). But if this figure includes a dorm, food and utilities, then it makes sense. Otherwise, it's absurd a cost.
ryanSrich 4y ago
This can only be a failure of the student though. It doesn’t take much common sense or computer skills to Google which degrees can actually aid in getting you a job. You could say some blame is on parenting as well, which is true. However, the colleges can and should be able to charge whatever prices they want for whatever services they provide. The only standard the college should be held to us complying with false advertising rules and laws. They shouldn’t be allowed to market a degree that can’t get you a job as one that can.
- nhooyr 4y ago
  Why should students be able to get loans for degrees with poor economic outlook? I don't think that's a good investment for the government.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  Did they fix the inability to discharge student loans via bankruptcy? Obviously as long as colleges have a special exemption from normal market forces, they shouldn't be allowed to charge as much as they want.
- chipgap98 4y ago
  The colleges are responsible for knowing which students will have which income prospects for which degrees? How would you possibly enforce that?
fredgrott 4y ago
ahem, try again with FACTS as I defaulted on loans for a STEM degree.
PaywallBuster 4y ago
I wonder what's the thinking behind signing up for these courses and get into life long debt with no expectations of how to pay it back
bnralt 4y ago
In my experience, the majority of the education time for STEM degrees is useless as well. Hell, a good chunk of the time isn't even spent on STEM (IE, you'll have required humanities and art classes as part of your STEM degree). But even much of the STEM classes are often a waste, focusing on things that students never use again and quickly forget (not just my own experience, but based on taking with classmates the next semester and people who had gotten their degree several years before). Since some STEM fields are well paying, people think argue they aren't as much of a waste of money. But they still suffer from excessive cost (both monetary and time) and the bloat of useless classes that other degrees do.
notart666 4y ago
This is not true. There is an oversaturation of stem degrees as well. Over 90% of stem majors do not find a job in their field or STEM.
- mmcconnell1618 4y ago
  Source for this data? 90% of STEM majors do not find a job in their field or STEM? That sounds very high.
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    Stem includes physics, chemistry, biology, and math. I don’t know much about chem and bio, but I know firsthand there aren’t a lot of jobs for undergraduate math and physics majors. The biggest employer of physics majors at my school was the uspto.
dang 4y ago
Please let's not rehash tedious generic flamewars here. Science vs. humanities is a classic of the type—extremely worn and predictable. It's up there with cyclists vs. drivers and cats vs. dogs. This kind of thing just gets people riled up to repeat the same old points more angrily than before*. Edit: as an example, we got from your comment to "you're an insufferable cunt" in 3 hops—and you contributed 2 of them. Obviously that comment was completely beyond the pale, but the more important thing is not to go into such flamewar territories in the first place. "Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html * https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=mind%20amuse%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
- PubliusMI 4y ago
  It's possible for a piece of advice to be commonly repeated, vehemently hated, and absolutely correct...
  - dang 4y ago
    Indeed, but it's still off topic here. The high-order bit is how repetitive something is. That's what we want to avoid: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=diffs%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... This follows from the organizing principle of the site: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... In fact, tediously and/or angrily repeating correct things (or things one feels to be correct—a distinction without a difference for internet purposes) is the thing commenters should most avoid on HN. It's the root evil, relative to the mandate of the site.
- aortega 4y ago
  >but the more important thing is not to go into such flamewar territories in the first place. It may be more important to you, but I don't care. For me, truth is important, and I wrote the truth.
kube-system 4y ago
Liberal arts educations are not and never have been vocational in nature. The point is merely academics. The misconception that every academic discipline has a thriving job market is the issue.

xapata 4y ago

Yet, we shouldn't abandon humanities education.

rayiner 4y ago
We don’t have to abandon it. But we don’t need to subsidize it with public funding.
- analog31 4y ago
  Choosing which degrees to support faces all of the problems of central planning. One problem is that if colleges are told to create more STEM degrees than the number of students who are already capable of studying for those degrees, it will encourage the creation of empty "STEM" degrees like "bachelor of arts in information studies" that are even more useless than an English major because everybody will know why those degree were created. It also creates boom-and-bust cycles. I graduated with a degree in physics, just as the Cold War collapsed and mandatory retirement for professors was outlawed. There was an absolute glut of physicists all looking for jobs at once.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    When you’re talking about public subsidization, you have to engage in central planning.
    - JamesBarney 4y ago
      Or at least should engage in central planning. If you're spending billions of dollars, maybe a little planning is a good thing, even if it's centralized.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  We should subsidize it at community colleges with large cohort sizes and commensurate lower marginal costs. We should not subsidize it at schools trying to play the rankings game with artificially small cohort sizes and commensurate high costs to the taxpayer for no additional payoff. Why should we subsidize it at all? Because it's a public good.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    Calling things “public goods” is hand waving to gloss over value judgments. Why is teaching humanities a public good?
    - hackerlight 4y ago
      It's a public good because of non-excludable positive externalities on our polity, and that's not reflected in the market price due to market failure. The positive externalities are having voters that understand history, sociology, political science and economics. This is good because it prevents populism and because it creates voters who are able to critically evaluate public policy.
      - xyzzyz 4y ago
        > This is good because it prevents populism and because it creates voters who are able to critically evaluate public policy. I certainly do not believe in the slightest that humanities graduates can “critically evaluate public policy” any better than, say, STEM graduates. In fact, they’re probably worse. They were the ones pushing Marxism on Americans back in the day and similar insanities today, like eg. demonizing and defunding the police. I believe that it makes them negative externality. Now, you may of course disagree. But the point is that there is no agreement that they are a public good.
        hackerlight 4y ago
        > I certainly do not believe in the slightest that humanities graduates can “critically evaluate public policy” any better than, say, STEM graduates. They are better at evaluating certain types of policies than STEM graduates. I've met a lot of engineers who are incapable of understanding what a social construct is, or the societal consequences of hate speech, or who don't know what market failure is, or who are totally ignorant of the history of slavery and the indigenous genocide, who don't know anything about international relations, or various other things which are just child's play for humanities graduates which all have deep relevance to certain policies. This shows me that a polity with just STEM graduates and tradespeople is a polity that can't function properly. Without humanities education (whether self-education or otherwise), the only response to Biden talking about "white supremacy" in his speech is pitchforks and fascism, because voters miss the reasons why Biden would make such an utterance. The only response to a carbon tax is pitchforks, because they don't even understand what a market failure is. The only response to transgender protection is pitchforks, because they don't even know what a social construct is. STEM graduates don't know what they don't know, and they label their blind spots as negative externalities out of a combination of supreme arrogance (primarily), ignorance and confusion. Policy evaluation isn't really the main point. The antidote to populism is the point. > demonizing and defunding the police. The topic of police demonstrates my point. It's only people from a humanities background that showed an interest in critiquing the police, and they were the ones running the studies on policing going back decades. The STEM folks had zero interest. They'd rather ignore the situation rather than study and address it. That's why society can't function with just STEM graduates. They don't know what they don't know. > But the point is that there is no agreement that they are a public good. I understand that fascists and nationalists and right-wingers are against humanities education because it provides an antidote to their toxic ideology. And that's about 30% of the population against it by default. Argumentum ad populum. That doesn't detract from the correctness of what I'm saying.
aortega 4y ago
I don't think we should abandon it, but if you want to pay 500k usd for you degree on french poetry in the 17th century, you should pay for it yourself.
- Sakos 4y ago
  No.
- marcellus23 4y ago
  Horrifying take. Typical of /hn/ when it comes to stuff like this, unfortunately.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Suppose someone wants to spend the posited $500K on that degree. If not them, who should pay for it?
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      The premise here doesn't match reality: nobody wants to (much less is, to a rounding error) paying $500k for a degree. Nobody should pay for it directly. It should be virtually free to go to college, the way it is everywhere else in the developed world. It should be that way because it's single most obvious investment and high-returning investment any country can make in its future.
      - aortega 4y ago
        >It should be virtually free to go to college If you are going to invest into something, it should be good investment that gives returns. An Useless degree clearly do not give enough returns not even to pay for itself.
        woodruffw 4y ago
        "Nothing is free" is an aphorism. Read the comment again: the direct cost of attending university in most developed countries is close to $0. In other words: it's free for the attending individuals, because the country understands that investing in education is in its own self interest. Whatever your particular country's failures are might be unfortunate, but they don't counteract the track record of success here. It might be worth considering whether both of our countries would do well to change, rather than presuming that your country's failure will also be mine's.
ralph84 4y ago
Humanities is reading and writing. There’s no need to pay $100k/year to read and write.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  So reductionist, lol. Which desk jobs aren't fundamentally reading and writing?
  - jjtheblunt 4y ago
    radiologist
    - shigawire 4y ago
      If you think a radiologist is not writing you are incorrect
- ModernMech 4y ago
  I guess programming is just pressing buttons then? No need to pay $100k a year to press buttons.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  so just like coding?
- metamet 4y ago
  Humanities is not "reading and writing". It's largely the process of developing and practicing critical analysis and how to effectively communicate it. Yes, most humanities degrees involve a lot of writing about things written, but it's wrong (and patronizing) to say that the takeaway from the degree is merely the ability to read and write. Effective communication is a thing a lot of STEM students have a deficit in, to boot. It's not a coincidence that they're the ones often brandishing the humanities as wasted effort.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
gruez 4y ago
Who suggested that? Even if you think that humanities education should be publicly subsidized, giving out student loans to anyone who applies (ie. without regard to academic performance or career prospects) is a terrible way of funding it. The lack of selectively ensures that the people who do the best (ie. can get a good paying job afterwards) receive the least aid because they have to pay back the loan, whereas people who do the worst get the most. Merit based scholarships and/or government grants for university humanities departments is a far better way of ensuring we get the most bang per dollar subsidized.

Sakos 4y ago

> colleges offered useless degrees This is such a weird perspective. Look at any modern business. A lot of employees will have studied something in humanities. There are valuable skills (particularly writing and communication) that are learned in these degrees that might not be seen as valuable by your average techie. The problem is not "useless degrees" (they're all useful, regardless of what you may think of them), the problem is insane cost of education.

aortega 4y ago
>There are valuable skills Depends on the business and the degree. They may be valuable, but they are not 500k usd valuable. >(particularly writing and communication) You should learn that in grade school.
- Sakos 4y ago
  - dang 4y ago
    Obviously you can't post like this here and obviously we have to ban accounts that do so, so please don't do it again—regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- woodruffw 4y ago
  I think a vanishingly small fraction of liberal arts undergraduates are paying 500K USD for their degrees (even after you factor in all external costs), much less taking on that much in debt. (The rest of the comment is ridiculous -- it should be obvious that there is much more to learn about writing or communication than just what can be taught in grade school.)
  - aortega 4y ago
    > it should be obvious that there is much more to learn about writing or communication Are those skills valuable enough to warrant a 500k usd loan? clearly not, or else they should have no problem repaying it.

gruez 4y ago

>This is one of the biggest scams in history. What's the deception here? Was the government going around saying how much money you could earn from a humanities degree? Statistics about earning potential degrees of degrees were available for decades. Caveat emptor.

Consultant32452 4y ago
My government school did have messaging to that effect. I knew it was bullshit, but lots of people believed them.
- gruez 4y ago
  Were they imploring people to get degrees with poor career prospects, or just degrees in general?
  - Consultant32452 4y ago
    They said something to the effect of "any" degree is valuable and can get you a good job.
pxeboot 4y ago
I don't know what you consider government, but the public schools I attended constantly told students that you had to go to college to be successful, no matter what degree you got.
- gruez 4y ago
  >but the public schools I attended constantly told students that you had to go to college to be successful, no matter what degree you got. I'm not sure what the exact messaging your school told, but I imagine it's something to the effect of "degree holders earn x% more than non-degree holders on average", which is a true statement. The "on average" part might not been stressed, but anyone with rudimentary knowledge of how the labor market works (ie. some jobs pay more than other jobs) should be able to figure out that earning potential by degree varies.

bArray 4y ago

> The defaulted loans are not for STEM careers, that have little trouble paying back [..] Right, if you are going to take on tonnes of debt, it should probably before for a degree that has a reasonable chance of repaying the debt. > colleges offered useless degrees to people that do not need them except for vanity [..] Not useless, but it is difficult to get a profitable career in this subject areas. > This is one of the biggest scams in history. Not even remotely close, unfortunately. Tax is way worse. Your employer gets tax, you then get tax, anything your buy is taxed, if you don't spend it before you die you get taxed, if you try to leave it to somebody you get taxed, if you try to save money the government uses inflation to slowly tax it away from you. The next biggest scams are likely debt traps (checkout who owns the largest amount of debt of poorer nations right now and how they got there), followed by crypto (which is a glorified pyramid scheme - prove me wrong).

aortega 4y ago
> followed by crypto (which is a glorified pyramid scheme - prove me wrong). It is not wrong, but as long as it replaces the far, far worse pyramid scheme that is Fiat, I'm fine with it. But we digress :)

DebtDeflation 4y ago

> the problem is in humanities, arts, etc. Not even, really. Average student loan debt for new graduates (Bachelors) with loans last year was $28K. Even for someone with a humanities degree, that's far from an insurmountable debt to pay over 10 years. It's obviously higher for people getting graduate degrees, law degrees, medical school, etc., but so is their compensation. The stories you hear about people racking up $200K in debt to get a Bachelors in Art History range from extreme outliers to basically memes. I support reform, but there's so much misinformation in this space it's ridiculous. A one time debt forgiveness isn't even "reform" IMO, as we're going to be right back where we started in a few years.

TulliusCicero 4y ago

This is the point where people run in to say, "College is MORE than just career prep! It's about producing well-rounded citizens!" Which is a fine sentiment; the problem is that it makes no sense for people to be going deeply into debt to become well-rounded citizens. If you're gonna end up with tens of thousands of dollars in the hole at the end of an education, at the start of your adult life, then yes, it's reasonable to need that education to reliably produce economic dividends. Like, just think of all the other things that can help people become more well-rounded or better citizens, like community service, or international travel. Once you have the list in your head, think to yourself: how many of these would you recommend that young adults spend years of full-time labor in, and go into major debt to pursue?

rch 4y ago
I've been hearing the "college teaches you how to think" trope less often lately. Can't imagine why.
woodruffw 4y ago
> Which is a fine sentiment; the problem is that it makes no sense for people to be going deeply into debt to become well-rounded citizens. If you're gonna end up with tens of thousands of dollars in the hole at the end of an education, at the start of your adult life, then yes, it's reasonable to need that education to reliably produce economic dividends. I'll turn this around on its head: if we recognize the civic and social benefits of having a well-rounded population, then we ought to treat the current rash of students who knowingly go into debt for their degrees as performing a remarkably selfless act. Like so many problems in the US, this one is entirely self-inflicted: you can get a liberal arts degree for virtually nothing in much of the rest of the developed world. This hasn't caused crises anywhere else, and hasn't caused students to flock away from technical programs (which are also civically necessary). None of this has to be the way that it is.
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  Agreed, from a systemic perspective, shit is broken in the US and needs to be fixed. The government should be paying more, and also controlling costs better (US universities spend a lot more than universities in other countries). Bare minimum, loans that are protected in bankruptcy should have a limit to how much can be taken out based on the median earnings of those who earn that degree, and this should be annualized such that you can't suddenly hit a limit halfway into your degree. From an individual perspective, people should not be willingly going into large debt for poor or relatively uncertain financial prospects.

endisneigh 4y ago

I'm surprised this top comment has basically nothing backing it up. There are plenty of people with degrees in things like Geology, Psychology, Biology, and Architecture (all 'STEM') with a ton of loans. These degrees tend not to be that lucrative without further higher education.

Jasper_ 4y ago
When most people say STEM, they mean T, namely compsci, and they mostly mean a job at Google. S/E/M aren't as appreciated.
- paganel 4y ago
  > and they mostly mean a job at Google. I don't wish ill on anyone, but hopefully the incoming recession will re-balance the incentives once more, it's crazy to see all this hate addressed at humanities on a website/forum set-up by a guy made "famous" (among the geek "elites") for writing a book called "Hackers and Painters". Must be those crazy high comps, they now allow them to ignore almost anything in life that's related to "painters".
lampshades 4y ago
Psychology as STEM is a stretch.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  How is psychology not science?
  - aortega 4y ago
    Psychology is a pseudo science because it doesn't not make testable predictions.
    - endisneigh 4y ago
      It does tho lol.

Pxtl 4y ago

Yes, look at those broke-ass losers like... Checks notes Peter Thiel, who studied philosophy, or Jack Ma, who studied English. Bill Gates was pre-law until he dropped out.

sieabahlpark 4y ago

idontwantthis 4y ago

STEM majors are scams too. Just because you can manage to pay back a $200k CS bachelors in ten years doesn’t mean it was a good decision. It’s definitely not good for humanity.

chii 4y ago
it depends - $200k for a 4 yr education is too expensive ($50k a year?!). But if this figure includes a dorm, food and utilities, then it makes sense. Otherwise, it's absurd a cost.

ryanSrich 4y ago

This can only be a failure of the student though. It doesn’t take much common sense or computer skills to Google which degrees can actually aid in getting you a job. You could say some blame is on parenting as well, which is true. However, the colleges can and should be able to charge whatever prices they want for whatever services they provide. The only standard the college should be held to us complying with false advertising rules and laws. They shouldn’t be allowed to market a degree that can’t get you a job as one that can.

nhooyr 4y ago
Why should students be able to get loans for degrees with poor economic outlook? I don't think that's a good investment for the government.
bee_rider 4y ago
Did they fix the inability to discharge student loans via bankruptcy? Obviously as long as colleges have a special exemption from normal market forces, they shouldn't be allowed to charge as much as they want.
chipgap98 4y ago
The colleges are responsible for knowing which students will have which income prospects for which degrees? How would you possibly enforce that?

fredgrott 4y ago

ahem, try again with FACTS as I defaulted on loans for a STEM degree.

PaywallBuster 4y ago

I wonder what's the thinking behind signing up for these courses and get into life long debt with no expectations of how to pay it back

bnralt 4y ago

In my experience, the majority of the education time for STEM degrees is useless as well. Hell, a good chunk of the time isn't even spent on STEM (IE, you'll have required humanities and art classes as part of your STEM degree). But even much of the STEM classes are often a waste, focusing on things that students never use again and quickly forget (not just my own experience, but based on taking with classmates the next semester and people who had gotten their degree several years before). Since some STEM fields are well paying, people think argue they aren't as much of a waste of money. But they still suffer from excessive cost (both monetary and time) and the bloat of useless classes that other degrees do.

notart666 4y ago

This is not true. There is an oversaturation of stem degrees as well. Over 90% of stem majors do not find a job in their field or STEM.

mmcconnell1618 4y ago
Source for this data? 90% of STEM majors do not find a job in their field or STEM? That sounds very high.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  Stem includes physics, chemistry, biology, and math. I don’t know much about chem and bio, but I know firsthand there aren’t a lot of jobs for undergraduate math and physics majors. The biggest employer of physics majors at my school was the uspto.

dang 4y ago

Please let's not rehash tedious generic flamewars here. Science vs. humanities is a classic of the type—extremely worn and predictable. It's up there with cyclists vs. drivers and cats vs. dogs. This kind of thing just gets people riled up to repeat the same old points more angrily than before*. Edit: as an example, we got from your comment to "you're an insufferable cunt" in 3 hops—and you contributed 2 of them. Obviously that comment was completely beyond the pale, but the more important thing is not to go into such flamewar territories in the first place. "Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html * https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=mind%20amuse%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

PubliusMI 4y ago
It's possible for a piece of advice to be commonly repeated, vehemently hated, and absolutely correct...
- dang 4y ago
  Indeed, but it's still off topic here. The high-order bit is how repetitive something is. That's what we want to avoid: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=diffs%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... This follows from the organizing principle of the site: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... In fact, tediously and/or angrily repeating correct things (or things one feels to be correct—a distinction without a difference for internet purposes) is the thing commenters should most avoid on HN. It's the root evil, relative to the mandate of the site.
aortega 4y ago
>but the more important thing is not to go into such flamewar territories in the first place. It may be more important to you, but I don't care. For me, truth is important, and I wrote the truth.

kube-system 4y ago

Liberal arts educations are not and never have been vocational in nature. The point is merely academics. The misconception that every academic discipline has a thriving job market is the issue.