7 ms·

How smart do you have to be to get a degree?

74 points by noch 3y ago

bell-cot 3y ago
Actual Title: "Education Isn’t What It Used To Be" That's less clicky, but more descriptive of the article.
- LudwigNagasena 3y ago
  That actual title says almost literally nothing.
Raztuf 3y ago
It's obviously anecdotical but I know both many smart persons without higher level education and many 'not-so-bright' persons with university degrees. However, all those with degrees have parents with degrees and those without come from lower class, for the lack of better term, families. If your parents have never set foot in an university and worked manual labor all their live, you are less likely to even consider higher education. While doctors may want their children to pursue a good career, even if those children hold no interest in that education.
- dakiol 3y ago
  > If your parents have never set foot in an university and worked manual labor all their live, you are less likely to even consider higher education. That’s not what I have perceived in developing countries. Usually those kind of parents work very hard precisely to allow their children to go to university and have the life they didn’t have. They don’t want their children to work like their parents.
  - dingi 3y ago
    This was my anecdotal evidence as a person from a developing nation as well. Parents around these parts give utmost priority to children's education because its the only way they can get out of the vicious cycle of poverty. Add free education to the mix and, you have a lot of people with a less privileged background getting university degrees. A Lot of people moved out of poverty within past couple decades.
  - tiznow 3y ago
    Developing countries are quite different from the USA (which I understand isn't everyone's frame of reference, but is mine). My family is from a developing nation, I was told explicitly as a child to focus on education to try to manifest the best possible (white-collar) life for myself. That's one school of thought. Having a degree in almost anything is probably far more transformative in Africa than the USA, presently. But, in many pockets of the USA, most people generally do not even consider going to college outside of athletic scholarships because the only people they know who did are teachers, who might end up being some of the lower-paid people they have encountered. Or they've seen people work "by the hand" and end up in a better position than people they know who went to college.
- 0xEF 3y ago
  My delineation between those with degrees and those without has always been the type of feedback received through the learning process. Those with degrees tend to be great with theory, but lacking in practice or application. Mind you, they are otherwise pretty bright people, so I don't fault them. They simply didn't get the corrective feedback needed along every step that tends to come with putting an idea into practice. I think of the engineers I work with daily as I write this. They can design new product in CAD all day, but have never built one, which hampers the implementation of their design in the real world and frustrates them. Those who learned by doing, as opposed to 'studying to the test' such as myself will have a much stronger grasp on the ways things might go wrong (or in some cases, not actually be possible even though it works on paper or in simulation) and be better prepared for it. However, we also tend to have considerable gaps in our theoretical knowledge, and tend to try to make up for it by our ability to quickly adapt or problem solve. Combined, I'd say the two types of people do make a good team, so long as each is compensating for the others deficiencies in a mutually beneficial way. I rather like the engineers I work with, and they seem to like me, so together, we are pretty valuable to each other and our employers. With other teams, I see this relationship break down when one side starts with the "they don't know anything" attitude.
- katzgrau 3y ago
  IDK, I went to a state tech school and the huge majority (including myself) were from union/working class parents with no degrees. For at least my parents, getting a degree was seen as a ticket to a better life. At the time, that school was also the cheapest (and consistently ranked at best value) so I think it just kind of self selected. The competing private tech university however … I’m guessing those kids had parents with degrees.
- TacticalCoder 3y ago
  > If your parents have never set foot in an university and worked manual labor all their live, you are less likely to even consider higher education Maybe. But one thing I've noticed is that, in Europe at least, there's a huge difference people who value learning and working and those who don't: degree or not. There are people who've been doing manual labor their entire lives who value learning, knowledge and working. One parent of mine got a university degree, the other didn't. I'm entirely self-taught (in more than one domain) but the thing is: my parents valued learning. My mom would, after work, create "learning games" for us, for example. A friend of mine is a lawyer: his parents and grandparents were farmers/paesants but they valued working. He is proud of being the son and grandson of "paysants" ("peasants"). My wife's grandparent was an intellectual working... In a coal mine (after WWII he had no choice: he ended in a country where he didn't speak the language and the only job he was offered was in a coal mine). Heck, my grandfather was a lawyer but he quit lawyering to... Build chalets in the countryside. With his own hands. He was doing manual labor but he was an intellectual and very well educated. I've got lots of respect for farmers / blue collar working people. But I cannot stand the entitled, 90 IQ, people holding a bullshit degree (not all degrees are bullshit) and doing bullshit work and asking for 28 hours workweek while I've got doctors friends whom, after 10 years+ of studies, are working their arses off (for a great salary, granted). My point being: there's higher education (like becoming a doctor or the engineer working on the machines that doctors do use to cure cancers) and "higher" education, as TFA shows. People don't like IQ as a measurement but I know the IQ of those who make these machines and those who create medicine. And I know smart plumbers, electricians, farmers, ... I've got friends (well, family really) who are both doctors and they don't get to see their kids as much as they would like to: but they explained me that they prefer their kid growing up seeing as role models people who save other people's lives and who work hard to do that. They consider their job useful. Just as they consider a plumber's job useful (I had to dig once for five hours in human manure to locate a clogged pipe on a sunday to save the plumber some time on monday morning... Though job they do these guys: yup, it's virtually always men doing that). But bring me someone with a 90 IQ holding a "gender studies" "higher education" degree and I'll want to slap him/her/zhe in the face with a cluestick for they produce jack shit of value to society.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  There are four distinct concepts at play; - Innate capability, as intelligence, drive etc - Access, in terms of money and background culture - Accumulated capability, as education or training - Credentials, certificates Two are input conditions, two are outputs. Some people are born smart, but they choose not to go to university. Or they live in a culture where it's unnecessary. They thrive as autodidacts. Or they are lone wolves who can accumulate capability on their own much better. Others are born smart but they have no access, no family money, no grants or loans, or they live in a culture that frowns on class mobility. If they are lucky they can self-teach anyway or find mentors. If they are unlucky they are sadly wasted. That's a lot of people in the world, because IQ and global intelligence has been steadily rising. Some people are born dumb as a brick, but they have family who insist, and pay for them to attend. Or they live in a culture that shoehorns everyone through university as a matter of course, or as a holding pen for youth. The outputs of formal education likewise vary. Some really smart people go to university and fail. Some universities are awful. Students come out lacking the piece of paper their parents and gatekeepers want. And of course there are some really dumb people should never have gone to university, but they were sold it, or pushed, and their failure is a real knock-back in life. I've seen university destroy many young people. It's a fucking tragedy and I absolutely blame the extractive wannabe culture of education as a cosmetic product. Some cognitively challenged people manage to cheat and weasel their way through obtaining a degree certificate. Maybe they're not so dumb huh, because they learn guile and corruption necessary for modern life. Regardless the credentials, some people may or may not obtain an actual education while at university. The space, free time, the library, access to smart professors... these are all opportunities to blossom. Some, at the lower ranking universities, merely get parochial training, which expires within a year and they need to "retrain". In this way education is a great racket. Some people follow the path of enlightenment. They really do start out quite intellectually weak, but while at university they find themselves, study hard, become well educated and smarter as they "learn how to learn" and the value of knowledge and self-discipline. For them, university is the making of them. Some even follow this path and realise late in the game that the certificate isn't worth waiting for, so they jump off and start life early. I believe Messrs. Gates and Zuckerberg fall into this group. Anyway, in 30 years as a visiting professor I've seen all of these things and more. Higher education varies around the world, as do the cultures that set the value and desirability of HE. The problem is that western universities have become degenerate. They've been taken over by a toxic culture of financialism and professional management and are no longer fit places for teaching, learning and research. They fall into the GIGO taxonomy, as degree mills where you pay £20,000 or whatever, and you damn well expect a degree. And if you don't get one then sue. And to be honest, in the UK that's most of them now, not just the provincials but the Russell Groups too. The only reason to go is for the networking and certificate and that requires a gatekeeper culture to keep up its value - one which is rapidly crumbling. When people ask me now, "Is it worth getting a degree?", I have to be very sceptical. What do you really want to do in life and what sort of person are you?, those are the more important questions.
blackbear_ 3y ago
Interesting, I didn't know about this effect. However the analysis seems to implicitly assume that a person's IQ remains constant as they move up the educational ladder. This does not seem right, assuming that education system works as it should (ie, exposing students to harder and harder issues over time), and also because people should still naturally develop intellectually after high school.
- bryanrasmussen 3y ago
  Well people want IQ to be a test of intelligence, which it isn't particularly but supposing it were, if it increased with education then people who were well-educated would have a higher IQ than those who were not. Wealthy parents would be able to afford to give their children a higher IQ. All sorts of side effects would come into play (or as they are already in play be increased) because it would be obvious that the people at the top of the socioeconomic ladder are there just because they are smarter than everybody else and the serfs should stop their whining. What is actually wanted are 1. a potential score that remains pretty much even as you start to realize the potential, with decrease with age as it is supposed that potential decreases. This is actually pretty much the way IQ works. It would also be nice if potential could identify areas in which you had more potential. 2. an educational score across various areas. 3. an ability to apply 1 and 2 score. functions that could calculate what education you should have further, cost / benefit analysis etc. Has your ability to apply what you have learned increased by the amount expected given your potential, would, for example, be an interesting thing to track.
- janandonly 3y ago
  I've always understood IQ to be similar to the "horse power" of your brain. Filling the brain with more facts, and learning more quick routes and tricks, will, surely, make you arrive at a conclusion faster, but the raw Horse Power of your brain/internal engine is not going to get any higher.
txutxu 3y ago
Is IQ everything that counts? Does the family's social class count or not? Does the socioeconomic situation of the state, country, neighborhood count or not? Does fashions, wars, crises, recessions, mass layoffs, drugs permitted by states, industrial changes, friends, political changes, city councils, police and judges, corruption, monetary funds, teachers, management of study centers, laws, banks and what not... count? Living in Spain, more than 20 years working with Linux (self-learned from magazines, books, and modem-internet in the 90's), could not get a degree (by family situation, did start to work in fields unrelated to technology at 16's)... have found many persons with a degree and very low IQ in my career. Still, interesting article. Here, even basic education is 100% worse than it was 20, 30, 40, 50, etc years ago.
- nextlevelwizard 3y ago
  You come out guns blazing about how IQ isn't the only thing, but then get twisted about "working with Linux" somehow being any way related to degrees and then claim to have found many degree havers to be very low IQ. Kind a think you should take stock again and reconsider what you think IQ is and what it means. Hint: it has nothing to do with using Linux.
  - txutxu 3y ago
    Sorry for the misunderstanding In my time (20 years ago) computer related Degrees didn't teach Linux (again, here in Spain). I, years after leaving formal education, without any degree, have been giving talks at universities to engineering students. My reference to linux was not 100% related to the IQ... but I did want to talk about working in tech and degrees, which I think, depending on the company/industry, may be a signal for me (rather than be 8 hours screwing the same screw in a car chain). By that I don't mean there is not people with a high IQ in a chain (even there is lot of people with a degree in car chains). Of course, maybe I'm totally wrong, thanks for pointing that. Update: To complete... what may affect IQ? education changes? can a person educated one way or another, develop different IQ? physiological (ADN, etc) changes? can mutations over generations change the medium IQ? social changes? can the environment, habits and traditions during the formative stage of a person affect the IQ? I think so... maybe I should start by asking: what doesn't affect the IQ of a person?
makach 3y ago
Not very, points at me.
- makach 3y ago
  Ofcourse you need some basic cognitive functions in order to be able to read, write and present yourself. Remember you don't have to be best to get a degree, you only need to pass and when you don't succeed you can in most cases try again. That said, get a degree if you can. It will help you in the job market, and if you for some reasons don't pursuit a degree for any random reasons - you will still have the background leading up to this point in time which can count as experience.
  - Hendrikto 3y ago
    Do you know you can edit comments for up to 2 (?) hours?
    - makach 3y ago
      I didn't. *edit: I know now.
sheepz 3y ago
These results are to be expected, if IQ is normally distributed, but we push more people into obtaining university degrees. The value of a university degree has severely deteriorated since every white collar job essentially requires having one and it will continue getting worse. I would assume that it's worse in the US than in Europe, because in EU it seems that education is less commercialized and you can get a degree for free if you are above average.
- etothepii 3y ago
  Doesn't this mean the value of a university degree has increased? If you now have to have a degree just to make it to the 40th percentile of the earning bracket that surely means it is more required than ever, and thus worth more.
  - cyrillite 3y ago
    The value of a degree has increased as a product and decreased as a signal. Some would argue that the signal was a better product than the underlying asset.
    - sheepz 3y ago
      Exactly, I think a university degree used to be a good proxy for IQ. But like every metric it becomes becomes bastardized in the end.
  - sheepz 3y ago
    I'm not sure I agree. If more people have a university degree, then it's no longer than differentiator that it used to be. To obtain this degree, you have to take on a substantial student loan in the States from what I understand. To me it seems like a big financial risk, which might not pay off in many cases. So, if we consider value to be the expected life time value of obtaining a degree with respect to the person's net worth and plot it over time I would assume that this value would be decreasing.
  - passwordoops 3y ago
timthorn 3y ago
The article seems to consider a "degree" to be fungible across providers. At least in the UK, there's a definite hierarchy of universities and the value of their courses, even if a pretence of equivalence is sometimes maintained.
helsinkiandrew 3y ago
If you increase the number of people going to higher education isn't it obvious that average IQ will fall. Since 1940 the percentage of population that completed college went up from 5% to 30% whilst average IQ dropped 7-10% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Educational_Attainment_in_the_United_States_2009.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_... Would be interesting to plot average IQ against the percentage of population that go to college.
slavik81 3y ago
> Among major European nations, who’s the most trustworthy? [...] The answer depends on who you ask. In Poland, the Germans seem to have been selected as both "Most Trustworthy" and "Least Trustworthy".
- brabel 3y ago
  Ha! Germans seem to win everything, both good and bad!
- oaiey 3y ago
  Not unsurprising considering that the Germans are good solid neighbors but the populistic agenda is demanding WWII reparations from Germany and making them the culprit for a lot of European decisions.
financltravsty 3y ago
Below average at worst. Conscientious matters most, and I would wager is overly represented in those of average to below average intelligence — compared to above and beyond. A provocative corollary: “but what about genius PhDs/professors/researchers” I would say being born in the upper middle class, but of middling intelligence, will make the path straight forward, requiring no great intellect.
black_13 3y ago
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dijit 3y ago
Answering the title only, so forgive me: > How smart do you have to be to get a degree? Not especially, what you have to be is hardworking and committed. You don't even need to show significant improvement; just an understanding of the subject material. Of course this gets less true as you go up the degrees. (Batchelors requiring a broad rote understanding, Masters requiring a more detailed understanding and PhD requiring some sort of novelty that pushes the field forward). However there's a saying: "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard". I have lived this. My sister is not smart. That may seem unkind but she would be one of the first to admit this. Things do not come to her easily, she has a hard time recognising patterns and lacks a certain level of "common sense". She is extremely motivated though. Thorough and hardworking. I have had the fortune of being quite gifted, I test well and have a great propensity to solve novel puzzles. I, however, procrastinate and am easily distractible. She has a degree, I do not. Intelligence had nothing to do with it. Being hardworking did.
- reaperman 3y ago
  I could have written this exact post. It contains every point I would have made, including "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard" which was my mantra for a long time. As well as my sister not being 'smart' but very hard-working and doing infinitely better than me despite having much lower test scores. The only thing that (eventually!) got me through my bachelors degree was thinking "If you just put one foot in front of the other, you'll get there eventually (assuming you are walking on a sphere and not perfectly along a meridian)". People asked me if you needed to be smart to get my degree (one of the big-4 engineering degrees) ... I always said "No, just stubborn."
- throwaway64554 3y ago
  Throwaway: I have a PhD in CS, and I wouldn't describe myself as very intelligent. Maybe slightly above average. I am constantly amazed at how quickly others in my team can understand extremely complex mathematical problems in a few seconds. I would need at least an hour of quiet thinking, and I struggled a lot with the mathematical aspects of my PhD. But I did work my ass off for 5 years (mostly out of curiosity, though, there was no family pressure, my father is a builder and my mother worked in a supermarket). Something I noticed: extremely smart people have a tendency to see a problem and quickly sketch the solution in their head, or sketch a proof that the problem cannot be solved. Their overwhelming life experience is that they are always the most intelligent person in the room and that their intuition is always right, and so they quickly mark this problem as "done" / "boring" / "unsolvable". In contrast, people with curiosity but less intellectual confidence tend to experiment with ideas to see if they would work / why they wouldn't work / if they work to a certain degree. I certainly do, and everything I have ever written a paper about, including my dissertation, was discovered during such experiments. If anything, I have a PhD in intellectual naivety. I know of several extremely smart people in PhD programs who have not produced anything interesting in years, because they shrug off every problem as trivial, see paper writing as below their dignity, and keep themselves busy with teaching. They seem to wait to be automatically rewarded for their intelligence. After all, that is exactly what happened to them in school, and during their Bachelor/Master studies.
zer00eyz 3y ago
I would make the argument that what passes for education has gone down drastically. People aren't getting smarter on the path to getting degrees. Look at Harvard today. One of the US's premier institutions has lost its way when it comes to academic rigor being one of its primary functions.
newsclues 3y ago
As a dropout that has worked in higher education, you don’t have to be smart at all, wealth, cheating, and nepotism/prejudice are all students need.
TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
tl;dr If you don't select for IQ on input, you don't get IQ on output. Putting more people through university doesn't change this. It just devalues a degree as a marker of relative intelligence. This is called "failing" by some people, and technically it isn't (because numbers.) But socially and culturally perhaps it is. Author suggests at the end that we should spend less time educating people. But - rather obviously - if more of the population goes to university, education for them is being extended to graduation. So you have kids spending more time being educated, leaving with a less useful qualification. What's missing is any discussion of how this affects the culture, the work force, and the quality of universities themselves. Is there any evidence it's easier for relatively low-IQ people to become university professors or managers? How does that affect outcomes? What does it mean for employment and economic stability and output? Overall a blizzard of graphs, but rather superficial analysis.
ath3nd 3y ago
Imo in some unis it's enough that you paid the bill and have a pulse.
verticalscaler 3y ago
We can argue about the degree holders of yesteryear or we can look forward to a more fair and equitable future for the degree holders of tomorrow. Seattle high schoolers were told that “Worship of the Written Word” is white supremacy Before you yell at me about this tidbit or similar rumblings about "knowledge of math" understand that: 1) I've confirmed this off-line first hand with actual parents (who are frankly, besides themselves), not some random news blurb. You can do the same. 2) As uncomfortable as it may be for you to discuss: This will further change the nature of degrees going forward. I would politely suggest it will devalue them completely but that's just my subjective opinion I suppose. As a worshipper of the written word I have no idea where we go from here and am looking for some sort of ray of hope because it is getting scary. Edit: This comment has been almost immediately pinned to the bottom of the thread. Bizarre to say the least. What is going on here?
- verticalscaler 3y ago
  Dear mods this comment is not flagged and has upvotes I am asking for public clarification why you pinned it to the bottom.
tmnvix 3y ago
University was a big wake up call for me. I learnt that it wasn't the smartest people that did best, but those that were most able (and willing) to follow instructions.
dachworker 3y ago
More people getting an education is a good thing. The value of a degree has not deteriorated just because dumber people are also graduating. If you cannot distinguish yourself from those you deem dumber than you, then you won't be able to arrive to the conclusion I am alluding to.
ubutler 3y ago
How comparable are IQ tests from 1940 and 2024? And how good a measure of intelligence are IQ tests?
- ibrahimsow1 3y ago
  If I recall correctly, they have been trending upwards for the the past 100 years (up 30 points but I doubt the average person was clinically retarded) and only relatively recently has started to show a slight decline. IQ tests from 100 years ago are still pretty valid, they use military tests I believe. Double check that.
hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
Depends on the degree, mostly. Necessary disclaimer that everything I'm about to say is about statistical averages, which of course doesn't apply to you, dear reader - you are hypercompetence incarnate and I know the world heavily undervalues you. :) The average bachelor's degree holder in the United States has an IQ of about 115, or about an 1100/1600 on the SATs. Some of the majors you probably intuit to be rigorous (mathematics, engineering, CS, and quite often philosophy) really do also tend to have higher average IQs for successful graduates - I usually hear 125 to 130 floated for these ones. There also exist majors with lower average IQs, like [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]. Competition for the top schools tends to push the average IQ there much higher no matter which nation one looks at - my alma mater's average SAT scores would suggest an average IQ of 130 or so across the board. But, for most people going to most schools, that won't make that much of a difference, and unsurprisingly a lot of really smart people decide the extra thousand hours to crank out 200 extra points on the SAT just isn't worth it. That's why surprisingly often you'll meet e.g. an engineering graduate from Podunk Polytechnic who's smarter than half the people you meet at the University of Ivory Towers. College degrees act as a valuable signaling mechanism of both one's intelligence and ability to work consistently in a modern environment. One relevant term to Google is "sheepskin effect". If your IQ is anywhere in the triple digits, it is almost certainly possible for you to get an associate's degree, and it's probably possible for you to get a bachelor's as well. If your IQ is in the double digits, it's probably not the best move, just from an effort to reward standpoint. Luckily the trades pay quite well and provide an alternative track that's both in demand and more accommodating of people who have less raw brainpower to throw around, but who are otherwise quite good and decent people. And of course, I've known e.g. a few electrical engineers who became licensed electricians after their degree just because they liked working with their hands, and they almost always seem to clean up very well. Practically anyone interested in this topic would do well to read https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/dp/0691174652 https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/d..., both if they love college and if they hate it.
djaouen 3y ago
I got a degree and I’m a dumbass, so you really don’t need to be smart at all lmao
black_13 3y ago
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wkjagt 3y ago
I have two degrees but don’t think I’m very smart. I’m actually pretty slow at understanding certain things. I have one big quality though that really helped, and still helps me get through complex things: I can get really really obsessed with a single topic and spend all my time on it.
brabel 3y ago
> But we’re also spending more and more of our lives in education, and that threatens the time in the parts of our lives where we really enjoy being adults. The time I was going to school was probably the best time of my life. Not because of school itself, but because of having a stable group of friends, lots of "events" and things to look forward to... and a lot of support for extra-curricular activities, like sports and hobbies. After you finish school, you can feel like having a pointless life if you don't find something to concentrate on (usually your career - which is in many cases a pointless thing to focus on anyway).
vcg3rd 3y ago
An I.Q. above body temperature.
jimhefferon 3y ago
I have not seen anyone say this, so I will (apologies if I missed someone's comment). It is not clear that IQ is a good measure of smart. I'll also note that when I teach Elementary Statistics and ask undergrads for a show of hands of who has taken an IQ test, often in a class of 30 I won't get more than a hand or two. So I guess these studies are administering the tests specially for the study?
- lapcat 3y ago
  > I'll also note that when I teach Elementary Statistics and ask undergrads for a show of hands of who has taken an IQ test, often in a class of 30 I won't get more than a hand or two. So I guess these studies are administering the tests specially for the study? I'm also wondering where they're getting all of the IQ stats. I have no idea what my IQ is, and I don't recall ever taking an IQ test in my entire life. Where I came from, it certainly wasn't routine to administer IQ tests.
poulpy123 3y ago
with my data sample = 1, I can say not very
sys_64738 3y ago
Getting a degree is more than just being intellectually smart. Many smart folk can't apply themselves as they get bored easily so fail their courses. A degree requires application, endurance, and stamina. It's not a sprint but a marathon applies here I feel. A sprinter is the intellectually smart person in most cases.
JohnFen 3y ago
Since I've seen both stupid and brilliant people get degrees in technical fields, I'm inclined to say that you don't need to be particularly smart to get one. The corollary to this is that you can't assume a person is smart just because they have a degree.

74 points by noch 3y ago

bell-cot 3y ago

Actual Title: "Education Isn’t What It Used To Be" That's less clicky, but more descriptive of the article.

LudwigNagasena 3y ago
That actual title says almost literally nothing.

Raztuf 3y ago

It's obviously anecdotical but I know both many smart persons without higher level education and many 'not-so-bright' persons with university degrees. However, all those with degrees have parents with degrees and those without come from lower class, for the lack of better term, families. If your parents have never set foot in an university and worked manual labor all their live, you are less likely to even consider higher education. While doctors may want their children to pursue a good career, even if those children hold no interest in that education.

dakiol 3y ago
> If your parents have never set foot in an university and worked manual labor all their live, you are less likely to even consider higher education. That’s not what I have perceived in developing countries. Usually those kind of parents work very hard precisely to allow their children to go to university and have the life they didn’t have. They don’t want their children to work like their parents.
- dingi 3y ago
  This was my anecdotal evidence as a person from a developing nation as well. Parents around these parts give utmost priority to children's education because its the only way they can get out of the vicious cycle of poverty. Add free education to the mix and, you have a lot of people with a less privileged background getting university degrees. A Lot of people moved out of poverty within past couple decades.
- tiznow 3y ago
  Developing countries are quite different from the USA (which I understand isn't everyone's frame of reference, but is mine). My family is from a developing nation, I was told explicitly as a child to focus on education to try to manifest the best possible (white-collar) life for myself. That's one school of thought. Having a degree in almost anything is probably far more transformative in Africa than the USA, presently. But, in many pockets of the USA, most people generally do not even consider going to college outside of athletic scholarships because the only people they know who did are teachers, who might end up being some of the lower-paid people they have encountered. Or they've seen people work "by the hand" and end up in a better position than people they know who went to college.
0xEF 3y ago
My delineation between those with degrees and those without has always been the type of feedback received through the learning process. Those with degrees tend to be great with theory, but lacking in practice or application. Mind you, they are otherwise pretty bright people, so I don't fault them. They simply didn't get the corrective feedback needed along every step that tends to come with putting an idea into practice. I think of the engineers I work with daily as I write this. They can design new product in CAD all day, but have never built one, which hampers the implementation of their design in the real world and frustrates them. Those who learned by doing, as opposed to 'studying to the test' such as myself will have a much stronger grasp on the ways things might go wrong (or in some cases, not actually be possible even though it works on paper or in simulation) and be better prepared for it. However, we also tend to have considerable gaps in our theoretical knowledge, and tend to try to make up for it by our ability to quickly adapt or problem solve. Combined, I'd say the two types of people do make a good team, so long as each is compensating for the others deficiencies in a mutually beneficial way. I rather like the engineers I work with, and they seem to like me, so together, we are pretty valuable to each other and our employers. With other teams, I see this relationship break down when one side starts with the "they don't know anything" attitude.
katzgrau 3y ago
IDK, I went to a state tech school and the huge majority (including myself) were from union/working class parents with no degrees. For at least my parents, getting a degree was seen as a ticket to a better life. At the time, that school was also the cheapest (and consistently ranked at best value) so I think it just kind of self selected. The competing private tech university however … I’m guessing those kids had parents with degrees.
TacticalCoder 3y ago
> If your parents have never set foot in an university and worked manual labor all their live, you are less likely to even consider higher education Maybe. But one thing I've noticed is that, in Europe at least, there's a huge difference people who value learning and working and those who don't: degree or not. There are people who've been doing manual labor their entire lives who value learning, knowledge and working. One parent of mine got a university degree, the other didn't. I'm entirely self-taught (in more than one domain) but the thing is: my parents valued learning. My mom would, after work, create "learning games" for us, for example. A friend of mine is a lawyer: his parents and grandparents were farmers/paesants but they valued working. He is proud of being the son and grandson of "paysants" ("peasants"). My wife's grandparent was an intellectual working... In a coal mine (after WWII he had no choice: he ended in a country where he didn't speak the language and the only job he was offered was in a coal mine). Heck, my grandfather was a lawyer but he quit lawyering to... Build chalets in the countryside. With his own hands. He was doing manual labor but he was an intellectual and very well educated. I've got lots of respect for farmers / blue collar working people. But I cannot stand the entitled, 90 IQ, people holding a bullshit degree (not all degrees are bullshit) and doing bullshit work and asking for 28 hours workweek while I've got doctors friends whom, after 10 years+ of studies, are working their arses off (for a great salary, granted). My point being: there's higher education (like becoming a doctor or the engineer working on the machines that doctors do use to cure cancers) and "higher" education, as TFA shows. People don't like IQ as a measurement but I know the IQ of those who make these machines and those who create medicine. And I know smart plumbers, electricians, farmers, ... I've got friends (well, family really) who are both doctors and they don't get to see their kids as much as they would like to: but they explained me that they prefer their kid growing up seeing as role models people who save other people's lives and who work hard to do that. They consider their job useful. Just as they consider a plumber's job useful (I had to dig once for five hours in human manure to locate a clogged pipe on a sunday to save the plumber some time on monday morning... Though job they do these guys: yup, it's virtually always men doing that). But bring me someone with a 90 IQ holding a "gender studies" "higher education" degree and I'll want to slap him/her/zhe in the face with a cluestick for they produce jack shit of value to society.
nonrandomstring 3y ago
There are four distinct concepts at play; - Innate capability, as intelligence, drive etc - Access, in terms of money and background culture - Accumulated capability, as education or training - Credentials, certificates Two are input conditions, two are outputs. Some people are born smart, but they choose not to go to university. Or they live in a culture where it's unnecessary. They thrive as autodidacts. Or they are lone wolves who can accumulate capability on their own much better. Others are born smart but they have no access, no family money, no grants or loans, or they live in a culture that frowns on class mobility. If they are lucky they can self-teach anyway or find mentors. If they are unlucky they are sadly wasted. That's a lot of people in the world, because IQ and global intelligence has been steadily rising. Some people are born dumb as a brick, but they have family who insist, and pay for them to attend. Or they live in a culture that shoehorns everyone through university as a matter of course, or as a holding pen for youth. The outputs of formal education likewise vary. Some really smart people go to university and fail. Some universities are awful. Students come out lacking the piece of paper their parents and gatekeepers want. And of course there are some really dumb people should never have gone to university, but they were sold it, or pushed, and their failure is a real knock-back in life. I've seen university destroy many young people. It's a fucking tragedy and I absolutely blame the extractive wannabe culture of education as a cosmetic product. Some cognitively challenged people manage to cheat and weasel their way through obtaining a degree certificate. Maybe they're not so dumb huh, because they learn guile and corruption necessary for modern life. Regardless the credentials, some people may or may not obtain an actual education while at university. The space, free time, the library, access to smart professors... these are all opportunities to blossom. Some, at the lower ranking universities, merely get parochial training, which expires within a year and they need to "retrain". In this way education is a great racket. Some people follow the path of enlightenment. They really do start out quite intellectually weak, but while at university they find themselves, study hard, become well educated and smarter as they "learn how to learn" and the value of knowledge and self-discipline. For them, university is the making of them. Some even follow this path and realise late in the game that the certificate isn't worth waiting for, so they jump off and start life early. I believe Messrs. Gates and Zuckerberg fall into this group. Anyway, in 30 years as a visiting professor I've seen all of these things and more. Higher education varies around the world, as do the cultures that set the value and desirability of HE. The problem is that western universities have become degenerate. They've been taken over by a toxic culture of financialism and professional management and are no longer fit places for teaching, learning and research. They fall into the GIGO taxonomy, as degree mills where you pay £20,000 or whatever, and you damn well expect a degree. And if you don't get one then sue. And to be honest, in the UK that's most of them now, not just the provincials but the Russell Groups too. The only reason to go is for the networking and certificate and that requires a gatekeeper culture to keep up its value - one which is rapidly crumbling. When people ask me now, "Is it worth getting a degree?", I have to be very sceptical. What do you really want to do in life and what sort of person are you?, those are the more important questions.

blackbear_ 3y ago

Interesting, I didn't know about this effect. However the analysis seems to implicitly assume that a person's IQ remains constant as they move up the educational ladder. This does not seem right, assuming that education system works as it should (ie, exposing students to harder and harder issues over time), and also because people should still naturally develop intellectually after high school.

bryanrasmussen 3y ago
Well people want IQ to be a test of intelligence, which it isn't particularly but supposing it were, if it increased with education then people who were well-educated would have a higher IQ than those who were not. Wealthy parents would be able to afford to give their children a higher IQ. All sorts of side effects would come into play (or as they are already in play be increased) because it would be obvious that the people at the top of the socioeconomic ladder are there just because they are smarter than everybody else and the serfs should stop their whining. What is actually wanted are 1. a potential score that remains pretty much even as you start to realize the potential, with decrease with age as it is supposed that potential decreases. This is actually pretty much the way IQ works. It would also be nice if potential could identify areas in which you had more potential. 2. an educational score across various areas. 3. an ability to apply 1 and 2 score. functions that could calculate what education you should have further, cost / benefit analysis etc. Has your ability to apply what you have learned increased by the amount expected given your potential, would, for example, be an interesting thing to track.
janandonly 3y ago
I've always understood IQ to be similar to the "horse power" of your brain. Filling the brain with more facts, and learning more quick routes and tricks, will, surely, make you arrive at a conclusion faster, but the raw Horse Power of your brain/internal engine is not going to get any higher.

txutxu 3y ago

Is IQ everything that counts? Does the family's social class count or not? Does the socioeconomic situation of the state, country, neighborhood count or not? Does fashions, wars, crises, recessions, mass layoffs, drugs permitted by states, industrial changes, friends, political changes, city councils, police and judges, corruption, monetary funds, teachers, management of study centers, laws, banks and what not... count? Living in Spain, more than 20 years working with Linux (self-learned from magazines, books, and modem-internet in the 90's), could not get a degree (by family situation, did start to work in fields unrelated to technology at 16's)... have found many persons with a degree and very low IQ in my career. Still, interesting article. Here, even basic education is 100% worse than it was 20, 30, 40, 50, etc years ago.

nextlevelwizard 3y ago
You come out guns blazing about how IQ isn't the only thing, but then get twisted about "working with Linux" somehow being any way related to degrees and then claim to have found many degree havers to be very low IQ. Kind a think you should take stock again and reconsider what you think IQ is and what it means. Hint: it has nothing to do with using Linux.
- txutxu 3y ago
  Sorry for the misunderstanding In my time (20 years ago) computer related Degrees didn't teach Linux (again, here in Spain). I, years after leaving formal education, without any degree, have been giving talks at universities to engineering students. My reference to linux was not 100% related to the IQ... but I did want to talk about working in tech and degrees, which I think, depending on the company/industry, may be a signal for me (rather than be 8 hours screwing the same screw in a car chain). By that I don't mean there is not people with a high IQ in a chain (even there is lot of people with a degree in car chains). Of course, maybe I'm totally wrong, thanks for pointing that. Update: To complete... what may affect IQ? education changes? can a person educated one way or another, develop different IQ? physiological (ADN, etc) changes? can mutations over generations change the medium IQ? social changes? can the environment, habits and traditions during the formative stage of a person affect the IQ? I think so... maybe I should start by asking: what doesn't affect the IQ of a person?

makach 3y ago

Not very, points at me.

makach 3y ago
Ofcourse you need some basic cognitive functions in order to be able to read, write and present yourself. Remember you don't have to be best to get a degree, you only need to pass and when you don't succeed you can in most cases try again. That said, get a degree if you can. It will help you in the job market, and if you for some reasons don't pursuit a degree for any random reasons - you will still have the background leading up to this point in time which can count as experience.
- Hendrikto 3y ago
  Do you know you can edit comments for up to 2 (?) hours?
  - makach 3y ago
    I didn't. *edit: I know now.

sheepz 3y ago

These results are to be expected, if IQ is normally distributed, but we push more people into obtaining university degrees. The value of a university degree has severely deteriorated since every white collar job essentially requires having one and it will continue getting worse. I would assume that it's worse in the US than in Europe, because in EU it seems that education is less commercialized and you can get a degree for free if you are above average.

etothepii 3y ago
Doesn't this mean the value of a university degree has increased? If you now have to have a degree just to make it to the 40th percentile of the earning bracket that surely means it is more required than ever, and thus worth more.
- cyrillite 3y ago
  The value of a degree has increased as a product and decreased as a signal. Some would argue that the signal was a better product than the underlying asset.
  - sheepz 3y ago
    Exactly, I think a university degree used to be a good proxy for IQ. But like every metric it becomes becomes bastardized in the end.
- sheepz 3y ago
  I'm not sure I agree. If more people have a university degree, then it's no longer than differentiator that it used to be. To obtain this degree, you have to take on a substantial student loan in the States from what I understand. To me it seems like a big financial risk, which might not pay off in many cases. So, if we consider value to be the expected life time value of obtaining a degree with respect to the person's net worth and plot it over time I would assume that this value would be decreasing.
- passwordoops 3y ago

timthorn 3y ago

The article seems to consider a "degree" to be fungible across providers. At least in the UK, there's a definite hierarchy of universities and the value of their courses, even if a pretence of equivalence is sometimes maintained.

helsinkiandrew 3y ago

If you increase the number of people going to higher education isn't it obvious that average IQ will fall. Since 1940 the percentage of population that completed college went up from 5% to 30% whilst average IQ dropped 7-10% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Educational_Attainment_in_the_United_States_2009.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_... Would be interesting to plot average IQ against the percentage of population that go to college.

slavik81 3y ago

> Among major European nations, who’s the most trustworthy? [...] The answer depends on who you ask. In Poland, the Germans seem to have been selected as both "Most Trustworthy" and "Least Trustworthy".

brabel 3y ago
Ha! Germans seem to win everything, both good and bad!
oaiey 3y ago
Not unsurprising considering that the Germans are good solid neighbors but the populistic agenda is demanding WWII reparations from Germany and making them the culprit for a lot of European decisions.

financltravsty 3y ago

Below average at worst. Conscientious matters most, and I would wager is overly represented in those of average to below average intelligence — compared to above and beyond. A provocative corollary: “but what about genius PhDs/professors/researchers” I would say being born in the upper middle class, but of middling intelligence, will make the path straight forward, requiring no great intellect.

black_13 3y ago

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dijit 3y ago

Answering the title only, so forgive me: > How smart do you have to be to get a degree? Not especially, what you have to be is hardworking and committed. You don't even need to show significant improvement; just an understanding of the subject material. Of course this gets less true as you go up the degrees. (Batchelors requiring a broad rote understanding, Masters requiring a more detailed understanding and PhD requiring some sort of novelty that pushes the field forward). However there's a saying: "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard". I have lived this. My sister is not smart. That may seem unkind but she would be one of the first to admit this. Things do not come to her easily, she has a hard time recognising patterns and lacks a certain level of "common sense". She is extremely motivated though. Thorough and hardworking. I have had the fortune of being quite gifted, I test well and have a great propensity to solve novel puzzles. I, however, procrastinate and am easily distractible. She has a degree, I do not. Intelligence had nothing to do with it. Being hardworking did.

reaperman 3y ago
I could have written this exact post. It contains every point I would have made, including "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard" which was my mantra for a long time. As well as my sister not being 'smart' but very hard-working and doing infinitely better than me despite having much lower test scores. The only thing that (eventually!) got me through my bachelors degree was thinking "If you just put one foot in front of the other, you'll get there eventually (assuming you are walking on a sphere and not perfectly along a meridian)". People asked me if you needed to be smart to get my degree (one of the big-4 engineering degrees) ... I always said "No, just stubborn."
throwaway64554 3y ago
Throwaway: I have a PhD in CS, and I wouldn't describe myself as very intelligent. Maybe slightly above average. I am constantly amazed at how quickly others in my team can understand extremely complex mathematical problems in a few seconds. I would need at least an hour of quiet thinking, and I struggled a lot with the mathematical aspects of my PhD. But I did work my ass off for 5 years (mostly out of curiosity, though, there was no family pressure, my father is a builder and my mother worked in a supermarket). Something I noticed: extremely smart people have a tendency to see a problem and quickly sketch the solution in their head, or sketch a proof that the problem cannot be solved. Their overwhelming life experience is that they are always the most intelligent person in the room and that their intuition is always right, and so they quickly mark this problem as "done" / "boring" / "unsolvable". In contrast, people with curiosity but less intellectual confidence tend to experiment with ideas to see if they would work / why they wouldn't work / if they work to a certain degree. I certainly do, and everything I have ever written a paper about, including my dissertation, was discovered during such experiments. If anything, I have a PhD in intellectual naivety. I know of several extremely smart people in PhD programs who have not produced anything interesting in years, because they shrug off every problem as trivial, see paper writing as below their dignity, and keep themselves busy with teaching. They seem to wait to be automatically rewarded for their intelligence. After all, that is exactly what happened to them in school, and during their Bachelor/Master studies.

zer00eyz 3y ago

I would make the argument that what passes for education has gone down drastically. People aren't getting smarter on the path to getting degrees. Look at Harvard today. One of the US's premier institutions has lost its way when it comes to academic rigor being one of its primary functions.

newsclues 3y ago

As a dropout that has worked in higher education, you don’t have to be smart at all, wealth, cheating, and nepotism/prejudice are all students need.

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago

tl;dr If you don't select for IQ on input, you don't get IQ on output. Putting more people through university doesn't change this. It just devalues a degree as a marker of relative intelligence. This is called "failing" by some people, and technically it isn't (because numbers.) But socially and culturally perhaps it is. Author suggests at the end that we should spend less time educating people. But - rather obviously - if more of the population goes to university, education for them is being extended to graduation. So you have kids spending more time being educated, leaving with a less useful qualification. What's missing is any discussion of how this affects the culture, the work force, and the quality of universities themselves. Is there any evidence it's easier for relatively low-IQ people to become university professors or managers? How does that affect outcomes? What does it mean for employment and economic stability and output? Overall a blizzard of graphs, but rather superficial analysis.

ath3nd 3y ago

Imo in some unis it's enough that you paid the bill and have a pulse.

verticalscaler 3y ago

We can argue about the degree holders of yesteryear or we can look forward to a more fair and equitable future for the degree holders of tomorrow. Seattle high schoolers were told that “Worship of the Written Word” is white supremacy Before you yell at me about this tidbit or similar rumblings about "knowledge of math" understand that: 1) I've confirmed this off-line first hand with actual parents (who are frankly, besides themselves), not some random news blurb. You can do the same. 2) As uncomfortable as it may be for you to discuss: This will further change the nature of degrees going forward. I would politely suggest it will devalue them completely but that's just my subjective opinion I suppose. As a worshipper of the written word I have no idea where we go from here and am looking for some sort of ray of hope because it is getting scary. Edit: This comment has been almost immediately pinned to the bottom of the thread. Bizarre to say the least. What is going on here?

verticalscaler 3y ago
Dear mods this comment is not flagged and has upvotes I am asking for public clarification why you pinned it to the bottom.

tmnvix 3y ago

University was a big wake up call for me. I learnt that it wasn't the smartest people that did best, but those that were most able (and willing) to follow instructions.

dachworker 3y ago

More people getting an education is a good thing. The value of a degree has not deteriorated just because dumber people are also graduating. If you cannot distinguish yourself from those you deem dumber than you, then you won't be able to arrive to the conclusion I am alluding to.

ubutler 3y ago

How comparable are IQ tests from 1940 and 2024? And how good a measure of intelligence are IQ tests?

ibrahimsow1 3y ago
If I recall correctly, they have been trending upwards for the the past 100 years (up 30 points but I doubt the average person was clinically retarded) and only relatively recently has started to show a slight decline. IQ tests from 100 years ago are still pretty valid, they use military tests I believe. Double check that.

hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago

Depends on the degree, mostly. Necessary disclaimer that everything I'm about to say is about statistical averages, which of course doesn't apply to you, dear reader - you are hypercompetence incarnate and I know the world heavily undervalues you. :) The average bachelor's degree holder in the United States has an IQ of about 115, or about an 1100/1600 on the SATs. Some of the majors you probably intuit to be rigorous (mathematics, engineering, CS, and quite often philosophy) really do also tend to have higher average IQs for successful graduates - I usually hear 125 to 130 floated for these ones. There also exist majors with lower average IQs, like [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]. Competition for the top schools tends to push the average IQ there much higher no matter which nation one looks at - my alma mater's average SAT scores would suggest an average IQ of 130 or so across the board. But, for most people going to most schools, that won't make that much of a difference, and unsurprisingly a lot of really smart people decide the extra thousand hours to crank out 200 extra points on the SAT just isn't worth it. That's why surprisingly often you'll meet e.g. an engineering graduate from Podunk Polytechnic who's smarter than half the people you meet at the University of Ivory Towers. College degrees act as a valuable signaling mechanism of both one's intelligence and ability to work consistently in a modern environment. One relevant term to Google is "sheepskin effect". If your IQ is anywhere in the triple digits, it is almost certainly possible for you to get an associate's degree, and it's probably possible for you to get a bachelor's as well. If your IQ is in the double digits, it's probably not the best move, just from an effort to reward standpoint. Luckily the trades pay quite well and provide an alternative track that's both in demand and more accommodating of people who have less raw brainpower to throw around, but who are otherwise quite good and decent people. And of course, I've known e.g. a few electrical engineers who became licensed electricians after their degree just because they liked working with their hands, and they almost always seem to clean up very well. Practically anyone interested in this topic would do well to read https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/dp/0691174652 https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/d..., both if they love college and if they hate it.

djaouen 3y ago

I got a degree and I’m a dumbass, so you really don’t need to be smart at all lmao

black_13 3y ago

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wkjagt 3y ago

I have two degrees but don’t think I’m very smart. I’m actually pretty slow at understanding certain things. I have one big quality though that really helped, and still helps me get through complex things: I can get really really obsessed with a single topic and spend all my time on it.

brabel 3y ago

> But we’re also spending more and more of our lives in education, and that threatens the time in the parts of our lives where we really enjoy being adults. The time I was going to school was probably the best time of my life. Not because of school itself, but because of having a stable group of friends, lots of "events" and things to look forward to... and a lot of support for extra-curricular activities, like sports and hobbies. After you finish school, you can feel like having a pointless life if you don't find something to concentrate on (usually your career - which is in many cases a pointless thing to focus on anyway).

vcg3rd 3y ago

An I.Q. above body temperature.

jimhefferon 3y ago

I have not seen anyone say this, so I will (apologies if I missed someone's comment). It is not clear that IQ is a good measure of smart. I'll also note that when I teach Elementary Statistics and ask undergrads for a show of hands of who has taken an IQ test, often in a class of 30 I won't get more than a hand or two. So I guess these studies are administering the tests specially for the study?

lapcat 3y ago
> I'll also note that when I teach Elementary Statistics and ask undergrads for a show of hands of who has taken an IQ test, often in a class of 30 I won't get more than a hand or two. So I guess these studies are administering the tests specially for the study? I'm also wondering where they're getting all of the IQ stats. I have no idea what my IQ is, and I don't recall ever taking an IQ test in my entire life. Where I came from, it certainly wasn't routine to administer IQ tests.

poulpy123 3y ago

with my data sample = 1, I can say not very

sys_64738 3y ago

Getting a degree is more than just being intellectually smart. Many smart folk can't apply themselves as they get bored easily so fail their courses. A degree requires application, endurance, and stamina. It's not a sprint but a marathon applies here I feel. A sprinter is the intellectually smart person in most cases.

JohnFen 3y ago

Since I've seen both stupid and brilliant people get degrees in technical fields, I'm inclined to say that you don't need to be particularly smart to get one. The corollary to this is that you can't assume a person is smart just because they have a degree.