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4 years and $50-100k of debt is in no way an efficient way to surface those signals. I agree that some things like research can't be done online. But I don't t

• lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  Graduate / research degrees are a university universities exist solely for the purpose of enabling professors to do further scientific research to do this they need: * a supply of intelligent grunts (phd candidates) * an administration capable of turning grant money into a well stocked lab and * a supply of very rich young people who will be taught the basics of science such that when the young rich people run the country they might get something right unfortunately we have forgotten that one genius well supported can provide value and economic growth for a whole planet (who invented steam engines, fire, wheels, transistors) - and  million English graduates wont make up for it. I would be perfectly supportive of a university system that publically funded scientific (empirical,  provable) courses, had industry funding for vocational work (engineering) and left arts to do what they have always done.  But saying let's get rid of the lot? Nonsense.
• lordlicorice 14y ago
  At research universities most of the budget comes from research, and most of the work in research gets done by grad students. Undergrad programs are an afterthought.
  • indiecore 14y ago
    Well undergraduate programs are a thought in that they are needed to produce candidates for the graduate programs that provide value. And from what I can see most of the budget comes from and is devoted to college football.
    • maxerickson 14y ago
      I bet if you broke it down you would find that most research dollars are spent at schools with highly visible sports teams that are self funding. I believe this mostly because the big conferences have fantastic TV deals and huge research schools.
    • jmj42 14y ago
      > And from what I can see most of the budget comes from and is devoted to college football. This couldn't be further from the truth. I'm unaware of any major universities in which sports money comes from or is applied to general budgets. Athletic departments are generally self-contained and there is very little (if any) financial overlap into the academic portions of a university. Payroll, and even scholarships, are paid from athletic income, and any left over is not put into general budget. Personally, I wish the myth of "the cost to the university/tax payers/etc" would go away.
  • Symmetry 14y ago
    That's only true for STEM fields, though. Outside of STEM, department's budget is actually correlated with teaching undergrads, so they tend to do a better job of it. Which is why so many undergrads end up switching majors away from STEM in college.
• rdtsc 14y ago
  You are both right in some respect. First of all college teaches knowledge that you would need relevant to your major. Then college is a signal that you can learn stuff that is required (but not necessarily that you would like to learn). For example sometimes you might just not know what you need to know. Like math. I am glad I was forced to take calculus because I find it useful in my programming job, years later. Taking that made it easy to take understand and analyze algorithms. I am also glad I was forced to take English and Critical Thinking. I stuck with it for 4 years. That also tells something about me to a potential employer (maybe the wrong thing, maybe it shows I can be a submissive grunt that will willingly follow orders, or maybe it shows I can get stuff done to a future startup partner...) So, taking costs aside, I think there is some value in college. Now bringing the costs back into it, I agree with you, that all this should probably somehow be obtained for less than $100k. There is a terrible inefficiency some place if it actually costs that much. There is terrible waste some place. I remember my University was building large stadiums, and huge gyms with lazy rivers and other crap in them, while some colleges couldn't afford paper to print exams on and was using single spaced double-sided, small fonts.
  • mkramlich 14y ago
    > , I agree with you, that all this should probably somehow be obtained for less than $100k. There are efforts underway to provide the education, filtering, verification and signaling services for $0-10k per person. It can be done. We just have to cut out all the fat.
• saturdaysaint 14y ago
  "4 years and $50-100k of debt is in no way an efficient way to surface those signals." This seems intuitively true - 4 yrs/50-100k looks like an unjustifiable expense - but efficiency is relative. If we don't have another way of systematically vetting knowledge workers, then talk of efficiency is moot. There's room for improvement/disruption, but the parent's response to the gp's "fuck college" sentiment was well measured and in keeping with the sentiment of the linked article.
• randomdata 14y ago
  I agree that some things like research can't be done online. I've heard this many times. Why is this? I get some research requires access to physical equipment that is out of reach of the common man, but it seems something like algorithmic research in the field of CS could often be done online.
• overgryphon 14y ago
  The median amount of debt is somewhere around 12k. 50-100k of debt is not at all required for an undergraduate degree. Anyone who chose that route had other options.
• rayiner 14y ago
  At research universities, undergraduate tuition represents a very small %-age of the university's revenue.