5 ms·

Ugh, so depressing... go to college, rack up enormous amounts of debt, and hope to find a job so that you can start paying off the monthly minimums for the seem

by mojaam 14y ago

Ugh, so depressing... go to college, rack up enormous amounts of debt, and hope to find a job so that you can start paying off the monthly minimums for the seemingly the rest of your life.

wyclif 14y ago
I know education is a common theme here on HN, and I always read articles like this. I still think education (esp. in US and UK) is ripe for entrepreneurial disruption, and I enjoy seeing what investors are doing in this space. The system is clearly broken, because incentives are out of proportion to costs.
- FuzzyDunlop 14y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if the system operated in the system's best interest, and not the student's. I only have anecdotal evidence, but from my own experience, the whole system was designed to keep you in the system for as long as possible. This may have been exacerbated by stupid government targets to get, say, at least 50% of all pupils into university. And in at least some of those cases, you're only going because you're brainwashed into it.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- crusso 14y ago
  Yep. Incentives always get out of whack when the government gets involved. It's what's happened to health care, retirement funding, mortgage financing, on and on and on. When incentives aren't aligned with human nature, inefficiencies amplify and eventually break whichever system the government stepped in to fix.
- adyus 14y ago
  Alas, entrepreneurial disruption in this field is made near impossible by the need for governmental oversight of all things related to education. Until "official" degrees stop being an unspoken requirement when considering job applicants, startups such as Khan Academy will remain useful, but ultimately powerless to truly disrupt education.
- georgieporgie 14y ago
  I think the best entrepreneurial disruption you could provide in education would be to provide education on entrepreneurial methods. :-) I'm in my 30s, and I have quite a lot of various skills, but spotting areas of opportunity is still not among those skills.
cperciva 14y ago
In certain fields the "go into debt to pay for an education which will help you get a good job" strategy works well. Unfortunately, governments and educational institutions have taken "college graduates earn X% more and have a Y% lower unemployment rate" statistics and pretended that they apply to all college graduates, regardless of their field. Only a fool would think that a degree in underwater basket weaving would provide the same employment prospects as a degree in any of the STEM fields, but fools are precisely the target market for institutions providing such courses.
- nextstep 14y ago
  It hasn't been too long since I was starting college. For freshman (in the US at least), colleges encourage students to try lots of classes and take their time picking a major. Many schools don't require students to declare a track until they are in their sophomore year -- halfway through a four-year program! Many can be completed in 2-3 years (even "hard" majors, like physics), and the schools design the degree programs with this buffer so students can wait to make a decision. Of course, the schools don't mind recieving four years of tuition for an education that could be completed in three. But it's easy to blame the schools. In my experience, students don't really make career choices (like picking a major) by weighing the economic costs and benefits. Our current culture in college encourages students to take on massive amounts of debt regardless of their field. For many liberal arts degrees, this is probably a foolish financial decision. But for many college freshman, the apparent difficulty of a subject is considered thoroughly, while the job prospects of a career path are a secondary consideration.
  - cperciva 14y ago
    for many college freshman, the apparent difficulty of a subject is considered thoroughly, while the job prospects of a career path are a secondary consideration. Right. My point was that this is partly because of the educational culture which promotes "getting a degree will make you earn more" rather than "getting a degree in subject X, Y, or Z will make you earn more". Students who enter college intending to study science but can't hack it would probably be better off dropping out; instead, most end up in liberal arts and are surprised when their degree turns out to be useless because all the advertising they ever saw promoted "having a degree" as the only relevant flag.
greeneggs 14y ago
The average debt of college graduates for the class of 2010 is $25,000, and is estimated to be $27,000 for the class of 2011 [1]. Compared to housing, this is not a lot of debt. Many people these days will even buy a car on credit, which can be a comparable amount of debt, of course depending on the car. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/education/average-student-loan-debt-grew-by-5-percent-in-2010.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/education/average-student-...

by mojaam 14y ago

Ugh, so depressing... go to college, rack up enormous amounts of debt, and hope to find a job so that you can start paying off the monthly minimums for the seemingly the rest of your life.

wyclif 14y ago

I know education is a common theme here on HN, and I always read articles like this. I still think education (esp. in US and UK) is ripe for entrepreneurial disruption, and I enjoy seeing what investors are doing in this space. The system is clearly broken, because incentives are out of proportion to costs.

FuzzyDunlop 14y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if the system operated in the system's best interest, and not the student's. I only have anecdotal evidence, but from my own experience, the whole system was designed to keep you in the system for as long as possible. This may have been exacerbated by stupid government targets to get, say, at least 50% of all pupils into university. And in at least some of those cases, you're only going because you're brainwashed into it.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
crusso 14y ago
Yep. Incentives always get out of whack when the government gets involved. It's what's happened to health care, retirement funding, mortgage financing, on and on and on. When incentives aren't aligned with human nature, inefficiencies amplify and eventually break whichever system the government stepped in to fix.
adyus 14y ago
Alas, entrepreneurial disruption in this field is made near impossible by the need for governmental oversight of all things related to education. Until "official" degrees stop being an unspoken requirement when considering job applicants, startups such as Khan Academy will remain useful, but ultimately powerless to truly disrupt education.
georgieporgie 14y ago
I think the best entrepreneurial disruption you could provide in education would be to provide education on entrepreneurial methods. :-) I'm in my 30s, and I have quite a lot of various skills, but spotting areas of opportunity is still not among those skills.

cperciva 14y ago

In certain fields the "go into debt to pay for an education which will help you get a good job" strategy works well. Unfortunately, governments and educational institutions have taken "college graduates earn X% more and have a Y% lower unemployment rate" statistics and pretended that they apply to all college graduates, regardless of their field. Only a fool would think that a degree in underwater basket weaving would provide the same employment prospects as a degree in any of the STEM fields, but fools are precisely the target market for institutions providing such courses.

nextstep 14y ago
It hasn't been too long since I was starting college. For freshman (in the US at least), colleges encourage students to try lots of classes and take their time picking a major. Many schools don't require students to declare a track until they are in their sophomore year -- halfway through a four-year program! Many can be completed in 2-3 years (even "hard" majors, like physics), and the schools design the degree programs with this buffer so students can wait to make a decision. Of course, the schools don't mind recieving four years of tuition for an education that could be completed in three. But it's easy to blame the schools. In my experience, students don't really make career choices (like picking a major) by weighing the economic costs and benefits. Our current culture in college encourages students to take on massive amounts of debt regardless of their field. For many liberal arts degrees, this is probably a foolish financial decision. But for many college freshman, the apparent difficulty of a subject is considered thoroughly, while the job prospects of a career path are a secondary consideration.
- cperciva 14y ago
  for many college freshman, the apparent difficulty of a subject is considered thoroughly, while the job prospects of a career path are a secondary consideration. Right. My point was that this is partly because of the educational culture which promotes "getting a degree will make you earn more" rather than "getting a degree in subject X, Y, or Z will make you earn more". Students who enter college intending to study science but can't hack it would probably be better off dropping out; instead, most end up in liberal arts and are surprised when their degree turns out to be useless because all the advertising they ever saw promoted "having a degree" as the only relevant flag.

greeneggs 14y ago

The average debt of college graduates for the class of 2010 is $25,000, and is estimated to be $27,000 for the class of 2011 [1]. Compared to housing, this is not a lot of debt. Many people these days will even buy a car on credit, which can be a comparable amount of debt, of course depending on the car. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/education/average-student-loan-debt-grew-by-5-percent-in-2010.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/education/average-student-...