7 ms·

Better than asking "is college worth the cost," and getting into ROI calculations per major is asking "could we provide a similar (or better) educational and so

• rahimnathwani 11mo ago
  Many (most?) people go to college primarily for the piece of paper, not for the educational and social experience.
  • Aeolun 11mo ago
    You can provide the piece of paper at a fraction of the cost too. Nearly all of Europe does, I believe.
    • crossbody 11mo ago
      Did Europe find a cheat code that gets free $$$ for education? Nothing is free - once you graduate you are hit with 50% tax that gets back all you "free" tuition costs many, many times over. Not saying education should not be subsidized via taxes (I think it's good overall), but it's not free at all - the price is just hidden and spread out over many years (similar to student loans but less visible).
      • ahartmetz 11mo ago
        Was it much more subsidized in the US when it was much cheaper, though?
        • crossbody 11mo ago
          I'd reword the question: "was college paid for via higher income taxes for graduates (and others) or via a more direct approach of student loan taking?". I believe the latter but I don't see the fundamental difference. It's the same student loan but hidden from sight, as it's packaged as higher tax %
          • xethos 11mo ago
            > don't see the fundamental difference You're kidding. The former means all higher net worth individuals to take on both the cost (via taxes) and the benefit (a well-trained workforce for businesses, well-paid, highly taxed contributors for the state, an educated populace of voters, graduates with stable work and in-demand skills). The latter is another example of America's "Everyone for themselves" theme, with students bearing the entire cost of their education, while the graduate, public, state, and businesses reap the benefit. If the benefits are spread so widely, why shouldn't the cost be?
            • crossbody 11mo ago
              The students bear costs but no benefit to themselves? No higher wages? My point is that it doesn't matter in principle if one takes a loan and pays it down over time vs. one is taxed at much higher % and that tax "pays down" a phantom student loan of "free" education. It does introduce a risk and hence the incentive for loan takers to choose their degree wisely though. Which should lead to better allocation of labor but at a cost of some personal risk.
              • xethos 11mo ago
                I actually included the graduate as a beneficiary ("a well-paid, highly taxed contributor" or "the graduate" in the counter), but more importantly: The entirety of society benefits from a well-educated populace. That's one reason even those without children pay for public education. Following that, if everyone benefits, why is the graduate taking on all the risk (via a non-dischargeable student loan) instead of spreading the risk across the entirety of society?
                • crossbody 11mo ago
                  Ok, I overlooked that. I think that's fair that risk should be more spread. Comes at a cost of people choosing degrees more frivolously though and wasting their time and everyone's money
      • surgical_fire 11mo ago
        That's what taxes are for. Subsidizing public good. Affordable access to good education is a good outcome from the heavy taxation I pay.
        • crossbody 11mo ago
          For sure. The main benefit is that it allows smart, hardworking but poor students to get a degree and utilize their brainpower productively for the benefit of all. That's great. Just don't say it's "free" - those who get the education pay back all they got via taxes (which in it's end effect are like paying down a student loan).
          • surgical_fire 11mo ago
            Absolutely. I never would say it is "free". But in many ways it is a matter of what one values. I had opportunities to move to the US and likely make 2x-3x what I make here and pay less taxes. I chose moving to Europe instead. It is the sort of society I prefer to live in.
          • alistairSH 11mo ago
            Free at point of consumption. Anybody with half a brain understands that’s what’s meant when somebody says “free” education or “free” healthcare.
          • venturecruelty 11mo ago
            Just going to point out that this is semantic hair-splitting that usually comes from opponents of governments providing for the social welfare. Not saying you're doing that, but it's a thing that happens. And nobody thinks free education doesn't cost anything, just like people don't think the military doesn't cost anything. Somehow, though, there is endless trillions for "defense", and a little moth flies out of the wallet when it's for something that doesn't involve drones.
          • carlosjobim 11mo ago
            People without a degree: Work and pay high taxes for years while their peers are studying, and then continue to pay high taxes to pay for the high salaries of degree holders who used their degrees to get government "jobs". People with a degree: Get free education and free stipends, then get paid by the tax payers for the rest of their lives in their cushy government "jobs".
      • satvikpendem 11mo ago
        Europe has a much lower expenditure per student compared to the US. https://www.aei.org/articles/the-crazy-amount-america-spends-on-higher-education-in-one-chart https://www.aei.org/articles/the-crazy-amount-america-spends...
        • crossbody 11mo ago
          It does. In large part due to Baumol's cost disease - higher overall incomes in productive sector like tech drive up costs for sector with low productivity growth - so professors and admin staff in US make 2x salaries compared to Europe (cost of living adjusted). Also, have you seen EU student amenities and dorm sizes?
          • btilly 11mo ago
            When you break down how budgets have changed, the two biggest drivers of tuition increases are the growth of administration, and fancy amenities like sports facilities. The cost of the person in front of the blackboard has not been increasing.
            • thaumasiotes 11mo ago
              The cost of the person in front of the blackboard has been steadily going down; those people have been complaining about this for decades.
              • crossbody 11mo ago
                Ok, the prior link was comparing it to EU though, so perhaps costs for professors there went down even more, as professors make less there compared to US
          • mbesto 11mo ago
            I'm trying to follow you. I don't get how Baumol's has a higher degree of effectiveness in the US than it does in the EU? Are you saying there are more tech companies and therefore tech roles in the US than EU and thus those drive up non-tech wages even though they aren't as productive?
      • anonymouskimmer 11mo ago
        From what I understand European education and degree programs are typically much more structured and narrow, and thus finish a lot faster. A student who finishes K-Ph.D. in the US will have a lot more breadth of exposure than such a student in most of Europe, if I recall what I read on the topic a while ago correctly.
      • PaulDavisThe1st 11mo ago
        When used in a social context, "free" has a different meaning than in many other contexts. It does not mean, for example, "there is no cost for this thing". Rather, it means "the person receiving this thing is not responsible for paying the costs associated with it (at least not at the time)". Free health care doesn't mean "nobody gets paid to provide health care", it means "patients do not pay for health at the point of service". If you'd prefer that we use some other term to describe this, please suggest it. I do find it interesting that the Scottish NHS uses "No fees at point of service" as part of their branding (or did, back in 2019).
      • disgruntledphd2 11mo ago
        The taxation is conditional on earning enough income though, which aligns incentives better.
      • curcbit 11mo ago
        > once you graduate you are hit with 50% tax that gets back all you "free" tuition costs many, many times over. This is plain false.
        • crossbody 11mo ago
          In EU? What is false about it? I paid the 50% income tax after getting my "free education"
    • JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
      > You can provide the piece of paper at a fraction of the cost This isn’t socially useful.
      • venturecruelty 11mo ago
        And what we're doing now is? Telling 17-year-olds to take on six figures of debt and then replacing them with ChatGPT while making it impossible to discharge their debt?
        • DiscourseFan 11mo ago
          Just because Comp Sci and many STEM degrees in general are losing value does not mean that university overall is not worthwhile.
          • DaSHacka 11mo ago
            Does it really not, when many of the other degrees already lost their value a long time ago?
            • DiscourseFan 11mo ago
              Not sure what you mean by that, many other degrees still have plenty of value because they teach "soft skills" that are more broadly applicable and more difficult to automate. Hard skills always get automated away.
          • chongli 11mo ago
            The question is not “does it provide any value whatsoever?” The question is “does a degree provide surplus value to society, given its costs?”
            • DiscourseFan 11mo ago
              This is not something that can be measured ahead of time, what someone does with their education.
    • energy123 11mo ago
      That doesn't have prestige value. Prestige comes from scarcity and the ability to exclude the lower caste. If people want to play those exclusivity games that's up to them. What's wrong is asking the taxpayer to fund it under the false mask that the entire product is education.
      • creato 11mo ago
        The scarcity in Europe (at least the two countries I'm familiar with) comes from a standardized test. If you don't do well on the test, you don't go to college.
        • MengerSponge 11mo ago
          America used to do that, but Jewish students started taking (and doing well on) the test, and later Black and Asian students had the audacity to be brilliant too. This led to America's "holistic" college admissions process. For what it's worth, the USA isn't unique in adapting admissions to reject an unwanted minority. The most interesting mechanism has to be Moscow State University's Jewish Problems: https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556 https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556
          • h2zizzle 11mo ago
            The Chinese national entrance exam (gaokao?) is notoriously grueling, but doing well pretty much guarantees you a spot in a top university. Would have been useful to me, having grabbed a middle-of-the-road SAT score for Ivies but having failed to apply to one. There's definitely a multi-pronged strategy for ensuring exclusivity.
        • seec 11mo ago
          That's not exactly true. Funnily enough, you are extremely dependent on your sociological background. If you come from a poor family and do very well, you'll get a full ride for sure. But if you do well but come from a well-off family that refuse to pay for your education, you are fucked. It's only university attendance that is (mostly) free. you still need to finance housing and life costs. Since most good universities are in expensive cities and student loans are not much of a thing, it is an extremely selective process that targets both class standing (from a money standpoint) and parental implication. There was a study on one of the most selective school in France and actually diversity of background has gone down in the last 20 years. Europe is highly politicised and it was always about selecting for ideologically compatible behavior. Otherwise education wouldn't need so much government intervention/support, even if said education would be paid for by the taxpayer (everyone could get some amounts of credits, that they could spend on their institution of choice).
  • jswelker 11mo ago
    And resultingly, if you do go to college and immerse yourself in the educational experience, you come out with superpowers compared to your peers. Getting companies to see those superpowers in a hiring pipeline of course is a different story
    • petesergeant 11mo ago
      Do American colleges not give degree grades? In the UK your degree class (grade) is moderately important for your first job
      • veqq 11mo ago
        All serious applicants have the maximum grade, in the US system.
        • pastel8739 11mo ago
          I don’t think this is strictly true, but I do think it’s true that college GPA is not a differentiating factor.
      • pclmulqdq 11mo ago
        American colleges give out a GPA, which used to mean something but has now been inflated to the point of meaninglessness. 60% of my college class 10 years ago had a 3.5/4 or higher. The median grade at Harvard is an A. I am told that since COVID, B grades and below now require a written explanation by the professor at several schools.
        • fragmede 11mo ago
          Given that the bar for getting into Harvard is rather high these days, shouldn't we expect the median grade in Harvard to be fairly high? If C students aren't allowed into Harvard these days, doesn't it make sense they aren't giving out Cs?
          • 11mo ago
  • Nevermark 11mo ago
    Which strongly suggests that one reason 4-year degrees have lost value, is the piece of paper has lost value. Because of (most?) people only getting a degree for the paper. Two improvements then: Degrees that earn the reputation of not being given for anything less than excellence in studies. Where the earned reputation is used both to discourage the non-serious, and enhance the value of the degree. And of course, bring down the costs. Create a high octane alumni network to match. Foster an opinionated high work ethic, college-as-daycare / party-scene repellent culture. Anything and everything rethought from scratch. For instance, why are degrees based on years? Why so standardized when neither students or jobs are? Why not a skill chart that can be custom traversed per student - with students expected to move on whenever they choose to, or have a good opportunity. A high percentage of students leaving for good jobs after just one year would be a win. For just one slice of education, to start. As with anything complex, start with something small and focused. Like a low population cutting edge practice/research AI school. Start from scratch with the thing that is new, challenging and in high demand. Then expand into other fast changing, high demand areas. Keep figuring out better ways, keep taking on more, keep reducing costs, as long as all three of those efforts tradeoffs are compatible.
  • mNovak 11mo ago
    I think most people (namely high school seniors) go to college for neither. They go because that was the expectation, and was assumed to be at least approximately productive path. While arguably that's indirectly 'for the piece of paper', I'd argue the pleasant experience is a factor too, even if not quoted as such. i.e. if it was a purely rational, economic choice (my interpretation of going to college just for the degree) we'd see higher enrollment in high-ROI majors.
• SilverElfin 11mo ago
  I agree the answer is “yes”. But I think people are also forgetting that the reason college was a useful thing to pay for, was it was effective in differentiating between someone who was highly capable and someone who wasn’t. In a world where anyone can get a degree by simply spending enough time and money, there’s no real differentiation happening. Even if someone gets a degree, their fundamental competency (I guess I’m talking about something like IQ) is going to be whatever it is. And so it’s going to be hard to find jobs and the perceived value goes down.
• hereme888 11mo ago
  The beauty and simplicity of common sense. Good comment.
• ErroneousBosh 11mo ago
  If you want to make money, go and train to be a plumber. If you're a kid and you want to be making money (or at least a comfortable living) in 20 year's time, become a farrier. Because we are going to be ploughing with horses again soon, the way things are going. And even if we're not, a horse needs shod every couple of months and costs a couple of hundred every time. I've never seen a hungry-looking farrier or scrap metal dealer.
  • svieira 11mo ago
    > or at least a comfortable living I know a farrier. The pay comes straight out of your body and cannot be called comfortable.