4 ms·

On the flip side, 18% of university graduates fail to even earn $20,000 per year. If you are going to roll the dice, $40K now and no income by age 40 is far bet

On the flip side, 18% of university graduates fail to even earn $20,000 per year. If you are going to roll the dice, $40K now and no income by age 40 is far better than $15K for the rest of your life. There are no guarantees in life, so why not make hay when the sun is shining?

jiggy2011 14y ago
Well that's an 18% "chance", I'm guessing a large number of those 18% will be people who either graduated doing something useless or had some other reason they could not/did not work a high paying job. Such as starting a family and only working part time, or some medical reason. So not quite rolling the dice. I would still be reasonably confident that if you have a chance to do a good degree from a good school your outlook is a heck of a lot better than that. Of course the future is never clear, but that is as much a risk for people who don't go to college to those who do.
- randomdata 14y ago
  > that is as much a risk for people who don't go to college to those who do. Statistically, you see a correlation of less risk by going to college because only people who fit a certain mould are able to go to college at all. For example, those with certain disabilities will be unable to study in school, and will also struggle in the workplace, which skews interpretations of the data in interesting ways. Keep in mind that the college educated make up about 20-25% of the population. The unemployment rate is around 7%. That means that the vast majority of the population are employed just fine without degrees, and many are making decent incomes at that.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    True, but the article seems to talk about people who presumably had the option to go to college (i.e the grades and aptitude) but opted not to.
    - randomdata 14y ago
      If they have the aptitude and skill necessary to complete a degree, they likely also have the smarts to turn their career into more later in life. Maybe they intend to take that quick and easy money and use it to bootstrap a million dollar business in a few years? I get the feeling that you feel they have no road ahead without a degree, which I don't quite understand.
      - jiggy2011 14y ago
        Not really, the issue is that having the right sort of experience to get ahead. I would wager that you are more likely to get a job as a graduate that will provide you with useful experience. A huge number of non grad jobs don't pay too bad by the standards of a younger person but really don't give the sorts of experience that help one get ahead. I know smart people who skipped college to work retail and 10 years on are still pulling not much more than minimum wage. With a reasonable degree they would certainly have had more options open to them.
        randomdata 14y ago
        I know people with degrees who have the same struggle, and people without degrees making six figure salaries. Of course anecdotes are just that. I have never been able to find evidence that the 25% of the population made up of those with degrees fare better than the top 25% of the population without degrees. But since we are going on gut feelings here, my gut tells me that you will find no discernible difference between the two groups.
        jiggy2011 14y ago
        Well any figures would be old and from the UK (where I am) but I remember £100K in lifetime earnings being banded around (bear in mind that education is cheaper here and the debt is less of an issue since you only have to pay it when you are earning above a threshold). In my experience in the UK it really depends on what you are applying for, here the biggest companies tend to pay the best salaries and the biggest companies don't tend to like (for example) self taught developers. If you look at job listings here for programmers a degree will be a requirement for more than 50% and they won't waive this because you have an impressive github. Another big plus for having a degree is that it makes getting a VISA easier thus giving more options. Also there is also the advantage that by being in college/uni you will meet people who have the "right background" which can help in job search. For example the father of one student in our CS class asked his son to tell him who the best 10 programmers in that year were and more or less hired them on the spot at graduation. What I am saying in essence though is not "get a degree" vs "don't get a degree" but rather that saying "don't get a degree because you will be $X richer in 4 years time" seems like a rather weak argument.
- glesica 14y ago
  Nope, you're living in a bubble. Not everyone went to a "good" school. This is one of the things that cracks me up about the HN community. It seems like everyone went to Stanford or MIT and the dumb kids went to CMU. The vast, vast majority of people do not go to prestigious schools (if they did, those schools would no longer be prestigious, in some sense). Additionally, these same people often lack social connections that, regardless of what people claim, are often key to getting into a good career track. The whole "useful degree" argument also fails to hold water. Not everyone has the predisposition or personality to be an engineer. Those people have to do something. Most of the things they are able to do pay very little. So for these people, the chance to make $40k per year for a few years might be quite appealing. So yes, if you just graduated from MIT with a technical degree and/or your parents are reasonably well-connected, then you are probably doing OK. Everyone else is struggling. Stop pretending this isn't the case, entitlement isn't an attractive personality trait.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Well, I didn't attend Stanford , MIT or CMU nor do I know anybody who did. I also live somewhere that is about is far away from Silicon Valley economically (and geographically) as you can be in the developed world at least. There are plenty of useful things you can study that aren't engineering.

jiggy2011 14y ago

Well that's an 18% "chance", I'm guessing a large number of those 18% will be people who either graduated doing something useless or had some other reason they could not/did not work a high paying job. Such as starting a family and only working part time, or some medical reason. So not quite rolling the dice. I would still be reasonably confident that if you have a chance to do a good degree from a good school your outlook is a heck of a lot better than that. Of course the future is never clear, but that is as much a risk for people who don't go to college to those who do.

randomdata 14y ago
> that is as much a risk for people who don't go to college to those who do. Statistically, you see a correlation of less risk by going to college because only people who fit a certain mould are able to go to college at all. For example, those with certain disabilities will be unable to study in school, and will also struggle in the workplace, which skews interpretations of the data in interesting ways. Keep in mind that the college educated make up about 20-25% of the population. The unemployment rate is around 7%. That means that the vast majority of the population are employed just fine without degrees, and many are making decent incomes at that.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  True, but the article seems to talk about people who presumably had the option to go to college (i.e the grades and aptitude) but opted not to.
  - randomdata 14y ago
    If they have the aptitude and skill necessary to complete a degree, they likely also have the smarts to turn their career into more later in life. Maybe they intend to take that quick and easy money and use it to bootstrap a million dollar business in a few years? I get the feeling that you feel they have no road ahead without a degree, which I don't quite understand.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      Not really, the issue is that having the right sort of experience to get ahead. I would wager that you are more likely to get a job as a graduate that will provide you with useful experience. A huge number of non grad jobs don't pay too bad by the standards of a younger person but really don't give the sorts of experience that help one get ahead. I know smart people who skipped college to work retail and 10 years on are still pulling not much more than minimum wage. With a reasonable degree they would certainly have had more options open to them.
      - randomdata 14y ago
        I know people with degrees who have the same struggle, and people without degrees making six figure salaries. Of course anecdotes are just that. I have never been able to find evidence that the 25% of the population made up of those with degrees fare better than the top 25% of the population without degrees. But since we are going on gut feelings here, my gut tells me that you will find no discernible difference between the two groups.
        jiggy2011 14y ago
        Well any figures would be old and from the UK (where I am) but I remember £100K in lifetime earnings being banded around (bear in mind that education is cheaper here and the debt is less of an issue since you only have to pay it when you are earning above a threshold). In my experience in the UK it really depends on what you are applying for, here the biggest companies tend to pay the best salaries and the biggest companies don't tend to like (for example) self taught developers. If you look at job listings here for programmers a degree will be a requirement for more than 50% and they won't waive this because you have an impressive github. Another big plus for having a degree is that it makes getting a VISA easier thus giving more options. Also there is also the advantage that by being in college/uni you will meet people who have the "right background" which can help in job search. For example the father of one student in our CS class asked his son to tell him who the best 10 programmers in that year were and more or less hired them on the spot at graduation. What I am saying in essence though is not "get a degree" vs "don't get a degree" but rather that saying "don't get a degree because you will be $X richer in 4 years time" seems like a rather weak argument.
glesica 14y ago
Nope, you're living in a bubble. Not everyone went to a "good" school. This is one of the things that cracks me up about the HN community. It seems like everyone went to Stanford or MIT and the dumb kids went to CMU. The vast, vast majority of people do not go to prestigious schools (if they did, those schools would no longer be prestigious, in some sense). Additionally, these same people often lack social connections that, regardless of what people claim, are often key to getting into a good career track. The whole "useful degree" argument also fails to hold water. Not everyone has the predisposition or personality to be an engineer. Those people have to do something. Most of the things they are able to do pay very little. So for these people, the chance to make $40k per year for a few years might be quite appealing. So yes, if you just graduated from MIT with a technical degree and/or your parents are reasonably well-connected, then you are probably doing OK. Everyone else is struggling. Stop pretending this isn't the case, entitlement isn't an attractive personality trait.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Well, I didn't attend Stanford , MIT or CMU nor do I know anybody who did. I also live somewhere that is about is far away from Silicon Valley economically (and geographically) as you can be in the developed world at least. There are plenty of useful things you can study that aren't engineering.