4 ms·

Something is wrong with people that that they choose to go to schools that cost $100,000 to get degrees in fashion and/or retail management.

suresk 14y ago
Maybe. But I think the school system (K-12 and higher education) are somewhat culpable here. Starting fairly early, we teach students that there are a bunch of hoops they need to jump through in order to get a good job later in life. For an 18 year old, it is easy to see college as just another (and hopefully last) hoop to jump through. Colleges (and the for-profit schools are exceptionally bad here) show them a rosy outlook for whatever major they are interested in - I guarantee you every person who is up to their eyeballs in debt got shown something saying "x% of graduates from the <insert not very marketable degree> program were employed 6 months after graduation with average salary of $y" based on questionable information, did the math, and thought it was a reasonable choice. I don't think high school students are given enough information and enough reality to fully understand the ramifications of their college choices. I absolutely made some bad choices when picking my major in college, but it took me quite a while to really figure that out - thankfully, I at least didn't get a bunch of debt to go along with it.
- rayiner 14y ago
  I disagree that telling kids that there are hoops to jump through is the problem. There are hoops to jump through. The problem is telling kids to major in what they're interested in. The "follow your bliss" crap instead of "follow a paycheck."
  - chii 14y ago
    Theres got to be a fine balance - you have to both find something you enjoy, and yet something that pays the bills. Unfortuantely that is sort of rare - the only flexible part in all of this is your interests. Can you change your own interests to fit reality?
uvdiv 14y ago
Something is wrong with employers who only hire university graduates, creating a market for receptionists with $100,000 art degrees.
phaus 14y ago
Art schools are notoriously expensive and the degrees are notoriously worthless. I draw as a hobby, and at one point in my life I was thinking about going to art school. I was a member of a HN like community for artists, and the advice I got was to get the cheapest liberal arts degree I could find if I was serious about being an artist, and then draw constantly on my own, go to free/cheap workshops, take on small contracts, etc. Almost every single person in that community regretted spending the money for an actual art degree. It's really just common sense, in most industries, having a degree is either looked at as a huge bonus, or a flat-out requirement. As an artist, you would have an extremely hard time finding a client / employer who cares if you even graduated from high school or learned to tie your shoes, as long as they like what's in your portfolio. That being said, anything remotely related to art is going to be highly competitive, because no one really retires from being an artist, and there lots of people who have 30+ years of experience.
arjunnarayan 14y ago
Something is really wrong with a regime that _lends_ an 18 year old $100,000 for an art degree. This is only possible because the lender is guaranteed paybacks no matter what (because the borrower cannot default). If we let borrowers default on loans under certain criteria (say, their annual income was below a certain threshold), then lenders would have to actually vet the students degrees --- and then we might have a sane system where you're denied a student loan if you're going to major in underwater basket weaving, but approved if you major in engineering.
- nestlequ1k 14y ago
  But can you imagine this world? Where you are sending your transcripts to the bank, proving to them that not only will you finish college, but be able to get a job afterwards. And every month in college having to send your grades to them so they can be sure you're still a good investment. It makes sense to me but... can you imagine the feelings that would be hurt by this?
  - numo16 14y ago
    Maybe feelings need to be hurt...A lot of people expect things to just be handed to them these days, especially with the "everybody is a winner" culture that is pushed in the elementary schools currently.
  - dontstealmyname 14y ago
    Wouldn't the simpler system be if you fail a unit twice You've got to find the money yourself to pay for that unit. Just hook the college results system up to the load provider and let their system keep track of it that way. This is more or less how the government funding works in Australia, but saying that the costs of higher education are a lot lower.
- nazgulnarsil 14y ago
  Wringing every ounce of income out of someone who is otherwise a waste of space seems like a feature not a bug. I just laugh at moral outrage over stupid white americans getting "screwed." Especially when it's entirely voluntary.
spamizbad 14y ago
The rhetoric I heard from both my parents, my teachers, and my guidance consoler during my junior and senior year in high school (2000-2001) was "Employers want a college degree. It doesn't matter what degree you get, unless you want to do STEM, so pick something that interests you. College really just signals to an employer that you 'know how to learn.'" The first part is mostly true: employers want a college degree. The second part is also true: STEM (with the exception of software development) tends to prefer people with specific degrees. The third part, however, is total bullshit, and it got A LOT of people into a A LOT of debt. The reality is employers are incredibly picky not just over a candidate's degree, but these days they're much less willing to invest in employee training. They want candidates who can show up and do the job on day 1. My hunch is that lot of the college advice was doled out to students based upon the Baby Boomer's understanding of the world: College degrees are a hot item employers want, and they (usually) don't care what it's in! The employer will train you at your job and you just need the necessary reading, writing, and math skills. This probably was the case in the 1960s, 70s, and early 80s but by the 90s things had changed. (As an aside- I ended up dropping out of college after 1.5 years and avoided debt. Opportunity knocked and probably saved me from tons of debt).

suresk 14y ago

Maybe. But I think the school system (K-12 and higher education) are somewhat culpable here. Starting fairly early, we teach students that there are a bunch of hoops they need to jump through in order to get a good job later in life. For an 18 year old, it is easy to see college as just another (and hopefully last) hoop to jump through. Colleges (and the for-profit schools are exceptionally bad here) show them a rosy outlook for whatever major they are interested in - I guarantee you every person who is up to their eyeballs in debt got shown something saying "x% of graduates from the <insert not very marketable degree> program were employed 6 months after graduation with average salary of $y" based on questionable information, did the math, and thought it was a reasonable choice. I don't think high school students are given enough information and enough reality to fully understand the ramifications of their college choices. I absolutely made some bad choices when picking my major in college, but it took me quite a while to really figure that out - thankfully, I at least didn't get a bunch of debt to go along with it.

rayiner 14y ago
I disagree that telling kids that there are hoops to jump through is the problem. There are hoops to jump through. The problem is telling kids to major in what they're interested in. The "follow your bliss" crap instead of "follow a paycheck."
- chii 14y ago
  Theres got to be a fine balance - you have to both find something you enjoy, and yet something that pays the bills. Unfortuantely that is sort of rare - the only flexible part in all of this is your interests. Can you change your own interests to fit reality?

uvdiv 14y ago

Something is wrong with employers who only hire university graduates, creating a market for receptionists with $100,000 art degrees.

phaus 14y ago

Art schools are notoriously expensive and the degrees are notoriously worthless. I draw as a hobby, and at one point in my life I was thinking about going to art school. I was a member of a HN like community for artists, and the advice I got was to get the cheapest liberal arts degree I could find if I was serious about being an artist, and then draw constantly on my own, go to free/cheap workshops, take on small contracts, etc. Almost every single person in that community regretted spending the money for an actual art degree. It's really just common sense, in most industries, having a degree is either looked at as a huge bonus, or a flat-out requirement. As an artist, you would have an extremely hard time finding a client / employer who cares if you even graduated from high school or learned to tie your shoes, as long as they like what's in your portfolio. That being said, anything remotely related to art is going to be highly competitive, because no one really retires from being an artist, and there lots of people who have 30+ years of experience.

arjunnarayan 14y ago

Something is really wrong with a regime that _lends_ an 18 year old $100,000 for an art degree. This is only possible because the lender is guaranteed paybacks no matter what (because the borrower cannot default). If we let borrowers default on loans under certain criteria (say, their annual income was below a certain threshold), then lenders would have to actually vet the students degrees --- and then we might have a sane system where you're denied a student loan if you're going to major in underwater basket weaving, but approved if you major in engineering.

nestlequ1k 14y ago
But can you imagine this world? Where you are sending your transcripts to the bank, proving to them that not only will you finish college, but be able to get a job afterwards. And every month in college having to send your grades to them so they can be sure you're still a good investment. It makes sense to me but... can you imagine the feelings that would be hurt by this?
- numo16 14y ago
  Maybe feelings need to be hurt...A lot of people expect things to just be handed to them these days, especially with the "everybody is a winner" culture that is pushed in the elementary schools currently.
- dontstealmyname 14y ago
  Wouldn't the simpler system be if you fail a unit twice You've got to find the money yourself to pay for that unit. Just hook the college results system up to the load provider and let their system keep track of it that way. This is more or less how the government funding works in Australia, but saying that the costs of higher education are a lot lower.
nazgulnarsil 14y ago
Wringing every ounce of income out of someone who is otherwise a waste of space seems like a feature not a bug. I just laugh at moral outrage over stupid white americans getting "screwed." Especially when it's entirely voluntary.

spamizbad 14y ago

The rhetoric I heard from both my parents, my teachers, and my guidance consoler during my junior and senior year in high school (2000-2001) was "Employers want a college degree. It doesn't matter what degree you get, unless you want to do STEM, so pick something that interests you. College really just signals to an employer that you 'know how to learn.'" The first part is mostly true: employers want a college degree. The second part is also true: STEM (with the exception of software development) tends to prefer people with specific degrees. The third part, however, is total bullshit, and it got A LOT of people into a A LOT of debt. The reality is employers are incredibly picky not just over a candidate's degree, but these days they're much less willing to invest in employee training. They want candidates who can show up and do the job on day 1. My hunch is that lot of the college advice was doled out to students based upon the Baby Boomer's understanding of the world: College degrees are a hot item employers want, and they (usually) don't care what it's in! The employer will train you at your job and you just need the necessary reading, writing, and math skills. This probably was the case in the 1960s, 70s, and early 80s but by the 90s things had changed. (As an aside- I ended up dropping out of college after 1.5 years and avoided debt. Opportunity knocked and probably saved me from tons of debt).