7 ms·

Shouldn't it be a place to drift, to think, to read, to meet new people, and to work at whatever inspires you? This article does bring up a valid point, bu

by kylec 13y ago

Shouldn't it be a place to drift, to think, to read, to meet new people, and to work at whatever inspires you? This article does bring up a valid point, but it seems that the author is also blinded by his romantic notion of what a university should be.

m0th87 13y ago
I don't even see how the article brings up a good point. A very small percentage of Stanford undergrads are dropping out and starting up, so what? Maybe it's part of their pursuit to work at whatever inspires them.
jonnathanson 13y ago
I would take things a step further. For instance: "Shouldn't it be a place to drift, to think, to read, to meet new people, and to work at whatever inspires you?" Should it be? Perhaps it's time we reevaluated what college is supposed to be about. Given the skyrocketing costs of a college education, not to mention the opportunity costs of the 4 years spent there, maybe we need to think of the "investment" in a college education as precisely that: something to be taken quite seriously. I wouldn't want my child to debt-finance a startup, to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars, just so he could "drift, think, read" and so forth. So why is it ok that he does so for college? College is the last great chance to "drift" in life before one has to grow up and get serious. Sure. But it's also the most pressure-free environment in which to build the foundation for the rest of one's life. It's a huge investment, literally and figuratively, to waste aimlessly. Use college wisely. Not every second has to be a grind, but on the other hand, I don't think over-grinding is the issue for most of our country's college students. Have some fun in college, yes. Expose yourself to new ideas and cool things. Great. But don't treat the experience as a four-year vacation from the real world. I don't mean to come across as a heartless 'tiger parent' in this comment. But these romantic notions of college strike me as increasingly antiquated. They're luxurious fantasies that many of us can't afford to nurse.
- glesica 13y ago
  If by "drift", we mean "get drunk and go to football games" then I am right there with you, not something I want my kid to focus on. But if by "drift" we mean explore the world and think about what it means to live in it, then I can't disagree with you more. That kind of drifting IS an investment. It may not make one wealthy, but it will likely go a long way toward making one happy, and it can improve society immeasurably. The social implications of college seem to get lost in the debate on HN, and really everywhere to some extent. We don't send our kids to college simply for their own good, we do it also for the good of society, which is why, in the past, people saw fit for society to cover most of the cost. > But these romantic notions of college strike me as increasingly antiquated. They're luxurious fantasies that many of us can't afford to nurse. But why? As a nation we are "wealthier" than we have ever been, and productivity has skyrocketed in the last 100 years. Why is it, then, that we are actually losing ground and every day we hear that we can no longer "afford" things that we, presumably, could once afford? The retirement age is being pushed ever higher while, at the same time, students are under pressure to enter the work force sooner. This is not the economy we signed up for.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - VLM 13y ago
    "every day we hear that we can no longer "afford" things that we, presumably, could once afford?" Look at the hyper conformity of the average consumer. I'd pay anything for health (insurance co exec and hospital exec smile) I'd pay anything for my kids to get a good job, and rich peoples kids used to get great jobs, and also used to get an education, therefore education must be required for great jobs, so I'll pay anything for my kids vocational educational training (university execs rub hands together in glee at idea of multigenerational 10% annual tuition increases) I'd pay anything to live in a nice safe location (sellers and commissioned real estate agents and commissioned mortgage brokers/bankers jump up and down with excitement at a new sucker) There are a couple things in common. Suckers who see the expenditure as a universal, unarguable good, and entrenched players doing the ogliopoly thing by purchasing .gov regulations to prevent a free / competitive market. Any time you hear some well trained little consumer drone claim they would pay anything for some trite object, we just hear an idiot, but a businessman hears a cash register bell... Pay anything you said? Well... that can certainly be arranged...
mathattack 13y ago
Yes - a romantic notion that doesn't involve 200K in debt. :-) When schools cost this much money, they cease to become a cherished place for the free mind to roam for 4 years. Stanford is a world class research institution. If it accelerates people creating companies by a few years, what's so bad about that? Even if 100 people a year dropped out of school to create startups, Stanford would still have a much higher graduation rate than most US universities. Especially ones with nationally ranked football teams. This is a false problem. The only downside I see in the article is perhaps the professors and administration are taking their eye off the ball on other topics while they act like VCs.
nether 13y ago
It's not just Stanford. This is really just one instance of the preprofessional training vs. intellectual enlightening debate on the role of universities that's been going on since the '50s (when universities started receiving massive funding from the DoD). Today, it's almost taken for granted that you attend university primarily to get a job, but that wasn't always the case.
- jff 13y ago
  People went to school to learn how to be engineers and other technical careers back to the 1800s. Sure, maybe you couldn't get a degree is "office administration", but to pretend the old university experience was all Virgil and Kant is a bit silly. Now, the romantic ideal of these old-time universities is the image of the rich sons attending dad's school so he can get set in with the next generation of Good Old Boys. Boy, what a shame we've lost that.

by kylec 13y ago

m0th87 13y ago

I don't even see how the article brings up a good point. A very small percentage of Stanford undergrads are dropping out and starting up, so what? Maybe it's part of their pursuit to work at whatever inspires them.

jonnathanson 13y ago

I would take things a step further. For instance: "Shouldn't it be a place to drift, to think, to read, to meet new people, and to work at whatever inspires you?" Should it be? Perhaps it's time we reevaluated what college is supposed to be about. Given the skyrocketing costs of a college education, not to mention the opportunity costs of the 4 years spent there, maybe we need to think of the "investment" in a college education as precisely that: something to be taken quite seriously. I wouldn't want my child to debt-finance a startup, to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars, just so he could "drift, think, read" and so forth. So why is it ok that he does so for college? College is the last great chance to "drift" in life before one has to grow up and get serious. Sure. But it's also the most pressure-free environment in which to build the foundation for the rest of one's life. It's a huge investment, literally and figuratively, to waste aimlessly. Use college wisely. Not every second has to be a grind, but on the other hand, I don't think over-grinding is the issue for most of our country's college students. Have some fun in college, yes. Expose yourself to new ideas and cool things. Great. But don't treat the experience as a four-year vacation from the real world. I don't mean to come across as a heartless 'tiger parent' in this comment. But these romantic notions of college strike me as increasingly antiquated. They're luxurious fantasies that many of us can't afford to nurse.

glesica 13y ago
If by "drift", we mean "get drunk and go to football games" then I am right there with you, not something I want my kid to focus on. But if by "drift" we mean explore the world and think about what it means to live in it, then I can't disagree with you more. That kind of drifting IS an investment. It may not make one wealthy, but it will likely go a long way toward making one happy, and it can improve society immeasurably. The social implications of college seem to get lost in the debate on HN, and really everywhere to some extent. We don't send our kids to college simply for their own good, we do it also for the good of society, which is why, in the past, people saw fit for society to cover most of the cost. > But these romantic notions of college strike me as increasingly antiquated. They're luxurious fantasies that many of us can't afford to nurse. But why? As a nation we are "wealthier" than we have ever been, and productivity has skyrocketed in the last 100 years. Why is it, then, that we are actually losing ground and every day we hear that we can no longer "afford" things that we, presumably, could once afford? The retirement age is being pushed ever higher while, at the same time, students are under pressure to enter the work force sooner. This is not the economy we signed up for.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- VLM 13y ago
  "every day we hear that we can no longer "afford" things that we, presumably, could once afford?" Look at the hyper conformity of the average consumer. I'd pay anything for health (insurance co exec and hospital exec smile) I'd pay anything for my kids to get a good job, and rich peoples kids used to get great jobs, and also used to get an education, therefore education must be required for great jobs, so I'll pay anything for my kids vocational educational training (university execs rub hands together in glee at idea of multigenerational 10% annual tuition increases) I'd pay anything to live in a nice safe location (sellers and commissioned real estate agents and commissioned mortgage brokers/bankers jump up and down with excitement at a new sucker) There are a couple things in common. Suckers who see the expenditure as a universal, unarguable good, and entrenched players doing the ogliopoly thing by purchasing .gov regulations to prevent a free / competitive market. Any time you hear some well trained little consumer drone claim they would pay anything for some trite object, we just hear an idiot, but a businessman hears a cash register bell... Pay anything you said? Well... that can certainly be arranged...

mathattack 13y ago

Yes - a romantic notion that doesn't involve 200K in debt. :-) When schools cost this much money, they cease to become a cherished place for the free mind to roam for 4 years. Stanford is a world class research institution. If it accelerates people creating companies by a few years, what's so bad about that? Even if 100 people a year dropped out of school to create startups, Stanford would still have a much higher graduation rate than most US universities. Especially ones with nationally ranked football teams. This is a false problem. The only downside I see in the article is perhaps the professors and administration are taking their eye off the ball on other topics while they act like VCs.

nether 13y ago

It's not just Stanford. This is really just one instance of the preprofessional training vs. intellectual enlightening debate on the role of universities that's been going on since the '50s (when universities started receiving massive funding from the DoD). Today, it's almost taken for granted that you attend university primarily to get a job, but that wasn't always the case.

jff 13y ago
People went to school to learn how to be engineers and other technical careers back to the 1800s. Sure, maybe you couldn't get a degree is "office administration", but to pretend the old university experience was all Virgil and Kant is a bit silly. Now, the romantic ideal of these old-time universities is the image of the rich sons attending dad's school so he can get set in with the next generation of Good Old Boys. Boy, what a shame we've lost that.