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> Using past performance as an indicator of future performance is often fraught with peril It's a useful turn of phrase, but not good reasoning. It would be un
by hackuser 12y ago
> Using past performance as an indicator of future performance is often fraught with peril
It's a useful turn of phrase, but not good reasoning. It would be unwise to ignore decades of history because of a lack of certainty. Arguably, college degrees and intellectual skills will become more valuable in the future, as more and more jobs demand it. Demand for unskilled labor is decreasing.
Also, my analysis is that people who spend four years in a guided program to acquire knowledge and skill among the resources of a university (experts, teachers, labs, etc) will be more knowledgeable and skilled. I don't think that's controversial.
- prostoalex 12y agoWhat you have to watch out for is the debt to expected earnings ratio. A lot of the data from previous years was based on low (or zero) tuition rates. Getting stuck with a six-digit loan while being underemployed would still support the "college graduates make more money" statement, as to get that barista job a college graduate probably ranked higher in the resume stack than people with high school degrees, but I doubt anyone is gloating. By similar measure, getting a mortgage to buy a house and then pay it off was a decent deal for most of the century until people started overpaying by purely believing in the principle, but not running the actual numbers.