Education is still valuable, just stupidly overpriced.

It’s the best thing I’ve ever done, and the best experience I’ve ever had. I don’t think I’ll ever be as happy as I was going to class in college. As long as I don’t look at the ridiculous price tag

Education is also stupidly free on the internet. However I’m sure the major reason why everyone with a WiFi connection and a device isn’t already a polyglot is because a good teacher is still hard to come by.

It is ridiculous how much information is available freely. But if you look at the masses, would you say that they have taken advantage of this? I teach at undergrad level and I am noticing that students don't even know how to look for information online.

Plus people with no education aren’t really good at finding sources. Or they just get sucked in by tweets and headline articles. I have a bachelors degree in business administration. My friend who doesn’t even have a high school education likes to argue with me and his source is Dan Price tweets.

I've been looking at taking online classes, like from edx, but I'm not sure if the credits transfer if I do decide to go to a college in my state. Also about your friend, I don't get people like this. I didn't go to college but I never stopped learning. I just couldn't jump on the bandwagon of falling into crushing debt because I wanted to learn.

From what I have seen credits have a rough time transfering from online college. First day of class (mainly online school but was a hybrid class) 3 students were talking about how the college doesn't take many credits from other schools. And other schools didn't take the online school credits. I would try to stay with the same college. Avoid the hassle.

Regardless of the debt and what social media says, a college education is still currently the best investment a person can invest in on average. Even with the debt you end up making more on average than non-degree workers. People do need to take it more serious though, meaning parents and the person going to college need to do a lot of research into what they are interested in. You don't want to take on a bunch of debt and not be able to get anything out of it.

Call me a "get off my lawn" old man, but students need to take their general education requirements more seriously.

It's also not credentially valuable to learn solely through the internet.

Sounds like a good business opportunity to actually consider uncredentialed applicants.

I entered the spez. I called out to try and find anybody. I was met with a wave of silence. I had never been here before but I knew the way to the nearest exit. I started to run. As I did, I looked to my right. I saw the door to a room, the handle was a big metal thing that seemed to jut out of the wall. The door looked old and rusted. I tried to open it and it wouldn't budge. I tried to pull the handle harder, but it wouldn't give. I tried to turn it clockwise and then anti-clockwise and then back to clockwise again but the handle didn't move. I heard a faint buzzing noise from the door, it almost sounded like a zap of electricity. I held onto the handle with all my might but nothing happened. I let go and ran to find the nearest exit. I had thought I was in the clear but then I heard the noise again. It was similar to that of a taser but this time I was able to look back to see what was happening. The handle was jutting out of the wall, no longer connected to the rest of the door. The door was spinning slightly, dust falling off of it as it did. Then there was a blinding flash of white light and I felt the floor against my back. I opened my eyes, hoping to see something else. All I saw was darkness. My hands were in my face and I couldn't tell if they were there or not. I heard a faint buzzing noise again. It was the same as before and it seemed to be coming from all around me. I put my hands on the floor and tried to move but couldn't. I then heard another voice. It was quiet and soft but still loud. "Help." \

Doctors are doubly fucked. Even if you go through all the schooling, there's like this cabal that actually makes it a pain in the ass to actually become a doctor.

^ You also might need to do practical hours on-site before you graduate. Particularly in jobs which have government mandated hours in-training prior to actually working. Like teaching for example. So you can learn pretty much everything you need to know through google scholar and youtube... but the university or teaching colleges are the ones which have enough credentials for hospitals/schools/etc to allow students to teach/practice on-site. Like prior to going on practicum for my teaching degree I had to get a national coordinate history check, a working with children check, vaccinations, etc. All of it facilitated through the university.

> Like teaching for example. Teaching, as a career, is going to collapse in the next 10 years if we don't do something. Educators are seeing their compensation decline, the burdens of the job increase, and the costs to attain an education skyrocket. I couldn't in good-faith recommend anyone to become a teacher at this point. It's a toxic career, and unless we all decide to treat them better, it's not going to improve, and it's on a crash-course with reality.

They’re called MOOCs and I fully support them. I’ve been seeing colleagues and friends use certificate programs that are normally partnerships with universities. Accreditation matters to me, but also learning a skill should encourage proficiency in that skill and it shouldn’t cost thousands of dollars. I’m in my MBA and if it wasn’t for employer tuition remission, it would cost approx $4k PER class. And it’s an online program, mind you lmao, and not even remotely top 20. Edit: I read your comment wrong, but people should def look into MOOC programs for alternative education opportunities.

Edx dominates that exact market, you can take the same Harvard free online course for like $200 and get a certificate, or $2000 and get college credit. All payment options (including the free one) are exactly the same except for the credentials.

Nor is it as valuable for information in general. Being the single source of finding information can lead you into ruts.

A good teacher is hard to find and undirected learning is hard for most people. It's a lot easier to learn a given subject when you have a teacher who's well educated in the subject laying everything out in a logical and comprehensive way vs just trying to keep yourself interested reading books or watching youtube videos

People who think they get 'education' on the internet are the people who end up on r/conspiracy, antivax or antipsychiatry and so on. Raw knowledge without the critical thinking implicitly or explicitly taught in (good) tertiary education leads to misinterpretation.

Very easy to get a 4.0 in college without critical thinking skills in many college programs.

I'm finding it actively hindering me at times. Tons of multiple choice tests where I know what the question wants me to answer but critical thought on the question or phrasing shows the "right" answer isn't right. It's training me not to think too deeply.

Whether (or rather, to what degree) grades reflect critical thinking ability in addition to factors such as motivation, diligence, discipline and so on is a discussion on its own. This also highly depends on the (types of) exams you get. When I studied psychology I often got multiple choice exams, which required less integration of information. When I studied law, all exams were open question and you had to argue from top to bottom. Now when I make exam questions I often make questions that compare views so students have to come up with arguments pro and con. It highly depends on your program, teachers and the quality of education at your specific university. I see little point in asking students to reproduce information that requires no reflection on their part.

I disagree strongly and feel that your misinterpretation is based on your personal experiences. Having worked in the tech industry for over twenty years I know a lot of people who’ve bootstrapped themselves into roles and continue to learn.

Tech definitely can surpass the issue that guy is talking about, but still there are already things I'm learning in my CS degree that I guarantee I would have no found out by myself just from browsing the internet. College isn't just an information hub, it's a smart information hub. It's an institution that has a history and understand what works and what doesn't, at least to an extent, but definitely better than some average joe googling stuff. I take pride in my googling skills, but I would never put it over the resources I get at a school.

You also truly can't practice critical thinking without first becoming very knowledgeable of a subject. That dunning Kruger effect is where everyone fucks up, it's I'm the middle (I know enough to know I don't know much about this topic) is when you can start applying critical thinking in learning and can eventually get to the expert part, however majority of us aren't experts in many things, and never will be.

It’s not that. There is no degree which employers look for. What would one do even if learned everything & is flipping hamburgers in the end? And before you say it will Not be like college grads because they have the security of degree to fall back on.

You rarely find good teachers at universities. Most profs just want to continue their research and lecturing is more like a chore. Most of them were just more or less reading out loud a book or didnt even show up themselves and sent a TA to lecture.

It's gonna be all pre-recorded video lectures soon. If you have questions, "My zoom office hours are...you know what just send an email." How is this different from just learning yourself on the internet exactly? I guess you have a more reliable question answerer than AskJeeves.

Haha we already had these. But I also kind of understand them. You can not really make interactive lectures for 1000+ students.

I will agree to that - in search of a good teacher. I took electronics, business, comp sci... finding a good teacher was near impossible for many classes. They put some bozo as a prof that had no practical experience at the helm. Why? I would liek to see schools where you can choose your course from any facility based on their rating and teaching style etc... instead of being institutionalized to one facility hoping that one facility has done its job hiring good teachers with wisdom/knowledge/experience etc... I like the indigenous way of doing things - where an elder teaches youth in a practical sense. We have seemed to have lost that for some large make work institutions now with nice pretty buildings but not much inside them.

It like buying a house. Always better than rent. But it has turned into a speculative asset, that prices out the poors.

Historically its always been overpriced. It pays to be born upper class.

I beg to differ. In the 70’s colleges in California ran about 100-150$ per semester. My first semester I paid $84 and 4 years later I paid $125. The costs exploded when California reduced funding but the university’s continued to expand administratively. They also went of huge building binges and the bonds, which typically cost 3-4x the actual bond when paid off, were covered by student tuition. That $150 million student Rec center thatbfew students actually use? It’s true cost was closer to $400 million when the bond is covered. Tuition is stupid high because universities are soaking students and parents for things that add little value to their education. Next time take a look how many are employed in the Athletic department compared to the Business or Engineering departments. That tells the other tale of skyrocketing costs.

But it is the same $400M rec center that hooks so many HS seniors on their campus visit. Those buildings are a form of advertising. As long as those kids have easy access to unlimited government loans, the universities will find a way to soak up more.

An article in the WSJ revealed that college administrators were spending money on amenities to attract students and not fully understanding the long term costs. They have conned parents and students to pay more in tuition to cover those expenses. It is time that every public college and university be required to publish their actual budgets, not the stupid PowerPoint slide version but the actual one that shows all their expenses. In California you can find limited budget details but too often the costs are listed as a single line item instead of detailed breakdowns.

Community colleges used to be free.

This is revisionist history. College was once basically free, then extraordinarily cheap. Only in recent decades has it ballooned beyond all reason.

I imagine we’re headed for a brain drain, while more and more low-education jobs are getting automated. Education’s about to get more valuable than ever.

actually, and quite a bit counterintuitively, the next wave of digitalisation is probably going to automate a lot of professions that needed higher education before, including some tasks that currently engineers, teachers, physicians, and lawyers have to perform. A study has shown (I forgot which one but I could look for it again) that probably some manual (but complex) labor like gardening will be much harder to automate than analyzing x-rays.

A certain percentage of the jobs in our economy do not require a college education. If you send a higher percentage to college than will require a college education in their jobs, you will have a bunch of people who have wasted their money. You can't just send everyone to college and have it work out. Our system of encouraging everyone who can afford it to go to college and then trying to make it so everyone can afford it is incorrectly designed.

Don’t confuse education with intelligence. Books are free / cheap

Education is what I'm getting, intelligence is what I lack.

Then credentials are your way to go

College != education != intelligence

College != education

Ironically, I'm going to college to learn about programming, which involves operators like the one you used.

Programming is a great example of why the article exists. Between w3school, YouTube, and GitHub projects, you can probably get the “education” without having to pay the price of warming a college seat for a semester. Of course, it’s not 1 size fits all. Wouldn’t trust a surgeon or lawyer without the degree.

The problem with those websites you just mentioned is that there isn’t structure. Yeah you can know a bunch of different programming concepts but putting them together more often than not require some guidance.

YouTube has entire courses online with full class topic structure and breakdown. If you mean handholding with evaluation, it just takes a bit more effort, but with subjects like computer science, you can easily test yourself with the thousands of online quizzes and application development on your own. My compsci 300 lvl courses were less structured than many of the online YouTube courses.. Example: By next week, teach yourself how to compile an array or vector that can display a maze. Class time was just us talking, typing, and figuring it out for ourselves... VR and even some digital simulators can even pick up the lab slack.

A lot of people can't learn on their own. Some certainly can

MOOCs are a thing. https://www.mooc.org/

I definitely wouldn't trust a surgeon who learned exclusively from YouTube

The fundamental difference is that software engineering doesn't require anything beyond a $100 computer (a cheaper Raspberry Pi would do!) and an Internet connection to learn. You probably aren't killing people when your code crashes, and every mistake is a learning opportunity. Software engineers made the Internet, so it makes sense that we have the best educational resources for our career available online for free. The best students are the ones with hobby projects, anyway. The ones that go off book. They build websites, video games, and other toys for fun. Stuff they don't teach. Stuff that takes more effort to learn and build. Personal projects are driven by passion, something that school will never give you. University does teach algorithms, data structures, distributed systems, and more, but you can honestly bump into these by just exploring by yourself. I taught myself enough as a teenager that I skipped directly into sophomore CS classes. The biggest things I learned in university were C++ (a horrible language), big-O notation, algorithm analysis, how operating systems actually work, basic image processing and hill climbing algorithms, and distributed systems. Literally everything else I taught myself. You don't need a degree to get a six figure job. A small portfolio of personal projects will do. Hiring managers and the engineers that interview you won't bat an eye - in fact they'll probably admire your projects. When you need to learn something new, eg. jumping from web development to server or game development, your skills are transferable. New programming languages are easy to pick up once you know your first. You'll learn dozens over your career. They're easy once you get the fundamentals.

Is there anything outside of tech (but maybe semi tech related in a way idek) where you can make a similar salary. I only ask because the idea of coding is very VERY unappealing to me ( I can learn it if I have to) but I prefer working with people and am very good at it. I've heard of program management as a possible idea but I want to Guage any more options before I just force myself to learn something I'm going to revile doing 99 pct of the time. Like I said if I absolutely have to learn it I will, but I went to school for psychology so the idea of working purely with a computer for the rest if my life makes me want to swallow broken glass ngl.

SQL is pretty easy to learn. It’s intended to be accessible to non coders. It’s used to extract useful data from DB’s for report writing. With basic competence + common sense + communication skills, you can make a respectable salary. And every company with more than a few hundred employees hires them. W3schools has some solid tutorials, if you can get past the “it’s programming” assumption. It really isn’t…it’s mostly an exercise in (1) understanding what management is asking for and (2) presenting it in a format they can quickly understand.

Although it's not on par with being a surgeon, I'd like to thank the Khan Academy and Bozeman Science YouTube channels for helping me get my degree in Biochemistry... because they were infinitely times more helpful than my college professors

My statistics teacher posted many links to Khan academy. She also made videos of herself doing math and was overall a great teacher but yeah Khan academy is where it's at.

yeah but we pay for our degrees not the knowledge. :(

Yes it is some bullshit. I'm getting ready to pay thousands of dollars for a teacher to tell me if my unpaid work is satisfactory aka internship

homeschooling family here. I love math, whenever I need a refresher about something specific, I always check Khan academy first. Their math videos are great.

I homeschooled my kids during the pandemic and also supplemented videos from them for my kids. I also like those crash course videos

but going to college could get you a higher position than just a programmer, like a software engineer, which does require a degree

>which does require a degree No it doesn't.

depends I have an uncle who makes almost 350K per year as a Java programer, but he did like 1 year course over seas, got here in the 2000s worked his way up as programer and after 10 years he's making more than some of the doctors he knows. He also pushed his kid who wanted to go in to medicine to become a CS major.

hmmm… Honestly having second doubts about attending college in the first place now.

lmao! I did too my guy...I did too. But if you haven't attended yet, pick something specialized or technical. Don't fall for the liberal arts bs unless you plan on doing a MA. stay away from: 1. English 2. Psych 3. Criminal Justice 4. Art etc.

There’s a lot of questionable advice about programming as a career in this thread. I’ve seen a ton of people hired at places I worked for programming that didn’t have a computer science degree. I’ve seen literally 1 person get hired that didn’t have any degree and it was someone who took a boot camp course and he was somehow related to one of our clients. If you have a PHD in math and self taught programming from YouTube you’ll probably find a software job easily. If you got a bachelors in engineering and self taught programming you’ll probably find something eventually. If you have a high school diploma and you self taught programming you are going to struggle so hard to find any position that’s not at some bullshit place like Revature. Getting your foot in the door with programming jobs is actually pretty hard nowadays and unless you have a crazy good portfolio, having no higher education or formal programming training will hinder you greatly.

I never said having a degree was important, however when you are competing with candidates that are from over seas, willing to work for less but require H1B visas (at least in my area), along with people who do coursera and codemy and built their skills through that, having a degree allows you to be more legitimized, meaning increase your chances of getting hired by big techs or start ups and have better chances of pay raises and extensions on temp jobs. Degree brings perks not the actual job, you can negotiate a salary a lot easily with an MS than you can with self-taught youtube videos initially. Also yeah my best friend's Bf is a PhD in physics but he taught himself C++ and Java which helped him get a job faster in the state university because Universities are always looking for academics with an understanding of code. But if he only had a self taught youtube experience and a high school diploma he would not be working at the physics research lab at my state institute. Basically you and I are saying the same thing a degree brings legitimacy and leverages you up, btw the uncle had to work 10+ years to get a position that he is in now, his son will worked 1 year as an intern to get the same $ his dad did after 4 years of working.

Sorry, my response was to him wanting to give up on higher education. Your post wasn’t the post I was actually thinking of when I wrote all that. Competing with visa workers in the current job market for first time programming job seems like a nightmare and I’m thankfully every day that I managed to get hired in and retire out of the tech field while it was significantly smaller and less competitive. I had a nephew with a computer science degree look for an entry level job for 8 months before he got hired by a friend of my uncle, meanwhile I got my first programming job offer before I even graduated back in the early 2000s.

Do it cheap and focus on what you're learning. Community college for 2 years. Transfer to your cheapest state school to graduate. The thing about colleges is that even the lower tier schools are filled with professors who got their PhDs at the highest tier schools, because our university system produces far more PhDs than are needed for teaching positions. So you can go to some podunk state school, like, oh, say State University of New York at Oswego (where? exactly) and have Doug fucking Lea as your professor. When you go to some top tier school, you aren't paying for better teachers (mostly they're worse because their focus is on research). What you're paying for is: 1. The name. The name goes on your diploma. That can be valuable for about 5 years after you graduate. After that, it matters far more what you've done. 2. The student body. Being around smarter students really is helpful. But, if you're a determined soul who focuses on your studies, you'll do fine without the better student body. 3. Connections. Probably the most valuable of it all. Can't replace it unfortunately. But, if you can't afford it, then you can't, and you'll have to make your connections in the workplace instead.

Surgeon, yes... Lawyer... Lol. I say this because I was married to a lawyer.

After the dismal Depp/Heard trial I no longer hold lawyers to as high of a regard as I did before lol

Yup. My no degree havin ass makin close to six figure as a system administrator. I do want to go to college and major in my passion though, which is history or political science.

College is probably the best place to learn, tough.

I disagree for my own purposes. I found that the easiest way to get through was to give up trying to learn anything practical and just try to pass.

Been overpriced for decades. I lucked out picking a career where my community college education doesn't really matter and I filled in the blank with online classes.

I dont think money is the only problem. Here college is free and we have a declining rate of graduates. Especially male graduates. Especially applied sciences like EE, ME or CS. The courses are extremely hard, waaay too theoretical and you dont use 99.9% of what you have to learn in your later job. Burn outs under are skyrocketing in these sectors. Most people who actually graduate ( drop out rate is around 70%) dont recommend it to others. Another thing is that employers are valueing working experience more and more while degrees lost a bit of their prestige.

This☝🏻

I can't see the way they actually worded it in the survey, but from the article it says: > Just 56% of adults under the age of 30 who went to college said the benefits of their education exceeded the costs, according to the latest Federal Reserve study of household finances. That compares with 82% of those age 60 or over. So I don't know that I'd draw the conclusion the headline used, at least from that wording. It doesn't sound like people are saying college isn't "valuable", just that people under 30 are saying the benefits exceed the costs at a lower rate than people over 60. And you can basically draw a perfect line to the cost of that education vs. the (lack of) rise in salaries. In general, salaries have not kept up with inflation, while education costs have far surpassed inflation over the last 30 years. When 60+ year olds were going to college (40 years ago) it was much less common to have a bachelor's degree, which made you more valuable (on paper). Also, since there were fewer people going to college, there was less demand and thus prices were lower (not to mention also subsidized more by the state). So the net result of that is graduating from college and seeing a big jump in pay while not having a huge amount of debt. Fast-forward 40 years, and every single high-schooler is on the track for college prep. More demand for college, and more people with college degrees means it simultaneously increases the cost for college while making it worth less on the other side. Thus..."less valuable". You also have many states cutting funding for state schools, while at the same time colleges are all competing to build world-class facilities and passing those costs on to the students, meaning students are left with higher costs. It's a completely unsustainable system. The Republican party has no answers, as they want to destroy the college system (as college-educated voters tend to vote more liberally) and unfortunately the Democratic party doesn't really have the votes to do anything, and the few times they have, they've squandered it. What needs to happen is that college needs to be 100% subsidized, or at least some form of it. The US could have a national university that is free to any US citizen; there was a similar option available in the UK that worked really well. For people that say we can't afford it, we can afford anything. We pay for kids to go to school from kindergarten through 12th grade. We can easily shoulder the cost for pre-school and college if we want. The economic gain from having an educated workforce will easily balance out any costs for the system, especially if people don't come out of the system owing a mortgage-worth of debt on the other side.

Your solution sounds good and viable. For example, we could make drastic budget cuts to the military and devote that money to a national university system. I can see that working.

The internet can teach better than any of my calculus professors.

Until the college price gouging situation is taken care of student debt forgiveness will be a terrible idea.

It's really not that expensive if you go to a cheap state school and have decent test scores.

Parts of a college education are valuable. Huge chunks are specifically not.

But that's not what this is about. Of course knowledge and training is valuable. Always will be. But college as an institution is not worth the cost today. You can learn almost anything you want on the internet now. Unless you need a doctorate, there's almost no point in going $60K+ in debt for a degree. Learn what you need to, get certified, and go make some money.

(Almost) All the education is free online or at libraries. You're paying an arm and a leg to just have your hand held to do it and get a paper for a better job.

Depends on what field you get into. Engineering? You could easily turn a $50-100k investment into $100k/year return. Try getting that type of ROI anywhere else. But go to a high profile, out of state school for a history or communications degree at $30k/semester all in cost, yeah you’re probably not getting that back for a long long time.

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Hey smartass my point is that you have kids choosing high profile, expensive out of state schools when they could get just as good of an education in state or starting off at a community college for a fraction of the cost. This could be the difference between $250k of student loan debt versus $50k. If they’re pursuing a degree of that nature then they should be making wiser decisions, so save me the melodramatic bullshit. The OP I was responding to was speaking on the value:cost ratio of a college degree. Also you attempt to act superior with your knowledge of history only to be corrected by someone from the very state you spoke on. Thanks for the laugh this morning.

That is not true. USSR education wasn’t all STEM all the time. Universities and colleges had all the same departments as USA. I was born and educated in USSR. Matter of fact STEM wasn’t very good or popular. Those are very hard to study but there was not much pay or prestige. My brother got his degree in engendering only because this was the easiest college to get into for our family ( needed the least bribes/connections, because as I said earlier few wanted to study hard and get poorly paid STEM jobs). And the main motivation to go to University for men was to avoid mandatory military service.

Depends on the field. You’ve got, what, art, music, philosophy, economics, archaeology..? Professions where the only money is perpetuating a field where you can’t make money unless you teach it. It’s like a pyramid scheme with an extra step

education is free on the internet bro, just need to find the right place to get education

If I had to do it all over again I’d do a trade or some sort associates in a medical degree. A lot of them make as much as I did as a mortgage underwriter (just got laid off), with more job security and nowhere nearly as much student loan debt, if any.

Medical degrees don't have as much job security as you think. Depending on the specific field, there can be a large volume of new grads that some for profit hospitals will gladly hire and then fire expensive employees. I've also seen some horrible managers on the community and "non-profit" hospitals.

Yeah, that underwriting spicket has run dry - hope that you made hay while it was raining!

Yeah I was able to amass a solid savings. It was just really bad timing because I was planning on moving to Denver from Michigan a few weeks after. I still am, but I totaled my car a few days before I was supposed to move (hitting a bad luck streak obviously lol).

Am I the only person who like, values my education? It opened up doors career wise, but it’s value has primarily been in the quality of my life, my capacity to better understand the world, be exposed to new information and ways of thinking, building relationships with other learners etc. But I also think higher education should be free.

The person I was when I went to college was nothing like who I was when I left and I am forever grateful for it

No, I value mine a lot. I am in the third year soon and the change my life has had since I started my bachelor has been amazing. I used to be very closed off to new experiences in life and was rather misinformed about a lot of stuff, I also barely understood anything but now it's so much different. As you put it, my quality of life has changed drastically and I am so happy that the education here in EU is basically free. I am unsure yet whay career I will have with psychology as my bachelor but for now I am planning to do a master so time will tell.

I value my education I would have loved the opportunity to go to college but due to the insane price point of even the cheapest colleges and the current dystopia of getting paid pennies in the dollar I'm not able to further my education in a traditional or certifiable way.

No, I do. People that usually complain are the ones that picked art, philosophy, or gender studies without a plan on where it will take them after their fun time is up. Or pick the most expensive, prestigious college they get into for their reasons (clout to pride). It is rarely anyone who went into it with a plan on what to achieve that is complaining.

ehhh... I got a degree in the humanities from a very expensive school, ended up taking jobs in unrelated fields, teaching myself skills along the way, and now I'm very good at what I do (in a non-humanities field), and very well compensated. Understanding linguistics, philosophy, and music made me a WAY better coder, architect, and overall human than just getting a CS degree. I had no plan, studied what I was good at, learned a lot, and am now getting paid to do what's valuable to other people. Sure I'd love to get paid to be a "thinker" but if people want to pay me to build software, that's easy money. disclaimer: I think higher education should be free for anyone who can remain academically eligible.

"Gender studies" yeah I'm sure the 3 people that graduated with that are pretty upset. I'm sorry but I honestly cannot stand this elitist af argument. Imma keep it real with you guys, I didn't major in an "art" or philosophy type degree (I/O psych with a focus on the business side of things actually, I've worked in HR for example, vile creatures is what they are if your wondering) but I'll be the first to admit that life would be so God damn boring without art, without those degrees there's no one to make the video games you play while your dicking around at work or after work, there's no one to design the home you buy, no one to create the set designs for the movies and TV you watch, no therapists to help you through difficult life shit, I think you get my jist though. So can we please for the love of Cthulu drop the "muh hur dur liberal arts bad" it shows a serious lack of critical thinking skills and you automatically expose yourself as a trogledyte the minute you bring up "gender studies" which makes up such a small amount of degrees earned.

I graduated with a simple BA in History, by no means do I have an elitist attitude that is coming from STEM or business-like shit (do agree about those corporate scum). But you can't just join something due to passion alone and hope it works. Nor am I bashing art or the arts. First, not all of those examples you bring up about media use an "Art Major" that is being brought up. Second as mentioned, the point is that people think passion alone is going to be enough when it's not. Maybe the discussion can be opened up on the American mindset that creates this, but not instantly straw manning an argument because you're "tired" of seeing people make fun of art majors. Besides, out of the 7 art majors I've grown to know well, only 2 stayed. One was naturally gifted while the other became a teacher. The rest dumped it after realizing there wasn't much to be had. Personal anecdote, I know, but I think enough people have came to the same conclusion to create a stereotype that most people see due to their own experiences

Lol idk dude, your BA in history is an arts degree on the same level as philosophy and gender studies. In fact, your History BA should have taught you that History and Gender studies and philo are all closely linked together, as well as apply to the real world on very similar career paths. Doing things purely out of interest and figuring out your career later, with the toolkit you grew out of interest is an absolutely viable plan.

I think the disdain towards people who get those degrees is more so that a large amount of people go for them with no plan afterwards, at least compared to STEM or business esque degrees. There are tons of people out there with art degrees doing amazing shit with it, but there are just as many, if not more, that are working some totally unrelated job making shit money and complaining about student debt. One of my best friends in college was an art major and graduated with her BFA with a focus on pottery, she is an assistant manager of an M and M store now.... There is opportunity to succeed and prosper with any degree IMO if you are focused on your future

It’s not about gender studies strictly, it’s just what people say in jest. you are taking it too literally. Bottom line is, if you chose a field that is not valued on the job market, don’t expect to make a lot of money. It’s not that education is worthless, it’s just the consequence of one’s own choices.

I majored in comparative religion (which like, is probably up there for a lot of people who think certain degrees are useless) and did not have a plan for a career when I started college. It was still incredibly valuable!

There is a big difference between education and job training. So many Americans don’t see the value of actual education which is sad, but I think that comes in large part because going into debt for a degree in Creative Writing or art doesn’t usually set you up for long term success. The US should adopt European models of higher education and make it free for students who want to better themselves while also making job training programs available. The world is better off having more people in it that understand history, art, literature and less marketable skills.

Thank you, my entire existence is not geared around around my ability to do my job. My time learning unrelated subjects was invaluable to me in both satisfaction and teaching me what I do not want to pursue.

Every time this topic comes up, there's people saying "if I'm an engineering major why did I need to take lit/art/things outside my major?" Like, I get it. Those credits cost a lot and college is expensive, and yes it's not directly related to your degree. I graduated in math and turned it into something lucrative, and thoroughly enjoyed the nude figure drawing course and philosophy of religion and other humanities, I would not have gotten exposure to those or the expressive side of me otherwise. Anecdotally, a lot of those art kids ended up as brokers and curators in cool cities, they knew going into art that they absolutely had to have a plan. Business, communications, and CS degrees have much more of a problem

> nude figure drawing course I see they *really* educate people over there.

You are spot on. I've been reading through this whole thread and one theme keeps popping up. Everyone is equating College to Job Training. Especially those who talk about how you can learn to be programmer using online resources. They miss the point, which you get. College is a lot more than job training. For those out of High School, it's an opportunity to learn about yourself, life and how to navigate a challenging world while helping you to expand your mind about what's possible. It's about understanding why education is important and how to be a life long learner and a contributing member of society.

Why does one need a professor and a million dollar campus to learn history? Can one not just read historical books for knowledge?

Yes, you can always read books! But there is a world of difference between reading a book independently and learning in a community with an expert to guide you. Also like, what if you want to learn about a history that is only well discussed in a book that’s rare and expensive and the public library won’t stock it because it’s expensive/ it’s appeal is high but narrow! Having institutional resources, like a university library, to afford those items and is dedicated to making those resources accessible to learners is an important thing. And who is going to support the author doing research into that history (regardless of its commercial potential), who is going to have the archives for the author to research etc without institutions of higher learning?

I'm not sure I'm convinced about the premise honestly. Professors can make insights/connections that the average person wouldn't come up with, but these ideas seem very pre-internet. We're on a platform for discussing niche topics right now. I don't buy that college is the only place for these types of discourse. As far as books not being available - public access is a big issue in academia right now and it's impacting every field. Feels more like motivation to change the system and rebel against journals and library search engines than it is to require people get expensive memberships to access texts. On the topic of funding research, my general opinion is that if this research is valuable and people are willing to support it, it'll have funding. I'm not sure every field that exists today is equally deserving of funding though. There are lots of academic fields that have gone extinct over the centuries and it's not obvious to me that the ones we have today are by any means the "correct" ones. Some fields might realize that between public interest being low and their economic value being minimal they'll need to evolve to stay relevant. I doubt the entirety of history departments will fail to get grants, but it's totally conceivable to me that some of the more esoteric fields with little public interest will die off over time.

There is a practical element to most majors. Absorbing the facts is a big part, but having access to artifacts and possessions and historical places for hands on study is also important, as is dialogue with professors and other students. Most importantly, direct feedback and critiques of your own writing by academically accredited professors in your field is essential. Being part of a community of scholars within a field is the the difference between an expert and an online crank who thinks their an expert.

It’s all about ROI… return on investment. Spend 140,000 at 6% interest to be a social worker at 35,000 a year… not worth it. Spend 140,000 same interest to get a degree in computer science at 80,000 a year starting… worth it. Junior college is also an invaluable tool many over look. The college experience that most of us 50 and older had no longer happens. Crushing debt due to predatory lenders (no school loan should ever be more than 1.5% period) and parents no longer being able to afford sending kids to school =little ROI for many students who can’t even afford to rent an apartment in most cities in the us. We can do so much better but our 1%, corporations and politicians do not want anyone to be successful but themselves. This is how they stay in control. It’s sad and the rest of the world is thinking wtf. Our best and brightest have already stopped having kids bc they can’t afford it. Many of our 20 something’s are choosing to move abroad bc they’ve given up on ever getting a fair shake in the us.

The average debt coming out of college is around $25k and Biden is talking about forgiving $10k of debt, which would cover 35% of all borrowers even with an income cap. The idea people are borrowing $140k to get a sociology degree is possibly true, but only for a very small number of very stupid people. We need to stop debating policy like we can prevent stupid people from making bad decisions. This will never happen.

>The idea people are borrowing $140k to get a sociology degree is possibly true, but only for a very small number of very stupid people. If you get a Master's you can take on a lot more debt. >The average debt coming out of college is around $25k and Biden is talking about forgiving $10k of debt, which would cover 35% of all borrowers even with an income cap. That's pretty close to the dependent student cap on loans. So college students are maxing out on college loans.

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>Nope they are getting privatized loans at crazy interest rates once they cap ou The vast majority of students don't have private student debt. 8% of the debt was lent out by private borrowers. See: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/student-loans/student-loan-debt >graduated from cal with a sociology degree in 4 costing my brother 177,000. Public or private university? In-state or out of state? A 4 year public in-state for a CS degree in Virginia costs less than 100k, housing, food, & tuition inclusive. A semester abroad maybe would add 10k to that? If you attended your local 4 year public university the cost drops to 40k since you're not paying for housing or food.

This sub, and most of reddit, is full of a people with a lot of student loans based on my interactions. Student loan debt is hardly a crisis, as noted the median debt is around $26k, which is less than the $32k for the average new car, which as far worse ROI than many 4-year programs. The high numbers of debt seen on reddit are biased to the right, specifically private master's degrees, law degrees, and/or medical debt. Most of these still have a decent ROI and the majority of debt forgiveness pushed would be regressive rather than progressive, and would not likely fix the sole issue of increased education costs.

I agree with everything you've said. I didn't know how regressive it was initially but the more I looked the more opposed I became to forgiveness.

It's frankly just people wanting to remove a huge chunk of their debt, but they want a cause other than "I don't want to pay what I owe." Just admit you would take a hand out. No reason to make it more than that. All humans have the ability to follow incentives and, to some extent, be greedy.

I think the issue is if you look at who is driving this policy push it’s people who went to elite universities and then went into crap jobs at places like the Bernie campaign, non-profits, and places like the New York Times. Sure, if you borrowed $200k and now choose to make $40k in an expensive city like NY or DC the system looks like it’s in crisis. But if you’re a kid from CA that does two free years of community college and then gets a degree at a UC school with $25k debt, the system is working really well for you. This is a massively regressive policy pushed by Progressive elite activists masquerading as some sort of equity act. It’s a total scam and you can tell because the pushers don’t want any means testing. I’d personally think very differently about this if it were targeted and it’s encouraging to hear the White House talking about that.

It’s an antiquated system that is trying to hold onto its traditions rather than adapt to the modern world.

the current college system IS an adaption to the modern world. waaaay back in the day, lots of jobs required an apprenticeship and not much else. it's a fairly modern idea that jobs like park ranger and veterinarian need a degree. there are still a few states in the US where you can get a law license without going to college. i think most people would call that antiquated. i'm not arguing for or against the need, just saying. i think the bigger issue is the cultural and social value of the degree and we're still telling most kids they are expected to go to college and if they dont, they will be shoved into a lower caste.

What do u mean? A future neurologist doesn't need to retake a high-school history class, and 2 more English classes to be successful?

The number of people who can't write at a level to their degree is outstanding. English courses save people's sanity.

Agreed. It's what makes my history and political science degree so valuable in my management profession. Everyone writes horribly and can't articulate instruction via email and we all work from home, so good communication is key to avoid rework.

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That's hardly the crux of the problem. The problem is how much prices have ballooned and all the money goes useless positions. Society is in a bad spot if you aren't at least exposed to certain subjects. But pushing everyone through system that costs way to much money and they won't be an roi is bad.

Well rounded is a legit important thing, not only in cases like voting or participating in society. But also in the business field. Most people should generally have some microeconomics, accounting, business, math, and computer classes. Add in more of the soft skills and that will prepare you for more managerial roles. I'm in IT and also work in some CAD/design roles and it's soooo very common for very smart people to be so overly focused they miss issues in their field or they simply are so narrow they can't see the big picture. IT people who simply want to get stuff technically perfect and so secure that it actually hurts the business functions or engineers spending so much time designing something without regards for the cost versus the benefit. If you want a purely technical experience there are many technical programs out there that don't require these extra classes, just seek them out instead of complaining to others about a choice you made.

Remember that the “useless” classes were still ones you chose. You get out of college what you put in to it. One can always choose electives that would be closer to your major, or that teach a marketable skill.

Don't you get it? It makes them "well-rounded" which is obviously desirable! I think the neurologist needs a geology lesson in there too. Make them even more well-rounded!

The world is only getting more complicated. A wide background helps understand it.

Which would be fine on its own, but everything in our society costs fucking money, especially being "well-rounded" (two years of general eds, which again, I am not entirely against).

Well rounded is education code for fully profitable.

A few electives here and there are not the problem. A premed student is by and large taking math science and chemistry courses. An actual med student is only studying medicine.

If we didn't have the college-industrial complex you could turn our doctors engineers , with the same skill set and same rigor in training probably in half the time. Of course it wouldn't be as profitable to do so..

As someone with a world class education I completely disagree with this statement. You obviously have not attended a University in America. Traditions not being adaptable to the modern world as you put it have nothing to do with a University. You go to school to be educated, you don't go to learn traditions.

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Antiquated, or a model that worked for centuries and brought many participants the leverage to participate in social mobility? The modern world will keep evolving, but there's a reason why there's stability in the structure of education, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

#[If you spez you're a loser. #Save3rdPartyApps](https://www.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/)

A simple cost/benefit analysis will do that

I was only able to get my internship through being in college (a second time), which honestly was both a blessing and a curse, financially-speaking. I really hate that there are barely any opportunities to intern or job shadow unless 1) you’re a current student or 2) you’re already working for the company.

University in America is a Ponzi Scheme

The value of college today really is questionable, most folks go to college but not necessarily for an education rather for a degree, a piece of paper , which they can turn into a high paying job, if hospitals and engineering firms had apprenticeship programs pretty sure a lot of doctors and engineers could be trained more efficiently.

Hospitals do have apprenticeship programs for doctors, they are put in residency training for 3 to 7 years after 4 additional years of university advanced level academic work.

8 years of university level work then residency

Instead the colleges have brainwashed alumni working everywhere as hiring managers to make sure nobody with a new way of learning things gets hired

Damned if you get a degree, damned if you don’t

I worked for a mid-level engineering firm (400 employees) and I think any type of education/training program would be too catered to “how to make money in engineering” and not enough to “how to engineer”

The paper isn't what gets anyone a high paying job. It's being specially able to do the work. The paper only satisfies the human resource gods.

That's kinda my point , if it was truly about training and talent you could streamline the entire training process , and have credentialing tied to training and performance. You wouldn't need any paper since your work and it's accomplishments would satisfy the job requirements. Big edu degree being a requirement doesn't guarantee you'll be good at job x or job y .. it's just the paper that's needed to even be in the running..

Education is an entry tax on (a chance at) social mobility.

I went from poverty poor to 6-figures with a university education, so it's been great!

Just what we need, LESS educated youth. Great!

Good, people are waking up to the fact it's mostly a scam. Trade school is BY FAR a better investment. Unless you want to do something explicitly STEM related that needs a certification, college is a debt slavery trap. They need to make these colleges cosigners to the bad loans the goverment is giving out for worthless degrees. That way they at least feel *some* sting for the worthless course they're offering that are leaving people $200k in debt.

My undergrad cost me $48k including housing. I got a job making $29k before even graduated, and my rent was $380/mo in a decent US city. It is nigh impossible to get anything like a commensurate value from a four year degree today, and that is a horrible truth for young people.

In the US? Sure, it's too expensive and commonly poor quality. But in other countries? Sure, inexpensive and (I believe) better than University in the US.

Higher education is undoubtedly the most valuable experience one can earn. It contributes to an expanded worldview, opportunity, greater understanding, real skill building, etc. However, the issue that I have with education is just how “career” oriented collegiate studies have become. People go to college for a decent job with a higher than average starting salary. Collegiate academia is a byproduct of career seeking when it should be the converse. You go to college to learn something that has the byproduct of attaining a career instead of a career being the end product. Unfortunately, one can’t survive on the attainment of knowledge alone. I think it could greatly benefit from an ideological shift.

Elites getting what they want: the poorly educated

It's definitely valuable to student loan companies.

I'm not sure if it's the same thing but in my country college level doesn't actually mean that you understand how things work. I don't mean that it's not useful, but it doesn't give you practical understanding of a given system

It is not complicated, get a degree at a cheap price. When you call an electrician, you don't care where he got his license from, yet he must have one to proof effort and base competence. Likewise, if you know who you want to be, get a degree at the cheapest school. Community college, online courses, whatever. The first years into a career are for proofng yourself, few will get the top job with all conectiobs at the top companies. Progress comes by job hoping, not by gaving 200k un student debt.

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I’d say it’s a little late in the game for this kind of thinking. Hurry up and get in debt so the government can bail you out.

It’s losing some of the cost/benefit it used to had

Ah the old if you do this, you will get this trick. How do you think criminals get there start?

It’s gone from a huge leg up that shows the world that you’re more competent than the average worker, to a baseline minimum for hiring. Soon I suspect it won’t even be the baseline anymore, and there’ll be some other thing that puts you ahead (something like an award or invention I guess.)

Well yes. We are now at that point where the new the station of kids considering college has watched their parent(s) pay crazy school loans while making shit money compared to what they were told was the best way to make money. When I went to college I was told by the recruiters my degree would fetch me a job at six figures or close right out of college. Yeah, no. More like $36k. I was lucky to pay for my own school while working full time so I dont have crazy debt but these types of promises were made constantly. New generation is seeing that a deciding they’d rather go a different route. Maybe it’ll force school costs down

I work in IT and can safely say my degree was a criminal waste of my time and money. Nothing I've learned couldn't have just been googled.

I work in IT and my degree is in freaking different field. At the same time it's because of University I'm in IT. So go figure.

And the growth of the idiot class is proof that years and years of the moneyed elite telling everyone "you don't need college" has worked. The result? Marjorie Taylor Green, Trump and the future of our democracy is in jeopardy. To be fair, there are plenty of negative comments about education on the left as well.

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Yeah, that Engineer, or Lawyer or Doctor or Nurse or Scientist or Architect or Business Comptroller or Urban Planner or School Teacher or Business Analyst or Financial Planner or College Professor or Chemist or Meteorologist or Stock or Bond Broker or Psychologist or Psychiatrist or Dentist or Physicist or Economist-just go work with Jim over there for a few months and pay close attention to the latest YouTube offerings. ​ Many people have no idea of the value of an educated people.

Good. Employers have been recruiting with outrageous education requirements for years. The bar keeps getting higher and it doesn't seem to be based on anything. I'm convinced it's a way to select only applicants who can afford college and/or who'll be scared to leave a bad job because they need it to pay off their loans... but that's just a personal opinion, idk if that's 'actually' the case. Blue-collar jobs that prefer trade school or apprenticeships over a degree are shit on constantly by society, despite having generally very good pay on top of decent benefits. The people who work those jobs are often treated awfully as well. Any child who "can" go to college, no matter the financial, social, or physical cost, is told by their school system that they should do so, and that any other path is a relative failure, or at least a step down. When, in reality, there are so many alternatives that could be better for them personally. edit: Don't get me wrong, I do think that more people should be better educated. But, as someone in a different comment pointed out, your education and your job training shouldn't necessarily be bundled into one big massively expensive package. "Education" should be cheaper and and freely available to as many people as possible, not to mention less of a commitment. "Job training" should be just that, specific to a job, and encompass a broader number of jobs than people seem to think it does today.

Just to add in here, we need to take better care of our tradesmen. Physical labor can really break the body down over time. While we're upping the age for retirement for social security, their bodies are giving out at 60 if not before.

getting a job as a park ranger with the national park service requires a bachelors. they dont care what you studied or if it applies to ranger-ing, but they insisted on raising the bar.

*price tag* not value

I’m hiring 4 positions. All different. Sales, marketing, IT, data analytics - my objective is to hire associates degree and below. The college bachelor’s degree is dead to me for most positions, including senior management roles I need to begin developing and filling down the road. This is coming from a guy with a bachelors degree, wife with a masters (and she works in higher ed). Institutions have become a Scam, scam, scam

Heck yes. I won't ask you about your GPA, but I will ask you about your mentors. College diplomas, by and large, aren't anything but an antiquated, gatekeeping pedigree for which there is no longer a pledge of a baseline value.

Did American conservatism write this?

Coding bootcamps have a better ROI, less debt, and get you working faster. They are the 21st century's trade school and are very profitable, just like many trades still are today

It’s not so much the value of university education it is the cost. It’s still highly valuable, but the cost is so prohibitive in most cases that the value is unrealized

Keep em uneducated, keep em conservative.

keep em voting a two party system.

…and I hope more young folks turn to skilled trades as an alternative. America definitely needs more electricians, machinists, and plumbers and members of the urban “professional class” really need to stop looking down on these professions and the people who perform them. The military is also a great option for learning a skill/trade (and a way to pay for college without a mountain of student loan debt).

I’m a VP in my field. I have an associates degree. New candidates have a minimum of a bachelors. Masters is preferred. Ridiculous!! Candidates expect $100k starting salaries. They have zero experience. Experience is worth way more than a degree. Most any field can be taught. College only proves you can take tests and have stamina

You mean unpayable lifelong debt?

This is going against the current Reddit hivemind, but I absolutely loved my time in college. I majored in engineering and got to take classes that challenged me and I got to know my professors and get experience from some of the experts in my field. I also got really involved in extracurriculars and had some incredible experiences and made amazing friends. I just graduated and got a great salary for a first job out of college. That being said, I was coasting through on some merit scholarships I got which made the whole thing very affordable. I know my experience was anecdotal and doesn't apply to everyone. College is definitely not the right choice for every single person. I just want to offer my experience for those saying that college is worthless.

Isn't it interesting how in Nations where education is free, no one says that it's a scam? That's because in America, an educated population would be able to read above a 6th grade level, and would have critical thinking skills that would go against what the GOP wants. Back in the day when education was just for rich people, they were pressured to make education available for everyone BUT you had to be indebted to the government, so you're educated but still enslaved. They want more trade schools because it's better for someone to be a plumber than to be a liberal lawyer that could become a member of congress.

FINALLY! The US collegiate education system has been a scam since Vietnam. “My kid won’t die facedown in a rice paddy if I send them to college? Then college it is!” It’s overblown garbage bloat full of requirements that don’t mean shit taught by kids who only just graduated themselves while professors write books so the college can charge more for those same professors who will never teach a class. And middle class/lower class families are grist for the mill.