[HN Gopher] More students are turning away from college and towa...
___________________________________________________________________
More students are turning away from college and toward
apprenticeships
Author : lxm
Score : 436 points
Date : 2023-03-18 16:27 UTC (6 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| Forestessential wrote:
| most colleges are turning away from making shining stars and
| instead seeking to get the mass in and out, to their respective
| homes. Scaled grading is so the school can reliably pass
| students. The credential is literally worth less.
| passwordoops wrote:
| As a PhD analytical chemist, about 15 years past graduation I now
| regret just not becoming a plumber in my early 20s. Basically the
| same skill set, but the tubes are wider. Also would have been
| higher life time pay, at least to this point and possibly into
| retirement
| balderdash wrote:
| Lol - I have a derivative thought in that I should have just
| joined my local police department (no desire to be a police
| officer, but six figure pay, retirement in my 40's with huge
| pension/healthcare benefits, and a stressful day is someone's
| mom giving you a hard time at the pharmacy lunch counter about
| giving their kid a speeding ticket)
| ivan_ah wrote:
| https://archive.is/bAdmO
| oldstrangers wrote:
| Sounds great until you run into half the open jobs on LinkedIn
| requiring a degree. Very depressing.
| celu wrote:
| [dead]
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| College seems to have ~3 uses from students' perspectives:
|
| 1. A trade school for technical professionals who actually _need_
| specialist education (scientists, engineers, lawyers, doctors,
| etc.)
|
| 2. A finishing school for the elite
|
| 3. A blood sports arena for the brilliant to complete for
| professorships (almost all of whom will lose and be saddled with
| 6 figures of debt and 7 figures of opportunity cost)
|
| A lot of people have been tricked into going to general education
| and liberal arts college programs (the finishing school parts)
| without the money to pay in full under the guise of "becoming a
| lifelong learner" or something, and this completely cripples them
| in the future when they could otherwise have had great careers in
| fields that don't truly need the education you get from a
| college.
|
| It's good that students are turning away now. The market is
| correcting itself.
| suzzer99 wrote:
| I'm an engineer now, but am still very glad I had a liberal
| arts undergrad.
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| > fields that don't truly need the education
|
| Even if that's true, isn't part of the problem that a lot of
| those office jobs that don't absolutely need the knowledge
| still expect a bachelor's degree? Even if it was nothing more
| than "finishing school," you're going to have a hard time
| finding a job in HR, sales, etc. without college.
| mtrower wrote:
| What is meant by finishing school in this thread? I have a
| feeling this is not the definition being used
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finishing_school
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| That's exactly what it's referring to, but in a derogatory
| way, and more gender-neutral. I.e., a place that teaches
| people how to act professional-class, how to have the
| correct opinions and prejudices, the correct conditioned
| responses, the correct verbal tics, and so on.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| You are today, but that's because it is a signaling mechanism
| that you are a reasonably hard worker and willing to put up
| with bullshit. Also because practically everyone worth hiring
| has one.
|
| This is not a stable equilibrium, though, when you couple it
| with the tremendous rise in prices.
| m463 wrote:
| I don't think going to college can be easily summed up (and
| dismissed) with a numbered list of items. Sort of like saying
| marriage is just to have kids, get a tax benefit, and save on
| rent.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| thiagoharry wrote:
| I do not think that what society needs is equal what the market
| needs. People with critical knowledge about society,
| philosophy, people that could question how good is the market
| deciding everything are not interesting to the market, but it
| is interesting to the society. Without publicly funded
| education, however, everything boils down to what the market
| decides.
| pjlegato wrote:
| _With_ publicly funded education, however, everything boils
| down to what some small group of unelected bureaucrats
| decide. That is arguably much worse.
|
| It's also worth noting that most countries with totally free
| higher education emphatically do NOT allow just anyone to go
| study any major they like at taxpayer expense. Subjects that
| have few jobs waiting at the other end are strictly gated by
| intensely difficult entrance exams designed to weed out all
| but a small number of students, so that nobody wastes their
| time getting a degree in a topic where it is unlikely they
| can ever find employment.
| klyrs wrote:
| > 3. A blood sports arena for the brilliant to complete for
| professorships (almost all of whom will lose and be saddled
| with 6 figures of debt and 7 figures of opportunity cost)
|
| As somebody with a PhD, I say ho hum. I only took on 5 figures
| of debt, after quitting tech after the "dot com bubble." I had
| been bored out of my skull with the monotony and lack of
| intellectual challenge. But 7 figures of opportunity cost?
| Maybe even more, if I had joined the right startup. But I moved
| from low tech to high tech, using my degree in industry. Money
| is nice, sure, and can solve some problems in life. But real
| value is satisfaction. It doesn't have a price tag. There isn't
| a number of digits that would make me reconsider my choice.
|
| If your primary measure of success is wealth, then university
| has never been the answer.
| credit_guy wrote:
| 0. A four-year recruitment and placement agency.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think part of the challenge and problem is that college has
| come to be synonymous with high tier universities.
|
| There's a ton of non monetary rewards that can be had cheaply
| from learning, whether it is art, history, or any of the non
| technical professions. This value can be had for pennies on the
| dollar at community colleges without locking oneself into a
| 4-year degree track. You can ignore it GEs and simply take the
| classes you want to learn. You don't have to front load
| education into your early twenties and then stop completely
| once you are done.
| 331c8c71 wrote:
| > almost all of whom will lose and be saddled with 6 figures of
| debt and 7 figures of opportunity cost
|
| Not quite so for immigrants who are likely prevalent (or close)
| in grad schools.
| [deleted]
| dahart wrote:
| This pessimistic view doesn't seem that well supported by the
| data. In the US, we're pushing nearly 40% of bachelor's degree
| attainment, which is far broader a population than you suggest.
| There's also the problem that degree holders earn an _average_
| of 2x more than non-degree holders. I was very surprised by
| this! The St. Louis Fed published this statistic in an article
| arguing that the wealth advantage of college was waning, but it
| kinda backfired on me when I looked at their absolute numbers.
| The fact that many many many good jobs require a degree and
| that earnings are statistically higher for people with degrees,
| I speculate, is driving college rates far more than all three
| reasons you proposed, combined... from a students' perspective.
| jletienne wrote:
| it's unclear if the causation here is having a degree. but it
| is correlated to a very large degree
| dahart wrote:
| This has been quite widely studied, actually. Many papers
| conclude that it's a mix of causation, there is
| (unsurprisingly) some amount of actual learning of skills
| in college, and also (unsurprisingly) some amount of
| credentialism in the job market.
|
| What does it matter though? Parent was presuming to argue
| from a students' perspective. The amount of relative
| causation might be pretty irrelevant to a student who just
| wants to know what do to to maximize their chances of
| having a decent career. From a student's perspective, lack
| of causation might even be a stronger reason than
| otherwise, it potentially means they can enjoy a more
| lucrative career with less work.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| WanderPanda wrote:
| 4. Time spent outside the rat race without leaving a hole in
| your cv
| varunjain99 wrote:
| I'd also add
|
| 4) A social / networking experience. As an adult, rarely will
| you interact so often with so many people of your age.
|
| 5. A signaling mechanism. I have X credentials so give me job
| Y. This is far from ideal because the signal can be noisy. But
| it is a data point. It's similar to how physics PhD's are
| targeted for quant finance roles - they've signaled they can
| solve hard problems!
| seanalltogether wrote:
| I know so many people who don't keep in contact with high
| school friends, but still meet up with college friends from
| time to time. There's just something special about throwing a
| bunch of people of the same age into this melting pot _that
| they chose to be thrown in to_ that creates these social
| networks that last a lifetime. Military friendships also seem
| to mirror this same effect
| hgsgm wrote:
| 4) if everyone wasn't locked up in college, they would meet
| other young adults in their neighborhood and social/hobby
| clubs and entertainment venues
|
| 5) in the modern day that can solved by testing regimes. A
| self-educated quant could take an online qualifying test, and
| in-person final exam, to get a job in finance.
| quags wrote:
| I dropped out of college after 2 years about 20 years ago.
| I have never come across the same social interaction since
| then. The value of education on some degrees is certainly
| over stated , and there are areas that can be self taught.
| There is a lack of social learning though that doesn't come
| outside of education and school.
| cortesoft wrote:
| I disagree with your testing theory. The signal from a
| degree isn't just that you know the content, but that you
| can consistently work towards a goal over many years,
| navigating a large organization with lots of arbitrary
| rules, and willingness to do assigned work that may serve
| no purpose.
|
| You can't test to show that ability.
| tester756 wrote:
| In my experience - not really.
|
| I know a lot of people around my age and only 1 person is
| working in my industry.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| But tons of people aren't locked up in college and aren't
| meeting people in their area. They've also had their entire
| middle and high school years to do it. If they didn't take
| advantage of it then, it's unlikely they'll take advantage
| of it at 18-21.
|
| I think we are also forgetting that it is good for people
| to get out of their local bubble and get other
| perspectives/experiences.
| bee_rider wrote:
| 4) is the main thing for 4 year, in person colleges, I think.
| You can learn anything online. Credentials are nice but you
| can get pretty good credentials doing 2 years at a community
| college and finishing up at a state university. But meeting a
| bunch of ambitious people your age at the same point in their
| career is pretty valuable I think. At least it is an
| opportunity to roll the dice on meeting your startup crew.
| azinman2 wrote:
| It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to far
| more depth of thought. It also builds professional networks. If
| a person is smart enough to receive it, more education is
| almost always good.
|
| Of course money is a factor, and schools have gotten insanely
| expensive. I'm glad to hear that more people are finding
| alternative routes - it shouldn't be that everyone needs
| college because quite frankly many career paths don't require
| it and many aren't smart enough for it (and thus the debt will
| be crushing).
|
| But I wouldn't dismiss its value in being taught how to think.
| I wish there was a bigger focus in physics, math, and
| philosophy for those who didn't know what to do - learn one of
| those and you can do just about anything.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| College/University does not have a monopoly on
| intellectualism or networking.
|
| There is no guarantee that attending a college or university
| will help you develop _more_ than you would outside that
| setting. There is, however, a guaranteed cost; and that cost
| can be debilitating.
| azinman2 wrote:
| You're right. It's not a guarantee. But it's a situation
| where it's served to you on a platter. If you're not
| capable of receiving it on a platter, it's doubtful you'll
| get it on your own.
|
| Not everyone is capable of getting it in either scenario -
| as such as I said I'm glad more vocational opportunities
| are becoming in vogue again. Let's just hope these
| vocations last another 20-30 years.
| Master_Odin wrote:
| I think a number of hands on vocational jobs will last
| longer than quite a few white collar jobs. The robotics
| necessary for those jobs is quite far behind where we are
| with the necessary software.
| juve1996 wrote:
| > There is no guarantee that attending a college or
| university will help you develop more than you would
| outside that setting. There is, however, a guaranteed cost;
| and that cost can be debilitating.
|
| Two things - that guaranteed cost CAN be debilitating. It
| also might not be. There are plenty of cheaper options
| available for higher education. And, in general, people
| with higher education make more money overall.
| bumby wrote:
| > _more education is almost always good_
|
| Yes, but we also need to be cognizant of the opportunity
| costs: 4 years of gainful, productive employment minus
| educational debt.
|
| I don't think university has a monopoly on education any
| longer. But they still maintain one on accreditation. As a
| society we need to take a hard look at what credentials
| certain degrees really need.
| sircastor wrote:
| > It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to
| far more depth of thought.
|
| I think this is one of the more valuable components of
| attending university - in part just because it exposes one to
| more people, from more diverse backgrounds. It encourages you
| to see the world from more than one perspective, and to (I
| hope) be able to understand and be more compassionate about
| others.
|
| There is a segment of people (in the US at least) that don't
| want kids to go to college for exactly this reason - they
| don't want their kids, or other young people to be exposed to
| or trained in critical thinking and broad perspectives.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to
| far more depth of thought
|
| It doesn't uniquely do this. You don't need college to have
| intellectual conversations or be exposed to new ideas.
| comfypotato wrote:
| This has changed over time. Probably simply because of the
| internet. It used to be harder to expose yourself to the
| variety of ideas and perspective that college did.
| thaw13579 wrote:
| It's hard to find opportunities for this outside college.
| Most people are not interested in intellectual talk, so the
| question is how to meet like-minded folks? I can't seem to
| find better alternatives to universities, for both number
| and diversity of opportunities. Book clubs seem like the
| best option but are often too narrowly focused on
| literature.
| castella wrote:
| > It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to
| far more depth of thought.
|
| As a (not so) recent grad from a top public university in the
| US - for STEM fields, absolutely. But from my exposure to the
| humanities and liberal arts side of the campus, be it gen ed
| classes or just day-to-day interactions with those students,
| it was far more like a brainwashing factory designed to churn
| out professional activists. Those classes were far more about
| rote memorization and regurgitation of the professor's
| political opinions than any sort of critical thinking;
| diverge from that "Overton window" and your grades will
| suffer.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _more education is almost always good_
|
| There is a lot of nonsense credentialing in America. My most
| rewarding liberal arts classes in college were electives.
| Scratch that: the only liberal arts classes I took that had
| merit were electives. The reading lists were fun. But the
| discussion, assignments and evaluation stupid to the point
| that I spent years thinking up clever quips to the absurdity
| of it all.
| Varqu wrote:
| I would argue that it nowadays teaches more herd-behavior and
| political correctness than depth of thought (example: last
| Stanford Law dean case)
| palijer wrote:
| >It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to far
| more depth of thought.
|
| This is a thing that happens to folks who attend school, but
| I don't think it is the school that causes this to happen. I
| think this effect is bound to happen to any young person who
| moves away from their home to live independently for the
| first time with a thousand other folks who are doing the same
| thing.
|
| Just moving to a large city and working when you are young is
| enough to "grow the intellectual soul". Taking out loans and
| paying for lessons I don't think is a critical part of that
| development.
| juve1996 wrote:
| But not everyone moves far away to go to school and not all
| schools are in the big city. In fact, schools now have
| evolved closer to daycares with the amount of money being
| poured into dining halls and fitness centers.
|
| > Just moving to a large city and working when you are
| young is enough to "grow the intellectual soul". Taking out
| loans and paying for lessons I don't think is a critical
| part of that development.
|
| Eh. Plenty of people migrate. That doesn't make them
| educated, necessarily.
| ryeguy_24 wrote:
| Everyone says that it teaches you how to think but I've never
| heard of a good reason why. I remember difficult classes but
| I don't remember any special sauce that made me think
| differently than I did in high school. I'm not saying that I
| don't believe that it teaches you this, I just have never
| heard more reasoning than the surface statement. Does anyone
| have any examples or theories of this?
| zoogeny wrote:
| Your post makes me consider what other avenues to achieve the
| growth of intellectual souls and exposure to depth of thought
| could exist other than paid-for highly-structured
| institutions.
|
| I think people wax poetically about their own experiences
| without really considering the experiences of others. We've
| had free public libraries for centuries now. We've had a
| pretty open Internet for decades. There is literally nothing
| stopping a 20 year old human who lives in Western society
| from growing their intellectual soul through learning.
|
| For a lot of young kids, school is more like a prison than an
| intellectual garden. Yet a certain kind of thinking keeps
| these institutions mandated with the good intention of
| growing souls.
|
| My own opinion is that the current means is utterly failing
| at generating the desired ends. As the antiquated expression
| goes: You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it
| drink.
| morelisp wrote:
| > We've had free public libraries for centuries now.
|
| Not even a century and a half, really. The first Carnegie
| library was opened in 1883, for example.
| zoogeny wrote:
| I mean, pedantry aside this is such an easy question that
| even Google can find a result. [1]
|
| According to that link: The Darby Free Library in Darby,
| Pennsylvania, is "America's oldest public library, in
| continuous service since 1743."
|
| But really, without going too off topic, why would you
| even bother to try to correct a statement that is used
| for effect? Are you trying to suggest that 150 years vs
| "centuries" is a relevant distinction for a point made
| about college-aged knowledge seekers? Are you interested
| in showing you have the trivial fact on hand for when the
| first Carnegie library was formed?
|
| I'm open to being corrected but sometimes I just have to
| shake my head. Not only was your attempt to correct
| irrelevant, it is factually off base.
|
| 1. https://www.sturgislibrary.org/oldest-library/
| morelisp wrote:
| I contend that "We have had free public libraries" is not
| a statement about the mere existence of _a_ public
| library _somewhere_ , but rather and especially in the
| context of this discussion a claim about how widely
| available resources for self-education are. And that's
| _firmly_ the latter half of the 19th century, following
| efforts of people like Buckingham, Edwards, and Carnegie.
| And these are still not even close to universally
| accessible - there can be plenty stopping "a 20 year old
| human who lives in Western society" from accessing them.
|
| So, no, not pedantry - just asking that you genuinely
| consider the experiences of others before waxing poetic
| about some irrelevant historicism. Perhaps unguided
| education is today not as accessible for everyone as it
| was for you, for many reasons.
|
| (p.s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darby_Free_Library
| says it was a subscription library until 1898. Maybe also
| Google, which seems to be what you meant by "the open
| internet", is not that great a resource either?)
| zoogeny wrote:
| > Perhaps unguided education is today not as accessible
| for everyone as it was for you, for many reasons.
|
| That is fair, I am too liberal with my hyperbole and so
| I'll try to be a bit more clear. It seems unlikely to me
| that an individual that has access to a guided university
| education does not also have access to freely available
| educational resources either online or in public
| libraries. That is, I do not believe that a youth today
| that desires to "grow an intellectual soul" has the
| single recourse to enroll in the structured environments
| of universities.
|
| I have no idea how you clarifying or arguing over the
| precise duration of the availability of public libraries
| contributes to that discussion.
| morelisp wrote:
| This statement:
|
| _There is literally nothing stopping a 20 year old human
| who lives in Western society from growing their
| intellectual soul through learning._
|
| Is _wildly_ different than:
|
| _I do not believe that a youth today that desires to
| "grow an intellectual soul" has the single recourse to
| enroll in the structured environments of universities._
|
| > I have no idea how you clarifying or arguing over the
| precise duration of the availability of public libraries
| contributes to that discussion.
|
| Sure, when you totally change what you're saying, it's
| not relevant anymore.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| What a university _can_ provide is direction: an explicit
| decision about the _order_ concepts are learned, and the
| _perspective_ each concept is approached from.
|
| That can be really useful, especially when professors have
| enough free time to spend with individual students.
|
| It can also be really detrimental: every person has a
| unique education history that determines what order and
| perspectives are most optimal to their learning.
|
| The problem I see is that university _is_ structure. The
| entire design is intended to be predetermined and
| inflexible. Edge cases are handled by bringing a student
| "back on track", assuming that track to be the best
| learning approach for every student.
|
| Most of the substance of "liberal arts" is exactly what a
| person needs to learn to progress _out_ of this system. The
| irony of a successful university experience is that the
| more successful it is at teaching you, the sooner you can
| walk away and continue learning on your own.
| Izkata wrote:
| > What a university can provide is direction: an explicit
| decision about the order concepts are learned, and the
| perspective each concept is approached from.
|
| Also just touching on "these things exist", converting
| unknown unknowns into known unknowns. That's the single
| biggest thing I got from my degree (having already been
| programming for years before), that nowadays I'm
| occasionally reminded of in a relevant context and can
| now dig deeper into.
| [deleted]
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| >There is literally nothing stopping a 20 year old human
| who lives in Western society from growing their
| intellectual soul through learning
|
| Except for humans in general being utterly _shite_ at
| pursuing learning without guidance or an immediate goal,
| both in regards to the learning effectiveness (i.e. how
| much you learn per amount of time or effort), and having
| the discipline to keep the grind
|
| Most people are not, in fact, capable of just going to a
| library (or using the internet) every day and deeply
| learning a subject. They need an external force to actually
| keep grinding, even if they _do_ want to do it by
| themselves
| the_only_law wrote:
| Also learning is more than just reading a whole lot. Not
| every field or subject is software development where the
| tools you need to actually _do_ are so easily accessible.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| I hear it used to be that there was a culture of serious
| working-class learning in England. Like, the barbers in the
| shop would pay some street-kid to read them books -- there
| was no TV -- while they cut hair. And the cabbie could get
| into a conversation about Kant or something with his
| passenger. Maybe just to mess with them, but still.
| revelio wrote:
| The surprisingly intellectual cabbie is practically a
| trope. They get to talk to a lot of different people so
| can end up learning all sorts of things you wouldn't
| expect.
| ryan93 wrote:
| Id be surprised if 5% of college students "grow their souls"
| weirdly clueless thing to write. Not hard to find out that
| most people get business, psych and econ degrees. And even
| english or history majors half ass it just to get through.
| rayiner wrote:
| > it also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to
| far more depth of thought
|
| This illogical trope is responsible for so much suffering,
| being responsible for driving millions of people to waste
| their time and money pursuing useless college educations.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| >It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to far
| more depth of thought.
|
| I am skeptical of this claim. In my experience, it just
| enshrines a different set of beliefs into students rather
| than new paradigms of critical thinking.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Then I don't think where you went to school did a very good
| job of educating, or I'd suggest you didn't pick up on what
| was being put down. For it to not provide critical thinking
| and/or depth of knowledge in a subject is a failed mission.
| mtrower wrote:
| If so many people are reporting this experience, it may
| be time to re-evaluate the current state of education.
| juve1996 wrote:
| I've found most people bemoaning the "indoctrination" from
| college are just typically upset other belief systems are
| being taught.
| gersh wrote:
| Are modern colleges actually succeeding: 1) Exposing people
| to depth of thought 2) Teach people how to think
|
| Maybe, at one time they did, and maybe some schools still do,
| but it doesn't seem like most modern colleges are really
| doing this very well.
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| > If a person is smart enough to receive it, more education
| is almost always good.
|
| Are you speaking narrowly of credential-granting schools or
| do you actually mean education here?
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| >It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to far
| more depth of thought.
|
| This is a thing that people say, but I've never seen it
| happen. To the extent that people are exposed to depth of
| thought or new ideas, the people interested would have found
| those things faster, cheaper, and more frequently if they
| avoided the rat race parts of university programs.
|
| It's similar to the thought that university degrees help
| people economically, but that is rarely the case. We've spent
| many human generations trying to figure out how to move the
| needle and it's mostly IQ + big 5 personality + luck. The
| people that COULD have gotten into Harvard but chose to go
| elsewhere wind up with the same outcomes as the people who DO
| go to Harvard.
| dmonitor wrote:
| > It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to
| far more depth of thought.
|
| Have you even seen a college classroom in the last decade?
| The STEM classes absolutely have dedicated learners, but most
| of the people in those other classes can barely write their
| name on the corner of the page and the classes are designed
| to cater to their abilities because if they flunk out, they
| don't pay next years tuition.
| kneebonian wrote:
| > It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to
| far more depth of thought.
|
| "See, the sad thing about a guy like you is, in 50 years
| you're gonna start doin' some thinkin' on your own and you're
| going to come up with the fact that there are two certainties
| in life: one, don't do that, and two, you dropped 150 grand
| on a fuckin' education you could have got for a dollar fifty
| in late charges at the public library!" - Good will Hunting
|
| > It also builds professional networks.
|
| Wait so is college about making money or about growing the
| soul, because you just said it was about growing the soul but
| now it's about hobnobbing with people's whose only
| qualification was the ability to pay money to go to college
| sounds shallow.
|
| > If a person is smart enough to receive it, more education
| is almost always good.
|
| If colleges were still about educating I might agree with you
| but we are a long way from colleges being about educating
| people. At this points it's simply a social signal.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Few will spend a huge amount of time self educating, and
| even fewer can read the books and understand what to
| extract from it without guidance. That's the whole point of
| having a subject matter expert design and teach a
| curriculum. If you don't value that, then in your world we
| should abolish high schools and earlier as well. If you
| look at societies where people don't go to school versus
| where people do, the results are quite different for
| society. The evidence speaks for itself.
|
| > Wait so is college about making money or about growing
| the soul, because you just said it was about growing the
| soul but now it's about hobnobbing with people's whose only
| qualification was the ability to pay money to go to college
| sounds shallow.
|
| There can be multiple benefits simultaneously at different
| levels.
|
| If whatever college you're attending is only creating a
| social signal and not meaningfully educating, then that
| school lose its accreditation.
| mtrower wrote:
| So wait, if a person fails to benefit from college, it's
| their own fault for not taking what was "handed to them
| on a platter" (as you mention in another of your posts"
| --- but if they fail to self-educate, it's only natural
| and thus a problem of not going to college?
| klooney wrote:
| > It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to
| far more depth of thought. It also builds professional
| networks. If a person is smart enough to receive it, more
| education is almost always good.
|
| That's the "finishing school for the elite" function. If you
| have to ask if you can afford that, you cannot.
| jackmott wrote:
| [dead]
| lr4444lr wrote:
| _If a person is smart enough to receive it_
|
| And this can't be the case, at least not in the sense that
| colleges can offer education at the caliber they once were
| when only educating 25-30% of the population 70+ years ago.
| Academic ability, like most other traits, exists on something
| close to a normal distribution. Not to mention the failings
| of the secondary education system feeding into it.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| That's #2 on the GP. At least if the college is as expensive
| as the US ones are, only the elite can get a positive value
| from those things.
| stainablesteel wrote:
| > It also grows the intellectual souls, exposing people to
| far more depth of thought. It also builds professional
| networks. If a person is smart enough to receive it, more
| education is almost always good.
|
| oh are we talking about youtube? i love youtube
| muyuu wrote:
| out of all the reasons, IMO that is most anachronistic given
| the way that both Universities and society at large have
| changed away from these dynamics - and given also that the
| need for that personal access has also decreased dramatically
| over the last few decades
| NathanNgata wrote:
| > It also grows the intellectual souls
|
| maybe only a byproduct, it's more of a means to an end
| system. people are at the universities they are in because
| going to college still means something to the job market as
| opposed to learning everything else where. The people who
| really grow there 'intellectual souls' are those who would
| grow it regardless of environment/circumstance.
|
| while I do believe it is a great thing for people to desire
| to advance themselves intellectually I don't believe it
| should cost as much as it does. It's ridiculous.
|
| > If a person is smart enough to receive it + many aren't
| smart enough for it
|
| the benefits of becoming educated in its most fundamental
| sense don't vary with intellectual ability.
|
| the way educational institutions are currently structured is
| one of many ways of educating people, so the question becomes
| whether that way of educating is optimal for an individual.
|
| ---- (opinion)
|
| universities should be purely for the pursuit of knowledge
| and shouldn't be there to provide relevancy to the job
| market. That should be the job of systems specializing in
| providing pathways to certain job market sectors.
|
| currently universities conflate the two which has lead to
| most of the problems they have been ascribed with today
| phpisthebest wrote:
| I think you have conflated college with education. One can
| get education, build professional networks, etc with out
| college and importantly one can go to college complete a
| degree program while receiving zero education.
|
| many (most) Colleges is more of a social guild than it is an
| educational ventures
| azinman2 wrote:
| Very few on their own would get anywhere close to what a
| college gives you in terms of an education. Particularly in
| ways that are far broader than what you'd do
| professionally.
|
| Keep in mind college is 4 years of education on a daily
| basis.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| "According to one survey conducted by the National Survey
| of Student Engagement, most college students spend an
| average of 10-13 hours/week studying, or less than 2
| hours/day"
|
| "A recent study showed that college students spend
| between 8 to 10 hours a day using a cell phone. Every
| day."
|
| I agree with the parent comment. You have conflated
| college with education.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| >>4 years of education on a daily basis.
|
| Is it? Really??? For all degrees and all programs..
|
| that is the claim... but I just do not see that manifest
| in reality.
|
| Seem you have a very inflated view of the programs...
| just how much debt are you attempting to justify?
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| >Seem you have a very inflated view of the programs...
| just how much debt are you attempting to justify?
|
| I agree with them and I had 0 debt. Making higher
| education free was one of the few things I think the
| government back home actually didn't drop the ball on
|
| Apparently it's done wonders for a bunch of industries
| phpisthebest wrote:
| Well like with many things. Context matters. here we are
| talking about the dysfunctional schooling system of the
| US. Other nations have different style of education that
| may be actual education.
|
| There are also aspects and some intuitions in the US
| worth it. But they are few and far between, and becoming
| more rare as the institutions in the US move away from
| actual education, and more towards political based goals
| psyklic wrote:
| I for one didn't know the political views of my
| professors -- it simply never came up.
|
| That said, college students are adults and can be exposed
| to different viewpoints without worry. IMO students are
| influenced politically vastly more by fellow students
| than professors.
| azinman2 wrote:
| I carry zero educational debt.
|
| How do you not see that manifest in reality? What school
| doesn't have classes 5 days a week that people are
| taking, or otherwise expected to be somehow participating
| in an activity related to education? Sounds like a school
| that should lose its accreditation.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Agree with you here. I typically had at least 2 classes a
| day and spent most of the time outside of class studying
| or doing homework. It was easily more than 40 hours/week.
| That was for an engineering degree though. Friends in
| other programs (e.g. business, kinesiology...etc) had to
| spend much less time on homework and studying, but even
| they were learning daily.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| I have known alot of students, in many programs. On
| average I say students have classes 2 - 3 days a week,
| with 2 classes per day...
|
| I know more than a few students attending top rated
| public universities.
|
| According to one survey conducted by the National Survey
| of Student Engagement, most college students spend an
| average of 10-13 hours/week studying, or less than 2
| hours/day and less than half of what is expected. Only
| about 11% of students spend more than 25 hours/week on
| schoolwork. [1]
|
| a "Full time" course load is 15 credit hours, which is
| about 5 classes.. a student taking five 3-credit classes
| spends 15 hours each week in class..
|
| In the past I have run college level internship programs,
| both for credit, and critically for this discussion not
| for credit (meaning no affiliation with the schools). I
| have had no problems scheduling students work around
| their course schedule, for which they normally have 2 or
| 3 open days for work.
|
| [1] https://www.collegiateparent.com/academics/student-
| study-tim...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >Keep in mind college is 4 years of education on a daily
| basis.
|
| For some, but for most, I bet it is a lot less. There are
| entire degrees (and schools) designed to require little
| more than for people to show up somewhere a few times per
| week.
| azinman2 wrote:
| What degrees and which schools?
| snerbles wrote:
| In the US, full-time minimum is typically 12 semester
| hours (credits) - that is, 12 hours in the classroom per
| week. In practice students often take 12-18 credits, and
| are considered overloaded at 20+ hours - some
| institutions require approval to exceed a certain
| enrollment.
|
| I had multiple semesters while attending a California
| State University campus where my classes stacked up on
| Monday-Wednesday-Friday, and depending on lab schedules
| I'd wind up having Tuesdays and/or Thursdays "off",
| usually taken up by part-time work or projects. Most of
| my classmates in the ECE department spent their spare
| days in a similar fashion.
|
| So, no, I was not attending class on a "daily basis". And
| personally, I've learned far more from professional
| development, personal projects and self-teaching than I
| ever did in the coursework for my engineering degree.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Business/psychology/criminal justice/communications
| degrees are generally considered the go to for easy
| degrees where you just want the status of having a
| Bachelors degree.
|
| For schools, any smaller private school charging $70k per
| year that is not in the top 10 or 20 probably fits the
| bill. They have a license to give rich foreigners a way
| to buy into the US, and I doubt rigorous education is
| their priority.
| mfer wrote:
| > But I wouldn't dismiss its value in being taught how to
| think.
|
| Few universities teach how to think. Most teach what to
| think. Critical thinking, reasoning through ideas and
| concepts, and research are often lacking.
|
| > I wish there was a bigger focus in physics, math, and
| philosophy for those who didn't know what to do
|
| I don't buy that. You can't by a psychiatrist. You can't be a
| medical doctor or nutritionist. There are a lot of useful
| things in this word, that we collectively need, you can't do
| with those.
|
| But, I do think teaching philosophy would be useful. That
| involves learning how to think things through which isn't,
| for the most part, taught.
|
| > If a person is smart enough to receive it, more education
| is almost always good.
|
| There is an error in reasoning right here. The implication
| from the context is that you need to go to a college or
| university to be more educated. That's not true. It's also a
| complex question to ask, what level of education on what does
| who need?
| sidlls wrote:
| The context within the social and economic structure of
| society matters, too. Very few _good quality_ careers are
| accessible for the self-taught individual.
| mfer wrote:
| Who defines good quality?
|
| Is this compensation? Is this satisfaction with what you
| do? Is this ability to pay your bills and save enough?
| How much does one need (what's enough)?
|
| This is all complicated and we tend to focus on
| compensation. That's why so many people stay in jobs for
| the pay while they hate the work.
|
| There are lots of good quality jobs out there if you
| expand your definition beyond "highest compensation". I
| know people who switched and were much happier in trades.
| They felt far more satisfied, could daily see their
| accomplishment, and meet their bills (and then some).
|
| Where did you get your view on good quality careers from?
| azinman2 wrote:
| MDs require more school on top of college; their major is
| often unrelated except they have to take pre-med classes.
| Often times people will go back to a community college or
| some other schooling option for those classes if they
| decide they want to go down that route. So you absolutely
| can be any of those majors and change your position later.
| Far better than say a communications major, which with
| psychology are the two main majors for people who are in
| college but don't know what to focus on.
|
| You can self-educate but very, very few have the capacity
| to get anywhere near what you'd get from a dedicated
| professional walking you through a curriculum in a context
| where you're dedicating 4 years to the endeavor.
|
| Of course not everyone "needs" to be more educated to have
| a functional life, but society is much better off when more
| of the public is educated. You can look around the world at
| the varying results of that, and it's consequences.
| mfer wrote:
| > society is much better off when more of the public is
| educated.
|
| To what extent of educated? What do you mean by educated?
| A lot of what the general public gets isn't deep thought.
| It's being told what to think. A lot of the what to think
| is ideas based on assumptions and beliefs. Are people
| better off for learning them?
|
| For those who want to think deeply, are modern colleges a
| place that allow for that? I know PhDs who no longer
| teach because there is a lack of intellectualism and too
| much indoctrination.
|
| A dedicated professor telling me what to think (their
| ideas) rather than teaching me how to think and navigate
| the space well... for general things... may not be so
| useful to society.
| azinman2 wrote:
| > A lot of what the general public gets isn't deep
| thought. It's being told what to think. A lot of the what
| to think is ideas based on assumptions and beliefs. Are
| people better off for learning them?
|
| Yes because what it would be replaced with is even worse
| and likely instantly falls apart under a modicum of
| critical thinking.
| mtrower wrote:
| That's just indoctrination. Great I guess if you agree
| with the brainwashing. Not so great if you're on the
| other side.
| psyklic wrote:
| It's "indoctrination" to point out arguments that fall
| apart under a modicum of critical thinking?
|
| You could easily argue that education involves learning
| to construct solid arguments that do not fall apart.
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| Yes, there's a big overlap between "learning" and
| "indoctrination". For _mysterious_ reasons we only care
| about not being indoctrination when it comes to adults or
| almost adults
|
| People wouldn't learn anything if they had to deeply
| understand and verify every part by themselves before
| moving on
|
| Great I guess if you're happy with most of society never
| moving too far past what's covered in the first stretch
| of middle school
| waboremo wrote:
| Those that can self-educate effectively are also ones
| that would thrive in a proper high education system.
| Unfortunately, we're turning them away for various
| reasons (financial, lack of flexibility, etc) and filling
| rooms full of people who are there just because they were
| told to be there. It's quite horrendous, people in their
| 3+ years and they're still just going through the motions
| for the paper.
|
| If you're not there to network and find a job, you're the
| odd one out. This idea of treating these institutions as
| places for continual higher learning is just not the
| norm.
|
| It's an interesting predicament, more education for
| everyone is better, yet our designation of
| colleges/universities as the "last" required tier has
| stunted many people in many ways.
| mtrower wrote:
| > Those that can self-educate effectively are also ones
| that would thrive in a proper high education system.
|
| That might depend on what you define as 'proper'. These
| environments are typically tailored toward a certain
| median individual and if you don't fit that median (above
| or below), you aren't going to have a good time. In my
| own experience, I can generally self-educate far better
| than what I've found in any traditional educational
| environment available* to me. I just can't deal with the
| snail's pace of concept introduction, the shallowness of
| concept exploration, etc. Everything moves so slow and I
| just tune it out.
|
| * What I've seen of MIT's open courseware appeared
| interesting and well-paced to me, but that's not a route
| that was ever available to me.
| [deleted]
| mtrower wrote:
| > a dedicated professional walking you through a
| curriculum in a context where you're dedicating 4 years
| to the endeavor.
|
| Sounds nice. What I've _actually_ seen is dedicated
| professionals walking entire classes en masse through
| curriculum --- a very different situation.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I think you are referring to something on one hand very
| valuable, on the other hand it's very easy to graduate
| college without learning that, and I think colleges
| themselves in recent decades are pivoting away from.
|
| A hundred+ years ago when "almost nobody" went to college,
| college was a place for those hungry and willing to sacrifice
| for intellectual growth. Nowadays college is a baseline
| consumer good that "almost everyone" is expected to consume,
| and having the desire for intellectual growth as a
| prerequisite just wouldn't scale.
|
| I also think that some of the classes I took (20 years ago,
| at a state school) would not be taught this way today. Eg I
| had a class that really critically analyzed native American
| cultures. Today the class would be considered racist, it
| would have to a priori be an admiration of those cultures,
| rather than a critical analysis. Ditto even on a class that
| focused on Soviet dystopian literature taught by an emrigre.
|
| The good news is that its much more accessible now days to
| learn how to think outside a college system. If that's what
| you are hungry for, college is perhaps even your least likely
| bet.
|
| I say this as a person with 3 degrees. Higher education
| worked for me because I made sure it did and colleges were
| more old school then than now.
| patja wrote:
| > Nowadays college is a baseline consumer good that "almost
| everyone" is expected to consume
|
| I think this depends quite a bit on your socioeconomic
| class. Overall in the US, only about 1/3 finish a college
| degree
| xyzelement wrote:
| You get the point I'm making though, right? :) If you
| want to sell your product to 33% percent of kids, your
| product has to be very easy to consume.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| You have a very weird understanding on how colleges today
| operate.
|
| There has been a lot of progress in exposing students to
| broad and multifaceted view of human endeavours. Aboriginal
| cultures are portrayed in full and with their negative and
| positive aspects in courses about them. I literally had a
| course on pre-colonial American cultures... that included
| all aspects of culture.
|
| What would be racist - is having presenting a very lopsided
| view on what happened before colonial era replaced those
| cultures in the "new world"
| [deleted]
| Balgair wrote:
| As an uncle told me many moons ago:
|
| Do more in college. Write a rock opera, spend a week curled
| up in the union learning about black holes, be good enough
| to tutor.
|
| Don't just graduate with nothing but a taste for bad jazz
| and cheap beer.
| OJFord wrote:
| Or, as cousin Melchior put it, 'anything other than a
| first or a fourth is wasted'.
|
| ( _Brideshead Revisited_ - Evelyn Waugh. Not sure how
| internationally read it is, but a worthwhile classic.
| British degrees are classified from firsts to thirds (via
| upper and lower second class honours) - but the story is
| (initially) set at Oxford, which at the time awarded
| fourths.)
| Balgair wrote:
| Thanks for the reccomendation! I am a bit confused
| though. Is 'a first' the top score on an exam or like a
| _suma cum laude_?
|
| Free link to the book here:
|
| https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/waughe-
| bridesheadrevisited1945/w...
| cperciva wrote:
| "First" means "first class honours" aka. the highest
| designation of degree. The US equivalent is summa cum
| laude, yes.
| OJFord wrote:
| People sometimes talk about it in terms of exams in the
| sense that they'd achieve a first overall if that exam
| was 'it', or that it brings their average up etc. - but
| strictly speaking you can only achieve first class (or
| any other) honours for the degree as a whole. It's
| commonly (but not necessarily) >70% overall. Equivalent
| to achieving some high GPA range.
| zinckiwi wrote:
| American translation: graduating with anything other than
| a 4.0 or a 1.0 is wasted.
| OJFord wrote:
| Or rather between them, yes. (Or a bit lower than 4.0,
| that's perfect right? Or do you not have to get full
| marks on every exam to achieve that?)
| lawtalkinghuman wrote:
| First = highest undergraduate degree classification in
| the British system.
|
| Universities in the UK treat a degree from the US with a
| 3.7 or 3.8 or higher GPA as equivalent to a first
| according to Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br
| itish_undergraduate_degree_c...
| WWLink wrote:
| A lot of CS students need to be told this as well. If you
| take the bare minimum CS so that you can double major in
| business, don't come crying on here that CS didn't teach
| you anything about programming lol.
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| > Eg I had a class that really critically analyzed native
| American cultures. Today the class would be considered
| racist, it would have to a priori be an admiration of those
| cultures, rather than a critical analysis.
|
| This is bullshit. The difference is that today, _your own
| culture_ e.g. (non-native) American society till the modern
| day is considered fair game for analysis, whereas 20 years
| ago there was probably a fair bit of "they are savages to
| be studied, whereas we are _civilized_ " complex going on.
|
| Guess what, that tends to temper critical analysis of other
| cultures as well, and focuses on understanding without
| judgement. It is dishonest to cast this as "a priori
| admiration".
|
| > The good news is that its much more accessible now days
| to learn how to think outside a college system. If that's
| what you are hungry for, college is perhaps even your least
| likely bet.
|
| An unnecessary dichotomy. The Internet is not blocked at a
| college, you can continue to study outside things while you
| are at college. The problem for most people seems to be
| that at a college, these ideas will be subjected to
| rigorous intellectual analysis, whereas on the Internet
| it's easier to hide in echo chambers where everyone agrees
| with you.
|
| > I say this as a person with 3 degrees...colleges were
| more old school then than now.
|
| I think this is little more than viewing the past with
| rose-tinted glasses. Guess what, things change, and usually
| in a way that society is better off. I highly recommend
| against the Internet as a substitute for actual college
| education because it's not "old school" any more.
| xyzelement wrote:
| // The difference is that today, your own culture e.g.
| (non-native) American society till the modern day is
| considered fair game for analysis
|
| These was definitely no shortage of ability to analyze
| and criticize western civilization in a college 20 years
| ago.
|
| // An unnecessary dichotomy. The Internet is not blocked
| at a college
|
| You are replying to a comment about what is _accessible_.
| College does not preclude internet. College however is an
| extremely large resource and time commitment. Therefore
| ability to learn outside of that is a great addition.
|
| // Guess what, things change, and usually in a way that
| society is better off.
|
| Agreed. Hence the article we are all talking about -
| people wisely chosing to forego college as a default.
| meany wrote:
| I can't speak to what the original poster experienced in
| college, but your heated response implies a resistance to
| at least some forms on inquiry as unacceptable or
| inappropriate or at a minimum worthy of disparagement,
| which I think undermines your argument a bit.
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| > but your heated response implies a resistance to at
| least some forms on inquiry as unacceptable or
| inappropriate or at a minimum worthy of disparagement
|
| I'm trying to engage reasonably by assuming some things
| here, specifically that the OP has peripheral knowledge
| of some courses (since they haven't actually attended
| college recently) and they are categorizing the
| relatively detached nature of those courses as "a priori
| admiration".
|
| I guess I could also respond by simply asking for
| specific examples of "a priori admiration" that the OP
| has seen in college courses recently. I doubt I will get
| any, but am open to changing my mind if I do.
| xyzelement wrote:
| The person you are replying to was onto something when he
| called your comment "heated"
|
| Your first post had none of the things you are talking
| about in your 2nd post... It simply said "that's
| bullshit" and suggested that what changed is the openness
| of western culture to criticism.
|
| Your second post (one I am replying to) is more
| reasonable but if this is somehow what you originally
| meant that's not what came out..
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| << But I wouldn't dismiss its value in being taught how to
| think.
|
| I agree.
|
| I had my best critical thinking class in community college.
| If I was innately smart, I probably would not have needed
| it as badly, but that one class gave me a lot of foundation
| and some credence to 'education' being useful. In other
| words, I am not smart, but I am educated. Overall, I think
| society benefits from that.
|
| But that was 2 year community college after which I
| transferred ( and later got an MBA ).
| happytesd8889 wrote:
| People always use this term "critical thinking" on the
| internet and I am not sure anybody that uses it has a
| good definition of what it means or why it is something
| that can or must be taught in a college kind of
| environment.
|
| At least personally, it's concerning to find out how many
| people think they are thinking critically all the time,
| but are not able to think critically about the definition
| of critical thinking.
|
| It seems to me that there are several common ways people
| define the term:
|
| 1. To mean any innate interest or drive whatsoever for
| knowledge in any topic that is remotely academic or
| related to something academic. Typically in the context
| of something free-form and not guided by an instructor.
|
| 2. To mean the ability to re-evaluate beliefs shaped by
| the knowledge you have previously absorbed. This is the
| most common definition but also the most problematic
| since it rarely involves questioning your beliefs about
| critical thinking itself in the future. In essence you
| are replacing one source of truth with another source of
| truth making claims based on authority. This often leads
| to the typical "I learned about critical thinking, now I
| will reject anything my parents say as false and things
| my school says as true". I don't believe that is what is
| meant by this definition, but it is unfortunately very
| common for people to leave their "critical thinking
| class" with that kind of takeaway. They also might leave
| their critical thinking class with the tendency to come
| up with meta questions and meta narratives and then put
| them on the internet a bit like what I'm doing. I hate
| that as well since it's incredibly annoying.
|
| 3. To mean the ability to come up with solutions to a
| novel problem; to synthesize information from a variety
| of sources and come to a conclusion substantially
| different from each source individually.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| As part of my history degree a required course was a
| guide to studying history (I don't remember what it was
| called - it was so long ago my degree could be considered
| history at this point). The whole course was about
| looking at the narrative in whatever work we were reading
| and then thinking about the author of that narrative. It
| was important to consider what the author was (and
| wasn't) saying in their work, to consider reasons why
| they were and weren't saying things.
|
| For instance (and this wasn't an example from the course
| - that would be brutal to read the whole thing over a
| semester - I can barely remember the works we discussed
| directly) - Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and
| Fall of the Roman Empire. He has a discussion around
| Christianity and the Catholic Church being one of the
| reason's for Rome's fall. It's interesting to place this
| idea in the context of HIS time - he was writing during
| the late 18th century and we see his contemporary modes
| of thoughts in events like the French Revolution, when
| there was a deliberate effort to remove the Catholic
| Church's power. The contemporary thought and his
| arguments mirrored each other. It was as much studying
| the work in its historical context as studying what the
| work was saying. This is what I think of when I think of
| critically thinking - considering all the layers of both
| the argument and why it's being made.
|
| These are probably details around your point 2 in that
| they are meta questions, and while annoying, are vital to
| engage with a historical text outside of anything but as
| a collection of facts and an entertaining narrative.
| dontknowwhyihn wrote:
| I would define critical thinking as a way of filtering
| information before absorbing it as truth. This involves
| actively questioning it- is it internally consistent,
| does it seem to have an agenda, are some obvious
| questions not being considered, are the arguments
| appealing more to emotion than logic, etc.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Hmm. I mean an actual class in critical thinking. It
| consisted of several things, but mostly things like basic
| logic, fallacies and so on.
|
| In other words, neither of three options listed.
| Animats wrote:
| The CIA has a school for intelligence analysts.[1]
|
| _" At the beginning of 2002, the courses were as
| following: during the first week, an introduction to
| intelligence topics included the history, mission and
| values of the CIA, as well as a unit on the history of
| intelligence an literature taught by the Center for The
| Study of Intelligence's (CSI's). Next, during the
| following five weeks, analysts are introduced to a
| variety of skills including analytic thinking, writing
| and self-editing, briefing, data analysis techniques and
| teamwork exercises, these representing the basic skills
| for a CIA analyst. After these five weeks in the
| classroom, the students go on a four-week interim
| assignment meant to help them understand how the DI
| relates to other CIA components, making them better
| understand their future role. Then, they return to the
| classroom for another four weeks of training in more
| advanced topics: writing and editing longer papers and
| topical modules addressing issues like denial,
| deceptions, indicators and warnings. These special kinds
| of analysis require advanced and sophisticated tradecraft
| skills. Afterwards, they go away again, for a second
| four-week interim assignment and when they return, after
| another four weeks in the classroom (when they deal with
| even more advanced topics), a task force exercise awaits
| them: a two days terrorist crisis simulation outside the
| classroom. This is an opportunity to show what they've
| learned and to see how they react in a situation that
| they might come across in real life."_
|
| That's a real "critical thinking" course. What they're
| trying to do is teach people how to extracts facts from
| contradictory, incomplete, and deliberately false
| information.
|
| Some of the concepts are generally useful. Here's an
| overview of the subject, from the U.S. Army.[2] "The
| critical thinking material has been used with permission
| from The Foundation for Critical Thinking,
| www.criticalthinking.org, The Thinker's Guide to Analytic
| Thinking, 2012 and The Miniature Guide to Critical
| Thinking: Concepts and Tools, 2009, by Dr. Linda Elder
| and Dr. Richard Paul." See especially section 2-13,
| "AVOIDING ANALYTICAL PITFALLS".
|
| [1] https://www.performancemagazine.org/how-the-cia-
| analysts-are...
|
| [2] https://info.publicintelligence.net/USArmy-
| IntelAnalysis.pdf
| happytesd8889 wrote:
| Oh okay that makes a lot of sense. I had a required
| course in philosophy that was essentially just that as
| well.
|
| I suppose that is why I'm confused when the term is used,
| since I don't think I would use the term critical
| thinking for avoiding logical fallacies. A better term
| might be "not wrong thinking". Of course this also should
| take into account that some things we call logical
| fallacies probably shouldn't be considered logical
| fallacies at all, like "slippery slope" arguments and so
| forth, which are considered to be a fallacy since there
| is no mathematical implication, despite the obviously
| correct nature of many slippery slope arguments.
|
| The word critical implies some sort of criticism, I'm not
| sure if identifying a logical fallacy is really what we
| typically mean by criticism. At the end of the day I
| guess the word itself isn't important.
| revelio wrote:
| You're right. Academics and graduates are terrible for
| claiming universities teach critical thinking, yet never
| stating exactly what they mean or how they think they're
| doing that. Maybe an obscure philosophy class tries, but
| the vast majority of students don't take that and the
| claim is made about a college education in general, not
| philosophy classes specifically.
|
| Seems to me like it's a self-defeating argument. If they
| were really teaching critical thinking as a skill, degree
| holders would immediately start arguing with them about
| this vague and poorly thought out claim, but in practice
| people just nod along.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Re: critical analysis. I agree with you that inconvenient
| truths now get muzzled because they don't fit an acceptable
| meta-narrative. This is very problematic for society and
| when taken to the maximum, can lead to thinks like
| Cambodia's attempt at restarting society by killing all
| those who didn't fit the model they were looking for.
|
| > If that's what you are hungry for, college is perhaps
| even your least likely bet.
|
| I'm not sure what one would be hungry for that couldn't be
| met in college. Analyzing cultures for weakness? Doesn't
| sound like a particularly meaningful or commonly needed
| study.
| throwaway4aday wrote:
| Arguably, the Cambodian people could have potentially
| avoided the genocidal deaths of millions of people by
| analyzing the weaknesses of the Soviet/Communist culture,
| weaknesses that repeatedly lead to mass death. Seems
| pretty meaningful and deserving of study to me.
| randcraw wrote:
| But would academic wisdom have avoided the rise of Pol
| Pot? The German people were pretty well educated and
| recently had been reminded of the cost of letting
| political forces spin out of control given the debacle
| and horrors of of WWI, yet they made the same mistakes as
| Cambodia in 1932 in allowing the rise of Hitler (whose
| Mein Kamph provided plenty of forewarning of an incoming
| regime based in hate).
|
| I don't see education as the solution to despotism. That
| requires a fair mind and rationality -- neither of which
| has roots in book learning.
| syzarian wrote:
| Communism does not lead to deaths and genocide.
| Concentrated, uncontested power does.
| dahfizz wrote:
| And communism leads to concentrated, uncontested power.
| The dictatorship of the proletariat will never dissolve
| itself once it gets absolute power.
| yonaguska wrote:
| Or at least it requires it in order to function. Not sure
| which comes first.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| One of the problems with this argument is that the
| murderous Cambodian oligarchy consisted of graduates of
| Western universities.
|
| Intellectuals in general have espoused a lot of inhuman
| political ideologies.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > inconvenient truths now get muzzled because they don't
| fit an acceptable meta-narrative
|
| Are you in college?
|
| > can lead to thinks like Cambodia's attempt at
| restarting society by killing all those who didn't fit
| the model they were looking for
|
| Wow. That's pretty wild! Can you back that up somehow? On
| the Internet, extreme statements somehow have more
| credibility. In college, more extreme statements require
| more extreme support for them.
|
| > Analyzing cultures for weakness? Doesn't sound like a
| particularly meaningful or commonly needed study.
|
| What is more important than looking at ourselves in the
| mirror, and learning everything we can from others? It's
| not like we are doing so well right now.
| mkl wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide
|
| It's not an extreme statement, just a brief description
| of well-known events.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| The statement didn't describe the Cambodian genocide. How
| about backing up the actual claim?
| mkl wrote:
| I suggest you read the article. If that doesn't answer
| your question I think you and I are interpreting the
| claim differently.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I'm not reading articles (especially Wikipedia) and
| trying to infer your argument for you. You state it if
| you've got it. Stop making excuses. Assume I know about
| the Cambodian genocide.
| mantas wrote:
| Cultures shall be analyzed as a whole, advantages,
| weakness and not skip infamous parts. Cherry picking is a
| direct way to indoctrination.
| jackmott wrote:
| [dead]
| xyzelement wrote:
| Re second point, I mean something else.
|
| 200 years ago I had to go to university because why?
| That's where the books and smart people were
| concentrated.
|
| So I would pay a lot of money and physically relocate
| myself to access those books and people.
|
| Now? I can study online, I can read, I can converse with
| super bright people of my chosing without the friction
| and limits of doing that in a college environment.
| pacaro wrote:
| There's a two edged sword here, both for the university
| student and the independent learner
|
| Learning in a structured environment provides access to
| the orthodox in the field of study. This can be very
| valuable to limit unnecessary exploration of blind
| avenues (there is of course such a thing as necessary
| exploration of blind avenues)
|
| For those who progress through the academy, the risk is
| that they become narrow thinkers
|
| For those without access to the structure, the risk is
| that they become cranks
|
| These aren't absolutes, but they are observable trends
|
| [Edit: are --> aren't]
| sitkack wrote:
| I think pre-U education should focus on didactics and
| metacognition, philosophy, logic and the scientific
| method. To really focus on the thinking behind the
| thinking, to never do it by accident.
|
| University should not be separate from earlier forms of
| education, things that are university like should also
| filter back into to high school and middle school.
|
| As a borderline-crank myself, I think we need more folks
| with crank tendencies and more folks with a solid
| scientific approach. We have the most minds right now,
| amazing capabilities but at the same time, a narrowing
| Chesterton's Window (I know, Overton Window, :)
|
| We should push kids harder in the ways that matter and
| less in the ways that is too soon. Grinding arithmetic
| and non-contextualized history is a multilayered waste of
| time. I am very pro both of those subjects, just the way
| we teach them an the timing is way off.
| somenameforme wrote:
| You just end up kicking the can around the same problem.
| While college education being dumbed down is a typical
| topic, the exact same is earlier education - and also for
| the exact same reason. Here [1] is an 8th grade exam from
| 1912. Good luck!
|
| The issue isn't some failure of education, but the fact
| that people are different and have different skill sets.
| And as education came to be expected to be something
| everybody goes through and in a roughly similar fashion,
| the inevitable decline to the lowest common denominator
| was inevitable.
|
| [1] - https://bullittcountyhistory.org/bchistory/schoolex
| am1912.ht...
| pdntspa wrote:
| How dumb is your expected audience if that test required
| a "good luck!"
|
| It's like basic math....
| bumby wrote:
| > _it's like basic math_
|
| Did you continue to read it? Because it covers other
| topics. Without using the internet, can you name the
| eligibility requirements of the Gov. of Kentucky? How
| about five county officers and their principle duties?
|
| I think your initial response belies a deeper problem we
| struggle with. Our attention span has shortened and
| social media has biased us towards more course
| interactions.
| Larrikin wrote:
| I would say that knowing eligibility requirements of the
| governor of Kentucky without using the internet is
| useless information to everyone that doesn't work in the
| Kentucky election office.
|
| The useful skill is being able to find the information on
| the Internet if you want to run for governor of Kentucky.
| If you grow up in Kentucky learning it once in seventh
| grade is sufficient so you know it's a possibility, but
| will most likely never matter again after that class.
| pdntspa wrote:
| Why do we need this stupid metric of "will I ever use
| this"? That is a recipe for ignorance. You will never be
| able to handle novel circumstances if you limit your
| knowledge to shit you think you will need.
| pdntspa wrote:
| That's all shit that I am sure I would be able to answer
| if I had paid attention in class. Which is what they are
| trying to test.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Learning in a structured environment provides access to
| the orthodox in the field of study.
|
| That's a trope of critics, but not what happens. Have you
| studied in college? They (almost always) cover a very
| wide range - much wider than you will discover on your
| own - and the focus is to teach you to think critically
| and be able to examine them yourself. They are not there
| to teach you information, or that is secondary (at least
| in social sciences and humanities).
|
| Also, you omit other enormous benefits, including
| personal tutorial - including guidance, feedback, etc. -
| from leading experts and PhD students, not to mention a
| room full of peers studying the same things.
| hamburglar wrote:
| The self-taught path can also lead to another kind of
| deficiency, which is someone who knows all the concepts
| but doesn't know how to talk about them efficiently. This
| ends up being the type of person who spends 5 minutes
| describing a component of their design where items are
| stored based on a key and can be looked up by that key so
| another process can stash and retrieve those things
| rather than recompute them but the things only stay
| stored for a certain amount of time or based on some
| other criteria like how much space is available or how
| frequently they are fetched and--- and you cut in and say
| "so a cache."
|
| I used to have a particularly brilliant (not sarcasm; he
| really was brilliant) colleague who "invented" lots of
| things that had already been invented and would have
| saved a lot of time by just bouncing things off others
| who would say stuff like "oh, so it's RPC" or "oh, so
| like a distributed queue" and stop him from reinventing
| the wheel.
| sitkack wrote:
| Now we have LLMs which can name concepts by description!
|
| Your colleague can dump their thoughts into such a system
| and quickly get back the shibboleths and the foundational
| papers. Now is the best time to be a self-taught genius.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The narrow thinkers / cranks dilemma is beautifully
| described, thank you.
|
| You aren't in the academia, are you? Because you explain
| things in simple terms, yet very efficiently.
|
| One of the diseases of current academia is use of an
| extremely stilted language, perhaps intended to paper
| over some logical cracks.
| Animats wrote:
| > One of the diseases of current academia is use of an
| extremely stilted language, perhaps intended to paper
| over some logical cracks.
|
| One word. Derrida.
|
| ChatGPT and its successors may put a big dent in the
| pretentious blithering industry. It's now too easy to
| generate a pseudo-academic style. Large language models
| are really good at this, because they have so much
| obscure text upon which to draw.
| pacaro wrote:
| I've done a bit of both so to speak. I studied History
| and Philosophy of Science as an undergrad, but have
| worked as self taught software engineer for nearly 30
| years.
|
| I don't think that jargon is created to confuse or
| obfuscate, most likely the opposite. My favorite example
| is in sailing. Every functional part of a sailboat has a
| name, because precise communication between crew can be
| critical and saying "pull the rope, no the other one, no
| the other other one" doesn't help. But telling a non
| sailer to tighten a jib sheet seems unnecessarily
| persnickety.
| psyklic wrote:
| > Now? I can study online, I can read, I can converse
| with super bright people of my choosing
|
| This is true, but in practice few people do it. Most
| people will not have much time left for study alongside a
| job. And without the "friction"/motivation college
| brings, most people will not learn anywhere near as much.
| selimnairb wrote:
| I get what you are saying, but most people couldn't
| afford the journal subscriptions necessary to get a
| graduate education, or to learn any field in depth.
| Hopefully open access obviates this problem. The other
| value of being on campus is having access to professors.
| Not clear how to find the same master-apprentice
| relationship outside of academia for some fields.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > I had a class that really critically analyzed native
| American cultures. Today the class would be considered
| racist, it would have to a priori be an admiration of those
| cultures
|
| If we are going to be collegiate, let's critically examine
| our own posts. What is that based on? It doesn't match what
| I know.
| rvba wrote:
| 4) Finding spouse of similar background
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I'm surprised you didn't include anything about meeting people
| for work, romance, friendship, or other social benefit, as for
| many, that can be a huge part of college.
| hgsgm wrote:
| That's only because almost everyone desirable goes there. If
| people stopped going, they could meet elsewhere.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I think people have a lot of shared context in college that
| they don't often have elsewhere. Depending on the college,
| but especially in the US campus experience, people live
| together, eat together, study together, party together, and
| more. So I don't think it's just the desirability of
| people.
| thaw13579 wrote:
| Yes, when mixed together in the world at large, it's rare
| to run into people who have enough shared context to
| click with.
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| Have you seen the vast majority of the USA? It's suburbia
| and parking lots. You try meeting people there.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| The trouble is: where?
|
| The alternative is a variety of places, and practically all
| of them have some kind of tax; where it be coffee, alcohol,
| or some kind of membership fee.
|
| What we are missing is called, "the third place".
| fschuett wrote:
| The third place is called "church" and it has been the
| center of socialization for 2000 years before western
| society replaced it with college and nightclubs.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| I disagree.
|
| Church is more equivalent to hobby clubs and work. Church
| is focused on a specific narrative, whether that be
| religious belief or generalized "unity". No matter how
| casual the experience, churches have _purpose_ and
| _exclusivity_.
|
| The third place isn't only _physically_ missing: it 's
| missing in our social behavior. It could easily exist in
| public parks, but we are expected to avoid strangers.
| vehemenz wrote:
| It sounds plausible, but university towns (at least in the
| US) are pretty unique in that they are dense and young
| people can afford to live there. You could say commuter
| campuses don't have the same social scene because not
| "everyone desirable goes there," but I'd wager it's more
| due to students driving in from 45 minutes away rather than
| living amongst each other.
| hgsgm wrote:
| > under the guise of "becoming a lifelong learner" or
| something,
|
| That's "finishing school for the [wannabe] elite" who find out
| at the end that they weren't ever in the elite.
| VLM wrote:
| > this completely cripples them in the future when they could
| otherwise have had great careers
|
| > It's good that students are turning away now
|
| Conspiracy theory: the powers that be, are not dumb, they know
| this, and rely in this to increase their stability by
| eliminating the competition and the ambitious. Scared people
| make bad decisions; their replacement for neutering-via-college
| is not likely to be as easy to deal with, so I donno about
| "good" as an adjective.
| [deleted]
| dahart wrote:
| This seems _really_ funny to me. There's been a huge push by
| elites and right-leaning politicians in particular to
| downplay college education and to trot out blue-collar
| workers, to convince people _not_ to go to college. Joe the
| Plumber, for example.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_the_Plumber
|
| Conservatives and businesses want more people to take low-
| paying jobs, and having the masses be educated threatens
| their ability to pay minimum wage. The St. Louis Fed
| published statistics [1] demonstrating that people with
| 4-year degrees earn an _average_ of twice what people who
| don't go to college earn. That is a truly massive
| discrepancy, and completely surprised me when I read it. I
| would have assumed that degrees were maybe a 10% or 15%
| advantage statistically. That it's double is astounding, and
| it really very much undermines the notion that somehow people
| are getting tricked into going to college.
|
| [1] https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/re
| vie...
|
| (Note the title argues that college isn't worth it. Read the
| statistics, they tell a _completely_ different story. The
| headline is based on the idea that total savings at
| retirement came down somewhat for college educated people,
| and it completely neglects the fact that these savings are 2x
| larger than non-degree holders, and come after a lifetime of
| 2x higher salary.)
| mtrower wrote:
| > Conservatives and businesses want more people to take
| low-paying jobs, and having the masses be educated
| threatens their ability to pay minimum wage.
|
| Not having tradesman threatens the ability of society as we
| know it to continue. We aren't going to get far without
| carpenters and plumbers. These jobs simply need to pay
| more.
|
| > and it really very much undermines the notion that
| somehow people are getting tricked into going to college.
|
| It's also quite possible for them to come out of college
| $40k in debt, with no job to show for it, and end up
| struggling to pay that off for the rest of their lives.
|
| Idk about the article though, it opens by saying this
| person had a free ride on the table. They probably should
| have taken it.
| dahart wrote:
| > These jobs simply need to pay more.
|
| Totally agree! What can be done to get trade jobs to pay
| as much as white-collar desk jobs that require degrees?
|
| > It's also quite possible for them to come out of
| college $40k in debt, with no job to show for it, and end
| up struggling to pay that off for the rest of their
| lives.
|
| It is possible, sure, but the data shows conclusively
| that you're better off, statistically speaking, with a
| degree. The average outcome for degrees is double the
| salary and double the lifetime earnings. So if we're
| going to talk about struggling, we need to be fair to the
| people who struggle to pay for food and housing, not just
| struggle to pay off their college debt. College debt has
| been going up, and that might be the reason that college
| educated people are having _relatively_ less saved at
| retirement age as of late.
|
| Anyway, yeah I agree about the anecdote too.
| irrational wrote:
| I don't know. I studied ancient history and historical
| linguistics in college. I managed to graduate with <$10k in
| debt because of working multiple jobs, academic scholarships
| and Pell Grants. Now, I have worked professionally as a
| programmer for >23 years, but I don't consider my time in
| college to be wasted at all. College introduced me to a much
| more diverse group of people. I got to interact with very smart
| people on a continuous basis which helped me to think more
| clearly, more logically, etc.
| lxm wrote:
| 4. An amalgamation of sports teams for talented athletes to
| shop their skills to professional sports scouts.
| TheMaskedCoder wrote:
| The sports side of college is bizarre. I think it is
| descended from British upper class amateur athletics, but it
| makes no sense in modern times. Athletics has nothing to do
| with education. Nothing at all. Star athletes are there only
| so they can get noticed by scouts. Universities keep teams
| around for the money. They ought to stop pretending there's
| any connection to education and replace it all with minor
| leagues and farm teams. But since there's a hundred years of
| tradition, I doubt anything will change.
| vasco wrote:
| They have something to do with it in the sense that many
| people practice them and they need to practice them growing
| up in order to be able to do it as a job. You also cannot
| discount the impact of athletics programs on national
| defense and the programs that were done by multiple
| presidents to keep people active and healthy. Sports have
| this quality among cultural activities that they tend to
| improve your body and reduce healthcare costs in the
| overall population the more active it is, while at the same
| time ensuring you have at least some people that could go
| to war if needed. This explains why there's more
| legislative support and allowances for sports programs than
| say music or theater.
| Ekaros wrote:
| But why connect it to education? Why not make it general
| program for all ages? Why not encourage community run
| programs for teams consisting for example company
| workers, or local neighbourhood teams? The education ends
| very quickly and it is the older than that people who
| could really benefit from these activities.
| harvey9 wrote:
| Lots of places do all of those things. It does not need
| to be just one or the other.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| They serve as a decent socioeconomic filter since many
| sports require the parents of the player to be of at
| least certain economic means.
| ragtete wrote:
| I don't know why folks put down college sports. If you do
| 4 years on a D1 team, you can certainly call yourself an
| expert in that sport. They're not just messing around,
| they're learning and developing their skills.
|
| They may not go pro or use that knowledge directly later
| in life, but neither do a lot of degree holders in their
| field.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| > They're not just messing around, they're learning and
| developing their skills.
|
| Yes, but almost universally at the expense of the
| education they are allegedly there to get. Especially D1
| programs. That is why many of us don't think it makes
| sense to tie it to education. To play at the level they
| are required to, they have to sacrifice their education.
| I think we all know how there are "football player
| classes" and curriculums designed to minimize
| school/education time and maximize their time for
| football.
|
| Hell how many times have we seen scandals involving
| completely fake courses for athletes? UNC got in trouble
| for this in 2015 or so after _decades_ of doing it. They
| were hardly the first and we all know it hasn't stopped.
|
| They can't have both unless they lower the quality of the
| education received (which is pretty silly, considering
| they are at institution primarily designed around
| education) or lower the standards of competition for
| sports, which is never going to happen as long as one
| team wants a competitive advantage.
| whateverman23 wrote:
| I'm guess asking: Why is 4 years of dedication to a sport
| (in at least the D1 context) not considered an education
| on its own?
|
| List the degrees achievable from a typical college, and
| rank them in terms of usefulness outside college. Then
| fit 4 years of a D1 sport into that list. I have a hard
| time believing the usefulness of 4 years of a D1 sport
| would be at the bottom of the list.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I think the forms of education here are pretty darn
| distinct. Didn't say it wasn't worth it/wasn't valuable.
| Same reason we have conservatories like with ballet.
| hgsgm wrote:
| That's true but an extremely small cohort, <100 per school,
| at only a few of the top sports schools.
| tbihl wrote:
| I suspect you're thinking too narrowly on this one. Sure,
| there's football and basketball (women's as well as men's),
| plus soccer and baseball, too, in the team sports space.
| But there are also plenty of golfers and tennis players,
| including in many schools you've never heard of, that have,
| or believe they have, a decent chance of going pro.
| vehemenz wrote:
| People--and not just "elites"--actually go to college to learn
| things. This is way too cynical/contrarian of a take.
|
| Attend more actual college, read less Howard Zinn.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Yeah, I really don't like the above take either. I have a
| history degree, and I've done very well for myself at a tech
| company. The writing and critical thinking skills I acquired
| have given me a huge leg up over more "technically minded"
| people in many situations (though I would never go as far as
| to say they wasted their time or I always have an advantage.
| It's case by case, like most things in life).
|
| He's basically doing the "kids go to college and get a
| useless English degree" line that many boomers throw around,
| just with different window dressing.
| jltsiren wrote:
| 4. A socially acceptable excuse for spending a few years
| learning and doing interesting things, instead of focusing on
| something more productive in the short term.
|
| When I was a student, it was a different time and place (20+
| years ago in Finland), but this was a major motivation for many
| people. Some people didn't have the financial means to take
| advantage of that, some had too many social obligations, and
| some were simply not interested in learning. But for many,
| learning was a major reason for attending a university.
|
| And this was not about the elite. In fact, studying a field
| with a clear professional identity and good prospects for a
| high-status high-paying job predicted having high-status
| professional parents and right-wing values. Studying a more
| academic field was a weaker predictor for left-wing values and
| middle-class parents. If anything, the elite saw higher
| education more as an investment, while the middle class was
| more likely to treat it as an opportunity to do interesting
| things.
| tempsy wrote:
| it's more like people tricked into going into the finishing
| school route at a non-elite college, not about whether you come
| from a rich family or not and don't need to take on debt.
|
| Go to an Ivy League and major in history and you still have a
| better chance at getting a job at an elite investment bank than
| someone who goes to a non target state school and majors in
| statistics or something.
| gloryjulio wrote:
| Yes, basically lots of low tier unis are not worth wasting ur
| money on.
|
| Ironically, I learnt the most important skills(learn how to
| learn effectively, prioritization etc) only after I started
| to work in a company where I was getting coached. I would
| have been far more efficient if go back to school now.
| tempsy wrote:
| i wouldn't say that. i just think if you go to a lower
| ranked school your path to career success more so relies on
| getting a technical degree but yes you shouldn't be
| studying liberal arts at a no name school.
| pasttense01 wrote:
| While these no name schools don't have a reputation
| nationally, they do have a reputation locally. So if you
| are looking for a job within a 50 to 100 mile (or
| whatever) radius of this university it will help in
| getting a job.
| gloryjulio wrote:
| You just proved my point. Since most of the ppl do need
| to work for money and success or their quality of life
| suffers.They would need something like unis, trade
| school, online schools or whatever to bring them to their
| goal. By this standard lots of low tier unis are not
| worth the time
| tempsy wrote:
| no i didn't. it's not about the ranking it's about what
| you choose to study. if you go to a lower ranked school
| you need to focus on technical skills. saying it's not
| worth it in general is not what i said at all
| gloryjulio wrote:
| u changed my word again. i never mentioned ranking like
| the one u read in the media. i said tier because i meant
| the actual usefulness whether they r teaching aligns with
| ur goal. Ultimately it's about how useful they r to the
| students. I literally bring up effective studying as my
| own example and do u think the unis have this as an
| actual subject?
|
| I'm not sure what u r trying to argue here, especially
| when u keep changing my word. U know exactly what I meant
| and u r just looking to be a contrarian
| hgsgm wrote:
| That's what parent&thread said. Technical trade was
| mentioned as a category
| tempsy wrote:
| yes i know. i'm just clarifying for the above comment
| that all lower ranked colleges are not worth attending
| gloryjulio wrote:
| > lots of low tier unis
|
| My original post is still up there you know. I never said
| ALL
| mysterydip wrote:
| Might be considered part of #2, but "feeder program for
| professional athletes" would be another goal for some.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Or #1 possibly...
|
| The whole American college athletics thing is crazy, and
| almost completely disjointed from the rest of what "college"
| is.
| [deleted]
| solatic wrote:
| Not just three uses, but also three fundamentally different
| offerings:
|
| 1. If you're looking for a professional trade school, go to a
| state school for undergrad. Every elite graduate who joins a
| BigCo after finishing finds themselves shoulder-to-shoulder
| with ten state school graduates who paid a fraction as much as
| they did to get to the same exact place.
|
| 2. If you're looking for an elite finishing school, well,
| there's only so many schools at the top. Ivies or Stanford or
| bust. If you don't get in, or can't afford to go, well, this
| route simply isn't open to you. Just don't fool yourself into
| thinking some small land grant college few people have heard of
| will give you the same thing. Elite finishing schools are what
| they are because of the connections you form there, not the
| educations they offer.
|
| 3. You have a much stronger head-start on the rest of the
| academic market if you start at one of a handful of schools,
| places like MIT or CalTech. You can, of course, still end up in
| academia coming from a state school, but it's much, much harder
| to stand out, much harder to get involved with undergraduate
| research, much harder to put together a strong academic
| portfolio not for _any_ graduate school but for _connected_
| graduate schools.
| ouid wrote:
| A university is where you go to be exposed to the most correct
| way of thinking that we have.
|
| Sure, they offer other services, and the administrations of
| these institutions have turned them into capitalist hellscapes
| which warp even the original service, but the ultimate point of
| a university _is_ an apprenticeship. Just in thinking instead
| of plumbing.
|
| This is what education should be, and everyone should receive
| it. I am not convinced of the value of pre-university
| education, so perhaps we should just do it earlier.
|
| It doesn't scale the way a business typically scales. You can't
| automate it or fit it under an ever lengthening hierarchy, but
| it does in fact scale incredibly well.
|
| Everyone who is taught to think better can teach others to
| think better.
|
| The market is not correcting itself. The market is destroying
| the premise of a university.
| loldk wrote:
| [dead]
| dividefuel wrote:
| As a millennial, the advice we often received was "just go to
| college, it'll almost always be worth it." Now, the advice I give
| to those younger is "go to college but only once you know what
| you're trying to get out of it." While colleges can let you
| explore subjects that you're interested in, they don't do much to
| help you explore careers you might be interested in.
|
| Paying for a degree before you know roughly how you want to use
| it costs you time and money. I'd say 3 out of 4 people in my peer
| group graduated college without a clear idea of what to do next,
| which delayed many of them several years in starting their
| career.
|
| About half of those 3/4s bumbled through different fields trying
| to find something that clicked, and some ultimately went back to
| school for a different, more specific career. The other half let
| inertia win and started grad school immediately, though many of
| those ultimately dropped out anyway. Even of those who stuck with
| grad school, few have landed anything stable even 10 years later.
|
| However, those in the 1 out of 4 with a dedicated end goal
| (engineer, doctor, professor, etc.) have fared much better.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > go to college but only once you know what you're trying to
| get out of it.
|
| Unfortunately by the time you figure that out, they don't want
| seem to want you.
| [deleted]
| mrtweetyhack wrote:
| [dead]
| dpflan wrote:
| Is there where ChatGPT and GPT-4 and the like can be helpful? I
| know a few days the discussion of AI tutors was double edged, but
| if we focus on the later stages of schooling / career path, can
| AI tutors be useful for advancing the fields where
| apprenticeships make sense?
| stillbourne wrote:
| I've been saying this for almost 15 years now. Industries like
| Software Development need to abandon college and return to the
| guild system. Start as an apprentice, move to journeyman, become
| a master, and eventually an artisan. All the time training your
| juniors. I'm not saying there is no place for college but it
| needs to relegated to the jobs that need it, doctors, lawyers,
| etc.
| rr808 wrote:
| I know a bunch of kids in high school so are killing themselves
| trying to get into the top seletive colleges. Its nuts - the
| worst thing is if you get in those schools are now filled with
| the same people who spent their childhood jumping through college
| admission hoops. Where do smart normal kids go now? My employer
| used to hire from Ivy League schools exclusively but thanks to
| zoom we can cast a much wider net.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Colleges are failing students. They pay lip service to the
| mission of education while prioritizing the growth in f
| administration.
|
| How is it the cost of college has increased far faster than
| inflation yet learning outcomes haven't improved? Student teacher
| ratios haven't improved. Professor salaries haven't improved.
| Real education (teachers and students) need to become the
| priority again.
| ar9av wrote:
| It really depends man. I joined the plumbers union and don't
| regret it at all I hated school. Getting a degree these days you
| really gotta be careful what you pick and knowing someone getting
| a good job goes a long way. Also it's expensive, some kids are
| very lucky and there parents get to pay college for them and
| don't have to worry about being in debt paying loans for the next
| 10+ years. But trades isn't for everybody, and neither is school
| so it depends on the person.
| devteambravo wrote:
| I think we need to treat apprenticeships better. We need a
| stronger blue collar sector. At the same time, I'm worried about
| this trend towards anti-intellectualism I'm sensing these days..
| It smells fascist, and that is bad.
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| College made sense for a very long time because a lot of books
| were hard to come by for regular folk, and the cost was
| reasonable.
|
| They were great places for young adults to complete the
| transition to "adult", to experiment and figure how who they want
| to be.
|
| These days the costs seem to far outstrip the benefits, and the
| Internet makes so much more accessible at a young age.
|
| Parents and kids are finding it hard to justify hundreds of
| thousands of dollars just to "figure things out", as we used to.
| loeg wrote:
| Probably a good thing! Four year degrees are oversubscribed and
| have been a low ROI for many students (the "please cancel student
| debt" crowd).
| ar9av wrote:
| It depends on the job/career the person is going for.
|
| Some jobs; doctors, lawyers, psychologists... would need a book
| based education that can't be taught in an apprenticeship or by
| just hand-on training.
|
| Other jobs like carpenter and plumbers and mechanics, people
| could probably learn most stuff by just hands on experience,
| going out and doing things and figuring out how to do it better,
| but would need an apprenticeship to learn how to deal with
| meeting building and safety codes based on where they live.
|
| I'm I network engineer for a global company, and I credit all of
| my knowledge to simple hands on experience and google. I learned
| a lot about networks just from my time in the military, used that
| to get civilian jobs that were more complicated and I had more to
| learn, and when ever I hit a point I couldn't get past, I'd ask
| someone or ask google, OR just keep smacking my head into that
| wall until I figured it out. My B.S. degree in computer science
| is more of just that... bs, then the hands on experience I gained
| over the past 20+ years.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Father of 5 (graduated) FL k-12 kids here. FL schools needed some
| things more than others.
|
| - To reflect the actual economic reality of most FL kids, high
| schools needed less 4yr college prep and more trade/job prep.
| Being ready for years of employment is better than being ready
| for years of impossible or debt-laden college.
|
| - A school year that ends on Halloween and begins after the new
| year. Kids are better off in A/C during our 13 month summers and
| outside during our 15min of not-summer (when all the holidays are
| going on).
|
| - High schools that start after Elementary and Middle - to allow
| needed sleep (a FL rep just intro'd a bill for this!)
|
| Instead FL kids got leveraged into a culture war that they never
| asked for - all so Gov can select parent rights.
| 21eleven wrote:
| Once upon a time if you wanted to study you went to the library.
| All the smart people were hanging out around libraries and
| Universities started to appear. Universities had classes and
| libraries.
|
| Now we have the internet. How does this affect the value of a
| University education?
| dackdel wrote:
| amazing news
| Eumenes wrote:
| I didn't go to college, nor did a few of my best friends - we all
| work in tech/IT. Careers spanning development to sales and IT. We
| make good income, have little if any debt, and all own homes.
| Compare us to some of our peers from high school who went to
| college, many still live at home and have some pretty typical
| Fortune 500 paper pusher jobs. I think what set us apart was our
| general interest in nerdy/tech things from a young age. We built
| computers, modded video games, learned to code, worked on cars,
| etc. We all came from very low to middle class backgrounds too.
| Didn't have parents uber concerned about their legacy and if
| their kid was going to be a "loser" or not. Ironically, most of
| us made more $$ than those parents by our mid to late 20s.
| chernevik wrote:
| College was by and large killed when politics confused the
| correlation with higher income for cause. We've since wasted a
| lot of time and money "educating" people who didn't want and
| couldn't profit from college, and in the process muddied
| standards so as to pretend they actually belonged. At this point
| college has been watered down to a huge waste of time and money.
|
| The market and society are beginning to correct and that's a very
| good thing.
| BashiBazouk wrote:
| I don't subscribe to college as primarily a way to pump out
| worker bees. People should have access to learning beyond that to
| which ends only in employment. Cut the bloated administration,
| figure out how to lower costs and tailor to different learning
| models and schedules. Make it affordable and not to difficult to
| register for those in the community who are post college or post
| college age to take classes. Don't be afraid to teach trades.
| Adapt.
| ibn_khaldun wrote:
| College stinks, but what will happen to "blue collar" young
| people who do not make it into the "white collar" apprenticeship
| pipeline, who would have previously achieved so through college.
| Oh yeah, well they can just choose college. But as this
| apprenticeship thing becomes more popular, what will the
| competition be like?
|
| Young people! The labor market is turtling...what are we going to
| do?
|
| Edit: I'm choosing a more tasteful description for the American
| labor market. Thank you for expressing your distaste with the
| original one.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| As someone who racked up nearly $80K in debt going to art school,
| I think they're making the right choice (mostly). In some cases
| it really makes sense to go to college, but it's a terrible model
| for many skills.
| zabzonk wrote:
| Not to be rude or unsypathetic, but did you think that spending
| $80K was going to turn you into an artist?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| college isn't quite equivalent to trade school, it wasn't
| really about getting a degree in a career field until it
| became so outrageously expensive that you needed to
| constantly consider how you'd pay it back
| zabzonk wrote:
| my point was that "art", while certainly a viable career
| should you have talent, cannot be taught.
|
| a bit like programming, or anything else, when i come to
| think of it...
| danielvaughn wrote:
| If it can't be taught, then the same must be true of many
| other professions. You need to have a drive for it, sure.
| And in some sense, quality is more subjective than in
| other fields. But just because it's more subjective
| doesn't mean it's entirely subjective - there's a
| baseline level of knowledge that you really need to know,
| and that can be taught.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| most of the greatest masters were taught art from
| childhood, it's not magic
| zabzonk wrote:
| most of the great masters children did not become great
| artists
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| the outcome of their kids doesn't change the fact that
| most of them were taught and raised as artists
| ldhough wrote:
| "Cannot be taught" is a pretty strong claim. I'm not an
| artist but it is my understanding that at least some
| forms of art (classical, sculpting) require at least some
| degree of instruction, and being in school is probably
| going to provide easier access to resources like models.
| A quick google search with artists I'm familiar with
| (Michelangelo, Caravaggio, da Vinci) confirms all were
| apprenticed to other artists.
|
| Anecdotally I think my programming skills also benefited
| from a formal education, though there are without a doubt
| many self-taught developers who far exceed my skill.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| I was a very good artist, and when I was 18 I genuinely
| believed that college would turn me into a professional
| artist. I'm not saying this to brag, but I did have a level
| of talent that I could have turned into a career. So it
| wasn't a crazy idea at the time.
|
| What I found, however, was that the education I received
| wasn't what I wanted or needed. In my senior year we were
| still being taught things that I had known since I was a
| teenager. But by the time I realized how much of a mistake it
| was, I felt it wouldn't have made sense to quit, because
| having a degree with 80K in debt is better than having no
| degree with 60K in debt.
| [deleted]
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Just because the person did not have a successful art career
| doesn't mean they aren't and artist and didn't become a
| better one.
| zabzonk wrote:
| of course, anyone can be an artist (or not). my point is
| that you don't have to spend $80K to potentially fail in
| becoming one.
|
| interesting to see that talent might beat out education is
| no longer an idea here
| kdmccormick wrote:
| Talent beating out education is OBVIOUSLY still an idea
| here, you're just asking disingenuous, leading questions.
|
| Is $80k on its own supposed to turn a non-artist into an
| artist? No, nobody is saying that. You need to be
| talented to get admitted in the first place.
|
| Would $80k lead to lessons, connections, and experiences
| that could make an artist's career more successful? Quite
| possibly. Or not. It's a risky investment: you pay a lot,
| and maybe it pays off, maybe you break even, maybe you
| end up behind.
|
| I'm not defending the >$80k price tag of art school. I'm
| saying that it's not irrational for a budding artist to
| see it as worth the gamble.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| With there being a huge shortage in trades and other roles
| where they'll provide an apprenticeship, versus credential
| inflation and jobs requiring a bachelor's just for entry level
| positions, it makes sense to go where you're valued as a worker
| and be catered to instead of having your originated student
| loans extracted from you for simply a chance at a white collar
| job.
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/forget-college-skilled-trades-are-f...
|
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/despite-rising-salaries-th...
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| Many trades will be much more protected against AI gains as
| well
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Indeed! LLMs ain't gonna be performing electrical,
| plumbing, earthwork, welding, or carpentry anytime soon. If
| anything, its going to flush out the bullshit jobs while
| the economy is in a position to reward those performing
| higher value work.
| helsinki wrote:
| This assumes there will be people that can afford to pay
| them for their work...
| ldhough wrote:
| I agree but according to the BLS employment numbers are
| as follows in the US:
|
| Electrician: 650k
|
| Plumber: 469k
|
| Earthwork: Don't see an exact match
|
| Welding: 428k
|
| Carpentry: 668k
|
| Software Devs, QA, & Testing: 1.62m
|
| Programmers: 152k
|
| Not sure how they differentiate between devs &
| programmers but even if we just take the 1.62m figure it
| is well over half the total employment in those trades.
| If software devs get 75-90% replaced (I don't think it'll
| be this bad and for my own sake as an early career dev I
| really hope not but I don't see it as impossible) I
| imagine most white collar jobs are coming with us. Will
| the trades pay as well when a ton of people are looking
| to reskill into something that still exists?
| mnd999 wrote:
| Did you have fun though? Because imho, that's part of the
| point.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| There's more fun to be had with 80k than college.
| kdmccormick wrote:
| Like?
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Youre really asking for examples?
|
| - couple years off traveling the world all expenses paid
|
| - buying a small lake cabin near family and friends, or
| down payment on a very nice place.
|
| - 10 years of international, three-week vacations
|
| - retiring 10 years early because over 40 years that'll
| be almost 1.3 million.
|
| - you could get the college experience but for twice as
| long by not paying for classes
|
| - take less expensive classes, live at home, and work
| more, and end up with much less debt, then spend 80k on
| your first house down payment.
|
| Im not trying very hard, but I had way more fun after
| college than in it, it seems obvious that there might be
| better ways to have fun with 80k, that's all. Maybe I'm
| wrong.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| I made a lot of great memories, but I also would have made a
| lot of great memories in a different environment that didn't
| saddle me with a ton of debt. I do believe that having an
| extended period of time away from the "real world", where you
| can learn and figure things out, is useful. But (a) I don't
| think it's only applicable to young people, and (b) with just
| a little ingenuity you could replicate those same conditions
| for faarrrr cheaper.
| [deleted]
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Maybe so, but then you have the un-fun of being $80K in debt
| and trying to pay it back on jobs you can get with an arts
| degree.
|
| Maybe there's more efficient ways of having fun.
| Minor49er wrote:
| The point is to get an education that can be used to get into
| more valuable areas of employment. $80k is a lot to spend on
| fun when fun can be found for free
| mnd999 wrote:
| You're doing both, that's the point. Too many folks on
| hacker news see everything in black and white.
| theusus wrote:
| Wish I had received apprenticeship. It's far better than
| academics and teaches one practical skills.
| wootland wrote:
| I wish it were easier to get a visa and move to another country
| without a degree. As someone without a degree, that's been the
| most annoying issue.
|
| The best parts are: not having student loans and not having a
| mindset that grinding within "the system" leads to success.
| rg111 wrote:
| I did my Master's degree solely for visa. Nothing else.
|
| What little I learned in Master's, I could have learned from
| online MIT/GaTech/Michigan/Stanford courses with much more
| flexibility, and for free. And a lot better quality, too.
|
| All the "network" I built that was of any value to me was made
| in mailing lists, Twitter, Google Groups, and later Discord.
| tester756 wrote:
| Haha, I did the same.
|
| I've found like a week or so before deadline on applying to
| master's program that master's can make
|
| getting visa easier and I've decided that spending every 2nd
| weekend at school for 1.5 year may be worth it
|
| Unfortunately majority of the courses were just waste of time
| :(
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I just took 2 years of a redneck tech school (EET technician
| trade school).
|
| Didn't have much choice. I'd pretty much trashed my life, by the
| time I was 18, and needed to rebuild it, with limited resources.
|
| Turned out to have worked out well, for me; although the school,
| itself, is now long gone. It was basically one of those wrench
| academies that popped up, after Vietnam, to suckle from the teat
| of the GI Bill (many of my classmates were Vietnam vets. The GI
| Bill was awesome).
|
| The main thing that it taught me, was professionalism and self-
| discipline. It was also pretty current, for the tech (colleges
| tend to be a lot farther behind; at least in undergraduate).
|
| But I had to do a great deal of personal bootstrapping, after
| that, to do OK.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Price of college is going up. Wages are stagnating. Quite
| unfortunately, it makes perfect sense that fewer people would
| think the expense is worthwhile. I wish we offered free high
| quality university educations. The USA can coast on its dominance
| for only so long before the lack of educated people sinks us.
| doomain wrote:
| I don't think most colleges make sense, except for the social
| life. I did my first university for the studies, and I didn't use
| any of it. Then I started a second one just for the parties and
| social life, and I hardly studied anything. The second one was
| much better...
| newhotelowner wrote:
| My daughter got rejected from one of the UC. They received 130+k
| application for 6k openings.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| I'll guess ether Berkeley or UCLA? That's why you apply to more
| than one.
|
| Even the Cal States aren't bad schools, you can get a quality
| education at a fraction of the price.
| david927 wrote:
| Someone in this thread wrote this:
|
| _" California Universities just had the most applications in
| history. UCLA 145k applicants, UCSD 130k applicants.
| Respectively they are both down now to about a 3% and 5%
| acceptance rate due to the spike. Might be Covid holdovers due
| to a gap year, or with the economy as it is, out of state
| applications have dropped."_
|
| If it's true, that's crazy. Up until this year, I think the
| lowest acceptance rate was Princeton at 3.9%.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| Yeah, the UC's application system is a bit ... disingenuous is
| the wrong word, but it's a win-win for applicants and colleges:
| all the applicant has to do is check all the boxes and pay the
| not-terrible application fees and bam, they've applied to all
| the schools. This pretty much forces all the students to apply
| to most, if not all, of the campuses. Which gives every UC
| campus the maximum possible applicant pool.
| ghaff wrote:
| Unless evaluating the applications is centralized, I'm not
| sure it's a great win for schools.
|
| As someone who has been on the conference committee for quite
| a few events, I often think that having some friction or even
| strict limits to submitting a proposal isn't the worst thing
| in the world. In theory, you want the widest possible pool.
| In practice, each proposal/application takes some time to
| evaluate and, especially given conferences obviously don't
| have quantitative filters like GPA or SAT, picking the best
| 50 sessions out of a few hundred is generally a lot less
| random than picking the best 50 out of 2,000.
| analog31 wrote:
| The acceptance ratio is a poor measure, because applying to
| multiple schools is easy. Likewise, I first remember
| skyrocketing ratios of applicants to job openings when laser
| printers became ubiquitous.
|
| In between college versus apprenticeship, students could apply
| for both and then pick the one that seems like the best deal.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| YIMBYism in California has been and will continue to be about
| expanding the schools (and not just building new ones in
| bumbfuck) a lot.
| chitowneats wrote:
| Good.
| psaux wrote:
| California Universities just had the most applications in
| history. UCLA 145k applicants, UCSD 130k applicants. Respectively
| they are both down now to about a 3% and 5% acceptance rate due
| to the spike. Might be Covid holdovers due to a gap year, or with
| the economy as it is, out of state applications have dropped.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Relevant book: The Case Against Education
| https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/d...
|
| Written by an economics professor, this book argues that much of
| the value of education is signaling, and that we greatly over-
| school many kids.
| kello wrote:
| Over here in Germany they have well-established apprenticeship
| programs for many more jobs than in the US. There are
| apprenticeships for software developers, for bankers, for
| "Burokauffrau/Burokaufmanm" (office clerks/administrators), for
| media work, for all sorts of medical jobs, and so on. You name
| it, and there is probably an "Ausbildung" (apprenticeship) for it
| here. The apprenticeship programs are still somewhat not as
| "prestigious" as going to university, but they will get you in
| the door at a company for that job.
|
| Many people even combine the two, opting to do an apprenticeship
| and follow it up with studies, or vice-versa, or do both at the
| same time.
| dgb23 wrote:
| Same here in Switzerland. Apprenticeships are called
| "Erstausbildung" (First education) now. It's regarded as a
| stepping stone.
| Version467 wrote:
| I wish we would try to bring the german apprenticeship program
| back to its former glory. It's such a shame that we started
| expecting university degrees for more and more jobs just to
| appear more compatible with the international job market.
|
| The german apprenticeship program was a fantastic (and unique)
| feature of the german economy. Not every job needs a bachelors
| degree. Quite the opposite actually. Many positions that hire
| fresh university graduates could fill the position much better
| with well trained people who already have lots of hands on
| experience. Instead we have tons of people with bachelors
| degrees that basically need to be trained from scratch because
| the education they got was waaayy too theoretical.
|
| Unfortunately the apprenticeship program is now far less
| prestigious than a bachelors degree (which is also heavily
| reflected in pay). So anyone who _can_ go to university won 't
| choose an apprenticeship.
|
| Such a wasted opportunity.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Software developers also don't make that much in Germany. You
| also need to get past the apprenticeship gatekeepers. No
| thanks.
| finikytou wrote:
| American education became a joke. what used to be a beacon of
| light for people all over the world became a grotesque expensive
| joke and people don't want to pay six digits to be educated PC
| stuff that those uni are pushing now. especially when most of
| those kids are way more educated about this topics than the
| schools. what they want is to learn things that will help them in
| their professional life so that they can earn enough.
|
| Europe is same btw. no surprise asian countries edge us into
| STEM.
| yutijke wrote:
| I went to undergrad in India so YMMV for the primarily North
| American population here.
|
| A lot of people look back at college fondly, but to me it just
| felt like a lot of time and money spent for skills that I had to
| acquire on my own any way.
|
| It was a common opinion among my friends that other non STEM
| majors seemed to have an easier undergrad life where they could
| find time to explore things rather than trying to build their
| profile for the cutthroat competition in the Indian tech
| industry.
|
| It felt very wasteful to spend hours on all that theoretical
| knowledge and the Leetcode rat race while knowing they will
| heavily atrophy from lack of use the moment you get your first
| job. It left you wondering if it was worth it in the end.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| well what would your job prospects have been with a non-STEM
| degree?
| darepublic wrote:
| In light of the looming threat to many white collar jobs this is
| sensible
| analog31 wrote:
| First of all, I'm optimistic about this. Apprenticeships could
| even trickle up. Here's what I mean. The article talks about an
| apprenticeship in the insurance industry where you're taking
| college classes while working a day job. This could expand into
| other areas, such as junior engineers / designers / programmers.
| It might not replace college, but turn college into something
| that blends with job training in a more explicit way, so that
| it's not an either-or choice.
|
| But I'm wary because we don't know the breadth of what these
| apprenticeships actually look like, the long term prospects of
| the people who go through them, or the attrition rate. Remember
| the private for-profit college scandals. College graduates have
| been studied to death, but has the same scrutiny been applied to
| the trades?
| etothepii wrote:
| Insurance is the only profession I know of where there are many
| senior leaders in their forties without a degree.
| analog31 wrote:
| Traditionally, how did they get in? Did they come up through
| sales, or through family businesses?
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| There are multiple paths and different designations you
| need to earn to work them. The more letters you can get
| after your name, the better. So you don't need a degree,
| but there is a moat to cross.
|
| Agencies: oops, all sales!
|
| Claims Adjustment: small claims to bigger claims. These are
| usually independent outfits that service many carriers for
| their geographic area. In some jurisdictions you can get
| hired with no experience but you will earn more if you have
| any kind of background in accounting or appraisal.
|
| Quote & Bind | CSR >> assistant underwriter >> underwriter
| >> sr. underwriter. These are your big corpo jobs at an
| operations center.
| jt2190 wrote:
| > Today, colleges and universities enroll about 15 million
| undergraduate students, while companies employ about 800,000
| apprentices. In the past decade, college enrollment has declined
| by about 15%, while the number of apprentices has increased by
| more than 50%, according to federal data and Robert Lerman, a
| labor economist at the Urban Institute and co-founder of
| Apprenticeships for America.
|
| So in the last decade: Apprentices
| Undergraduates 2013 400,000 ~17,600,000
| 2023 ~800,000 15,000,000
|
| Edit: Looking at these rough numbers, there are 2.2 million
| people unaccounted for, far more than increased the ranks of
| Apprentices. Where did they go if not into Apprenticeships?
| karlkatzke wrote:
| Good. Needs to happen. Was talking to our HVAC repair dude. He
| makes as much as I do with a high school education and two years
| of trade school. Adjusting for age, he definitely makes more than
| I did at 34.
|
| No reason to send kids who want to work with their hands to four
| year colleges and saddle them with 100k in debt when they can
| work through a trade school, be done at 20, and have no student
| loan debt.
| clintonb wrote:
| I assume you work in software.
|
| How hard does the HVAC guy work? I wager if you compared wages
| earned per hour worked (not just employed), you come out ahead.
| You probably beat doctors and lawyers, too.
|
| Large salaries mean nothing if you don't account for how much
| effort is expended to earn the money.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I.e., pay to quality of life at work ratio (which includes
| volatility of pay).
|
| This is always the answer to the question "why can't we find
| workers for x job".
| the_only_law wrote:
| Yeah I had nurse friends who had impressive pay on paper, but
| we're desperate to work in anything else because the shifts
| were hellish.
| vonwoodson wrote:
| The Wall Street Journal is just News Corp.
|
| We should not spread fake news here.
| Mc91 wrote:
| I have been programming for a Fortune 500 company for four years.
| Not long ago, I applied for a job at another Fortune 500 company.
| HR really had only question for me, they saw on my resume I did
| not have a college degree listed, and did I have one? I said I
| went through most of college towards a Bachelors in Computer
| Science but dropped out before graduation. I did not get the job,
| although I don't know if that's why. Same thing has happened in
| the past with other HR departments. It's not completely fatal,
| but it's not helpful either, rather the opposite.
|
| I went to a good state school and didn't rack up any debt while
| going to college.
|
| In recent headier times, a BSCS was a preferred requirement. In
| the current environment, I can easily see job listings on
| Linkedin that say a BSCS is a minimum requirement.
|
| It's just another stumbling block that can be in your path. Some
| people don't have a problem with it in their career, and in
| headier times it doesn't matter, but when layoffs are happening
| as they are now, and companies are flooded with dozens or
| hundreds of resumes, an easy thing to do is just look who has a
| BSCS and who doesn't and put the latter in the wastebasket.
| hippich wrote:
| Check out uopeople.edu. you should be able to transfer most of
| credits and finish it off in your own time. If nothing else, to
| not have these stupid questions from hr
| gautamdivgi wrote:
| I hate to say this but you were probably an unfortunate bait
| for a labor certification of an existing employee on an h1b
| visa.
|
| That is generally the only reason companies will stick to the
| bscs requirement. Normally if you have requisite experience the
| degree - especially bscs is not needed.
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| I can't speak to other industries, but many of the companies
| that I've worked for the last two decades as a software
| engineer required or at the very least strongly recommended a
| BS in computer science.
| ianmcgowan wrote:
| Maybe at software companies, but if you're looking for
| corporate IT jobs (which can be pretty cush, referring back
| to the thread about that), a degree or sometimes even a
| masters is a requirement.
|
| When I was a middle-manager in Bank IT, I would fight with HR
| about it, but they still used to filter out people without
| degrees or the "right" degrees.
|
| I had a reverse filter - there was no point bringing someone
| with a CS degree in, they'd be bored to death in three
| months; but for people coming from helpdesk/tech support it
| was a huge step up in their careers/salary and they were fine
| with the "writing/supporting boring CRUD apps for 40 hours a
| week" trade-off.
| michaelt wrote:
| Eh, there _is_ plenty of h1b nonsense, but asking for a
| degree is hardly unusual.
|
| Just like quizzing people about sorting algorithms. People
| love to imagine the core of their job is difficult,
| intellectual problems that need super-smart people - so they
| don't have to admit the main challenge is maintaining
| motivation in the face of corporate BS like SOC2.
| [deleted]
| Zetice wrote:
| Asking about a degree isn't the same as requiring one for
| the role.
|
| Every employer will ask, but at this point for software
| devs, it's only ever used as an excuse to disqualify
| someone for other reasons (e.g. h1b stuff) if they don't
| have it.
| bluedino wrote:
| A job opened on my team where I am working at as contractor. My
| boss told me to apply for the job.
|
| I got an email back right away from HR stating that I didn't
| meet the requirements of having a degree.
|
| Joke's on them, I already work there.
| kcplate wrote:
| I had a similar situation where the lack of a specific degree
| algorithmicly sorted me out of a job where i was not only an
| expert in some extremely vertical tech, but a known person
| within the industry for the tech and probably the only person
| in my metro area with the ability currently looking for new
| opportunities.
|
| After I got the rejection email i called their HR and asked
| to just lay my resume on the desk of the COO abd was told "no
| can do because i wasn't qualified"
|
| I got so frustrated that their HR dept was so tone deaf, I
| decided the org was a bad fit for me.
|
| Later on had connected with one of the executives after I
| moved on to another org and an industry expo. Told him the
| story and he was horrified that they missed the opportunity.
|
| The moral to the story is you need to get via networking if
| you don't have a degree thanks to the rigidity of HR
| nowadays.
| 71a54xd wrote:
| Hate to say it, but this is why I'm incredibly glad I didn't
| drop out of college even though I had a solid gig ready to go.
|
| I knew I wasn't cut out for being an perpetual founder and that
| I'd definitely encounter greater challenges not having a degree
| than the challenges standing between me and my degree at that
| point in time. ($7k and 1 year of my life with classes I wasn't
| sure I could stomach).
|
| Wish you the best, but for those considering this always assume
| you maybe aren't the best - think about what comforts you're
| giving up. I will say, anyone you talk to on the college /
| dropout risk/reward problem are highly biased. Dropouts who
| have achieved success are susceptible to survivorship bias and
| will vehemently tell you college isn't necessary. PHD's will
| always espouse college as the only route because they burned
| their entire 20's in college.
| loldk wrote:
| [dead]
| twodave wrote:
| Yeah, that's a bummer. Statistically speaking you're better off
| finishing it if you want to maximize the number of places that
| would be willing to hire you. That said, it can also work in
| your favor not to finish since it might weed out companies you
| wouldn't want to work for anyway. I'll say anecdotally of the
| half dozen or so places I've worked and been involved in hiring
| software developers--a college degree would only be relevant if
| you had no other experience to speak of. When I look at a
| resume I'm looking for "stuff this person has done". Even for
| entry level, I'd rather talk about a hobby project they spent
| some legitimate time on that whatever a candidate did in
| college.
| InvaderFizz wrote:
| I got my degree at 35 because of this. Not that I actually
| learned much of anything in the program, I was there purely for
| the paper.
|
| This is where schools like WGU excel for those of us just
| seeking credentials for what we already know. The terms are six
| months, you can do as many courses as you want during that six
| months. Over half the courses are just a final exam. You take a
| pre-test on day one of the course. If you score high enough,
| you can take the final exam the same day and be done with the
| course. If one were very determined and knew most of the
| material going in, you could complete a BS in six months for a
| total cost of under $4000.
| truetraveller wrote:
| Did you do WGU? How long did getting a degree take start to
| finish? Did you have pre-credits?
| InvaderFizz wrote:
| I did go to WGU. It took me way too long. Over 4 years
| because I put almost zero effort in and did most everything
| at the end of the 6 month term. I wasn't much motivated to
| do the courses as I was battling depression, dealing with a
| wife and child with health issues, and was the sole
| breadwinner.
|
| I would estimate that I put in less than 500 hours total
| towards my degree. I had like 15 pre-credits.
| MrLeap wrote:
| You're a champion. Well done getting your degree while
| yoked that hard.
| derbOac wrote:
| "seeking credentials for what we already know"
|
| Not about you at all in particular (quite the opposite), but
| this is what drives me into a frenzy of frustration about the
| world today. Seems like everything is about credentials and
| appearance rather than obvious potential or ability.
| ravagat wrote:
| +1 for WGU for explicitly getting the paperwork done. I've
| recommended this to self-taught peers, vets, and those with
| uncommon backgrounds who had to deal with paperwork bias.
|
| Congratulations on your degree, happy to see other folks take
| advantage of WGU. It's really good
| karaterobot wrote:
| When I hired people at a former company, I secretly thought of
| job candidates like you as undervalued stocks. Just being
| honest, don't mean any disrespect -- I mean undervalued in the
| sense of not being appreciated by other companies, not in how
| much we paid people.
|
| I myself have degrees, but not in anything like software
| development, and I think engineers who don't have degrees but
| _do_ exhibit all the other characteristics are just as
| talented, often more driven, practical, and reliable. Self-
| motivated, rather than something they fell into. Thinking of
| the five best engineers I 've worked with, two of them didn't
| go to school at all, and two had degrees in things like music
| or political science. I've had poor experiences with people
| whose main qualification is an engineering diploma from a name
| brand school.
|
| Of course there's a middle band in there where it gets more
| complicated, but generally I think smart, scrappy companies are
| eager to hire people like yourself, and I like working for that
| kind of company, personally.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Larger places tend to have blanket requirements in part to
| protect themselves from hiring lawsuits, discrimination, etc.
|
| I look at education when I hire but I'm more interested in
| experience and I never use a degree as a requirement. I am
| probably more likely to have the recruiter put the candidate
| into the pipeline if they have a CS degree but don't have much
| experience or experience that doesn't seem 100% relevant. But
| that's not super common.
| erikerikson wrote:
| Whatever your opinion may be, degrees are often seen as a
| heuristic for "can complete a long, hefty commitment".
| scrapcode wrote:
| I completed my BSCS at a state school in my 30s after already
| being a freelance/amateur programmer for many years. I can
| honestly say I did not learn a single new thing about
| programming. In fact, almost every single bit of the
| programming I learned was _completely_ wrong by todays
| standards, and rife with mistakes.
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| I would argue that it's not necessarily the job of a computer
| science degree to teach you programming, which is more about
| the craftsmanship and likely should be practiced and learned
| individually. Computer science is about the theoretics. I
| greatly value the CS education I received in linear algebra,
| discrete mathematics, etc. which I decidedly would not have
| learned on the job.
|
| If you just want to learn programming you may as well just
| enroll in a code camp.
| randcraw wrote:
| Sounds like you attended a bad school. I earned a MS in CS at
| age 30 atop my BS in zoology and 6 years of work as a
| programmer. My MSCS program introduced me to many new and
| useful concepts and techniques that have informed all the
| nontrivial computing tasks I've undertaken since, now 33
| years. That degree has proved to be the best investment of my
| life, by a large margin.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Why are you comparing a BS program to an MS program?
| paulpauper wrote:
| Nah, not a fan of the trades, sorry.
|
| Worse job prospects, lower wages, and also debt too. People think
| trades are cheaper. They are not. You incur a cost because of
| training, and also opportunity cost from not finding work as
| easily, and time spent training, which may be unpaid. And then
| lower wages. You are better off with a generic 4-year degree from
| a mid-ranking school than trades, imho. Student loan debt has way
| more payment options, lower interest rates, and forgiveness
| compared to trades debt.
|
| I'm assuming you are able to graduate from college. Dropouts
| would generally be better off going into the trades.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| A key facet seems to be missing from the threads here. Most
| Americans can't afford a 4-year college.
|
| ref:
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=study+found+percent+of+americans+c...
|
| Our (until recently, inexpensive) metro market requires 3-4
| typical incomes to meet basic expenses. The cost of a 4-year
| college simply isn't available for most folks.
| t344344 wrote:
| My friend got expelled in 5th semester after spending over $70k
| on education. His ex went nuclear after he dumped her, and
| somehow that was relevant to his education. Obviously no refunds
| or appeal!
|
| If you are at uni, treat is as a career. You do not shit where
| you eat! Big part of marketing is "socializing", but that comes
| with a huge risks to your future and investments.
|
| Apprenticeships do not care about your sex life!
| [deleted]
| kredd wrote:
| For every data point like this, there's also data like mine - I
| met incredible people during my university years. Especially
| the first two years when we all lived on campus, we were
| basically a family. Even though we're in different coasts of
| the continent, we still meet up 5-6 times a year, travel, some
| of us even married to each other.
|
| Socializing and making new friends in your late teens and 20s
| is an important part of one's life. Downplaying common space's
| (e.g. college, work and etc.) importance and looking at it from
| a perspective of ROI, minmaxing every aspect of it is probably
| not the healthiest look.
| t344344 wrote:
| My friend is not a data point. It destroyed his life and he
| still has to pay his student loans. There is no chance to get
| any money from person that did that to him.
|
| > Downplaying common space's (e.g. college, work
|
| I am not downplaying anything. At all those places male has
| to behave certain way. You do not drink at company xmass
| party, that is a common sense!
|
| You can have all of that without any risks. Become bartender
| at evenings, surf instructor or go apprentice route. College
| is not the only place!
|
| > For every data point like this
|
| Like 20% of women have problem [1] during their college
| years. That also means 20% of male students are on opposite
| side of this. I will not go into how data are measured and
| reported, but there is a huge chance to get stuck in this net
| as a male student!
|
| [1] https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/safety/sexual-
| assault-s...
| mkl95 wrote:
| Lately I have worked with many junior / mid level guys who
| studied CS in college. Meaning they graduated at some point in
| the last 3 to 5 years. All of them struggle with basic
| communication and tasks that involve working with other humans.
| It's like they spent all those years in some cave with no
| exposure whatsoever to the real world.
|
| I get that the goal of a CS degree is not to prepare you for the
| software industry, but it's the main goal of most CS students. I
| can see why college degrees are not as attractive as they used
| to.
| Mixtape wrote:
| Would you be willing to elaborate on what you've seen a bit?
| I'm on the last semester of my CS degree now and have
| definitely seen a lot of similar effects as a result of Zoom
| courses and general isolation during COVID lockdowns. There's
| generally less willingness to reach out to people than there
| used to be, and people seem to prefer dividing up tasks and
| working independently over collaborative work (e.g. each person
| in a group project having a "role" rather than working jointly
| on a large segment). There's also a general preference towards
| working at home without any external interaction whatsoever and
| a lack of willingness to form study groups. As I start moving
| into the job application phase of things, I can definitely see
| how these traits can be seen as off-putting to hiring managers,
| and I'd like to avoid falling into similar traps. Is there
| anything else you've noticed that would be worth avoiding?
| pyuser583 wrote:
| I know a lot of programmers who did poorly in secondary school,
| but thrived in college.
|
| In the past, apprenticeships were an extension of high school,
| not a replacement for college.
|
| I hope they get it right this time.
| cyberlurker wrote:
| Can Americans still go to university free in other countries like
| Germany? Why don't more students go to school abroad for cheaper?
| I'm sure it is not so simple, but I still think it is worth
| getting the paper just to get past HR.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I'd break college programs down into undergraduate and graduate
| divisions, and divide schools up based on admission price tag.
| Some issues:
|
| 1. The more expensive the school, the more likely it is to be
| something like a British public school for the inherited wealth
| class. Interestingly graduate programs are often somewhat
| neglected at such institutions, and they're not generally great
| research centers. Basically it's about hobnobbing so you can get
| a job at your pal's parent's hedge fund or whatever. (#2 on your
| list)
|
| 2. The cutting-edge research universities have inverted that
| model. Undergraduates are packed into huge auditoriums and taught
| by adjunct professors with the help of overworked grad students
| whose professors can't afford to pay them as a lab tech /
| research assistant. Here it's all about getting the big grant and
| publishing new research. Students who can negotiate this system
| successfully can get excellent technical education and experience
| at the upper-level undergrad / grad student level in fields like
| CS, biotech, engineering etc.(BS/MS). That's #1 on your list.
|
| 3. There's another category of student that benefits from the
| cheaper state schools, and that's due to high schools in the USA
| being woefully poor at providing a basic education. These schools
| - community colleges and state schools - generally have a two-
| year progam that does little more than revisit material that high
| schools failed to teach, like reading and algebra and
| introductory calculus and programming. The fact this is needed
| just reflects the poor quality of K-12 in so many places.
|
| The little secret that the big research universities don't want
| people to realize is that you can often get a better quality of
| instruction at most community colleges, due to small class sizes
| etc., then for the first two years at a big famous school. Hence
| it's wiser to do that and, assuming good grades, transfer in at
| the upper undergrad level for the courses and research lab access
| that small schools lack.
|
| I don't really know of any apprenticeship program that could give
| one the same level of experience with cutting-edge technology as
| something like an MS program in a quality university research
| program could. And for that you're going to need a college degree
| first, ideally avoiding massive debt along the way.
|
| As far as the struggle for professorships in the corporatized
| academic system, that's a complete political-bureaucratic game of
| chairs that doesn't really reward brilliance so much as it does
| Machiavellian capabilities. Trofim Lysenko would have fit right
| in to today's system. Try to avoid ending up in the Lysenko lab,
| whatever you do.
| lapcat wrote:
| I see some people in the comments claim that you can give
| yourself a good liberal arts education outside of college, using
| public libraries and the internet, but I'm skeptical. One
| commenter even repeated a quote about college being a waste of
| money from Good Will Hunting... which of course is a work of
| fiction. I attended a state university and still live relatively
| close to the campus, with a library card for the public library
| and surrounding library system; there's just no comparison: the
| university library has vastly, vastly more books and papers of an
| intellectual nature than the public library system. Moreover,
| university students have vastly more access to online resources
| of an intellectual nature than the general public. I would be
| extremely hard pressed now to access and re-read many of the
| things I read in school. It might be possible, but I'd have to
| buy most of them myself, probably online, for an obscene amount
| of money.
|
| College doesn't make you smart. I'm not sure to what extent it
| can teach you to think critically either. Those abilities may be
| innate, and I brought them with me to college. However, there are
| books and papers and ideas that I was exposed to in college that
| I never would have been exposed to if left to my own devices. I
| didn't even know they existed! Some of those books and papers and
| ideas were crucial to the development of my thinking. They
| influenced and changed me. This is a principal value of a college
| education. Your professors have spent decades reading and
| studying things that you've never heard of before, and they let
| you know about it. Even if important intellectual works were not
| paywalled behind a college tuition -- which I admit is an
| unfortunate situation for the public -- those works might get
| lost in obscurity anyway, because popular culture and market
| capitalism have little or no interest in promoting them to you.
|
| Students need guidance. There are a lot of people who are self-
| motivated, including myself, but that's not the same thing as
| self-guiding. You can guide yourself into a dead end if you don't
| already know where you're going.
| jonathantf2 wrote:
| One thing these articles usually fail to mention is the fact that
| college/university is also a huge social experience.
|
| I'm a young person who took an apprenticeship instead of going to
| university - only one of my high school friends did the same as
| me, literally everybody else went onto university. I'm from a
| small town, there's not much going on and apart from when all my
| friends come back at Christmas and those few weeks in the summer
| I'm not doing much of anything other than work and sitting on my
| computer. I imagine if I grew up in a city this would be
| completely different but there's not much opportunity to make
| friends of my age around here and I really really really wish I
| had gone to university just so I wouldn't be so damn lonely, even
| if learning on the job works better for me.
|
| (oh and the fact that most companies don't recognise the
| qualification I do have, makes it pretty much useless)
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Other social experiences that you pay a lot for include country
| clubs and Scientology.
| dudul wrote:
| There are probably cheaper ways to make friends.
| alsaaro wrote:
| As someone who has worked two of the most intensive blue collar
| jobs, people should be wary of romanticizing blue collar work.
|
| Blue collar workers are expected to really work at their jobs.
| White collar workers can chill if there is no work to be done, or
| be sent home early with pay, or take a relaxation day and just
| browse the internet and listen to podcasts. They have perks, you
| see white collar workers leaving work early to attend baseball
| games and do fun activities with their colleagues.
|
| Indeed, some white collar workers are so "underworked" they can
| literally work multiple full time remote jobs. Blue collar guys
| can't work remote, so expect to pay for child care and endure the
| mourning commute.
|
| Blue collar workers aren't necessarily paid based on merit, this
| is formally true if you work in a union-shop where promotions are
| primarily based on tenue; if non-union there may be no promotion
| path for most workers because management has a "fresh meat for
| the grinder" approach to entry level staffing.
|
| From a social perspective people don't respect blue collar
| workers. Believe that nobody who writes think pieces praising
| blue collar workers wants their daughters dating a blue collar
| worker or wants their children becoming them.
| suzzer99 wrote:
| If I was rich I would still make sure my kids worked at least
| one blue collar job in their teens. There's no substitute for
| first-hand experience in that world.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| That's pretty much all high school kids are qualified for.
| With some exception. Well, unskilled labor at least. Not
| quite synonymous with blue color but close.
| lolbert3 wrote:
| [dead]
| softfalcon wrote:
| My Dad made me do this. We were well off, but he pushed me to
| "get a job" to buy a computer so I could study for college. I
| worked as a janitor and construction labourer. Taught me
| right quick that I DEFINITELY wanted to pursue a degree in
| engineering or computer science.
|
| By contrast, my brother was never pushed in this way. He went
| to school, got good grades, finished his degree, and then
| just... never worked. He's a "yet to be successful" writer
| now. Goodness bless his wife's heart for supporting him,
| cause no one else will (ironic too, cause she's blue collar).
|
| Doing some real labour early on in life distills work ethic
| into someone. What is shocking is how lazy people will turn
| out if they aren't given that push early on so they learn
| what's what.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| It shouldn't be unrealistically romanticized, but with
| University tuitions only reaching ever higher, much faster than
| inflation what other good solution is there for Young Adults to
| get a career and secure their financial future? These options
| being elevated precisely because of out of control student debt
| and universities which face zero consequences to financially
| crippling their pupils.
| Avshalom wrote:
| well we made university free in New Mexico, and it's free or
| cheap in a lot of other places.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| That's great. I'm trying to figure out how it's funded. Did
| they have to raise new funding? Levy new taxes? Just
| wondering how they are able to afford it. I feel like this
| is how colleges should be. The minimal possible tuition
| required to operate. It's not like tuition increases have
| gone towards retaining professors or something.
|
| It's pretty insane to think 15k/year for in state tuition
| is "cheap."
|
| Edit: it seams like it's at least partially funded by
| lottery tickets. Which essentially means it's just
| prioritized higher than other states. Because most states
| find things through lottery tickets but don't have tuition
| free college.
| Avshalom wrote:
| New Mexico (and a lot of other states) has had a lottery
| funded scholarship for decades. We've had an oil boom for
| a few years and yeah mostly funded the remainder through
| oil revenues/permanent fund.
|
| But yes the fundamental notion is that we decided to fund
| it. And that's replicable anywhere, i promise, New Mexico
| is q bottom 3 poorest state in the country but we decided
| that college was important. Florida is awful in a lot of
| ways but when I lived there in the mid 00's the Sunshine
| State Scholarship covered 100% tuition and was
| automatically granted for like a B+ average, an A and
| some community service would get you room and board.
|
| Though when I said other places i meant non-US places.
| brightball wrote:
| Depends on the job I think. Every person I know who does any
| type of home contracting work that I know of is drowning in
| business and raising rates because of it.
|
| - HVAC
|
| - Plumbing
|
| - Electrical
|
| - General Contractor
|
| - Drywall specialists
|
| - Roofers
| specialist wrote:
| My millenial aged kid became an electrician. Mostly
| residential. Mostly remodel (vs new construction). The type
| of clientile that want fancy lights and legit security
| systems. And now early adopters of solar, batteries, and EVs.
|
| He'll have plenty of work for decades.
|
| It is hard on the body though. Which is why he stayed
| residential. So he claims; I would have guessed new
| construction commercial would easiest physically. Especially
| if you specialize (eg elevators).
| dimal wrote:
| This comment seems out of place because most of the article was
| describing apprenticeships for white collar jobs, and listed a
| bunch of white collar industries removing their college
| requirements.
| maximinus_thrax wrote:
| Most people just read the headline and jump to conclusions
| rr808 wrote:
| Its going to be fascinating how the preference for WFH affects
| the job market. I'd imagine on-location jobs to get paid more
| as supply dries up and everyone wants to work from home.
| Teachers/nurses/chefs were underpaid before, little wonder
| there is a shortage now, I expect they need much higher wages.
| harvey9 wrote:
| If you're in the nurse or chef employment market then I don't
| think you'll be affected by the WFH trend in white collar
| work. We already have a shortage of nurses and pay is
| stagnant.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Teacher salaries aren't so flexible. It will just result in
| lowering the hiring standards.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| You are romanticizing white collar jobs as much as you claim
| people do blue collar ones.
| Gamemaster1379 wrote:
| Isn't it a false dichotomy to suggest that a degree exclusively
| leads to white collar jobs and no degree leads to blue collar
| jobs?
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I think we need to be careful about romanticizing chilling on
| the job and being sent home early because there is no work.
| None of that sounds remotely sustainable and if that is your
| experience I recommend improving your situation as soon as
| possible.
| rthomas6 wrote:
| While this is all true, the article is about white collar
| apprenticeships.
| nemo44x wrote:
| If it requires a license or certification then it's generally a
| well paying career with options for the ambitious. It's why you
| see so many small shops because it's very accessible to start
| your own business after gaining years of experience,
| reputation, and connections.
| harvey9 wrote:
| I worked in a call center for a while. I'd call it light blue
| collar work. You don't get to listen to podcasts but these days
| you might get a remote position. Physical risk is mostly
| limited to RSI I guess.
| mikeg8 wrote:
| A call center is probably as opposite of blue collar as it
| gets. The term "blue collar" comes from the blue collards
| shirts factory and industrial workers used to wear, and is
| now synonymous with manual labor. There is nothing remotely
| close to manual labor at a call center. You just had the
| lowest tier of a white collar job.
| varispeed wrote:
| One of the reason is that blue collar workers ceded their
| leverage and bargaining power to unions, that not necessarily
| have their best interest in mind - unions work in their own
| interest and that depends on how well corporations can tip that
| interest in their favour using brown envelopes and other ways.
|
| At the same time the power of workers being able to create
| their own business and sell their services have been eroded
| over time, to the point that in some countries it is so
| regulated it is almost impossible for the workers to organise
| in small businesses providing services.
| wanderingmind wrote:
| While agreeing with all your points, I think blue collar jobs
| will get their mojo back soon, especially something not a
| repeat work, as they will be one of the few jobs that will
| remain after LLM and AI has automated most of the desk jobs (or
| at least severely reduced the number of people needed to be
| employed in them).
| nonethewiser wrote:
| It's also far more durable. Your startup might disappear in a
| downturn but your furnace won't.
| listless wrote:
| At the risk of sounding like a terrible person, I'd like to be
| honest for a second about why I went to college, which is to
| avoid this exactly reality that you just laid out.
|
| I enlisted in the military after finding college to be too
| boring for my taste. 3 months later I found myself doing the
| hardest manual labor of my life on a riverboat for the Coast
| Guard. The pay was not great and nobody cared if you didn't
| feel like working or were exhausted. The system (as is the
| military) is not merit based and the guys at the top were
| pretty awful to the ones at the bottom. By contrast, the
| officers in the coast guard had nice offices, nice crisp
| uniforms, nice private rooms, nice private dining quarters,
| ect. And the difference between those two (enlisted and
| officer) is a college degree.
|
| What I learned is that I did not want to be an enlisted man.
| It's a lot of very hard work for little pay and even the
| highest enlisted man is still saluting the lowest officer.
|
| This was enough to galvanize me to go to college and finish as
| quickly as I could.
|
| Blue collar jobs are not for everyone. They were not for me. I
| realize the Coast Guard is not a perfect microcosm of the real
| world, but in a lot of ways it is. Now that I have the white
| collar job, I still chuckle at "mental health days" and people
| complaining about being "burnt out". I chuckle because I
| remember those days on the river, baking in the hot sun after
| working for 36 hours straight and how much we all would have
| laughed until we cried if those words had come out of someone's
| mouth.
| phist_mcgee wrote:
| Both can still be valid.
|
| Mental health days are good, and burn out is a real
| phenomenon.
|
| It's a shame that blue collar workers don't have access to
| these facilities, and yes office workers are by and large
| 'softer' than blue collar workers. But we should fight
| corporations and organisations to provide those facilities
| for _everyone_ , and not pick sides in a working class debate
| (not that you did that).
|
| All paid workers real enemy is the capital class, and we
| should never forget that.
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| That said, it's not uncommon to be able to find _good_ blue
| collar jobs with good employers.
|
| A friend of mine worked a really shitty job for a year, to
| finally find a much more cushy job, but it's graveyard shift.
| Eventually they'll put him on day shift. But in the mean time
| he's earning for his family, he doesn't have to do much work,
| and he's studying for a degree at night.
|
| If you pick the right field, you have the right skills, and are
| in a hot market, trades can be very lucrative and you can be
| drowning in contacts. For someone who wants to be their own
| boss it can be very rewarding.
| DenverCoder99 wrote:
| With the economic downturn coming, companies are really going
| to ask themselves who's necessary. Those white collar workers
| that have plenty of leisure time are going to suddenly be out
| of work, and will be forced into the blue collar market, only
| they are going to have to compete with blue collar workers that
| have been in the market for many more years than they have.
| Guess who the company's are going to hire...
|
| As for the white collar workers that made the cut, their job
| isn't going to be as cozy. You're trading in back-breaking work
| for mental-straining work with severe time constraints.
| briHass wrote:
| Anyone that hasn't done manual labor really has no idea how
| rough it can be. I worked as an office-furniture-mover in my
| early 20s (Summers in college), and some days were pretty
| tough. Granted, that's pretty low on the manual labor skills
| spectrum, but even for a guy in prime physical shape, it's
| tiring and has elements of danger.
|
| Now that I'm double that age, the manual labor I've done like
| rewiring my house, installing all my own HVAC equipment, and
| all the yard work for a large property is much harder. I stay
| sore for days, and it's easy to push too hard to get something
| done and get injured or overwork my body to where my heart rate
| stays elevated for hours.
|
| There's something to be said for working with your brain. The
| worst days dealing with idiot product management and never-
| ending Jira tickets don't compare to unloading a truck in a hot
| warehouse or kneeling in a crawlspace for hours re-piping a
| sewer line.
| jletienne wrote:
| >The worst days dealing with idiot product management and
| never-ending Jira tickets don't compare to unloading a truck
| in a hot warehouse or kneeling in a crawlspace for hours re-
| piping a sewer line.
|
| damn i can only imagine
| HEmanZ wrote:
| I don't think anyone idealizes those kind of physical labor
| jobs. Usually "the trades" is much more skilled manual labor:
| plumbing, hvac, welding, specialized mechanic work and
| repair, woodworking/carpentry, etc.
|
| No one says people should want a life of a mover, meatpacker,
| or ditch digger.
| phist_mcgee wrote:
| I think that's a cultural thing.
|
| In Australia, trade workers are very highly paid and
| generally very well respected in society (even day
| labourers).
|
| In fact many envy 'tradies' as they're called, because they
| can outearn white-collar workers pretty easily.
| juve1996 wrote:
| The idea that plumbers/hvac/welders etc don't have physical
| wear and tear is also a myth that needs dispelled.
| corbulo wrote:
| There are upsides, like a certain degree of pride from really
| feeling like you worked hard and going to bed truly tired.
| Those are the things I miss about that kind of job.
|
| Going to bed as that particular kind of tired was just
| awesome.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| In better shape too. Some jobs wear you out. But being on
| your feet all day and doing moderate heavy lifting is far
| better for your health than sitting down all day.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Maybe for the first decade but it's nearly impossible to
| avoid accumulating injuries and eventually chronic pain
| or disability over a whole career.
| jseliger wrote:
| As someone who has taught college, off and on, for many years,
| people should also be wary of romanticizing college.
|
| The question is always "relative to what?"
|
| Anyway, the move towards apprenticeships has arguably been
| underway for years: https://seliger.com/2017/06/16/rare-good-
| political-news-boos...
| [deleted]
| twblalock wrote:
| Exactly. This is why every tradesman I know wants their kids to
| go to college.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| [flagged]
| pcurve wrote:
| There's a large caveat towards the end of the article:
|
| "People get more specific skills in apprenticeship programs than
| they do in college and while that helps them enter the labor
| market with greater ease at the beginning of their careers, later
| in life their skills depreciate"
|
| "So at age 45 or 50 or 55, these people are less likely to stay
| in the labor market because their skills are less valuable."
|
| By contrast, a college degree offers a broader, general
| education, which "makes people more adaptable and able to learn
| new skills that show up later when the economy changes," he said.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| I'd point out that all the people whining about being "left
| behind" and blaming Mexicans for it are the blue collar types
| who would have mocked college back in the day.
| pakyr wrote:
| > That 7% acceptance rate makes the program as selective as
| Cornell University and Dartmouth College.
|
| Oof. I wonder if we'll start seeing Applying to Apprenticeships
| forums/subreddits and 'Apprenticeship Decision Reaction - I got
| in!!!' YouTube videos.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Tight labor markets for the win! I look forward to tuition coming
| down and deans and admins squirming in their seats.
| neilv wrote:
| I'm wondering how many parents are reading this in the WSJ, and
| thinking something like: "That's great that those people are
| looking at paths other than college. Of course, _my_ kids are
| going to college, for the college lifestyle experience, the
| networking, the pedigree, and the opportunities that will open up
| to them, in their rightful class. "
| xyzelement wrote:
| A few posts in this thread talk about the signaling value of
| college and I wanted to share a thought on that.
|
| When's the last time you saw someone wear a suit? For me, most
| people I see in suits now days are town car drivers. Because
| that's who needs to signal something (reliability?) to me in a
| low context environment.
|
| People stopped wearing suits at work, even for interviews,
| because the signaling value of a suit is zero. I've read your
| LinkedIn way before I met you. If you are hot shit, I already
| know that. If you are not, the suit isn't going to change that.
|
| Likewise, back in the day the fact that you had a degree and what
| school that degree was from, was a huge signal - often the sole
| signal you can get on someone prior to meeting them or
| considering them for a job.
|
| Nowadays that's just not the case. Between credible
| certifications, blogs, gihub portfolios, open source projects,
| etc - I can get a TON of signal on you that would be more
| valuable than your college background.
|
| To be fair not everyone thinks this way but I think that's a
| point in time thing. The signal is there and getting stronger,
| it's only matter of time before it's recognized more broadly.
|
| And to the point, if you apprenticed in your field and had good
| results, people will selfishly value that more in hiring than you
| having gone to some woke school.
| gnicholas wrote:
| There are some industries where suits are still regularly worn,
| though even in these fields (law, banking) it is less common
| than before. In Silicon Valley, lawyers only wear suits when
| going to court or to depositions.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Yeah, outside of finance, it would seem like it's the opposite,
| signaling lower status and conformity.
|
| _Nowadays that 's just not the case. Between credible
| certifications, blogs, gihub portfolios, open source projects,
| etc - I can get a TON of signal on you that would be more
| valuable than your college background._
|
| But this is just a tiny subset of jobs though.
| mtrower wrote:
| > People stopped wearing suits at work, even for interviews,
| because the signaling value of a suit is zero.
|
| In fact it's become an anti-signal in software; people look at
| you funny. I actually failed an interview once _because_ I wore
| a suit.
| lvl102 wrote:
| Being a plumber, for example, is far more lucrative for most
| people. Military, police, then lawyer route is also very
| lucrative.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| One of those is not like the other in that it requires
| extensive college. It also happens to be the one that pays more
| than the others.
| loeg wrote:
| Entry level police jobs pay better than a lot of lawyer jobs,
| with a lot less debt.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Being a high-end plumber doesn't take much college.
|
| I joke, but most lawyers actually don't make a ton of money.
| Like programming, the profession is very bimodal. By the time
| you get out of law school, unless that law school is a big
| name like Harvard or you get a good clerkship or associate
| job, you will be heading for a career that tops out at
| $200k/year if you don't burn out in the mean time.
|
| Plumbing, electrical work, and other trade work is weirdly
| lucrative and doesn't come with nearly as much "ladder
| climbing" as a legal career. Also, a mid-career trade worker
| can specialize (taking only very lucrative and weird jobs) or
| start to manage other tradespeople. Plumbing and the other
| trades are a lot like software engineering in that sense, and
| the reward for being the plumber who knows how to deal with
| water pumps in high-rises is similar to the reward for being
| the software engineer who can program GPUs (or some other
| niche skill). For example, I happen to have met one of the
| people who does the HVAC in Google NYC, and he makes the same
| amount as a senior SWE at Google.
| lvl102 wrote:
| NYC commercial plumbers make a lot of money and it is also
| one of the hardest jobs (apprenticeship) to get in the
| world.
| [deleted]
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| The trades can be excellent careers, but it doesn't do
| anyone any good to pretend that they're an ideal path for
| most people.
|
| You'll be constantly working with people making poor life
| decisions that look like a lot of fun, and being encouraged
| to join in.
|
| People with self-control issues or trouble resisting peer
| pressure are going to have a lot of trouble succeeding.
| They'll have very little help.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| In college, you will also be constantly surrounded by
| people making poor life decisions that look fun and being
| encouraged to join in. That also happens at most law
| firms, on Wall Street, and at many startups.
| blockwriter wrote:
| I think he means enlisting in the military or a police force,
| accruing that job experience, rather than getting an
| undergrad degree, and then going straight to law school.
| lvl102 wrote:
| If you start out early enough, you can be retired from law
| enforcement with pension earlier than you think (typically 20
| years) which is actually a perfect time for you to go get a
| law degree.
| 71a54xd wrote:
| If the software eng market gets really really bad I might just
| become a licensed electrician and manage 4-5 electricians. I
| could remember enough of the 40% of an EE degree I finished
| before pivotting to CS.
|
| Another option is getting some BS real estate certs and
| building some kind of middle-man operation where I facilitate /
| officiate sales of high end homes to rich people who can't view
| something before they buy (more common than you'd think).
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > I might just become a licensed electrician
|
| Depending on state, it can take several years to become
| licensed. I recommend starting sooner vs later, even if only
| part time.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| I looked into this myself (not in US) - all paths seemed to
| require full time apprenticeship..
| newaccount2023 wrote:
| people learning trades under an apprenticeship can start earning
| real money at 19
|
| which means they can make other adult decisions not long after
|
| they're not only out-earning many college graduates, they are
| getting four+ years of earning and investing
| sergiomattei wrote:
| Honestly, what a disgrace. It's almost like capitalism has an
| agenda to turn every living soul into a productive machine rather
| than a free-thinking, well-rounded individual.
|
| Education is meant to prepare you to think and live, not just
| prepare you to work. I'm glad I didn't drop out in my first year
| to chase the Silicon Valley dream, because I'd be a much more
| manipulable, less capable individual if I did.
| maxerickson wrote:
| We very obviously aren't doing it, but that sort of education
| should be part of high school, at least for the students that
| are engaged enough to benefit from it.
|
| The current trend to water down what is available so that
| everyone can check the 12 year box regardless of effort or
| interest is a terrible waste.
| mythrwy wrote:
| "Free thinking and well rounded" aren't things that seem to
| correspond with many current U.S college environments though.
|
| Colleges need to cost less. Much less.
|
| And they need to return to free inquiry with more education,
| and less administration and propaganda and fake studies low
| effort departments.
|
| Then what you say will be much more true and we will be in a
| better place.
| sammalloy wrote:
| > Colleges need to cost less. Much less.
|
| Conservatives have waged a targeted attack on US education by
| shifting the federal and state tax burden to students. This
| began with Ronald Reagan and ended with the Koch network.
| Conservatives intentionally did this because they believe the
| traditional academic system in the US produces liberals and
| democrats. By shifting the tax burden to students, they have
| disincentivized free inquiry at the local level and
| supplanted it with corporate-sponsored job training which
| promotes hard right wing political and societal values.
|
| Here is the supporting evidence:
|
| https://starvingthebeast.net/documents/
| Axsuul wrote:
| Education doesn't prepare you to live -- experience does.
| Instead, you're in a bubble during those years.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| I think the article ignored a massive datapoint in not talking
| about gender the one time it might actually be a relevant issue.
| Simply put: women are going to school more and more, and many men
| are turned off. Getting to the root of this social change would I
| think provide an explanation.
| di456 wrote:
| It's nice to see this on the white collar side.
|
| On the blue collar side, I heard from a friend in a union skilled
| labor role that the quality bar is very low for some skilled
| trades in some US regions. Showing up to work on time and sober
| sets someone apart a big portion of the workforce. Working hard
| and eagerness to learn will go a long way in the skilled trades.
| Lots of opportunities for people with a positive mindset.
| rthomas6 wrote:
| Rant: I feel like most people haven't really thought about why
| colleges are so expensive now. It is because of the federally
| guaranteed student loans. It means there's pretty much no
| downside to banks loaning an arbitrarily large amount, because if
| the student doesn't pay it back, the government will. And since
| most 18 year old students have pretty much zero price
| sensitivity, and they now have unlimited funds, colleges are free
| to charge whatever they need to entice students to come to their
| college. No expense needs to be spared.
|
| If people really cared about letting disadvantaged students go to
| college, they would figure out a way to give them scholarships or
| grants. Federally guaranteed student loans are a horrible and
| predatory idea and they are ruining young peoples' financial
| futures. If you just took away the guarantee on the loans, and
| made them dischargable in bankruptcy, colleges would be forced to
| compete on price again, and the price of college would start to
| drop.
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| Am I the only one who want government intervention on college
| fees?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >It means there's pretty much no downside to banks loaning an
| arbitrarily large amount, because if the student doesn't pay it
| back, the government will.
|
| Obama administration ended this in 2010:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Family_Education_Loan_...
|
| The problem that remained, of course, is the federal government
| itself lends students a blank check as long as the check is
| deposited at an "accredited" university.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Am I crazy or did Biden just try to pay for a bunch of
| student loans? Legality still pending AFAIK. Just because
| Obama may have ended one policy doesn't mean they aren't
| backstopped by the government.
|
| Either way the point remains that the debt cannot be
| dispelled through bankruptcy which makes them less risky for
| banks.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Am I crazy or did Biden just try to pay for a bunch of
| student loans?
|
| Forgive, not pay for.
|
| > Legality still pending AFAIK.
|
| Oral arguments were heard by the Supreme Court a few weeks
| ago.
|
| > the debt cannot be dispelled through bankruptcy
|
| It can, actually, though it's difficult.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >Just because Obama may have ended one policy doesn't mean
| they aren't backstopped by the government.
|
| Yes, it does. Since 2010, a lender will not be paid by the
| government if the borrower defaults.
|
| >the debt cannot be dispelled through bankruptcy
|
| Yes, they can.
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/how-to-file-student-loan-
| bankru...
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Yea, pretty much entirely due to the loan system. It's also
| sustains worthless departments.
| spacephysics wrote:
| Fully agree. And to continue this, I think one step that would
| be accepted across the aisle (in lieu of total debt
| forgiveness) is to either severely cut or get rid of interest
| rates on school loans.
|
| The compound interest working _against_ students is a major
| part of the predation in these loans.
|
| But banks need to make money? Have a one-time interest tacked
| onto the total loan amount that doesn't change over time.
|
| This incentivize banks to not loan out as much to just about
| anyone, and thereby forcing schools to spend less on frivolous
| staffing and social issues/needless expansion.
|
| Then, slowly reduce the federal student loan amounts to some
| arbitrarily low amount, something enough for someone on the
| median salary to comfortably pay back if they went to a state
| school.
|
| Blue collar jobs are in desperate need of apprenticeships. And
| there's good money to be made. But it is legit hard, physical
| work. And work that needs to get more respect, because without
| it, water doesn't run, lights don't turn on, roads crumble, and
| buildings aren't built.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > Fully agree. And to continue this, I think one step that
| would be accepted across the aisle (in lieu of total debt
| forgiveness) is to either severely cut or get rid of interest
| rates on school loans.
|
| I dont understand how you agree with the post yet come to
| this conclusion. If debt is the source of the problem why
| encourage more of it? The point is colleges can always raise
| prices because students can just take out bigger loans. This
| gets worse if you get rid of interest rates.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Rant: I feel like most people haven't really thought about
| why colleges are so expensive now. It is because of the
| federally guaranteed student loans.
|
| I've heard this thousands and thousands of times. I suspect
| that most people have heard it already too.
|
| > It means there's pretty much no downside to banks loaning an
| arbitrarily large amount, because if the student doesn't pay it
| back, the government will.
|
| This is a misunderstanding of the current student loan system,
| which is mostly direct loans from the federal government rather
| than private bank loans. That's why student loan forgiveness by
| the federal government is a current issue.
| [deleted]
| downrightmike wrote:
| Also, if the colleges give out a certain amount of grants to
| students who can't afford the artificially high tuition, they
| become non-profits and can bank all that cash into their
| endowments. That's really the why of tuition hikes. Greed.
| Thanks MIT who took this to the supreme court in 91 and fucked
| all future generations!
| papito wrote:
| This is great news. Especially for men. It gives their lives more
| meaning and a sense of self-worth.
|
| Great new podcast episode from Ezra Klein about this.
| chitowneats wrote:
| Ezra Klein lost his credibility long ago. Sad. Vox is a rag.
|
| Anyone here remember Wonkblog? I often miss the heady days of
| the early 2010's.
|
| Funny how we thought we were living in tragic times back then
| after the 2008 financial crisis. And sure, we were. But there
| was so much more in store for us, wasn't there?
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