63% of Americans Polled Say Four-Year College Degrees Aren't Worth the Cost (nbcnews.com) 182
Almost two-thirds of registered U.S. voters "say that a four-year college degree isn't worth the cost," according to a new NBC News poll:
Just 33% agree a four-year college degree is "worth the cost because people have a better chance to get a good job and earn more money over their lifetime," while 63% agree more with the concept that it's "not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off." In 2017, U.S. adults surveyed were virtually split on the question — 49% said a degree was worth the cost and 47% said it wasn't. When CNBC asked the same question in 2013 as part of its All American Economic Survey, 53% said a degree was worth it and 40% said it was not. The eye-popping shift over the last 12 years comes against the backdrop of several major trends shaping the job market and the education world, from exploding college tuition prices to rapid changes in the modern economy — which seems once again poised for radical transformation alongside advances in AI...
Remarkably, less than half of voters with college degrees see those degrees as worth the cost: 46% now, down from 63% in 2013... The upshot is that interest in technical, vocational and two-year degree programs has soared.
"The 20-point decline over the last 12 years among those who say a degree is worth it — from 53% in 2013 to 33% now — is reflected across virtually every demographic group."
Remarkably, less than half of voters with college degrees see those degrees as worth the cost: 46% now, down from 63% in 2013... The upshot is that interest in technical, vocational and two-year degree programs has soared.
"The 20-point decline over the last 12 years among those who say a degree is worth it — from 53% in 2013 to 33% now — is reflected across virtually every demographic group."
They are objectively wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The ruling elite has decided they do not want you to be educated. They have spent a lot of money to convince you that you do not need to be educated.
You can tell they're lying because they don't tell their kids to go become plumbers. They send them to very expensive schools with a lot of humanities courses so that they can be taught critical thinking
I know tech nerds don't like the humanities but when you are dealing with someone who does not automatically think critically about information that is how you teach them to do it. This is why you will always find lots of humanities classes at expensive schools.
Re:They are objectively wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
They send their kids to expensive schools to network with the other kids of the elite.
This is kind of obvious because a lot of the kids coming out of those expensive schools are neither very smart nor very educated.
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Exactly. They'll be given a high-level job where they just have to do what they're told... which requires neither intelligence or education.
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No, not every single one of those "rich fuckers" is a crook.
Re:They are objectively wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Truth. Ever notice how every single one of the politico's who've been railing against "elitists" and who continually warn us against the dangers of "liberal" colleges all have their own advanced degrees?
Trump graduated from the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania and from the Wharton School of Business. Marco Rubio graduated from the University of Florida and the University of Miami Law School. Jeb Bush? University of Texas. Rand Paul? Baylor and Duke. Tom Cotton attended Harvard and Harvard Law, and Ted Cruz hails from Princeton and Harvard. JD Vance? OSU and Yale.
But you? Nah. Can't have the common folk bein' "overcredentialed". Might start gettin' uppity and askin' too many questions.
Best to leave all that higher learnin' to our new ruling class and be properly thankful for any table scraps they toss our way...
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Re:They are objectively wrong (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't new. Regan reduced funding to the University of California system and raised tuition in the latter half of the 60s, at least partly in reponse to protests against the war in Vietnam. See https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/analysis/threat-of-educated-proletariat-created-the-student-debt-crisis/ [bestcolleges.com].
One of his advisers later said, "We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat... We have to be selective on who we allow to go through (higher education)."
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You meant Ronald Reagan, right? Probably? Not Donald Regan, the Secretary of the Treasury?
Re:They are objectively wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Trump graduated from the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania and from the Wharton School of Business. Marco Rubio graduated from the University of Florida and the University of Miami Law School. Jeb Bush? University of Texas. Rand Paul? Baylor and Duke. Tom Cotton attended Harvard and Harvard Law, and Ted Cruz hails from Princeton and Harvard. JD Vance? OSU and Yale.
But you? Nah. Can't have the common folk bein' "overcredentialed". Might start gettin' uppity and askin' too many questions.
Is this about Trump, Rubio, Bush, Paul, Cotton, Cruz, and Vance all saying that people should stop going to college?
Even the summary says
"The 20-point decline over the last 12 years among those who say a degree is worth it — from 53% in 2013 to 33% now — is reflected across virtually every demographic group."
How you got from "cross-demographic survey results" to "conspiracy of all republicans" seems a bit of a leap. If the Republicans *actually have* found a way to exert that much influence on the views of every demographic group, the Democrats might as well just pack their bags and go home, they're done forever.
I think in reality this is just a survey detecting people noticing exploding tuition costs and feeling bleak about the future job market, especially being displaced by technology.
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Even the summary says...
Your analysis is absolute correct. It's funny how many people in this conversation have been affected by the very thing they are raging about.
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Reason? Too few good technically skilled people these days, especially in HVAC. Way too many people with a master degree.
If my brother in law does not want to do overtime, he flips his finger to his boss and goes home. I have not yet tried that, but
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The national average wage of an HVAC technician in the USA is about $29/hr. Pretty hard to raise a family on that pay.
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Just a little less than paralegals, more than credit counselors, a little less than meeting/convention/event planners, the same as tax examiners/collectors & revenue agents, 20%+ more than EMTs and paramedics, slightly less than surgical assistants
Someone working at that median HVAC job who was married to someone working part-time is going to be a member of an a
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But you have chosen low-paying white collar jobs as your examples. I would encourage people to look at higher paying professions and get educated to do one of them. I agree that an HVAC technician married to someone who also works will have an okay combined income, but you kind of want to be able to live well on your own if possible.
According to Indeed; "The average White Collar Group monthly salary ranges from approximately $3,790 per month for Sales Representative to $7,585 per month for Account Manager.
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And what makes you think working in a goddamn cubicle is somehow better? Sedentary, high-stress work means an early grave. That "Account Manager" is on salary plus commission for a lousy $92k/year and has to work 10+ hours/day X 6 to get there. Fuck that.
If you're good at something, you'll be in demand and you'll
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>> $120k/year plus bennies as an elementary school teacher
Very atypical, the median salary of an elementary school teacher in Texas is about $60k. I think what we are discussing here is the prospects of a young person looking to get an education that will result in some kind of viable career path. I submit that if you train to be a plumber you are generally looking at just scraping by for the rest of your life.
Re:They are objectively wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
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The national average wage of an HVAC technician in the USA is about $29/hr. Pretty hard to raise a family on that pay.
That 29 bucks an hour works out to 58k a year, assuming no overtime, which is very close to the U.S. national median of 60k across all jobs - and that's without needing a 100k in college loans. For perspective, it's slightly less than the median teacher salary (62k).
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>> the U.S. national median of 60k across all jobs
Right, but the median pay of someone with a bachelor's degree is about $80k. That extra $20k makes a big diff, and you could eventually pay off the loan. Also note that for a fair comparison, HVAC school plus room and board costs money that many people will have to borrow.
https://www.bankrate.com/loans... [bankrate.com]
Re: They are objectively wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
You're conflating education with vocational training.
A master's degree isn't for earning money, it's for shaping your intellect.
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Let's be honest, having an offline computer to help you with that stuff would be 100% better than using an old slide rule.
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Re:They are objectively wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
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The University of Texas system is also offering free tuition to anyone with income below $100K. Yes, even in red-state Texas!
You are doing a classic mistake. (Score:2)
Conflating education with academic rank.
Both are not the same. A detail politics likes to ignore because that enables noise-making.
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Indeed. People with a good education have _options_. And that means they do not have to take crap. Obviously, quite a few assholes do not like to have that type of person around.
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People with a good education have _options_. And that means they do not have to take crap.
Definitely the dumbest thing I will read all day, congratulations!
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Well, I can see that you never made that experience. I have.
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I have worked around tons of heavily degreed people who look trapped and take all kinds of shit.
You ascribe to education what ought to be ascribed to character.
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If you read again what I wrote, I was commenting in the need to take crap, not the willingness. It is a difference and a rather big one.
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They send them to very expensive schools with a lot of humanities courses so that they can be taught critical thinking
You misunderstand what powerful people sending kids into top schools are doing. It is not about getting education but about getting connections. It is almost entirely about other people that go to the same school that allows one to form critical connections that important in business and politics. For a regular person going to a regular school this is almost entirely not applicable.
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It's a borderline scam, where so many jobs, even minimum wage ones, need a degree just to get past the application submission stage, that a degree is almost mandatory in many fields. A lot of it is employers transferring the cost of training to the employee.
It also blows the meritocracy arguments out of the water, because a person's ability to get high level qualifications is highly dependent on their ability to pay. Not just pay for college, but to not work so much they don't have time to do extra studying
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Both views are overly simplistic.
The costs associated with getting a 4 year degree, on average, continue to rise faster than the cumulative benefits of having the degree, and the degrees are getting less valuable as they no longer guarantee high-paying jobs. Degrees have been further cheapened by the obvious abuse of the rich to get the degree no matter how obviously unworthy they are of having it.
Conversely, just because more people are seeing degrees as not worth the cost, does not mean they have an equal
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Is a degree in gender studies, communications, humanities, theater, archeology, or the like going to pay off for the average graduate? Unlikely. But a degrees that teaches skills in high paying field is highly likely to be worth it in the long run.
That is not to say those other degrees are worthless. It is just that unless y
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Nope. This has been the truth ever since the internet became a thing people could use. The reasons are wrong however.
In 1991-1999 if you wasted your time and money on a college degree, that degree was completely worthless by the time the dotcom bubble burst in 2001. So if you learned Java, Flash, or 30 other "new" products at the time that have since been flushed down the toilet by Adobe, you wasted your money.
The same is happening with "AI" now. If you jumped into the many "AI" stuff colleges are pushing o
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Or maybe parents are tired of paying massive tuitions + room/board for their kids to go to a worthless propaganda factory. It doesn't cost that much to learn to be an activist.
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I'm curious, what specific things are the "rich elite" spending money on, to convince us all that we don't need to be educated? Are they buying ads? How does this money-for-convincing thing work?
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>> So much for your uninformed opinion.
"According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median annual wage for plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters was $60,090 as of May 2023. That translates to about $28.89 per hour."
https://plumbingtipstoday.com/... [plumbingtipstoday.com]
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I was responding to "The plumber in question lives in the same $multimillion gated housing development" statement. I expect a person would have to own a successful plumbing business to do that well. Seems more likely that the average plumber getting $60,090/yr will be living in an apartment somewhere.
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And the point about a plumber who didn't need to go to college to become a successful resident in an expensive gated community flew right over your head, too.
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You seem to be getting a little angry for some reason.
>> a plumber who didn't need to go to college to become a successful resident in an expensive gated community flew right over your head
It is clearly way out of line with the norm. I see people here claiming that getting a blue collar education for plumbing, electrician, HVAC, etc is a good way to go, and I disagree. Those professions pay poorly and have a low ceiling.
Re: They are objectively wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
You both are wrong. The question is whether it's worth the cost. There's no question or concern over political crap like rsilvergun thinks there is. The question is more: Do you get what you pay for?
And to me, this isn't a simple yes or no answer. The answer I'd give is: What degree did you get, and what did you pay for it? No matter what degree you have, I'd say that if you spent more than $150k, under any circumstance, then you got ripped off. Period.
rsilvergun keeps whining that his imaginary "kid" borrowed $300,000. There is no rhyme or reason to spend that much for any degree, let alone one that has nearly zero chance of ever paying that off within his lifetime. And worse, he blames that on, of all things, republicans, even though the government has been keeping up with inflation when it comes to pell grants and other funding.
And at the same time, he holds blameless the very institutions who have been raising their tuition rates at several times the rate of inflation for decades, and then conned his dumb as into believing that he needs this really bad, even though he really didn't. Or at the very least, he could have done far better by going to community college first, then going to a public in-state university, where borrowing may not even be necessary at all. But at the end of the day, we live in a free society, which also includes being free to make one incredibly bad life decision right after the other.
Re: They are objectively wrong (Score:2)
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Universities are businesses. They exist to generate profit. Any education they may pass on is just a side affect. Maybe they should all be state run instead of for profit? Nah, crazy talk, right?
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Maybe by stuffing your capstone senior seminars with 95 students? Or convincing the students, their parents, the faculty, and future prospective employers that that's actually the way they want it?
That wouldn't be surprising if it's already happening anyway, given schools are spending more on administrative costs while in at least some cases actually reducing instructional spending. But across the board, administrative expenses are growing faster than instructional expenses.
https://www.usnews.com/educati... [usnews.com]
How?
It's already happening despite increased inflation-adjusted tuition rates, so you tell me.
Re: They are objectively wrong (Score:2)
I did tell you, but because you believe you already know everything about this, you didn't actually stop and think about it. Citing "inflation-adjusted tuition rates" back at me could not make that more clear.
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I did tell you
No, you didn't. All you did was spew weasel words combined with a poor attempt at misdirection. You're sitting here making vague claims about additional costs being necessary for economy-wide production gains, which you're just assuming without any justification whatsoever, must somehow apply to higher education, then adding speculation on top. So be specific: What productivity gains are you talking about in particular? Productivity gains should mean increased instructional value gained from less effort, an
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You both are wrong. The question is whether it's worth the cost.
It's a bad, fuzzy, over-generalized question. My answer would be both yes and no. Is a college degree in art history economically worthwhile? No. Is a college degree in nursing economically worthwhile? Yes. Is a college degree averaged over all fields for all people in all situations worthwhile? That's a worthless question.
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Is a college degree in art history economically worthwhile? No.
On the other hand, this used to be what academia was all about. Essentially, trivial pursuits of knowledge that didn't necessarily have any real-world value. Most people who engaged in this were already wealthy enough that the economic utility didn't really factor into it. Then, somehow we used these very same institutions as a form of vocational training, which is probably a bad idea.
For completeness’s sake, I'm not at all the opinion that these need to go away entirely, however I do think that they
Wrong question. (Score:4, Informative)
The degree isn't about "getting a high-paid job", it's about knowing what the hell you're doing once you get a job. Although, fair enough, it's quite plausible that not many degrees would meet that standard either.
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Very few degrees are actually useful and the people who take those would often be better off getting a job first and then deciding that, say, they need a degree in engineering to progress further in that job than paying to get the degree up front and then discovering there are no jobs (as a friend of ours recently has). The whole degree system has been turning into a huge scam where kids borrow vast sums of money to keep pampered academics in nice jobs.
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One look at the insane salaries and gigantic construction projects at many universities tells you everything you need to know.
Re:Wrong question. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm an academic.
I've got a good thing going here, and if you don't keep the lid on it, I might have to get a real job! I make at least half of my living emailing office hours to students, since I have a bad habit of putting them at the top of the syllabus that no one reads. Granted, it was hard work deciding which $100 textbook to make my students buy so I could read my free publisher copy to them verbatim, but that was a one-time adoption activity. And then there's that committee that meets in the printer room when me and the other member happen to be printing at the same time.
In all seriousness though, "very few degrees are useful" is inaccurate. All high technology in society requires extensive, structured study. It is exceedingly rare to see any serious advancement at the fundamental level come from someone without extensive education. The Manhattan project, Internet, air-travel, modern medicine, robotics, industrial systems, etc., are all courtesy of someone with extensive formal study. There are non-degreed "skilled workers" who might take a wrench to an airplane without a degree, but you'll be hard pressed to find someone designing an airplane without a degree.
Now I do agree that a lot of degrees are useless, and it can be hard to tell which ones are a good investment. Ulterior motives have crept into a lot of higher education, just like they've crept into health care.
Re:Wrong question. (Score:4, Informative)
t is exceedingly rare to see any serious advancement at the fundamental level come from someone without extensive education.
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Dylan Field, Evan Williams, Gabe Newell, Jay Koum, Larry Fucking Ellison, Zuck, Michael Dell, and Travis Kalanick are all dropouts to name just a few. I personally know a couple of dropouts with patents you've probably heard of. I myself am a dropout (EE, 1 year) who pioneered in two industries. Chances are strong you have been affected by my work over the last 25 years.
There are non-degreed "skilled workers" who might take a wrench to an airplane without a degree, but you'll be hard pressed to find someone designing an airplane without a degree.
Igor Sikorsky, the father of the helicopter, was a dropout. Jack Northrop never went to college, though he later founded one. Collier Trophy winner Ed Heinemann (Douglas, Northrop, General Dynamics) never went to college either; Burt Rutan says he was the best of the best. The list goes on and on, these are off the top of my head.
Your research is lousy for a self-described academic.
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Investment is a tricky one.
I'd say that learning how to learn is probably the single-most valuable part of any degree, and anything that has any business calling itself a degree will make this a key aspect. And that, alone, makes a degree a good investment, as most people simply don't know how. They don't know where to look, how to look, how to tell what's useful, how to connect disparate research into something that could be used in a specific application, etc.
The actual specifics tend to be less important
Re: Wrong question. (Score:2)
No reason for the degree to move up. The job could simply provide the necessary training. The whole system is predicated on jobs relying on 3rd parties to train (be it another company or a college). Either way it's a shit system that companies like to scam.
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It really depends. As degrees in the US are a big business, there are many worthless degrees and many that you can get easily, making them worthless if you did it the easy way.
Funny thing. The largest private (i.e. for profit) University in Germany currently has problems because many students find the degrees are not valuable and they do not learn a lot. No such problems with the regular ones. I think commercial education is just broken because of perverted incentives.
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It may be true that degrees aren't about getting a job, but that *is* how they've been marketed to Americans, and how crazy-large student loans have been justified.
Well, duh (Score:2)
This is what happens when people see a generation of kids borrowing lots of money to get a 'good degree' and then ending up struggling to find a job in
And elite overproduction is a common sign of a society that's approaching collapse. Those kids believe--quite rightly given what they were told--that they deserve a much better life than they will have and won't be very happy with the existing elite telling them to retrain in making burgers.
really need to have the banks and schools take loa (Score:5, Insightful)
really need to have the banks and schools take loan risk then you will costs come down.
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Yes. Every loan should have to be co-signed by the school because they're the ones saying it will benefit the kids.
If Trump had any sense he would forgive all student loans and pay them off with a windfall tax on the schools who've been raking in the money from the loans. They know they're selling a defective product and shouldn't be treated any differently to any other business that's doing so.
Re: really need to have the banks and schools take (Score:2)
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Agreed on schools taking risks, though it should be private universities to do it first as a trial run to see what the default rate would be. If state universities start doing it, they can just use taxpayers to bail them out.
Re:Well, duh (Score:5, Informative)
Other countries realize that free/inexpensive higher education is actually an investment in their citizens and in their country's futures.
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The U.S. absolutely does have too many people going to college or ge
Re: Well, duh (Score:2)
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Try looking into STEM jobs vs those with degrees. The difference is massive. We simply do not have enough STEM jobs and that was before the push for STEM... which was a gamble on technology shaking up the future economy. There are not enough jobs to go around; just as before when there was nowhere near enough farm jobs for the number of people. Industrialization made farming too productive but it also created demand for new labor. This is not the case today. Even if there was, you'd need enough consumer dem
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Getting a degree does not absolve you from really learning and being good at things. I think a significant pert of the people with degrees that have trouble finding jobs did select "easy" ones or took it wayyyy to easy getting them. Commercial "education" will make that easy, but you waste your time and money that way.
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No, these kids aren't struggling to find jobs. They're just struggling to find six-figure jobs out of the gate. They've been led to believe that getting that degree was a golden ticket. Then they find out that they start at the entry level like everybody else, despite that degree. And as a result, they're struggling to pay off those student loans they thought would magically pay for themselves when they graduated.
Not worth it *now* (Score:4, Informative)
say that a four-year college degree isn't worth the cost
"[...] say that a four-year college degree isn't worth its current cost now [...]
as indicated later:
exploding college tuition prices
Re:Not worth it *now* (Score:5, Informative)
As mentioned above, other countries realize that free/inexpensive higher education is actually an investment in their citizens and in their country's futures.
But i the grand tradition of the American “free market,” the U.S. once again proves that if there’s a way to squeeze its own citizens for profit, it’ll find it.
Other countries invest in people; we just invoice them and call it freedom, leaving generations shackled to long-term debt.
Re: Not worth it *now* (Score:2)
Indeed. It's a sad shameful situation.
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Other countries invest in people; we just invoice them and call it freedom, leaving generations shackled to long-term debt.
Exactly this - whatever improvements in income they might get from their college degree will be offset by the long-term debt they get in for that degree.
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You do realize that public universities in the US have loads of scholarships? Plenty of people get an education "for free" so long as they can sustain their GPA.
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Those "public" universities have to fight like hell to keep funding just so they can be "public" which in some states is lucky to be 40% funded! Now is that really public when 60% is not publicly funded? It used to be more which is just one reason why costs have gone up. They also do not spend 30+% of the budget in marketing like private schools do which lowers costs. Sadly, if the state football team does well, then funding can go up but then a lot of it still is wasted on sports! Furthermore, I don't thi
Tautology (Score:5, Informative)
Everyone knows a college education has gotten ridiculously expensive, which will naturally sway those without a college degree to not regret having pursued one, even though a college degree remains the best, most flexible option for those who can cut it.
Re:Tautology (Score:5, Informative)
Remarkably, less[sic] than half of voters with college degrees see those degrees as worth the cost: 46% now, down from 63% in 2013.
And how many of those have one? (Score:2, Insightful)
Because people without degrees are often just envious.
I routinely ask my part-time students why they chose to get that degree after all. It is "need more skills for my job", "no career options without that degree" and sometimes "I really want to know more about things". This mostly students that are interested in IT security though, no idea how representative that is.
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According to the summary, lots of those who have degrees are saying these things.
It's the long game (Score:2)
Secondly, you've eliminated the 4 year degree barrier which is still actively deployed nation-wide by companies for jobs which otherwise h
"Americans" and "cost" doing a lot of lifting (Score:2)
Be interested to see the perception in other countries with different payment systems. If the cost was 1/3 the current rate all else equal does this polling move? I imagine it does.
It's much like healthcare in that despite all the evidence out in the world Americans treat these systems as intractable laws of nature, the costs are sky high because that's how they are and always have to be. Meanwhile it's just basic economics that tells you why the costs keep going up and yet we take the route of "we tried
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Maybe if we weren't world fucking police we could afford free healthcare for our citizens. Of course, then the rest of the world would be wailing at us for taking care of ourselves instead. We can't win!
An important aspect (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: An important aspect (Score:2, Funny)
Lies. It's stupid and a waste of time. I know from experience.
Re: An important aspect (Score:2)
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It's interesting that when pushed the degree-mongers always come back to 'well, a degree isn't training you to do a job, it's teaching you to think and, uh, you have fun and shit.'
And you're going to pay $100,000+ for that? For $100,000 you could travel the world for years and meet a whole lot of interesting people and do a whole lot of interesting things.
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"College is where you meet the friends you'll keep for life,"
That certainly didn't work. We went poof in multiple different directions. Never saw any of them again.
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One thing I've learned about restaurants, is that you always want to pick their signature dishes, the ones they're good at making. If you opt instead for a dish that they "also have" you will be disappointed.
Education is the "main dish" of universities. Even if the process has good side effects, that's not why you go to college.
You can also make friends and meet spouses *at work.* That's where I met my long-term friends and my wife, though I do have a degree.
Too broad a question (Score:3)
As summarized, this is a poor question. There's a world of difference between a PhD in medieval poetry, paying full freight at an Ivy versus BS in machine learning from State.
There's also a ton of difference from person to person. My master's definitely paid for itself. My nephew dropped out of a state college because he had no interest or aptitude for education. A college degree would be wasted on him as long as his career goal is professional gamer.
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professional gamer.
But he keeps falling for that gift horse statue left on the front lawn.
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Not to mention the classic chemical engineering vs gender studies argument.
That said, was I really better off as an engineer than I would been as an electrician? I put in a lot of unpaid overtime that would have been time and a half.
For that matter the senior board operators at the chemical plant made more than I did, but they worked rotating shifts too.
Why current college sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
1) How many credit hours will be taught by tenured faculty vs $1000-per-credit-hour adjuncts?
2) Faculty don't want to administer their departments (or other departments), so they outsource to non-educators. Work-study? Graduate students? Nope. Bureaucrats can't build private empires with students.
3) Most textbooks are over-priced rip-offs. Most undergraduate classes don't teach cutting edge, so older text books are fine.
4) Graduate school is a special form of hell (eg https://acoup.blog/2021/10/01/... [acoup.blog]).
5) Universities don't eat their own food. New logo? Use the Fine Arts department? Hell no, we're spending money on Madison Avenue. New Building? Use Architecture department? Surely you jest!
6) The university president isn't an educator, but chosen on fund-raising ability.
7) The faculty and staff dream of a multi-billion dollar endowment, like Harvard (see 6). The idea is that they can do whatever they want, college market be damned.
8) Very few athletic departments make money. Now I'm prepared to call the net expense "advertising". But how many (additional) applications is the college receiving for this "advertising".
Re: (Score:2)
College used to be elite. Just flunking out was prestigious; because not many could even be accepted. Now anybody can go and it's turned almost into high school; if you are connected, you can be a moron and graduate. History major? No matter, you survived it and therefore are probably worth hiring plus you have a broad general understanding of the world, can think, innovate, and teach yourself. The degree is not supposed to be job skill training. Trade schools do that.
I'm in the system. I've seen it degra
63%? (Score:2)
Big deal. That's only one out of four.
"I Love the uneducated" (Score:4, Informative)
(The Great Leader)
Investment in future discrimination in your favor (Score:2)
However, many hiring managers called me and ignored some guy with no degree who was equally qualified, especially when starting out.
Specially theway the USoAns handle their Degrees (Score:2)
Of course everyone with half a brain will say it is not worth the cost. Specially if you decide to have your degree on Bachelor of arts in history with a minor on "the social and historical circumstances of the people southwest of the Ural mountains in the 15th century", I fail to see employability or a return on investment soon.
Also, the way the education has been privatized in the USoA, if you want to graduate with a paper that says "harvard, yale, MIT or GeorgiaTech" it makes more sense and is cheaper to
Richer understanding of our world (Score:2)
Ignore Trends and Free Advice (Score:2)
If you plan on Trades, good for you!
Start a business after you finish your apprenticeship, it pays well now as it always should have, but be prepared to work your ass off for at least 5 years.
Point is *&^$*^sh propaganda about how useless a degree or two is makes me puke.
All the talking heads that speak down about higher Education have degrees! THINK!
After College serve for a few years in the Military then go to University and choose a real Major.
A