Even during the medieval (i.e. pre internet) times I attended college, the pay for various majors were well known. Highest was chemical, lowest astronomy.
Here's how: from grade school up onto high school, kids in my generation were told, by literally every adult around, "get a degree, it doesn't matter what in, you'll get a good job." The language never differed, there was never talk of trades, of military service, of starting a business, none of that. Every single adult and authority figure said the same thing.
When you're young, even if you start questioning stuff like that, when everyone you turn to says the same thing, where are you supposed to go for other points of view?
How can you go through 4 years of college and never even once google starting salaries in your chose profession? And none of your peers do either? And not notice any of the constant flow of articles on reddit and hackernews about this issue?
This is neither unknown nor secret nor obscure knowledge.
> Every single adult and authority figure said the same thing.
Not me. I've said otherwise for 40 years.
Overall, the frustrating thing to watch is that the kids saddled with six figure student loans, a generic degree and no special skills were just playing by the rules. They were trying to find their passion and studying really hard just like good boys and girls should, then life kicks them in the teeth.
I think people in college now are much more cognizant of it, but five years ago people didn't talk about student loans as much.
I find myself wanting to continue to give people the same advice I received, the same advice that served me so well, and the advice I believe in strongly—go to college. It will make you a better person. You will become yourself there, and improve yourself and grow. Better, improved, grown, whole people are the ones who earn more money, but that's a side-effect, not a goal.
But when tuition is four times what it was when I found that advice invaluable—it's much more difficult. Even in this thread I'm still giving the same narrative around the intangible and immeasurable value of a college education (I believe in it still, very strongly), but the cost is out of whack.
This is what an economic imbalance feels like, folks. There's beginning to be a huge rift between the perceived value of a university education (invaluable, extreme, incomparable experience, must-do, must-have) and the price (extremely high).
We cannot comprehend it. After all, who can put a price tag on being a better, improved, more whole person? Is it $20,000? Sure. What if we double it? $40,000? Sure, still invaluable. $80,000? Remains invaluable, intangible, unmeasurably important. $160,000? How can we deal with this? How can we put a price tag on a whole experience that remains, throughout all the number shifting, invaluable?
Needs intervention.
I still fully believe that the university experience is invaluable. But that's not the problem. The problem is that it's become overpriced because we are mentally unable to reconcile the immensity of its effect on a life with a single price tag. Thus, it is open to economic "play."
So we rail against it and come up with alternatives, and rationalize that it's not as invaluable as we thought it was after all, and, well, why don't we take some parts here and connect them with this series of tubes and voila! This is the same thing for only a fraction of the price; why would you ever go to that big overpriced agglomerated monster anyway when you can get these results right here?
All the while, I can't help but see holes in the real quality of the experience of growing up. You have to be smart about it, I guess.
Clearly, there's a reason this is an argument, and not a clear-cut case of college being valuable so you should go do it, and the reason is a price tag.
At least it's simple.
Seldom have I ever had the conversation with anyone about, "what kind of job will we get after ___?" For me, it isn't so relevant because my tech background lets me make money pretty easily. For others, it seems like the focus is almost always almost exclusively on finishing the schoolwork.
The schools themselves certainly never bring up the subject of any kind of career planning or job readiness, because that isn't really the role of the university--these aren't trade schools, after all.
Maybe they should, but if everyone's making the same mistake, then I find it hard to say "everyone is dumb/wrong," with an implication that they should all just suck it up and deal with having made some mistake. I think it makes more sense to look for social causes for why everyone's making the same mistake, and find a larger-scale solution than individual suffering of consequences.
As for this: "Not me. I've said otherwise for 40 years." I'm quite certain you weren't a part of the adult/authority figure group my peers and I had access to in the K-12 period of our lives. I find it commendable that you have said otherwise, but your ideas were absolutely not well-represented among the adults present in my generation's upbringing. So, it's great that you've been saying so, but not all that helpful in advancing the discussion.
Please, google "starting salaries for majors".
It's not any harder than that.
The thing is, unless advice I give says what people want to hear, they don't want to hear it. The most unwanted advice I give is to stop blaming others for ones' own decisions. Take responsibility for them. It's actually quite empowering.
When I went to college in the 70's, it was the custom for seniors to tape their job offer and rejection letters on their dorm door for all to see. You bet we talked about jobs after college. I specifically chose classes based on how valuable I thought they'd be to my future career choice, and so did plenty of others.
For example, lots of students quite deliberately did double majors, such as: "AY for fun, and EE for money." This was decades before google. Everyone knew that there were no jobs in AY.
I'm also not sure why you keep repeating this advice, as though I or anyone on this board need to hear it.
My point, which I'll try to make again, is that, among my peer group and in my generation, the universally prevalent idea was, "get a degree in anything, you'll get a job," full stop. (Please, don't take this as a sign that I need you to tell me to "google starting salaries for majors" again!). When you're a 16 year old without much technical aptitude--not me, but certainly my friends--that sounds like a good proposition! The schools won't do anything to disabuse the incoming students of that, either. Why would they? Every department wants a steady influx of students, so none of them are going to say, "nope, no jobs here!"
I think you probably grew up in quite a different era, which is why I keep getting a sense of "kids these days" in your messages.
I do kind of wonder what it would take to get you to empathize with people who grew up in a different time, under different circumstances, people who are part of a substantial cohort, who all acted in good faith on bad life advice and are all paying a substantial price for it.
If, in response, you're going to say "just google it!" or "personal responsibility!" then please, let's save us all the typing and let it go.
What generation is that? I was in college in the late 90s and growing up I was never told just go to college. It was always become a medical doctor or lawyer.
It is to improve yourself, invest in yourself, and become a better human being. Higher pay is a possible side-effect.