Hacker News Reader

Comment by Rangi42 | Hacker News Reader

Not everyone wants or needs to get a well-rounded liberal arts education. The problem is that undergraduate degrees are more and more a prerequisite for getting any job, so there's pressure to make it easy for poorer people to earn a degree. Towards that end we have loans, grants, scholarships, subsidized city colleges and state universities...

View on HN

> The problem is that undergraduate degrees are more and more a prerequisite for getting any job

That is dependent on the economic cycle. In boom times employers hire anybody with a pulse, in bust times the glut of resumes for a job opening makes employers choosy. If out of all resumes for a retail associate job one candidate stands out due to his MBA and experience, he will likely get the job. That does not imply, however, that all retail associate positions now require MBAs.

I am afraid you are wrong there. It’s a myth that the reason we have public funding of higher education is to help people get nice jobs.

We have public funding of higher education because a better educated populace is a better democracy and a better public.

It's an intrinsic value.

That has long been the romantic ideal, but it no longer matches the reality in a hypercompetitive, filter-laden job market and economy:

https://hbr.org/2015/10/firms-are-wasting-millions-recruitin...

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21640316-children-ric...

http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21646985-americ...

If that were the case, why can't you get federal aid as a non-degree seeking student? Do I need credentials to contribute to a better democracy?

I can only imagine that limiting loans and aid to the pursuit of an accredited degree makes the difference between financing a lifestyle and financing something that is guaranteed worthwhile (if we believe accreditation).

Something must be missing from the US formulation of "better democracy through education."

We spend a huge sum of money on "education" in the US, but the two-party, democratic government we have obtained for ourselves has left a huge fraction of the people dissatisfied and impoverished.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com