Plan B - Skip College | Hacker News Reader

Plan B - Skip College

nytimes.com

80 pointstimr64 comments

I think what bothers me most when I read this sort of article is that it treats all college degrees as equivalent. They talk about average earnings potential and average unemployment rates, but they never break it down. If you get a B.Sc. instead of a B.A., how does that effect your chances?

Almost all my friends without some sort of technical degree (Chem, CompSci, Physics, Math, etc.) aren't working anywhere near their field of study. They paid tens of thousands of dollars so that they can be secretaries, waitresses, and ice cream parlour cashiers.

Where are all these mythical talented engineers working as cashiers and waitresses?! Last time we hired I interviewed tons of people who frankly had zero clue about programming. We finally found a kid fresh out of school who is super smart, but barely takes showers. At least he gets work done though which makes my day easier and that's what counts ;)

At worst a CompSci person should be able to go into government contracting. They are nearly always hiring, mostly require minimum schooling, and the pay is usually pretty good.

There are some fields that usually require more than an undergrad degree to do much with them, but that's isn't anything new. Psychology is a great example, where you have to get an MS or PhD in order to go anywhere with it. If the student didn't realize that till graduation day, well that's their fault.

Reread the comment. The folks working outside their field are the ones without technical degrees. Incidentally, the ice cream parlour cashier has a psych degree (undergrad only).

Whoops, ignore me. I missed withOUT :) Sorry about that.

Where is that story about how it's impossible to multitask again...

Exactly. Also, I think it errs by treating all colleges as equivalent. Since the government subsidises educational loans there are many colleges out there that do not provide much of an education but mostly exist to siphon off those subsidised loans.

I think there are many colleges out there which are just not worth going to. Mind you, I am not an ivy league snob, I am not saying go to a top 50 school or not at all. There are many great schools that are ranked much lower.

But all of those for profit colleges that advertise heavily are mostly a waste of money. If you want to learn something, go to a school that is either public or private but set up as a non-profit and has an established reputation of supporting scholarship and research. Just forget about the ITT techs and universities of phoenix. Community college would be better than those.

I think the government is just too loose with the loans it subsidises.

absolutely. if people paid market rates for education loans, you'd see an increased focus on rate of return. And we'd also see an increased focus from schools on quality instruction in well paid fields and less spending on recreational facilities.

For-profit schools may not be as well regarded, but remember that they have to pay taxes while the others don't. And many get a lot of other subsidies as well. So the real costs are somewhat obscured.

I am not sure I agree with that. I like subsidized loans. They should just be more careful that the loans go to worthwhile schools and degrees.

they'd be more careful if they personally were taking on the real debt that makes the subsidies possible. instead, others are forced to take it on because they'll be stuck paying off a massive $13 trillion national debt.

its time people took responsibility for their own choices.

I would have guessed the opposite - that your friends with B.A.s would be the ones not working in their field of study. Interesting.

On the upside they probably have decent reading comprehension.

What should a parent tell a child who wants to go into a non-"money" field? Should one still pay $80,000 for 4 years of "Social Studies"? Tell them not to go at all and get a 2 year degree from a community college?

We all grew up brainwashed with the idea that "4 year college"="better jobs"="better life". Colleges have been raking in good profits all these years by exploiting that mantra. It is really hard to all of the sudden deny it and go against the popular opinion.

I think we have a logic/emotion split about college, where logically we know college costs lots of actual money and should be regarded as an investment, but our emotions have been manipulated to think of college as a certain kind of life-validating experience.

So the decision to go to college is governed by the logic of college as investment, but then the content part is guided by the emotion of college as personal self-realization.

So we end up with a society where countless people pour thousands of dollars into attending college for fundamentally emotional reasons. Or even worse, for mistaken factual reasons about the practical benefit of their education.

In other words, as Ted Rall put it even before college costs doubled, college is for suckers:

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/09.26.96/student-9639...

That is a good article. A classic. A key part of it for me is:

---

Although America's universities are churning out a steady stream of brain-dead simpletons, our society relies almost exclusively on college credentials as the central determining factor of social status and employment opportunities.

---

I know it is a farce. But I also want the HR departments across the country to know that too. (I guess the lesson is: don't work for companies that consider college degree + GPA as the main determinant for your employment criteria).

do you have the money to spend? Many of my family members got liberal arts degrees, and they felt enriched by the experience. I know visiting them, it sure looked like they were having a good time, meeting interesting people, etc.

Me, I got a SysAdmin job rather than going to school, and continued on in that direction. Sure, when I was my sister's age, I made 5x what she does now, but I don't think that was her primary reason for going to school.

I mean people spend that much on cars that aren't any more utilitarian than a $15,000 civic, so why not spend it learning an interesting skill while living around interesting people?

Money's freedom, tho'. How many foreign countries could you visit, how many experiences could you have, for the price of a 4-year liberal arts degree?

It's harsh but there are only 2 types of people in college. Those studying towards the field they want to work in, and those pursuing a hobby full-time. The latter would be better served spending the money on first-hand experiences instead of reading about it other people's second-hand.

This is an excellent view. The books are there to read, the art is there to view. College can motivate a person who is interested in grades, but not someone interested in the subject. You do lose out on the professor reading a book to you, but you could just read it yourself. Also, the professor isn't there to answer your questions, but, you might ask them via email. Some professors might feel delighted to discuss their subject with a genuinely interested party, rather than a grade seeker.

I think the most important thing you miss out on is the ease of finding peers to discuss the subject with. My degree was in math and physics, and, while I didn't talk to many people about physics (which I feel I don't know very well, btw), I had a good friend in math, and we would often hang out and discuss it. We took a lot of the same classes together (even outside of math), because we got so much out of our discussions.

All well and good if it's all about smarts and money, but the social aspects of having to spend four years collaborating and tolerating your peers cannot be underestimated. People who've gone through four years of college are, typically, well-rounded in their general knowledge and social skills, more liberal and more tolerant.

Colleges don't just take in kids and output kids with knowledge. They turn kids into a certain type of adult.

I appreciate that you said 'a certain type', instead of assuming it was implicitly a better type. (Not that I wouldn't agree with you if you had.)

So it's not about the curriculum? How else would this gestalt effect occur? I can well understand how treatment effects happen at the Naval Academy or at prep schools, but it seems most colleges seem to define their experience primarily by their curriculum.

but it seems most colleges seem to define their experience primarily by their curriculum.

It's important to remember who typically has the biggest say and financial influence over choosing a university to attend: the parents. Steve Jr might have a few party colleges in his roster, but mom and dad want to pay for the "best education." Sell what the people with the money want ;-)

speaking as someone who didn't go to college, I kindof agree. I mean, I don't know if I agree with the 'more tolerant' bit, but certainly, more liberal and better able to get along with other people who have college degrees, more likely to understand (or at least pretend to understand) modern art, etc...

There are also other, harder to define social changes. The most negative side of this is that I know people who earn 1/5th what I do who won't lower themselves to replacing the brakes on their car. I mean, 'round these parts, mechanics charge $70-$90 an hour. Not many of us make more than that after taxes. This unwillingness to 'break the rules' and accomplish what you need to accomplish can be a pretty big problem.

I don't know if it is what college teaches, or if this is simply what college filters for, but it seems that people who went to school have a narrower view of what they are able/willing to do. (Not as narrow as what one learns in service jobs, but still pretty narrow compared to those of us who do work that 'requires' a degree without having one.)

I mean, that's not always true. I know many English majors turned programmers, some who have become really excellent, and a ridiculous number of physicists turned programmers. But College, in general, seems to come with a diminished respect for industry, especially the trades and working with your hands in general (unless it is 'art') - see discussions here about programming as an art. to some people, it seems, you are somehow insulting programming by comparing it to the work of an electrician, a bricklayer or other tradesman, which to me absolutely sings of arrogance.

Your last line - seems more like insecurity to me than anything else.

Maybe. In some ways, I'm very proud to have as done as well as I have without school... in other ways I feel like a dumb hick around my co-workers. Hell, even half the people who work for me now went to school. So yeah, there is maybe some, ah, feelings of social inadequacy there, but I don't think that entirely invalidates my point.

Oh man, speaking of coming off like a hick, yesterday I took my new intern out to the co-lo (the last few days have been a flurry of hardware work) As usual, I stopped off at the local, excellent BBQ place (Sams BBQ; pretty close to my co-lo in San Jose) It was bluegrass night (I hadn't remembered this)

He commented "Wow, this is.... authentic" - I don't know if he thought I was going to tell him he had a 'purdy mouth' or what, but he was obviously pretty uncomfortable. He ended up getting his chicken sandwich 'to go'

The whole day probably wasn't going well for him. he wants to do software stuff, but circumstances dictated that hardware was the order of the day, so he got to follow me around in noisy environments while I tracked down obscure parts.

Nice comment. Just to make sure we're on the same page here, my comment about the insecurity was aimed at people who are insulted when programming is compared to tradesman like work.

Based on your civility and overall personality if I was to meet you with no prior knowledge of your educational history I would assume you had a bachelors if not a graduate degree.

I am, ah, somewhat different in person. I met my current girlfriend on a mailing list. When we first met, she said "Wow, you a lot less articulate in person"

Hah. I might be the same way. A lot of times I realize I don't know how to pronounce words or that I've never said words verbally even though I use them all the time online.

Case in point: 'articulate'. I bet I've used it quite a bit online but nary a time in real life.

I saw a comment in here about people who earn degrees but end up in jobs that aren't even remotely related to them:

I just started a job at the data center of a major mobile provider, electronics developer and appliance manufacturing organization. My particular department is the IT department that supports the call center operations, there are six guys total in my department.

I have a degree in political science. Jim (names have been changed) has a degree in biology. Joe has a degree in English Ken has a degree in environmental science.

Just barely 80% of the people in my department don't have computer science degrees, but we're working in the IT department of a mobile provider. How did we get the jobs? We're all hackers who grew up around technology and got practical, real-life experience.

Personally, I think that's the way to go. But at the same time, I'm reminded everyday of how important humanities studies are, when I'm in a conversation with someone younger than me about politics, and I bring up the Holocaust and they genuinely don't know what the Holocaust is.

Then I see people who vehemently defend the notion that if you don't make practical application of the knowledge provided in these humanities class, they're moot and you don't need to know them.

Talk about being on the fence, I'm living it everyday.

I've always wondered what the employment / income benefits for a degree are once you account for intelligence. It seems to be that there is a lot of schooling that goes unused.

I think you've pointed out the elephant in the room. In America it is politically incorrect to believe that some people might not have the cognitive capacity to excel in college and in jobs requiring college degrees. Every American is above average. If each citizen is not Bill Gates, it is because they are the victim of circumstance. Other people held them down, the system failed them. The successful must be condemned for prospering at their expense and another reform must be tried.

We would rather the vast cognitive middle class take out thousands of dollars in debt and drop out than "admit defeat" by encouraging them to pursue skilled careers in nursing, maintenance and repair, and etc. I am skeptical that the billions of dollars of tax money and individual money spent on the pipe dream of sending every person to college has been worth the expenditure.

Plans that ignore reality are doomed to failure, no matter how well-intentioned. And the reality is that not everyone is cut out for Harvard.

Exactly. The whole "anyone can do anything" culture in America has its benefits, but also its costs.

I personally think a good middle ground is to be sending far more students to community colleges. This doesnt immediately comdemn lower-level jobs to the truly determined (as they can transfer out), but it is far more affordable than a 4-year degree without much in the way of a loss of benefits for the students.

On the other hand, It seems like far too many jobs in the US require bachelors degrees these days. If a job doesnt require a specific major/set of majors in the posting, the work probably doesnt require a bacheolars at all.

A recent Econ Talk podcast reviewing a sociologist's study of low-wage workers showed that technical degrees and certificates can make a huge difference in a person's earning potential:

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2010/03/newman_on_low-w.htm...

Though "community college" has a certain stigma among the intellectual classes that debate and shape public policy, these programs make a strong positive impact in people's lives.

Actually thats what the article just pointed out, that college does not benefit the unintelligent.

What fleitz seemed to be pointing out is that it is necessary to examine to what degree college actually benefits the intelligent as well.

edit: also, it's funny you used Bill Gates considering he dropped out of college.

As a second year undergrad at a UC, I've found that the majority of the people who would appear to not have the cognitive capacity to excel in college courses were simply lacking in fundamental learning that they should have learned in high school or even middle school. All of the students I met that had trouble with calculus had trouble because of their poor algebra skills. The same is true of English classes where students had poor grammar and generally no concept of how to write a structured thesis-driven argument. Even in my upper div algorithms course, the only people who are doing poorly are the ones who did not pay attention in earlier cs classes where we already learned half of this stuff!

Clearly some people are truly incapable of excelling at these things, but I don't think that's the majority and I feel that if we could teach people better in k-12 then they would most definitely excel at higher learning schools where k-12 knowledge is expected.

But then again I'm young, so what do I know?

I assure you that different people have different degrees of cognitive ability. What you say has some truth to it. But a deficit in preparation can be atoned for by a high degree of ability. And no amount of experience will carry someone who is simply over his head.

That has been my experience anyways. We are not all geniuses though I wish we were.

Better beginning preparation can bring up a whole national average to about the "gifted" level in the United States, in several countries that were formerly poor and backward,

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009001.pdf

and several aspects of primary curricula in the United States are KNOWN to be suboptimal,

http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf

so there is surely still a lot of room for improvement in the United States.

Genius is primarily a learned skill. Yes, some people have more aptitude than others, but the vast majority, if they apply themselves, will do just fine. It's far more a question of a support structure to instill discipline than it is of innate skill. Those who truly cannot learn and maintain discipline are rare.

Just to share a quote that motivated me in university (and turned my grades around dramatically)

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent"

If each citizen is not Bill Gates, it is because they are the victim of circumstance.

He has done some amazing things, and aims to do more, but he did also come from unusual circumstances.

http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/

> If each citizen is not Bill Gates, it is because they are the victim of circumstance. Other people held them down, the system failed them.

This part of your otherwise insightful comment is a bit ridiculous. Most people's success is determined by how much money their parents had and what schools their parents could afford to send them to. Circumstances have a pretty huge impact, and if our system is intended to minimize the effects of circumstances, it is failing many people.

OK but where did your parents, or their parents, or their parents get the money in the first place?

There are no shortage of examples of people from humble beginnings who're self-made millionaires, and people born into every privilege who squandered it all.

I don't understand where you're going with that argument. It still makes children victims of circumstance.

If everyone is a "victim of circumstance" as you put it, there would be no social mobility at all.

But there is, so you are wrong.

Shouldn't the degree reflect intelligence? If not, wtf is the point?

Rephrased:

Do people smart enough to get accepted to college earn the same amount whether they attend or not?

Or is actually attending college necessary to earn more because of knowledge imparted in classes?

Or is attending college necessary to earn more because employers hire people with degrees? That's hard to quantify, and you'd have to control for it to get the answer.

Agreed. Conducting a meaningful longitudinal study with large enough group to control for confounds would be extremely hard.

My personal view is of college as an institution where what you are really learning is how to function within institutions. Institutional training is therefore positive if you wish to continue joining institutions (large firms, academia, etc.) but otherwise irrelevant.

You're assuming that intelligence somehow leads to employment and income.

I believe intelligence is only one part of the total equation. IMHO, the larger and more substantial part of the equation is discipline and the ability to execute. This is HN, so look at all the startups that people do around here. Are they really that much more intelligent than everyone else on this list? I'm sure they're all smart people, but what they really have above others is the ability to execute. While the average american is watching American Idol they are working on their business idea. While the same american is playing video games or posting on HN ;) they are working their website.

Obviously some level of intelligence is required, but I just don't think it's as important as many people believe it to be.

Yes, you're correct. What I meant was more along the lines of what does college actually do in and of itself when you subtract all the factors that go along with those that go to college vs. those that don't. I wonder this because I've always been very hard working and consider myself reasonably successful, yet never went to college.

It's funny that you mention playing video games and posting HN as I just stopped playing Portal and thought "I should work on a project" and then fired up HN.

Or at least once you account for scholastic aptitude. If only there was a widely-used test that measured it...

But seriously, there must be some studies that explain what happens after two students with equal SAT scores graduate with degrees in different fields. Anyone know?

Especially amusing: of the 10 fastest growing job categories, two require college degrees. One is accounting; the other is postsecondary education.

In other words, the manufacture of college degrees.

This is powerful support that the age of the ubiquitous bachelor's degree may soon be over.

"This is powerful support that the age of the ubiquitous bachelor's degree may soon be over."

It's incorrect to interpret this article as evidence for an anti-intellectual world-view. Nothing in the article suggests that bachelor's degrees will be unimportant in the future, particularly for the best jobs. The article also points out (correctly) that people without college degrees make less on average, and have less reliable employment.

If anything, this is a disturbing piece of evidence that jobs requiring skilled labor are becoming less prevalent. However interesting the trend may be, I don't think it's a trend to celebrate. I'd rather live in a world where college education is in demand, than one where we're sending kids to vocational school because there's no point in trying to do better.

You're lucky if you encountered many intellectuals as an undergrad.

But actually I think you're right - skilled white collar jobs will die out before skilled or unskilled "blue collar" jobs do. People always will need a broken car fixed, or a wall in their house repaired. The world doesn't necessarily need brand managers and analysts. Most think-work jobs in offices (which college is preparing you for) are non-essential in the grand scheme of things.

I encountered a lot of intellectuals as an undergrad, actually -- and I didn't go to a particularly great school. An undergraduate education is worth what you make of it. If you hang out with idiots, you'll find idiots. Everywhere. But if you're the type of person who would succeed without a degree, you'll have far more opportunity if you can finish college. It's a fact.

Also, you've entirely missed the point of what I wrote: if we do end up living in a world where skilled jobs die out before unskilled jobs, we're in trouble. Hundreds of years of human societal progress have depended upon education and technological development. When that trend goes the other way, our society is well on its way to decline.

When I look over the comments in this thread, I can't help but noticed that 90% of them can be summarized as "I knew some stupid kids in college who did things I think are useless; I knew some kids who didn't go to college and succeeded; therefore, college is useless." It's a logical fallacy, writ large. And when you start associating symbols of education with effete snobbery, you're engaging in anti-intellectualism, no matter what you've accomplished in life, or how many books you read in your spare time.

I honestly don't know why my (parent) comment deserves to be voted down into the weeds, but it makes me a little sad that we've reached the point where a group of "smart" people can so utterly dismiss a factual comment in favor of group-think. If you don't think college is worthwhile, that's fine. But it's still a fact that a college education is associated with higher lifetime income and greater job stability. And I stand by my assertion that if this trend ever reverses itself, our society is in trouble. Glorification of blue-collar labor is a fad reserved to those nations who have the luxury of a lot wealth to lose.

I didn't miss your point, I just didn't re-iterate it. I am in agreement with you, but I am pessimistic. I think we are in trouble.

Regarding intellectuals at university, I also met a handful, and I bet the school I went to was much worse than yours. That said, it seems hard to argue that advanced education in the USA is promoted as a place for intellectual advancement. At best, university is marketed as a way to get a better job. At worst, it's the place where Girls Go Wild.

"I didn't miss your point, I just didn't re-iterate it. I am in agreement with you, but I am pessimistic. I think we are in trouble."

Fair enough. Sorry for misunderstanding. I was/am mainly replying to the general anti-intellectual attitude on this thread, but I did misinterpret the tone of your remark (I was under the impression that you thought it was okay that white-collar jobs might be diminishing).

"it seems hard to argue that advanced education in the USA is promoted as a place for intellectual advancement. At best, university is marketed as a way to get a better job. At worst, it's the place where Girls Go Wild."

I think that the marketing strongly depends on the school, but yes, some schools do focus on promoting the career training aspect of college. Nevertheless, my feeling is that (with the exception of schools like ITT and the University of Phoenix) the marketing is distinct from the experience. Once you're in college, you've got huge opportunities for learning that you wouldn't otherwise.

The people in this forum who dismiss college as an unnecessary affectation of the elite scare me. It's one thing to be philosophical about the value of a philosophy degree, but it's totally another to assume that college is useless because you can always get work as a plumber (or a coder). I don't think they realize how much the well-being of plumbers (and coders) depends on the people who create new knowledge and technology at universities.

I never knew that I had to have a bachelors to be an "intellectual". I refused to join Mensa even after I could have, does that make me "not gifted"?

I think the truth of the matter lies somewhere in the uninteresting middle, and depends a lot on what school you go to, how much you apply yourself, and other factors. Sure, you might learn some things from school. Are these really things that you couldn't learn outside of university walls?

Just saying that a Bachelor's degree isn't helpful to a lot of people doesn't make anyone anti-intellectual, any more than advocating squeaking through a 4 year degree in "University Studies" at Podunk U. makes you pro-intellectual. Being an intellectual is a mindset. A Bachelors degree is a piece of paper that says you did whatever was required to get said piece of paper, which probably didn't involve being an intellectual 100% of the time. That what's I was trying to get at with my unfortunately-snarky-sounding Mensa comment above.

I realize that this part of your comment might actually have been suggesting that if we declare a Bachelors as useless for a bunch of people, the masses will decide that stupidity is an acceptable state of being. If that's the case, I think we should be honest and admit that someone squeezing through a crap degree just because everyone says he should isn't going to cure him of whatever problem allows him to look at learning and knowledge with such a care-free attitude. If someone isn't capable of understanding why learning is important or, worse, is looking for any excuse they can find to tear down people who value education, there's a problem that's being ignored way before they even think about entering college.

I wouldn't bet on it. The government loves to subsidize things in inverse proportion to their usefulness.

Every week I see an article like this one. Maybe it's supposed to be some sort of innuendo that someone needs to solve the "education problem." But it's not an education problem and neither are most of the other problems that plague our society. It's a money problem, has been and will always be so. We all silently say to ourselves, "If I can just get that ______ I will be set." But how often does this prove true?

There are too many sort-sighted patches out distracting us from the truth that our depression is our money. How about we see through the symptoms into the disease for once with a few intelligent alternatives to money/points/etc (all patches that provoke distrust in one another and needless hoarding or competition). People love to say moneyless economies would create incentive for irresponsibility but our reality has proven that to be the exact opposite.

Please don't "skip" college, I don't want to see anyone have to serve me my "ice cream" even 4 years from now--there's nothing wrong with automated solutions. More of the same never changes anything but then again, it seems, neither does saying so.

This article is so wrong, on so many levels it's hard to imagine that this was in a respected newspaper. The idea that some folks should not go to college is, at best, quaint. This reason that people attend college varies a great deal. Not everyone looks at it as a means to a financial end (otherwise there would only be several majors - Finance, Medicine, Law, Engineering). Do you think an English Lit major expects a job at Goldman Sachs upon graduation? Educators are suggesting this because they are dealing with a wave of unprepared Freshman and it costs them more money to teach remedial classes and then risk these folks dropping out. This is a "business" problem for the higher education industry. Wait, think about that phrase, "Higher Education Industry". College has become a big business. No longer do Universities exist to educate our population, they are now a for profit business. In California, it's easier to be admitted to a public university if you're from out of state than if you're a resident because the schools can charge more for out of staters.

The problem is that funding for K-12 schools has dwindled leaving our US grown kids unprepared for the riggers of university. At the same time the Higher Education Industry is looking for the highest profit students to attend and they are coming from out of state and out of this country. That leaves us with a workforce that is not home grown and a culture that underachieves.

from: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7636561&page=1

"According to a survey from National Association of Colleges and Employers, the class of 2009 is leaving campus with fewer jobs in hand than their 2008 counterparts. The group's 2009 Student Survey found that just 19.7 percent of 2009 graduates who applied for a job actually have one."

take 100 individuals, 50 go to college, and the other 50 don't. 10 years out, measure the financial stability (cash flow, net worth, etc) of both groups. I guarantee those that went to college fair better. Not saying that money is everything, but it is a powerful enabler.

the income stats are a lie anyway

Explain? Without more information this comment is useless.

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