Is a college degree still worth it?

Good points, but your just speaking about innate talent regardless of a college degree. You're forgetting family and social connections regardless of talent or a degree.

Thanks Jerf. They've previously indicated that they'd be thrilled to have me show it off, and I'd be happy to write a "how I built this" or something for my blog linking to the results.

Fair warning: it is marketing material, in much the same sense that one of the NYT's data visualizations is marketing, except they have a business model which benefits in a more direct fashion than the NYT does.

So I should have lied about it? And that makes me the one with the chip on my shoulder?

I don't normally bring up the topic of my college decision in business settings, but it was relevant to the topic of the article. Also, in the scenario presented in the anecdote, I answered the college question very casually with, "I didn't finish college." I only argued the point when I was insulted.

I disagree. Why would you claim something falsely? It's possible they wouldn't press further, but it's also possible the person would say "Oh, X University! Was there Z when you went?"

Now, you could go on and tell me about how it's just that easy to make up something else, like, "Hmm, I don't remember that," but I learned a long time ago that making up facts about yourself can easily bite you in the ass. As I've grown older, I generally try to steer away from doing this. Taking the high road and being honest doesn't mean you have a chip on your shoulder.

The only "clearly fucking with" I got out of the grandparent post was the degreed person taking a jab at the non-degreed person, and it's not the first time I've seen a person with a lack of higher education insulted offhandedly that way. It's almost like people with degrees have a chip on their shoulder, or something... (I kid).

Now, to agree slightly with your post, I do sometimes mention that I have no college education (nor did I finish high school). At the same time, I am paid more than many people who do have degrees, but I am limited from many jobs because I lack a degree of any sort. However, I don't try to debate whether my way is better, because I know that learning works differently for different people.

As for validation? You may have a point there, but it's amazing to ME that so many people fail to realize that you can learn almost anything yourself. I don't think it's wrong to be proud that you gained the same (or better, being real-world experience) knowledge that another person had to pay $35,000 to learn.

Please don't think I'm being dismissive of college education though. I miss out on a great many things simply because it doesn't fall into my area of interest (classic literature and ancient history being prime examples). By getting a degree, you ensure that you're at least passingly familiar with the same basics as everyone else.

I do intend to go back to school eventually, but I have very little pressing need to earn a specific degree. If things keep going the way of MIT and free online courseware, I may skip the degree portion and gain personal enrichment without paying an institution for the privilege.

That may be the case for some, but I know others simply believe in full disclosure. When people ask 'what college did you go to', what they really mean is 'what college did you graduate from'.

Many who didn't graduate simply don't want to misrepresent that, and later be perceived as someone who isn't forthcoming or entirely trustworthy, or who is ashamed enough to withhold obviously pertinent information.

Since they lack the cred of a college degree, their rep is even more important to maintain.

I find it hard to believe that a person could get the same engineering education on their own than at a good engineering university. From a practical point of view, I see what you mean, in that, an HR department weighing two candidates would probably prefer the one with a(ny) college degree. Frankly, that almost goes without saying. However, I think the same is much more true in engineering. I'm not only talking about programming shops. After all, computer science/computer engineering isn't the only form of engineering. There's material science, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, aerospace engineering, etc., and I simply can't believe that a place like Boeing would seriously consider you for an engineering position unless you have at least a bachelors in the relevant field.

Software is a rare field in that one can become competent without having a "related" college degree. You can certainly ship products without majoring in CS. On the other hand, I don't think you can build planes or bridges without a degree in aerospace or mechanical engineering.

> There are huge ranges of jobs that a humanities degree qualifies you for that you can't get without one--- even a bunch of stuff that's unrelated to the degree, like HR or various secretarial jobs.

I think that's exactly the problem. Why should that degree qualify you? It's unrelated! That's what the article and some of the comments are trying to point out: we shouldn't have careers where the college degree is treated like a checkbox instead of being a relevant indicator of your ability in the field in question. What does close examination of Chaucer or Shakespeare have to do with being a secretary? Why would someone who doesn't have a degree in Comparitive Literature make a worse secretary than someone who does? The answer is that it shouldn't.

Funny, because this particular article seems to argue the opposite. Two places in particular stand out to me where the article raised the specter of automation and outsourcing to scare people away from engineering-type jobs: >Meanwhile, well-paying white-collar jobs such as computer programming have become vulnerable to outsourcing to foreign countries.

and

>But he offers this advice: "Don't train yourself or your children [in work] that a computer can do or a smart kid in China or India can do. Because that's ferocious competition."

Why the gloom and doom over science/engineering/math fields, when it's those fields that other articles have pointed to as the few with strong job prospects? There is some serious inconsistency between this article and other articles that have been posted around here lately, and the general tone leads me to believe this was a last minute fluff piece put together by someone who wasn't really paying very close attention.