The cost of higher education for students on the edge of poverty | Hacker News Reader

The cost of higher education for students on the edge of poverty

story.californiasunday.com

36 pointsGeekette64 comments

I cannot stand these articles. It's time for the whole suburban-liberal "follow your dreams and go to college" attitude to abruptly implode.

Don't waste your time reading this article. I can sum it up for you:

1.) The first subject in this article is a theater major who has been in college for over six years. 2.) The second subject is paying a lease on a new vehicle and had studied abroad in Italy, despite barely earning above minimum wage.

There's no beating around the bush; you can't fix stupid. I have very little sympathy for people who effectively squandered what little they had instead of at least making an attempt at good decision making. To fight and lose is one thing. To say you were doomed from the start and that fighting would be a waste of your time is another.

You're asking people who are freaking 17 years-old to have excellent decision making skills and awareness of what industry will be in half a decade when you get out.

WHO IS THAT SMART? WHO IS THAT AWARE? I just got lucky cause I liked computers, was nerdy, and did decently on exams. I assume most other programmers are the same. I didn't know anything about SV (grew up in rural Kentucky) - I didn't know what the industry was like. I just believed Google when it said I would get a job. Don't act like we all thought very hard and carefully, meticulously planned out whether the thing we enjoyed would be profitable. Most people were 17.

If you were 17 or 18 when you decided to go to college, it probably wasn't a very well-thought out decision. The fact that you look at such students with such ire and derision for wanting a better life and working for that is so heartbreaking and pathetic. There are much more productive places to direct your malice than the students themselves.

You don't have to feel bad for people who made worse decisions than you. Congratulations, people make bad decisions. It's more productive to ask ourselves, "Why?" and "How can we prevent this" and "What can these people do now" rather than just getting all "old man yells at cloud" about "suburban-liberals". Lemme tell you real quick. I know people from every end of the damn political spectrum in this situation, so whatever political image you're projecting onto these students is just nonsense. It isn't a "liberal snowflake" or "feminist" problem or whatever else whacked out narrative you have in your head. The only conclusion you've come to is that teenagers are make bad decisions.

A lot of students of this generation felt that their only way to success was through college. It isn't because they're dumb. It isn't because they're "lazy". It's because they made the wrong decision. Let's all try and be a little more productive and ask "Now what?".

As soon as you become a theater major, you lose the right to the "I just was trying to make more money and have a better life" narrative.

If at 17 someone was informed among their group that they were he best theatre students in their peer group? Then even in college they are really good at theatre and are mediocre to bad at more “marketable” skills? Do they deserve poverty for not knowing at 17 that even after 4 years or more of education the standard is more like 20+ years of education? Or that making it is not acting skill but networking skill?

At 17 people will try to do what they are best at and play to their strengths. That’s really reasonable at 17.

So your argument is that making a dumb decision invalidates anyones ability to feel sympathy for you?

It's not a narrative. It's just common human decency. WHY THE MALICE? They made a bad decision - great: you get to feel superior.

... Are you done yet? Cause that person didn't just disappear after you got done feeling all high and mighty. As someone who has know quite a few theatre, dance and other such "dumb majors". I actually know quite a few who've become very successful working in their field. They may not be actresses or professional dancers, but they work close enough to the field that they feel their degree is useful. Many also chose to work outside that field in other decently paying jobs (technical writers, editors, etc).

Why do you feel the need to just act as if it's hopeless and throw these students out? Is your need to feel superior that significant?

Why? If you are an actor on Broadway, your minimum pay is $1,861 per week[0]. So if you're working 40 weeks per year, you'd be making, as a minimum, $74,000. This is higher than many teachers' salaries, and in line with many other professionals. Plus there's a very high (if very narrow) ceiling on those salaries.

You can make the argument "well most actors never make it as a broadway actor". While true, do most software developers make it as a Google developer? And how likely is it that someone whose talent lies in acting is also talented enough to do well at software development? Sometimes, you should play to your strengths, even if the relative bargaining power of your strengths are not as strong as someone else's strengths. That doesn't mean you're not following the best path to "have a better life".

[0] http://www.actorsequity.org/agreements/agreements.asp?code=0...

I don't think you've met many professional actors. Someone with a role on Broadway, even as a supporting actor with no dialog, is considered to have "made it". An Off-Broadway or regional theater role pays something more like $500 a week. And even if you're good enough to land these gigs there's very limited stability as shows/casts rotate.

Sure, not everyone works at Google, but the people who don't can still land jobs at a million different companies for a living salary. An actor who's not landing roles is working a survival job (waiter, barista, etc) so they can afford to spend time auditioning. And remember we're talking about somebody on the verge of homelessness -- they're going to have to compete with actors from wealthy families who paid for their rent and a degree from Juilliard.

If you're good enough to act on Broadway, you're good enough to be a salesperson.

I'd just like to point out that parenting can play a huge role in this process. If your parents encourage critical thinking and act as sounding boards to the proverbial "what do I want to be when I grow up?" then yes, a lot of these issues can be foreseen.

    E.g. "Dad I think I want to be a doctor when I grow up." "That sounds like an excellent choice son, be prepared to spent a lot of time and money in school? You know we can try to help you pay for that but cannot afford it all"

    "Dad I think I want to be a theater major in school." "That's a wonderful passion son, how do you plan on using your degree after school?"

Parents would have to be equipped to be able to answer these questions in the way you suggest though. That seems a bit of a stretch if they haven't been educated similarly themselves

You know that if you actually ask, "Daddy, what are the career paths that minimize my education expenses while maximizing my expected income and security over the next 40 years?", the best answer is going to be something like, "being rich and well-connected", right?

> I just believed Google when it said I would get a job.

If you Google "theater major" the top result is entitled "Worst College Majors for Your Career". I don't think even think she got that far.

Oddly enough, I think you and OP are in agreement despite the opposing tones. We don't believe high school students can handle access to alcohol but we expect them to make incredibly finalizing, expensive decisions regarding college. First things first, the "just go to college" meme must die.

> I think you and OP are in agreement despite the opposing tones.

I agree, but I think his tone is the more important thing to discuss here. Everyone is agreement that the "just go to college" idea is long dead (even though I'm sure this thread is gonna rehash it just for the kicks), but this attitude of feeling all morally superior to people who made well-intentioned shitty decisions? It's annoying as hell, and completely unnecessary. It does nothing but make all the programmers in a room feel all warm and giddy for their "wise, career decision" (aka lucky guess that aligned with my skills and interests at 17).

It's just so lame, unproductive, and plain mean. What's the point?

Some of us were. I graduated high school back in the 80s, so it was before the Internet was public, and way before things like Google existed. I wanted to be a film maker, or a writer, or a cartoonist, but I knew back then that it was a matter of not only talent, but luck. I also had an interest in computers, so I thought I would get a degree in Comp Sci as a fall back in case my other careers didn't work out.

Good thing too, because the movie career didn't pan out (not for lack of trying---twice) and I never did get started on the writing career (another good thing---my best friend is an author and barely makes any money at it) or cartooning.

Now, how to prevent this from happening? Perhaps telling high school students that getting a degree doesn't mean a job? You have a better chance at a decent job with a STEM degree than without? That college is just too expensive? That college loans cannot be discharged with a bankruptcy?

> I just got lucky cause I liked computers, was nerdy, and did decently on exams.

Exactly. Not only that I had a benefit of having a computer in high school when almost nobody else I knew had one.

I can act like what coding is magical or special or I was "smart" to be born at the exact right to and get into programming at the exact right time, but a lot of it is just dumb luck.

OP is going overboard with his cynicism and bitterness.

There are plenty of smart people who go into literature, philosophy, theater, etc. And frankly, I personally have just as much respect for that as an engineer/programmer/etc and I think they are as needed and important.

There is this myth that programmers are "smart". We really aren't smarter than engineers, english major, teachers, etc. We just were asocial enough to sit in front of our computers for hours and have the luxury of owning a computer at a relatively young age.

I'm not asking for excellent decision making skills. I'm not even asking great, or even good decision making skills, for that matter. I'm just asking for a young adult to not approach an investment in education in the worst way possible.

A part of you has to be kidding when you ask "who is that smart," or "who is that aware," or at least I hope so. If you are 17 and cannot understand that some jobs are in higher demand than others, you have lived a very disconnected life (generally symptomatic of being a well-to-do suburbanite). If you are 17 and do not realize that this world will constantly need huge amounts of engineers, HVAC technicians, programmers, diesel mechanics, and the like for the foreseeable future, you have spent almost 20 years somehow ignoring the wonders of the modern world around you.

I had pretty much settled on working in either software development or network engineering by the time I was 13. The IBEW would be my next stop if that didn't pan out, but I never let it come close to that. I know multiple people that began developing a passion for their field around the same age as I did. I know many more people (some from unforgiving upbringings) that graduated high school, realized that they needed to make a move fast, and picked a growing field that they knew there was money in. It isn't hard, but you have to accept that you will be rewarded for committing to something in-demand quickly and decisively, even if you would rather be a rock star.

You're taking my mention of suburban-liberalism and running somewhere completely different with it. My point wasn't that college is some "feminist snowflake" plot to dupe the unsuspecting young adults of the US. What I'm trying to say is that it takes a special sort of lifestyle to make blanket claims about how any and all education will lead you to success. Tell an impoverished resident of an inner city how much you've spent on a theater degree and they will ask why you didn't spend it on immediate necessities. Tell a rural resident how much you spent on your theater degree and they will ask why you didn't enlist, become a lineman, a millwright, or a nurse. Only somebody who hasn't experienced the urban jungle or the desolation of the agriculture and manufacturing industries can sincerely act like you can get any old college degree and have it be worth your time and money. It requires you to be progressive enough to at least superficially care, but naive and disconnected enough to not understand the reality.

I don't look at students wanting a better life and working toward it with ire and derision. I am fairly irked by grown adults wanting a better life, being mentally mature enough to understand what that takes, doing something else, and wondering how this all could have possibly happened. Our "what now" is basically to tell these students to cut their losses and go through the whole process again, this time in a field that will net them decent work, while their classmates have a six year jump on them. This is a future we can avoid if we stop acting like every degree will lead to viable work.

> theater major who has been in college for over six years

And that was 6 years at a community college without getting a degree.

I'm sorry but this is almost comical.

I think the thing that is less comical is that she had to work a minimum wage job and juggle homelessness while going to college.

Difficult to graduate in 4 with those challenges

> It's time for the whole suburban-liberal "follow your dreams and go to college" attitude to abruptly implode.

So you're saying it's time to drop the illusions and admit that most people will never be professionals with six-figure salaries, thus dramatically increasing class consciousness and ushering in the workers' revolution?

I don't think that's going to be politically popular.

I agree completely about the attitude, but would blame a different group of people. To put it in terms as blunt as yours: when people are told lies from morning till night, and kept in cages for eighteen years until they're too broken to tell the difference between lies and truth, the real culprits for the disastrous results are not the victims of these policies.

> The brand-new white Hyundai Elantra was $17,000; her monthly payments, $262.

Wow, that's more expensive than the car I bought (and felt guilty about) as a newly employed software developer. I wonder if we should be offering financial counseling in addition to financial aid.

Seriously. Until last year I drove a car that was 1/3 the cost. And while not new, it was a nice car!

My younger cousin bought a (low-class) sports car for about a third of that price and modded it out to 200 horsepower. Any time I hear a price go over 10k I cringe.

Miata Is Always The Answer, à la GNU.

I'm almost middle-aged and I've never owned a new car.

My current car cost me $2,000 a few years ago. I can't imagine paying $17k for a Hyundai, of all things. I'd have to be seduced by some kind of sexy rare classic.

I have another running car, a hideous Subaru, that I bought for $100. That's my backup.

For a brand new car that's not the a lot, the problem is she bought a brand new car.

Americans are being groomed to think in monthly payments rather than the total cost which leads to silly decisions like buying a brand new car instead of a getting a used car.

Not only the new car (I will never own one), but bought it before she had the job. And then didn't get the job.

It's a myth that a brand new car is a bad deal. Brand new cars are way superior to used (1-2 year old). However, this is only true if you own it until it no longer works. This is where most people go wrong. If you don't own it for its entire working life (~20 years) you're better of buying a 5 or 6 year used model and saving ~40%.

I'm going to need to see a spreadsheet or something for that claim. 1 year is about 19% depreciation. but only ~5% of life of car

I'd have to dig it up, but it's the warranty that makes the difference.

I see. I imagine that math is going to depend a lot on brand/model and one's skill at identifying and fixing problems themselves.

Indeed. I only mention the original post because Hyundai's warranty is better than average and their cars are cheaper than average (for new, anyway). Even though Hyundai's depreciate faster than say, Honda, the depreciation curve is a little different anecdotally, e.g. a one year depreciation for a Hyundai is a little less than a Honda in raw price since the car is already cheap, however a 5 year difference will favor Honda greatly.

Jack Baruth wrote a great article a few years ago about how owning cheap used cars is a privilege reserved for people who have the skills and time to fix their own cars: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/02/no-fixed-abode-gott...

It seems that he was partly inspired to write this by "the TTAC reader whose response to Bark’s article on subprime buyers was to straight-facedly suggest that a working father swap his own minivan transmission in his apartment parking lot."

I used to own beater cars when I was in college and shortly after. I never paid more than $3k for one, and I did all of my own work, including replacing all of the brakes on one of the cars myself. But I like working on things, I already owned the tools, and I had access to good public transit when my car broke down. I would not recommend beater cars to most normal people.

if you buy certified pre-owned like I did you get the warranty without having to buy new.

Its not the same warranty with most brands - my current car has a 4-year warranty for almost everything (excludes tires and a few other things that are always excluded), whereas the similar pre-owned models have a 4-year that only covers the engine.

AFAIK for the Hyundai Elantra (the car mentioned and that I bought) it's the same minus the current years and miles on the car.

It really depends on the brand.

When I bought my Prius, I was looking at 1-3 year old used models that were only about $3-5k less than a new one, and came with a worse warranty. The two years of free maintenance that came standard with the new Prius covered a significant part of the price gap, and the new one had more life left than the used ones, which I think covers the other part of the gap.

On the other hand, it rarely makes sense to buy a new Chevrolet or Ford, or Mercedes, for example. The resale value on those is terrible.

Buying new saves on the transaction costs of the resale through a dealer and the risk of buying private used.

Buying non-luxury cars is NOT expensive. Throwing away a working car is expensive.

>It's a myth that a brand new car is a bad deal.

that's not really what I was trying to argue. I'm trying to point out the mindset of someone in her position purely thinking of monthly payments.

An "extra" $100 a month doesn't sound like a lot of money and the sales people push this hard because it obfuscates the true cost of the purchase. For example my real estate agent kept trying to do this when I was buying a house, an "extra $200 a month is a small price to pay for the house you love".

The one that drives me crazy is comparing an ongoing expense to the price of a latte each day.

It's a fair comparison to make in terms of costs. But if your income temporarily stutters, you can just stop buying lattes.

I don't buy latte each day. I know no one who does.

If I would be theoreticaly buying latte each day, it would be either because I would love latte so much or because of some social reason (collegues I want to talk with are going there so I have to join etc).

Compared product is usually not needed socially and is no more appealing then daily latte I am not buying.

The people who respond to sales tactics are the sort of people who buy lattes every day, fo rhte same reason.

75% of the lifetime for 60% of the cost (your numbers) doesn't sound like a bad deal.

When you consider the time value of money it becomes an excellent deal.

Yup! Personally I'd never buy a new car, but they aren't really that bad of a deal. I will say though, there's an uncertainty that exists that wasn't apparent in my simplification. Transmission failing out at 9 years would basically make your car useless, but if you had warranty you'd be good.

Financial counseling should be required in high school. It would benefit the poorest the most.

I'm not surprised about the new Elantra. People who grow up poor are not socialized to make good financial decisions. (People who grow up rich often make bad decisions too, but they don't suffer as much from them.)

Unfortunately, we have a system where poor college students are able to dig themselves into massive debt. Huge student loans are given to people who have no chance of repaying them, and it's possible for someone in dire financial straits to finance a new car. It's a miracle we haven't had a mass default bring down the entire student loan system yet.

> It's a miracle we haven't had a mass default bring down the entire student loan system yet.

Low unemployment will do that. Just wait for when U3 creeps toward 7% or so, when the prospects of employing the sociology, theater, and gender studies majors for "college graduate salaries" becomes untenable for employers.

Then you'll probably see it pop.

Or not. Markets can remain irrational surprisingly long times.

The article says she had some "poor advising" at the community college and she is currently trying to get a degree in music theater.

Liz spent 6 years enrolled at a community college without getting a degree and then transferred to a school to work on bachelors where she thinks she'll need to spend another 2.5 years. It doesn't really give the details of what happened during those 6 years, but if she was able to stay enrolled for 12 semesters without getting an associate degree there seem to be problems that go much deeper than a lack of resources to go to school.

If the advisors were seriously giving her advice that would prevent her from getting a 2-year degree in 6 years (even allowing for her trying to figure out what she wanted to study) the school should be liable.

I transferred out of community college, and I can definitely confirm that it is possible to stay there for pretty much forever without making meaningful progress, as long as you don't flunk out.

It was also very frustrating to transfer out. The transfer office made multiple mistakes that would have prevented my transfer if I had not noticed them myself. This was at a California community college with one of the highest transfer rates in the state.

Unfortunately, people who grow up poor are not socialized to be persistent and successful in navigating the kind of bureaucratic systems one encounters in college admissions, transfers, and student loans. So, I'm not surprised Liz was stuck in community college for a long time, although 6 years is excessive.

From the article:

> Like many students, she took classes she didn’t need, partly due to poor advising and partly because she was feeling her way toward a major.

I taught at a community college. A lot of people there are really just feeling around for what to do with their lives. A lot of them also didn't do so well in high school and needed to skip ACT/SAT requirements to get in to a 4 year school to do what they really needed. This translates into lots of general ed classes/GPA boosters.

When a student doesn't know what they want to do, it's hard to give them good advice. And if they didn't take school seriously in high school, it's harder for them to start doing it more seriously now.

Combine that with not knowing where you're sleeping that night, or trying to concentrate on an empty stomach, and yea, it'll take you a while to dig out.

I learned a lot of empathy teaching at a community college. Now, sure, we could talk about "personal responsibility", but there are a lot of things at play here. Lots of responsibility to share.

I understand that and if someone took 4 years to get a 2-year degree, maybe it would make sense. Keep in mind somehow she had enough resources (loans, financial aid, etc.) she should have been able to complete three 2-year associates degrees from scratch. Even if she was feeling her way toward a major, took some classes that she didn't end up needing, and had to take some remedial classes, there is no way someone who was trying (and it sounds like she is) shouldn't have been able to graduate in 6 years. The article said she talked to an advisor and implies she was trying to follow the advice she was given. If that is the case, this really should be considered educational malpractice on the part of the college.

That's her side of the story. Which I'm not saying is wrong. But, again, it's awful hard to advise people who don't have any direction.

I also didn't notice if she went full time or not. I had many students who took 4 years to get a single degree, because they only took 3-5 credits a term. Our program was 68 credits. They worked 40 hours a week.

I had young adults in my class who would attend every 8AM class - never missed a day. But they never turned in work. I asked a few of them why. Same story: "If I'm going to school, my parents stop harassing me." Other students didn't know what they wanted to do, but being in school deferred student loan payments, so they just kept enrolling on purpose, kicking a can down the road.

There are a lot of young people who do not know what they want to do in life. Heck, there are older folks like me who still don't.

I miss the hell out of teaching, but I don't miss seeing students go into massive debt aimlessly floundering their way through school. And I don't like that colleges take advantage of that fact either.

It seems to me that system that have you choose major at first instead of expecting you to continue "well rounded" unfocused general education would be better for those students.

Even if some would transfer midway, having to pick up goal and then have clear path to it would be easier for less preared students.

That's the system many universities have. Community colleges are intended to serve students who are unprepared for universities, can't afford to attend universities, or have other nontraditional backgrounds. Most community college administrators would argue that your suggested changes would make the college less able to serve its students.

There is always a tension between meeting the needs of the nontraditional student body and making sure students make academic progress. I agree with you that community colleges are not balancing that properly, but I don't think that something as strict as you suggest would be the answer. Making students choose a major when they don't know what they want to do with their lives is going to result in a lot of wasted time if they change their minds.

Most of the majors outside of STEM fields end up having the same coursework requirements anyway. Even at the University of California, many students spend the first two years taking the same courses. So, it's not clear that making people choose a major at community college would make much of a difference, except for STEM majors. It's only after transferring that most of the major-specific courses are encountered.

The aspect of community college that stood out most to me was how you could avoid interacting with the administration other than registering for classes. I think it would be a great step for community colleges to require every student to meet with an academic adviser at least once per year. Of course, that would probably require more advisers.

Many community college students aren't even trying to earn a degree. They just want to take specific classes to learn new skills or because it's fun. Nothing wrong with that, and no need to force them to pick a major.

Yes, but this student had been trying to earn a 2-year degree for 6 years.

>I taught at a community college. A lot of people there are really just feeling around for what to do with their lives. A lot of them also didn't do so well in high school and needed to skip ACT/SAT requirements to get in to a 4 year school to do what they really needed. This translates into lots of general ed classes/GPA boosters.

Then I think we need to stop expecting that there's going to be some special path they'll ever take in life that's specific to them as individuals, at least work-wise. We should instead set up a general path that someone can take to earn a living without needing a personal drive in any particular direction, and let them be a unique individual outside work.

I wholeheartedly agree.

I think that pretty much describes an Associates degree in pretty much anything. You graduate with a 2-year degree of mostly general ed, but a few classes in something you think you might be interested in. If you want to get a 4-year degree you should have a much better idea of what types of things you'd be willing to spend another 2 or 3 years learning. If you don't go on for a 4-year degree you at least have an associate degree which is a huge step in employability above just having a high school diploma.

As a person who almost didn't attend a school and dropped out from university, I can confidently say that many (if not most) schools and universities across the globe are completely useless. You may think I'm kidding or exaggerating. But seriously, what exactly they are "teaching"? For most part, I've seen school/university teachers who never care to explain core ideas, instead their so called "teaching" is mostly about mindless memorization. Since I was a kid, I always frustrated how stupid my teachers were.

I ended up studying practically everything on my own (except reading/writing/elementary math which my grandpa taught me). I learned myself how to write programs when I was 10/11 years old. My parents were not programmers, so I had no help.

I lived in Uzbekistan, Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands. I'm working as a software engineer since 2009 (I started my career working at internet-club in 2002/2003).

I can confidently tell that most of "experts" (in whatever field) who have so called "higher education" diploma don't understand a damn thing.

Cost of education = cost of books, nothing more!

If you have luxury to have internet access (no sarcasm, I didn't had internet access till 2002/2003), then add cost of your personal computing device (again no sarcasm, I had only 8-bit ZX Spectrum till 2000!) and internet access subscription.

Peter Thiel has a similar view on "higher education" system:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvBlOFU3ry8

> most of "experts" (in whatever field) who have so called "higher education" diploma don't understand a damn thing.

While this is generally true of the charlatan fields like psychology and sociology that can't even replicate their own results, I'd hazard to guess that Moore's Law is entirely reliant on Ph.D.-level work in materials science, etc.

The most astounding thing reading the comments are from people that are pretty well of condemning some poor folk that are making mistakes. These people have not seen success, therefore it very difficult for them to come out of these situations. Countless articles have demonstrated how a majority of poor kids going to college have a tough time graduating. I am so happy to be living in a state where these issues are getting discussed.

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