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Comment by extra88 | Hacker News Reader

> the reason that all the students go to university is to make money. Like 90%+ of undergrads go there to make money

Which is it, "all" or "90%?" I went to a private liberal arts college so maybe that automatically puts me and my classmates in the 10% but I did not think the overwhelming majority of us were there to make money. The fact that lots of students still major in subjects that can be very worthwhile and valuable but lack obvious paths to financial success (e.g. most of Humanities and a lot of Social Sciences) indicates "making money" is not why they're there.

You think universities should basically be trade schools. They're not and they shouldn't be. Trade schools should be trade schools but the U.S. has a dearth of them and many that fit the description aren't good enough.

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I really hope we see greater specialization of mid-line universities that don't know whether they want to be an academic school or a trade school. Programming-as-inquiry is extremely difficult due to the amount of effort and math required to produce novelty, and programming-as-trade is much less difficult in comparison as a lot of the systems you're composing together already have their principles worked out. You can work from the manual in the latter case, while you're defining the manual in the former.

Meanwhile a university not knowing whether it wants to be a trade school or a research school has mixed incentives that results in an inconsistent quality of education. You get professors who don't know how to teach and teachers who don't know how to go in depth. By requiring both you've made your staffing requirements that much harder to fulfill if you don't want to trade off education quality.

On that note how have bootcamps been doing lately?

The fact that lots of students still major in subjects that can be very worthwhile and valuable but lack obvious paths to financial success (e.g. most of Humanities and a lot of Social Sciences) indicates "making money" is not why they're there.

"Financial success" doesn't necessarily mean optimizing the total number of dollars in your income; it can also mean being able to do work that you enjoy while having a decent standard of living. If a college degree had no impact on your employment opportunities, how many students would still go?

Trade schools should be trade schools but the U.S. has a dearth of them and many that fit the description aren't good enough.

Which is the point. It's not that universities shouldn't exist, it's that they shouldn't be trying to serve both roles.

> the reason that all the students go to university is to make money. Like 90%+ of undergrads go there to make money Which is it, "all" or "90%?"

Ok come on man. I said 90%+. Don't quibble just to be a prick.

The name-calling seems a little uncalled for.

I also went to a good liberal arts college and had a similar experience. People studying subjects that probably wouldn't lead to financially lucrative careers were in the majority.

If you can't stick to posting civil, substantive comments, we're going to have to ban you. Nitpicking is annoying but it doesn't give license to damage the site in your own right.

Would you mind reading https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html and abiding by the desired spirit when posting here?

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