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Comment by powrtoch | Hacker News Reader

I graduated from a major US university, and was going to reply to the 2-year idea anyway. I think, while many students do take jobs, most of them are happy (for now) just to amass loans and bank on (increasingly difficult to secure) future employment. For some the vicious cycle you propose might be an actual improvement.

What I'd like to see is major Universities taking some of the ideas used in technical colleges: goal (job/career) oriented degrees, focus on actual experience, and for the love of all things sacred don't require (for example) CS majors to take dance appreciation and psychology. Students could shave a year or two off the time it takes them to graduate, and in doing so save themselves a lot of money. All without harming the "integrity" of the degree.

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Well, you don't have to take dance appreciation or basket-weaving, but there is some value to liberal arts education in addition to vocational training.

I actually just created an account (pretty grueling process, I deserve some credit) to add my 2c: while focusing on professional skills and experience is a great thing for any curriculum, there is a value in "broadened horizons" that cannot be ignored.

Specifically, I found that the networking (meeting those outside your potential field) and ability to see things from other perspectives was invaluable in my college experience. This breaks down the "siloing" effect that I see a lot of talented CS majors have problems with, an effect that is consequently ruining the business world. Taking off the blinders once in awhile is a good thing, regardless how seemingly useless that Drama 101 class is. It's all what you make of it...

This is a meme "I learn this, and you should learn it too!"

There are alway value to an education, in anything. The question is if it is really worth learning about?

Beside, people can learn to appreciate basket-weaving and dance appreciation in their own time. All they need to do is get rid of their TV and get a hobby. People don't need an overly expensive course to do that.

This was exactly my point. I think there really is value in learning the arts, and in learning other unrelated fields. I'm a big music enthusiast, and sociology was one of the best classes I took. But that doesn't change the fact that they are totally unnecessary to a programming career. If you're interested in them, you'll find your way to them, and you'll probably do it a lot cheaper.

At NYU (where I used to work), a CS major requires 12 courses in CS and 32 courses total. The degree costs just short of $93,000.

Do you really believe that a liberal arts education is worth $62,000 tuition + 2 years of lost wages (roughly another $140,000)? Particularly when, to borrow a phrase from Good Will Hunting, that liberal arts education is available to anyone for about $4.25 in late fees at the public library?

http://cs.nyu.edu/webapps/content/academic/undergrad/majors

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:CS5fT5z...

http://www.nyu.edu/bursar/tuition.fees/rates10/ugcas.html

Well, the CS education is available without the late fees, computer science is probably the easiest subject to learn from the internet.

For one thing, NYU trades on their name as well as their education, that's a big chunk of the money you're talking about.

But the more poignant question to me is whether you're getting less out of the liberal arts classes than you are out of the CS classes. I'm not sure that's clear, you can learn engineering anywhere, but 80% of the people I've ever worked with can't write for crap.

For one thing, NYU trades on their name as well as their education,...

If college is just an exercise in signalling, why bother with classes at all?

Why not just replace classes with final exams, give out the paper, host a few networking events and save billions of dollars?

Hey, you're the one who worked there :)

Personally, I value large chunks of the education I got in college, and think the majority of it had some value. I dunno how that value compares to the cost, and I've never seriously considered graduate school of any kind because the (tuition + lost earning) changes a bunch once you have a job.

I was mostly commenting that I thought a lot of the liberal arts education was just as valuable as the technology education, provided that I actually learned the tech so I could get a job. I learned a lot about music, literature and history that I'll have for my whole life, and that I really wouldn't have gotten off my duff to learn on my own.

Hey, you're the one who worked there :)

What do you think made me so anti-college?

> computer science is probably the easiest subject to learn from the internet.

Only for some values of "computer science". There is a lot of very tough math involved and having a teacher will save you ages.

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