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Comment by ptaipale | Hacker News Reader

Related: Rich Kids Study English

"New data shows that students whose parents make less money pursue more “useful” subjects, such as math or physics."

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/college...

Yes. The liberal arts are “the objects of study worthy of a free person” as opposed to a wage slave. The public university system was meant to make these aristocratic pursuits available to the masses. Until costs exploded, it worked.

Even if it was free, the ability of the non nobles to provide for themselves as they don't have a family to live off of is something they really should take into account when pursuing a degree. And one can always earn two degrees in 4 years, one for the aristocratic pursuits, one so that retirement is possible.

> Until costs exploded, it worked. What costs are you talking of, specifically? Moving manufacturing to lower wage countries has actually reduced costs of goods quite a lot, and productivity gains throughout the world have consequently increased wealth.

The real problem seems to be income inequality; whereas right after WW2 inequality was low, it has recently exploded with the implementation of reckless tax cuts for the wealthy and cutting down on essential social security nets.

Its a shame really: the US has its problems, but the American middle class has generally been a source of prosperity and stability, and it seems to be rapidly fading away.

Reminds me of the Paul Erdős quote: ”Hungary was a poor country - the natural sciences were harder to pursue because of cost, so the clever people went into mathematics.”

As opposed to doing a "soft" degree like a PPE which will lead to a much more financially rewarding /powerful job :-)

Reading the article give me the impression that the authors just didn't understand the UK class system when looking at who does what degree.

The article was American and focused somewhat on the Americas, although much of it could be generalized on other countries.

But what aspect of the UK class system in particular do you see as not fitting what was written?

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