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Comment by throwaway287391 | Hacker News Reader

I'd bet a large part of the reason is cultural. For just about any American high school student who's been exposed to the mainstream culture their entire lives (including myself at the time), the idea of missing out on the "college experience" (i.e. mostly partying) that just about every conventionally successful person they've ever met will have gone through and instead going to "small salary vocational training" would just be completely unthinkable and depressing to imagine, especially if all your friends are following the usual path. I suppose it's possible this may change with Covid-19 but I still don't quite see it.

Edit: could any of the downvoters explain their reasoning? I guess this could have come off as facetious because I mentioned partying or something, but I'm completely serious -- why wouldn't cultural reasons be a major factor?

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American culture also devalues community college in this way.

The way we break this is by changing our hiring decisions. If you have a Harvard grad (or other private university grad) in front of you, consider if they really are the right candidate. Consider recruiting from local community and public colleges, including public non-traditional colleges. Build a rapport with the job placement offices at these schools. If candidates are missing something, work with the schools to improve their curricula.

Is there any difference in hiring between someone who attended four years at a college vs transferred in after two years at community college? (At UC Berkeley, about a third of graduates are transfers and at least while I was a student there I didn't get any perception they were less capable)

I expect any differences to manifest in the student's life over the subsequent years. Many people build a significant chunk of their social network in those first two years of undergraduate college

>Build a rapport with the job placement offices at these schools.

This is 100% the right answer. Source: my career in higher education has been mostly at the community college level.

Universities and 4-year colleges are not as incentivized as community colleges to build career pathways and make direct changes to curriculum based on external input. Most community colleges (I'm betting all of them, but I can't say that for sure) have committees of business leaders to inform curriculum decisions. Community colleges are also more nimble when it comes to creating degree pathways - therefore, if the graduates do not have the skills they need for your business, they can spin up a new degree in less than a year, fully accredited, while universities may take 3-5 years.

Further, businesses can impact individual class curriculum at a community college via these advisory committees. This just simply does not happen at a university.

This is pure conjecture. The younger generation currently consumes way less alcohol and is overall much more studious and serious than previous generations. Years of austerity have eroded the "animal house" culture you are picturing from your youth.

They are pushing college WAY less and pushing vocational training WAY MORE. I've had my younger cousins reach out to me interested in vocational training and my opinions on that. ( My opinion? Pick a major with a career. Do two years of community college, finish up at a major university. Vocational jobs are well paying and are perfectly respectable, but tend to be pretty hard. )

Interesting. Thanks for making an actual counter-argument. I have to admit I have a little trouble believing the cultural connotations around college could have changed that much in the time since I graduated from HS (2007), but I'll take your word for it -- I don't have any current connections to kids that age myself.

I graduated around the same time. We got burned BADLY and I think people started paying attention around that time.

Try to put yourself in the shoes of the 40% of graduating high schoolers in the US who don't go to college. It would seem nice to have an option to graduate and start a career.

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