Winds of Change Blow Away College Degree | Hacker News Reader

Winds of Change Blow Away College Degree

bloomberg.com

49 pointsmvs18 comments

It looks like this newly submitted article is reasonably thoughtful and informed. The distinction between job categories vulnerable to globalization and those less vulnerable is interesting, and points out that some college-degree-requiring jobs may be increasingly outsourced.

But degree-seekers decide whether or not to get degrees at the individual level, and sometimes after already deciding on a career. I've not posted in some of the other recent threads about the supposed uselessness of college degrees, and I want to provide a different perspective on the issue. While reading about IQ testing research, specifically directed to the issue of IQ tests as qualifications for being hired for full-time employment, I saw the striking statement that at ALL levels of IQ, an engineer will enjoy better career prospects than a technician. In many business corporations and government agencies (perhaps there are some exceptions), the distinction between being hired as a "technician" and being hired as an "engineer" is mostly determined by the absence or presence of a college degree. The lifetime earnings difference (remember, this is for persons with the same IQ) between a technician and an engineer is more than enough to justify investing in getting a college degree in engineering.

I do not claim this generalizes to the difference between an "office assistant" and an "office manager" (which perhaps is also defined mostly by higher education credentials) but that would be an empirical issue to look at. If college study has signaling value in the job market, and perhaps also provides some practical training for being in one job category rather than another, whoever you are, however smart you are, you may be well advised to seek a college degree.

For the more college-skeptical view of Charles Murray, see "Down with the Four-Year College Degree!":

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/10/06/charles-murray/down-w...

The real question is whether this earnings difference is justified (the college degree adds enough value to the employee to put them on an entirely separate tier) or a "bubble" (perceived by hiring managers to be that important, but not actually).

If the latter, many companies are making expensive mistakes by not hiring less-educated but intelligent workers. The costs of training would be far lower than the salary savings .

My sense is that most employers today have no interest in serious training and career advancement for their employees. They hire technicians, engineers, and managers, rather than hiring technicians and letting them work their way to being engineers and managers. As a result, individual workers have far less space to grow within the company, loyalty is lower, the management has no personal experience of the day-to-day operations of the company.

I wonder if the solution to this whole issue is a proper market, and true innovation, in student lending.

A competitive financing market, where college hopefuls compete for access to lenders' funds, and lenders compete to get quality students, could work well.

It seems that private lenders, if they could make interesting loan agreements, would be the best equipped to provide substantive loans to whomever, and we wouldn't see ridiculous degrees and subjects surviving, as students are incentivised into more productive areas.

Actually the key is to get rid of government loan subsidies. They just bid up tuition and get capitalized into non-essentials like sparkling student centers.

It's no coincidence that college prices have risen as the government has increased their loan subsidies.

Cart before the horse! Any evidence of cause-and-effect here? Its also true that "government loan subsidies have increased to offset rising college prices".

If you agree with Austrian economics, this follows the typical business cycle. Cheap money, inflated prices, credit contraction, bust.

In the last 5 years we've seen this happen at least three times:

  * housing
  * solar
  * equities

the insidious thing about student loans is that the borrower has little to no credit history and cannot default on the debt. A large portion of this money (40% iirc) is going to for profit institutions which have policies in place to keep a student enrolled (when any respected school would kick the the student out for low academic performance or issues of ethical conduct).

If you agree with Austrian economics,

Big if.

That's' theory, not evidence.

I feel this is only a symptom of a social change. We don't value hard work anymore. Everyone pushing for college degree has watered down the meaning of college graduate. For every one that actually wanted to earn it and learn there lots more interested in just the diploma, without no real understanding of their field of choice. This resonates with the fact that the society promotes shows about Kim Kardashian and they've become so central.

It's just so easy to become complacent and mediocre when that's what's really the mentality they're trained to have. It's starting to feel more and more like Atlas Shrugged.

Change happens. Cope.

My parents graduated with a solid grasp of vacuum-tube electronics - and walked straight into a world of transistors. Change happened. They coped.

Pick your field of study with care, recognizing what the degree can (and can't) do for you out there. Realize there is no guarantee, no social contract, no assurance that your degree will in fact do anything for you. Find a suitable balance between cost of education and subsequent salability (engineering degrees paid in cash have good payback; advanced degrees in obscure studies piling enormous debts don't), and look for creative solutions (don't just go "I want" and swipe a card with no idea how it will be paid).

Realize the price tag is the result of supply-and-demand: so long as students are willing to incur massive debt for misguided or aimless degrees, prices will go up. And realize there are more options than list price, if you will dig and inquire (my wife & I have 5 degrees, total cumulative cost ~$100k with the last degree paying us to go there).

“Since the distinction between personal services (likely to remain in rich countries) and impersonal services (likely to go) does not correspond to the traditional distinction between high-skilled and low-skilled work, simply providing more education cannot be the whole answer.”

What are personal services exactly?

Waiter, boot polisher, hair dresser... anything you need to be there in person to do. For everything else, there is outsourcing :)

And Americans don't like those jobs - so my Vietnamese neighbors will prosper while my American neighbors will go on the dole and complain about immigration.

America has split in two: the land of opportunity is still there, but now alongside an entitled class of nth generation unwilling to put in the same effort as immigrants to succeed.

servants. This is the new American aristocracy.

On the plus side, one type of servant is the "batman".

It's rather insulting for a vice chairman of Citigroup and a member of that elite club that helped topple Iceland's economy to lecture people on the further ruin that he, by his very occupation, assists in actualizing.

Citigroup profits from the higher education bubble as much as anyone. And it is always naive to blame a small group of elites for structural economic problems.

The small group of elites that have a monopoly on the issuing of credit and currency ARE the structural economic problem. It's their baby. We just get to pay for it.

It's far more naive to discount a monopoly. Always.

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