Comment by dahart | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dahart | Hacker News Reader

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This seems really funny to me. There’s been a huge push by elites and right-leaning politicians in particular to downplay college education and to trot out blue-collar workers, to convince people not to go to college. Joe the Plumber, for example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_the_Plumber

Conservatives and businesses want more people to take low-paying jobs, and having the masses be educated threatens their ability to pay minimum wage. The St. Louis Fed published statistics [1] demonstrating that people with 4-year degrees earn an average of twice what people who don’t go to college earn. That is a truly massive discrepancy, and completely surprised me when I read it. I would have assumed that degrees were maybe a 10% or 15% advantage statistically. That it’s double is astounding, and it really very much undermines the notion that somehow people are getting tricked into going to college.

[1] https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/revie...

(Note the title argues that college isn’t worth it. Read the statistics, they tell a completely different story. The headline is based on the idea that total savings at retirement came down somewhat for college educated people, and it completely neglects the fact that these savings are 2x larger than non-degree holders, and come after a lifetime of 2x higher salary.)

> Conservatives and businesses want more people to take low-paying jobs, and having the masses be educated threatens their ability to pay minimum wage.

Not having tradesman threatens the ability of society as we know it to continue. We aren't going to get far without carpenters and plumbers. These jobs simply need to pay more.

> and it really very much undermines the notion that somehow people are getting tricked into going to college.

It's also quite possible for them to come out of college $40k in debt, with no job to show for it, and end up struggling to pay that off for the rest of their lives.

Idk about the article though, it opens by saying this person had a free ride on the table. They probably should have taken it.

> These jobs simply need to pay more.

Totally agree! What can be done to get trade jobs to pay as much as white-collar desk jobs that require degrees?

> It’s also quite possible for them to come out of college $40k in debt, with no job to show for it, and end up struggling to pay that off for the rest of their lives.

It is possible, sure, but the data shows conclusively that you’re better off, statistically speaking, with a degree. The average outcome for degrees is double the salary and double the lifetime earnings. So if we’re going to talk about struggling, we need to be fair to the people who struggle to pay for food and housing, not just struggle to pay off their college debt. College debt has been going up, and that might be the reason that college educated people are having relatively less saved at retirement age as of late.

Anyway, yeah I agree about the anecdote too.

> So if we’re going to talk about struggling, we need to be fair to the people who struggle to pay for food and housing, not just struggle to pay off their college debt.

You don't think this overlaps? If you're coming out of college with no job to show for it, what is your job? You probably didn't prep for something substantial, because college was your career plan, and it bombed.

> The average outcome for degrees is double the salary and double the lifetime earnings.

I'm not sure averages are a useful metric for bi-modal distributions --- either you got a career out of the degree, with an increased salary, or you didn't. If you didn't, you're struggling right along with the people who never went to college. Possibly you're worse off, due to worse prep, and ofc you have your mountain of debt hanging over your head that will have major lifelong repercussions (assuming it doesn't get hand-waved away). So the way I see it, I'm talking exactly about those same people.

> Totally agree! What can be done to get trade jobs to pay as much as white-collar desk jobs that require degrees?

I don't know =(

I mean, there are forces at work right now equalizing things to some degree; lack of labor supply will drive up prices. But whether it will end somewhere reasonable, I'm not sure. And with workers across the board demanding wage hikes, inflation will continue to rise, returning us to square zero...

I do think comp needs to come down for some things like software development. I realize pay distribution here is bi-modal; I'm talking about the high-side, which is way out of whack. Really doesn't match the inherent utility at all, in my opinion. This would indirectly raise the value of lower comp positions (such as the trades).

What evidence is there that the distribution is bi-modal? I don’t believe that it is. It’s not bi-modal just because you imagined a threshold somewhere, it is only bi-modal if there’s a single large dip in the middle of the histogram.

The threshold you’re talking about, where college doesn’t pay off, might exist for a minority of people. Around 10% of people who take college loans go into default on them for example. But this threshold you’re talking about is not at the 50% line, it is much, much lower than that. The statistics do in fact show us that the majority of people who get a degree are better off. I’m surprised to be arguing this basic point, the stats from the Fed and from many other sources are very clear about this. Like just googling ‘is college worth it’ give you random blog posts that back this up, e.g., https://www.ramseysolutions.com/saving/is-college-worth-it. Here, “According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the median income for a high school graduate is $30,000, while those with a bachelor’s degree make around $52,000.” Please pay special attention to the word “median”. The article I linked is from the St Louis Fed, and keep in mind that it is arguing that college is becoming less worth it! (If/when you read it, don’t forget to think about what the absolute dollar earnings/savings are. The paper’s comparisons are mostly ratios and they can be & are misleading in spots.)

I’m not arguing that some people don’t end up in debt, I am pointing out the fact that most people fare better with a degree than without.

> it is only bi-modal if there’s a single large dip in the middle of the histogram.

I don’t think this is correct, bi-modal just means there are two modes. But we don’t have to argue over a definition, I’ll just use more words. What I mean is very simple - if you go to college and get a better job due to your degree, you are undoubtably better off. If you go to college and do not obtain a better job with your degree, you are not better off (and are now worse off due to crushing debt). So there are broadly two types of people with degrees, and pay is radically different for the two groups.

When discussing these two groups of people, median is not a very useful concept - you are one group or the other, you are not going to fall in the middle. Sure, college might be a statistically beneficial choice, but it is a risky choice - if you lose, you lose big.

In case we are still not on the same page, I’ll give a very simple example - a person goes to college for an IT degree. The person is unable to land a job in IT despite their degree, and remains in unskilled labor. How is this person better off for their degree? And how are they supposed to come up with hundreds in monthly payments for the next few decades with their low paying job?

Or are you really contesting the notion that a person may not obtain a job/career with their degree?

> bi-model just means there are two modes.

Which confirms what I said. Two modes means two peaks, which means there’s a dip between them. You’re not disagreeing with my definition, you’re confirming it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimodal_distribution

This definition is important because this is what you’re misunderstanding about both my argument and your own. You are drawing a line between the inputs in the distribution, but failing to understand there is no line in the outputs. The distribution of pay and outcomes is not bi-modal, regardless of the fact that any given individual either did or did not go to college. The collective aggregate behavior of the system has a smooth distribution, where you cannot see two different lumps (modes) that identify the degree holders and non-degree holders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distri...

> Or are you really contesting the notion that a person may not obtain a job/career with their degree?

This isn’t just a straw man, I already explicitly addressed this at least twice. I did not claim that people with degrees can’t fail; they can and do sometimes. I even gave an example of how they sometimes fail, no need to misrepresent me on the very thing I’m agreeing with you about.

My point, to state it yet again, is that people getting degrees and ending up no better off is a small minority of cases. Similarly, people who don’t get degrees and end up rich is a small minority of cases. The majority of cases, as the data proves, shows that people with a degree are statistically better off than people without. Not always, just the majority of the time. Unlike your argument, this isn’t logic, it’s just a fact.

> median is not a very useful concept […] college might be a statistically beneficial choice, but it is a risky choice

Hehe this argument is getting funnier. You’re effectively saying don’t look at the data, don’t look at the expected value or the probability, only look at the loss of a low-probability event. This is wrong, IMO. The whole reason that median is a useful concept is because it tells you something about the expected value. Both the probability of success of getting a degree, and the expected value, according to the data we have, show that it’s quite a bit riskier to forego the degree than to get it. You can fret about how risky getting a degree is, but that’s not helpful if you ignore the risks of not getting one.

I also don’t agree with your conclusion, and the data does not support your assertion that people either win or lose, nor that they “lose big” when they “lose”. It’s not binary. There’s a wide range of outcomes for people with degrees, and the whole distribution skews toward positive outcomes compared to not getting a degree.

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