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Comment by slackfan | Hacker News Reader

The thing that endlessly amuses me is that there are oodles of ways to get a libarts degree without incurring student debt. Heck, you can get a passable STEM degree without incurring student debt. Or at least not paying more for a degree than you'd pay for a decently-specced new car right off the lot.

For reference, I have a degree in history that I paid (ending in 2014) 30k in 2024 dollars for over the course of six years. Even with current price, that same degree at the same institution would be ~60k over the course of four years. Inflationary and gouging - sure, but still rather affordable.

The current system that perpetuates "college for everyone" along with a governmental debt guarantee to the universities leads to incessant price jacking. No, Boston University is emphatically not worth 63 thousand dollars a year. No state school is worth 30-40k/year.

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> there are oodles of ways to get a libarts degree without incurring student debt.

For folks who don't know, would you be willing to elaborate? Is it a real degree (fully accredited, so you can actually use it?).

Even using residency status at a community college for your first two years, and then transfering in to a public state university, still puts the cheapest bachlors degree around here at close to $40k (not including room and board). (And for maybe half of the careers, you can't do this, and it costs even more)

Yes. Night schools, extension schools, community colleges, hell, going abroad is significantly cheaper. University of Tokyo is 4-5000 dollars a year, exchange rate dependent.

E: Also in your post, 40k, not 40k/year. A lot of these (domestic to the US at least) also assume that you're working part or fulltime through it. Having done it, have to say proto-SRE work and full college load is hell, but a doable hell.

I'd happily spend $30-40K/yr for UC-Berkeley, UT-Austin, or UNC if that's where my kid got in and wanted to go.

A lot of this hinges on "worth".

Are you trying to make some kind of purely financial investment and show in an Excel model how it improves the overall financial outcome?

Or are you trying to equip your offspring to maximize their enjoyment in life? I got a lot of education at university that will never show up in a cell in a spreadsheet and I'm forever grateful for that, even though that it that subset had a negative RoI.

Ah, but you're paying for your children's education and not saddling them with 120k debt right out of the gate, correct?

I will be yes but, in my estimation, the value of those state schools is well above the $30K/yr in GP's post, regardless of who is paying.

Side note: If a student chooses to saddle themself with that level of debt to attend Berkeley, I think that's still a good decision for the vast majority of students who will make that choice.

UC Berkeley is sure worth 40K a year. They call it “the people’s Harvard” for a reason.

But the question is - is a 160k debt before you've ever held a job in your life worth it, whereas you have statistically the same outcome with a sub-60k-all-in degree?

Very few people will incur debt anywhere near that for an undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley. 71% of undergraduates graduate with no debt. For those who borrow the average debt at graduation is around $18k.

>71% of undergraduates graduate with no debt.

That's borderline not believable. Somebody should probably take a closer look at where that data comes from. I went through the UC system, filling out the FAFSA every year, and had one parent who _partially_ supported me financially. I had that average amount of debt in two years. This was many years ago, and yes, I did work as well.

>For those who borrow the average debt at graduation is around $18k.

The debt specifically for tuition? What about housing? August to May is 10 months. It's easy to find studios that charge at least 1000/month. Assume rent is 900$. How does that housing cost calculation square with your average debt figure of 18k? If you're not including it, why not?

If the degree they grant you doesn't help you to get a job that can pay back the loan it cost to get the degree, how can it be said to be worth it? Certainly not in a financial sense.

Even a Berkeley degree is medieval basketweaving is worth a lot - you’re likely in the top 1% or higher of your field. This means you will likely end up as a tenure tracked professor.

You’re delusional to claim that state schools “aren’t worth it”. There are cream of the crop state schools.

A value (Top 1% in a field) times availability of jobs in field (just about 0) technically does equal a positive float, but the stark mathematic reality is that you might as well just take the 160k and blow it on lottery tickets for a roughly equal probability of making your money back.

And if it's just for "an degree", the reality is most HR departments in the US could give two shits about you having anything but an degree.

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