I think one can do an engineering job as easily with or without a degree.
I think attending college may have value in terms of social life.
I think degrees are used today as a mean to filter job candidates in the absence of better ways to assess candidates. So degrees are inflationary in the sense that if everyone had X degrees, jobs would require X+1 degrees as they have to filter out candidates if they are saturated with applications.
Having said that, education in the US is too expensive. It is captured by an olygopoly and it needs competition.
College has a monopoly on social life if you're in the late teens/early 20s. I believe this is part of the reason it is still such a popular option, to the point that people will pay extortionate amounts to do useless degrees.
If you're thrust straight into work that isn't stocking shelves or being a fry cook you won't be around people your own age and it's very alienating. I'm in my early 20s and have considered changing course despite having a successful SWE career to go back to university just so I can have a social life.
Most the social aspect for me though came from living near the college and not the actual classes.
If I was in this situation, I would just move as physically close to a major university as I could. Most of my social interaction at college came from eating lunch and all the people I met during lunch.
Actually paying tuition though for this reason is as bad an investment as I can think of.
Actually not a bad idea, thanks.
>paying tuition though for this reason is as bad an investment as I can think of
True, but my 'smart' financial decisions have led to a life I'm pretty unhappy with.
Who is going to sit down for 2-3 years (assuming you're faster by yourself to help your argument) and self learn with the same intensity, giving themselves the same amount of homework and projects?
That stuff is actually pretty cheap when compared to tuition, no?
What I agree, however, would be to break down the learning into smaller steps and going back to the apprentice where one learn and earn at the same time.
In theory. In practice, few people have the intelligence and discipline to self-study engineering subjects for a couple of years - that's what higher ed schools are for. I sure as shit wouldn't end up in software engineering (by far the easiest branch of engineering to self-study and get a job in) without doing my CS degree - my motivation and tenacity when I was 20 years old weren't nearly on the level required.
Maybe 10 years ago.
I'd argue the opposite, college/uni has negative impact in your life.
What is missing from that thought is: can everyone learn online what's required to do an engineering job? No.
There is something fundamentally wrong with the education system, but I don't think that promoting it as a scam is a good thing. Nor do I think that saying "anyone with internet can learn X to do Y" is fair - because while it's true anyone can, but the missing detail is that not everyone can.
My anecdote is that I enjoyed both systems - college and learning on my own, and I think they complement each other.