Does It Matter Where You Go to College? | Hacker News Reader

Does It Matter Where You Go to College?

theatlantic.com

12 pointsKeepTalking33 comments

You know your value system sucks when the question "does it matter where you go to college?" is automatically assumed to be about salary.

What metrics would you use to determine quality of education? (I assume, like me, this is what you were hoping this article would be about.)

Hmm, well off the top of my head:

- Affordability. Not necessarily low prices, but reasonable prices.

- Quality of education, in terms of teaching skill, breadth of courses offered, and the like

- Strength of student community (clubs, etc.)

- Location of the school (rural schools bore me)

- Background of students (I like schools with students from the world over)

- Location of students post graduation. I dislike schools where most of the graduates never leave the area.

That wasn't quite what I was meaning! :-)

What I was really meaning is, what metrics would you use to determine the quality of teaching not necessarily just the overall quality of experience?

Hmm that's a tougher question. The big thing in my mind is having a sincere interest in the subject and the charismatic ability to get students interested in it. Most professors don't really give a shit whether their students like the subject.

Also, the willingness to go beyond bureacratic systems in the name of intellectual interest. In other words, talking about X because your students are fascinated by it, not sticking to the curriculum 100% of the time and talking about Y.

Sorry for bad sentence form, on my phone.

Perhaps I should further qualify the question, and this is how I possibly should have phrased it in the beginning: how do you determine quality of teaching before enrolling?

Well I suppose you could ask the people already there and see what they have to say. Along with visiting and the usual stuff.

Otherwise, what can you do?

I think it's an interesting question in many respects. Those that are there already might not have the necessary experience and knowledge to correctly determine the quality of education being offered.

I assume education's like headphones: if you've never had headphones before it's hard to know whether the ones you have suck, unless you've had the opportunity to experience many others kinds.

You sound like you either have one, or have transcended the need for one.

Try not doing either of those things.

I too used to sing along in happy harmony with the "it doesn't really matter, follow your bliss". Now I'm 33 and my high school circles are filled with people who have wrecked their financial lives on the shoals of that advice. Now I know I was singing with the sirens.

It was already screwed up 15 years ago, as my high school circles can attest to. It's more screwed up now, but now people are seeing how messed up it is. Money matters, especially when accruing lots of debt. It isn't the only thing that matters, but it most assuredly matters.

Don't keep singing with the sirens.

Maximizing income and minimizing debt are not the same thing.

Ha! People should be so lucky as to be worried about "maximizing income". We're in an era in which people need to be careful just to balance their income with their college debt.

Stop moralizing and think. Millions of people are hurting out there. It's time to put away the gibberish about how it's somehow uncouth to think about money as you think about college. We now know that line of thought is profoundly damaging. If you don't agree... how much more evidence would you need?

You're missing my point. Making a decision to go to X school because it will make you more money is fundamentally a different decision than going to Y school because it's cheaper.

You may have to get the higher debt to get the higher paying job, but going to the lower debt school is probably good enough to make a decent income.

Umm? If you go to the cheaper school, you won't be crushed by debt, even though you may make less money in your lifetime. This is what the article was about...

I really don't understand what you're arguing for here, Jerf. The article posed a question: is going to the better school worth the debt? You seem to be saying yes, you should focus on the monetary aspects, while simultaneously decrying student debt. What are you arguing?

Those aren't fundamentally different decisions. In both cases, you are determining your rate of return on your educational investment and making a decision to prefer high debt/high earnings, and lower debt/lower earnings.

If you don't think the school itself matters enough to justify the increased cost, you'll prefer lower-cost universities. If you think it does, you'll prefer the school that can net you the most income.

Problem is, what else can you measure numerically?

If you can come up with a single, simple-to-calculate, unambiguous, measurement of happiness or fulfillment we could use instead... please share it with us!

At least salary gives a basic idea of how much your skills are worth to other people in the free market, which is better than nothing, though it may not be very correlated with how happy that makes you...

It's a pretty useful abstraction. Would you rather measure dopamine levels? (Because there are some good hacks for that one too).

Seriously though, given that an increased earning potential is the big rational reason to go to college, how else should it be measured? If you're criticizing the current paradigm for valuing college, or even for valuing life, those are significantly bigger societal issues than a one liner does justice.

Increased earning potential is not the big rational reason to go to college. Our society seems to function that way presently, but some people actually do enjoy learning.

I like answering these questions by solving simpler ones.

  Does it matter where you are born?

> Afghanistan vs. United States.

Put you in Afghanistan and you're dead. Put you in the US and you have a shot at middle class. Both are not your fault - and neither are deserved (I hate that word).

  Does it matter who you are born to?

> Rich parents vs. Poor parents.

One can pay for all you need, and support you in every way to best game the system (which is completely rational and understandable behaviour). The other gets screwed by the self same game. Both generally through no fault of their own - no one deserves anything.

  Does it matter when you are born?

> 1900s vs. 2000s.

One situation gives you cholera. The other gives you an iPhone, good health, decent lifespan and an education. Neither was deserved - both greatly effect future outcomes.

Of course it matters where you went to college. It matters more than you think it does, and even more than you now think it does. The world is not a meritocracy - never has been - never will be. Fun fact - meritocracy was coined in a satire since it was so ridiculously false. Unfortunately, people like believing things that are false - it is one of our strengths as humans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis). Karma is bullshit masquerading as depth and is merely a result of faulty (but useful) logic generated by induction machines that we call the brain.

Why do we use QWERTY keyboards? Because some random guy made a couple thousand typewriters that didn't stick mechanically 70 years ago. What does that have to do with modern computers? Absolutely nothing.

The world is chaotic, and exhibits extreme path dependence in path outcomes, which of themselves, are extremely uncertain.

What would've happened if the comet that killed the dinosaurs missed? What about not having a snowball earth to generate all the oxygen you breath right at this moment? The importance of people by the people is greatly overrated.

Everyone is replaceable (even if you are 1 in a million - and nowadays even 1 in a billion), but situations aren't.

Situations are king, path dependence and chaos rule your life and there is a lot of poor reasoning out there. That doesn't mean you have no effect on future outcomes - it just means you have a lot less control than you think you do.

The bigger question is: Does It Matter If You Go to College?

Depends. Please go to college if you intend to become a doctor! I hear people frown on "doctors" that are self taught.

Well they call it a medical practice for a reason, right?

Dr. Mike Ruddy from last week would appear to disagree strongly with you:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/im-not-one-of-those-fancy-c...

;)

College doesn't fucking matter in any way, shape, or form in the context of reality and actually doing good, productive things. Nor do people who base hires / who they like on where those people went to college.

I know many, MANY people -- myself included -- who were impacted positively by college. I found my passions and improved myself tremendously.

I'm not saying college is some panacea, but you're an idiot if you think it "doesn't fucking matter in any way, shape, or form".

Would you have found your passions and improved yourself anyways if you had not gone to college?

To my knowledge, no.

How does the fact that it positively impacts some people mean that it matters or is important?

This article is talking about money, employment, status, etc., in the context of education and college. I'm saying that going to college does not in any way mean that someone is more qualified, smarter, capable, productive, etc. than someone who didn't go to college.

I'm saying that if you went to college and discovered, for example, a passion for graphic design, the idea that you'd inherently be better than a self-taught graphic designer is 100% ridiculous. And that if an employer chose you over that person solely because you had some extra letters after your name and could tolerate 4 more years of schooling, that employer is dangerously stupid.

What you said is "college doesn't fucking matter in any way, shape, or form in the context of reality and actually doing good, productive things".

Which is completely incorrect. I understand if you think that a self-taught graphic designer is on par with a college-grad graphic designer, but that's not what you argued in the above quote.

It's exactly what I'm arguing above; college doesn't matter.

By saying it "doesn't matter", I'm saying that the ability of a person to produce something good or provide a good service to others does not require a causative relationship with that person's level of organized education (college, grad school, high school, two-year degrees, etc.).

You've said twice that I'm incorrect, without explaining why you think so.

Each of the last 4 Presidents of the United States went to either Harvard or Yale at some point in their education. Do you really think this is pure coincidence? You should not allow where you went to college to hold you back, but it matters..A LOT.

What does that have to do say about the value of college? And how, specifically, does that add to your statement "but it matters..A LOT"?

Would you use a doctor who had not been to college?

As you hopefully would not, therefore your argument has a flaw in it, you might like to enumerate the list of professions or activities you believe do not require college level education.

I'd never use a doctor, they're not tools.

But I'd absolutely seek the advice of doctors who never had formal education. In fact, based on hard evidence and history, I'd be more interested in what some outside-the-box professionals have to say about a given condition than to have someone recite a textbook paragraph to me that I could read for myself for free at the library.

I can't think of one profession or activity that requires a college-level education in reality, though there are plenty that legally you need licenses, etc. for.

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