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Comment by theahura | Hacker News Reader

imo this is pants on head backwards. The whole problem with the current university system is that it has become exclusively a credentialing system that everyone uses to justify higher salaries. We’ve completely left the education part of it by the wayside…except for the liberal arts majors who are actually there just to learn! This rule is just encoding the existing tulip mania into federal law directly, by making it clear that the ONLY reason one goes to school is for future $$$

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This isn't banning such programs. The question is why the federal government needs to support them.

If you want to set up a teaching program to learn something arcane, by all means go for it and charge a fair/reasonable/whatever amount. Just because you're teaching it doesn't mean the Federal government should give you money. Let those who can afford it pay for it. If not many can, you need to make an argument why your program should be subsidized (and by who)? It shouldn't be a default that the support will come from the Federal government.

From the article:

> Specifically, certificate programs in cosmetology and somatic body work have the highest predicted failure rates.

Do you really want to make the case that the Federal government should fund these?

For more common arts/music programs, the Federal government can fund arts/music initiatives (not tied to education).

Education is not something arcane, TBH it's really the vocational schools that should be forced to call themselves something different. 99% of university students are not there for an education, they are in welding school upper-middle-class edition. Vocational programs are essential infrastructure, but they are not education, and those programs should not receive funds allocated for education or be held to the same standards as education programs and vice versa.

E.g. most computer science departments where computer science is not taught, students just participate in a charade of memorizing arbitrary facts that they never even attempt to understand in order to get a certificate that entitles them to receive on-the-job training to glue javascript components together for 6 figures.

Job training != education

What about job training disqualifies it from being education?

Because it's not elitist ivory tower navel gazing with possible 8th order effects or something.

Exactly:

Elitist ivory tower as in free education for all that want it.

8th order effects like a well functioning society that isn't on the verge of collapse, where people live well, love each other, and think about interesting, important problems.

Distinct from the 1st order effects of a really high GDP thanks to all of the code monkeys we've trained to glue react components together: which has netted us a society on the verge of collapse, where poverty abounds, crime is universal, basic infrastructure like roads and water are crumbling, and we are plagued by mental illnesses, suicide, drug addiction, and mass shootings.

Hmm, if only there were any analogues in history that could show us the way forward, anyways, I've got to run, I've got a meeting in five with my agent who's going to show me how to 100x my SAAS revenue.

So you're laundering academic class contempt into a theory of liberation.

Briefly: education is concerned with thinking, vocational training is concerned with task performance. There are lots of synergies and gray areas between the two, e.g. certain kinds of task proficiency are really helpful tools while thinking (e.g. arithmetic), and thinking is a really helpful tool while task performing (e.g. an unseen permutation of a task)

That question probably deserves a much longer, more complete answer than this, but another poor imprecise framework is that education empowers people to tackle new problems poorly and taking lots of time, vocational training empowers people to tackle existing problems with known solutions excellently. In the language of the greeks, nous and techne.

> Do you really want to make the case that the Federal government should fund these?

No, but I don't think means testing is a better alternative. You and I both know that this is a wedge to punish perceived political enemies, as much as you know that the total number of people who graduate with a degree in "somatic body work" is such a small fraction of people as to be negligible

> Nationally, about 10,600 to 10,700 students graduate annually with a degree or certificate in the broader category of Somatic Bodywork & Therapeutic Services. The vast majority (over 10,500) specialize in Massage Therapy, while purely focused Somatic Bodywork programs see much smaller cohorts, averaging roughly 40 to 50 graduates per year across all US institutions. (From Gemini)

This is kinda like saying we should get rid of encryption because a few people may use it for bad things, or that we should require identification before anyone can get on the Internet because some people may be hurt by it

If it's such a negligible amount of people then what is the issue with denying them student loans? Very few people will be affected by this, so you say; not worth arguing about then I suppose.

If it's such a negligible amount of people then what is the issue with funding them?

Status quo fallacy

so poor people don't get to do to school?

> liberal arts majors who are actually there just to learn

I didn't go to college to get an engineering degree. I am a born engineer and I wanted very much to learn the craft.

My diploma sits in the basement somewhere. I never put it on the wall.

Still it would seem to make some amount of sense for federal aid to be restricted to economically advantageous persuits, no? Doesn't mean that's the only thing institutions can offer nor do I necessarily think it's the best way to improve the status quo.

On the contrary, who else is going to fund fundamental research that is not immediately useful? Stuff that prints money will have no problem finding funding, looking at the greater picture is exactly what the government is supposed to do

We aren't talking about fundamental research here (NIH, NSF, et al) we're talking primarily about students pursuing bachelor's. At least IIUC.

You need a steady supply of new grads to keep the research going. How many exactly is a different question, of course

How much of these new grad researchers have undergrad degrees in music vs. science or math? I’d suspect there’s very few of the former, and even then they got the position despite their music degree not because of it.

Do you only consider fundamental research in maths or sciences worth pursuing? Do you even realise how much of your everyday life depends on the results of fundamental research in philosophy and humanities?

> Do you even realise how much of your everyday life depends on the results of fundamental research in philosophy and humanities?

Approximately zero? Could you articulate what exactly you have in mind here?

A liberal arts degree is certainly beneficial to the individual's broader understanding of the world, and I certainly would prefer my elected representatives to have a thorough grasp of history and philosophy, but where is the fundamental research that my everyday life depends on?

Human rights? Personal freedom? The entire structure of society? The economy? The political system? Laws? Modern views on morality? Even science itself was created by philosophy, what is knowledge and how to get it is a philosophical question, not a scientific one. Every time you interact with other human beings you're doing through the lens of what philosophy and humanities achieved in the last millenia

People that do fundamental research typically require a bachelor degree.

... in an economically advantageous subject I would expect.

If it's economically advantageous shouldn't the private sector be able to fund it for a profit already?

The same private sector that's famous for not wanting to hire juniors even though the seniors obviously need to come from somewhere? People are allowed to move between employers at will despite any investment in their education. Economically advantageous to the individual and to the employer are separate things.

It is (already). Private sector employees pay off their loans from the money paid by their private sector employers.

Why does the government have to provide the loans?

No, it's making it clear that government aid, i.e. taxpayer money, should not be paying for education that won't result in the population, and in turn the government, earning more.

liberal arts majors who are actually there just to learn

s/learn/be indoctrinated/

>s/learn/be indoctrinated/

Yeah, this comment demonstrates my own perspective on it quite well, in that it's likely just another bald political attack by the current administration on education, wherein a bureaucrat will get to decide what does and does not constitute a worthwhile degree, and is allowed to become the gatekeeper of what universities may teach by selective topic by topic defunding.

Will they decide to ignore the salaries of students "not working in their field"? That could be used as an instant bludgeon against anything centered on history, philosophy, or other educational paths that do not generally have high paying careers associated with them, even if those graduating from them do generally earn more on average than those with only a high school diploma.

Twenty years ago something like half of those in tech didn't have a college degree of any kind. Plenty of businesses are run by folks that don't have college degrees. Crafting statistics through careful manipulation of who is counted for making the comparisons could be used to exclude almost any set of courses that isn't STEM, law or medicine.

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