There is this growing contrarian sentiment—particularly in the HN and Reddit communities—that "college isn't for everyone". The college industrial complex aside, I cannot see how further education—particularly through programs like this one—could ever be a bad thing. After all, education is the silver bullet.
Opportunity costs for one.
If the person choosing what to do with their life is able to see an existing opportunity which is better than education then they should choose it, why would they not?
But if they are unable to see such opportunities then choosing to become more educated is not a bad choice provided as is the case in this situation that it does not present an additional financial burden.
One could even argue that the set of options one should consider when weighing opportunity cost should only be composed of the options to which the decision maker is aware (can reasonably be expected to become aware) of.
You aren't taking into consideration opportunity costs. I spend 4 years at school to get a Spanish degree that doesn't cost anything for me to go. Now I have a Spanish degree and I have exactly the same job as I could have gotten before the degree. I've wasted 4 years where I could have been making a salary, pursuing hobbies, raising children, etc.
We shouldn't be like:
1) Take a class/get a degree in anything with no plan whatsoever.
2) ???
3) PROFIT!
I specifically said: "is able to see an existing opportunity which is better than education then they should choose it, why would they not?"
So you chose Education presumably because you thought getting a Spanish degree was a better option than those others, therefore you viewed the other options as having the opportunity cost. In which case you may have been bad at estimating benefit, or perhaps the choices you were trying to value were simply too unpredictable, but you followed the idea of opportunity cost correctly.
Or even worse you knew those options were better and you chose an option you recognized as worse, in which case WHY?
Opportunity cost is not a synonym for hindsight it is about weighing two decisions with information you have available (or can have) at the time.
Edit: Also now you know Spanish which should bring you as a person some level of enjoyment, and is therefore a benefit. If not I wonder why you would of kept studying it.
There are tons of people out there with an education but not very enlightened about things. I hate analogies, but I've met several people over the course of my short life with degrees who have absolutely worthless educations. They racked up debt to work unskilled jobs, and complain why companies don't want to hire them with no experience, internships and lackluster academic records.
I know the paper makes people feel good, but at what point is our society going to start rejecting the feelgood, everybody wins attitude? You should not have to have a college education to have a good life or populace (look at America early 1900s and all the modern luxuries that exist today from that time period). Trades, entrepreneurship, etc are all alternative good paths that should be encouraged. College educations are nice, but there is a pretty long list of people who did not complete or even reach college who are successful and making contributions to society:
Also people with college are not necessarily better than people without college, that is an offensive view and very disrespectful to the millions of people without college educations who have done great things for this country and all over the world. Yes education is great (college is not the sole source of education), but one has to appreciate and work hard at their education to really claim that they are 'educated'.
You're so right and I can't upvote you enough. I hear people all the time talking about how much of a loser they are for not going to college. These are people are smart, have life skills, AND job skills, AND a steady income. Many even do skilled labor. Their jobs just didn't require 4 years in the classroom.
HELLO? Is this unstated assumption really good for society?
And there's my sister who has a college education and no life skills OR job skills.