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Comment by bokonist | Hacker News Reader

Anybody who has the aptitude to make a career in a given field, has the aptitude to teach themselves, with a bit of guidance from a syllabus, a professor, and/or a TA. Most learning inherently must be done by the learner. The learner has to study the material at their own pace, and then practice, practice, practice. There is very little a third party can do to expedite the process, other than provide overall trajectory, review the output, and give some tips when the learner is really stuck.

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It's hard to disagree with a statement like "learning inherently must be done by the learner", because what are the instructors to do, stick their hands into the minds of a student and place the knowledge there? However I think you (and attitudes like this) go a long way to discount the skill required to provide guidance, to recognize when the learner is really stuck, to review output, and construct an overall trajectory.

I think it's the case that someone who can make a career before starting education can teach themselves, but what about the other way around, can we give the proper instruction and inspiration so that someone could have a career? Boring/bad classes disengage students, interesting/good classes engage students. What even makes a good/bad class? Wish we could study that...

You might find it interesting to read some Seymour Papert, e.g., Mindstorms and The Children's Machine.

At the post-secondary level, If you get stuck, to the point where you can't figure something out by asking intelligent questions or reading relevant reference material, then you don't belong there. Your journey should have stopped at high school. Maybe sooner.

Professors are not teachers, and they shouldn't be. They are there to expose you to knowledge and you are there to absorb it and expand on it if you can.

Don't go to university to get a degree so you can get a job. Go because you want to learn. If you do it for any other reason you're going to end up in debt and disappointed.

The commercialization of higher learning has perverted it. They encourage people with poor life planning skills to pursue degrees that just leave them poor and bitter.

There is very little a third party can do to expedite the process

So why is college so damn expensive? Why does formal education exist at all? Just because the study of education hasn't been very rigorous and is widely ignored doesn't mean that there aren't better methods to find.

So why is college so damn expensive?

In the modern economy, you need access to a high-paying career path in order to have economic security ( http://intellectual-detox.com/2013/01/20/economic-classes/ ). College provides the social network, acculturation, and signaling that make it much more likely to gain access to such career paths. A good college is a college that has the best reputation and attracts the smartest and most savvy fellow students. Everyone has an incentive to attend a college with an existing reputation and students bid up the prices for these limited slots.

Also, colleges can pursue perfect price discrimination. The sticker price is set very high to extract the most money from those who can easily pay. The price is discounted based on ability to pay.

Why does formal education exist at all?

Well, originally, books were really expensive, thus self-teaching was hard, so the most cost-effective way to learn was from a lecture or a teacher with a slate board.

Currently, it exists because the formal education system teaches everyone that the formal education system is very important, that economic growth and our national competitiveness depend on more and more people going to college. People believe this myth, and then vote for politicians who sustain the institutions.

> Currently, it exists because the formal education system teaches everyone that the formal education system is very important, that economic growth and our national competitiveness depend on more and more people going to college. People believe this myth, and then vote for politicians who sustain the institutions.

It also exists because the gatekeepers for many professions require it. In many cases, they require multiple levels of it.

This problem keeps getting worse, too. For instance, NCEES guidelines require an accredited engineering Bachelors degree for a PE; they want to add mandatory post-Bachelors education to the licensure requirement because they feel engineering Bachelors degrees are too short.

Getting a PE also requires several years of experience working under the guidance of an existing PE. Maintaining a PE further requires continuing education.

Is anyone talking about post-graduate education requirements for the FE?

You are presupposing a basic level of proficiency and access which is 80% of the way there. Anyone who has made it, can make it.

Well if you do not have a computer at home or access to books, then no, you won't be able to make it. But the solution would not be to spend money on schooling, but to buy everyone who cannot afford it a computer and a Kindle with a subscription to educational books, which would be a lot cheaper.

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