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Comment by maehwasu | Hacker News Reader

1. List (very real) benefits of going to college. 2. Repeatedly refuse to engage in any sort of analysis of whether those benefits were justified by their cost by using phrases like "I can't even put a price on those experiences." 3. Claim that college is worth every penny.

"College is just a means to a higher salary" is a strawman. The real question is whether the other things it brings are worth tying yourself down in heavy debt for most of your working life.

Also, if a big reason to go to college is motivation you can't find anywhere else, how completely f*ed will you be when you enter the real world heavily in debt and unable to learn new things without paying an institution thousands of dollars per month to motivate you?

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> "College is just a means to a higher salary" is a straw man.

I've always wondered about this. Does having a degree lead to higher salary? Or is it that the types of people who go to collage and get degrees are more naturally inclined (for whatever reasons) to get paid more?

It seems like a pretty 'basic' and fundamental question, so I'm sure there's been studies/research on it before.

Despite the Silicon Valley's somewhat undeserved reputation for breaking with tradition, at least having attended a top university is so close to being a requirement in SV that it might as well be. Try getting a job at a top-flight SV company without a degree, or even with a degree that wasn't from an Ivy League school...you'll find it nearly impossible. There are exceptions to every rule, but if you don't plan to work for yourself, you'd better either have a decade or more of solid, demonstrable experience that yielded exceptional results, or have a degree from a top school.

Yeah so I think that's where I see things differently over here in Australia. While 'degree leads to higher income' is still a common belief here, I don't think that there's that requirement to have a degree, let alone from a top uni (like you mentioned in SV).

Although I'm still relatively early in my career (23 years old) - Lacking a degree has never been a problem for me and I've still ended up in a pretty well paid job.

New Zealand seems to be similar, with the added bonus that we only have a handful of universities so there is no distinction between 'good universities' and 'the rest'.

You'll find HR consultants for pretty much all big companies and govt (incl Fonterra, TradeMe, GCSB, IRD, Frucor, to name a few) will throw your CV in the trash if you don't have a degree. Luckily in this country it's much easier to get your foot in the door through meet-and-greet.

Want to meet a developer from Xero? Tweet 'em. No luck? Ask somebody you know if they know someone who works there, likely they or someone they know does.

I got an offer from a famous SV company and I went to a mediocre public university.

I don't have ten years of experience, and I don't think I'm particularly exceptional. I think you're just being more pessimistic than is warranted. SV is definitely not a perfect meritocracy but it's not exactly France circa 1788 either.

I find it hard to believe that a top tier degree is required for anyone with 5+ years experience. Is that actually true?

The degree is a filter to get the interview. Once you're in the door your skills are what matters. But you have to get in the door.

My buddy Tom and I went to the same college at the same time. I graduated; he didn't. We've worked at 7 different companies together over 20 years, at essentially the same level. Sometimes I get hired and get him in; sometimes the opposite.

But I have to admit my graduate credentials get me the interview sometimes, and that's what gets us in. So not having a college degree can be a bar to entry. A very real problem.

The question should also be asked, "Or is it a Keynesian beauty contest?"

Or my preferred theory, which is that you have to put up with a lot of bullshit in order to get a degree, and you also want to hire employees that can put up with a lot of bullshit in order to get necessary work done. The kind of smooth-talking folks who can convince you to hire them without a degree might be naturally suited to sales... which is one of the few fields where you don't need the degree anyway.

"tying yourself down in heavy debt for most of your working life"

Considering the typical adult entering the workforce today is going to have a career on the order of 40-50 years until retirement I don't think the typical 10 year repayment period of a typical college loan qualifies as 'most' of your working life.

Agree. There was this great demotivational poster that summed up my belief. Where is it...ah: http://despair.com/collections/demotivators/products/motivat... MOTIVATION: If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon.

My motivation comes from a wellspring of desire to know. Desire to master. If someone needs another human to be that source of motivation, then they are already doomed. Degree or not.

Sometimes I worry a tiny bit that if we manage to pin down the exact lifetime dollar value of college to $X, the market will happily adjust the price of college to ($X-1)

"Sometimes I worry a tiny bit that if we manage to pin down the exact lifetime dollar value of college to $X, the market will happily adjust the price of college to ($X-1)"

That just happened to law schools.

I don't know if the debt load is all that heavy with student loans. If you take out more than $30k or so (I forget the exact amount) you can qualify for income based repayment where you pay back only 10% of your discretionary income (Income - 1.5 * Federal poverty level) for 20 years.

If you are stuck with a crappy low paying job, that means that your only paying 10% of any income over about $18k (for a single person).

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