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Comment by angdis | Hacker News Reader

Another facet of this problem is misaligned expectations about the PURPOSE of a degree. There seems to be an underlying assumption here that a university degree is nothing other than "job training".

Is a university degree basically a form of "Vo-tech school"?

That's what a lot of students and employers seem to think.

At the same time, many people do just fine in their careers after college even if they majored in English Lit or philosophy. Perhaps we should consider the possibility that "an education" is a separate thing from vocation training?

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If the primary purpose of getting a college degree isn't getting a good job, then every high school teacher and advisor I ever had lied to me.

> many people do just fine in their careers after college even if they majored in English Lit or philosophy

Yes, but many, many don't, and they take out loans expecting "jobs" of one sort or another to be there upon graduation. I can't count the number of friends I have with $50K+ in student loans working at minimum wage jobs with a worhless degree on two hands.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble but most teachers and advisors are lying to everyone. You can get some pretty respectable jobs in construction or the oil business without ever getting a college degree. People just have to be willing to work hard and maybe get a little dirty. If you are a good worker that only last for a few years before you move up to better positions.

I mean, I never got a degree, so I don't really care. But the notion that "People don't go to college expecting to get jobs" is absurd.

Well, yes, they did lie to you (a little bit).

If you really _just_ want "a good job" there are easier ways to do it than going to a 4 year university.

I think that students who major in something like philosophy or literature are aware of what awaits them after college and are going into it with open eyes. Those that expect more than entry-level jobs immediately after college are simply failing to grasp reality.

That said, a good education, whatever the subject matter is DOES HELP people in their lives in ways which are hard to measure. Bright English lit majors who end up as waiters after college, don't necessarily remain as waiters for the rest of their careers.

I really don't think people do realise this. Everyone still believes it's an automatic entry ticket to a middleclass lifestyle. As you say, they were lied to.

Yes. Most are taking advice from parents/grandparents/teachers, for whom a degree was a guarantee.

>If you really _just_ want "a good job" there are easier ways to do it than going to a 4 year university.

The weird thing is, if you replace "want \"a good job\"" with "want \"a good education\", that sentence is still true.

You can get a good education at a library, a bookstore, fucking around on the internet, and more recently, MOOCs.

Universities are still useful if you want to advance the state of the art, discover something new, and so on. Not so good if you just want to learn things already known by others.

I am sure that extraordinarily dedicated people can educate themselves in a library or using internet resources as well as in a university, Abe Lincoln did it, right? But for the vast majority of young folks that just isn't going to fly, let alone be "easier" than a 4-year degree.

Perhaps in the future things will be different, the resources just aren't there right now.

Then again, unmotivated people can waste four years in college and learn nothing.

There might be a sweet spot if you are dedicated enough not to just go through the motions at college and actually take advantage of it, and yet you are not motivated enough to do that outside of college.

You are correct, but... do you think that anyone on Hacker News wants to just learn what has come before, and add nothing new to the world?

Hacker News readers are lucky in that the things that interest us are also things that people pay you to do, so we are not likely to choose a degree that is worse than useless.

For people with different interests, there is a trade-off.

You are mostly friends with young people, I would guess. The value of education adds up over your entire life. Right now, the economy is leaving young people without good jobs. But eventually, they all will find something better. And at that point, the education that came along with the degree will help them to do better, and advance in their career faster.

Except it's not "job training". Many employers want professional experience in addition to the degree.

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