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Comment by hellofunk | Hacker News Reader

This is true of college degrees in general, lots of companies in various industries require proof of a bachelor's degree, regardless of what the subject matter was, because it shows an ability to stick to a goal and get something done, despite the actual quality or enjoyment of the work.

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Spend tens of thousands of dollars, go into significant debt, just to prove you can "stick to a goal."

I can't be the only one who sees a problem with this. It's either a lie or a poor reflection on our society.

The problem with our society is that measures become targets. That's it, that's all there is to it. We keep failing to learn the lesson of Goodhart's law, over and over again.

It explains the politics of triangulation, bad monetary policy, the bad management style of MBAs, the emphasis on wealth for social signalling, and on and on and on. It's such a common phenomenon that I'm a bit scared!

The only solution is to raise good citizens that take pride in their work and strive to do the best through their own free will. It sounds like hippy BS, but we're never going to police everyone into doing a good job with metrics... might as well try to teach a different philosophy of work.

"Significant debt" being on average about the price of a low end car. And "prove you can stick to a goal" being a massive increase in lifetime earnings over those without a college degree.

I can't be the only person who sees how fair and progressive this is? It's a wonderful reflection on our society.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/18/pf/college/average-student-l...

Average debt for 2015 grads is 30k. That is not a low end car.

> And "prove you can stick to a goal" being a massive increase in lifetime earnings over those without a college degree.

Going to college is not the only way you can prove you stick to a goal, which according to the OP, is the only purpose of college. This is an immense waste of resources, all so that a company can take a little less risk when hiring someone, if at all. And college is such a business today that academic integrity is an afterthought, the degree is continually losing its value.

> I can't be the only person who sees how fair and progressive this is? It's a wonderful reflection on our society.

There is no need for sarcasm here. Either way, it doesn't follow from your argument that it is fair and progressive.

It took just a few moments to find out if $30K is actually fair and progressive. College grads average around $30K more per year in compensation than high school grads. These degrees are already highly subsidized. So tax payers, including those with only high school degrees, are paying for people to become educated and thus make more money, with the hope that some sort of trickle down economics will make it better for those without college degrees. I'd tongue in cheek call this highly regressive.

> It took just a few moments to find out if $30K is actually fair and progressive.

This is a false comparison. 30k is average DEBT they have-not the total cost of college education. Add many more tens of thousands-just so a company can take a little less risk, according to OP.

The reason we have subsidies is because businesses now want a degree, for no good reason, as evidenced by the OP. Because more people, who can't afford it, need college degrees, the government stepped in to provide that, with loans, which they make money on, and grants, which they hope to be paid for by future taxes. That doesn't account for all of the growth in tuition prices, rather, the demand does. Demand has skyrocketed because college grads make more. Since demand has skyrocketed, the supply of college grads has substantially increased-commoditizing the college degree, which benefits businesses because now they can pay less for a college grad. That's the bottom line.

The problem is more nuanced than just cost and salary. The fact is to make good salary college wasn't necessary decades ago. Now it is. So before what you got for free, now costs tens of thousands of dollars. How that is "progressive" is foreign to me.

Funny, I just realized my error and came here to correct it and saw you'd already done it. Hah, thanks. And I sympathize with the point about jobs paying more in the past without a degree, but I believe that the premise of the article is also wrong - that college degree confer no benefit to the company other than proving individuals can grind through boring tasks. Although to be fair, I got a CS/Math degree in 2.5 years, and I don't know that I've held a job where I couldn't have learned most of the programming required in a few months on the job. And I've never needed a lick of the math I so painfully learned. So maybe jobs actually requiring degrees are fewer and farer between than I realized.

I don't know what world you live in where 30k is an insignificant amount of debt to put on a 22 year old

It's about a single year's difference in income between the average college grad and the average high school diploma. If someone told me I could invest something with a 100% return every year for the rest of my life, I'd likely not complain if there was a steep minimum buy in.

And I didn't claim it was insignificant only that it's what low end cars cost these days - which might be a bit off but not by much.

Remember when turning 18 meant you were an adult? "prove you can stick to a goal" used to be what K-12 was for, before we decided not to fail kids because they weren't ready.

People should go to college because they are capable autonomous adults that require specialized knowledge for their career goals. It should be short, intense, and absolutely focused on that specialized knowledge.

If someone can't hack it, go back to grade school or seek some kind of professional help.

When you think about it, that's a horrible standard for hiring isn't it. Hiring someone who just follows the grain, does as they're told and doesn't complain despite the ridiculousness of the process. It seems to ensure that only the worst, least creative, most sheepish individuals will rise to the top. This could explain the slump modern society has found itself in.

It depends on why you are hiring them. There is always a place for people who will just take orders, and it doesn't mean they will rise to the top. If everyone was imaginative and didn't want to follow suit, it would be much more difficult to assemble enough people to cooperate and build something big together.

I disagree that this is a driving factor in getting college grads, even if it might be one of the reasons. College education gives you a wide breadth of knowledge and critical thinking skills that could be applied to many subjects. Its also just an accepted standard for many white collar jobs if one doesn't have the requisite experience.

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