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Comment by subterfudge4 | Hacker News Reader

This is one thing about USA I do not understand. Why pay $200K for a degree that can not pay that money off in couple of years ? Just why ?

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Because the initial increase in pay and lifetime increase in earnings is well worth it. Why do so many people get car and house loans they take more than 2 years to pay off?

If it is worth it then why complain so much ?

Because it doesn't necessarily have to cost that much. There are world-class universities in Europe, Australia, Japan, etc. that don't cost $60k+ a year.

Eh, I tend to disagree. Great university's for sure, but the large majority of universities (particularly those accessible to anybody) reside in the United States. Now, I do agree that a university education doesn't have to cost as much as it does, but the scale of world-class universities in the rest of the world is dwarfed by the United States. Maybe students should not stop coming to US schools if they cost so much, as well. Idk?

> Great university's for sure, but the large majority of universities (particularly those accessible to anybody) reside in the United States.

There are 4,140 in the US. https://www.infoplease.com/us/higher-education/number-us-col...

There are about 4,000 in Europe. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=URISERV:c...

Europe has 750 million people and fewer universities.

I have no idea what point you're trying to make with that tidbit.

The US demonstrably does not have the "large majority" of universities as was claimed.

Apologies, I meant to type "the large majority of great universities". Obviously there are more universities across the planet combined than there are in the United States.

I remain dubious of that updated claim. The UK alone has several Ivy-level institutions.

Sure. There are good universities all over the planet. The US is by far the best.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald_assertion

Did you mean bold? It looks like you spelled it wrong in that link.

> Because it doesn't necessarily have to cost that much.

Makes no sense to me. Any person who thinks something is more expensive than it can be; can start his own college and win over the market while making a lot of money.

How can a person claim to know the value of other people's labor ?

> Makes no sense to me. Any person who thinks something is more expensive than it can be; can start his own college and win over the market while making a lot of money.

No, because there are enormous barriers to entry. We can, however, see that many other countries have similarly good universities that don't cost as much per pupil.

> How can a person claim to know the value of other people's labor ?

Every person who has ever hired someone does that.

Because there are almost no jobs available that pay more than minimum wage that do not require a college degree.

Except, you know...software engineer, IT, DevOps, Infosec, WebDev, etc.

1. Those are a very small portion of the total available jobs. Even if every 18 year old had the aptitude, there aren't enough of those jobs.

2. It's a LOT easier to get into all of those fields with a relevant degree. As noted elsewhere, a degree is a strong signal that you can perform at least some of the work.

This is true on an individual level but not a macro level. Not everybody can be a developer or IT professional. The market just can't support that.

Then these people probably should not go to college in first place and instead become plumbers or car mechanics.

Most companies that hire for those jobs in practice require a college degree to get to the interview stage.

Also: youth with nontraditional backgrounds (e.g. women, ethnic minorities) obviously begin the IT hiring process at a disadvantage. Having a 4-year degree can level the playing field with "traditional" applications possessing only a HS diploma.

America is one of the most entrepreneurial countries on earth. There are plenty of fields that you can enter with no college degree and build your way up to a great living. Even for very "white collar" jobs we are starting to (slowly) move away from a pedigree-based economy towards a skills-based economy.

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