Comment by vanilla_nut | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vanilla_nut | Hacker News Reader

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On the other hand, I come from a rural area and I feel that college was absolutely worth it for me, even with the huge bill that I had to pay myself. (I graduated fairly recently)

College was the first time in my life when I feel like I truly took responsibility for myself, and people generally thought I was a responsible kid growing up. I finally found myself in a place where I could make friends who shared interests with me who I truly wanted to interact with, and many of those friendships evolved into mentors or mentees. TAing, challenging classwork, and living for the first time on my own really forced me to mature and take charge of my future.

Of course, I could just be a late bloomer, or maybe my STEM interests and particular rural community made my situation unique. But I don't think I'm the only one in my generation who feels this way.

I agree that college is probably not appropriate for your average kid, but for the kind of kids who enjoy learning, who aspire to do something challenging for a career, I think higher learning is indispensable. It's important to keep in mind that college is meant to enrich people as individuals, not explicitly prepare them for jobs. Technical/vocational schools are for job prep.

> It's important to keep in mind that college is meant to enrich people as individuals, not explicitly prepare them for jobs. Technical/vocational schools are for job prep.

The more college is shown to be failing the job market, the more I hear this argument.

Are people who don't go to college less enriched individuals?

Lately, academics seem to be shifting their value proposition to the instillation of this undetectable unmeasurable X-factor. We can't see it, we can't prove that it exists, but it's there, and its value is absolutely incalculable. How convenient for the sales pitch is this.

And I don't blame them. As knowledge and skills become accessible to everyone, that's the last defense they'll be left with. What else are they going to say? Our institution is completely out of touch with the job market and the economic realities of our nation, and this was all a complete waste of time?

Also, a lot of arguments in favor of college make the mistake of comparing it to nothing, and I think this argument is guilty of that.

I'll admit that college compares favorably to doing nothing, but people who skip college aren't just sitting alone in a room staring at a white wall while you're in your lectures. They have 1 year of life experiences for every 1 year of yours. Whatever it means to be an enriched individual, people who don't go to college can be just as enriched.

They can go live on their own too. They can take on responsibility, take on challenging work, have relationships, and most of them do. College was your path there and it worked well for you, and that's great. But I also agree with you that it's not ideal for everybody (or even for most people).

the idea that literally everyone should go / would benefit from going to college is definitely wrong and harmful, but there are some special things about college for those who take advantage.

college is probably the only time in your life that an entire team of domain experts will be obligated to take time out of their day to meet with you and answer your questions, however silly or low-level they may be.

as a professor, college is one of the only places where you can get paid to work on things that not only have no near-term value, but likely will never have any practical value at all! (I guess this could also be an argument against college...)

I do think there is a problem with the way people understand college. outside of a couple majors (ie computer science), college should really be considered something like a luxury good. it isn't economic in the sense of dollars, cents, and balance sheets, but something that has it's own intrinsic value for those who take advantage of it (a distinct minority of undergrad students).

disclaimer: I think I am one of these people who college is mostly wasted on. I don't go to office hours, participate in clubs, or really do anything other than really good work on programming assignments and cramming for exams. I'm mostly in it for the piece of paper.

> not only have no near-term value, but likely will never have any practical value at all!

Not coincidentally, most of the most powerful world-altering ideas (the type that spawn trillions of dollars of new previously unconsidered industries, lead to new communication mediums, cause or prevent wars, topple governments, or set the terms of future laws) come out of work done at colleges or other publicly funded research institutions, often considered at the time to be of no practical value.

There are whole fields of study which serve as society-wide multipliers but each individual tiny advance is not worth it to any particular company to hire someone to spend their whole career studying.

A lot of the value of college comes from signalling rather than what you actually learn in college. The problem is that, at least on an individual basis, signalling is economically rational, so it is going to be very hard to get people to stop doing it.

> Lately, academics seem to be shifting their value proposition to the instillation of this undetectable unmeasurable X-factor. We can't see it, we can't prove that it exists, but it's there, and its value is absolutely incalculable.

Historically, college was a finishing school for the wealthy. This is not a new argument.

The new argument is that colleges should provide job training. Previously, this was the role of vocational or training schools.

> The new argument is that colleges should provide job training. Previously, this was the role of vocational or training schools.

And employers.

My economics professor used to insist that colleges don't prepare you for a job because if they did, then McDonald's University wouldn't exist.

I don't necessarily disagree with the claim but that seems like a bizarre choice of evidence considering McDonald's is an employer hiring many people who did not attend college.

Vocational or training schools don't graduate physicians, engineers, architects, lawyers, etc

Neither do undergraduate colleges. Graduate programs are almost by definition vocational.

Did you graduate from college? No judgments from me if you didn't (my family tree is richly populated with smart and successful people who didn't) but the way you're talking about college reminds me, perhaps wrongly, of the way I might have talked about sex in high school. With enthusiasm and a reliance on theory rather than experience.

OTOH, if you attended college I'm pretty curious what that was like for you.

Maybe the X-factor is simply that having more stimulating experiences and environments makes us more enriched as individuals? I.e, instead of life experiences consisting of three parts - toddler, school , work for 50 years, one gets to add a fourth component and another identity building phaze between school and work. I could believe that.

Although, with this argumentation, one could simply change university with some other novel experience, like military service.

I switched sector I work in, from generic IT/web to working in applying these tool in a specific sector; water/agriculture in international development. I don’t think I could have started the organisation I now run without going back to university. It was hugely beneficial to me to have the right terminology and understanding of the subject matter I am now working with.

I don't think that's a refutation of the parent's point; if anything, I think it supports it. It sounds like you had some very specific needs that I don't think apply to the average person.

I got a degree with no relevancy to my job at all but the approach to learning I picked up in college really served me well when I wanted to do it. I don't think there are many people who would not benefit from being able to educate themselves in a new topic.

> Lately, academics seem to be shifting their value proposition to the instillation of this undetectable unmeasurable X-factor. We can't see it, we can't prove that it exists, but it's there, and its value is absolutely incalculable. How convenient for the sales pitch is this.

The cost of college forces some people to also argument for better revenue opportunities and better fit for future jobs, because otherwise burning through ungodly amounts of money just to be a better rounded person would be a hard sell.

In countries where university are cheaper nobody bats an eye at someone going through the cycles just for the sake of it, purely to learn interesting things.

> In countries where university are cheaper nobody bats an eye at someone going through the cycles just for the sake of it, purely to learn interesting things.

We do. Every year discovering yourself is a year you're not productive. Those cheaper university fees come from taxes which you need employed people to pay. I'd argue the US system is fairer: people who enjoy university education pay for it. In Europe, people who got in trade and never thought about getting a university degree are paying for those for get them.

>I'd argue the US system is fairer: people who enjoy university education pay for it.

Stateside, as NPL rates increases with the nominal prices of attending, this becomes less true on top of that it is assumed that future taxes will support these increases well into the future.

Are there no free vocational schools in Europe?

What about the societal good of having educated, informed citizens? People attending college are not just "discovering themselves."

The unfairness in the US system comes largely from the fact that, depending on what kind of family you come from, college may be very easy for you to attend or very difficult.

>In countries where university are cheaper nobody bats an eye at someone going through the cycles just for the sake of it, purely to learn interesting things.

Tuition is pretty cheap in Canada-- definitely as compared to the States. I'm actually at university to do just that. I'm in a math degree while I get my certs. I'm getting a minor in Latin, because learning the language is literally on my bucket list. I'm having a pretty good time, I'd say.

You have it backwards. The obsessive focus on the vocational benefits of college is a recent phenomenon.

while not necessary, college provides a social framework for many people. if i visit, NYC, SF, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, or DC, then i have alumni friends i can hit up and hang out with.

I'm not sure how you could do the same without going to college

That seems like a pretty weak argument. Join a large church and you can probably meet people in every city too, and you won't need to take out huge loans to do it.

you completely missed the part where i said "while not necessary"

> Join a large church and you can probably meet people in every city too, and you won't need to take out huge loans to do it.

most people only go to their local church. Many people from my uni were from out of state

I went to school in Massachusetts and I made a lot of friends who live in Massachusetts but I didn't exactly meet a world-wide network of friends. I was thinking you were talking about something like an alumni association, where your connection isn't really any less tenuous than with people belonging to your same denomination.

some of my friends were already from those big cities. others were from the suburbs and moved to a big city after college.

I don't contact random alumni, unless we already have several mutual friends in common. Or were part of the same student associations.

> It's important to keep in mind that college is meant to enrich people as individuals, not explicitly prepare them for jobs.

This should be highlighted. I believe college is a great luxury. Is it necessary? No. Can you learn job requirements faster elsewhere? Yes.

I wish K-12 were more like college in the sense that you have some guidelines but otherwise you're basically in a large library. You get to run around & try learning different things that interest you for a few years. It makes you more well rounded as an individual. This is something few people appreciate at a young age. I didn't fully appreciate it until I was older but I did enjoy the diverse opportunities at the time.

College was the first time in my life when I feel like I truly took responsibility for myself

I often here this but I'm somewhat sceptical. I'm not saying you didn't turn into and adult, rather that you would have done that whether you went to college or not.

Sure, but I probably would have been a different one with very different ideas.

Very true. Unfortunately, my options were "mature and learn at college" or "work a minimum wage job in rural America" after high school graduation, and given my years of experience at that point with minimum wage jobs and rural America (since I couldn't afford to move away from my parents), the choice was very clear. I spent that time at college maturing and learning, and now I work a very rewarding, intellectually stimulating job in software. In a climate where nobody knows how to code and education is not highly valued, I would never have picked up programming or computer science and ended up where I am now if I hadn't gone to college. I'm very glad to be earning decent money and living in an big city (personal preference, admittedly) instead of working minimum wage food service or manual labor.

> It's important to keep in mind that college is meant to enrich people as individuals, not explicitly prepare them for jobs. Technical/vocational schools are for job prep.

I'm fine with this as a concept, except that colleges routinely present themselves as job prep, and many employers follow suit.

> It's important to keep in mind that college is meant to enrich people as individuals, not explicitly prepare them for jobs.

This is false. This claim ("colleges are for enrichment and learning; not preparation for a job!") is being trotted out a lot more recently. I consider it to be a pivot equivalent to the Bitcoin Bros' (LLC) pivot from "clearly this will replace currency" to "clearly it has been a store of value all along".

Job preparation/income/career enhancement has always been a huge part of the motivation to go to college. Even as many colleges have marketed themselves as "we're not just job prep; come here for the joy of learning", they have also spent huge amounts of resources on making their graduates competitive in the job market. Note that I don't think that expenditure necessarily paid off/was sufficient, just that career preparation is definitely a huge priority for colleges and people who attend them.

Historically college was never meant to bbe a job prep place. Colleges were originally created to generally well rounded businesspeople for wealthier families. This is why “liberal arts” exist and range from literature to biology and basic mathematics. I went to college 6 years ago and I was still told freshman year that if you’re here exclusively for a job there are better opportunities elsewhere.

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