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Comment by jeffreybaird | Hacker News Reader

You prefer an under-educated population? The most valuable asset we have in the technology and service based economies is human capital. We need a creative and educated population to continue to compete. I think we should eliminate all for-profit education and preferably make all universities public.

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Under educated population is a disaster, but that problem starts about 12 years before college, in a different all public/free education system.

Jamming more people through mediocre and worse college programs to get worthless degrees is a waste of time and money.

Why do you assume that degrees are "worthless?" How are you defining "worthless?" Based on the research, getting a degree significantly increases your earning potential. But I would argue that even if that wasn't the case and everyone got philosophy, literature, and history degrees, our country would be significantly better positioned globally.

And I agree with your statement that the problem starts earlier. Although most of our issues with primary and secondary public education can be traced to poverty and racism. So, I think we should raise taxes to address those as well :D.

I’m referring to all the unemployed and underemployed college graduates complaining about the debt they are in. Simplify transferring the debt somewhere else isn’t fixing anything, it is just shifting the drain on society. College is highly useful for some people, and not others. We should do more to make sure it is available to those who would benefit, and offer different things for those who prefer or need trade skills.

Worthless = "no employer willing to pay good money for the skills or knowledge you acquired"

Why do you proceed from the assumption that degrees have worth and demand that we prove that statement to be false?

In the real world it is the opposite - you assume the degree is worthless until you demonstrate the otherwise

You have to be careful with conflating causality. As we turn college more and more into highschool 2.0, we're going to see the correlation with increased earnings start to deteriorate. There's a simple matter that we're greatly increasing the supply of college educated individuals which, in turn, will have a diminishing effect on their demand which will drive earnings down. The only way this will not happen is if there's a proportional (which is to say sharp) increase in the number of available and desirable positions for college educated individuals.

This is also ignoring that we've greatly widened the demographic attending colleges. The reduced selectivity means that the average person is not going to be as top-notch as they were at one time, which means that the average expectation of an individual with a college degree will also go down. This will also have an aggregate depressing effect on our earning:education correlation. More important than ever will become median earnings for college graduates. The top graduates are earning vastly more than ever before which will mask the overall problem.

> You prefer an under-educated population

Who is undereducated? We managed to create a civilization that went to the moon back when the vast majority of people never went to college. Germany continues to be a leading industrial power while lagging most of Western Europe in college statistics (especially "academic" college like we have in the U.S.)

Is it possible to simultaneously have an over-educated population and an under-educated population? I am having a hard time squaring the two prevailing ideas on this issue. One is that we need more/free education because an educated population is best. The other is that we need to import vast amounts of new unskilled labor so we have someone to pick our fruit. I realize you only espoused one of these ideas, but I am curious if someone holds both those positions and would help me understand how both can be true at the same time.

If you define "educated" to be an expensive and worthless-to-the-world degree, then I am totally fine with an "under-educated" population.

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