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Comment by devmunchies | Hacker News Reader

> has a better return in terms of welfare

maybe. If it becomes normalized, it would alter the cost-benefit dynamic in degrees even more and not place as much pressure on pursuing a more valuable degrees. Hopefully this is a one-and-done and we can be more creative going forward, like providing more grants for deeper, more fundamental degrees like chemistry, math, computer engineering, manufacturing, etc.

> same can be said about financial sector bailouts, agricultural subsides

agree. we need to let companies properly decompose. It unintuitively creates more growth, and new companies are created from the ashes. Injecting old companies with formaldehyde creates sclerotic monoliths.

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>Hopefully this is a one-and-done and we can be more creative going forward, like providing more grants for deeper, more fundamental degrees like chemistry, math, computer engineering, manufacturing, etc.

I hate to stomp on your hope, but this is a late-stage step on the road to 'free' public K-16 in the US. Graduate degrees are already needed to provide the signal you could generate 40 years ago with undergrad. As to actual learning apart from the signal of a degree, the bulk of undergraduate educations, now that there is such a bulk, will provide progressively less value compared to top institutions where students are ready to learn, just as most public schools fall behind the well-known magnet schools that we all wish were more than exceptions to the rule.

> Graduate degrees are already needed to provide the signal you could generate 40 years ago with undergrad.

Honest question, are they? At least as someone hiring for software engineering BS in CS is generally something I look for in a junior level candidate (I rarely pay attention to the education of a candidate with a few years under their belt), but no matter the experience level a masters has never added much, barring some really interesting projects.

Other fields might be different, but I don't think I'm the exception for software engineering.

> not place as much pressure on pursuing a more valuable degrees

> like chemistry, math, computer engineering, manufacturing, etc.

Good.

Some of us would prefer that the point of college is a better educated populace, not a better educated avarice. Let's keep the greed at bay.

if the point is just a general education, then just watch youtube, subscribe to online courses, read books, etc. (I just dropped $100 to a 45hr three.js course. Much cheaper, more useful, and more current than most technical college classes)

> Let's keep the greed at bay.

Tell that to the university endowments.

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