Hacker News Reader

Comment by ntkachov | Hacker News Reader

As much as people crap on art school an art degree can at least pay for itself as long as your willing to work for other, and not, say, make drawings of anime all day. Most of the anti-college rhetoric comes from 1 simple things.

Cost of degree > Worth of degree.

$200,000 for a degree which only nets a $35,000/yr job is starting to seem like a bad deal.

View on HN

Make that

Cost of (Humanities) degree >> Worth of said degree

Sad, but true. Perhaps humanities subjects are ripe for an online-learning revolution.

I believe China has stopped paying for / blocked universities from offering degrees in certain humanities subjects based on the productivity argument.

That's if you value the degree in terms of the salary you can garner after graduating, or believe that money is everything. There are simply some things that you cannot put a price on. College is not for everyone, but for many it can be an eye-opening experience that enriches lives in deep ways.

Re: There are simply some things that you cannot put a price on.

Debt that will follow you through bankruptcy is not one of them. I know of people who took exactly that attitude about college and it destroyed their lives.

If you are not paying for college, or not paying much, it is true that it can be a fun 4 years and does not need to be considered a financial decisions. But when you are collecting more debt than an average mortgage you should really consider if the house you are buying is worth it.

If someone is looking for a safe financial investment that provides guaranteed returns on the dollar, college isn't likely to rank high on that list. We seem to agree on that. I said that college isn't for everyone. My point was that equating worth or value directly to a dollar value return is probably a bad way to look at an education. Many people can't afford a quality education, and it's an injustice. But how much money you can earn because of your degree is only one facet to weighing the benefits of an education. And, to me, it's a poor method of valuation.

Well first of all I do not equate education necessarily with college, education is a process and college is a place where that may or may not happen. My main point is that assuming large levels of debt should be approached as a business/investment decision, as should anything with such a large down side. And even if you are college material having $200,000 in debt and a degree in something that gets you a $35,000/year job is just not a reasonable thing to do. And with a debt/salary load like above college will be the best 4 years of your life, loan payments will see that it is so in the best case.

I re-read your comment, and I think that where we agree is that an education doesn't have to mean college. Also, a degree as a piece of paper is not really worth anything -- I was thinking of the experience of diving into learning, and the benefits of being in an academic environment that can't be reduced to a dollar value (at least not easily).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com