Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

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> I read or heard someplace that at many universities tuition paid by students in the social sciences is effectively subsidizing the STEM fields

Diploma mill universities in my state are consolidating the smaller STEM universities and trade schools to build football and sports programs, gyms, and "lifestyle" amenities.

This university in particular [1] mints basket weaving degrees and has used consolidation to build sports programs [2] and lavish facilities for sports.

It's also been a revolving door of politician to high-ranking, high-compensation executive staff positions.

This university [3] has used funding to acquire properties from the state, such as the 1996 Olympic Stadium [4].

Neither of these universities does real, impactful research. The latter is ranked as an R1, but everyone at the "real" R1s in our state will tell you this is a fabrication. They're diploma mills and extract six figures from their student body. They turn this money into sports facilities and upper level faculty pay.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw_State_University

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw_State_Owls_football

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_State_University

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Olympic_Stadium

This is absurd. These universities aren't diploma mills. They're solid institutions in the "directional state U" tier.

Georgia State has an average SAT score of 1070. Nobody with a brain goes there. Just a societally sanctioned diploma scam for people who would be much better served by starting work right out of HS.

That's slightly above the average of SAT test takers which puts them top 1/3ish of high school students. Silly to think they don't have a brain

National average SAT score is ~995. Georgia average is 1030.

The Georgia university system has a set of goals for the advancement of the state of Georgia. It's difficult to make an argument that graduating seniors performing above average are unworthy of higher education, and that this would be best for the state.

Georgia, like most states, recognizes that not every student will fit in every situation and has options to help most/all of them. Georgia Tech is very different from UGA. Both are very different from the network of community colleges.

It's very easy for me to make that argument because I think higher education is a complete waste of time and money for everyone who isn't going into a particular technical profession that requires focused training beyond HS, and that's maybe 5% of the population.

Thank you for adding that color, it is clarifying.

I would suggest that your position is a minority position. In particular, that view is out of step with most employers, who generally require college degrees (even non-technical ones) for most white-collar jobs.

Employers can only require those degrees because lots of people have them. Lots of people have them because we subsidize them. If we didn't, they would hire people without them. If you have any respect for employer posted job requirements you probably haven't read the listed requirements for the job you have now. If SWE doesn't actually require a degree, and I know it doesn't because I don't have one, then neither do 95% of jobs out there.

> If SWE doesn't actually require a degree, and I know it doesn't because I don't have one

There's a lot embedded in here that for political reasons I'm not going to get into.

Back on the subject, I will just saw the GA university system regents disagree with you about the purpose of the GA university system. Successive state legislatures and governors have broadly supported, over many decades, their view of the purpose of the system.

You clearly aren't familiar. These "universities" are a step above DeVry. They might be worse in that they cost an arm and a leg to attend.

I used to tutor CS students at several different universities during my first two years at college. I would bet my arm that none of the ones I taught from KSU wound up with a career in software.

The student perspective at these schools is that they're there for the credential, not for the learning. Even at the risk of false negatives, I would actively filter out resumes listing schools like these. I would much sooner interview a non-degree holder.

I know several graduates of GA State and KSU. Including one KSU grad that works as a software engineer.

I went to SJSU (now KSU) briefly before transferring to a better school (because I slept through all of high school and didn't do any homework) and I did not get the feeling that anyone else in my classes was going to be a successful software engineer. Rather I got the feeling their parents told them to do CS because they really liked video games.

I took a group project game development class and it went beyond doing all the work in the group, I think I did all the work in the class.

Two people I know did graduate then change careers and become successful animators on Archer though.

At GA Tech the quality of students were better, but it mostly seemed to me that it worked by beating everyone to death such that you washed out if you couldn't work nonstop. They still weren't especially good eg not a single other student knew what version control was.

SPSU?

Oh yeah, the similar name overwrote it when I moved to Silicon Valley.

(The area code is also one digit off, 404 vs 408!)

> Even at the risk of false negatives, I would actively filter out resumes listing schools like these.

I am occasionally on hiring committees and use a rubric for ranking candidates. The rubric usually has 8-10 yes/no questions that might be best summarized as "Does this applicant's resume and cover letter indicate that they have actually written code deep enough to 'map' to our requirements?" Some of the rubric may be a little more specific to the actual job role, but the main idea is to filter out what I have come to think of as "aspirational" software developers.

I think one nice thing about the rubric approach is that candidates don't score "prestige" points or get "penalty" points for their specific educational background. Honestly, it seems like a lot of students from many institutions (some quite well known for rigor) are mostly about the "credential, not for the learning." The rubric seems to effectively filter out the less skilled or interested without eliminating skilled candidates with less "sterling" credentials.

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