How valuable is a college education for most people?

Dreamer

Argument Topic: A college degree is of low value.

After researching the topic online and reading Tom Nicholas' book the Death of Expertise I conclude that college degrees are of low value and even a complete rip off sometimes. Colleges are racist stress machines that crush young people's dreams.

The main benefit of college is to verify that you passed high school that you can perform the basics, read, write, mathematics, etc. Employers will hire college graduates at a higher rate for this racist verification. Colleges are an example of those who have get, therefore wealthy whites are more likely to have degrees and get hired. This is in the best case scenario including STEM, science, technology, engineering, mathematics degrees.

This is not even including the for private profit grifter degree mill colleges that take your time and money and give nothing in return.  Or the explosion of cooking colleges that employers don't want. Employers want to train people their way, not brainwashed by some expensive college.

https://hbr.org/2021/05/its-time-to-officially-end-unpaid-internships

Just the fact that unpaid internships exists prove that colleges are not doing their job. To be fair there are some careers that are required by law like nursing to have a degree. Yet, unless required by law to have that degree/certification college is of low value.

   Yes, a person who gets into an elite private school, summer camp, and prep school that goes to an ivy league college can make excellent money. Yet, you gotta have money to make money. Employers want quality education not quantity. Watch the documentary waiting for Superman.

 That's why employers don't want people with master's degrees trying to gain entrance into the field. That's quantity. Who cares if you got a master's in some dubious college or degree mill. Yet, all these low income families are sending their children to get degrees often taking remedial courses like lambs to the slaughter.

 To summarize, a person can A get into the workplace immediately. Many employers ideal candidate is 18. If you got college you cannot get this opportunity. Get money and get valuable on the job training for free and experience.

  Or B a person can be saddled with student loan debt they will likely never repay and will garnish their social security. Leads to the student debt crisis. Be stressed out often leading to a psychotic episode. Struggle for basics like books and transportation.

  Buy the illusion of knowledge without actually knowing anything reducing critical thinking. Then, even if they graduate be forced to be in an unpaid internship or unemployed. Finally, they end up a janitor.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/janitors-with-college-degrees-and-the-higher-education-bubble

Dreamer

Argument Topic: I forgot quackademia.

Go to college to become stupider and aggressively misinformed.

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/kings-of-quackademia-georgetown/

MayCaesar

I honestly have no idea how most people can possibly get into a high-profit field without receiving specialized education. Sure, there are geniuses here and there that have a knack for business and can just create a company out of nowhere and make millions, or those who can learn advanced programming and math via self-studying - but the vast majority of people (including me) are not like that. Furthermore, for many careers a degree is essentially a requirement, sometimes a legal one: you have almost zero chance to become a scientist in academia, or a doctor, or a lawyer, unless you have earned an advanced degree in the respective field.

A bachelor's degree in a "useful" field (by "useful" I mean something that is not ultra-specialized like linguistics, but something like a STEM field for which there are gazillions of jobs out there) is, at the very least, a failsafe system guaranteeing that you can always find a decent job and provide for yourself if you want to. A computer science or an engineering degree from virtually any accredited school anywhere in the world will get you pretty far already.

Of course, if you do not have many aspirations and are okay with getting by by doing some boring generic office or manual labor work, while getting paid enough to live somewhat decently, then you can just become a secretary in some random company straight out of the high school, or work on your uncle's farm... But I would hope that most people have higher expectations from life, like to use their brain a little bit more, and want to learn something about how the world works.

In many places that education, sadly, comes with a lot of unnecessary ideological baggage (garbage?). An essential skill that one should develop as early as in elementary school is to filter out this nonsense and to grab the diamond underneath it. If you can get a degree in computer science at Princeton, but have to endure a couple of rubbish ideological courses and a few events in which you are prompted to "check your privilege" - then go for the degree and laugh at these courses and events.

jack

@Dreamer

Hello Dreamer:

Knowledge for its own sake has value even if you can't turn it into a career.

excon

John_C_87

I honestly have no idea how most people can possibly get into a high-profit field without receiving specialized education.

You describe the very reason why economicly people pay by addition of cost increased national debt and not any factual given gains by exposure to a larger economy, lower costs. An economy does not actual grow by means of a expressed by a mathematical exponent, it scaled size. The scale of expantion held is a mask placed over an economy which is by scale then only visibly lager without zero addtional costs for each layer of mask adds laters of new costs.

: a symbol written above and to the right of a mathematical expression to indicate the operation of raising to a power.

Exponent Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

The question of the hour MayCaesar is are higher education institutions and those who work there, those who pay and those who are paid given immunity to such laws as the RICO Act? 

18 U.S. Code § 1961 - Definitions | U.S. Code | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute (cornell.edu)

aureus

Argument Topic: On dreamer's arguement

1. "Prove that you passed high school"
A college degree doesn't only prove that you passed high school. It proves you passed college. This is a standard higher than so an employer can rightfully expect a higher quality of worker when employing people with degrees over diplomas.
Also, college work is more similar to office work than homework. It indicates the a higher level of responsability and maturity as the college graduate has already proven they were able to complete assignments, attend lectures, pass exams without any teacher/supervisor.

2. Unpaid internships.
The type of work that would usually take interns is the type with a high level of onboarding and custom knowledge before a person can become useful in a company. An internship is usually a few months becuase the company derives very little benefit benefit from the graduate until a few months where they can independently work.

Junior doctors, lawyers, accountatants, or any profession are all highly regarded professions but will typically get paid a very low rate when they first graduate because the benefit to a company is minimal until they have been 'trained in'.

3. Entering the job market immediatly
This is great if the job is what the person already knew what they wanted to do. Unfortunatly, most highschool graduates do not usually know this. To start working in one area means that the person becomes locked into that field as people get less willing to leave a field with the more time spent in it. The benefit of college education is that it will hopefully expose you to more areas so that making an incorrect/inefficient decisions can be better avoided.

Employers are looking for a candidate who will derive the most benefit to that company without that person leaving. A person without specialist education in their area will always be limited in what they can do because they will always be limited by their own expereience rather than the general challenge that a university is supposed to provide in that area.

Dreamer

Argument Topic: At my local thrift store there is a lot of computer science majors working as basically janitors or sales clerk.

@MayCaesar

"A computer science or an engineering degree from virtually any accredited school anywhere in the world will get you pretty far already."

Thank you for your response. I'm not sure if we are agreeing or disagreeing. Let's say a person gets a computer science or engineering degree from a random college, there is a high chance they will end up a janitor or sales clerk.

If you want a pop culture example, in the TV series Elementary Sherlock Holmes investigates a for profit college that ripped off a person by selling a bogus computer science degree.

Dreamer

Argument Topic: Hi, welcome to debate island, waves. :)

@aureus

I beg to differ. A college degree is only a racist verification that you know high school material. That you didn't just slip through the cracks and are illiterate. Yes, people still graduate high school that are illiterate.

"The Disparate Racial Impact of Requiring a College Degree Among U.S. workers over 25, only 26% of blacks, and 40% of whites, have a bachelor’s or higher."

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-disparate-racial-impact-of-requiring-a-college-degree-11593375171

There are plenty of unpaid internships for lower prestige careers like nursing.

"Workers are desperate for, well, anything, and students and recent grads are willing to negotiate their wages down to zero."

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/unpaid-internships-bad-for-students-bad-for-workers-bad-for-society/256958/

If a college degree is so valuable why are students willing to work for free? Often for a company that has no interest in hiring them. Giving menial tasks like janitorial and fetching coffee unrelated to their degree. 

Yes, people often when 50 still don't know what they want to do as a career. Often a job that looks good on the surface is low pay and long hours like being a pilot for a commercial airliner. Yet, they will still gain experience and money. Which is a lot better than going to college to become stupider.

  As for exposing you to more opportunities what country do you live in? The companies around here have no interest in hiring college students at the average university. There is a major disconnect between the college world and careers.

The ivory tower professors often haven't even worked in the field. Got their bachelors, masters, phd and then started teaching with no industry connections. In fact this is part of the higher education bubble. Alumni graduate can't find a job go back to college and become college professors. Then, we have too many professors and students and not enough jobs.

 Many colleges just closed their career office throwing students and alumni alike off the docks to swim with sharks.

Dreamer

Argument Topic: I agree, that knowledge for its own sake is good. Yet, you won't find knowledge by attending college.

@jack

Colleges give the illusion of knowledge without knowledge. Also known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Just look at grade inflation. What was once a gentleman's C is now a gentleman's A. The more you attend college the less knowledgeable you become.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-rise-of-the-gentlemans-a-and-the-gpa-arms-race/2016/03/28/05c9e966-f522-11e5-9804-537defcc3cf6_story.html

Students leave college full of arrogance and hubris, no wonder why employers won't even give them an interview.

jack

Dreamer said:

@jack

Colleges give the illusion of knowledge without knowledge. Also known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Just look at grade inflation. What was once a gentleman's C is now a gentleman's A. The more you attend college the less knowledgeable you become.

Hello

You load 16 tons and whaddya get?  Another day older and deeper in debt.  St Peter doncha call me cause I can't go....  I owe my soul to the company store..  **

I come from a time where an education was an investment for both the individual and society at large..  The person who invented payment for an education, proly thinks more guns'll solve mass shooter problem..

Oh, that's right.

excon

** Tennessee Ernie Ford song

John_C_87

@Dreamer

I have a problem in understanding if you mean how valuable is advanced education or have valuable is college job training. There is a level of confusion as a college education for all intent on a United State Right held at the Constitutional level is simply priceless. However, these institutions do not hold states if the union on Constitutional right if fact as truth they impose breaks of states of the union for individual self-gain. The problem here is that the institutions themselves may be Unconstitutional and are politically motivated in place of constitutional motivated as an incentive to identify student value in learning. The ability to hold a job are not clear indicators of a value someone may take home from education institutions as there are many risks that come with working conditions and job descriptions that do not attach to learning and logistical memorizing.

What is the standardized value of political negotiation experience in schools relating to the speed of limited states of the union in written law over United State Constitutional Right directing not speed but best qualities of states of the identical connections of politics, law, and with future values of self worth as a question. A way to look at that statement in a simpler way is to aslk what influence does National Debt play in describing a value of higher education publcly? 

ZeusAres42

@Dreamer. Why must you let race creep into every discussion? This is like the equal and opposite version of Ben Shapiro 

John_C_87

@Dreamer
Here is a irony.

"The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."

14th Amendment, Section 5.

The value in college education is measured in the clear understanding that section V of the IVX Amendment does not state that Congress shall have legal powers to enforce, by appropriate legislation. It states only appropriate legislation in illegal actions. Meaning it is malpractice of law which replaces political impeachment by the new state of the American Constitutional union since the IVX Amendment. Spending in the form of budget credit as national debt has been promised under condition of American independence form natural resources for its energy. the fact is America must now pay for foreign materials for batteries making America's foreign energy dependencies twice as big and not smaller or independent.

MayCaesar

Dreamer said:

@MayCaesar

"A computer science or an engineering degree from virtually any accredited school anywhere in the world will get you pretty far already."

Thank you for your response. I'm not sure if we are agreeing or disagreeing. Let's say a person gets a computer science or engineering degree from a random college, there is a high chance they will end up a janitor or sales clerk.

If you want a pop culture example, in the TV series Elementary Sherlock Holmes investigates a for profit college that ripped off a person by selling a bogus computer science degree.

I have never met a computer science or engineering graduate working as a janitor or sales clerk anywhere in the world, and I have been in quite a few places with quite different qualities of life. Even in collapsed communist dictatorships where virtually anyone else was taking random jobs just to survive, people with this kind of education did really well - and often were able to easily move to a prosperous Western country and get a proper job there.

I have met some people without college degrees who succeeded in life, but I have met orders of magnitude more who were forever stuck working as beach attendants or ice cream truck workers. No matter how special one thinks they are, the odds are not in their favor - and, in addition, people have the affinity to think of themselves as far more special than they actually are. In 99% cases thinking that you are an outlier only implies that you have a poor ability to self-reflect.

If someone went to a bogus school selling fake degrees (of which there are not many in the Western world, at least, where the government routinely discredits such schools), then their mistake was going to the wrong school, not going to a school. The evidence that without any degrees their outcome would be significantly better is slim, to put it generously.

Dreamer said:

If a college degree is so valuable why are students willing to work for free? Often for a company that has no interest in hiring them. Giving menial tasks like janitorial and fetching coffee unrelated to their degree. 

You do not seem to understand the idea of an internship. What it gives you is education and experience of working in a real company, valuable connections and prospects of being employed at that company. In many cases it makes sense to do it for free if what you get from that is valuable enough. It is similar to how in the Medieval Europe kids would often do apprenticeships where they would not get paid, but got to learn the craft from masters, so later they would become paid assistants, and later still, masters themselves.

Someone who has earned or is about to earn a quality degree certainly will have better options than that. But someone who is struggling to enter the job market and wants to immediately start working at a high-paid position, rather than spend a few years working their way up there, might strongly benefit from such an opportunity.

A good degree is not a magical pill: you do not suddenly start getting 100 phone calls a day from top company CEOs begging you on their knees to go work for them. But it certainly gets you far compared to where you were when you just started college.

aureus

@dreamer

I can't tell if you're being genuine. But I am enjoying this so let's continue.

Degrees

If I accept your point that a highschool degree is an inaccurate degree of a persons ability but a college degree displays that you genuinely were at the level to pass secondary education. Surely this shows the value of having a college degree even more. You genuinely have the ability to pass both standards academic standard.

If an employer has the option of picking a college graduate who is almost certainly literate and numerate or a high school graduate where this is uncertain then this heavily favours the benefits of college education.

You mention also mention that going to college results in making them stupider. Is this a contradiction when a college degree verifies the intelligence of a person who did not go?

I'm not sure what you meant by “racist verification”. Do you mean that college degrees verify that high school material is racist? Apologies, I'm not following. How does a qualification prove the supremacy/inferiority of a secondary level material?

Internships

Students are willing to work for the initial experience in their desired profession. One of the hardest part of any career is getting your foot in the door.

The article you cited was from 2012 which was in the middle of the biggest recession in one hundred years, where many professions suffered serious contractions in the work available on professionals which pushed most of the pressure downwards onto the least experienced in the professions i.e. the students.

We are currently in a labour shortage, https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/12/us-economy-supply-shortages-housing-labor-goods-services/672564/, which reverses this trend and moves pressure off the students to take unpaid internships as paid work in their chosen fields is now more abundant.

But to your question “Why are students willing to work for free”? Because the relevant work experience in their desired field is more important to them than the short term benefit of little experience but immediate pay. Getting experience at a lower level for a minimal or no pay is more beneficial to them in the long run than working a paid lowest level job. A student nurse , gets far more benefit working in the wards and with patients for a year than a hostpital orderly would for that same time period.

From my own experience, the only companies (typically small 10-20 person firms) who do not offer employment post internship usually make this clear prior to taking any interns. This is only anecdotal but I have never encountered in the real world, a company who expected interns to do janitorial work.

Many companies have a minimum acceptance criteria of an accredited college degree with a certain grade level. They don't specify the college. So it does seems that companies are interested in hiring college students at average universities.

Ivory tower

As to your last point. If a Phd can't get work in the 'real world' but can in a university then again, this shows that having that college education is valuable.

John_C_87

@MayCaesar
You do not seem to understand the idea of an internship. What it gives you is education and experience of working in a real company, valuable connections and prospects of being employed at that company. In many cases it makes sense to do it for free if what you get from that is valuable enough. It is similar to how in the Medieval Europe kids would often do apprenticeships where they would not get paid, but got to learn the craft from masters, so later they would become paid assistants, and later still, masters themselves.

Sorry, I know I critique you a lot but an intern that is not paid is still not working for free they are being tested by an independent source.

just_sayin

Over the course of their careers, college graduates earn on average $1 million more than high school graduates. This translates to an average of $30,000 more per year for college graduates compared to those with only a high school diploma.  That said, college isn't right for everyone and there are several good jobs that do not require college degrees.  Learning a trade like plumbing, electrician, etc. can secure a good income.  

Dreamer

Argument Topic: Thank you for keep the converstation civil.

@aureus

Some people become irate when I argue with them no matter how civil I am. Any logical contradiction is seen as trolling. Despite the fact that I am passionate about the subjects I talk about and therefore often lack perfect logic.

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/08/19/the-growing-partisan-divide-in-views-of-higher-education-2/

When discussing this topic I usually get yelled at by liberals who overall value college more than conservatives.

Perhaps I went a little overboard, but again this topic is upsetting to me. This Mother Jones article explains how this is not just the economy.

"Screw U: How For-Profit Colleges Rip You Off The for-profit college industry makes a killing while handing out expensive degrees that fizzle in the real world.

• Yasmeen Qureshi

• Sarah Gross

• Lisa Desai"

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/for-profit-college-student-debt/

Can we at least agree that for profit colleges are rip off?

" a college degree displays that you genuinely were at the level to pass secondary education. Surely this shows the value of having a college degree even more."

That's called degree inflation. Back in say the 70's college was difficult to get into and was cheaper. There were huge lecture halls with one professor teaching about 100 students.

Now colleges are easy to get into and classrooms are small, but that does not matter much if the professor is an imposter. Now there are expensive luxuries like hot tubs and spas in universities.

"If a Phd can't get work in the 'real world' but can in a university then again, this shows that having that college education is valuable."

This creates a bubble like a multi-level marketing scheme though.

Dreamer

Argument Topic: I agree, I don't think we should send every low income student to college.

@just_sayin

The problem is if your poor you only really get one shot at college. If you are rich you can whiff once or twice and your parents will probably just pay your entire tuition. Even more so with unpaid internships.

Students from low income backgrounds cannot afford to travel to another state to take an unpaid internship and pay for an expensive apartment in New York city out of pocket. Give poor students a pipe wrench not a pipe dream.

Dreamer

@MayCaesar

Take for example Wawa they want you to work for three years and then go to college. Best buy doesn't want a person with a four year degree starting out in Geek Squad.

At Best Buy to get into Geek Squad you have to start out as the lowest of the low a sales associate and work your way up. Later, you can go to college to get the certificates to get into Geek Squad.

According to Tom Nicholas in his book the Death of Expertise to gain knowledge and become an expert you have to do the actual job. Not reading a book, college, training, nor watching someone else. Actual on the job experience is the only way to become an expert and gain knowledge.

People are using college to skip intro level jobs and enter right in the middle and upper ranks.

"If someone went to a bogus school selling fake degrees (of which there are not many in the Western world, at least, where the government routinely discredits such schools), then their mistake was going to the wrong school, not going to a school."

There is enough to make employer's doubt applicants. With grade inflation and gentleman's As there is real concern that the applicant is an imposter. Party school degree mills. A bigger problem is for profit colleges that give a low quality education at full cost.

Employer's solution is to often only hire from Ivy League like Oxford University, Harvard, and Princeton. After-all, with all the fake's running around how can they tell legit from false? This is why companies often outsource.

"Many who do complete their courses are loaded with debt and equipped with a degree of peripheral relevance that has been taught badly. They are being ripped off, not prepared for a better life." April 2023 economist

For a balanced view of the subject I recommend looking up the higher education bubble on wikpedia.

Dreamer

Argument Topic: Solutions to higher education bubble. End grade inflation by employing national standards for grading.

I am fairly riled up. I figure it is not fair to criticize without solutions

I. Employ national standards for grading.

Colleges and universities really need to provide hard data that they produce the product that they advertise. Imagine in other fields if a television had the wrong voltage. Or if a car had a lot less gas mileage then advertised. People would complain and the company would be in big trouble.

Yet, somehow some colleges get away with false advertising. This is a problem with k-12 education too. A lack of national standards for grading, see the documentary Waiting for Superman and the sequel the Inconvenient truth behind Waiting for Superman. An A at one school with low standards may be equal to a D at a school with higher standards.

This would solve a lot of problems with degree mills in various form and party schools.

II. End degree inflation

This is a problem on the employer side. Employers often take the cheapest, easiest, and fastest way to sort through a pile of applicants. The vast majority of applications are filtered out by applicant tracking systems (ATS). Often, the job was never available completely wasting the applicant's time.

Employers hire the bare minimum human resource employees. Swamped human resource takes maybe 10 seconds per applicant that survive the dread ATS. So what do human resources look at, that's right college degree even if you the job doesn't require it. Thus degree inflation. This is also bad business because most new hires quit/fired within a year.

III. More free college less loans.

College should be difficult to get into and the government should award scholarships not loans. This would burst the higher education bubble. Without unlimited funds from loans colleges would be forced to actually produce what they market.

IV. More automation

This is probably the meanest argument I will make. Yet, some people are to be brutally honest lazy and . Human capital has been marketed as the answer to everything. Yet, when you look at the number of people in degrees like cooking schools, various party schools, and more, a person can only conclude some people simply won't study enough or pick terrible majors.

We can give them free college, but if they won't study, it won't help. That's why I am in favor of automation as a stick. Study hard or the robots will take your job and you will be trapped in a low paying job.

Automation keeps businesses competitive and also lowers prices helping everyone. Lower prices means people can reinvest the capital creating more jobs. Since demand is infinite Ludlow is a fallacy. Now we see the rise of services most would never dream of like pet hotels and dog walking.

"Creating jobs

The study found that investing in robots helps to boost the efficiency and quality of work, with the reduced costs often meaning that there are more jobs to go around for their human peers." Adi Gaskell

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adigaskell/2021/09/02/does-automation-result-in-more-jobs-being-created/?sh=433fe10c63d0

V. Free trade

Again, with the stick. Outsourcing, immigrants, work vistas, are all great way to motivate people to study. Outsourcing helps poor countries economies. Lower prices helps everyone and create more jobs than it costs, see automation.

VI. Summary

We need a national standard of grading at all education levels. This will help end diploma mills and regain trust. Freshmen shouldn't have to bear the full brunt of weeding through a high number of colleges to find the best.

End degree inflation, it is ridiculous and wasteful to be more likely to hire a college graduate than a high school student for a job that doesn't need the degree. College should be free, but harder to get into, end most student loans more scholarships.

Automation and free trade are great alternatives to defeat plain old laziness and stupidity. I think we have an obsession with human capital. Automation and outsourcing create more jobs than they destroy.  

MayCaesar

Dreamer said:

@MayCaesar

Take for example Wawa they want you to work for three years and then go to college. Best buy doesn't want a person with a four year degree starting out in Geek Squad.

At Best Buy to get into Geek Squad you have to start out as the lowest of the low a sales associate and work your way up. Later, you can go to college to get the certificates to get into Geek Squad.

This supports my point and contradicts yours: not having a respectable college degree typically limits you to this kind of options. Working in the Geek Squad or at the reception in Wawa is the lower end of the spectrum as far as the available jobs go. Have you ever heard of someone who has worked their whole life in the Geek Squad and said, "I have never had a shortage of money and loved every second of my work"?

Dreamer said:

According to Tom Nicholas in his book the Death of Expertise to gain knowledge and become an expert you have to do the actual job. Not reading a book, college, training, nor watching someone else. Actual on the job experience is the only way to become an expert and gain knowledge.

You cannot do the actual job when it comes to jobs requiring advanced knowledge and expertise (which is the overwhelming majority of high-paying jobs on the market) until you have invested heavily into learning the stuff. You want to become a software engineer at Google with no education? Be my guest, try it. Go to the Microsoft offices in the DC and tell them, "Guys, I know nothing and can do nothing, but I am willing to do the actual job in order to gain knowledge and become an expert! Hire me, pretty please!"

Dreamer said:

There is enough to make employer's doubt applicants. With grade inflation and gentleman's As there is real concern that the applicant is an imposter. Party school degree mills. A bigger problem is for profit colleges that give a low quality education at full cost.

Employer's solution is to often only hire from Ivy League like Oxford University, Harvard, and Princeton. After-all, with all the fake's running around how can they tell legit from false? This is why companies often outsource.

That is what the interview process is for. As for only hiring from elite schools (Oxford University is not a part of the Ivy League, by the way), I have never heard of such practice, although there probably are insane employers somewhere doing that.

I know quite a few folks from Harvard and Princeton; in fact, my PhD advisor was a Harvard graduate. These schools rarely accept or produce buffoons, and it makes perfect sense to grant more credibility to the average graduate from there than to the average graduate of the Middle-Of-Nowhere College.

Dreamer said:

For a balanced view of the subject I recommend looking up the higher education bubble on wikpedia.

Thank you for the suggestion, but I am fairly sure that my sources are far more trustworthy than a wiki article.

just_sayin

@Dreamer
Unpaid internships should be allowed.  While the initial pay may be low, imagine the benefit of an internship from K street in DC, near me.  That 3 or 6 month investment can secure them a job, which it recently did for a member of my family, or it can give you the insights you need to get a really good job.  I'm very libertarian on this and think employees and employers should be able to negotiate their own wages.

Know that many government internships will not only pay you but put you up in hotel for the summer.  

The poor will always have more obstacles.  In the mountains of Appalachia where I was born, the nearest community college is about an hour away.  The idea of "equity" is a farce.  My advice to every child in Appalachia is to toughen up and forego the safe spaces.  Recognize that it will take you more effort than some others, but rather than whine about, recognize that by making those hard choices you will have a better outcome than those around you who didn't make that choice.

Dreamer

Argument Topic: Higher education is causing more inequality.

@MayCaesar

Here's another way to phrase, higher education is causing more inequality. "In rich countries people who hold a bachelor’s degree earn over 40% more than those who do not."

"Yet those average figures hide queasily large differences. For a shocking share of students, the returns from attending university are puny. About 25% of men and 15% of women graduates in England would have been better off financially had they not bothered. In total, student debt has reached $1.6trn in America"

the economist

Dreamer

Argument Topic: Argument from anecdote fallacy

@just_sayin

"the benefit of an internship from K street in DC, near me.  That 3 or 6 month investment can secure them a job, which it recently did for a member of my family" justsaying

"An argument from anecdote is an informal logical fallacy, where anecdotal evidence is presented as an argument; without any other contributory evidence or reasoning. This type of argument is considered as an informal logical fallacy as it is unpersuasive – since the anecdote could be made up, misconstrued or be a statistical outlier which is insignificant when further evidence is considered."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_anecdote

I am keeping my arguments brief having more technical issues with being auto-modded on innocuous posts.

Dreamer

Argument Topic: Appliciants don't trust employers. Prison labor and outsourcing.

@just_sayin

I am having trouble finding old articles that support my point of view. For example an old article on some UK nation using protectionism.  Fines for companies for importing STEM science, technology, engineering, mathematics workers when local STEM graduates couldn't get jobs. Yet, there are plenty of new articles that do.

"Incarcerated workers in the US produce at least $11bn in goods and services annually but receive just pennies an hour in wages for their prison jobs"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-prison-workers-low-wages-exploited

This is just one example of how companies may simply use prison labor driving down wages. Also competing with people in developing countries that are willing to be paid one tenth the wages and work longer hours is not a good idea. Perhaps we need to simply raise the minimum wage.

"But when some Trump supporters stumbled upon the workers of color pushing for higher wages, they shook hands and joined their protest." Sheryll Cashin 2023

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/05/21/theres-a-path-out-of-poverty-00097399?fbclid=IwAR1

MayCaesar

Dreamer said:

@MayCaesar

Here's another way to phrase, higher education is causing more inequality. "In rich countries people who hold a bachelor’s degree earn over 40% more than those who do not."

"Yet those average figures hide queasily large differences. For a shocking share of students, the returns from attending university are puny. About 25% of men and 15% of women graduates in England would have been better off financially had they not bothered. In total, student debt has reached $1.6trn in America"

the economist

One of the great things about receiving proper education is that you learn to focus on making a coherent argument, rather than pulling random things from random sources that contradict your point. First you argued that the college education is better off ignored; now you are citing a source claiming that people with a bachelor's degree earn more than those without. Which one is it: does having college education, on average, make you wealthier or not? It is something a kindergarten kid should see as a problem in your argument, yet years and years without focusing your mind (something you would have to do if you were enrolled in the academic environment in some capacity) led to severe degradation of your cognitive ability.

I was also talking specifically about STEM degrees, making it clear that there are many areas in which receiving education, in most cases, is pointless. 20% of all degrees in the UK leading to better financial outcomes? That is freaking awesome, considering that those degrees include ones in bogus disciplines. I will take those odds. If you look at the STEM degrees in general, I would guess that the number would be below 2%, although I do not have a hard data to back it up.

You keep citing random newspapers and Wiki articles. Let me cite a much harder source, something that researchers actually use in their work when making their claims:

https://www.bls.gov/emp/chart-unemployment-earnings-education.htm

Please explain how your view on the utility of higher education aligns with this data. Bear in mind that the thread is called "How valuable is a college education for most people?" We are not talking about your basement genius; we are talking about the average representative of the general population.

Dreamer

Argument Topic: One technique taught in school is to head off or prebunk the counter arguments.

@MayCaesar

I am showing the flaw or prebunk the counter arguments, this is coherent and a good strategy. That's why I showed the flaw of the 40% number. Besides degree inflation may be masking the problem that college degrees are not a good value.

In fact degree inflation explains your bls.gov link. Colleges are cutting career services. "Higher education institutions have collectively reduced career budgets 11.4 percent." Huffingtonpost 2017

College needs to be worth paying for. cnbc.com 2019 Sylvain Kalache

""But while tuition is paid in exchange for credit for history classes, that’s not the case with jobs in businesses. Thus, the academic internship, in which colleges get tuition to not teach students and businesses pay little or nothing for students’ work. Tuition for for-credit internships is free money. Instead of receiving no wages, students are, in effect, receiving a negative wage. They are paying for the privilege of working.'"

https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/paying-for-the-privilege-of-working/1401283

This how valuable a college degree is negative wages? People paying for the privilege to work for free. Students are actually paying money to find unpaid internships.

Even if you land the job due to automation, gamification, and outsourcing you may quickly lose it.

MayCaesar

@Dreamer

No, your claims in different comments contradict each other, and, rather than explaining exactly how and why my argument is wrong, you just cite articles from newspapers. Had you received decent higher education and paid attention when going through the program(s), you would have learned that citing a source is only the beginning of a counter-argument, it is not a counter-argument. You were supposed to explain exactly in what way the 40% number is "flawed"; instead, you cited some source, and that was it.

What do you mean by "degree inflation explaining my link"? The data clearly shows that the income in the population is unexceptionally positively correlated with the level of formal education attained. And your response to that data obtained through a rigorous data acquisition process with full compliance of the relevant predominant standards - is a Huffington Post article (that does not even reference the correlation in question) and... a forum thread?

Talking to you is just uninteresting. I reference hard data and describe the most obvious and immediate interpretation of it, and you reference newspaper articles and blog posts.

Dreamer said:

This how valuable a college degree is negative wages? People paying for the privilege to work for free. Students are actually paying money to find unpaid internships.

I have already explained that. The purpose of an internship is to acquire experience and learn new skills. It is not to make a living. You make a living by leveraging said experience and skills when applying for a job later on. This is literally what internships are made for and why they are separate from regular employment arrangements.

I need to pay $1,000 to spend a month at SpaceX, working with its software engineers, building a network and likely securing a future high-paid position there? If I were still an undergrad, I would yell at the top of my lungs: "Where, WHERE DO I SIGN UP?!!!"

ZeusAres42

I find this question too broad to speculate on. If the OP was "How valuable is a college/university education in medical science?" Then that would be a lot easier for me to have a discussion about. There are a multitude of professions where a  college education is indeed valuable and essential and others where this is not necessary but could give you an advantage.

How valuable theoretical knowledge is must match the kind of profession that you wish to endeavor. And that theoretical knowledge must match that career. If I am an employer for a Software development company then your degree in Physics is of no value to me or my business. It has no relevance. What I want to know is about both your theoretical knowledge regarding software development and any experience of actual practical application in the real world.

Dreamer

Argument Topic: Your link clearly shows graduating from high school is worth it, thank you.

@MayCaesar

"Introduction: Cognitive enhancers (CEs), also known as “smart drugs”, “study aids” or “nootropics” are a cause of concern. Recent research studies investigated the use of CEs being taken as study aids by university students."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8000838/

Hyper-competitiveness can lead college students to use drugs or high school students to get better test scores to get into an elite college.

We both seem to agree that completing high school is worth it. Yet, I am looking at more than earning just money. If a person goes to an expensive elite college and ends up getting low or mediocre pay that may not be a good trade. Especially considering compounding student loan interest they have to pay.

Colleges often pad degree requirements. 12 credits per semester for four years used to be the way to go. That's 96 credits. Now some colleges are requiring an extra year for a bachelor's of 120 credits.

If you are residential for five years graduating from a private university it is pretty easy to be paying over 100k in college tuition just for a bachelors. I know several people who are on income based repayment for the rest of their lives. Even those with degrees from elite colleges who got the job they wanted in their field.

Student loan interest can be as high as 15% depending upon public or private. Let's say 100k, at an interest rate of 10%. Every ten years the loan doubles. Entering college at 17 graduating at 22.

At 32 you owe 200k, 42 400k, 52, 800k, 62 1.6 million dollars when you retire. Even if you earn more it be less than the student loan, and you still might have been better off skipping college. Opportunity cost of five more years of wages as opposed to college.

Stress from going to college, or even stress in high school on which college to go to. Ever heard of the freshmen 10 ibs? It is well known that college students drop out to panic attacks.

We look at value which is quality/cost.

Opportunity costs and substitute products.  Going to college must be compared to other opportunities. For example many jobs offer paid training. You literally do the same thing as college yet are being paid. Often in the form of watching a video and taking a test. This is a lot higher value in the short term.

Alternately you go to vocational school and become a plumber or electrician with higher rates of employment than college.

College is risky, many drop out for medical reasons. That's a lot of student loan debt just for the benefit of some college on a resume. A pop culture example is Buffy the vampire slayer has to drop out for tragic reasons out of her control and get a job in fast food.

Substitute products, take the example of software boot camps and self learning. Boot camps may get you a job in a fraction of the cost, time and money. There is so many free or very low cost educational material out there.  If knowledge is your goal just go to the library.

There are so many more choices when the first higher education institution was formed. Now there is all sorts of high quality websites like sciencebasedmedicine, skepticalscience, crankyuncle that teach critical thinking skills.

"They found that America’s top universities are largely closed to the poor, merely helping well-off students remain well-off. The best schools for helping low-income students become high-income graduates are accepting fewer and fewer kids from poor families." Derek Thompson 2017

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/08/universities-inequality-fighters/538566/

Inequality, ivy league schools tend to crank out billionaires. Yet, they are hyper competitive and exclusionary. Talented low income applicants are almost always excluded. Therefore college exasperates inequality making the world a worse place. This is a negative value. 

Colleges are stressful intolerant places today. Colleges used to be a marketplace of free ideas. Where students got drunk and smoked pot. They used to be you know fun.

Thanks to the 2009 recession worries and woke higher education is a pressure cooker. Due to woke professors are leaving the high stress field of academia. Universities now are closer to churches where ideas are preached rather than discussed. You are far better off on this website debateisland if you want a free market place of ideas.

"

For Tough, things seem to have worked out just fine, despite his lack of a college credential. After he left McGill, in 1987, he landed a job at Harper’s magazine in New York City. He was 20.

“I felt like the thing that I had been looking for in college — cool intellectual discussions, work that mattered — I felt like I got that at Harper’s,” Tough told me."

https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-do-colleges-reinforce-or-reduce-inequality/

Conclusions, what does higher education really offer that cannot be replicated better somewhere else? Nothing in my opinion. The only exception is government mandated requirements. Even those seems like red tape. Students can learn to get better at tests as opposed to learning.

Critical thinking? No better off at skepchick or reading Richard Dawkin's the God Delusion. Employment, trade school and bootcamps. Knowledge the library. Making the world a better place, nope they make inequality worse. Cool intellectual discussions, nope woke ruined that. Yet, there is plenty of risk.

I conclude higher education is obsolete. Just like coal plants need to go and there is many many obsolete technologies like leaded gasoline. I leave with a few questions, did college ever do a great job? Was getting a bunch of young people together to drink and smoke pot ever a good idea?

 

Dreamer

Argument Topic: Thank you for your feedback. I wanted to challenge the blind faith of sending everyone to college that is common.

@ZeusAres42

As young as elementary school teachers tend to push children into the college path. Get a degree, any degree and your future will be so much brighter.

That you will be in a much better position in the unemployment office with a college degree than someone from a steel factory. The blind faith that there is a 100% chance that higher education will make your life better. This is false.

I find college applicants have little idea of what they want and basically get railroaded into something generic like general studies or liberal studies. Alternatively, admissions staff push students into classrooms with the most empty seats.

You could make a separate thread if you wanted to. Or we could change the subject and discuss individual majors on this thread?

"part of the reason is that COVID-related misinformation has created an environment of fear and distrust within our health care systems. But COVID-19 has only exacerbated an existing, systemic problem.Even before the pandemic, health care workers were already much more likely to experience assault than workers in any other industry."

https://www.yahoo.com/now/nurses-spit-kicked-assaulted-stop-100225672.html

Let's take the example of medical profession. We could segment the discussion further into particular fields like nursing, doctors, pharmacists, dentist, etc. For example there is talk of artificial intelligence replacing doctors. Considering you need to go to college for a longer time than other fields this is increased risk. Also, covid-19 fox news watching patients spitting on medical staff.

As for computer science there is software bootcamps. At one point I read that bootcamps were novel and employers were picking applicants from bootcamps over applicants with bachelors in computer science. Bootcamps that costs a fraction of the time and money.

Often employers are quite superficial in how they hire. I recommend why good people can't get jobs by Peter Cappelli.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14742986-why-good-people-can-t-get-jobs

Interestingly due to deep learning and cloud learning there may be a lot less demand for programmers. Ironically machines may learn to program themselves, thus automation may greatly reduce the need for programmers. Similar to the minimill technology in the steel industry causing 75% of workers to lose their jobs in five years.

This is the crux of my argument. No matter what field you are in there is risk. Long term investments are inherently more risky. College takes a long time.

 Spend 100 hours researching a major and then 5 years graduating. After graduation you may find that your 100 hours of research was very obsolete and you made a terrible mistake. Five years to graduate is the same time it takes for automation to destroy an industry.