Plan B - Skip College

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/weekinreview/16steinberg.html?src=me&ref=general

by timr • 16 years ago

80 63 16 years ago

j053003• 16 years ago

from: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7636561&page=1

"According to a survey from National Association of Colleges and Employers, the class of 2009 is leaving campus with fewer jobs in hand than their 2008 counterparts. The group's 2009 Student Survey found that just 19.7 percent of 2009 graduates who applied for a job actually have one."

fleitz2• 16 years ago

I've always wondered what the employment / income benefits for a degree are once you account for intelligence. It seems to be that there is a lot of schooling that goes unused.

jacoblyles4• 16 years ago

I think you've pointed out the elephant in the room. In America it is politically incorrect to believe that some people might not have the cognitive capacity to excel in college and in jobs requiring college degrees. Every American is above average. If each citizen is not Bill Gates, it is because they are the victim of circumstance. Other people held them down, the system failed them. The successful must be condemned for prospering at their expense and another reform must be tried.

We would rather the vast cognitive middle class take out thousands of dollars in debt and drop out than "admit defeat" by encouraging them to pursue skilled careers in nursing, maintenance and repair, and etc. I am skeptical that the billions of dollars of tax money and individual money spent on the pipe dream of sending every person to college has been worth the expenditure.

Plans that ignore reality are doomed to failure, no matter how well-intentioned. And the reality is that not everyone is cut out for Harvard.

whakojacko• 16 years ago

Exactly. The whole "anyone can do anything" culture in America has its benefits, but also its costs.

I personally think a good middle ground is to be sending far more students to community colleges. This doesnt immediately comdemn lower-level jobs to the truly determined (as they can transfer out), but it is far more affordable than a 4-year degree without much in the way of a loss of benefits for the students.

On the other hand, It seems like far too many jobs in the US require bachelors degrees these days. If a job doesnt require a specific major/set of majors in the posting, the work probably doesnt require a bacheolars at all.

metamemetics3• 16 years ago

Actually thats what the article just pointed out, that college does not benefit the unintelligent.

What fleitz seemed to be pointing out is that it is necessary to examine to what degree college actually benefits the intelligent as well.

edit: also, it's funny you used Bill Gates considering he dropped out of college.

wntdaliv• 16 years ago

As a second year undergrad at a UC, I've found that the majority of the people who would appear to not have the cognitive capacity to excel in college courses were simply lacking in fundamental learning that they should have learned in high school or even middle school. All of the students I met that had trouble with calculus had trouble because of their poor algebra skills. The same is true of English classes where students had poor grammar and generally no concept of how to write a structured thesis-driven argument. Even in my upper div algorithms course, the only people who are doing poorly are the ones who did not pay attention in earlier cs classes where we already learned half of this stuff!

Clearly some people are truly incapable of excelling at these things, but I don't think that's the majority and I feel that if we could teach people better in k-12 then they would most definitely excel at higher learning schools where k-12 knowledge is expected.

But then again I'm young, so what do I know?

tokenadult2• 16 years ago

If each citizen is not Bill Gates, it is because they are the victim of circumstance.

He has done some amazing things, and aims to do more, but he did also come from unusual circumstances.

http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/

natrius2• 16 years ago

> If each citizen is not Bill Gates, it is because they are the victim of circumstance. Other people held them down, the system failed them.

This part of your otherwise insightful comment is a bit ridiculous. Most people's success is determined by how much money their parents had and what schools their parents could afford to send them to. Circumstances have a pretty huge impact, and if our system is intended to minimize the effects of circumstances, it is failing many people.

Qz• 16 years ago

Shouldn't the degree reflect intelligence? If not, wtf is the point?

metamemetics3• 16 years ago

Rephrased:

Do people smart enough to get accepted to college earn the same amount whether they attend or not?

Or is actually attending college necessary to earn more because of knowledge imparted in classes?

matwood3• 16 years ago

You're assuming that intelligence somehow leads to employment and income.

I believe intelligence is only one part of the total equation. IMHO, the larger and more substantial part of the equation is discipline and the ability to execute. This is HN, so look at all the startups that people do around here. Are they really that much more intelligent than everyone else on this list? I'm sure they're all smart people, but what they really have above others is the ability to execute. While the average american is watching American Idol they are working on their business idea. While the same american is playing video games or posting on HN ;) they are working their website.

Obviously some level of intelligence is required, but I just don't think it's as important as many people believe it to be.

fleitz2• 16 years ago

Yes, you're correct. What I meant was more along the lines of what does college actually do in and of itself when you subtract all the factors that go along with those that go to college vs. those that don't. I wonder this because I've always been very hard working and consider myself reasonably successful, yet never went to college.

It's funny that you mention playing video games and posting HN as I just stopped playing Portal and thought "I should work on a project" and then fired up HN.

zach3• 16 years ago

Or at least once you account for scholastic aptitude. If only there was a widely-used test that measured it...

But seriously, there must be some studies that explain what happens after two students with equal SAT scores graduate with degrees in different fields. Anyone know?

warwick2• 16 years ago

I think what bothers me most when I read this sort of article is that it treats all college degrees as equivalent. They talk about average earnings potential and average unemployment rates, but they never break it down. If you get a B.Sc. instead of a B.A., how does that effect your chances?

Almost all my friends without some sort of technical degree (Chem, CompSci, Physics, Math, etc.) aren't working anywhere near their field of study. They paid tens of thousands of dollars so that they can be secretaries, waitresses, and ice cream parlour cashiers.

matwood3• 16 years ago

Where are all these mythical talented engineers working as cashiers and waitresses?! Last time we hired I interviewed tons of people who frankly had zero clue about programming. We finally found a kid fresh out of school who is super smart, but barely takes showers. At least he gets work done though which makes my day easier and that's what counts ;)

At worst a CompSci person should be able to go into government contracting. They are nearly always hiring, mostly require minimum schooling, and the pay is usually pretty good.

There are some fields that usually require more than an undergrad degree to do much with them, but that's isn't anything new. Psychology is a great example, where you have to get an MS or PhD in order to go anywhere with it. If the student didn't realize that till graduation day, well that's their fault.

warwick2• 16 years ago

Reread the comment. The folks working outside their field are the ones without technical degrees. Incidentally, the ice cream parlour cashier has a psych degree (undergrad only).

hristov2• 16 years ago

Exactly. Also, I think it errs by treating all colleges as equivalent. Since the government subsidises educational loans there are many colleges out there that do not provide much of an education but mostly exist to siphon off those subsidised loans.

I think there are many colleges out there which are just not worth going to. Mind you, I am not an ivy league snob, I am not saying go to a top 50 school or not at all. There are many great schools that are ranked much lower.

But all of those for profit colleges that advertise heavily are mostly a waste of money. If you want to learn something, go to a school that is either public or private but set up as a non-profit and has an established reputation of supporting scholarship and research. Just forget about the ITT techs and universities of phoenix. Community college would be better than those.

I think the government is just too loose with the loans it subsidises.

stretchwithme2• 16 years ago

absolutely. if people paid market rates for education loans, you'd see an increased focus on rate of return. And we'd also see an increased focus from schools on quality instruction in well paid fields and less spending on recreational facilities.

For-profit schools may not be as well regarded, but remember that they have to pay taxes while the others don't. And many get a lot of other subsidies as well. So the real costs are somewhat obscured.

antidaily• 16 years ago

I would have guessed the opposite - that your friends with B.A.s would be the ones not working in their field of study. Interesting.

hugh3• 16 years ago

On the upside they probably have decent reading comprehension.

rdtsc2• 16 years ago

What should a parent tell a child who wants to go into a non-"money" field? Should one still pay $80,000 for 4 years of "Social Studies"? Tell them not to go at all and get a 2 year degree from a community college?

We all grew up brainwashed with the idea that "4 year college"="better jobs"="better life". Colleges have been raking in good profits all these years by exploiting that mantra. It is really hard to all of the sudden deny it and go against the popular opinion.

zach3• 16 years ago

I think we have a logic/emotion split about college, where logically we know college costs lots of actual money and should be regarded as an investment, but our emotions have been manipulated to think of college as a certain kind of life-validating experience.

So the decision to go to college is governed by the logic of college as investment, but then the content part is guided by the emotion of college as personal self-realization.

So we end up with a society where countless people pour thousands of dollars into attending college for fundamentally emotional reasons. Or even worse, for mistaken factual reasons about the practical benefit of their education.

In other words, as Ted Rall put it even before college costs doubled, college is for suckers:

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/09.26.96/student-9639...

lsc4• 16 years ago

do you have the money to spend? Many of my family members got liberal arts degrees, and they felt enriched by the experience. I know visiting them, it sure looked like they were having a good time, meeting interesting people, etc.

Me, I got a SysAdmin job rather than going to school, and continued on in that direction. Sure, when I was my sister's age, I made 5x what she does now, but I don't think that was her primary reason for going to school.

I mean people spend that much on cars that aren't any more utilitarian than a $15,000 civic, so why not spend it learning an interesting skill while living around interesting people?

cryofan• 16 years ago

the income stats are a lie anyway

philwelch• 16 years ago

Explain? Without more information this comment is useless.

petercooper2• 16 years ago

All well and good if it's all about smarts and money, but the social aspects of having to spend four years collaborating and tolerating your peers cannot be underestimated. People who've gone through four years of college are, typically, well-rounded in their general knowledge and social skills, more liberal and more tolerant.

Colleges don't just take in kids and output kids with knowledge. They turn kids into a certain type of adult.

sliverstorm• 16 years ago

I appreciate that you said 'a certain type', instead of assuming it was implicitly a better type. (Not that I wouldn't agree with you if you had.)

zach3• 16 years ago

So it's not about the curriculum? How else would this gestalt effect occur? I can well understand how treatment effects happen at the Naval Academy or at prep schools, but it seems most colleges seem to define their experience primarily by their curriculum.

petercooper2• 16 years ago

but it seems most colleges seem to define their experience primarily by their curriculum.

It's important to remember who typically has the biggest say and financial influence over choosing a university to attend: the parents. Steve Jr might have a few party colleges in his roster, but mom and dad want to pay for the "best education." Sell what the people with the money want ;-)

lsc4• 16 years ago

speaking as someone who didn't go to college, I kindof agree. I mean, I don't know if I agree with the 'more tolerant' bit, but certainly, more liberal and better able to get along with other people who have college degrees, more likely to understand (or at least pretend to understand) modern art, etc...

There are also other, harder to define social changes. The most negative side of this is that I know people who earn 1/5th what I do who won't lower themselves to replacing the brakes on their car. I mean, 'round these parts, mechanics charge $70-$90 an hour. Not many of us make more than that after taxes. This unwillingness to 'break the rules' and accomplish what you need to accomplish can be a pretty big problem.

I don't know if it is what college teaches, or if this is simply what college filters for, but it seems that people who went to school have a narrower view of what they are able/willing to do. (Not as narrow as what one learns in service jobs, but still pretty narrow compared to those of us who do work that 'requires' a degree without having one.)

I mean, that's not always true. I know many English majors turned programmers, some who have become really excellent, and a ridiculous number of physicists turned programmers. But College, in general, seems to come with a diminished respect for industry, especially the trades and working with your hands in general (unless it is 'art') - see discussions here about programming as an art. to some people, it seems, you are somehow insulting programming by comparing it to the work of an electrician, a bricklayer or other tradesman, which to me absolutely sings of arrogance.

skinnymuch3• 16 years ago

Your last line - seems more like insecurity to me than anything else.

samatman• 16 years ago

Especially amusing: of the 10 fastest growing job categories, two require college degrees. One is accounting; the other is postsecondary education.

In other words, the manufacture of college degrees.

This is powerful support that the age of the ubiquitous bachelor's degree may soon be over.

timr3• 16 years ago

"This is powerful support that the age of the ubiquitous bachelor's degree may soon be over."

It's incorrect to interpret this article as evidence for an anti-intellectual world-view. Nothing in the article suggests that bachelor's degrees will be unimportant in the future, particularly for the best jobs. The article also points out (correctly) that people without college degrees make less on average, and have less reliable employment.

If anything, this is a disturbing piece of evidence that jobs requiring skilled labor are becoming less prevalent. However interesting the trend may be, I don't think it's a trend to celebrate. I'd rather live in a world where college education is in demand, than one where we're sending kids to vocational school because there's no point in trying to do better.

starkfist2• 16 years ago

You're lucky if you encountered many intellectuals as an undergrad.

But actually I think you're right - skilled white collar jobs will die out before skilled or unskilled "blue collar" jobs do. People always will need a broken car fixed, or a wall in their house repaired. The world doesn't necessarily need brand managers and analysts. Most think-work jobs in offices (which college is preparing you for) are non-essential in the grand scheme of things.

jgg• 16 years ago

I never knew that I had to have a bachelors to be an "intellectual". I refused to join Mensa even after I could have, does that make me "not gifted"?

I think the truth of the matter lies somewhere in the uninteresting middle, and depends a lot on what school you go to, how much you apply yourself, and other factors. Sure, you might learn some things from school. Are these really things that you couldn't learn outside of university walls?

Just saying that a Bachelor's degree isn't helpful to a lot of people doesn't make anyone anti-intellectual, any more than advocating squeaking through a 4 year degree in "University Studies" at Podunk U. makes you pro-intellectual. Being an intellectual is a mindset. A Bachelors degree is a piece of paper that says you did whatever was required to get said piece of paper, which probably didn't involve being an intellectual 100% of the time. That what's I was trying to get at with my unfortunately-snarky-sounding Mensa comment above.

I realize that this part of your comment might actually have been suggesting that if we declare a Bachelors as useless for a bunch of people, the masses will decide that stupidity is an acceptable state of being. If that's the case, I think we should be honest and admit that someone squeezing through a crap degree just because everyone says he should isn't going to cure him of whatever problem allows him to look at learning and knowledge with such a care-free attitude. If someone isn't capable of understanding why learning is important or, worse, is looking for any excuse they can find to tear down people who value education, there's a problem that's being ignored way before they even think about entering college.

jacoblyles4• 16 years ago

I wouldn't bet on it. The government loves to subsidize things in inverse proportion to their usefulness.

cianestro• 16 years ago

Every week I see an article like this one. Maybe it's supposed to be some sort of innuendo that someone needs to solve the "education problem." But it's not an education problem and neither are most of the other problems that plague our society. It's a money problem, has been and will always be so. We all silently say to ourselves, "If I can just get that ______ I will be set." But how often does this prove true?

There are too many sort-sighted patches out distracting us from the truth that our depression is our money. How about we see through the symptoms into the disease for once with a few intelligent alternatives to money/points/etc (all patches that provoke distrust in one another and needless hoarding or competition). People love to say moneyless economies would create incentive for irresponsibility but our reality has proven that to be the exact opposite.

Please don't "skip" college, I don't want to see anyone have to serve me my "ice cream" even 4 years from now--there's nothing wrong with automated solutions. More of the same never changes anything but then again, it seems, neither does saying so.

iamdave• 16 years ago

I saw a comment in here about people who earn degrees but end up in jobs that aren't even remotely related to them:

I just started a job at the data center of a major mobile provider, electronics developer and appliance manufacturing organization. My particular department is the IT department that supports the call center operations, there are six guys total in my department.

I have a degree in political science. Jim (names have been changed) has a degree in biology. Joe has a degree in English Ken has a degree in environmental science.

Just barely 80% of the people in my department don't have computer science degrees, but we're working in the IT department of a mobile provider. How did we get the jobs? We're all hackers who grew up around technology and got practical, real-life experience.

Personally, I think that's the way to go. But at the same time, I'm reminded everyday of how important humanities studies are, when I'm in a conversation with someone younger than me about politics, and I bring up the Holocaust and they genuinely don't know what the Holocaust is.

Then I see people who vehemently defend the notion that if you don't make practical application of the knowledge provided in these humanities class, they're moot and you don't need to know them.

Talk about being on the fence, I'm living it everyday.

rnugent• 16 years ago

This article is so wrong, on so many levels it's hard to imagine that this was in a respected newspaper. The idea that some folks should not go to college is, at best, quaint. This reason that people attend college varies a great deal. Not everyone looks at it as a means to a financial end (otherwise there would only be several majors - Finance, Medicine, Law, Engineering). Do you think an English Lit major expects a job at Goldman Sachs upon graduation? Educators are suggesting this because they are dealing with a wave of unprepared Freshman and it costs them more money to teach remedial classes and then risk these folks dropping out. This is a "business" problem for the higher education industry. Wait, think about that phrase, "Higher Education Industry". College has become a big business. No longer do Universities exist to educate our population, they are now a for profit business. In California, it's easier to be admitted to a public university if you're from out of state than if you're a resident because the schools can charge more for out of staters.

The problem is that funding for K-12 schools has dwindled leaving our US grown kids unprepared for the riggers of university. At the same time the Higher Education Industry is looking for the highest profit students to attend and they are coming from out of state and out of this country. That leaves us with a workforce that is not home grown and a culture that underachieves.

brianobush• 16 years ago

take 100 individuals, 50 go to college, and the other 50 don't. 10 years out, measure the financial stability (cash flow, net worth, etc) of both groups. I guarantee those that went to college fair better. Not saying that money is everything, but it is a powerful enabler.

Plan B - Skip College

Related Stories