College Is (Almost) Obsolete

http://diegobasch.com/college-is-almost-obsolete

by diego • 11 years ago

45 88 11 years ago

ColinWright2• 11 years ago

    > I have no intention of starting a
    > college fund for my son, ...

Start it anyway! If he wants to start his own company, you'll want to be able to support him. If he wants to buy a house, you'll want to be able to support him. If he wants to become a doctor, you'll want to be able to support him.

Guess what - it doesn't matter what he wants to do - you'll want to be able to support him, and having that fund will make that easier/possible.

This will probably get a lot of votes here because HN is resolutely anti-formal education, but that's no reason not to have the fund in place in case that's the way the child want to go.

k-mcgrady3• 11 years ago

Is the college fund a uniquely American thing? I come from a relatively middle class background (UK) and don't know anyone whose parents paid for college. Their kids took out loans and got jobs like everyone else. I know some people got help with accommodation costs but most didn't.

istorical• 11 years ago

It's more common in America only because university costs have skyrocketed in the United States to astronomical proportions.

But even with America it's a class thing. For the upper middle class and above you can consider college funds along with summer camps, piano lessons, private SAT tutors, etc. as optional expenses for kids that everyone would love to be able to afford but not everyone can.

For those that can afford them it's great. But for those who can't, it can be kind of an affront to see it thrown about as something any loving parent would provide their child with.

Mikeb853• 11 years ago

Probably has to do with the absurd cost of US college. A "good" college/university (basically on par with what most countries think of as a 'University') in the US costs 5 times what it does in Canada or the UK, never mind places like France, Germany, Sweden, etc....

serve_yay2• 11 years ago

Many people here do it, but it is mystifying to me also. I'm in my mid-30s still paying for the damn thing (almost done, but still). I can't imagine someone handing me such a huge gift like that.

alistairSH2• 11 years ago

Two things pop to mind: 1. The cost is ridiculous in the US. A top state-funded school will cost nearly $120,000 over four years (tuition, fees, room, board). 2. Our tax code has incentives for college savings plans.

abuteau• 11 years ago

We have it in Canada too through Registered Education Savings Plans (RESPs). I live in Quebec and basically every dollar invested in an RESP could be increased by 30% to 60% b/c of government grants. We can receive up to $7,200 from the Canada Education Savings Grant (CESG), up to $3,600 from the Quebec Education Savings Incentive (QESI), and up to $2,000 from the Canada Learning Bond (CLB). Altogether, it's about a $12,800 increase, which is quite nice.

untog3• 11 years ago

(I grew up in the UK, now settled in the US)

The cost of university education in the US is pretty insane, compared to the UK. A college fund from your parents might not even pay for college - just reduce your loans to a level comparable to education in the UK.

Jtsummers4• 11 years ago

The US offers some tax advantaged accounts/bonds for education expenses. 529 Plans, for instance, aren't tax deferred, but the earnings aren't taxed if used for college. And a number of people can contribute besides just the parents.

I'm curious, what's the cost of college in the UK? In many states in the US it's become outrageous, and that's not even considering private universities. That might be a motivation here to establish college funds.

JoeAltmaier4• 11 years ago

Ok my kids' college fund came from Dell, who bought our startup. So I don't know what I'd have done otherwise - probably helped pay out of cashflow.

But definitely Parents are a component of college funding in the USA. In fact, the FAFSA expects parents to mortgage their house and sell property Before they'll allow a federal student loan.

netcan6• 11 years ago

I agree.

How about instead of college tuition, you offer him $1,000 for every unit completed in whatever college replacing thing he's doing.

dragontamer2• 11 years ago

Where's the tax incentive in that?

You don't get taxed at the federal... or possibly state level... in what you put away in 529 plans.

zeroonetwothree• 11 years ago

There's no reason to have a "separate" investment for this. In particular, if you use certain special types of accounts (like 529s) you may have to pay penalties if you don't use it for education.

alistairSH2• 11 years ago

Wouldn't 529s be a very good reason to have a separate investment? Tax breaks, potential matching grants from states, etc.

ColinWright2• 11 years ago

That's true, so one should investigate what type of long-term investment fund will give the best options, but the point remains:

Start investing now.

Jtsummers4• 11 years ago

If you don't pass the money to the kids outside of as an education expense, the taxes are irrelevant. The money can be given to other beneficiaries. Two siblings, one's finished school with $10k leftover? Give it to kid 2. Money left from that? Either parent wanting to go back to study something? Do they have cousins? Is one of the kids now married to a spouse that wants a degree?

If you ignore that it may be a bit unequal in the distribution of the money (seeming favoritism), all the money can still be spent with tax free earnings on education by passing it around to other potential beneficiaries.

misuba• 11 years ago

You will probably need to support him - all of these things are soon going to be out of the reach of people who can reach them now.

vezzy-fnord• 11 years ago

Author freely acknowledges this only might be the case for programming, more or less disproving the implication given by their article title.

Higher education has become too firmly entrenched as an essential walk of life (it's pretty much become trivialized as an extension of public school that you're expected to attend) for it to grow obsolete anytime soon. Attending physical courses might drop, but that's the most I can personally expect.

Mahn• 11 years ago

Did you consider your son may not want to become a software engineer when he grows up?

nosequel• 11 years ago

Seriously, hope his son doesn't want to do anything in the medical, bio, animal, plant, research, teaching, etc., etc. field. This post is so horribly short-sighted it is scary.

diego• 11 years ago

Author here. I studied Electrical Engineering for free at the University of Buenos Aires. Moved to the US in the 90s, got my masters degree, moved to Silicon Valley, did great. My parents both studied medicine in Argentina for free as well. My son will know that it's possible to get a world-class college education in other countries without spending a small fortune. Have you considered that? If not, I could say you're the short-sighted one.

Alupis3• 11 years ago

Or maybe he wants to become a software engineer but wants to work for a big established company that requires a college degree (like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, etc...).

s3cur3• 11 years ago

There are lots of careers outside of software that don't require a college degree. Here's 49 of them:

Part 1: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/07/25/50-jobs-over-50000...

Part 2: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/08/05/50-jobs-over-50000...

antidaily• 11 years ago

there’s a growing list of professions that will employ smart and resourceful people regardless of where or how they acquired their skills.

Unemployment for people with just a bachelors is like 11% less than people without one. Worth hundreds of thousands? Probably not. But going to a state school, which can be saved for tax-free, won't cost that.

nostromo• 11 years ago

But is it a causal relationship?

thedufer• 11 years ago

I'm having trouble finding it, but there was a recent study on people who were just above vs just below the hard SAT cutoff for their state school (presuming that these tiny differences - less than 20 SAT points - are fairly meaningless) and found that it does appear to be causal.

cocoablazing• 11 years ago

"Those with bachelor's degrees, no matter the field, earn vastly more than counterparts with some college ($1.55 million in lifetime earnings) or a high school diploma ($1.30 million lifetime), indicating that no matter the level of attainment or the field of study, simply earning a four-year degree is often integral to financial success later in life." http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2011/...

fredkbloggs2• 11 years ago

One would reasonably expect that the price of a university education and the opportunity cost of not having one will converge. If the discounted present marginal value of an education at X University is $Y, X University ought to charge at least $Y to attend. Different X may imply different Y, but the logic is the same. And since prospective students have effectively unlimited ability to borrow, there is no obvious reason this convergence should not take place. The only questions are whether it has done so already, and if so whether irrational bidders have also increased the price beyond that point.

andreaferretti• 11 years ago

So the author acknowledges the fact tht for many profession, college education is still required, but assumes that his son will get into programming, where it not that needed and hence decides not to save money?

hudell• 11 years ago

or that the kid should decide by himself and find it's own way to pay for college

hvs• 11 years ago

Like other's have mentioned, this is largely for software development. There is still a ton of social signaling that a degree imparts to its owner for it to disappear from the American landscape any time soon.

That said, anyone can see that the current secondary education environment in the U.S. will change dramatically over the next 20 years. Sky-rocketing tuition, few job prospects, changing business landscape; all of which means something is going to happen. And somebody is going to make a lot of money capitalizing on it.

netcan6• 11 years ago

Big Hairy institutions like "college" are too hard to think about all bundled up. It's an important cultural institution. It's mixed in with research. It's a filter for employers. It's job training. It's education. It's a reason for 16 year old to work hard at school.

To replace it you might need Kahn Academy, 2 years in the army, Tinder and some sort of coming of age ceremony with body paint and singing.

If we're limiting the question to "can he get a job doing this" you might be able to answer it more logically. But I'd be hesitant to take an average 17 year old and recommend they spend 2 or 4 years studying independently over the internet. Too solipsistic.

IMO, if online learning is to be a replacement for college, it needs to be a part of something more.. more.

I could imagine a setup including 25 students and a professor-coach, for example. Some sort of context.

^All that said, the US system seems nut.

minikites3• 11 years ago

Exactly.

I see posts like this and I recall how many of my STEM friends hated the concept of liberal arts classes, decrying them as useless and unnecessary to their degree, where I think the liberal arts are essential to being a meaningful adult. It's also important for good government and being a good citizen:

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9112.html

Anxiously focused on national economic growth, we increasingly treat education as though its primary goal were to teach students to be economically productive rather than to think critically and become knowledgeable and empathetic citizens. This shortsighted focus on profitable skills has eroded our ability to criticize authority, reduced our sympathy with the marginalized and different, and damaged our competence to deal with complex global problems. And the loss of these basic capacities jeopardizes the health of democracies and the hope of a decent world.

INTPnerd• 11 years ago

The "education" provided in college that extends beyond being good in a particular field is not the right place to get that type of education. It amounts to brainwashing and is extremely dangerous. Also, that side of the education is not the primary reason most people go to college and it is not what is typically advertised or thought of as its purpose. I really wish college was more focused on just accomplishing its purpose. As it is now, they are forcing everyone to learn their ideas of wisdom. This is the equivalent of promoting and teaching a specific religion along with your career training.

netcan6• 11 years ago

'What should kids study' an almost entirely separate question. I think we can have a good deal of diversity here.

As things progress, I hope "lifelong learning" takes care of this, at least in part. I remember hearing Bill Gates talk about philanthropy early on and getting the impression he was far less informed than an average MSFT employee. He learned.

I would learn to learn writing today, especially writing fiction. I wasn't interested when I was 19.

zaccus• 11 years ago

I love the liberal arts, but the idea that everyone needs to study them in order to be a good citizen is overstated at best. It's like saying everyone needs to learn to code to be a good citizen: a pretty thing to say, easy to find people who agree, but it doesn't actually make sense.

Whether we like it or not, college really is career training for most people. And it's ridiculously expensive. College would be a lot less expensive for most people without these arbitrary requirements that serve no real purpose.

josephkern• 11 years ago

To replace it you might need Kahn Academy, 2 years in the army, Tinder and some sort of coming of age ceremony with body paint and singing.

Well the army has both body paint and singing ... I digress.

I've started the Georgia Tech online masters in computer science (OMCS), and I must say that I am impressed. Do I think that a non-college entity could do the same work? Possibly.

I started the OMCS program because I had been trying to "learn computer science" on my own, I realized that I didn't have the rigor in my self-study that I needed. This lack of rigor really drove me to search out (and thankfully find) an appropriate program of study that I could pursue on my own time (and fit within a reasonable budget).

netcan6• 11 years ago

..how does this apply to 17 year olds, average or above average 17 year olds?

I think hanging everything on motivation alone, in your home, as a 17 year old is tricky. Having no social context for what you are doing is tricky. Ultimately the goal is (IMO) getting as close as possible to the most effective learning possible, say the high watermark being a brilliant and engaging teacher one-on-one with technology assistance to boot. How close can we get to that? How big a component is psychology, social constructs and the like?

netcan6• 11 years ago

Addition: It sounds like I came down hard on the pro-college side. I actually do think colleges can do more, faster and cheaper. But, I also don't think we have a plug and play alternative for the average 18 year old and average parents.

OTOH, if you want to roll your own and you are willing to spend college levels of time and money, it's fertile ground for a motivated eccentric. Get a private tutor. Many awesome PHD students will happily teach you one-on-one for <$50 ph. Find 5 friends and buy 15 hours per week for $150. That's $2k-$3k per semester. Follow a curriculum. elearning tools. Roll your own hazing. It could end up cheaper/faster/better than college.

If you say no to college, what's your alternative. "Learn yourself to X" just isn't enough.

chrisdbaldwin2• 11 years ago

Sounds like a promising start up to me.

serve_yay2• 11 years ago

As I said four years ago, I probably won’t interview someone who doesn’t have a LinkedIn profile and a GitHub account with some activity.

Indeed, those things are much better than college. (???????)

dev56• 11 years ago

This bias is just as bad as those who won't interview someone without a college degree. Lots of good developers don't have an active GitHub account. Why is it considered essential to spend all your spare time coding in addition to your full-time job? And unfortunately, a lot of companies won't even give you the time of day (despite lots of experience) if you don't have a college degree. I'd certainly not call it close to obsolete.

untog3• 11 years ago

The Rising Cost of Not Going to College: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/02/11/the-rising-cost-of...

TL;DR: people without a college education earn less, on average. Yes, in the software development/startup industry that is not necessarily the case, but in society in general it absolutely is. So unless your son is 100% guaranteed to go into programming (and please, please don't force him to) a college fund might still be a wise choice.

joshuapants• 11 years ago

So unless your son is 100% guaranteed to go into programming

And let's keep in mind that today's cultural norms in software dev probably won't be the same in the future. Maybe earnings will be much lower, or they'll stay high but companies will be more selective.

untog3• 11 years ago

True. In fact, maybe it's best to extrapolate a college fund out to be insurance - nothing more, nothing less. Maybe the entire college education system will have come falling down by the time your child is 18, but I'll bet there is still something they can use it for to give themselves a significant leg up in life.

quaffapint• 11 years ago

As far a programming, it also depends upon where they want to work. Most enterprise setups still prefer that college paper. For now, having it opens more doors. I hope that changes sooner than later.

panglott• 11 years ago

Not only is he certain that his son will be a programmer, he is also certain that the labor market for programmers will be exactly the same in 15-20 years as it is right now.

kaolinite• 11 years ago

Four years ago, I fell in love with the idea of not needing to go to college. It's a meritocracy, they said. If I work hard, spend time learning on my own time and get experience then a degree won't matter at all. It's just a piece of paper, after all. And so I didn't accept the place I had at a decent (UK) university.

Four years later, I'm doing ok. I recently left my job to start a startup. And I was right, I didn't need to go. But honestly, I really wish I had. I'd like to move to the US to work, but without a degree that's very hard. There are a number of jobs I'm interested in that haven't "caught up with the times" and still require a degree. Maybe they'll change with time, but maybe not.

I was in Silicon Valley a year or so ago and was invited to a dinner at YC, with other attendees of Startup School. The second question almost everyone asked me, after "what are you working on?", was "which school did you go to?". And that was at YC. College isn't obsolete, no matter how much we wish it was. Not even close.

ashark• 11 years ago

I'm finishing my degree online now solely so I can stop explaining why I don't have a degree and, relatedly, for (possible, no definite plans) immigration purposes. Even people who will hire you without a degree always ask, and it's never a good part of the conversation–at best it's not awful.

ef4• 11 years ago

A funny thing about college is that the absolute value of a degree keeps dropping, but the relative gap between "has degree" and "lacks degree" keeps growing.

It's analogous to monetary inflation: give almost everybody a bunch of new money and you don't make them much richer -- the currency just buys less than it used to. But people who don't get any of the new money end up significantly worse off.

There is a fundamental tension between egalitarianism and elitism when it comes to college. Fifty years ago, any college degree was a signal of elite status. Today, only the most exclusive colleges still provide that signal, which is why the pressure around them is greater than ever.

I agree with the author's basic premise that college-as-we-know-it won't continue, because the economics don't line up. But it will be the large middle-tier of colleges that die or change. The high end is still going strong because it still signals elitism. And the low end -- the community colleges -- still provides reasonable value for the money.

dragontamer2• 11 years ago

As I said four years ago, I probably won’t interview someone who doesn’t have a LinkedIn profile and a GitHub account with some activity

This guy is nuts. A good number of our best recruits didn't have either.

JoeAltmaier4• 11 years ago

Not nuts; just lazy. Anything can winnow down the applicant field. That's maybe not as good as other filters, but its something.

anthony_d• 11 years ago

Yes he is.

There are giant corporations that fire for personal use of GitHub or providing any job details on LinkedIn.

jamesfe• 11 years ago

The logic in this article is near-insane.

"In the absence of linkedin and github, we chose candidates based on colleges...now that we have those, I judge based on that."

Does this imply that because they're a stronger signal for performance at a company (debatable) that they're a good stand in for education?

short_circut2• 11 years ago

I find the requirement for an active Github account to be questionable. 99% of the code I write is owned my someone else. I do after all work for a living. I wonder how true this is of many other people too. If I am writing code at home then I am probably not spending much time to make it look nice. I don't have time to write it at home much less make it look good to a recruiter.

JoeAltmaier4• 11 years ago

Bingo! I'm a professional, writing code every day for my customers. Who has time to make a pretty code collage on Github?

short_circut2• 11 years ago

I don't and I suspect a lot of other people don't either.

rifung• 11 years ago

I agree with the author, but only to an extent. It certainly seems to be the case that the degree itself matters less and less when finding a job. I myself don't have a degree, although I did go to college.

On the other hand, I think the real problem is that most people go to college because they think it will help them land a job. This is certainly true in some fields as the author stated. But, I honestly feel like you should go to school to learn, not to get a job. If you wanted the skills to land a job you should go to a trade school, not a RESEARCH university.

I have been able to get jobs without a degree, but I definitely do not regret going to college. If anything I wish I could go back and study more, because I really do feel like the things I learned helped me become a better developer.

pacofvf• 11 years ago

As a Electronics engineer whom does software only, there's no way that superior education is going away anytime soon. Yes for Front end stuff and basic back end stuff any smart self-thought developer will do, but for anything more complex stuff you need at least a Engineering degree.

jeena• 11 years ago

I see that at work too, sure the self thought guys get it done to but somehow different, not as structured somehow.

ergest• 11 years ago

I hated liberal arts classes while in college. "They're useless!" I used to decry. I optimized my classes for my degree and took the bare minimum requirements. Only now do I see how useful they would have been if I had taken more. The only thing that sucks is how much they cost.

beat• 11 years ago

I'm watching my daughter struggle with this. Her first year of college was a complete failure - she couldn't adapt to the environment. After some poking at community college, she realized that she needs to pursue her true passion, which is creating food that is both delicious and ethical. The college world says "Well, spend forty grand a year on culinary school so you can make $12/hour when you get out". She doesn't think that's either financially sensible, or the best way to find a career in food (there are other things to do besides being a chef).

That changed for her this weekend. Through a lucky bit of accidental networking, I got her an interview at a place owned by a world famous chef, who happens to be her favorite chef whose food she has actually eaten. She'll spend her days working as a prep cook, learning the methods and concepts of a genius. And getting paid for it. And if she does well, she can get a reference for her next job from an internationally-known chef.

That's better than college, for her.

cartoonfoxes• 11 years ago

That sounds awesome. Best of luck to her!

aklein• 11 years ago

Going to a "prestigious" college - say, one of the Ivy League schools - has a huge positive network effect on your career, if you want to capitalize on it. It's valuable social proof, at least for the first decade after you graduate, and counts for at least as much as merit and hard work, however frustrating that may be for the hard-working and meritorious high school grad determined not to go to college. You are going to get to know people and walk through doors that you just couldn't if you never went. Yes, Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard, but he still went, and happened to make a critical set of connections there.

chrisdbaldwin2• 11 years ago

In 20XX, what will be a better indicator of entry-level qualification: a repository with 4 years of course work in it, or a college degree?

Home schooling college is significantly cheaper. A bootstrapped education would be self-defined. This is freeing and terrifying. The person must be self motivated. Goals could be hard to define. This path is risky in US culture, but could yield much greater return on investment financially. Because this is counter-cultural, the “Greener Grass” syndrome would most certainly exist. "What if I went to college?"

A college degree yields access and exposure to topics which are prohibitive while working without professors and labs. Mathematics, engineering, science, and liberal arts all have language barriers which college professors help alleviate. Having peers and mentors to speak those languages with is highly valuable. The financial cost of college is far too high. Non-major required courses make up approximately half of a degree. A 2 year time commitment for what is seen as esoteric knowledge results in unnecessary stress and frustration. Perhaps making those courses free, not required, or pass/fail would be sufficient. In short, college isn't perfect.

Which person is truly a better candidate for a job is completely up to the business culture. Do people with college degrees prefer college degrees?

dustinlakin• 11 years ago

There are so many different paths available when college is on the table. Even for software developers, it starts you with a very strong base and gives you the ability help and contribute to research that is happening on campus. My computer science degree was not cheap, but it was so important in my personal life and my career. I agree that college isn't perfect, but was well worth my investment in it.

I personally want to make sure my children have as many options on the table. I would value their education as a much more important investment than any other luxuries.

steego3• 11 years ago

Why are we giving credit to this click-bait PR stunt for Platzi?

Let me quickly sum this up. We have a guy who works for a tiny online training company that provides a whopping 7 classes talking about how online vocational training is going to make traditional college irrelevant.

One of the largest online vocational trainers, PluralSight has 1300+ classes online, and you don't hear them spouting nonsense about not saving money to send their kids to college. The don't spout that nonsense, because they understand their training supplements a CS degree. It's designed to provide professionals with timely knowledge after they get their meat and potatoes from the university.

Can we replace our university education with something more affordable and accessible? While I hope we do, it's not immediately clear how that's going to happen. There's a lot of vague hand-wavy ideas, but nobody has really pulled off creating an alternative education program that's earned industry respect. Certainly not Platzi, and based on what I've seen so far, their curriculum seems to be designed to appeal to students rather than people hiring.

I too am tired of universities jacking up prices so they can build extravagant and academically useless facilities and pay for extravagant salaries for administrators and football coaches while giving actual educators the shaft.

While I hope that happens, let's not start gambling our kids' education funds based on the insightless advice of a guy who literally has a financial conflict of interest on the subject.

Don't feed the trolls, especially the PR variety.

PeterWhittaker2• 11 years ago

Have you considered flagging the article because of this? dang may (or may not :->) agree with you.

steego3• 11 years ago

No. I want to retract my accusation. I just think it's a bad opinion post clouded by the poster's desire for a world where online education will replace offline institutions without clarifying how or providing current examples.

freddier• 11 years ago

Wow. We were mentioned in 6 bytes, steego.

At Platzi, we just launched in English. We've been doing this for the Spanish-speaking world for two years (switch from EN to ES in the header to check it out), with more than "7 classes".

I understand why you might think what you do, but you seemed to infer A LOT from a single link the author gave to us.

Without that link, would you think differently about the article?

steego3• 11 years ago

Sorry about that. Click-bait PR stunt was too strong. (I'd edit my post if I could). I really do think it's an honest opinion, but it's a vague opinion of somebody who's hopeful of the success of their company.

Without the link, I'd still think the opinion of the article is vaguely hopeful and a little reckless with the whole "I'm not saving for my kids education" because online education will magically replace our expensive offline education system.

College Is (Almost) Obsolete

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