There’s a debate going on currently regarding a significant decline in faith in whether college is worth the costs, particularly among young people. Here’s Paul Tough with the case for the prosecution, and here’s David Deming with the case for the defense. Swirling around is the usual question of whether various quantitative benefits are
"The missing piece of the puzzle, in so much of the discussion about college costs, is the degree to which public funding for state colleges cratered amidst post-financial crisis austerity."
College debt is an effective way to discipline those who otherwise would turn out to be surplus elites, or just troublemakers.
Especially debts that generally cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. *cough* Biden *cough*
If you're going to graduate from college and work as a waiter you might as well go straight to the job and skip the debt.
The question I have regarding whether or not society is sending too many kids to college is whether or not there are enough white collar jobs available to support all of the graduates. Peter Turchin and others suggest that the answer to that question is "No".
Along with academic ability, discipline, etc, such an important topic often neglected is whether the kid has any interest in college in the first place. A decent number of bright kids would just prefer to do other things (some for better reasons than others of course).
I've always thought in an ideal world 18-22 year olds who are going to community college, getting trade apprenticeships or working service jobs should be able to live on college campuses, go to parties, play intramural sports, act in plays, join clubs, etc. I think it would be very healthy for our society to have more cross-class fraternization, and the social experience of going to a new place, meeting new people and trying new activities should be available to all people, not just people who have rich parents or score better on a test. It would be expensive to offer scholarships to all 18-year-olds, but from the 40,000 foot view it would be a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend on health care for elders.
In Israel there is a 2 yr (F) or 32 month (M) national service. I’ve heard that this results in many cases in a much more mature sense of how to handle the next steps in life (whether college or whatever)
My son really enjoys working with his hands and being outdoors and is not a willing reader. I am actually hoping that he doesn’t want to go to university when he turns 18, and instead pursues a trade. Machinists, electricians, and carpenters make very good wages, and demand is high for these jobs. Of course, if he wants to go to university I’ll support him. But trades is a very lucrative option that I don’t think schools push nearly enough for the next generation.
The way I see it is that there are 4 different outcomes from a college degree: 1.) you acquire new skills and knowledge that make you employable in your chosen field. 2.) your degree is a signaling mechanism that serves as a filter for employers to see you pass a minimum threshold of intelligence, but your curriculum is irrelevant. 3.) you learn a lot, get a ton of intrinsic value from your courses but it has very little impact on your employment prospects overall. Or 4.) you are saddled with debt and a degree that literally has negative utility in the job market.
I think of all of these outcomes, number 1 is by far the smallest cohort. For the vast majority college is a series of hoops, and even high performing students will come out with any real knowledge in their field. My good friend graduated Cum Laude in economics and didn’t even know who Keynes was or that Keynesian economics was a thing. 4 years studying economics, gettting good grades, he still couldn’t even articulate the basics of economic theory. Huge waste of resources.
I completely understand why kids would make poor decision about their major, but I can’t wrap my head around why more parents dont push back against their son or daughter wanting to take out a 150k loan to major in vocal performance or something. It boggles the mind. You’re way better off moving to a major city, waiting tables, finding as much stage time as possible and getting a vocal coach.
I think college should be free, but far more rigorous with way less people attending. As it stands now it’s the worst of both worlds.
We need a serious option for high schoolers who aren't sure if college is right for them, don't know what they want to study, or don't have the discipline and focus to be successful college students yet. Eighteen is extremely young to make any decisions about your long-term (or even medium-term) path in life. Many kids in this category end up joining the military, but there should be a national service version like they have in Germany. City Year is great but it focuses on mentorship of younger kids - which isn't something everyone's necessarily suited or ready for.
I recently had a forced fun dinner with other members of the PMC class at my BS job and the topic of "college -- is it worth it?" came up. Many said maybe not, and hopefully their children consider all avenues. (I know it was BS and a way to sound edgy and open minded, but they said it.) They all say things like "Facebook was founded by drop outs" and "my plumber charges $200 an hour." I was like but you have to understand why this emphasis on college started! Zuckerberg is a genius and your plumber will get a knee replacement at 30.
I think there are two issues that directly affect this question; they're starting to move but haven't moved sufficiently to clear the way. One is that we expect children to grow up later and later: in times past a child who was 15-16 years old was adult enough to start adult life. Now we don't expect kids to become adults until they're 25 or more. This is part of the reason why college has become more or less expected: because what are you going to do with the kid if he's not old enough to be an adult but is done with high school? just send him to four more years of high school, apparently.
The other issue is what, exactly, we go to college for. The current view, which is I think very slowly changing, is we go to college to collect skills to turn into a job. In my family we viewed college as a kind of finishing school; it gave experience being responsible for yourself without being in the parents' home, it gave socialization opportunities you couldn't have at home. If the kid didn't really need that finishing and wasn't looking into a career that needed the degree there was no reason to go to college, they could just live at home, or move out once they were financially stable, and work. Not necessarily at their lifetime job; living at home gives you the opportunity to work at this job, discover you hate it, and move on to something else. Or to find that you really like this job even though you had never considered it before.
I honestly think any discussion on this topic starts and stops at the cost question. $75,000 per year for anything needs to give any rational person pause. In state tuition at a garden variety state flagship school is $25,000 with room and board and even that figure ought to beget questions. The money needs to be paid back if you borrow it. The person who opts not to go can do a lot of different things and even though they may not make productive use of their time, they won't own Sallie Mae $200,000 when they finally achieve some sense of direction.
When I was a teen I think the labor participation rate was high 55-60%. I think its somewhere in the 30-40% range now. Thats a big difference. Talking to my friends with children they seem to mostly encourage them NOT to work. They want their kids to "focus on education" etc. I think that kinda misses important life lessons about having a job when you are a teen. You are dumb, you make mistakes, you get your ass fired maybe. Its just not that consequential at 16 to get fired from a movie theater. You get a taste of what crap jobs are like. I worked as a bus boy in a bar in my last year of high school and holy crap, that was a real motivator to do well in university. Whole host of other soft skills too come with crappy jobs as a teenager.
What about an anti-discrimination measure that prohibits employers from requiring college degrees for jobs that don’t need college degrees? Email jockeys don’t need to be college educated.
I think this article has really oversold the college experience, and in that way misses a huge reason why college is no longer worth it for a lot of students. I'm sure a lot of people have the "drinking drugging sleeping around" experience, but a whole lot don't. I didn't. Student commuters, students that have to work, students trying to juggle too many classes to minimize debt. All are cut out.
My dad was an electrical contractor who made ok money. There was a job waiting for me if I wanted it, but instead I went to college because I had DREAMS dang it.
My first year I ended up panhandling in front of Carls Jr on many nights. Between tuition and rent all I had left over was $100 for three months. My grades cratered, my hygiene suffered, I felt ill all the time and I eventually dropped out. It was the darkest period of my life and the only time I seriously considered suicide. Nobody sleeps with a guy who has to panhandle. Nobody at college drinks with a guy who shoplifts 40s. The article talks about how impossible it is to do art without parent support, college is no different these days.
This article is treating college as an alternative to the rat race that just doesn't exist any more. College is itself a burden for a great many, not a time of freedom. Students aren't asking if college is "worth it", they're asking if they can even afford it. They aren't weighting college as one of a set of options, they are performing triage and college is a limb that's getting gangrene. College is a predatory lender that relies entirely on its gatekeeping role in a system that has used credentialism to replace outright discrimination. That. is. it.
After I dropped out I crawled back home, and it was easier than I ever imagined it would be. I worked for a few years as an electrician, and I made ok money, and after a few years I decided to go back. And I blew through all my saving, commuted to a local school and don't remember a single name of anyone I met there, got my degree and now make as much as my brother who went into the union. Was it worth it? I don't know, but I wouldn't do it again if I had the option.
I think the starting question HAS to be “what sort of work do I want to do, and what further training do I need to do it?”
I know that’s hard to answer at 18. You know what else is hard? Struggling to pay off student debt and raise a family while working a series of low end jobs because you never seriously contemplated that question until after earning a Master’s degree in English. And, I mean, 18 year olds throughout history have muddled through making comparably serious decisions. Unless we’re going to extend universal public schooling through age 25, it just kinda is what it is.
Do I blame the 18 year olds? Not so much (although by the time the 18 year old is 10 years older I think they have some agency) but I do blame their parents and society writ large.
I have a well-compensated job I love that exactly matches my degree, and this is 100% attributable to my parents HAMMERING into me that (next to being an upright person of good moral character) The Most Important Task of my young adulthood was choosing meaningful work for myself, that college choices were subsidiary to that, and that I should take the most straightforward path to achieve that end.
Sometimes this made me really angry. Sometimes their refusal to support me finding myself, or going to a more expensive school when a less expensive school would do, made me feel ~betrayed~ as only an adolescent can. But it was one of the best things they ever did for me, and now I am almost alone among the folks I graduated with in having the job I want with only the exact amount of school I needed in order to get that job.
So is college worth it? Totally backwards unhelpful question. The question is: what remunerative work would I like to pursue? College is worth it if the answer is “I would like to go into medicine” and useless if the answer is “I would like to drive a big rig.”
What about simply reducing the costs? Canadian and European colleges are much cheaper. Big classes, scantron tests, and way fewer administrators seem like a good idea. Dorms are a nice thing for freshmen and even sophomores, but the college doesn't need to solve kids' social lives or meals or academic requirements for them -- I believe in the youth's ability to find parties and get laid and even form unproductive clubs on their own time.
I still think going to college and liberal arts education is really good. But, even if we still want most people to go to college, do they have to go to the same college experience that we've built up over the last 50 years?
"The missing piece of the puzzle, in so much of the discussion about college costs, is the degree to which public funding for state colleges cratered amidst post-financial crisis austerity."
College debt is an effective way to discipline those who otherwise would turn out to be surplus elites, or just troublemakers.
Especially debts that generally cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. *cough* Biden *cough*
If you're going to graduate from college and work as a waiter you might as well go straight to the job and skip the debt.
The question I have regarding whether or not society is sending too many kids to college is whether or not there are enough white collar jobs available to support all of the graduates. Peter Turchin and others suggest that the answer to that question is "No".
Along with academic ability, discipline, etc, such an important topic often neglected is whether the kid has any interest in college in the first place. A decent number of bright kids would just prefer to do other things (some for better reasons than others of course).
I've always thought in an ideal world 18-22 year olds who are going to community college, getting trade apprenticeships or working service jobs should be able to live on college campuses, go to parties, play intramural sports, act in plays, join clubs, etc. I think it would be very healthy for our society to have more cross-class fraternization, and the social experience of going to a new place, meeting new people and trying new activities should be available to all people, not just people who have rich parents or score better on a test. It would be expensive to offer scholarships to all 18-year-olds, but from the 40,000 foot view it would be a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend on health care for elders.
In Israel there is a 2 yr (F) or 32 month (M) national service. I’ve heard that this results in many cases in a much more mature sense of how to handle the next steps in life (whether college or whatever)
My son really enjoys working with his hands and being outdoors and is not a willing reader. I am actually hoping that he doesn’t want to go to university when he turns 18, and instead pursues a trade. Machinists, electricians, and carpenters make very good wages, and demand is high for these jobs. Of course, if he wants to go to university I’ll support him. But trades is a very lucrative option that I don’t think schools push nearly enough for the next generation.
The way I see it is that there are 4 different outcomes from a college degree: 1.) you acquire new skills and knowledge that make you employable in your chosen field. 2.) your degree is a signaling mechanism that serves as a filter for employers to see you pass a minimum threshold of intelligence, but your curriculum is irrelevant. 3.) you learn a lot, get a ton of intrinsic value from your courses but it has very little impact on your employment prospects overall. Or 4.) you are saddled with debt and a degree that literally has negative utility in the job market.
I think of all of these outcomes, number 1 is by far the smallest cohort. For the vast majority college is a series of hoops, and even high performing students will come out with any real knowledge in their field. My good friend graduated Cum Laude in economics and didn’t even know who Keynes was or that Keynesian economics was a thing. 4 years studying economics, gettting good grades, he still couldn’t even articulate the basics of economic theory. Huge waste of resources.
I completely understand why kids would make poor decision about their major, but I can’t wrap my head around why more parents dont push back against their son or daughter wanting to take out a 150k loan to major in vocal performance or something. It boggles the mind. You’re way better off moving to a major city, waiting tables, finding as much stage time as possible and getting a vocal coach.
I think college should be free, but far more rigorous with way less people attending. As it stands now it’s the worst of both worlds.
We need a serious option for high schoolers who aren't sure if college is right for them, don't know what they want to study, or don't have the discipline and focus to be successful college students yet. Eighteen is extremely young to make any decisions about your long-term (or even medium-term) path in life. Many kids in this category end up joining the military, but there should be a national service version like they have in Germany. City Year is great but it focuses on mentorship of younger kids - which isn't something everyone's necessarily suited or ready for.
I recently had a forced fun dinner with other members of the PMC class at my BS job and the topic of "college -- is it worth it?" came up. Many said maybe not, and hopefully their children consider all avenues. (I know it was BS and a way to sound edgy and open minded, but they said it.) They all say things like "Facebook was founded by drop outs" and "my plumber charges $200 an hour." I was like but you have to understand why this emphasis on college started! Zuckerberg is a genius and your plumber will get a knee replacement at 30.
I think there are two issues that directly affect this question; they're starting to move but haven't moved sufficiently to clear the way. One is that we expect children to grow up later and later: in times past a child who was 15-16 years old was adult enough to start adult life. Now we don't expect kids to become adults until they're 25 or more. This is part of the reason why college has become more or less expected: because what are you going to do with the kid if he's not old enough to be an adult but is done with high school? just send him to four more years of high school, apparently.
The other issue is what, exactly, we go to college for. The current view, which is I think very slowly changing, is we go to college to collect skills to turn into a job. In my family we viewed college as a kind of finishing school; it gave experience being responsible for yourself without being in the parents' home, it gave socialization opportunities you couldn't have at home. If the kid didn't really need that finishing and wasn't looking into a career that needed the degree there was no reason to go to college, they could just live at home, or move out once they were financially stable, and work. Not necessarily at their lifetime job; living at home gives you the opportunity to work at this job, discover you hate it, and move on to something else. Or to find that you really like this job even though you had never considered it before.
I honestly think any discussion on this topic starts and stops at the cost question. $75,000 per year for anything needs to give any rational person pause. In state tuition at a garden variety state flagship school is $25,000 with room and board and even that figure ought to beget questions. The money needs to be paid back if you borrow it. The person who opts not to go can do a lot of different things and even though they may not make productive use of their time, they won't own Sallie Mae $200,000 when they finally achieve some sense of direction.
When I was a teen I think the labor participation rate was high 55-60%. I think its somewhere in the 30-40% range now. Thats a big difference. Talking to my friends with children they seem to mostly encourage them NOT to work. They want their kids to "focus on education" etc. I think that kinda misses important life lessons about having a job when you are a teen. You are dumb, you make mistakes, you get your ass fired maybe. Its just not that consequential at 16 to get fired from a movie theater. You get a taste of what crap jobs are like. I worked as a bus boy in a bar in my last year of high school and holy crap, that was a real motivator to do well in university. Whole host of other soft skills too come with crappy jobs as a teenager.
What about an anti-discrimination measure that prohibits employers from requiring college degrees for jobs that don’t need college degrees? Email jockeys don’t need to be college educated.
I think this article has really oversold the college experience, and in that way misses a huge reason why college is no longer worth it for a lot of students. I'm sure a lot of people have the "drinking drugging sleeping around" experience, but a whole lot don't. I didn't. Student commuters, students that have to work, students trying to juggle too many classes to minimize debt. All are cut out.
My dad was an electrical contractor who made ok money. There was a job waiting for me if I wanted it, but instead I went to college because I had DREAMS dang it.
My first year I ended up panhandling in front of Carls Jr on many nights. Between tuition and rent all I had left over was $100 for three months. My grades cratered, my hygiene suffered, I felt ill all the time and I eventually dropped out. It was the darkest period of my life and the only time I seriously considered suicide. Nobody sleeps with a guy who has to panhandle. Nobody at college drinks with a guy who shoplifts 40s. The article talks about how impossible it is to do art without parent support, college is no different these days.
This article is treating college as an alternative to the rat race that just doesn't exist any more. College is itself a burden for a great many, not a time of freedom. Students aren't asking if college is "worth it", they're asking if they can even afford it. They aren't weighting college as one of a set of options, they are performing triage and college is a limb that's getting gangrene. College is a predatory lender that relies entirely on its gatekeeping role in a system that has used credentialism to replace outright discrimination. That. is. it.
After I dropped out I crawled back home, and it was easier than I ever imagined it would be. I worked for a few years as an electrician, and I made ok money, and after a few years I decided to go back. And I blew through all my saving, commuted to a local school and don't remember a single name of anyone I met there, got my degree and now make as much as my brother who went into the union. Was it worth it? I don't know, but I wouldn't do it again if I had the option.
I think the starting question HAS to be “what sort of work do I want to do, and what further training do I need to do it?”
I know that’s hard to answer at 18. You know what else is hard? Struggling to pay off student debt and raise a family while working a series of low end jobs because you never seriously contemplated that question until after earning a Master’s degree in English. And, I mean, 18 year olds throughout history have muddled through making comparably serious decisions. Unless we’re going to extend universal public schooling through age 25, it just kinda is what it is.
Do I blame the 18 year olds? Not so much (although by the time the 18 year old is 10 years older I think they have some agency) but I do blame their parents and society writ large.
I have a well-compensated job I love that exactly matches my degree, and this is 100% attributable to my parents HAMMERING into me that (next to being an upright person of good moral character) The Most Important Task of my young adulthood was choosing meaningful work for myself, that college choices were subsidiary to that, and that I should take the most straightforward path to achieve that end.
Sometimes this made me really angry. Sometimes their refusal to support me finding myself, or going to a more expensive school when a less expensive school would do, made me feel ~betrayed~ as only an adolescent can. But it was one of the best things they ever did for me, and now I am almost alone among the folks I graduated with in having the job I want with only the exact amount of school I needed in order to get that job.
So is college worth it? Totally backwards unhelpful question. The question is: what remunerative work would I like to pursue? College is worth it if the answer is “I would like to go into medicine” and useless if the answer is “I would like to drive a big rig.”
What about simply reducing the costs? Canadian and European colleges are much cheaper. Big classes, scantron tests, and way fewer administrators seem like a good idea. Dorms are a nice thing for freshmen and even sophomores, but the college doesn't need to solve kids' social lives or meals or academic requirements for them -- I believe in the youth's ability to find parties and get laid and even form unproductive clubs on their own time.
I still think going to college and liberal arts education is really good. But, even if we still want most people to go to college, do they have to go to the same college experience that we've built up over the last 50 years?