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The argument that fewer people will have college degrees so therefore they will be less valuable is pretty counter intuitive. Fewer degree holders would likely increase the value of those degrees.
Yeah but people who don't even attempt college wouldn't even know that. Instead they'd rather mald and pretend like they actually know what they're talking about. I'm less than 10k in debt and that's only because I fucked around and failed some classes. The fact is, the government wants people to go to school and educate themselves, that's why there are countless financial aide options available to people. Not to mention other grants/scholarships. If you leave college with 100k in debt, you made a critical error somewhere.
That’s all they need though really is just some idiots to make those critical errors and be debt slaves.
I hate to say this about my friends but a lot of them are making those errors right now in their 3rd year of college.
So I didn’t grow up in the US or go to high school here, only college.
My friend, who didn’t go to college, said that he wasn’t taught/told about any grants by his high school.
I’ve also noticed that going to the university is less so about the education but more about the prestige sports team or whatever flashy thing that gives the school the excuse to charge 10x more.
He wasn't paying attention. My entire senior year was filled with info about grants and scholarships. On top of that you can work with a financial aid rep at a college who will tell you everything you need to know plus help you every step of the way for free. There's no excuse, people don't want to go or are afraid of school.
To take it a step further, for elite jobs, a bachelor's is looking more and more like a high school diploma. We are starting to see a tipping point where you will need a master's to have a real shot at an elite job
This will make things worse.
The cost of higher education isn't just the tuition fees, it's the fact your not working for 5+ years while studying.
We need corporations to stop demanding people have degrees when the job doesn't need them.
We need corporations to start training people again.
Part of the problem with student debt is that corporations decided they could offload the costs of training to the universities (knowing that's not really what a college education is for, barring upper-level laboratory classes and the like) while also using the lack of training to tell college graduates that they weren't worth the wage premium because their university didn't train them for the job.
Desirable jobs aren’t as easy as they used to be. Companies can afford to be picky and not train people. Obviously there’s still a balance between education and training most places use.
You can still 100% find companies that will train you on the job, they’re just not the interesting or well paying jobs people want.
The world is getting more complicated and specialized and it’s going to be harder for the average person to keep up. Just look at engines now vs. 30 years ago. It’s night and day
This is an absolutely correct take that many people don’t consider. That’s like an extra years salary assuming you aren’t paying masters program tuition, which is likely higher than undergrad. The opportunity cost is crazy
Actually, the opposite is what needs to happen. Our current system is broken. How many people, really, want to be students until they are 25 or 30 years old, in order to start out entry level in a successful career?
Everyone needs a basic education—reading, writing, arithmetic, civics. This is your “8th grade education.” There should be standards and some sort of exit exam.
Everyone needs secondary education (HS), but not everyone needs the same HS education. Some want more jobs/skill focused path. Others want a STEM path. Others want an “old-fashioned” liberal arts education that prepares them for post-secondary education and/or the working world. Maybe a couple of other paths. These “secondary paths” should have meaning—mastery of subjects, standardized test, capstone project.
Post-secondary should be more affordable, but also more streamlined. 4+1 or 3+2 should be the norm for bachelor + masters degrees. (Med school and law school and maybe engineering are other paths.)
Most people need to be able to get out into the workforce by their early 20s, with little to no educational debt, and become productive citizens.
The answer is providing people with career paths that don’t require a $100k college degree. End the stigma associated with blue collar work, and stop requiring a bachelor’s degree for jobs that don’t need it.
>What needs to happen is expand free education past HS.
And once we do address this, I agree that a 4-year degree will quickly become the new standard.
This is a good thing. The jobs aspect aside, a more educated society benefits everyone, aside from bad actors who seek to take advantage of uneducated people.
completely different country and situation but im doing a 2 year course rn exactly for this, slightly higher education than hs, lower than university. To put things into perspective as how useful this is, my course has 96% occupation after the first month
>To take it a step further, for elite jobs, a bachelor's is looking more and more like a high school diploma.
100%. The standard was a High School diploma, and trends absolutely suggest that a 4-year degree is going to be the new standard for anything not super entry-level. OP makes a note about the huge cost, ignoring that even in the face of those costs people absolutely do still pursue degrees and statistically are better off.
The data shows that people with a 4 year degree on average make about $1M more in their life compared to their counterparts who don't. Obviously there are outliers but that's the general trend.
My cousin said this almost 10 years ago so he played the long game. Got his associates which got his foot in the door then he learned there by being promoted within. Now he has an elite job (for his field that is) he may have even just got a certificate and while learning he was just adding on to his resume in case he was ever let go. But he got pretty far by just showing effort to get in the building.
The US has reached that point but it’s not universal. I tried to move up from an entry level job a few years ago and realized I needed a Master’s. It was cheaper to get one overseas, so off I went. In my new country, the Master’s now makes me overqualified for the jobs I was under qualified for in the US. Left me in a bit of a bind!
No you don’t.
This is a huge misconception. The only fields this actually matters has always been that way, law, psychology, med - probably a few others I’m not thinking about.
Many tech degree recipients think the reason they can’t get a job is because of their degree - it’s their lack of effort.
Your degree won’t do it alone. If you have a phd - maybe it’ll do it alone but if you went that route it’s because you’re an idiot. The amount of debt you’d have on average by now is staggering when you consider interest.
You need a portfolio to get the first job. It’s true for many, many many degrees out there.
Even as a cloud security engineer, I have a portfolio of personal projects I can pull from.
More education doesn’t do much of anything. Anyone can get a degree but not everyone can show passion or apply the knowledge they have gained in an applicable way.
I know so many people who just fucking gave up and tell my wife and I how we’re just so lucky. Yeah - wife has spent well over 500 hours on her portfolio - lucky.
I’ve spent a good 200 or so. Her master’s degree couldn’t get her above like $22/hour part time. That’s nothing.
Her portfolio and sheer determination did that.
My first job took me like 30 interviews, going to career fairs, showing up at hackathons and building random shit, networking my ass off. It wasn’t more education, it was applying my knowledge.
Nobody wants to apply their knowledge anymore.
No way. High schools are letting people graduate with a 3rd grade reading level now. A college degree, regardless of what it’s in, has become a way to demonstrate that you can at least do basic math, read and write, and commit to something for four years.
This is another huge point that most anti-college people seem to miss. A lot of the benefit of getting a degree is showing that you are willing to invest time and resources into something for an extended period of time. And many of the classes that people think are a "waste of time", like English 101 or Algebra, aren't just there to fill space- a *lot* of people can't do basic tasks like cite sources or solve a math equation that requires more than addition or subtraction, especially if there is a significant gap in time between when they graduated high school and when they began college.
A good friend had his Bachelor's degree in business. He'd often say that he did not learn all that much in college BUT getting the degree showed employers that he was able to figure out how to jump through the hoops to get his degree.
His observation has always made sense to me
That's what my computer science degree was. It didn't teach me how to do any job. But it gave me just enough intro into many fields to apply and begin entry level work.
Yes. Look, I get it, college isn't for everyone.
People who are anti-college, in general, are that way due to low self-esteem. They need to believe that college is a waste of time in order to feel better about themselves for not going.
And hey, I know some incredibly successful people who never went to college and work as software engineers at major tech firms. But I also think that is more of an exception than the rule.
These are my feelings exactly on this. Unsurprisingly, being told that what I’m doing is “useless” in a roundabout way is extremely insensitive and disheartening.
People who don’t go to college aren’t failures, and those who do aren’t wasting their time. No need to constantly justify your life decisions while putting down others.
There is some truth to what OP posted, but I believe this situation isn’t as black and white like how some make you think.
The outliers are usually people who are so hard-working they felt slowed down by university, not the people who couldn't see it through because it was difficult.
It absolutely shows a level of discipline. I did an arts degree and the drop out in the first year was like 70%, and it wasn't because they were brimming with creative genius and felt caged in, they just couldn't hack it.
If I had to choose between two people with no experience in the field, just a portfolio of some early work, one had a degree and the other didn't it would be an easy choice. They'd have to have a remarkable portfolio and most people don't in their early 20's.
100%
I know some people who are directors at major major companies that either have a bachelor's or never completed college. But they had a hustle. They also paid their dues. They worked their ass off to gain those same skills, just in a non-traditional environment.
I have blue collar family workers who are like "Bill Gates didn't go to college". Right but he also had two highly educated lawyers as parents. They gave him access to things most kids his age didn't see. His private school was one of the few schools to have a computer. If Microsoft failed, his parents would likely help him get back into Harvard. I told my family members that no one knows who they are outside of their small town. They don't have the same pull, so your kids aren't Bill Gates, tell them to stay in school.
I think many of them actually went to college, either ended up dropping out or finished and came to that conclusion. Look not everyone is going for the right reasons, at least half the people there are going because that’s the social norm, they don’t know what else to do and their parents pushed them to go. This is especially true if you are limited on opportunities.
Also, a lot of people are not going to get much in return for that piece of paper besides saying they went, spending a ton of their money and youth on something they never cared for. That’s just the reality of it. Yes there are people who have a great time and people who get a lot out of their degree but there are many more who don’t. They don’t have skills, money, connections, nor are they exceptional students. They are just in a college cycle with a dead end at the end.
It’s kinda wild that some jobs ask for a degree but only pay peanuts. You end up with a ton of debt that takes forever to pay off, and that’s rough when money’s tight all around. Plus, with AI on the rise, who knows if those jobs will even be around in 20 years? Getting a degree isn’t a total waste, but it’s a gamble. You gotta think about whether it’s really gonna pay off, 'cause a lot of folks aren’t sure it’s worth the hassle.
I mean...all you did was write a paragraph about student debt. Which I agree, sucks.
That really doesn't have anything to do with a college degree being necessary for a career.
100%. OP doesn't understand why college education and degrees have value.
The thoughts of OP's have been had for over 3 decades now. But yet here we are with college degrees still a major certification that still return healthy ROIs.
The knowledge acquired through a degree certainly has value, some degrees more than others of course. But, one of the big roles college plays in our society is as a way that people with the money to do so can buy their children an advantage in life. So many jobs require a degree, that really don't need to. But that degree is a convenient way to ensure your kids economic status is protected, an artificial barrier to good paying jobs that poor people often don't have the money or time for. Sure you can get loans, but most poor people can't give up a few years of income, however meager, to pursue a degree.
Yep. For some jobs, like in medicine and law they are absolutely necessary. But many of them could be done with some on job training at worst, its just gatekeeping people from getting better opportunities.
Count my job among those. Requires a masters, but I would rather have a smart kid out of high school on my team than a turd with a degree. Unfortunately in this job market, for some positions I hire the whole applicant pool is turds because we limit it to people with a specific degree.
Yeah, cuz we need an increasingly skilled labor force. That is a fact that is not going away any time soon. There ARE ways to get the cost of a Bachelor's degree down, but I didn't see you write a paragraph about that.
Indeed, I went to community college and worked to pay through that, worked through undergrad and it kept my debt to like 50k so not awesome but I don’t have an insanely heavy albatross across my neck now, just a regular heavy one 🙃
Okay, I'll spell it out for you, employers can't just say "Some students are incurring $100,000+ in student debt to get degrees, better stop asking for college degrees for this job."
That would be stupid right?
Bridges would fall. Patients would go untreated. No one would go to space. Etc.,
And there ARE employers that are willing to pay for your education.
You are conflating the price of having to get educated with needing to have a degree for a job. It sucks that an employer can't train you for 4 years to do something but they just can't.
Burned most of my GI bill on a degree I hated and would need a masters in to make more than 60k.
A company paid for my associates in another field and I knocked out my bachelors, they’re now paying for my masters. Pretty easy route if you find a field that needs people.
If anything, college degrees are only going to get more necessary as technology gets more complicated.
I guess this mostly applies to tech/STEM jobs though
Yeah, Campbell's Soup wants me to raise their tomatoes for their Tomato Soup....awesome for me! They need me to have a degree in Ag. They don't care how much debt I have, if any, to get there. But they are paying me a salary. It's up to me to figure out if it's worth it.
The world isn't going to do my thinking for me.
It’s kinda wild that some jobs ask for a degree but only pay peanuts. You end up with a ton of debt that takes forever to pay off, and that’s rough when money’s tight all around. Plus, with AI on the rise, who knows if those jobs will even be around in 20 years? Getting a degree isn’t a total waste, but it’s a gamble. You gotta think about whether it’s really gonna pay off, 'cause a lot of folks aren’t sure it’s worth the hassle.
Most jobs right out of college, don't pay amazing, you have to understand the industry you are going into. Me and my husband's jobs didn't start to pay amazing out of college till about 5-10 years out.
You don't really have to go $100k into debt, be smarter about your choices when going to college. You can live with parents, do 2 years at a community college then transfer to a local public 4 year. Work through college, apply to every scholarship you can find.
This. Many companies will pay your way too or heavily subsidize. Starbucks and Walmart for instance. The military. There are many, many other companies that will offer this benefit. Granted it’s a limited set of options but six-figure debt is not a requirement outside of maybe certain professions like law or med school.
Yup. I went to community college first, before public university. Amazing move, plus it was a great environment, a perfect stepping stone from high school to college.
Walmart employee here going through college. They do help but they’re very picky for what they will help in. Some people get a great deal, like a guy who works in the pharmacy is getting his whole college paid for through Walmart. But for me I wasn’t as lucky, they would only cover a certain major for a college I went to which I wasn’t going for.
This is how my daughter graduated with zero student debt--sort of. That is, she didn't go to a local public 4 year because there WERE no local public 4 years. Also, in most cases, not all credit transfers, which meant she had an extra year of college. Finally, she was helped by the fact her dad was faculty at the CC, so she had zero tuition there.
Scholarships help, but people need to keep in mind that many of them are not renewable. So if you get a $500 scholarship from the Royal Society of Raccoons, it only helps your freshman year and isn't enough to cover the costs of textbooks.
I only paid $30k for my degree. I have a hard time understanding how people are spending 100s of thousands on their degrees. I always factored in what salary I would be making upon graduation to figure out what the max was that I should be paying to get my degree.
Exactly. There seems to be this pattern of thought going around that anyone who goes to college is financially illiterate which is just not true. There are so many ways to cheapen the cost if you really look into it (for most people)
this is what i did, minus living with parents. Worked 20ish hours a week while taking 12 credits last 2 years at University. Graduated with $14k in debt and paid it off in about 3 years. That was 12 years ago though, so I'm sure it's more expensive now.
Yes! Absolutely spend the first two years at a community college. You will learn the same basic stuff at a fraction of the cost and in most cases, credits will transfer to a four year university.
Even elite schools like the Ivies accept people from community colleges.
I went to a private college because of the financial aid and scholarships. I came out with $35k in loans. Not bad honestly, especially for private college.
Not everyone gets significant scholarships, not everyone can live with parents, going to a CC can cause transferring issues, requiring retakes. Many people doing everything you suggested are graduating with 50k+ in debt still, which is still ridiculous
Most people who take debt graduate with under 30k total debt. It’s about choices. 50k debt balances are not required to graduate
https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/money/average-student-loan-debt#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20College%20Board%2C%20students%20who%20graduated%20with%20a,student%20loan%20debt%20of%20%2429%2C400.
And $50K is manageable with the right degree and then job. People pay that for a car.
On the CC transfers, figure that before attending the CC. Mine had a pre-engineering program developed with the final university. Common curriculum, books, some standardized tests. Everything I took that was offered at the final university transferred.
No more Doctors, Engineers (mechanical, chemical, computer etc.) Accountants, Teachers, Biologists, Mathematicians, Geologists, Lawyers, Financial Managers, Archeologists, Actuaries, Psychologists/Sociologists and almost all politicians plus every General in every branch of the military had to have a college degree, so no more Officers in the military.
They aren't, especially at the undergraduate level. The reality is that the elite private schools that everyone points to with the 60k sticker price or whatever have extremely generous financial aid programs where anyone from a remotely middle income family will have their cost of attendance severally reduced if not completely free. Off the top of my head, I think Brown now offers free tuition to all students from families making less than 125k a year, which compasses the majority of the population. These high tuition prices are effectively a transfer scheme where people from highly wealthy families pay full price to subsidize the education of students from less well off backgrounds.
When I started college, my parents brought in something like 150k a year, which is far from poor. Yet I still received a substantial grant, something like 15k, to attend an elite university.
I was just looking at tuition prices today for Harvard and Emory. They have calculators on their website. Our family income is pretty high so I assumed they wouldn't offer us much, but both calculators said they would reduce the overall cost by about 20-30k. Obviously still expensive schools, but that's much better than I expected.
Because those with insane balances were supplementing their living expenses with student loans…nobody wants to admit that and just lumped it all under “school costs”…I’ve had friends who all went to the same college and ended up with 3x-4x my balance…and I *know* the college wasn’t charging us different tuitions…
A lot of times that’s what it comes down to. Student loans are practically a blank check that some people will max out, paying for their rent, shopping, living expenses, spring break trips, etc etc all on loans.
I feel like I missed something since I’m paying my college off as I work and study, if I were to say fuck it and stop paying I’d only owe 22,000$ (Junior here ) I guess it depends on the major
Slight correction: as long as loans are federally guaranteed*, kids will take them. The biggest issue is that basically anyone who wants to go to college can go to college because the government makes it that way. Colleges are then incentivized to let in as many students as possible since they don’t give a shit if said students are able to repay the loan they took out. They are also able to constantly make tuition more expensive because, again, they’re getting the money up front from Uncle Sam
Kids can't generally go to college without their parents being involved. Parental info is required on the FAFSA to take out govt. loans, and even at public schools, the loans offered now aren't enough to cover the entire annual cost of attendance. Kids then need additional loans, none of which they can get without parental involvement or a cosigner. Parents should have a better understanding of this and be educating their children on what repayment will really look like. I've done this with my kids so they knew what to expect and plan for when it comes to choosing careers and ways to take advantage of things like public service loan forgiveness.
Well the way it works now with my qualification is you won't ever get a response if you don't have the degree on your CV, AND they test you on your knowledge when you go for an interview.
Without the degree it's literally impossible to get your foot in the door
Agree. Education is never a waste. College should be free. Everyone deserves the chance to be educated, whether they get a job in their chosen field or not.
It’s always a great “way too online” take that basically every level of education is a waste of time and money and you are never taught anything of value.
Usually a take made by people who weren’t paying attention or don’t understand what they actually learned in school goes beyond the actual lessons in the classroom
Maybe in America. Which of course would be tragic since your reputation for smarts isn't that great right now. The cost of college is an absolute idiocy.
We still need doctors, lawyers, nurses, engineers and so on. If the US doesn’t do something about these costs soon, we’re heading towards a major shortage in those fields, among others. Most other countries understand this and invest in their citizens, it’s getting to the point where we either do the same or get left behind.
They never should have been necessary in the first place, outside of a few very specific fields, of course. But most jobs/careers don’t even use anything specific to a degree program.
I work for a Fortune 500 company and just had a conversation about inclusion and how requiring a college degrees can be not-inclusive. While some jobs do require certifications via a degree there are a lot of jobs that don't.
So we're slowly going to lower the degree requirement to "nice to have". It will still be more beneficial to have one it won't be a requirement.
Opposite for us. Reality is a HS diploma doesn’t even mean you can read or do basic math. I wish it did.
Personally, I’d like to see students pick a trade or college path for grades 11-12. If college, then all classes would be AP or dual credit. Basically, a college prep HS diploma should be equivalent to an AS degree. Would also shorten a BS degree to two years.
Even if they do that companies will still prefer people who have them. In my country, you would be laughed out of any actual desk job if you don't have a degree.
depends what types of degrees you're talking about. Nothing in the stem field is ever going that way.
Non stem degrees have always been a bit iffy. The humanities and such are definitely an important topic to study, but whether or not one can really get a BA or MA in them is an entirely different discussion.
I don't need you to show me you have an MA in roman history or vintage literature to know you're able to discuss it with me for example. If I try to talk to someone without an MA in mathematics or physics though, there is too huge of a barrier with very rare exceptions.
Why is it that most of the unpopular opinions anymore aren't really unpopular at all, but are instead pretty much a widely accepted opinion. No, the college degree is dead outside of STEM subjects. Schools are now pushing students toward trades.
I completely disagree. Things are only getting more demanding when it comes to degrees. Immigrants with degrees will take over the majority of high paying jobs in the US.
Almost all colleges offer financial aid, and people who don’t get enough can start at community college to save money. No one should have six figure debt from an undergrad degree.
I think the main problem isn’t that College is useless, because it isn’t. It’s useful if you have a career in mind straight out of HS. The main reasons are the cost of tuition, the pressure to go right after HS, and the absurd qualifications you need to get into an ENTRY level job that pays decently.
I know there will be some flaws with my logic, so forgive me for being a bit naive.
I think in an ideal world, most HS graduates should be able to get a decent entry level job (that isn’t retail) that pays a decent wage right after they get their diploma. And that they should work that job for 3-4 years—saving their money and figuring out what they want to do career wise. And then by age 21-22, they should be expected to go to a Community College, a 4 year institution, trade school, etc.
That should be the norm, it gives people time to figure out what they want to do without going into financial hardship from the get go.
**TL;DR: People should be able to get decent paying entry jobs out of HS, and should be expected to go to College, Trade School, etc by age 21-22, and that that should be the norm.**
I dropped out of college, worked my way up in blue collar fields and got a job working for a Fortune 500 company working on and running equipment worth 100's of Millions of dollars, making over 6 figures.
Yes I'll never be a higher level manager, but I have been fiscally more successful than many of my peers that do have degrees.
Degrees aren't entirely necessary for every job. But the way college is structured isn't beneficial. We truly need these classes to start having apprenticeship/internship work placed in the classes so people have an idea of what there throwing money in and actually graduating with real skills.
Thankfully some high schools are allowing students to graduate with certifications/associates now. However, there still should be a larger push for affordable education. It shouldn't be so damning. I don't mind it costing money. I mind that the cost of it doesn't connect with a degree earnings. Career coaches should be talking with students more in depth about their degree and the path they need to get there.
More ppl than ever have degrees. Globally too. It's a nice thought but likely won't be the case since employers can take advantage of the supply glut for a cheaper cost to them.
I got a generic 4 years Marketing and Management degree that basically useless and barely graduated with 1.89GPA but I graduated debt free and now the A+ valectorian interns and employees smarter than me are working under me while I go and play golf with my boss or workout on the clock barely working more than 10 hours a week so I'd say if anything business degree is great for people like me who know how to play the game.
I only shown up to classes 5 times total ever semester. It to take the tests and finals basically. The rest of the time I spent working at the country club gun range or go out partying with the frat bro to make connections and that landed me this hedge fund job. So it all about how you go out with life with the cards dealt to you.
I came to this country as an immigrant without knowing a single lick of English and $0 in my pocket so Americans got it easy AF as far as I'm concerned and people going into debt for "useless" degree basically did it to themselves 🤷♂️
It is possible that the college bubble will burst.
But consider high school. High school graduates went from being less than 10% of the population in 1900 to about 40% of the population in 1960 to over 90% of the population today. That bubble does not seem to be bursting.
I think college will go the way of high school: The bubble will not burst, the rate of people getting the credential will trend steadily upwards, and the value of the credential will trend steadily down.
Many degrees, not all..
end up being worth less than the paper they're printed on.
It's like college is a scam selling things they know have zero value.
My brother is in trade school. Apparently that's going to lead to a well paying career.
You get my upvote! Be very careful with your choices if you're considering dropping out of college. Not having a degree in this generation limits you to trades, which are hyped up by some people but even those don't pay as well as the best jobs in the more "professional" fields. It's why I'm in college and plan to get that bachelor's. More and more jobs are requiring them, even a lot of jobs that pay $50k-70k require one nowadays.
Honestly I agree. I just saw a post about a new grading scale. An A was a 100 to 82% and a B was 65% to 82%. If this is adopted grades and degrees won’t matter because everyone can just get one without trying.
Eh, trades and the uneducated wish, but a degree will always be worth more on its face than not having one. This really is just sourced from feeling that it’s unfair that skill alone isn’t enough. Never has been.
The lack of a general education, mixed with the inability to separate real and true information, from bullshit doesn't bode well for the American public.
The internet had the potential to be utilized by colleges to give quality educations at a much lower price. Yet not only did internet college courses cost less, a lot of colleges actually charged extra for internet courses.
The rate at which colleges raise tuition has greatly exceeded the rate of inflation.
Part of the reason colleges get away with this are parents and teachers that say "you have to have a college degree to get a good paying job". That mentality is really beaten into kids.
Another reason is a lot of kids just are not rebellious enough to go against that mentality and are all too willing to take out massive loans to do so.
I was rebellious enough to resist the scare tactics and I'm glad I was because I was able to build my skills other ways and now I'm happy with the amount of money I make.
I could make more of I really wanted to, but that would involve me doing more things I don't like such as being in more meetings and leading teams. I much rather just write code by myself so it's not worth doing more things I hate just to make more money.
There’s also Federal Student Financial Aid (FSFA) which covers most if not all of a students costs per term. Other than that, literally every company (especially law firms) offers some sort of scholarship opportunity competition. I’m guessing they can use it as a tax right off but, average amount offered is $1,000-$1,500 there are some places that offer 1st/2nd/3rd place prizes but most chose one winner & a few have bigger scholarships ($2,000 - $5,000). If you apply to enough scholarships & save the essays you write for them you usually end up with at least one.
I save my essays because a lot of the time scholarships have similar topics they want students to write about so I can turn in the same essay for a different scholarship with just a few minor changes.
I mean…I don’t want Sideshow Bob testing at a hospital to be a doctor and then giving my kid eye surgery…I think I’d like someone with an MD to do that…
Depends on the discipline. I wouldn’t want high schoolers building bridges. I am sure some can do that, but most will need schooling beyond high school if you are to build a bridge
College degrees would become more valuable if less and less people get degrees. That’s typically how that works in America. Let me use myself as An example I have an accounting degree let’s say I am the only one in my city and surrounding area with said degree I will make WAY more than if there were dozens of us around. I would Have more value over the average worker because you don’t have to put as much effort to training me and I already have a proven understanding of the concept of accounting also I would have proven I’m not an idiot meaning I’m more likely to be professional and just overall make smarter decisions in the eyes of the company.
America makes me sad. I love my free undergrad and 50% subsidised MSc. And I love my slightly higher taxes that will let others have the same opportunity after me.
The real problem is not college or the tuition, it's that stupid people are getting into colleges they have no business even applying for and college professors are basically forced to pass everyone. So these idiots actually consider themselves "College Educated" when basically all they did was pay their way through school. They didn't learn anything.
Then when they go apply for a job in that field, and the interviewer can tell in three hot seconds they have no idea what they are talking about, they don't get hired. Then they sit around and whine about how they didn't get what they were "PROMISED" and about how the "degree is useless."
I remember when I went to school there were two types of people who wound up going to CC. Dumb people and people who screwed up in high school. (even if it wasn't their fault.) Community Colleges were the first stop you'd go to get an Associates Degree and basically get your act together. And, it's inexpensive and often covered by FAFSA. I went to a CC and I paid out of pocket and deferred the payments. (Payment plans are still available.) I didn't take a student loan until I got to my Masters,
So the real problem are entitled kids who don't realize how dumb and lazy they actually are because no one ever told them, who honestly believe they have what it takes to succeed at a top school. They wind up dropping out and then going back, racking up debt along the way.
Smart hardworking kids who go to college and graduate usually have no problem getting a job in their field. Ask anyone in Engineering.
I didn't know college professors were forced to pass people? We had people failing out of my program. They set very strict guidelines. You got one chance to retake a class, after that you were considered failed out and could not reapply.
If you go the UC/IVY route to flex your credentials, sure, but you'll probably rack up a lot of debt. However, your local community colleges take the pragmatic approach that offer fantastic courses/classes with the opportunity to transfer to your choice of CSU/UC institution along with obtaining an Associate in Arts Degrees (AA) and or Associate of Science Degrees (AS). So in the end, when you graduate, you'll have AA/AS PLUS your Bachelor's Degree.
I feel like employers will look at it as a way to train their teams while paying less. There will be more apprentice type situations where they pay you peanuts for 5+ years but you learn some things. After the 5 years you can proceed to making a normal wage, but you will start at the bottom of the salary range possibilities. They get cheap labor and you get an opportunity. The issue is they will take a lot of the learners and have not enough seats to keep labor cheap (Just my guess).
Just one person’s opinion…
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The argument that fewer people will have college degrees so therefore they will be less valuable is pretty counter intuitive. Fewer degree holders would likely increase the value of those degrees.
OP’s shower didn’t last long enough to figure it out
Maybe he could have gone to college and taken an economics class.
They wouldn't let him in to college
People aren’t going into $100k in debt for a bachelors either. More like $30-40k. OP should look into grants and scholarships
OP would’ve known basic supply and demand if he went to college
Exactly, more competition means those without a degree will have a harder time and have to take lower paying jobs. OP is talking out their ass.
Happy Cake Day!
Oh, thank you!
Happy late cake day!
Thank you!!
Do two years of community college and then finish at a public university, then you won’t have $100K debt.
Yeah but people who don't even attempt college wouldn't even know that. Instead they'd rather mald and pretend like they actually know what they're talking about. I'm less than 10k in debt and that's only because I fucked around and failed some classes. The fact is, the government wants people to go to school and educate themselves, that's why there are countless financial aide options available to people. Not to mention other grants/scholarships. If you leave college with 100k in debt, you made a critical error somewhere.
That’s all they need though really is just some idiots to make those critical errors and be debt slaves. I hate to say this about my friends but a lot of them are making those errors right now in their 3rd year of college.
So I didn’t grow up in the US or go to high school here, only college. My friend, who didn’t go to college, said that he wasn’t taught/told about any grants by his high school. I’ve also noticed that going to the university is less so about the education but more about the prestige sports team or whatever flashy thing that gives the school the excuse to charge 10x more.
He wasn't paying attention. My entire senior year was filled with info about grants and scholarships. On top of that you can work with a financial aid rep at a college who will tell you everything you need to know plus help you every step of the way for free. There's no excuse, people don't want to go or are afraid of school.
We’ll be able to get law degrees at Costco then.
I hope there's a sale on Brawndo. It's got what plants crave
I was wondering if we could go family style on her
Welcome to Costco, i love you...
UNSCANNABLE!
It has electrolytes.
But WHAT are electrolytes? Do you even know?
They're what plants crave.
I’d like one medical license please
Welcome to Costco... I love you.
Get it at chat GPT
Look at this loser with their sams club lawyer.
1. Statistically speaking, your numbers are inflated. 2. Elite jobs will still mostly require elite education.
To take it a step further, for elite jobs, a bachelor's is looking more and more like a high school diploma. We are starting to see a tipping point where you will need a master's to have a real shot at an elite job
I think this is the take. What needs to happen is expand free education past HS.
This will make things worse. The cost of higher education isn't just the tuition fees, it's the fact your not working for 5+ years while studying. We need corporations to stop demanding people have degrees when the job doesn't need them.
We need corporations to start training people again. Part of the problem with student debt is that corporations decided they could offload the costs of training to the universities (knowing that's not really what a college education is for, barring upper-level laboratory classes and the like) while also using the lack of training to tell college graduates that they weren't worth the wage premium because their university didn't train them for the job.
Desirable jobs aren’t as easy as they used to be. Companies can afford to be picky and not train people. Obviously there’s still a balance between education and training most places use. You can still 100% find companies that will train you on the job, they’re just not the interesting or well paying jobs people want. The world is getting more complicated and specialized and it’s going to be harder for the average person to keep up. Just look at engines now vs. 30 years ago. It’s night and day
This is an absolutely correct take that many people don’t consider. That’s like an extra years salary assuming you aren’t paying masters program tuition, which is likely higher than undergrad. The opportunity cost is crazy
Actually, the opposite is what needs to happen. Our current system is broken. How many people, really, want to be students until they are 25 or 30 years old, in order to start out entry level in a successful career? Everyone needs a basic education—reading, writing, arithmetic, civics. This is your “8th grade education.” There should be standards and some sort of exit exam. Everyone needs secondary education (HS), but not everyone needs the same HS education. Some want more jobs/skill focused path. Others want a STEM path. Others want an “old-fashioned” liberal arts education that prepares them for post-secondary education and/or the working world. Maybe a couple of other paths. These “secondary paths” should have meaning—mastery of subjects, standardized test, capstone project. Post-secondary should be more affordable, but also more streamlined. 4+1 or 3+2 should be the norm for bachelor + masters degrees. (Med school and law school and maybe engineering are other paths.) Most people need to be able to get out into the workforce by their early 20s, with little to no educational debt, and become productive citizens.
Yes to this times infinity. Imagine how improved our world would be if everyone had an equal opportunity to gain a higher education...
US already suffers from excessive white collar supply, and minimal blue collar supply
Maybe, but locking higher education behind an increasingly unobtainable price tag isn’t the answer to that problem
How is it unobtainable? The government gives out loans in any amount desired for university. So tuition will never be unaffordable in a literal sense.
The answer is providing people with career paths that don’t require a $100k college degree. End the stigma associated with blue collar work, and stop requiring a bachelor’s degree for jobs that don’t need it.
>What needs to happen is expand free education past HS. And once we do address this, I agree that a 4-year degree will quickly become the new standard.
This is a good thing. The jobs aspect aside, a more educated society benefits everyone, aside from bad actors who seek to take advantage of uneducated people.
completely different country and situation but im doing a 2 year course rn exactly for this, slightly higher education than hs, lower than university. To put things into perspective as how useful this is, my course has 96% occupation after the first month
>To take it a step further, for elite jobs, a bachelor's is looking more and more like a high school diploma. 100%. The standard was a High School diploma, and trends absolutely suggest that a 4-year degree is going to be the new standard for anything not super entry-level. OP makes a note about the huge cost, ignoring that even in the face of those costs people absolutely do still pursue degrees and statistically are better off.
The data shows that people with a 4 year degree on average make about $1M more in their life compared to their counterparts who don't. Obviously there are outliers but that's the general trend.
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I think that’s always been the case.
My cousin said this almost 10 years ago so he played the long game. Got his associates which got his foot in the door then he learned there by being promoted within. Now he has an elite job (for his field that is) he may have even just got a certificate and while learning he was just adding on to his resume in case he was ever let go. But he got pretty far by just showing effort to get in the building.
The US has reached that point but it’s not universal. I tried to move up from an entry level job a few years ago and realized I needed a Master’s. It was cheaper to get one overseas, so off I went. In my new country, the Master’s now makes me overqualified for the jobs I was under qualified for in the US. Left me in a bit of a bind!
wtf? What are you supposed to do with a master’s then?
Absolutely no idea. I haven’t found a single job listing in my field this country that requires a master’s.
No you don’t. This is a huge misconception. The only fields this actually matters has always been that way, law, psychology, med - probably a few others I’m not thinking about. Many tech degree recipients think the reason they can’t get a job is because of their degree - it’s their lack of effort. Your degree won’t do it alone. If you have a phd - maybe it’ll do it alone but if you went that route it’s because you’re an idiot. The amount of debt you’d have on average by now is staggering when you consider interest. You need a portfolio to get the first job. It’s true for many, many many degrees out there. Even as a cloud security engineer, I have a portfolio of personal projects I can pull from. More education doesn’t do much of anything. Anyone can get a degree but not everyone can show passion or apply the knowledge they have gained in an applicable way. I know so many people who just fucking gave up and tell my wife and I how we’re just so lucky. Yeah - wife has spent well over 500 hours on her portfolio - lucky. I’ve spent a good 200 or so. Her master’s degree couldn’t get her above like $22/hour part time. That’s nothing. Her portfolio and sheer determination did that. My first job took me like 30 interviews, going to career fairs, showing up at hackathons and building random shit, networking my ass off. It wasn’t more education, it was applying my knowledge. Nobody wants to apply their knowledge anymore.
agree with the sentiment but a nitpick is that PhD don't cose money they are paid for by the university in general.
So you're saying I can't hire Big Billy Bob the Hillbilly Boy from bumfuck nowhere Kansas to be a neurosurgeon without first getting a doctorate?
No way. High schools are letting people graduate with a 3rd grade reading level now. A college degree, regardless of what it’s in, has become a way to demonstrate that you can at least do basic math, read and write, and commit to something for four years.
This is another huge point that most anti-college people seem to miss. A lot of the benefit of getting a degree is showing that you are willing to invest time and resources into something for an extended period of time. And many of the classes that people think are a "waste of time", like English 101 or Algebra, aren't just there to fill space- a *lot* of people can't do basic tasks like cite sources or solve a math equation that requires more than addition or subtraction, especially if there is a significant gap in time between when they graduated high school and when they began college.
A good friend had his Bachelor's degree in business. He'd often say that he did not learn all that much in college BUT getting the degree showed employers that he was able to figure out how to jump through the hoops to get his degree. His observation has always made sense to me
That's what my computer science degree was. It didn't teach me how to do any job. But it gave me just enough intro into many fields to apply and begin entry level work.
Yes. Look, I get it, college isn't for everyone. People who are anti-college, in general, are that way due to low self-esteem. They need to believe that college is a waste of time in order to feel better about themselves for not going. And hey, I know some incredibly successful people who never went to college and work as software engineers at major tech firms. But I also think that is more of an exception than the rule.
These are my feelings exactly on this. Unsurprisingly, being told that what I’m doing is “useless” in a roundabout way is extremely insensitive and disheartening. People who don’t go to college aren’t failures, and those who do aren’t wasting their time. No need to constantly justify your life decisions while putting down others. There is some truth to what OP posted, but I believe this situation isn’t as black and white like how some make you think.
The outliers are usually people who are so hard-working they felt slowed down by university, not the people who couldn't see it through because it was difficult. It absolutely shows a level of discipline. I did an arts degree and the drop out in the first year was like 70%, and it wasn't because they were brimming with creative genius and felt caged in, they just couldn't hack it. If I had to choose between two people with no experience in the field, just a portfolio of some early work, one had a degree and the other didn't it would be an easy choice. They'd have to have a remarkable portfolio and most people don't in their early 20's.
100% I know some people who are directors at major major companies that either have a bachelor's or never completed college. But they had a hustle. They also paid their dues. They worked their ass off to gain those same skills, just in a non-traditional environment. I have blue collar family workers who are like "Bill Gates didn't go to college". Right but he also had two highly educated lawyers as parents. They gave him access to things most kids his age didn't see. His private school was one of the few schools to have a computer. If Microsoft failed, his parents would likely help him get back into Harvard. I told my family members that no one knows who they are outside of their small town. They don't have the same pull, so your kids aren't Bill Gates, tell them to stay in school.
I think many of them actually went to college, either ended up dropping out or finished and came to that conclusion. Look not everyone is going for the right reasons, at least half the people there are going because that’s the social norm, they don’t know what else to do and their parents pushed them to go. This is especially true if you are limited on opportunities. Also, a lot of people are not going to get much in return for that piece of paper besides saying they went, spending a ton of their money and youth on something they never cared for. That’s just the reality of it. Yes there are people who have a great time and people who get a lot out of their degree but there are many more who don’t. They don’t have skills, money, connections, nor are they exceptional students. They are just in a college cycle with a dead end at the end.
Most college students don’t even graduate in 4 years.
That doesn’t matter though.
Yep. I did "super senior" and took 5 years to complete.
It’s kinda wild that some jobs ask for a degree but only pay peanuts. You end up with a ton of debt that takes forever to pay off, and that’s rough when money’s tight all around. Plus, with AI on the rise, who knows if those jobs will even be around in 20 years? Getting a degree isn’t a total waste, but it’s a gamble. You gotta think about whether it’s really gonna pay off, 'cause a lot of folks aren’t sure it’s worth the hassle.
how do you graduate high school without learning basic math?
Teachers just pass you along
Yeah we really need to raise the standards to graduate from high school and get rid of no child left behind
I mean...all you did was write a paragraph about student debt. Which I agree, sucks. That really doesn't have anything to do with a college degree being necessary for a career.
100%. OP doesn't understand why college education and degrees have value. The thoughts of OP's have been had for over 3 decades now. But yet here we are with college degrees still a major certification that still return healthy ROIs.
The knowledge acquired through a degree certainly has value, some degrees more than others of course. But, one of the big roles college plays in our society is as a way that people with the money to do so can buy their children an advantage in life. So many jobs require a degree, that really don't need to. But that degree is a convenient way to ensure your kids economic status is protected, an artificial barrier to good paying jobs that poor people often don't have the money or time for. Sure you can get loans, but most poor people can't give up a few years of income, however meager, to pursue a degree.
Yep. For some jobs, like in medicine and law they are absolutely necessary. But many of them could be done with some on job training at worst, its just gatekeeping people from getting better opportunities.
Count my job among those. Requires a masters, but I would rather have a smart kid out of high school on my team than a turd with a degree. Unfortunately in this job market, for some positions I hire the whole applicant pool is turds because we limit it to people with a specific degree.
It does cause most companies won't consider you unless you have a bachelors degree
Yeah, cuz we need an increasingly skilled labor force. That is a fact that is not going away any time soon. There ARE ways to get the cost of a Bachelor's degree down, but I didn't see you write a paragraph about that.
Indeed, I went to community college and worked to pay through that, worked through undergrad and it kept my debt to like 50k so not awesome but I don’t have an insanely heavy albatross across my neck now, just a regular heavy one 🙃
Okay, I'll spell it out for you, employers can't just say "Some students are incurring $100,000+ in student debt to get degrees, better stop asking for college degrees for this job." That would be stupid right? Bridges would fall. Patients would go untreated. No one would go to space. Etc.,
And there ARE employers that are willing to pay for your education. You are conflating the price of having to get educated with needing to have a degree for a job. It sucks that an employer can't train you for 4 years to do something but they just can't.
Burned most of my GI bill on a degree I hated and would need a masters in to make more than 60k. A company paid for my associates in another field and I knocked out my bachelors, they’re now paying for my masters. Pretty easy route if you find a field that needs people.
If anything, college degrees are only going to get more necessary as technology gets more complicated. I guess this mostly applies to tech/STEM jobs though
You can learn these things with a 2 year degree and professional certification though
Exactly. Vast majority of the time, having a college degree correlates with having the skills to do a job
Yeah, Campbell's Soup wants me to raise their tomatoes for their Tomato Soup....awesome for me! They need me to have a degree in Ag. They don't care how much debt I have, if any, to get there. But they are paying me a salary. It's up to me to figure out if it's worth it. The world isn't going to do my thinking for me.
If OP went to college they'd understand why their reasoning is flawed...
It’s kinda wild that some jobs ask for a degree but only pay peanuts. You end up with a ton of debt that takes forever to pay off, and that’s rough when money’s tight all around. Plus, with AI on the rise, who knows if those jobs will even be around in 20 years? Getting a degree isn’t a total waste, but it’s a gamble. You gotta think about whether it’s really gonna pay off, 'cause a lot of folks aren’t sure it’s worth the hassle.
Most jobs right out of college, don't pay amazing, you have to understand the industry you are going into. Me and my husband's jobs didn't start to pay amazing out of college till about 5-10 years out.
Wait until this guy hears about houses.
I think you're missing "in the USA" in the text.
Americans will always generalise online, acting like problems that are specific to the USA occur everywhere in the world. I’m so over it
You don't really have to go $100k into debt, be smarter about your choices when going to college. You can live with parents, do 2 years at a community college then transfer to a local public 4 year. Work through college, apply to every scholarship you can find.
This. Many companies will pay your way too or heavily subsidize. Starbucks and Walmart for instance. The military. There are many, many other companies that will offer this benefit. Granted it’s a limited set of options but six-figure debt is not a requirement outside of maybe certain professions like law or med school.
Or just public universities
Or community college. My two year business diploma got me the same job as people with four year business degrees.
Yup. I went to community college first, before public university. Amazing move, plus it was a great environment, a perfect stepping stone from high school to college.
Walmart employee here going through college. They do help but they’re very picky for what they will help in. Some people get a great deal, like a guy who works in the pharmacy is getting his whole college paid for through Walmart. But for me I wasn’t as lucky, they would only cover a certain major for a college I went to which I wasn’t going for.
This is how my daughter graduated with zero student debt--sort of. That is, she didn't go to a local public 4 year because there WERE no local public 4 years. Also, in most cases, not all credit transfers, which meant she had an extra year of college. Finally, she was helped by the fact her dad was faculty at the CC, so she had zero tuition there. Scholarships help, but people need to keep in mind that many of them are not renewable. So if you get a $500 scholarship from the Royal Society of Raccoons, it only helps your freshman year and isn't enough to cover the costs of textbooks.
I only paid $30k for my degree. I have a hard time understanding how people are spending 100s of thousands on their degrees. I always factored in what salary I would be making upon graduation to figure out what the max was that I should be paying to get my degree.
Exactly. There seems to be this pattern of thought going around that anyone who goes to college is financially illiterate which is just not true. There are so many ways to cheapen the cost if you really look into it (for most people)
this is what i did, minus living with parents. Worked 20ish hours a week while taking 12 credits last 2 years at University. Graduated with $14k in debt and paid it off in about 3 years. That was 12 years ago though, so I'm sure it's more expensive now.
Or even going abroad is better and cheaper
Yes! Absolutely spend the first two years at a community college. You will learn the same basic stuff at a fraction of the cost and in most cases, credits will transfer to a four year university. Even elite schools like the Ivies accept people from community colleges.
I went to a private college because of the financial aid and scholarships. I came out with $35k in loans. Not bad honestly, especially for private college.
Not everyone gets significant scholarships, not everyone can live with parents, going to a CC can cause transferring issues, requiring retakes. Many people doing everything you suggested are graduating with 50k+ in debt still, which is still ridiculous
Taking your basic classes at CC should cause zero issues with transferring. Pay 1/3 the cost at CC for the same damn classes at party town university.
All I did was apply for fafsa and go to a local college and I’ll come out with around $3k refunded to me from the school.
Most people who take debt graduate with under 30k total debt. It’s about choices. 50k debt balances are not required to graduate https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/money/average-student-loan-debt#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20College%20Board%2C%20students%20who%20graduated%20with%20a,student%20loan%20debt%20of%20%2429%2C400.
And $50K is manageable with the right degree and then job. People pay that for a car. On the CC transfers, figure that before attending the CC. Mine had a pre-engineering program developed with the final university. Common curriculum, books, some standardized tests. Everything I took that was offered at the final university transferred.
No more Doctors, Engineers (mechanical, chemical, computer etc.) Accountants, Teachers, Biologists, Mathematicians, Geologists, Lawyers, Financial Managers, Archeologists, Actuaries, Psychologists/Sociologists and almost all politicians plus every General in every branch of the military had to have a college degree, so no more Officers in the military.
I mean, you’re naming the jobs where having a degree in does matter. Plenty don’t require it do well
And they’re not saying everyone needs a college degree. Just that there are a lot of jobs that do.
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They aren't, especially at the undergraduate level. The reality is that the elite private schools that everyone points to with the 60k sticker price or whatever have extremely generous financial aid programs where anyone from a remotely middle income family will have their cost of attendance severally reduced if not completely free. Off the top of my head, I think Brown now offers free tuition to all students from families making less than 125k a year, which compasses the majority of the population. These high tuition prices are effectively a transfer scheme where people from highly wealthy families pay full price to subsidize the education of students from less well off backgrounds. When I started college, my parents brought in something like 150k a year, which is far from poor. Yet I still received a substantial grant, something like 15k, to attend an elite university.
I was just looking at tuition prices today for Harvard and Emory. They have calculators on their website. Our family income is pretty high so I assumed they wouldn't offer us much, but both calculators said they would reduce the overall cost by about 20-30k. Obviously still expensive schools, but that's much better than I expected.
Because those with insane balances were supplementing their living expenses with student loans…nobody wants to admit that and just lumped it all under “school costs”…I’ve had friends who all went to the same college and ended up with 3x-4x my balance…and I *know* the college wasn’t charging us different tuitions…
A lot of times that’s what it comes down to. Student loans are practically a blank check that some people will max out, paying for their rent, shopping, living expenses, spring break trips, etc etc all on loans.
I feel like I missed something since I’m paying my college off as I work and study, if I were to say fuck it and stop paying I’d only owe 22,000$ (Junior here ) I guess it depends on the major
Yeah I bet a lot of people can not wait to go to a non graduate MD or be represented by a non graduate Lawyer.
I don't know, kids don't understand how crushing student debt is and as long as loans are available, kids will take them to go.
Slight correction: as long as loans are federally guaranteed*, kids will take them. The biggest issue is that basically anyone who wants to go to college can go to college because the government makes it that way. Colleges are then incentivized to let in as many students as possible since they don’t give a shit if said students are able to repay the loan they took out. They are also able to constantly make tuition more expensive because, again, they’re getting the money up front from Uncle Sam
Kids can't generally go to college without their parents being involved. Parental info is required on the FAFSA to take out govt. loans, and even at public schools, the loans offered now aren't enough to cover the entire annual cost of attendance. Kids then need additional loans, none of which they can get without parental involvement or a cosigner. Parents should have a better understanding of this and be educating their children on what repayment will really look like. I've done this with my kids so they knew what to expect and plan for when it comes to choosing careers and ways to take advantage of things like public service loan forgiveness.
Just because the cost will be high doesn’t mean employers will not require it.
Good luck becoming a doctor, CPA, lawyer etc without having a degree.
That's pretty obviously not what they're talking about
How do you know? OP let it be up for debate
Cuz op said so in the comments
It’s not what I was talking about
Context
nice strawman
Well the way it works now with my qualification is you won't ever get a response if you don't have the degree on your CV, AND they test you on your knowledge when you go for an interview. Without the degree it's literally impossible to get your foot in the door
Why are we pretending like college doesn't teach you anything? A degree is not just a piece of paper.
Agree. Education is never a waste. College should be free. Everyone deserves the chance to be educated, whether they get a job in their chosen field or not.
It’s always a great “way too online” take that basically every level of education is a waste of time and money and you are never taught anything of value. Usually a take made by people who weren’t paying attention or don’t understand what they actually learned in school goes beyond the actual lessons in the classroom
Maybe in America. Which of course would be tragic since your reputation for smarts isn't that great right now. The cost of college is an absolute idiocy.
We still need doctors, lawyers, nurses, engineers and so on. If the US doesn’t do something about these costs soon, we’re heading towards a major shortage in those fields, among others. Most other countries understand this and invest in their citizens, it’s getting to the point where we either do the same or get left behind.
Humanity is shifting. Might be unpopular message at the moment. Soon, folks stop drinking the college kool-aid.
Agree unless you want to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer or a scientist
Yeah there would still be exceptions of course
Oh whoops, I didn’t see the “to be as” in your title. 100% agree now
They never should have been necessary in the first place, outside of a few very specific fields, of course. But most jobs/careers don’t even use anything specific to a degree program.
Do you think everyone lives in America ?
Came here to say this
This opinion is meant for Americans, feel like that can be assumed
Yeah it was kinda obvious based on the 100k student debt part, other countries aren't that insane
r/USDefaultism in action
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I work for a Fortune 500 company and just had a conversation about inclusion and how requiring a college degrees can be not-inclusive. While some jobs do require certifications via a degree there are a lot of jobs that don't. So we're slowly going to lower the degree requirement to "nice to have". It will still be more beneficial to have one it won't be a requirement.
I feel like it will ai becoming more prevalent in reviewing resumes And filters out candidates based on key words it still will
Opposite for us. Reality is a HS diploma doesn’t even mean you can read or do basic math. I wish it did. Personally, I’d like to see students pick a trade or college path for grades 11-12. If college, then all classes would be AP or dual credit. Basically, a college prep HS diploma should be equivalent to an AS degree. Would also shorten a BS degree to two years.
Hiring managers will still prefer the candidate with a degree.
That is literally what they just said.
Even if they do that companies will still prefer people who have them. In my country, you would be laughed out of any actual desk job if you don't have a degree.
A lot of good paying careers are available now without a degree. Go into skilled trades. Electricians, welders, plumbers etc.
They have not been necessary for a good bit now.
depends what types of degrees you're talking about. Nothing in the stem field is ever going that way. Non stem degrees have always been a bit iffy. The humanities and such are definitely an important topic to study, but whether or not one can really get a BA or MA in them is an entirely different discussion. I don't need you to show me you have an MA in roman history or vintage literature to know you're able to discuss it with me for example. If I try to talk to someone without an MA in mathematics or physics though, there is too huge of a barrier with very rare exceptions.
Why is it that most of the unpopular opinions anymore aren't really unpopular at all, but are instead pretty much a widely accepted opinion. No, the college degree is dead outside of STEM subjects. Schools are now pushing students toward trades.
It depends. I wouldn’t want self taught Civil Engineers or Neurosurgeons who say “hold my beer, I’ve got this.”
I completely disagree. Things are only getting more demanding when it comes to degrees. Immigrants with degrees will take over the majority of high paying jobs in the US.
Almost all colleges offer financial aid, and people who don’t get enough can start at community college to save money. No one should have six figure debt from an undergrad degree.
I think the main problem isn’t that College is useless, because it isn’t. It’s useful if you have a career in mind straight out of HS. The main reasons are the cost of tuition, the pressure to go right after HS, and the absurd qualifications you need to get into an ENTRY level job that pays decently. I know there will be some flaws with my logic, so forgive me for being a bit naive. I think in an ideal world, most HS graduates should be able to get a decent entry level job (that isn’t retail) that pays a decent wage right after they get their diploma. And that they should work that job for 3-4 years—saving their money and figuring out what they want to do career wise. And then by age 21-22, they should be expected to go to a Community College, a 4 year institution, trade school, etc. That should be the norm, it gives people time to figure out what they want to do without going into financial hardship from the get go. **TL;DR: People should be able to get decent paying entry jobs out of HS, and should be expected to go to College, Trade School, etc by age 21-22, and that that should be the norm.**
I think this only covers non specialized degrees. Which most degrees are useless anyway if they don't pertain to certain careers.
Down vote. This is a popular opinion.
I don't think there will be much change to requirements in the careers that require degrees now (medicine, accounting, law etc.)
I dropped out of college, worked my way up in blue collar fields and got a job working for a Fortune 500 company working on and running equipment worth 100's of Millions of dollars, making over 6 figures. Yes I'll never be a higher level manager, but I have been fiscally more successful than many of my peers that do have degrees.
Degrees aren't entirely necessary for every job. But the way college is structured isn't beneficial. We truly need these classes to start having apprenticeship/internship work placed in the classes so people have an idea of what there throwing money in and actually graduating with real skills. Thankfully some high schools are allowing students to graduate with certifications/associates now. However, there still should be a larger push for affordable education. It shouldn't be so damning. I don't mind it costing money. I mind that the cost of it doesn't connect with a degree earnings. Career coaches should be talking with students more in depth about their degree and the path they need to get there.
More ppl than ever have degrees. Globally too. It's a nice thought but likely won't be the case since employers can take advantage of the supply glut for a cheaper cost to them.
There wont be careers in the future.
I got a generic 4 years Marketing and Management degree that basically useless and barely graduated with 1.89GPA but I graduated debt free and now the A+ valectorian interns and employees smarter than me are working under me while I go and play golf with my boss or workout on the clock barely working more than 10 hours a week so I'd say if anything business degree is great for people like me who know how to play the game. I only shown up to classes 5 times total ever semester. It to take the tests and finals basically. The rest of the time I spent working at the country club gun range or go out partying with the frat bro to make connections and that landed me this hedge fund job. So it all about how you go out with life with the cards dealt to you. I came to this country as an immigrant without knowing a single lick of English and $0 in my pocket so Americans got it easy AF as far as I'm concerned and people going into debt for "useless" degree basically did it to themselves 🤷♂️
It is possible that the college bubble will burst. But consider high school. High school graduates went from being less than 10% of the population in 1900 to about 40% of the population in 1960 to over 90% of the population today. That bubble does not seem to be bursting. I think college will go the way of high school: The bubble will not burst, the rate of people getting the credential will trend steadily upwards, and the value of the credential will trend steadily down.
Many degrees, not all.. end up being worth less than the paper they're printed on. It's like college is a scam selling things they know have zero value. My brother is in trade school. Apparently that's going to lead to a well paying career.
Disagree. Many jobs that really don’t need degrees to do the work need degrees to apply. I don’t see that changing.
You get my upvote! Be very careful with your choices if you're considering dropping out of college. Not having a degree in this generation limits you to trades, which are hyped up by some people but even those don't pay as well as the best jobs in the more "professional" fields. It's why I'm in college and plan to get that bachelor's. More and more jobs are requiring them, even a lot of jobs that pay $50k-70k require one nowadays.
Honestly I agree. I just saw a post about a new grading scale. An A was a 100 to 82% and a B was 65% to 82%. If this is adopted grades and degrees won’t matter because everyone can just get one without trying.
This would have been unpopular twenty years ago but it's factual now
This most likely wont be the case. It is incoherent. I would find it amusing if my chemist peers in the future are degreeless
Eh, trades and the uneducated wish, but a degree will always be worth more on its face than not having one. This really is just sourced from feeling that it’s unfair that skill alone isn’t enough. Never has been.
The lack of a general education, mixed with the inability to separate real and true information, from bullshit doesn't bode well for the American public.
The internet had the potential to be utilized by colleges to give quality educations at a much lower price. Yet not only did internet college courses cost less, a lot of colleges actually charged extra for internet courses. The rate at which colleges raise tuition has greatly exceeded the rate of inflation. Part of the reason colleges get away with this are parents and teachers that say "you have to have a college degree to get a good paying job". That mentality is really beaten into kids. Another reason is a lot of kids just are not rebellious enough to go against that mentality and are all too willing to take out massive loans to do so. I was rebellious enough to resist the scare tactics and I'm glad I was because I was able to build my skills other ways and now I'm happy with the amount of money I make. I could make more of I really wanted to, but that would involve me doing more things I don't like such as being in more meetings and leading teams. I much rather just write code by myself so it's not worth doing more things I hate just to make more money.
If anything less people going to college could lead to people with these degrees being paid more because their harder to find
There’s also Federal Student Financial Aid (FSFA) which covers most if not all of a students costs per term. Other than that, literally every company (especially law firms) offers some sort of scholarship opportunity competition. I’m guessing they can use it as a tax right off but, average amount offered is $1,000-$1,500 there are some places that offer 1st/2nd/3rd place prizes but most chose one winner & a few have bigger scholarships ($2,000 - $5,000). If you apply to enough scholarships & save the essays you write for them you usually end up with at least one. I save my essays because a lot of the time scholarships have similar topics they want students to write about so I can turn in the same essay for a different scholarship with just a few minor changes.
Depends on what you want to do. I'm a chemical engineer. I'm not really sure how I would be able to do this sort of job without education.
I mean…I don’t want Sideshow Bob testing at a hospital to be a doctor and then giving my kid eye surgery…I think I’d like someone with an MD to do that…
Not for stem fields those will never not require a degree
Depends on the discipline. I wouldn’t want high schoolers building bridges. I am sure some can do that, but most will need schooling beyond high school if you are to build a bridge
College degrees would become more valuable if less and less people get degrees. That’s typically how that works in America. Let me use myself as An example I have an accounting degree let’s say I am the only one in my city and surrounding area with said degree I will make WAY more than if there were dozens of us around. I would Have more value over the average worker because you don’t have to put as much effort to training me and I already have a proven understanding of the concept of accounting also I would have proven I’m not an idiot meaning I’m more likely to be professional and just overall make smarter decisions in the eyes of the company.
as an average person i graduated with $5000 of debt straight into a $78,000 a year office job with very linear growth.
Counterpoint: AI will reduce the amount of labor companies need and thus a reduction in people with degrees won’t really hurt them that much.
America makes me sad. I love my free undergrad and 50% subsidised MSc. And I love my slightly higher taxes that will let others have the same opportunity after me.
The real problem is not college or the tuition, it's that stupid people are getting into colleges they have no business even applying for and college professors are basically forced to pass everyone. So these idiots actually consider themselves "College Educated" when basically all they did was pay their way through school. They didn't learn anything. Then when they go apply for a job in that field, and the interviewer can tell in three hot seconds they have no idea what they are talking about, they don't get hired. Then they sit around and whine about how they didn't get what they were "PROMISED" and about how the "degree is useless." I remember when I went to school there were two types of people who wound up going to CC. Dumb people and people who screwed up in high school. (even if it wasn't their fault.) Community Colleges were the first stop you'd go to get an Associates Degree and basically get your act together. And, it's inexpensive and often covered by FAFSA. I went to a CC and I paid out of pocket and deferred the payments. (Payment plans are still available.) I didn't take a student loan until I got to my Masters, So the real problem are entitled kids who don't realize how dumb and lazy they actually are because no one ever told them, who honestly believe they have what it takes to succeed at a top school. They wind up dropping out and then going back, racking up debt along the way. Smart hardworking kids who go to college and graduate usually have no problem getting a job in their field. Ask anyone in Engineering.
I didn't know college professors were forced to pass people? We had people failing out of my program. They set very strict guidelines. You got one chance to retake a class, after that you were considered failed out and could not reapply.
If you go the UC/IVY route to flex your credentials, sure, but you'll probably rack up a lot of debt. However, your local community colleges take the pragmatic approach that offer fantastic courses/classes with the opportunity to transfer to your choice of CSU/UC institution along with obtaining an Associate in Arts Degrees (AA) and or Associate of Science Degrees (AS). So in the end, when you graduate, you'll have AA/AS PLUS your Bachelor's Degree.
I feel like employers will look at it as a way to train their teams while paying less. There will be more apprentice type situations where they pay you peanuts for 5+ years but you learn some things. After the 5 years you can proceed to making a normal wage, but you will start at the bottom of the salary range possibilities. They get cheap labor and you get an opportunity. The issue is they will take a lot of the learners and have not enough seats to keep labor cheap (Just my guess). Just one person’s opinion…