The Glade 4.0

I stumbled across this blog a few weeks ago and found it extremely interesting. It's also an entertaining read, but that's not really the point.

Hipsters On Food Stamps, Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

This is a "you should either read all of them or read none of them" sort of affair. There are a number of plot twists, and you'll walk away with the wrong idea of what's being said if you quit partway through.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

That was very interesting.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

One of the comments was the most interesting to me, where he says that STEM majors basically have their hands held throughout the process. Here's a list of things you have to do, keep your GPA this high, finish these classes/projects, finish this internship and your employment is virtually guaranteed right out of college. We'll tell you everything you need to do, all you need to do is be smart enough/work hard enough to do it and you're in.

Liberal arts majors don't get that. You have degree requirements, but that doesnt get you a job. They hand you your degree and kick you out, you have to figure everything else out yourself. No one tells liberal arts majors exactly what they need to do to secure a job.

Thats because there isn't enough demand for those degrees that there can be enough evidence of a process that works.

Which isn't true for STEM, STEM people are in demand and so its rather easy to see from the volume who gets a job and who doesn't. Also STEM majors tend to be more end goal focused on getting that job than are liberal arts majors.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Gee, I don't remember any of that.

I wish I could make that my signature.

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Seriously, we could make this entire problem go away overnight by allowing student loans to be discharged through bankruptcy. The only reason anyone can afford the current astronomical tuition rates is because student loans have basically become debt bondage. The financiers have very little counterparty risk and therefore are perfectly happy to lend whatever number the colleges decide to charge.

Honestly, I fully expect student loans to require the parents to cosign on them within the next 20 years, and thereby fully implement debt bondage that's passed from father to son and can never be discharged.

You make them dischargable, and they will. Kids have no credit, thus rates will be astronomically high. Tuition may come down, they'll just pay more in interest. Or, the only people that will be able to go to college are those that ride on their parents' credit.

And it will turn into taxpayer funded schooling.

We need LESS people going to college and MORE QUALIFIED people doing so.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I don't see how it's worse than people walking away from underwater mortgages and having the entire balance of the debt forgiven. At least when someone walks away from their student loans we still managed to educate someone.

To what end? What is the value of an educated citizen versus the cost of educating someone? Is it a net-benefit or a net-drag?

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Seriously, what's the alternative here? Do you want tuition to go up 20% a year for eternity? It's not going to stop without major government intervention anyway and I think this is the best way. Would you rather the government just implement price ceilings on tuition?

You know that they can garnish your Social Security payments to cover unpaid student loans now? As long as there's literally no risk involved in making student loans, there's no incentive whatsoever for colleges to control tuition costs because students will be able to "pay" whatever number they decide to come up with.

Xequecal:

We need fewer people in our colleges and universities. We need fewer colleges and universities. We need fewer graduates. All this mandatory baccalaureate degree nonsense does is turn all degrees into nonsense. Moreover, if your parents cannot afford tuition, you cannot afford the loans, and you cannot secure scholarships to defray the cost of attendance, that used to be a pretty good benchmark you should not receive a post-secondary education. Primary education in the United States ends with 8th Grade. High school is your secondary education.

But, you know, you still don't get along with Supply and Demand very well, do you?

In fact, you have no idea how much it costs to run a university; otherwise, you wouldn't be defending all of this "expanded access" nonsense; you'd be asking for gibbets and pillories for all the idiot legislators and executive politicians who keep pushing the "need for more college degrees."

Also, liberal arts majors who cannot find when they graduate should probably have not gone to college. If you don't know how to market the 4 years of practical skill development any college degree provides you in the workplace, you shouldn't go to college. You have no idea why you went other than someone told you it would lead to a better job.

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While this is all a nice ideal, it doesn't address my point at all. The fact is, right now student loans have very little counterparty risk. As long as they don't, colleges have no incentive to raise admission standards or control tuition, because any student they admit will be able to pay any tuition amount they ask for. I don't know how much it costs to run a university, but that's very irrelevant because they'll want to maximize revenue regardless of whether they're raking in the dough or barely scraping by.

Yes, less people should go to college. That's not going to happen without some kind of government fiat, so you're going to have to pick the one that's most palatable.

Want to cut costs, stop subsidizing educationa nd student loans.

Prices will start to drop as colleges find out they have no choice but to cut costs.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

And thus probably didn't really learn all that much (useful) stuff in the process, anyways, so the education your degree attests to is dubious to begin with.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

There's an asset associated with a mortgage. The bank loses money, but at least they get the house. There is no asset associated with a school loan. No collateral at all.

There's some serious practicality issues associated with this. Degrees are so widespread that there is no incentive to hire someone without a degree. Whether that degree is needed or not to actually perform the job does not seem to be relevant anymore. Christ, now they are demanding master's degrees just to have a smaller pool of "more exceptional" candidates.

So how do you break this system? Companies aren't going to do it. Prospective students, maybe, but it would take a lot of young people sacrificing their futures while the culture changes. It's certainly not in the best interest of the universities.

You don't have to break the system. The system will naturally break when it runs out of suckers. Of course, that has its own set of problems.

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A Master's Degree is pretty much mandatory for anything beyond entry-level office work. At the very least, you need a Bachelor's Degree and some substantial professional certifications to even break into Middle Management or Individual Contributor ranks at most major companies. An MBA probably has a net negative return on investment unless it's your second Master's Degree at this point or from a top 20 institution. As for breaking the Education Bubble, it's going to do that on its own. The majority of graduates are leaving with more debt than they can repay and no ability to find themselves gainful employment. And, well, there are so many degrees out there now, companies can require a Bachelor's Degree to manage their McDonald's franchise.

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Still no degree here and running strong. Considered finishing a bachelors in something but don't really see the point.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Blanket statements are blanket-y. The most successful people I know in my field don't have anything more than a high school diploma. Sometimes I wish I just coded for a few extra years instead of going to college, I might be a lot better off.

The first rule of the tautology club is the first rule of the tautology club.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Foodsters on Hipstamps!

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I thought the author's writing style was hard to follow and he rambles a lot. I can only stick around for so long while he goes off on tangents with no indication in site of wtf his point is. It's interesting you mention his blog having "plot twists." In my opinion, persuasive writing shouldn't have plot twists. That's a sign of bad writing. (FYI I only read Part 1, and skimmed over the rest)

Anyway, aside from his writing style, his overall points are very negative. BAs aren't worthless. STEM majors aren't inherently better. Most of my friends got BAs, and most of them have jobs and are doing pretty well for themselves. Most of my co-workers have BAs and they're doing pretty good too. I'm an engineering major but I don't work in engineering. I have no idea if my degree helped me land my current job, but I can tell you for the most part I don't use anything I learned from my college STEM classes. If anything, it's the liberal arts classes I took that I still find most applicable.

I understand that there are problems with the current system and rising tuition rates and all that. But the doom and gloom picture he paints just doesn't match reality, not from my experience anyway.