Is College a Rip Off? - John Stossel & Physics Majors

[caffenta]

I think it's a bit of a rip off. It only really exists as a form of proof to employers that I can jump through a certain amount of hoops. I suppose that's quite useful for becoming another faceless cog in the corporate machine, though.

You can't blame universities for this. They did not create this situation. Employers and society in general did.

I feel it's very much a case of examination over education. I spend too much time learning how to answer questions the way that the lecturer wants them to be answered, too much time writing and preparing useless lab reports and too much time memorising rather than understanding.

Making supposedly useless lab reports is standard practice in science. You'll be making plenty of those in your lifetime. And if you're not getting some form of understanding, something's not right. I don't even know how one could stay afloat in any of the physical sciences, or even engineering, just using memorization.

It's not really an education any more, though, is it, given that for pretty much any career nowadays you need a degree to get your foot in the door. Universities know this and thus can charge extra because they know that you'll get nowhere without their bit of paper. We're in the bizarre situation where people are essentially paying to get a job!

Again, this is not caused by universities. You are mixing up cause and effect. Universities want nothing more than to teach for the sake of learning. They are being forced to change their ways to make a degree more relevant to today's job environment, whatever that means.

The real rip-off is the job market.

 

[jeebs]

I don't think so, not as far as physics goes anyway. I did a foundation year leading onto a 4 year physics course (of which I am in the fourth year) and I am in about £35,000 of debt. I think it's worth it, I wouldn't trade the education I've been given for anything. I'm a different person for having gotten it, changed my outlook on everything. Best decision I've ever made.
Tuition fees are tripling in a couple of years here in the UK, but I'd still say that's worth it to avoid a lifetime of ignorance.

 

[twofish-quant]

I spend too much time learning how to answer questions the way that the lecturer wants them to be answered, too much time writing and preparing useless lab reports and too much time memorising rather than understanding.

Sounds like a typical day at the office. Seriously.

It's not really an education any more, though, is it, given that for pretty much any career nowadays you need a degree to get your foot in the door.

There is a reason for this. If your professor tells you to fill out a dozen stupid lab reports, you will do it. You may complain. You may grumble, but in the end, you'll do it. Having a bachelor's degree tells the employer that if they ask you to fill out a dozen stupid lab reports, you'll do it.

This *is* education. Now, it may not be very romantic, and while you are filling out a dozen stupid lab reports, you may be imagining yourself tossing those lab reports at your boss/professor and then traveling to a deserted island and writing poetry.

Universities know this and thus can charge extra because they know that you'll get nowhere without their bit of paper.

And then they structure their education to get what employers are looking for. If you want a brilliant C++ programmer, there is no need to get a bachelor's degree. You can take a quick test, and quickly see if the person is a good C++ programmer.

What you *can't* figure out from a quick test, is whether or not, the person is willing and able to fill out a dozen stupid forms to meet a stupid deadline, and able to sit in a long boring and useless lecture. That's what a bachelor degree proves. It's basically a certification that you can control your emotions, meet deadlines, and manage schedules.

Before the 1960's, people used military experience for that certification. One advantage of college is that people aren't shooting at you.

We're in the bizarre situation where people are essentially paying to get a job!

That's not a bad deal if you get a job in the end. It stinks if you don't.

 

[twofish-quant]

Yes but as you say, that's not the universities problem.

I think it is the universities problem.

Call me old fashion, but I still think that part of the job of the university is to be an "alma mater" (i.e. a foster parent). I don't particularly like the idea of a university as a "service provider" where you pay your money and get a piece of paper.

We also do pay full tuition. It's just that various entities find it beneficial to pay students to attend (ie the slave labor of a TA)

This points out a basic conflict of interest. Someone selling used cars shouldn't be expected to tell you that it's not in your interest to buy a used car. However if a university really is an "alma mater" then it should.

 

[Pengwuino]

I feel it's very much a case of examination over education. I spend too much time learning how to answer questions the way that the lecturer wants them to be answered, too much time writing and preparing useless lab reports and too much time memorising rather than understanding. It's not really an education any more, though, is it, given that for pretty much any career nowadays you need a degree to get your foot in the door. Universities know this and thus can charge extra because they know that you'll get nowhere without their bit of paper. We're in the bizarre situation where people are essentially paying to get a job!

It's not as useless as you think. I haven't written an essay in years and when I had to start writing statements of purpose to enter graduate school, I was in a rough spot. The essays I wrote in high school and a few in college felt meaningless to me, but if I had to constantly write a couple essays every semester, I wouldn't have been in such a crumby position when it came time to write essays that actually were extremely important to me.

And the fact of the matter is people DO get fired because they can't write a good report. I think a lot of the problems start in the K-12 where you have teachers that don't really know what they're doing. They ask students to write a lab report for example. However, they nit pick over whether or not you have an equipment list, if your references were cited using a comma after the book title or a semi-colon, and other completely irrelevant stuff. Then this gets passed on to college students who are taught by other college students who half the time don't care about their jobs as lab instructors and they don't really know what's important in a lab report either.

 

[Pengwuino]

That's not a bad deal if you get a job in the end. It stinks if you don't.

Agreed. And when DOESN'T this happen. Vocational school, community college, online lessons, none are free. Hell even if you go work at a fast food place, you have to pay for your clothing to work there. Open a business? Don't even bother talking about profiting for a couple years!

 

[twofish-quant]

You can't blame universities for this. They did not create this situation. Employers and society in general did.

I don't care who created the problem. I do care about who fixes it. Part of the responsibility of being an intellectual is to accept responsibility for fixing problems that you had no part in creating.

Making supposedly useless lab reports is standard practice in science. You'll be making plenty of those in your lifetime.

And sometimes the reports are useless. Having the patience to do something stupid and useless because authority tells you to do so is part of the skill set that you learn in universities, and what employers look for (seriously).

Again, this is not caused by universities. You are mixing up cause and effect. Universities want nothing more than to teach for the sake of learning.

I don't think that's true. Part of the problem is that a "university" is not a human being, and when you talk about what an organization "wants" it's difficult. You have the paradoxical situation in which everyone in the organization says that they want something, but the organization does something different.

They are being forced to change their ways to make a degree more relevant to today's job environment, whatever that means.

Forced by whom and how? One clever trick is to say I want X, but I'm forced to do Y, which incidentally benefits me. It's even more clever if it happens to be true that you are forced to do Y. So you get the benefits of doing Y, without any of the guilt.

The good news is that once you realize that universities aren't going to educate you, then if you want to be educated then you take it on yourself to educate you. You got a library card. Go into the university library, go to the bookstore, and find some random book and learn something.

The real rip-off is the job market.

Sure. How to fix? There is a fundamental tension in universities. On the one hand, people with money want universities to create corporate cogs. On the other hand, corporate cogs don't really react that well when something new and unexpected happens. You spend your days filling out stupid reports and playing stupid politics, and then one day the economy collapses, and then no one has a clue what to do. It's not in the manual. You are waiting for your boss to tell you what to do, but he or she doesn't know.

Personally, I think that there is a role for someone or something to give you some ideas what to do when the bottom falls out. Being able to fill out reports is great if you have an office job. But what happens if the bottom falls out, and there are no office jobs. What happens if your country falls apart?

What use is physics or French literature? Well, if it gives you something to think about if you end up in the middle of a great depression or if you find yourself in a political prison or a refugee camp.

 

[twofish-quant]

Also if you want a reading list...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674011465/?tag=pfamazon01-20

and the look at the associated books.

 

[twofish-quant]

And the fact of the matter is people DO get fired because they can't write a good report.

Each quarter, I have to write a report that basically says "This is why you should not fire me."

Also being able to write good e-mail and good powerpoints is critical.

I think a lot of the problems start in the K-12 where you have teachers that don't really know what they're doing.

They really do know what they are doing. You learn a lot if you follow around a K-12 teacher. What happens is that they are given a list of points to teach, and they are evaluated on how well they do at teaching them. Everything revolves around the lesson plan.

However, they nit pick over whether or not you have an equipment list, if your references were cited using a comma after the book title or a semi-colon, and other completely irrelevant stuff.

That's because its how they are evaluated. Now you may argue that it would be better if you had people with deep science training teaching K-12. That may be so, but...

1) you are going to have to vastly increase teacher salary
2) people that have deep science training often do not have the skills to teach K-12. A lot of K-12 involves babysitting, and being a Nobel prize winner doesn't qualify you to babysit.

Then this gets passed on to college students who are taught by other college students who half the time don't care about their jobs as lab instructors and they don't really know what's important in a lab report either.

Important for whom?

 

[Pengwuino]

Each quarter, I have to write a report that basically says "This is why you should not fire me."

Also being able to write good e-mail and good powerpoints is critical.

Indeed, a good power point puts the viewer to sleep in the shortest amount of time possible so that they don't realize you don't know what you're talking about!

They really do know what they are doing. You learn a lot if you follow around a K-12 teacher. What happens is that they are given a list of points to teach, and they are evaluated on how well they do at teaching them. Everything revolves around the lesson plan.

...That's because its how they are evaluated. Now you may argue that it would be better if you had people with deep science training teaching K-12. That may be so, but...

I don't even see it as needing a deep science knowledge requirement. A report should tell someone something using a clear, concise explanation. My students ask me some of the silliest questions which I feel is due to how they were educated about reporting. They ask if this size paper is ok, can I use a pen, can I scan a graph, etc etc. I have to tell them to just do whatever you want as long as it forms a good presentation that tells me what I need to know.

Then again that seems to be a bit against what your idea of a bachelors is - a piece of paper confirming you know how to do what you're told. Although I suppose them listening to me and dispensing with the irrelevant parts is another form of doing what you're told...

Important for whom?

I suppose that is the problem. I personally think everyone who reads a report is looking to be convinced of something or to have something explained. So to me, it means people who don't care about the nit picky stuff. Maybe that's a bad assumption?

 

[caffenta]

I don't care who created the problem. I do care about who fixes it. Part of the responsibility of being an intellectual is to accept responsibility for fixing problems that you had no part in creating.

Yes, but you have to fix the right problem. Is the university system the real problem? Or is it the expectation that people have? I'm not saying universities are perfect now. Far from it. But the current direction it's going doesn't really please me. College is not a job training program.

And sometimes the reports are useless. Having the patience to do something stupid and useless because authority tells you to do so is part of the skill set that you learn in universities, and what employers look for (seriously).

That's what I was saying. Students shouldn't just dismiss everything as useless. Even in the workplace, apparently useless things sometimes have a reason. I was always complaining under my breath in my early career about the ridiculous amount of documentation required by the industry's standards. That is, until I joined a company that did not document anything. Then I realized the value of the standards. I still don't like doing it, but I “get” it.

I don't think that's true. Part of the problem is that a "university" is not a human being, and when you talk about what an organization "wants" it's difficult. You have the paradoxical situation in which everyone in the organization says that they want something, but the organization does something different.

Forced by whom and how? One clever trick is to say I want X, but I'm forced to do Y, which incidentally benefits me. It's even more clever if it happens to be true that you are forced to do Y. So you get the benefits of doing Y, without any of the guilt.

I think they are pushed (forced may have been too strong a word) by people constantly (and loudly) complaining that college does not prepare kids for the workplace. But is that really the university's job? It is partially, but it shouldn't be just that. If you turn universities into job training centers, then the people who would benefit from the traditional role of universities lose out. Science would definitely lose out.

The origin of this thread (college is a rip-off because return on investment blah blah blah) is a perfect example of this misguided view.

Sure. How to fix? There is a fundamental tension in universities. On the one hand, people with money want universities to create corporate cogs. On the other hand, corporate cogs don't really react that well when something new and unexpected happens. You spend your days filling out stupid reports and playing stupid politics, and then one day the economy collapses, and then no one has a clue what to do. It's not in the manual. You are waiting for your boss to tell you what to do, but he or she doesn't know.Personally, I think that there is a role for someone or something to give you some ideas what to do when the bottom falls out. Being able to fill out reports is great if you have an office job. But what happens if the bottom falls out, and there are no office jobs. What happens if your country falls apart?

Yes, and that's my point, especially the bold part. If universities were to become simple job training centers, then nobody would know what to do when it's not in the manual. One reason that industry hires science/engineering PhDs is because they have the ability to make the manual, so to speak, rather than just follow it.

I think we actually agree on most parts. My main point is that I don't want to see universities turn into just job training centers. They should adapt, but not follow the loudest voice regardless of what it says.

 

[lawsofform]

Firstly, I'd like to point out that university tuition is very much shaped by market forces already. If you want a PhD in any subject (where the emphasis is on doing academic work rather than gaining marketable skills), chances are good that you won't have to pay for it. If you want something immediately applicable to making money, like an MBA or professional degree, you'll pay through the nose. If you want to be able to go to school on your own schedule and get a degree quickly without taking hard classes, you go to a for-profit school where you pay far more than the degree is actually worth by comparative standards (meaning, a degree from a for-profit school costs more than you'd pay at a state university, where you'd probably get a better education).

I would venture to say that most undergraduate degrees from a conventional university are about equal in terms of earning potential. Of course, if you look at entry-level salaries by degree, you'll find that the liberal arts majors make less than the engineering majors, but you also need to account for the fact that difficult majors tend to shed the less-dilligent students while easier ones will coddle them along, and that these people are less likely to get a high-paying job regardless of their field of study.

But when you pay for a degree you're largely paying to get "in". You get a piece of paper that says you're suitable for the higher echelons of employment. So you're in a good position to make more money than a person without a degree, but how much you actually make has more to do with what you actually do in the employment world than what you studied in school. Engineers make a lot of money, but the vast majority of people who make a lot of money are not engineers, and I'm also confident that most of those people don't do a job that requires a particular undergraduate degree. For example, consider that the undergraduate degree is irrelevant for lawyers and doctors.

I personally have a degree in english literature. My current job has absolutely nothing to do with it, but three years out of school I am in a supervisory position making more than most of my peers. I'm won't say whether my degree prepared me for my job in some nontangible way, but it's a fact that I wouldn't be where I am without it.

 

[Mathnomalous]

I'm won't say whether my degree prepared me for my job in some nontangible way, but it's a fact that I wouldn't be where I am without it.

D'accord.

I think that is how many people see it. Personally, I think those who choose to attend university should major in the Physical Sciences or Engineering, not because they might get a "better" job, but because the knowledge is extremely valuable. I am recently opening up to the idea of being a plumber with a Physics or Electrical Engineering degree; I bet that would be fun.

 

[Shaun_W]

You can't blame universities for this. They did not create this situation. Employers and society in general did.

No, but as places of education, they shouldn't be whoring themselves out as mere services that get people from high school to a job.

Making supposedly useless lab reports is standard practice in science. You'll be making plenty of those in your lifetime. And if you're not getting some form of understanding, something's not right. I don't even know how one could stay afloat in any of the physical sciences, or even engineering, just using memorization.

I don't know about American universities but in Britain we're bread from a very young age to pass examinations in our school system, and this naturally carries on up to our universities. It's very possible to pass the exams very well almost solely by memorisation/rote learning/regurgitation - almost everyone does it. It's expected of us. It's a waste of time trying to understand fully all the concepts that are in the notes that the lecturer goes over in class when you can look at previous exam papers and easily memorise the method of answering the questions.

Of course, I didn't say that my "education" is based solely on memorisation but it is far too large a part of it. Then again if universities suddenly expected us to understand and think for ourselves almost everyone would fail since our schools actively discourage this sort of behaviour as it is less successful at acing exams, which in turn affects the school's results which then affects how much money it gets.

Again, this is not caused by universities. You are mixing up cause and effect. Universities want nothing more than to teach for the sake of learning. They are being forced to change their ways to make a degree more relevant to today's job environment, whatever that means.

I did not say that it is caused by universities but I am rather disappointed that they are selling out, so to speak, by becoming tests of how much bull**** someone will tolerate rather than centres of learning.

The real rip-off is the job market.

Yes.

Sounds like a typical day at the office. Seriously.

Probably, yes, I'll see for myself soon enough. But at least I'll be getting paid for it rather than the other way round.

And then they structure their education to get what employers are looking for. If you want a brilliant C++ programmer, there is no need to get a bachelor's degree. You can take a quick test, and quickly see if the person is a good C++ programmer.

What you *can't* figure out from a quick test, is whether or not, the person is willing and able to fill out a dozen stupid forms to meet a stupid deadline, and able to sit in a long boring and useless lecture. That's what a bachelor degree proves. It's basically a certification that you can control your emotions, meet deadlines, and manage schedules.

Before the 1960's, people used military experience for that certification. One advantage of college is that people aren't shooting at you.

Do they really, though? If that was the case, if my engineering degree was truly structured around what employers want, then why do employers also want me to go through so many assessment centres and tests?

Employers also want people who can think for themselves, think of new ways of doing things, and be self sufficient. The degree proves none of that. Real life isn't like university where there's a past-paper question extremely similar to this one, or it's answered in section 4.3.2 of the notes. Employers can't have hundreds of employees sitting around who don't have the foresight to see what needs to be done and who can't actually understand what is being done.

That's not a bad deal if you get a job in the end. It stinks if you don't.

I'd argue that it's still a bad deal for those who do get a job because they had to jump through many more hoops than their fathers and grandfathers.

 

[twofish-quant]

Perhaps, but it's really, really difficult to do deep science with any sort of cookbook lab experiment. Part of the problem with cookbook experiments is that I know what the answer is going to be, and part of me thinks that if you know what the answer to an experiment is going to be, you really aren't doing deep science.

One thing that you can teach in cookbook experiments is data presentation. I'm a bit fan of Edward Tufte.

I suppose that is the problem. I personally think everyone who reads a report is looking to be convinced of something or to have something explained. So to me, it means people who don't care about the nit picky stuff. Maybe that's a bad assumption?

Format becomes important in some situations. For example, often the reader is going through a large stack of reports, at which point things like margins, page limits, and fonts suddenly become extremely important. Something that perhaps gets lost is sometimes the question of "why". For example, I thought that margin limits and fonts sizes were silly, until I asked "why" and it was explained to me that you need things to be that way so that you can microfilm everything.

 

[twofish-quant]

No, but as places of education, they shouldn't be whoring themselves out as mere services that get people from high school to a job.

I don't know if I agree. As I see it, if I get a bunch of people interested in spending their lives thinking about the mysteries of the universe, part of my job is to make sure that they manage to find themselves in a financial situation so that they can spend their lives thinking about the mysteries of the universe.

My problem isn't necessarily that universities shouldn't be job placement services, but rather that universities aren't that good at that, and there are conflicts of interest that universities have to watch out for.

I did not say that it is caused by universities but I am rather disappointed that they are selling out, so to speak, by becoming tests of how much bull**** someone will tolerate rather than centres of learning.

I went to school somewhere that *encouraged* students and faculty to sell out. It's not selling out that concerns me. It's getting a good deal. My university was started by someone in the 1860's with the basic idea that if you build machines to do the work, you wouldn't need slaves, so working with industry is part of the deal, and it's a good thing.

Part of this is that I was educated in the US, and one of the explicit purposes of the place that I was educated at is to destroy class boundaries, and that means figuring out how a poor person is going to be able to get the time and money to think about Plato.

Do they really, though? If that was the case, if my engineering degree was truly structured around what employers want, then why do employers also want me to go through so many assessment centres and tests?

Because tests are cheap. Having someone test you for deep knowledge is extremely expensive.

Employers also want people who can think for themselves, think of new ways of doing things, and be self sufficient.

Not always. Sometimes the last thing that your employer wants you to do is to think for yourself, because if you think for yourself, you realize how badly you are being treated, and you end up demanding more money, which lowers the amount that the employer gets.

I remember once that I had a salesman sell me insurance. I knew that the insurance that he was selling me was terrible, but I really couldn't blame the salesman. Someone told the salesman to say what he was saying, and he sort of believed what he was saying. In this situation, it helps *NOT* to be intelligent and to *NOT* ask too many questions, because if you are too intelligent and if you ask too many questions, you couldn't peddle bad insurance.

There are lots of jobs like that. There are also jobs in which you spend eight hours a day putting slot A into tab B. People that are particularly intelligent or creative tend to go crazy doing that.

What I'm saying is that it's a bad idea to make your life depend on what your employer wants, since your employer wants a cheap robot, and you happen to be a human being.

Employers can't have hundreds of employees sitting around who don't have the foresight to see what needs to be done and who can't actually understand what is being done.

Depends on the industry. But in most industries, it turns out that you need only a relatively small number of people that think, and everyone else takes orders. Part of the problem if you like to think is to know when to shut up and take orders (and conversely when not to shut up and refuse to take orders).

One problem is that if you have a lot of smart people trying to decide what needs to be done, it can take a *huge* amount of time to make a decision. For some things, a quick bad decision is a lot better than no decision, so in those situations you need a few people to make decisions and then everyone else to follow them even if they disagree with them. For some things, there really is no way of resolving the answer by thought. For example, suppose I have money to open a restaurant. It can be Italian or French. If you have a hundred people debate which is better then nothing gets done. You sometimes just need someone to say, we are starting an Italian restaurant, and that person often doesn't need to be intelligent in the engineering sense.

I'd argue that it's still a bad deal for those who do get a job because they had to jump through many more hoops than their fathers and grandfathers.

I'm not so sure that's true. In the case of my father, one hoop that I didn't have to jump through that he did was "get United States citizenship."

The other point is that if universities didn't do this "teach people about bureaucracy" part, someone else would have to, and in the case of people born in the US before 1960, the someone else was the military. I think it's progress when you can learn about taking orders without getting shot at by real bullets.

 

[twofish-quant]

If you want to be able to go to school on your own schedule and get a degree quickly without taking hard classes, you go to a for-profit school where you pay far more than the degree is actually worth by comparative standards (meaning, a degree from a for-profit school costs more than you'd pay at a state university, where you'd probably get a better education).

Having worked at both a state university and at a for-profit university, I don't think that you would necessarily get a better education at a state university. Most state universities are just not set up to teach the type of students that for-profits are.

University of Phoenix is a lot like McDonalds. If you work at UoP as an adjunct, it's like working at McDonalds flipping burgers. However the genius of UoP, is that you can take burger flippers and create a pretty consistent and good product.

I personally have a degree in english literature. My current job has absolutely nothing to do with it, but three years out of school I am in a supervisory position making more than most of my peers. I'm won't say whether my degree prepared me for my job in some nontangible way, but it's a fact that I wouldn't be where I am without it.

I have a Ph.D. in astrophysics, and my current job is really close to what I was doing when I was at school. My ambition was always to be a permanent graduate student, and I've come pretty close. The interesting thing is that almost none of my skills are things that I learned in a formal class. I get paid to program computers, but in my entire life, I've only taken one class on computer programming and everything else I taught myself. However, in order to teach myself computer programming, someone had to give me access to a computer cluster and a library. So the university was pretty essential for my current position, even though the classes there were not.

 

[SpeedOfDark]

You can teach yourself, and while it may appear that many business's don't higher people without degrees may be true A lot do. Don't waste $100,000 if you don't want to go to college don't go because someone else THINKS they know what's best for you. Go to college because you love to learn or maybe even because you love to get drunk and meet girls. Go because YOU want to not because everyone else does.

 

[CheckMate]

Yes you can teach yourself, but if you want funding for your research , you need to have a PhD.

College does cost a lot and that's because the government and educational institutions prey on people's needs or what seems to be needs for some. The government gets more money from interests of loans and institutions can raise the cost as they see fit. A university like MIT is prestigious and some people would pay more than 100K a year just to attend it.

 

[twofish-quant]

Yes you can teach yourself, but if you want funding for your research , you need to have a PhD.

You really don't.

A university like MIT is prestigious and some people would pay more than 100K a year just to attend it.

Which is really a terrible reason for going to MIT, and it's deeply ironic. One of the most important things that you learn at MIT was that prestige is total nonsense. I wouldn't pay 10 cents for MIT prestige. Now there are *other* things that you learn at MIT, which are useful.

One thing that you do learn is a little arrogance. Something that you find out when you meet Nobel prize winners and CEO's of big companies is that they are human and like all humans some of them are total jerks. Once you realize that people that you are in awe of are just human, there's a little voice inside of you that says "hey, if so-so can do X, so can I."

Something that happened to me was that I left MIT hating MIT. It turns out that that's because I had a really good education there. If I had a sub-standard education, I'd be happy about my education, but I can think of a dozen things wrong with MIT (e.g. they are being totally incompetent with what they are doing with Open Courseware), and I left tremendously dissatisfied. That's good. Because the second you are satisfied, there is nothing to improve.

 

[Shaun_W]

One of the most important things that you learn at MIT was that prestige is total nonsense.

I always thought that prestige was a large factor in certain types of jobs in determining whether the recruiter would put your CV in the "to interview" pile rather than file 13. Would go a long way in explaining why certain types of jobs in certain industries are comprised almost exclusively from graduates from a select few universities, when some of these universities can even be hundreds of miles away.

 

[twofish-quant]

I always thought that prestige was a large factor in certain types of jobs in determining whether the recruiter would put your CV in the "to interview" pile rather than file 13.

It's not (at least in most finance companies).

Once you get to the point where the recruiter *reads* your CV, you've already won half the battle. At that point prestige becomes unimportant, and once you get to the first phone screen, it's totally irrelevant.

However, its true that recruiters will focus recruitment on some schools, but that's not because of "prestige." It's like Toys R'Us or Best Buy. If you want to buy a TV set, you head over to the local Best Buy, where someone will sell it to you. It's not that Best Buy is "prestigious" but because the people at Best Buy have done their marketing, and you know what you can get decent TV's there, and having one stop to do your shopping, makes it pretty convenient for you.

You can think of universities as "Brains R' US." The career services department of a university is something of a marketing department, and they go around to companies trying to convince HR to have job fairs at their university. If you can get your resume into the stack of resumes that the recruiter looks out, he really isn't going to care that much what school you went to.

It's just that this nice career services rep from X University just handed him a big stack of great resumes from X University, and if you didn't go to X University, career services isn't going to put your resume in the stack.

Would go a long way in explaining why certain types of jobs in certain industries are comprised almost exclusively from graduates from a select few universities, when some of these universities can even be hundreds of miles away.

Except that's not the real reason. One reason universities like to talk about "prestige" is that it benefits them. Harvard wants to make you think that if you don't go to Harvard, you are dead meat. Now it turns out that once you understand the system, you can figure out how to play it even if you didn't go to Harvard, but Harvard isn't going to give you that information.

Also networking helps a lot. If company X hires a person from school Y, then that person is going to be in a position to tell everyone else from school Y how to get a job in company X.

 

[gravenewworld]

Now that depends. 10 years after you graduate, heck even after 5 years, employers don't even really care anymore where you graduate from, only your work experience. It makes absolutely no sense to take more than $15-20k total for 4 years of college in loans. Anything more, and you should just walk away, no matter who's name is on the potential degree you would be walking away from. Graduating from a "prestigious" institution matters much more with a graduate degree, but no one should ever pay for a graduate degree outside of JD or MD. Is college a rip off? It all depends on how much debt you have to walk away with.

 

[mathwonk]

College changed my life. I came out of a small high school in the south and went to harvard. It was quite a struggle but exposed me to people from all over the world and many much more sophisticated and more well educated than me. I had professors who were world experts in their fields and their lectures gave me a view of the level one could aspire to. I seldom got to know them however.

then I went to grad school at Brandeis and was taught by people who were not only experts but actually expected us to understand, not just listen to them, and it raised the bar further again. The smaller classes enabled us to interact more with these experts. I got a masters degree there.

then at Utah I found teachers who showed me how to go beyond the lectures and books to do my own original work, and I got my PhD there by finally entering the world of original research, not just solving problems books said were solvable but tackling ones that were still unknown. The key here was learning to see what should be true and have faith in ones own intuition.

After a few years as a junior faculty member I visited harvard again as a postdoc and was privileged to listen to and ask questions of some of the best researchers in the world. what a gift!

I don't feel ripped off. By the way, if you are a good student the tuition is often paid by someone else, in the form of scholarships. But weak students, or those who do not realize their own value, do tend to pay their own way, and handsomely. So wise up and ask for support, if you can make the case.

 

[Fizex]

• It's a rip-off when you have to buy a $200 brand new textbook written by professors at your own university (slightly revised Xth edition) and then only use the first 4 chapter's problem sets.
  
• It's a rip-off when you pay transportation fees for the bus, fees for the gym, fees for the tech labs, when you walk around campus, run outside for exercise, and use your own computer.
  
• It's a rip-off when your professors recite the textbook's content instead of giving you insight and different perspective.

But it's still worth the investment.

Can you think of any more rip-offs?

 

[elfboy]

You don't need college to make money, and in fact it's probably a ripoff when you consider the loans will live with you for the rest of your life. Unless you're going to an ivy league or MIT, caltech it's not worth it.
I took a 3 month break from math to make $220K with facebook and i still didn't finish college (i'm 25)and still earn $2000-4000/day with facebook

 

[zketrouble]

• 
  Can you think of any more rip-offs?

• 
  
  It's a ripoff when college doesn't end up finding you the job you wanted and you're stuck with $100K+ in loans.
  
  
  For me the only real value I have gotten thus far (2 1/2 years) from college is that this great accumulating debt makes me feel obligated to study and learn, whereas if I weren't in college I would be spending a lot more time sitting around on facebook and at the pub.
  
  It's also nice to have a degree on your belt, because it doesn't seem to matter how brilliant you are at particle physics, math, chemistry, (insert subject), employers want to see a degree. But a degree doesn't guarantee you a position at a desired job, it merely provides a CHANCE at you getting the job you seek. And you blow more money based on the credentials of the school you choose, those chances get higher; MIT masters will improve your success chances more than a community college would.
  
  Summarized, if one wanted to study a science by himself and learn a subject just as good as all the college folks, he could do it. And if he didn't care about being employed and would rather engineer a means of producing biofuel or any other valuable commodity, he could make money in his/her field without a degree.

 

[Vanadium 50]

It's a ripoff when college doesn't end up finding you the job you wanted and you're stuck with $100K+ in loans.

Why is it college's responsibility to find you a job? Trade schools, yes. But college?

But a degree doesn't guarantee you a position at a desired job, it merely provides a CHANCE at you getting the job you seek.

And isn't this as it should be?

Summarized, if one wanted to study a science by himself and learn a subject just as good as all the college folks, he could do it.

I doubt that. Take a look at the scientific journals. How much is being published by people without college degrees?

 

[elfboy]

I doubt that. Take a look at the scientific journals. How much is being published by people without college degrees?

that doesn't mean it can't be done

 

[russ_watters]

that doesn't mean it can't be done

No, it means it isn't being done. And so then one needs to ask onesself: am I really that good that I can be the first?

 

[DR13]

You don't need college to make money, and in fact it's probably a ripoff when you consider the loans will live with you for the rest of your life. Unless you're going to an ivy league or MIT, caltech it's not worth it.
I took a 3 month break from math to make $220K with facebook and i still didn't finish college (i'm 25)and still earn $2000-4000/day with facebook

If your story is true (and I'm not necessarily doubting you) then you are lucky and an outlier. I would not recommend to others to follow that path. It is much more likely to live a good life if one gets a college degree. That does not mean go 100K into debt. Why not just go to a cheaper school. That is much better than saying screw it and trying to teach yourself. In current day it is much easier to get a job with a degree.

And if you don't mind me asking, what exactly do you do with facebook?

 

[twofish-quant]

Summarized, if one wanted to study a science by himself and learn a subject just as good as all the college folks, he could do it.

I don't think it is possible to study science by yourself. You absolutely need some sort of social interaction to learn science. Now, I think it's *possible* to learn physics as well as someone with an undergraduate degree, but that's something different. You still need to interact with people.

One thing about colleges and universities is that they provide a lot more than courses. If someone wanted to study physics on his own, it helps a lot to have access to a research library and a computer cluster, and that's one thing that a college provides.

And if he didn't care about being employed and would rather engineer a means of producing biofuel or any other valuable commodity, he could make money in his/her field without a degree.

One thing that colleges provide is career services and all sorts of meetings where you can interact with people that can teach you how to market an idea.

Personally, I don't think that degrees are that important, but colleges are a lot more than degrees.

 

[twofish-quant]

Why is it college's responsibility to find you a job? Trade schools, yes. But college?

At this point, we get into issues of basic philosophy, but I do think that it is the college's responsibility to find you a job. Part of it is that when I convince an eight year old that it's wonderful to have a life based on discovering the mysteries of the universe, I also think it's my responsibility to set up a system so that this eight year old will eventually be able to find a way of eating so that they can discover the mysteries of the universe.

Also, I don't think that there really should be a distinction between trade schools and colleges.

Again, this is an issue of basic educational philosophy, and it's not obvious how to resolve this.

I doubt that. Take a look at the scientific journals. How much is being published by people without college degrees?

On the other hand, very little scientific is being published by people that speak only Armenian. It's not that Armenians aren't smart or that Armenian happens to inherently unsuited for science. It just so happens that by historical accident, English happened to be the language of science, so it really participate in the conversation, you really need to not only learn English, but a very weird form of English.

Also, it can get self-defeating. Very little is academic in finance is published by people that don't have Ph.D.'s from a big name college, but academic finance is pretty much useless because of that. Part of the reason for this is that if you can't do the math, you are unlikely to have anything useful to say about particle physics, but if you are an Armenian truck driver that speaks no English, you are likely to have some very deep insights on the finance of Armenia.

 

[zketrouble]

Why is it college's responsibility to find you a job? Trade schools, yes. But college?


And isn't this as it should be?


I doubt that. Take a look at the scientific journals. How much is being published by people without college degrees?

a) It isn't college's responsibility to find you a job. However, people are going to college for the primary purpose of getting a better job (alongside academic reasons).

b) I'd think such a great investment in schooling would be more respected by employers and boost odds of getting a job a lot more than it does in the real world. Fine, employers aren't required to hire you simply because you've finished your M.S. or PhD., but college should at least increase your career chances enough to make it worth a $100K bid on the college roulette wheel.

c) Not much is being independently these days. However, that isn't to say that it cannot be done. Anybody can learn something without the assistance of college, but they won't get research funding without a PhD on them. You could still get by quite fine if you know your subject well and tutor it for $30 an hour. I was tutoring English to nonnative speakers by this same means. There are options for work in the science field without going to college. That is not to say that college doesn't have its benefits.

 

[bobthenormal]

You really don't.
Which is really a terrible reason for going to MIT, and it's deeply ironic. One of the most important things that you learn at MIT was that prestige is total nonsense. I wouldn't pay 10 cents for MIT prestige. Now there are *other* things that you learn at MIT, which are useful.

One thing that you do learn is a little arrogance. Something that you find out when you meet Nobel prize winners and CEO's of big companies is that they are human and like all humans some of them are total jerks. Once you realize that people that you are in awe of are just human, there's a little voice inside of you that says "hey, if so-so can do X, so can I."

Something that happened to me was that I left MIT hating MIT. It turns out that that's because I had a really good education there. If I had a sub-standard education, I'd be happy about my education, but I can think of a dozen things wrong with MIT (e.g. they are being totally incompetent with what they are doing with Open Courseware), and I left tremendously dissatisfied. That's good. Because the second you are satisfied, there is nothing to improve.

I agree with the lesson you learned at MIT, I learned a similar lesson at my school. However, I'm sure you've noticed that many people see those arrogant famous/rich people and they still don't learn that those people are human too.

I went to a talk one time and the speaker was asked "How much do you have to work?" and he immediately answered "Well, to be clear, I don't have to work, I'm rich. I could spend all day lying on a beach in Hawaii if I wanted to. I work because I enjoy it.." and he went on to answer what the questioner meant to ask.
I thought that was such a realistic thing to say, and I appreciated the point he was making (that he does and you should enjoy your work), but I ran into someone a few days later else who was at the talk (and who ironically called himself an "entrepreneur" with a kind of underdog arrogance). And he brought up that response and said "Wow what an arrogant thing to say!"
He was genuinely mad and offended by the response above, that the speaker had said he was so rich he could just lie on the beach. He also tended to paint the guy as a faux success, basically trying to claim that his 'arrogance' was something that would hurt his ability to succeed. And, of course, if HE were ever to be that rich he would never be so arrogant.
My point being, not everyone learns the same things from the same experiences, so I'm not sure if I'd accredit MIT with teaching you that lesson; certainly it might be easier to draw the correct (according to you and I anyway) understanding of the world when you're exposed to the "best" all the time and see the (probably disappointing) reality, but I think if you're really looking for those answers you'll find them eventually anyway. Maybe MIT just speeds up the process a bit?

Out of curiosity, what is the incompetence with OCW you referred to?

 

[twofish-quant]

a) It isn't college's responsibility to find you a job. However, people are going to college for the primary purpose of getting a better job (alongside academic reasons).

I think it is. One big issue that is being debated right now is the "gainful employment rule." The US Department of Education is considering rules that would end federal loans to for-profit universities in which students aren't being "gainfully employed" in order to cut down on default rates, and one obvious question is why should non-profit universities get special treatment for federally-subsidized loans. I don't think they should.

Once universities start accepting loans particularly taxpayer subsidized ones, then they have a responsibility to make sure that those loans are being paid back, otherwise we have a repeat of the sub-prime housing mess.

 

[twofish-quant]

he immediately answered "Well, to be clear, I don't have to work, I'm rich. I could spend all day lying on a beach in Hawaii if I wanted to. I work because I enjoy it.." and he went on to answer what the questioner meant to ask.

What's curious is that it's not that difficult to arrange your finances so that you can spend all day lying on a bench. If you make $70K, but live like you make $30K, then you'll have enough money after a decade to move off to Costa Rica.

On the other end, it's not hard to find people that make $700K and are living paycheck to paycheck.

Out of curiosity, what is the incompetence with OCW you referred to?

I'm thinking of Xerox PARC that invented the GUI interface, did nothing with it, and then Apple came along. Personally, I'd like it if MIT was a leader in the next wave of education, but I don't think institutionally that this will happen. The problem right now is that there is no easy way of taking learning with OCW converting it into academic credit and then using that academic credit to get a degree that will let you make money. I think this would destroy MIT if they did it themselves, but they could be a but more active at trying to partner and support people that are using OCW in new ways.

I don't think that anyone *personally* is being incompetent, but one of the things that you learn is that you can have extremely competent people and they just happen to be in a system that is *institutionally* incompetent. MIT is curiously an extremely bureaucratic and slow institution. Most things work by consensus that consensus-based organizations have their limits.

 

[zketrouble]

I think it is. One big issue that is being debated right now is the "gainful employment rule." The US Department of Education is considering rules that would end federal loans to for-profit universities in which students aren't being "gainfully employed" in order to cut down on default rates, and one obvious question is why should non-profit universities get special treatment for federally-subsidized loans. I don't think they should.

Once universities start accepting loans particularly taxpayer subsidized ones, then they have a responsibility to make sure that those loans are being paid back, otherwise we have a repeat of the sub-prime housing mess.

I don't think it is college's responsibility to find you a job. One has to be dedicated and search for him/her-self, check his options, show that he/she is a confident individual who can be of use to an employer. Gainful employment rules have some good behind them though. I do think college should boost your chances of success and your salary enough to make it worth losing 6 years of income to study for a masters degree, plus all the loans you have to pay back AT LEAST. But to put the responsibility on the university to find you a job seems a little overboard. One can be a good student but not a good employee, and employers should have the right to decide who is worth paying and who is not. What if the university can't find one a job because he's an irresponsible dumbarse when it comes to the workforce?

College should boost ones chances enough to make it worth the time, money, and effort that college requires. Requiring universities to find their alumni job positions is going too far, as a PhD alumnus should be grown up enough to put that effort in himself. If employers do not respect the time/effort students spend in a particular school then that school should be discredited for selling a false hope.

 

[twofish-quant]

I don't think it is college's responsibility to find you a job. One has to be dedicated and search for him/her-self, check his options, show that he/she is a confident individual who can be of use to an employer.

So where do you learn to do that?

Also employers invariably will not tell you what they want. That's where career services comes in. Also employers rely on colleges to recruit employees. One big fallacy is the idea that employers will look at a resume from people from school X and make a decision as to whether or not to hire that person. That's not how that works. What happens is that employers will go to school X, have social events, interview sessions, and then come back to the office with a dozen resumes from school X. It's not that the employer will toss your resume if you aren't from school X, it's that if you aren't from school X, your resume just will not make it to the employers desk.

Getting a job is all about connections and networks.

Colleges and universities happen to be one of the major "job markets" which is why they get funded.

What if the university can't find one a job because he's an irresponsible dumbarse when it comes to the workforce?

Then that person shouldn't have gotten my money to attend the university. If the university is willing to pay me back my money, then I don't have a problem. If the university washes their hands of the problem, then it becomes my problem since you now have an unpaid loan that is going to come out of my bank account in some way. Also if they don't have a job, then it's also going to come out of my tax money.

Also colleges particularly at the undergraduate level to have the responsibility to teach responsibility. If someone is totally unteachable, then why did the college admit them, and how did he or she make it through? If you can get a bachelor's degree, you aren't totally unteachable.

Requiring universities to find their alumni job positions is going too far, as a PhD alumnus should be grown up enough to put that effort in himself.

[

Nonsense. Just because you can do quantum field theory doesn't mean that you can write a decent resume, and one of the jobs for Ph.D. programs that I think colleges are doing very badly at it. The problem with relying on the student is that often the student does not know what they do not know.

One thing that you quickly learn about business is that it's not about you. You can be the smartest most brilliant person, but if you don't know the right people, that's going to be useless to you. One thing about colleges is that one of their functions is so that you get to meet the right people (and the right people are often other alumni).

 

[bobthenormal]

The problem right now is that there is no easy way of taking learning with OCW converting it into academic credit and then using that academic credit to get a degree that will let you make money. I think this would destroy MIT if they did it themselves, but they could be a but more active at trying to partner and support people that are using OCW in new ways.

I have long held the belief, from when I used to do more programming, that one day the more general education classes (I would include most 2nd and 3rd year university courses in physics, math, and engineering) could be taught through a combination of interactive programs (mostly to organize and make useful knowledge-bases) and things like OCW. I've heard rumors of people doing it also, but I don't think it's really workable right now.

The main problem I see is, as you say, there is no reason any educator would want to construct such a system - it would ruin their livelihood. (Maybe that is why OCW had a huge growth spurt to start and then suddenly things just stopped? When they realized what they were doing haha. I don't really know about it though.)

I think it will have to come down to a government or state funded project. Or maybe something like the Gates foundation, after they cure everything and get us on ultra-cheap long-lasting nuclear (heh).

I don't think that anyone *personally* is being incompetent, but one of the things that you learn is that you can have extremely competent people and they just happen to be in a system that is *institutionally* incompetent. MIT is curiously an extremely bureaucratic and slow institution. Most things work by consensus that consensus-based organizations have their limits.

I see what you meant then - interestingly, I usually prefer the slow and methodical methods over rash movements, but sometimes playing it safe leaves you obsolete. It'll be interesting to see how things evolve over the years in "digital education," or whatever it might be called.

--Bob

 

[twofish-quant]

I have long held the belief, from when I used to do more programming, that one day the more general education classes (I would include most 2nd and 3rd year university courses in physics, math, and engineering) could be taught through a combination of interactive programs (mostly to organize and make useful knowledge-bases) and things like OCW. I've heard rumors of people doing it also, but I don't think it's really workable right now.

Since I like inventing the future, the question that I'm asking is "why is it not workable, and what can I do to make it workable?"

The big bottlenecks here are social and political, and if you look at those bottlenecks, I don't see them lasting very long.

One big problem is that people look at the "college experience" as a series of courses when I'd argue that the classroom is probably one of the *least* important parts of the college experience. That part of the problem is already done. One part that was missing was the career and academic advising parts, but things like this forum are fixing that part.

The only really big issue that I see is being able to monetize learning. I've taken a course, how do I convert that into cash to finance that learning?

The main problem I see is, as you say, there is no reason any educator would want to construct such a system - it would ruin their livelihood.

1) Ultimately you have to point out that the purpose of education is to educate. There is something in the teacher-student relationship that is similar to parent-child relationship. If you construct a system that messes up your life, but creates a better world for your kids, that's a good thing.

2) Something that you find in industries with massive technology changes is that your job as a company is to ruin your livelihood. If you don't construct a new system that destroys the old, you are going to be dead when that system evolves anyway.

(Maybe that is why OCW had a huge growth spurt to start and then suddenly things just stopped? When they realized what they were doing haha. I don't really know about it though.)

It's partly because MIT changed Presidents. OCW got a lot of political support from Vest and Hockfield wasn't quite as interested in it. It's not that Hockfield is a bad person, it's just that OCW is not on the two or three things that she cares most about. The other two people that are "thought leaders" at MIT are Hal Abelson and Woody Flowers. And then you have the ghosts of Margaret MacVicar and William Barton Rogers still influencing things.

MIT tends to change presidents every decade, and so one of the things that I'm interested in is the selection process for the president after Hockfield. Something that I think is going to be essential is if the corporation chooses someone that does put OCW on the list of two or three things that they care about.

I think it will have to come down to a government or state funded project.

US universities are massively subsidized by the government. There is a big difference between government-funded and government-managed. Government managed projects are political minefields. There are hundreds of interest groups, and any time you try something new, you have thousands of people that can and will say NO.

One thing that governments do is to write checks to institutions that aren't under these sorts of constraints. MIT gets massive amounts of money from the US federal government. Government gives MIT money with the only real string attached being to "do something that helps the US maintain global control." Here's money, come back with cool stuff.

If you want something done that is new and creative, you don't want more than twenty people involved. Fewer people, less political inertia. The venture capital system works this way. Instead of given a billion dollars to one company, you give 100 different loans of $10 million to different startups. 98 of the startups will blow up. 2 will change the world.

I see what you meant then - interestingly, I usually prefer the slow and methodical methods over rash movements, but sometimes playing it safe leaves you obsolete. It'll be interesting to see how things evolve over the years in "digital education," or whatever it might be called.

Except that digital education isn't a new thing. MIT is a very slow bureaucratic, consensus-based, risk adverse organization. Columbia and NYU are much less slow and bureaucratic than MIT, but they invested hundreds of millions of dollars into e-learning, and it all blew up on them (see Fathom). MIT was an extreme late comer to digital education with OCW so they avoided a lot of the mistakes.