Over the past 25 years the total number of students in college has increased by about 50 percent. But the number of students graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (the so-called STEM fields) has remained more or less constant. ... we graduated more students with computer science degrees 25 years ago!
College Has Been Oversold

While I agree with his general point that college has been oversold and a degree generally isn't as useful as it was years ago, he is wrong for assuming that if everyone got a degree in STEM fields we'd be better off.

Many of those jobs have already been outsourced and wages have dropped because there are tons of people in places like China and India that can do the work dirt cheap. Telling Americans to turn themselves into code monkeys isn't going to somehow magically make us better off.

Who the hell really thinks there's something wonderful about crunching code at a desk for ten hours a day? Most of the pioneering guys that started out in those fields in the 60s and 70s were only able to bear it because they were on psychadelic drugs half the time.

Quote: (12-30-2011 11:47 AM)Vitriol Wrote:  

a degree generally isn't as useful as it was years ago, he is wrong for assuming that if everyone got a degree in STEM fields we'd be better off.

The general point is STEM's provide job opportunities and positive social spillovers. But enrollment has increased only in soft fields with no job skills nor public benefits that justify educational subsidy.

We would indeed be better off if 10% more students majored in STEM fields instead of soft majors. They don't need to become programmers. They can ultimately manage programmers, market technology products, or become science journalists. Good example: Roosh uses his biology training and computer savvy to run this site with an empirical scientific approach to game.

Read "The Education of Millionaires" for a full ass-whooping on the idea of going to college. "Skip College" by JJ Luna is alright too (written by the guy who wrote "How to Be Invisible"), but he doesn't give it quite the tongue lashing that Ellsberg does in my first recommendation.

One of the biggest misconceptions is that most higher-paying computer-related jobs are mostly programming/coding. While I will admit that I did a lot of coding during the first 5 years of my now 20+ year career in software engineering, the last 15 years has been a mixture of conceptual design, detailed design and some administration and project team management. There are many days where I may write code for a grand total of 30 minutes and the rest of my day is basically consulting...aka "flapping my mouth" with clients.

You guys should read slashdot or any of the tech/science boards and blogs.

There are plenty of out-of-work STEM people and underpaid grad students.

And there are also a lot of open STEM positions.

So how come the 2 don't cancel each other out?

Management is often 1) unwilling to pay market rates for ppl with the 5 years experience in a super specialized field, (have you read some of these ads) 2) unwilling to train people to do the job.

And that's because at the top level, training workers is as important as R&D - i.e. not very because management only needs to beat the competition each quarter so that the stock prices go up and they can get compensated.

Penny wise and pound foolish.

I won't even go into the general weed out mentality of most STEM programs all over the country. Pretty much anyone that can do calculus can be an engineer, but a lot of STEM courses design their curriculum to sort out the people that get it immediately from everyone else.

Most of education is about "creaming" - identifying the fast learners and giving them credentials.

Everyone has short term incentives to do what they do.

I think STEM + Ivy/Top 25 undergrad still holds its value.

You not only need the root knowledge but also 'credibility' to get on a career path. Education has been commoditized and it can be considered one more piece of ammo in your arsenal of skills.

I would dig deeper than just STEM. Instead of Engineering, learn about Petroleum Engineering. Instead of Discrete math learn about financial engineering. I was looking at the Oil/Gas field recently. In terms of training Penn State is the closest school in the Northeast that offer the Petroleum Engineering masters programs. In this case, the specialized training trumps the name brand of school. A small school like Colorado School of Mines consistently places its graduates in well earning positions in the exploration and mining space.

If we ignore STEM and top 25 degrees, I think that the biggest problem is the issue of degree necessity vs. expense.

Yes, a college degree doesn't return the value that it did in the past. But that is ONLY because it has become a minimum requirement in so many situations. So while the average non-STEM/top 25 college graduate doesn't have the options that they might have expected, a person with NO college degree is pretty much screwed in this society, unless they have specialized technical skills.

Back in the 40's, my grandfather, who only had a GED, returned from WWII and was able to get a good union job, that allowed him to live a solid middle-class lifestyle and send all 4 of his kids to college and grad school. Today, with just a GED, someone like my grandfather would only have a career in fast food to look for. The few higher paying, middle class, jobs available to non-college graduates are getting increasingly hard to get because of the intense competition for them. A college degree has become what the high school diploma was back in the '70s.

At the same time, young people are going into EXTRAORDINARY amounts of debt to attend college. You have folks graduating with $100K+ in debt for a liberal arts degree from some no-name private university. These are the folks at Occupy Wall Street who are pissed. We have been fed this line that if you just "get your education" or "get your degree" it will ALWAYS be worthwhile. As a result you have tens of thousands of students who sign up for degree programs with absolutely no consideration on whether the cost for THAT SPECIFIC SCHOOL/PROGRAM is worth it when compared to other options.

Let me give an example. Why would someone spend close to $200K in tuition and dorm fees to go to a no name private residential university, when they could spend a quarter to a fifth of that to live at home and go to the local state school? Even going to a residential state university and living in the dorms would save you almost $100K over the 4-5 years that you are attaining a degree, compared to a private university.

What students need to do is employ better strategies to get a degree for the least amount of money possible. There are options out there to dramatically cut the cost of your education. It is still possible to get a college degree for under $20K, even under $10K if you do it right. I have a relative that had to drop out of school over a decade ago because she could not afford the private college tuition. They were considering returning to the same college and completing her final two years there at a cost of about $40K-$50K total. I am working with her now, and we have found another school where her total cash outlay should be less than $6K to get her bachelors degree from a state college.

I can only speak of math/computer science majors and the field of software engineering. What students need to do is get the degree at a minimal cost WHILE getting the professional training to be marketable right away. TRUST ME on this....every software engineering employer I have worked for (and I job-hop a lot due to being a contractor) has a mix of graduate from many schools.

If you know something like Oracle or is a Java whiz, ALL YOU NEED is a degree from a HALFWAY decent university. Actually, I would tell potential software engineers to do the following....

1) Knock out you first two years at a COMMUNITY college.
2) Transfer to your home state's "flagship" school...either Your-Home-State University or University of Your-Home-State
3) Take additional training in in MAIN 3 AREAS that is vital to an employer's computing....Databases, Programming or Operating Systems. In other words...Oracle/SQL Server, C++/Java or Linux/Unix

Get hired, make good money with close to no student loans.

Had I had more balls in a different life, I'd go to alberta and rough neck and maybe get a community college degree and rack up the dough. And if I had huge balls, I'd go work in the mines of Western Australia and earn 200k a year. But I have a lot of committments that keep me tied down in Toronto for the next 5 years so any plan of that has to be delayed.

Since I'm stuck here getting a degree was more or less a good investment.

I went to college and got a degree in a subject that didn't enhance my employability at all. And yet, the whole experience still moved my career forward, because working at my student newspaper gave me the idea of freelancing, which led to my current gig (freelance copywriting).

Quote: (01-02-2012 11:36 AM)Andy_B Wrote:  

I went to college and got a degree in a subject that didn't enhance my employability at all. And yet, the whole experience still moved my career forward, because working at my student newspaper gave me the idea of freelancing, which led to my current gig (freelance copywriting).

Im very anti-college at this point, this is true. College is no longer about learning and degrees, if you want it to work for you it has to be about networking and ideacrafting. Use it to come up with an angle no or few people are using and connect with the people who you need to connect with to make it happen.

Quote: (01-02-2012 08:54 PM)Chad Daring Wrote:  

Quote: (01-02-2012 11:36 AM)Andy_B Wrote:  

I went to college and got a degree in a subject that didn't enhance my employability at all. And yet, the whole experience still moved my career forward, because working at my student newspaper gave me the idea of freelancing, which led to my current gig (freelance copywriting).

Im very anti-college at this point, this is true. College is no longer about learning and degrees, if you want it to work for you it has to be about networking and ideacrafting. Use it to come up with an angle no or few people are using and connect with the people who you need to connect with to make it happen.

It's true. It no longer offers any value that you can't get by aggressively hunting down information and contacts on the internet.

Quote: (01-03-2012 03:36 PM)Andy_B Wrote:  

It's true. It no longer offers any value that you can't get by aggressively hunting down information and contacts on the internet.

I wouldn't go that far. The friends you can easily make in college are the kind of people who's clout with one phone call can hold more sway then all the digging in the world.

This is what I missed. I dove head first into curriculum, I was one of the best in my class, turned out some of the best food in the fastest times, but my naturally misanthropic nature at the time kept me from making the friends and connections that I could've used to land the nice job that my skills deserved.

Quote: (01-03-2012 07:01 PM)Chad Daring Wrote:  

Quote: (01-03-2012 03:36 PM)Andy_B Wrote:  

It's true. It no longer offers any value that you can't get by aggressively hunting down information and contacts on the internet.

I wouldn't go that far. The friends you can easily make in college are the kind of people who's clout with one phone call can hold more sway then all the digging in the world.

This is what I missed. I dove head first into curriculum, I was one of the best in my class, turned out some of the best food in the fastest times, but my naturally misanthropic nature at the time kept me from making the friends and connections that I could've used to land the nice job that my skills deserved.

You need to go on "Top Chef"

Quote: (01-07-2012 12:37 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

Quote: (01-03-2012 07:01 PM)Chad Daring Wrote:  

Quote: (01-03-2012 03:36 PM)Andy_B Wrote:  

It's true. It no longer offers any value that you can't get by aggressively hunting down information and contacts on the internet.

I wouldn't go that far. The friends you can easily make in college are the kind of people who's clout with one phone call can hold more sway then all the digging in the world.

This is what I missed. I dove head first into curriculum, I was one of the best in my class, turned out some of the best food in the fastest times, but my naturally misanthropic nature at the time kept me from making the friends and connections that I could've used to land the nice job that my skills deserved.

You need to go on "Top Chef"

Top Chef like all reality TV is a crock of shit. I cant stand to watch it. I whole heartedly believe they use actors. I watched one episode where the executive chef of a seafood restaurant didn't know how to shuck oysters. I shucked oysters in school with a broken mainhand in a cast.

Chopped is probably the only good cooking competition show on the air, but I find it terribly pretentious in concept.

The oversupply of university graduates is a real problem in Australia that just keeps getting worse.

Its an interesting topic. And one I think that should go to the heart of red pill culture ie understanding the truth behind the mirage.

The problem with the article is that while there are some elements of truth, there is a hell of a lot of spin and bullshit.

Sure there are too many degrees given to people who aren't smart/capable enough for "traditional high standard degrees". But many of these people in the past would have done HNDs etc anyways. AND their air hostess/whatever bullshit now actually HAS "graduates only" requirements!

A second problem is that in numerous countries eg Britain, we have a complete lack of meritocracy. Some silly little rich girl who has no brains but an expensive education gets some flash job in finance and then packs it in for teaching after ten years. When in the past, that job would have gone to a hungry and smart guy from a normal background.

Some will say that technology has taken jobs away. Well its taken SOME jobs away. But tech has massively increased the potential options for businesses to develop. However, the problem is that they've used that tech to export quality jobs to frankly places that operate as "coolie countries" ie dirt cheap wages and slavemaster employer mentality. For the greedy bastards at the helm of our multinationals, thats a sick dream come true.

China has changed from rice fields, bicycles and fuck all to highly skilled jobs - the initial motor of which is almost exclusively US or European or "the Western club" companies. Now with companies like Huawei and the like, they can actually challenge and beat the companies like Apple and Motorola that allowed them to start off.

China has changed from 3rd (or even FOURTH world!) to cutting edge for a region that encompasses probably 450 million of its 1.4 billion people. Imagine even if 30% of those skilled jobs had gone to youngsters/others in the West! Imagine all that money recirculating and being grown amongst Western citizens. Most young people in the West would now be enjoying an utterly fantastic standard of living.

But instead there is an explosion of shitty jobs for young grads. Uber, Deliveroo (pizza deliverers), cold calling call centres. skivvys in hotels ie jobs that young can't actually export to China! Often they're actually far worse jobs than the so called "coolie country" jobs. Sometimes its factories producing cheap tat in the West, solely bcause freight costs make it uneconomical to produce them in China.

Some say that the West won the Cold War. I disagree. I reckon it was China and the like. While the US and Russia spent zillions on millions of ways to destroy the World 1000 x over, China was industrialising, planning to win the peace. Once a joke of a country, it became the envy of the World. Whereas Western standards of living have plummeted for many.

Under 40s in the West actually did EXACTLY what the (LMAO) "wise men" in education, economics and the media told them.
Get yourself skilled up in service industry/white collar. Do IT and programming. Do a law or business degree, do sciences. Do the "essential" of atleast one degree. They were told manufacturing was dead. That the public sector was shrinking, that programming was everything etc etc.

But what was the reality? The only guarantee a degree gave was a loss of earnings, debt, and being 5, 8, TEN years behnd on the career ladder. Grads who took current advice and tried to "start at the bottom" had personnel staff saying "oh u might be a bit overqualified, what do we do if you leave?" ie FUCK OFF.

Programming jobs often got outsourced to India, programmers skills became obsolete. I know one programmer who became a plumber - one of the very jobs people were being advised against. Few science grads get real science jobs ... outside of teaching! The safe, steady sector is actually public sector work - medicine, nursing, teaching, local govt etc. So much for the "business will be the engine of our economy" line! Private sector jobs are often lower pay, very short term and unstable and actually harder to find for so many! I know people with "new media" degrees doing quite well - yet their degrees were often decried as "gimmicky crap". Yet I know smart law grads who never used their law degrees or even got good salaried jobs at all! 1st class degree in science? Have you ever considered the "booming" fast food sector?

Its puzzling to gauge how all this happened. My view is that there was much "talking up the economy" AND what the future really was. Universities are appallingly dishonest and greedy profit makers. Vice Chancellors make ridiculous amounts of money. Even shitty ones demand mansions "to entertain guests"! Powerful forces wanted to oversee the export of their own capital abroad and to hell with their fellow citizens.
The Establishment wanted a glut of skilled labour, just like it wanted a glut of manual labour available in the past. Successive govts have no desire to stop the continued export of capital abroad. Just look at the Clinton gang. These same forces own much of the media, so they will continue to blame graduates for..... following the advice THE SAME peoople gave them 5, 10, TWENTY years earlier. Sure Trump will say "America first" - but who in the Establishment wants to back him?

My view is that we should start a boycott of Western companies who don't look after our own citizens. That way, they can fuck off and just sell to the Chinese!

College degrees are relatively easy to get, and not terribly expensive. They also tend to pay off within a year or two, versus other jobs where a person's just hoping to get a raise. Working for oneself is a nice thought, but a lot of business ideas require upfront capital

Quote: (08-04-2017 05:20 AM)Sonoma Wrote:  

College degrees are relatively easy to get, and not terribly expensive. They also tend to pay off within a year or two, versus other jobs where a person's just hoping to get a raise. Working for oneself is a nice thought, but a lot of business ideas require upfront capital

Depends where you study though.
A "top" US ivy league uni is horrifically expensive.
A British degree is fairly expensive in in fees alone. Adding the loss of income and it becomes a really sizeable cost for most.

Lots of research in Britain and the US suggests that many grads are actually taking an income reduction by studying.

The problem can be that by the time someone is 22 years or whatever, the guy who joined the company at 18 (often with no brains I might add) is now on a managerial semi fast track. While the grad is dicking around in a call centre.

Sure nurses, teachers, doctors etc earn "ok" because of their degrees.
But business jobs for grads are polarising into very good and (much more the case), shit income.

So for these people, a degree means less income in their 20s and much of their 30s. Their salaries probably only get better after that because they are smart and not because of their degrees.

Then there are other variables. For instance grads of top unis are also more likely to have family contacts fixing them up with good jobs, rather than the degree itself being the key factor.

Most top Ivy League schools offer near zero tuition if you're low-income (Stanford offers free tuition if your income is lower than the median American income).

As far as a time commitment, it's roughly 15 hours a week x 36 weeks x 4 years = ~2000 hours, or a full year of lost wages, which isn't really that much. Tuition will run about 20,000 total. Nurses can start at 60/hr, or 120,000 a year, which makes the tuition chump change and the full year of lost wages pretty minimal too.

Sonoma I would challenge your assumptions on time ommitment. I would presume for most people who are not geniuses/naturally gifted that outside of whatever class hours they do they would have to study their ass off to pass their assignments and exams. I would not be surprised if in prestigious universities in harder subjects like law or medicine or engineering if your average student in an Ivy league is putting in 50-60 hours per week (lets say 10-15 hours classes plus the rest being self study, assignments, etc).

I know people who studied subjects like medicine, law and engineering at good universities in Australia and generally these people were devoting an average of 40-60 hours per week in total (class time plus assignments and self study) for university. Sure, if you do an easy degree you can take it easy but for the more serious degrees not so much.

I don't know about U.S.A. but in Australia a starting salary for a Nurse is maybe $60,000 - $70,000 Australian dollars per year and that includes overtime, penalty rates for night shifts and weekends, etc.

I don't doubt that a degree in that field in an Ivy league will be closer to the time commitment you described. However, the pay off for that would also be considerably larger than am easier degree at an easier university.

Pay for nursing depends on state and region, but even in the cheaper parts of the state I live in, nurses start at 45/hr

Sonoma I cannot comment too much on the U.S. or Canadian university/college systems and the salary levels there but for Australia the majority of degrees from decent universities it takes at least 10 years (often much longer) to get ahead/see a return. Of course if you get a useless degree say an arts degree from bum-fuck/zanesville university you may never see a return.

Let's take two hypothetical examples we assume they are both citizens/residents of Australia (foreign students pay more for university). Also all figures are in Australian dollars:

Person A:
Does a 3 year degree at a prestigious university an goes on to do an honours degree (extra year), so 4 years in total. Let's they get a commerce degree with honours specializing in accounting from University of Sydney.

Its going to be around $43,000 AUD (for the 4 year period) just for the course fees. They can get a cheap government student loan for this (scholarships are hard to get but government loans are easy to get).
http://sydney.edu.au/study/finances-fees...-fees.html
Plus there are textbook fees, etc on top.

Now let us assume that they may work a little bit in a casual or part-time job but that they spend the small amount of money they earn and save nothing every year. At the end of 4 years they owe the government $43,000 in student loans and they have no savings and limited work experience. There is an interest rate attached to the loan (around 3% from memory).

Due to the honours degree they manage to get a graduate job with a large accounting/auditing firm or big bank, etc. immediately after graduation. Their graduate salary is $50,000 AUD before tax per annum. Let us assume that after their 4 year degree is finished they are 22 and decide to leave their parents house.

Let us assume they are frugal and can save $15,000 AUD per year from their salary. Let us assume they voluntarily decide to repay their student loans as quickly as possible (if you don't pay it back now you have to pay it back in the future anyway). The $15,000 in savings the first year brings the loan balance to $29,290 (due to 3% interest on the loan). They are 23 at the end of the year.

In the second year they get a pay rise and are paid $55,000 pre-tax salary. They manage to save $17,000 this year. This is due to the progressive tax system plus cost of living inflation so the $5000 pre-tax salary increase only translates to $2000 in extra savings. After paying the 3% interest at the end of the year the loan balance is knocked down to around $13,170. They are 24 at the end of the year.

The next year they get another small salary increase and now earn $60,000 pre-tax salary. This year after again taking into account cost of living increases and extra tax they manage to save around $19,000. After finishing off the remainder of the student loan they saved a total of $5800 during the year.
Let's say they invested the money they saved throughout the year in stocks (low cost index ETF) and earned a 4% after tax return (I use a conservative figure because not all the money was invested for the whole year). They now have $6032 in investments. They are 25 at the end of the year.

The next year since they now have a few years of experience under their belt they start getting decent promotions/bonuses/salary increases. This year they earn $75,000 pre-tax. let us say they are frugal and save $25,000 during the year. Added to the balance of $6032 from the year before and give the total a 4% after tax return you end up with net assets of $32,273. They are 26 at the end of the year.

The next year since they have good experience under their belt they again get a solid increase and now earn $90,000 pre-tax. Out of this they save $35,000. The net assets after including the 4% return now jumps up to $69,964. At the end of the year they are 27.

The next year they get a strong salary increase again and earn $110,000 pre-tax salary. They save $45,000 of their salary. After factoring in previous savings plus a 4% after tax return they now have net assets of $119,562. They are now 28.

Person B:
After they finish high school they are 18. They are not academically minded nor do they wish to work a trade so they get out there and do some entry level work in retail or customer service or sales or hospitality or construction, etc.

Lets assume they work a full time job and a part-time job (on nights/weekends) also as this is equivalent to the work load of a student studying full time at a good university while working casual/part-time. The parents agree to support them fully until they are around 22 (same age as university student finishes) because they have promised to work hard and partially save up for a house deposit.

Let us assume that over the first 4 years they get a pay rise every year due to a combination of factors that tenure brings about such as slightly higher bonuses, better paid shifts (e.g. more Sundays and public holidays, etc), as well as a mini promotion to senior team member/key-holder/shift supervisor/team leader, etc (I am not even talking about being an actual manager as those jobs are hard to get) as well as cost of living increases. Because the first 4 years they live at home with their parents and do not pay living expenses they save half of their pre-tax salary every year of living at home.

At the end of the first year of working 2 jobs they have earned $60,000 pre-tax salary and have saved $30,000 which they invest in a stock market ETF. After factoring in a 4% return they have $31,200 in net assets and are 19 at year end.

End of second year they have earned $65,000 pre-tax salary and have saved $32,500 which they invest in a stock market ETF. After factoring in a 4% return on total net assets they now have $66,248 in net assets at are 20 years old at year end.

End of third year they have earned $70,000 pre-tax salary and have saved $35,000 which they invest in a stock market ETF. After factoring in a 4% return on total net assets they now have $105,297 in net assets at are 21 years old at year end.

End of fourth year they have earned $75,000 pre-tax salary and have saved $37,500 which they invest in a stock market ETF. After factoring in a 4% return on total net assets they now have $148,508 in net assets at are 22 years old at year end.

In the fifth year they finally move out of their parents house and rent a place so they now have higher living costs. They now have to do their own house work such as cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc coupled with the fact that they are older and tired from working hard for 4 years they decide to cut back to doing only one full-time job and no other work (equal to the university graduate working full-time). Their earnings take a hit and they now earn a $60,000 pre-tax salary. The save $10,000 of their salary and invest it. At year end they have $164,848 in net assets and are 23 years old.

From now on they only get cost of living increases due to being unskilled their pay has hit a ceiling. They get an inflation adjusted $60,000 and save $10,000 again. At year end they have $181,841 in net assets and are 24 years old.

Next year they again save $10,000 and have net assets at year end of $199,514 and are 25 years old.

Next year they again save $10,000 and have net assets at year end of $217,894 and are 26 years old.

Next year they again save $10,000 and have net assets at year end of $237,010 and are 27 years old.

Next year they again save $10,000 and have net assets at year end of $256,890 and are 28 years old.

Conclusion:
When they are 28 both person A (degree) and person B (no degree) decide to cash out their investments and put it towards a apartment/house deposit. Person A has $119,562 (before calculating capital gains tax and brokerage fees) and person B has $256,890 (before calculating capital gains tax and brokerage fees).

You can see due to starting off way behind and the effects of compounding person A with a degree who now earns at least 60%-70% more than what person B with no degree earns is still behind. My assumptions were actually very generous towards the university graduate. Many university graduates will be lucky to even earn a 6 figure pre-tax salary by the time they hit 30. Also I could have very plausibly set the investment returns higher which would have favored the high school leaver. Sure eventually person A will likely overtake person B in wealth but my point is the pay off generally takes more than 10 years. Going to university is a very, very long-term investment. Of course you can argue the figures but overall I think I gave a reasonable hypothetical scenario. How many people can become an investment banker or a hedge fund manager or a surgeon, etc?

My examples are based on real world experience at looking at the types of salaries young people (including myself) around me earned (both university graduates and unskilled employees), as well as considering Australian Bureau of statistics data and looking at job websites.

In Australia the job market is very competitive and most drone type employees (which i based my analysis on) who do degrees like business/commerce/accounting, IT, teaching, HR etc earn a low starting/graduate salary (you can verify this by searching graduate positions in our largest job website http://www.seek.com.au) and need at least a few years of experience under their belt to get decent pay increases. Sure somebody might study and become a senior geologist or a surgeon, etc and make heaps of money but I am just talking about your common drone type jobs that the bulk of university degree holders would do.

Also the leaving home ages in the hypothetical example (22-23) are pretty much in line with the actual leaving home age (23) in Australia.