The new economics of higher ed make going to college a risky bet
September 11, 2023 8:13 PM Subscribe
After the Great Recession, state governments cut their funding for public colleges, and the colleges responded by raising tuition and cutting spending on instruction and student services. Many private colleges, meanwhile, competed to attract more affluent students, which often meant becoming more selective in admissions, spending more on facilities and amenities and raising tuition in order to pay for it all.
This is pretty much the main reason. There are increasingly public universities that get most of their funding from private sources- not much of a surprise they no longer really serve the public.
posted by coffeecat at 9:09 PM on September 11, 2023 [19 favorites]
This is pretty much the main reason. There are increasingly public universities that get most of their funding from private sources- not much of a surprise they no longer really serve the public.
posted by coffeecat at 9:09 PM on September 11, 2023 [19 favorites]
Takes a look at stagnant wages and resumption of student debt repayment: Gee, I can't imagine why.
Still, the expense of entering fields like education and healthcare exacerbates shortages in those areas and impacts everyone.
posted by eagles123 at 9:15 PM on September 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
Still, the expense of entering fields like education and healthcare exacerbates shortages in those areas and impacts everyone.
posted by eagles123 at 9:15 PM on September 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
Capitalism is always the problem, isn't it? How moronic is it that we've made educating our people financially ruinous? It's like every problem this stupid country is saddled with has the same cause. It's almost as if it doesn't work.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:25 PM on September 11, 2023 [43 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:25 PM on September 11, 2023 [43 favorites]
On the one hand, jobs ask for college degrees--and now, SPECIFIC college degrees--to rule people out. So you need to have one for that reason, at least.
On the other hand, college now costs a gajillion dollars and you may never make enough even with the degree to be able to pay that off. I love how "it's worth it if you do a science, but if you're too dumb to do science, you might as well not even bother" came up in that.
None of the ism's work.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:27 PM on September 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
On the other hand, college now costs a gajillion dollars and you may never make enough even with the degree to be able to pay that off. I love how "it's worth it if you do a science, but if you're too dumb to do science, you might as well not even bother" came up in that.
None of the ism's work.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:27 PM on September 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
It's because higher education, like everything else in the US, is now run by grifters. Public funding levels are a red herring--explosions in spending for shiny new stuff everywhere but faculty are the culprit.
Paul Campos at LGM writes about this pretty well.
posted by Ickster at 9:37 PM on September 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
Paul Campos at LGM writes about this pretty well.
posted by Ickster at 9:37 PM on September 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
Workers with a college degree typically earn substantially more than workers with less education. This so-called college wage premium increased for several decades, but it has been flat to down in recent years and declined notably since the pandemic. Analysis indicates that this reflects an acceleration of wage gains for high school graduates rather than a slowdown for college graduates. This pattern is most evident for workers in racial and ethnic groups other than White, possibly reflecting an unusually tight labor market that may have altered their college attendance decisions.
posted by 2N2222 at 10:46 PM on September 11, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by 2N2222 at 10:46 PM on September 11, 2023 [7 favorites]
Oh! Oh, I know this one! Is it “neoliberalism broke the social contract and reversed societal progress in the name of profits”? I’m pretty sure it is.
posted by The River Ivel at 11:17 PM on September 11, 2023 [32 favorites]
posted by The River Ivel at 11:17 PM on September 11, 2023 [32 favorites]
Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you'll collect on student debt the rest of his life.
posted by DreamerFi at 3:21 AM on September 12, 2023 [25 favorites]
posted by DreamerFi at 3:21 AM on September 12, 2023 [25 favorites]
Surely, if the market is the best mechanism for setting prices and maximising value, we can rely on the market to solve this problem, right?
posted by plonkee at 3:36 AM on September 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by plonkee at 3:36 AM on September 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
I think I detected a trace of sarcasm there plonkee...
posted by nofundy at 4:53 AM on September 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by nofundy at 4:53 AM on September 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
I have been a college professor since the turn of the century. Do not go to college, or send your kid to college, unless and until you have a Very Clear Reason why they should study that subject at that college—or, alternatively, get them A College Degree In It Doesn't Matter What by the cheapest means necessary. Two years at community college, AP classes in high school, cheapest local university where you don't have to pay to live on campus. The whole thing is a giant scam: for one thing, there are basically no entry-level corporate jobs, everything having been outsourced to contractors and/or overseas.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:16 AM on September 12, 2023 [28 favorites]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:16 AM on September 12, 2023 [28 favorites]
This article does a good job highlighting the fact that a college degree is no longer a reliable financial choice. However, it doesn't address the shift in attitude in the US to only considering education in terms of financial outcomes. If we started from a different premise altogether, that college was about more than future wages, we would measure outcomes differently.
Interestingly, the article points out that it's Republicans who are most likely to consider the qualitative aspects of a college education.
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:27 AM on September 12, 2023 [5 favorites]
Interestingly, the article points out that it's Republicans who are most likely to consider the qualitative aspects of a college education.
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:27 AM on September 12, 2023 [5 favorites]
I have been a college professor since the turn of the 2010s. If you are college-aged: go to college. If you have a kid, send that kid to college. Try not to take on too much debt, sure, but major in whatever you find interesting, challenging, fun. The belief that you can have a Very Clear Reason in advance to pursue a particular undergraduate degree is usually wrong. Education is a powerful part of self-enrichment, independent of financial outcomes, and the bedrock of an informed citizenry and a healthy polis.
It's great that the college wage premium is shrinking if this is because middle-class lives or at least higher wages are within reach of more people without college degrees. That doesn't make college worth any less.
posted by sy at 5:54 AM on September 12, 2023 [29 favorites]
It's great that the college wage premium is shrinking if this is because middle-class lives or at least higher wages are within reach of more people without college degrees. That doesn't make college worth any less.
posted by sy at 5:54 AM on September 12, 2023 [29 favorites]
They mention the Republican turn against colleges because of campus ideology without mentioning why people have that perception of colleges. Ctrl-F "demonizing"... no hits. Never change NYT... keep failing to do your one job of connecting the dots.
posted by kokaku at 5:55 AM on September 12, 2023 [20 favorites]
posted by kokaku at 5:55 AM on September 12, 2023 [20 favorites]
Preach it, kokaku!
posted by Melismata at 6:15 AM on September 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Melismata at 6:15 AM on September 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have been a college professor since the turn of the 2010s. If you are college-aged: go to college. If you have a kid, send that kid to college. Try not to take on too much debt, sure, but major in whatever you find interesting, challenging, fun
This is the crux of the matter for a whole lotta folks, tho. Debt can get you a whole shitload of interesting, challenging and fun. How much is that worth to you? If being able to just service that debt for decades to come is a worry, the value of Interesting, challenging and fun becomes a much more pressing concern.
posted by 2N2222 at 6:40 AM on September 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
This is the crux of the matter for a whole lotta folks, tho. Debt can get you a whole shitload of interesting, challenging and fun. How much is that worth to you? If being able to just service that debt for decades to come is a worry, the value of Interesting, challenging and fun becomes a much more pressing concern.
posted by 2N2222 at 6:40 AM on September 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
Hey all, here's a gift link to the full article, while I read it and percolate my thoughts.
posted by corb at 6:43 AM on September 12, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by corb at 6:43 AM on September 12, 2023 [7 favorites]
The NYT, especially the opinion section, has spent the last several years whinging that, sure there's an actual ongoing coup and book bannings and criminalizing the teaching of civil rights; but we actually think the worst threats to democracy are college students, transgender people, and progressive activism. And, of course, every transgender college activist is literally worse than Hitler.
There's more than a whiff of "we're all trying to find the guys who did this" in their reporting here.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 6:47 AM on September 12, 2023 [13 favorites]
There's more than a whiff of "we're all trying to find the guys who did this" in their reporting here.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 6:47 AM on September 12, 2023 [13 favorites]
Some interesting takeaways from the article: I think it's more than just the sideswipe at 'colleges are too liberal now', but they are definitely afraid to call out the major economic factors that are causing a lot of the damage.
1 - They note the college wealth premium rather than the college wage premium, which measures the debt that people take on to go to college as well as their increased earnings
2 - Wealth premiums for those born after 1980 (sob) are incredibly small, with postgraduate wealth premiums approaching zero.
What they don't go into are a few of the known factors.
First, college degrees became standardized as hiring processes/requirements for some jobs rightfully began being called out for racist outcomes. So, a lot of these jobs then began requiring college degrees even though they didn't really need them: they still have the racist outcomes but were harder to challenge.
Secondly: there are just not enough good jobs out there that pay enough to make up for all that debt. There simply aren't. And we need to figure out how we come to terms with that. Either addressing the debt issue, or addressing the wage issue, but to do otherwise is to accept that people are going to be perennially squeezed.
They do address that the housing problem means that people with student loan debt can't buy houses because they already have basically a mortgage payment in debt. Which means they're losing money for decades. But they don't offer any real solutions for that.
posted by corb at 7:42 AM on September 12, 2023 [6 favorites]
1 - They note the college wealth premium rather than the college wage premium, which measures the debt that people take on to go to college as well as their increased earnings
2 - Wealth premiums for those born after 1980 (sob) are incredibly small, with postgraduate wealth premiums approaching zero.
What they don't go into are a few of the known factors.
First, college degrees became standardized as hiring processes/requirements for some jobs rightfully began being called out for racist outcomes. So, a lot of these jobs then began requiring college degrees even though they didn't really need them: they still have the racist outcomes but were harder to challenge.
Secondly: there are just not enough good jobs out there that pay enough to make up for all that debt. There simply aren't. And we need to figure out how we come to terms with that. Either addressing the debt issue, or addressing the wage issue, but to do otherwise is to accept that people are going to be perennially squeezed.
They do address that the housing problem means that people with student loan debt can't buy houses because they already have basically a mortgage payment in debt. Which means they're losing money for decades. But they don't offer any real solutions for that.
posted by corb at 7:42 AM on September 12, 2023 [6 favorites]
Corb, thanks for that link! The knockout punch in his evidence paragraph is this:
and later this quote
Also... I'm the father of two high school seniors just now getting into the heart (or teeth, maybe?) of the college application process. Both have likely majors and/or grad school plans that should play out well career-wise. Even if they didn't, though, we want them to have that experience that sy is talking about.
But we're also being really careful with the colleges we're considering, making sure they're need-blind, guarantee to meet need with no loans (or minimal loans) and then checking the numbers in the price estimator tools. Like good little drones we've been socking away college funds for, oh, 18 years now, and we'll be OK.
We still believe 100% in college, but we're going into it with forethought.
posted by martin q blank at 8:06 AM on September 12, 2023 [10 favorites]
And in contrast to the college-focused parents of a decade ago, now almost half of American parents say they’d prefer that their children not enroll in a four-year college.Wow, right? But drill through to the linked study, which is from the well-regarded Hechinger Foundation, and you see this sub-headline: Anti-college sentiment greater among Republican, white and rural parents
and later this quote
"Political party affiliation proved to be the strongest distinguishing factor. Seventy percent of Democrats prefer a four-year degree, compared to 46 percent of Republicans and 48 percent of independents.Compare that to his cite that a decade ago, 99% of Republicans expected their kids to go to college, and it seems like maybe we're seeing one more devastating Trump Effect.
Also... I'm the father of two high school seniors just now getting into the heart (or teeth, maybe?) of the college application process. Both have likely majors and/or grad school plans that should play out well career-wise. Even if they didn't, though, we want them to have that experience that sy is talking about.
But we're also being really careful with the colleges we're considering, making sure they're need-blind, guarantee to meet need with no loans (or minimal loans) and then checking the numbers in the price estimator tools. Like good little drones we've been socking away college funds for, oh, 18 years now, and we'll be OK.
We still believe 100% in college, but we're going into it with forethought.
posted by martin q blank at 8:06 AM on September 12, 2023 [10 favorites]
for one thing, there are basically no entry-level corporate jobs, everything having been outsourced to contractors and/or overseas.
There are plenty of entry level corporate jobs. Also, the median college debt is not that high- it's $40k, or only slightly more than a single car costs. So I find the focus on college debt across the board kind of weak, or at best incomplete. You just have to be way more specific with your cohorts. Some of them are fine, some got screwed and need a lot of extra help.
That other things cost more have their own factors, and generally have nothing to do with college debt. If people are fine to spend the equivalent debt on transport (about once every 10 years) and 10X on a home, well those have to be factored in comparatively.
Also the number of people who go to college but don't graduate are generally worse off- especially those who take on lots of debt. Thanks economist - we really need you to identify 'duh' moments.
All the economic comments are 'duh' moments: "Economists have shown that higher education as a whole has become more stratified by income and class over the last 20 years." LOL, you mean since 2003? Yeah, way longer than that.
Also the 'wealth gap' stuff should be taken with a grain of salt: first, income cohorts in the US are extremely narrow. For example, a generic 'non-college graduate' median salary is around $30k, a college graduate median salary around $60k, so over an entire career, that is only a bit more than $1m in total extra earnings. So of course the wealth gap is far more defined by marriage (or not), home ownership (or not), and parental factors (having enough $$ to give an inheritance) than by going to college. The wealth gap (accumulated net worth) in the US is also pretty narrow - like 90% of people have less than $2m in net worth, so you are comparing net worth cohorts in a relatively narrow range.
Also that college and jobs aren't actually a meritocracy has been true for far longer than 20 years. That's why families on the cusp put in the extra effort.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:16 AM on September 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
There are plenty of entry level corporate jobs. Also, the median college debt is not that high- it's $40k, or only slightly more than a single car costs. So I find the focus on college debt across the board kind of weak, or at best incomplete. You just have to be way more specific with your cohorts. Some of them are fine, some got screwed and need a lot of extra help.
That other things cost more have their own factors, and generally have nothing to do with college debt. If people are fine to spend the equivalent debt on transport (about once every 10 years) and 10X on a home, well those have to be factored in comparatively.
Also the number of people who go to college but don't graduate are generally worse off- especially those who take on lots of debt. Thanks economist - we really need you to identify 'duh' moments.
All the economic comments are 'duh' moments: "Economists have shown that higher education as a whole has become more stratified by income and class over the last 20 years." LOL, you mean since 2003? Yeah, way longer than that.
Also the 'wealth gap' stuff should be taken with a grain of salt: first, income cohorts in the US are extremely narrow. For example, a generic 'non-college graduate' median salary is around $30k, a college graduate median salary around $60k, so over an entire career, that is only a bit more than $1m in total extra earnings. So of course the wealth gap is far more defined by marriage (or not), home ownership (or not), and parental factors (having enough $$ to give an inheritance) than by going to college. The wealth gap (accumulated net worth) in the US is also pretty narrow - like 90% of people have less than $2m in net worth, so you are comparing net worth cohorts in a relatively narrow range.
Also that college and jobs aren't actually a meritocracy has been true for far longer than 20 years. That's why families on the cusp put in the extra effort.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:16 AM on September 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
there are basically no entry-level corporate jobs, everything having been outsourced to contractors and/or overseas
this seems like something only a person who has been a college professor for 25 years could believe
posted by atoxyl at 8:18 AM on September 12, 2023 [11 favorites]
this seems like something only a person who has been a college professor for 25 years could believe
posted by atoxyl at 8:18 AM on September 12, 2023 [11 favorites]
Anyway my take here was always that the kids who think college not being a guarantee of a good job means they might as well not go are going to learn some harsh lessons about creeping credentialism, but I thought the article did a pretty good job addressing most of the facets of the issue and then 2N2222 filled in a missing piece, which is that of course right now we are in a bit of a slump for the white collar labor market while the demand for everything else remains strong.
posted by atoxyl at 8:30 AM on September 12, 2023
posted by atoxyl at 8:30 AM on September 12, 2023
There are plenty of entry level corporate jobs
I think the question is: what is an entry-level corporate job?
For me, I think: Without having any outside experience whatsoever, *including internships or volunteer work* you can walk straight out of college and get hired at that company. The reason I define it that way is in part because that is the baseline for what "entry level" means - it means they don't expect you to bring any previous experience or skills, and they expect to do all of the training on the job.
It has not been my experience that there are a lot of those, but I'm interested to hear data, or even anecdata, otherwise.
posted by corb at 8:34 AM on September 12, 2023 [5 favorites]
I think the question is: what is an entry-level corporate job?
For me, I think: Without having any outside experience whatsoever, *including internships or volunteer work* you can walk straight out of college and get hired at that company. The reason I define it that way is in part because that is the baseline for what "entry level" means - it means they don't expect you to bring any previous experience or skills, and they expect to do all of the training on the job.
It has not been my experience that there are a lot of those, but I'm interested to hear data, or even anecdata, otherwise.
posted by corb at 8:34 AM on September 12, 2023 [5 favorites]
It seems that there's less faith these days in the idea that a degree in anything is a magical ticket to financial success, and that's maybe not a bad thing.
One has to be more selective I think. If the primary goal of college is financial security/success, then choose a degree that leads to that: STEM, business, etc. and set a budget which compares projected debt with expected earnings.
If the goal of post-secondary education is to pursue an interest, self-improvement, personal growth, expanding horizons, then by all means do all you need to do to get that... but manage the debt, and accept that you maybe also need to develop another set of skills to earn a living with, to pay the bills. Be prepared to alternate college years and work years to fund the next year of college/uni.
Finally - a plug for the trades, especially the more demanding and technical ones. I include nursing in this as well. There's a screaming demand, they can pay quite well, and if they match your interest or inclination, they can be quite satisfying and rewarding careers. And they will fund higher education a little later if you still want to pursue that.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:59 AM on September 12, 2023 [6 favorites]
One has to be more selective I think. If the primary goal of college is financial security/success, then choose a degree that leads to that: STEM, business, etc. and set a budget which compares projected debt with expected earnings.
If the goal of post-secondary education is to pursue an interest, self-improvement, personal growth, expanding horizons, then by all means do all you need to do to get that... but manage the debt, and accept that you maybe also need to develop another set of skills to earn a living with, to pay the bills. Be prepared to alternate college years and work years to fund the next year of college/uni.
Finally - a plug for the trades, especially the more demanding and technical ones. I include nursing in this as well. There's a screaming demand, they can pay quite well, and if they match your interest or inclination, they can be quite satisfying and rewarding careers. And they will fund higher education a little later if you still want to pursue that.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:59 AM on September 12, 2023 [6 favorites]
My kid just graduated from college, with a couple of thousand in debt. We plan on paying it off this year. (No more tuition or rent payments, and her car's also paid off now. Woo!) She went to a small state school. Her department was small, which limited their offerings, but she also got to know her professors really well.
I went to Rice, back when it was affordable. (I know people who went there when it was free.) They do need based scholarships, but it's easy to make enough to not qualify, and not make enough to afford it. I know a lot of alums who are sending their kids elsewhere. (Why did they raise tuition? To be competitive with other schools.)
posted by Spike Glee at 9:00 AM on September 12, 2023
I went to Rice, back when it was affordable. (I know people who went there when it was free.) They do need based scholarships, but it's easy to make enough to not qualify, and not make enough to afford it. I know a lot of alums who are sending their kids elsewhere. (Why did they raise tuition? To be competitive with other schools.)
posted by Spike Glee at 9:00 AM on September 12, 2023
I do think a lot of our arbitrary gatekeeping with bachelors' degrees (in no particular major) is actively harmful. A college education is great for a lot of specific fields, and those specific fields typically require majors or work experience in that field to reflect that. But the idea you need "some degree" to be a corporate drone or middle-management or the like? That's harmful bullshit that fills universities with people who don't know why they're there, just looking to have their ticket punched at great expense and who resent rather than appreciating the mandated coursework. And what does it prove to their employers later? Not a whole lot, really. Yes, it requires a fair degree of persistence and other admirable qualities to get through, but there are other ways of testing that.
I was overhearing a student yesterday talking about being a computer science major and how they didn't like to code and weren't very good at it. I'm a rude bastard so I interjected by saying, "it seems like computer science might not be the best major for you," and they sighed and said, "I know, but it's what I have a scholarship for." That breaks my heart, that our universities are full of people who know they aren't studying anything they want to do but are going through the motions anyways.
posted by jackbishop at 10:28 AM on September 12, 2023 [10 favorites]
I was overhearing a student yesterday talking about being a computer science major and how they didn't like to code and weren't very good at it. I'm a rude bastard so I interjected by saying, "it seems like computer science might not be the best major for you," and they sighed and said, "I know, but it's what I have a scholarship for." That breaks my heart, that our universities are full of people who know they aren't studying anything they want to do but are going through the motions anyways.
posted by jackbishop at 10:28 AM on September 12, 2023 [10 favorites]
It has not been my experience that there are a lot of those, but I'm interested to hear data, or even anecdata, otherwise.
I suppose the words “a lot” are doing a lot of the work - or incurring a lot of the controversy - here. Those kinds of jobs exist but they probably exist a lot more for new grads of “elite” colleges in certain fields than they do for the average new graduate of any college.
posted by atoxyl at 10:38 AM on September 12, 2023
I suppose the words “a lot” are doing a lot of the work - or incurring a lot of the controversy - here. Those kinds of jobs exist but they probably exist a lot more for new grads of “elite” colleges in certain fields than they do for the average new graduate of any college.
posted by atoxyl at 10:38 AM on September 12, 2023
Basically restating what a lot of people are saying here, but as a 40-something parent with two not-quite-in-high-school kids, I'm definitely replacing the "college at all costs" messaging my parents (who did not have degrees) offered, with "college if you can, but it's not worth piles of debt" messaging.
... I just paid off my own loans about a month ago. And I think of myself as pretty well off to be able to do so. And I think my kids are pretty smart/canny/fortunate, so if they did decide against college, it would be a choice they made, not one they were forced into. And I think they'd do just fine.
posted by heyitsgogi at 10:41 AM on September 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
... I just paid off my own loans about a month ago. And I think of myself as pretty well off to be able to do so. And I think my kids are pretty smart/canny/fortunate, so if they did decide against college, it would be a choice they made, not one they were forced into. And I think they'd do just fine.
posted by heyitsgogi at 10:41 AM on September 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
I was overhearing a student yesterday talking about being a computer science major and how they didn't like to code and weren't very good at it.
My friend's son graduated with a Comp Sci degree from the University of Waterloo (a well-respected school for that). He did not embark on a programming career. He has ended up at the Toronto Transit Commission, teaching streetcar driving, and with the union and all, he can make 6 figures with the overtime. We're all happy that he's doing well. But hard not to see the Comps Sci degree as mostly wasted. He could have backpacked around Europe in that time, or done a 2 year diploma in transportation technology...
Also, not all Comp Sci is programming. There are lots of positions in software design & architecture, policy, etc etc that don't require a line of code.
posted by Artful Codger at 10:47 AM on September 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
My friend's son graduated with a Comp Sci degree from the University of Waterloo (a well-respected school for that). He did not embark on a programming career. He has ended up at the Toronto Transit Commission, teaching streetcar driving, and with the union and all, he can make 6 figures with the overtime. We're all happy that he's doing well. But hard not to see the Comps Sci degree as mostly wasted. He could have backpacked around Europe in that time, or done a 2 year diploma in transportation technology...
Also, not all Comp Sci is programming. There are lots of positions in software design & architecture, policy, etc etc that don't require a line of code.
posted by Artful Codger at 10:47 AM on September 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
Much of the discussion around higher education (heck, education in general) is driven by agendas, leading to impressively shoddy analyses. The linked article is a good example. It uses the tropes of the "higher education is unaffordable/not worth it" crowd to good effect: focus on the Ivies, use extreme anecdotes for the US while using averages for other countries, and ignore all the complexities of the situation.
To give two examples: it uses a cherry-picked example to scare us about public school costs. The U of Michigan costs $80,000 per year!! Which it does, for out of state students without accounting for any financial aid. For in-state students, adding in average financial aid, the U of Mich costs about $12 k per year (low income students are at 5K). If you're not from Mich, you probably shouldn't go. If you are, that's a pretty solid deal.
Second, it makes no mention of "discount rate," -- how much the average student at the average school gets in financial aid that "discounts" the cost of tuition. Most of that comes in the form of grants or scholarships, not loans. The result is that the sticker price is almost never what the average student pays. Rice University (a private school) has a tuition of $53K. With financial aid, average tuition was reduced to 19K.
There's lots of other issues here (it never really gets to one of the most important problems, which is for-profit schools that pump students for federal money and then dump them before they graduate, leaving the debt to them), but those are pretty critical ones.
posted by Galvanic at 11:32 AM on September 12, 2023 [8 favorites]
To give two examples: it uses a cherry-picked example to scare us about public school costs. The U of Michigan costs $80,000 per year!! Which it does, for out of state students without accounting for any financial aid. For in-state students, adding in average financial aid, the U of Mich costs about $12 k per year (low income students are at 5K). If you're not from Mich, you probably shouldn't go. If you are, that's a pretty solid deal.
Second, it makes no mention of "discount rate," -- how much the average student at the average school gets in financial aid that "discounts" the cost of tuition. Most of that comes in the form of grants or scholarships, not loans. The result is that the sticker price is almost never what the average student pays. Rice University (a private school) has a tuition of $53K. With financial aid, average tuition was reduced to 19K.
There's lots of other issues here (it never really gets to one of the most important problems, which is for-profit schools that pump students for federal money and then dump them before they graduate, leaving the debt to them), but those are pretty critical ones.
posted by Galvanic at 11:32 AM on September 12, 2023 [8 favorites]
To give two examples: it uses a cherry-picked example to scare us about public school costs. The U of Michigan costs $80,000 per year!! Which it does, for out of state students without accounting for any financial aid. For in-state students, adding in average financial aid, the U of Mich costs about $12 k per year (low income students are at 5K). If you're not from Mich, you probably shouldn't go. If you are, that's a pretty solid deal.
I agree that this is a misleading example, but I felt like the article did reasonably well at depicting the bigger picture of a bifurcation of outcomes between the kids going to selective schools (which would definitely include UMich) and the kids going to less selective schools that are still a significant investment (the for-profits being the worst offenders) for degrees that they are less likely to complete. The former definitely skew wealthier to begin with, but the discussion of sticker price perhaps overstates the extent to which price is the reason for that.
posted by atoxyl at 12:09 PM on September 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
I agree that this is a misleading example, but I felt like the article did reasonably well at depicting the bigger picture of a bifurcation of outcomes between the kids going to selective schools (which would definitely include UMich) and the kids going to less selective schools that are still a significant investment (the for-profits being the worst offenders) for degrees that they are less likely to complete. The former definitely skew wealthier to begin with, but the discussion of sticker price perhaps overstates the extent to which price is the reason for that.
posted by atoxyl at 12:09 PM on September 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
From what I’ve seen the data on student loans illustrates something similar. The people most behind on loans are poorer and often members of minority groups, and a lot of them went to schools that were borderline or outright predatory. There are people with way more debt than that, which they racked up getting professional degrees, who are actually likely to be fine in the long run. There are people who took on that kind of debt for degrees from fancy schools in some art/humanities niche with few jobs, but that’s a way smaller part of the problem than one might expect from how often the image appears in the popular consciousness.
posted by atoxyl at 12:22 PM on September 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 12:22 PM on September 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
Really, if you graduate within 6 years from a college that costs no more than in-state COA, you'll end up better off in income terms and have a good chance of ending up better off in wealth terms. And you'll probably have an interesting experience doing it.
Part of the challenge has to be that the people least able to navigate that system to optimise for their own benefit are the ones who most need to be able to. Paying for private college isn't worth it financially - but going to private college for about the same COA as public college can be possible if you hunt for 'merit' aid and may well be worth it. That's an example of a small but important distinction that's easy to miss.
posted by plonkee at 1:22 PM on September 12, 2023
Part of the challenge has to be that the people least able to navigate that system to optimise for their own benefit are the ones who most need to be able to. Paying for private college isn't worth it financially - but going to private college for about the same COA as public college can be possible if you hunt for 'merit' aid and may well be worth it. That's an example of a small but important distinction that's easy to miss.
posted by plonkee at 1:22 PM on September 12, 2023
The (absence) of wealth premium was a surprising statistic. Maybe what we are seeing is the same people who populate the bottom half of the college wage premium are not only struggling with their student loans, but are also out-consuming their wage premium and were on the sharp end of big wealth destruction of the 2008-2010 subprime crisis.
posted by MattD at 1:59 PM on September 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by MattD at 1:59 PM on September 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
For me, I think: Without having any outside experience whatsoever, *including internships or volunteer work* you can walk straight out of college and get hired at that company. The reason I define it that way is in part because that is the baseline for what "entry level" means - it means they don't expect you to bring any previous experience or skills, and they expect to do all of the training on the job.
I work for an employer who starts new college graduate engineers off in hourly positions. Our on the job training focuses on the product and corporate specifics, you are expected to have learned some skills during four year degree you obtained. We also have a promotion path from our large retail org into engineering, though they usually land as bug screeners or project managers (a meme i've seen on hangops is "no such thing as a junior SRE").
Many of my coworkers don't have CS degrees, though it's becoming harder over time to be productive without technical knowledge. There's a well meaning push within SRE thoughtleadership to de-prioritize degrees but concomitant with this is the rise of microservices, distributed compute as a service, timeseries data analysis, causal analysis and infrastructure-as-code that means you need skills found in CS, statistics and economics education to keep your head above water. And maybe a minor in AI given how bright a light OpenAI shone on the potential there over the past year.
One dynamic at play within the CS portion of STEM is that internships are functionally the entry level job, and companies compete heavily to recruit into that funnel. If you only hire under the "any outside experience whatsoever, including internships or volunteer work" criteria, you are missing a lot of people that already locked in jobs via post-internship return offers. Nobody wants last pick at the draft, so as a result "entry level" job offers get moved further and further away from graduation date, with the additional "you have to be a student" clause (legal requirement?) attached. I'm a bit surprised I've not heard of any boot camps cynically leaning into this and requiring a highly selective SAT with freshman year CS speedruns. Probably too risky without a credit transfer to universities as a backup plan?
posted by pwnguin at 2:36 PM on September 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
I work for an employer who starts new college graduate engineers off in hourly positions. Our on the job training focuses on the product and corporate specifics, you are expected to have learned some skills during four year degree you obtained. We also have a promotion path from our large retail org into engineering, though they usually land as bug screeners or project managers (a meme i've seen on hangops is "no such thing as a junior SRE").
Many of my coworkers don't have CS degrees, though it's becoming harder over time to be productive without technical knowledge. There's a well meaning push within SRE thoughtleadership to de-prioritize degrees but concomitant with this is the rise of microservices, distributed compute as a service, timeseries data analysis, causal analysis and infrastructure-as-code that means you need skills found in CS, statistics and economics education to keep your head above water. And maybe a minor in AI given how bright a light OpenAI shone on the potential there over the past year.
One dynamic at play within the CS portion of STEM is that internships are functionally the entry level job, and companies compete heavily to recruit into that funnel. If you only hire under the "any outside experience whatsoever, including internships or volunteer work" criteria, you are missing a lot of people that already locked in jobs via post-internship return offers. Nobody wants last pick at the draft, so as a result "entry level" job offers get moved further and further away from graduation date, with the additional "you have to be a student" clause (legal requirement?) attached. I'm a bit surprised I've not heard of any boot camps cynically leaning into this and requiring a highly selective SAT with freshman year CS speedruns. Probably too risky without a credit transfer to universities as a backup plan?
posted by pwnguin at 2:36 PM on September 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
> Many of my coworkers don't have CS degrees, though it's becoming harder over time to be productive without technical knowledge.
In this age, being able to write a simple shell script is as much a requirement for basic high-school literacy as is the 5-paragraph essay.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 2:42 PM on September 12, 2023
In this age, being able to write a simple shell script is as much a requirement for basic high-school literacy as is the 5-paragraph essay.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 2:42 PM on September 12, 2023
In this age, being able to write a simple shell script is as much a requirement for basic high-school literacy as is the 5-paragraph essay.
Ooh, not really. Maybe it should be so, but it's certainly not. "Digital natives" are acquainted largely with the tools provided to them, which are mostly not script-driven. I assure you they know plenty about how to get around a the user interfaces they're familiar with (Android, Windows, iPhone, and MacOS, probably in that order) and to navigate the sites they use a lot, but a command line (or similar text interface) is not something they see unless they seek it out.
posted by jackbishop at 2:51 PM on September 12, 2023 [6 favorites]
Ooh, not really. Maybe it should be so, but it's certainly not. "Digital natives" are acquainted largely with the tools provided to them, which are mostly not script-driven. I assure you they know plenty about how to get around a the user interfaces they're familiar with (Android, Windows, iPhone, and MacOS, probably in that order) and to navigate the sites they use a lot, but a command line (or similar text interface) is not something they see unless they seek it out.
posted by jackbishop at 2:51 PM on September 12, 2023 [6 favorites]
I do think a lot of our arbitrary gatekeeping with bachelors' degrees (in no particular major) is actively harmful. A college education is great for a lot of specific fields, and those specific fields typically require majors or work experience in that field to reflect that. But the idea you need "some degree" to be a corporate drone or middle-management or the like?
A few years ago, I had a lovely temp coworker who applied for a permanent job that she was already doing here. Unfortunately for her, Top Candidate, a lady who had supposedly been working a similar job for 18 years, was up against her. This probably would have doomed her from the start anyway, but whether or not you get hired seems to depend on which candidates are in the pool, and this girl got unlucky. Even though our mutual supervisor had apparently told the temp that she'd hire her if she could (more or less), as far as I can tell this got vetoed by the supervisor above her. The way the temp found out she didn't get the job was embarrassing and brutal, and then she had to sit through a Zoom lecture in which upper management lectured her that she needed to have a college degree. Temp ended up crying and having to hide her face. Temp got married at 17 to a military guy and had a kid, which is why she didn't go to college. And yet, frankly, this job can be done without a degree, because she was doing it. The whole thing was ridiculous. Also, no college degree didn't stop her from getting hired by another branch of the organization a week later.
This kind of bullshit is why I tell people to get a college degree if they can even remotely swing it. I'm not sold on college being best for everybody by a long shot, but at the very least, it's probably not going to hurt your job chances to have a degree on there. If you don't have it, then there can be Problems. It's an easy way to rule people out of jobs, especially with automated systems vetting the application. (That said, I found it ludicrous the last time I was tediously filling out online job apps that are so automated, they didn't even let me put my proper degrees into their computer system. Like literally they didn't have any of my degrees existing. I expect that shit with my weirder major because it's not offered very many places, but they didn't even have English as an option?!)
Back to other thoughts....
I was overhearing a student yesterday talking about being a computer science major and how they didn't like to code and weren't very good at it. I'm a rude bastard so I interjected by saying, "it seems like computer science might not be the best major for you," and they sighed and said, "I know, but it's what I have a scholarship for." That breaks my heart, that our universities are full of people who know they aren't studying anything they want to do but are going through the motions anyways.
Honestly, it's probably better to do something that's valued and useful even if you haaaaaaaaaaaaate it, than to do something you love that isn't financially viable. That's really what this study thing here proved, didn't it? If I had any useful skills or could have even struggled through to a science degree I would have, but I'm dumb. I'd probably be terrible at coding and I'm stupid AF at tech anything--I love tech stuff, I do not understand anything about it no matter how much it's explained to me--and even I periodically consider doing some horrible bootcamp thing because that would make me more valuable and not just the total clerical trash that I am now. The way things are going, you don't want to have expendable interests and talents, which mine are, and I do not think saying "study what you love, even if it's philosophy" or whatever, is going to help your future.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:02 PM on September 12, 2023
A few years ago, I had a lovely temp coworker who applied for a permanent job that she was already doing here. Unfortunately for her, Top Candidate, a lady who had supposedly been working a similar job for 18 years, was up against her. This probably would have doomed her from the start anyway, but whether or not you get hired seems to depend on which candidates are in the pool, and this girl got unlucky. Even though our mutual supervisor had apparently told the temp that she'd hire her if she could (more or less), as far as I can tell this got vetoed by the supervisor above her. The way the temp found out she didn't get the job was embarrassing and brutal, and then she had to sit through a Zoom lecture in which upper management lectured her that she needed to have a college degree. Temp ended up crying and having to hide her face. Temp got married at 17 to a military guy and had a kid, which is why she didn't go to college. And yet, frankly, this job can be done without a degree, because she was doing it. The whole thing was ridiculous. Also, no college degree didn't stop her from getting hired by another branch of the organization a week later.
This kind of bullshit is why I tell people to get a college degree if they can even remotely swing it. I'm not sold on college being best for everybody by a long shot, but at the very least, it's probably not going to hurt your job chances to have a degree on there. If you don't have it, then there can be Problems. It's an easy way to rule people out of jobs, especially with automated systems vetting the application. (That said, I found it ludicrous the last time I was tediously filling out online job apps that are so automated, they didn't even let me put my proper degrees into their computer system. Like literally they didn't have any of my degrees existing. I expect that shit with my weirder major because it's not offered very many places, but they didn't even have English as an option?!)
Back to other thoughts....
I was overhearing a student yesterday talking about being a computer science major and how they didn't like to code and weren't very good at it. I'm a rude bastard so I interjected by saying, "it seems like computer science might not be the best major for you," and they sighed and said, "I know, but it's what I have a scholarship for." That breaks my heart, that our universities are full of people who know they aren't studying anything they want to do but are going through the motions anyways.
Honestly, it's probably better to do something that's valued and useful even if you haaaaaaaaaaaaate it, than to do something you love that isn't financially viable. That's really what this study thing here proved, didn't it? If I had any useful skills or could have even struggled through to a science degree I would have, but I'm dumb. I'd probably be terrible at coding and I'm stupid AF at tech anything--I love tech stuff, I do not understand anything about it no matter how much it's explained to me--and even I periodically consider doing some horrible bootcamp thing because that would make me more valuable and not just the total clerical trash that I am now. The way things are going, you don't want to have expendable interests and talents, which mine are, and I do not think saying "study what you love, even if it's philosophy" or whatever, is going to help your future.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:02 PM on September 12, 2023
As a lover of philosophy, my recommendation for people who want to study it is to read books and join a discussion group. Education is wonderful, but degrees are for certification.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 3:37 PM on September 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 3:37 PM on September 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
If you only hire under the "any outside experience whatsoever, including internships or volunteer work" criteria, you are missing a lot of people that already locked in jobs via post-internship return offers.
Yeah, but the thing is, that also selects for wealth, is the problem. Because here's the thing: you can't get student loans for time when you're not in school. So you can't get student loans for summer months when you're doing an unpaid internship. Which means you need funding for that unpaid internship, which means you need someone able to fund that unpaid internship. I'm seeing that happen right now in law school - people who can afford to take great unpaid internships at prestigious locations get more great unpaid internships, get offered great jobs out of the gate as soon as they graduate. People who have to work during the summer and can't do those, are less competitive for such jobs. I will give you a few guesses as to the racial makeup of those two groups of people.
And that's also broadly the problem with talking about the cost of school. Yes, people don't always pay sticker. Yes, often the costs are halved. But some people can't really afford to pay even the halved tuition, and also, often people need to take out student loans for such things as rent, food, gas, and otherwise just existing while they're in school, if no one is paying for it during that time. Which means their loans do balloon up to exorbitant amounts that they can't even really conceive of paying off. And the idea that out of state people shouldn't go to schools - well, where are the kids supposed to go then, when these jobs are only hiring people from the top schools? It's a relentless rat race.
Financial aid has also become incredibly brutal, as attempts to prevent people from gaming the system start getting increasingly intrusive and vastly overestimate the amounts that families can contribute to college. In part, this is because the federal poverty line is ludicrous and doesn't adjust for metropolitan areas, but it's still what is used to determine estimated contribution. A family in New York City and a family in Lufkin, Texas are judged by the same poverty line, which is absolutely ridiculous. And that's leaving aside the fact that it assumes that even deadbeat parents must be supporting their children.
posted by corb at 4:08 PM on September 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
Yeah, but the thing is, that also selects for wealth, is the problem. Because here's the thing: you can't get student loans for time when you're not in school. So you can't get student loans for summer months when you're doing an unpaid internship. Which means you need funding for that unpaid internship, which means you need someone able to fund that unpaid internship. I'm seeing that happen right now in law school - people who can afford to take great unpaid internships at prestigious locations get more great unpaid internships, get offered great jobs out of the gate as soon as they graduate. People who have to work during the summer and can't do those, are less competitive for such jobs. I will give you a few guesses as to the racial makeup of those two groups of people.
And that's also broadly the problem with talking about the cost of school. Yes, people don't always pay sticker. Yes, often the costs are halved. But some people can't really afford to pay even the halved tuition, and also, often people need to take out student loans for such things as rent, food, gas, and otherwise just existing while they're in school, if no one is paying for it during that time. Which means their loans do balloon up to exorbitant amounts that they can't even really conceive of paying off. And the idea that out of state people shouldn't go to schools - well, where are the kids supposed to go then, when these jobs are only hiring people from the top schools? It's a relentless rat race.
Financial aid has also become incredibly brutal, as attempts to prevent people from gaming the system start getting increasingly intrusive and vastly overestimate the amounts that families can contribute to college. In part, this is because the federal poverty line is ludicrous and doesn't adjust for metropolitan areas, but it's still what is used to determine estimated contribution. A family in New York City and a family in Lufkin, Texas are judged by the same poverty line, which is absolutely ridiculous. And that's leaving aside the fact that it assumes that even deadbeat parents must be supporting their children.
posted by corb at 4:08 PM on September 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
Unpaid internships are a scam. The funding for the internship should come from the company employing them. I'm glad to be able to say that all the interns my company hires are paid positions where we train them on practical tasks like putting together reusable scripts and configuration to load a database. One of the interns I helped train just got hired full-time after finishing his finance-related degree.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 4:17 PM on September 12, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 4:17 PM on September 12, 2023 [6 favorites]
So you can't get student loans for summer months when you're doing an unpaid internship.
IDK what the legal profession is up to with unpaid internships leading to jobs. Everything I've read about law firm structures seems terrible, sounds classist and should be burnt down.
But I assure you, the internships I speak of are not unpaid. My student employees who took to internships made on par with what I did as a unionized IT professional at a state uni, and they got temp housing for free.
these jobs are only hiring people from the top schools
Pedigree matters less in engineering; very few of my coworkers attended Stanford or CMU. All ABET accredited CS degree program from flagship state unis are basically the same. Doing undergrad at MIT or Stanford might put you in different social circles, but you have the same fundamental knowledge as everyone else. Tier rankings are basically about research output, so unless you lean into getting a PhD, it has no bearing on what you learn (or maybe has a slight negative as there is no Nobel Prize for teaching).
posted by pwnguin at 6:20 PM on September 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
IDK what the legal profession is up to with unpaid internships leading to jobs. Everything I've read about law firm structures seems terrible, sounds classist and should be burnt down.
But I assure you, the internships I speak of are not unpaid. My student employees who took to internships made on par with what I did as a unionized IT professional at a state uni, and they got temp housing for free.
these jobs are only hiring people from the top schools
Pedigree matters less in engineering; very few of my coworkers attended Stanford or CMU. All ABET accredited CS degree program from flagship state unis are basically the same. Doing undergrad at MIT or Stanford might put you in different social circles, but you have the same fundamental knowledge as everyone else. Tier rankings are basically about research output, so unless you lean into getting a PhD, it has no bearing on what you learn (or maybe has a slight negative as there is no Nobel Prize for teaching).
posted by pwnguin at 6:20 PM on September 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Undergrad programs may teach basically the same things everywhere but plenty of employers see an MIT BS as a certification of being, you know, smart enough and driven enough to get into MIT.
But I agree that software is in some ways fairer about this than other fields. Partly because of the hobbyist culture and the existence of many avenues to prove one’s skill in a practical way. And partly because of the existence of big companies with an extensive recruiting apparatus that are pretty happy to offer a technical phone screen to basically anyone with a CS degree. So if you’re prepared to play that game, the name on your degree isn’t the most important thing (whereas for finance or management consulting sort of stuff, it seems to be a significant factor in who even gets in the recruiting pipeline).
posted by atoxyl at 7:13 PM on September 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
But I agree that software is in some ways fairer about this than other fields. Partly because of the hobbyist culture and the existence of many avenues to prove one’s skill in a practical way. And partly because of the existence of big companies with an extensive recruiting apparatus that are pretty happy to offer a technical phone screen to basically anyone with a CS degree. So if you’re prepared to play that game, the name on your degree isn’t the most important thing (whereas for finance or management consulting sort of stuff, it seems to be a significant factor in who even gets in the recruiting pipeline).
posted by atoxyl at 7:13 PM on September 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
This article does a good job highlighting the fact that a college degree is no longer a reliable financial choice. However, it doesn't address the shift in attitude in the US to only considering education in terms of financial outcomes. If we started from a different premise altogether, that college was about more than future wages, we would measure outcomes differently.
Is that really a shift though? I would dispute that. I think that for Joe and Jen Q. Public, telling their teenage kids to go to college in 1960, 1990, or 2023, the financial outcomes have always been the main, probably even the only driver. I think that the US (and the US is by no means unique in this) doesn't have a coherent vision of what higher education is for and never has. After all, if colleges were just about increasing earning power, we would organise their curricula quite differently to how we currently do but on the other hand, if they were for deepening the mind then we wouldn't justify their expenditure the way we do.
There seems to be a bit of a bait and switch where if you challenge the university establishment on rising college costs, they roll out these wage premium numbers but if you ask them if the purpose of their institution is actually to get their students a wage premium in later life they'd be horrified at the vulgarity!
For me, I think: Without having any outside experience whatsoever, *including internships or volunteer work* you can walk straight out of college and get hired at that company. The reason I define it that way is in part because that is the baseline for what "entry level" means - it means they don't expect you to bring any previous experience or skills, and they expect to do all of the training on the job.
We definitely hire fresh graduates, however we have a strong preference for hiring-back our own most successful interns from previous summers (obviously they are paid, I don't even think unpaid internships would be legal here since we use interns to produce billable work that goes to clients. Nonetheless we do hire (as do our competitors) graduates with no experience whatsoever, including internships.
Nobody wants last pick at the draft, so as a result "entry level" job offers get moved further and further away from graduation date
This has reached it's peak of ridiculousness in private equity recruiting. PE recruits people coming out of the two-year investment banking analyst cycle, at the end of those two years people either choose to stay at the bank for a third year before doing an MBA, go to an MBA programme (before coming back to either banking, PE, or a CFO-track role in industry if they're sick of the hours), or go to a PE fund.
Historically, recruitment for PE took place during the second year of the analyst programme and was based on a mix of interview, modelling tests, and nascent reputation (PE funds are clients of investment banks so this was an extra motivator to do a stellar job for a client like KKR - they might be interviewing you next year). However there is a sort of weird game theory aspect to recruitment timing - if a PE firm does its interviews first, they can make offers to the best candidates so everyone would typically watch like a hawk to see when the first firm would start interviewing and then immediately kick off its own process whenever the first competitor started. This is an unstable situation which has resulted now in offers being made in the summer before the incoming analysts actually start their banking jobs! In other words, they don't have any of the relevant job experience yet that would make them suitable candidates for the job but the interviewers are just betting that the IB training will be good enough and that two years from now, they'll be good hires.
posted by atrazine at 2:10 AM on September 13, 2023
Is that really a shift though? I would dispute that. I think that for Joe and Jen Q. Public, telling their teenage kids to go to college in 1960, 1990, or 2023, the financial outcomes have always been the main, probably even the only driver. I think that the US (and the US is by no means unique in this) doesn't have a coherent vision of what higher education is for and never has. After all, if colleges were just about increasing earning power, we would organise their curricula quite differently to how we currently do but on the other hand, if they were for deepening the mind then we wouldn't justify their expenditure the way we do.
There seems to be a bit of a bait and switch where if you challenge the university establishment on rising college costs, they roll out these wage premium numbers but if you ask them if the purpose of their institution is actually to get their students a wage premium in later life they'd be horrified at the vulgarity!
For me, I think: Without having any outside experience whatsoever, *including internships or volunteer work* you can walk straight out of college and get hired at that company. The reason I define it that way is in part because that is the baseline for what "entry level" means - it means they don't expect you to bring any previous experience or skills, and they expect to do all of the training on the job.
We definitely hire fresh graduates, however we have a strong preference for hiring-back our own most successful interns from previous summers (obviously they are paid, I don't even think unpaid internships would be legal here since we use interns to produce billable work that goes to clients. Nonetheless we do hire (as do our competitors) graduates with no experience whatsoever, including internships.
Nobody wants last pick at the draft, so as a result "entry level" job offers get moved further and further away from graduation date
This has reached it's peak of ridiculousness in private equity recruiting. PE recruits people coming out of the two-year investment banking analyst cycle, at the end of those two years people either choose to stay at the bank for a third year before doing an MBA, go to an MBA programme (before coming back to either banking, PE, or a CFO-track role in industry if they're sick of the hours), or go to a PE fund.
Historically, recruitment for PE took place during the second year of the analyst programme and was based on a mix of interview, modelling tests, and nascent reputation (PE funds are clients of investment banks so this was an extra motivator to do a stellar job for a client like KKR - they might be interviewing you next year). However there is a sort of weird game theory aspect to recruitment timing - if a PE firm does its interviews first, they can make offers to the best candidates so everyone would typically watch like a hawk to see when the first firm would start interviewing and then immediately kick off its own process whenever the first competitor started. This is an unstable situation which has resulted now in offers being made in the summer before the incoming analysts actually start their banking jobs! In other words, they don't have any of the relevant job experience yet that would make them suitable candidates for the job but the interviewers are just betting that the IB training will be good enough and that two years from now, they'll be good hires.
posted by atrazine at 2:10 AM on September 13, 2023
There is a near-schism in professional aviation about this topic and it has always been fascinating to me to watch the mouth-foaming and screeching from both sides of the degree fence when it happens. Until very recently, it was axiomatic that to be an airline pilot you had to have a four-year at a minimum. If you wanted to work for Delta, you had to also have a masters, space-shuttle flight time, an 11.0 GPA and you had to have cured at least one disease.
My, how times have changed.
The degree was, for decades, generally used as a discriminator because they had thousands of resumes stacked up and needed a way to whittle down the pile. But now there's a "pilot shortage" (there really isn't, exactly, but that's a complex/nuanced issue that doesn't make for clicks/headlines) so out goes the degree requirement and a few other things along the way.
Consensus these days - despite the screaming holdouts who yearn for a return to the Ye Olde Days (and most of those folks are retiring) - is that one should have a degree - any degree - as a fallback position because aviation is precarious and the longer you're in it the more likely you can lose your medical certification, or maybe a black swan event like a terrorist attack or pandemic causes job loss.
I'd submit that - given the conditions we're talking about here - it would make more sense to have a trade certification of some kind as a fallback to a 'profession' rather than a degree. Not that the two are mutually exclusive, just that most don't possess the resources to attain both.
This is a second-career for me, so I come to it with a slightly different perspective than many of my co-workers, and perhaps I would feel differently if I had a degree, since in prior years I might not have been able to do this, but learning to weld, pipe-fit or do finish carpentry seem like useful tools to have in the back pocket these days.
posted by Thistledown at 4:35 AM on September 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
My, how times have changed.
The degree was, for decades, generally used as a discriminator because they had thousands of resumes stacked up and needed a way to whittle down the pile. But now there's a "pilot shortage" (there really isn't, exactly, but that's a complex/nuanced issue that doesn't make for clicks/headlines) so out goes the degree requirement and a few other things along the way.
Consensus these days - despite the screaming holdouts who yearn for a return to the Ye Olde Days (and most of those folks are retiring) - is that one should have a degree - any degree - as a fallback position because aviation is precarious and the longer you're in it the more likely you can lose your medical certification, or maybe a black swan event like a terrorist attack or pandemic causes job loss.
I'd submit that - given the conditions we're talking about here - it would make more sense to have a trade certification of some kind as a fallback to a 'profession' rather than a degree. Not that the two are mutually exclusive, just that most don't possess the resources to attain both.
This is a second-career for me, so I come to it with a slightly different perspective than many of my co-workers, and perhaps I would feel differently if I had a degree, since in prior years I might not have been able to do this, but learning to weld, pipe-fit or do finish carpentry seem like useful tools to have in the back pocket these days.
posted by Thistledown at 4:35 AM on September 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
Catching up, as this is stuff I work on professionally:
Tough gets a lot of things right.
-The swerve away from "college for everyone," what I've called the shattered consensus
-Polling numbers going down
-The enrollment decline (peak was circa 2012-2013, and the decline continued after COVID)
-Grad school backfiring (for *some* fields and/or schools)
-The awful bolus of debt
-Prices rising - and their variations
-Not graduating is a bad thing, the worst of all worlds
-The importance of major
-The widening partisan break (but notice a chunk of Dems are in the skeptical camp)
-College as finishing school for the elite
Adding a wealth premium to the wage premium is a good idea for capturing college costs beyond opportunity costs.
I have a few issues, and really do need to claw some time to blog it:
-demographics aren't there, and that's a key dimension. The K-12 population is falling in big chunks of the US (northeast, midwest, south) and that's going to be hard for campuses to deal with. Grawe's "demographic cliff" is an accentuation of this.
-"A few decades ago, the same thing was true in the United States; government funding covered much of the cost of public college." First, that's odd phrasing, as it doesn't make clear which government is involved. The reality is that it was states governments, and that support was declining starting in the 80s. Second, it leaves off private colleges and universities, which are about 1/3rd of the US total. Third, it skips for profits, which boomed circa 1990-2010, and also targeted people of color, especially women (cf Tressie Cottom on this).
-as for why college is so expensive, that's something I keep meaning to just set down properly as a pdf, but a few details:
1) Sticker prices vary enormously. Top line now it circa $90,000/year; I'm forecasting we breach six figures around 2025. But many community colleges charge very little.
2) Over the past 20+ years higher ed has expanded. We hired a lot more faculty (although we also decided to make the biggest swath of them temps, something little known outside higher ed and barely discussed within), who do cost some money. We hired a lot of staff, from technologists to vice presidents, grants officers to resident life folks. All of this costs money (with a bonus of health care costs being extra pricey, because it's the US). Some of it is bogus, with some C-suite people featherbedding. Also, more of college workers have more and higher degrees, which we tend to reward with higher compensation (except adjuncts; does Tough mention them?).
3) Some institutions got materially much nicer, although some of that can be relatively cheap (through bonds, and donors love buildings). The so-called "explosions in spending for shiny new stuff everywhere" didn't happen everywhere.
4) Sticker price is a *mess*. We discount massively, to the highest levels in US history. Some stats show the discount rate closing in on 60%. The Economist joked that this is how the US does means testing, and there's some of that.
5) States pulled back on funding starting in the early 80s. The key bit is, this happen *right when enrollment started to soar*, so total funding slowing is worse on a per-student basis. In line with the rest of the economy, American higher ed chose to financialize our finances, hence the giant mass of loans.
posted by doctornemo at 5:09 PM on September 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
Tough gets a lot of things right.
-The swerve away from "college for everyone," what I've called the shattered consensus
-Polling numbers going down
-The enrollment decline (peak was circa 2012-2013, and the decline continued after COVID)
-Grad school backfiring (for *some* fields and/or schools)
-The awful bolus of debt
-Prices rising - and their variations
-Not graduating is a bad thing, the worst of all worlds
-The importance of major
-The widening partisan break (but notice a chunk of Dems are in the skeptical camp)
-College as finishing school for the elite
Adding a wealth premium to the wage premium is a good idea for capturing college costs beyond opportunity costs.
I have a few issues, and really do need to claw some time to blog it:
-demographics aren't there, and that's a key dimension. The K-12 population is falling in big chunks of the US (northeast, midwest, south) and that's going to be hard for campuses to deal with. Grawe's "demographic cliff" is an accentuation of this.
-"A few decades ago, the same thing was true in the United States; government funding covered much of the cost of public college." First, that's odd phrasing, as it doesn't make clear which government is involved. The reality is that it was states governments, and that support was declining starting in the 80s. Second, it leaves off private colleges and universities, which are about 1/3rd of the US total. Third, it skips for profits, which boomed circa 1990-2010, and also targeted people of color, especially women (cf Tressie Cottom on this).
-as for why college is so expensive, that's something I keep meaning to just set down properly as a pdf, but a few details:
1) Sticker prices vary enormously. Top line now it circa $90,000/year; I'm forecasting we breach six figures around 2025. But many community colleges charge very little.
2) Over the past 20+ years higher ed has expanded. We hired a lot more faculty (although we also decided to make the biggest swath of them temps, something little known outside higher ed and barely discussed within), who do cost some money. We hired a lot of staff, from technologists to vice presidents, grants officers to resident life folks. All of this costs money (with a bonus of health care costs being extra pricey, because it's the US). Some of it is bogus, with some C-suite people featherbedding. Also, more of college workers have more and higher degrees, which we tend to reward with higher compensation (except adjuncts; does Tough mention them?).
3) Some institutions got materially much nicer, although some of that can be relatively cheap (through bonds, and donors love buildings). The so-called "explosions in spending for shiny new stuff everywhere" didn't happen everywhere.
4) Sticker price is a *mess*. We discount massively, to the highest levels in US history. Some stats show the discount rate closing in on 60%. The Economist joked that this is how the US does means testing, and there's some of that.
5) States pulled back on funding starting in the early 80s. The key bit is, this happen *right when enrollment started to soar*, so total funding slowing is worse on a per-student basis. In line with the rest of the economy, American higher ed chose to financialize our finances, hence the giant mass of loans.
posted by doctornemo at 5:09 PM on September 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
harsh lessons about creeping credentialism
atoxyl nailed a key point. Generally, America has been demanding more academic credentials from would-be workers for a while. Jobs which used to need a high school diploma now require a bachelor's, gigs needing a BA now prefer an MA, etc.
This has just, just started to break. Several states - red *and* blue - decided to no longer require a BA/BS for government jobs. (Have we done a FPP on it? I could.)
some people can't really afford to pay even the halved tuition, and also, often people need to take out student loans for such things as rent, food, gas, and otherwise just existing while they're in school, if no one is paying for it during that time. Which means their loans do balloon up to exorbitant amounts that they can't even really conceive of paying off.
Yes indeed, corb. Sara Goldrick-Rab has done some great work on this, what she calls "real college," on how a lot of financial aid just isn't realistic.
If the primary goal of college is financial security/success, then choose a degree that leads to that: STEM, business, etc. and set a budget which compares projected debt with expected earnings.
Yes, on the demand side. On the supply side, this is why a lot of campuses are cutting back on a range of departments: students heeding Artful Codger's advice and not majoring/taking a lot of classes in the arts, humanities, some social sciences. There are actually scholarly books published on how to make these cuts.
posted by doctornemo at 5:21 PM on September 13, 2023
atoxyl nailed a key point. Generally, America has been demanding more academic credentials from would-be workers for a while. Jobs which used to need a high school diploma now require a bachelor's, gigs needing a BA now prefer an MA, etc.
This has just, just started to break. Several states - red *and* blue - decided to no longer require a BA/BS for government jobs. (Have we done a FPP on it? I could.)
some people can't really afford to pay even the halved tuition, and also, often people need to take out student loans for such things as rent, food, gas, and otherwise just existing while they're in school, if no one is paying for it during that time. Which means their loans do balloon up to exorbitant amounts that they can't even really conceive of paying off.
Yes indeed, corb. Sara Goldrick-Rab has done some great work on this, what she calls "real college," on how a lot of financial aid just isn't realistic.
If the primary goal of college is financial security/success, then choose a degree that leads to that: STEM, business, etc. and set a budget which compares projected debt with expected earnings.
Yes, on the demand side. On the supply side, this is why a lot of campuses are cutting back on a range of departments: students heeding Artful Codger's advice and not majoring/taking a lot of classes in the arts, humanities, some social sciences. There are actually scholarly books published on how to make these cuts.
posted by doctornemo at 5:21 PM on September 13, 2023
As a lover of philosophy, my recommendation for people who want to study it is to read books and join a discussion group. Education is wonderful, but degrees are for certification.
Joining a reading group and taking a class are qualitatively different experiences.
It's totally legit to take courses that aren't directly related to the job you wanna do. Certification is great, but it doesn't necessarily end up relating directly to the jobs everybody ends up doing. If you want to take a philosophy class, do it. If you're majoring in history/poly sci/economics/probably some other things it's not exactly an irrelevant cross-discipline! And if you're interested in philosophy as a PhD track, having had the face time in class with someone who's done that already can at least help make an informed decision about that.
posted by StarkRoads at 5:48 PM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Joining a reading group and taking a class are qualitatively different experiences.
It's totally legit to take courses that aren't directly related to the job you wanna do. Certification is great, but it doesn't necessarily end up relating directly to the jobs everybody ends up doing. If you want to take a philosophy class, do it. If you're majoring in history/poly sci/economics/probably some other things it's not exactly an irrelevant cross-discipline! And if you're interested in philosophy as a PhD track, having had the face time in class with someone who's done that already can at least help make an informed decision about that.
posted by StarkRoads at 5:48 PM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Also, the median college debt is not that high- it's $40k, or only slightly more than a single car costs. So I find the focus on college debt across the board kind of weak, or at best incomplete.
I've seen $30K, but I think it's more serious than that. For one, if we're talking about people in their 20s, such a pile of debt can delay key things: capital purchases (car, house), child bearing. At the personal level, this can be a years-long drag. At the macro, it's a slight depression to the economy.
For another, don't forget the people owning the debt who don't have the degrees: parents who take over the loans, or students who don't get degrees.
Yes, people can overstate student debt. I used to collect stories about the barista with $100K in debt, the dentist owing a cool million, and so on. The reality is more sobering.
posted by doctornemo at 6:29 PM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
I've seen $30K, but I think it's more serious than that. For one, if we're talking about people in their 20s, such a pile of debt can delay key things: capital purchases (car, house), child bearing. At the personal level, this can be a years-long drag. At the macro, it's a slight depression to the economy.
For another, don't forget the people owning the debt who don't have the degrees: parents who take over the loans, or students who don't get degrees.
Yes, people can overstate student debt. I used to collect stories about the barista with $100K in debt, the dentist owing a cool million, and so on. The reality is more sobering.
posted by doctornemo at 6:29 PM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yea, the whole "it's only slightly more than the price of a single car" kind of misses the fact that most folks . . . still have to buy a car? Where does this extra $200-$600/month or whatever come from?
posted by flamk at 11:54 PM on September 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by flamk at 11:54 PM on September 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Indeed, flamk. Remember the point about rising income inequality and depressed wage growth.
posted by doctornemo at 5:52 AM on September 14, 2023
posted by doctornemo at 5:52 AM on September 14, 2023
Is that really a shift though?
In the last two decades, the government has been focusing more narrowly on workforce outcomes for colleges and universities, reflecting the more narrow public focus on degrees as financial instruments. In 2015, the Obama administration implemented the Gainful Employment Rule that ties federal funding to alumni employment. The idea at the time was to hamper predatory private colleges, but it's contracted and expanded based on government sentiment since then. We've also seen increased desire of tracking employment outcomes in public colleges, with things like the College Transparency Act and similar state-level tracking programs. In 2020, the Education Department started tracking wages at the field of study level too, to be able to sort subjects based on profitability.
Then of course there's the well-documented trend of students increasingly choosing their majors based on profitability, a.k.a. "the decline of the humanities."
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:14 AM on September 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
In the last two decades, the government has been focusing more narrowly on workforce outcomes for colleges and universities, reflecting the more narrow public focus on degrees as financial instruments. In 2015, the Obama administration implemented the Gainful Employment Rule that ties federal funding to alumni employment. The idea at the time was to hamper predatory private colleges, but it's contracted and expanded based on government sentiment since then. We've also seen increased desire of tracking employment outcomes in public colleges, with things like the College Transparency Act and similar state-level tracking programs. In 2020, the Education Department started tracking wages at the field of study level too, to be able to sort subjects based on profitability.
Then of course there's the well-documented trend of students increasingly choosing their majors based on profitability, a.k.a. "the decline of the humanities."
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:14 AM on September 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
I've seen $30K
This is another place where agendas drive the data. The debt numbers are *for people who borrow* not all college students. About 1/3rd of college students don't borrow money at all, meaning that the median is actually lower for the entire population.*
posted by Galvanic at 8:21 AM on September 14, 2023
This is another place where agendas drive the data. The debt numbers are *for people who borrow* not all college students. About 1/3rd of college students don't borrow money at all, meaning that the median is actually lower for the entire population.*
posted by Galvanic at 8:21 AM on September 14, 2023
The debt numbers are *for people who borrow* not all college students. About 1/3rd of college students don't borrow money at all, meaning that the median is actually lower for the entire population.
Exactly right.
posted by doctornemo at 10:06 AM on September 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Exactly right.
posted by doctornemo at 10:06 AM on September 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Nobody wants last pick at the draft, so as a result "entry level" job offers get moved further and further away from graduation date
Yeah, I think this is kind of one of the big problems, especially with fields that (unlike software) don't pay for their internships. Firms with real jobs are hiring earlier and earlier because they want the "good" candidates, but you have to *know* that that's happening, which means you have to be of the social class that knows that is happening or know people who are. I know it is worse in law, but for example, I'm applying for an internship that if they like me might lead to a job nine months in advance of the internship and a year and nine months ahead of when I would be taking the job. They're going to be deciding if they think it's possible they might want to hire me *now*.
I've seen $30K, but I think it's more serious than that. For one, if we're talking about people in their 20s, such a pile of debt can delay key things: capital purchases (car, house), child bearing
Yeah, I think that also people aren't remembering how close to the margins a lot of people are operating these days and how expensive things are. Apartments, cars, the various utilities that are an absolute necessity of modern life (cellphone, internet) - all of these make entry level post-tax salaries really hard if they're single, and really hard to spend the initial money to go out on dates to become *not* single and thus share the costs of a place. When I was in my 20s my first apartment was with a romantic partner - that is not really the case these days for most college students, who are dating less and later. How much of that is debt I can't say, but it's certainly something worth thinking about.
posted by corb at 10:46 AM on September 14, 2023
Yeah, I think this is kind of one of the big problems, especially with fields that (unlike software) don't pay for their internships. Firms with real jobs are hiring earlier and earlier because they want the "good" candidates, but you have to *know* that that's happening, which means you have to be of the social class that knows that is happening or know people who are. I know it is worse in law, but for example, I'm applying for an internship that if they like me might lead to a job nine months in advance of the internship and a year and nine months ahead of when I would be taking the job. They're going to be deciding if they think it's possible they might want to hire me *now*.
I've seen $30K, but I think it's more serious than that. For one, if we're talking about people in their 20s, such a pile of debt can delay key things: capital purchases (car, house), child bearing
Yeah, I think that also people aren't remembering how close to the margins a lot of people are operating these days and how expensive things are. Apartments, cars, the various utilities that are an absolute necessity of modern life (cellphone, internet) - all of these make entry level post-tax salaries really hard if they're single, and really hard to spend the initial money to go out on dates to become *not* single and thus share the costs of a place. When I was in my 20s my first apartment was with a romantic partner - that is not really the case these days for most college students, who are dating less and later. How much of that is debt I can't say, but it's certainly something worth thinking about.
posted by corb at 10:46 AM on September 14, 2023
The Gen Z homeownership rate by age-25 is better than Gen X, Millennials, and only slightly below boomers.
posted by Galvanic at 10:55 AM on September 14, 2023
posted by Galvanic at 10:55 AM on September 14, 2023
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And there are stupid reasons.
I'm not sure all of them can be fixed. I'm not sure there's the will to fix the ones that can be.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:01 PM on September 11, 2023 [5 favorites]