While this is not ideal (I think 1 and 2 are part of the reasons many Italian lack the ambition Americans have), it's a very good way to live a very decent life as an individual. At a macro level I believe pushing on 1 and 2 will kill your economy, on a micro level (aka if I was a shrink), I would strongly advise them.

P.s. of course, 1 and 2 work well in a world where you have USA, where people do kill themselves to deliver loads of innovation to the whole planet (see: internet, space exploration, etc.).

P.p.s. of course USA works well because it attracted talent across the world to deliver loads of innovation (see: immigrants)

Sorry, but as Italian I feel that there is a little bit of bias in this statement.

I would encourage you to look at the ratio of innovation over funding in Italy compared with the USA, please define "innovation" in whichever way you like the best.

In Italy you will never have something like Snapchat nor AirBnB, but arguably the work done in our laboratories are pretty advanced and technical also in the internet and space exploration field, however we don't get much cover.

What is true, however is that most of the technology advancement in Italy is done in the north, in the same way that most of the technology advancement in the US is not done in the Midwest

The "wealthiest" person alive today is some happy accountant in middle America with a great salary, good health, and happy family. Stable and well compensated work with plenty of leisure time and zero want for basic necessities.

And on top of all that, you have these crazily ambitious weirdos absolutely killing themselves to deliver to you all these cool toys and convenient services just to capture outsized economic surplus. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.

A little bit offtopic:

Well, Italy is economically not at the top and South Italy even much worse. So, I just wonder if this is a healthy attitute.

Even on micro level: If you don't have ambitions besides friends/family, this is very sad. At least I couldn't imagine living like that.

There was an interesting quote from Max Levchin, can't find it, will edit later. It was something like this: "Interviewer: Why do you keep founding companies/push yourself? Levchin: Well, you sleep 8 hours a day. Then you play 2 hours with your children, spend 1 hour with your wife. Wtf do you do the remaining 13 hours?" This is actually a nice summary.

And this is the similar reason why people are defined by their education. It's just a small amount of years that elivate your value. It will be strange to miss the opportunity without a very good reason.

8 hours sleep, 2 hours with children, 1 hour with wife, 10 hours doing work and commuting to support them? 3 hours extra to exercise, doing various errands, and maybe more quality time with your wife. Not that I don't understand what original quote meant to say, but you operate a little different when don't have a shitload of money.

Why is it sad that other people have different wants and needs than you do?

I agree if we're talking about a four year degree, but a trade school is a great option for someone "not suited" towards academics.

Cost is substantially increasing.

Benefit is stagnating or decreasing.

Cost of substitutes is exponentially decreasing.

It's ripe for disruption, hence my fascination.

A lot of the ideas that are currently being floated around in the online space are pretty well-worn. In fact, I've seen very little progress in this space, compared to other industries. Not much has changed aside from self-driven 'autodidact learning'. And, that's kind of mind-boggling considering the supply and demand curves. There's huge inelastic demand for higher education and very limited supply (capacity).

The toughest nut to crack is the accreditation and pedigree issue. If you can figure out how to get most (or even some) hiring managers (or grant-funding bodies, or even moms and dads) to give more weight to credentials that aren't the traditional diplomas, you'll be in a good spot.

A few studied in another country but couldn't get the courses transferred. Another did a year of math studies before university at a local university, then went on to study engineering at an "Ivy league". And so on.

Just spending 10 hours a week studying a subject for a year before someone start studying it at university should be a giant market. No need for diplomas.

also there is at least some degree of connection being the education industry and being perceived as intelligent, so a lot of people's self identity is connected to their relationship with the education industry

for a lot of people their education is one of the 2 or 3 largest purchases they'll ever make in their lifetimes

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combined, it becomes a thing in which a large number of people come to hold opinions about, probably far more than the typical HN topic

How many of these kids are making these decisions based on third-hand accounts of what higher education actually entails, without even sitting in on a post-highschool lecture? How many are told not to bother simply because they don't look/act/sound the part?

Given the state of highschool education, the lack of basic literacy, nearly everyone would do well to attend some sort of 'academic' post-secondary education. Reading books, listening to lectures and writing about what you have learned teaches the basic communication skills useful in every field.

In school, people generally have to do the same thing everyone else does, they have precise deadlines and get nothing for forging their own paths. In life, having no unique experiences or skills is a path to ruin, one can never be certain how long a window of opportunity will be open and finding one's own path can lead to great satisfaction and well-being.

From an educational perspective, school is even worse. Many with literature degrees can't write, business majors rarely build successful businesses, foreign language majors often don't end up fluent in the language they study for years on end, and even top sales reps or engineers often lack a related degree. Spending all that time is only really worth it if a) it's required for a license, b) you need access to equipment you couldn't otherwise get, e.g. for the sciences, c) you just aren't capable of learning well on your own, or d) you go to an elite institution where you can learn from the best in the world.

90% of the value is just the credential to deal with narrow-minded people and institutions who use it as a filter.

I believe the article was about the rising costs to society that come from expecting everyone to get their post-secondary education through formal schooling to get a job. The truth is, a university really isn't a good fit for a lot of people. It's painful both in terms of the many years it can take and the massive financial burden.

One of my closest childhood friends has been buried in student debt for years and is still taking part time classes while working a full-time job (which often forces poor performance in the classes). But debt deferral doesn't last long if you stop taking classes. Talk about poor alignment of incentives! Both the initial decision to seek a degree and the expectation of one from so many downright elitist gatekeepers ended up creating a vicious cycle of increasing debt for a good person who has a great work ethic but poor study habits.

Statistics make it clear that this is far from uncommon. Perhaps some social circles are insulated from the reality but facts are facts.

At most public universities, only 19 percent of full-time students earn a bachelor’s degree in four years. http://completecollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/4-Year...

The system is broken and getting worse.

There are more students in college because high school education does limit your job opportunities, and wages for non-educated jobs have not only not risen, but have fallen since the 1970s. Tuition may be more subsidized in the number of dollars touched by the state, but education budgets often haven't risen to meet demand and the only subsidies anyone's getting these days is loans. Grants and scholarships from the state have shrunk and shrunk and shrunk. A college education is more likely to lead to pulling you out of poverty than a lack of one.

Yes. There have been quite a few stories showing how admin in education is booming. Also, growth in numbers requires growth in facilities, which are a big money sink for most education institutions; you could argue a lot of this extra money is actually going to the building sector (and again, admin required for all these projects) as well as the constant churn that is IT upgrades.

> Grants and scholarships from the state have shrunk and shrunk and shrunk.

The more the State pumps into loans (driven by student numbers, and carrying a considerable management overhead), the less it has for direct subsidies. In a situation where overall revenue from taxation is fixed or falling in real terms, that makes sense and it does not contradict TFA.

> A college education is more likely to lead to pulling you out of poverty than a lack of one.*

I agree there, but it depends on what "pulling out of poverty" means. A degree might help you get a job, but current trends mean that you might still end up being poor -- just a working one.

Rather than enforcing class status through education tiers, a progressive agenda should concentrate on restoring dignity to regular jobs. Sadly this is seen as class warfare, whereas platitudes about getting everyone and his dog into 4 years of subsidised drinking go down fine with all sectors of the electorate.

I consider myself extremely cynical and pragmatic, but I still have to found somebody who wouldn't be able to do what I did in my university, arguably one of the most challenging in my area.

Grated, a lot of people that I know wouldn't get what the professor is telling them in the classroom, but in my opinion this is a problem with how education is provided not with my folks being "simply not suited for higher education"

In my opinion if the only way to teach is to show prof of theorems with make them feels real, either we don't really know what we are trying to teach or we don't know how to teach.

Mohammed was in another of my math classes last year. Unlike Tre, does not communicate his mental disability immediately. He talks quickly, cracks decent jokes, likes people around, while Tre was happier off in a corner listening to music. It took me a while to realize that Mohammed, who is neither black nor Hispanic, wasn’t retaining any information at all. Once I did realize this, I looked more closely at his IEP and saw he was a special day students with an IQ in the mid-80s. Also an excellent athlete, but very different from Tre. No fact grasp at all. He couldn’t remember what you told him five minutes ago, much less yesterday. But he could solve a simple algebraic equation with a calculator. He’d have to relearn it almost every day, but he had the ability to abstract that Tre lacks. He very badly wanted to move on to the next math class in the sequence, against the recommendation of his special ed adviser, and nagged me constantly to support him in this quest. I was willing to help him try, but his sport kept him out of the classroom a couple days a week for nearly a month, and everything I’d managed to do to keep him not rolling backwards was undone. So I passed him and talked him into an easier course."

https://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/noahpinion...