See, a good engineer I know, who studied in University of Missouri Rolla. Their CS degree is not all that different from a big name, as far as curriculum is concerned, but many HR departments won't recognize the place, especially if it's a company from the coasts. If you don't find a way to break through that social class, the best you can hope for is a Midwest Enterprise company, which will not pay as well, and will not teach as well. Then your resume will be thrown away at many hip companies, because working at such companies is seen as a negative, not as a positive: To climb out of a good education with a bad name to a place that pays top dollar can be a huge struggle. If instead you go to the Right University, you can then move on to the Right Company, and you can keep working at said places, or get venture capital to start your own thing, because you were already in the inside track. That's what you are paying for at the coastal university, not a dramatically superior education.
You are right though, in that there are many degrees that are terrible investments in all but the topmost universities. You'd be surprised by the kind of companies that will interview you anyway if you have an irrelevant degree from Harvard.
I went and did my own thing so my story is fine. But I wonder about how much good talent is ignored just on the basis of where one went to college.
So basically, only applicable with Law Degrees
If the government removes the backing and allows the free market to give loans and set interest rates, suddenly you'll see that the lowest rates will be for STEM degrees, and those who want to study music theory, art therapy, English literature, are going to get loans for school.
However, that defeats the entire narrative of "everybody should go to school and everybody should learn whatever they want."
(except maybe on music theory, bit more technical of a degree that most people realize)
There's more ways to define success than in terms of money.
As far as postmodern literature departments, sure they are worthless, and maybe counter productive
Some lucrative career tracks are very hard to get into without that name brand on your diploma.
I agree with this but for many people I think they hit a wall whereby a degree is a minimum requirement for entry to a position even if everyone "knows" that it's not required.
In the UK this was made worse with a massive push for 50% of children to go to university [1] as a political target. Whilst that might've been a noble idea in principle, it further undermined apprenticeships and trade skills and led to the general public thinking if you don't go to university then there's something wrong with you. [2]
I did my first degree at Imperial "full time" and my second with the Open University 10 years later whilst earning - if I could do it all again I'd have gone straight into work and studied "part time" (I hate that phrase, it's really more like having 2 full time jobs IMO). The second time round I was also "paying as you go" for my courses which made me extremely mindful as to just what exactly it was costing me (FWIW it cost me about 20% of what my first one did and I was earning the entire time).
> Somewhere there should be a list of "Degrees you should not get if you're going to pay more than $x for" to help bright-eyed high school kids make good decisions.
Unfortunately I think even if such a list existed the people that need to actually read and think about it wouldn't be aware or interested in it. Of the 18 - 21 year olds I've talked to recently, aside from the aspiring medics and hopeful academics, a bunch of them view university as a time to work out what they want to do. That was ok 30 years ago but I think they're in for an extremely expensive lesson.
Then again hope for many millennials about the long term future is at an all time low so why even think about it. [3]
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1789500.stm
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/nov/02/parents-app...
[3] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/wages-have-fallen-43-...
The first problem is people are not shopping around for a college education. There are thousands of incredible colleges around the USA that will give you the same or better education as a pricey school on the coasts.
I did my easiest credits at Bulter County Community, then Wichita State University, before finishing up at Kansas State University. I only took on about $8k of debt for a degree in Information Systems (computer science with an emphasis in business classes) from their engineering school (which is one of 24 schools that has a nuclear reactor on campus). K-State itself was a hoot to go to, it's a great little school in a swanky town isolated by 2 hours of prairie grass.
The second problem is people are paying way too much for a nearly useless degrees that some colleges offer. You can get a degree in "music therapy" or "insurance administration", both of which a motivated individual could also get on-the-job training for.
Somewhere there should be a list of "Degrees you should not get if you're going to pay more than $x for" to help bright-eyed high school kids make good decisions.