College was the first time in my life when I feel like I truly took responsibility for myself, and people generally thought I was a responsible kid growing up. I finally found myself in a place where I could make friends who shared interests with me who I truly wanted to interact with, and many of those friendships evolved into mentors or mentees. TAing, challenging classwork, and living for the first time on my own really forced me to mature and take charge of my future.

Of course, I could just be a late bloomer, or maybe my STEM interests and particular rural community made my situation unique. But I don't think I'm the only one in my generation who feels this way.

I agree that college is probably not appropriate for your average kid, but for the kind of kids who enjoy learning, who aspire to do something challenging for a career, I think higher learning is indispensable. It's important to keep in mind that college is meant to enrich people as individuals, not explicitly prepare them for jobs. Technical/vocational schools are for job prep.

The more college is shown to be failing the job market, the more I hear this argument.

Are people who don't go to college less enriched individuals?

Lately, academics seem to be shifting their value proposition to the instillation of this undetectable unmeasurable X-factor. We can't see it, we can't prove that it exists, but it's there, and its value is absolutely incalculable. How convenient for the sales pitch is this.

And I don't blame them. As knowledge and skills become accessible to everyone, that's the last defense they'll be left with. What else are they going to say? Our institution is completely out of touch with the job market and the economic realities of our nation, and this was all a complete waste of time?

Also, a lot of arguments in favor of college make the mistake of comparing it to nothing, and I think this argument is guilty of that.

I'll admit that college compares favorably to doing nothing, but people who skip college aren't just sitting alone in a room staring at a white wall while you're in your lectures. They have 1 year of life experiences for every 1 year of yours. Whatever it means to be an enriched individual, people who don't go to college can be just as enriched.

They can go live on their own too. They can take on responsibility, take on challenging work, have relationships, and most of them do. College was your path there and it worked well for you, and that's great. But I also agree with you that it's not ideal for everybody (or even for most people).

Historically, college was a finishing school for the wealthy. This is not a new argument.

The new argument is that colleges should provide job training. Previously, this was the role of vocational or training schools.

And employers.

college is probably the only time in your life that an entire team of domain experts will be obligated to take time out of their day to meet with you and answer your questions, however silly or low-level they may be.

as a professor, college is one of the only places where you can get paid to work on things that not only have no near-term value, but likely will never have any practical value at all! (I guess this could also be an argument against college...)

I do think there is a problem with the way people understand college. outside of a couple majors (ie computer science), college should really be considered something like a luxury good. it isn't economic in the sense of dollars, cents, and balance sheets, but something that has it's own intrinsic value for those who take advantage of it (a distinct minority of undergrad students).

disclaimer: I think I am one of these people who college is mostly wasted on. I don't go to office hours, participate in clubs, or really do anything other than really good work on programming assignments and cramming for exams. I'm mostly in it for the piece of paper.

Not coincidentally, most of the most powerful world-altering ideas (the type that spawn trillions of dollars of new previously unconsidered industries, lead to new communication mediums, cause or prevent wars, topple governments, or set the terms of future laws) come out of work done at colleges or other publicly funded research institutions, often considered at the time to be of no practical value.

There are whole fields of study which serve as society-wide multipliers but each individual tiny advance is not worth it to any particular company to hire someone to spend their whole career studying.

OTOH, if you attended college I'm pretty curious what that was like for you.

The cost of college forces some people to also argument for better revenue opportunities and better fit for future jobs, because otherwise burning through ungodly amounts of money just to be a better rounded person would be a hard sell.

In countries where university are cheaper nobody bats an eye at someone going through the cycles just for the sake of it, purely to learn interesting things.

We do. Every year discovering yourself is a year you're not productive. Those cheaper university fees come from taxes which you need employed people to pay. I'd argue the US system is fairer: people who enjoy university education pay for it. In Europe, people who got in trade and never thought about getting a university degree are paying for those for get them.

The unfairness in the US system comes largely from the fact that, depending on what kind of family you come from, college may be very easy for you to attend or very difficult.

Stateside, as NPL rates increases with the nominal prices of attending, this becomes less true on top of that it is assumed that future taxes will support these increases well into the future.

Tuition is pretty cheap in Canada-- definitely as compared to the States. I'm actually at university to do just that. I'm in a math degree while I get my certs. I'm getting a minor in Latin, because learning the language is literally on my bucket list. I'm having a pretty good time, I'd say.

Although, with this argumentation, one could simply change university with some other novel experience, like military service.

I'm not sure how you could do the same without going to college

> Join a large church and you can probably meet people in every city too, and you won't need to take out huge loans to do it.

most people only go to their local church. Many people from my uni were from out of state

I don't contact random alumni, unless we already have several mutual friends in common. Or were part of the same student associations.

This should be highlighted. I believe college is a great luxury. Is it necessary? No. Can you learn job requirements faster elsewhere? Yes.

I wish K-12 were more like college in the sense that you have some guidelines but otherwise you're basically in a large library. You get to run around & try learning different things that interest you for a few years. It makes you more well rounded as an individual. This is something few people appreciate at a young age. I didn't fully appreciate it until I was older but I did enjoy the diverse opportunities at the time.

I often here this but I'm somewhat sceptical. I'm not saying you didn't turn into and adult, rather that you would have done that whether you went to college or not.

I'm fine with this as a concept, except that colleges routinely present themselves as job prep, and many employers follow suit.

This is false. This claim ("colleges are for enrichment and learning; not preparation for a job!") is being trotted out a lot more recently. I consider it to be a pivot equivalent to the Bitcoin Bros' (LLC) pivot from "clearly this will replace currency" to "clearly it has been a store of value all along".

Job preparation/income/career enhancement has always been a huge part of the motivation to go to college. Even as many colleges have marketed themselves as "we're not just job prep; come here for the joy of learning", they have also spent huge amounts of resources on making their graduates competitive in the job market. Note that I don't think that expenditure necessarily paid off/was sufficient, just that career preparation is definitely a huge priority for colleges and people who attend them.

The text of the article seems largely straightforward and factual to me. It doesn’t say that there’s anything inherently bad about not going to college, but rather that not having a college degree has made it difficult for some people to find new careers in places where many types of labor are facing declining demand because of large structural forces, and that those communities are feeling a general malaise due to drug use, high unemployment, outward migration, falling incomes, etc. (a claim supported by evidence from polls and census data).

Are you saying that it is condescending for the “executive director of the Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative” to be advising rural students to try college? Is it wrong for people from rural areas who got college degrees to spend their time advocating that other rural young people do the same?

I know several people who grew up in rural places and founding college and subsequent highly technical careers very rewarding. For some, it was explicitly seen as a way to escape their (to them, stifling feeling) rural community. I also know people who grew up in a city but didn’t like it and moved to rural areas as adults. Different people have different preferences.

If you are arguing that many jobs that currently require degrees shouldn’t, that seems like an orthogonal conversation not really touched on by this article; it’s not at all clear that the people profiled here would disagree with that.

The rural have limited social interaction, leading to a biased worldview.

Given a smaller total number of people, the number you have meaningful interactions with on a day to day basis actually winds up being higher since each person isn't just another 2 - 5 minute encounter but someone that you see regularly, who likely lives nearby, who knows other people that you've met, and frequents the same locations. It's a tighter knit.

You also don't have the luxury of choosing the people that you establish a rapport with, whereas living in a large centre I could easily pick and choose the people I associate with based on how much they agree with my views and opinions. I may not agree with the people I know now 100% of the time but we make it work, being polite and reasonable seems to come with the territory.

While one job in the city might attract 100 applicants, one job in a small community of 100 people total might attract two applicants. This forces rural employers to be less choosy about who they hire, and enables applicants to be less special as they do not need to stand out from the crowd in the same way their big city counterparts need to.

While I am not about to suggest that college is only for building careers, I find a large segment of students treat it as nothing more. When you remove the feeling that you need a college degree to get a job, as is the case for many who look for work in rural areas, that removes the reason why many want to attain a degree.

Generally, education for education's sake is not something our society values. We are, I think quite unfortunately, taught from an early age that jobs are the whole reason for attending school. Few, regardless of whether they live in a major city or in the country, recognize the value beyond that.

After living in cities all my life, I moved to a small farm about a dozen years ago. I still keep track of what's going on nationally and internationally, but I've found that it simply doesn't affect me as much as it did when I lived in a city. I stress out a lot less.

Rural people think Trump's as much of an idiot as urban folk do: it's just that the media think we all love him.

(2) Going to college is like joining a gym. Some people go to the gym every day, seek out the in-house trainers for free tips, study fitness YouTube videos in their spare time, maybe even make a ton of friends at the gym. Other people pay the same monthly fee but can never seem to find the time to actually go to the gym yet they find plenty of time to play video games and eat junk food. My point is that you can't blame the gym if you don't get in shape. Students have to actively participate in the process if they are going to get the most out of it and unfortunately many do not. I don't think that's entirely the responsibility of the college.

It is not hard to find evidence that American university is outrageously expensive. And for what is the average result? You learned the theory/basics of X subject? Or you met cool people and had a good time?

I think we're getting to the point that it is not worth it for a common job and certainly not for a common job in tech.

(Not arguing medicine or advanced science/engineering degrees!)

This argument is invalid too. We can say most that go to college are better off thus the net positive results.

You have to weigh the lack of debt and the "head start" against the fact that many doors will be shut to you without a degree.

If you want to go because you have the resources and for every other reason other than I need to get a degree to work and live. Than have a blast.

This is a serious misunderstanding of what education is or is for. Higher education doesn't exist to provide a skill. That is what trade schools are for. I know this is largely disagreeable for many people on here who learned to program in a university CS program.

Higher education exists to provide the educational background necessary to function in a professional, often corporate, setting. This means things like communications skills, following complex directions, and problem solving. It is a difference between a job of solving for implied tasks versus a job where everything is a directed task and nothing more is expected.

It seems, at best, we have people trying to compare the worlds best prodigies with people who suffer from severe disabilities that prevent them from going to college and conclude that because the prodigies breezed through college that college is the reason for them being more successful people, but that is obviously a horribly flawed methodology.

It's kind of like looking at the Olympics to see how it has shaped the athletic ability of the athletes compared to the ability of the population who have never been to the Olympics. You are bound to find outliers[1], but observing that Olympic athletes are usually stronger athletes might leave you to believe that going to the Olympics makes one a significantly better athlete. However, in reality, those same people would still be among the best athletes even if they never went anywhere near the Olympics.

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/winter-olympics/...

But, to stick with the comparison, many countries have programs to help out athletes who are economically disadvantaged as well to allow them to make it to the Olympics, assuming they already have demonstrated sufficient athletic ability to justify the funding. Just as sufficient academic ability is required for any college subsidy I have ever come across.

Although I'm not sure ability to pay ends at economic disadvantage. I don't feel that I can pay for college at this point in my life, with many preexisting financial commitments that need to come first, and I have a developer's salary. Nobody is going to pay my way. Not being poor doesn't mean money is readily available for such luxuries. There is a very real opportunity cost there.

What about academically disadvantaged students? Are there any studies to show how people who couldn't possibly graduate from college if they tried to the best of their ability fair by being given access to the entire course load and awarded a degree even with their technical failure? That would be very interesting and a way to start to control the variables.

Another way to think about it is whether you need to be told explicitly what you do for a job or whether you are given a field of problems to solve for (implied tasks). One of those is far more limited in risk and potential while the other is far more benefited by higher education.

I wonder if just working in a corporate setting and learning these skills as an intern or junior employee might be far more effective.

If it did not. Employment would not require it. Because as most have stated above. It was not about preparing for the workforce. It was for all these other reasons, or the theory of the subject. Why would we want a MS if all they did is meet people and learn how to cook a meal for themselves because they're no longer under their parents thumb?

I would say not too far into ones career. Education matters very little. As in diminishing returns. The best you'll get after attending 'University of X' 5-10 years into your career. Is a high-five because the hiring manager went there too. Not because you're so much better off because you had a class on .Net and Network fundamentals. This is mostly true in all but the very specialized jobs in Tech. For the specialized few that went to top universities.

That's not so clear. Other theories I've heard include "college is a good proxy for being reasonably intelligent and able to complete a difficult task" (mostly from employers themselves) and the more cynical "college education is a class signifier." I personally would say that college is worthwhile, from a purely work perspective, because it provides the student with the tools to encounter a new problem or concept, learn about it, and teach himself how to solve it, but that there's something to the other two explanations I mentioned too. My Japanese degree taught me nothing about programming, but the experience of learning Japanese in a university was useful when I decided I wanted to learn how to program.

Of course there are exceptions (if you're a doctor your higher education materials were obviously directly relevant), but to me this helps explain why so many employers care about a college degree, and not necessarily a degree in a particular subject.

> Not because you're so much better off because you had a class on .Net and Network fundamentals.

A computer science program that has courses devoted to stuff like .NET frankly doesn't sound like a very good one, since the idea of learning comp-sci is to understand underlying principles rather than memorizing how to use a particular tool.

What I mean is the things you mentioned while I do not dismiss them and I believe you. That being learning an unrelated major helped you with learning something else.. Is not actually enough for tech companies to want to hire you. But because we place so much emphasis on the paper. You're over-looked. So what you feel is a higher-education strength is actually a weakness in the market.

Most of the hard-luck stories I've heard related to degrees were people who'd had decent careers and then weren't able to get a promotion because of a company policy saying managers all needed a bachelors, or something to that effect, where the subject wouldn't really be what's at issue. If I'm really being shut out from interviews because my degree is in the wrong thing I have not noticed the effect -- even at tech companies.

To function as a person, a parent, a community member, a citizen, a consumer, a producer ...

Truthfully, I would just like to get my degree already and start hacking away (also: helping my parents financially, etc). I obviously do hack away now, but courses and part-time work usually take up most of my time, that I can't give attention to all the interesting and fascinating things out there to learn, build, etc, i.e. I have a spreadsheet of links to new technologies, blog posts, etc, that I would like to learn and build stuff with. So here's my plan: hack away this summer -> attend school in the fall -> study, work part-time, etc -> summer internship -> study, work part-time, etc, -> graduate -> summer internship -> entry-level job somewhere hopefully.

That makes software engineering an ideal choice for people not going to college at all. But since you're already 4 years in, you might as well finish. So definitely finish.

Outside of credentialism, there's still the other reason, and I think this is the one motivating the advice you're getting from your friends:

> to compete for a higher position in the social hierarchy

You'll be more effective at this if you wait and go to the higher-status university.

From your current position, I'd definitely recommend finishing your degree, and since we've already optimized for status, I think I would wait and go to the university with the more fashionable brand if that option is available to you.

Top companies write a lot about how they've found no correlation between university ranking and job performance, but then they continue spending millions on job fairs and hiring mostly people out of top universities.

Your friends are right that many companies, especially big ones, will treat you very differently depending on which of these two schools you choose. Good luck.

I'd argue they've already been that for at least several years if not, less brazenly, for a few decades and that the article these comments are in response to is strong evidence to support that determination.

The network effects generated by adding people to your social circle from a group that are at the same career stage and aiming to work in the same industry are also very strong. It is highly likely that they will be the source of job opportunities, recommendations, and useful advice for many years to come.

None of this is really necessary, there are plenty of positions out there that don't receive applicants hailing from top tier universities and making friends with people in your field only requires a modicum of grace and the willingness to put the time in at the appropriate events.

Generally, I agree with the sentiment that the position that universities currently hold is ripe for replacement. The second that someone figures out a workable model that serves most of the important functions (accreditation, education, networking, access to experts, research funding) for a reasonable price the die will be cast.

There was an interesting program on BBC Radio last year that questioned this, they had an example of a student that had excelled during school and went on to the top university for her subject where she found herself in the middle of the pack. This ended any career opportunities in that subject for her.

She knew people who took the same subject at lower tier universities, they came out top of the class and were able to find work in the same subject.

You are going to cost yourself a lifetime of benefit if you make a decision based on these Internet rants of the moment; in 10 years they will be forgotten and you will be stuck with the consequences. One thing you learn with a real education is how to evaluate serious ideas and separate them from trendy memes. College is so much more beneficial and fulfilling than the quote above, in almost every aspect of life. If you love to learn, there is no better place - no place else will a professor guide your study, advise you, answer your questions, and give you feedback in any subject you like, or will you have a room full of peers studying and discussing the same thing, or will you have the resources - from labs to reference librarians. It will transform you as a person.

> What do you think I should do?

Don't rely people on Internet bulletin boards for serious advice!

EDIT: I'm not in any way trying to tell you what to do; that's your business, and it depends on things I couldn't possibly know from even 100 HN posts. I'm just saying don't base your decision on trendy ideas and Internet advice. Also, to address a specific question, degrees from better schools absolutely provide you with better opportunities. Many organizations restrict hiring to only certain schools, and the people you befriend will provide better opportunities in the future. Steve Ballmer became CEO of Microsoft because he knew Bill Gates at Harvard. Note that you can always go to a better graduate school too. If you don't know that, take it as s sign that you have a lot of research in front of you. Good luck!

In the case of Berkeley and a few others, they are absolutely correct.

I've seen both sides of the unknown school / huge name brand divide.

It matters. A lot. It shouldn't, it's a shame, but it does.

In CS, you will turn out just fine either way. But it does matter.

EDIT: we are in the Bay Area too btw. And the above would NOT apply if, for example, you wanted to go on and do a PhD.

I actually agree with you that all other things being equal, it would be better to do a CS degree in the US - if Georgia tech did an undergrad CS degree for $8000, that would probably be a slightly better option. But they don’t, so paying $20000 which is the cheapest online CS bachelors degree I found in the US is not worth it vs the University of London for $8000 total (around $2700 per year for 3 years)

It’s also hard to argue that would be a major issue for someone who got their first software developer job without any degree at all :) So the real issue is can you get that first job without a computing degree? I certainly think you can, and for most people, the extra time and cost of a degree, and opportunity cost (ie not earning a paycheck) is not worth it - if you live in the Bay Area. I’m sure it would be much harder, but not impossible to get that first job elsewhere in the US or in the UK without a degree.

Biggest problem? The finance and HR department will use that as negotiation tactic against you to pay you less money.

a bachelor's degree helps a lot to get pretty much any white-collar, entry-level job. in some fields it's barely enough, but in ours, having a BS with a decent GPA and a couple internships basically guarantees you a job. you might not be able to work at FAANG type companies, but someone will definitely be willing to compensate you well for your work.

a degree from a prestigious school is better than a degree from most state schools, but if it takes you another year or two to start collecting that salary and build real work experience, it could ultimately be a wash.

sounds like you already know what path you want to take, and I bet it will work out just fine.

Considering the economic gap between metropolitan areas and rural communities, pretty much any degree not directly related to work preparation and placement is a luxury good that few can afford.

As the article pointed out, the difference isn't academic, or even really economics, it's cultural. It's the attitude that college is for muckity mucks, and just a place to get brainwashed, along with "My dad didn't college, and he was fine. So I don't have to go." (Never mind that the mine the father worked in closed 15 years ago.) This attitude isn't a rural thing, as much as it is a rural male thing.[1]

Even if we ignored all of this, and focused just on economics, Your "4 - 8 years [of] lost work experience", is most likely experience in nothing relevant to whatever job you get after college. Being cashier at Dollar General isn't relevant to really anything, except being a cashier somewhere. This is the type of job you get with no education past high school. Even if you were stretch "relevant" to "life skills like showing up on time", then just get the part time job in college like many college students.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pell_Grant [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/11/gender-...

The nearest state school to me currently estimates the total cost of attending, per year, to be roughly $30k (counting books, living expenses, etc.). That adds up to $120,000 in loans for a 4 year degree, less any grants or other forms of aid, which may or may not actually help you get a job.

For many people, a two year technical degree to work towards a career as an air traffic controller, EE tech, computer / network programmer, electrician, plumber, mechanic, welder, floor manager, med tech, paralegal, HVAC tech, landscaping, construction, dental hygenist, hospitality, florist, crop specialist, registered nurse, and so on, all making close to or over the national average income, makes quite a bit of sense.

You know, the kind that grew up learning to pick the mold off the bread and how awful government cheese was.

Imagine her surprise when there's no such thing as a free ride, and there wasn't actually so much available. Also, if you think there's enough "elite" universities around for America's poor (rural or otherwise) you're mistaken.

The real bottom line is, there's not much elite universities have to offer the rural life. Sure, there's certainly some places and jobs where it would help. For most people, and most jobs though, it's overkill.

[Edit] To clarify, if you've grown up in poverty or even lower-middle class in a central midwestern state, the travel costs of going to a uni on the coast is simply prohibitive. Add on top of that things that your peers will partake in (summer in the Hamptons or whatever) that you'll never be able to identify with. You'll always be on the outside, no matter what. Unless every high school graduate in the rural parts of the country decides to move to a big city, there's a whole lot more that a local technical school has to offer someone in that position.

Let's not romanticize this as Salt of the Earth Folk. In 25 years, where I grew up turned into Methlandia, complete with lowering lifespans, and lowering standards of living. It's heartbreaking really.

Technical schools don't really matter, because there isn't a job for you to be trained for. Either the job left, or if job is still there, there's a lot fewer open slots due to automation. That's just cold facts.

It’s only a small fraction of the students at those schools who vacation in the Hamptons or whatever. Arguably the richest students have an outsized social influence, but most students are from an upper middle class background (top 10–15% by wealth/income, but not top 1%), and there are plenty of middle class and at least some working class students (though less than we might hope) at all of the elite American colleges.

The bigger problem for several students I knew from impoverished backgrounds was that they were not used to the scholastic demands of the school. Students at elite schools are expected to do a lot of reading every week, are expected to speak up and assert themselves in small discussion seminars, are expected to write competently at a level considerably beyond what many high schools expect, are expected to solve difficult nonstandard problems in their technical courses, etc. For someone unprepared it can be a big culture shock. The combination of being away from home and in a new social environment, having autonomy over (and lack of external structure for) time, and getting smacked with a very stiff workload can add up to a lot of stress even for the best prepared students. For someone who is feeling like they are behind or don’t belong and haven’t had a similar workload before it can be extra hard. Those kids were just as smart and hard-working as anyone there, just not as well prepared in some ways.

In the case of my friend, your imagination did not line up with her reality. She managed to figure it out, but is saddled with a debt that will wipe out any gains it has gotten her for years to come.

What college did your friend go to where she was promised financial aid and then not offered what she expected? What kind of degree did she get (or drop out of) and what is she doing now? How many years of debt are we talking about? Are you sure the bulk of it is due to travel expenses? That seems prima facie implausible.

I know plenty of people with outrageous amounts of college debt (in the six figures), and have never heard of someone going deep into debt for travel expenses. (For comparison room & board + tuition is typically $50k+ per year, which is like 30–100 times larger than I would expect travel expenses to be.)

The social hierarchy stuff is important though. If none of the credentialist ninnies running the country have ever lived in rural or working class places, well, there's eventually going to be a big disconnect. Wasn't always so; guys like George Kennan were from humble people and places.

It is different in countries where education is essentially free, here i actually would recommend anyone to get the best education they possibly can, it can just benefit society as a whole even if most people don't retain many details of learned material.

Isn't those questions irrelevant to the issue the author poses: the lack of access to higher education of people from rural backgrounds.

That they can still get employed at "most jobs (that) don't require higher education" (which includes McDonalds), doesn't mean much. Do they get the better deal, or do their higher educated peers do (even if that education wasn't "really needed" by their future career)?

This is a claim about the state of the world today. Can you make this claim confidently about the job market for the next 45 years? Can anyone? In the face of such uncertainty, which do you see is the most viable hedge: settling for a specific career based on a narrow set of skills, or using the time when the brain is most absorbent to be exposed to a broad range of ideas and people?

Your issues with higher education are valid. But they speak to the need to reform education, not encourage people to forgo it.

Don't teach what people don't need to learn. There are better places for everyone to expend their time, energy, and money.

"And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat."

Nowadays jobs (junior bank staff) where you could join as school leaver at 16 or 18 and work your way up require a degree.

I've noticed a strong correlation between college cheaters and those who do the minimum work possible, and people who later complain that their jobs were outsourced.