Re:Is college worth it? A return-on-investment analysis
by jerf on Tuesday October 26, 2021 @02:05PM
(#29003896)
My point is philosophical, not historical.
To put it another way, education for the sake of education is higher on the Maslow Hierarchy than being able to make a decent ROI on college. Self-actualization is great and all, but when you're telling people to pursue it at the expense of whether or not they're going to eat something it's not noble and honorable, it's tone-deaf at best and can be downright evil when huge propaganda machines are deployed to convince people to do it, because the people selling self-actualization benefit.
Debt skews the understanding by moving the time that the payments come due around but they're still due. It doesn't change the fundamental calculation.
"the collegiate cast was largely poor"
But were they going into massive, life-changing debt? Poor people going to a generally cheap (by modern standards!) college is no big deal. But now we're sending poor people to expensive college, so they can self-actualize at the expense of a good chunk of the rest of their life. This isn't noble.
To put it another way, education for the sake of education is higher on the Maslow Hierarchy than being able to make a decent ROI on college. Self-actualization is great and all, but when you're telling people to pursue it at the expense of whether or not they're going to eat something it's not noble and honorable, it's tone-deaf at best and can be downright evil when huge propaganda machines are deployed to convince people to do it, because the people selling self-actualization benefit.
Debt skews the understanding by moving the time that the payments come due around but they're still due. It doesn't change the fundamental calculation.
"the collegiate cast was largely poor"
But were they going into massive, life-changing debt? Poor people going to a generally cheap (by modern standards!) college is no big deal. But now we're sending poor people to expensive college, so they can self-actualize at the expense of a good chunk of the rest of their life. This isn't noble.