Your anecdote does not make it "completely untrue". Only "not absolutely true", which isn't compelling in the face of the overwhelming other experiences.

> Only "not absolutely true", which isn't compelling in the face of the overwhelming other experiences.

Which is to say, yes, the person I was replying to was incorrect. But you liked the vibe of what they were saying, so now you're going to play with language to suggest that their statement might be true in some "non-absolute" sense where it doesn't matter whether the thing they said is correct or not.

Most people pursue higher education for multiple reasons. A lot of people just want the "campus experience." A lot of people enjoy learning. Many people just feel like it's expected of them. Any degree is associated with a boost in wages, so most people expect their loans to pay for themselves in time, especially at a cheaper institution. So the idea that middle-class people don't go to university to become better-read is patently silly.

If you are a “middle class” person that means if you don’t get a degree or don’t get a job you probably have parents to fall back on or at least go home. That means your parents can “subsidize your living” just like I said even if it’s just letting you stay rent free.

And there are plenty of degrees with negative ROI

https://freopp.org/whitepapers/does-college-pay-off-a-compre...

All colleges have electives. I also took business classes with my computer science degree and while I am an MBA drop out, learning about business helped me talk my way into a lot of opportunities over the years. Of course learning how to write and communicate is actually part of the leveling guidelines to get to be a senior at every tech company.

And math classes are essential to understand machine learning algorithms and how to apply them and have been way behind the recent AI craze.

But I bet you would think different if you were a junior in today’s market…

> All colleges have electives. I also took business classes [which] helped me talk my way into a lot of opportunities over the years. [...] And math classes are essential to understand machine learning algorithms [and get a job related to] the recent AI craze.

These are exactly the sort of career-focused courses I wasn't talking about.

> But I bet you would think different if you were a junior in today’s market…

No. A k8s crash course from my alma mater wouldn't be any more use to me now than when I was entering the job market.

Machine learning algorithms is not a “new craze”, using computers to predict outcomes was a thing when I was in grad school in 2001.

You explicitly mentioned pure math and macroeconomics. Those are definitely helpful in a career. I was a math double major and I just recently started studying the latest in ML (not just gen AI) and my math background definitely helped.

And does history and philology make you “smarter”? Maybe at cocktail parties but it doesn’t help me better at exchanging labor for money to support my addiction to food and shelter and I definitely didn’t need to pay thousands of dollars for it.