Best eight years of my life

Come on now, YF ... that's true neither of the casino nor of higher education.

 

They both offer something in return.

But both also make it very easy to keep spending money with them -- even when you're out of money.

 

That's quite a bit different from saying that their goal is to take all of your money.

Back to the original story: I'd like to see the methodology broken out a bit more. Per this Vedder character, he constructed a sample of "publics" by selecting one out of every 12 public schools ranked by Forbes. There's a huge risk of substantive selection bias issue in play. Put simply, his sample would as a matter of course tend to be heavily biased downward, toward schools that are essentially set up as commuter schools (with large proportions of working and/or first-generational/non-traditional students). You'd wind up comparing (vis-a-vis 4- or 6-year graduation rates) the school I teach at with, say, the Univ. of Chicago, and that's such a ridiculous comparison that almost nothing of value could be learned by it.

 

Might as well join the fucking Peace Corps...

 

I might have employed a little hyperbole.

And, look, I'm not saying colleges should not help arrange loans, and due what they can to keep you in school.

But, it reminds me a lot of the housing crisis. First we demand that folks be given the opportunity to buy a house, or in this case, go to college.

Later, we accuse the banks (colleges) of predatory practices that left folks broke and in debt, and their life in shambles.

We haven't seen too much of this with the colleges. The push is still to get more people to attend college. But, we've seen some of it, and I think we'll see more of it as college graduates continue to struggle to find work, and as more folks attend, but don't graduate college.

College can be great. I am not against going to college.

But, folks need to go in with their eyes open. Too many don't, and too many are caught up in the, "you have to go to college," push.

 

Hey. Watch it.

 

I think a college education is a pretty good proxy for having a marketable skill. But the problem is that people begin to think that the college education is intrinsically rewarding. That it's a talisman, and not that it's rewarding for what it can do for you, i.e. supply you with marketable skills. A lot of my high school friends did not go to college. But some of them are doing quite well after trade school. They have marketable skills that are in demand.

(Of course, there is a side argument about the loftier rewards reaped by a college education. But colleges don't own the patent on that, either. For example, YF, I believe that you are not a college graduate. But you are one of the most well-read and informed people on this board.)

 

Marissa Mayer is part of the "you have to go to (certain) college(s)" push. When companies stop requiring bachelor's degrees to work in the mail room, you'd probably see more people forgo college.

 

To do certain jobs, you do have to go to college. To do some of those certain jobs, you have to go to particular colleges. Or else it really helps. Cynically, it helps because the Marissa Mayers of the world say it helps, and they hold the cards. Idealistically, it helps because, well, some of those schools are really, really good at training people. Somewhere in between, and probably most-realistic: Students at Harvard and Duke and Northwestern self-select, and Marissa Mayer knows this.

I would recommend a college education to almost anyone. However, YF's larger point stands: You have a place in the work force because you possess a marketable skill that people want to pay for. A college degree is merely the vehicle for gaining that skill. It should be approached that way.

 

Also, charter schools market themselves by saying XX percent of kids went to four-year colleges. In many cases these are the kids who used to end up at trade schools and learn a very marketable skill, but now college is the focus from first grade on.

And YF love him some charter schools.

 

Yeah, but if you come up with a second identity, you can move up quicker.

 

Honestly, I don't know anyone who finished college in four years. I took six, although that included one year where I worked and only went part-time and also factors in a transfer where several courses didn't count toward graduation requirements at school No. 2.

With so much emphasis, rightly so, being placed on internships, getting experience while in school (through the school paper or whatever), I don't see the value in rushing through it.