Do you think college/university degrees are necessary?

[Farmer]

Need-based financial aid is great. A good portion of people don't pay retail value.

 

[Saint Nick]

The tuition model is what needs to be changed. Charge more for art degrees, charge less for science degrees.

 

[SP33Demon]

The tuition model is what needs to be changed. Charge more for art degrees, charge less for science degrees.

China says they've already taken your idea and said second place is the first loser, suckers.

 

[Aikouka]

I have a degree in computer science, and I do believe that someone can definitely learn the majority of what I did in college on their own. Given the collaborative nature that the Internet allows, you can easily learn proper project planning (or at least be involved in a project with good planning), work with a SCM tool, etc. It's kind of harder to prove your knowledge compared to flashing a piece of paper, but I think the real-world experience can be much more valuable.

I know I learned more about development planning, configuration management and their applications at my internship than I learned while in college. It makes me think the important aspects of my college career could have been squeezed into a year long intensive study program. Especially if you cut out the fairly worthless humanities junk I had to take... although they me a "better rounded student" . I'm sure knowing the aspects of theater will really help with my job.

 

[edro]

College degrees do a GREAT job at weeding out most morons.
I also know many with degrees who are complete morons.
If I saw a resume without a degree, I would be much more rigorous during the interviews.

Having a degree, at the minimum, shows decent work ethic and higher class.
Even a moron with a "useless" degree went to school regularly, studied, passed tests and paid for it.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Degree is nothing more than a piece of paper telling employers you are not a total idiot.

 

[BeauJangles]

College degrees do a GREAT job at weeding out most morons.
I also know many with degrees who are complete morons.
If I saw a resume without a degree, I would be much more rigorous during the interviews.

Having a degree, at the minimum, shows decent work ethic and higher class.
Even a moron with a "useless" degree went to school regularly, studied, passed tests and paid for it.

College USED to do a great job of weeding out morons, but now all those morons have "colleges" to go to. Higher education is inherently exclusionary and should remain so. Giving everyone a college degree simply devalues the degree.

I like to think about it this way, if everyone having a college degree was a good thing, then we'd have Harvard University franchises everywhere. But, we don't.

 

[Farmer]

BeauJangles

Most def.

The inherent problem with government education efforts is the aim is for everyone to get into college (or for everyone to score better on X test, or pass Y grade). We are incentivized to lower standards.

Well shit, not every should goto college, and it makes no sense to decrease the admissions standards just to achieve some goal of "more people attending college." Look at the SATs. It is not really that hard. Compare it to standardized college entrance exams in other nations. SATs are actually pretty damn easy.

When most kids in most colleges do nothing but drink and party for 4 years and still "earn" a bachelors, it shouldn't be surprising that people in this forum consider a college degree worthless.

College admissions is one of the most competitive things ever, and yet simultaneously it is also one of the easiest things ever. There should be a difference.

 

[edro]

College USED to do a great job of weeding out morons, but now all those morons have "colleges" to go to. Higher education is inherently exclusionary and should remain so. Giving everyone a college degree simply devalues the degree.

Good point. I agree that college degrees are greatly devalued now, but having a mediocre further education is still better than none at all.

 

[her209]

I have friends that have college degrees and those that don't. Let's just say you can easily pick out the one's that don't have one.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

I think a lot of the frustration and bitterness in this thread stems from resentment of the traditional four year university degree - many people see it as being 'forced to learn about shit you don't care about to get a job that has nothing to do with this or that class.'

The only growth industry where a technical degree is sufficient seems to be IT, because as computer hardware and software evolve, it's becoming very apparent that many IT jobs can be performed with a technical degree rather than four year university degree.

A handful of posts later:

I have a degree in computer science...I know I learned more about development planning, configuration management and their applications at my internship than I learned while in college. It makes me think the important aspects of my college career could have been squeezed into a year long intensive study program. Especially if you cut out the fairly worthless humanities junk I had to take... although they me a "better rounded student" . I'm sure knowing the aspects of theater will really help with my job.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

I have friends that have college degrees and those that don't. Let's just say you can easily pick out the one's that don't have one.

Do they erroneously utilize apostrophes?

 

[Ns1]

all colleges/degrees are not created equal

 

[ShawnD1]

College Degrees today are becoming the High School Diploma of 25 years ago. You need one just to get a semi decent job if you are starting out in the work force.

Depends what you're doing. Some of the "crackheads" from school who would never amount to anything easily earn 2x as much as me. I'm in my cushy desk job with heat in winter and AC in summer making a respectable living. The "idiots" with no education are busting their asses outside but pulling in $100k+ per year.

Which is better depends what kind of person you are. I'm a more relaxed guy, so slacker work with a degree is great. Some of those crackhead guys are really in their element when they're outside doing hard work, so working outside is great for them. It's important to figure out which kind of person you are before you go balls deep into a career.

 

[Apathetic]

There's a world of difference between some liberal arts degree and a degree in a hard science or engineering. For artsy type degrees, maybe there's a better option. For science/engineering I can't think of one.

Dave

 

[TanisHalfElven]

How did I do it wrong? By teaching myself everything that college would have taught before I got there? By paying attention in high school and taking honors/AP classes which for the school I went to was quite good and actually harder than most college classes that I've taken.

There just was not any new information taught in college that I didn't already know.

What's your masters in ?
if you college/grad level classes were easier than your AP classes than you either:

a. Went to a shit college
b. Took a really easy major (communications or other bullshit)
c. a+b

 

[Aikouka]

A handful of posts later:

Computer science may be a difference case, but that's because you can easily start learning the basics long before you ever step foot in a college or high school class. The introductory courses don't teach much more than programming techniques. So the only benefit I got out of the lower-level courses my first year was getting my feet wet in Java. I did actually take a 300-level course my freshman year, but it was only web programming (CGI).

I wish I could have talked my professors into letting me take more higher level courses. Looking back, I could have easily taken Automata during any of my years as it was all theoretical, so it had no bearing on knowing any of the knowledge from data structures courses or things like that.

But I mean that's how courses are taught... they come in expecting you to only know a certain amount, and you can easily be ahead of the curve in computer science and I certainly believe that some people think a certain way that gives them a much better grasp on programming in general.

Looking back on my courses, the one thing that I think bummed me the most is that I would've liked to see them stress efficiency in coding and design a lot more than they did. I recall doing a finite state machine to solve a problem, and my result ended up with about 20 different states. A classmate had a valid solution with around 40 states, and he received the same grade. While I certainly wouldn't fail the student for presenting a working solution; I would point out that the solution was far more complex than necessary.

 

[Numenorean]

Some people consider learning and knowledge ends in themselves. Others consider them only means to an end.

Earning a degree from a tech school, community college, or university isn't the only way to learn, but it is arguably the best way to learn many subjects, at least if you think the best way to learn is from an expert.

I think a lot of the frustration and bitterness in this thread stems from resentment of the traditional four year university degree - many people see it as being 'forced to learn about shit you don't care about to get a job that has nothing to do with this or that class.'

What these people don't understand is that a long time ago, the only people who attended university were the very wealthy and the very bright. The very wealthy acquired an education because they had the idle time to do it and didn't need to work, and the very bright went to university because they liked learning (and the very wealthy paid for them to go in the form of scholarships).

Middle class folks who were reasonably intelligent didn't go to university because they could earn a middle class living without needing a four year degree, and they either couldn't afford to go, or just weren't that interested in going. A lot of these people went to trade schools instead, back when Americans did things like welding, before most of those jobs got offshored.

It's essentially no longer possible to have a middle class job without any sort of degree unless you're willing to perform a dangerous, or dirty, or otherwise shitty job that's only appealing because of its pay. Many middle class jobs that required only a high school education or technical degree simply no longer exist. And now because of social engineering, everyone can 'afford' to go to university via loans. 18 year olds are told to go to university otherwise they'll never get a good job if they don't. They enter university without the maturity to realize they're making an enormous investment of time and money, and they're told to pursue their dreams regardless of economic realities - if they even have any dreams at all.

I'm as invested in the university system as anyone can be, but to be honest, our current higher ed model is unsustainable. There are too many people in my classes who are not intelligent enough and/or not interested enough, who should instead be in trade schools - but again, where are those jobs? The only growth industry where a technical degree is sufficient seems to be IT, because as computer hardware and software evolve, it's becoming very apparent that many IT jobs can be performed with a technical degree rather than four year university degree. I fear that IT's insufficient, though. Technology is absolutely one of the factors widening the gulf between the haves and have nots in the US, along with offshoring.

:thumbsup:

 

[DrPizza]

Re: OP's uncle who started a company which was bought out. The odds of a high school graduate with little start-up capital creating a business that's successful enough to be bought out by a much larger firm is virtually negligible. Even if you have a great idea, obtaining financing is a difficult proposition at best. A bank might even consider your idea to be a great idea, but they're going to think of your lack of experience running a business to make you a huge risk. Banks are a little tighter these days with their money, especially when it comes to risk taking.

If you want a good career after high school, in my opinion, there are two paths:
college degree
apprenticeship in one of the trades (electrical, plumbing, etc.)

The third path to success relies on a shitload of pure luck. No matter how good you are, it's going to take luck. If there's a position open at some company that only requires a high school diploma, they're going to have 100's of applications. They're not going to interview everyone. I just went through a big pile of applications myself - and these people had degrees. 2 or 3 people stuck out for relatively minor reasons. It's a crapshoot with the rest of them - no experience, good grades in college, etc. I'm interviewing 5. No more, unless I don't find someone qualified out of those 5. Out of the ones I don't interview - perhaps the best person for the job that I might ever meet in my lifetime is in that pile. I'll never know: I don't have time to interview 25 applicants, let alone hundreds in the case of a high school degree is adequate position.

So, to the OP, I ask, if you're willing to accept applications and resumes from pretty much anyone, how many of them do you bother interviewing? Think about it... if you're one of hundreds who apply for a job, your odds of even landing an interview where you can impress the person doing the hiring is very small to start with. If there's only 1 position, then the odds of getting that position are 1 in hundreds.

to vi edit- re: linesmen
I know a couple of guys who are nearing retirement who look very young for their age and are in excellent shape, thanks to the work that they do every day. The pensions they retire with are incredible. And, in addition to excellent salaries (they can easily make into 6 figures after only 4 years on the job, if you include the overtime), they also have excellent benefits. One I just heard about is that Lasik eye surgery is covered 100%. But, yo'ure right about the job being dangerous.

 

[ShawnD1]

Looking back on my courses, the one thing that I think bummed me the most is that I would've liked to see them stress efficiency in coding and design a lot more than they did. I recall doing a finite state machine to solve a problem, and my result ended up with about 20 different states. A classmate had a valid solution with around 40 states, and he received the same grade. While I certainly wouldn't fail the student for presenting a working solution; I would point out that the solution was far more complex than necessary.

Indeed, being able to clearly understand the problem should be reflected on your grade. I remember one assignment we had to do (before internet was useful) was to solve a riddle about opening and closing lockers. 1000 lockers start in a closed condition. Person #1 changes the state of every locker so they are all open. Person #2 changes the state of every second locker so if it's open he closes it or if it's closed he opens it. If the lockers started closed and 1000 people did this process, how many lockers are open at the end? We all got to work writing relatively simple code where it would do a simulation of the described problem. It would actually go through the entire 1000 lockers for all 1000 people. We all got the right answer, but you can see how that would take a hell of a lot of calculations.

Real answer: only the lockers that are perfect squares will have an odd number of factors. Locker 2 is opened by guy 1, closed by guy 2. 4 is a perfect square; is it opened by 1, closed by 2, opened by 4 and remains open. Solving the problem is done in very few steps:
-square root of 1000 = 31.6
-truncate the decimal garbage
-answer is 31
/end of script

 

[zerocool84]

Yes you practically need one in anything for any decent job. Like said before, it's like a highschool diploma of today.

 

[Ns1]

Real answer: only the lockers that are perfect squares will have an odd number of factors. Locker 2 is opened by guy 1, closed by guy 2. 4 is a perfect square; is it opened by 1, closed by 2, opened by 4 and remains open. Solving the problem is done in very few steps:
-square root of 1000 = 31.6
-truncate the decimal garbage
-answer is 31
/end of script

this is why i dropped out of CS. too much goddamn math.

 

[mcmilljb]

Yes you practically need one in anything for any decent job. Like said before, it's like a highschool diploma of today.

First sentence is right. Second sentence is not completely true. Decent jobs require specialized skills; that is why decent jobs pay well. Try being a plumber without training. You will spend all day reading manuals and looking online. High schools are not preparing people properly. You get passed on to the next grade if you can write your name. I would not call my BSE in Computer Engineering any where near a high school diploma, and I doubt a high school ever offered training any where near that level.

However, could I have taken some of those classes in high school? Absolutely! That's the problem with the current college model. They are unwilling to work with high schools to cut down on the classes needed for degrees. I believe if we increased the standards and allowed for dual credit, we could improve the education system across the board. If we have students that are 16/17 years old that are capable of taking college courses, they should be allowed to take the college level course and receive high school credit at the same time. They can graduate high school/college sooner and save us money. They're wasting time and tax payer dollars sitting in a classroom with a high school baby-sitter. Students that are not ready can receive the extra attention they need.

The high school system is killing itself. There are a lot of student who can take more advanced classes and progress faster than others. However there are a lot of people who do work hard but need extra help learning the material. I think if we can get the students who need less help out of high school faster, then we can allocate more resources to students who need more help. Would you rather have 2 students prepared for engineering programs or 1 in engineering and the other in philosphy, communications or bs degree at the same cost? I think it's obvious we can do it better, and this is one way to do it.

 

[mcmilljb]

Some people consider learning and knowledge ends in themselves. Others consider them only means to an end.

Earning a degree from a tech school, community college, or university isn't the only way to learn, but it is arguably the best way to learn many subjects, at least if you think the best way to learn is from an expert.

Internships can help too. Tax breaks should be given to companies who employ interns so it's enticing to train people.

I think a lot of the frustration and bitterness in this thread stems from resentment of the traditional four year university degree - many people see it as being 'forced to learn about shit you don't care about to get a job that has nothing to do with this or that class.'

I agree. Why should someone have to take physics a second time? We need to allow dual credit for high school students. Cut out this AP nonsense. Teachers should be certified so that if the student passes, he gets the college credit too. Would save money and give more access to minority/poor students. At the same time, allow students to do trade school if they don't want to do college prep.

<cut out some stuff>

It's essentially no longer possible to have a middle class job without any sort of degree unless you're willing to perform a dangerous, or dirty, or otherwise shitty job that's only appealing because of its pay. Many middle class jobs that required only a high school education or technical degree simply no longer exist. And now because of social engineering, everyone can 'afford' to go to university via loans. 18 year olds are told to go to university otherwise they'll never get a good job if they don't. They enter university without the maturity to realize they're making an enormous investment of time and money, and they're told to pursue their dreams regardless of economic realities - if they even have any dreams at all.

We need to use social engineering to get people into the right programs. Give more incentives to people pursuing an education in a field that is in demand and less to people pursuing degrees in programs that are overcrowded. If we need more nurses, allocate more resources so you can have more enter the program instead of subsidizing more people into communications or some other overcrowded program that is in low demand.

I'm as invested in the university system as anyone can be, but to be honest, our current higher ed model is unsustainable. There are too many people in my classes who are not intelligent enough and/or not interested enough, who should instead be in trade schools - but again, where are those jobs? The only growth industry where a technical degree is sufficient seems to be IT, because as computer hardware and software evolve, it's becoming very apparent that many IT jobs can be performed with a technical degree rather than four year university degree. I fear that IT's insufficient, though. Technology is absolutely one of the factors widening the gulf between the haves and have nots in the US, along with offshoring.

I agree there is a problem. We need to get people into the right programs. We need to dangle the right carrots so people can get into the program best for them. Hell if we saved some money getting people out of overcrowded college degrees, we can pay people a decent wage to fix our streets and bridges. What a novel concept... Don't waste money on useless degrees leads to money being used for something more useful.... Vote for me in 2012! lol

 

[Triumph]

Some people consider learning and knowledge ends in themselves. Others consider them only means to an end.

Earning a degree from a tech school, community college, or university isn't the only way to learn, but it is arguably the best way to learn many subjects, at least if you think the best way to learn is from an expert.

I think a lot of the frustration and bitterness in this thread stems from resentment of the traditional four year university degree - many people see it as being 'forced to learn about shit you don't care about to get a job that has nothing to do with this or that class.'

What these people don't understand is that a long time ago, the only people who attended university were the very wealthy and the very bright. The very wealthy acquired an education because they had the idle time to do it and didn't need to work, and the very bright went to university because they liked learning (and the very wealthy paid for them to go in the form of scholarships).

Middle class folks who were reasonably intelligent didn't go to university because they could earn a middle class living without needing a four year degree, and they either couldn't afford to go, or just weren't that interested in going. A lot of these people went to trade schools instead, back when Americans did things like welding, before most of those jobs got offshored.

It's essentially no longer possible to have a middle class job without any sort of degree unless you're willing to perform a dangerous, or dirty, or otherwise shitty job that's only appealing because of its pay. Many middle class jobs that required only a high school education or technical degree simply no longer exist. And now because of social engineering, everyone can 'afford' to go to university via loans. 18 year olds are told to go to university otherwise they'll never get a good job if they don't. They enter university without the maturity to realize they're making an enormous investment of time and money, and they're told to pursue their dreams regardless of economic realities - if they even have any dreams at all.

I'm as invested in the university system as anyone can be, but to be honest, our current higher ed model is unsustainable. There are too many people in my classes who are not intelligent enough and/or not interested enough, who should instead be in trade schools - but again, where are those jobs? The only growth industry where a technical degree is sufficient seems to be IT, because as computer hardware and software evolve, it's becoming very apparent that many IT jobs can be performed with a technical degree rather than four year university degree. I fear that IT's insufficient, though. Technology is absolutely one of the factors widening the gulf between the haves and have nots in the US, along with offshoring.

what he said. i wish my sister would realize this while thinking about her children's futures. her oldest is 15 and not only doesn't know what she wants to do with her life (understandable), she has no ambition and no interests and no dreams. and yet it's a foregone conclusion that she'll go to college, where i guess she'll figure it out there at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars. or she won't, and she'll languish just like the rest of the graduates. it's crazy.