Why don't people care what college costs?

Page 5 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

TruePaige

Diamond Member
Oct 22, 2006
9,874
2
0
Originally posted by: tfinch2
Originally posted by: blinky8225
Originally posted by: JS80
Originally posted by: Jumpem
$60k in student loans between the wife and I. Though we wouldn't have the jobs we have today without it.

$60k in loans from collage and still can't get grammar good.

WTF is RIT?

And you can't spell college, so what?

I'm pretty sure he misspelled it on porpoise.

:laugh:
 

EricMartello

Senior member
Apr 17, 2003
910
0
0
Originally posted by: Tommouse
In many places you need a degree to just get your foot in the door. The bachelors degree is very much becoming the new High school degree. Liberal Arts degrees serve the purpose of getting that checkbox filled and not getting your resume trashed immediately. From there they will want to know what experience you bring to the table ... blah blah blah.

The point I'm trying to make is this: A college degree doesn't mean instant success, but without one you are severely limiting your career opportunities.

It depends on what you're career goals are. Another option to going to college is getting industry certified...in fact, there are a lot of potential employers who would prefer certifications to a generalized degree.

Colleges thrive on consumers' fear of not being able to land a job that pays enough...my problem is the colleges' misrepresentation of facts, and what I view as abuse of our institutionalized educational system (K-12)...they want to scare as many people as possible into attending some college.

When I am tasked with hiring someone for my company, what I look for is what they have to show for themselves. For example, if we're looking for someone to do art work I'll expect an impressive portfolio featuring past projects. I don't care if they didn't go to some famous art school or lack a degree - what I care about is the person's ability to do the job within the budget and time frame allowed.

Larger companies operate differently and often "require" a degree for no specific reason other than to feel self-important...but the best jobs will always be the ones you get based on how good you are at what you do, and those opportunities are something that people have to discover on their own.
 

JS80

Lifer
Oct 24, 2005
26,271
7
81
Originally posted by: videogames101
Here's a thought, freshman economics:

Supply and Demand.




/thread

or it could be price discovery, the realization from the colleges that they can charge more and more and people will still attend.
 

BoberFett

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
37,562
9
81
Originally posted by: JS80
Originally posted by: BoberFett
I'm the director of IT at a medium sized company who never went to college. Started as a junior programmer and moved my way up. When I hire, I don't even look at the education portion of the resume, I simply don't care. I'm sure that's partly because I never went to college myself, but it's also because I've seen too many people get through college and are still complete morons when they come out. When I look at resumes I look at their actual job experience.

Yea, but he'll never be CTO, CIO, upper management (unless he's the proprietor).

And guess what, most people who do go to college won't be upper management either.
 

miketheidiot

Lifer
Sep 3, 2004
11,060
1
0
Originally posted by: her209
College textbooks are the biggest ripoff of all.

i pay $360 a year to use a broken software registration/payment/etc system, 200 for a wellness center that i can't use, and like 1500 for a hockey arena that i can't get tickets for.

my annual tuition is about 7500, so about 25% of it gets blown on shit upfraont, i can only imagine what else they waste money on.
 

miketheidiot

Lifer
Sep 3, 2004
11,060
1
0
Originally posted by: videogames101
Here's a thought, freshman economics:

Supply and Demand.




/thread

speaking as ssomeone with a complete economics major, freshman economics is absolute trash, the first thing my intermediate prof told me (he was also the dean of the college) was to forget what we had learned there, because it was all based on ridiculus and non-existant hypotheticals.
 

Acanthus

Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
19,915
2
76
ostif.org
Originally posted by: JS80
Originally posted by: Jumpem
$60k in student loans between the wife and I. Though we wouldn't have the jobs we have today without it.

$60k in loans from collage and still can't get grammar good.

WTF is RIT?

Rochester Institute of Technology

Private school, big on IT.
 

Regs

Lifer
Aug 9, 2002
16,665
21
81
Comes down to what people want. Some kids want to follow their dream no matter what the costs, others just dragged into it from their wealthy parents.
 

LtPage1

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2004
6,311
2
0
It's not a ripoff until it's really not worth it. Although public university tuition is skyrocketing (here in CA it goes up by about 8% a year, thanks to the fascists on the Board of Regents), people are obviously still willing to pay it. If we continue to elect politicians who continue to privatize higher education, we shouldn't be surprised about the market setting tuition prices. People are willing to pay it, so they are made to. They pay it because you can't reasonably expect to be employed, making a reasonable amount of money, without (at the least) a 4-year degree.

This is exactly why higher education needs to be entirely funded by taxes.
 

JS80

Lifer
Oct 24, 2005
26,271
7
81
Originally posted by: BoberFett
Originally posted by: JS80
Originally posted by: BoberFett
I'm the director of IT at a medium sized company who never went to college. Started as a junior programmer and moved my way up. When I hire, I don't even look at the education portion of the resume, I simply don't care. I'm sure that's partly because I never went to college myself, but it's also because I've seen too many people get through college and are still complete morons when they come out. When I look at resumes I look at their actual job experience.

Yea, but he'll never be CTO, CIO, upper management (unless he's the proprietor).

And guess what, most people who do go to college won't be upper management either.

Most people who go to college won't be upper management but almost all people who don't attend college won't be upper management.
 

EricMartello

Senior member
Apr 17, 2003
910
0
0
Originally posted by: LtPage1
It's not a ripoff until it's really not worth it. Although public university tuition is skyrocketing (here in CA it goes up by about 8% a year, thanks to the fascists on the Board of Regents), people are obviously still willing to pay it. If we continue to elect politicians who continue to privatize higher education, we shouldn't be surprised about the market setting tuition prices. People are willing to pay it, so they are made to. They pay it because you can't reasonably expect to be employed, making a reasonable amount of money, without (at the least) a 4-year degree.

This is exactly why higher education needs to be entirely funded by taxes.

If you spend the 4+ years and money to go, it's worth it as long as you make a return on that investment of time and money - the majority of people don't, wasting time on something entirely worthless like liberal arts. What it really boils down to is how you budget the limited time you have to live...people who pursue their ambitions can achieve them regardless of their educational background.

I do not think college or any education should be funded by taxes - tuition assistance programs are fair enough, but ultimately the student should be responsible for footing the bill. People should take responsibility for themselves and not expect society to bear their burden - especially considering the fact that most people will never amount to anything worthwhile.

Originally posted by: JS80
Most people who go to college won't be upper management but almost all people who don't attend college won't be upper management.

Almost all and most are the same thing. :)
 

Ballatician

Golden Member
Dec 6, 2007
1,985
0
0
Originally posted by: ppdes
I went to a small, expensive, private school for undergrad and a large, cheap, state school for grad work. The experiences were very different.

At the private school they had this seminar class where every week a different professor would come in, tell you all about his work, and then about positions in his lab or areas he could use student help in and whatnot. The school would pay the researching student's stipend and took pains to make sure they weren't being used for just dumb labor. All this just to get the students involved in research early on and actually practicing their fields. There was tons of stuff at the private school like that. Super available deans who were always around to listen, etc..

The public school was the complete opposite. Yes, you could still do original research with professors, but you had to hunt them down and convince them to spend their grant money on you if you needed a stipend. Overall the school lavished much less attention on you and you had to put in effort to do what was natural, encouraged, and greased with money at the private school.

This about sums up my experience in my two settings during undergrad.
 

Acanthus

Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
19,915
2
76
ostif.org
Originally posted by: EricMartello
Originally posted by: LtPage1
It's not a ripoff until it's really not worth it. Although public university tuition is skyrocketing (here in CA it goes up by about 8% a year, thanks to the fascists on the Board of Regents), people are obviously still willing to pay it. If we continue to elect politicians who continue to privatize higher education, we shouldn't be surprised about the market setting tuition prices. People are willing to pay it, so they are made to. They pay it because you can't reasonably expect to be employed, making a reasonable amount of money, without (at the least) a 4-year degree.

This is exactly why higher education needs to be entirely funded by taxes.

If you spend the 4+ years and money to go, it's worth it as long as you make a return on that investment of time and money - the majority of people don't, wasting time on something entirely worthless like liberal arts. What it really boils down to is how you budget the limited time you have to live...people who pursue their ambitions can achieve them regardless of their educational background.

I do not think college or any education should be funded by taxes - tuition assistance programs are fair enough, but ultimately the student should be responsible for footing the bill. People should take responsibility for themselves and not expect society to bear their burden - especially considering the fact that most people will never amount to anything worthwhile.

Originally posted by: JS80
Most people who go to college won't be upper management but almost all people who don't attend college won't be upper management.

Almost all and most are the same thing. :)

I believe you can get his implied meaning.
 

miketheidiot

Lifer
Sep 3, 2004
11,060
1
0
Originally posted by: EricMartello
Originally posted by: LtPage1
It's not a ripoff until it's really not worth it. Although public university tuition is skyrocketing (here in CA it goes up by about 8% a year, thanks to the fascists on the Board of Regents), people are obviously still willing to pay it. If we continue to elect politicians who continue to privatize higher education, we shouldn't be surprised about the market setting tuition prices. People are willing to pay it, so they are made to. They pay it because you can't reasonably expect to be employed, making a reasonable amount of money, without (at the least) a 4-year degree.

This is exactly why higher education needs to be entirely funded by taxes.

If you spend the 4+ years and money to go, it's worth it as long as you make a return on that investment of time and money - the majority of people don't, wasting time on something entirely worthless like liberal arts. What it really boils down to is how you budget the limited time you have to live...people who pursue their ambitions can achieve them regardless of their educational background.

I do not think college or any education should be funded by taxes - tuition assistance programs are fair enough, but ultimately the student should be responsible for footing the bill. People should take responsibility for themselves and not expect society to bear their burden - especially considering the fact that most people will never amount to anything worthwhile.

Originally posted by: JS80
Most people who go to college won't be upper management but almost all people who don't attend college won't be upper management.

Almost all and most are the same thing. :)

it might just be my school since my school is mostly serious business, but of the 12k undergrads, about 75% are in 'real' majors, and not the fluff horseshit like art history or music.

 

Eeezee

Diamond Member
Jul 23, 2005
9,922
0
0
I went to one of the cheapest public schools in the country - University of Arizona

At the same time, it has some very highly ranked programs. I tell everyone to go there because it's a great school, and if they don't have the grades for one of their numerous scholarships then at least the degree will be cheap (cost of living there is very low, too).

U of A will accept ANYONE, but its Freshman retention rate is very low. Anyone can attend that first year, but if you can't keep your grades above a 2.0... have a good life somewhere else. I don't see why so few universities do this; the university gets one year of tuition (and probably dorm fees) at the expense of placing them in a few 500 person lecture halls. The profit margin is ENORMOUS if you just accept anyone. At the same time, make the courses very challenging so that you weed out most of the dumbasses. Thus, only excellent students get a degree (thus keeping your ranking high), but you've still earned a lot of money from the dropouts. It's win-win.

I can't understand people who randomly apply to schools without care for cost. Many people apply for schools that just cost more, even if they're actually not a good school. If you're going to wind up $100k in debt at one school vs $10k in debt at the other, and you end up with the same quality of degree, then you've failed at college.
 

imported_Lothar

Diamond Member
Aug 10, 2006
4,559
1
0
Originally posted by: Parasitic
For undergrad I went to a public state school (Berkeley) but the overall expenses were still as high as some of other ones on my accepted list...in fact I might've paid less at a private school of comparable caliber because of financial aid.

So why didn't you go?
 

laketrout

Senior member
Mar 1, 2005
672
0
0
Did any of you guys consider or actually join the military to avoid student loan debt? Those guys are never in debt. Thoughts?
 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
Originally posted by: Farang
It baffles me why anyone would choose anything other than an in-state public school, unless you get into a few select schools (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, maybe some others) it really isn't worth the cost. It is laughable how much more expensive private schools are, I think you're right that people don't even consider the cost.

depending on the state, its not always that much cheaper
 

Gooberlx2

Lifer
May 4, 2001
15,381
6
91
Wisconsin has the UW system. I went to UW - Eau Claire. My costs were much lower and I really feel my education was much better as a result of the smaller class sizes and themore personable professors (for the most part). I see no reason why I should have spent so much more money attending Madison or Milwaukee...and especially Marquette. Maybe things would have been different if I were going for a Masters or Doctorate where being at a larger research oriented institution (Madison or Michigan, for example) would have shown their benefits. But for undergrad the smaller, cheaper school served me very well.
 

Gooberlx2

Lifer
May 4, 2001
15,381
6
91
Originally posted by: TecHNooB
What I don't understand is why kids spend hundreds of dollars on text books and... never open them.

Oh...and my school had a per semester check out system for text books, just like a library. Aside for a few supplementals (for which I never paid more than $50), I never spent a dime on a book for classes.
 

vi edit

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 28, 1999
62,483
8,344
126
Originally posted by: Gooberlx2
Originally posted by: TecHNooB
What I don't understand is why kids spend hundreds of dollars on text books and... never open them.

Oh...and my school had a per semester check out system for text books, just like a library. Aside for a few supplementals (for which I never paid more than $50), I never spent a dime on a book for classes.

How did your university not get firebombed by McGraw Hill? That's awesome. Was that something pushed at the administrative level or was it something independent and run by students?
 

JS80

Lifer
Oct 24, 2005
26,271
7
81
College is kind of like oil, prices can shoot up, no one gives a fuck and still pays the price. It's curious how so inelastic it is.