"Payscale draws on its information about alumni salaries. It calculates the expected earnings of a newly minted graduate over a 30 year career by summing the median incomes of alumni from his or her school who graduated between one and 30 years ago."
Yes, I know that college was worth it 30 years ago, and even 15 years ago, and even 10 years ago. That is not the real question. The question is will this continue to be true in the future? Those who are challenging the value of a college degree are in essence arguing "We may be at an inflection point where the value of a college degree will, from this point forward, decrease."
You can not prove or disprove the point by pointing out that trend lines from the past, if projected into the future, show that college remains a great investment.
That line of reasoning is irrelevant if we are in fact at an inflection point. What is relevant is any argument for or against the idea that we are at an inflection point. Arguments based on trend lines from 30 years ago miss the heart of this subject.
The strongest argument to be drawn from this chart is one based on the 5 year trend line: if a college degree was worth a great deal during the Great Recession, then surely that proves the enduring value of a college degree? However, there is a counter argument: what is being measured here is the income premium beyond what someone with a high school degree makes, and the Great Recession wiped out millions of jobs in industries that hired large numbers of people who only had high school degrees (for instance, the construction industry).
Again, the question to be answered is are we at an inflection point? When the economy recovers, and jobs in the construction industry have returned, will a college degree still offer the large income premium that it offered in the past?
Another problem with a pure financial projection is that it does not fully consider opportunity cost. The cost/benefit is not simply the difference in earnings, minus tuition, interest, missed earnings and investment on earnings.
The real cost is that being in debt limits your options to pursue possibly more lucrative opportunities, or to enjoy your life outside the system. The better term would be liquidity cost. Every one of us will at some point come across a great investment opportunity. Every one of us can have an idea we would like to pursue. But an employee fully loaded with college debt, added with mortgage and kids, can't afford to do anything else but add to a 401k each paycheck.
Furthermore, every financial investment should have a healthy margin of error to compensate you for risk. This should be at even higher margins when the more leveraged you are. Things like college and a mortgage are a total leverage of your earnings potential as an employee. Thus the question isn't whether college is merely worth it. The question should be if college is totally a no-brainer as an investment.
Interesting point. While college gives you a better chance of a regular salary, it pretty much disables you from taking advantage of BIG (albeit risky) opportunities and thus in a way limit your returns. But isn't that how all financial instruments work? You always have to sacrifice a portion of your potential returns to decrease risk.
(look up derivative market and hedging your position etc)
Yes, I know that college was worth it 30 years ago, and even 15 years ago. That is not the real question. The question is will this continue to be true in the future?
I know this gets brought up all the time on here but HN is not a good indicator of college worth. One of the few (if not the only) disciplines where college might not be necessary is software and this board is primarily software. Even then looking at the difference between the definitions of software developer and a software engineer may make this moot.
That line of reasoning is irrelevant if we are in fact at an inflection point. ... Arguments based on trend lines from 30 years ago miss the heart of this subject.
Not really. Until there is a real, tangible way for the average individual to get an accepted post-secondary education, we aren't at an inflection point. And other than software development, I personally can't think of another engineering or science profession that could be replaced by self-study and/or experience.
> One of the few (if not the only) disciplines where college might not be necessary
I struggle to think of many professions that do require a degree. Doctor, lawyer, and engineer stand out as the obvious ones, but where there is no legal mandate, there is no requirement. 50% of high-level STEM jobs do not even require a degree[1].
One would be hard pressed to learn chemistry or physics without the resources of a university. I don't want a building designed by a self-taught architect or a bridge designed by a self-taught mechanical engineer. I don't want to fly in a plane designed by a self-taught aeronautical engineer.
While 50% of STEM jobs don't explicitly require a degree, it would be prohibitively difficult to get a career in those fields without one.
> it would be prohibitively difficult to get a career in those fields without one.
Is that assertion based on more than emotion? If 20% of all jobs require high-level STEM knowledge as stated in the paper, the degree attainment rate is 30%[1], and less than 20% of the degrees awarded in 2010 were STEM-based[2], the numbers do not appear to add up.
Please show me one architecture firm who will hire a self-taught architect or an aeronautical company that will hire a self-taught aeronautical engineer. Other careers are simply unable to attain without the resources of universities because you can't practice the craft to even begin to be proficient.
The offset in the percentages has a lot to do with IT. I do not consider much of what IT does to be STEM. It's skilled labor with respect to (T)echnology but a lot of it is no more skillful than a carpenter using math to cut a 2x4. Yet some articles put the carpenter as a STEM job[1]. I'm sorry, I just don't consider a mechanic or electrician as a STEM job in most situations.
An honest assessment of all STEM jobs, based on the definition given in the linked paper, or just an honest assessment of the 50% of STEM jobs that do require a degree? I expect you are right that architects and aeronautical engineers do more often than not require a degree, but that just places them in the other 50%. It does not invalidate the study.
Even still, when ~70% of the population do not have degrees, it seems insidious to say that programming is one of the few professions that do not require a degree. Very few jobs actually require one. Again, I struggle to think of more than a few professions that actually do require a degree, even if arbitrarily.
Even still, when ~70% of the population do not have degrees, it seems insidious to say that programming is one of the few professions that do not require a degree.
I never once said that few professions do not require a degree. The article is about whether college is necessary and I said it was necessary for a number of professions due to the difficulty of getting instruction outside of a university.
You are getting hung up on the word "require". Yes, being a doctor requires a license which is vetted by degree. I'm saying that being a chemist (a US chemist, not the UK version of a pharmacist) doesn't require a degree per se, however, you are going to need to head to a university to be able to get the instruction and resources to be able to properly learn as they are both prohibitively unavailable externally.
Again, I struggle to think of more than a few professions that actually do require a degree, even if arbitrarily.
If you are able to think of very few that require a degree (both directly or indirectly), outside of IT, what are those? And please limit yourself to professions that are spawned from degrees. A carpenter, electrician, etc., are not taught at colleges.
> If you are able to think of very few that require a degree (both directly or indirectly), outside of IT, what are those? And please limit yourself to professions that are spawned from degrees. A carpenter, electrician, etc., are not taught at colleges.
I feel like you are moving the posts again to support your argument. In the context of promoting going to college, you have to look at the jobs that everyone will be doing. If 100% of the population had a STEM degree, 100% of the population will not be doing STEM jobs. That is not how it works.
Agriculture comes to mind as a university accredited program, and while I'm sure it can be useful, you do not need a degree in agriculture to be a successful farmer. So, what makes a profession spawn from a degree? An electrician's job is deeply rooted in the research done by physicist and electrical engineers, so why does it not count?
Perhaps it is only those doing cutting edge research who should be counted as a degree-spawned profession? I would be on board with that definition. Reimplementing someone else's algorithm that you learned in a CS program always seemed more like being a carpenter anyway. The people creating new algorithms that have never been seen before are in a different class. Keep in mind that you're also talking about a tiny fraction of the population actually doing that kind of work though, and those types of jobs are almost impossible to get unless you are the best of the best. Promoting more people to get a degree is not going to improve that situation.
Speaking of electrical engineering, there was an article in a national newspaper a month or two ago about the top jobs (pay wise) for people without degrees, and electrical engineer was near the top of the list. Programming and IT work did not even make the cut at all.
I feel like you are moving the posts again to support your argument. ... An electrician's job is deeply rooted in the research done by physicist and electrical engineers, so why does it not count?
Moving the posts? The posts for this entire argument start and end with college. You can't argue that college is worth it for a profession if a college doesn't teach the profession to begin with.
So, if one were to become an electrician is college worth it? No. If one were to become a physicist or electrical engineer, that is the question.
Agriculture comes to mind as a university accredited program, and while I'm sure it can be useful, you do not need a degree in agriculture to be a successful farmer.
The degree from universities for agriculture is typically more of an agri-business degree. No, you probably don't need it to farm and be successful. But, once again, to the root of the article, is college worth it to gain some insight into the business of agriculture?
Speaking of electrical engineering, there was an article in a national newspaper a month or two ago about the top jobs (pay wise) for people without degrees, and electrical engineer was near the top of the list. Programming and IT work did not even make the cut at all.
It's hard to comment on the validity of an article without a link. I find it hard to believe that many people could get their foot in the door without a degree. I assume you are remembering incorrectly and the job was electrician since that is typically a top non-degree profession.
> You can't argue that college is worth it for a profession if a college doesn't teach the profession to begin with.
I disagree. There is a lot of indication that we already have more people with degrees than jobs that require degrees (in all variations of the word require). If you are going to promote the value of eduction, you have to think about what those people are actually going to be doing with that education once they leave academia. It is not simply a matter of: Have degree in basket weaving = weaving basket career.
> But, once again, to the root of the article, is college worth it to gain some insight into the business of agriculture?
It very well might be worth it, but that is a long way from saying it is required, which is the context of this discussion.
> I find it hard to believe that many people could get their foot in the door without a degree.
Given that electrical "engineering" (i.e. you won't become a PE) is taught at the community college level, I'm not sure why you would think that way. Clearly there is a demand for people in this sector without the college education and degree that goes with it.
Therefore, you answered the question of 'Is College Worth It?'. It is, for some professions. Thank you for agreeing with me.
Given that electrical "engineering" (i.e. you won't become a PE) is taught at the community college level, I'm not sure why you would think that way. Clearly there is a demand for people in this sector without the college education and degree that goes with it.
Is community college not college? Are associate degrees not degrees? Hence, you'd still need a professional education to get your foot in the door.
but that is a long way from saying it is required, which is the context of this discussion.
At no point did I, nor the article, argue that degrees should be required for any specific profession. I'm having trouble arguing with someone that doesn't understand what is being argued in the first place. At this point I think you are simply trolling so I bid you good day.
"Yes, I know that college was worth it 30 years ago, and even 15 years ago, and even 10 years ago. That is not the real question. The question is will this continue to be true in the future?"
I think that's a very good point, considering that (1) the cost of college education has been rising very steeply in recent years and (2) unemployment and underemployment among college grads is currently very high (there are tons of college grads who would be overjoyed if they could only get an unpaid internship).
If you really want to treat a college education as an investment, you have to keep in mind the disclaimer that anyone selling an investment has to make:
"Past performance is not a guarantee of future results."
A somewhat more formal argument is the first and/or second derivatives are probably significantly large negative numbers so numerically integrating the past implies very little about the future.
Or if you like an analogy, gravity makes a negative 2nd deriv of height. So if you toss an apple into the air, you can numerically integrate the "foot seconds" underneath the graph of height for the first two seconds. That doesn't mean the number of "foot seconds" area of the graph for time interval 20 seconds to 22 seconds will be identical or even have a linear relationship with "foot seconds" time interval 0 to 2 seconds.
(edited to remove the asterisks in foot seconds which makes the HN software somewhat unhappy)
Of course it isn't perfect information, and of course things are changing. But they can't give you the numbers from the future because nobody has them! So projecting forwards based on past trends is just one of the ways we can speculate.
It can still be useful data, too. Assume we are at an inflection point. Concoct numbers, and tack speculative movement on to the end of the graph. See where that puts you.
Yes, it's speculative, but that's all we've got right now.
"Payscale draws on its information about alumni salaries. It calculates the expected earnings of a newly minted graduate over a 30 year career by summing the median incomes of alumni from his or her school who graduated between one and 30 years ago."
Yes, I know that college was worth it 30 years ago, and even 15 years ago, and even 10 years ago. That is not the real question. The question is will this continue to be true in the future? Those who are challenging the value of a college degree are in essence arguing "We may be at an inflection point where the value of a college degree will, from this point forward, decrease."
You can not prove or disprove the point by pointing out that trend lines from the past, if projected into the future, show that college remains a great investment.
That line of reasoning is irrelevant if we are in fact at an inflection point. What is relevant is any argument for or against the idea that we are at an inflection point. Arguments based on trend lines from 30 years ago miss the heart of this subject.
The strongest argument to be drawn from this chart is one based on the 5 year trend line: if a college degree was worth a great deal during the Great Recession, then surely that proves the enduring value of a college degree? However, there is a counter argument: what is being measured here is the income premium beyond what someone with a high school degree makes, and the Great Recession wiped out millions of jobs in industries that hired large numbers of people who only had high school degrees (for instance, the construction industry).
Again, the question to be answered is are we at an inflection point? When the economy recovers, and jobs in the construction industry have returned, will a college degree still offer the large income premium that it offered in the past?