MSU tuition during a pandemic.....

[Johnson85]

A large % of people have no reason to go to college.

Yes and no. They don't need college to learn something particularly relevant to what they eventually end up doing for a living. They just need the sheepskin to be given a shot at a job they think they want to do.

Many need to learn a skill.

Every body needs to learn some marketable skills. Anybody spending money on college without a specific application when they get out is rolling the dice when they don't need to.

They will make more money and have more success than most college graduates of whom many never really use their degrees.

This is still not true on average. Supposedly if you put college grads in one group and non-college grads in the other, the college graduate at the 25th percentile in earning in the college grad cohort out earns the the high school graduate that is at the 75th percentile in the non-college grad cohort.

I work in manufacturing and we have tons of college degree folks working shift that use nothing in their degree. They couldn't get a job in what they majored. Yes a few end up making more money but that is the rare exception not the rule.

We probably see the flip side. I see a lot marginal graduates that just barely get their foot on the bottom rung of a white collar ladder, and many of those end up moving up enough to be worth it and the ones that don't don't have a horrible deal. You probably see a lot of marginal graduates that don't get that bottom rung and get nothing out of it except debt and foregone earnings.

Even before the college bubble and credentialism really took off, only about 1/3 of college graduates worked in something related to their college degree.

But definitely agree that if you're a marginal student or your heart is just not in college, going the skilled trades route is probably a better option. We've gone so overboard with shuffling everybody with a pulse through college that it doesn't take much to stand out in skilled trades. And if you end up not liking it, it's a lot less painful to go do something else than it is to be a college graduate with $40k in debt and no real job skills.

[Liverpooldawg]

Dude, professors write a syllabus once and teach it for 25 years. Not sure why they should be complaining having to put in a little work to pass that worn out prepared class a new way.

Online classes should be less money. No doubt.

I have a lot of family in education. They all say the remote stuff is more work for them than the in person stuff is.

[Johnson85]

Hot take - College degrees are mostly a scam at these elevated prices and are just pillaging middle class American families.

I am 100% certain that I could get a high-school kid with a 30+ ACT and a good upbringing and decent vocabulary and put them in an entry level job at a Fortune 200/500 company and they would shine and progressively rise. The merits and quality of the raw material (the student) is 90% of the ultimate value, the rest is mostly experience.

That's not that much of a hot take anymore. Most people not in on the scam realize it's a scam to one degree or another. https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-.../dp/0691174652

The good kid would only need to take some essential classes and teach themselves some mechanics, programming, and physics, they would do just fine. College professors don't really teach the 30+ kids very much, just give them the reading list and experience, then good to go. Colleges are merely a toll booth to many kids. Peter Theil, Paypal and Palantir co-founder, has written and spoken expensively about this and acts upon it to recruit premium talent.

Trueish. There are still college professors that are great teachers that students benefit from quite alot. They are few and far between though, and often aren't as helpful to the higher aptitude students. For STEM majors where a lot of high aptitude students end up, you mostly have good students teaching themselves anyway (or learning from a TA) while highly paid professors focus on research. The teaching is secondary at best. That's also true to an extent at high prestige finance and economics programs. Certainly many college classes provide no more interaction and feedback than students could get through MOOCs at a single digit percentage of the costs of traditional classes.

Another reason the expensive college is a scam is that direct competitors overseas are being offered at a fraction of the price. Imperial College of London, Swiss Federal Institute, Munich TU, New South Wales, Delft TU cost less than Ole Miss. The best Universities in the world, with English language options cost less than a barely accredited college in Lafayette County Mississippi. That's not even factoring the high quality universities in the 3rd world and Eastern Europe. You can talk with a new grad of decent Philippines university, you would not be able to Pepsi challenge with Philippine immigrant graduating from the University of Illinois. Same with Romanian kids.

Only immigration laws and limits on work visas keep the bubble from a spectacular pop.

You've lost me here. Are you saying the bets foreign students stay at home? Or come to the US for education?

[R2Dawg]

Yes and no. They don't need college to learn something particularly relevant to what they eventually end up doing for a living. They just need the sheepskin to be given a shot at a job they think they want to do.

Every body needs to learn some marketable skills. Anybody spending money on college without a specific application when they get out is rolling the dice when they don't need to.

This is still not true on average. Supposedly if you put college grads in one group and non-college grads in the other, the college graduate at the 25th percentile in earning in the college grad cohort out earns the the high school graduate that is at the 75th percentile in the non-college grad cohort.


We probably see the flip side. I see a lot marginal graduates that just barely get their foot on the bottom rung of a white collar ladder, and many of those end up moving up enough to be worth it and the ones that don't don't have a horrible deal. You probably see a lot of marginal graduates that don't get that bottom rung and get nothing out of it except debt and foregone earnings.

Even before the college bubble and credentialism really took off, only about 1/3 of college graduates worked in something related to their college degree.

But definitely agree that if you're a marginal student or your heart is just not in college, going the skilled trades route is probably a better option. We've gone so overboard with shuffling everybody with a pulse through college that it doesn't take much to stand out in skilled trades. And if you end up not liking it, it's a lot less painful to go do something else than it is to be a college graduate with $40k in debt and no real job skills.

I agree on much of your comments but I think you took a few of my comments out of context a little. Look at the number of jobs in market, a small % actually require a college degree. Now we can debate some bogus requirements that a company may put on them even while 80% of mfg jobs require no degree. I even see companies promote non engineers for example into engineering roles if they have been in mfg long enough and know enough. Now they can't do what an engineer can do but they fill those roles anyway. Why, because they can't find enough engineers and they pay them less.

Throw in retail, etc. where the % is even higher of non degree requred. Yes those in management likely have a college degree whether it is in their field of study or not but then you have to ask what did the degree accomplish but meet some bogus phony requirement from the company? Answer is nothing. The % of people in mgr roles requiring degrees has increased over years but in reality it isn't necessary in half the roles.

Now look at the 250K or so investment for that liberal arts degree vs a skilled tradesmen that makes 150K a year. I see this all the time. it is about the rule not the exception. My wife is even an accountant running the finances for a large organization with a college degree and she only makes 35-40K a year working in her field. She does get some benefit perks so there is that. She is in her 40s age wise too. Ole Joe could learn her job on the fly but better with degreed person.

[The Federalist Engineer]

You've lost me here. Are you saying the bets foreign students stay at home? Or come to the US for education?

Not saying the best foreign students stay home, the rich and influential still want to study abroad. It's a huge status symbol in many nations to get your degree in the USA or Europe.

What I am saying is that for Business Purposes (setting aside the status symbol) - an undergraduate reading the same text book in physics in other nations is now On-Par in Education with the USA graduate.

Those kids can read Steam Tables, know Calculus, and know Excel as well as any American graduate.

Therefore, major companies don't need to send Ex-Pats to Thailand anymore. You can hire Thai professionals to run an operation just as well as you could in Utah or Georgia. It's being done everyday.

[Johnson85]

I agree on much of your comments but I think you took a few of my comments out of context a little. Look at the number of jobs in market, a small % actually require a college degree. Now we can debate some bogus requirements that a company may put on them even while 80% of mfg jobs require no degree. I even see companies promote non engineers for example into engineering roles if they have been in mfg long enough and know enough. Now they can't do what an engineer can do but they fill those roles anyway. Why, because they can't find enough engineers and they pay them less.

Throw in retail, etc. where the % is even higher of non degree requred. Yes those in management likely have a college degree whether it is in their field of study or not but then you have to ask what did the degree accomplish but meet some bogus phony requirement from the company? Answer is nothing. The % of people in mgr roles requiring degrees has increased over years but in reality it isn't necessary in half the roles.

We're basically saying the same thing I think. I agree that the degrees don't really convey any objective value, just saying that the from the student's perspective, it may make sense to play the game anyway depending on what they want to do. And how much sense it makes probably depends on what field you're looking at. Things like manufacturing probably focus more on skills than credentials than professional industries or service industries. But even things like sales have seemed to change. For example, with equipment, used to see a lot of reps that moved up through the technical side or even operations and really understood the machines and the company just plucked up the ones that were personable. Certainly not all of them, but a good number of them fit that description. Now they all seem to come in as salesmen. Most of them are good salesmen and some of them really sound like they know what they're talking about, but at the end of the day, I'm like, you read that out of a 17ing brochure or manual just like I could have. I miss having the feeling, whether it was false security or not, that the sales rep really understood the shit out of what he was selling and that he was selling for a reason beyond he was personable and/or good at sales. Dealt with a guy that had moved over from medical devices to heavy equipment, and I just don't get what value he was supposed provide other than take me to lunch and be personable. Every question I asked, I wanted to be like, "what part of hte sales manual gave you that answer?"

Now look at the 250K or so investment for that liberal arts degree vs a skilled tradesmen that makes 150K a year. I see this all the time. it is about the rule not the exception. My wife is even an accountant running the finances for a large organization with a college degree and she only makes 35-40K a year working in her field. She does get some benefit perks so there is that. She is in her 40s age wise too. Ole Joe could learn her job on the fly but better with degreed person.

Don't disagree with this, except that $250k number is not representative, unless you are throwing in foregone earnings. Most people can get through college for wayyyyyy less than $250k. The media likes to throw out dumbasses that take out a loan to pay for all of their undergrad at a non-prestigious private liberal arts school. But the average student loan debt is still $32K after undergrad.

[Tbonewannabe]

I had a Physics 2 class at MSU that you taught yourself. Worst "teacher" I ever had. We were assigned homework for the chapter we would go over next time and was graded on it. He then would spend the class going over what you did wrong.

It made no sense to have a grade on problems that you hadn't been taught how to solve. I think it was even 25% of our overall grade.

[The Federalist Engineer]

I had a Physics 2 class at MSU that you taught yourself. Worst "teacher" I ever had. We were assigned homework for the chapter we would go over next time and was graded on it. He then would spend the class going over what you did wrong.

It made no sense to have a grade on problems that you hadn't been taught how to solve. I think it was even 25% of our overall grade.

My physics 2 or 3 teacher was also terrible, maybe it was the same person. Had to do it all myself.

She accused me before the final of "being in her office". Went nuts, frantic, shaking, and hysterical. Then my classmates said I was studying with them in the library all day.

This proto-Karen wanted me dead and expelled. Ah, memories. Maybe "being in her office" really meant something else.

[TimberBeast]

I had a Physics 2 class at MSU that you taught yourself. Worst "teacher" I ever had. We were assigned homework for the chapter we would go over next time and was graded on it. He then would spend the class going over what you did wrong.

It made no sense to have a grade on problems that you hadn't been taught how to solve. I think it was even 25% of our overall grade.

Was it Taha Mzougi? I?m sure that?s spelled incorrectly. Definitely one of the worst professors I ever had.

[Tbonewannabe]

Was it Taha Mzougi? I?m sure that?s spelled incorrectly. Definitely one of the worst professors I ever had.

Yes it was.