[zizzles]

There will always be disproportionate amounts of arts/media majors vs STEM majors (more so now than ever before according to this article)

Not everyone is cut out to be a NASA astronaut space scientist engineering tech-guru UNIX kernel programming god. 1. There exists genetic limitations, and 2. Not everyone has an asperger-style of thinking. It should be no surprise to HN that your average human relates closer to the arts, music and perhaps sports than machine binary code.

[wolfgoatcabbage]

Not sure this is true, although it appears to be the dominant perception. Programming skills bear a closer resemblance to language learning or critical thinking for many practical applications. Perhaps NASA engineers, kernel gods and lovers of binary will remain in the minority, but I wouldn't be surprised to see scripting in languages like Swift and Python become a more ubiquitous skill in the next 10 years. Even writing basic iOS apps is not beyond the range of someone with a creative writing degree.

[WildUtah]

And what share of 18-23 year olds are capable of learning a new language or critical thinking? Darn few. But nearly all are capable of partying, drinking, casual sex, and learning to write and appreciate fine arts a little better.

That's what we should be providing them with free college for.

[wolfgoatcabbage]

They all knew their native languages and had enough critical thinking to be accepted to college. SAT/ACTs include math and writing sections. So I would venture all 18-23 year olds accepted to college can learn a language and think critically.

[WildUtah]

Critical thinking helps kids get accepted to college? It sure didn't help back in my day.

I should have said, few are capable of learning a new language without total immersion. And few are capable of learning to do linear algebra, calculus, or C++ well. Even fewer are capable of serious critical thinking.

But they can still mostly benefit from college.

[vollmond]

However, we have people taking out enormous loans to get educations in non-STEM fields that have much less chance of repaying the investment financially.

We as a society push everyone in every possible field towards college. Many of these could be apprenticeships, etc. There's no reason to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn a lot of this stuff.

Even if we went back 40 years to when college was (compared to now) fairly cheap, a lot of fields wouldn't make sense in that environment.

[ZenoArrow]

> "1. There exists genetic limitations, and 2. Not everyone has an asperger-style of thinking."

You don't need asperger-style thinking to be able to code, nor do I think the skills you need to code are particularly rare. What's rarer is the inclination to learn.

In my opinion, anyone that can write out a cooking recipe can learn to code. Cooking recipes are basically imperative programming in disguise. The ingredients are the variables, and the cooking instructions are the algorithms.

[justinator]

How about also that the arts are important to a rich and diverse culture?

[flowerbeater]

To people on Hacker News, art is just "content".

[justinator]

Well, I certainly wouldn't be brave enough to speak for a large, mostly anonymous group of users.

[CN7R]

While art is essential to any modern culture, you cannot build an country's economy off the creation and trade of paintings. Besides, isn't art a product of creativity - an attribute that cannot be taught? Colleges should exist to enable creativity with the technical skills to implement it. If money is a problem, prioritize practical skills over arts.

[justinator]

"The Arts" - the Liberal Arts, not just "Art". But if you want to talk about art,

> isn't art a product of creativity - an attribute that cannot be taught?

Background: I went to art school. Why would creativity be something that's unteachable? It's a mode of thinking, just like any other. Every talent needs to be practiced, trained, enhanced; people need their ideas challenged, and a safe space to develop. I see little difference in this respect between art and engineering.

Saying that creativity is just an innate property of, "artistic" people is discounting the work involved in the development of someone that is creating the things you are taking for granted.