[btkramer9]

I only got about a third away through this but the beginning doesn't make me want to believe/empathize with the author at all.

"my nephew was set to graduate from Maryland’s Towson University with a degree in political science. After six long years,"

Six years for a degree in political science. You have to actively try to take that long to graduate. Maybe he changed majors.

"Holding up their son’s transcript, his adviser pointed out that he had taken the same economics course twice—one year apart. My nephew hadn’t noticed."

Really? I've met plenty of people in college who would do things like this. They all had no motivation or interest to graduate. They were there just because their parents made them and could afford it. I think this defends the authors point. However, using two people who clearly have no idea how to pave their own path to a successful life should be used as an example to argue against universities and trade schools.

Maybe the author is trying to say its the high schools fault for not teaching them. I disagree. Everytime I've seen behavior like this it's because the student just doesn't care or their parents have plenty of money and know they'll be fine no matter how bad they do.

[aetherson]

If you read a little further, you'd find his point is that his nephew was not well-suited to university, but that his family felt obligated to shove him through it because your prospects are so limited if you do not get a bachelor's degree.

[btkramer9]

I think his family should have felt obligated to shove him through it. I also think it's his fault for not understanding why or what he could have done instead. I do think he is better off too. Sure, he's worked a couple bad postgrad jobs and is currently unemployed but someone with his work ethic that stops after high schools usually ends up way worse. Maybe married with two kids working at costco just trying to scrape by. No one wants to be in that situation.

It's probably unfair for me to be assuming so much about him but it just reminds me of so many people I've seen in my life and I don't empathize for him at all.

[alikoneko]

> Six years for a degree in political science. You have to actively try to take that long to graduate. Maybe he changed majors.

I disagree. Life circumstances can keep you from graduating as well.

I spent nearly 7 on a CS degree. There were a few hold ups. The biggest being until VERY recently, I was unmedicated with Bipolar Disorder. I would sign up for classes while manic, and barely scrape by or fail when depressed. It has taken me 5 years to get a proper diagnosis and find the right meds. Meanwhile, I still tried to do my best in the classes I was attending.

Another reason it took me so long, I attended community college and got a 2 year degree in programming I was told would directly translate to my BS in CS. This was not the case. I found that my university only took certain credits off of my AS, effectively putting me at about a year of coursework when I was under the impression I had 2.

None of this was me trying to take that long to graduate. I do take some of the responsibility for it, I could have done better to get out of bed and go to class some days. I could have done more research about PBSC's transfer degree. I could have fought harder for the right diagnosis when I was 18 and everything started happening.

[btkramer9]

Those are fair reasons. I assumed if anything like that came up the author would have included them. Your experience with community college was probably frustrating. It can be a good choice to help keep debt low but there's always that "transfer factor"

[deong]

He's not arguing against trade schools. It's a fairly explicit endorsement of trade schools -- just accompanied by lamenting that that's not the actual world we live in.

The article isn't presenting the two nephews as the same argument at all. The idea is that the one who went to college did what society demands, and it clearly wasn't the right move. The second made the "correct" decision, only to have society fail to reward him.

I'm not sure how you took away something different there, unless I'm just misunderstanding your argument.

[btkramer9]

It's probably because I didn't read the entire article. I got to this point

"Unfortunately for Jeffrey, however, it’s very hard to make a decent living as a cook, even in the best restaurants of New York. So after three years of hard work and great experience but very little money'

and assumed it was all downhill for him too. I was mostly infuriated by the first nephew being used against universities.

[eeeeeeeeeeeee]

I agree. Of all the other examples that could have been used, that one was ridiculous. That person simply had no motivation whatsoever and the degree was probably a total loss for him (other than the piece of paper itself)