[sunny--tech]

You can’t compare uni and bootcamps because they’re a false equivalency as someone else pointed out.

The sole purpose of a bootcamp is to get a job afterwards. That’s why they market their job placement rates so much.

Uni, video courses, and MOOCs are for education. Not everyone uses them to get a job, so job placement for a video course or uni compared to bootcamp doesn’t give you much info.

Anecdote: I did a self-paced online school to get my first software job. I did research on it in regards to job placement.

After getting my first software job, I have since taking many video courses and even went back to uni to get a degree in Computer Science. All of that was purely for further education, not getting a job.

I wouldn’t go to a bootcamp in my position because I don’t need it. They aren’t focused on education or academics but job training.

[TheMagicHorsey]

Wish someone told me before I got $300,000 into debt that my liberal arts degree wasn't going to help me get employment. My university was certainly not up front about that. And if they had been honest about the fact that the degree was worth fuckall in the job market I would have not wasted my money there.

[sunny--tech]

I definitely agree, I do think uni degrees are severely over priced and don’t prepare people for jobs as much as people think. I have an oceanography degree that just collects dust in my parent’s attic.

But that in itself doesn’t mean what Lambda did was any better. If anything, they both need serious reforms.

[ldiracdelta]

Bankruptcy law should somehow apply to school loans after 7 years. Bankruptcy puts some of the onus of bad, ill-advised loans on the lender. Bankrupcy law partially aligns lender goals with borrower goals, as they then have a vested interest in your success.

[cm2012]

The only people to who can afford to go to school to broaden their education without a clear job benefit are those born rich. In other words, the people who used to go to college pre 1970s.

[el_dev_hell]

> The only people to who can afford to go to school to broaden their education without a clear job benefit are those born rich.

I respectfully disagree.

I've spent an enormous amount of time inside universities (as both a student and employed as an engineer). The vast majority of students have no clear job benefit at the end of their degree.

Most students are studying something with no obvious job correlation. The largest schools at most second/third rung universities in the western world are humanities (which I'm not knocking, but the employment rate for these degrees into related roles is abysmal).

Honestly, it's really sad to see. I've spoken with countless third year humanities/law students that are completely lost and have no idea what to do as graduation approaches (about 20% of law graduates at my last uni went on to practice law). Oh, and they're crippled with debt (in both Australia and the US).

In my experience, the worse off the student, the more likely they were to study something with poor career outcomes (one of the worst offenders was the bachelor of business, which was a popular choice for students hoping to escape the lower/middle class but had atrocious outcomes). I chalked this up to fewer educated role models when they were growing up.

HN is fairly skewed towards tech. The tech-related courses (CS, EE, etc) have great employment prospects, but they're the outlier.

[lmm]

> Honestly, it's really sad to see. I've spoken with countless third year humanities/law students that are completely lost and have no idea what to do as graduation approaches (about 20% of law graduates at my last uni went on to practice law). Oh, and they're crippled with debt (in both Australia and the US).

> In my experience, the worse off the student, the more likely they were to study something with poor career outcomes (one of the worst offenders was the bachelor of business, which was a popular choice for students hoping to escape the lower/middle class but had atrocious outcomes). I chalked this up to fewer educated role models when they were growing up.

Grandparent said these people can't afford to go to school; I don't think what you've said contradicts that.

[cm2012]

I think we completely agree. Unless you have a clear job benefit (like studying CS) you should only go to college unless you're already rich and it doesn't matter.

[vasilipupkin]

Respectfully, this is nonsense. Employers still very much prefer people with college degrees for many roles, even if the degree itself isn’t 100% relevant to the job.

[cm2012]

A four year degree is better than nothing. But its much worse than a few years work experience in your career field.

Obviously there's a huge exception for technical college degrees like CS, science, etc which are worth a ton. This applies to degrees in business, liberal arts, etc.

[sunny--tech]

Sure there are rich people that go to school for shits and giggles.

But “job benefit” isn’t exactly the same as “job placement”. I went back to school for improve my own CS fundamentals but not to immediately get a job. And many people do the same (go back to school for a promotion or for a raise).

And since those people exist, comparing job placement rates won’t tell you much since the data isn’t comparable.

[LudwigNagasena]

How many people who go to college don’t treat it as a bootcamp? I doubt it is more than 2%.

[sunny--tech]

Are you talking about just people in the CS program or all university programs? My first pass through college was in oceanography and I definitely didn't treat it as a bootcamp. I had no idea what my job prospects would be like after graduation. I just knew I liked the ocean.

In terms of CS, I'm sure most of them are going for a job. But the fact that those who aren't isn't 0%, it makes it difficult to compare.

Also, the reasons for people not graduating college and not graduating from a 3-6 month bootcamp will likely differ as well. 4 years is a long time. There are many reasons why someone might drop out. So again, comparing graduation rates and job placement rates between uni and bootcamp won't really tell you much useful data, especially if you're trying to compare which one prepares students better.

And just to be clear, I'm not saying Uni is better or defending it. I have my own with college [1]. But I see too many people trying to deflect criticism from bootcamps when those criticisms are very well justified.

[1] Is a Computer Science Degree Worth It?: https://betterprogramming.pub/is-a-computer-science-degree-w...

[LudwigNagasena]

> But the fact that those who aren't isn't 0%, it makes it difficult to compare.

It is irrelevant for the other 99%, so it doesn’t make it any harder to compare it.

> Also, the reasons for people not graduating college and not graduating from a 3-6 month bootcamp will likely differ as well. 4 years is a long time. >There are many reasons why someone might drop out. So again, comparing graduation rates and job placement rates between uni and bootcamp won't really tell you much useful data, especially if you're trying to compare which one prepares students better.

Sure, the comparison shouldn’t be that simplistic.