[earlyreturns]

Why pay to get a degree in the US when you are competing for jobs not based on merit or qualifications? I can see why those in h1b’d industries like cs don’t see any point, and those are the industries where the most jobs and money have historically been. As goes the STEM labor market so goes the market for stuff like accounting, communications, sociology. A fair and secure labor market is a necessary condition for higher education to pay off. American workers compete for jobs with a global workforce, therefore American universities must be cost competitive with those in India, China, etc…. Tenure is like tarrifs, the cost of protectionism is paid by the consumer.

[thinkingtoilet]

I work for a small Us-based med-tech company that is growing. We are paring down our offshore devs and hiring only US based devs now. I can assure you that if you have a good school on your resume it puts you at the top of the list. All things being equal, if you went to University of Vermont (like I did) and and someone else when to Harvard, you better believe I'm interviewing the Harvard kid first.

>Why pay to get a degree in the US when you are competing for jobs not based on merit or qualifications?

This is one of those things that people just say and while of course there are issues with our current system, this provably false and patently absurd. Do you not do a technical interview for new devs? You don't check their merit or qualifications? You just do a lottery? It's frustrating to hear comments like this because it reeks of people thinking they're so smart while ignoring reality.

[earlyreturns]

Qualifications are easily and frequently faked and most people who write code for a living have seen competent people replaced by low cost semi-competents who excel at getting hired but little else. Interviews have gotten much more onerous, but the average level of skill has not increased.