| > For some reason people keep telling you that you will get a better education if you pay a ridiculous amount of money for it and even if it's not better and you can't figure out how to pay the student loan off, you should still go for it, because education is it's own goal, as if it was a consumer product. Only rubes think this. The formal education at most elite universities trends towards quite bad, with a few exceptional classes. The access to resources (academic, social, professional, etc.) at universities is phenomenal, but this only matters if the student uses those resources (most don’t). Elite colleges typically have a great education, but they are usually just as expensive as elite universities, but with much less prestige — they are only “worth it” (if you’re looking for value) as a stepping stone to something else. > This obviously doesn't make sense from an educational perspective. If education is good for you, why make it unaffordable and out of reach? If someone chooses to go to an elite school while not understanding the value prop (or lack thereof), that’s on the applicant rather than the school. > Low cost colleges are supposedly inferior and not everyone gets to become "an educated well rounded individual". Low cost colleges serve an important function, and imho it’s just as easy to be “an educated well rounded individual” at one of these schools. They may not be as prestigious, but the value of most average or better universities and colleges is largely based on the efforts made by any given student (which trends towards being very low effort). |