[oooyay]

You already have a lot of replies here and the comment is provably divisive. I'll toss in that while only you can judge whether it was truly a waste of time, a lot of that factors in how you used it. If it benefited you in interview material understanding, increased the probability that you could extend your network with someone, or other somewhat intangible signals then I'd say it wasn't as much of a waste as you say.

I have no degree and that is arguably worse and there are exceedingly fewer people with my background in technology on the coast. On the other hand, I spent a lot of my career writing applications that solved Software Operations problems. I spent a lot of time working in small teams rather than huge ones, I often did not have product or project support. I used to loathe that chapter of my career because of how toilsome it was in my memory. Lately I've come to appreciate it a lot more because I am much more self reliant and I often have the skills and familiarity to run much larger teams as a tenured engineer.

Long way of saying, the value of an experience or thing is often not immediately realized or appreciated.

[apsurd]

Same experience. "Is school worth it" is divisive because it speaks to people's investment and value system. I too have a full and successful career in software without any degree largely for the same reason you mentioned: I learned the hard way and continued to show up.

Earned experience is objectively valuable. The problem is people don't want to be fools so "working hard" looks suspect when you see plenty of people do well because of network and social aspects.

When it comes to school, there's obvious value in the social/status/network aspects and debatable value in the actual content, but what I find most discussion worthy is how one's background shapes mentality toward "putting in the work" when there's no explicit reward for said work.

The simple difference is that school promises you results. One at least leaves with a paper that's supposed to be worth something. Doing anything else, provides no such guarantees.

[bonoboTP]

Regarding "university isn't worth it, you can just learn by doing, none of this theory matters in practice", I've usually heard this from people who weren't able to pass the math courses (or even the programming courses), so it seemed more like sour grapes.

I have to admit though that they were right, in that they were indeed able to make a career at some multinational companies even after barely getting through a bachelor's with bad grades and with many more years needed than the normal time.

Real mass-scale software jobs are indeed significantly easier than the math courses in CS university programs. At least in a cognitive capability sense. There can still be many other kinds of challenges that are more about social skills which are not much needed for passing college courses but are quite important in jobs.

[apsurd]

the distinction is specific to the economic value calculation.

it’d be disingenuous to assume the conversation is about anything other than the economic trade off. That said, wholly agree that if school was about learning, it’s great for advancing and curating an environment for learning as its own value.

fwiw in high school, authority figures justified college as a way to counteract the failure scenario of dead-end jobs. success looked like a good paying job and opportunities to do what you’d like like vacations and raise a family. Maybe thats the right framing for the rank and file public school, but it’s why I didn’t even apply to college, let alone attend.

edit: it is objectively economically more valuable to hold a degree, the data is clear. my issue is that it’s reverse causality as is always the issue with data signals.

when you go back to the scenario of what to tell a public school kid, going to college actually works as a negative motivation tool, because the majority of kids won’t go to college so you’re basically telling them their economic value is shit before they are even grown. I don’t believe in that.

[dahart]

> it’d be disingenuous to assume the conversation is about anything other that the economic trade off.

To me it seems hollow and sad to think about higher education purely in job and money terms, but maybe I’m weird. I studied what I wanted to learn about, and was naïve about any economic trade offs. There were a few companies I thought were cool and dreamt about working for, and at some level I knew it’d take a degree to get in, but in my book school was quite valuable beyond the jobs I’ve had, in many non-financial ways.

> you’re basically telling them their economic value is shit before they are even grown. I don’t believe in that.

Maybe I didn’t understand, but I can’t quite reconcile your suggestion to only look at college as an economic trade off, with not believing in recommending college due to your pessimistic interpretation of the message. It’s a fact that in the US, people with 4-year degrees earn more than people without, statistically speaking. (And the factor is a lot bigger than I thought.) People with advanced degrees statistically earn a considerable amount more than people with 4-year degrees. If you want to look at this as an economic trade off, it seems like there’s only one recommendation that makes any sense, no? Like, based on the numbers and my own experience, it doesn’t feel like going to school has particularly strong negatives that offset the positives. (BTW I went to a state school, and borrowed money to pay tuition.)

[bonoboTP]

It's not necessarily fully causal though.

You'd need a comparison group who are just as intelligent and conscientious and equally rich as the college graduating population for comparison. They would likely find ways to demonstrate their value in other ways if forced not to attend college.

[dahart]

No you don’t need to do a study. We already know college is causal in the sense that you can’t get good jobs without the credential. The job market already enforces the causal relationship. And that’s a major reason why the advice to go to college is sound advice: we know for a fact that it broadens one’s options and enables a vast set of higher paying jobs. Whether this system is good or fair is reasonable to debate, but doesn’t change today’s economic “tradeoffs”.

What you’re asking is whether the credential represents a measurable and valid increase in skill and learning, and ideally adjusted for socioeconomic status. That’s an interesting question, and there’s a whole field of literature on this topic. But the answer to that question won’t change the economics nor the advice.

Many papers go much further than what you suggest and they adjust for things like race and family history of higher education, in addition to intelligence and family income. I have read through quite a few papers myself, and the conclusions I’ve seen vary on where they land on the causality axis between true learning and credentialism, but none of them come to the conclusion that true learning isn’t a significant factor. And it would be pretty silly to assume that people who spent 4 years learning learned nothing, right?