[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?

[bonoboTP]

It's a bit phosophical though. If you had a huge cohort of smart and capable people on the job market who didn't go to college, the job market would adjust its requirements. Currently the filter regarding a degree gives high enough signal,and it's generally considered legally acceptable, while other types of filters are more legally risky.

Everything is connected to everything else. Things respond to changes in other things.

Of course as an individual the actionable recommendation is a different thing than diagnosing the overall societal scale usefulness of pushing so many people though college.

Analogy: is binding your daughter's foot good for her future prospects? Under a certain cultural context it was "good" for the marriage prospects. But the causation goes through a social-cultural consideration, that can shift and still "work" well. So whether the modern world could drop the college ritual or not is a question that's still up for debate even if the individual advice remains "go to college / bind the feet".

[dahart]

> Things respond to changes in other things.

Yes. For example, when people take 4 years to learn full time, by the end they generally have learned.

> college ritual

I don’t buy that foot binding is a valid analogy to college. Why do you believe it is? Foot binding as a practice has died, while college hasn’t. Foot binding causes lifelong health problems, while college leads to lifelong benefits. Your language suggests you see no value in 4 years of education. Why?

What are the downsides to college? What is the objection to learning? Isn’t learning on the job the alternative? Some people say there’s 4 years of job market opportunity cost. Except the people who start work out of high school get stuck in lower paying jobs forever. The people who go to college get to learn & explore many topics outside of “work” for 4 years and then immediately take a higher paying job that statistically surpasses their GED working friends in 3 years, and then keep earning more forever.

Some people borrow money to attend college and go into debt. This can be a real issue for some, and I believe the average debt is higher than when I went to school. For the majority who get decent jobs, this is temporary, and the debt gets paid off, and then they end up richer.

What if university was free to attend? Does that change your calculus? Would you still consider college a “ritual” or a tradeoff if there was no direct financial cost to attending?

[bonoboTP]

I live in a country with free college. It still delays maturation and life stages and makes the youth unproductive in their prime years.

For some fields it's clearly important, you can't learn everything about bridge design and civil engineering on the job, the structure and the topics that build on each other in an order definitely benefit from a well designed multi-year curriculum.

But for many people it simply functions as a conscientiousness signal stamped by a prestigious institution, when the material is not connected to the job.

Now, sure leasurely education is nice. I like to learn about medieval history myself, or about geology from YouTube and maybe if I had infinite time I'd learn more about music and the wonderful world of fungi. I guess this is nice, and if people learn such leasurely subjects to their pleasure, it can be seen as a good thing, a better life. But the truth is that most people don't really derive pleasure from learning abstract things like this. They are forced to do this because this is the way to get a job. It's a multi year initiation rite.

[apsurd]

i’m not the parent, but you’re using college and learning interchangeably in the discussion. Learning is indisputably causal and necessary and valuable toward a better life and better earning and employment opportunities. what’s in debate is whether college as the mechanism for learning still holds up with regard to various parameters. it’s not obvious and the problem is there’s tremendous inertia biasing the status quo.

On if college was accessible and free would that change the equation: yes of course. I’d recommend anyone go to college that can, (i didn’t) but it wouldn’t because it’s the best way to learn a topic, and id recommend it with the transparency that it won’t make or break the rest of your life and you can learn whatever you want whenever you want for the rest of your life so take the long view here.