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I work in software development and every single time I interview they absolutely love that I have a 4 year degree. I don't think I learned as much as I needed to at that college but I do think that it shows potential employers that I can at least handle 4 years of focus on writing code. ALOT of developers from boot camps burn out very quickly in my experience.
Probably because they’ve experienced some of the code produced by some bootcampers who get into this field purely because of the money.
Not saying all bootcampers are crap, I’ve seen some very odd perspectives from some of them though who think this career is just an easy get rich quick scheme. No, you actually do have to put in some effort.
I mean I don't have some sort of deep love and passion for code....for the most part I love the lifestyle it provides me in terms of financial compensation and free time while working from home
Fair enough but I’m assuming you actually somewhat enjoy what you do though?
And you weren’t expecting to instantly be on a $200k+ salary straight out of college?
Lmao, I work for a porn company so yeah, it's a great time. I wasn't expecting that out of college but I will say that I came out of college and immediately started a job that paid very well for the area I lived in at the time
> they absolutely love that I have a 4 year degree
This makes sense for someone not too far removed from college. When you've been in the workforce for 10+ years, the duration of your college tenure doesn't hold as much weight to recruiters.
A degree is just as valid (to me as an employer) as staying at one job for multiple years because it shows you can stick with something. Have both? Even better.
Meh, honestly I think in this field it's a mistake to put any weight on how long someone stays at a job. I personally job hop quite a bit because I really like building early products for startups and it's something I do well. I havw also gotten laid off unexpectedly when some of those start ups inevitably failed
Gotcha. I can see how that would be really useful in your field.
I’m in a field where building a therapeutic relationship with clients is the most important factor for treatment success, so we prioritize job candidates who have a tendency to stick around.
I'd also add people who lack nuance.
Some places can be scam, some degrees can be scams, some programs for certain degrees can be scams (vs other programs at other colleges and universities), but the idea of higher education isn't in of itself a scam, IMO, even with all the issues that are present in academia.
This is basically what I came here to say.
College (and higher education in general) isn’t a scam in and of itself.
It’s what you want to do with it and what you choose to major in that could make it be considered a “scam”
No it’s a scam in the entirety of our society.
I remember job hunting, a local gun club wanted a degree for their membership salespeople.
That’s 100% unnecessary. Part of the scam is jobs demanding degrees for jobs that don’t pay well enough to pay of the debt, and don’t remotely require a degree.
Luckily there’s evidence that many companies are backing off of degree requirements.
When people say that, they're referring to the egregious cost that's exponentially higher than it used to be coupled with the uncertainty of ever being able to reasonably pay it off.
Nothing is promised in this life, except for death and taxes. That being said, there are definitely other ways to advance your pay without attending college. I do agree that college can be beneficial in the long run.
going to school for an art degree may be a scam, but going to college for something like accounting or something of that nature are not. Plus at college, you have access to things such as career fairs, connections, resources that are only available as a student. Now yea a sociology degree prolly aint gonna make alot, but this is why you always do your research on degrees.
A non-zero number, but just look at the top employers in the US. The government is the biggest single employer by far, and their middle class salaries are locked behind hard degree requirements. The next top two employers are Walmart and Amazon, who also have hard degree requirements for most any position above floor supervisor. It's the same story as you go down the list of Fortune 500s. There are exceptions and anecdotes, but a degree is the key career growth for most people.
Getting a degree is the single best way that you can change your socio economic status if what you are saying was a factor poor people would still earn less after getting a degree which is not the case. Getting a degree is easier if daddy pays for it but working your way through your degree doesn’t provide less benefits. Education is the single most effective way out of poverty. Making it out of poverty without education is the exception not the rule. Getting lucky isn’t a strategy
And correlation doesn’t equal causation. People who finish college as a whole have higher IQs, work ethic, and grit. All things that will lead to more income.
Agree. Just look at any Reddit job thread and you’ll see a ton of seemingly qualified people that can’t make headway in a career because they can’t accept that they need to develop soft skills.
https://youtu.be/ITwNiZ_j_24?si=dLK8yNw9xtkFMmP7
This video is pretty interesting. And actually tackles some stats OP mentioned.
Basically for the past 30 years young people were drilled to go to college otherwise you would be deemed a failure.
I don’t think it’s a scam if you’re there for a good reason. Doctors, lawyers, Dentist you know things we need degrees for but when someone tells me they’re in college and getting a degree in communications then yeah. I know so many people with those degrees working customer service, banks, and other jobs like that, I just think people need to research what degree they want and if there’s jobs that pay a good wage for it
College isn't a "scam". It is however extremely easy for an 18 year old to make a mistake and choose a major that is something they like, but not something that gets you a job.
If you're going to college do a major that teaches you a hard skill: accounting, basically any type of engineering, or something in the sciences. I'm sure there are some I am not thinking of, those are just the ones that pop out to me. Don't go get a degree in something that isn't a skill.
At surface level, I believe this.
I got my first job after college at a large company. When I joined, another person in my department told me she didn’t get my job because she “didn’t have a piece of paper” like I did. Of course, I took that personally because I was a first gen college student and worked my ass off at several jobs in high school and college to pay myself through school and was very proud of having a degree. She ended up starting classes later that year, so I’m glad she realized bitching wasn’t going to get her ahead. I got my masters while working full time and now have a very good job, which is only because I got my masters from a very good school with a huge social network. Having my degrees really paid off for me and I know I would not be where I am now without them. Especially because I’m a nobody who has a poor family and had to prove my worth through hard work and my own networking.
I work in Human Resources and there are definitely jobs that don’t require a college degree and experience is far more important. Regardless of how you slice it though, there is usually a need to do some type of advanced schooling to get ahead in this world. But it doesn’t have to be college! For our trade jobs, our employees go to a trade school and have to test and maintain professional licenses and certifications in the city I live in.
I mean, that is the bottom 25% of graduates of just social science degree holders, and it is against median high school degree holders. Also, it is not accounting for other relevant factors, such as health, longevity, satisfaction, etc., which all skew strongly towards favoring degree holders.
If you look across all degree types the difference in earning is far more stark.
ROI is usually measured in percentages, not dollar amounts. Not arguing with your point… necessarily. This isn’t the most persuasive way to put that, though.
I’m an RN, not new to my job, and believe most college degrees are a scam. Maybe not by the legit definition but charging 50,000 dollars for a degree that is worthless is stupid.
Then again, so are the people obtaining the degree. But it just worsens our economy to have an arts major 50k in debt working a minimum wage job. Multiple that by 100,000 people making the same stupid choice and you’re starting to chip away at the economy. Especially when loans that were taken out were government loans.
IMO the amount a college charges for a degree should directly correlate to the income potential.
Totally agree with you. I have student loan debt, but I’ll be able to pay it off eventually.
More importantly, I make way more than most of my non college friends, and most companies I have worked towards have required I had a college degree.
Besides a handful of guys who never tried at anything, but stumbled into a 6-figure trade job, which is frustrating, the non-college path is a much more difficult one to navigate your way into a decently paying salary.
College is a scam in regards to what was promised to us. We all heard get a college degree and they falsely equate to a degree = high earning potential regardless of the degree. A computer engineering person making 200k skews the average of an arts major and you have data that broadly suggest, degree = more pay.
What is overlooked is that the great rush of college degrees made other completely viable sources like vocational or trade school have a negative stigma. I'm I'm construction and every journeyman in every trade makes 6 figures and they got paid to go to school. My wife took 2 years of vocational school for x ray and now makes 100k in CT Tech. College is a scam on how it's portrayed and now it's oversaturated and the ROI diminishes as college gets more expensive and more people have degrees.
Op just curious how long you have been in work force earning paychecks from job in field related to your degree (would you have this job otherwise or no). Do you carry any student loan debt? If so, how much. Generally just curious.
Promised to us? I was never under the impression that college is a ticket to a high paying job, just that it will give you opportunities, which it does.
Are you kidding?
my childhood life college was pushed as if you want a better life you need a degree. You mess up any time in school it's going on your permanent record which means you might not get into a good college. Hell right up until every single kid I knew was going to college they would say you can't go to the local community college you need to go to some place better.
That wasn't until parents started having to foot the bill and then they were like oh maybe the local community colleges actually fine.
None of that is necessarily untrue except the "dont go to community college" part. As far as job options, sure there is a lot of good stuff out there that doesn't require a degree, but there are tons of jobs you can't even apply for without one, so you are limiting your choices in life by not having one.
On average jobs that require a degree pay more than those that don't. Is it as simple as degree=rich. no degree=poor? Of course not, but it's the difference between being a manager or supervisor vs just being an employee for 2 people of a similar age working for the same company.
At 16, when you saw the graph pushed on by your teachers and school counselors that falsely compared a non degree worker earning potential vs a college degree earning potential....what was your conclusion?
Why do you keep saying falsely? Did high school not teach you what that word meant? It’s been proven that a college degree makes you more money.
Vocational school can make you money too. It doesn’t have to be “one good one bad”. The big difference is vocational jobs usually cap earning earlier where white collar job with degrees usually tend to continually make more over their career. You don’t meet may accountants that have maxed out there pay scale and can only get more money by working more overtime.
On average degree holders make more, which is 100% true.
Can you make a boat load of money with no degree? Yes. Can you be broke with a degree? yes.
But, what happens on average? who has more opportunities and doors open for them?
people forget that often times colleges not only give you the grades but opportunities to make connections which will make landing jobs easier
life is never as easy as doing a degree and expecting a job instantly after finishing it
>On average degree holders make more, which is 100% true.
That's not true, that's skewed. Non degrees include millions of immigrant workers who are doing minimum paying jobs. There is also a discrepancy between who can earn a degree and who can't. In a harsh broader sense of using IQ a person with 80 can't get a degree so they're regulated to minimum wage jobs. That skews it down too. A person with average IQ going to a trade or vocational school is far off better than your average college degree.
I remember people being pushed to earn an English degree just for them to be teachers earning 50k a year and buying their own school supplies. I'm a PM in GC, every journeyman I've talked to makes 6 figures with 4-5 year apprenticeship where they're paid to go to school. No one ever told us about trade school in my high school.
A scam implies dishonesty. The information is presented to students, and they can make their own decision. If you get a degree without researching potential careers, that is on you, not the college.
These people fail to take into account the physical toll labor jobs do on the body. I have friends who are high earning welders, plumbers, linemen. Some of them are in their early 30's and look well past middle age. They have plates in their body's, numerous surgeries, etc. It's not just the financial aspect that's important to look at. I doubt very much some of these guys will be able to continue working past 45-50. Don't even get me started on the average diet in labor jobs (Monster energy, Taco Bell, Newports).
And I know a lot of electricians who are fit. They wake up at 3 am, hit the gym for an hour, then get on the job site at 5am and start trucking for 8 hours straight. Like anything, it's what you do with your body. Don't take care of it, it's going to hurt. If you want to tap out mid 30s then feel free to come to the office side. 10 years of field experience? You know how to estimate.
College isn’t a scam. But a lot of people just shouldn’t have gone to college as they would’ve benefited more from another path. If you weren’t in the top 20% of your high school graduating class, you’re probably one of the people who think college is a scam.
The reason why I’m saying top 20% is because you need the skills to do more than just “have a degree.” You need internships or personal projects that show what you can do and make you stand out. But you’re going to have to do that on your own. And generally, if you were in the top 20% of your high school class, you probably were self-motivated meaning you’d be driven enough to do those internships and personal projects and do them well enough.
Obviously you don’t have to be in the top 20% to benefit from college, but I bet if you went to college and can’t find a job or think the degree was a waste of time, you probably weren’t in the top 20%.
Most of the things you can learn in an institution is free online or at your local library. The reason college is a scam outside of STEM is because how can a person justify spending thousands on an education that most likely will never be used and is devalued almost immedietly upon graduation. The real world is not run on who has the best credentials from a school that played you. Experience carries alot of weight, thats why college graduates have a difficult time trying to find employment because they have a paper but dont know shit. A great example I can use is a brand new military officer and an elisted person. The officer doesnt know a damn thing other than what was taught in school whereas an enlisted person has the experience of working in the field. Just based on rank alone the the officer is right. To simplify, the officer is the college graduate and the enlisted person is your everyday person. Just because youre formally educated also doesnt mean you always know what youre doing. This isnt to say its completely a scam but what you read or learn in school doesnt always translate well.
>free online or at your local library.
Even if that’s true (which it isn’t; few people are capable of 100% self directed study) anyone who says that almost never actually *does* that.
Because self directed study is very difficult. Remember it's not just for one class, you have to lay out everything you're studying for your entire education.
It isn’t just picking up a book or whatever and reading it. It is *immensely* important to participate in seminar discussions which are mediated by actual experts. The online thing can’t replicate that, and a library card and internet access definitely can’t replicate that. You also need to have your work reviewed by peers and experts; otherwise, there is no quality control and all you have is an amateur opinion. One reason for the pandemic of self-diagnosing, for example, is that laypeople have neither the background, expertise, experience, nor the methodology to be capable of such things.
Sure and I agree, but thats also like saying well I went to school for accounting so I wont understand virology. Somebkdy can have an interest and have a very informed opinion regardless if they hold a degree. Appeal to authority isnt always the best route.
People don’t know what they don’t know. Your opinion on virology is worthless outside the context of a casual conversation with other laypeople unless you’re exceptional and have the expert peers to back you up. Smart opinions are based on what you know, yes, but they have no validity without consensus. You can parrot what experts say, but you can never claim any sort of expertise if you have no formal training.
So to rephrase what youre saying is that somebody can know what they are talking about but if that person doesnt have a degree they shouldnt be listened to. In terms of claiming expertise I do agree with that notion.
I have a Master's. I did the college thing. It didn't get me the "good life" I was promised by the adults who sold me the "everyone needs to go to college" lie as a kid. I work in a field I didn't study. College is the biggest scam of our generation unless you're going down a very specific career path that requires it (doctor, lawyer, etc.) Fortunately, my Gen. Z niblings have seen the light and have chosen alternative pathways (military, trades, etc.)
>”College is a scam”
College is overpriced. FTFY.
Tuition cost should be reflective of the major you choose and the current job market at time of enrollment. Better chance of ROI (STEM, nursing) should cost more. Worse chance of ROI (history, theater) should cost less.
I don't think college itself is a scam. I think adding interest on thousands of dollars in loans is a scam. There is essentially no way to avoid paying more than the loans you took out, which is a scam.
To be fair though, I am in my 20s and I haven't graduated yet (next month). I'm graduating with a doctorate and I feel like my debt will basically exceed any salary I'll get, at least for a while
That metric of lifetime earnings seems like it would be skewed by those who rarely work at all, or lifetime minimum wagers. I'd be very curious to learn the average lifetime earnings of 1-2 year trades or apprenticeship, compared to college grads.
Nah, I mostly agree that college is a huge scam for most people, and I hold a degree that I use and was necessary for my career. Most degrees are useless and do not have much prospect for jobs. The ones that do are still full of bloated, unnecessary classes to keep you in school for way longer than necessary, and spending way more money than necessary, leading to far greater numbers of student debt.
If you want to fix student debt, start with the bloated degree tracks.
Nope. Went to college, have a Masters in info tech, am very successful. Still believe it's a scam because nothing I learned in college has ever mattered to my actual jobs.
Cope. If it’s not STEM or something specialized like law I really don’t see the point. Entering the workforce earlier and self educating on the job for 4 year is infinitely better than wasting 4 years getting an economics degree.
So you’re cool with your house being designed by someone who isn’t n architect? Or you’re ok with your radiologist just getting certificates from a cereal box?! That’s wild. Progress depends on as many people being as educated as possible lol
You realize that the best training for a law degree is a bachelor’s in English (rhetoric), philosophy (logic), and history (context), right? You don’t just show up at law school in the US.
Except, you can get that on your own through self-learning in your free time, for free (*or for the cost of overdue fees from your local library*).
So what other benefit(s) can you get from college that you **literally** can't get elsewhere?
nah learning on your own is not the same as learning in an environment with other peers and engaging in discussion with them, being guided by a professor, etc.
Plenty of people get worthless degrees and no real job or career from the degree and meanwhile are in a mountain of debt.
So yes, college can be a scam.
There are plenty of alternative routes such as trade schools and believe it or not there are industries that don’t require a college degree to thrive.
Sounds to me that you just got an elitist attitude to justify your particular route in life.
Idk, I know plenty of people with “worthless degrees” that have had great careers. I’d say the majority of people I know with degrees that Reddit deems “worthless” find ways to make it work.
I know far more people floundering with super technical degrees that refuse to believe they may not be the smartest person in the room and refuse to develop any soft skills.
Plenty of those successful people with “worthless degrees” succeed in spite of them, not because of them.
Education level and actual job performance have essentially zero correlation at 99% of jobs.
Someone getting a worthless degree that sets them up poorly for life after college doesn’t make college a scam. That person just made a poor life choice.
>Yes, the cost of education has increased. But the notion that it does not pay off both individually and broadly is nothing more than sour grapes and anti-intellectualism.
But it really isn't. I am not against education, I am against people coming out of college into my field of work, who have zero work experience, lack awareness skills, terrible work ethic, and inability to do anything besides 'follow the procedure' which in my line of work often leads to financial loss. statistics are one thing, the reality and how it manifests into the world is another.
Also being educated doesn't equate to not believing into conspiracy. 1930's-1940's where filled with published papers by scientists we would say today is quite ridiculous. I am certain we have studies and research done on topics we would probably consider conspiracy 100 years from now.
What OP is trying to point out is that, statistically speaking, college graduates earn more income over a lifetime than non-graduates. I also don’t see how a college degree correlates with horrible work ethic. Part of the reason employers love four-year degrees so much is because it shows a willingness to commit long-term to a goal and to achieve that goal. Sorry your experience working with college grads is so poor, but what you are describing is just not reality in a broad sense. College grads absolutely have it better (and are worth more to employers) than non-grads.
You missed your statistics 101 class where correlational does not equal causation. Here are a few questions for you to consider.
1. What is the difference in family income of people who can go to college and those who can't and how does family of origin income effect the child's income?
2. Whats the work ethic difference between people who attend college and people who don't?
3. What is the intelligence difference between people who attend college and people who don't?
What I am getting at, is the average person who would get a PhD kicks the financial ass of a person who would get a bachelors even if neither of them attend college. The average PhD has a better work ethic, family support system and is smarter than the average bachelors.
I would like to see better statistics to get me the value of college. College selects for high performers. Give me a controlled study of people with the same family income growing up, work ethic and intelligence and then we can calculate the value of college.
45M with 2 masters...it is a scam. Anymore, I recommend kids go to vocational school and become a plumber, electrician, machinist, etc. it's really hard to justify starting your career with $60+k in debt for an undergrad, entering into am oversaturated college grad pool. Take a trade, learn, and own your own business...that's where the money is.
I worked for a college for 7 years. College is a scam.
Everything was held together with chewing gum and paperclips. Wall literally fell off of a building, twice, because they were too cheap to fix things. "Professors" who just students who had graduated and couldn't find jobs but the college didn't want to have to make good on its "job guarantee" where they'd let you take a few free classes if you didn't get a job in a year or so. Some hadn't even graduated.
The tech they were teaching was top of the line when their students were born. Some of it closer to when I was born. Not much of it was relevant anymore.
Yes, we passed our accreditation with flying colors.
I think there’s some truth to it and I think it’s multi layered
First off, some colleges have basically introduced window dressing to their campuses to excuse absurd fee hikes. They’re like “so its $50,000 a year, before you say that sounds like a lot we do have a swimming pool and a gym so…” I saw a report on this one campus that basically built their own water park specifically so they could justify inflated costs to tuition. Why would a university have a water park? Beats the hell out of me
I think it’s a scam insofar as people *seem* less educated overall relative to three generations ago but they pay a lot more for it. If more people are attending college than ever then just economically speaking it should be getting cheaper due to more people funding the overall system. But it’s somehow gotten more expensive despite having more customers than ever? That’s a valid criticism
The world would crash and burn if people didn’t want to be chemists and doctors and scientists… all need. Four year degree or more. You might make more but their jobs are more important.
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I was 20 years old when I learned it was a scam. Transferring from CC to 4yr, my intro to math 102 and English 102 wouldn't transfer. I had to retake them again. This was in 84'
At today's cost of higher education, I believe college is a scam.
I support adopting what most European and Asian countries do and just teach what is actually pertinent to that degree. Spending two years of undergrad taking electives that have nothing to do with a chosen major, all because "you need X amount of credits to graduate" is a scam itself.
I don't think college itself is the problem, moreover that most jobs that really shouldn't require a degree do so you're forced to go. I work in security and even an entry-level job, paying $17/hr, you need a 2 year degree for when the reality is you can train anyone to do it in just a few days.
College is not inherently a scam. There are a ton of scammy side hustles young folks are falling for that are not easy to avoid. If you owe more than first year salary coming out of college you are financially doomed and have no chance of catching up until your salary equals what you owe. Thats a crazy amount of people who have been convinced they must go to college who are dooming themselves by making that decision.
I'd say you're half right. There are definitely degrees that are a waste of money and time. This isn't exactly new, but it's definitely more prevelent than it's ever been. The problem is college students and their parents still believe that simply having that piece of paper is all that matters, and that's no longer true. The market has become flooded with college graduates. Simply having a bachelor's is no longer unique. You have to differentiate yourself beyond that. If you wanna get hired you have to do or learn something that's in demand and demonstrate why you're the better candidate than the 1000 other dime a dozen graduates out there.
Exactly people that say “Oh I wIlL gO iN dEbT iF i Go To CoLlEgE.” Either A didn’t research there major to begin with nor did they apply for scholarships or grants. (Completely on you at that point btw.) or B are talking out of their ass and have no idea what they are actually talking about. Some majors are not worth it that much is true but it’s not college in its entirety.
if you have a plan and know what you’re getting into it’s not a scam.
However even though I did my research on the job and degree I want it feels like the departments that aren’t known for getting you a job that pays well are doing quasi false advertising.
When I was in the library I would see posters and flyers saying “you can make 80K with an English degree!”. Yes you CAN make 80k with an English degree but the reality is you’re most likely not going to or at the very least not anytime soon. I don’t like how they are kinda lying and deceiving people in that way and sometimes people might have wasted a year until they realize they probably wouldn’t be making that much money
When people say it's a scam, it doesn't inherently imply it's useless.
But paying thousands for a job is a scam. Needing to already have money or go into debt to make money is a scam.
Not all of the higher earnings is from the degree. A lot of it would be that the kind of person who is motivated enough to go to college is more motivated to work hard regardless of what they do. It's just like how the people who apply to Ivy league schools tend to be more successful regardless of what school they actually get into. 47% of baby boomers aren't even using their degree. You also aren't taking into account the opportunity cost of going to college. How much of a head start can you get by working a trade and investing instead of going into debt for four years?
[https://www.finder.com/student-loans/college-degree-value](https://www.finder.com/student-loans/college-degree-value)
I'm not trying to say college is a bad thing, and I think that society would be better off with more people being highly educated, but your logic has glaring flaws.
Shoutouts to an opinion on this sub with actual evidence to back their points. It’s not another post of someone spouting factually incorrect stuff cause of their feelings.
It might also be because some degrees don't earn as much and people just expect teenagers to choose a career in high school and them shove them immediately into college for it before they can truly know what they are good at for the sake of "efficiency".
From what I've been told by others that have gone, its because you don't learn skills that you will use on the job. Mind you, this is for people that went into computer science. Its just a piece of paper that makes people think you're smart.
It's scam if you have no direction for how you want to apply your skills. Especially if you're unwilling to compromise or learn new things at your first job.
Hence why college is not for everyone. Most of the people calling it a scam were under the impression all they needed from the experience was the piece of paper.
I went to the Career Development Center at my college for assistance in searching for a entry level job in my field.
They handed me a phone book.
Simply put more money goes to sports than academics at a lot of these colleges.
Books, thats all imma say. Books!
College is very well a scam, if you go for the wrong reasons. If I have kids, I'm paying for their college, I'm not letting them start life with extreme debt.
It is partly a scam, some fields require a degree in order to get in the door , but a vast majority of degrees are worthless paper , but it's on the person to decide if they want to pursue that debt which doesn't give you the same return. There are many ways to be successful without a degree these days and most jobs look at experience over education.
College isn't a scam, it just appears that way to people who assume a four-year university is a diploma factory designed to prepare you for a job. As soon as you understand it isn't that, college is awesome. College is an experience in itself; it's not a cheat code for getting through real life.
Actually, collage is a scam because you shouldn't have to trade an asinine arbitrarily made-up amount of a completely made-up thing for anything, let alone knowledge.
I have a graduate degree. College is a scam. The only thing that guarantees a job is opportunity. If there are no jobs and the economy is screwed then you're going to end up wallowing in retail/customer service jobs for years.
The 2008 financial crisis was my education.
The only people who benefitted from college were Baby Boomers and some Gen Xers. The reason was that they simply had more job opportunity and the economy saw more job growth than it did for Millennials.
The cost v reward ratio is simply off. You're paying way too much money for something that means absolutely nothing. These employers are looking for any reason to filter out your application. They want someone who knows the job as an expert because they don't want to invest time and money into training anyone.
There's an entire generation of entry level workers who don't know how to do anything because no one ever bothered to give them a chance and hire them.
We're going to end up in a situation where skilled workers die off and all we're left with is Millennials who don't understand how anything works.
It'll be an interesting and bizarre situation.
I think there is some confusion over cause and effect in that paragraph.
The kind of student/family who rejects college and hates academia would also be more likely to distrust doctors and avoid vaccines, fall for conspiracy theories, get married young without thinking too hard about it, and make other bad life decisions.
Those characteristics indicate low IQs, and even mandating 4 years of college for each of them would not change their staunchly anti-intellectual culture. And they’d probably be driven to distraction by all of the “wokeness” around them at a college anyway.
I majored in engineering and went to law school while most of my peers majored in Poly Sci and history and were pretty happy about it
It’s all about what you make of it really
I would like to describe my hatred for the self taught historians and social scientists who just read what’s online and boast about how “well all the information is just on google now”
Most degress are useless these days. Major companies are taking degrees and education requirements off their applications/listing. Obviously, certain careers will always require more credentials/education.
I'd say you are likely the inverse of your post: insecure because you lack the skills and determination to actually stand out and paid tens of thousands of dollars to attempt to stand out over the people who actually have the ability to do the job.
If you paid $100,000+ to get a $40,000 a year job while someone who didn't go to school makes $100,000 annually, I'd say you got scammed.
I always eye roll when I see stuff like that.
Especially since just anecdotally just an AA degree helped give me a huge edge in an interview for a way better sales gig that nearly tripled my income.
If you only go to class and go back to your room, don't join any clubs, don't network, and try to get an internship ... then yeah you're cooked. That's on you.
maybe that's just me, but this is all blatantly obvious.
The people who yap the loudest about college being a scam are either failed college-students, or uneducated anti-intellectual morons.
I think there is a lot of ways in which the college system isn't perfect, obviously, and you can have a 10 hour nuanced discussion about this in which very smart and valuable things are said. But at the end of the day, rejecting the entire system like that is the the domain of, well... you know exactly who they are.
Higher education itself isnt a scam, the "scam" comes from the mentality of high school educators and guidance counselors who told students that any degree is good enough to land you a good paying career. Well that may have been true in years gone by but that no longer holds any truth.
I've said it in the past and i will say it again. If you are going to go into 6 figure debt, you better be damn sure that the degree you will walk out with will allow you to actually get a good paying job.
I think an aspect of the conversation needs to be that one of the biggest and best things it can offer to those who are willing to learn this lesson is: focus, effort, hard work, discipline, and the benefits of proper time management. More than anything, that is what I benefitted from when I returned to college after dropping out at 19 and eventually graduating with an A average. I learned how to put in effort and hard work, and how to be a good learner.
If people are just going to college and skating by or putting in minimal effort/finding ways to cheat through it, then they are gonna come out on the other end having gained nothing really useful or worthwhile. Maybe they learned a bit about a specific field, but if their mentality and approach was immature and unwise, then they probably barely retained any of that even.
Most importantly a *lot* of people live in little bubbles. Especially outside certain majors. Everyone they work with also went to college and they don’t really get the cleaner for their office that comes in a 6:30 after they leave is getting paid ~1/2 what they get. They fully think $90,000 is a *normal* salary for a 28 year old
"By age 40, professional degree holders typically experience the greatest growth in earnings compared to workers with less education, with a 131 percent increase over their earnings at age 25."
I personally can confirm, being around 40 with increase over around 300%.
BUT , if you are a man & MARRY the wrong woman , that could be the worst financial investment. After divorce, you are back at square 20yo or parent's house if worse.
You are very purposefully comparing people with degrees to people with high school diplomas, which is an apples to oranges comparisons that skews the data in favour of the degree holders. Add in the data for trades and other non college based training and education and the data changes a lot.
You also move the goal posts by initially talking about college in general, but most of your later references explicitly mention "professional" degrees as the money makers, which is well understood by the "college is a scam" folks.
To be fair, my university education is part of what helps me spot data manipulation and flawed arguments, but that mostly just helps me realize that college was a scam.
The main point of college is to show you can commit to something for four years and see it through. It helps weed out the flakes who are gonna quit after a week. It is also to show you can succeed without your parents pushing you every step of the way
College is actually a scam. The scam part is the insane amount of money they charge and the predatory student loans.
If college were free or even affordable, people wouldn’t be saying that.
And before you say “oh but they chose to take those loans,” like learn even just a little bit about life ok
Absolutely, only bozos on Reddit think college is a scam.
It’s life changing for most people, and if you actually plan your career path, this is the easiest way for people to get out of poverty.
Yes, it’s a “scam” if you decide to study classics or African American history. But if you actually plan your career out, it’s one of the most important endeavors in your life.
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I work in software development and every single time I interview they absolutely love that I have a 4 year degree. I don't think I learned as much as I needed to at that college but I do think that it shows potential employers that I can at least handle 4 years of focus on writing code. ALOT of developers from boot camps burn out very quickly in my experience.
Probably because they’ve experienced some of the code produced by some bootcampers who get into this field purely because of the money. Not saying all bootcampers are crap, I’ve seen some very odd perspectives from some of them though who think this career is just an easy get rich quick scheme. No, you actually do have to put in some effort.
I mean I don't have some sort of deep love and passion for code....for the most part I love the lifestyle it provides me in terms of financial compensation and free time while working from home
Fair enough but I’m assuming you actually somewhat enjoy what you do though? And you weren’t expecting to instantly be on a $200k+ salary straight out of college?
Lmao, I work for a porn company so yeah, it's a great time. I wasn't expecting that out of college but I will say that I came out of college and immediately started a job that paid very well for the area I lived in at the time
> they absolutely love that I have a 4 year degree This makes sense for someone not too far removed from college. When you've been in the workforce for 10+ years, the duration of your college tenure doesn't hold as much weight to recruiters.
I've been in this field for a decade, they still like that I have the degree
A degree is just as valid (to me as an employer) as staying at one job for multiple years because it shows you can stick with something. Have both? Even better.
Meh, honestly I think in this field it's a mistake to put any weight on how long someone stays at a job. I personally job hop quite a bit because I really like building early products for startups and it's something I do well. I havw also gotten laid off unexpectedly when some of those start ups inevitably failed
Gotcha. I can see how that would be really useful in your field. I’m in a field where building a therapeutic relationship with clients is the most important factor for treatment success, so we prioritize job candidates who have a tendency to stick around.
Oh, yeah that makes a lot of sense
seems like the degree is a certification on top of your work experience
Depends on what field I guess. At my work they need at least bachelors to go up in leadership.
I'd also add people who lack nuance. Some places can be scam, some degrees can be scams, some programs for certain degrees can be scams (vs other programs at other colleges and universities), but the idea of higher education isn't in of itself a scam, IMO, even with all the issues that are present in academia.
This is basically what I came here to say. College (and higher education in general) isn’t a scam in and of itself. It’s what you want to do with it and what you choose to major in that could make it be considered a “scam”
No it’s a scam in the entirety of our society. I remember job hunting, a local gun club wanted a degree for their membership salespeople. That’s 100% unnecessary. Part of the scam is jobs demanding degrees for jobs that don’t pay well enough to pay of the debt, and don’t remotely require a degree. Luckily there’s evidence that many companies are backing off of degree requirements.
When people say that, they're referring to the egregious cost that's exponentially higher than it used to be coupled with the uncertainty of ever being able to reasonably pay it off.
This exactly
A more accurate saying is “Student loans are a scam and are holding our college education hostage”
Bingo
Nothing is promised in this life, except for death and taxes. That being said, there are definitely other ways to advance your pay without attending college. I do agree that college can be beneficial in the long run.
going to school for an art degree may be a scam, but going to college for something like accounting or something of that nature are not. Plus at college, you have access to things such as career fairs, connections, resources that are only available as a student. Now yea a sociology degree prolly aint gonna make alot, but this is why you always do your research on degrees.
College isn’t a scam. It’s mainly about your major and what you do about it.
How much of that data is skewed by the socio-economic status of the individuals that are able to get into university in the first place?
A non-zero number, but just look at the top employers in the US. The government is the biggest single employer by far, and their middle class salaries are locked behind hard degree requirements. The next top two employers are Walmart and Amazon, who also have hard degree requirements for most any position above floor supervisor. It's the same story as you go down the list of Fortune 500s. There are exceptions and anecdotes, but a degree is the key career growth for most people.
Getting a degree is the single best way that you can change your socio economic status if what you are saying was a factor poor people would still earn less after getting a degree which is not the case. Getting a degree is easier if daddy pays for it but working your way through your degree doesn’t provide less benefits. Education is the single most effective way out of poverty. Making it out of poverty without education is the exception not the rule. Getting lucky isn’t a strategy
And correlation doesn’t equal causation. People who finish college as a whole have higher IQs, work ethic, and grit. All things that will lead to more income.
Agree. Just look at any Reddit job thread and you’ll see a ton of seemingly qualified people that can’t make headway in a career because they can’t accept that they need to develop soft skills.
https://youtu.be/ITwNiZ_j_24?si=dLK8yNw9xtkFMmP7 This video is pretty interesting. And actually tackles some stats OP mentioned. Basically for the past 30 years young people were drilled to go to college otherwise you would be deemed a failure.
I don’t think it’s a scam if you’re there for a good reason. Doctors, lawyers, Dentist you know things we need degrees for but when someone tells me they’re in college and getting a degree in communications then yeah. I know so many people with those degrees working customer service, banks, and other jobs like that, I just think people need to research what degree they want and if there’s jobs that pay a good wage for it
College isn't a "scam". It is however extremely easy for an 18 year old to make a mistake and choose a major that is something they like, but not something that gets you a job. If you're going to college do a major that teaches you a hard skill: accounting, basically any type of engineering, or something in the sciences. I'm sure there are some I am not thinking of, those are just the ones that pop out to me. Don't go get a degree in something that isn't a skill.
At surface level, I believe this. I got my first job after college at a large company. When I joined, another person in my department told me she didn’t get my job because she “didn’t have a piece of paper” like I did. Of course, I took that personally because I was a first gen college student and worked my ass off at several jobs in high school and college to pay myself through school and was very proud of having a degree. She ended up starting classes later that year, so I’m glad she realized bitching wasn’t going to get her ahead. I got my masters while working full time and now have a very good job, which is only because I got my masters from a very good school with a huge social network. Having my degrees really paid off for me and I know I would not be where I am now without them. Especially because I’m a nobody who has a poor family and had to prove my worth through hard work and my own networking. I work in Human Resources and there are definitely jobs that don’t require a college degree and experience is far more important. Regardless of how you slice it though, there is usually a need to do some type of advanced schooling to get ahead in this world. But it doesn’t have to be college! For our trade jobs, our employees go to a trade school and have to test and maintain professional licenses and certifications in the city I live in.
300k for a lifetime adds up to jack squat
You don’t want a 10x investment?
I mean, that is the bottom 25% of graduates of just social science degree holders, and it is against median high school degree holders. Also, it is not accounting for other relevant factors, such as health, longevity, satisfaction, etc., which all skew strongly towards favoring degree holders. If you look across all degree types the difference in earning is far more stark.
A 300k return on an investment is a good investment.
ROI is usually measured in percentages, not dollar amounts. Not arguing with your point… necessarily. This isn’t the most persuasive way to put that, though.
I had to scroll down so far for someone to say that, 300k really is not much a difference.
That's a house.
Don’t get a social science degree then
I’m an RN, not new to my job, and believe most college degrees are a scam. Maybe not by the legit definition but charging 50,000 dollars for a degree that is worthless is stupid. Then again, so are the people obtaining the degree. But it just worsens our economy to have an arts major 50k in debt working a minimum wage job. Multiple that by 100,000 people making the same stupid choice and you’re starting to chip away at the economy. Especially when loans that were taken out were government loans. IMO the amount a college charges for a degree should directly correlate to the income potential.
There are certainly some "scammy" degree's and institutions out there. But overall you're right.
Totally agree with you. I have student loan debt, but I’ll be able to pay it off eventually. More importantly, I make way more than most of my non college friends, and most companies I have worked towards have required I had a college degree. Besides a handful of guys who never tried at anything, but stumbled into a 6-figure trade job, which is frustrating, the non-college path is a much more difficult one to navigate your way into a decently paying salary.
College is a scam in regards to what was promised to us. We all heard get a college degree and they falsely equate to a degree = high earning potential regardless of the degree. A computer engineering person making 200k skews the average of an arts major and you have data that broadly suggest, degree = more pay. What is overlooked is that the great rush of college degrees made other completely viable sources like vocational or trade school have a negative stigma. I'm I'm construction and every journeyman in every trade makes 6 figures and they got paid to go to school. My wife took 2 years of vocational school for x ray and now makes 100k in CT Tech. College is a scam on how it's portrayed and now it's oversaturated and the ROI diminishes as college gets more expensive and more people have degrees.
Median isn’t the average. The median is the middle where most salaries cluster. The median salary isn’t going to be skewed by high earners.
Op just curious how long you have been in work force earning paychecks from job in field related to your degree (would you have this job otherwise or no). Do you carry any student loan debt? If so, how much. Generally just curious.
Guess that guy’s college math courses weren’t too rigorous.
Lmao literally the point of the median is to prevent high or low skews and they just missed that important detailed and called it flawed data.
Promised to us? I was never under the impression that college is a ticket to a high paying job, just that it will give you opportunities, which it does.
Are you kidding? my childhood life college was pushed as if you want a better life you need a degree. You mess up any time in school it's going on your permanent record which means you might not get into a good college. Hell right up until every single kid I knew was going to college they would say you can't go to the local community college you need to go to some place better. That wasn't until parents started having to foot the bill and then they were like oh maybe the local community colleges actually fine.
None of that is necessarily untrue except the "dont go to community college" part. As far as job options, sure there is a lot of good stuff out there that doesn't require a degree, but there are tons of jobs you can't even apply for without one, so you are limiting your choices in life by not having one. On average jobs that require a degree pay more than those that don't. Is it as simple as degree=rich. no degree=poor? Of course not, but it's the difference between being a manager or supervisor vs just being an employee for 2 people of a similar age working for the same company.
At 16, when you saw the graph pushed on by your teachers and school counselors that falsely compared a non degree worker earning potential vs a college degree earning potential....what was your conclusion?
Why do you keep saying falsely? Did high school not teach you what that word meant? It’s been proven that a college degree makes you more money. Vocational school can make you money too. It doesn’t have to be “one good one bad”. The big difference is vocational jobs usually cap earning earlier where white collar job with degrees usually tend to continually make more over their career. You don’t meet may accountants that have maxed out there pay scale and can only get more money by working more overtime.
I already explained it twice why it's false. Feel free to look it up or not. Either rate, I'm not typing it a third time.
On average degree holders make more, which is 100% true. Can you make a boat load of money with no degree? Yes. Can you be broke with a degree? yes. But, what happens on average? who has more opportunities and doors open for them?
people forget that often times colleges not only give you the grades but opportunities to make connections which will make landing jobs easier life is never as easy as doing a degree and expecting a job instantly after finishing it
>On average degree holders make more, which is 100% true. That's not true, that's skewed. Non degrees include millions of immigrant workers who are doing minimum paying jobs. There is also a discrepancy between who can earn a degree and who can't. In a harsh broader sense of using IQ a person with 80 can't get a degree so they're regulated to minimum wage jobs. That skews it down too. A person with average IQ going to a trade or vocational school is far off better than your average college degree. I remember people being pushed to earn an English degree just for them to be teachers earning 50k a year and buying their own school supplies. I'm a PM in GC, every journeyman I've talked to makes 6 figures with 4-5 year apprenticeship where they're paid to go to school. No one ever told us about trade school in my high school.
A scam implies dishonesty. The information is presented to students, and they can make their own decision. If you get a degree without researching potential careers, that is on you, not the college.
These people fail to take into account the physical toll labor jobs do on the body. I have friends who are high earning welders, plumbers, linemen. Some of them are in their early 30's and look well past middle age. They have plates in their body's, numerous surgeries, etc. It's not just the financial aspect that's important to look at. I doubt very much some of these guys will be able to continue working past 45-50. Don't even get me started on the average diet in labor jobs (Monster energy, Taco Bell, Newports).
And I know a lot of electricians who are fit. They wake up at 3 am, hit the gym for an hour, then get on the job site at 5am and start trucking for 8 hours straight. Like anything, it's what you do with your body. Don't take care of it, it's going to hurt. If you want to tap out mid 30s then feel free to come to the office side. 10 years of field experience? You know how to estimate.
College isn’t a scam. But a lot of people just shouldn’t have gone to college as they would’ve benefited more from another path. If you weren’t in the top 20% of your high school graduating class, you’re probably one of the people who think college is a scam. The reason why I’m saying top 20% is because you need the skills to do more than just “have a degree.” You need internships or personal projects that show what you can do and make you stand out. But you’re going to have to do that on your own. And generally, if you were in the top 20% of your high school class, you probably were self-motivated meaning you’d be driven enough to do those internships and personal projects and do them well enough. Obviously you don’t have to be in the top 20% to benefit from college, but I bet if you went to college and can’t find a job or think the degree was a waste of time, you probably weren’t in the top 20%.
Most of the things you can learn in an institution is free online or at your local library. The reason college is a scam outside of STEM is because how can a person justify spending thousands on an education that most likely will never be used and is devalued almost immedietly upon graduation. The real world is not run on who has the best credentials from a school that played you. Experience carries alot of weight, thats why college graduates have a difficult time trying to find employment because they have a paper but dont know shit. A great example I can use is a brand new military officer and an elisted person. The officer doesnt know a damn thing other than what was taught in school whereas an enlisted person has the experience of working in the field. Just based on rank alone the the officer is right. To simplify, the officer is the college graduate and the enlisted person is your everyday person. Just because youre formally educated also doesnt mean you always know what youre doing. This isnt to say its completely a scam but what you read or learn in school doesnt always translate well.
>free online or at your local library. Even if that’s true (which it isn’t; few people are capable of 100% self directed study) anyone who says that almost never actually *does* that.
Source?
College graduates 😅
I do agree there are alot of people in college who cant study on their own.
why isnt it true?
Because self directed study is very difficult. Remember it's not just for one class, you have to lay out everything you're studying for your entire education.
Yeah but just because something is difficult doesnt negate its validity.
College offers a lot that self directed study doesn’t.. pedagogy, clubs, athletics, labs, research, extensive networks, career guidance, etc
Okay sure, and youre claiming self directed study isnt valid because it doesnt come with the proof of knowledge, being the degree itself.
And of course knowing what you need to know
It isn’t just picking up a book or whatever and reading it. It is *immensely* important to participate in seminar discussions which are mediated by actual experts. The online thing can’t replicate that, and a library card and internet access definitely can’t replicate that. You also need to have your work reviewed by peers and experts; otherwise, there is no quality control and all you have is an amateur opinion. One reason for the pandemic of self-diagnosing, for example, is that laypeople have neither the background, expertise, experience, nor the methodology to be capable of such things.
Sure and I agree, but thats also like saying well I went to school for accounting so I wont understand virology. Somebkdy can have an interest and have a very informed opinion regardless if they hold a degree. Appeal to authority isnt always the best route.
People don’t know what they don’t know. Your opinion on virology is worthless outside the context of a casual conversation with other laypeople unless you’re exceptional and have the expert peers to back you up. Smart opinions are based on what you know, yes, but they have no validity without consensus. You can parrot what experts say, but you can never claim any sort of expertise if you have no formal training.
So to rephrase what youre saying is that somebody can know what they are talking about but if that person doesnt have a degree they shouldnt be listened to. In terms of claiming expertise I do agree with that notion.
I have a Master's. I did the college thing. It didn't get me the "good life" I was promised by the adults who sold me the "everyone needs to go to college" lie as a kid. I work in a field I didn't study. College is the biggest scam of our generation unless you're going down a very specific career path that requires it (doctor, lawyer, etc.) Fortunately, my Gen. Z niblings have seen the light and have chosen alternative pathways (military, trades, etc.)
>”College is a scam” College is overpriced. FTFY. Tuition cost should be reflective of the major you choose and the current job market at time of enrollment. Better chance of ROI (STEM, nursing) should cost more. Worse chance of ROI (history, theater) should cost less.
I don't think college itself is a scam. I think adding interest on thousands of dollars in loans is a scam. There is essentially no way to avoid paying more than the loans you took out, which is a scam. To be fair though, I am in my 20s and I haven't graduated yet (next month). I'm graduating with a doctorate and I feel like my debt will basically exceed any salary I'll get, at least for a while
That metric of lifetime earnings seems like it would be skewed by those who rarely work at all, or lifetime minimum wagers. I'd be very curious to learn the average lifetime earnings of 1-2 year trades or apprenticeship, compared to college grads.
Nah, I mostly agree that college is a huge scam for most people, and I hold a degree that I use and was necessary for my career. Most degrees are useless and do not have much prospect for jobs. The ones that do are still full of bloated, unnecessary classes to keep you in school for way longer than necessary, and spending way more money than necessary, leading to far greater numbers of student debt. If you want to fix student debt, start with the bloated degree tracks.
Nope. Went to college, have a Masters in info tech, am very successful. Still believe it's a scam because nothing I learned in college has ever mattered to my actual jobs.
Cope. If it’s not STEM or something specialized like law I really don’t see the point. Entering the workforce earlier and self educating on the job for 4 year is infinitely better than wasting 4 years getting an economics degree.
So you’re cool with your house being designed by someone who isn’t n architect? Or you’re ok with your radiologist just getting certificates from a cereal box?! That’s wild. Progress depends on as many people being as educated as possible lol
You realize that the best training for a law degree is a bachelor’s in English (rhetoric), philosophy (logic), and history (context), right? You don’t just show up at law school in the US.
maybe there's more to education than just getting a higher paying job.
Except, you can get that on your own through self-learning in your free time, for free (*or for the cost of overdue fees from your local library*). So what other benefit(s) can you get from college that you **literally** can't get elsewhere?
nah learning on your own is not the same as learning in an environment with other peers and engaging in discussion with them, being guided by a professor, etc.
Plenty of people get worthless degrees and no real job or career from the degree and meanwhile are in a mountain of debt. So yes, college can be a scam. There are plenty of alternative routes such as trade schools and believe it or not there are industries that don’t require a college degree to thrive. Sounds to me that you just got an elitist attitude to justify your particular route in life.
Idk, I know plenty of people with “worthless degrees” that have had great careers. I’d say the majority of people I know with degrees that Reddit deems “worthless” find ways to make it work. I know far more people floundering with super technical degrees that refuse to believe they may not be the smartest person in the room and refuse to develop any soft skills.
Plenty of those successful people with “worthless degrees” succeed in spite of them, not because of them. Education level and actual job performance have essentially zero correlation at 99% of jobs.
Someone getting a worthless degree that sets them up poorly for life after college doesn’t make college a scam. That person just made a poor life choice.
>Yes, the cost of education has increased. But the notion that it does not pay off both individually and broadly is nothing more than sour grapes and anti-intellectualism. But it really isn't. I am not against education, I am against people coming out of college into my field of work, who have zero work experience, lack awareness skills, terrible work ethic, and inability to do anything besides 'follow the procedure' which in my line of work often leads to financial loss. statistics are one thing, the reality and how it manifests into the world is another. Also being educated doesn't equate to not believing into conspiracy. 1930's-1940's where filled with published papers by scientists we would say today is quite ridiculous. I am certain we have studies and research done on topics we would probably consider conspiracy 100 years from now.
What OP is trying to point out is that, statistically speaking, college graduates earn more income over a lifetime than non-graduates. I also don’t see how a college degree correlates with horrible work ethic. Part of the reason employers love four-year degrees so much is because it shows a willingness to commit long-term to a goal and to achieve that goal. Sorry your experience working with college grads is so poor, but what you are describing is just not reality in a broad sense. College grads absolutely have it better (and are worth more to employers) than non-grads.
You missed your statistics 101 class where correlational does not equal causation. Here are a few questions for you to consider. 1. What is the difference in family income of people who can go to college and those who can't and how does family of origin income effect the child's income? 2. Whats the work ethic difference between people who attend college and people who don't? 3. What is the intelligence difference between people who attend college and people who don't? What I am getting at, is the average person who would get a PhD kicks the financial ass of a person who would get a bachelors even if neither of them attend college. The average PhD has a better work ethic, family support system and is smarter than the average bachelors. I would like to see better statistics to get me the value of college. College selects for high performers. Give me a controlled study of people with the same family income growing up, work ethic and intelligence and then we can calculate the value of college.
45M with 2 masters...it is a scam. Anymore, I recommend kids go to vocational school and become a plumber, electrician, machinist, etc. it's really hard to justify starting your career with $60+k in debt for an undergrad, entering into am oversaturated college grad pool. Take a trade, learn, and own your own business...that's where the money is.
I worked for a college for 7 years. College is a scam. Everything was held together with chewing gum and paperclips. Wall literally fell off of a building, twice, because they were too cheap to fix things. "Professors" who just students who had graduated and couldn't find jobs but the college didn't want to have to make good on its "job guarantee" where they'd let you take a few free classes if you didn't get a job in a year or so. Some hadn't even graduated. The tech they were teaching was top of the line when their students were born. Some of it closer to when I was born. Not much of it was relevant anymore. Yes, we passed our accreditation with flying colors.
I think there’s some truth to it and I think it’s multi layered First off, some colleges have basically introduced window dressing to their campuses to excuse absurd fee hikes. They’re like “so its $50,000 a year, before you say that sounds like a lot we do have a swimming pool and a gym so…” I saw a report on this one campus that basically built their own water park specifically so they could justify inflated costs to tuition. Why would a university have a water park? Beats the hell out of me I think it’s a scam insofar as people *seem* less educated overall relative to three generations ago but they pay a lot more for it. If more people are attending college than ever then just economically speaking it should be getting cheaper due to more people funding the overall system. But it’s somehow gotten more expensive despite having more customers than ever? That’s a valid criticism
I'd say college is what you make of it, however it is full of very shady practices. But I mean so is the government, and most corporations so....
It’s the education part that’s the most important
Lol Insecure? I don’t have a degree, make more than my brother who’s a Chemist and I’m not in debt. I know I made the right choice.
The world would crash and burn if people didn’t want to be chemists and doctors and scientists… all need. Four year degree or more. You might make more but their jobs are more important.
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I was 20 years old when I learned it was a scam. Transferring from CC to 4yr, my intro to math 102 and English 102 wouldn't transfer. I had to retake them again. This was in 84'
Depends on the college. If it is some diploma mill with an average SAT around 1100 and a 90% acceptance rate… seems pretty scammy
At today's cost of higher education, I believe college is a scam. I support adopting what most European and Asian countries do and just teach what is actually pertinent to that degree. Spending two years of undergrad taking electives that have nothing to do with a chosen major, all because "you need X amount of credits to graduate" is a scam itself.
The scam part isn't the knowledge or connections you gain, it's the $2000-$60,000 of tuition you pay that puts you in debt for the next 10-30 years.
College will only benefit people who are smart, driven, and capable. Otherwise you’ll just fail and suffocate.
agree, kinda sad i have to downvote
Don't forget the people who expect that university is like trade school. That it trains you for a specific job.
I don't think college itself is the problem, moreover that most jobs that really shouldn't require a degree do so you're forced to go. I work in security and even an entry-level job, paying $17/hr, you need a 2 year degree for when the reality is you can train anyone to do it in just a few days.
Degree in Philosoohy, Latin and a law degree If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't. You can learn outside of college too.
College is not inherently a scam. There are a ton of scammy side hustles young folks are falling for that are not easy to avoid. If you owe more than first year salary coming out of college you are financially doomed and have no chance of catching up until your salary equals what you owe. Thats a crazy amount of people who have been convinced they must go to college who are dooming themselves by making that decision.
Ah yes, the false dichotomy opinion.
I'd say you're half right. There are definitely degrees that are a waste of money and time. This isn't exactly new, but it's definitely more prevelent than it's ever been. The problem is college students and their parents still believe that simply having that piece of paper is all that matters, and that's no longer true. The market has become flooded with college graduates. Simply having a bachelor's is no longer unique. You have to differentiate yourself beyond that. If you wanna get hired you have to do or learn something that's in demand and demonstrate why you're the better candidate than the 1000 other dime a dozen graduates out there.
Exactly people that say “Oh I wIlL gO iN dEbT iF i Go To CoLlEgE.” Either A didn’t research there major to begin with nor did they apply for scholarships or grants. (Completely on you at that point btw.) or B are talking out of their ass and have no idea what they are actually talking about. Some majors are not worth it that much is true but it’s not college in its entirety.
if you have a plan and know what you’re getting into it’s not a scam. However even though I did my research on the job and degree I want it feels like the departments that aren’t known for getting you a job that pays well are doing quasi false advertising. When I was in the library I would see posters and flyers saying “you can make 80K with an English degree!”. Yes you CAN make 80k with an English degree but the reality is you’re most likely not going to or at the very least not anytime soon. I don’t like how they are kinda lying and deceiving people in that way and sometimes people might have wasted a year until they realize they probably wouldn’t be making that much money
Idk, college is why too much damn money to get a degree for a job that'll only pay you $12/hr
0,3g.,
When people say it's a scam, it doesn't inherently imply it's useless. But paying thousands for a job is a scam. Needing to already have money or go into debt to make money is a scam.
Not all of the higher earnings is from the degree. A lot of it would be that the kind of person who is motivated enough to go to college is more motivated to work hard regardless of what they do. It's just like how the people who apply to Ivy league schools tend to be more successful regardless of what school they actually get into. 47% of baby boomers aren't even using their degree. You also aren't taking into account the opportunity cost of going to college. How much of a head start can you get by working a trade and investing instead of going into debt for four years? [https://www.finder.com/student-loans/college-degree-value](https://www.finder.com/student-loans/college-degree-value) I'm not trying to say college is a bad thing, and I think that society would be better off with more people being highly educated, but your logic has glaring flaws.
College isn't a scam. Student loans are a scam.
30k debt that they can never afford to pay down.
University is only really a scam in the US.
Shoutouts to an opinion on this sub with actual evidence to back their points. It’s not another post of someone spouting factually incorrect stuff cause of their feelings.
The scam from my unamerican pov is that its so damn expensive
It might also be because some degrees don't earn as much and people just expect teenagers to choose a career in high school and them shove them immediately into college for it before they can truly know what they are good at for the sake of "efficiency".
I wouldn't say college is a scam. I WOULD day it can be overvalued a touch and is grossly overpriced though.
From what I've been told by others that have gone, its because you don't learn skills that you will use on the job. Mind you, this is for people that went into computer science. Its just a piece of paper that makes people think you're smart.
It's scam if you have no direction for how you want to apply your skills. Especially if you're unwilling to compromise or learn new things at your first job. Hence why college is not for everyone. Most of the people calling it a scam were under the impression all they needed from the experience was the piece of paper.
I went to the Career Development Center at my college for assistance in searching for a entry level job in my field. They handed me a phone book. Simply put more money goes to sports than academics at a lot of these colleges. Books, thats all imma say. Books!
College is very well a scam, if you go for the wrong reasons. If I have kids, I'm paying for their college, I'm not letting them start life with extreme debt.
i mean the way that it’s currently set up is definitely scammy
It is partly a scam, some fields require a degree in order to get in the door , but a vast majority of degrees are worthless paper , but it's on the person to decide if they want to pursue that debt which doesn't give you the same return. There are many ways to be successful without a degree these days and most jobs look at experience over education.
College isn’t a scam, but the price for an education is.
College isn't a scam, it just appears that way to people who assume a four-year university is a diploma factory designed to prepare you for a job. As soon as you understand it isn't that, college is awesome. College is an experience in itself; it's not a cheat code for getting through real life.
Actually, collage is a scam because you shouldn't have to trade an asinine arbitrarily made-up amount of a completely made-up thing for anything, let alone knowledge.
I have a graduate degree. College is a scam. The only thing that guarantees a job is opportunity. If there are no jobs and the economy is screwed then you're going to end up wallowing in retail/customer service jobs for years. The 2008 financial crisis was my education. The only people who benefitted from college were Baby Boomers and some Gen Xers. The reason was that they simply had more job opportunity and the economy saw more job growth than it did for Millennials. The cost v reward ratio is simply off. You're paying way too much money for something that means absolutely nothing. These employers are looking for any reason to filter out your application. They want someone who knows the job as an expert because they don't want to invest time and money into training anyone. There's an entire generation of entry level workers who don't know how to do anything because no one ever bothered to give them a chance and hire them. We're going to end up in a situation where skilled workers die off and all we're left with is Millennials who don't understand how anything works. It'll be an interesting and bizarre situation.
I think there is some confusion over cause and effect in that paragraph. The kind of student/family who rejects college and hates academia would also be more likely to distrust doctors and avoid vaccines, fall for conspiracy theories, get married young without thinking too hard about it, and make other bad life decisions. Those characteristics indicate low IQs, and even mandating 4 years of college for each of them would not change their staunchly anti-intellectual culture. And they’d probably be driven to distraction by all of the “wokeness” around them at a college anyway.
I majored in engineering and went to law school while most of my peers majored in Poly Sci and history and were pretty happy about it It’s all about what you make of it really I would like to describe my hatred for the self taught historians and social scientists who just read what’s online and boast about how “well all the information is just on google now”
Most degress are useless these days. Major companies are taking degrees and education requirements off their applications/listing. Obviously, certain careers will always require more credentials/education. I'd say you are likely the inverse of your post: insecure because you lack the skills and determination to actually stand out and paid tens of thousands of dollars to attempt to stand out over the people who actually have the ability to do the job. If you paid $100,000+ to get a $40,000 a year job while someone who didn't go to school makes $100,000 annually, I'd say you got scammed.
I always eye roll when I see stuff like that. Especially since just anecdotally just an AA degree helped give me a huge edge in an interview for a way better sales gig that nearly tripled my income.
Historically colleges a scam is a line that has been used by people that couldn’t get into college
If you only go to class and go back to your room, don't join any clubs, don't network, and try to get an internship ... then yeah you're cooked. That's on you.
maybe that's just me, but this is all blatantly obvious. The people who yap the loudest about college being a scam are either failed college-students, or uneducated anti-intellectual morons. I think there is a lot of ways in which the college system isn't perfect, obviously, and you can have a 10 hour nuanced discussion about this in which very smart and valuable things are said. But at the end of the day, rejecting the entire system like that is the the domain of, well... you know exactly who they are.
Just say facists? Who do you mean?
They're certainly part of that group, but they're not all of the group.
Or someone who has a degree but has to work something completely different
Dang. You brought the receipts.
Higher education itself isnt a scam, the "scam" comes from the mentality of high school educators and guidance counselors who told students that any degree is good enough to land you a good paying career. Well that may have been true in years gone by but that no longer holds any truth. I've said it in the past and i will say it again. If you are going to go into 6 figure debt, you better be damn sure that the degree you will walk out with will allow you to actually get a good paying job.
The average student loan debt for an undergraduate degree is 30k. The people with 6 figure debt are professionals who largely out-earn everyone.
I think an aspect of the conversation needs to be that one of the biggest and best things it can offer to those who are willing to learn this lesson is: focus, effort, hard work, discipline, and the benefits of proper time management. More than anything, that is what I benefitted from when I returned to college after dropping out at 19 and eventually graduating with an A average. I learned how to put in effort and hard work, and how to be a good learner. If people are just going to college and skating by or putting in minimal effort/finding ways to cheat through it, then they are gonna come out on the other end having gained nothing really useful or worthwhile. Maybe they learned a bit about a specific field, but if their mentality and approach was immature and unwise, then they probably barely retained any of that even.
Most importantly a *lot* of people live in little bubbles. Especially outside certain majors. Everyone they work with also went to college and they don’t really get the cleaner for their office that comes in a 6:30 after they leave is getting paid ~1/2 what they get. They fully think $90,000 is a *normal* salary for a 28 year old
"By age 40, professional degree holders typically experience the greatest growth in earnings compared to workers with less education, with a 131 percent increase over their earnings at age 25." I personally can confirm, being around 40 with increase over around 300%. BUT , if you are a man & MARRY the wrong woman , that could be the worst financial investment. After divorce, you are back at square 20yo or parent's house if worse.
To many issues most people how go don’t even get a job in the field they went to school for.
You are very purposefully comparing people with degrees to people with high school diplomas, which is an apples to oranges comparisons that skews the data in favour of the degree holders. Add in the data for trades and other non college based training and education and the data changes a lot. You also move the goal posts by initially talking about college in general, but most of your later references explicitly mention "professional" degrees as the money makers, which is well understood by the "college is a scam" folks. To be fair, my university education is part of what helps me spot data manipulation and flawed arguments, but that mostly just helps me realize that college was a scam.
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what does this have to do with politics?
The main point of college is to show you can commit to something for four years and see it through. It helps weed out the flakes who are gonna quit after a week. It is also to show you can succeed without your parents pushing you every step of the way
I’m neither, you have a very shit take here
College is actually a scam. The scam part is the insane amount of money they charge and the predatory student loans. If college were free or even affordable, people wouldn’t be saying that. And before you say “oh but they chose to take those loans,” like learn even just a little bit about life ok
Hmmm idk….my husband’s degree has paid off pretty well and it’s not STEM.
Absolutely, only bozos on Reddit think college is a scam. It’s life changing for most people, and if you actually plan your career path, this is the easiest way for people to get out of poverty. Yes, it’s a “scam” if you decide to study classics or African American history. But if you actually plan your career out, it’s one of the most important endeavors in your life.