College is just not worth it anymore

[jakester318]

Not sure if this is the right forum to post this. I recently completed two courses online as part of a Master's in Data Science. Doesn't matter what university it is because my undergraduate degree was from another university and my experience was virtually the same.

My takeaway is this: college is just not worth it anymore. You are going to spend your money on an inferior product that will disappoint you. Most university professors are liberal and although I could talk about how their liberal biases infect their lectures, that's not even the worst part of it. They aren't even teaching. Supposedly, professors are supposed to be subject matter experts in their field. I don't even know if they are because I am not even given a chance to see what they know. Sadly, professors relegate themselves to merely reading word for word directly from their PowerPoint slides. But even worse than that, this past semester my professor posted YouTube content that was created by another professor from another university and this content amounted to nearly 30% of the lecture material.

Imagine that, taking a course from a professor who "contracted out" 30% of his lecture material to someone on YouTube who never made a dime off of his content, but I paid $900 for it. Needless to say, I am not going back. I got my 6 credit hours and $1700 later, I know absolutely nothing about statistical modeling or data science computing in Python. I just never really mastered the material because the professor put in an utterly abysmal amount of effort and passion into his lectures and as a result, I was not impassioned at all to learn anything, no matter how hard I tried.

Do yourself a favor and really consider what you are doing in setting out to achieve a degree from a university, especially a masters degree. Professors who lecture by merely reading a PowerPoint presentation to you might as well piss in your face. You are paying for someone to piss in your face. It's a crude statement, I know. But when you throw away money on utter rubbish, you are wasting your precious resources and time and you will never get that back.

 

[Thomas More]

You are correct sir! If you apply $100,000 and years of effort to some other enterprise instead of college, you are almost certain to have a better return.

 

[Kona]

I'm starting to wonder if this is true.

The less people that go to college, the more expensive it gets. The more expensive it gets, the harder it is for average joes to go. The harder it is for average joes to go means that the really important professions are all taken up by the rich people. All the doctoring and lawyering and engineering will then only be available to the rich people because those services wil no longer be affordable to the average joe.

Aloha!

 

[Czee]

I absolutely agree. Academia in the West has thoroughly discredited itself at this point, rendered an ideological tool for power. In about 5yrs time you'll see significant advances in even fields such as machine learning, robotics, and genetics- emerge not from the West, but from China. They already have more training data than we do.

And I say this as a PhD who have taught classes in universities 10+yrs ago, in a STEM field. The two things I regret the most in life were: 1. Getting married, and 2. Getting a PhD. In retrospect, I should have gone into entrepreneurship instead of a doctorate. And I should have just dated instead of tying the knot.

 

[third_eldest]

I'm finishing up a bachelor's in mechanical engineering. This will be my last semester.

For me, I know full well most of the college thing is BS. I chose mechanical engineering because it would involve the least amount of brainwashing in addition to the largest amount of actually relevant material in terms of things you need to know in this field.

Lots of people have encouraged me to get a masters, but if anyone is going to try to make me do more zoom lectures they're going to have to shoot me.

 

[Aizen]

College was an absolute waste of time. Spent the last 5 years in the system chasing a Bachelors and it drained me just as hard as K-12 did. Only notable things I did were powerlifting and creating a bunch of alpha widows. The unfortunate thing about uni its that it's almost impossible to filter for professor quality, making it a high chance that you'll be stuck with some clueless tenure boomer professor regurgitating PowerPoint slides from 10 years ago. Even the best professors tend to cut corners.

I also studied Data Science and came out knowing virtually nothing about analyzing data or Python programming. In the 2 months since I graduated, I started taking Udemy courses online, and have learned more in 2 months than I did in 5 years of college combined. With online courses there's no babbling nonsense, and you can filter for instructor quality via ratings and reviews.

Essentially, I wasted half a decade of my life listening to half-dead professors babble on about nothing-in-particular. The only silver lining is that employers will take me more seriously with a degree in my hand. However, I wish it didn't cost me my so much of my youth and the rent's money. Although they're happy I graduated, there's gotta be a better way. If I could go back, I would've went to trade school and called it a day.

 

[tomzestatlu]

University education in my country is free, so at least it´s no waste of money, otherwise it seems like waste of time. It´s probably only worth if you want to become an engineer or doctor. Even studying laws don´t seem to be very promising, until you come from wealthy family or until you are in top percents of students.

I did bachelor degree, which is unusable on one side, but on the other side it gives my good advantage in my career field for the rest of my career (even though I am not using it´s benefits at this moment). And I actually got paid during studies. So I don´t really have a reason to regret it (even though I do sometimes question choosing it).
Recently I was thinking about doing some degree in a new field while working. But at the end, I can see where the world is heading to and that money is in IT. And I guess there are zero reasons to study IT at university, when there are so many courses and lectures on the internet.

 

[Pendleton]

Not sure if this is the right forum to post this. I recently completed two courses online as part of a Master's in Data Science. Doesn't matter what university it is because my undergraduate degree was from another university and my experience was virtually the same.

My takeaway is this: college is just not worth it anymore. You are going to spend your money on an inferior product that will disappoint you. Most university professors are liberal and although I could talk about how their liberal biases infect their lectures, that's not even the worst part of it. They aren't even teaching. Supposedly, professors are supposed to be subject matter experts in their field. I don't even know if they are because I am not even given a chance to see what they know. Sadly, professors relegate themselves to merely reading word for word directly from their PowerPoint slides. But even worse than that, this past semester my professor posted YouTube content that was created by another professor from another university and this content amounted to nearly 30% of the lecture material.

Imagine that, taking a course from a professor who "contracted out" 30% of his lecture material to someone on YouTube who never made a dime off of his content, but I paid $900 for it. Needless to say, I am not going back. I got my 6 credit hours and $1700 later, I know absolutely nothing about statistical modeling or data science computing in Python. I just never really mastered the material because the professor put in an utterly abysmal amount of effort and passion into his lectures and as a result, I was not impassioned at all to learn anything, no matter how hard I tried.

Do yourself a favor and really consider what you are doing in setting out to achieve a degree from a university, especially a masters degree. Professors who lecture by merely reading a PowerPoint presentation to you might as well piss in your face. You are paying for someone to piss in your face. It's a crude statement, I know. But when you throw away money on utter rubbish, you are wasting your precious resources and time and you will never get that back.

You're paying for the piece of paper that can be exchanged for a job, not actual knowledge/education. As long as people go in with this understanding and have crunched the numbers and determined that several years of their young life and the lost earnings are worth the cost, college may still be worth it for some people (although I would guess it is a rapidly shrinking pool of people who can economically justify going to college).

 

[DanielH]

I'm 7 years older than my brother. If he were to go to the same college I went to and get the same degree I did, it would cost him at least 50% more. Tuition went up 25% from my freshman to senior year alone. Also the quality of the education is worse now.

If I could go back, I would've went to trade school and called it a day.

Agreed.

I'm finishing up a bachelor's in mechanical engineering. This will be my last semester.

For me, I know full well most of the college thing is BS. I chose mechanical engineering because it would involve the least amount of brainwashing in addition to the largest amount of actually relevant material in terms of things you need to know in this field.

Lots of people have encouraged me to get a masters, but if anyone is going to try to make me do more zoom lectures they're going to have to shoot me.

Mechanical engineers in my experience have been wholly inadequate in terms of practical experience. My friend met one, an asian girl, who didn't know the difference between screws and nails. Do yourself a favor and if you ever work in the diesel field, find a diesel, take it apart, put it back together, and learn the parts and tools you used. My company hired a mechanical engineer for a diesel engineering position and I don't think she did anything except spreadsheet organizing. If anyone needs it I can recommend textbooks that I've actually studied on my own time that are appropriate for more practical or more technical applications.

 

[third_eldest]

who didn't know the difference between screws and nails.

jeez lol
That's pretty awful. Not in that boat, I've worked quite a bit in the machine shop, and spent some time in the foundry to be sure that doesn't happen.

 

[WaterBottle]

100% agree. I just dropped my Masters program in C.S. for basically the same reasons.

 

[Mike_Key]

Unfortunately I don't agree.

I recently saw a young man graduate high school, his HS sweet heart went off to college, they broke up and she came running back to him after a year or two. He was getting training in something that had to do with manual labor dealing with Apartments. Now, in this one city I lived where everyone had a college degree, I met an Apartment building engineer that had a 4 year degree in Accounting or something similar. However, this young man that I speak of wasn't a solid building engineer nor did he have a 4 year degree in anything much less Accounting. He was struggling. His parent both of who had college behind them, at least a 4 year degree had a difficult time dealing with his choices and watching him struggle.

Now if the motivation isn't there ... then say so. Make that clear.

I'd be the last person to waste $1,500, $10,000 or more on a person that makes F's for grades and takes 10 years to not finish a Bachelors of 4 years. I've seen that too.

Now, to the topic of making College work.

In graduate school I witnessed students (adults) complain to the Dean of the College that they wanted professional training because that is what they'd need when they graduated and found a job. Everyone in their young nascent minds thought they had this Dean pegged, cornered. He called a meeting because he was told and witnessed for himself that morale was low. Or at the least, he saw anger in a handful of student - keep in mind the agitators were 3 women - one of which was a single mom in graduate school.

The meeting opened and a handful of people complained providing him the basis - of which he already completely understood, he's not an idiot and this probably wasn't the first time addressing this issue. He is/was an accomplished research professor from India but you couldn't tell because his English and accent were perfect. He went on to tell this group of students that what they are asking for is Professional training, not University Training.

He went on to describe that there are schools outside of the University that will train someone in Coding, DB Admin skills, in Software development, managerial skills, etc. Everyone of that cohort went on to learn exactly what he was speaking of ... upon the first year of getting a job - we all (well, those complainers, not me) realized that 4 plus 2 years or 4 plus 4 years wasn't enough if you wanted to code off the top of your head how to "read in" the most complicated data from decades ago using a software package in one line of code. If you wanted to work with batch files, etc., you needed the courses that cost $2,500 or $5,000. Keep in mind, sometimes for these 5 day courses you have to buy a plane ticket, a hotel stay and fly to a big city.

Now a College or University will put you through exercises and assignments that prepare you to understand the material in these Professional schools. On the job, I wouldn't trust an 18 year old to complete an assignment, it wouldn't get done. On the job, I try to hand hold but that gets old fast. I think young people should get a degree still, because we need good Lawyers, Computing experts, Scientists, Politicians, etc, that have common sense and are not GloboHomo.

I'm going to encourage my kids, to get in and keep in touch with me weekly. To make the 4 years go by quickly and surround themselves with wholesome groups - minimally know one of the Christian student groups and be familiar with the College Republicans for Lectures (lecture series). Also, I'm going to encourage them to pick degree majors with marketable skills and that make money, $$$$$$$$$. It as if these simply pieces of advice aren't spoken because the devil himself refuses for people to be mentally challenged while being Faithful and then have success in their lives.

Sure, if you can be successful without a Degree, by all means start today. Be the best damn artist, Welder, cook, construction worker, drum up some business, rub elbows, knock on doors, ..., get a business plan, a license from the Courthouse and a bank loan.

Beyond this, I'm going to encourage my kids to get a Masters degree, at a minimum. I've had many electricians and others in those type of fields ask me to "talk to their kid/kids/family member/student". "Talk some sense into them".

Me: "Tell them what?"

"Tell them that they need to become an EE".
(Electrical engineering major)

Students either want to do the work badly or they don't. You can't force anyone.

Think about it very carefully. Going to College or a University can turn out successfully if you are brought up well, if you are responsible, are healthily fearful of your future (no silver spoons or wanna be silver spoons), etc. If you have some of that then you'll do fine - you won't graduate College as a Liberal SJW. I find that often times parents give kids the impression that they are rich and that the kids can be lazy simply living off of Daddy's money. Just look at any kid of a Lawyer.

Well that is how I see it.

By the way, there is the kid's reader, a book for young kids. In it there is a story of Thomas Jefferson. The story states that at some point in Virginia where Thomas Jefferson lived (being older), he encountered a boy at a river. Jefferson either gave the boy his fishing rod and tackle to keep or allowed the boy to take fish that he, Jefferson, had caught. The story describes the boy as a blue collar mountain kid. It then describes that Jefferson went on to become a Lawyer and one of our Country's greatest leaders (USA). I can't recall what the story finally related about the kid from the mountains and his lot, maybe the book said nothing. Anyhow, everyone does their part and everyone, I mean everyone, has skills. So, use them.

John 3:16

 

[Slide-Rule]

I think the answer is "It depends..."

Getting a degree in something rather useless today: Don't.

Getting a degree in the STEM fields on the other hand: Okay we're on to something here...

My dad, when he went to college, in UC Berkeley, he got an English Degree. That degree required him to read the book, "Origin And Development of the English Language." He had to read Chaucer in the original Middle English... College also didn't cost as much when he attended. He also had a lot of jobs in things like bookstores to go into, and he eventually owned his own bookstore, until B&N and other large bookstore chains drove him out of business. He and other students could work 8-12 hour days during the summer, and have enough money saved up for the tuition for the Fall and Spring in college. That is NOT the case today at all.

I got a useless degree myself, and now I'm back in school, working towards a Mechanical Engineering Degree.

For college: "Go STEM or go home." To the one guy who showed up for my tutoring session in Trigonometry, I flat-out said to him: "Like me, marrying a rich guy isn't an option for you, so work your ass off with this math!"

I've told other people: "Know why Wernher von Braun and his team was shipped off to Texas to work for the US Government, and skipped out on a well-deserved trial at Nuremberg followed by a short drop and a quick stop? Because they paid attention in their Differential Equations class, that's why! The guys who stock shelves in stores end up in mass-graves when things go south! While the guys who know Math and Engineering get jobs working for the liberating heroes!"

A lot of people don't have what it takes to do the classes required for Engineering, Physics, Math, and Chemistry. People who can go into "monk mode" and work the problems in those classes, and more importantly, those who WANT IT, will succeed. I think a lot more men than women have that ability to go into "monk mode" for those classes.

I'm sorry I can't make someone want what they don't want... I want to be an Engineer, so I found myself working through a Differential Equation problem on the whiteboard with my teacher sitting behind me jokingly saying, "That's not how fractions work..." or "You forgot to distribute the negative sign..." and "Don't feel bad, every Differential Equations student forgets basic Algebra."

My Calc 1 class had 40 students divided between 2 classes. My Calc 2 class had about 20 students. My Calc 3 class had 10 students, and my Differential Equations class had 10 students. My three Physics classes had similar attrition rates. You've got the usual people who transfer schools, people who only need Calculus for their non-Engineering major, but you also have a lot of people who say: "Woah.. I don't actually want this."

They hit a math-wall. I heard a story of an Indian-fellow whose parents wanted him to be an Engineer. He got through Calc 3 with barely a C, on the first day of his first "real" Engineering class, he looked at the syllabus, and came close to suicide before he walked out the door and changed majors to Accounting.

Is it hard? Yes. Is it impossible? Not at all. I've heard that getting that first internship is actually the hardest part of the whole process...

With Computer Programming classes, I don't think that subject lends itself well to traditional college class settings. One is sadly "on their own" in computer programming classes, with little input and guidance from the teacher. One needs to have the right "mindset" for computer coding, and the teacher can't form that mindset. With coding, either in Python, C++, or something of that sort, my best advice: "Just do it, just code."

 

[FactusIRX]

I'm 7 years older than my brother. If he were to go to the same college I went to and get the same degree I did, it would cost him at least 50% more. Tuition went up 25% from my freshman to senior year alone. Also the quality of the education is worse now.

Agreed.

Mechanical engineers in my experience have been wholly inadequate in terms of practical experience. My friend met one, an asian girl, who didn't know the difference between screws and nails. Do yourself a favor and if you ever work in the diesel field, find a diesel, take it apart, put it back together, and learn the parts and tools you used. My company hired a mechanical engineer for a diesel engineering position and I don't think she did anything except spreadsheet organizing. If anyone needs it I can recommend textbooks that I've actually studied on my own time that are appropriate for more practical or more technical applications.

I would say my engineering friends spend 70% of their time at work posting memes on Reddit, and the remaining 30% of their time pretending to do spreadsheet stuff. Unfortunately, it's very easy for someone in a professional field to take the easy office job, where you stop developing real world skills and become a glorified pencil pusher.

 

[Jacob Robinson]

College being worth it or not is cost and benefit--people have to do their own due diligence.

Having said that, I was shocked to see recently what it cost to go to school where I went back in the 1990's. It was about triple the cost. Back then, with a modest scholarship and a summer job you could make a go of it. But the food sucked and the dorms were about as luxurious as a medium security penitentiary.

Instead of 4 year degrees people could look into certificate courses available at community colleges, or trade schools. Look up sometime what a dental hygienist with a two year degree makes versus someone with a master's degree in sociology. Where I used to live in KY, the plant was so desperate for electricians they unilaterally bumped their pay above the union contract and started trying to recruit kids going into training programs--they wanted to sell them on a career there well before they graduated. It was good pay and came with a pension. Good idea to work on something tangible--can not be out sourced.

Regarding STEM, I have a BS and MS in engineering. For me it was worth it. But it had a lot to do with what you put in it. And a minority of the classes were the ones that really paid off. It was a lot of work. Every Friday night the last semester of my senior year was spent--in a class room were we paid extra money for a review of the FE exam.

Positives to engineering, are it pays better than most things, tend to have nights and weekends off, etc. Negatives are employers want to drive down wages, thus H1B visas, trying to get more women into the field, etc.

If you want to be one, don't be the guy who can't do anything. If you can not work on your own car to some degree, do not own a VOM and know how to use it, etc., then get that fixed or do something else. If you are a mechanical engineer you should be able to read an inch micrometer, and have a rough idea of what kind of tolerances are appropriate when making drawings for simple shop fixtures and such. If designing a simple fixture, to hold a sensor in place, for example, do not hand the machine shop a drawing with a dimension out to five decimal places. The program I went through, we spent time running manual lathes and milling machines for one course.

A complaint I would have about engineering school is the focus is sometimes theoretical without the practical. For example, an electrical engineer has to take dynamics and statics. But good is it for them? Without a little strength of materials or design of machines to go along with them, what good are they? Can one practical thing be done with those two classes? Or for a mechanical engineer to take circuits as their required electrical engineering course, and that be that, what good is it? I think in the olden days the engineers did not go over as much, and did not do as much theory, but what they knew they could usefully apply and they did a lot of amazing things. Another complaint is, well, somethings are so math-focused that when professors ought to be testing on understanding the concepts, they instead test on the ability to plug numbers into a formula. Those formulas will be forgotten, then where are the students left?

If you really want an MS, then think about getting a job where the employer will pay for the schooling. If they do not pay for it, then they do not value it. A lot of companies will reimburse for courses taken towards a useful degree.

 

[DanielH]

In the cost benefit analysis of college people never consider the moral risks of college. Almost nobody ever comes out of college a better person spiritually. You're removed from your church community, encouraged to binge drink regularly, casual sex is commonplace, and leftist professors do their best to turn you into a freak and become an apostate. It is very difficult for an 18 year old to go through that and have their soul come out unscathed. Even if they don't do any of that, they may become prideful. Very risky business.

 

[ItalianStallion9]

In the cost benefit analysis of college people never consider the moral risks of college. Almost nobody ever comes out of college a better person spiritually. You're removed from your church community, encouraged to binge drink regularly, casual sex is commonplace, and leftist professors do their best to turn you into a freak and become an apostate. It is very difficult for an 18 year old to go through that and have their soul come out unscathed. Even if they don't do any of that, they may become prideful. Very risky business.

Yep. I'm amazing how many Christian parents blindly encourage their children to move away for college (get a better job at a corporation, enjoy your freedom!!). What do they think their 18 year old princess is going to do on weekend nights? The entire culture is centered around drinking, drugs, and premarital sex. In addition, there's an agenda to discredit religion with these 'educated' professors (there's a direct correlation between more 'education' and less likely to be religious):

 

[jakester318]

When people say that to consider college you have to choose a major that is in demand or that you have to do a cost benefit analysis, to me this missing the point of my post.

I agree that American society has made it somewhat cursory for me and you to have a piece of paper to be relevant enough for employment. I get that.

I also understand that being brought up "right" can insulate a person somewhat from progressive ideological brainwashing. Noted.

However, in good conscience, I cannot justify going to college when I am not learning anything. That's the issue. I went to class and listened to my professor read word for word from a PowerPoint slide. I ended up having to consult secondary sources to better understand the subject material because I learned nothing from this professor. And when he would have us watch YouTube videos created by another professor, I was woefully under-prepared to handle this content because the acumen of this professor was far beyond that of my professor, which is probably why he had us watching these videos. He had no mastery of the subject matter himself to teach it.

When you are paying $20,000 for masters degree that affords you little in the way of knowledge, then as people say, you are simply paying for a piece of paper. I don't think this is wise.

 

[Roosh]

Looking back at my thirteen years in the American public school system and four more years at the University Of Maryland, I have come to the realization that it was an utter waste. Nothing I do today which serves me in work, women, life, or leisure can be traced back to what I was taught in school. I must therefore conclude that being educated in America was the most harmful event in my life.

My Education Was A Complete Waste Of Time – Roosh Valizadeh

Looking back at my thirteen years in the American public school system and four more years at the University Of Maryland, I have come to the realization that it was an utter waste. Nothing I do today which serves me in work, women, life, or leisure can be traced back to what I was taught in school.

www.rooshv.com

 

[TorontoSucks!]

I recently completed a two year STEM course at a nearby college. (In Canada, colleges are supposed to provide a lower-level, more practical hands-on type education, while universities provide 4 year degrees.).

In addition to what everyone else has said here, let me add the following points:

Many of my teachers were foreign diversity hires who were simply there because of their ethnicity and were basically glorified slide readers. In a computer programming course, one could not even operate her own laptop and every semester I had at least one that could not speak English well, to the point that it really interfered with the ability of the students to learn.

The school itself was full of "international students", even though it was situated in a majority-white community, and these "new Canadians" seemed to dominate the entire lower echelon workforce within the college as well. (The administrative staff was also very "diverse", with the only White staff being female.). The great majority of these students seemed to be there as a first step their plan to immigrate to Canada.

It is my understanding that this is now the norm all across the country and the postsecondary schools have basically become immigration mills. This is VERY lucrative for them and could go a long way in explaining the fact that the actual educational quality seems to almost be an afterthought these days.