College is just not worth it anymore

[Hypno]

Im studying to become a lawyer, though after almost a year into the studies, im starting to notice the complete amoral attitude which is taken by the legal profession.
Most people are in it for money or pride. The amount of idealism is next to zero.
There are several classmates and teachers that expresss admiration for defense lawyers who could defend any serial killer or worse.

Imo the further the faculty of law strays from moral teachings the further society degenerates...

When I was in law school, a generation ago, I saw a flyer for free pizza and a talk about volunteering on a post-conviction project. I was a first year law student so I didn't know what that meant, but I assumed it was something about helping crime victims after their attacker was convicted. Well, I was surprised to find out it was all about trying to overturn convicts' convictions.

 

[midwest_struttin]

Interesting thread.

My son will be entering college in the fall, probably as a business major, not STEM. If he goes to the state college, which is pretty good, he'll have a state scholarship and it will basically be free. Plus, they'll honor AP and other credits, and he can graduate in 3 years.

He'll find out soon if he got accepted to any Ivy League colleges. He's got a decent chance. But that means 4 years of school and probably an incremental $150-$200K contribution by me and him combined after financial aid (because of my tax bracket).

Not sure that Ivy League is worth it but on some level its hard to turn down.

Ivy League is worth it. But to maximize his odds of success it's very important to network within that environment. I went to a no name college and if I could do it all over again it would be Ivy League or save up money working minimum wage jobs and then start my own business.

 

[Cervantes]

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).

Even this is getting to be a bad bargain.

There are certain fields that will require a certificate from a university - like being a medical doctor. But even for things like engineering you don't need a degree. After my first job nobody ever asked about my degree ever again.

Learn the material online and through personal projects, then get a job in that field anywhere that will have you with no degree, and with 4 years of work experience you'll be ahead of someone coming out of university in terms of skill, work experience and instead of having paid money - you will have been earning money.

For know nothing fields (like sociology, gender studies) it is even clearer. If you spend 4 years getting a degree, when you get your first job at Starcucks your manager will be a 21 year old who started working there when you entered college. Not only will he earn more than you - he won't have crushing college debt.

You know what Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs have in common? They all realized college was garbage and dropped out before getting a degree. The time they saved gave them an edge over their peers. And that was pre-2000. You don't need an IQ above 100 to know that college today is a waste of time.

 

[Cervantes]

Interesting thread.

My son will be entering college in the fall, probably as a business major, not STEM. If he goes to the state college, which is pretty good, he'll have a state scholarship and it will basically be free. Plus, they'll honor AP and other credits, and he can graduate in 3 years.

He'll find out soon if he got accepted to any Ivy League colleges. He's got a decent chance. But that means 4 years of school and probably an incremental $150-$200K contribution by me and him combined after financial aid (because of my tax bracket).

Not sure that Ivy League is worth it but on some level its hard to turn down.

Your son will be way better at business in 4 years if you just give him $200k to start a business.

 

[Gremlin]

Interesting thread.

My son will be entering college in the fall, probably as a business major, not STEM. If he goes to the state college, which is pretty good, he'll have a state scholarship and it will basically be free. Plus, they'll honor AP and other credits, and he can graduate in 3 years.

He'll find out soon if he got accepted to any Ivy League colleges. He's got a decent chance. But that means 4 years of school and probably an incremental $150-$200K contribution by me and him combined after financial aid (because of my tax bracket).

Not sure that Ivy League is worth it but on some level its hard to turn down.

He should rethink the business major. I heard it's a waste of time with little return with today's job prospects.

 

[FactusIRX]

Your son will be way better at business in 4 years if you just give him $200k to start a business.

Absolutely. That's why I was wondering what he wants to do as a profession. If he wants to be an accountant or work in finance at a large firm (the only two business areas that actually have a career path), then a business degree makes sense. Even if he wanted to practice law, an accountant degree would make sense, as it would open up tax law for him. If he just wants to run a business, then he doesn't need a business degree.

If he's just doing a business degree because he doesn't know what else to do, then you are paying for a $200 000 vacation.

 

[Jacob Robinson]

Well said. Although you’re not addressing THE root cause that’s diluted our country’s education system, and it wasn’t the “hippies“ trying to dodge ‘Nam:

Ending Segregation.

That’s the real reason High School was so rigorous back in the day: it was all white and white ran. Now look at what we have. But those men back in the day knew the truth, and there’s a reason why our schools and military were segregated for as long as they were.

Until (((you know who))) forced them upon our once beloved institutions.

Were the only good schools (the segregated ones) in the South back in those days?

 

[ScannerLIV]

View attachment 29790

When you bring people into a blue country with no in-group preference from the red and yellow countries on this map who have a strong in-group preference, what happens is you get affirmative action, welfare, an end to gifted programs, and racial quotas. We've seen all that happen. This doesn't help the people who are low-IQ either. It just makes them spiteful, greedy materialists like Americans typically are.

What IQ group does the color scheme as Mexico falls under? Between 85 and 90?

Is that China with IQ over 105? Interesting a country with high IQ also has low moral affinity.

 

[Hypno]

Your son will be way better at business in 4 years if you just give him $200k to start a business.

To be clear, college is basically going to be free for him, other than the time, unless he gets into a program like Wharton or U.Chicago.

But I appreciate the advice.

 

[cosine]

Now you can do the Google Analytics Professional Certificate for $39/month, at ~6 months it's $240.
So $240 to get a certificate that Google itself considers to be the equivalent of a 4-year degree.

He should rethink the business major. I heard it's a waste of time with little return with today's job prospects.

I graduated with a finance degree. Searching for jobs as a financial analyst is now like fighting through hordes for $50k-$80k salaries. NY or Silicon Valley pay more but not much.

- Software Engineers at Fintech firms are the "new" finance degrees
- Accounting is currently still a good major with decent job prospects, but it will be one of the first white-collar jobs to be automated by AI; for a while it'll be 3-5 top-performers assisted with AI that do the jobs of 10 people, and average performers will be unable to get a job.
- Gov't contracts and laws will force some humans to be on the other end for the next couple of decades, but even TurboTax puts CPA's out of business.

 

[piceaabies]

May not be relevant but isn't that the perfect soy face right there?

 

[cosine]

May not be relevant but isn't that the perfect soy face right there?

I definitely thought, "people on RVF are going to cringe a little bit at this thumbnail"

 

[Towgunner]

Strangely enough I'm listening to an audiobook about marketing and how filesharing sites like Napster killed the record stores.

One of the professors I mentioned retired recently and she's been in the job for 15+ years. Throw in Covid and the fact that most teens want to party in college and not attend online classes.

The elite unis will still stay afloat but the D league will be out the door.

This is happening. I live in New England and colleges grow on trees here. That said you have A list universities all the way down to Z. Many colleges are starting to close down or downsize. I heard several majors are being cancelled too for lack of attendance. This effect impacts the weakest first, like everything, so, we see this with the lower tier schools. You're right on that. I'm undecided on the top tier universities. They have massive endowments and their brand is very strong. But, I ask you, which one of the elite record stores are still operating?

And then, of course, you have the woke variable, which seems to be strongest in the most elite universities. harvard got caught discriminating against Asians and when they were called out they doubled-down on their position. And so, harvard openly admits they discriminate based on race. Sure, they have their "reasons" but this can't last forever. Truth is persistent thing and, as I said, they're openly discriminating. This coming from a very "woke" institution, which clings to a radical non-discrimination policy, but, they openly discriminate. It doesn't matter if its Asians or Super smart space aliens. And then you have all the woke graff, which is doing no one any good especially the students.

On one hand you have these massive institutions, with their loyal alumni, donations, endowments, research grants etc. But could this be a façade? The MIT or harvard campuses are impressive. A pleasant stroll around these places makes you think their here to stay. But, ecommerce has displaced far more square footage of retail then all of the sq footage of all the academic institutions by many orders of magnitude.

 

[Cervantes]

Now you can do the Google Analytics Professional Certificate for $39/month, at ~6 months it's $240.
So $240 to get a certificate that Google itself considers to be the equivalent of a 4-year degree.




I graduated with a finance degree. Searching for jobs as a financial analyst is now like fighting through hordes for $50k-$80k salaries. NY or Silicon Valley pay more but not much.

- Software Engineers at Fintech firms are the "new" finance degrees
- Accounting is currently still a good major with decent job prospects, but it will be one of the first white-collar jobs to be automated by AI; for a while it'll be 3-5 top-performers assisted with AI that do the jobs of 10 people, and average performers will be unable to get a job.
- Gov't contracts and laws will force some humans to be on the other end for the next couple of decades, but even TurboTax puts CPA's out of business.

I have some visibility into the corporate accounting business, and from what I see, nothing is going to get automated any time soon. I hear a lot of talk about it- but not much real world progress.

Rather the opposite. Most companies, even very large ones, seem to run their business on spreadsheets that get updated manually. A lot of it is managed by non-technical women.

A large amount of corporate accounting work seems to be calling people up all over the organization to ask what poorly documented credits and debits are, and making judgement calls about how to account for all kinds of weird line items.

 

[Cervantes]

To be clear, college is basically going to be free for him, other than the time, unless he gets into a program like Wharton or U.Chicago.

But I appreciate the advice.

The value of getting into an elite business program will be 100% the connections he makes to get into some super high tier corporate business role early. I'd support having my child go into such a program if they understood that this is the play.

 

[JohnQThomas]

Im studying to become a lawyer, though after almost a year into the studies, im starting to notice the complete amoral attitude which is taken by the legal profession.
Most people are in it for money or pride. The amount of idealism is next to zero.
There are several classmates and teachers that expresss admiration for defense lawyers who could defend any serial killer or worse.

Imo the further the faculty of law strays from moral teachings the further society degenerates...

Hope you stick it out. Society needs more attorneys—and law professors—with a sense of ethics.
Only by finishing law school and pursuing a career will you be in a position to contribute to the field.

 

[Jacob Robinson]

I have some visibility into the corporate accounting business, and from what I see, nothing is going to get automated any time soon. I hear a lot of talk about it- but not much real world progress.

Rather the opposite. Most companies, even very large ones, seem to run their business on spreadsheets that get updated manually. A lot of it is managed by non-technical women.

A large amount of corporate accounting work seems to be calling people up all over the organization to ask what poorly documented credits and debits are, and making judgement calls about how to account for all kinds of weird line items.

Being in and out of IT roles for many years now, I have to agree. So many companies are so disjointed in their business practices that the idea a piece of software is going to be installed to use AI to fix it all is completely laughable. If a company is so well put together that this is even possible, they are probably so efficient already it would not be worth the trouble.

I think AI automation may work in some narrow areas: people who act like robots might be replaced by one. But then it is then hyped up by click-bait journalists as though it will take over everything (so hurry up with that basic income!). Just like when nano bots were going to revolutionize everything twenty years ago. Thirty years ago fuzzy logic and neural networks were going to revolutionize everything. Meanwhile, I know of companies that still use keypunch operators.

 

[cosine]

Thirty years ago fuzzy logic and neural networks were going to revolutionize everything. Meanwhile, I know of companies that still use keypunch operators.

The .com boom got out of control, and most companies didn't actually work very well, but it was the beginning of massive capital allocation into tech. The current boom is actually working and producing amazing things. Companies like: https://www.uipath.com/

 

[Jacob Robinson]

Most new technology is over-hyped by the media, does not revolutionize the world, and then later on finds a small niche where it is actaully useful. Most revolutionary technology comes out of nowhere and no one realized how big it would be until after it takes over.

In my current job, about 10% of the time is creating the code for computer models of one sort or another. 90% of the time is trying to figure out where and from whom to get the data for the model (a lot of tribal knowledge--it is not already in a computer somewhere), what the model is supposed to do, how to make the results meaningful, presenting the results, and going back and proposing real-world actions to get around issues the model points out If Robbie the Robot could partly automate that 10% of my time, that would be interesting, but how in the world would it know where to start unless I loaded up a database with everything needed to understand the problem? By that time I would be done with a model. And few people would want to trust a big decision related to plant capacity, capital investment, etc., to a black box. And if it cut that 10% of my time down, I guess that would mean I would work less unpaid overtime, so the bottom line impact to the company: negative $ what ever the purchase cost was.

I would be overjoyed if computers could simply take on the brain-dead boring work and free people up to actually think and do value-added work. Every single place I have ever been, no system installed ever freed up users from drudgery, and usually every new Oracle or SAP implementation made at least some things worse in that regard. So systems are not even removing the drudgery, and now they think they will go in and solve all the thinking and value-added work? Really? Instead of computers doing what they, in theory at least, are completely capable of doing--that is left to humans, and then what computers can only sort of do under ideal circumstances is what humans are supposed to stop doing. People are supposed to do the servile work for computers, and we are supposed to then trust computers and defer all the thinking to them.

That automation will only really work for for tasks that are well defined, where all the needed inputs are in a computer already, and perhaps where huge amounts of data exists for decisions people have made in the past. If your job is killing you with boredom, and you never call or email anyone for information or guidance, then there might be reason to be concerned.

 

[cosine]

Most new technology is over-hyped by the media, does not revolutionize the world, and then later on finds a small niche where it is actaully useful. Most revolutionary technology comes out of nowhere and no one realized how big it would be until after it takes over.

The investment company Ark Invest is aggressively challenging this idea. Their thesis is that the .com boom resulted in a massive capital allocation that took time to get right, and people jumped the gun -- there are legitimate innovations coming out of those ideas, it's just coming a couple of decades later.

Their ideas suggest that robotics, batteries, AI, genomic tech, and fintech are all overlapping, and that the last time humanity saw that much overlap was the telephone, electricity, and the internal combustion engine.

They seem to have gotten a lot of things right about 2020, and their founder has turned into an investment star. Seems like she's the first woman on her way to Warren Buffet recognition.