The value of going to college at different times

[Altherion]

6 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

@Altherion thanks for posting this topic, it’s a useful discussion.

You are welcome!

6 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

The higher cost of education is an obvious starting point.  If the state offers less subsidy for education and the recipient pays more, what does that imply?  First it’s a wealth transfer from young to old (who received their subsidy and did not return the favor), second it’s a wealth transfer from educated to uneducated (a progressive taxation indirectly), third it’s a wealth transfer from low paid education (e.g. the arts) to high paid education (e.g. STEM and professions) which is a relatively new market judgment by society on the usefulness of each education.

It's true that the higher cost is partly due to fewer subsidies from the state, but only partly -- a lot of it is simply because the cost of operating a university has increased at a rate that far outpaces inflation. And universities don't appear to spend it on any one thing; some goes to administrative expenses (the academic bureaucracy has grown at least five-fold over the past half-century), some to more luxurious housing, some to more lecture halls and so on.

8 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

The next most obvious difference in spending is the cost of housing, which has been a long time transfer of wealth from young to old.  And this time it’s compounded by the emergence of knowledge clusters in major cities, narrowing and concentrating this transfer of wealth among the NIMBYs.  Education benefits are most realized among other educated people, so accelerating demand for real estate has become another indirect progressive taxation.  Unfortunately it is not redistributed very well because the govt does not receive it: capital gains on personal residences are mostly tax free.  The NIMBY’s capture this benefit.

Yes, and if this wasn't bad enough, the locations themselves take a significant cut via state and local taxes. In New York City, one pays 6% and change (depending on income, it can be closer to 7%) to the state and then another 3% and change to the city so that's around 10% of gross income that people living and working in NYC never see. California cities tend to have significantly lower local tax rate, but their state taxes are much higher. And both also have sales taxes. In some sense, the high incomes on offer at these high-tax, high-rent places are illusions: after all of the deductions and rent, what looks like a large salary barely middle class by the standards of most places in the country.

8 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Similarly health insurance costs a lot more now, which is a transfer from well educated (generally very healthy) to low educated.  Another indirect progressive taxation.

Again, this is partly true, but a large amount of the "tax" goes to the medical and insurance industries. It's not that the low educated or poor of the US (or, really anyone in the US) are significantly healthier than their counterparts in other developed countries -- we're just paying more for the same (or inferior) service.

8 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

The only antidote to either is at the polling booth.  I’d prefer to fight #2 than #1, but that’s nowhere in any political agenda.  The people who demand free college education also demand more health subsidies for the uneducated, more subsidy of elder care and tend to be the NIMBYist of all.

I don't think it's possible to fight the transfer of wealth from the young to the old by democratic means: it's not just that more of the elderly tend to consistently vote, but there are more of them than there are college students. There are proposals to deal with several aspects of these spending issues (e.g. instead of debt, have graduates pay some percentage of income over a certain period of time), but they're not going anywhere.

[Ice Queen]

On 7/20/2018 at 5:28 AM, Free Northman Reborn said:

I doubt that there are many poor engineers, computer programmers, doctors, accountants, pharmacists, finance experts etc.

I’m sure there are many poor graduates in areas such as social studies, media studies, political science, modern art, music, etc.

Point is - a college degree in itself is worthless. Having a skill that is in demand, on the other hand, is very worthwhile.

So go study stuff that is actually in demand and can earn you lots of money. Else you only have yourself to blame.

Self actualization is a luxury only achievable once the lower levels of Maslow’s pyramid are achieved. That is the hard lesson to be learnt. 

You do know that not everyone is cut out to be a doctor or an engineer, right? Different people have different skills. We don't expect a doctor to be Picasso, so why should we expect Picasso to be able to grasp concepts like thermodynamics, quantum theory or statistical mechanics? We shouldn't. It's like expecting Sam to be a warrior when his personality is better suited to be a librarian or scholar. 

We still need music, art and philosophy. They are the pillars of a liberal arts education and part of what makes us human. We shouldn't denigrate that--we should encourage it. It takes all kinds to make a world and there is value in everything. 

That being said, a bachelor's degree is the new high school diploma. If you really want to get anywhere, you need a master's or better. In the sciences, you're worthless without a PhD. 

You're leaving out the trades. Being a plumber or electrician might not be glamorous, but it pays the bills and you'll always have a job.