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Comment Re:Education isn't a buffet (Score 1) 92

Going to college isn't a box you check, it's hard work you take on to further your goals in life.

You make it sound like we're living in Star Trek where money is no longer a thing and people just work to better themselves. Some people really do just want to see a few more zeros on their paycheck and who's to say that's less valid of a life goal?

And if you are really good at what you do, awesome - no problems. I will note that a degree isn't always the path to those extra zero's. In my own case, I didn't work in my actual field until after I retired and was offered a job I couldn't refuse.

Comment Re:Education isn't a buffet (Score 1) 92

Knowledge isn't sold to you. You buy access to it. You can only get out of "education" what you put into it.

Every person that thinks their education was a waste of time was probably right. They had no interest in learning, so they didn't. That's not the fault of higher education.

Going to college isn't a box you check, it's hard work you take on to further your goals in life. If 51% if these nimrods think they would be better off without it, they are factually too stupid for me to care about their opinion.

Can you do a dissertation on how say, a Gender Studies degree is worth the same amount as say, an EE degree?

Been my experiences that the Opinion degrees tend to not be as monetarily rewarding as those that take some serious study and application. Not for nothing, not everyone has the ability to be an electrical engineer, and certainly renumeration in ones career is likewise not a universal metric. Some people do things just for the love of it.

But some degrees offer one career path - you replace the professor or instructor. So if 300 people are trying to replace just a few, the employment prospect in the field are going to leave a lot of people having to be employed elsewhere. And a few degrees are even considered a bit toxic today.

Comment Re:College education is still worth it (Score 1) 92

I think this is less about the value of college and more about disillusioned Gen Zers who can't understand why they're not pulling down a six figure income for their first job and not scoring dates with 10s on Tinder.

Obligatory old CollegeHumor video.

There is a point to that. It is a mix of things. Having self esteem driven into them without having any real accomplishments, being told that having a degree - any degree - made them ubermenchen. Social expectations delivered to them that they had no boundaries, and Pop culture expectations that took a few young successful people, led many to believe that was the norm, that they deserved to have a big paycheck at their introductory level job, and have a meteoric rise to leadership positions almost immediately.

As well as having a really rough time trying to understand that. I have long been on record that these young people have been really shortchanged by us, their parents. Yet if I mention anything that might be considered mild criticism, I am set upon like a wildebeest by crocodiles. Every so often you have to take a telling.

My experience is mostly with Millennials, and perhaps the latest demographic might have it worse.

But the millennials where I was came in thinking that anyone around their parents age was there to support them. They would go around barking orders to much more senior people. I watched them sort of freak out when they discovered the old dude was much more knowledgable than them.

We had things like the young lady who started playing manager with me - one of the things I did was take overload from the illustrators. She was assigning work to me. I found out she was spending the time on Facebook - back before old people took over FB.

A woman who took over 6 months time off in one year to travel, and mental health days.

A guy who started yelling at me because I pointed at his laptop screen. "Don't you EVER, EVER touch my computer!" Told him I didn't touch it. "I said DONT!" I sent him packing

The guy who ignored my phone calls, then told me he only does text messages. I told him he would answer my phone calls, or I would visit him personally, along with the Director. You don't come in and dictate the rules on your first hire.

Interesting, two of the best employees I ever worked with were millennials, They left too, but not for job problems. One wanted to get an MBA, but the Dean insisted she be full time, so she moved back with her family in a city where she could work and pursue her degree. The other was offered a masters to Doctorates free ride at another university. Point is, the basic rules haven't changed. Start your new first career job, have some humility, do really good work, and move up the ladder at a pace the ladder allows. Save money, invest wisely, live within your means, and you'll hit your goals in a more realistic time than "immediately". I didn't become so called "wealthy" until I was in my late 40's, and yes, wealth begets wealth.

I didn't make the rules.

Comment College was always this expensive (Score 2, Informative) 92

we just used to subsidize it more. When we were kids the government paid 70% of tuition, most of it was money given directly to the colleges who passed that money on to you and me via lower cost tuition.

In the early 2000s Bush Jr and the Republican party slashed those subsidies, which is why the cost shot up. It's got nothing to do with administrative costs or fancy dorms (the dorms literally are paid for by rent paid by students, I know, I put my kid in one of the prison style dorms in college because the nice ones were too pricey).

As usual we're all being lied to.

Comment This was better covered (Score 4, Insightful) 43

by the greatest rap channel in YouTube history

These are canaries in the coal mine for the collapsing economy. There's a ton of money in Wall Street chasing meme stocks and trying to extract value without offering it. But they can only survive while the economy at large does and can absorb their losses.

When the broader economy collapses various ponzi schemes go with it. Usually we prosecute the crooks and clean things up a bit, but I don't think anyone is expecting that this cycle.

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