If you would like an article for a starting point, see here. I recommend drilling into the Thiel interview.

I doubt many of us would argue about the financial utility of incurring massive amounts of debt to get a master's in race and genders studies. I've run into people recently pursuing their master's in race and gender studies.

Is the traditional college education increasingly becoming more of a liability than a benefit?

In-state community colleges rates are very affordable. It would seem 2yrs in college inexpensively would benefit quite a few people. I seem to recall that it was those that went onto their masters at private schools that would rack up the 100k+ debts, and where it was critical that the degree was one directly tied to financial benefit.

USA Today reported in 2005 that 57% of college students were women.

Neal Anderth wrote:In-state community colleges rates are very affordable. It would seem 2yrs in college inexpensively would benefit quite a few people.

The problem with this is that Associates Degrees are practically worthless in most fields. Heck, even many Bachelor's degrees are approaching that category. I went back to law school 8 years after graduating with a BA in history because I had a hard time finding jobs that weren't basic, low paying, dead-end crap. For example, I spent 3 years working for Prudential Life Insurance Call Center. They required a minimum of 90 credits of college courses just to get an interview and realistically one needed a college degree to get the job. All of this just to answer phones.

College is way over-rated, IMHO. That said, the idea of going to a jr college for two years and then transferring to another college is a great idea because people care where you graduated from.

The following links are an entertaining read on this topic. I don't buy the argument, and I will be sending my kids to college, but it still makes you think. If you think about the money you spend in college as your venture capital fund . . . your kids might be able to do something really great with that time and money, probably not, but maybe.

http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2010/02/dont-send-your-kids-to-college/

http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/01/8-alternatives-to-college/

I'd have to say that unless you have kids how is being an adult anything but a cake walk financially? You need an apartment and a cheap car. Easy!

So it seems the standard for which we are seeking the most efficient path is, "How best does one position themselves to support a family of 3+ with a home and two cars on one income?"

Neal Anderth wrote:So it seems the standard for which we are seeking the most efficient path is, "How best does one position themselves to support a family of 3+ with a home and two cars on one income?"

I always thought it was really important for my kids to show them that they have to work, to give back, and be a part of the world outside the family. The best way to do that is to have both parents with careers and working. I know not everyone thinks that way, but a lot do.

Also, cars? Why don't you just live near the subway? I know, you (and most people) prefer to pay the GM tax.

More seriously, I think people have to find a path that works for them. If no college is right for you, then no college it is. If college is right, then by all means, go to college. You play with fire when you start trying to tell kids of a certain age what's right for them, when they usually know better than you do.

I threw out the 'Leave It to Beaver' standard as a level of middle class success that college is traditionally suppose to provide. Obviously that prosperity can be utilized to one's preferences. So in that vein, regardless of how one prefers to use that wealth, what is generally the most effective route for achieving it?

There's a lot of college degrees that do readily lead to ample middle class incomes, such as health care, engineering, applied sciences, and those seeking to be government cogs.

On the other hand there are people who get non-professional degrees like the ubiquitous 'race & gender' majors that if taking out loans are putting themselves in financial peril. There is also the fact that many teachers and nurses burn out of their professions thus rendering their degrees of little more value than the 'race & gender' degree.

The only wise course as I can see is for parents to refuse to take out loans in their own names, and say fly children fly.

We've got this elite liberal arts college in our community that is populated by homely children from upper middle class families from California. They dress like bums in mismatched used stuff I wouldn't touch let alone wear. They get degrees in 'race & gender' studies and spend their summers traveling abroad, somehow convinced they have solidarity with the poor and mother earth. Such are the blessings of families with excess capital.

I went to a community college myself as did all my brothers. It was a great stepping stone IF you keep your grades up and continue to a more advanced degree(s). There are certainly a few (a very few) associate degrees that are worth while on their own (Dental Hygenist comes to mind) but they are few and far between. Bachelors degrees are getting to be just as meaningless, my first job out of school had a 4 year degree requirement, a 4 year degree in ANYTHING was fine by them. I called it their idiot test. Not that the college graduate is smarter than one who did not go but rather it weeded out the idiots, at least you have some brains and some work ethic to get through 4 years of college.

My daughter graduates with her bachelors this week and has a job lined up already (in California ...gasp! She's going to be near some of our Redscapers in the "Inland Empire") she would not have this job without the degree.

GMTom wrote:My daughter graduates with her bachelors this week and has a job lined up already (in California ...gasp! She's going to be near some of our Redscapers in the "Inland Empire") she would not have this job without the degree.

Mazel Tov! Better in California with a job than back in her old room, I say.

My parents took the "fly children fly" attitude and we were all on our own. It's a strategy not without merit, but It was hard. You do what you've got to do, though.

I just looked through the degree programs at a community college and I have to say it is VERY work oriented. The programs are very much oriented to those who want to go to school and get to work. They have wind technology degrees as an example of how they are oriented toward getting people jobs with relevant training.

I could hardly imagine it being a waste of time for people to knock out a 2 year degree between the ages of 18-20 with little to no debt as a result. I have to say I loved community college, the older students were much more fun and interesting. Actually I have to say college is wasted on the young.

How many eighteen year-olds do you know that want to go do something "VERY work oriented?"

In a lot of ways, these expensive universities are compensating for the dramatic lack of finances that characterize those first thirteen grade levels.

Question is wether colleges should be work oriented at all, or wether they should give people a good basic and general education in their chosen speciality. I know companies would prefer people who can start to work without any further specific job training but in a world were your job can be outsourced at a moments notice i think that's a really bad idea from the perspective of the college student.
It's an entirely different question wether too many people choose soft and shocial sciences instead of engineering and natural sciences

palin

How many eighteen year-olds do you know that want to go do something "VERY work oriented?"

Most of em. (The kids are all right.)

The big difference today is that children finish school and no longer expect to be doing one thing the rest of their lives. Where their grandparents got a job and worked somewhere most of their lives, or their parents moved jobs a few times then settled into a company, they now fully expect to be moving from contract to contract.
They may expect to change vocations.
Specialties? Yes there are technical specialists. But how many realize that advances in technology can wipe out entire job categories?
The idea of school is to provide the basic tools required to achieve. University trains the mind further, specializing but also advancing the mind.
The reason university degrees are often valued is not for the specific knowledge but because the graduates mind has been challenged, and has grown . University graduates usually have the tools to achieve because they've learned how to think.
In a constantly changing and evolving world the ability to reason, adapt and learn quickly - all trained in University - improves a person chances at achievement.
There are, of course , no guarantees.
The idea that children are graduating with enormous debt is pretty scary. My eldest managed (well she and her family together) University undergraduate without debt, but her two years post grad cost her $40,000 in debt. On the other hand she had the choice of several research positions .
On a Sunday US talk show a commentator from the BBC said her children could go to University in the UK for half the cost of a US school. I believe that's true of Canada as well. I wonder if that's all Universities or just private universities in the US?
IS the high cost keeping people who would enormously benefit society if they had an advanced education from getting such>?? In France, anyone who qualifies gets a University education free. Should advanced education be entirely based upon merit?
It begs the question, why should wealth and privilege afford an idiot entrance but poverty keep out a genius? Which is a fundamentally smarter way to allocate resources?

well as one of "them," I don't hear it. we mostly want to keep learning, and figure out a way to solve your problems. There is a interesting complex of only wanting to do things that'll fix the world (which people define in different ways)(this also accounts for the "race & gender" interests). This isn't all good- we need young dam inspectors more than we need young lawyers- but it's something.

being raised in media generation has made us acutely aware to the power of history, legacy and reputation. The very fact that history is being kept on everyone prominent and increasingly on just plain everyone will deeply effect the new workers.

College Conspiracy (1hr documentary)

I do think there's something to this concern over college costs to a point, but another part of it is more likely cultural or just simply human nature. Many people have financial problems of their own making. They'll spend more than they have regardless of how much they make. Most human misery is generated from things within people's control. So for a certain segment if you'll give them loans for six years to live off, they'll take them just because they can.