Is college worth it or not?

[Aimless]

As with many non-trivial questions, the answer is probably, "It depends."

I invite you to explore different aspects of the question, from whatever perspective you prefer. There are many aspects to consider, only one of which is money.

Inspired by:

http://nymag.com/news/features/colle...1-5/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/ed...lege.html?_r=2


The above links are of course about college in the US, and so there is a natural focus on money. The first article briefly touches on some other things, like what path you can take in today's world (eg. things to do before college) or what the most important points are of going to college (eg. learning to talk to girls ).

[Aimless]

From the first article:

This new criticism of higher education comes from three main sources. The first is the reality that, while all parents want their kids to complete college, little more than half of those millions who haul their laptops to campus each fall actually end up with a bachelor’s degree. The United States now has the highest college-*dropout rate in the industrialized world, and in terms of 25-to-34-year-olds with college degrees, it has fallen from first to twelfth.

The second source is the quality of the education available on campus. Nearly half of all students demonstrate “exceedingly small or empirically nonexistent” gains in the skills measured by the Collegiate Learning Assessment, even after two years of full-time schooling, according to a study begun in 2005 by sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa. (Many education reformers have focused their attention to gains from investments on the other end of the spectrum, in pre-K schooling.) In 1961, the average undergraduate spent 25 hours a week hitting the books; by 2003, economists Mindy Marks and Philip Babcock recently found, that average had plummeted to thirteen hours. In a typical semester, one third of the students Arum and Roksa followed for their recent book, Academically Adrift, did not take “any courses that required more than forty pages of reading per week” and half did not take “a single course that required more than twenty pages of writing.”

Note however that the article does a fairly good job of presenting different views.

[Aimless]

And from the second article:

Deanne Loonin, a lawyer at the National Consumer Law Center, said education debt was not good debt for the low-income borrowers she works with, most of whom are in default.

Unlike most other debt, student loans generally cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, and the government can garnish wages or take tax refunds or Social Security payments to recover the money owed.

Students who borrow to attend for-profit colleges are especially likely to default. They make up about 12 percent of those enrolled in higher education, but almost half of those defaulting on student loans. According to the Department of Education, about a quarter of students at for-profit institutions defaulted on their student loans within three years of starting to repay them.

“About two-thirds of the people I see attended for-profits; most did not complete their program; and no one I have worked with has ever gotten a job in the field they were supposedly trained for,” Ms. Loonin said.

“For them, the negative mark on their credit report is the No. 1 barrier to moving ahead in their lives,” she added. “It doesn’t just delay their ability to buy a house, it gets in the way of their employment prospects, their finding an apartment, almost anything they try to do.”

[Dreadnaught]

I think the value of college for many people is being diluted by the escalating costs. Which are solvable if universities wanted to run themselves better.

Coincidentally read an opinion piece yesterday regarding some research into this-

OPINION JUNE 8, 2011

Time to Make Professors Teach

My new study suggests a simple way to cut college tuition in half.

By RICHARD VEDDER

No sooner do parents proudly watch their children graduate high school than they must begin paying for college. As they write checks for upwards of $40,000 a year, they'll no doubt find themselves complaining loudly about rising college costs—even asking: "Is it worth it?"

It's a legitimate question. As college costs have risen wildly, the benefits of the degree seem less and less clear. Larger numbers of college graduates are taking relatively low-paying and low-skilled jobs.

The good news? There are ways to greatly ease the burden and make college more affordable, according to new data from the University of Texas at Austin.

In a study for the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, Christopher Matgouranis, Jonathan Robe and I concluded that tuition fees at the flagship campus of the University of Texas could be cut by as much as half simply by asking the 80% of faculty with the lowest teaching loads to teach about half as much as the 20% of faculty with the highest loads. The top 20% currently handle 57% of all teaching.

Such a move would require the bulk of the faculty to teach, on average, about 150-160 students a year. For example, a professor might teach one undergraduate survey class for 100 students, two classes for advanced undergraduate students or beginning graduate students with 20-25 students, and an advanced graduate seminar for 10. That would require the professor to be in the classroom for fewer than 200 hours a year—hardly an arduous requirement.

Faculty will likely argue that this would imperil the university's research mission. Nonsense. First of all, at UT Austin, a mere 20% of the faculty garner 99.8% of the external research funding. Second, faculty who follow the work habits of other professional workers—go to work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and work five days a week for 48 or 49 weeks a year—can handle teaching 200 hours a year while publishing considerable amounts of research. I have done just this for decades as a professor.

Third, much research consists of obscure articles published in even more obscure journals on topics of trivial importance. Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University, once estimated that 21,000 articles have been written on Shakespeare since 1980. Wouldn't 5,000 have been enough? Canadian scholar Jeffrey Litwin, looking at 70 leading U.S. universities, concluded the typical cost of writing a journal article is about $72,000. If we professors published somewhat fewer journal articles and did more teaching, we could make college more affordable.

There are other things colleges could do to reduce costs, such as slashing bureaucracies or using buildings more efficiently. But by not extending the contracts of nontenured faculty or by phasing out tenured positions over time, universities could seriously cut labor costs.

The bottom line is that colleges typically spread knowledge about everything under the sun except themselves. It's time to change that. There's no better place to start than by closely examining the work load of those who absorb the lion's share of university budgets.

Mr. Vedder is a professor of economics at Ohio University and directs the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...105112326.html

[Ominous Gamer]

This crossed slashdot a few days ago...

Is there a new geek anti-intellectualism?

[Loki]

In a study for the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, Christopher Matgouranis, Jonathan Robe and I concluded that tuition fees at the flagship campus of the University of Texas could be cut by as much as half simply by asking the 80% of faculty with the lowest teaching loads to teach about half as much as the 20% of faculty with the highest loads. The top 20% currently handle 57% of all teaching.

That's because most of the teaching is done by either adjuncts or professors who don't do much research. By asking the other 80% to teach more, you're also saying they should research less.

Such a move would require the bulk of the faculty to teach, on average, about 150-160 students a year. For example, a professor might teach one undergraduate survey class for 100 students, two classes for advanced undergraduate students or beginning graduate students with 20-25 students, and an advanced graduate seminar for 10. That would require the professor to be in the classroom for fewer than 200 hours a year—hardly an arduous requirement.

And how much does it take to prepare the course material? To grade assignments? To hold office hours? To advise graduate students? Classroom time is a disingenuous statistic to look at.

Faculty will likely argue that this would imperil the university's research mission. Nonsense. First of all, at UT Austin, a mere 20% of the faculty garner 99.8% of the external research funding.

That's because most external research funding goes to the hard sciences. Just because one isn't getting external funding doesn't mean one isn't conducting research.

Second, faculty who follow the work habits of other professional workers—go to work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and work five days a week for 48 or 49 weeks a year—can handle teaching 200 hours a year while publishing considerable amounts of research. I have done just this for decades as a professor.

Most professors I know work 60-70-hour weeks (pretty much all year round) and only teach 3 classes a year. Once again, the teaching is far from the biggest time sink. Other than the things I already mentioned, there are numerous administrative activities, which frequently take up more time than teaching.

Third, much research consists of obscure articles published in even more obscure journals on topics of trivial importance. Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University, once estimated that 21,000 articles have been written on Shakespeare since 1980. Wouldn't 5,000 have been enough? Canadian scholar Jeffrey Litwin, looking at 70 leading U.S. universities, concluded the typical cost of writing a journal article is about $72,000. If we professors published somewhat fewer journal articles and did more teaching, we could make college more affordable.

It's a pretty big assumption that there is no value added to more articles on Shakespeare. After all, if academics didn't want more articles on that topic, they wouldn't publish them. There's also a collective action problem: even if it was in everyone's interest to publish fewer articles, anyone who publishes relatively more articles gets rewarded. That means anyone who doesn't listen to this guy is going to end up with a better job.

There are other things colleges could do to reduce costs, such as slashing bureaucracies or using buildings more efficiently. But by not extending the contracts of nontenured faculty or by phasing out tenured positions over time, universities could seriously cut labor costs.

The slashing bureaucracy and using buildings more efficiently parts are BS; they cut costs by pennies. As for the other point, it depends on what one believes the goal of academia is. There are plenty of liberal arts colleges that focus almost entirely on teaching. Last I checked, tuition in those colleges isn't any less than at research institutions.

The bottom line is that colleges typically spread knowledge about everything under the sun except themselves. It's time to change that. There's no better place to start than by closely examining the work load of those who absorb the lion's share of university budgets.

The bottom line is that the guy is being incredibly dishonest, and given that he's a professor himself, he should know better.

[LittleFuzzy]

That's because most of the teaching is done by either adjuncts or professors who don't do much research. By asking the other 80% to teach more, you're also saying they should research less.

This is true. Boo hoo. Heaven forbid our institutions of higher learning should focus more on education and relative education performance, rather than research as a proxy for raising their profile.

[Loki]

This is true. Boo hoo. Heaven forbid our institutions of higher learning should focus more on education and relative education performance, rather than research as a proxy for raising their profile.

Read the parts above about the collective action problem and liberal arts colleges. Pray tell why the latter cost as much as the top private colleges even though the professors there (who are hired for their teaching ability) regularly teach 6-8 classes a year.

[LittleFuzzy]

Read the parts above about the collective action problem and liberal arts colleges. Pray tell why the latter cost as much as the top private colleges even though the professors there (who are hired for their teaching ability) regularly teach 6-8 classes a year.

Cite your statistics. From what I've seen and read about, there is no longer a major difference between the supposed "liberal arts" colleges and the "research" schools. Look at Reed, as an example for the comparable high-end of liberal arts collleges.

[Lewkowski]

The problem is degree inflation. A bachelors degree doesn't mean much anymore. A way to solve the problem is to make college a lot more difficult to pass. It should mean something that you graduated with a four year degree. All it means now is that you aren't completely retarded and you know how to jump through hoops.

[Loki]

Cite your statistics. From what I've seen and read about, there is no longer a major difference between the supposed "liberal arts" colleges and the "research" schools. Look at Reed, as an example for the comparable high-end of liberal arts collleges.

There's a smaller difference; don't know where you got that there is no difference. There's an article asking various colleges about tenure requirements, and liberal arts colleges want substantially less research and substantially more teaching. Also, the standard teaching load in R1 institutions is still 1-2 or 2-2, while the standard load in liberal arts colleges is 3-3 or 3-4.

[Lebanese Dragon]

I think we need define what we mean by worth it. If by worth it you mean financially, on average the answer is yes it is. If by worth it, you mean toward you as a person. Then we need to consider more than just monetary gain, what about the social and intellectual gains. College is a place where you can really find and challenge yourself and interact with a diverse populace of fairy educated people from around the entire world. I think even if you lost money because you went to college, it's still worth it, easily.

[wiggin]

To the OP: yes, very much so. Wage premiums are very high, and even at full price college is a bargain. Obviously there's ways to make it more worth it - may sure you major in something with good career prospects, choose the best 'value' college (best education for a given price - many high quality state schools fit the bill), etc. But in general, college is still worth it.

[GGT]

I think the degree has to be weighed against its debt, especially private loans. Sounded great a few years ago to become a teacher, until teachers started being laid off, beginning with new hires. Those new hires sometimes had accumulated debt exceeding one year average income (over $50,000) that will take decades to pay back. Now they can't get a job, but still have to pay the loans.

[wiggin]

When did it sound great to be a teacher? It has never been a particularly well-paying job.

For that matter, average student debt load after college is ~$20,000. That's a bargain.

[Ominous Gamer]

Where is that figure from? Cause in 08 I remember figures from 24k to 30k in loan debt alone.

[Loki]

I think the degree has to be weighed against its debt, especially private loans. Sounded great a few years ago to become a teacher, until teachers started being laid off, beginning with new hires. Those new hires sometimes had accumulated debt exceeding one year average income (over $50,000) that will take decades to pay back. Now they can't get a job, but still have to pay the loans.

Ignoring the fact that the unemployment rate for people without a college degree is more than double the rate for college graduates.

Where is that figure from? Cause in 08 it was over 24k in loan debt alone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/education/22debt.html

[Ominous Gamer]

Ignoring the fact that the unemployment rate for people without a college degree is more than double the rate for college graduates.

Curious about this one as well. If its including all age ranges, and phyiscal/mental capabilities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/education/22debt.html

damn I'm good.

[Loki]

Curious about this one as well. If its including all age ranges, and phyiscal/mental capabilities.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm

Unemployment rate for those over 25:

No high school: 14.7%
Only high school: 9.5%
Some college: 8.0%
Bachelor and higher: 4.5%

The participation rates tell an even better story. Participation rate for those over 25:

No high school: 45.1%
Only high school: 60.4%
Some college: 69.7%
Bachelor and higher: 77.5%

[wiggin]

Where is that figure from? Cause in 08 I remember figures from 24k to 30k in loan debt alone.

Public university debt is $20,200 in 2008. Private university (nonprofit) debt was $27,650.

Best source is here: http://projectonstudentdebt.org/fact_sheets.vp.html

[GGT]

When did it sound great to be a teacher? It has never been a particularly well-paying job.
For that matter, average student debt load after college is ~$20,000. That's a bargain.

Some people actually choose a career they'd enjoy, regardless of how well it pays. Like being an El-Ed teacher.

The average debt load of a college graduate is at an all-time high — and not coincidentally, the unemployment rate among recent college grads has skyrocketed to 8.7 percent, according to a new report. The average college student had $24,000 to pay off in 2009, up 6 percent from the year before.

The Project on Student Debt also broke down average debt loads by state, which you can access here. For-profit colleges like DeVry University, which have been accused of burdening their students with outsize debt obligations, are not included in the data.

Economists have found that those who graduate into a recession are likely to earn lower wages for as long as 15 years compared with those who graduate in more prosperous years.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot...a-record-24000

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Student loan debt is on the rise, and fewer graduates are getting jobs to pay back what they borrowed.

College seniors who graduated last year owed an average of $24,000 in student loan debt, up 6% from the year before, according to a report from the Project on Student Debt. The data, released on Thursday, is based on an annual analysis of student loan debt at more than 1,000 public and private nonprofit four-year institutions.

At the same time, unemployment for recent college graduates jumped from 5.8% in 2008 to 8.7% in 2009 -- the highest annual rate on record.

"With student debt rising and jobs hard to come by, it's more important than ever to shop around when deciding where to go to college," said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access & Success, the research group that operates the Project on Student Debt. "This report shows that debt levels vary widely -- not only from state-to-state but also from college-to-college, even when the sticker prices look the same."

Colleges dished out extra aid to help students stay in school as the economy went downhill, causing student debt to rise about 6% annually for the past 4 years, the organization said.

Boomerang kids: 85% of college grads move home
Debt by state: Student loan debt levels throughout the 50 states ranged from $13,000 to $30,000 last year. The highest amounts of debt were found mainly in the Northeast, with the lowest levels in the West.

Out of the colleges Project on Debt surveyed, students graduating in the District of Columbia and New Hampshire had the most debt -- carrying average loads of $30,033 and $29,443 respectively.

Graduates from schools in Utah owed the least, with an average of $12,860. Students graduating in Georgia had the next lowest debt levels, carrying an average of $16,568.

For-profit colleges were not included in the report because most don't provide the necessary data. However, students at these schools are typically more likely to borrow -- and in larger amounts -- than students at other institutions, the organization said.

Debt by college: Only 1,065 of the 1,913 public and private nonprofit colleges in the U.S. provided complete student debt data to the Project on Student Debt.

Of those schools, average student loan debt ranged from as little as $3,000 to as much as $61,500; with 72 colleges reporting average debt of more than $35,000.

Seventy-three colleges said more than 90% of the class of 2009 graduated with debt.

Because of the lack of data, the organization didn't rank the schools. Instead it compiled a group of high-debt and low-debt colleges -- dividing the high-debt group between public and private colleges, since public colleges typically have lower tuition and debt loads than private colleges.

Public schools with graduates who had the highest levels of debt last year include Alabama State University, Iowa State University and University of Maine. High-debt private nonprofit schools include American University, Florida Institute of Technology and Ohio Northern University.

Out of the low-debt schools surveyed, more than 1 in 3 charge tuition and fees of more than $10,000. But even some of the most selective schools in the nation boast smaller debt loads due to large endowments, which allow colleges to extend more generous amounts of aid to students in need.

Schools in the lowest average debt group included California Institute of Technology, Hampton University, CUNY Hunter College and Princeton University.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/22/pf/c...debt/index.htm

[Loki]

And once again you ignore the context: in this case, you're ignoring the fact that the unemployment rate for non-grads has also gone up.

[GGT]

And once again you ignore the context: in this case, you're ignoring the fact that the unemployment rate for non-grads has also gone up.

Stop adding your biased reading to my posts, troll.

I think the degree has to be weighed against its debt, especially private loans. Sounded great a few years ago to become a teacher, until teachers started being laid off, beginning with new hires. Those new hires sometimes had accumulated debt exceeding one year average income (over $50,000) that will take decades to pay back. Now they can't get a job, but still have to pay the loans.

[Loki]

Because someone with a degree in education can't get any job other than that of teacher.

[GGT]

Because someone with a degree in education can't get any job other than that of teacher.

And once again, you're adding your own bias to my posts. I didn't say a damn thing about the employment rate of grads vs non-grads.

[Loki]

Then how was your post relevant to the discussion?

[GGT]

Then how was your post relevant to the discussion?

I read the OP and replied with my opinion.


Is college worth it or not?

As with many non-trivial questions, the answer is probably, "It depends."

I invite you to explore different aspects of the question, from whatever perspective you prefer. There are many aspects to consider, only one of which is money.

Inspired by: http://nymag.com/news/features/colle...1-5/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/ed...lege.html?_r=2

The above links are of course about college in the US, and so there is a natural focus on money. The first article briefly touches on some other things, like what path you can take in today's world (eg. things to do before college) or what the most important points are of going to college (eg. learning to talk to girls ).

[Loki]

And the whole point of the question is to understand whether it's worth it compared to not going to college - something you seem incapable of grasping.

[GGT]

And the whole point of the question is to understand whether it's worth it compared to not going to college - something you seem incapable of grasping.

You didn't write the OP or start this thread. minx used words like explore and perspective. The term worth itself was acknowledged as a natural focus on money in the US. I stand by my post. IMO it's important to weigh the degree against debt....and the job market prospects in that field after graduation. No debt can be paid if you're unemployed, or underemployed.

College is not necessarily an either/or question, just because YOU see it that way. Some people delay entry, work minimum wage and save, to reduce debt burdens. Some do community college first, work and earn while they study, then transfer to 4 yr university when they have more funds. Often their first choice of major changes, after they realize there are no job prospects there. The people who didn't consider debt in their degree decisions, especially during recessions, can find themselves in a world of hurt.

Can you grasp that, Professor Loki?

[agamemnus]

In a typical semester, one third of the students Arum and Roksa followed for their recent book, Academically Adrift, did not take “any courses that required more than forty pages of reading per week” and half did not take “a single course that required more than twenty pages of writing.

I'll note here that 40 pages a week reading is something you'd encounter in worthless literature or history courses, or something similar. Considering that literature/history majors aren't really in demand by either students or the market, that's not really shocking. Actually I would say that 1/3rd of students taking a course that has 40 pages of reading a week is a sign of the educational imbalance (the number should be lower).

Even further, the drop-out rate is not a cause for alarm, but actually a sign of market efficiency. A college education alone really doesn't get you a good job in the US anymore... you also need experience, but there's no experience to be had so people drop out of college to save costs. Perfectly rational.

Ignoring the fact that the unemployment rate for people without a college degree is more than double the rate for college graduates.

Just please stop throwing that around. Correlation is not causation. You conveniently forget that those people with a college degree are older people with experience (who graduated 10+ years ago), and many of them are under-employed.