Is it prudent to go to college?

TheHedoMinimalist

Deciding whether or not to go to college is a major decision that people have to make in life. But, is it prudent for most people to go to college? I think we first have to explore the reasons for why most people choose to go to college. I think there are 4 major camps of reason for wanting to go to college:

1. Finance motivated: some people believe that going to college would put them in a better financial situation in the long term.

2. “Dream job” motivated: some people believe that going to college would allow them to obtain a job which would be preferable to any job you might obtain without a college degree

3. Relationship motivated: some people go to college in hopes of meeting their future spouse or making lots of friends that they couldn’t make in the workforce. Sometimes people wish to go to college simply because they want to party and have fun.

4. Education motivated: some people go to college to learn new knowledge and obtain an education. I didn’t include this category in the original OP but several people on this thread have stated it as a reason for why it might be a good idea to go to college.

I think there might be acceptable alternatives for all 4 motivations:

1. When considered the cost of going to college, one must not only consider the cost of tuition but also the cost of the lost income due to the inability to work full time and having to focus on school work. In addition, when calculating how much extra income you can expect after graduating from college, one must consider that a big reason why college graduates tend to earn more money than high school graduates is due to the fact that the average college graduate has a higher IQ and is probably more hardworking. It’s not clear how beneficial a degree is to increasing income once you adjust for those variables. An alternative strategy to improving your financial situation in the future is to live with your parents and work full time for about 5 years. Assuming that you’re saving most of your money, you should have enough money to buy a house without a mortgage in 5 years. Your expenses should go downhill once you own a house. Of course, you could also offer to pay a very cheap rent to your parents if they are not ok with you living with them for free. Would this strategy work better than going to college to insure a financially secure future?

2. Instead of trying to obtain a supposedly enjoyable job with a college degree, it might be a better strategy to save money and live modestly. Then, you can either retire early or work a part time job which might not quite be as enjoyable as your dream job but tolerable nonetheless. I think working a part time job is probably better since you don’t want to be completely unaccustomed to working in case you are forced to do so again. Either way, I think increasing your leisure time might be better because it seems like there is no guarantee that you will enjoy your “dream job”. Sometimes these dream jobs can prove to be a disappointment in reality so we have to be careful not to over-romanticize those jobs. It might be more beneficial to have more time to do hobbies which correspond to these jobs. For example, instead of trying to become a philosophy teacher, it might be better to simply do philosophy for fun. If you have lots of free time, then you can spend it on meaningful hobbies which you enjoy. Of course, we should also remember that there’s no guarantee that you will succeed in obtaining a job that you really like. Is acquiring more leisure time more beneficial than trying to acquire an enjoyable job which doesn’t pay very well with a college degree?

3. It’s not clear to me why people would go to college to meet people. Are colleges better places to meet people than anywhere else? Could you not meet college people without going to college?

4. It might be better for someone to educate themselves by reading books and watching YouTube lecture series from actual elite universities. The great thing about self-education is that you get to choose what you would like to learn about. This allows you to be specialized in topics which may not even be taught in universities. For example, I spent a lot of time studying prudential value theory. It would be really rare for me to find a university course specifically on prudential value theory but there is a decent literature written on the topic online. Could self-education be better or comparable to university education?

Michael

3. Going to uni is great for meeting people. Classes, halls, social activities, etc. It’s so much easier than when just a worker. This was the only thing I gained from uni. My philosophy degree is pretty much worthless.

TheHedoMinimalist

↪Michael

Fair enough, I suppose for some people it’s easier to find friends at university. Although, I actually had an easier time making friends at work than at college myself. It might have been because I went to community college instead of uni where people tend not to be as social with each other. I think it’s partly due to the diversity of people that are present in the workplace and in community colleges compared to the mostly youthful population in universities. I guess most people prefer to spend time with those around their age. I always preferred to befriend people who are much older than me so I tend to make friends more easily at work. I think another reason might be that most people in the workplace already have a family and so they are just not as interested in additional company as a university student might be.

Hanover

This was the only thing I gained from uni. My philosophy degree is pretty much worthless. — Michael

It allowed you to land a job here as a moderator, so there's that.

Hanover

I greatly value my philosophy degree. It was well worth it. An education makes you a better person.

TheHedoMinimalist

I greatly value my philosophy degree. It was well worth it. An education makes you a better person. — Hanover

But, does one have to go to university in order to be educated? Is it not possible to educate yourself by watching lecture series on YouTube and reading books?

Shawn

To go to college for a degree in philosophy, doesn't make sense in my mind.

Hanover

But, does one have to go to university in order to be educated? Is it not possible to educate yourself by watching lecture series on YouTube and reading books? — TheHedoMinimalist

It's possible to self educate for some. For me, I greatly benefited by being taught, discussing, and asking questions.

Hanover

To go to college for a degree in philosophy, doesn't make sense in my mind. — Wallows

What career advice would you provide? And with your answer, you may heal thyself.

Shawn

What career advice would you provide? And with your answer, you may heal thyself. — Hanover

Anything but philosophy.

Hanover

Anything but philosophy. — Wallows

Damn it! That's the only thing I got a degree in and I'm now to learn it's the only thing I shouldn't have gotten a degree in.

Truth is there's only 2 things a philosophy degree is good for: chicks and money. Got a basement full of them. It's the curse @Michael and I will take to our grave.

Shawn

↪Hanover

You're a lawyer, so what you bitchen about?

TheHedoMinimalist

Anything but philosophy — Wallows

....or psychology, sociology, gender studies, economics, political science, foreign language, English literature, art, music theory, etc. I think it’s probably not worth getting any type of degree in humanities. Although, I do think humanities are valuable to study. I think it’s more enjoyable to study it in your free time and choose exactly what you want to study.

Hanover

You're a lawyer, so what you bitchen about? — Wallows

The skill set is the same for lawyers and philosophers. It's a good undergraduate major if you plan to go to law school. Had I not gone to law school, I'd have been a thinker for hire and made a shitload. Maybe 2 shitloads if I ratcheted up my work ethic.

Hanover

Anyway, look up the statistics for those interested. There's a direct correlation between level of degree obtained and earning capacity. Staying in school is a no-brainer.

TheHedoMinimalist

Anyway, look up the statistics for those interested. There's a direct correlation between level of degree obtained and earning capacity. Staying in school is a no-brainer. — Hanover

I think the statistics can be very misleading though since correlation does not necessarily imply causation. It could be that the reason why people who go to college make more money is because they are more intelligent and industrious on average compared to those who do not. Of course, I don’t think university education is what made them intelligent or industrious in the first place. I think genetics account for most of that. If you take a person who is average in both intelligence and industriousness, then would he necessarily have higher lifetime earning after he pays off his tuition? Of course, we should also consider that an average person is at risk of dropping out of college and end up stuck with the tuition. For example, I bet it’s not fun to be the guy who ends up dropping out of law school with heavy debt.

alcontali

Deciding whether or not to go to college is a major decision that people have to make in life. But, is it prudent for most people to go to college? — TheHedoMinimalist

No.

The first thing will be to pick a subject for your degree, while the very concept of subject as some kind of subdivision of the world of knowledge is highly nonsensical.

Let's pick an example: psychology, economics,and sociology. No matter what definition you pick for these subjects, these definitions will highly overlap. Hence, they collectively do not form a legitimate partition of their superset, which itself is in turn not a valid partition of the domain of knowledge.

Would you want to study with people who do not even get the very basic structure right of what they are teaching? I certainly do not recommend it, because at the highest level, i.e. the most visible structuring of what they do, they already get it completely wrong.

When you read a typical curriculum, you can only decide that the people who composed it, are utterly incompetent. Hence, you will learn nothing from them, except for becoming incompetent yourself.

BC

↪TheHedoMinimalist

College was extremely valuable to me as a means to personal growth (intellectual, interpersonal, social, all that). College helped me get jobs, some of which were great, but it doesn't seem to have enhanced my earning power that much.

What plan in life after high school will pay off the best depends on a lot of factors.

How ambitious one is
How wealthy (or poor), how socially connected (or unconnected) one's parents are
What one's long term objectives are: stay on the farm? play it safe, work for civil service, retire? get rich quick and then get richer?
and so on.

One thing to remember: All colleges are in the business of getting students to buy their services. It never was in colleges' interests to tell students that college may not pay off financially.

TheHedoMinimalist

One thing to remember: All colleges are in the business of getting students to buy their services. It never was in colleges' interests to tell students that college may not pay off financially. — Bitter Crank

This is the smartest thing I’ve heard on this thread so far. I really wish people would understand that about colleges and also high schools. I feel many high schools are trying to convince too many students to go to college. This is because high schools are often evaluated on their SAT or ACT scores and on how many of their students end up going to college. This creates a complete conflict of interest to encourage students to always go to college. This is why you will always see these misleading charts that show how much more college graduates are earning compared to hs graduates without isolating other variables.

Hanover

This is the smartest thing I’ve heard on this thread so far. I really wish people would understand that about colleges and also high schools. I feel many high schools are trying to convince too many students to go to college. — TheHedoMinimalist

How does this conclusion follow? BC advocated going to college, just for different reasons (intellectual development instead of increased earning capacity). Why should high schools not try to convince students to go to college if it will increase their personal growth and intellectual development?

It seems you're searching diligently for a justification to advise others that college is a bad decision, but very rarely is it. You still end up with a better type of job, associate with more intelligent people, make more money, and it will expand your intellectual horizons. Be careful with your loans and what you spend, but it's well worth it.

Shawn

Just a reality check. With a BA in anything but engineering or some hard science, you're not going to find a "great job" nowadays. My friend went to Berkley to study economics. He was shafted, coming as a transfer student, which aren't considered for internships due to no academic history with the institution rather than the people who got in straight after high school. Upon graduating and applying to something like 100 places, he never got a response. I suggested that he apply to the IRS or some government job, and given that he is a libertarian, he laughed. To be honest, he was above those jobs. So, he started his own business importing cheap supplements from China, and selling them here in the US, and was making close to 100k a month. Go figure.

And the whole, "meeting intelligent people at college" is a joke, unless you get into somewhere like Stanford, MIT, or Cal Tech, where the average IQ is above the norm, in some cases significantly.

Shawn

Given that this is a philosophy forum, and I'm assuming that the OP is talking about philosophy, then I'm going to throw my two cents out there and state that if anyone is well acquainted with the major philosophers of the past, such as Wittgenstein (in my case), the vast majority of them would advocate not going to college to study philosophy.

BC

And the whole, "meeting intelligent people at college" is a joke, unless you get into somewhere like Stanford, MIT, or Cal Tech, where the average IQ is above the norm, in some cases significantly. — Wallows

Oh, come on. It isn't just at Stanford, MIT, or Cal Tech that one will find intelligent people. Sour grapes?

So, he started his own business importing cheap supplements from China, and selling them here in the US, and was making close to 100k a month. Go figure. — Wallows

Well, gee whiz, if he is making close to 100k a month he must really be a wonderful person! And by selling cheap supplements of possibly dubious value. He might have done as well by beginning his importer business right out of high school.

It seems you're searching diligently for a justification to advise others that college is a bad decision, but very rarely is it. You still end up with a better type of job, associate with more intelligent people, make more money, and it will expand your intellectual horizons. Be careful with your loans and what you spend, but it's well worth it. — Hanover

Where college is a bad idea is the situation of people taking out loans to attend college (whatever college), for poorly motivated reasons, and then not finishing. They don't have a diploma, they have new debt, and no greater likelihood of a better life.

tim wood

On graduation, we graduates were "welcome[d] to the community of educated persons." That seems to me the heart of it. Unfortunately, there are very few colleges in the world. I mean this in the sense of places of learning where students in general can give themselves over to the set of tasks to be done to be an educated person. What most colleges now do is train technicians (broadly understood). A technician is simply, just, and merely that. Thus a great doctor or lawyer or architect may indeed be great at his or her trade and benefit community, even the world. But as many of us discover to our horror, there is no guarantee these same persons are educated. They may know what they can or cannot do in terms of their expertise, for example, but not what they should or should not do, as human beings.

Do we need the technician? Certainly. But we also need educated persons as well, and while indeed there are people whose goal is to be educated, where do they get that, and what group is tasked with providing guidance to achieve that?

Terrapin Station

Definitely it's better to go, and it's better to get a graduate degree if you can. Do it as soon as you can and get it over with. Just try to avoid going into too much debt for it--go to a school your family can afford (in conjunction with whatever scholarships, etc. you can get). If you can stomach it--if you're at all interested in something relevant, major in something with more practical value career-wise, just steer that in the direction of a career you'd actually be interested in.

But even if you take something less practical--like philosophy, merely having a degree (or degrees) will help your job prospects. As long as you don't go into too much debt for it, it's not going to hurt anything to go. It will only help you. I know it sucks thinking about 4-8 more years of school once you're finally done with high school, but the time flies by. When you're 40 or 50 the time will seem like nothing, and you'll be glad you did it.

If you'd be interested in military service, that's another good option that can help you with your schooling--you'll get training in the military that will help your career prospects, plus they'll help (or completely) pay for university outside of the military, too. That's something else that you don't have to do long term, but the benefits will be with you for a lifetime. And if you do decide to do it longer term, you can do 20 years or so and semi-retire already. You'll at least have a secondary income to supplement whatever else you decide to do with the rest of your life.

BC

When you're 40 or 50 the time will seem like nothing, and you'll be glad you did it. — Terrapin Station

Let's see. I finish college at 24 (BA, MA) and then 16 to 26 years later I'll finally be glad I did it. Is this really the right approach?

BC

↪tim wood

Over the last x number of years, I have known several high school graduates who were exceptionally well educated. They read, they discussed, they inquired, they engaged. They tended to not be well employed (or employed at all) but they had managed to become educated people.

Along with these people, there is another batch of people who went to college and became exceptionally well educated. They read, they discussed, they inquired, they engaged. Some of them were well employed, some not.

The difference between the well educated and the not so well educated is the degree to which they read, discussed, inquired, and engaged.

Terrapin Station

16 to 26 years later — Bitter Crank

the time will seem like nothing then.

I added "you'll be glad you did it" rather than being 40 and 50 and thinking about maybe trying to go to school or doing something with your life at that point (which is what some people do if they wound up working at McDonald's or something like that for 20-30 years).

TheHedoMinimalist

It seems you're searching diligently for a justification to advise others that college is a bad decision, but very rarely is it. You still end up with a better type of job, associate with more intelligent people, make more money, and it will expand your intellectual horizons. Be careful with your loans and what you spend, but it's well worth it. — Hanover

Do you think going to college is good idea for those who end up dropping out and with lots of student loan debt? I’m asking this mainly because you said that college is “very rarely” a bad decision. Yet, dropping out of college happens pretty often and it seems to have a worse outcome than simply choosing not to go to college. I’ll grant you that I might be wrong about it being a bad decision for the average person with an IQ of 100, and average industriousness. My level of confidence on this view is maybe like 20% certainty. But, my level of confidence on it being bad for the average person who drops out is more like 90%.

TheHedoMinimalist

And the whole, "meeting intelligent people at college" is a joke, unless you get into somewhere like Stanford, MIT, or Cal Tech, where the average IQ is above the norm, in some cases significantly. — Wallows

Very valid point as well. The IQ of an average uni student is probably only like one standard deviation above the IQ of the workforce. Instead, you are more likely to meet some pretentious intellectual wannabe in uni who fails to recognize his ignorance.

TheHedoMinimalist

But we also need educated persons as well, and while indeed there are people whose goal is to be educated, where do they get that, and what group is tasked with providing guidance to achieve that? — tim wood

Is it perhaps possible to effectively educate yourself online and find a community of educated persons there?

Is it prudent to go to college?

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