A client is currently paying me a rather substantial amount of money to come up with an authoritatively presented answer to this question, using BLS data and some programming. (It figures that the number crunching would take one week and the presentation layer would take three. sigh)
Spoiler: College degrees are still worth it. Some are rather substantially more worth it than others. If you feel yours isn't, you almost certainly aren't majored in engineering or (certain flavors of) geology.
I agree with you based on my intuition. I want to make a point that's not even a quibble with what you're doing (since you're working within fixed constraints) but I feel is worth raising anyways.
The BLS data that I'm familiar with are not granular enough to decisively reach the conclusion that a college degree is still worth it. For example, the BLS data do not allow you to even begin to guess if colleges are merely admitting people who could have directly entered High Paying Job X even had they not attended college.
Take Princeton, for example. Does a Princeton degree add income potential, or is it simply the case that people who get into Princeton are so smart that they have lots of income potential? The only way to conclusively know this is to identify people who were admitted to Princeton (and thus met their entry criteria) but decided not to go to college at all. (Even then, there would be selection bias here, since those choosing not to attend probably differ qualitatively from those who attended.) Then, look at standardized lifetime earnings of both cohorts. Do Princeton grads do better than Princeton admits who decided to forgo college?
The best test would be a randomized controlled trial but... heh... that's just not going to happen since there's likely harm without likely benefit if you're in the no-college cohort.
Good points, but your just speaking about innate talent regardless of a college degree. You're forgetting family and social connections regardless of talent or a degree.
True! Although the methods I'm proposing would capture those, too. (Without quantifying connections and family, the reason why wouldn't be captured, but the difference itself would be.)
If it is possible to share the results with us, I'd like to see it when you are done. I recognize that may not be possible. I think I have a good bead on the general results, but specifics are nice, and concrete charts could even be helpful for talking to college-bound seniors about what it is they need to be doing in a way that "here, let me share my intuitions" aren't.
Thanks Jerf. They've previously indicated that they'd be thrilled to have me show it off, and I'd be happy to write a "how I built this" or something for my blog linking to the results.
Fair warning: it is marketing material, in much the same sense that one of the NYT's data visualizations is marketing, except they have a business model which benefits in a more direct fashion than the NYT does.
This runs into a correlation/causation problem though. The sort of people who are interested and dedicated enough in a subject to dedicate N years of their life and a significant amount of money to pursue a college degree in that major may also have the drive to succeed in their chosen field regardless of degree (or to pursue education in other ways). I doubt this is entirely true, but it's an important effect to keep in mind.
the way I see it, is if you are doing engineering or any other technical major, then yes it still is.
but humanities etc is a waste of money
unfortunately our culture has made getting a degree a prerequisite(everyone got one), so now you need a college degree for jobs you wouldn't have needed one in the past.
before, having a college degree was a means to increase your income substantially, now it's just a checkmark that you got $40-160K in debt for.
I think your second point actually points to why the first might be wrong. There are huge ranges of jobs that a humanities degree qualifies you for that you can't get without one--- even a bunch of stuff that's unrelated to the degree, like HR or various secretarial jobs. In engineering, if you have no degree, you at least have a chance of convincing someone that you're a great engineer by doing independent work, and even large companies like Microsoft and Google do hire people without degrees. In the humanities, though, it's very hard without a degree to convince someone that you're "just as good" as other applicants who have degrees; you generally won't even get a second look.
So I'd almost say the opposite: that if you aren't going to do engineering, a degree is definitely worth it, but if you are, it might be more questionable, and depends on what exactly you want to do, and what your outside-out-school credentials are.
I find it hard to believe that a person could get the same engineering education on their own than at a good engineering university. From a practical point of view, I see what you mean, in that, an HR department weighing two candidates would probably prefer the one with a(ny) college degree. Frankly, that almost goes without saying. However, I think the same is much more true in engineering. I'm not only talking about programming shops. After all, computer science/computer engineering isn't the only form of engineering. There's material science, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, aerospace engineering, etc., and I simply can't believe that a place like Boeing would seriously consider you for an engineering position unless you have at least a bachelors in the relevant field.
Software is a rare field in that one can become competent without having a "related" college degree. You can certainly ship products without majoring in CS. On the other hand, I don't think you can build planes or bridges without a degree in aerospace or mechanical engineering.
> There are huge ranges of jobs that a humanities degree qualifies you for that you can't get without one--- even a bunch of stuff that's unrelated to the degree, like HR or various secretarial jobs.
I think that's exactly the problem. Why should that degree qualify you? It's unrelated! That's what the article and some of the comments are trying to point out: we shouldn't have careers where the college degree is treated like a checkbox instead of being a relevant indicator of your ability in the field in question. What does close examination of Chaucer or Shakespeare have to do with being a secretary? Why would someone who doesn't have a degree in Comparitive Literature make a worse secretary than someone who does? The answer is that it shouldn't.
Basically as a proxy for "is reasonably intelligent and able to apply him/herself for some period of time to achieve goals". Not necessarily a great proxy (and a very expensive one), but for a lot of semi-generic jobs it's the best currently available. At the very least, it weeds out some of the people the companies definitely don't want to hire.
Also note that the US high school diploma has been massively devalued over this period (well, Why Johnny Can't Read was published in 1955 and we're still fighting Dick and Jane and Their Running Dog Spot). So as a signal it's nearly worthless, it's not even a guarantee someone can read. A college degree is probably overkill for what a HS diploma used to provide, but it's the best thing employers have ... e.g. as far as I know it's pretty hard to graduate from a real college without knowing how to read.
ADDED: The Instapundit, a law professor at the University of Tennessee, in the context of how grim the situation is for graduates of non-elite law schools, comments "With a college degree now functioning, essentially, the way a high-school diploma used to, a law degree is the closest graduate equivalent to the traditional liberal-arts B.A." (http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/101311/).
Is a Hitachi EC25E compressor with NV45AB2S nailgun worth it? That would depend upon whether or not I intend to be a roofer.
I was always suspicious of the assumption that a college degree was a default requirement for success in the professional world. That is -- in part -- why I rejected the notion and decided to drop out of college after year one.
A college degree is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. Too many educators assume that if you are "smart", you must go to college. As if the degree you receive is some sort of product that stands alone. The fact is, you can't sell a degree on an open market, because the knowledge you gain isn't transferrable. Circle back to the old argument of whether $50k would be better spent on a 4-year degree or some form of traditional investment. The only factual answer is "it depends".
When you go to college, you buy experience, knowledge, and a certificate that says, "I know how to see something through to the end." In my view, the significance of the latter has diminished significantly in recent years. When college becomes something you do by default, the effort is no longer superlative; it is average. This puts the emphasis more on the knowledge aspect, and sure enough, knowledge heavy degrees deliver more value.
I once had dinner with a client where one of the VPs asked me where I went to college. When I replied that I had attended for one year, then decided my efforts were better spent elsewhere, she replied with, "Oh, you seemed smarter than that." It stung a little, but in the conversation that followed, the majority of the executives with which I was meeting came down in favor of my decision, rather than against it.
This conversation taught me a valuable lesson. Doing what everyone tells you is the "right thing to do" isn't always the best answer. There are no one-size-fits-all answers to life. You have to evaluate each scenario objectively based on the circumstances at that moment, then reach your own conclusions.
Political protip: Answer his question. "I went to X University". Because... you did, didn't you?
And if he asks you what you majored in: "I studied Y. But somehow I ended up in this job! hearty laugh".
I have a degree but it amazes me that people who didn't go to college are never able to glide past this one. It seems like the only people who really ever bring up dropping out is the dropout. Only a very special kind of asshole will continue to press you about graduation dates etc.
Having said that,... I have a sneaking suspicion that people who dropped out like bringing it up just to say that they dropped out. You like bringing it up and debating it and then having people "agree" with you eventually, because you seek validation for the decisions you made.
It's called having a chip on your shoulder and the guy who said "oh you seemed smarter than that" was clearly fucking with you cause he's seen it a million times before.
So I should have lied about it? And that makes me the one with the chip on my shoulder?
I don't normally bring up the topic of my college decision in business settings, but it was relevant to the topic of the article. Also, in the scenario presented in the anecdote, I answered the college question very casually with, "I didn't finish college." I only argued the point when I was insulted.
Nothing in those answers is a lie or not true. It's just an answer that conveniently avoids getting insulted at a table full of people higher than you in the social hierarchy.
Maybe you just don't give a shit about walking into social boobytraps but to me learning how to speak to command respect is sort of an important part of my personal development.
Funny, I hear that explanation a lot from teenagers, and even they know it's a flawed argument. Maybe we just part ideological ways on this matter, but I don't have any problems gaining people's trust and respect through outright honesty.
At the time of the scenario in my anecdote, I was in my early twenties. Since then, my approach has changed somewhat, but I'm never disingenuous with my answers to questions.
I've found that the fallout from offering weaselly answers is often far worse than the results of an upfront disagreement. And even if you do agree to disagree, I'd rather have it happen early on so neither of us waste our time.
I disagree. Why would you claim something falsely? It's possible they wouldn't press further, but it's also possible the person would say "Oh, X University! Was there Z when you went?"
Now, you could go on and tell me about how it's just that easy to make up something else, like, "Hmm, I don't remember that," but I learned a long time ago that making up facts about yourself can easily bite you in the ass. As I've grown older, I generally try to steer away from doing this. Taking the high road and being honest doesn't mean you have a chip on your shoulder.
The only "clearly fucking with" I got out of the grandparent post was the degreed person taking a jab at the non-degreed person, and it's not the first time I've seen a person with a lack of higher education insulted offhandedly that way. It's almost like people with degrees have a chip on their shoulder, or something... (I kid).
Now, to agree slightly with your post, I do sometimes mention that I have no college education (nor did I finish high school). At the same time, I am paid more than many people who do have degrees, but I am limited from many jobs because I lack a degree of any sort. However, I don't try to debate whether my way is better, because I know that learning works differently for different people.
As for validation? You may have a point there, but it's amazing to ME that so many people fail to realize that you can learn almost anything yourself. I don't think it's wrong to be proud that you gained the same (or better, being real-world experience) knowledge that another person had to pay $35,000 to learn.
Please don't think I'm being dismissive of college education though. I miss out on a great many things simply because it doesn't fall into my area of interest (classic literature and ancient history being prime examples). By getting a degree, you ensure that you're at least passingly familiar with the same basics as everyone else.
I do intend to go back to school eventually, but I have very little pressing need to earn a specific degree. If things keep going the way of MIT and free online courseware, I may skip the degree portion and gain personal enrichment without paying an institution for the privilege.
Nothing about those answers are false. It's a truthful answer designed to promote good will, not a lie. It's called having social skills.
His inability to play this game got him a stinging insult in front of a bunch of the execs' peers. Way to go dude. I'm just offering advice on how to avoid getting socially "stung", not on how to live your life in general.
> ability to learn anything yourself
I agree, I majored in economics and I'm a search engineer making over 200k. My degree is nearly worthless to me.
Maybe it's just that I don't feel lacking a degree is something to be ashamed of or glossed over. It's easy to get defensive when something you do is outside the norm and you get called out for it.
That may be the case for some, but I know others simply believe in full disclosure. When people ask 'what college did you go to', what they really mean is 'what college did you graduate from'.
Many who didn't graduate simply don't want to misrepresent that, and later be perceived as someone who isn't forthcoming or entirely trustworthy, or who is ashamed enough to withhold obviously pertinent information.
Since they lack the cred of a college degree, their rep is even more important to maintain.
Think we're taking undergrad only here, not graduate degrees. Though I suspect the general finding probably still applies - science/engineering/math type grad degrees pay off more than others.
Funny, because this particular article seems to argue the opposite. Two places in particular stand out to me where the article raised the specter of automation and outsourcing to scare people away from engineering-type jobs:
>Meanwhile, well-paying white-collar jobs such as computer programming have become vulnerable to outsourcing to foreign countries.
and
>But he offers this advice: "Don't train yourself or your children [in work] that a computer can do or a smart kid in China or India can do. Because that's ferocious competition."
Why the gloom and doom over science/engineering/math fields, when it's those fields that other articles have pointed to as the few with strong job prospects? There is some serious inconsistency between this article and other articles that have been posted around here lately, and the general tone leads me to believe this was a last minute fluff piece put together by someone who wasn't really paying very close attention.
It's interesting that the value of a degree is measured in increases in income later on in your life. The traditional role of universities was as a place of learning and for the advancement of knowledge through academia, not as a social engineering tool.
Well, as long as universities still do that (and they do, by and large), what's wrong with them extending their mission to prepare people for our current more complicated world where a lot of people need to learn more stuff than any normal high school will teach?
My Silent Generation father got a business degree at the University of Missouri in the mid-50s and that made a big difference in the '60s (and beyond) after he did his service in the Navy. E.g. he was able to take a company public and make it more successful, where in an extreme and unusual counter example, some quasi-competitors status wise he'd gone to high school with didn't have the skills needed to keep their company afloat and tried pulling tricks that ended with them getting some vacation time in Club Fed.
If you of education as teaching you how to get what you want, then go ahead and run the numbers to decide. I believe it's better to think of it as helping you learn what to want. In that case the numbers won't help you much and that the humanities are probably undervalued.
Case in point. What is the value of studying history? Nobody is going to pay you to vote to avoid the mistakes of the past. So it will never show up in a study.
There is a difference between a college degree and a college education.
While I can say with a degree of confidence that experience has given me enough of a skillset to hold my own against most college grads, there are things that I wish I'd learned in an academic setting.
34 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 56.8 ms ] threadSpoiler: College degrees are still worth it. Some are rather substantially more worth it than others. If you feel yours isn't, you almost certainly aren't majored in engineering or (certain flavors of) geology.
The BLS data that I'm familiar with are not granular enough to decisively reach the conclusion that a college degree is still worth it. For example, the BLS data do not allow you to even begin to guess if colleges are merely admitting people who could have directly entered High Paying Job X even had they not attended college.
Take Princeton, for example. Does a Princeton degree add income potential, or is it simply the case that people who get into Princeton are so smart that they have lots of income potential? The only way to conclusively know this is to identify people who were admitted to Princeton (and thus met their entry criteria) but decided not to go to college at all. (Even then, there would be selection bias here, since those choosing not to attend probably differ qualitatively from those who attended.) Then, look at standardized lifetime earnings of both cohorts. Do Princeton grads do better than Princeton admits who decided to forgo college?
The best test would be a randomized controlled trial but... heh... that's just not going to happen since there's likely harm without likely benefit if you're in the no-college cohort.
Fair warning: it is marketing material, in much the same sense that one of the NYT's data visualizations is marketing, except they have a business model which benefits in a more direct fashion than the NYT does.
but humanities etc is a waste of money
unfortunately our culture has made getting a degree a prerequisite(everyone got one), so now you need a college degree for jobs you wouldn't have needed one in the past.
before, having a college degree was a means to increase your income substantially, now it's just a checkmark that you got $40-160K in debt for.
So I'd almost say the opposite: that if you aren't going to do engineering, a degree is definitely worth it, but if you are, it might be more questionable, and depends on what exactly you want to do, and what your outside-out-school credentials are.
Software is a rare field in that one can become competent without having a "related" college degree. You can certainly ship products without majoring in CS. On the other hand, I don't think you can build planes or bridges without a degree in aerospace or mechanical engineering.
I think that's exactly the problem. Why should that degree qualify you? It's unrelated! That's what the article and some of the comments are trying to point out: we shouldn't have careers where the college degree is treated like a checkbox instead of being a relevant indicator of your ability in the field in question. What does close examination of Chaucer or Shakespeare have to do with being a secretary? Why would someone who doesn't have a degree in Comparitive Literature make a worse secretary than someone who does? The answer is that it shouldn't.
ADDED: The Instapundit, a law professor at the University of Tennessee, in the context of how grim the situation is for graduates of non-elite law schools, comments "With a college degree now functioning, essentially, the way a high-school diploma used to, a law degree is the closest graduate equivalent to the traditional liberal-arts B.A." (http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/101311/).
Hmmm.
I was always suspicious of the assumption that a college degree was a default requirement for success in the professional world. That is -- in part -- why I rejected the notion and decided to drop out of college after year one.
A college degree is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. Too many educators assume that if you are "smart", you must go to college. As if the degree you receive is some sort of product that stands alone. The fact is, you can't sell a degree on an open market, because the knowledge you gain isn't transferrable. Circle back to the old argument of whether $50k would be better spent on a 4-year degree or some form of traditional investment. The only factual answer is "it depends".
When you go to college, you buy experience, knowledge, and a certificate that says, "I know how to see something through to the end." In my view, the significance of the latter has diminished significantly in recent years. When college becomes something you do by default, the effort is no longer superlative; it is average. This puts the emphasis more on the knowledge aspect, and sure enough, knowledge heavy degrees deliver more value.
I once had dinner with a client where one of the VPs asked me where I went to college. When I replied that I had attended for one year, then decided my efforts were better spent elsewhere, she replied with, "Oh, you seemed smarter than that." It stung a little, but in the conversation that followed, the majority of the executives with which I was meeting came down in favor of my decision, rather than against it.
This conversation taught me a valuable lesson. Doing what everyone tells you is the "right thing to do" isn't always the best answer. There are no one-size-fits-all answers to life. You have to evaluate each scenario objectively based on the circumstances at that moment, then reach your own conclusions.
Political protip: Answer his question. "I went to X University". Because... you did, didn't you?
And if he asks you what you majored in: "I studied Y. But somehow I ended up in this job! hearty laugh".
I have a degree but it amazes me that people who didn't go to college are never able to glide past this one. It seems like the only people who really ever bring up dropping out is the dropout. Only a very special kind of asshole will continue to press you about graduation dates etc.
Having said that,... I have a sneaking suspicion that people who dropped out like bringing it up just to say that they dropped out. You like bringing it up and debating it and then having people "agree" with you eventually, because you seek validation for the decisions you made.
It's called having a chip on your shoulder and the guy who said "oh you seemed smarter than that" was clearly fucking with you cause he's seen it a million times before.
I don't normally bring up the topic of my college decision in business settings, but it was relevant to the topic of the article. Also, in the scenario presented in the anecdote, I answered the college question very casually with, "I didn't finish college." I only argued the point when I was insulted.
Nothing in those answers is a lie or not true. It's just an answer that conveniently avoids getting insulted at a table full of people higher than you in the social hierarchy.
Maybe you just don't give a shit about walking into social boobytraps but to me learning how to speak to command respect is sort of an important part of my personal development.
At the time of the scenario in my anecdote, I was in my early twenties. Since then, my approach has changed somewhat, but I'm never disingenuous with my answers to questions.
I've found that the fallout from offering weaselly answers is often far worse than the results of an upfront disagreement. And even if you do agree to disagree, I'd rather have it happen early on so neither of us waste our time.
Now, you could go on and tell me about how it's just that easy to make up something else, like, "Hmm, I don't remember that," but I learned a long time ago that making up facts about yourself can easily bite you in the ass. As I've grown older, I generally try to steer away from doing this. Taking the high road and being honest doesn't mean you have a chip on your shoulder.
The only "clearly fucking with" I got out of the grandparent post was the degreed person taking a jab at the non-degreed person, and it's not the first time I've seen a person with a lack of higher education insulted offhandedly that way. It's almost like people with degrees have a chip on their shoulder, or something... (I kid).
Now, to agree slightly with your post, I do sometimes mention that I have no college education (nor did I finish high school). At the same time, I am paid more than many people who do have degrees, but I am limited from many jobs because I lack a degree of any sort. However, I don't try to debate whether my way is better, because I know that learning works differently for different people.
As for validation? You may have a point there, but it's amazing to ME that so many people fail to realize that you can learn almost anything yourself. I don't think it's wrong to be proud that you gained the same (or better, being real-world experience) knowledge that another person had to pay $35,000 to learn.
Please don't think I'm being dismissive of college education though. I miss out on a great many things simply because it doesn't fall into my area of interest (classic literature and ancient history being prime examples). By getting a degree, you ensure that you're at least passingly familiar with the same basics as everyone else.
I do intend to go back to school eventually, but I have very little pressing need to earn a specific degree. If things keep going the way of MIT and free online courseware, I may skip the degree portion and gain personal enrichment without paying an institution for the privilege.
Nothing about those answers are false. It's a truthful answer designed to promote good will, not a lie. It's called having social skills.
His inability to play this game got him a stinging insult in front of a bunch of the execs' peers. Way to go dude. I'm just offering advice on how to avoid getting socially "stung", not on how to live your life in general.
> ability to learn anything yourself
I agree, I majored in economics and I'm a search engineer making over 200k. My degree is nearly worthless to me.
Maybe it's just that I don't feel lacking a degree is something to be ashamed of or glossed over. It's easy to get defensive when something you do is outside the norm and you get called out for it.
Many who didn't graduate simply don't want to misrepresent that, and later be perceived as someone who isn't forthcoming or entirely trustworthy, or who is ashamed enough to withhold obviously pertinent information.
Since they lack the cred of a college degree, their rep is even more important to maintain.
Do you think Eric Schmidt regrets his decision to pursue a Ph.D.?
and
>But he offers this advice: "Don't train yourself or your children [in work] that a computer can do or a smart kid in China or India can do. Because that's ferocious competition."
Why the gloom and doom over science/engineering/math fields, when it's those fields that other articles have pointed to as the few with strong job prospects? There is some serious inconsistency between this article and other articles that have been posted around here lately, and the general tone leads me to believe this was a last minute fluff piece put together by someone who wasn't really paying very close attention.
My Silent Generation father got a business degree at the University of Missouri in the mid-50s and that made a big difference in the '60s (and beyond) after he did his service in the Navy. E.g. he was able to take a company public and make it more successful, where in an extreme and unusual counter example, some quasi-competitors status wise he'd gone to high school with didn't have the skills needed to keep their company afloat and tried pulling tricks that ended with them getting some vacation time in Club Fed.
Case in point. What is the value of studying history? Nobody is going to pay you to vote to avoid the mistakes of the past. So it will never show up in a study.
While I can say with a degree of confidence that experience has given me enough of a skillset to hold my own against most college grads, there are things that I wish I'd learned in an academic setting.