That implies that college is only important for skill transfer towards an occupation. Historically, part of college was to help an individual grow personally and intellectually, to learn not just what to think, but how to think clearly, in order to better engage with civil society as an active participant.
It's always a little off-putting when I see people suggest that higher education is just for a job, and discount the importance of the above. Education that teaches you how to work but not how to think is part of how you get people believing things like vaccines are bad.
Trade schools are awesome, not arguing that, but so is critical thinking.
The viewpoint that college is a place for vocational education seems to be a very common viewpoint here on HN, a similar viewpoint seems to be that it's normal and easy to pack your life up and relocate so XYZ city because cost of living is low and wages are high, or some other reason. I guess being a tech-centred community this is to be expected.
I don't know about others, but for me university was an important experience as a place where I could grow as a person. It's a time where you get a few years to figure it all out before you spend the next 45 years working. Even if I could've done a 1 year course and then jumped straight into working full time, I wouldn't want to do that, and I don't think people should necessarily do that. There's more to life than getting a good qualification and getting a job that pays well.
I earn more than practically everybody in my friend group, yet I'm no happier than they are. I'm not more fulfilled in my life because I have a piece of paper that says I'm good with computers.
I personally found that 13 (5-18) whole years of education was more than enough time to determine, at least academically, what I wanted to do in life. If you want to 'find yourself' take a gap year and do some self-study or self-reflection, without paying the inflated fees. Heck you can do a degree and still attend lectures in a different course even if you are not enrolled, if you seek to broaden your horizons.
Did you need the university framework to grow as a person, or maybe it was the independence, that allowed that growth?
Academically I knew what I wanted to do when I finished high school. I wanted to be a software engineer, and I became one.
It sound super fucking corny, but when I left home at 18, I didn't really know who I was as a person. University really helped me find that.
It's not just the independence, but the fact that at university you have a lot of free time, and you have a lot of opportunities to meet and interact with people from different backgrounds, who have different interests to you. I don't want to spend my days hanging out with a bunch of software engineers. I'm actually proud of the fact that in my circle of friends, I don't know anyone who's a software engineer. I actually hate talking about software or computers outside of work, I spend 40+ hours a week doing that shit, I want to do anything that doesn't involve software engineering for the other 128 hours of the week.
> I'm actually proud of the fact that in my circle of friends, I don't know anyone who's a software engineer.
Would you only know software engineers if you hadn't gone to university? I did not attend university and did not know another software engineer (outside of interacting with some online like on HN) until about 15 years into my career when a good friend started dating one. It does not really seem like the norm to only know software engineers. We're a pretty small segment of the population (~0.8% of the workforce).
The fact that my friends aren't software engineers is a bit tangental to the fact that I went to university, as I moved country recently and had to build a new circle of friends.
But I do know people who's entire circle of friends is programmers and tech people. I guess if they're happy, then they're happy, but it's not for me. I enjoy my job, but there are other things I enjoy more.
Fair point about your experience but at the same time some people hate(ed) their formal educational experience and/or had to work constantly through college.
The idea that college is a place to find yourself is mostly a statement of immense privilege. I grew up upper middle class (professional parents with masters) and I didn’t spend a moment in college finding myself, I spent most of it working or networking or sleeping. My folks paid for my CS degree from a state school, but even looking at the opportunity cost I’m not sure if anybody but the already wealthy or those at elite institutions can use 4 years to do anything but try to make $180k out of college - and despite all my efforts I failed at that.
> no happier
The other side isn’t better. I make less than most of my friends and they, by virtue of independent wealth or higher income or elite status, are significantly happier than me.
Something is wrong with your analysis. Lots of below upper middle class folks report "finding themselves" in college, and most people don't earn $180k out of college regardless.
> I make less than most of my friends and they, by virtue of independent wealth or higher income or elite status, are significantly happier than me.
I'm not really in the "money is irrelevant" bucket but this doesn't look like a monetary problem you're facing here.
Seems like you overtuned things and hit a lot of diminishing returns, where you worked hard but didn't see much for it, but now you assume people who work less hard have seen even less, but that's not actually always the case because well we are told the world is unfair quite often, yet in cases like work we for some reason decide not to believe it.
> Seems like you overtuned things and hit a lot of diminishing returns, where you worked hard but didn't see much for it, but now you assume people who work less hard have seen even less
I know for a fact people who have worked less hard have more...but again, mostly at better schools, or have wealthier backgrounds or are just plain luckier than me.
I guess the real problem is I'm still a failure no matter how much effort I put in.
Probably both. I"m just angry that I had to work hard for [relatively] little when I could have just done nothing for 4 years and been in the same spot or better.
Maybe it's different in the USA, but in New Zealand, in between my student loan and a part time job, I was able to get by just fine.
Everyone else I know was in the same situation. We spent 4 years partying, hanging out, and having a good time.
I'm aware that it is a position of privilege to be able to say that university is a place to find yourself, but it's not a position of immense privilege at all in New Zealand, or most of the western world for that matter.
These days, I earn enough that I generally don't worry about money. I check my bank balance on payday to see how much I've got, and don't worry about it for the next month. I'm no happier than I was when I had to check my balance every time I went to the shops, when I had $5 to last me 2 days to payday. Sure, I'm less stressed, but I'm not happier.
The point is that you can thing "classic college experience" as a package of two things, one is the skills that transfer towards an occupation, and the second is the self-improvement part. But those are two separate things - they're both very nice and useful, however, the first is something that's a need for people to be able to function productively in our society (and thus we might reasonably want to ensure that a large portion of society gets it), and the latter is somewhat of a luxury, which is nice to have but if we can't afford to provide it (and it seems that we can't, not for everyone - at least if you take not only the cost of education but also on living expenses for all these years while not working) then not everybody should get it.
Spending an extra year or two on growing personally and intellectually costs comparably to a luxury car. It'd also be nice for everyone to literally drive a luxury car, but for most people it makes sense to drive something cheaper and more practical, rather than borrowing and spending that much resources on it; and in a similar manner for most people it makes sense to get practical education instead of "buying" in addition to that a year or two of self-improvement that you can't really afford.
> Historically, part of college was to help an individual grow personally and intellectually, to learn not just what to think, but how to think clearly, in order to better engage with civil society as an active participant.
Do you mean elementary school? Historically, that is the level of schooling that was provided to all citizens to learn how to think and allow them to become active participants in a civil society. Although it is debatable of how successful it has been at that in modern times.
Historically, college was reserved as a finishing school for the wealthy to learn the social graces of upper-class society. It was only after people started noticing a correlation between wealth and completion of a college degree that the lower members of society started pushing for affordable access, believing that they would also be able to join the upper-class with that experience.
Perhaps our experiences varied, but I don't recall a lot of emphasis on critical thinking, decision making and figuring things out for myself in elementary school.
If you go back far enough you are absolutely correct, and there certainly is a history of elitism in colleges (and a legacy of discrimination).
However land grant colleges, the higher education act, Deweys ideas on pedagogy, all were premised on the idea that people needed more then rote learning and instruction in the trades to succeed.
I think you are also ignoring the influence of the Progressive educational movement and the G.I. Bill.
Critical thinking is important, even in the trades.
But trades are results-driven. The critical thought, business-mindedness, etc have all developed without the 4 year degree precondition for all successful trades.
It's always a little off-putting when I see people suggest that higher education is just for a job, and discount the importance of the above. Education that teaches you how to work but not how to think is part of how you get people believing things like vaccines are bad.
Trade schools are awesome, not arguing that, but so is critical thinking.