Oh, I don't know - it just depends on what your kids want to do. I think it's sad that we've reached a point where you're expected to have a four year degree, and $80k of debt in order to get a job as a receptionist or a barista.
> I think it's sad that we've reached a point where you're expected to have a four year degree, and $80k of debt in order to get a job as a receptionist or a barista.
(a) They can become a receptionist or barista once they've definitively proved to themselves that they can't get a degree and do something more fulfilling, intellectually stimulating and ultimately likely to lead them to lives with more freedom and time to devote to their own projects.
(b) The 80k debt is a problem with the USA, not nearly so much with developed countries elsewhere. I expect you'd agree with this but it shouldn't be a reason not to go to university; the USA just needs to get away from making people pay so much for their education and healthcare. (The article was about the UK). I work in the USA and I've just got back from traveling in Indonesia for a couple of weeks. It was really sad to see that all the people we met traveling were from Europe and none from the USA: I think a large part of this is that young Americans go into debt for college and think that they can't afford to travel, and thus don't become as familiar with other cultures.
> (a) They can become a receptionist or barista once they've definitively proved to themselves that they can't get a degree and do something more fulfilling, intellectually stimulating and ultimately likely to lead them to lives with more freedom and time to devote to their own projects.
It's entirely possible to be intellectually capable of passing a degree, and even to force one's self to do it, but be utterly unsuited for the sort of work that it equips you for. More to the point, it's reasonable to expect people to know that about themselves before they go, school work is not that dissimilar to university work.
If you're struggling to get through a degree, having to really force yourself to do the work, I question whether you're likely to find what it enables you to do more fulfilling or intellectually stimulating. What possible reason would you have to believe that continuing to do something that makes you miserable will make you happy if you end up in a job where those skills are relevant?
It is possible to be smart but uninspired. And the down side of people telling you not to give up, that this roll of the dice will pay off even if the others didn't, is the gambler at the table as morning rolls in, holding his last five dollars in the world.
This has never worked out before, but now...
College isn't for everyone, and many will know long before they go whether they enjoy the sort of work they're likely to do there. They can go later, when and if they discover a passion it would have value to. In the absence of such, their going is a waste of time and money whether or not they pass.
I was really surprised when Congress decided to make it very hard or almost impossible to discharge Student Loan debt through bankruptcy while forgiving other types of debt.
This fact in addition to the fleecing of the nation's youth by the For-Profit Colleges has given a really bad impression about going to college.
The best thing a nation can do for its future is to encourage (and make it easy) for students to get the best education that they can.
You can bet that India and China are investing heavily in their nation's youth and encouraging STEM based higher education. They understand that this is of strategic importance.
I am amused by how effective nationalism is, when used to cloth motives that might be considered more base. (personally, I think greed is often less evil than nationalism, but I'm a bit weird.)
In this case, industry wants more programmers, but doesn't want to pay the wages that would make this happen in a free market.
> In this case, industry wants more programmers, but doesn't want to pay the wages that would make this happen in a free market.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Do you know someone who considered studying computer science but decided not to because the wages were too low? If not then how would increased wages increase supply?
>I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Do you know someone who considered studying computer science but decided not to because the wages were too low?
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying happens.
The thing you have to remember is that this isn't a choice between underwater basket weaving and computer science... you're competing for the top tier students. The people who would have gone into law, medicine, top-tier business or finance instead. And compared to those careers, programmers don't get paid very well at all.
Even if some of them can't make it as programmers, certainly, some of them could. My own stereotypes are that while most of the business people I know lack the requisite gray matter, most of the people I know who studied law or medicine could have quite easily become programmers. (how many of them would switch for mere money? I don't know.)
If working as a programmer paid more than being a business person, working in finance, being a lawyer or being a doctor, it wouldn't change everyone's mind, sure... but it certainly would change many minds.
I don't know if that's true anymore. Programmers don't make finance money, but they make doctor or lawyer money (higher at the bottom end, maybe a bit lower at the top end). Programming has pulled far away from the low six figure ceiling that used to apply and still does in most engineering fields, even for people with elite qualifications.
see, this isn't my impression. do you have data? my impression is that $150K is the cap for us regular folks and world-class programmers can make in the low $200K range... if they are willing to live in one of the highest cost of living areas around.
I mean, unless you are like the other person who was talking to me and are counting managers and business people who also have programming skills. But I count those as managers or business people, because they're getting paid as managers or business people for doing manager or business person jobs.
My impression is that $300K is pretty middle of the road for doctors, even in lower cost of living areas.
For lawyers, my impression was that the bottom half got shit, like less than we do, but the sky is the limit for the top half.
My impression is that programmers were sort of the opposite of lawyers, in that our pay bands really are pretty narrow... there isn't even a doubling between the best and the average.
> If working as a programmer paid more than being a business person, working in finance, being a lawyer or being a doctor
Even if money is your only motivation programming is a better choice than any of those.
Being a programmer makes you more money more quickly than any of those professions and has a higher ceiling to boot. How many billionaire lawyers and doctors are there? How many businesspeople, financiers, lawyers, or doctors make six figures at 22 years old?
Not only that, it's also less risky! How many programmers are $250k in debt at 25 years old without having worked a day in their lives in their chosen professions? How many doctors? How many lawyers?
>Being a programmer makes you more money more quickly than any of those professions and has a higher ceiling to boot. How many billionaire lawyers and doctors are there? How many businesspeople, financiers, lawyers, or doctors make six figures at 22 years old?
I agree on the first part. If you are optimizing for cash at 22, you are best off as a programmer.
However, by the time you are 30? your doctor and lawyer friends are making 3x what you are.
As for your ceiling argument, you are simply wrong. There are some programmers who made the jump to business person who have done very well but those people made their billions doing business, not programming.
You can make a strong argument that if you want to be a business person today, you should first get training as an Engineer; many of the most ambitious MBAs I have met had an Engineering undergrad. That's valid, but they are still business people more than programmers.
If you actually just want to be a programmer, you have to be world-class to make a quarter-million a year. I mean, I know some guys who do it... but they are absolutely incredible in ways that most of us simply couldn't be. For the rest of us, "six figures" means "we're going to peak around $150K/yr" - and that's only if we live in a place with incredibly high rent.
Realistically, Doctors and Lawyers cap out much higher than Programmers.
>Not only that, it's also less risky! How many programmers are $250k in debt at 25 years old without having worked a day in their lives in their chosen professions? How many doctors? How many lawyers?
Eh, there are plenty of people who wash out of computer science programs. That's true of both doctors and lawyers; you do have a point that because doctor and lawyer training takes longer, you have the risk that if you wash out later in the process, you will have wasted a lot more money.
> You can make a strong argument that if you want to be a business person today, you should first get training as an Engineer
It sounds like we're in violent agreement on this point. It's much, much easier to become a millionaire/billionaire if you can invent/write/build some kind of prototype yourself than by raising investment capital and finding/convincing others to build it for you.
> Eh, there are plenty of people who wash out of computer science programs. That's true of both doctors and lawyers; you do have a point that because doctor and lawyer training takes longer, you have the risk that if you wash out later in the process, you will have wasted a lot more money.
Not just that: If you're a mediocre programmer you can still make $50k working 9-5 writing enterprise Java CRUD apps. If you're a mediocre 'businessman' or lawyer you're working at Starbucks if at all.
>It sounds like we're in violent agreement on this point. It's much, much easier to become a millionaire/billionaire if you can invent/write/build some kind of prototype yourself than by raising investment capital and finding/convincing others to build it for you.
Yes, programming is a useful skill, no argument there.
I'm just saying that some of the people going into law, medicine, etc... would go into programming if the pay was better.
I got out of college 11 years ago without nearly that much debt. I had loans for a little over $16,000 for In-State tuition to a state school. But I just checked, and now it costs over $100,000 for 4 years there. That's insane.
