Why is this board relentlessly focused on ROI?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why because I grew up poor. No food.

And while college is expensive it is worth every dime in my opinion. Not saying anyone needs to go to Weslyn at $70,000 or USC etc.

Perfectly fine to go to community college then state four year and then grad school or law school or med school or MS in textiles I don't care.

No substitute for opening your mind. Conservatives or MAGA do not comment on this part you are too stupid to know better.

Would I allow my kids to major in philosophy or art history nope not on my dime? But they could on theirs and I would not be mad. Because then it is a passion and they would work to make a career.

At this point we could afford any college easily we are very lucky. Education got me out of poverty. And no one can take it away.

I don't understand this. The philosophy majors I know (and I was one) have done very well, even without going to grad school. The major is rigorous and really teaches you how to think through a problem -- skills that are valued at any workplace.

Alternatively: the people major in philosophy are smarter and more curious than the norm, and underperform vis-a-vis students with the same talent who apply themselves to more practical majors.

In my opinion, it’s fair to think about ROI, but not reasonable to crush great kids’ dreams or assume as a given that certain majors are always better for all kids.

If, say, a kid has a 4.0 UW GPA and 800s on the SATs, and is going to Columbia, that kid’s earned a chance to major in philosophy, if that’s what the kid loves.

It’s insane to push kids who are great at the humanities it so so at math to major in STEM at top schools.

And parents who haven’t ever taken a STEM class at a top school have no standing whatsoever to push kids into tough university STEM classes or complain about their kids’ T30 university STEM grades. I see parents here who probably went to some crappy school getting upset about their kids getting C’s in STEM classes at T30 schools. I doubt those parents have any idea how hard it is to pass a STEM class for majors at a T30 school. It’s fine to encourage a philosophy major to think about resume-building activities and student jobs. But it’s absurd to try to force a natural born English major to major in engineering.

Another problem is that the ROI Only parents seem to be completely oblivious to the existence of ups and downs in the job market. They obsess about CS degrees, even for kids with no interest in computers, without seeing that today’s hot degree could be tomorrow’s dog.

No, it's not. You really have to be at the tippy top 1% of English majors to make anywhere near the median CS major.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because if I'm paying $30k-$100k/yr for a degree, I want to make sure it's a degree they can use when they graduate.

The humanities are for minoring.

And if I'm not footing the bill, then have at it. Let them find out how fun it is to graduate $80k+ in debt for an entry-level position starting out at $35k/yr. Because that was my reality. My parents made too much for me to get much financial aid but they also didn't make enough to save for my college. I received some merit aid but not enough for a full ride. Neither parent went to college and I never had anyone telling me to pick a major that would offer the best career possibilities.

It took years, more schooling & debt, and clawing my way through to get to the level I'm at now. College friends who had more educated parents are in much better places. I fully understand why I met so many people who answered the question "what's your major?" with "my parents are making me major in Economics/Computer Science/Biology." I always felt so grateful that my parents left me along and let me pick what I wanted to study but then when it was time for my first big girl job, I started out at $28k/yr and my friends were starting out in the $50k+ range, which back then was big money.

This. Full stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because college costs anywhere from 40 to 100k a year and for that kind of money people expect something. BTW, you and your husband make 320k a year combined and have federal benefits, that's a lot anywhere.

+1 It's because college is extremely expensive and people save for decades to pay for it. After all that there's a certain terror around making a wrong move or having it all somehow be a "waste" and there's no way to account for intangibles, so any kind of tangible, no matter how invented by the college industrial complex, draws hyperfocus.

This. A lot has changed since OP went through the system. There is much more at stake now when you are doling out $83k a year