Anonymous wrote:Fromthe OP: "We need to stop looking at a degree as an automatic "upward mobility" button and start looking at it as a high-risk capital allocation. "

Clearly, OP has no idea what the purpose of a college education actually is.

Anonymous wrote:NP.

NPR has reported:

- colleges are disappearing in the USA at a rate of 1 per week:

https://hechingerreport.org/colleges-are-now-closing-at-a-pace-of-one-a-week-what-happens-to-the-students/

Think about that. We obviously have excess capacity; too many college seats. No, your favorite T50 college is not about to disappear but many colleges ranked 51 to 300 will face difficult times in the coming decades.


And we have not even hit the “demographic cliff” of far fewer U.S. college students which is about to hit:

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/08/nx-s1-5246200/demographic-cliff-fewer-college-students-mean-fewer-graduates


Those of you dismissing the OP’s concerns are frankly, aloof and out of touch with the reality headed our way.

College isn’t for everyone; sorry if that is unpleasant news to you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need to stop looking at a degree as an automatic "upward mobility" button and start looking at it as a high-risk capital allocation. The data is clear. we have a massive surplus of low-value degrees and a labor market that is already starting to discount them. Unless your child is attending a top-tier target school where the institutional prestige acts as a hedge against mediocrity, they are likely walking into an underemployment trap. Johnny from State U is graduating with six-figure debt into a world that doesn't need another generalist with a "Business Administration" degree. We’ve flooded the market with credentials, and in doing so, we've rendered the mid-tier degree effectively worthless for anything other than basic administrative work. but no problem….at least they recorded their fair share of TikTok dances in their SEC sororities….
The "dumbification" of American higher ed is the quiet crisis no one on this board wants to admit. To keep the tuition checks flowing, universities have traded academic rigor for "student satisfaction" andt grade inflation. We are producing a workforce that can follow a rubric but lacks the cognitive stamina for first-principles thinking or problem-solving. While parents are busy comparing "Little Ivies," their kids are losing the ability to synthesize complex information without a digital crutch. We’ve turned college into a four-year delay of adulthood where students learn to navigate bureaucracy instead of mastering a competitive skill.
If you think the ROI is bad now, calculate the impact of AI over the next four years. If your kid is a freshman today, they will enter a 2030 job market where agentic AI has already cannibalized the majority of entry-level white-collar tasks. The "junior analyst" or "entry-level coordinator" roles that used to be the traditional starting point for college grads are being automated out of existence. We are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to train kids for roles that a $20 monthly subscription will do better and faster by the time they graduate. If your child isn't in the top 5% of their field or pursuing a specialized technical trade, you aren't buying them a future…… you're buying them a very expensive seat at a table that is being removed from the room….

Anyway…..keep it up….

No, Johnny from "Big State U" with a degree in Business Administration is going to be a Surgery Scheduler at a large hospital in the suburbs, where he'll make $60,000 a year and be able to afford a comfortable lifestyle. Hanging drywall isn't as well paying a job as you think it is.

The people hanging drywall weren't straddling the line between higher-education and trade school - they got the gig they could find. And 60k/yr isn't going to rate a comfortable lifestyle, even in the suburbs.

I know more than a few tradesmen who can afford to send their children full-pay to any of the 100k/yr privates, but they're the exceptions rather than the norm, and even then only one of them is a trade-school graduate (plumber) - all of the others have four-year degrees. The kids who can thrive in the trades are those who show the characteristics of future business owners - which is not everyone, regardless of intelligence, work ethic or drive. An average hardworking, employee tradesman is going to have a far tougher road ahead than a mid-tier professional with a degree. Most tradespeople will enjoy few of the benefits professionals take for granted, rarely receiving employee provided health care and retirement benefits, while having less job security. (There are exceptions, of course, particularly in the unions, but they make up a thin sliver of the demographic).

The trades can be great for quite a few people, but they're not an answer for many.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like college is necessary for those going on to medical school.

Medical school is gone. What do you not understand about the war on Science?

Anonymous wrote:We need to stop looking at a degree as an automatic "upward mobility" button and start looking at it as a high-risk capital allocation. The data is clear. we have a massive surplus of low-value degrees and a labor market that is already starting to discount them. Unless your child is attending a top-tier target school where the institutional prestige acts as a hedge against mediocrity, they are likely walking into an underemployment trap. Johnny from State U is graduating with six-figure debt into a world that doesn't need another generalist with a "Business Administration" degree. We’ve flooded the market with credentials, and in doing so, we've rendered the mid-tier degree effectively worthless for anything other than basic administrative work. but no problem….at least they recorded their fair share of TikTok dances in their SEC sororities….
The "dumbification" of American higher ed is the quiet crisis no one on this board wants to admit. To keep the tuition checks flowing, universities have traded academic rigor for "student satisfaction" andt grade inflation. We are producing a workforce that can follow a rubric but lacks the cognitive stamina for first-principles thinking or problem-solving. While parents are busy comparing "Little Ivies," their kids are losing the ability to synthesize complex information without a digital crutch. We’ve turned college into a four-year delay of adulthood where students learn to navigate bureaucracy instead of mastering a competitive skill.
If you think the ROI is bad now, calculate the impact of AI over the next four years. If your kid is a freshman today, they will enter a 2030 job market where agentic AI has already cannibalized the majority of entry-level white-collar tasks. The "junior analyst" or "entry-level coordinator" roles that used to be the traditional starting point for college grads are being automated out of existence. We are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to train kids for roles that a $20 monthly subscription will do better and faster by the time they graduate. If your child isn't in the top 5% of their field or pursuing a specialized technical trade, you aren't buying them a future…… you're buying them a very expensive seat at a table that is being removed from the room….

Anyway…..keep it up….

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need to stop looking at a degree as an automatic "upward mobility" button and start looking at it as a high-risk capital allocation. The data is clear. we have a massive surplus of low-value degrees and a labor market that is already starting to discount them. Unless your child is attending a top-tier target school where the institutional prestige acts as a hedge against mediocrity, they are likely walking into an underemployment trap. Johnny from State U is graduating with six-figure debt into a world that doesn't need another generalist with a "Business Administration" degree. We’ve flooded the market with credentials, and in doing so, we've rendered the mid-tier degree effectively worthless for anything other than basic administrative work. but no problem….at least they recorded their fair share of TikTok dances in their SEC sororities….
The "dumbification" of American higher ed is the quiet crisis no one on this board wants to admit. To keep the tuition checks flowing, universities have traded academic rigor for "student satisfaction" andt grade inflation. We are producing a workforce that can follow a rubric but lacks the cognitive stamina for first-principles thinking or problem-solving. While parents are busy comparing "Little Ivies," their kids are losing the ability to synthesize complex information without a digital crutch. We’ve turned college into a four-year delay of adulthood where students learn to navigate bureaucracy instead of mastering a competitive skill.
If you think the ROI is bad now, calculate the impact of AI over the next four years. If your kid is a freshman today, they will enter a 2030 job market where agentic AI has already cannibalized the majority of entry-level white-collar tasks. The "junior analyst" or "entry-level coordinator" roles that used to be the traditional starting point for college grads are being automated out of existence. We are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to train kids for roles that a $20 monthly subscription will do better and faster by the time they graduate. If your child isn't in the top 5% of their field or pursuing a specialized technical trade, you aren't buying them a future…… you're buying them a very expensive seat at a table that is being removed from the room….

Anyway…..keep it up….

Getting better educated has far more value than this narrow "ROI" you're myopically focused on, OP. You only look at the tangible but the intangibilities are worth far more, IMO.

Investment can mean intangibles. And who says they don’t learn this by adulting earlier than those who waste time in college? What a stupid assumption.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like college is necessary for those going on to medical school.

Medical school is gone. What do you not understand about the war on Science?

You are hyperventilating and nobody takes the left seriously because of people like you.

Anonymous wrote:What the heck? This is such a strange rant.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:6:38 again, and it is not a financial decision. He has a well funded 529 and is currently in private school. Let that blow your mind, OP. Some pick this path because they want to, not because they have to. We are proud of him.

Your effusive support for his decision to attend trade school makes me think you might be proud of him but you aren't really that proud of him going to trade school. What kind of trade? And by private school do you mean a local Catholic school?

I think it's just really hard for you to understand we give our kids an experience that does not have a ROI just because.

I mean, how many 2nd homes can you really have.

In trade school?

One. Because any home after a second home is . . . not a second home.