On September 18, 2014 at 4:39:25 PM, David Madden ([email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>) wrote: A 4 year liberal arts degree is, for some reason, almost required to get in at the bottom of jobs that don't really need a college education but at least have a chance at advancement.
This is an issue I see from the inside all the time. Students graduate after four years and take a job that uses very few of the direct skills they learned. On one hand, that isn’t our goal at a liberal arts college… we aren’t just trying to teach specific skills, we’re trying to teach people how to learn and how to teach themselves; ultimately they will need to. On the other hand, I see students that could have done just as well skipping out on college, jumping into the workforce at 18 and getting four years of on-the-job experience. Even making minimum wage, that puts them up 4 * 48 * 40 * 7.25 = $55k instead of $150k in the red. Several studies say that the lifetime earnings with a college degree are ~$1M higher. Even if that is true, you can also just invest the college-tuition at age 18 and get the same return by 65. College isn’t for everyone, and fortunately, there are other options; some very good free ones! Personally, I would be very worried if I were in a CS department at a university. Low-cost CS education is online first and will be very hard to compete with. I’m not immune, but science is hands-on enough that the in-person aspect makes a big difference. -- Andrew M.C. Dawes Associate Professor of Physics Pacific University amcdawes.com<http://amcdawes.com/>
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