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A college degree is a lousy investment

We need to be talking shit about every school ranked ahead of us.
 
DeaconCav06 said:
Which scandals were those?

I know there was a UVA cheating epidemic exposed about 20 years ago. But that was students not faculty.
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I'm glad you asked because I have no idea what I was thinking about. I think I conflated a story from somewhere else with the notoriety surrounding the discredited Rolling Stone rape case (ImTheCaptain's "let's chop dicks" moment)? Regardless, I can't find what I was remembering. Maybe UVA has wiped the internet!

And good point that the 2001 case was students and not faculty. Faculty cheating is pretty remarkable.

The Emory case was staff and not faculty, but more in line with what I was remembering: the school itself was fudging numbers to increase their USNW rankings. This is not at all uncommon but rarer in schools ahead of us...
 
So let me get this straight, in-state tuition for UNC and NC State is around 9k/year. All in cost with room and board, expenses books, etc is 25k. So 100k for 4 years of in-state college? How is this possible? How does anyone who isn't crazy rich able to afford that?
 
well you have to assume you're spending about $1k/month on your kid anyway, so $48k is a sunk cost. $52k is the incremental cost, $36k of which is the cost of school and the rest is having them live somewhere else, which is TOTALLY WORTH IT.
 
A graduate degree isn't necessarily about the specific ROI, it's whether or not you actually like how you earn money. I could probably make more doing a job that makes me miserable, but I'm glad I got a degree that allows me to do what I like.
 
I came to post the same. Articles like this assume that everyone enrolling in graduate school is only doing it to increase their future earnings. Graduate degrees are prerequisites for many fields and lots of them don't make much money
 
“However, master’s degrees in psychology, social work, education, and the arts all have median earnings below $60,000 at age 45. While that’s above the U.S. median personal income, it’s quite low for people with graduate degrees during their peak earning years.”

These conditions make it obvious that our society doesn’t value these fields and the careers therein.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
“However, master’s degrees in psychology, social work, education, and the arts all have median earnings below $60,000 at age 45. While that’s above the U.S. median personal income, it’s quite low for people with graduate degrees during their peak earning years.”

These conditions make it obvious that our society doesn’t value these fields and the careers therein.
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Right. The question shouldn’t be “Why do people earn degrees with low ROI fields?” It should be “Why doesn’t society value these fields in terms of potential earnings?”
 
Also, why do we subsidize these fields through public universities, as those who earn degrees in these fields don't contribute much marginally to the tax base above a replacement worker ? and what is the opportunity cost of subsidizing these disciplines above others ?
 
BiffTannen said:
Also, why do we subsidize these fields through public universities, as those who earn degrees in these fields don't contribute much marginally to the tax base above a replacement worker ? and what is the opportunity cost of subsidizing these disciplines above others ?
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You’re asking why public universities offer degrees that people need to go into public sector jobs. Do you think someone should go to a private school to get a social work degree to be state case worker?

A big part of the problem is wealth is concentrated in the hands of so few people do those people have an outsized say in what knowledge is valuable. That’s why so many lucrative jobs basically just help wealthy people grow their wealth.
 
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BiffTannen said:
Just said it was worth examining.
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But why? Why would our society be better off if it’s harder to learn how to help regular people (social work, education, psychology) and easier to learn how to help the rich (law, business)?
 
You're the sociologist with a million dollars invested in your education. Figure it out.
 
BiffTannen said:
You're the sociologist with a million dollars invested in your education. Figure it out.
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I have. I already posted it. Our society wouldn’t be better off. Our society isn’t better off. But people like you seem to think so because…


PhDeac said:
A big part of the problem is wealth is concentrated in the hands of so few people do those people have an outsized say in what knowledge is valuable. That’s why so many lucrative jobs basically just help wealthy people grow their wealth.
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myDeaconmyhand said:
“However, master’s degrees in psychology, social work, education, and the arts all have median earnings below $60,000 at age 45. While that’s above the U.S. median personal income, it’s quite low for people with graduate degrees during their peak earning years.”

These conditions make it obvious that our society doesn’t value these fields and the careers therein.
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Of the 4 listed only education really is something I'd value.
 
PhDeac said:
I have. I already posted it. Our society wouldn’t be better off. Our society isn’t better off. But people like you seem to think so because…
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What's so great about being broke ? If you can't learn that you don't want to be broke by going to elementary school, the schools aren't working.
 
The reason people don't value psychology majors is because a disproportionate amount of college students become a psychology major in any given year compared to the need. That results in the profession not making much money. Heck, at one point I was thinking of going into it, it sounded fun and cool and interesting.

From some quick maths, it looks like 6% of college students get a psychology major, and it looks like 25% of adults have a mental health problem. Therefore if all psychology majors were allocated to each adult with a mental health problem, then there would be a psychology major available for 10 hours per week for every single person in the country with a mental health problem. This is obviously excessive, and why they don't make any money.
 
Plama and Biff both very good at recognizing how common and popular their viewpoints are, yet neither seem to make the connection between those viewpoints and societies problems. On a related note, Plama doesn’t personally recognize the value of social work and thinks all Psychology majors are Psychotherapists, and Biff doesn’t understand why people are called to certain professions *despite* low pay.

It kinda sucks that this thread just evolved into a circle jerk for board lawyers and finance Bros.
 
I don't think all psychology majors are psychotherapists. I think a much larger percentage of them would prefer to be psychotherapists, and since usually therapy is once a month for an hour and not 10 hours a week, the 39 people who didn't get to be a psychotherapist (compared to the 1 that's needed) are stuck competing over the 3 social work jobs that need to be done, therefore social workers are stuck making nothing either.
 
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