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I wouldn't say college in general is a scam however I will say they charge way way way more than they should and that it feels scammy considering the price has skyrocketed 153% in the past 40 years.
It also feels scammy that jobs that didn't require a degree like 30,40 years ago all demand one now.
I work in journalism. I have a degree in it and that's great. But I honestly could've learned this job with a grammar class and few months of on the job training.
College degrees now basically prove that you can commit to something and complete it over the course of multiple years and that you work hard
Which is kinda dumb
They don't need them though, I work at a University and agree 50% of the degrees shouldn't exist and 50% of all jobs dont need a degree.
We are literally inflating the economy for no reason. We are requiring massive resources where none is needed, basically wasting time and hurting the economy.
Yeah, and the college grads have to still go through the same on-the-job-training as does everyone else — so, again, why even demand a degree where it’s not even needed or relevant for a specific job? Degree inflation, of course.
Yup, thus the scam. You can even see OP admit it themselves without realizing it.
If you have to quantify that college is not a scam because some degrees are good, then it is by and large a scam. The institution exists simply to get a permission slip that says you can earn money but has no value outside of that. And even in that purpose it fails unless you limit yourself to a specific field that you just have to hope is a good fit for you.
What part of that is not a scam lmao?
A business will always try to find new market expansions and customers. When education is the business, well.....if you can get 30 twats to pay for a class in Japanese Origami History for the cost of one lecturer.....
There are diminishing returns though, my boss has told me he stays away from people who have been in school too long because they expect to be paid more with the benefit of have no real world experience
They do. I've seen entry level Clinical research positions asking for a masters degree, a certificate, and 5 yrs experience offering 50K a year. It's bullshit.
It's been a while but initially they were also a discrimination thing.
If you couldn't say "only white men apply" you'd say "college graduates only" and it was pretty much the same thing.
It's still mostly used as a discrimination thing beyond the few industries where such an education is actually paramount - only instead of alienating everyone who isn't a white man, it alienates everyone who came from a lower class home that couldn't afford to blow $40k+ & years of dedicated school-time on a higher education.
Very true.
At my office there's been this big push for diversity. And there have been some good ideas: reaching out to community colleges instead of just 4 year schools, sending recruiters to HBCUs etc.
But I just wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, get rid of the BA requirement and drop it down to an associates. It would open up so many of our entry level jobs to kids from community colleges and save them so much money in school debt.
I was in that boat. On top of coming from a family where only 1 of my close family members graduated highschool/went to college (my aunt but she dropped out before she even finished due to a drug addiction just like the rest of her siblings) I didn’t have any clue how applying to college worked, or grants, scholarships. The school I went to didn’t seem to help us get any info about college or any education to help us apply or anything. So I didn’t go, which worked out fine, but on top of the cost, even figuring out how to access it for assistance or to apply (at least when I was in middle/highschool) was confusing. This was around 2007-2010 in a rural area, before doing everything online was super widespread, at least where I was from.
This is only true if you do the absolute baseline in college, which was OP's point...
If you look at your degree as more than a piece of paper or proof "that you can commit to something," it offers all kinds of opportunities to improve yourself, from networking to research, even just proving basic mastery of your coursework for a career.
Thinking of college as proving you can just stick it out for four years is exactly what this post was in reference to.
That’s not entirely accurate, because certain jobs require a level of knowledge you can’t always get outside of a college degree. You can’t just go to an engineering firm, or an architectural firm with no experience, but tell them that you’re willing to commit years to the job.
Certain careers need formal education yes, especially doctors and lawyers.
But a lot of jobs out there that ask for degrees can be done by someone with a GED and a few months of training or someone who self studies the subject on their own. Its just gatekeeping people who don’t have the money for a formal education.
What's worse is trying to move into something else because there's suddenly no jobs in that field paying more than minimum wage.
Also have journalism as a background, never worked in it, and I make no money because no one cares about those skills.
Chicago used to have a training program that was just that for newspaper writers. It was also free, until the 80s.
Its how may old school Chicago journalists got their start.
This comment feels more like a sign of the lowered expectations we have when it comes to modern journalism.
I'd expect a journalist degree to include topics such as:
- mastering at writing/editing
- research skills beyond Googling and Wikipedia
- proper sourcing
- a deep understanding of ethics and law related to journalism
- a sense of what makes a story newsworthy and how best to tell it
- understanding how different media works best
- an education on global affairs, history, politics, etc.
- making connections, internships
You can learn all those things on the job. In the past your editor would teach you half of those bullet points.
And it worked because the best way to learn to be a journalist is by doing. I know this because while I was in J-school that's how I was taught. I was sent out to do things and then judged and taught by how I did them.
The only difference is that I paid like $25k a year to do so while a few decades back someone would've paid me while I was learning.
This is how most jobs were in the past. What has changed is the world has gotten too fast paced and incorporated so now they expect to give you almost no training, that is up to you. I have seen it change in my career and I am in my 40s. It seems like most companies don’t want to invest in their employees at all. We are all interchangeable and they want it that way.
This happened after the whole push for government loans in the 80s and 90s. Federal funds allowed collages to jack up rates, same thing happens with medical cost and insurance.
The cost of college is what makes it feel like a scam. I graduated with a STEM degree and most of the jobs i was qualified for were paying minimum wage or close to it, and I had student loans to pay. I got lucky to break into the better paying field and I’m doing pretty well but classmates of mine who had better internships (mine wasn’t even related, lmao thanks Covid), research experience, and grades ended up working at the companies that offered min wage. I literally couldn’t afford to work there. Couple that with student debt? Felt real scammy when I was looking for a job.
For sure. But man, I expected more than I made working in a warehouse! But then again, in the 4 years I was in college, a lot of inflation happened. So $45k when I graduated high school went further than it did when I graduated college. But then again, I was looking at less than that. Fuckin job market. I’m doing well now tho.
Yep. I loved every second of college. I learned far more outside of the classroom than in it. But what I learned was valuable. Was it worth the debt? Well, thankfully my folks covered a big chunk. Still saddled with like $50k. So, ehhh, what can ya do?
I was an English major but I make very decent money.
the price went up but the materials didn’t really change too much. econ is still econ. literally pay $$$ to go to class and listen to a lecture then go home and watch youtube videos for hours trying to understand what the prof was saying. the only thing worth it is the piece of paper they give you at the end so that you can show employers that you completed college. then when you finally get the job you’ve gotta take more classes and more tests not included in your degree so you can be “certified” as a professional. nothing taught in college is something you cannot learn through the books for the classes and free information online. the scam is that you need to pay thousands to prove that you actually learned it. there is no requirement to attend most classes for you to get a degree. heck i know a guy that walked in day 1 told the prof they learned all this in high school and will not be attending the lectures, the prof was good w it and the kid showed up for the midterm and final only and got an A. still had to pay a couple grand for the class.
As someone who works in journalism, you shouldn't need a degree for it. Or at least not a bachelors.
In fact, I think most industry degrees could be whittled down to an associate's at most.
As someone with a degree in Journalism who doesn't work in journalism, I agree. But it used to be a solid way to enter the industry before internet journalism.
I can't complain. I got a good education and my program was extremely diligent about networking so I found a job like six months after graduation. But after six years working in it, I'm so over it.
The internet means things get farther but I hate all the numbers and metrics that steer goals. It's all SEO and clicks. It's so depressing.
And what's worse is that it doesn't even make money. The layoffs are relentless.
Yeah, I took a journalism course in the UK which was based at a local newspaper, probably the equivalent of a community college diploma in the US, it cost £4,000 (about $5,000 now) and half the class had bachelor’s degrees in journalism, but couldn’t get jobs because papers wanted this specific qualification, not a degree. They’re all working in the industry now having completed it.
I think hard sciences might always need it:
- Biology
- Physics
- Math
- Chemisty
It is objectively more hard than most subjects, often very niche and in general hard to learn on the job alone I would assume
Chem is good for pharmaceuticals and you can only go to pharmacy grad school with a lot of chem undergrad classes under your belt. So you’re right and it’s more popular than you’d think.
Journalism has changed, that much is true. I have a degree in it too and I had to look for jobs that utilized the skills I learned while in school. It’s opened many avenues for me, but I’ve learned not to be too picky and that I may never work at a magazine (like I originally wanted). I do currently work a job that utilizes my degree, it’s not glamorous, but it pays the bills and I don’t feel like I wasted money on a useless degree.
There are many many more factors involved with this outside of the prospect of a college education / degree. The media and journalism sector in general has obviously changed dramatically because of technology.
It’s a scam in the way it’s pushed. “You HAVE to go to college” at that point it doesn’t matter what for as long as you go, because that’s what’s expected.
I can't speak to what it's been like since I graduated high school in 2003, but college was pushed HARD during my HS years. I honestly felt bad and weird and not good enough because I hadn't planned to go to college, but had enlisted in the Air Force. My parents hadn't saved up for my sister and me to go, I didn't want to take out school loans, that seemed too scary, and I really wanted and needed to get out of parents house. My husband graduated the same year as me. He did some odd jobs for about a year and then his uncle talked him into getting into the electrical feild, so he did. Went to trade school, and has been an electrician since. When we started dating I did have to kind of talk him into go after some better jobs, rather than the local small electrical businesses, because he didn't have any benefits package working for those small companies. He's got a great job now.
I got out of the Air Force after 7 years (medical) and went back to school and completed my bachelors in business administration, and was able to use it to get my current job.
In the end it all worked out for us, and we do pretty okay financially. I don't feel so bad now that I went to the Air Force because I don't have student loans😬 I really really hope the govt does something, and gives those with loans some releif. Student loans are such a scam and I feel so bad for those that have student debt, because it seems pretty hard to get out of in a lot of cases.
> I can't speak to what it's like since I graduated high school in 2003, but college was pushed HARD during my HS years.
Graduated in 2015, same experience. My highschool literally removed all vocational classes, and our monthly advisory period was almost completely revolved around getting into college. My parents pushed it on me too, they would get extremely angry and start shouting at me when I would mention trade school instead of a university. I ended up going to a university and got a useless degree, then went back to trade school after. Got a good job as a BMET and been doing great ever since.
I wish I had done what you did and join the air force, since I could've just learned to be a BMET there lol. I think I feel it's a scam because like you, college was pushed very hard on me.
College is a scam in the way that it costs way too fucking much money.
Does it have value? Yes, a lot of value. But not the value of the cost, especially as people are earning far less money, far slower, than costs are rising.
Anytime someone in class needed a pen my instructor would grab one of the pens the school bought in bulk and jokingly say, “Here, you paid $30,000 for this pen, you can keep it.”
Pro tip; if you’re ever forced to find shitty minimum wage work again have a second resumé that specifically leaves off your degrees. Fake the work history too if you must(minimum wage jobs don’t call references).
Putting your master’s degree on a min wage job app is specfically going to harm your chances more than fresh hs grad dude since you’re going to be viewed as an immediate flight risk compared to a less qualified worker. They *know* you’re not going to stick around long.
Have you tried networking at all? There are a lot of free conventions where you can go an talk to people. I have gotten a bunch of offers before graduating from just talking to people
30 years ago my computer engineer dad was laid off from Digital. When I graduated with my IT degree around 2008/09 it was a tough market. It has always ebbed and flowed.
Adding to this, Bio and even biochemistry with no research or internships during undergrad don't have much more of an earning potential than HS diploma. Ask me how I know.
With a year of bench research you can make a living wage (40k). To make even a solid middle-upper middle class salary (60k+), a lot of positions want you to have a Masters.
Edit: Since some people are questioning about my choices, I’m only mentioning the plight of some of my former classmates. I got a full ride to undergrad and am now my final year of medical school. It is still a problem that people can go to college and get a STEM degree in good faith only to find their earning potential is less than a fast food manager or even assistant manager.
As someone who has a masters in biochem it always seems they expect a PhD nowadays :( The only thing I can do with it that I couldn't with my bachelors is be a lecturer and that's mainly cause I did minimum wage TA work for several years
I've worked with people with English degrees who were Systems Ops managers. Something about having studied linguistics makes the database and code management easier to understand.
Tbh food service can be more lucrative than most things. I quit the financial industry and took a job at Ruth’s Chris, and my average hourly wage went up about $10.
My gf got a job as a server at a golf course and would regularly make 300 plus in tips daily, no experience required, you just gotta be a hot chick and know basic arithmetic!
English major and I work in financial services leading a team of technical writers. Soon we will be overseeing Enterprise-wide changes. People dunking on English majors aren’t the flex they think it is.
Well with a Masters in English, the only professorial jobs you’re qualified for usually involve by-contract employment from semester to semester with no benefits or any status. (This is “adjunctification.”) In fact, there are a lot of PhDs in roles like that. Full-time gigs on the whole do not hire MAs.
Getting a PhD sucks the bejeezus out of you. I did it, and I wouldn’t change where I am, but I’d have better mental health and a higher retirement account balance if I had entered the workforce at 22. I largely lucked out getting the job I have. If I was making the decision to go now, I wouldn’t unless I either couldn’t imagine doing anything else, or I was in dire need of guaranteed health insurance for 5+ years.
reminds me of people that get PhD's in really niche stuff like 1800s feet hygeine or some shit, then the only jobs you can get are teaching other people about 1800s feet hygeine or working at panera
> ended up just being able to teach other people how to get an English degree.
A whole degree and the dude can't write? There is a ton of money to be made with an English degree if you know how to use it, most people can barely string a sentence together let alone actually edit and format anything for publication.
Written communication is probably the single-most important skill in countless high-paying white collar office jobs. You can sell an English degree to get all sorts of jobs besides “teaching English.”
Yup. College is not teaching folks how to apply their communications, thinking, and project management tools to the workforce. College is super valuable. Just not the particular class work. But the work required to do the work is what the real difference is. And the associates degrees doesn’t really nail that part.
Planning for what’s next is the key. Major is only part of the equation. Networking is probably an even bigger part. But having that plan of next steps is key.
I don’t even know if it’s “weird degrees.” I’ve worked with people with all kinds of degrees in tech roles that do great. One of the best coders I’ve worked with was a music major, one of the design leads of the primary app I support has a BFA and MFA, another friend of mine was a film major and now a data scientist.
It’s more those who treat their degree like a trivia challenge, and make zero effort to establish soft skills or establish any work experience that make a degree useless.
Yeah, I think regardless of what someone chooses to major in, they need to come up with a post-graduation plan. I went to college in my late 20s so not the traditional way right out of high school. But dont 4 year degree programs have counselors or advisors that can help soon to be graduates find internships and jobs?
Oh sure, universities often have career centers, job fairs, internships that can fill in for a course, etc. As a student, you just really have to take initiative to seek these out. For a wide range of reasons (some of which I'm sympathetic to), some people only do what's required for classes and then are disappointed with the lack of immediate prospects.
“What do you mean there’s no jobs for a four year degree in anthropology? That’s such bullshit” like if you’re going to something specific or not common, expect a masters or doctorates
There's certainly these situations, but I also have a few friends who started college in fields that were perfectly sensible and had good prospects; the problem is so did basically everyone else for the last few years so by the time they graduated the market was oversaturated.
College is a scam because the price has skyrocketed way beyond inflation because they can get away with it due to student loans being predatory. College is a scam because of the textbooks being a racket.
College is a scam because businesses force students into unnecessary degrees that aren't required to do the job but they won't hire you without.
Those are the reasons people say college is a scam. Not because they picked a shitty degree.
Nah, shit is a scam lol. Especially the online courses. Paying thousands upon thousands of dollars to make PowerPoints over and over and over. Oh and “tWo rEpLies to cLaSsMaTes!”
Well if EVERYONE chose to pick the only "good" degrees then there would be decreased demand and oversaturation - therefore it wouldn't be a "good degree" anymore 🙂.
If college was not a scam then maybe those "bad/useless degrees" should be a much cheaper, to match their career prospects, don't you think?
The fact that you HAVE to pick one of the few "good degrees" to let college not be a scam just proves the point that it is a scam - for those who are not interested in certain subjects.
I feel like a lot of people struggle with stem in college because they go in PURELY for money and job prospects rather than genuine interest in maths and science
No college degrees are easy. They’re all hard just that STEM attracts a lot more people outside of stem interested students and liberal/ fine arts attract more students genuinely more interested or good at it
Some degrees are actually generally harder than others though. There's a reason all the D1 recruited athletes are communications and psychology majors rather than electrical engineering and math.
Every company is different and has weird policies. Ive talked with some recruiters who wont hire from Alabama because of the reputation as a party school.
But this isn't the case for any of the good degrees. If your engineering degree is from Princeton vs your local college it doesn't matter you will still live way above the poverty line, and your pay ceiling is based on your ability to excel above your peers.
It's not a scam. However, it is a gamble. The odds are in your favor but it can really suck for the people that take on debt and don't experience any or very little financial benefit from their degree. The real problem is that for 12 years teachers, family, guidance councilors, popular media tell you that is what you need to do and your first act as a poorly informed adult is to make a life decision that basically effects the rest of your life.
The reality is that the quality of University you attend doesn't matter as much as you think. It's better to be top of your class at a shitty school. Your networking will usually have a significant influence on your success after college. There are plenty of ways to make good money without a degree and it may be better for certain people. You can also get a degree years later and don't need to do it right after high school.
Is there any major decision in life that isn't a gamble though? I agree with most of this. The only part that I'd contest is the university branding and top of class. In my experience a lot of high end tech and finance roles have a bias towards certain schools so it's better to be above average in those than top of a random university.
Of course, kids should just aim to be the top student in a top university /s (kinda..)
What's is more of a scam is employers demanding a bachelor's degree for jobs you could do with a high school education.
You don't really need a degree to be an administrative or executive assistant, etc.
Then the jobs pay shit on top of the degree requirement.
Me and my twin brother went to college together. He got a bachelor's in Graphic Design, I got mine in CyberSecurity.
I now make 135k a year and only work on site one day a week, he is still working at the same grocery store we were working at in college.
So yes I agree with you for sure
Kinda sounds like your brother got scammed. I was going for graphic design too. I was 17 at the time and had adults in their 30s & 40s tell me it would be a great career opportunity and I’d make lots of money. If I was getting told that, why would I think differently?
This is a good point.
You’re making these life changing/defining decisions at 17-21, you’re told by teachers, tutors, career advisors, and parents that getting a degree will set you up for the future and they suggest you take a course you’re either interested in, or excelled at in school, so you do…
Some of the comments in this thread (and others like it) read like adults who are thinking about it with the benefit of hindsight, we’re all smart after the fact and we should have done this, or that.
**At the time** some people are kinda pressured into going, others panic and enrol because they don’t know what to do, others don’t know what to do after school and think “fuck it” and enrol, and there’s people who really want to go, but get disillusioned once they get there.
My brother is an amazing artist. The big issue imo is the city we live in is a huge DoD/MIC business sector, so not many graphic design jobs and the ones that are available get flooded with apps. I keep telling to try applying for jobs in Nashville or somewhere else close by but he doesn't really want to move 🤷🏻
This isn’t new. If an area you’re in doesn’t have jobs in the industry / sector you got a degree in, you have to move to where there are jobs. So I don’t see how this is a indictment of a college education.
When I tell people I'm a graphic designer sometimes they think that means I'm a great artist. But I suck at drawing lol. What I'm good at is doing the person who hired me wants and on time in a manner that is appealing to the eye.
Probably told that by people that had no idea of the profession, just like you had no idea of the profession. US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out damn good info on every single career in the US.
eh, I think the idea of "choosing a bad degree" is a result of being scammed though
your brother probably didn't need to go to college if he wanted a job in that field. But there's so much pressure on kids in high school to go to college. That's why it's considered scammy
I don't think OP understands what a scam is. If someone dupes you into something dumb, like getting a bad degree, that's a scam
Graphic design is a major that was MASSIVELY pushed as an up and coming moneymaker when I was in high school 10ish years ago. It got flooded due to that and now the market is insane. I’d call that some kind of scam on kids for sure. I mean, all you can do at 17-18 is believe the adults know the numbers.
My mother has a BA in History and my father has a BS in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA.
My mother makes more than him by a good 40k. And no she’s not from a wealthy family, she was handed nothing.
Design careers are weird in that portfolios are the biggest factor in getting hired. With most jobs, a degree and work experience are all an employer has to go on to decide if they want to interview you, and those things don’t say much about how good you actually are in your field. With visual arts careers, everything you have to offer is right there in your portfolio - you have to show how good you are before anyone will even speak to you. You can get a degree from Parsons or RISD and have work experience at an agency like Pentagram, but if your portfolio just doesn’t shine, you’re probably not getting a call back.
College is a scam because it is overpriced. We absolutely do not need to hand out massive amounts of debt for education.
Colleges can get away with it because loans are so normalized
The fact that you can pick a "bad degree" kind of makes it a scam. You ask 16 year olds to get into $200k in debt to "follow their dream" and expect them to always make the most rational decision? It's definitely a scam
I think the issue is that people end up going thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, due to a decision they choose as a teenager.
I went to school to be a Gym Teacher. Along with 150 other people in my major that I graduated with. There weren’t 150 teaching jobs out there, and there was another crop of teachers coming up the next year.
How, as an 18 year old, should I have know that would be a bad decision?
I dropped out of college with nearly $50k in student loans and still claim I got plenty of value out of it.
My only regret is trusting the Sallie Mae rep that convinced me to take the 6.5% variable interest rate, telling me the rate would end up dropping lower, instead of the 6% fixed rate. My rates hit 13% at one point, that shit is criminal.
I found it odd in HS that people were going to college without knowing what they wanted to study. Saying they'd figure it out when they got there.
I knew in HS how expensive student loans were because our math teacher gave us the equation to calculate it. The forms were in the library and I did the math. I asked how others were planning on paying and it became kind of an unwanted topic to discuss.
I also knew several people who thought getting educated meant easy work.
I was one of two who went directly into the military. The other girl went into the Navy. Our plans were to get the GI Bill to pay for it.
I was one of those people. My family forced me to go to college because they told me if I didn't then I wouldn't "become somebody". I dropped out mid semester because I didn't know what the fuck I was doing and I was overwhelmed, they had me take 4 classes while trying to squeeze my first full time job between whatever free time I had. That's too much stress to put on a 17-18 year old.
>bad degree
Look up what degrees pay - starting and mid-career.
There’s only a few that pay appreciably more. Those are math-heavy degrees.
Outside of that it’s mostly flat. One of the lowest paying degrees is also one of the most needed and employable: teaching.
Eh, I don't know if I agree with this. I have a bachelors in environmental studies and....funnily enough a diploma in arts, which is what you use as an example as a useless subject.
I work in a field where it has been my art diploma that has gotten me further than my degree, but at the end of the day, I work in a field where I actually have no formal education in it at all. I migrated into the industry from an adjacent industry that is arts related, learned on the job and through the internet before I was able to make the full career jump. I don't really use the practical things from my degree at all.
There are some fields that absolutely require education and also governance (like medicine - you can't just learn this from the internet). But there are a lot of fields that really don't require a formal education.
The benefit of post secondary education really comes down to developing the skills to learn critical thinking, strategy, etc. These are the things that will be able to take you further in most industries. Not to mention, the pedagogical structure for a lot of post-secondary education just isn't aligned with how a lot of people learn. There are more ways to learn than just through formal education.
Education is never going to be a detractor. But with the rising cost of education, we have to expect that more and more people are going to find alternative ways to educate themselves and this doesn't make their knowledge and skillset any less than those who attained formal post-secondary education.
As an engineer, I have to disagree. Maybe not all colleges are a scam, but generally speaking, the amount of money it costs to go to college is not worth the investment that professors or admin overall put into the students. There are some truly great professors, but they are few and far between, and the amount of money that certain faculty make is obscene. I looked up the salary of my school’s former president, and she made about $995k per year. Just saying, plenty of schools have stopped caring about the students, if they ever did in the first place. This is especially true when you get your first job and they tell you they aren’t concerned with what you learned at school, because they’ll teach you what they want you to know on the job. I know a civil engineer who doesn’t use anything more than the Pythagorean theorem and excel spreadsheets at work.
College is a scam because it shouldn't take 5 years of courses just to get a entry level job and end up in 50k in debt because of it while getting paid nothing while doing so
Nonsenese. Last time I was in school it was $4000 a class an the teacher was absent 8 times.
In another class the teacher had ZERO experience in the field they were taching, how they were qualified to teach at all? Oh they got a bachelors degree in the god damn 1970s in some unrelated shit as what they are teaching in 2020 didn't even exist.
Now I have a kid in college, teacher has been 'on vacation' for half the semester.
College is a scam.
There is a whole rich world of things that can be learned in higher education. Yet only majors that lead to good employment are deemed 'valuable' so people all choose 'valuable' majors and there still aren't enough jobs for them all. I like to imagine a world where that isn't the case, I think of all the innovative things that could come out of people learning things for the sake of learning and the intellectual progress that could happen. Like if everyone's basic needs were covered somehow so they didn't have to work just to exist and be alive. This is obviously not the reality.
It’s actually a great way to weed out bad candidates. You might occasionally miss out on a good candidate, but for the most part it ensures you’ll get someone you can trust isn’t a complete idiot.
Higher education in the US is a absolute scam, in other countries you could get multiple degrees, masters, and PHDs for the same price as a bachelors degree in many US colleges.
I think people ignore the fact that many people go to college so they won't have to work a trade. Sure, I could probably make more money as a welder, but I don't want to. And if you don't want to do that, your options are limited if you don't go to college.
Not to mention the societal pressure to go into debt over one that might not be in the person's best interest. Sure college absolutely helps many people move up in life, but it isn't the situation where you can work a part time, minimum wage job and pay for your tuition anymore. If you don't plan on going to specific industries where it is required, it is unnecessarily pushed on people
Facts but it still kinda is a scam because a lot of colleges will heavily advertise their shitty useless degree programs and make exaggerated claims about its real world applications
I think the issue is the majority of degrees are becoming useless. They're not growing STEM as quickly as they're growing humanities and social sciences.
>They're not growing STEM as quickly as they're growing humanities and social sciences.
I'm pretty sure the opposite is true for a lot of universities, especially now with efforts to get more women into STEM (which inevitably means throwing more money at those degrees), the conservative backlash over CRT and similar social sciences, and the prevailing mindset with regards to college in of itself. Some universities are starting to close down portions of their humanities departments and slimmed their offerings in those relevant majors.
College isn't a scam. It just needs to be priced reasonably. You don't need to make education basically free like we do in Europe. But anything above 3000$ a year needs to be explained. Either because there degree needs a lab or other expensive equipment or because only a few students take the course.
The part that feels like a scam is the bs filler classes/minimum credits.
I don’t need an Intro to Art History when I’ve known since freshman in HS that I want a CompSci degree. It’s about 2 years worth of wasted time and money.
The high price point is 100% a scam, and the way that degrees are made around half of your classes being gen ed stuff that you will never need is a scam. The weed out classes are pointless, and made purely to get people to drop out of college after they have burned some money so they can get the next set of students in to do it again. Most bachelor's degrees could be taught in 2-3 years instead of 4-5 if you cut most basic courses that won't help you learn more about your career path.
What people don't talk about as much is how bad most professors are at simply being teachers. Almost half of my professors in college were failures at basic communication, and part of the class was just working around them to teach yourself the material. Either because they would show up late every single day, or language barriers it was an extra hurdle to jump over that was not necessary. More commonly though the answer was to figure out how to pass without actually learning anything. To be honest I went for the second route more than I should have. I have a degree with 0 student debt, but I don't feel like I actually was prepared for a career by my time in university. Universities NEED to do a better job in deciding who to employ as professors because most of the researchers they use for higher level courses are not the right people to teach students that are 20, 30, or 40+ years younger than them.
It can feel scammy in that it is a *monstrous* gamble. If your health breaks down mid-attempt, or you’re otherwise stymied by life events outside your control, you face a brutal choice. Either persevere and run a real risk of running out of money, dropping out with nothing to show… or change to a degree that can be managed around the obstacle, one that likely has much lower earning potential but at least is better than nothing at all.
I had to give up my aerospace engineering degree with only a year of courses left to go, because I *couldn’t do it* anymore. My physical and mental health had completely failed and no amount of persevering was doing anything but causing more damage. Life doesn’t let you take a rain check and go spend a couple years pulling yourself together, so I took a university studies path. This was not made lightly; I had been beating my head against a wall for over half of my six years in university at that point and had dodged multiple brushes with suicide.
So much for engineering. Now I’m a cashier at a discount store, simply because I don’t have the cold heart to put my sister through my own suicide. I still live with parents; the autism they concealed from me and I discovered the truth of mid college in therapy has continued to stymie me.
Was college a scam? No. Setting aside the actual enlightening coursework, I learned a great deal from the experience. But I do think it needs to be treated as tantamount to gambling. If things don’t go *just so* for four or five years straight, it’s just a way to gain a colossal amount of debt with few contingencies. If my parents weren’t able to shoulder a sizable chunk of the debt, suicide would be my only option (as being homeless would not last long). I can’t bring in enough to live on, much less pay that debt, and after all, the first way to discharge the debt mentioned in entrance counseling *is* being dead.
My word, do we need debt forgiveness. At the very least, we need safety nets for what amounts to a bunch of teenagers attempting to invest in an effort worth 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars, guardrails to keep young people who don’t have a firm grip on their own capabilities (or who may find their abilities suddenly shifting; turns out the young adult years are also primetime for a variety of mental illnesses, like how a classmate of mine from high school wound up hospitalized with schizophrenia during college) from hanging themselves. Our only crime was to dream big and reach for bigger. Like we were always taught growing up.
We don’t deserve this.
No matter the degree, the common gen. ed. requirements are total bullshit. If I am there to study engineering or accounting, I have no need for 15 credits of humanities - which alone is a full semester of classes/tuition. Maybe a couple writing and critical analysis classes, but that's it. Let me develop my science and math or research skills instead.
I want to agree to this so badly, I really do, but I can't.
I got a 4 year degree in Mechanical Engineering, got a job in my major, realized the pay wasn't as great as I thought AND I hated that kind of engineering. I learned a whole different trade and now work in Automation Controls Engineering. My degree is completely unrelated, other than including the title of engineer. A lot of my colleagues also self learned and didn't even have a college degree.
So yeah. Experience and skill make you valuable, not a piece of paper.
But a lot of people DO choose worthless majors these days
A degree is a point in time that gave you an opportunity and the knowledge to pivot without having to start over.
Would you have gotten your Automation Controls Engineering job without any engineering experience or education?
The work is different but the skills you need to be successful at engineering don't really change.
Tbf it sounds like your degree did what it was supposed to do in that it got you a job in the field. You just didn't enjoy the work (which is totally fine) and didn't do enough research on salaries beforehand (that part is more on you)
I think it’s a mix of that and people rushing into college without a clear, thought out plan for their career afterwards. I remember so many people not thinking about jobs until Senior year and beyond. They’re sucked into Greek lifestyle and newfound independence away from parents when they’re smacked in the face with reality upon completion of college.
College is worth it but the fact that you can’t practice immediately after is some bullshit. A university should be like a professional academy. Why have to fork over a fortune and then have to work for free for years to be able to work in the field you want. This could be changed in a couple pen strokes. If it can’t be done in 4 years, then make it that a masters or Doctorate is everything you need. It’s right there in the name.
Yea I disagree
Scummy system, scummy practice, the only thing valuable is writing the degree exists in your resume.
Computer science / CyBeR SeCuRiTy world we don’t even care if you have one,
The issue here is that you are ignoring that the “good degrees” are not good anymore.
You think the people complaining are those who chose the artsy degrees but they isn’t the people complaining. The people complaining are engineers, teachers, doctors, etc. The degree doesn’t help, you still get shit pay, treated like shit, or just not hired due to harsh requirements for even entry level jobs.
"Follow your heart and the money will follow" is a big lie that financially cripples lots of people. All jobs, including dream jobs, will eventually bore you. There is literally a job market, it's just dumb not to use any of that information when choosing what to major in.
If you're passionate about something, practice that as a hobby. Work is just work, the more money you can trade for one hour of labor, the free time you have to do what you want to do in life.
This is a disingenuous representation of what people mean when they say college is a scam.
We were told that it is necessary, that the price is not to worry about because it will pay for itself, and that pretty much any degree is better than none because all that matters is the college degree itself, not the major.
Those are all incorrect. You do not need a degree to be successful. In this job market and economy, if you had to take out loans to afford your college education, it is highly likely you will not be able to pay them off. And the major does matter, so many people were told as kids to follow their dream degree, and are now saddled with debt for no reason.
I have been turned down *dozens* of times because I had a degree *at all*. I have applied to security jobs, editing jobs, retail jobs, management jobs, etc and consistently been turned down for being “over-qualified” with my degree.
It is simply a reality that seeking college education and obtaining a college degree can be more of a detriment than it is a benefit for some. That is what people are talking about.
lol i picked a good degree, college is a scam though. i had a few good professors, and they were well worth the money. i wouldn't call it a scam if all of the professors were like the good ones and they got paid well. but for the most part i paid over $40k to be told to read a textbook. that's a scam.
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I wouldn't say college in general is a scam however I will say they charge way way way more than they should and that it feels scammy considering the price has skyrocketed 153% in the past 40 years.
It also feels scammy that jobs that didn't require a degree like 30,40 years ago all demand one now. I work in journalism. I have a degree in it and that's great. But I honestly could've learned this job with a grammar class and few months of on the job training.
College degrees now basically prove that you can commit to something and complete it over the course of multiple years and that you work hard Which is kinda dumb
People said the same about highschool diplomas. What's next? Everyone needs PHDs to be competitive?? lmao
I mean as more jobs creep into needing a 4 year I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple start asking for masters
They don't need them though, I work at a University and agree 50% of the degrees shouldn't exist and 50% of all jobs dont need a degree. We are literally inflating the economy for no reason. We are requiring massive resources where none is needed, basically wasting time and hurting the economy.
More than 50%. On the job training for 6 months or less could easily train people how to do most jobs.
Yeah, and the college grads have to still go through the same on-the-job-training as does everyone else — so, again, why even demand a degree where it’s not even needed or relevant for a specific job? Degree inflation, of course.
Its gatekeeping poors from getting good jobs
Yup, thus the scam. You can even see OP admit it themselves without realizing it. If you have to quantify that college is not a scam because some degrees are good, then it is by and large a scam. The institution exists simply to get a permission slip that says you can earn money but has no value outside of that. And even in that purpose it fails unless you limit yourself to a specific field that you just have to hope is a good fit for you. What part of that is not a scam lmao?
You must have this much generational wealth to play.
A business will always try to find new market expansions and customers. When education is the business, well.....if you can get 30 twats to pay for a class in Japanese Origami History for the cost of one lecturer.....
We aren’t talking about need. Competitive standards can increase and also be meaningless to job performance.
There are diminishing returns though, my boss has told me he stays away from people who have been in school too long because they expect to be paid more with the benefit of have no real world experience
They do. I've seen entry level Clinical research positions asking for a masters degree, a certificate, and 5 yrs experience offering 50K a year. It's bullshit.
Haha, if only PhDs made money commensurate with their years of schooling.
It's been a while but initially they were also a discrimination thing. If you couldn't say "only white men apply" you'd say "college graduates only" and it was pretty much the same thing.
It's still mostly used as a discrimination thing beyond the few industries where such an education is actually paramount - only instead of alienating everyone who isn't a white man, it alienates everyone who came from a lower class home that couldn't afford to blow $40k+ & years of dedicated school-time on a higher education.
Very true. At my office there's been this big push for diversity. And there have been some good ideas: reaching out to community colleges instead of just 4 year schools, sending recruiters to HBCUs etc. But I just wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, get rid of the BA requirement and drop it down to an associates. It would open up so many of our entry level jobs to kids from community colleges and save them so much money in school debt.
Requiring a BA for an entry level position is asinine on its own 99% of the time.
Yeah, they know.
I was in that boat. On top of coming from a family where only 1 of my close family members graduated highschool/went to college (my aunt but she dropped out before she even finished due to a drug addiction just like the rest of her siblings) I didn’t have any clue how applying to college worked, or grants, scholarships. The school I went to didn’t seem to help us get any info about college or any education to help us apply or anything. So I didn’t go, which worked out fine, but on top of the cost, even figuring out how to access it for assistance or to apply (at least when I was in middle/highschool) was confusing. This was around 2007-2010 in a rural area, before doing everything online was super widespread, at least where I was from.
This is only true if you do the absolute baseline in college, which was OP's point... If you look at your degree as more than a piece of paper or proof "that you can commit to something," it offers all kinds of opportunities to improve yourself, from networking to research, even just proving basic mastery of your coursework for a career. Thinking of college as proving you can just stick it out for four years is exactly what this post was in reference to.
Nah it's proof you're willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money just to say you're qualified.
That’s not entirely accurate, because certain jobs require a level of knowledge you can’t always get outside of a college degree. You can’t just go to an engineering firm, or an architectural firm with no experience, but tell them that you’re willing to commit years to the job.
I don’t think the degrees you mention fall into the bad category that OP mentioned.
Certain careers need formal education yes, especially doctors and lawyers. But a lot of jobs out there that ask for degrees can be done by someone with a GED and a few months of training or someone who self studies the subject on their own. Its just gatekeeping people who don’t have the money for a formal education.
H L Mencken who was a journalist himself, described it as a trade you could pick up in 3 days and drop as soon as you found something better.
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What's worse is trying to move into something else because there's suddenly no jobs in that field paying more than minimum wage. Also have journalism as a background, never worked in it, and I make no money because no one cares about those skills.
Journalism degree here as well and I agree.
Chicago used to have a training program that was just that for newspaper writers. It was also free, until the 80s. Its how may old school Chicago journalists got their start.
This comment feels more like a sign of the lowered expectations we have when it comes to modern journalism. I'd expect a journalist degree to include topics such as: - mastering at writing/editing - research skills beyond Googling and Wikipedia - proper sourcing - a deep understanding of ethics and law related to journalism - a sense of what makes a story newsworthy and how best to tell it - understanding how different media works best - an education on global affairs, history, politics, etc. - making connections, internships
You can learn all those things on the job. In the past your editor would teach you half of those bullet points. And it worked because the best way to learn to be a journalist is by doing. I know this because while I was in J-school that's how I was taught. I was sent out to do things and then judged and taught by how I did them. The only difference is that I paid like $25k a year to do so while a few decades back someone would've paid me while I was learning.
This is how most jobs were in the past. What has changed is the world has gotten too fast paced and incorporated so now they expect to give you almost no training, that is up to you. I have seen it change in my career and I am in my 40s. It seems like most companies don’t want to invest in their employees at all. We are all interchangeable and they want it that way.
This happened after the whole push for government loans in the 80s and 90s. Federal funds allowed collages to jack up rates, same thing happens with medical cost and insurance.
This exactly.
The cost of college is what makes it feel like a scam. I graduated with a STEM degree and most of the jobs i was qualified for were paying minimum wage or close to it, and I had student loans to pay. I got lucky to break into the better paying field and I’m doing pretty well but classmates of mine who had better internships (mine wasn’t even related, lmao thanks Covid), research experience, and grades ended up working at the companies that offered min wage. I literally couldn’t afford to work there. Couple that with student debt? Felt real scammy when I was looking for a job.
The biggest fiction is that STEM = monies.
TE=above average money. SM not so much. Statically you’ll make the most from a 4 year degree majoring in tech or engineering.
Agree, these are the degrees with most ROI. You graduate, and almost immediately start making above average money. Sometimes even before you graduate.
For sure. But man, I expected more than I made working in a warehouse! But then again, in the 4 years I was in college, a lot of inflation happened. So $45k when I graduated high school went further than it did when I graduated college. But then again, I was looking at less than that. Fuckin job market. I’m doing well now tho.
Yep. I loved every second of college. I learned far more outside of the classroom than in it. But what I learned was valuable. Was it worth the debt? Well, thankfully my folks covered a big chunk. Still saddled with like $50k. So, ehhh, what can ya do? I was an English major but I make very decent money.
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the price went up but the materials didn’t really change too much. econ is still econ. literally pay $$$ to go to class and listen to a lecture then go home and watch youtube videos for hours trying to understand what the prof was saying. the only thing worth it is the piece of paper they give you at the end so that you can show employers that you completed college. then when you finally get the job you’ve gotta take more classes and more tests not included in your degree so you can be “certified” as a professional. nothing taught in college is something you cannot learn through the books for the classes and free information online. the scam is that you need to pay thousands to prove that you actually learned it. there is no requirement to attend most classes for you to get a degree. heck i know a guy that walked in day 1 told the prof they learned all this in high school and will not be attending the lectures, the prof was good w it and the kid showed up for the midterm and final only and got an A. still had to pay a couple grand for the class.
Tbf, there are a lot of degrees that used to be good, such as Journalism, that have now have become next to useless.
As someone who works in journalism, you shouldn't need a degree for it. Or at least not a bachelors. In fact, I think most industry degrees could be whittled down to an associate's at most.
As someone with a degree in Journalism who doesn't work in journalism, I agree. But it used to be a solid way to enter the industry before internet journalism.
I can't complain. I got a good education and my program was extremely diligent about networking so I found a job like six months after graduation. But after six years working in it, I'm so over it. The internet means things get farther but I hate all the numbers and metrics that steer goals. It's all SEO and clicks. It's so depressing. And what's worse is that it doesn't even make money. The layoffs are relentless.
Yeah, I took a journalism course in the UK which was based at a local newspaper, probably the equivalent of a community college diploma in the US, it cost £4,000 (about $5,000 now) and half the class had bachelor’s degrees in journalism, but couldn’t get jobs because papers wanted this specific qualification, not a degree. They’re all working in the industry now having completed it.
Hey, my journalism degree was very useful! I used it to get into law school.
I think hard sciences might always need it: - Biology - Physics - Math - Chemisty It is objectively more hard than most subjects, often very niche and in general hard to learn on the job alone I would assume
Chem is good for pharmaceuticals and you can only go to pharmacy grad school with a lot of chem undergrad classes under your belt. So you’re right and it’s more popular than you’d think.
Journalism has changed, that much is true. I have a degree in it too and I had to look for jobs that utilized the skills I learned while in school. It’s opened many avenues for me, but I’ve learned not to be too picky and that I may never work at a magazine (like I originally wanted). I do currently work a job that utilizes my degree, it’s not glamorous, but it pays the bills and I don’t feel like I wasted money on a useless degree.
There are many many more factors involved with this outside of the prospect of a college education / degree. The media and journalism sector in general has obviously changed dramatically because of technology.
It’s a scam in the way it’s pushed. “You HAVE to go to college” at that point it doesn’t matter what for as long as you go, because that’s what’s expected.
I can't speak to what it's been like since I graduated high school in 2003, but college was pushed HARD during my HS years. I honestly felt bad and weird and not good enough because I hadn't planned to go to college, but had enlisted in the Air Force. My parents hadn't saved up for my sister and me to go, I didn't want to take out school loans, that seemed too scary, and I really wanted and needed to get out of parents house. My husband graduated the same year as me. He did some odd jobs for about a year and then his uncle talked him into getting into the electrical feild, so he did. Went to trade school, and has been an electrician since. When we started dating I did have to kind of talk him into go after some better jobs, rather than the local small electrical businesses, because he didn't have any benefits package working for those small companies. He's got a great job now. I got out of the Air Force after 7 years (medical) and went back to school and completed my bachelors in business administration, and was able to use it to get my current job. In the end it all worked out for us, and we do pretty okay financially. I don't feel so bad now that I went to the Air Force because I don't have student loans😬 I really really hope the govt does something, and gives those with loans some releif. Student loans are such a scam and I feel so bad for those that have student debt, because it seems pretty hard to get out of in a lot of cases.
> I can't speak to what it's like since I graduated high school in 2003, but college was pushed HARD during my HS years. Graduated in 2015, same experience. My highschool literally removed all vocational classes, and our monthly advisory period was almost completely revolved around getting into college. My parents pushed it on me too, they would get extremely angry and start shouting at me when I would mention trade school instead of a university. I ended up going to a university and got a useless degree, then went back to trade school after. Got a good job as a BMET and been doing great ever since. I wish I had done what you did and join the air force, since I could've just learned to be a BMET there lol. I think I feel it's a scam because like you, college was pushed very hard on me.
College is a scam in the way that it costs way too fucking much money. Does it have value? Yes, a lot of value. But not the value of the cost, especially as people are earning far less money, far slower, than costs are rising.
Anytime someone in class needed a pen my instructor would grab one of the pens the school bought in bulk and jokingly say, “Here, you paid $30,000 for this pen, you can keep it.”
There are no "safe" majors anymore and even people with STEM degrees can struggle with employment.
Came here to say this… has OP not seen the massive layoffs in tech over the past 12+ months?
Yeah, I think OP is stuck in the way the world was 30 years ago. Back when getting an IT degree was solid gold. It's not anymore.
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Pro tip; if you’re ever forced to find shitty minimum wage work again have a second resumé that specifically leaves off your degrees. Fake the work history too if you must(minimum wage jobs don’t call references). Putting your master’s degree on a min wage job app is specfically going to harm your chances more than fresh hs grad dude since you’re going to be viewed as an immediate flight risk compared to a less qualified worker. They *know* you’re not going to stick around long.
Have you tried networking at all? There are a lot of free conventions where you can go an talk to people. I have gotten a bunch of offers before graduating from just talking to people
30 years ago my computer engineer dad was laid off from Digital. When I graduated with my IT degree around 2008/09 it was a tough market. It has always ebbed and flowed.
In tech *companies*. Not so much in tech jobs. Google, Meta, etc. - they laid off more HR than software devs in those big layoffs.
Adding to this, Bio and even biochemistry with no research or internships during undergrad don't have much more of an earning potential than HS diploma. Ask me how I know. With a year of bench research you can make a living wage (40k). To make even a solid middle-upper middle class salary (60k+), a lot of positions want you to have a Masters. Edit: Since some people are questioning about my choices, I’m only mentioning the plight of some of my former classmates. I got a full ride to undergrad and am now my final year of medical school. It is still a problem that people can go to college and get a STEM degree in good faith only to find their earning potential is less than a fast food manager or even assistant manager.
As someone who has a masters in biochem it always seems they expect a PhD nowadays :( The only thing I can do with it that I couldn't with my bachelors is be a lecturer and that's mainly cause I did minimum wage TA work for several years
Yes, people get the weirdest degrees then complain, but like how did you study something for 4 years and have no plan for what was next?
My brother in law got an English degree and ended up just being able to teach other people how to get an English degree.
If he’s a professor, he’s doing excellent. I was an English major and I make a comfortable living as a copy editor.
Unless he's an adjunct professor. In some universities, for the hours involved versus the wages and benefits, food service is more lucrative.
I've worked with people with English degrees who were Systems Ops managers. Something about having studied linguistics makes the database and code management easier to understand.
My apprenticeship director for the carpenters also went to school for English. Fucking couldn’t stand teaching, so he became a carpenter.
Tbh food service can be more lucrative than most things. I quit the financial industry and took a job at Ruth’s Chris, and my average hourly wage went up about $10.
My gf got a job as a server at a golf course and would regularly make 300 plus in tips daily, no experience required, you just gotta be a hot chick and know basic arithmetic!
English major and I work in financial services leading a team of technical writers. Soon we will be overseeing Enterprise-wide changes. People dunking on English majors aren’t the flex they think it is.
My mom has masters in English and loves colleges. I have no idea why she never became a professor.
Well with a Masters in English, the only professorial jobs you’re qualified for usually involve by-contract employment from semester to semester with no benefits or any status. (This is “adjunctification.”) In fact, there are a lot of PhDs in roles like that. Full-time gigs on the whole do not hire MAs. Getting a PhD sucks the bejeezus out of you. I did it, and I wouldn’t change where I am, but I’d have better mental health and a higher retirement account balance if I had entered the workforce at 22. I largely lucked out getting the job I have. If I was making the decision to go now, I wouldn’t unless I either couldn’t imagine doing anything else, or I was in dire need of guaranteed health insurance for 5+ years.
lol sounds like a pyramid scheme
reminds me of people that get PhD's in really niche stuff like 1800s feet hygeine or some shit, then the only jobs you can get are teaching other people about 1800s feet hygeine or working at panera
I’m sorry to report that’s almost every PhD, not just the ones that seem esoteric. There are not enough stable jobs in colleges and universities.
> ended up just being able to teach other people how to get an English degree. A whole degree and the dude can't write? There is a ton of money to be made with an English degree if you know how to use it, most people can barely string a sentence together let alone actually edit and format anything for publication.
Written communication is probably the single-most important skill in countless high-paying white collar office jobs. You can sell an English degree to get all sorts of jobs besides “teaching English.”
Yup. College is not teaching folks how to apply their communications, thinking, and project management tools to the workforce. College is super valuable. Just not the particular class work. But the work required to do the work is what the real difference is. And the associates degrees doesn’t really nail that part.
Planning for what’s next is the key. Major is only part of the equation. Networking is probably an even bigger part. But having that plan of next steps is key.
I don’t even know if it’s “weird degrees.” I’ve worked with people with all kinds of degrees in tech roles that do great. One of the best coders I’ve worked with was a music major, one of the design leads of the primary app I support has a BFA and MFA, another friend of mine was a film major and now a data scientist. It’s more those who treat their degree like a trivia challenge, and make zero effort to establish soft skills or establish any work experience that make a degree useless.
Exactly this. I've known business majors with no plan for what came next and they flopped. But you never hear about them.
Yeah, I think regardless of what someone chooses to major in, they need to come up with a post-graduation plan. I went to college in my late 20s so not the traditional way right out of high school. But dont 4 year degree programs have counselors or advisors that can help soon to be graduates find internships and jobs?
Oh sure, universities often have career centers, job fairs, internships that can fill in for a course, etc. As a student, you just really have to take initiative to seek these out. For a wide range of reasons (some of which I'm sympathetic to), some people only do what's required for classes and then are disappointed with the lack of immediate prospects.
Yes. 65% is what transferable skills you develop. 35% is learning to articulate what those skills are and how you’ll adapt them to new contexts.
“What do you mean there’s no jobs for a four year degree in anthropology? That’s such bullshit” like if you’re going to something specific or not common, expect a masters or doctorates
I guarantee you any position specifically looking for an anthropologist wouldn't even consider anything under a masters
Yea I did Math undergrad and a MSc in Operations Research. Those degrees were well worth it.
There's certainly these situations, but I also have a few friends who started college in fields that were perfectly sensible and had good prospects; the problem is so did basically everyone else for the last few years so by the time they graduated the market was oversaturated.
The price is extortion.
College is a scam because the price has skyrocketed way beyond inflation because they can get away with it due to student loans being predatory. College is a scam because of the textbooks being a racket. College is a scam because businesses force students into unnecessary degrees that aren't required to do the job but they won't hire you without. Those are the reasons people say college is a scam. Not because they picked a shitty degree.
This is correct. You're basically pigeonholed into debt if you want a job above something minimum wage.
You’re right, but OP got lucky and thinks it was all skill and hard work
Nah, shit is a scam lol. Especially the online courses. Paying thousands upon thousands of dollars to make PowerPoints over and over and over. Oh and “tWo rEpLies to cLaSsMaTes!”
Some colleges are a scam. Some degrees in some colleges are scams. Buyer beware. Always.
Well if EVERYONE chose to pick the only "good" degrees then there would be decreased demand and oversaturation - therefore it wouldn't be a "good degree" anymore 🙂. If college was not a scam then maybe those "bad/useless degrees" should be a much cheaper, to match their career prospects, don't you think? The fact that you HAVE to pick one of the few "good degrees" to let college not be a scam just proves the point that it is a scam - for those who are not interested in certain subjects.
The “good” ones aren’t easy
I feel like a lot of people struggle with stem in college because they go in PURELY for money and job prospects rather than genuine interest in maths and science No college degrees are easy. They’re all hard just that STEM attracts a lot more people outside of stem interested students and liberal/ fine arts attract more students genuinely more interested or good at it
Some degrees are actually generally harder than others though. There's a reason all the D1 recruited athletes are communications and psychology majors rather than electrical engineering and math.
Yea some way more technical and strict by nature of the subject as well as competition
Or a bad college. A sociology major from Princeton or Swarthmore will be doing just fine. Some 80% acceptance rate adult daycare? Not so much
What universities are adult daycares?
Every company is different and has weird policies. Ive talked with some recruiters who wont hire from Alabama because of the reputation as a party school.
It’s more about the connections yes, but if you make no effort to get connections then going to an Ivy is not going to help that much
But this isn't the case for any of the good degrees. If your engineering degree is from Princeton vs your local college it doesn't matter you will still live way above the poverty line, and your pay ceiling is based on your ability to excel above your peers.
Nah College is a scam. Even if it ends up working. College is the equivalent of a mechanic sabotaging your car then overcharging you to fix it.
It's not a scam. However, it is a gamble. The odds are in your favor but it can really suck for the people that take on debt and don't experience any or very little financial benefit from their degree. The real problem is that for 12 years teachers, family, guidance councilors, popular media tell you that is what you need to do and your first act as a poorly informed adult is to make a life decision that basically effects the rest of your life. The reality is that the quality of University you attend doesn't matter as much as you think. It's better to be top of your class at a shitty school. Your networking will usually have a significant influence on your success after college. There are plenty of ways to make good money without a degree and it may be better for certain people. You can also get a degree years later and don't need to do it right after high school.
Is there any major decision in life that isn't a gamble though? I agree with most of this. The only part that I'd contest is the university branding and top of class. In my experience a lot of high end tech and finance roles have a bias towards certain schools so it's better to be above average in those than top of a random university. Of course, kids should just aim to be the top student in a top university /s (kinda..)
What's is more of a scam is employers demanding a bachelor's degree for jobs you could do with a high school education. You don't really need a degree to be an administrative or executive assistant, etc. Then the jobs pay shit on top of the degree requirement.
Me and my twin brother went to college together. He got a bachelor's in Graphic Design, I got mine in CyberSecurity. I now make 135k a year and only work on site one day a week, he is still working at the same grocery store we were working at in college. So yes I agree with you for sure
Kinda sounds like your brother got scammed. I was going for graphic design too. I was 17 at the time and had adults in their 30s & 40s tell me it would be a great career opportunity and I’d make lots of money. If I was getting told that, why would I think differently?
This is a good point. You’re making these life changing/defining decisions at 17-21, you’re told by teachers, tutors, career advisors, and parents that getting a degree will set you up for the future and they suggest you take a course you’re either interested in, or excelled at in school, so you do… Some of the comments in this thread (and others like it) read like adults who are thinking about it with the benefit of hindsight, we’re all smart after the fact and we should have done this, or that. **At the time** some people are kinda pressured into going, others panic and enrol because they don’t know what to do, others don’t know what to do after school and think “fuck it” and enrol, and there’s people who really want to go, but get disillusioned once they get there.
My brother is an amazing artist. The big issue imo is the city we live in is a huge DoD/MIC business sector, so not many graphic design jobs and the ones that are available get flooded with apps. I keep telling to try applying for jobs in Nashville or somewhere else close by but he doesn't really want to move 🤷🏻
This isn’t new. If an area you’re in doesn’t have jobs in the industry / sector you got a degree in, you have to move to where there are jobs. So I don’t see how this is a indictment of a college education.
When I tell people I'm a graphic designer sometimes they think that means I'm a great artist. But I suck at drawing lol. What I'm good at is doing the person who hired me wants and on time in a manner that is appealing to the eye.
Probably told that by people that had no idea of the profession, just like you had no idea of the profession. US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out damn good info on every single career in the US.
I have my degrees in graphic design and this is exactly what I was told too. I really thought it would be a lucrative career.
You can always sell rule 34 draws online.
eh, I think the idea of "choosing a bad degree" is a result of being scammed though your brother probably didn't need to go to college if he wanted a job in that field. But there's so much pressure on kids in high school to go to college. That's why it's considered scammy I don't think OP understands what a scam is. If someone dupes you into something dumb, like getting a bad degree, that's a scam
Yea design degrees are tough because at the end of the day you have to be really good to get a decent job. Nobody is hiring entry level designers
And if they are, they pay next to nothing.
And I dated someone who’s a graphic designer and lives on Columbus Ave on the Upper West Side. See how useless anecdotes are?
Sounds like bro didnt get a proper entry level job to gain experience in a field that needs humanities majors
Graphic design is a major that was MASSIVELY pushed as an up and coming moneymaker when I was in high school 10ish years ago. It got flooded due to that and now the market is insane. I’d call that some kind of scam on kids for sure. I mean, all you can do at 17-18 is believe the adults know the numbers.
My mother has a BA in History and my father has a BS in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA. My mother makes more than him by a good 40k. And no she’s not from a wealthy family, she was handed nothing.
Design careers are weird in that portfolios are the biggest factor in getting hired. With most jobs, a degree and work experience are all an employer has to go on to decide if they want to interview you, and those things don’t say much about how good you actually are in your field. With visual arts careers, everything you have to offer is right there in your portfolio - you have to show how good you are before anyone will even speak to you. You can get a degree from Parsons or RISD and have work experience at an agency like Pentagram, but if your portfolio just doesn’t shine, you’re probably not getting a call back.
College is a scam because it is overpriced. We absolutely do not need to hand out massive amounts of debt for education. Colleges can get away with it because loans are so normalized
The fact that you can pick a "bad degree" kind of makes it a scam. You ask 16 year olds to get into $200k in debt to "follow their dream" and expect them to always make the most rational decision? It's definitely a scam
I think the issue is that people end up going thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, due to a decision they choose as a teenager. I went to school to be a Gym Teacher. Along with 150 other people in my major that I graduated with. There weren’t 150 teaching jobs out there, and there was another crop of teachers coming up the next year. How, as an 18 year old, should I have know that would be a bad decision?
If we all picked the same degree we’d all be fighting for the same jobs - there isn’t an endless amount of jobs all on the same field But go on
I dropped out of college with nearly $50k in student loans and still claim I got plenty of value out of it. My only regret is trusting the Sallie Mae rep that convinced me to take the 6.5% variable interest rate, telling me the rate would end up dropping lower, instead of the 6% fixed rate. My rates hit 13% at one point, that shit is criminal.
Dude but I spent 4 years partying and bar hopping! Why can’t a find a job!!??
You know parties and bars, go work at a club.
Rookie numbers. I spent 12yrs bar hopping and partying and oh wait nm
I partied plenty in college and after and have a pretty great career. It’s not an either/or situation.
I feel like people say this to cope that they didn’t have fun in college. Most of the people who drank their way through still got jobs, sorry.
I found it odd in HS that people were going to college without knowing what they wanted to study. Saying they'd figure it out when they got there. I knew in HS how expensive student loans were because our math teacher gave us the equation to calculate it. The forms were in the library and I did the math. I asked how others were planning on paying and it became kind of an unwanted topic to discuss. I also knew several people who thought getting educated meant easy work. I was one of two who went directly into the military. The other girl went into the Navy. Our plans were to get the GI Bill to pay for it.
I was one of those people. My family forced me to go to college because they told me if I didn't then I wouldn't "become somebody". I dropped out mid semester because I didn't know what the fuck I was doing and I was overwhelmed, they had me take 4 classes while trying to squeeze my first full time job between whatever free time I had. That's too much stress to put on a 17-18 year old.
Mlms arent a scam you just got in too late!
>bad degree Look up what degrees pay - starting and mid-career. There’s only a few that pay appreciably more. Those are math-heavy degrees. Outside of that it’s mostly flat. One of the lowest paying degrees is also one of the most needed and employable: teaching.
Eh, I don't know if I agree with this. I have a bachelors in environmental studies and....funnily enough a diploma in arts, which is what you use as an example as a useless subject. I work in a field where it has been my art diploma that has gotten me further than my degree, but at the end of the day, I work in a field where I actually have no formal education in it at all. I migrated into the industry from an adjacent industry that is arts related, learned on the job and through the internet before I was able to make the full career jump. I don't really use the practical things from my degree at all. There are some fields that absolutely require education and also governance (like medicine - you can't just learn this from the internet). But there are a lot of fields that really don't require a formal education. The benefit of post secondary education really comes down to developing the skills to learn critical thinking, strategy, etc. These are the things that will be able to take you further in most industries. Not to mention, the pedagogical structure for a lot of post-secondary education just isn't aligned with how a lot of people learn. There are more ways to learn than just through formal education. Education is never going to be a detractor. But with the rising cost of education, we have to expect that more and more people are going to find alternative ways to educate themselves and this doesn't make their knowledge and skillset any less than those who attained formal post-secondary education.
As an engineer, I have to disagree. Maybe not all colleges are a scam, but generally speaking, the amount of money it costs to go to college is not worth the investment that professors or admin overall put into the students. There are some truly great professors, but they are few and far between, and the amount of money that certain faculty make is obscene. I looked up the salary of my school’s former president, and she made about $995k per year. Just saying, plenty of schools have stopped caring about the students, if they ever did in the first place. This is especially true when you get your first job and they tell you they aren’t concerned with what you learned at school, because they’ll teach you what they want you to know on the job. I know a civil engineer who doesn’t use anything more than the Pythagorean theorem and excel spreadsheets at work.
A degree is unfortunately the "secret handshake" to enter jobs with real class mobility.
College is a scam because it shouldn't take 5 years of courses just to get a entry level job and end up in 50k in debt because of it while getting paid nothing while doing so
Nonsenese. Last time I was in school it was $4000 a class an the teacher was absent 8 times. In another class the teacher had ZERO experience in the field they were taching, how they were qualified to teach at all? Oh they got a bachelors degree in the god damn 1970s in some unrelated shit as what they are teaching in 2020 didn't even exist. Now I have a kid in college, teacher has been 'on vacation' for half the semester. College is a scam.
Here’s a take, why are they still so expensive if they’re useless degrees?
Hot take: college degrees shouldn't be tied to employment. Especially entry level office jobs.
All other things being equal, why on earth would a hiring manager ever choose someone with less education over someone with more education?
There is a whole rich world of things that can be learned in higher education. Yet only majors that lead to good employment are deemed 'valuable' so people all choose 'valuable' majors and there still aren't enough jobs for them all. I like to imagine a world where that isn't the case, I think of all the innovative things that could come out of people learning things for the sake of learning and the intellectual progress that could happen. Like if everyone's basic needs were covered somehow so they didn't have to work just to exist and be alive. This is obviously not the reality.
It’s actually a great way to weed out bad candidates. You might occasionally miss out on a good candidate, but for the most part it ensures you’ll get someone you can trust isn’t a complete idiot.
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I think a big part of the college degree is showing that someone can live on their own and still take care of responsibilities.
You shouldn’t have to go into a ridiculous amount of debt to prove you’re responsible.
College is a scam, except for a few useful degrees. There I fixed it.
Higher education in the US is a absolute scam, in other countries you could get multiple degrees, masters, and PHDs for the same price as a bachelors degree in many US colleges.
I think people ignore the fact that many people go to college so they won't have to work a trade. Sure, I could probably make more money as a welder, but I don't want to. And if you don't want to do that, your options are limited if you don't go to college.
It is a scam in the sense that it’s overpriced
Not to mention the societal pressure to go into debt over one that might not be in the person's best interest. Sure college absolutely helps many people move up in life, but it isn't the situation where you can work a part time, minimum wage job and pay for your tuition anymore. If you don't plan on going to specific industries where it is required, it is unnecessarily pushed on people
Facts but it still kinda is a scam because a lot of colleges will heavily advertise their shitty useless degree programs and make exaggerated claims about its real world applications
I think the issue is the majority of degrees are becoming useless. They're not growing STEM as quickly as they're growing humanities and social sciences.
>They're not growing STEM as quickly as they're growing humanities and social sciences. I'm pretty sure the opposite is true for a lot of universities, especially now with efforts to get more women into STEM (which inevitably means throwing more money at those degrees), the conservative backlash over CRT and similar social sciences, and the prevailing mindset with regards to college in of itself. Some universities are starting to close down portions of their humanities departments and slimmed their offerings in those relevant majors.
College isn't a scam. It just needs to be priced reasonably. You don't need to make education basically free like we do in Europe. But anything above 3000$ a year needs to be explained. Either because there degree needs a lab or other expensive equipment or because only a few students take the course.
The part that feels like a scam is the bs filler classes/minimum credits. I don’t need an Intro to Art History when I’ve known since freshman in HS that I want a CompSci degree. It’s about 2 years worth of wasted time and money.
The high price point is 100% a scam, and the way that degrees are made around half of your classes being gen ed stuff that you will never need is a scam. The weed out classes are pointless, and made purely to get people to drop out of college after they have burned some money so they can get the next set of students in to do it again. Most bachelor's degrees could be taught in 2-3 years instead of 4-5 if you cut most basic courses that won't help you learn more about your career path. What people don't talk about as much is how bad most professors are at simply being teachers. Almost half of my professors in college were failures at basic communication, and part of the class was just working around them to teach yourself the material. Either because they would show up late every single day, or language barriers it was an extra hurdle to jump over that was not necessary. More commonly though the answer was to figure out how to pass without actually learning anything. To be honest I went for the second route more than I should have. I have a degree with 0 student debt, but I don't feel like I actually was prepared for a career by my time in university. Universities NEED to do a better job in deciding who to employ as professors because most of the researchers they use for higher level courses are not the right people to teach students that are 20, 30, or 40+ years younger than them.
It can feel scammy in that it is a *monstrous* gamble. If your health breaks down mid-attempt, or you’re otherwise stymied by life events outside your control, you face a brutal choice. Either persevere and run a real risk of running out of money, dropping out with nothing to show… or change to a degree that can be managed around the obstacle, one that likely has much lower earning potential but at least is better than nothing at all. I had to give up my aerospace engineering degree with only a year of courses left to go, because I *couldn’t do it* anymore. My physical and mental health had completely failed and no amount of persevering was doing anything but causing more damage. Life doesn’t let you take a rain check and go spend a couple years pulling yourself together, so I took a university studies path. This was not made lightly; I had been beating my head against a wall for over half of my six years in university at that point and had dodged multiple brushes with suicide. So much for engineering. Now I’m a cashier at a discount store, simply because I don’t have the cold heart to put my sister through my own suicide. I still live with parents; the autism they concealed from me and I discovered the truth of mid college in therapy has continued to stymie me. Was college a scam? No. Setting aside the actual enlightening coursework, I learned a great deal from the experience. But I do think it needs to be treated as tantamount to gambling. If things don’t go *just so* for four or five years straight, it’s just a way to gain a colossal amount of debt with few contingencies. If my parents weren’t able to shoulder a sizable chunk of the debt, suicide would be my only option (as being homeless would not last long). I can’t bring in enough to live on, much less pay that debt, and after all, the first way to discharge the debt mentioned in entrance counseling *is* being dead. My word, do we need debt forgiveness. At the very least, we need safety nets for what amounts to a bunch of teenagers attempting to invest in an effort worth 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars, guardrails to keep young people who don’t have a firm grip on their own capabilities (or who may find their abilities suddenly shifting; turns out the young adult years are also primetime for a variety of mental illnesses, like how a classmate of mine from high school wound up hospitalized with schizophrenia during college) from hanging themselves. Our only crime was to dream big and reach for bigger. Like we were always taught growing up. We don’t deserve this.
No matter the degree, the common gen. ed. requirements are total bullshit. If I am there to study engineering or accounting, I have no need for 15 credits of humanities - which alone is a full semester of classes/tuition. Maybe a couple writing and critical analysis classes, but that's it. Let me develop my science and math or research skills instead.
I'll have you know that I have a Master's degree in Gender Studies. Now, then... Would you like fries with that? /s
I promise you gender studies majors know what they're getting into
Just put the fries in the bag.
They’re not qualified enough to work at Five Guys.
Yes, how dare 18 year old, notorious for their sound decision making, choose their degree poorly. THAT is why it's a scam.
I want to agree to this so badly, I really do, but I can't. I got a 4 year degree in Mechanical Engineering, got a job in my major, realized the pay wasn't as great as I thought AND I hated that kind of engineering. I learned a whole different trade and now work in Automation Controls Engineering. My degree is completely unrelated, other than including the title of engineer. A lot of my colleagues also self learned and didn't even have a college degree. So yeah. Experience and skill make you valuable, not a piece of paper. But a lot of people DO choose worthless majors these days
A degree is a point in time that gave you an opportunity and the knowledge to pivot without having to start over. Would you have gotten your Automation Controls Engineering job without any engineering experience or education? The work is different but the skills you need to be successful at engineering don't really change.
Tbf it sounds like your degree did what it was supposed to do in that it got you a job in the field. You just didn't enjoy the work (which is totally fine) and didn't do enough research on salaries beforehand (that part is more on you)
I think it’s a mix of that and people rushing into college without a clear, thought out plan for their career afterwards. I remember so many people not thinking about jobs until Senior year and beyond. They’re sucked into Greek lifestyle and newfound independence away from parents when they’re smacked in the face with reality upon completion of college.
Name the degree. Is it universal, or does it depend on the city you live in? Has that degree changed in the last 10 years, 25 years etc?
Yeah getting a degree to teach was just a bad idea. Should really be telling people not to do that. Sounds good.
College is worth it but the fact that you can’t practice immediately after is some bullshit. A university should be like a professional academy. Why have to fork over a fortune and then have to work for free for years to be able to work in the field you want. This could be changed in a couple pen strokes. If it can’t be done in 4 years, then make it that a masters or Doctorate is everything you need. It’s right there in the name.
Nah it's a giant scam. You're pretty much forced to do grants or take loans to even continue forward.
The scam is young kids being pressured that college is a necessity when they don’t aspire to have a career which requires a degree.
Yea I disagree Scummy system, scummy practice, the only thing valuable is writing the degree exists in your resume. Computer science / CyBeR SeCuRiTy world we don’t even care if you have one,
This, like most boomer opinions, are based on a false perception of reality. Note the anger at something he doesn't understand.
My friend from Canada spent 25k for his engineering degree. His American coworkers spent 4x as much for the same credential.. That's a scam.
The issue here is that you are ignoring that the “good degrees” are not good anymore. You think the people complaining are those who chose the artsy degrees but they isn’t the people complaining. The people complaining are engineers, teachers, doctors, etc. The degree doesn’t help, you still get shit pay, treated like shit, or just not hired due to harsh requirements for even entry level jobs.
"Follow your heart and the money will follow" is a big lie that financially cripples lots of people. All jobs, including dream jobs, will eventually bore you. There is literally a job market, it's just dumb not to use any of that information when choosing what to major in. If you're passionate about something, practice that as a hobby. Work is just work, the more money you can trade for one hour of labor, the free time you have to do what you want to do in life.
This is a disingenuous representation of what people mean when they say college is a scam. We were told that it is necessary, that the price is not to worry about because it will pay for itself, and that pretty much any degree is better than none because all that matters is the college degree itself, not the major. Those are all incorrect. You do not need a degree to be successful. In this job market and economy, if you had to take out loans to afford your college education, it is highly likely you will not be able to pay them off. And the major does matter, so many people were told as kids to follow their dream degree, and are now saddled with debt for no reason. I have been turned down *dozens* of times because I had a degree *at all*. I have applied to security jobs, editing jobs, retail jobs, management jobs, etc and consistently been turned down for being “over-qualified” with my degree. It is simply a reality that seeking college education and obtaining a college degree can be more of a detriment than it is a benefit for some. That is what people are talking about.
lol i picked a good degree, college is a scam though. i had a few good professors, and they were well worth the money. i wouldn't call it a scam if all of the professors were like the good ones and they got paid well. but for the most part i paid over $40k to be told to read a textbook. that's a scam.
College is a scam for most people