5 ms·

The school admitting the student should co-sign the loan. If the school is confident in the value of their program they should assume the risk.

jedberg 6y ago
A funny idea, but also a great way to make sure that schools only offer majors with a high average post-grad salary.
- 0xffff2 6y ago
  Is that bad? Humanities departments are already shrinking without any changes because there's just no demand. It doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to me that if you are determined to get a degree in philosophy, which has virtually no job prospects outside of teaching the next generation of philosophy students, you have to go do that at one of a handful of schools that carve out a niche for themselves with a philosophy department.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    > Is that bad? It depends on your point of view. Should college be a trade school or should it stick to it's roots of broadening one's horizons? I found my philosophy classes quite enlightening. They were required for my degree in CogSci. If my school didn't have a philosophy major, it wouldn't have a philosophy department, and I would never have had those classes. Also, there are some majors that lead to professional school. English/Rhetoric are often majors of people going into law school for example.
    - jackcosgrove 6y ago
      > Should college be a trade school or should it stick to it's roots of broadening one's horizons? The term "liberal arts" means "free arts". The root of this term is that Athenian society was composed of a small class of free families and everyone else was a slave owned by those families. The free families were wealthy enough to afford a liberal education for their free sons. Everyone else had to work. Those are the roots of the liberal arts.
      - kaibee 6y ago
        We have robots instead of slaves now. We, as a society, can afford to provide a liberal arts education to everyone. In fact, we already do, for grades 1-12. I think the main issue is that that education fails people who could progress through it faster (and those who need more time in certain areas).
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - abnry 6y ago
      It brings up the old joke about being a philosophy major: "Two things to do with a Phd in Philosophy: 1. Teach. 2. Pose the question: ‘But do you know why you want fries with that?’" College is an investment that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. When you invest that much money, you should expect a ROI. If you can't even put roof over your head or eat with that investment, then it is really hard to say it was a good idea.
      - jchrisa 6y ago
        As a Philosophy major who has succeeded in tech, I think tech would be better off with more humanities people involved. Writing code isn't the hard part, when you are solving big problems.
        abnry 6y ago
        You certainly add a useful perspective, I am sure. However, by working in tech you aren't doing philosophy, you are doing tech.
      - entropicdrifter 6y ago
        Philsophy majors are a common target for ridicule, but the fact of the matter is that corporations go out of their way to hire Philosophy majors to be problem-solvers of various types because they essentially have a degree in critical thinking.
        ThrowawayR2 6y ago
        They'd be better off hiring people with engineering degrees (non-software). That's applied critical thinking and creative problem solving all in one. I really don't know why there's this insistence that humanities has a monopoly on teaching critical thinking.
        lordnacho 6y ago
        What's wrong with software engineers? Surely there's a fair bit of critical thinking involved there, too?
    - Reedx 6y ago
      Philosophy is great, but it's not something you need to go into debt for. Did you learn anything in those classes that you couldn't have learned on your own via books and free lectures on YouTube, etc?
      - jedberg 6y ago
        I think you're missing the point of college. Anything you learn in college can be learned from a book or YouTube. The value of college is the curation the professor provides and the people you are doing it with.
        gshubert17 6y ago
        >>Anything you learn in college can be learned from a book or YouTube. That which can be learned by one-way communication from a book or video are not all that can be learned. Through dialogue and practice one may learn techniques of proofs in math classes, lab techniques in science classes, how to write and edit papers in humanities classes. All the practice that drama, art, or music majors do amplifies what they learn from their books. And so on. The NFL wouldn't hire college football players who got all their learning from books or YouTube.
    - LudwigNagasena 6y ago
      The problem is that universities are neither trade schools nor a place to broaden your horizons. It is a way to get a credential that you can use to signal your worth on the job market. If testing your skills was done outside of school GRE-style, would all these people who pay many thousands of dollars to get a diploma pay so much? I really doubt it.
      - ZoomerCretin 6y ago
        >It is a way to get a credential that you can use to signal your worth on the job market. What a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in that this attitude is common.
    - toast0 6y ago
      > If my school didn't have a philosophy major, it wouldn't have a philosophy department, and I would never have had those classes. I went to an engineering school, the only majors were X Engineering, Business, and Nursing. Somehow, we had professors for the humanities classes, so I don't think a major is a requirement.
  - teh_infallible 6y ago
    As someone who majored in English, I assert that the emphasis on STEM and shift away from the humanities is causing serious problems in our society. Specifically, having a population lacking in critical reading skills makes everyone more susceptible to propaganda, and less able to critique and assess flawed arguments in writing. If you want to know why, for example, our political “debates” are shallow circuses of misdirection and name calling, look at the state of the humanities.
    - AuryGlenz 6y ago
      Just 40 years ago it was pretty rare for someone to go to college, so I don’t think you can blame a shift away from humanities on that.
    - potta_coffee 6y ago
      Funny, I was exposed to more propaganda in university than anywhere else. Are you saying that only humanities majors are educated enough to recognize propaganda?
    - twic 6y ago
      You don't have to look very hard at all to find people who are participants in and cheerleaders for those debates who have degrees in the humanities. Most journalists, for example.
    - bosie 6y ago
      I am not following your argument, is your first and second sentence connected? why is a mathematican less likely to be able to critique and assess a flawed argument compared to an English major? why is an English major less likely to fall for propaganda compared to a computer science major?
    - traverseda 6y ago
      Are universities in the US being used as an expensive stand-in for the failing k-12 education system? At least the basics of that kind of critical reading is something that the english classes in high school should teach.
    - 6y ago
  - take_a_breath 6y ago
    ==philosophy, which has virtually no job prospects outside of teaching the next generation of philosophy students== Is this true? It seems some tech companies disagree: CA Technologies [1], Y Combinator [2], Google [3]. Is it possible that you are not well versed in what philosophy majors actually study and how well that might translate to a working environment? [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/tech-talent-gap-looks-to-philosophy-majors-ceo-mike-gregoire-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/tech-talent-gap-looks-to-phi... [2] https://www.fastcompany.com/40440952/why-this-tech-ceo-keeps-hiring-humanities-majors https://www.fastcompany.com/40440952/why-this-tech-ceo-keeps... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/08/26/tech-companies-are-hiring-more-liberal-arts-majors-than-you-think/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/08/26...
    - lallysingh 6y ago
      I thought Philosophy was essentially pre-law.
      - filoleg 6y ago
        Yeah, philosophy was a bad example of a "non-high-earnings" degree. Sure, there are plenty of whack philosophy programs that lead nowhere. But if you go to a school with a rigorous philosophy program (which doesn't mean only Ivies/Stanford/etc.), you can easily go for a law degree or a finance job afterwards. Rigorous philosophy programs usually involve tons of discrete math and logic classes, and mastering that opens a lot of doors. I only took up reading philosophy material after graduating, but it is very obvious to me that knowing that in school would have helped me with my more theoretical/math-y CompSci classes tremendously. Not even talking about some other good applications of that degree that I might not be aware of due to not being a philosophy major myself.
    - dnautics 6y ago
      If that's the case then the philosophy department should have no trouble bankrolling their program with accessibility for all on a combination of some wealthy kids and some majors who snag a job at well-paying tech companies. Or did you miss the class on inductive reasoning?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- itronitron 6y ago
  It's a net-gain for the school programs that do this well.
wespiser_2018 6y ago
This is the basic idea behind an Income Share Agreement, or ISA, where the student pays for the education out of their future. Don't make money == school doesn't get paid! This would be a nice solution to the current educational mess we are in.

jedberg 6y ago

A funny idea, but also a great way to make sure that schools only offer majors with a high average post-grad salary.

0xffff2 6y ago
Is that bad? Humanities departments are already shrinking without any changes because there's just no demand. It doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to me that if you are determined to get a degree in philosophy, which has virtually no job prospects outside of teaching the next generation of philosophy students, you have to go do that at one of a handful of schools that carve out a niche for themselves with a philosophy department.
- jedberg 6y ago
  > Is that bad? It depends on your point of view. Should college be a trade school or should it stick to it's roots of broadening one's horizons? I found my philosophy classes quite enlightening. They were required for my degree in CogSci. If my school didn't have a philosophy major, it wouldn't have a philosophy department, and I would never have had those classes. Also, there are some majors that lead to professional school. English/Rhetoric are often majors of people going into law school for example.
  - jackcosgrove 6y ago
    > Should college be a trade school or should it stick to it's roots of broadening one's horizons? The term "liberal arts" means "free arts". The root of this term is that Athenian society was composed of a small class of free families and everyone else was a slave owned by those families. The free families were wealthy enough to afford a liberal education for their free sons. Everyone else had to work. Those are the roots of the liberal arts.
    - kaibee 6y ago
      We have robots instead of slaves now. We, as a society, can afford to provide a liberal arts education to everyone. In fact, we already do, for grades 1-12. I think the main issue is that that education fails people who could progress through it faster (and those who need more time in certain areas).
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - abnry 6y ago
    It brings up the old joke about being a philosophy major: "Two things to do with a Phd in Philosophy: 1. Teach. 2. Pose the question: ‘But do you know why you want fries with that?’" College is an investment that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. When you invest that much money, you should expect a ROI. If you can't even put roof over your head or eat with that investment, then it is really hard to say it was a good idea.
    - jchrisa 6y ago
      As a Philosophy major who has succeeded in tech, I think tech would be better off with more humanities people involved. Writing code isn't the hard part, when you are solving big problems.
      - abnry 6y ago
        You certainly add a useful perspective, I am sure. However, by working in tech you aren't doing philosophy, you are doing tech.
    - entropicdrifter 6y ago
      Philsophy majors are a common target for ridicule, but the fact of the matter is that corporations go out of their way to hire Philosophy majors to be problem-solvers of various types because they essentially have a degree in critical thinking.
      - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
        They'd be better off hiring people with engineering degrees (non-software). That's applied critical thinking and creative problem solving all in one. I really don't know why there's this insistence that humanities has a monopoly on teaching critical thinking.
        lordnacho 6y ago
        What's wrong with software engineers? Surely there's a fair bit of critical thinking involved there, too?
  - Reedx 6y ago
    Philosophy is great, but it's not something you need to go into debt for. Did you learn anything in those classes that you couldn't have learned on your own via books and free lectures on YouTube, etc?
    - jedberg 6y ago
      I think you're missing the point of college. Anything you learn in college can be learned from a book or YouTube. The value of college is the curation the professor provides and the people you are doing it with.
      - gshubert17 6y ago
        >>Anything you learn in college can be learned from a book or YouTube. That which can be learned by one-way communication from a book or video are not all that can be learned. Through dialogue and practice one may learn techniques of proofs in math classes, lab techniques in science classes, how to write and edit papers in humanities classes. All the practice that drama, art, or music majors do amplifies what they learn from their books. And so on. The NFL wouldn't hire college football players who got all their learning from books or YouTube.
  - LudwigNagasena 6y ago
    The problem is that universities are neither trade schools nor a place to broaden your horizons. It is a way to get a credential that you can use to signal your worth on the job market. If testing your skills was done outside of school GRE-style, would all these people who pay many thousands of dollars to get a diploma pay so much? I really doubt it.
    - ZoomerCretin 6y ago
      >It is a way to get a credential that you can use to signal your worth on the job market. What a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in that this attitude is common.
  - toast0 6y ago
    > If my school didn't have a philosophy major, it wouldn't have a philosophy department, and I would never have had those classes. I went to an engineering school, the only majors were X Engineering, Business, and Nursing. Somehow, we had professors for the humanities classes, so I don't think a major is a requirement.
- teh_infallible 6y ago
  As someone who majored in English, I assert that the emphasis on STEM and shift away from the humanities is causing serious problems in our society. Specifically, having a population lacking in critical reading skills makes everyone more susceptible to propaganda, and less able to critique and assess flawed arguments in writing. If you want to know why, for example, our political “debates” are shallow circuses of misdirection and name calling, look at the state of the humanities.
  - AuryGlenz 6y ago
    Just 40 years ago it was pretty rare for someone to go to college, so I don’t think you can blame a shift away from humanities on that.
  - potta_coffee 6y ago
    Funny, I was exposed to more propaganda in university than anywhere else. Are you saying that only humanities majors are educated enough to recognize propaganda?
  - twic 6y ago
    You don't have to look very hard at all to find people who are participants in and cheerleaders for those debates who have degrees in the humanities. Most journalists, for example.
  - bosie 6y ago
    I am not following your argument, is your first and second sentence connected? why is a mathematican less likely to be able to critique and assess a flawed argument compared to an English major? why is an English major less likely to fall for propaganda compared to a computer science major?
  - traverseda 6y ago
    Are universities in the US being used as an expensive stand-in for the failing k-12 education system? At least the basics of that kind of critical reading is something that the english classes in high school should teach.
  - 6y ago
- take_a_breath 6y ago
  ==philosophy, which has virtually no job prospects outside of teaching the next generation of philosophy students== Is this true? It seems some tech companies disagree: CA Technologies [1], Y Combinator [2], Google [3]. Is it possible that you are not well versed in what philosophy majors actually study and how well that might translate to a working environment? [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/tech-talent-gap-looks-to-philosophy-majors-ceo-mike-gregoire-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/tech-talent-gap-looks-to-phi... [2] https://www.fastcompany.com/40440952/why-this-tech-ceo-keeps-hiring-humanities-majors https://www.fastcompany.com/40440952/why-this-tech-ceo-keeps... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/08/26/tech-companies-are-hiring-more-liberal-arts-majors-than-you-think/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/08/26...
  - lallysingh 6y ago
    I thought Philosophy was essentially pre-law.
    - filoleg 6y ago
      Yeah, philosophy was a bad example of a "non-high-earnings" degree. Sure, there are plenty of whack philosophy programs that lead nowhere. But if you go to a school with a rigorous philosophy program (which doesn't mean only Ivies/Stanford/etc.), you can easily go for a law degree or a finance job afterwards. Rigorous philosophy programs usually involve tons of discrete math and logic classes, and mastering that opens a lot of doors. I only took up reading philosophy material after graduating, but it is very obvious to me that knowing that in school would have helped me with my more theoretical/math-y CompSci classes tremendously. Not even talking about some other good applications of that degree that I might not be aware of due to not being a philosophy major myself.
  - dnautics 6y ago
    If that's the case then the philosophy department should have no trouble bankrolling their program with accessibility for all on a combination of some wealthy kids and some majors who snag a job at well-paying tech companies. Or did you miss the class on inductive reasoning?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
itronitron 6y ago
It's a net-gain for the school programs that do this well.

wespiser_2018 6y ago

This is the basic idea behind an Income Share Agreement, or ISA, where the student pays for the education out of their future. Don't make money == school doesn't get paid! This would be a nice solution to the current educational mess we are in.