The greatest long-term value you get from college is probably the friends you make, followed by the name on the degree if it’s a good school, followed by the stuff you learn. Do not underestimate the power of making good friends in college. Practically everything that I’ve done after graduation has been with friends I made in college. The best way to predictably make certain types of friends is by joining a residential living group with a culture based around the types of friends you want.
I would especially criticize filtering by “full-ride” scholarships on the following grounds: if you’re smart and dedicated you can get a good job which will allow you to quickly pay back loans, and taking out loans will (usually) allow you to go to a better school (better social scene, better name, better things to learn) than you otherwise would.
Yeah, I’m updating on this a little bit, but I’m still not fully convinced—do you have some good examples of people who are clearly not stupid or lazy who regret taking out loans to go to a better school?
Specific examples? No, I’m not in the habit of inquiring after my acquaintances’ finances.
But here’s a thought-experiment: Suppose you take out loans to pursue a field that experiences a turndown or bubble burst — such that before you pay off your loans, there are substantially fewer jobs available in the field than qualified entrants.
It is easy to declare that anyone who can’t find a job is thereby shown to be stupid and lazy. However, this ultimately forms a goalpost-moving or “No True Scotsman” argument; the weirdness of which is shown by the fact that it sets different standards for “stupid and lazy” in different fields, depending on a fact not under the control of the supposedly stupid-and-lazy person — namely the number of available jobs in that field.
I’d strongly disagree with the student loans thing. Winding up with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans puts serious, crippling limitations on your post-graduation degrees of freedom. By all means, go to the best school you can, but the economy is uncertain, and there’s no guarantee of that ‘good job.’ Paying off student loans on a service industry salary may well be a form of Hell.
OK, I’m updating on the loans thing, but I’m still not fully convinced either way. Obviously there’s no guarantee of a good job, but a big name on your diploma will undoubtedly make it easier to get those jobs, no? Especially if you major in something sensible, and take appropriate steps so that you get recruited as you leave university?
I do think that having a big name on your diploma improves hireability (depending on what you intend to do), but I suspect, on average, that the improvement is substantially less than a hundred percent. And given that we’re discussing a question of free for a smaller school, or potentially-hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars for a big school, it’s a very expensive less-than-an-order-of-magnitude improvement.
Now, the above is a little misleading. Even a full-ride scholarship, school costs money in terms of lost time and opportunity. That said, most people fresh into the job market can’t expect to make as much as it costs to go to school at a big name school like MIT, so time is not the majority of the cost here either way.
I’d also point out that majoring in something sensible and putting yourself out to recruiters improves your odds no matter what school you go to, and reduces the margin between expensive and cheap schools.
Tomme, your priorities are probably wrong.
The greatest long-term value you get from college is probably the friends you make, followed by the name on the degree if it’s a good school, followed by the stuff you learn. Do not underestimate the power of making good friends in college. Practically everything that I’ve done after graduation has been with friends I made in college. The best way to predictably make certain types of friends is by joining a residential living group with a culture based around the types of friends you want.
I would especially criticize filtering by “full-ride” scholarships on the following grounds: if you’re smart and dedicated you can get a good job which will allow you to quickly pay back loans, and taking out loans will (usually) allow you to go to a better school (better social scene, better name, better things to learn) than you otherwise would.
That’s the sales pitch for loans, of course — with the implication that only stupid and lazy people have trouble paying them back.
Yeah, I’m updating on this a little bit, but I’m still not fully convinced—do you have some good examples of people who are clearly not stupid or lazy who regret taking out loans to go to a better school?
Specific examples? No, I’m not in the habit of inquiring after my acquaintances’ finances.
But here’s a thought-experiment: Suppose you take out loans to pursue a field that experiences a turndown or bubble burst — such that before you pay off your loans, there are substantially fewer jobs available in the field than qualified entrants.
It is easy to declare that anyone who can’t find a job is thereby shown to be stupid and lazy. However, this ultimately forms a goalpost-moving or “No True Scotsman” argument; the weirdness of which is shown by the fact that it sets different standards for “stupid and lazy” in different fields, depending on a fact not under the control of the supposedly stupid-and-lazy person — namely the number of available jobs in that field.
I’d strongly disagree with the student loans thing. Winding up with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans puts serious, crippling limitations on your post-graduation degrees of freedom. By all means, go to the best school you can, but the economy is uncertain, and there’s no guarantee of that ‘good job.’ Paying off student loans on a service industry salary may well be a form of Hell.
OK, I’m updating on the loans thing, but I’m still not fully convinced either way. Obviously there’s no guarantee of a good job, but a big name on your diploma will undoubtedly make it easier to get those jobs, no? Especially if you major in something sensible, and take appropriate steps so that you get recruited as you leave university?
I do think that having a big name on your diploma improves hireability (depending on what you intend to do), but I suspect, on average, that the improvement is substantially less than a hundred percent. And given that we’re discussing a question of free for a smaller school, or potentially-hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars for a big school, it’s a very expensive less-than-an-order-of-magnitude improvement.
Now, the above is a little misleading. Even a full-ride scholarship, school costs money in terms of lost time and opportunity. That said, most people fresh into the job market can’t expect to make as much as it costs to go to school at a big name school like MIT, so time is not the majority of the cost here either way.
I’d also point out that majoring in something sensible and putting yourself out to recruiters improves your odds no matter what school you go to, and reduces the margin between expensive and cheap schools.