Comment by hc12345

No, the benefits of university are from smart people who can earn enough during summers to pay reasonable tuition if schools weren't set up as four-year vacations with lavish amenities. When I went to Georgia Tech, in-state tuition was about $2,400 per semester, or about $20,000 over four years (in 2024 dollars). It was a spartan, 1970's experience--like European universities often are today--but it was quite affordable for students who could earn that much at summer internships. And it's not just for engineers. My wife put herself through the University of Iowa, studying business and german literature, in 5 semesters by nannying.

It’s unpopular to say, but a disproportionate amount of value is of course derived from people who are both educated and have immediate access to resources to fully exploit that education as well as the risk tolerance to innovate in the process, and the social status to build strong trust and social bonds with other similarly prepared people…so although it pains me to say it, yes?

It is certainly plausible that the most benefit to society comes from people that are both educated and empowered.

Whether the cost of that empowerment > the burden outsourced to society, well, that is another discussion.

Perhaps more on point, because I definitely think we can find examples of this in practice, it’s perhaps more truthy and also more actionable to say that college provides its optimal outcomes when it serves people who have intrinsic gifts that are empowered by knowledge. Sometimes these gifts are resources, but often these gifts are cognitive brilliance. Either one is like oxidiser for the fuel of knowledge, but especially brilliance when given resources.

I’m pretty sure that for the majority of college graduates, aside from its social signalling value, the amount of their secondary education that directly benefits them in their life could fit in a couple of years of summer school or a year of community college.

A quarter million dollars in debt is a tragic price to pay for a couple thousand dollars of educational utility. A system that requires a social signal 100x more costly than the value it represents is externalising that cost onto everyone, and the only benefits flow to financiers and the moneyed class.

Aside from educational titles (as opposed to capabilities) society is generally sensible regarding the cost of symbols vs the reality they facade.

We recognise the ridiculousness of people owing $90,000 for a truck when they live in a dilapidated trailer on a rented lot. We understand that a man who lives hand to mouth but wears a half of kilogram of gold around his neck is probably not making the best life decisions. We ridicule the faux-intellectual with their ridiculously stilted props. But somehow, we are convinced to dress up our children like heirs to the crown and send them to finishing school for their jobs in retail. It’s a profound mis-investment.

It’s also worth noting that it is way more expensive to provide an education to the intellectual proles than it is to educate brilliant and hungry minds. We are shovelling money (distilled human effort) into a furnace of misery in the service of vanity.

University rankings have pretty much nothing to do with how well they teach students, only their research output. And good researchers aren’t automatically good teachers ( and vice versa).

I don’t know any such rankings which measure envy, I’m afraid. It’s all based on numbers of papers published, etc.

Do you think people in other countries envy the us college system based on rankings? If so I strongly recommend a trip abroad and striking up a few conversations with prospective or enrolled students. In my experience the topic of cost and non dischargeable student loans comes up often. Rankings very rarely.

google, lol, marketing doesnt make a university good.

Yeah and if you had 100k staff it's a pittance!