<story><title>A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/07/will-going-college-make-you-happier/613729/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>omginternets</author><text>I barely skimmed the article, but I don&amp;#x27;t find this surprising for a few reasons (some of which have been mentioned elsewhere in the comments):&lt;p&gt;- &amp;quot;University degree&amp;quot; is a heterogeneous thing.  While there is such thing as non-economic value, the strictly &lt;i&gt;economic&lt;/i&gt; value of a college education tends to cluster around a small subset of degrees.&lt;p&gt;- Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who get degrees.  Far from fixing inequality, this has instead diluted the value of university degrees.&lt;p&gt;- All universities are not created equal.  While it is possible (and even common) for employers to pay too much attention to the reputation of the school, it is also quite common for students to over-estimate the value of a no-name institution.  I&amp;#x27;ve found this to be moreso the case in the two European countries I&amp;#x27;ve lived in for an extended period of time (France &amp;amp; England).&lt;p&gt;- The exorbitant debt incurred by university tuition in some countries (which need not be named, I think) means the ROI on the university degree has to also be exorbitant.&lt;p&gt;Have I missed anything?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>KMag</author><text>&amp;gt; - Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who get degrees. Far from fixing inequality, this has instead diluted the value of university degrees.&lt;p&gt;I know enacting social change is much much harder than throwing money at problems, but I wish America figured out a way to really strengthen the cultural admiration for the hard-working craftsperson archetype.&lt;p&gt;Pete Buttigieg took a lot of flak for pointing out that many jobs in America don&amp;#x27;t require a college degree, and there should be nothing shameful about learning a skilled trade instead of going to college.  We have a vast over-supply of many college majors, and (I&amp;#x27;m told) big shortages in many skilled trades.  There are way too many people with 4-year degrees from top-100 schools working cash registers in retail, when they&amp;#x27;d have far less debt and higher income (and a good chance of later becoming successful small business owners) if they&amp;#x27;d gone to trade school instead of college.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s honestly classist to push 4-year degrees so hard.  There&amp;#x27;s something noble about optimizing your own happiness while providing valuable services, despite much of America considering skilled laborers to be a class below cashier workers with useless 4-year degrees.  I wish we as a society could better appreciate skilled laborers.&lt;p&gt;We don&amp;#x27;t have much positive to show from decades of flooding the college tuition markets with cheap credit &amp;#x2F; crippling debt and implicitly pushing hard the notion that going to trade school is settling for second-best.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s something to be said about removing the crippling personal debt from the act of flooding the education markets with money, but without cultural changes, I think a big effect would be further ballooning of college costs.  I fear the crippling debt will just get hidden as accelerating the ballooning of government debt without moving the needle much on inequality.</text></comment>
<story><title>A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/07/will-going-college-make-you-happier/613729/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>omginternets</author><text>I barely skimmed the article, but I don&amp;#x27;t find this surprising for a few reasons (some of which have been mentioned elsewhere in the comments):&lt;p&gt;- &amp;quot;University degree&amp;quot; is a heterogeneous thing.  While there is such thing as non-economic value, the strictly &lt;i&gt;economic&lt;/i&gt; value of a college education tends to cluster around a small subset of degrees.&lt;p&gt;- Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who get degrees.  Far from fixing inequality, this has instead diluted the value of university degrees.&lt;p&gt;- All universities are not created equal.  While it is possible (and even common) for employers to pay too much attention to the reputation of the school, it is also quite common for students to over-estimate the value of a no-name institution.  I&amp;#x27;ve found this to be moreso the case in the two European countries I&amp;#x27;ve lived in for an extended period of time (France &amp;amp; England).&lt;p&gt;- The exorbitant debt incurred by university tuition in some countries (which need not be named, I think) means the ROI on the university degree has to also be exorbitant.&lt;p&gt;Have I missed anything?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mcguire</author><text>&amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;- All universities are not created equal. While it is possible (and even common) for employers to pay too much attention to the reputation of the school, it is also quite common for students to over-estimate the value of a no-name institution. I&amp;#x27;ve found this to be moreso the case in the two European countries I&amp;#x27;ve lived in for an extended period of time (France &amp;amp; England).&lt;/i&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;From what I&amp;#x27;ve seen over the last decade, this is incredibly true in the United States, particularly with the rise of for-profit schools offering online degrees.&lt;p&gt;(&amp;quot;Oh, and X has a Ph.D.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Oh? Where from?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I think it&amp;#x27;s the University of Phoenix.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Ok.&amp;quot;)</text></comment>