Are College Degrees A Scam?

I was, admittedly, on /biz/ and saw them hating on students loans, and it made me think. Tell me, anons, are student loans a scam and, if so, what should be done/what should your average highschool graduate do? This relates primarily to burgers, but feel free to talk about other places.

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money.cnn.com/2015/10/15/technology/apple-stocks-free-for-all-employees/index.html
quora.com/How-do-stock-options-work-for-Google-employees-How-do-stock-options-affect-the-employee-What-is-a-RSU
forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2016/02/27/how-employee-stock-options-work-in-startup-companies/#3efd5a456633
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2072204/Facebook-IPO-create-1-000-millionaires-companys-rank-file.html
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Student loans are definitely a scam. But getting a college degree is becoming more and more necessary since more people are getting them.

Whether or not student loans end up working out highly depends on what you majored in. But it makes no sense that so many Americans are going to be paying off loans they took out at 18 well into their 30's and 40's. And let's not forget the parents who basically have to co-sign these loans since you don't have much of a credit history at 18 and you'll get a shitty rate if you get a private loan.

Of course it's a fucking scam mate. Capitalism is a scam. Doesn't mean you shouldn't go to college.

Student Loans aren't a scam unless you use them to get a degree in something that can't guarantee you a $60k/year (or more) job after graduation. So basically (in the US at least) you should only use loans to finance a degree in engineering or computer science.

My advice to anyone going to college is just major in computer science. Make life easier for yourself.

Compsci might go bust though. If it is indeed the future then it almost certainly will be proletarianized.

Who's /trade/ here?

Stopped reading there

Ya for STEM. Seriously don't go if you dont have too or do poorly in school to start with it.

Not every STEM degree is the same. There are only a couple that can provide ample (good) job opportunities after graduation.

FTFY. CS is a math degree. For junior devs a lot of places don't even require it, they just want STEMlords.

I don't doubt that comp sci grads have it rough. It's all competitive. But I think there are at least more opportunities. Like try being a self-employed mathematician. It's significantly harder.

Yes you're right. I mixed them all together.

Because your other option is to become a burger flipper who will lose his job when machines learn how to cook in the future.

Haha fair enough.

Of course it's a fucking scam. It's been a scam for years and years now, it's just that nobody wants to admit it. It's all going to come crashing down in the near future.

No? What does being in a trade have to do with being an Ancap? Not everyone can go to college and some work better with their hands.

Me. I like getting an education on the job I will be doing (and which I chose) and the things I would have liked to study in university wouldn't have helped me get a job.

uni is free in my country
knowledge shouldnt be behind a paywall

The whole damn thing is a scam. Either you go to college and maybe get a job in a field you are interested in and work for half you life on paying off loans, or you don't go to college, and get a shittier job and work every day just to stay alive. College is still the better option if you are any good at school. I'm working on a degree in maths and it is pretty fun. I just try not to think about the loans.

Nah I'm STEM, but I half a part time job welding and grinding steel and shit. It is pretty cool.

DAE should be some kind of student revolt to get free uni here in the states?

FEEL THE BERN

:DDDD

Whelp it made him popular. Fuck student loan debt and college admin "people"

money.cnn.com/2015/10/15/technology/apple-stocks-free-for-all-employees/index.html
quora.com/How-do-stock-options-work-for-Google-employees-How-do-stock-options-affect-the-employee-What-is-a-RSU
forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2016/02/27/how-employee-stock-options-work-in-startup-companies/#3efd5a456633
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2072204/Facebook-IPO-create-1-000-millionaires-companys-rank-file.html
I don't know if what that user said about the "average" programmer is correct, but since the barrier to entry in software and online services for a new company has been much lower than that in other economic sectors for the last few decades, it is relatively easy to start or join a young startup and reap the benefits. Of course, capital accumulation, network effects, automation, and changes in the regulatory environment will gradually erode this opportunity. Just as a tinkerer with a few wrenches and a lathe can't start a car company in today's world, the age of the fortune 500 company started by friends hanging around a dorm room will soon pass as well.

Sure, but investment banks will snap you up in a second.

There is a growing number of so-called "contractors" who work for these big tech companies as full time employees but are denied benefits due to the allegedly contractual nature of their work. Not all tech work is high paying anymore.

You don't live on the East Coast, do you?

Now now, you have to do things the mature way – by writing your representatives and having a measured, rational debate with your college's president :)

Yeah, tbh I prefer working now and then maybe going to college later when I can afford it. There's a labor shortage in my trade, so its working out so far.

Went to college for several years, dropped out due to depression. Been on disability since then. I'm 30 now.

Is disability enough for real?

You live with your parents or GF until you get government housing.

Depends where you live. If you live in Kentucky right now you're fucked. New York, places in New England, and California are your only real answer left, and that's really just pity money and it's notoriously hard to get.

Kentucky has an exception for the disabled. Much of the midwest is on disability since there are no jobs there.

This division is already in place; CS graduates from low-tier institutions generally end up working as codemonkeys in whatever framework their employers use, while those from a more accomodated background enroll and graduate from the better universities and then become essentially the bosses of the codemonkeys

That's not good enough. Eventually AI or some other innovation will be used to make programming as simple as pressing a button. Still I can't imagine it being easy enough for an average person to do. You would still need to train/educate people.

Some frameworks such as .NET or the Android SDK make it as easy as reading a reference guide and some tutorials, pasting some code snippets together and then making a GUI through a drag'n'drop interface. Shit, people are offshored in places like India to do this. Innovations may make the development process more straightforward, but who develops those innovations? Who designs the more complex systems required in applications such as security and networking?

This is why I say the division of labor is already well in place, roughly: technicians who code, engineers who design, and computer scientists who research and innovate.

And it is very unlikely any kind of AI will break this order, I might add.

i'm working STEM grad and agree. most compsci types are irredeemable reactionaries.

i completely agree, and also just wanted to say fuck the boomers i work with tons of them in STEM and htey can go to fucking hell, greedy motherfuckers

Student loans are literally a scam that people are being herded into.

Based post. I hope you take-up writing, you described the whole situation very eloquently.

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Hearing my comp-sci friend talk about how he automated his job without his boss knowing and basically doing nothing from 9 to 5 everyday makes me extremely jealous.

I agree with them because the student loans make the people become wage slaves for long time so that's not very good.

Yes, in addition to all the predatory financial practices of modern universities and loans, they actual contents of the education provided is also nothing more than a good worker brainwashing program, with "radical" ideas all being funneled into "radical" defense of the liberal status quo.

You know how capitalism steadily commodifies everything? And how student loans, once a strategic policy to increase the number of highly trained professionals in order to develop the economy, are now an industry scam in themselves? Well, pic related.

For profit colleges and loans need to be abolished. Fund and nationalise all of the colleges.

slightly offtopic but didn't want to start a thread for this, the software development industry and workers would be a ripe field for radicalization
Open Source software, especially when applied to tools like compilers used for creating software, is fairly close to the ideal of 'collectively owned means of production', most commercial software is developed using languages with foss compilers, often very little private property is involved in the commercial software creation process (save for computer hardware owned by the company), most of the tools could be used freely on your home computer, including the operating system
lots of programmers are proponents of open source software, even if they are lolberts or plain old liberal capitalists, they'll literally parrot the FOSS narrative without realising it's pretty socialist

additionally software development IS a trade, yes a CS degree does teach useful knowledge about computer shit but the majority of jobs do not require theory, but trade knowledge instead. The fact that most jobs require a degree is just an artificial barrier set up by the industry.
There's a huge lack of unionization though due to
A: most software being in the US which explains itself,
and B: progammers have been stupidly overpayed because of the .com/STEM/Web 2.0/IoT/blockchain/flavour of the month meme and Silicon Valley, so they never wanted to unionize
the other anons are right though, soon enough the industry will be proletarianized and it's high time for programmers to realize that and act now while they still can by unionizing and shit, because soon enough they'll be exploited just like any other worker

No, they're petty booj.

It is unfortunate - there used to be a much wider culture of sharing within software developers. Take someone else's code, add some good shit to it that you needed for a project, share it on, that kind of thing.

Open source projects today are kinda' how most things used to be online.

I don't know if I'd say that most in the software industry are ripe for radicalization. I get the sense that a lot of them are, for one, very thankful to have one of the few jobs that actually pays what passes for a middle class income, at least in the US, and for two, they don't want to rock that boat. They got theirs, for now, and many think that this is because they're so much smarter than everyone else. That anyone could do it, so long as they're willing to learn Java, C#, Python, some HTML, maybe the basics of SQL, and of course the ability to configure a LAMP stack, or find a cheaper way to get IIS running. No prob, right bro?

That's obviously not the only opinion out there, but I mean shit, look over at like Slashdot comments. They aren't very woke to the problems of their society or the world at large, but they might be after the next economic downturn happens and no one needs their shitty webcode anymore. I guess we'll see. Worth trying, in any case. Software devs can be a force multiplier.

If you're going to go to university, go into a STEM field. Everything else is taught in a unscientific fashion inside neoliberal academia and can be studied in a scientific manner only through marxist scientific methodology to begin with.

I hate to be this cliché but I came to Marxism by studying the humanities. Only Marxism really made sense to me in my field of study. Now, I kinda wish I'd gotten an economics degree or something but I don't have any student debt and I don't really want any.

marxism is taught in a post-modernist relativist fashion in neoliberal academia. marxism isn't an opinion or "one way to view things", but rather a scientific approach of history and sociology that's in stark contrast to the current method used in those fields (and all other life sciences in general).

studying the works of soviet scholars will get you on the right track. yes, you might have gotten to marxism through a uni degree in life sciences, but for a marxist like op getting a degree in bourgeoisie sociology for example is useless both for his scientific development (if he aspires to be a scientist) and for his future employment potential. you can simply go into stem and study marxism independently. a stem uni will give you access to laboratory equipment after all

I never went in for post-modernism or post-modern Marxism which is often categorized simply as "Western" Marxism since to does away messy soviet concepts about class struggle. I read many Marxist scholars, Soviet and non-Soviet, independently partly because my degree allowed me to do this, I could always find a way to tie it into my research.

My degree was in literature since I wanted to be a writer of some kind. I've always had an affinity for the arts and Marxism to me allows one great understanding into the social conditions that create art and allow us to perceive its meaning.

Not sure if this advice is for him or me. Maybe I'd do things differently if I was to start over again idk

for him. what i'm saying is that if you're already a marxist, a degree in bourgeoisie life sciences has no value. i'm glad it brought you to marxism however

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Life under capitalism is so expensive and complicated, i dont think i cant take it.

This i gotsmine economy is killing me.

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Why do americans not go to europe for a college degree ?

americans wouldn't be able to handle an EU bachelor's degree in a stem field. I think they don't even have calculus in high school

I'm thinking about going to Europe for college. Is it worth it?

They do, but it isn't required and most don't/can't.

i know you can optionally take them, but most people don't

no
it also depends on what you get, for example SSI maxes out at $730 a month and no one maxes out

depends on the school but it's always optional, at a lot of schools you can stop doing math at algebra 2 levels

If your school offers it, the IB program is supposed to be good for schooling abroad. The website is ibo.org or something. A word of warning though, it is supposed to be difficult.

lmao
t. IB kid

I got baited, but am hopeful that it will help out in the end.

Because learning another language is too much to ask of the average burger.
I did see a few of them when I was on Erasmus in Ireland, but that's likely to stop as the university fees are getting ridiculous and the cost of living isn't exactly cheap either.

Some schools require a few years and more schools encourage their students to learn a second language. sadly the selections are extremely limited.

Because european degrees are literally who tier in terms of value.

C'mon son

This. Mfw all my friends go abroad to study for a semester/year and think I'm bourg enough to follow them

any "social studies", humanities (with rare exceptions for english and history majors), and art majors are sick memes. unless you're doing hard science, math, tech and/or engineering, stick to work experience as a way of boosting your resume.

I mean some do; I'm a britbong and I've seen a few yanks around here: mostly French and Spanish though (apart from the Chinese, that is something in itself though).
In my course, I have to do a year abroad in Russia though: will be pretty eye opening.

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Free and superior healthcare and education isn't actually free. Still superior to America's "healthcare" system though.

College is a mind virus. invest in blue collar labor

wjho the fuckcummed into thats heffer mouth?

Learning another language is hard. The move is intimidating, people don't know where they will get a job or housing. Saving money for the move can be difficult. They have relationships in their area that they don't want to leave. They are simply too discouraged to look into it because they think it's probably not something they can do anyways.

I thought about going to Germany for school, and I know a couple of others who tossed the idea around, but none of us REALLY looked into it to a significant degree because I think we all basically felt as though our jobs and housing in America were already secured, whereas a move to somewhere in Europe sounded expensive and difficult. But most of the people I know had their parents pay for college, so if I had to get student loans or something I'd probably have looked into it harder.

But also no, they aren't a "scam". Without having looked into it too much, it seems as though the easy availability of loans has driven university tuition into space. TBH if the government more directly paid for people's education, and in the process of doing so they constrained costs more, prices probably wouldn't be so absurd. Right now they just back loans to students who then spend them on tuition which then makes the college raise their prices, and students keep flooding in so they just shrug and continue raising prices.

Yeah but if the government did that porky wouldn't make as much money. The US government exists to help grifters get rich off of people. They have no concept of the public good.

Till his boss finds out kek

Fam you realize the 19th century the continual source of french parisian radicalism was led by a multigenerational class of highly skilled and well off artisans who produced luxury goods for overseas markets? Tech workers could fill this role

usually
it's so obvious it's not even worth arguing

BEHOLD the most college educated country

Yes.

At best, it's companies getting prospective new employees to pay for their own fucking job training, at worst it's a fucking useless debt trap.

Yeah but as soon as people like him become bosses the whole thing is in the shitter.

Anyone else going into nursing? Honestly it's probably the work that'll be most in demand when the revolution comes.

College gives u the degree which makes ppl take u seriously

Never forget that the driving force behind Universities is still profit

thats only for startups.

They qualify as prole since they
DON'T OWN THEIR LABOUR
READ MARX! and Read EA_Sprouse.
Software development is akin to slavery. Yes they may get payed more but working conditions are horrendous

I dont know its world class here but free mostly. Maybe couple of books.

Its easy to frown on muh loans when daddy pays everything.

They may not get always "stock options" but tech companies are still quite generous with stock. Owning stock is bourgeois as fuck and helps to foster the petty bourg mentality that most of these people have. They will not be comrades until they are turned prole by declining profitability and the resultant decrease in their own living standards.

I've not seen any relevant job training occur in university for computer science graduates. In fact, no one was taught how to program since the introductory courses were all theory. Programming was self taught.

I would imagine other disciplines are about the same.

it's peace of paper which is worth as much as the share in general motors, it has sentimental value towards period of capitalist development where it was actually worth something

But the most prole people in the US a often don’t go to college at all 🤔

learn a trade

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Bump

The very real problem is they lowered the standard for getting one. A degrees value is decided specifically on how hard it is to get.

Strangely it's post-modernists that fucked you on this one. They have infested academia and have given certain groups a break for being disadvantaged, the standards are higher for White and Asian students. This lowering of standards for other people have devalued the degrees. If everyone has a college degree it means absolutely nothing, it would be like finishing high school. This is the main argument against free college.

Just to clarify I don't totally agree with this take on it. I would be more in favor of splitting things along the lines of income if they must help the disadvantaged.