I also attended a local state school, graduated in 5 years, but doing a co-op program every other semester the last 3, making decent money at the time ($17 an hour) and getting real work experience.

I left with no debt, 2 years of real work experience, and a solid degree from a respected university (GA Tech).

The college debate is so messy because the outcome is highly dependent on what you want out of it.

I think for most of the arts - if you want to practice that art, you're far better off skipping college. The folks teaching there are not practitioners, they're professors in the subject. They will help you become an academic in the space, and that's likely not what you're after.

- Chose affordable option to my situation (private but religious school that I was then an adherent of)

- Graduate school after a few years working in industry; PhD so route was "paid for" with starvation wages. Had two kids during the process. Worked to supplement. Took loans but paid off w/in two years (interest rate stacking put that at the highest return).

- Success in industry came by hard work and by being genuine with colleagues and coworkers as to my capabilities, desires, etc.

I came from a poorer/low middle class background. College was a real improvement for my situation, and for others I've kept in touch with over the years from my hometown or similar situations.

Not all of us went into the highest middle class type roles, and some of us married into families with high assets or got lucky with astute business acumen. But those dice rolls aside, college was a qualitative net positive.

Graduation years were late 2000s undergrad, mid 2010s grad. So, not too far removed from the current experience.

Fast-forward a few years into the economic downturn of the early 1990's and the company I worked at for my third job collapsed overnight. The market was flooded and I had a really difficult time finding another job because I didn't have a college degree.

I finally got another job and even better, they paid for me to go back to school. I went back to Ohio State year-round taking a couple courses per quarter (they were still on the quarter system back then). By that time I was married, into my mid-to-late twenties and able to avoid all the student life BS. I knew exactly the weaknesses in my knowledge, tested out of as many of the basic courses as they'd let me, and learned a lot.

One of the benefits I got from testing out of so many courses was I still needed hours - they cleared prerequisites but I maxed-out the hours. That means I was eligible to take a lot of graduate-level courses. I took all the core courses comprising their Masters program. Like, I said, I learned a lot.

And my employer paid for it all! The most shocking thing is after I graduated my employer gave me a 50% raise! I even said, hey!, my job hasn't changed I'm doing the same thing now as I was doing a month before I graduated. Their response? Your market rate is different, you're more valuable now. You're a Staff Engineer with a degree.

College paid off great for me!

It was mid-2000s, I lucked out and graduated and got a job just prior to the great recession and for a few reasons this was a huge boost for me as I had a limited number of inbound new hires to compete with for the first ~5 years. People would pay a premium for my "2 years experience" instead of hire new grads.

Tuition has risen about the same as the pay for the job I worked in college. I will admit it was a decent job as "un-degreed college job" goes. It was a job that several folks were making a career of (~$15-20/hour in mid-2000s). This job was in a 24/7 hospital environment so I was able to work whenever I wanted and usually worked 12 hour shifts on TTS and stacked my classes on MWF. I'd do homework afterwards and on Sundays I had no class or school. The biggest "regret" of doing it this way is the social experience I had is not as fun as most. Although, I was very self aware of that and the regimen actually helped me stay focused. I partied a lot in high school and nearly dropped out and in the end had to cram 4 years of classes in 1 semester + a summer. I did the self paced "alternative school" thing where you read the textbook and take proctored tests to pass the course. I loved that method as I always felt taking 1 or 2 semester to cover a single text book in 1 hour a day was a horrible approach to [my style of] learning. [I also taught myself to code around this time, built a lot of side projects, and realized my learning style is well suited for that, I can just read the docs - I don't need to take a class.]

If I was doing the same now, I think the biggest challenge would be affording housing. I paid about $400-500/month for a 1/1 in Austin back then. One year I had a roommate but even split the rent still worked out about the same, and we got a newer nicer 2/2 apartment. COL in Texas was much lower then, especially the major cities.

* Went to a local state school on a scholarship plus 50k loans. Paid off the loans over a few years. Was never really a terrible burden even when I was making <50k

* Worked over the summers

* Got to study abroad for 6 months, made a very strong group of friends, and met my wife

* Got to pursue anything I was interested before finally settling on CS

My default state is that my children will be attending college.

I definitely see your point and - as an european outsider - understand and agree with you. However, I think your perspective is strictly linked to the US experience. University should not only be a place to pursue a career, or at least they should not advise it as such. It's a formation experience in different aspects. Obviously, your perspective change when it's so financially demanding.

On the flip side, it’d be straw that broke the camels back for my social life. I’d go from being one of the youngest people everywhere I go go probably one of the oldest.

I have this current theory that there are a lot of domain/industries even in software development are made much harder to get into for the “uneducated” because the companies tend to source less experienced employees exclusively through university hiring pipelines.

Now I have no qualms absolutely tearing into the current implementation of higher education, but I’ve spent most of my life as an observer and I definitely see now some huge benefits of higher education outside a piece of paper and lectures.

My biggest frustration is that non-traditional students (outside a single demographic being ex-military) are thrown to the wayside or straight up scammed by otherwise legitimate colleges. When I first started looking at going back I was dumbfounded when schools were more interested in my high school disciplinary record and not really interested in my established professional and experience.

One popular state research university near me started offering online programs for “professional and non traditional students” but the only degrees offered are “useless liberal arts degrees” (think degrees that are used as the punchline in political slurring battles) or “made up” degrees that aren’t remotely related to any on-campus program, are often worse than the aforementioned liberal arts degreee and are designed for no other reason but to extract money from poor people. A lot of them also have jumped in the bootcamp hype. I can’t tell you how much spam I’ve seen from universities wanting me to join the Cybersecurity bootcamp.

Again this is not your typical For-profit university, this is a respected state school with best on the nation programs in certain areas.

lol what? Do high schools even have those records anymore a decade plus after the fact?

Everything about the undergrad process seems designed for a 17/18 year old kid who spent the last 4 years grooming themselves for that specifically.

It makes sense of course, as that’s probably the majority of people starting undergrad, but it does suck for anyone else, especially since the system is very bureaucratic and inflexible. See: how the financial aid system determines your dependent status, hint it’s not what the IRS says. It was pretty akward the first time I v tried to go back, and informed adult who had been on my own for some years at that point having to call up my father and see if he was willing to give me all sorts of sensitive information because despite have it paid my own since 18, the education system related me “dependent”. The only logic behind your status is if you’re under 24 or not (with leniency only for extreme situations such as being an orphan, homeless, or having both parents incarcerated)

How long ago was it? I only ask because my eldest child is currently at university, and I believe the experience I had in the 1980s and she has now are fundamentally different. The academic, financial and employment landscape has changed a lot in the past 20-30 years, and that creates different pressures for both students and institutions.

I now firmly believe doing a vocational, or at least employment-friendly, course at a local college or university, and probably living at home as a result is the best course of action for most students.

My co-op income in the last 3 years completely covered costs for those years, and I worked as an intern and took on-campus jobs the first two years to cover those, in combination with financial aid (HOPE).

It's slightly more now (I just checked tuition for the 2021 year, it's ~12k, so the total yearly cost would probably be around 15k now), but still SO MUCH BETTER than paying private or out of state rates.

---

My advice

- Live on campus for at least a year if you can, you end up with a much better social group, and more contacts in general. Plus no car/vehicle/commute expenses.

- Take every job you can get while doing it (I interned in labs, taught classes, and then jumped into the co-op program as early as possible)

- Live with as many roommates as you can tolerate, and move off campus once you know some folks (we split a house rental 6 ways)

- Don't fuck around. I consistently took the limit for class hours (or within an hour of the limit) and did not have to re-take any classes. The first rule is: Go to your damn classes, you're at a job, not a spa. If you can't make it to your classes, reconsider if college is for you.

The author says that for STEM college often seems of value, but for students without the skill or aptitude to pursue high-skill degrees that exit into a pool of job opportunities it is awash.

If you are not already wealthy spending large sums of debt on a degree that won’t get you paid more is objectively luxury spending at the negative cost of your future self. How many degrees increase income earning potential?

College can still be affordable. The specific college you want, the one that other people have heard of outside an eight-county radius, dorm living the whole time, out-of-state tuition, famous professors, guest lecturers whose names are well-known... well, probably not.

Just checked, the one I went to is about $18k/yr now, in-state tuition & fees. That's roughly an inflation-rate increase since when I went. You'll likely have some debt without scholarships or parental help, but a college job can keep that under control. CLEP out of a couple early classes, take advantage of that tuition being flat-rate rather than per-hour(!), and it's very manageable. Start at a community college and transfer, and the numbers look even better.

This is purely from a software development context and obviously doesn’t apply outside, but Given that choice is almost just eschew college period. I have not seen good quality programs at a small schools and I imagine you also lose out in quality of employer sourcing, networking etc.

The time cost alone would make it seem that it’s better just to break into the field without education. It’s not easy, but it’s not particularly difficult either.