Penny Arcade - Comic - Smartenations

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Penny Arcade - Comic - Smartenations

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

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V1m

It's weird now to come from a time when one could not get a degree but still get a sort of OK job

dennis

V1m wrote: »

It's weird now to come from a time when one could not get a degree but still get a sort of OK job

I almost feel like it's the opposite. When I left college in the late 90s, Bachelor's degrees were mandatory for almost everything white collar. Now a lot of places are wising up and realizing they're not quite the indication of ability that they'd been assumed to be for so long, since everyone and their dog was getting one somehow. Plus, jobs are realizing it's kind of a diversity reducer as well.

On top of all that, the job market is more stacked in favor for workers than it has been in decades. Places are not able to fill so many positions even without degree requirements.

Lttlefoot

It went up and then down. Degrees aren’t always a good investment these days

LtPowers

I might have missed something once upon a time, but why would Tycho's kid not have been able to lead a normal life?


Powers &8^]

Anon von Zilch

I think people should be able to go to college just for the sake of self-improvement, instead of so they can hopefully get a job.

LtPowers wrote: »

I might have missed something once upon a time, but why would Tycho's kid not have been able to lead a normal life?

Samantha's somewhere on the autism spectrum, not sure about the details.

Johnny17

V1m wrote: »

It's weird now to come from a time when one could not get a degree but still get a sort of OK job

Though in their case it's a rather exceptional job for exceptional people.

Rhesus Positive

Anon von Zilch wrote: »

I think people should be able to go to college just for the sake of self-improvement, instead of so they can hopefully get a job.

That's basically what I got out of it

Was it worth the money? Well, that's the fun thing about stuff that you can't measure in currency - who the fuck knows

Luckily UK student loans seem a little less predatory than US ones

Djiem

V1m wrote: »

It's weird now to come from a time when one could not get a degree but still get a sort of OK job

Now you can get a degree and a shitty barely paying job!

Monkey Ball Warrior

I mean it's a core problem, university is seen as being two fundamentally different things that are sometimes at odds: self improvement / critical thinking etc, vs. just regular job training.

Most of us concentrate on the latter and just pick up as much of the former as we can on the way. Most people cannot afford to go for it's own sake. Which has always been true it was only in the 20th century the idea of anyone going that wasn't overwhelming wealthy took hold. As a form of job training it's kind of new.

dennis

It's the correlation/causation problem.

They noticed people with college degrees got better paying jobs. So then everyone got a college degree.

It's like noticing that people who eat instant ramen are on average poorer, and expecting cutting out instant ramen from your diet to somehow increase your income.

Only in the case of college in the US, you take out crippling debt to learn the lesson.