patrick.net

anon_670d2 says

It's not. Welding is done by robots now.

By human operated robots. We wouldn't want freelance robot welders wandering the streets.

WineHorror says

Dan8267 says

There are an estimated 30 million jobs that pay at least $55,000 per year and don’t require a bachelor’s degree.

Try buying a house on 55k/yr. It's basically poverty. If you're not making six figures at this point, you are no longer in the middle class.

I believe that to be a true statement.

Houses are $10K a pop in Detroit.

Strategist says

The 2 years of general education requirements is also a load of crap.

Google what it means: philistinism

I guess there hasn't been a strong enough swing yet to anti-intellectualism.

50 years ago Americans who didn't have materialistic status would still pride themselves on having high literacy and perspectives on cultures. Dignity. Kindness. That's Heart and Soul.

Strategist says

The 2 years of general education requirements is also a load of crap.

Google what it means: philistinism

I guess there hasn't been a strong enough swing yet to anti-intellectualism.

50 years ago Americans who didn't have materialistic status would still pride themselves on having high literacy and perspectives on cultures. Dignity. Kindness. That's Heart and Soul.

Wait until the oligarchs screw everybody up in the equities markets.

This will become a different world and suddenly so many people will rediscover the merits of the values of their ancestors and the dignity due to men of honor and good character.

anon_e9ed4 says

3. Solution to too many degrees would be perhaps limiting government-guaranteed student loans to 5 or 10K per year, or giving those to only poor and successful students. The tuition and number of graduates would fall like a stone, to dismay of university administrators. Worthless degrees in SJW studies would also disappear.

I think govt assistance for school should adjust based on estimated demand for the degree. Eg, art/history majors would get less financial assistance than STEM majors. Same for interest rates on the loans - let the less valuable majors pay higher rates to help subsidize the rates for high value majors.

goat says

I think govt assistance for school should adjust based on estimated demand for the degree.

Governments are notorious for botching such things as estimating future demand for something.

Satoshi_Nakamoto says

goat says

I think govt assistance for school should adjust based on estimated demand for the degree.

Governments are notorious for botching such things as estimating future demand for something.

Very true. However, I don't think they need to look many years into the future for something like this. They could use the demand of current and recent years as an estimate for future demand and I think it would be pretty effective. Although, I say "estimated demand" because I think they should make an effort to identify careers that seem to be on a major up / down trend, or those whose recent demand may have been heavily affected by some ephemeral factors. But ya...I can definitely see them screwing that up pretty often.

Hm...maybe it'd be better to let the market decide. Maybe there could be some way to let investors invest in the loans and aid the govt gives out, in some way incentivising investors to allocate the govt capital efficiently. Like, maybe the govt could sell bonds by major. Eg, "2020 Art Major 5y" & "2029 CS Major 10y" etc...

The market would probably allocate the funds pretty well.

Damn, now that I think about it, with all these new crowdfunding / p2p lending companies that let you invest in everything from small loans to real estate (RealtyShares, Lending Club etc...) they should do something similar for college money.

They should not pay for gender studies, that’s not education. It’s one way road to stupidville.

learning is vital for the general population and in school or universities due to its made a human can be expertise full and successful Dean Ambrose Jacket

zzyzzx says

If this is about college, then it is wrong. Foreigners (most of them) pay oversized out-of-state tuition and thus subsidize American students.

drB6 says

If this is about college, then it is wrong. Foreigners (most of them) pay oversized out-of-state tuition and thus subsidize American students.

There are foreigners who pay to go to college and then there are foreigners who get paid to go to college. The latter would be illegal aliens in California.

Satoshi_Nakamoto says

who get paid to go to college

They do not pay even "oversized" in-state tuition?

drB6 says

Satoshi_Nakamoto says

who get paid to go to college

They do not pay even "oversized" in-state tuition?

They are considered "residents" and they get financial help from the state. Basically a polar opposite of the treatment other, legal, foreighners get.

Dan8267 says

There are an estimated 30 million jobs that pay at least $55,000 per year and don’t require a bachelor’s degree.

Try buying a house on 55k/yr. It's basically poverty. If you're not making six figures at this point, you are no longer in the middle class.

This is from June of last year, but still current enough. Not really poverty outside of the overpriced areas.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/29/what-the-median-home-price-of-200000-will-get-you-across-the-us.html

zzyzzx says

Sadly, my kids have a bunch of friends who did just that, actually spent even more.

Idiots!

US need Professors. Not retarded idiots posing as Professors.

zzyzzx says

Liberals have made sure Illegal Aliens do those Trades, while they tell us "They are doing jobs nobody wants!"


What they don't tell you, those Jobs are Paying Jose Ramirez about $500 to $800 a day. So they can come up with the money to give them Shit stirring Agitating Jew bastard Immigration Lawyers, to chain migrate the rest of their family. Now I KNOW You didn't think those Cock Suckers work for free.

Don't be fooled by the Lying Left, everything is about gaming the system for them, to make more money. Those Illegal aliens are a fucking gold mine.

Tim Aurora says

Depend where you live. In Bay Area you are poor. In Rural Alabama , 55K is kings salary.

WineHorror says

Try buying a house on 55k/yr. It's basically poverty. If you're not making six figures at this point, you are no longer in the middle class.

Fifty five grand is decent money in the Rust Belt as well.

anonymous says

Of course, getting through BS and even more though MS and PhD studies in natural science/engineering fields is very difficult, and after all that work they get paid less that some worthless business majors, but their education is probably 50-60% relevant and they enter middle class and actually do something useful.

These educations prepare ppl for "stable" careers as postdocs, paying in the 40s. That's where having specialized knowledge helps in publishing papers. Otherwise, much can simply be learned on the job in the private sector.

If anything, what higher education has proven is that the boom/bust cycle of tech hiring in the private sector makes those careers unstable over the long term. Think about all those Kodak, DuPont, DEC, etc professionals who're considered too old for the current hiring sprees. If we didn't encourage everyone to flood the gates of STEM, chances are, we could have transitioned a lot of the old guard into newer positions in technology.

A person should be looking for careers in either the Patent office, National Laboratory system, or some other DoD/DoE venue where it's possible to retain a long term career. Otherwise, become a doctor or a physician assistant.

d6rB says

zzyzzx says

If this is about college, then it is wrong. Foreigners (most of them) pay oversized out-of-state tuition and thus subsidize American students.

They forgot the part where the guy stands up to throw the other one (me) out the window and I pick him up by the scruff of his neck and beat the living shit out of him.

Rin says

These educations prepare ppl for "stable" careers as postdocs, paying in the 40s.

Not so sure, all of my students are getting well-paid jobs in oil industry or commodity chemicals production. Biology degrees get people into 15-yr postdocs from what I see.
Having said that, most friends of mine who went into pharma have been fired at least once by now (ca. 15 years into their careers).

Foreigners (most of them) pay oversized out-of-state tuition and thus subsidize American students.

Illegals get "in state" tuition in many States.

Strategist says

If you must go for a worthless Liberal Arts Degree, please make sure the tax payer isn't paying for your worthless education.
I don't give a damn what year Julius Ceaser was killed. And if I did give a damn, I could just google it.

Julius Caesar is a Dead White Man™, so the current crop of students isn't learning about him at all. That's too bad, actually, because Caesar was a pivotal figure in the development of Europe. Instead, the liberal arts classes focus on women, LGBTQXYZs, and/or people with high amount of skin pigmentation, which aren't exactly indications of historical significance.

Think I'm kidding about Dead White Men? Type "American inventors" into your google search and see what pops out in the pictures at the top of the page. I get 13 across my page. 2 Dead White Men, 2 women (both with high levels of pigmentation) and 9 (yes, NINE) men with high levels of pigmentation. Check out Lonnie Johnson (listed right there with Edison and Bell); he invented the Super Soaker. I mean, how could you have a pool party without Super Soakers!

You mean in the HMH textbook, they dedicate more paragraphs to an apocryphal figure, Betsy Ross, than to the biography of George Washington?

(Seriously, we know Ross had a contract, but there's no primary sources that his daughter Betsy designed and/or created it).

HonkpilledMaster says

You mean in the HMH textbook, they dedicate more paragraphs to an apocryphal figure, Betsy Ross, than to the biography of George Washington?

(Seriously, we know Ross had a contract, but there's no primary sources that his daughter Betsy designed and/or created it).

Betsy Ross is in trouble now, too. Don't you know that that flag is racist? (At least when Trump or Trump supporters are flying it; it's OK that the Obama inauguration had two of them flying right behind him.)

d6rB says

Not so sure, all of my students are getting well-paid jobs in oil industry or commodity chemicals production.

You need to talk to members of other generations, not just the current one.

I was an infant/toddler during the oil patch bust of the early 80s.

My father and many of his former colleagues, who had related jobs in the energy sector, were scrambling nation-wide, for any place which would take 'em. That's circa the time when hi-tech took off in Massachusetts and those in the Oil Patch, who had any physics a/o computational training, were able to find entry level work in MA but were forced to carry a mortgage or two in Houston or Dallas while renting in the northeast. A lot of them left the petrochemical sector forever, as there weren't equivalent jobs in that sector, until the next oil boom of the 2000s.

I suspect that in a short while, you may start to see the same phenomena with your crop of students. This has happened before and will probably happen again.

d6rB says

Having said that, most friends of mine who went into pharma have been fired at least once by now

Even in MA, pharma which was a stalwart since the 80s, is now finally seeing its first generational wave of layoffs and offshoring. A lot of that is due to the notion that the age of a blockbluster pipeline of drugs is over and that incremental progress doesn't justify extensive headcount.

In contrast, most nurses, PAs, doctors, etc, are still employed regardless of boom/bust a/o financing cycles.

If we try to bring back Tech Schools, it will be claimed that it's RACIST to shunt minorities into Tech Schools and "prevent" them from having a Liberal Brainwashing.

Rin says

I suspect that in a short while, you may start to see the same phenomena with your crop of students. This has happened before and will probably happen again.

In '79, my birth year, my dad had job offers in Houston/Galveston, New Orleans, the Delaware Valley, and Alaska. He decided to stay in Mass while his friends moved elsewhere.

Only three years later, his friends were looking for jobs in Mass, in the new industries led by Digital Equipment Corp & Raytheon, because all of them got sacked in the Oil Patch.

Fortunately, back then unlike today, it wasn't too difficult to make a hire of a tech person, even though the background was slightly off vs today, where everything has to be an exact fit.

Rin says

I suspect that in a short while, you may start to see the same phenomena with your crop of students. This has happened before and will probably happen again.

Possible, but did not happen in last oil price crash. Also, ones working in commodity chemical synthesis did pretty well in last downturn.

d6rB says

Rin says

I suspect that in a short while, you may start to see the same phenomena with your crop of students. This has happened before and will probably happen again.

Possible, but did not happen in last oil price crash. Also, ones working in commodity chemical synthesis did pretty well in last downturn.

We're still in a low interest rate environment so the situation is not the same. Plus, understand, many of these are big companies which over hire during good times and have access to easy capital, along with defense work.

I recall the batch which graduated in the early 90s, after that Oil Patch shock, thinking that the good times returned and shortly afterwards, Dow & DuPont (along with others) started to consolidate and sack ppl, esp R&D, throughout the eastern seaboard.

anonymous says

50 years ago Americans who didn't have materialistic status would still pride themselves on having high literacy and perspectives on cultures. Dignity. Kindness. That's Heart and Soul.

50 years ago, "having high literacy and perspectives on cultures" meant knowledge and pride in the history of Western Civilization. Today, "being educated" in a liberal arts diploma mill college means being brainwashed in anti-Western and anti-civilization atavism (aka "Marxism"); how can any youth brainwashed in that have any pride of his/her own culture? It's literally an exercise in self-hate and hating all those around him/herself.

SunnyvaleCA says

Strategist says

If you must go for a worthless Liberal Arts Degree, please make sure the tax payer isn't paying for your worthless education.
I don't give a damn what year Julius Ceaser was killed. And if I did give a damn, I could just google it.

Julius Caesar is a Dead White Man™, so the current crop of students isn't learning about him at all. That's too bad, actually, because Caesar was a pivotal figure in the development of Europe. Instead, the liberal arts classes focus on women, LGBTQXYZs, and/or people with high amount of skin pigmentation, which aren't exactly indications of historical significance.

Think I'm kidding about Dead White Men? Type "American inventors" into your google search and see what pops out in the pictures at the top of the page. I get 13 across my page. 2 Dead White Men, 2 women (both with high levels of pigmentation) and 9 (yes, NINE) men with high leve...

We have liberal arts degrees, combined them with technical training in the mid nineties and have made six figures each for so long that we can't remember when we didn't. I wouldn't change a damn thing except for graduating sooner. We were working class kids, trying to get through a university program at night. Took me five and a half years.

d6rB says

Rin says

I suspect that in a short while, you may start to see the same phenomena with your crop of students. This has happened before and will probably happen again.

Possible, but did not happen in last oil price crash. Also, ones working in commodity chemical synthesis did pretty well in last downturn.

I think we're looking at one hell of a downer, courtesy of all the debt and then changes that are coming to our banking and monetary systems. If you have debt, for God's sake get rid of it or at least make sure it's pared down and you'll be in a position to service it. If it gets as bad as I'm thinking it might, we might be in a position to hold our Danville house as a rental and buy a single story in Alamo. Two story houses are awful here in summer.

The Millenials have never experienced a cyclical recession. It'll be very interesting to see which ones swim and which ones drown.

anonymous says

It's not. Welding is done by robots now.

Somebody has to set up and service the robot. There has never been a technology that got rid of the need for work.

True, new technologies tend to create more jobs than they destroy, but also require more training.