ABC 20/20 - College is a Rip Off

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vinny lingo said:
In short, don't depend on that piece of paper to prop you up for very long. Unless you plan on hiding an inability to produce results behind the charity of fellow alumni.
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It's not about hiding what you lack, it's about finding a faster, easier way to tell people that you have it. No, it's not always accurate - there are plenty of morons at Harvard - but it's a generally accepted indicator of quality. Whether you put stock in it or not, plenty of people do.

This should make sense to marketers more than anyone. It's no different than a product or landing page using the As Seen On Oprah/NYT/WSJ/etc. logos to sell a product. It may be a great product and people may eventually figure that out - but putting the label there speeds up the process and conveys instant legitimacy to many.
 


Tertiary education is only a waste if you waste it.
For example, I have a brother that did a fine arts degree... He majored in Sculpture for chrisakes. He now has a job working for the Federal Police (our FBI basically).
They liked that he had fine arts, because apparently it showed that he paid attention to finer details and could actually stick to something where no one else saw the point, which is often required in internal investigative work.

My tertiary education hasn't landed me a job directly, but it's certainly given me a lot of tools for the work I do do, and I doubt I'd know how to do decent research and be able to figure out who's a worthwhile source without having done it. You get a feel for knowing when an author's writing is full of shit, and when it's actually useful, if you bother to do the recommended readings.
 
I'll echo stef's comments. A top-ranked education is well worth the time and money just for the brand equity in confers upon you for life.

I grew up in a small town in a poor state with no concept of fancy schools - so I started at a mediocre state school and ended up dropping out. Later, I caught a whiff of ambition and transferred to a top 30 private school that really wasn't much better. But the name alone opened tons of doors.

After a few years of work, I went back and got a top 10 professional degree, which will be worth its cost many times over. I'm under 30 and work with the top executives of a Fortune 100 company. I met one-on-one with C-suite execs at 5 other Fortune 500 companies in the course of my post-graduation job search. This was not uncommon for my program.

Name an industry -- entertainment, energy, software, banking, consulting, sports, healthcare, investment mgmt, consumer products, retail, fashion, etc -- and I can pick up the phone and talk to a former classmate or fellow alum in a similar rank as me at a premier company in that field.

Does any of that mean jack shit here or in the world of AM at large? No not really. It could help a bit if I were doing this full-time, but I'm not.

Anyway- point being that yes, college and especially top-brand schools can be well worth it for those who leverage their time there. Like anything, it's a game to be played. Play it well, and you will not only learn a ton and have a blast, but also have a life-long silver-plated safety net.

These threads seem to pop up pretty frequently every time someone wants validation for their choice to go/not go to college. Is it possible that trashing college as a sham to feel better about your lack of formal education is just as myopic and ill-informed as the friends/relatives/significant others who tell you to stop playing on the computer and get a real job?
 
I went to a good college. :ugone2far:

BrooklynBlue said:
These threads seem to pop up pretty frequently every time someone wants validation for their choice to go/not go to college. Is it possible that trashing college as a sham to feel better about your lack of formal education is just as myopic and ill-informed as the friends/relatives/significant others who tell you to stop playing on the computer and get a real job?
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College is good for putting a ton of chicks all in one place and making them feel like they have a free pass to make really bad decisions for four years straight. Other than that, as far as I'm concerned, it's useless. But +rep to Stefanie for that novel.
 
If you have to pay $50,000 for the privilege of having professional contacts and a support group, cool. Not everyone has the ability to capitalize on that, nor does everyone graduate from college with those intangible assets.

Also, they can be developed privately. I'm betting more connections and groundwork was laid at ASW than happens on most campuses in one semester.

The reality is, there is an educational industrial complex, that lives off of government student loans, and regulation (which keeps the cost of education high). Without the ability to borrow to pay the high tuitions, and the captive market that is very regulated, education could be just as useful, perhaps even more useful, but dramatically cheaper and more accessible.

Education is big dollars, as anyone who has marketed the college loans or related niches knows. Maintaining the myth, is what keeps the berry slinging, and in the case of education, the enrollment rising.
 
i got a degree in automotive tech and there were no jobs at all, everyone wanted to hire me as a lube/oil tech, fuck that. now im a general contractor, and that worked out really well for me. I mean i hate the work, maybe im just a fat lazy fuck, but it pays my bills and lets me fuck around with AM. I really feel that you need to go to college for something that is in high demand, like nursing, good pay, good benefits, and most of the time they give you a sign on bonus. (+ good benefits kick ass). all in all, if you want to make money and go to college, dont go for something stupid like arts, english lit, dance, or religion. you will drown in the debt.
 
I didn't watch it. Though being familiar with John Stossel and his libertarian credentials, he would probably agree with what I am about to say.

Part of the reason that college is very expensive for most people and a rip off for many is because of the almost unlimited guaranteed money and access. People who really have no business going to college are not only encouraged but paid to go.

People tend to pay for things they value and make them priorities. very few people really have to pay for college. Whether it's funded by parents, scholarships, tax payers, or cheap money. Anyone who wants to go can go to A college- not any college they feel like but a college. And they can get paid to do so.

There has been much discussion of state public unversities being a better value than many private universities. There is truth to this, but the expensive private colleges are not the only ripoffs.

Many community colleges, for example, are mostly populated by students that will never graduate and barely graduated high school ( and probably didnt deserve to). They have Math and English courses that are sub-high school level. They devote a lot of class space and other resources to remedial programs. And almost all of those students receive financial aid- which pays out more than market value for the education.

If a college wants to raise tuition? The feds will just raise the Student Loan and Pell limits. Raise taxes, Print More Money. And if the college wasn't looking to raise tuition, they will now. There is incentive to do so. Tuition increases and increased tax funding go hand in hand. The unlimited availability of the latter ensures the former.

So now you have education that is not only more expensive due to on-demand tax-payer funding, you are paying for millions of unqualified students to invest money in degrees that have no value. Now just because a degree does not lead to a career does not mean it does not have value, but college used to be something different than occupational training. People who could afford that did and those who couldn't probably weren't missing much. Now that college is being used almost exclusively as a job training ground, it would make more sense to spend the money on classes that relate to a career.

In this way, though student loans tend to have favorable terms, there are similarities to the subprime mortgage crisis and other monetary problems. Instead of paying a market price for something, prices are inflated and everyone is encouraged to take advantage of easy credit and fund availability without caring about the actual price or value of what you are buying. People will pay 50 grand for a 5 grand education the same way they paid 300k for 100k homes. Every one is doing it and you can pay it back at a low rate over 10-30 years.

Just as there was an initiative to make everyone a homeowner in our Ownership Society of the American Dream- Everyone can also go to college! Just as subprime loans were made to people with terrible credit and no income, student loans are made to semi-literates who "study" bullshit. Who pays the most? People who didn't overpay for homes and people who chose not to go to college or only to ones they could afford,etc.

When everyone has a college degree, the degree itself becomes devalued. It is worth less. Having a BA or BS in some fields no longer means anything. I'm not one of those guys who likes to reminisce about the good old days ( I think they sucked), but there was a time when any willing High School graduate could pretty much get a job that would provide a living. Now many degrees might get you a job interview for waiting tables. So now it's time to take out more student loans to go to grad school- which has very generous loan limits. At that point, with your debt burden and years of wasted life, there is really no incentive to stop going to school. When you are done you have missed 6-10 of your peak earning years and now can spend the next 10-20 servicing your debt.

I'm not trying to say people shouldn't want to go to college or that marginal students should be discouraged, but there are undeniable economic factors and other circumstances that make it a terrible value for a lot of people.

I have a relative who majored in what amounts to Gym at a well-respected yet public and modestly priced university. He got 700 on the SAT and went to an open enrollment community college. After 30 credits there I think everyone is accepted for transfer. He graduated after 8 years. He got max student aid for every semester. That was a few years ago. Now he works at a similar job and makes less money than his summer job during high school.

When I was a kid I remember my uncle telling me " Some kids probably shouldn't go to college. He (said relative) is one of them. But he could probably learn a trade in a year or two and make a nice living."

That uncle never finished college. he regrets it, but he makes at least 5 times the annual income of that relative who graduated. He makes a little over 2X the median income in our area. The college grad's Dad never went to college either. But he managed to retire at 50 with a couple million in assets and was paid a million bucks to retire from a "'regular" job that required no college education.

A lot of the valuable things that can be learned in college can also be learned through self study or leisure groups- I am thinking specifically about arts& humanities that are considered for making people "rounded" but have little use for earning power. There are also apprenticeships, tech/vocational programs, and other job opportunities that should set people on a good occupational track. Ad of course, regular jobs, where hard work and raises would pay people more after 4 years on the job than many college degrees.

The viabilty of a lot of these things has been depressed due to the shift towards college as a "free" and universal occupational training.

Of course I have not even mentioned my preferred and for me ONLY available pursuit: Entrepreneurship- which could by preceeded by college or other training and work experience.
 
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BrooklynBlue said:
I'll echo stef's comments. A top-ranked education is well worth the time and money just for the brand equity in confers upon you for life.

*snip*

These threads seem to pop up pretty frequently every time someone wants validation for their choice to go/not go to college. Is it possible that trashing college as a sham to feel better about your lack of formal education is just as myopic and ill-informed as the friends/relatives/significant others who tell you to stop playing on the computer and get a real job?
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I don't disagree with what you and Stefanie are saying. What I'm saying is that while a degree from an elite college may provide you with an excellent network of contacts that help get doors opened, eventually you should have also built up your own network, and your own reputation. People should eventually "open the door" to you because of who you are and what you have done, not because of what college you went to. Maybe not the day after you graduate.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I would like to think I'm not being myopic. I can see full well the value of a college education, if obtaining one makes sense for what you want to do in life.

Oh hell, what Guerilla said sums my sentiments up pretty well:

Guerilla said:
If you have to pay $50,000 for the privilege of having professional contacts and a support group, cool. Not everyone has the ability to capitalize on that, nor does everyone graduate from college with those intangible assets.

Also, they can be developed privately. I'm betting more connections and groundwork was laid at ASW than happens on most campuses in one semester.
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I have the worst luck when it comes to timing of getting my degree(s).
First, I received my B.S in Information Technology back in early 2000 and had hard time finding a job after the Internet bubble. When I finally decided to go back to school again and concentrate on something practical, I get shafted hard. This time, I am about to graduate with Finance and Applied Economics, 2 major degrees.

I am staying with making money on the Internet. Screw college.
 
vinny lingo said:
you should have also built up your own network, and your own reputation. People should eventually "open the door" to you because of who you are and what you have done, not because of what college you went to.
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Yes and no. You're absolutely right that someone who kicks ass and can play the game will get ahead no matter what. It will take longer and the ceiling might be lower, but I won't argue the existence of meritocracy.

At the same time, only an extra 2 years of (the right kind of) schooling and a not insignificant but by no means crushing amount of low-cost debt gives me the same access and compensation that many 9-5ers work 25 years for and still never achieve. And my payback period (both in terms of incurred expense and opportunity cost) is conservatively around 6-7 years, not even counting secondary income streams.

More important than the corporate safety net to me is having ready access to bank debt for brick & mortar endeavors and venture funding if/when I'm ready for something big. In those worlds, brand makes a big difference 95% of the time.

But in principle, you are right. Geurilla's right. We're all right really, just talking past each other (shooting the shit I suppose). The takeaways in my mind are --
  • We all have different avenues of success available to us. They are different but don't have to be antithetical or mutually exclusive. (Admittedly, my earlier closing comment was dick-ish but it is WF after all)
  • The trick is seizing the advantages you *do* have, learning the rules, bending them, and never relenting.
 
Well, say I buy into your way of thinking. I turn 30 this year. I never went near a college campus as a student. So what happens should I decide to give a high end university education a go? Am I too late? Did that boat already leave the harbor?

I'm established to the point where doing this would be for nothing more than mental masturbation or the networking you and Stefanie are praising. Other than that, it would be a huge burden on my time considering I already have multiple business endeavors and a Wife & kids.

What's your take on that?
 
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vinny lingo said:
Well, say I buy into your way of thinking. I turn 30 this year. I never went near a college campus as a student. So what happens should I decide to give a high end university education a go? Am I too late? Did that boat already leave the harbor?

I'm established to the point where doing this would be for nothing more than mental masturbation or the networking you and Stefanie are praising. Other than that, it would be a huge burden on my time considering I already have multiple business endeavors and a Wife & kids.

What's your take on that?
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It's hugely different to independent learning. You (usually) have a limited number of options of what to take and you have to be able to handle a systematic approach to learning which involves you doing exactly what your tutors/lecturers require of you. I'm great at studying at my own pace, but when it comes to taking orders and being told what to study just so I can get the marks to make up my grade, I get bored and frustrated quickly.
 
vinny,

Have you missed the boat? Well, never say never, but you're instincts are probably right. The chance of that being the best investment of your time and energy at this point is very low -- especially if you're doing well in other venues, still have room to grow, and enjoy what you're doing.

At the same time, if you have multiple streams of income, many of which are stable and low-maintenance and you think you would enjoy it or could heavily leverage the networking opps provided, why not? Worrying about sunk costs is stupid, it's easy enough to back out.

So I'll proceed like it was a genuine question. For anyone who is 24-yo+ and is convinced going back for a brand degree is worthwhile, you should tackle it from a different angle. (note: I'm speaking in general terms now vinny, not to you specifically)


Assuming some measure of business success already under the belt (AM or otherwise), I would try the following:
  • Look for a nearby prestigious school that offers a continuing or adult ed degree-granting program. You would be surprised at the number of well-known schools that have programs like this.
  • Network your way to a meeting with the dean or one of the top faculty of the MIS or Marketing programs.
  • Offer to teach a couple classes pro bono as an experienced practitioner (or at least be a guest lecturer) in return for being allowed to petition for credit in or test out of courses covering areas you already know well. If you're a quick study, you can knock out 2 yrs of course work in a matter of a month or two. Trust me, it can be done. I did it myself when I was 22.
  • Buckle down and commit to plowing through the remaining course work as fast as possible. Take the max # of classes allowed. Test out of any remaining low-level requirements via CLEP. Wife and kids? A full-time job or business? Yeah it's tough. You make it work if it's important to you. Like is preached here time and again, whatever goal you have, it's all about focus and discipline.
I worked a full-time job (managing a small staff no less), took the max hrs allowed each term including winter interim and summer, and by doing what I suggested above finished a top 30 B.S. with honors in 16 months start to finish. (engaged at the time yes, but no kids to be fair)

Can't say it would work anywhere or for anyone, but like I said before, it's all about playing the game, bending the rules, being brash. This can be just as true in education as it is in the business world.

Putting myself in the shoes of a (very) successful 30-35 yo businessperson with no degree and a family, who is only able to commit 1 maybe 2 days a week... I would take a different tack.

Shoot for an Executive MBA, bypass the undergrad altogether. If you've already built and grown a successful business and are willing to pony up some hefty cash, it's well within reach and will provide the same or better access and networking as a traditional undergrad or MBA program, because this time you're sitting in class with other *already* successful people who are there for the same reasons.

So a long-winded answer to a what was probably a shits & giggles question, but there it is.
 
One of the issues that kind of gets me in the AM world is that it seems that **some** people seem to have a chip on their shoulders and or are against education i.e "I MAKE MORE MONEY THAN YOU ANDOVER-DARTMOUTH-HBS McKinsey Grad who picked on me growing up so fuck you!!" Seriously. Yes I believe it's absolutely difficult to learn the practical stuff you need to know to be successful in AM at Wharton, Oxford, MIT, whatever and to that extent you don't "need" school for that.
The issue is that if you are going to college just to "get" a job you are going for the wrong reason.

The best schools will train you not so much in certain subjects but in "how" to learn. If you get that it is worth anything you have to pay. Every dime I make will a have portion of it set aside for future generations attending a top school. If you doubt the importance of education, ask yourself while the world's wealthiest stress so much about getting their kids into the *right* schools. There are many opportunities that the average kid (especially from a modest background) won't even know of without a certain level of exposure.

I actually am in favor of having at least one free community college and free state university across the country. We need this. A wealthy civilized nation should support this. On a different note, the real affirmative action that nobody talks about are the legacy admissions where mediocre students get admitted to top schools just because their parents, grandparents and great grandparents went there. Education is one of the biggest class divisions in this country and it's just not right (don't get me started)....

Having said that, alot of people from working class and middle class backgrounds aspire towards prestigious white collar jobs but they still get caught up in the rat race and don't learn the secrets of the multi-generationally wealthy - outsourcing + multiple streams of passive income.

The internet now allows virtually anyone to take advantage of this and this is what they really should be teaching in some schools. But then there would be no one to do the work for the people in the know I guess?

I don't think there needs to be a "work" vs. "school" paradigm set up. One can do both. Lastly, I guarantee you that all things being equal if you have two super-affiliates walk into Goldman Sachs looking for a $10,000,0000 bridge loan - everything about them the same and all things being equal - the one with the degree is going to be looked at differently. That's just how it is. If you throw in the fact that one might have went to school with so and so there's a competitive edge.

Of course one an "buy" one's way in as I said many men do this through marriage. Or, you can establish a reputation through corporate/charitable giving and board positions. Of course the average marketer who is making 6 figures from home with tons of free time and personal freedom may not give a hoot about the above (did I say hoot? Sounds like my retired aunt, lmao ) or being invited to the Bilderberg meetings


PS
This is a great book to read expounding on these issues somewhat: [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Never-Eat-Alone-Secrets-Relationship/dp/0385512058/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232498593&sr=8-1"]Amazon.com: Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time: Keith Ferrazzi, Tahl Raz: Books[/ame]
 
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