I think the headline is a fair cop, especially because the first question right out of the gate is, is $61K for a year of Cornell too expensive? Ariely says "It's too cheap," and goes on from there about the value of in-person education vs online education. He conducted an experiment on his students and found that the more in-person one of his lectures was, the better their subjective experience was.
That said, he is in a very interesting position to explore both sides of the question. It's not too hard to project out into the future and believe university education could finally change in your lifetime. But the people who are in the trenches actually gathering data have the most to say right now.
Being a student is a essentially a full-time job which one is compensated a negative amount. A reasonable alternative opens up the possibility to get compensated in a positive amount. In terms of just programming, you get might get a job for 60k conservatively and suddenly the difference becomes 120k... every year... for at least 4 years. Teaching oneself the theoretical foundations online is still harder than with a professor but the former was never intended to be a direct alternative so the comparison seems as meaningless as it is obvious. Considering someone with 4 years industry experience almost certainly fares far better on an engineering team than most undergraduate CS majors with a summer internship, the economics of the "in-person experience" just doesn't add up. As someone who left school, the reason I only dabble in online education rather than take it as seriously as a student might is because I have more important shit to do.
"Being a student is a essentially a full-time job which one is compensated a negative amount."
College for me was like getting a dream retirement in at the beginning of my career.
I and many of my friends had the best time of our lives, didn't do a damn thing that wasn't in our best interest, lived away from home with partial parental support, worked jobs in the vacations, met people from all over the world, had challenging experiences with a strong safety net, were exposed to extraordinary people who were paid and predisposed to give us their time, etc etc.
I got a lot more out of college than I could ever use on an engineering team. And a lot that I can.
Comments
I think the headline is a fair cop, especially because the first question right out of the gate is, is $61K for a year of Cornell too expensive? Ariely says "It's too cheap," and goes on from there about the value of in-person education vs online education. He conducted an experiment on his students and found that the more in-person one of his lectures was, the better their subjective experience was.
That said, he is in a very interesting position to explore both sides of the question. It's not too hard to project out into the future and believe university education could finally change in your lifetime. But the people who are in the trenches actually gathering data have the most to say right now.
Being a student is a essentially a full-time job which one is compensated a negative amount. A reasonable alternative opens up the possibility to get compensated in a positive amount. In terms of just programming, you get might get a job for 60k conservatively and suddenly the difference becomes 120k... every year... for at least 4 years. Teaching oneself the theoretical foundations online is still harder than with a professor but the former was never intended to be a direct alternative so the comparison seems as meaningless as it is obvious. Considering someone with 4 years industry experience almost certainly fares far better on an engineering team than most undergraduate CS majors with a summer internship, the economics of the "in-person experience" just doesn't add up. As someone who left school, the reason I only dabble in online education rather than take it as seriously as a student might is because I have more important shit to do.
"Being a student is a essentially a full-time job which one is compensated a negative amount."
College for me was like getting a dream retirement in at the beginning of my career.
I and many of my friends had the best time of our lives, didn't do a damn thing that wasn't in our best interest, lived away from home with partial parental support, worked jobs in the vacations, met people from all over the world, had challenging experiences with a strong safety net, were exposed to extraordinary people who were paid and predisposed to give us their time, etc etc.
I got a lot more out of college than I could ever use on an engineering team. And a lot that I can.
$60k out of high school? Guess the recession is over. (Median household income in the U.S. is roughly $50k)