I think part of it is direct cost and part is opportunity cost, but I think the actual reasons are more subtle..
For two generations, we've been fed the line that a "college education leads to success" while at the same time we've entered a world where the rate of innovation - not just in tech - is moving much faster than the curricula can adapt.
As a result, you end up with professors who have been out of their industry and have skills that are (likely) eroding. At the same time, they're teaching concepts that are being replaced and expanded upon. It's a dangerous combination.
At the same time, throw in the degrees that have sole purpose of training a professor to teach the same classes. At some point, the supply of these people will outpace the demand and whole departments are going to suffer.
Then throw in people who probably would have (or should have?) chosen a different path but ended up going to college to have "success." Either they succeed on their own (yea!), the have grade inflation or gimme classes devaluing the degree, or they fail.
If they fail, we end up with some who might have been GREAT at Job X but where pressured into going for Job Y and suffered failure.. so they're unlikely to reach either.
The "value" of an education is primarily two things at this point:
- learning how to learn -> if this doesn't happen until college, ponder what's going on the previous 12 years..
- the relationships & associations with like-minded individuals... if you can find them.
For two generations, we've been fed the line that a "college education leads to success" while at the same time we've entered a world where the rate of innovation - not just in tech - is moving much faster than the curricula can adapt.
As a result, you end up with professors who have been out of their industry and have skills that are (likely) eroding. At the same time, they're teaching concepts that are being replaced and expanded upon. It's a dangerous combination.
At the same time, throw in the degrees that have sole purpose of training a professor to teach the same classes. At some point, the supply of these people will outpace the demand and whole departments are going to suffer.
Then throw in people who probably would have (or should have?) chosen a different path but ended up going to college to have "success." Either they succeed on their own (yea!), the have grade inflation or gimme classes devaluing the degree, or they fail.
If they fail, we end up with some who might have been GREAT at Job X but where pressured into going for Job Y and suffered failure.. so they're unlikely to reach either.
The "value" of an education is primarily two things at this point: - learning how to learn -> if this doesn't happen until college, ponder what's going on the previous 12 years.. - the relationships & associations with like-minded individuals... if you can find them.