to college. your option is to be worse educated or to be better educated. that’s why it’s propaganda. the right doesn’t want people to go to college, because then they develop the critical thinking skills to see through manipulation and corruption.
If college is a scam, where do you go to get better education?
Submitted 7 hours ago by LarryBetraitor@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Comments
disregardable@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
AskewLord@piefed.social 7 hours ago
or you go to business school and you learn how to manipulate and corrupt and exploit others.
I also don’t know about you, but people’s critical thinking skills tend to disappear when those skills get in the way of their own profit.
yesman@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
The idea that college = success was always a correlation/ causation mistake. People with degrees were also the people who could afford to go. Success is correlated to wealth and wealth to education. Whatever wealth was reserved for the educated is spread thinner and thinner as more people graduate.
If everyone has a degree, class won’t go away, they’re just going to have to sort us by something else.
AskewLord@piefed.social 7 hours ago
The problem is folks think just showing up was the ticket to being wealthy.
Everyone told me my life was ‘done’ once I got into college, like as in college will let you coast the rest of your life. They were 250% wrong. I also had some friends in high school who failed out of college because that’s how they approached it.
Truth is regardless of your wealth, effort is needed to learn things. You either make that effort, or you don’t. A lot of people wealthy or not, refuse to make the effort.
klankin@piefed.ca 6 hours ago
Statistically postal code matters orders of magnitude more than effort
So its more like middle class ‘wealthy’ (BMWs, Gucci, Apple class consumer) families aren’t nearly rich enough to coast off of for life, but most actual rich families can and do.
Those are the families the old 50’s get a collage degree and become a millionaire ideas were based off of, before the imitation rich class existed as it does today.
That being said telling poor people that they’re not working hard enough and thats why they’re poor is a story as old as time. The motivation for that has always been to extract more work for the same pay, so I’d be surprised if the current trend is anything else than propaganda.
BassTurd@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
College is a scam in that it’s expensive, but if you go to class and put in the effort, you will still come out better educated than before. The big lie is that a degree will get you a job. It won’t, but it can help get a job.
It depends on what you want to learn. If you want to do a trade or tech, community college or trade school are decent options that are cheaper, probably more hands on, and don’t require the extra core classes that a university requires to graduate. With trades, you can try to get an apprenticeship somewhere and get on the job training. For tech, you can self study, build projects, and make a portfolio. Some fields you have to have a degree, like being a nurse/doctor, teacher, or lawyer.
If you want to get better educated just for the sake of being more intelligent, there are tons of resources available, many free. Coursera, Udemy, Khan Academy, and others are free or low cost, you just have to search for what you want to learn about. Some schools like MIT have free college courses that if you complete, you can get a certificate but not a degree unless you pay.
hyperion626@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
I’m being a bit doomsday here, but AI is probably going to make a lot of college irrelevant. Not because you shouldn’t learn it, but because no one will want to hire for it. People don’t realize yet that Pandora’s box is open, it’s not a novelty anymore.
So, I’d focus on jobs that would be harder to replace, if it’s compatible with AI, maybe explor either. Personally I’m wishing I went into being an electrician instead of my white collar job that is today being entirely changed.
likebudda@reddthat.com 6 hours ago
The best educators still teach at colleges. It’s certainly very expensive but it’s your best chance to get a better education. You really do get out what you put into it. I challenged myself to get a degree by doing the bare minimum and while it worked, I was not better off for it.
lasta@piefed.world 7 hours ago
In what way do you consider it a scam? I’m guessing you live somewhere where the cost of education is so high that you think it doesn’t justify the risk of not finding work.
If your goal is just to learn, there are plenty of free or affordable resources online for many subjects.
If your goal is to find work, there are alternative types of education and programs with a lower cost or barrier to entry (trade schools, industry certification courses, coding boots camps, etc.) but unless you are getting a job through connections, it will be in your advantage to have some work experience, either in the form of a portfolio of things you’ve done or volunteer work since the chances of finding good work without either a formal education or experience are small.
The additional benefits of going to college/university is that you form connections with people who can help you professionally and it gives employers who have never met you a way to verify that you are capable of committing to something if you don’t have any work experience.
If your only barrier is cost, perhaps you can look into scholarship opportunities or programs for studying abroad where tuition is cheaper.
klankin@piefed.ca 6 hours ago
I think its more just the pay to enter a raffle for the job market 4 years down the road can really read as a prediction market these days (Or enter a raffle to make friend with a nepo baby in your class).
Its entrenched in law that (and tradition) that many high paying jobs/projects require a signature from the owner of a specific sheet of paper. This creates a situation where the supply never actually has to cater to an artificial demand, which will always open the door to the abuse of power.
Funding research education is incredibly important, but at some point you wouldn’t be crazy to feel youre funding your move up an MLM administration department instead of actually funding any research.
Also I think its important to note the inherited accessibility concerns in postsecondary institutions. For example if its a massive benefit to network and its a large part of the reason to go to post secondary, do we just accept introverted people are systemically repressed? Its a small thing and far from the most egregious, but I don’t think things are as black and white as you make it seem.
lasta@piefed.world 5 hours ago
I get the sentiment of “entering a raffle” when costs are high and job prospects are low, but no one is guaranteed success whether they pursue a post-secondary education or not. We can only do what we think will improve our chances given our current circumstances and the information we have available.
If you’re applying to a job where no one knows anything about you, you have to stand out in some way, whether that is a formal education, an impressive personal portfolio, or someone who can vouch for you.
So when I say connections, I don’t just mean that you should go in the hopes of “befriending a nepo baby in your class” but just interacting with classmates and professors who you can learn from, who could become references, or get you hands-on experience in an environment you wouldn’t have access to like a studio or lab. Sometimes employers will also look among students for new talent. Is all of this necessary? No, but many people seem to think it gives them better chances than the alternatives.
I’m not trying to persuade anyone one way or the other and this comment isn’t about what I think is right or fair. If you believe you’re better off following a different route, then I truly wish you the best of luck with it.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Europe.
slazer2au@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Industry certification. Cisco, microslop, Comptia, Linux foundation, Red Hat.
AskewLord@piefed.social 7 hours ago
College isn’t a scam. It’s just something people say to cope with their inability to go, or their mistakes they made when they attended.
The quality of your education is mostly a product of your own personal efforts and investments in that education. Plenty of crappy schools have excellent students who get great jobs.
The passivity of your question belies a problematic attitude that college is a ‘investment’ that must give you a financial return. It can, but it won’t do necessarily unless you seek a job-focused specialized education in a lucrative field w/ many job openings, like petroleum engineering.
Chronographs@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
It kind of has to be an investment though if you’re going to be paying it off for the next 10 years, there’s lots of ways to learn things if you don’t need a piece of paper proving that you did.
AskewLord@piefed.social 5 hours ago
It does not have to be an investment. Plenty of people go to college for free.
The only people who freak out about it being in investment are those who have to pay full freight, and those folks already have money and huge advantages in life, even if they personally don’t feel that way about their life.
Nobody at my school cried harder than the kids who had no loans and were so angry their parents had to ‘sell stock’, and they were especially bitter at people who got free rides or financial aid, whose families had like 1/10 of their parents wealth.
klankin@piefed.ca 5 hours ago
I hope none of this comes off as rude, but I have a very different perspective.
I think the ratio of the investment to most incomes is enough that it responsibility requires looking at the subscription as a financial investment. (except nepo babies but I’m rounding off the 1%)
Under that lense, its concerning how parallel some educational institutions run to MLM schemes. Like you could nearly word for word write your comment under a Facebook Omnilife® group, just swap college for Omnilife®.
They puts a lot of focus on an individuals ‘worth’ and how the experience will elavate only the worthy to financial security.
They both have to put a lot of PR effort distancing themselves from responsibility, cause inevitability some percentage of people were coerced into making an irresponsible investment and regret it (hell humans are so susceptible to this that pyramid schemes were illegal before asbestos and lead paint).
The stark contrast that entire risk of the investment is carried by the student/employee, yet the quality of education is guided by the institutions financial preferences is ripe for abuse. I’d argue its even a larger threat in postsecondary institutions than MLMs because of their cultural significance.
And like I said this can easily be a life changing amount of money, especially that early on in someone’s life that even irresponsibly investing could have better returns. Honestly its almost guaranteed cause this job market is identical to MLMs profit margins.
AskewLord@piefed.social 5 hours ago
Yes for profit schools are scams.
But those places aren’t attract students who can get in elsewhere.
Like, sorry you choose to fuck around in high school and get Cs and Ds and now you have to go to a crappy shitty for-profit school because no real college will accept you… but that was your choice to make.
Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Modivation to self educate. Push yourself daily. Learn all you can about everything.
Library, encyclopedia, books, research papers, etc. Lots of knowledge out there.
skankhunt42@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
Europe /s
GreenBeard@lemmy.ca 5 hours ago
Somewhere not in the US. There’s lots of places where education isn’t a total scam. You will not find them in the USA, but they do exist. They will probably be expensive and there may be barriers to entry since those schools are designed around the needs of the country they are in, but if you actually want to know the truth, you need to get away from the vortex of lies and misinformation ripping the USA apart.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 4 hours ago
It depends what you want to get out of your education. A lot of people tend to think that college is supposed to teach you things when it is actually trying to produce leaders with some base level of skills.
Casuls_Die_Thrice@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
“That’s the neat part…you don’t.”
-JK Simmons
NathanRanch@lemmy.zip 5 hours ago
US bureau of labor and statistics, find a salary you want, pick an accompanying major, find a college, price it out, etc.
Pat_Riot@lemmy.today 5 hours ago
Reddit…duh!!
cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 5 hours ago
Depends on the field and how specialized and regulated it is, but in some cases, the answer’s simply “Youtube”. The trick is, even in fields where it works, you still have to pair it with personal practice and experimentation, it’s not a free ride, you still have to do the work. That’s how your brain actually develops the neural connections into skills, and that’s what makes it so different from mere memorization. Until you actually start to do it, you haven’t really learned anything. People have different learning styles, some people really need the structure of formal college education, and some fields are heavily gatekept (sometimes for good reasons and sometimes not) to require that formalized structure for accreditation, but outside those fields, life’s never been better for people who have the skills for self-directed learning. And if you’re not interested in working in those fields, there’s typically (except in a few specific fields) no law saying you can’t still learn all about them from outside the confines of formally accredited institutions.
Bluefruit@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
IMO, trade schools are where its at rn if you want a decent education in something. Usually a two year program so lower cost, better value cause you get trained in something that AI or robots won’t replace any time soon, and you can actually make a decent wage so you won’t be buried in debt afterwards.
Other than that, I learn a ton just doing shit I like. Music production, repairs, 3d printing, all my hobbies are skills I can use in other areas of my life. Doesn’t have to be that way for you, but learning to fix some things is a valuable skill that you can learn from YouTube or the internet in general.
Libraries are a great resource as well of course. Lot of value in books that aren’t tainted with AI slop. Sometimes harder to find what you are looking for, but it helps you slow down and learn more if you read it, at least for me.
HubertManne@piefed.social 5 hours ago
in the us community college is probably still worth it. The idea about basic education. Reading, writing, and math is to give a foundation to learn more. Once you learn to read you unlock the ability to get information and learn from books. Math is just because it would be very difficult to learn most of the basic concepts with zero background. Writing allows you to correspond and communicate at a distance like we are doing now. Your post is a type of activity seeking to get better. know more.
iamanoldguy@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
College, Business, Industry and Trade schools. There are also Certification programs and of course self study.
What kind of environment do you want to work in. Do you want to do white collar work or blue collar work. If you’re leaning toward white collar then business Schools and finance. If you’re okay with blue collar I know welders and electricians that make incredible livings in their fields. If you want to simply improve yourself, liberal arts schools are worth the time.
ANY education will be worth your time and effort. Even a couple of years at community college will help you learn to think.
stoly@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
College is and never has been a scam. Some people have been mislead as to their job prospects, some assumed that having the diploma was all that they needed to do, and others have gone through the process only to get the paper and not actually learn from the experience. What you get out of it is up to you. Are you willing to continuously grow? Then getting a bachelors will be a good footing to start out on.