Spurious Correlations, or why Math is good for you

@f00l are you for or against student loans?

@Pantheist
What follows is a bit of a rant. Pls forgive.

Student loans, as they are now, may be worthwhile. They may be necessary for a good career that will yield a decent degree of achievement and a shot a solvency and even prosperity.

That said, the world having changed from my youth, I believe student loans, as done now, are to be approached in the with the same caution one would use to approach a starving tiger.

Right now, many states have decided they don’t wish to use tax dollars to support state educational institutions. And way too many educational institutions, other than community colleges (having realized that students can borrow lots of $, and that many students lack experience to evaluate risk/reward and will sign on the line), have chosen to finance their Nobel Prize hires, new buildings, and research partnerships on the backs of incoming freshmen (said freshmen believing, with some justification, that they need those degrees in order to have tolerable careers).

Students are risking their own lifelong prosperity in order to fund various institutions attempting to become “great institutions”. Becoming a “name institution” might be a worthy thing, but I question that undergrads should be paying for it with possible lifelong debt or financial struggle.

Apart from the impact on individual students and families, to me this is a matter of our future national security and economic security. I can’t imagine that China and Russia will be crippling a generation or several generations this way. I expect they will educate all the students they can, to whatever degree they can, and happily pay for it, knowing that students and young careerists who are not crippled and stressed will most creatively invent the economic, technological and military future; and also knowing that generations of well educated young people who aren’t crippled by debt are far more likely to be productive and active participants in the economy.

I had a little student debt, not much, in a kinder and sweeter era. If I were an 18 year old today, my entire energy would be tunneled at getting a free or nearly free ride in a prestige setting. If I couldn’t land a good scholarship, I don’t know what I would do. Some majors are clearly worth it, if you can get out in 4-5 years…in particular, engineering. Other majors…the future is cloudy. I don’t know what I would do. I would, if I were 18, probably sign for the loan, not having any idea what it means to have to pay it back.

Where I used by student loans: Math and Manhattan. I was late to this thread linked below, but got way long-winded about it here:
https://meh.com/forum/topics/how-far-did-you-get-in-studying-math-in-school

I used by time to pursue personal passions that were enormously fascinating to me. I never really made a career with the results of my coursework. Used it more for personal and philosophical enrichment - a sort of Whole Earth Catalog journey. I don’t think that’s financially justifiable any longer, unless one’s parents can afford to pay out the big bux. It was a sweet time, in terms of college opportunity; it’s gone now.

My niece and nephews and my cousins’ kids have been fortunate to get thru undergrad with very little debt. Their parents were fortunate to have resources and be disciplined. Most students don’t have those options.

Tl;dr
IMHO
The current setup is beyond disastrous for students, their families, and the nation. Sux sux sux.

@f00l
Well said.
I find that it has become a recent trend among college students to complain about high tuition rates and comparing them to other countries which sometimes have free tuition. The problem is that many of those that complain about high tuition rates are the ones that choose degrees in fields that are not in demand, getting stuck with a massive debt and useless degree. If the US decided to offer free tuition, then many young students will continue to make bad choices, but without facing the consequences.

Are tuition rates outrageous? Yes, but it should not be free either. If you want a good degree with minimal debt, choose a STEM or nursing degree. Those most often come with larger scholarships.

My recommendation is to choose something in nursing or computer science as those fields are in highest demand in the US.

@DVDBZN I’m going to a very cheap school for a degree in software development. Maxing out on federal loans that don’t require good credit, I still have to pay 400-600 (just for tuition ) a month out of pocket. To minimize my total cost I’m overloading classes since it costs the same to take anywhere from 12 to 33 credits a semester. Hard to do when job pays 13.50/hr, and many people don’t even make that. I think you’re a little disconnected from reality if you think making good choices for the future is easy in this country.

@DVDBZN
Nursing and related medical fields are in demand, and those degrees are valuable…however corporations are trying to turn nursing and related careers into perpetually understaffed nightmares when they can get away with it. (Similar to what became of K-12 teaching…I don’t know anyone teaching who doesn’t want out). Nurses become the staff member assigned to fix everything, including doing social work, while the organization operates at half staff and one’s license is on the line. If I were going into nursing, I would specialize specialize specialize, pref as a nurse practitioner.

STEM degrees…engineering is a financial YES if one is confident with the course material. I would think chemistry and biology also. Physics…I’m not sure how that plays into good careers unless you can get PhD tenure track. Accounting, Yes. Applied math, Yes. Geology … I know people who aren’t using their degrees, and this is in oil and gas country.

Pure math…difficult to foresee. Possibly not a practical career without a PhD, perhaps even with one.

MD - cloudy. Some physicians will do great (anesthesiology, surgery, cardiology, prob endocrinologists, oncologists, orthopedists.) OTOH, general and family practice, psychiatry, and internist careerists may barely make enuf $ to pay student loans.

Comp Sci and SW engineering…if you can get great grades at a good institution, plus a few viable certs, plus you code, yeah. Most of the coders I know are in good shape, endless jobs offered. However, I also know some people who don’t code, did a little IT and didn’t graduate for whatever reason, who have horrible careers and few prospects unless they go back and take out more loans.

STEM can be overdone. Kids are pushed toward STEM, particularly IT (yes they need the basic skills), when if they have little ability to really take hold of it and run, and lacking that plus intensity, they won’t get anywhere.

Fine w me for people to do lit or phil or econ if they know what it might turn into. Several family members who did lit or comm are making big bux in law and communications. I even know a young person who is a big success in print journalism, supposedly a dead area (he does national politics, not local).

In my family (mostly not STEM), among people with established and active careers (including cousins and their kids), let’s see: (Am sure I will forget to count some people)
1 physician (pre-med/chem)
7 lawyers (soc sci and lib arts majors) (1 prosecutor, 1 family law, the rest are all running businesses or doing bankruptcy or contract law)
4 accountants (accounting)
3 teachers (teaching)
5 MBA biz (undergrad econ/lib arts)
1 prof gambler in Canada (IT degree)
2 EMS workers
1 communications (comm)
7 business (little college, or biz degrees)
1 chem engineer
8 office workers (no college, some college, or lib arts BA)
1 investment banker (MBA & law degrees)
3 mechanical (diesel specialists, little college)
1 licensed electrician
1 oil and gas contracts specialist (MBA in progress)
1 fuck up (f00l)

So STEM is incredibly important, but not the be-all and end-all. A certain % must be STEM, and must be good. For everyone, what matters (imho) is being forewarned how utterly vigilant and intense one must be, particularly in the early career years, to make sure to seek and carefully evaluate opportunities, and to act on the good ones. And to develop interpersonal skills that work. And thus is where people who don’t start in the middle and upper middle classes are so disadvantaged. They don’t automatically have the background and skills to evaluate what’s going on in the politics of a business or industry, or how, in subtle ways, to behave in order to get the right opportunities, and how to set oneself up to be perceived as a successful prospect. Not taught in skool.

As far as who should pay for undergrad edu…complex issue. I remember that it was when California offered free or nearly free college that California became the world center if technological innovation, and much other business innovation as well. Many of those kids didnt get STEM degrees, but those tax dollars in all degrees totally paid off for the state.

I think I would imagine a free or nearly free undergrad edu combined with very rigorous standards for coursework in all areas. No more you paid tuition, you pass. Rather, you arrive in class prepared and up to speed or you don’t enroll. You catch up in community college. You do hard, rigorous, demanding work. If you screw up, you don’t pass, that’s final but does not penalize you for life, you can re-do, and there are some financial penalties when you have to repeat the course, increasing over time. IE, everyone who can do the prep and get into college gets it free or nearly so. And if they don’t work like workers bees, with imagination and dedication, they flunk the course and start over, and it costs $. Just my imaginary perfect universe.

And there are the wonders of grad school financing. Remember when grad school was some kinda special paradise of intellectual endeavor? Hah. The average grad school program now is now a working and successful university profit center (which doesnt mean the content isn’t worthy). Lib Arts, sciences, MBA, law, medicine, whatever, be prepared to offer your firstborn and your firstborn’s lifelong earnings. One local speciality MBA with zero technical/scientific content - an excellent 2 year program at an excellent school that has a huge endowment, ie school has more $ than most countries - costs - get this - more than $200K. For 2 years. Yeah.
W T F !!!

So even if the content is superb and it will help your career, if you do it, prepare for permanent wallet invasion. They know you’ll pay.

There are some scholarships out there. I have one stellar niece who got a nearly free ride at a good school (accounting). But, unless you and your family are truly poor, there’s not so much, in any field. Again, they know you’ll pay. The younger generation in my family were fortunate that the parents cared and prepared, that the parents were able to do this. Success begets success.

And the current situation sux.

MD - cloudy.

@f00l I think one ex-shirt.woot artist could attest to that. He put med school on hold and continued drawing instead.

@Pantheist
I guess I came out pretty lucky in this aspect. I got my AAS degree in Software and Web Development practically free (paying only fees and for textbooks) through the Running Start program. We somehow convinced the high school to pay the tuition without any requirements from the high school.

Although at this point the degree is not much, it does provide a great foundation for future degrees and possible scholarships.

I agree with you -making good decisions is not easy. If it was, we would not need a President, Congress, or the entire judicial system. But some options are quite obviously better than others. What is the point of getting a degree that is useless and costs a lifetime of savings that the student cannot afford?

@DVDBZN
/more imho rant

Only bad degrees are truly useless. And btw, that includes a bunch of specialty degrees in supposedly high-demand areas, where the degree program is junk. Common in for-profit Edu’s, but also common enuf in respectable, trad, high-rep schools as well. Everyplace is willing to sell it’s academic soul, it seems, in order to grab that student loan money.

“Not instantly in demand” degrees often leverage beautifully into high-demand areas, often giving a student a huge career advantage in the process. Med, Law, and MBA program routinely seek out lit and phil and hist BA’s, tho they want the cream of the crop.

Students with “useless” degrees from name schools are likely to be fine, perhaps to do better than their STEM peers long-term.

To me, a harder prob is the many schools that grant lit or hist or for that matter STEM degrees that aren’t up to snuff, where the students weren’t quite at college standard in the 1st place, or the school wasn’t, and the student graduates thinking s/he is ready, and does not have a clue. Plus that portion of the millennial entitlement myth that is true. Even students coming out of Harvard and Yale have no idea what their careers will ask of them. The students without a rigorous education and a prestige degree might not even get a shot at something decent, because preparedness is so hard for businesses to evaluate.

I would like to see really rigorous education, in all fields, with piles of work and a constant demand for HQ results, plus prep to help students get ready to deal with it. And then demand it of them, daily. By the time they hit escape velocity, as long as a school has provided some degree of a guide to surviving politically, financially, emotionally in the workplace, the ex-student should be somewhat ready, lib arts degree or STEM.

Right now, the system takes pledges on so much future student earnings, and then hands students (some of whom aren’t really educated but did show up to class and pass) degrees. These people aren’t ready, STEM or not.

And some decidedly non-STEM people with “useless” degrees have been among the most innovative, hard-working, successful people I know, some of them in Tech. If you get thru a tough rigorous lit or hist program, you are likely as ready for the world as anyone else.

But that would require universities focus on student readiness, discipline, and quality education. Even name schools dont seem likely to do that 180 anytime soon.

@f00l these are amazing! My favorite:

@f00l Segues are my life. I like them. There is no thread hijack on my planet, only wandering threads. Besides, I agree with what you’ve been saying with respect to student loans, and for-profit schools that short change students.

@Shrdlu
It’s bad enuf when for-profit schools screw students. I really get PO’d about excellent schools (Hi, UTD!) that do offer quality education, but totally mess with students financially cause they wanna finance the resources so they can become legendary institutions.

I am all for these schools becoming incredible world-famous innovation hothouses. I just don’t think the undergrads - or grad students - ought to paying for those Nobel winner salaries or those building splurges. I doubt those students should be paying the full cost of their own degrees, unless the US wants to just cede world leadership for the very near future to China. I’m pretty certain the students shouldn’t be paying for “institutional ambitions” by signing loan docs.

When I think of what I got, vs what today’s students get (aside from the $, remember intellectual exploration? Yes, children, that was real once)…I get all angry.

@Kidsandliz Ha! I never get one anyway, you bitchy GoaT!

@mfladd Well enter the next mehexchange. If by the luck of the draw I get you I’ll send you one of my remaining bags. The a-hole I sent a pile of really nice stuff to - including a bunch of meh branded things and a bag (fuku one no less) as she bitched she had never gotten one - well the post office confirmed it arrived on her porch via GPS. She never acknowledged mine or sent to her person (she is banned from any more of them). Too bad I couldn’t have sent them to you.

PS - I then forgot to add the moral of the correlation - voting for kidsandliz means no fuko’s. Ha!. This thread should have been back when we were voting for this month’s goat.

@blaineg In this case in your post r squared=1 because we all die. You are missing at least one variable. (grin)

@blaineg What happened was someone randomly picked those terms, actually remembered they did it 11 years later, then tried to find a way to link them all. Here is what they came up with: Using a webcam to record it: someone put flour on both Andrew Cuomo and a pangolin then used a sewing machine to attach the two. Then repeated it over an over until first the pangolin finally successfully escaped without being recaught and then Andrew did also.The webcam has less use because there was nothing interesting to record and the sewing machine wasn’t used as much because it was gummed up by the flour. There is still plenty of flour.