I graduated with an information systems degree about a decade ago, and no employer has ever given me any amount of money for that degree. I have never gotten a bonus or higher pay because of it. Now, I’m seeing so many videos on TikTok and reels lately of students who graduated with a computer science degree costing them upwards of 90K, And they are all packed any huge room with like 20 employers who are hiring for like 300 jobs but there’s like thousands of them…
So basically if you want a digital piece of paper that says you’re “educated”, you can pay $40000 > $350,000. But you’ll never get any amount of money for it from employers, it won’t help you find a job. It’s a myth
It’s more of a minimum requirement for many jobs. It sucks, but I think you’re viewing it wrong. It’s not going to get you anything except maybe keep your resume out of the trash.
I have a 4 year degree and it has never advantaged me, ever. These days you need a perfect resume to even get a call. Even then you’re treated like an expendable henchman in a crime syndicate.
I have a 4 year degree and it has never advantaged me, ever.
You didn’t learn anything at school?
I went to an engineering school, switched majors to biochemistry, and I work an IT job now. My education was invaluable despite being overwhelmingly inapplicable to my current field of work. I learned so much and was exposed to so many people of a similar mindset. Easily one of the most important things I’ve done in life, just from a life experience standpoint.
What advantage do you expect it to give you aside from what you learned and showing you can complete a bachelor’s program?
Yes, let’s not confuse having a degree with getting an education.
Meanwhile I’ve been a professional software engineer for 9 years now with no college degree.
In tech, it pretty much is a scam, or at best a classist gatekeeping requirement that anybody interested in getting real work done will ignore or handwave away. At least till you get up to the level of having “publish x number of papers per year” as part of the job requirements.
The system has a lot of problems for sure, but IME as a senior software engineer, people without degrees are often lacking in core CS skills and are much less comfortable with the more conceptual aspects of the field like graph theory, systems design, DSLs, etc. Usually database skills aren’t quite as strong either due to not having studied relational algebra and other database concepts.
None of this is to say that someone without a degree can’t be a valuable part of the team, but at the higher levels of seniority, you do want people who have really strong foundations so you can ensure that you actually are building strong foundations. A degree doesn’t guarantee these qualities, but it certainly makes a person much more likely to have them. Not saying someone without a degree can’t possibly achieve this on their own, but it’s quite rare and requires much more self study than most actually do.
I would say that in most cases a person’s commitment to continuous education is more important than what they went to school a decade+ ago. There have been plenty of SWEs that I’ve run into with relevant degrees that never bothered to study since getting their degree and most of them were mediocre at best.
There is a trend on social media to dismiss college as wasteful and expensive. Article after article after data show college is worth it (for some) if planned right.
No, I don’t really want to entertain any suggestion that there is any conspiracy to drive people to college unnecessarily, however there is a LOT of marketing to get people to go. I have NEVER heard of an employer paying a random, off the street hire, for a degree. I have no idea where that came from. Some employers will pay you, or pay for, advancing your education while employed, but that’s rare.
Unfortunately, people don’t do the math that going to get a $150k degree for a job that starts at $39k/yr that doesn’t have a lot of career progression or very limited high-paying positions might not be a good idea.
Nobody cares which college you went to or how exclusive it was, unless you’re getting a job in a field that compares dicks over what school you went to like high finance, or maybe something like a lawyer or physician could open doors at more exclusive institutions. For the rest of us, finding the least expensive college that will offer a decent education should be the mark. After your first industry job, that’s all anyone cares about. Work experience. Same for going to a trade school - which is a perfectly valid choice if the field you’re interested would be better served by going to one.
Don’t just go to college because that’s magically supposed to make things better. It doesn’t. It needs to be a well planned decision with real possibility of career progression at a pace you can realistically hope to make decent money in to pay back any loans and have an improving lifestyle.
I’ll offer that my experience was going to college handily landed me my first two jobs in my industry, however it took over 20 years of working in my industry before I started making enough money to have anything remotely called a “lifestyle”. Unless you’re well-connected and well heeled headed into an industry with crazy starting pay, you’re not gonna just buy all the toys on day one. Most of us are going to take many years before getting comfortable or even treading water.
They have you advocating for the devil instead of wanting a better system.
Nobody should pay money for education. The government should finance schools directly as public services like most civilized countries.
It’s completely unreasonable to expect literal children to do future cost benefit analysis and gamble with their degrees. And it’s not really acceptable to hold individuals who made these choices as children responsible when systemic changes are required to fix the systemic issues.
Tying min wage to inflation would also fix these wage issues.
But tbh nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
I’m not arguing for anything, I’m stating how the system works and that college should be a careful consideration and not necessarily a default. Nobody was arguing the position you’re taking. Yes, education should be free, I’m all for it, and cost/benefit is exactly the hurdle that I stated should be considered based on the criteria I mentioned. Until school is free and easy to attend, this is the hand we’re dealt.
Cool we all know how the system works, you saying it when it’s not needed implies you are supporting and reinforcing it.
You are implying you agree with it by playing devils advocate.
And that’s conditioning to prevent solutions to probems.
I think this thread is pretty good evidence that not all college is helpful
no employer has ever given me any amount of money for that degree
I don’t see how you can know this. If it helped you, it was as a baseline qualification that helped you get hired at all. Were you expecting some kind of moment where an HR person said, on your first day, “oh hang on a moment, you have a degree - we’ll need to raise your salary for that - terribly sorry for the oversight.”
This is exactly it. The degree is the gatekeeper.
If only there was some way to know whether people without degrees were also getting jobs. Guess it’ll always be a mystery 🤷
Maybe you suck at your job and don’t realize it.
Well not in tech, no.
You don’t need a degree to work in tech. You need a degree to work in mechanical engineering, biotech, etc.
IT is not a good use of college IMO
