Best Posts in Thread: Degree vs Experience

Nobody should get a degree as an “investment” with ROI. That is not what academia is all about and any person who needs to be informed about that is not a good degree candidate anyway. My dad, with no degree but 2 years at Carnegie Tech, who put me through engineering school owned an electrical contracting company and he did much better than me until I was promoted to a senior level at IBM, but by then I was 47. But he did believe in the joy of learning. My brother, who was less gifted in math and calculus ended up working for my dad as an electrician’s apprentice, immediately making money, then a achieving much higher paid union journeyman and finally master electrician and he did much better than me too in my earlier years. Still, if I had to do it all over again I would enroll in the BS engineering curriculum at a good university. In my case, I enjoyed and still appreciate the scientific knowledge, I always liked having a professional career, not just a job “chasing electrons”. I enjoyed my work, never a drudgery. Plus you are generally put in responsible, decision making positions which, if you have never done that sort of thing before, gives you a great sense of fulfillment. I also realize that many people here do not appreciate any of this and see no difference between wiring a house in zero degrees temperature and designing circuits and supervising technicians in your lab, simply getting a “good” salary in excellent working conditions, and, most important, enjoying your work, employing your knowledge and developing products (in my particular case). Also, this is really no different than an art major except for less salary, generally. But if money is a person’s ONLY game, obtaining a degree is not for you. In fact, you should not go to a university and take up space where you might deprive some talented prospective engineer or other professional who is really interested. If money is your thing, by all means, get yourself RICH. The opportunities to do so in the Country I come from are unlimited.


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By those cites, all I can say is that things have changed, assuming their “Bachelors Degree” figures are true for Electrical Engineers. When I attended, there was really no question that the salary differential between the high school graduate (not even in the game) to Associate degree (electronics technician) to Bachelors (Electrical Engineer) was so great that the return on investment was quick and very worthwhile. Now, I have a son who graduated a few years ago from North Carolina and you know what? It’s pretty much the same in our experience, not to in any way challenge the veracity of your citations. Now, I would not let my kids have any student debt at all; It is a parent’s job to put their kids through college and I know, I know, there are parents out there who might figure that,maybe, they could just figure college as being a bad ROI so, ahem, they do NOT have to spend the money on them but no, society (public opinion) will not let you off the hook so easy. Parents are responsible for their kids’ college education and student loans were originally intended to help only poor students. Now they function as a tool for middle class and upper middle class parents to pass on the debt obligations they had for their kids’ education over to the kids themselves as student debt! If parents paid for college for the kids as they are supposed to, no kids would be worried about return on investment because their investment would be zero, having been planned for 18 years ago by responsible parents. Kids should be allowed that opportunity and not allow the new-think society to screw them out of it. College is NOT just an investment and an art degree is valid and worthwhile to an artist. Who is anyone else to say otherwise? Education stands on its own. In my own experience and that of my son, in engineering, the so-called ROI did pay off, there was no student debt, and I think a lot of these studies miss the mark to the point that by my own experience I consider them bullshit excuses for parents who wish to shirk their responsibilities and/or for kids who are not intelligent enough, or just don’t want to make the required effort to graduate.

You mentioned that half of those who start college do not graduate. When I had my engineering orientation, the speaker made the classic statement, “look at the person on your left and on your right. Only one if you will graduate”. For engineers, only 1/3 make it all the way.


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True. Pure knowledge has nothing to do with money; unfortunately people try to associate a college education with becoming wealthy. Perhaps they have a chip on their solder, failed to pass the courses and have a distaste for other peoples decisions to succeed in college. Non-college people often fail to realize that the biggest barrier to receiving the degree is failure to pass the courses, not failure to pay the tuition. Anyway, though you seem to double down on the belief reflected by Deng Xian’s Peng, “To get rich is glorious”, which was appropriate for a highly uneducated and illiterate Chinese population in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, and maybe what you say is true, we should all be like the Chinese, I do not understand why you continue to associate a University
education with the need to get rich. We all know it isn’t true. Personally I am happy for the education that I have; anybody can take away your money but they cannot take away your knowledge and your joy of learning and knowing. I made sure to pay for my kids to go through the University if North Carolina system free of student loans before moving here. To do otherwise would have been negligent as a parent. If they wish to pursue riches in the future they may. If they wish to have rewarding careers (I’m seriously not sure that some people understand that “rewarding” can mean other things than money), they have that option too. A teacher may love to teach, a mathematician may love to work for an insurance company, a physicist or engineer for IBM, a doctor self-employed. None will be super rich and some will be working poor but all will be doing what they chose to do and are in fields that they love. And there are the small number of non-college degrees entrepreneurs that some of us want emulate, or want their children to emulate, who were focused on money and, partially because luck prevailed but also due to drive/ambition and the willingness to take big risks, became very rich, in some cases DESPITE going to college, where they actually wasted their time. That is like telling your kid to make life plans to be better than Michael Jordan and make his living that way. The university can open doors to a career that you love, but nothing can give you the gifts of drive and ambition, the courage to take risks and certainly the 3rd NECESSARY ingredient, which is LUCK. If you are living here and retired from IBM as an engineer happy like I am, that is a success IMHO. But Bill Gates, Michael Dell etc., no college degree but rich as God, they ain’t living HERE.


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