college as a Vegas trip: The Atlantic article

[marshwiggle]

    For me the aspect that this article misses is the role that college plays as a transition to adulthood. The US lost a major mechanism for this transition when we stopped requiring military service. Residential college was therefore the one remaining place where you could learn to be an independent adult in a relatively controlled, low risk setting.

Because every other country on earth is totally incapable of maintaining a civilized society without this.

[engineer_adrift]

Has the USA ever required military service?

It has required men to register for the draft, and called on significant fractions of those registered for involuntary service (conscription) from time to time dating back to the Civil War.  Think WW2 and Vietnam in particular.  In 1975, the nation made the decision to rely on an all-volunteer force while still maintaining selective service registration.  Some critical occupations (notably doctors) have had separate draft pools, and the selection rate has approached 100% at times. 

[apl68]

The author of the article suggests that this is why colleges (or at least many of them) will NOT completely redo their way of doing things as a result of the pandemic.  Students have learned that "the college experience" is what they really want.

[financeguy]

I have a friend whose favorite past time is to laugh at all of the idiots who have wasted their money on the "scam" of college. At 50, he's fairly wealthy from an industry that does not require a degree. (Drives a Tesla, ocean view home in Southern California, etc.) One of the things that sets him off is that as an active online dater, every few months or so a woman will bring up that she is only dating someone with a degree, which must mean substantially more actually hold this position regardless of his level of wealth which he in any case conceals in that environment. This will result in a long conversation with me about how people that did attend wasted their time and that he's "better off" than most of the people she will encounter who are someone else's cubicle jockey for a quarter or less than what he's making. While this may be true, he has proven exactly why most people attend which is social status rather than money. People will do almost anything if the alternative is social judgement or ostracism from a group to which they would like to belong. Knowing that some people for the rest of their life will have a negative view of them for not having attended is sufficient motivation for the 18 year old who won't otherwise be chairing a fortune 500 company during those years anyway to do the act that gets the approval of society (bumper sticker, tshirt, etc) rather than the furrowed brow and questions about why they are not attending.

[kaysixteen]

Polly's not wrong wrt the opportunities that students from non-old boy network families do have at elite colleges, but the problem that some of those activities require those students to pay money they do not have to access them.   But even if that money were made available to these sorts of kids, the mere access to these activities would not make these kids 1) really want to take advantage of these opps, them being so alien to the kids' experience 2) know that they should do that/ it would be in their interest to do so 3) know how to act in this environment (I myself have likely lost out on jobs because of lack of 'je ne sais quoi' interview and application skills, etc., amongst other things, whilst a student at elite dear alma mater, and i certainly did not have access to the personal reservoir of informal skills and info that would have helped me to access these... and my mom was a college educated professional (albeit an elem school teacher with a degree from a normal school).

[apl68]

I have a friend whose favorite past time is to laugh at all of the idiots who have wasted their money on the "scam" of college. At 50, he's fairly wealthy from an industry that does not require a degree. (Drives a Tesla, ocean view home in Southern California, etc.) One of the things that sets him off is that as an active online dater, every few months or so a woman will bring up that she is only dating someone with a degree, which must mean substantially more actually hold this position regardless of his level of wealth which he in any case conceals in that environment. This will result in a long conversation with me about how people that did attend wasted their time and that he's "better off" than most of the people she will encounter who are someone else's cubicle jockey for a quarter or less than what he's making. While this may be true, he has proven exactly why most people attend which is social status rather than money. People will do almost anything if the alternative is social judgement or ostracism from a group to which they would like to belong. Knowing that some people for the rest of their life will have a negative view of them for not having attended is sufficient motivation for the 18 year old who won't otherwise be chairing a fortune 500 company during those years anyway to do the act that gets the approval of society (bumper sticker, tshirt, etc) rather than the furrowed brow and questions about why they are not attending.

I understand the annoyance of somebody who hasn't been to college at those who have and put on airs as a result.  But what's no less annoying is a typical "self-made" man who, unaware of how he owes his success as much to one in a thousand luck in being in the right place at the right time as he does to his own brains and hard work, imagines that he knows so much better than everybody else, and is better than everybody else, just because he made a pile of money.  One reason people go to college is because they know that 999 out of a thousand people who don't go to college will spend the rest of their lives working for low wages to make somebody else rich.  Often for a "self-made" man who stands on top of a pyramid of low-paid people.

[marshwiggle]

One reason people go to college is because they know that 999 out of a thousand people who don't go to college will spend the rest of their lives working for low wages to make somebody else rich. Often for a "self-made" man who stands on top of a pyramid of low-paid people.

That's a vast overstatement. There are lots of people who have started businesses in construction, landscaping, and lots of other things who are doing OK. It's part of the propoganda of post-secondary education to undercount those.

The difference between these and the low-wage people struggling is more about motivation than simple luck. I don't have the drive to create my own business, so getting an education and working for "the man" is fine with me. For self-starters, they can thrive on their own.

[bio-nonymous]

One reason people go to college is because they know that 999 out of a thousand people who don't go to college will spend the rest of their lives working for low wages to make somebody else rich. Often for a "self-made" man who stands on top of a pyramid of low-paid people.

That's a vast overstatement. There are lots of people who have started businesses in construction, landscaping, and lots of other things who are doing OK. It's part of the propoganda of post-secondary education to undercount those.

The difference between these and the low-wage people struggling is more about motivation than simple luck. I don't have the drive to create my own business, so getting an education and working for "the man" is fine with me. For self-starters, they can thrive on their own.

This is so true. Before I decided I wanted to change my career and become a scientist, I had no college degree but was a successful small business owner. I was just as smart without the college degree as I am now with a PhD, and I made more money...

[financeguy]

I wouldn't put my friend in the "luck" category by any means. He's in a "non-glamorous" field in which he will do whatever it takes to make the amount of income he wants. He's out late, on weekends, holidays, whatever it takes. As a previous business owner, it amazes me what generalizations people have about people who do so when they have never managed a lemonade stand. This guy definitely has a chip on his shoulder, but not 100% unfounded.

The entire conversation above is totally meaningless since people in my friend's category are willing to do TWO things that most salaried people would never do no matter what. They take risk and the put their own money on the line. Even if most in government or academia were offered such a pay scale WITHOUT changing the nature of their job, most would not do so. Say you have faculty with a salary of 100k a year and you present them with a "comp sheet" that has student evaluations, retention, number of publications or whatever other objective metric you want to use which can lead to a comp of -10,000 to 1,000,000 annually. Even if the goals were reasonable and attainable, the result would be that most would not take that option. It's not surprising that these people do not choose objective results based compensation related to plumbing, insurance sales, or other less "acceptable" roles.

[Hibush]

The entire conversation above is totally meaningless since people in my friend's category are willing to do TWO things that most salaried people would never do no matter what. They take risk and the put their own money on the line.

Even if most in government or academia were offered such a pay scale WITHOUT changing the nature of their job, most would not do so. Say you have faculty with a salary of 100k a year and you present them with a "comp sheet" that has student evaluations, retention, number of publications or whatever other objective metric you want to use which can lead to a comp of -10,000 to 1,000,000 annually. Even if the goals were reasonable and attainable, the result would be that most would not take that option. It's not surprising that these people do not choose objective results based compensation related to plumbing, insurance sales, or other less "acceptable" roles.

This description is really valuable, and shows how different people respond to financial incentives.

Friedman's Homo economicus values making another buck over nearly anything else. Many people optimize other things, like security and life satisfaction, that are indirectly related to making another buck.

For many salaried people making ~$100K, doing something like being a professor the situation is clear. They are financially secure, with little risk of that changing. They have high life satisfaction in having a respected professional identity and doing something valuable in educating the citizenry. They identify as middle-class, and know how to live in that world.

For that person the proposition of changing to something where their annual salary might be dropped to $10K or increased to $1,000K is unattractive. The former outcome would cost their valued financial security, which is unacceptable. The latter would not meaningfully increase their financial security (they have luxury spending capacity--security is already maxed out for the middle class life). That's a no-brainer.

The decision is also a no-brainer, in the other direction, for Homo economicus.

Getting the compensation structure matched to the person is important. Recognizing that both are being completely rational is also valuable for the employer/customer.

For the happily salaried person, you provide incentive by providing opportunities to do good, or to get professional recognition, or other things that provide satisfaction.

[dismalist]

Friedman's Homo economicus values making another buck over nearly anything else. Many people optimize other things, like security and life satisfaction ... .

I gotta put in a good word for  homo economicus: S/he is the one who optimizes over whatever s/he pleases! Friedman would heartily agree.

Economics is about trade-offs, and not primarily about money. Don't let the Wall Streeters blind anyone.

Financeguy is correct, I think, to the extent he implies that surviving academics on average are more risk averse than other people. [I say "surviving ", because getting tenure is somewhat risky, as many of the posts on this board show.]

[marshwiggle]

Financeguy is correct, I think, to the extent he implies that surviving academics on average are more risk averse than other people. [I say "surviving ", because getting tenure is somewhat risky, as many of the posts on this board show.]

However, the process is pretty well-defined, so I think that appeals to risk-averse people. Not knowing what to do is much more unsettling than knowing exactly what to do even if it has a low probability of success.

[kaysixteen]

Saying the small business starter 'takes a risk and puts his own money on the line' requires 1) you to have money that you can put on the line, which allows 2) you to take the risk of losing at least some of it.

Small business start-ups usually fail, so most folks are just not in the position of starting one, *even if they have a skill that would lend itself to a small business (many of us do not, really, and many of those skills one does have do not also have such advantages as being able to become professionally licensed, either).

[financeguy]

Many finance at lest a portion of their start up expenses. There have been a great many debates on the merits of taking out a loan to start a business vs using them to pursue a degree.

[Hibush]

Financeguy is correct, I think, to the extent he implies that surviving academics on average are more risk averse than other people. [I say "surviving ", because getting tenure is somewhat risky, as many of the posts on this board show.]

However, the process is pretty well-defined, so I think that appeals to risk-averse people. Not knowing what to do is much more unsettling than knowing exactly what to do even if it has a low probability of success.

In my sphere of applied science, that is not the case. Having tenure allows us to take much larger risks than our colleagues working in industry.

If my industry colleagues take on a project it needs a pretty high chance of success, therefore they do much more incremental improvements on the existing state of the art (or more likely, increase the efficiency of the existing model). In academe, we can get funded on a project that has a transformative result but a low chance of success or long development time. In academe, it is OK if the outcome of our research is that we better understand why the original promising idea didn't work, or discover that we need to spend another five years figuring out how this other process actually works. Our company peers would have their division shut down.

The risk-welcoming academics and the efficiency-demanding private sector R&D programs actually complement each other very well.

An exception is the VC-funded startups where they burn through a lot of money on potentially transformative ideas. If they fail, the company declares bankruptcy and the R&D staff moves on to the next hot thing. That behavior is viewed skeptically by both of the above groups.