Discussing whether college education is worth it is an inherently controversial topic here on HN, I think, and here's why.
First, because most would agree that getting degrees in a technical field are more justified and warranted than non-technical fields. So you're going to get two totally opposite conclusions from the folks dissing $100k history degrees versus the folks praising $70k electrical engineering degrees.
Secondly, software and business degrees are probably among the two fields where you can arguably gain the exact same knowledge and skills outside of college, free or very close to it, and at your own pace, and be just as qualified to work in industry. Unlike say medicine or chemistry or physics, etc. But here on HN software and business are probably two of our top most interested fields among readers. So we know a lot about these fields in particular. And the readers here should be very aware how easy it is to access and use free and independent resources and techniques to teach themselves in the areas of software and business. But with software and business in particular we have two camps, each further split into sub-factions, and they are all essentially right when it comes to their positions. Yes, having college education is better than not. Yes, college is too expensive. Yes, you can learn most things on your own. Yes, having that piece of paper WILL help you in the long term. No, of course you don't actually need it (with exceptions like doctors, etc.) All of these positions seem in conflict, but they're not, and that's where the controversy comes from. Because everybody is right.
And the readers here should be very aware how easy it is to access and use free and independent resources and techniques to teach themselves in the areas of software and business
This element can not be understated. When I want to learn something about Ruby on Rails or Java I have a pile of resources: open source code, free online tutorials, books, forums, StackOverflow, HN, etc.
For a lot of other disciplines, this is not the case. You are lucky if there is a book on Amazon that gets close. Forget websites, forget forums, forget open source, there is just no equivalent to all of that. It makes it a lot more difficult to survive without a college degree becuase a lot of times you are rederiving things.
Your post should be in the HN submission guidelines. With the banishment of politics, religion and the other usual suspects, "formal education" has become HN's flame war topic.
It would be an interesting experiment for pg to list flame war topics when they emerge, link to a few insightful summaries (like yours) in the posting guidelines and then ask people to write about something else.
thank you for the compliment. agreed the site would possibly be improved if certain topics were banned or at least better moderated. it's hard to get rid of all the bathwater without getting rid of little painful parts of the baby though. :)
First, because most would agree that getting degrees in a technical field are more justified and warranted than non-technical fields. So you're going to get two totally opposite conclusions from the folks dissing $100k history degrees versus the folks praising $70k electrical engineering degrees.
Secondly, software and business degrees are probably among the two fields where you can arguably gain the exact same knowledge and skills outside of college, free or very close to it, and at your own pace, and be just as qualified to work in industry. Unlike say medicine or chemistry or physics, etc. But here on HN software and business are probably two of our top most interested fields among readers. So we know a lot about these fields in particular. And the readers here should be very aware how easy it is to access and use free and independent resources and techniques to teach themselves in the areas of software and business. But with software and business in particular we have two camps, each further split into sub-factions, and they are all essentially right when it comes to their positions. Yes, having college education is better than not. Yes, college is too expensive. Yes, you can learn most things on your own. Yes, having that piece of paper WILL help you in the long term. No, of course you don't actually need it (with exceptions like doctors, etc.) All of these positions seem in conflict, but they're not, and that's where the controversy comes from. Because everybody is right.