Yes, the Harvard argument that Thiel made was ridiculous.
However, the idea of an education bubble makes some sense. Except for engineering and law, I can’t think of many fields that might have a reasonable pay-back. Even medicine isn’t such a good payback anymore (mainly because of Obamacare).
I’ve seen signs of the bubble:
- an MBA was once a valuable pedigree - now they’re a dime a dozen.
- an increasingly popular trend is to complete the first two years in a community college and transfer the credits to a four-year institution. This way the core class requirements can be obtained on the cheap and the student only has to pay through the nose for the specialty classes.
- one of the decisions that are considered when a student selects a college is its status as a “party school”. I didn’t see this when I applied in the 1970s, and in the 1980s it was done as a joke. Now it’s a part of a school’s attributes. Apparently, college is now viewed as a pre-adult passage of time rather than a means in which to train for a career.
- the attitude from new college grads is more along the lines of ‘what can you do for me’ rather than ‘what can I do for my employer’. I’ve seen engineering grads who don’t know how to take a derivative, others who are unwilling to work overtime, and expect break rooms that have video games and ping-pong tables.
I totally agree with your points. Those are the points I thought the article would make. Instead it was a bunch of egalitarian rubbish.
My kid is just completing his first year at a community college and will transfer his credits for his last two years.
The considerations for this were:
1. From my experience, the community college does just as good at teaching the basics as the university.
2. There is no way I am going to permit him to saddle himself with thousands of dollars of student loans just to get an "education." That is financial stupidity.
Absolutely false. The root construct of education is to contribute to the "body of knowledge." It's not run like a business....and it should not be. Not everything needs to be corporate funded applied research.
Thiel's solution: Pick the best twenty kids he could find under 20 years of age and pay them $100,000 over two years to leave school and start a company instead.
It's his money...that's great. But when the next tech bubble dries up, these students will have no funding and no degree. Good experience, perhaps. Reminds me of the NFL...after the big leagues so many athletes go broke.
Thiel: he’s arguing everyone should be an entrepreneur
Yawn. So is every b-school in the US.
counter narrative on programs like CNBC and in papers like the Wall Street Journal
I don't think so. The only time they turned sour on the housing market was when it was too late. By then, everyone knew about it...the scammers were long gone at the point the MSM reported on the bubble.
Thiel makes broad generalizations with nothing to back it up. For long term earnings, a college degree is still valuable (for most people).
Best advice I didn't hear Thiel say: learn a trade, then get a college degree.