Poll of the Day > Are universities giant scams these days?

(+) Yeah! (+)

rogerskg1979 posted...

funbot posted...

Not entirely. Go STEM and stay away from everything else and you'll be good.

This is false, and I hate when people act like STEM are the only useful degrees. Medicine, business, law, etc are all just as useful as STEM. The only truly useless degrees are Liberal Arts.

liberal arts includes certain parts of law, in fact most criminology-related degrees within liberal arts (crim itself, sociology) are more "scientific" than law...
at risk of contradicting what I just wrote, a music degree or fine arts degree gets you further than most liberal arts degrees, from what I've seen.
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rogerskg1979 posted...

funbot posted...

Not entirely. Go STEM and stay away from everything else and you'll be good.

This is false, and I hate when people act like STEM are the only useful degrees. Medicine, business, law, etc are all just as useful as STEM. The only truly useless degrees are Liberal Arts.

You realize that medicine is a stem career path, right?

And I'm willing to wager that most lawyers have one of those "useless" liberal arts degrees
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Based on the cost, yes.
Based on what they offer, ymmv.
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The real scam is capitalism.
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technical and medical degrees are still worth it, as are tradeskills.
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In the US, yes absolutely. Otherwise no not really

Also STEM is lionized way too much and it's creating a bubble in those job markets. But the reality is automation is gonna take over most jobs anyway and your engineering degree won't likely save you, so we need to look to other forms of bringing in income
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rogerskg1979 posted...

This is false, and I hate when people act like STEM are the only useful degrees. Medicine, business, law, etc are all just as useful as STEM.

hell yeah

rogerskg1979 posted...

The only truly useless degrees are Liberal Arts.

oh noooooo
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Stem is jerked off by people studying Stem degrees

It's honestly not that much different once you've graduated unless you have a specific in demand degree, which does not apply to all of stem hygiene a longshot.
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Nightengale posted...

ogerskg1979 posted...

The only truly useless degrees are Liberal Arts.

oh noooooo

Liberal Arts used to have value, before it just became your "Attendance Record"
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Blighboy posted...

Stem is jerked off by people studying Stem degrees

It's honestly not that much different once you've graduated unless you have a specific in demand degree, which does not apply to all of stem hygiene a longshot.

I'd say it gives you a lot better earning potential in your field but I don't know if it helps all that much in actually getting a job in that field. It might have been a "best-kept secret" career like ten years ago but ten years of people saying it was one and getting people into STEM has made those degrees way less valuable.

It depends on whether or not you're a gullible idiot. If you choose a field where you won't make that much money, or you take on student loans that you have no hope of repaying, then it may ostensibly seem like universities are a scam, but the fault lies on you for not educating yourself. I went to a so-so state college for undergrad because I had a near full ride there, got my pre-med reqs done, and was accepted to one of the best med schools in the nation with a good amount of money saved plus some scholarship money so that I'll walk away debt-free.

Now if you're one of the many liberals that applies for some BS liberal arts degree and graduates with student loans and can't repay them because of your useless lack of skills in most job markets, then yeah, universities might seem like a scam.
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Definitely. Most things in the world are a scam. Universities (or the education system in general) is no different.

Someone benefits, while many others suffer.

Universities are expensive as hell. Student loan debt is an actual crisis in America right now. And when you really step back and look at what you are getting for that debt...it's oftentimes not worth it.

You could just as easily borrow all your textbooks from a library and read them in the privacy of your own home for free, over the course of several months. Why need some overpaid professor to have you all sit down in a room and do the same thing for tens of thousands of dollars and write papers about the shit you just read? How is that any different? Honestly?

I'm sorry, I'm going to school to become a chemist. Can someone tell me why my first year of college REQUIRES me to take an english course I already took in high school? X amount of art credits. Math credits. And other redundant shit I've already done in high school? Can I just take the classes that actually count towards my major now?

Also, it doesn't help that 99% of universities in America today have professors that (sometimes literally) throatfuck the Liberal agenda into their students.
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Interesting results and responses so far. The fact that even the people who say it's not a scam seem to think that it basically is unless you're smart about it which says a lot honestly. I think that as most are saying, stem is overall way more promising but is still a diverse field with some degrees being more financially rewarding than others. And it also depends, as others have said, on how you prepare yourself coming out of school such as with internships and the like. But I've definitely known people coming out with degrees in stem who have trouble finding work. I myself chose EE because I felt that has a high probability of landing a decent job. But I still think the resources and the professors provided dont match the steep prices you pay, even for cheaper universities. As I said, I personally know people who make 6 figures in the computer science field that never went to school

No. I go to a local school well known fir its nursing g program, which is my major. So far for my all classes, I've gotten a net $400 BACK just from HOPE and Pell. Not even any scholarships. But I also live at home and don't have a meal plan.

So, 2 more years of most likely free classes and I get a Bachelors of Science in Nursing from the most respected college in my area. Doesn't seem like a scam to me.
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But the idea of telling kids a 4 year is the only way to go is bullshit. Tech school should be more talked about. Tech school is where it's fuckin at. I almost wish I went to a tech school so I couldn't been done 2 years earlier, cuz you can still continue from that.

Practically everything taught at tech schools is something you'll pretty easily be able to find a job for. I hate when peoe think a bachleors in political science is better than going to like a welding program at a tech school. The world could function easily without political science people, not without welders.
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Lokarin posted...

Nightengale posted...

ogerskg1979 posted...

The only truly useless degrees are Liberal Arts.

oh noooooo

Liberal Arts used to have value, before it just became your "Attendance Record"

i don't want you to think i'm attacking you personally or anything but you literally don't know what you're talking about
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The idea of needing a higher education to amount to anything substantial in this world is bullshit. Unfortunately, it's the mindset every Millineal has, but don't have proper counseling for. A lot of this generation blindly goes to a University to study after high school, and some of them make the most out of it, but others work towards a useless degree, like Art History or something.

Student loans are also the component a lot of people overlook. I've been told over and over again that being in student debt is normal, no matter how much you accumulate. Debt is debt for a reason, you owe money you don't have and heaven forbid for any reason you suddenly have to attend school part time. At the university I attend, dropping below full time status means you suddenly have to start paying, employed or not.

I've attended a community college before transferring and while I have much more experience under my belt in a CC than University, a community college is much more of a learning environment than a University. While I attended CC, the professors made the greatest effort to make sure everyone passed and knew exactly what would be on the exams. At Uni, the professors lecture you and you can take all the notes you can, Quizlet and StudyBlue are the only two sources you need to pass an exam.

Is it just one big scam? I think the tuition money can be put to more efficient use but to call it an Ed, Edd n Eddy type scam is ludicrous. Theres plenty of alternatives to universities and colleges people look over and blindly go into debt. Ironically, I wrote an entire paper about this topic in my composition class.
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Nightengale posted...

Lokarin posted...

Nightengale posted...

ogerskg1979 posted...

The only truly useless degrees are Liberal Arts.

oh noooooo

Liberal Arts used to have value, before it just became your "Attendance Record"

i don't want you to think i'm attacking you personally or anything but you literally don't know what you're talking about

I was making a joke about how all the colleges have a heavy liberal slant
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It honestly depends on why you're going to a university / college. The problem is universities and colleges or schools in general were not made to promise jobs, They were made so people could just study what ever interest had and discuss it with like minded people. Unfortunately now people assume you go to college for a job, but there are old retired people who go just to be mentally challenged or what ever, so to say it is a scam is a wrong unless you think it's only for job creations then yeah it is a scam. However i will say the amount or price they have you pay for it is pretty scummy even if it is a major that is in demand.
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SunWuKung420 posted...

The real scam is capitalism.

Nightengale posted...

In the US, yes absolutely. Otherwise no not really

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JF7X posted...

It honestly depends on why you're going to a university / college. The problem is universities and colleges or schools in general were not made to promise jobs, They were made so people could just study what ever interest had and discuss it with like minded people. Unfortunately now people assume you go to college for a job, but there are old retired people who go just to be mentally challenged or what ever, so to say it is a scam is a wrong unless you think it's only for job creations then yeah it is a scam. However i will say the amount or price they have you pay for it is pretty scummy even if it is a major that is in demand.

The price is more or less the main reason why I'm calling it a scam. The school makes thousands upon thousands of dollars for one class and provide next to nothing. You still have to pay for parking and textbooks and my professor has often been a low rent visiting lecturer (some are awesome but many are apathetic). Its even more of a ripoff when I'm taking an online class and there's barely even a professor to begin with. They charge the same rate for an online class and I'm left teaching myself with some dickhead "teacher" who makes passive aggressive announcements to the class about how the students arent doing things exactly his way and does no more than grading. The sad part is that they usually arent paying the professors enough either which is why they're disgruntled as well

Depends entirely on where you are. The college system in the US is very different from the university system in other parts of the world.

I absolutely could not believe it the first time I heard what Americans pay for college tuition. It was crazy.
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It really depends on the school you go to and the degree you are trying to get. Take an Engineering degree for example. A lot of jobs, particularly in civil, require you to be a licensed professional engineer, or at least have sat for the Fundamentals of Engineering test. The first thing you need to do to take that test is to graduate from an ABET accredited 4-year university.

CottontailGamer posted...

I don't consider university to be a scam, but I think the NA system (i.e. expectation that 18 year olds who finish High School should immediately continue into a 4 year institution) is incredibly flawed. The major issue as I see it is that a lot of people wade blindly into a university setting with little direction as to what they should be doing and/or what they even WANT to be doing for the next several years of their life (if not forever). This tends to lead to a lot of students accruing massive amounts of debt, only to obtain a degree that they either do not care about or can't feasibly rely on for a secure job in the near future.

Overall, I think the major shift needs to be in cultural expectations of what works best for the individual, as opposed to this cookie-cutter idea that "everyone needs to go to college to be successful". Instead of making HS students feel like university has to be the next option, there needs to be a critical plan outlined for students that incorporates the possibilities of community college, technical school, and/or going directly into the job market as an entry-level candidate and working your way up from the bottom. I believe that education is important, but I think what's even more important is helping the individual achieve their full potential--which may or may not involve a 4 year degree (or more).

This sums up my feelings pretty nicely.
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Just like the lottery is the poor man's tax, the University system is the middle class tax? Everyone else whose worth anything gets by on just connections anyway.

dedbus posted...

Just like the lottery is the poor man's tax, the University system is the middle class tax? Everyone else whose worth anything gets by on just connections anyway.

Not exactly...

I mean the rich go to Universities too, they just don't have to worry about things like grades and studying, and get by on their parents money.
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Dikitain posted...

dedbus posted...

Just like the lottery is the poor man's tax, the University system is the middle class tax? Everyone else whose worth anything gets by on just connections anyway.

Not exactly...

I mean the rich go to Universities too, they just don't have to worry about things like grades and studying, and get by on their parents money.

Their universities are also where they make the connections upon which they later build much of their success.
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Dikitain posted...

dedbus posted...

Just like the lottery is the poor man's tax, the University system is the middle class tax? Everyone else whose worth anything gets by on just connections anyway.

Not exactly...

I mean the rich go to Universities too, they just don't have to worry about things like grades and studying, and get by on their parents money.

They go to prestigious societies, which just so happen to be universities. They go to meet people and maintain the image of their group, the cost of tuition isn't even relevant as if they had to worry then their family wouldn't hold enough clout to engage in such socialising.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

Dikitain posted...

dedbus posted...

Just like the lottery is the poor man's tax, the University system is the middle class tax? Everyone else whose worth anything gets by on just connections anyway.

Not exactly...

I mean the rich go to Universities too, they just don't have to worry about things like grades and studying, and get by on their parents money.

They go to prestigious societies, which just so happen to be universities. They go to meet people and maintain the image of their group, the cost of tuition isn't even relevant as if they had to worry then their family wouldn't hold enough clout to engage in such socialising.

None of which changes what I actually said.

Rich people go to universities too (more so then the middle class), they just don't have to worry about actually doing good there and can drink and fuck their way to a degree.
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