There is a robust thesis to be made that the only value of university in the current environment is in its exclusivity (expressed as selectivity for social value + wealth). Education received is not largely relevant.

More people choosing state schools won't make the mean or median degree cheaper, it will just make state schools more expensive with lower admittance rates.

People do not know how to evaluate the quality of education. The 'real' quality of the education also doesn't matter because it is not actual ability that governs success but ability to play well the game that has arisen from elementary school through new-grad hires.

If you take out the mechanics of the game which are arbitrary you get an economy where there are far more people who are able to be educated and who have been educated for any particular field than there are jobs and success becomes a lottery. (Success is already a lottery hidden behind the game mechanics)

> exclusivity

This is expressed in The Case Against Education, which strengthens it's argument by convincing the reader that university is really only useful as a finishing school.

Are there any more extensive writings on the game mechanics of education and successfully joining the workforce?

Cubed by Nikil Saval is a good read more on the history of "work" not quite what you are asking for but at least tangential.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/220690/cubed-by-nik...

Not only in-state, also overseas. Finland, Germany (and sometimes Denmark) offer free tuition and stipend for international students. Hong Kong University also (postgrad, AFAIK). There are probably more. English language is the language of 'instruction'.

Every one of the (ex-)overseas(ish) graduates that I know from these countries' universities have had nothing but praise and thanks for the opportunity, have loyalty, promote in their home countries, and live (and earn, and pay tax) there for several years, and if returning home will gladly return / switch between countries.

If any high schoolers reading this thread have not considered this option, take a chance to take a look.

I'm in state and in a public school and I'm in huge debt. Family used to make a lot of money. Drugs and situation ruined my family just as I was going to college. FAFSA only takes "$year -2" income into account so my $0/month income family was being given the support that a 6-figure family got. Had to take out a 30k loan at >20% APR since no one could co-sign for me except my mom and she'd been evicted 2 times, stopped paying her bills, and had no income so it's all i could find from Sallie Mae.

"Just do x" doesn't help when the game is rigged from the start.

I'm doing everything right:

1. Work during school (on campus & industry) 2. Getting good grades 3. Applying for FAFS 4. In state 5. Engineering progression (IT) 6. Not dorming (except first year because of family situation) 7. No meal plan

I'm levereged over $100k in this degree. Hoping to finish soon. I know my situation is nonstandard but this misinformation is just polluting the dialogue on this topic and it's something that really hurts people like me.

APR of >20% is criminal. And from Sallie Mae.. my mind boggles. You're in a major in a state school with good grades that provides solid employment options, I'm sure there's an opportunity here for someone browsing this thread to compete in student loans.

Get it paid off as quickly as you can (sure, you know this). Best wishes.

Your situation is insanely rare, it's not fair to think what you're living through is what people should be talking about as an average.

I acknowledge that in my comment. I'm trying to say that you can do all of the traditionally "correct" things and still end up with an unacceptable amount of debt. This to me signals that the traditional wisdom in this area is not the full story and limiting our conversation to "Just stay in state and go to a public school" full stop is not a helpful method of introspection.

Yes, you can get hit by a metaphorical bus. It's sad, I'm sorry you're having to deal with it, but it's not relevant to the aggregate conversation.

"Just stay in state and go to a public school... also don't be insanely, one-in-a-million unlucky." <- does that feel better to you?

If I was reviewing code of a junior developer and found a very specific case that would break the code they submitted I'd ask them to go back an fix that bug. If they came back, providing a solution similar to yours, it would look something like this:

    if (input == null) {
        return;
    }
    doWork(input);

I would still refuse to accept this situation. Hacking out the error case isn't fixing the root problem. This is similar to this discussion.

The conventional wisdom used to be correct. You used to be able to avoid massive debt by staying in state and attending a public college. This is not the case anymore. I know plenty of people who aren't in as bad of a situation as I am and received similarly low financial support from the government and the university I attend.

Focusing the conversation on "what to do" is not helpful. Focusing on "why do you have to" is helpful.

Why do you have to pay ~30k/year, minimum, to live on campus with the most basic meal plan at a state run college?

The out of state tuition for my college (NJIT) was $6,214 [0] in 1998, the year after I was born. This year the out of state tuition is $32,750. This does not count living expenses or textbooks. The college also mandates you have a laptop with some hardware requirements. Using chronicle's "Adjust for Inflation" tool it seems that my college's tuition grew at a rate of >300% above inflation.

I'm not going to make any comments here as to why I think this is, though I do have opinions, but I will state that "just stay in state" ignores this. This is a trend common to most public colleges. If this trend continues for NJIT (of add ~$1k/year to the tuition for in and out of state) in 18 years, when the next gravypod comes around, they'll be even more screwed.

[0] - https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/tuition-and-fees

> This is not the case anymore.

Yes it is. Full stop. Local community colleges are vastly cheaper than many universities, and the credits match up 1:1. Working full time, getting an AS, transferring to a university to earn a BS is still a very viable path.

Following this path it's not only possible, but expected that one walks away completely debt free with their BS at the end of four years.

Just because you didn't do the right things (or even if you did and still got very unlucky) doesn't mean the rest of us can't have a fruitful conversation about how things will work out for the vast majority of people.

You need to understand this, or you'll forever be trapped making terrible coding analogies on the Internet, not being understood. Literally none of the numbers or situations you cited are relevant to this conversation.

Why did you not defer going to college for two years?

I was extremely frugal with my college decisions and effectively optimized for cheapest option. This is what I did.

1. In high school I took as many AP courses as I could possibly take and realistically pass. I ended up passing 6 of these exams. These exams cost $80 and get you the equivalent of "one course" worth 3 credits. My US history exam gave me 6 credits for 2 full courses! So in total I got 21 units. In effect, I paid $480 to complete 17.5% of my college education!

2. After graduation, I did not go directly into college. Instead, I skipped one semester and then used CLEP exams to knock out an additional 5 exams. These are exactly the same as AP exams but you basically self-study for the subject. The subjects you study are basically general education subjects like sociology or psychology. I got an additional 15 units from these exams for a total cost of about $500. At this point. I have completed 30% of college education for a cost of $980.

3. I apply to a community college and am subsequently accepted. All of my AP + CLEP exam credits are accepted. I then complete another 24 units at the community for a total cost of about $2,400. I don't fully recall what the cost was but this was on the high end estimate. At this point, I am basically 50% done with my college for a total cost of $3,380.

4. I apply to a state university which I am accepted to and then complete the last 60 units for my BA degree. I don't recall fully what the cost is completely but I would estimate it to be about $3,000 per semester. So estimated total cost for my BA degree was $15,380.

These numbers are just for the tuition and books. I lived at home the entire time, commuting to school. I also was working full time the entire time and paid cash for everything. Never had any student loans. When I graduated it took me about 4 months to find a job paying 52k per year. Major was accounting and I live in Southern California.

Most important thing is to make sure to use the resources that are available to you. AP and CLEP are EXTREMELY value resources to you. It just boggles my mind when I talk to people who complain about their student loans then I ask them if they took AP or CLEP exams. Some of them say they never even heard of these programs....are you kidding me?

I did this and have regretted it most of my life. Things are pretty great 10 years later, so I can’t complain too much, but I needed to get out of my home state to thrive.

The difference between my life there and my life when I said fuck this place and moved somewhere cool, outdoorsy, and away from all the baggage is night and day.

I've seen this in practice, but I don't think it's that you have to leave home to thrive. In my experience there are many places where the economy is just not strong enough for beginning a career, or there are too many applicants and not enough jobs.

I grew up in Southern California, and I don't know anyone that stayed there that is "thriving". All have college degrees, still living with parents, not making enough money for me to even consider them "living".

I would say it's a very wise decision to try and move to somewhere with a booming economy as soon as possible.

> I did this and have regretted it most of my life.

I think I can tell from context, but, just to be clear, is the 'this' you did "(1) Go to a public school, and (2) Stay in-state", or "choosing non-public and out of state schools"?

Public in state

For networking mostly. People feel if you go to an elite college you will network with the elite, and this will come in handy. If you are going to a public state school, then people feel they will just be networking with cheap chumps and nobodies. It’s horrible.