Not only that, but having a camera with you at all times is fantastic. Besides the typical selfies with friends and random shots, it's a way to capture some proof that you gave someone money, or that your car was hit from the side. Then there's the ability to take notes without worrying about losing a pen and paper. Basically, it's a "digital recording device" that we've taken for granted.
It took me a while to internalize "Just take a picture." And arguably it's still not an automatic reaction. Sure, most of the time you don't need it but it's essentially free.
Not only that, but a phone solves the "where am I" problem, which was such a pain when I was younger. Having to look for the nearest street signs while driving around, barely being able to read them and guessing its suffix, then searching the map index for which coordinate that street is in. Basically all problems solved by GPS. The directions feature you pointed out is basically a whole other application (replacing printing mapquest or written directions).
Doesn't that go counter to what is usually posted, about how college is a financially poor decision, whereas trades are particularly lucrative now? As far as I know, trades are still almost mostly men, so if this were true, we'd see the opposite trend.
The average college graduate still makes more than your average plumber.
The issue is at the margin there are a lot of kids going to college who are wasting their time. But still most of the kids in college are making a good financial decision even if all of the aren't.
> But still most of the kids in college are making a good financial decision even if all of the aren't.
Not likely. The data continues to show that incomes are stagnant. If there was a financial benefit, not just filtering, incomes should be rising alongside the rise of college attainment.
The filtering effect is real. Colleges put a lot of effort into rejecting people who aren't "born successful" to maintain an aura of prestige. Colleges pumping out graduates with severe mental disabilities that hinder learning, for example, would not serve the brand well. The model only works if you limit the possibility of graduation to those considered the "best of the best". The same people who are more likely to do well in their careers. There being an income spectrum, with some making a lot of money, and some making very little, predates the existence of college.
The decline in college attainment among males no doubt comes on the back of colleges recognizing that males are now less valuable in society (i.e. they are less likely to be among the best of the best) and apply the appropriate filters in response, not the other way around.
> Not likely. The data continues to show that incomes are stagnant. If there was a financial benefit, not just filtering, incomes should be rising alongside the rise of college attainment.
This is a good argument college isn't making workers more valuable. But that doesn't mean college won't increase your personal income. Just imagine a world where all the jobs stay the same but employers preferentially pick college grabs because they believe they're smarter and harder working.
This value the degree holder gets is called signalling theory. And it'll make the degree holder richer without making the economy richer.
> Just imagine a world where all the jobs stay the same but employers preferentially pick college grabs because they believe they're smarter and harder working.
If that hypothetical world existed the smarter and harder working people would be the only ones capable of graduating from college, and so the economic order would remain unchanged, leaving no economic benefit for anyone.
Furthermore, the smart and hard working people going to college would realize a net loss in their economic potential as, given that employee value did not rise, their income would not increase to offset the larger expense of going to college. Smart people aren't going to accept lesser economic potential without anything else in return. They are smart enough to know what they bring to the workplace.
And, so, if that hypothetical world existed the smart and hard working people would quickly stop going to college, pushing colleges to crush academic standards so that anyone could pass in order to maintain some kind of student base. But soon employers would catch on that college graduates are actually the dumb and lazy and any signal potential that existed for a brief moment in time would be lost.
When I was a kid, many decades ago, there were always rumours of what you describe being the reality at some point in history, but it hasn't been a thing since I've been an adult. If it was ever the reality it quickly succumbed to the unstable nature of such an arrangement. I strongly suspect it never happened, though. The whole idea has the markings of it being an advertising campaign.
Indeed, the data does show that the smart and hard working are more likely to have a higher income within the same cohort over those who aren't as smart or hard working. Colleges also try to attract the same kind of person. This develops an undeniable correlation. But the smart and hard working would still have the higher incomes even if college magically disappeared, just as they did before college was a thing. It is not a causal relationship.
Do you really think if you took 200 22 year olds and gave 100 of them 4.0 GPA degrees from Harvard that those two cohorts would make the exact same income over the next 10 years?
Compared to themselves in a parallel universe where no degrees were awarded, yes. A 4.0 GPA from Harvard isn't making the kid with Down syndrome any more hireable than they already were. If the cure for Down syndrome, or any other condition that impacts one's potential, was as simple as handing them a degree from Harvard on a silver platter, we'd be helping a lot more people than we do.
Where did you come up with this idea that a degree is a medical cure?
> You keep thinking im arguing that a degree makes society better off
Not at all...? I think you've misinterpreted my comments.
> But it sounds like we can agree the degree makes the individual better off in this world
When the degree is used as 'quota', to use a Canadianism, into a supply managed profession (doctors, lawyers, etc.), then yes, we can agree. The data is clear that supply management has proven that it can artificially inflate incomes, making those inside the inner circle better of than they would have been in a rational market, at the cost of denying entry to those outside of the special group. In Canada, dairy and poultry farmers simply buy quota to achieve the same outcome. No schooling necessary. You will find that how you get into the inner circle is just an implementation detail.
But when you exclude those with 'quota', the numbers get interesting. Those with only a bachelors degree are less likely to be found among high income earners than those with no degree. That may seem surprising at first, but actually isn't. Those who are economically desirable are compelled away from their studies before they finish. It's just the failures who nobody wanted to hire, so to speak, who reach graduation.
So, there's a whole lot of depends. If you have a professional degree, the numbers show it helps. Not because of the degree, but because of the distorted market associated with having a degree that brings economic value to those who jumped through the right hoops. If you have only a bachelors degree, however, it seems to hinders. At best it has no effect. However, since there is a cost to attaining a bachelors degree (even if just the cost of your time, but certainly most will also see a monetary cost), we know it always hinders in the net. Unless, again, it is the stepping stone towards a professional degree.
It's an interesting theory, but how do you explain associates degree holders having higher lifetime earnings than high school diploma holders? Surely community colleges can't be found guilty of being prestige factories that filter out poor performing students.
> Surely community colleges can't be found guilty of being prestige factories that filter out poor performing students.
No? Back in my day community colleges still had relatively stringent entrance requirements and would not see you graduate if you did not meet a certain level of academic excellence during the course of being there, not to mention the imposition of a financial barrier to have the economically disadvantaged think twice. The expectations weren't as high as college. They certainly were not gunning for the same calibre of people as Harvard. But they weren't fawning over people with Down syndrome either.
Maybe things have changed drastically in the intervening years, but in my day community college was seen as the place to go for those around the middle of the pack. Those who did reasonably well at things, but were not the stars, with admissions expectations to match. What you tell us about income mirrors the social expectations. Those who can make it through college are higher on the "born to do well" spectrum than those who could only make it through high school.
Let's face it, a lot of people out there could never make it through college, or even community college, even if they wanted nothing more in life. It can be hard, and when things are hard, some will fail. They just weren't born with the "right stuff". And it turns out that "right stuff" can also impact one's career in significant ways. The aforementioned people with Down syndrome aren't CEOs at a Fortune 500s just because they didn't go to college.
> Maybe things have changed drastically in the intervening years, but in my day community college was seen as the place to go for those around the middle of the pack.
I think things have indeed changed. The role you describe is filled by state schools now. These days the biggest admissions barrier to community college is the residency requirement. Fulfill that and you’re pretty much guaranteed a spot. (Source: attended community college for some time)
At the local community college where I grew up ago they had open enrollment 25 years ago. Anyone in the county could attend. That doesn't mean they didn't have standards for you to pass the courses necessary to graduate.
Suggesting that incomes should start to normalize as the kids with down syndrome start graduating form community college more and more? That's quite reasonable, if what you say is true.
Last time I saw the numbers only ~40% of Americans had reached some kind of post-secondary achievement, so even semi-recently it has still be fairly abnormal to graduate from college, including community college.
Incomes are stagnant, so as more and a wider set of the population attain such scholastic achievement in community college the averages on this level will mathematically have to show a decline, which will narrow the gap spoken of before relative to today's high school.
When I look back to my high-school graduating class, in general terms, the community college attendees were the “middle students”, so the poorest performing students did not (perhaps naturally did not) attend any college.
Median income of somebody with a bachelor's degree is $60,585 [1].
Median income of a plumber is $59,880 [2].
The big gaps you'll find rely on either average income (where an uncapped high + hard capped low = inflated numbers) or household income. There are numerous biases that deserve mentioning, but the simple component of college debt vs earn while you lean means plumbers are probably already better off on "average".
That's a good point I was using average and not median.
But I think my argument that >50% of college grads are better off having gone to college than plumbing school is true.
If you broke it into quartiles i bet the top quartile college graduate does much better than the top quartile plumber. The second quartile grad does moderately better than plumbers. The 3rd quartile about the same and the 4th significantly worse.
I see the quartile data for plumbers trying to find it for bachelor grads.
> If you broke it into quartiles i bet the top quartile college graduate does much better than the top quartile plumber.
Yes, as long as college here means that one has a professional degree (MD, JD, etc.), where access is granted to a career with an artificially constrained labour supply, thereby producing artificially high incomes. Of course, it's the supply management that boosts incomes, not some mystical power of the degree itself.
Interestingly, having only a bachelor degree seems to put you in a worse position than without, based on what we see in the makeup of high income earners. Which probably isn't too surprising. Graduating from college, save striving for a professional degree to gain access to an artificial market, is where you end up if you weren't already found to be useful in the economy. It's a sign of someone failing economically.
Suppose I join the workforce at 26, and earn an average of 65k per year while in the <30 cohort, while my friend joins at 19 and earns an average of 55k per year, in this statistic I'll seem better off even though my friend earned 345k more.
If we are to consider the definition of "better off" in strictly financial terms, the answer is clear. However, if we take into account a definition of "better off" that includes factors such as life satisfaction, I don't have the data to answer.
I'm wondering if you would define a higher than median US salary to be "surviving at best", as most CS PhD programs are at that amount plus health insurance. But certainly far from a FAANG salary, and I agree that there are disciplines usually with smaller programs that are "surviving at best."
That's not the correct comparison. Household income often includes two incomes, which is going to bring the value up. Your same link says the median earnings for a male individual is $61,417. Not significantly less, but this distinction is often important.
Median personal income is around $36k. [0] Annualized median earnings of the full-time employed are around $52k. [1] Households often have more multiple income earners.
Wikipedia notes, "The U.S. Census Bureau lists the annual real median personal income at $35,977 in 2019 with a base year of 2019 for all people over 15 years old.[3] The U.S. Census Bureau lists the annual real median earnings at $41,535 in 2020 for all workers with earnings[4] and lists the annual median earnings at $56,287 in 2020 for people who worked full-time, year round."
Of course there is also cost of living, and, quoting the AVETH survival guide (2012): "It is common in many departments to
reduce the amount of payment from 100 percent to 80 percent or 60 percent.
However, you are still expected to work full time. Make sure you know what
you are about to sign."
When I went to the store and added a remarkable 2 to my cart, they tried to upsell me on a more expensive "marker" and a breathtakingly expensive premium case, but not tips...when they didn't try to cram at least one package of those down my throat as well, I just assumed that's because they didn't have replaceable tips.
Clearly someone in their marketing department needs to be disciplined for this missed opportunity.
$130 for a cover! That's $30 more than a fucking Logitech case with keyboard for an iPad. Fool, money, parted, etc.
Interesting, I'm the opposite. I'll pay with card when possible, and if it's cash only, I'll offer to Venmo or I'm leaving. I put a lot of value in being able to track my own spending, and that itself is worth more than the potential issues of using a card.
Paying with cash doesn't preclude tracking your spending in any way. It might be less convenient to have to make a memo to yourself, but that is another issue. Having electronic-only precludes anonymity, unless some robust/secure/stable form of crytocurrency appears.
When I tried to get my annual credit report, I find that the credit agencies constantly have trouble validating my identify online even though I have one of the simplest reports. A single same address for decades, no loans, paid off every month.
They randomly will say that I can't be verified, and I need to snail mail them copies of a bunch of identifying documents to get my credit report. I imagine this is a common issue, and somehow still satisfies their requirement to offer the annual credit report online.
I had a similar experience recently: one agency report came through fine, one report came through with mysterious issues, and one just would not ever let me verify without snail mail.
When it came time for my "real" credit report to be run, however, there was no problem at all verifying my identity or getting the accurate information. Weird, huh?
What can we do about it? It feels hard because for any given individual they can say: "the problem is you, not us." We'd need some sort of aggregate data to prove that there's something systematic going on.
Why not just view them online? Sites like CreditKarma have existed for years. And if you don’t trust third parties, Experian let’s you view theirs on their own site. The benefit is being able to see updates more than once a year. CreditKarma updates every week.
Yeah that's what I'm trying to do, to view them online. I've looked up what's going wrong, and quite a few people have this issue that they can't be verified online.
I find that hard to believe because they can verify my identify when I sign up for an online bank, or apply for an apartment, or do anything else with the same information. I'm more inclined to believe it's not a priority, and don't care about making it better because the law doesn't say how good their service has to be, just that it exists. I'll note that when I sign up with the same information to their paid service as a trial, there's never any issue with verifying my identity.
> It's possible that your situation being so simple is exactly what makes it hard for them to be confident that the requestor is you.
You know, in theory this sounds reasonable. However:
- these organizations are grossly incompetent (is there anyone left in the US who has not had their data leaked by a credit bureau?)
- the incentives are very badly misaligned (it is our data, but we are not their customers, other corporations are, and they only provide this service because the law requires it)
I'm going to hazard a guess that it's just really crappy software that's causing this.
Maybe instead of demographic, it's about people whose public image is part of their job. Like startup executives, academics, athletes, politicians (even "low-level" politicians like city councilman), product managers, or venture capitalists. That's a lot of people who are juicier targets than someone earlier in their career, like a student, an associate, or entry-level software developer.
I feel like more restaurants have been going with cheap wheat-based ingredients and heavy batter deep frying.
The trend towards fried chicken sandwiches reduces the "meat" part of the sandwich only 50% meat. Happy hours consist of flatbreads, fries, sliders, artichoke dip (mostly oil, and chips to dip), egg rolls, bruschetta, wings with heavy breading, etc.
Basically even medium-tier restaurants are evolving into bar and diner food, and making it seem like a trendy thing.
