This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Supreme Court strikes down Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan:
The amusing thing here to me is that we got two major SCOTUS rulings in two days that are, on the face of it, not directly related to each other in any obvious way (besides the fact that they both deal with the university system). One could conceivably support one ruling and oppose the other. The types of legal arguments used in both cases are certainly different. And yet we all know that the degree of correlation among the two issues is very high. If you support one of the rulings, you're very likely to support the other, and vice versa.
The question for the floor is: why the high degree of correlation? Is there an underlying principle at work here that explains both positions (opposition to AA plus opposition to debt relief) that doesn't just reduce to bare economic or racial interest? The group identity angle is obvious. AA tends to benefit blacks and Hispanics at the expense of whites and Asians. Student debt relief benefits the poorer half of the social ladder at the expense of the richer half of the social ladder. Whites and Asians tend to be richer than blacks and Hispanics. So, given a choice of "do you want a better chance of your kids getting into college, and do you also not want your tax dollars going to people who couldn't pay off their student loans", people would understandably answer "yes" to both - assuming you’re in the appropriate group and that is indeed the bargain that’s being offered to you. But perhaps that's uncharitable. Which is why I'm asking for alternative models.
Not necessarily. It benefits the poorer half of the upper part of the social ladder (those who pursue expensive post-secondary education)
Regardless, why do you insist that there be some sort of "theory of everything" that explains both decisions? The affirmative action case is a 14th Amendment issue. The student loan case is about separation of powers and the limits on administrative agencies' power to interpret acts of Congress. There is not a lot of overlap between those areas of jurisprudence. Why would you expect one principle to explain voting on both cases?
Wouldn’t it be the kinds of students who took on debt for a mostly useless degree. People who study something useful like tech, science, finance, or business tend to do okay. They (provided they actually do the work and put in effort on getting themselves ready for employment) tend to get good jobs after college and thus, with a bit of frugality in the early years, pay off their loans fairly quickly. The ones who study useless (from an employment standpoint) majors in art, literature, history, or social science tend to get lower paid work and thus struggle to pay down the loans.
Which is what’s always been galling about student loan forgiveness. It essentially removes the market forces that push people away from poor decisions. College for the right students is a net benefit to that student and society at large, especially if you can push them to useful arts and sciences. By removing the market from the equation, you end up removing incentives for unprepared students to choose skilled trades over university, and pushing good students to choose fun-sounding avocations over useful arts an science. Essentially these students are spending 100K of other people’s money over a lifetime to take a four year vacation before going on to do low level work.
Why do people take on such debt if it’s mostly useless?
The job market often demands a college degree. Depending on who you ask, this is the changing economy, an intentional grift, or maybe just too good to check. Regardless, 40 to 60 percent of jobs are asking for a degree, and they can’t all be quants and engineers.
There is friction between what employers are asking and what they’re willing to pay. The market is clearly messed up. I kind of want to blame lenders for this! They have every incentive to inflate the supply of college degrees by giving out bad loans. But I can’t elide the responsibility of the borrower.
How much of this is obvious to the average high-school grad? His teachers will tell him higher education is worth it, because their whole circle has it. His parents and especially grandparents will say the same, since back in their day, it was more of a class marker, more of a road to success. Getting one of those top 20% jobs was an excellent prospect. And, for obvious prestige reasons, employers are all acting like they’re still the top 20%. We are giving teenagers every reason to think a degree buys them more than it does.
The job market, the availability of loans, and social sensibilities formed in the 1960s are all distorting the cost-benefit analysis.
Now, I don’t think loan forgiveness actually addresses this. Maybe indirectly, if lenders start to be much more careful about who they’ll take on, contracting the supply. I find this very unlikely, since there are government pressures to do the exact opposite.
The situation only improves when the cost-benefit becomes more obvious. We may be starting to see this with fewer jobs demanding a degree. Or that effect might exist only in thinkpieces. It could also happen if manufacturing magically comes back to the States. Maybe as the population ages, parents will get a more clear view of the job market. But it’s a race to the bottom. No one wants to be the last one without a degree.
I mean I’m not going to expect an 18 year old to make perfect decisions, but at the same time, I don’t think it’s asking too much for the rest of the family to come alongside this college student and insist that they come up with something approaching a real, thought out business plan for post college life and how college generally and the specific degree they want to get has a reasonable ROÍ and is something that given their actual talents and skills is a realistic plan.
I will however blame the government, because they created the mess with making college loans nondischargable at bankruptcy. I kinda get the argument that since you can’t exactly repossess an education and students generally don’t have many assets upon graduation that a lot of people might take the degree, declare bankruptcy and run. However, by doing that, it heavily incentivized loan grantors and schools to give loans and admissions spots to people who any fool could tell them wouldn’t be paying off the loan. Some because they’re simply not capable of learning high level skills offered by a rigorous job-training degree. Some because they’re completely unserious about the entire process and will spend more time chasing members of the opposite sex than studying. Still others because they’re studying things that are quite frankly useless fluff that no employer needs skilled labor to do. If loans were discharged at bankruptcy, it wouldn’t be a problem at all. Schools wouldn’t be wasting space on kids who are so far behind that they’re taking basic algebra and basic writing courses. Those seats won’t pay off, better to give it to a worthy kid who will be able to pay after he gets hired. Loan officers won’t give approvals to people who want to study useless stuff because French literature majors work at Starbucks and everybody knows it.
That’s a healthier equilibrium, sure. It’s just got a lot of points of divergence.
Ultimately, it’s teenagers or maybe their parents taking on unwise debt. But there are numerous forces telling them it’s totally worth it. Even their own families, generalizing from “back in my day” when you could work summers and get out debt free.
I don’t think useless degrees disappear if the parents wise up. I think companies are still going to push them as a discriminator and to keep up on the signaling treadmill. And I know lenders will still push them, because they don’t care if the kids succeed as long as they pay off their debt first.
The most effective way to do this is probably to pull back on the lenders. They are clearing a market which shouldn’t be clearing. This will cut supply, forcing more families to recognize that the debt wouldn’t be worth it.
I think parents have mostly wised up and push their kids to do two years at the local community college, transfer to a nearby four year, keep the debt minimal, and major in a practical degree.
This is all good advice unless you can get into Harvard or have a full ride somewhere. But, 18 year olds are legal adults who have teenager priorities.
More options
Context Copy link
I actually think they would dry up as it becomes obvious that they simply don’t pay. As it becomes obvious just how much debt you’ll take on — basically people are buying a houseful of debt for a degree — eventually those markets will change when it becomes more clear that some programs have very low post-grad employment rates and still owe a lifetime of debt.
And I’m not sure that employers are still taking “any old degree from any university.” They’ve likely been burned often enough on vanity degree holders with huge egos and little knowledge or work ethic to speak of. These types of things employers are sensitive to simply because bad hires make them less competitive in business. If you’ve got ten bad people on a team of fifty, they’re not only not performing themselves, but often slow down everything around them as other, productive people, need to fix their mistakes or deal with their drama.
I do see a potential market for College Level learning apps, or paid zoom courses, or even just guided readings where people with interest in a subject can pay $50 to study it with a phd guiding things. Especially in literature or history or the like where there’s no field trips or labs, you can probably get much the same level of interaction as you’d get in a classroom but at pretty low fractions of the cost. Books and video and the internet are cheap. Zoom allows for the creation of virtual classrooms. Apps allow for basic self testing and feedback.
If YouTube has taught me anything, this does already exist, you can subscribe to watch digital classes from experts. I think it's CuriosityStream and Skillshare that offer this.
Online courses for people "with interest in the subject' can only satisfy interest in the subject; they're no good as signals to employers.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link