Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/files/pdfs/hfs/is-college-worth-it/emmons_kent_ricketts_college_still_worth_it.pdf <comment><USER4> I have a degree from a no-name university in New Zealand. I'd do it again for a few pragmatic reasons.

1: Lots of companies will reject you on sight without a degree. I don't think it's a good thing, but it is reality.

2: With a degree your ability to move overseas dramatically improves. I moved to America after graduating. I flat out couldn't have done that without a degree. Points based systems immigration systems like New Zealand have dramatic bonuses for people with degrees.

3: You don't have to jump through the hoops and explain why you don't have a degree all the time. Stupid reason I know, but it's something I've seen friends without degrees have to do constantly - and not just in career situations. As I mentioned, I went to a no-name university. If you live in NZ, you'll know it. If you're an American, chances are, you've never heard of it. But because I have a degree, it doesn't ever really come up.

4: The cost isn't that bad, when you spread it out over a career. My degree & living costs cost about $60k NZD (~$40k USD). That's $1k USD / year, or $.50 per hour. Considering how my income has multiplied in the few years since I've graduated (SF wages help tremendously here), the actual cost is barely anything, even when you control for the opportunity cost of studying.

Where I think College returns make a lot less sense

• Paying out of state tuition for lifestyle reasons, when you're going into a relatively low paid field afterwards (e.g. teaching).

• Paying private school tuition at a school without a strong reputation

• Grad school, in general, seems to be a rip off

<comment><USER5> You didn't go to uni in the USA and the paper is by the St Louis Fed on USA grads.

You took your degree in a country with far lower inequality and better inward education investment, and then jumped over to work in a country that doesn't tax people enough to support USA students.

I'd imagine that is pretty good value.

<comment><USER4> I went to university in a country with a Gini coefficient of .35, and now live in a country with a Gini coefficient of .39 (See OECD link below)

The funny thing is, my student loan is one of the highest out of my American friend group† (although very normal amongst my NZ peers). Unlike the US, there was a lot less much in the way of financial aid/scholarships available, so sticker price was what people actually paid.

[https://data.oecd.org/inequality/income- inequality.htm](https://data.oecd.org/inequality/income-inequality.htm)

† For people with undergraduate degrees

<comment><USER5> Interesting. I knew NZ was pretty messed up but I didn't realise it was that bad.

The friend bit is anecdata.

Looks like NZ avg debt is $28k NZD [1]

USA is $29 USD [2]

So USA is 50% more expensive, on avg (NZDUSD 1.5). IMHO both are a disgrace, but that's another thing.

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_loans_in_New_Zealand#S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_loans_in_New_Zealand#Student_debt_levels)

2: [https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt- statistics/](https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/)

<comment><USER6> $29k is not that much is it? That is about what I ended up with for my degree in Sweden where higher education is free but you borrow for living expenses. I repay it with about $100 per month for 25 years.

Perhaps the biggest difference is the interest rate which is government backed and around maybe 1-2%. According to first result on Google the interest rates on US student loans seems to be around 6-8%.

<comment><USER7> $29k is a decent chunk of change of you don't have a high paying job. It'll take you many years to pay off because of all your other expenses (housing, transportation, healthcare, food, clothing, etc.).

<comment><USER8> Yes, but think of it as someone else lent you money to be housed, fed, and clothed for four years while you earned no income. That's going to cost money anywhere in the world, before a single book is purchased or lecture paid for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a really interesting addition to the literature if you dig through it, with subtle distinctions between income gains and wealth gains and interactions with demographics.

It's not a simple "college ain't what it used to be" story. The biggest puzzle is how to explain why recent grads still command significantly higher incomes than nongrads without accumulating significantly more wealth.

Increasing tuition is a factor, as is the declining return on capital gains over successive generations. Limited financial literacy and predatory lending seem to be hurting recent grads too.

Most notably, the inability to discharge school debt in bankruptcy since 2005 may have had strong effects.

That last legal change remains bewildering to me. You have three parties: schools, financial institutions, and teenagers. So uneducated teenagers are expected to know whether or not their choice in school, degree, expenses, and personal background will make their education worth it? When the other parties have all the data and experience? And if it turns out everybody was wrong, the now barely-employed twenty-something is least prepared to absorb the burden. More importantly, the least susceptible to incentives to improve this endemic situation for other future students. It creates a moral hazard which drives schools to overprice courses of education that are higher risk, and removes any incentive for lenders to educate borrowers on expected returns from different choices.

Policy circles are hotly debating right now how to overhaul the entire system. Maybe we should acknowledge the policy changes that helped break everything in the first place, and reverse those as soon as possible.

<comment><USER10> The three parties are schools, teenagers, and _the government_. More than 90% of existing student loans, and nearly all new loans, are issued by the government.

The student loan system will cost the government $170 billion in losses over 10 years, because interest doesn't cover money written off due to hardships and loan forgiveness. The non-dischargability of student loans protects the government from further losses.

Non-dischargability is a reasonable feature given the other aspect of federal student loans: they offer income-based repayment. Under Obama's REPAYE, your loan payments are capped at 15% of your discretionary income.

<comment><USER11> > The student loan system will cost the government $170 billion in losses over > 10 years

I don't doubt this, but it's a statement that focuses only on losses and completely ignores the economic benefits of the educated workforce.

$170 billion over ten years is on the order of 1% of education spending. Since graduates and postgraduates are earning, on average, roughly 2x and 3x non- graduates respectively, the extra income taxes paid by the non-defaulting group of college graduates alone makes the loan forgiveness losses a drop in the bucket, the income makes up for the losses many times over.

<comment><USER12> Once the job market got better a couple years ago, the percentage of job postings which required a college degree dropped. In other words, the "requirement" was mostly a way of filtering, not something that actually increased productivity.

Speaking as a person with two degrees myself, I can say that non-degreed programmers seem to be just as productive as those with degrees. In fact, CS majors in particular have a problem just solving the problem in front of them, and often want to over-engineer things using the techniques and patterns they learned in school that are applicable to huge systems, whereas non-degreed programmers often just solve the actual problem they have without trying to justify (in their own minds) years spent learning other techniques.

I am not at all convinced that a college-educated workforce is more productive, for more than half the jobs in which it is required.

<comment><USER11> Productivity isn't the metric that determines whether the government recoups student loan defaults, income is. And the income of graduates is still multiples that of non-graduates, as shown by the data in this article.

<comment><USER10> Individually, yes. But that doesn't mean that people are making more money in the aggregate by more people going to college. If the government subsidizes college and that results in more people going to college, but employers just respond by taking previously non-college jobs and making them require college degrees, there isn't actually more money in the economy as a result to justify the government expenditure.

<comment><USER11> You're moving your own goal post. You complained about the government's relatively small outputs from the student loan program, which is absolutely recouped many times over by today's income premium, in the form of income taxes, regardless of whether the economy grows.

Your hypothetical isn't the way things are actually playing out, so I don't feel like it needs to be argued. Degree holders are generating value on average, so the economy does, in fact, have more money as a result of education. And the government also makes money on it's investment in education on top of that.

<comment><USER13> I feel like you're talking past a lot of the other commenters in this thread. I'll try to frame it another way:

Generating value is synonymous with growing the economy and being more productive. You can't inflate incomes without either increasing productivity or printing money. If degree holders command higher incomes without offering higher productivity, it comes at the expense of non-degree holders earning lower wages than they would have without the degree holders around.

In my opinion, much of the income premium comes from employers using degrees as a filter (similar to a standardized test). Doing well on the SAT doesn't make you more productive, but does give you a leg up over your peers.

<comment><USER11> I totally agree that a big factor in income differences is due to cultural biases that favor degree holders. I don't think degrees are economically zero value though, for example patents are primarily held by inventors with postgraduate degrees, and more businesses are started by degree holders.

I'm not really sure how to answer your first part, I'm not trying to talk past anyone, but I feel like people are responding to my point that the income premium is what matters to the student loan program by repeating the conclusion of the paper that the wealth premium is going to zero.

The income premium and the wealth premium in this paper are two different things, and even though people with degrees might end up having net zero additional wealth accumulation at the end of their lives, that doesn't mean the student loan program is also net zero, or that people with and without degrees have the same lifestyle.

The student loan program gets to make it's money back before degree holders get to save the money, so the income premium matters to the government more than the wealth premium, when figuring out whether forgiving loans is worth it or not.

<comment><USER13> Right, so the issue with the income premium without economic growth argument is that the government would have collected those incomes anyway, just from different people (unless the student loans are structured as a % of future earnings, in which case I apologize for my ignorance).

Of course, degrees aren't zero value, but the subsidies for education (student loans) could still be distorting supply in a way that results in a net loss for the government. For example, a self-taught engineer or entrepreneur spends years in school instead of inventing or starting businesses. This is a poor allocation of investment and human capital which results in a net economic loss (including a loss for the government).

<comment><USER11> Why do you believe that school years take away from invention and business? There's no evidence of that, and a lot of evidence in the other direction. Right now, both inventing and starting businesses are _strongly_ correlated with degrees. The evidence we have suggests not only that student loans are a very good investment, it suggests the investment is so good that the government would make almost as much money back if they subsidized education completely, if they paid for education and didn't ask for the money back. The evidence in countries like Norway and Finland seems to back this up as well. They subsidize education, and their economies are strong, and their education systems out-rank the US globally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A person in our family is a specialized nurse. Two years of school, then some more training. $60hr any hour they "wish" to work. Saturdays/Sundays are $90hr, so is any hour after 8 hours. The demand is so high he just rejects work. If he wants to work in American Samoa or Miami: hired. I hired a person to install a garage door. $900 for an hour of work. My plumber wont show up for a 30 minute $300 job. I will call again, tomorrow fingers crossed. Get your brakes replaced - look at that bill. Try outsourcing that.

Everyone I meet that works at starbucks has a masters AND 90k in student debt. Bankruptcy doesn't make student loans go away.

I think things are about to start swinging in the "non-college" direction.

<comment><USER15> You need some better contractors. I have multiple plumbers with same day service for $95 service calls. My garage door was installed for $400 and it took an afternoon.

Obviously prices vary.

I can make a living with a trade skill, but data shows I'm more likely to make a lot more with a college degree. You have billionaire dropouts and baristas with phds. But on average, degree nets you a lot of lifetime income.

Maybe that will change.

<comment><USER16> I would argue averaging across all degrees is makes no sense. STEM degrees do pay off. Liberal arts degrees can pay if you want to boost a specific skill and have a solid plan for using it. E.g. getting an English degree to become a more persuasive speaker while promoting your otherwise sound and solidly executed startup.

Aside from those 2 examples there are plenty of colleges with a business model of selling overpriced useless degrees to people who can't be bothered to do some due diligence before getting a loan. Those degrees won't pay off and despite sharing the "college" name, I wouldn't average between the 2 groups.

<comment><USER4> Does STEM actually pay off, or does engineering/technology pay off?

I've got a few friends who work in science, and it seems to be a pretty poorly paying field, with a real lack of job prospects, unless you secure a job at a government research department.

<comment><USER15> I have friends with stem phds who aren't making tons of money. But, I think in general, stem degrees pay well.

I try to use reliable data sets [0] to help understand because anecdotes are hard for me to make decisions. The data are almost always a few years old so they aren't perfect and could miss a new trend. But it's the best I know how to use.

[0] figure 4 shows stem 3rd highest after health and management [https://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2011/c...](https://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2011/collegepayoff.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Fair enough. When it comes to career advice, I prefer anecdotes to large data sets, because there are far too many variables, and it's too easy to torture numbers.

<comment><USER17> I take it you didn't go the STEM route then. ;)

More seriously, anecdotes are terrible when giving advice to fresh high school seniors on their way to graduation. When people think of degrees in certain fields, they gravitate to the successful people ("I'll study acting and make millions like the famous actors I know", etc). They don't think of and aren't even aware of how many people get those degrees and fail hard.

That's why they need to see the placement and salary stats to understand what their up against. Once they understand a French Comparative Literature degree has approximately no economic value, then they can make that decision knowingly. Papering over that by pointing out the one leader that happens to have that degree does more harm than good.

<comment><USER18> If that friend is himself an actor, or someone else who can influence hiring decisions, then I would say go for it!

At the end of the day, people hire you. Not data. After all, who says that a teenager can tell apart badly interpreted data any better than poor anecdotes?

<comment><USER15> At the end of the day, data reflects what all those people hiring people do. Anecdotes are randomly useful for predicting because maybe you luck out and find the right person, but probably you won't.

Teenagers should be able to understand data by the time they pick a college or career.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> One thing I don't see talked about a lot is the _risk_ involved in going to college.

All the frequently-cited studies about college look at the incomes of college graduates versus the incomes of non-college graduates, and then compare that to the cost of education, and that generally looks fairly positive.

But of students who enroll in 4-year programs, _only 60%_ graduate within 6 years[1]. For these students, college has actively harmed them: they're saddled with crippling debt, but don't get the benefits of a college degree. Also consider that they aren't working as many hours, if any, during college, so they lose even more in wages they could have earned.

The EV if starting and finishing college is coming into question, but the EV of starting college is _clearly_ negative if you have only a 60% chance of finishing.

[1] [https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40](https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40)

<comment><USER20> The 6 year graduation _heavily_ differs based upon selectivity of the university in question. From one of the related tables linked in your source [0]:

> Graduating within 6 years after start, males and female

> 2011 starting cohort: 60.4%

> Open admissions: 30.7%

> >=90% accepted: 42.3%

> 75-89.9% accepted: 57.8%

> 50-74.9% accepted: 62.0%

> 25-49.9% accepted: 70.3%

> <25% accepted: 86.9%

[0]: [https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_326.10.a...](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_326.10.asp)

<comment><USER19> Yes, this is one of the problems: many schools are letting in students who are unlikely to succeed without extra help, and not providing that help.

Many students who enter college lack the prerequisite knowledge to complete even introductory college classes, and are placed in remedial classes. These classes don't count for college credit, but cost the same as college classes there's a limited pool of financial aid available to a student, and typically this pool is smaller for remedial students, who are less likely to qualify for merit-based aid. The results are devastating: only 9.5% of remedial students graduate from two year programs within three years, and only 35.1% of remedial students graduate from four year programs within six years.

[1] [https://postsecondary.gatesfoundation.org/remedial/](https://postsecondary.gatesfoundation.org/remedial/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I can't find the citation now but the biggest argument against college I've seen is that once you control for family income, life success is way more correlated to SAT scores/the college's you apply for than the ones you actually attend. This would imply that college success stats merely indicate that they are selective in who they choose to enroll.

EDIT: Its not the one I'm looking for, but I found a good one. [http://conference.iza.org/conference_files/CoNoCoSk2011/gens...](http://conference.iza.org/conference_files/CoNoCoSk2011/gensowski_m6556.pdf) shows that if you control for IQ, the average person makes $100k more over the course of their whole working life by getting a bachelor's.

\- This doesn't even account for the four years of work you lose by going to college instead of working.

\- Its based on data from people who mostly graduated before the year 2000, and by all accounts the value of college is becoming less, not more. It's also based on a calculation when college was much cheaper.

<comment><USER22> Those studies say something more like "UW Madison/U Washington/UIUC really do give you as good an education as the ivies" and quite a bit less like "college doesn't matter/is just a signal".

<comment><USER23> Ivy League matters if you want to be in finance or white shoe consulting.

Everything else, you just work hard at your first job and nobody gives a shit. I went to a big SUNY school and was a mediocre student. We all made out fine.

<comment><USER24> Agreed on the Ivy League part. I work with a guy that went to Princeton. I went to a public University in Florida.

Sure he learned a lot more and had to do a thesis for his undergrad, but we have the same job now.

He has no more leverage than me when it comes to that.

<comment><USER25> And when that guy's roommate strikes it big, who gets the call to join the rocketship?

Steve Ballmer was Bill Gates' roommate. You are getting free networking lottery tickets with high achievers at an Ivy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If trades make so much money, how come no one is bitching about fatcat plumbers and roofers? Why hasn't the NY Times published any articles about how "Big Plumbing is soaking the middle class" etc.? For all the ways the middle class is getting hammered, I have yet to see one book about how plumbers are killing the middle class like I have with doctors, lawyers, techbros, and bankers. Until a journalist from NY Times or Bloomberg writes a book about how the decline of the American middle class is due to a plumbing conspiracy, you're just not bourgeois. Sorry.

<comment><USER27> The issue is that trades don't scale like all of the things you mention. Even if you own a very successful plumbing company, your ability to scale is constrained by geography, labor costs and finding people you can trust to manage your company. Not to mention, there are market forces working against the plumber trying to scale, and the plumber's ability to affect policy is proportional to the ability to scale.

Anecdotally, plumbers charge more per hour in some cases than many lawyers make. Their income, however, is limited by their ability to book many jobs and actually carry them out. The opportunity cost of one job is exactly another job. So comparing to other wage earners their income is high, but compared to a banker that can make several loans in the course of a day where the opportunity cost is only capital (which they have practically unlimited access to being that theyre a banker) changes the situation quite drastically.

<comment><USER28> > The issue is that trades don't scale like all of the things you mention.

The UK famously has a plumber worth $100 million - Charlie Mullins.

<comment><USER29> This is a great argument for starting a company in an industry where you are an expert, but this guy isn't doing house calls for hourly pay. He's taking a big cut of alllll the house calls.

According to wiki he is paying his plumbers more than I'd expect, which is cool.

>The company promotes itself as providing a high-quality service, employing "£80,000/year plumbers", charging £80–200/hour depending on time of day and service performed."

<comment><USER28> Someone said a plumbing business wouldn't scale. He scaled a plumbing business. Obviously in scaling it, this multi-millionaire is not personally doing the plumbing anymore - you are right. I don't see how that means he hasn't scaled it though?

<comment><USER30> Exactly, none of the tech billionaires got where they are by coding or even designing software forever. I don't see a fundamental difference between that and managing a plumbing business.

<comment><USER27> The point I was trying to make was that the trades don't scale like tech or banking do. It's clear that this guy, who did manage to scale a trade, has a net worth of about 100mm after almost 40 years of scaling, whereas the most successful tech entrepreneurs have multiples of that in a quarter (or less) of a timeframe. This guy is an exception, but still sort of exemplifies what I'm trying to say. It's worth noting that this guy may be the most successful plumber in the world (or at least on a short list of the most successful plumbers in the world). If we made a list of people in tech or finance, the people would be younger and richer by several orders of magnitude in some cases which is saying something when we're talking about 100mm bucks.

My argument wasn't that the trades don't scale at all (this would be an asinine argument as I know contractors that do scale and this guy is clearly an exception to that argument), but rather that the trades don't scale the same way tech or finance do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> _" The rate of underemployment—working in a job that does not require a college degree—was 42.5 percent among recent graduates."_

Wow. That, plus debt, is a huge hit.

The big item that analysis doesn't consider is the commonality of college education. _" Between 2000 and 2018, the percentage of people 25 years and older who had completed a bachelor's degree or higher increased by 9 percentage points, from 25.6 percent to 35.0 percent."_ \- Census Bureau[1]. That's for the entire population, so it lags changes for young people.

How did the St. Louis Fed miss that?

[1] [https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/02/number-of- peo...](https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/02/number-of-people-with- masters-and-phd-degrees-double-since-2000.html)

</comment><comment><USER22> Their familial controls don't make much sense to me.

An actuary's kid will have an easier time becoming an actuary. Same for lawyers and doctors. That doesn't mean that college is a non causal factor in those students lifetime earnings... Quite the opposite. You're not becoming any of those things without college.

The student went to college precisely because they understand viscerally and precisely _how_ college sets them up for a life of higher than average earnings. And what they need to do at college to tap into that potential.

Similarly, I'm not sure I believe the claim that there's no obvious causal link between education and financial acumen.

The big difference seems to be "do you know WHY you are at college?" And in cases where the answer is yes, it's still a good choice.

<comment><USER32> > Their familial controls don't make much sense to me.

There's a lot of recent evidence that, all else being equal (controlling for educational attainment, test scores, and grades) parental income/social class has a huge impact on income.

That is, if you come from a lower social class, you can expect a lower income increase from college than someone coming from a higher social class.

There's significant policy implications here-- our long-standing goal of getting lower income kids to take college loans and go to college may not have a positive expected return for them.

<comment><USER33> no, that's completely wrong. You are confusing averages and conditional probabilities. On average, those from higher classes may do better - <USER3> doesn't mean that a kid from s lower social class should take that as guidance. It means we should try to erase or lessen differences of opportunities between classes. Some of these differences are probably innate. A brain surgeon is likely smart and his kids are probably also smart. Some, but most are due to informational deficiencies and networking effects.

<comment><USER32> > no, that's completely wrong. You are confusing averages and conditional > probabilities. On average, those from higher classes may do better - <USER3> > doesn't mean that a kid from s lower social class should take that as > guidance.

??? You're saying that someone should not consider the outcome distribution of people similarly situated to themselves when making a choice? Isn't that completely rejecting empiricism?

If, from a public policy standpoint, our effort has been to get to the poor to college to end poverty; and the educated poor _do_ do better with education, but not nearly as well as their middle-class cohort; and the present-value of education is smaller than the present-value of their lifetime wage increases-- one has to question whether the policy is well informed.

If you're asserting that the picture is unduly distorted by those at the very highest spread of the income distribution-- you're right. But the effect is still when we look at median outcomes.

> Some of these differences are probably innate. A brain surgeon is likely > smart and his kids are probably also smart.

Presumably we'd be able to measure this and control for this.

> Some, but most are due to informational deficiencies and networking effects.

Yes, and various kinds of cultural cues about class of upbringing that persist after education and act to limit opportunity.

<comment><USER33> "??? You're saying that someone should not consider the outcome distribution of people similarly situated to themselves when making a choice? Isn't that completely rejecting empiricism?"

No, what I'm saying is presence of a statistical pattern in a whole population is not evidence that we shouldn't make policy to change it. Statistically, those who live in Miami are more tan than those who live in Wisconsin, on average. But if you expose a Wisconsin resident to the same amount of sun, on average they will be just as tan.

<comment><USER32> ??? We're comparing the income difference (and ratio) between (poor background + college education) and (poor background + no college education) to the income difference between (non-poor background + college education) and (non- poor background + no college education).

In your example, you'd expect the Wisconsin guy to increase in tan _more_ when you put him in the Bahamas and give him a dose of sun than the guy who started out in Miami and was given an equivalent further dose of sun.

But we've measured the opposite-- the guy in Wisconsin (poor background) does get more tan, but doesn't increase in tan (increase in income) nearly as much as the guy who started in Miami (non-poor backgrounds).

<comment><USER33> No, because we haven't done nearly enough for the poor guy. It's not the case that we've done everything possible for the poor and they still didn't improve much. That's false.

<comment><USER32> We're measuring the effect of one thing-- getting a poor person to college-- composed with all the other interventions that are spread through the population.

We measure the value of this-- getting to college-- as very small and even possibly negative.

We also measure interventions and their values / impacts on earnings much higher.

Going "la la la but college would be much better and _itself a win_ if we did 50 other supportive things" is all great, but it's fundamentally handwaving in the absence of evidence.

<comment><USER33> No, we don't measure this. The study in question tries to make college wage premium go away using questionable control variables. Sure, some skilled trades can make more money than liberal arts grads. But very few people want to be plumbers or work on an oil rig and for good reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> One of the costs that is often excluded, if you go the "not college" route, is the toll of physical labor on one's body. Medical expenses can be substantial and you didn't earn as much as an office job may have paid.

<comment><USER35> > One of the costs that is often excluded, if you go the "not college" route, > is the toll of physical labor on one's body

That's why, for people interested in technology, software development is an incredible blessing. If you're clever about it, and plan ahead in HS, you can easily skip college and come out making $100,000/yr within 3-4 years, even in small markets.

I've never taken a single computer science class, make well over $100,000 in a highly-challenging software development job, and no one has ever asked me about a college degree (with the exception of one job that I regretted accepted and which I quit in 8 months).

There are other similar routes available to people without college degrees. Several wealthy people my parents know started out in construction, but rapidly moved into flipping houses and real estate, and made a fortune. Their physical labor was over by their late 20s.

There are many paths that skip college and don't end up working physical labor after a decade or two. But you have to be clever and proactive (if you're on HN, I'm going to assume you're at least the former).

<comment><USER21> Same for marketing. College degrees in marketing are _useless_. Real work experience can get you pretty good jobs much quicker

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Coming from a small town in Indonesia, went to Singapore to study. Will end up with about 30k SGD (~22k USD) in student loan. Fresh graduate pay for software engineering in Singapore ranges mostly from 60-100k.

I think the decision worth it* because it opens up horizon, opportunities to working overseas (not just Singapore) and much better living standard.

I didn't even know what a CS degree will do after graduation and just randomly chose it because I like Math back in HS. I guess the real benefit of a degree is the pointers and community you get. Surely this can be replaced with a good mentorship, but that requires a good network beforehand.

*the quality of education in Singapore University IMHO is far from the quality of the content I found in the publicly shared course content in US universities.

</comment><comment><USER37> The first two paragraphs of page 23.

        - Usury ceilings eliminated
        - Costs ballooning

In other words, the return on investment is falling because society is taking financial advantage of & reducing investment in young people.

</comment><comment><USER38> A proper title would be _Is College Still Worth It [Financially]?_ Evaluating an education purely on economic terms is the wrong move to make, but unfortunately an increasingly common one.

<comment><USER39> What other terms should be included? I can think of a few:

* Life experience

* Knowledge gained

* Friends made

But what would you add?

<comment><USER38> Those three categories are pretty broad and essentially cover everything, but my own personal addition would be: becoming aware of "unknown unknowns". A proper university education exposes you to knowledge and worldviews that you previously had no idea even existed.

This is the fundamental problem with self-education: you tend to get stuck in local loops based on your current interests, motivations and knowledge. Sure, the information is out there, but without a proper introduction by an expert, real-world peers learning the same material, and the overarching school structure, it may as well be written in hieroglyphics. External education, when properly designed, should broaden the mind and prepare it for self- education, but without it, you often end up with a fairly limited view of the world shaped by whatever you personally find interesting.

<comment><USER40> Agree with the unknown-unknowns, the problem is (at least from my pov) that University nowadays mostly familiarizes you with unknown-unknowns that are kind of boring, i.e. stuff that will potentially bring you (the University atendee) financial and societal returns further down the road (I get why they do that, I'm not criticizing them for it, just exposing what I think happens).

Again, from my pov most of the interesting and not-boring stuff that can be studied does not have that many financial or societal benefits further down the road, and as such self-education seems one of the few ways of gaining knowledge about that stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I would have paid hundreds of thousands for my Physics degree if they'd have loaned me it.

The thing is that it makes sense if the degree leads to a dramatically higher income and you actually use the chance.

If I'd stayed in my hometown instead of moving to London, it'd still be worth it, but probably to the tune of 100-200K.

All of these numbers are probably lower than the benefit I'm likely to derive over my working life but 18 year old me would have risk adjusted.

Across the population of course, the balance changes dramatically, because huge numbers of people are terminally skint, working unskilled jobs, etc.

Most people probably shouldn't get a degree.

Who actually wants to be 'most people' when they're an 18 year old?

</comment><comment><USER42> Regardless of any opinions on either side, I don't understand why we have made degree a social prestige? Someone in the comments said degree values will degrade and they are probably right as it happened with lower education as more and more people got in. Maybe there are lack of jobs or companies are exploiting people by making them grind more in an artificial constraint environment or some people are hogging off the resources and causing major inequality in pay gaps? I have no doubt education is valuable and so is experience but why does that have to compress or translate into a paper? Should we really be running on an old feudal model of producing workers in 2020? I have a lot of questions. I dropped out of school recently due to the toxic culture degrading my health to the point I am severely antisocial and definitely depressed enough for no reason. The competitive grind is worse in countries with overpopulation and the quality is just outrageous. I just wanted to work on something cool, become a surgeon but that route was sealed at 10. No money, no family prospects, grinding is too difficult and being a drug addict and die young seems a better option if you had a non functional childhood due to the whole burden later on. I thought life would improve with vast improvements in productivity and industrial revolution but what we got in the end seems to be mostly cosmetic for the past 20 years. Yes, having the ability to order food or communicate is nice but that was doable before too. Taxi on demand? Well, we had numbers before (even though I was born in 00s), my dad has stories of it. Fancy animated avatar on social platforms seems cosmetic. What else really changed in life quality?

</comment><comment><USER43> I have a degree from a state school in chemistry, it's been worth it for me. In part because the GI Bill paid for it, but it also landed me several jobs writing software where domain knowledge is required and not so easy to come by without formal education.

</comment><comment><USER44> College isn't worth it, but that's the whole point. It's becoming what economists call a Giffen Good, that is, something people consume even more of the more expensive it becomes.

The biggest value factor of all is Metcalfe's Law of network effects, where the almost universal availability of higher education means that not pursuing it places your starting position in life on the outer long tail of the success curve. Not going to college is like being a business that decided to just never bother getting on the internet, or a person who doesn't know how to drive. Unless you move to some isolated backwater that isn't subject to the network or are some kind of extreme outlier, you are at a huge disadvantage.

Notable that these articles about the doubtful value of a university degree are written exclusively by people who have one.

The wider availability of education (via cheap debt) and downward mobility means a degree (all things equal) is no longer as distinguishing and does not have the same impact on life outcomes as it once might have. Even previously, the people who went to college had such a huge social head start anyway, it would be difficult to control for education as the determining factor in success.

University is starting to resemble a "radical monopoly," (Ivan Illich, summarized here: [https://twitter.com/fietsprofessor/status/112207372586260070...](https://twitter.com/fietsprofessor/status/1122073725862600705)) where there is nothing discretionary about it.

Outside of STEM, I'd argue modern colleges offer students very little more than a tribal affiliation, which is the elephant in the room for articles like these. If you told kids why they need to go to college, it would devalue the degree even further as they re-tribalized around other rites of passage. This doesn't mean don't go to college, it means do absolutely everything in your power to graduate college, because the arbitrary biases and disadvantages of the alternative defy all reason and make anyone with an IQ above 90 insane.

When you look at college as a Giffen Good, which people need for participation in a radical monopoly over the labour market, created by a network effect from its debt fueled availability, of course it seems like a college education is not worth it - but it's only ever not worth it to people who already have one.

I'd like a mainstream platform to write that view and put these "is college worth it?" navel gazer articles to rest. If only there were an institution to affiliate with...

<comment><USER45> Nitpick: Veblen good, not giffen

<comment><USER44> Was going to go with Veblen because of status signalling, but when the price elasticity of demand gets inverted, it was Giffen.

<comment><USER45> Isn't that true for Veblen too?

<comment><USER44> If I remember F&D correctly, Veblen was more of a back fitted narrative construct around luxury goods, where Giffen was the "impossible," artifact of inverting the price elasticity of demand. They are related, but Veblen didn't write that a wave of debt would cause leisure consumption, whereas the wave of debt fueled demand is just the distortion that would make Giffen goods possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I have some kids and college is about a decade away for them, so this is pretty timely. I remember reading a post in the 2000s about whether the internet (or, more precisely, some application built on the internet) would do the same thing to colleges as Craigslist did to the newspapers. Peel off the valuable bits and by doing so disaggregate and destroy/heavily damage the institution.

Still waiting for this to happen, but maybe lambda school and bootcamps are the start. I expect credentialing of schools and the longer engagement with colleges to make the transition longer. Bit I don't see how colleges avoid being unbundled.

<comment><USER46> I have a degree, but not in CS, and after seven years in the industry I still occasionally come across recruiters who treat me like I must have no idea what I'm doing, or interviewers acting like I must be a genius for solving easy problems. It's got to be worse if you have no degree at all. I'd tread carefully.

<comment> non-entity When my coworker discovered the other week that I didn't have a degree, he straight up told me a couple of years ago, the company wouldnt have even thought about hiring me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Hint to paper writers: you can put your figures inline instead of all at the end.

What a dismal reading experience, skimming from pages of text to the end to see what the cited figure(s) actually show, then back to the text again.

Who sanctions this sort of thing?

<comment><USER48> For digital publishing, sure. In academic publishing, for print, or if the same file is used for both digital and print copies, colour pages are often clustered together to reduce the production cost. If you have 20 pages of mostly black and white text each with a small colour figure, you have to print 20 colour pages. If you cluster them together, you can print 18 black and white pages and 2 colour pages instead.

This practice will go away as all publishing moves to digital formats. But as long as there is a print version for purchase as well, it will be more cost- efficient to organize papers like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> There is a line of thinking that college tuition should rise until the ROI on higher education drops to zero, using some twisted Pareto logic. I would consider such an outcome to be neither optimal nor efficient.

<comment><USER5> This is happening with education, healthcare and housing.

It's a logical mechanism of near unlimited credit creation to absorb all productivity gains for capture by rentiers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I don't have a degree and am constantly told in rejections by potential employers, and my own employer when applying for advancement, that they are looking for degree holders. Many job listings also flat out state a 4-year degree is a minimum.

A degree would absolutely, positively, beyond any shadow of a doubt improve my chances of increasing my income. At my current job only about 7%.

But the tens of thousands of dollars of debt I'd have to take on to get that degree at 4.5-7% interest (or higher)... yeah thanks but no thanks.

So, anecdotally at least, I can agree that there are pretty diminishing returns to getting a degree. While I'd be all but guaranteed to increase my income, I'd be paying out more though:

a 20k 10-year loan at 6.8% (finaid.org suggested this %) interest means I'm paying 27,619.31

a 40k 10-year loan at 6.8% interest means I'm paying 55,238.63

At my current income the 20k loan, bumping up one position and considering our raises inside a position are limited to less than 3.5% annually based on a rather arbitrary 'merit review'. It would be 7-10 years of my increased pay just to cover the loan, assuming no taxes were taken on the increase but also factoring in insurance increases. That means in 14 years I could start keeping more money from that 4 year degree if I could manage a 20k$ degree.

Ha!

<comment><USER51> Would you be willing to name names? Outside of government and defense contractors I personally have not run into any blocks from not having a degree, but I am in the SV bubble where up is down so I have a heavy bias.

<comment> non-entity Not OP, I applied to a Wells Fargo job in Charlotte that wouldn't even let me continue the application after entering that I did not have a degree. This was about maybe 3 or so years ago. I had talked to several recruiters about jobs at various companies (from consulting firms to small businesses) which cut communication after learning I dont have a degree. Most recently was a few months back when I talked to a recruiter about a job I was "perfect for" in Atlanta, he called me back later that day to say he couldnt submit me because "the position required a degree". I work at a fortune 500 company, and one of my coworkers straight up admitted the company wouldnt have hired me a few years ago.

These are just the example I could remember at the moment, I'm sure there have been more.

<comment><USER50> > that wouldn't even let me continue the application after entering that I did > not have a degree.

I've had gobs and gobs of jobs found via indeed do this to me as part of the 'pre-qualification'. They want to know where you got your degree, sometimes your GPA etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > we find that controlling for the education of one's parents reduces our > estimates of college and postgraduate income and wealth premiums by 8 to 18 > percent. Controlling also for measures of a respondent's financial > acumen—which may be partly innate—, our estimates of the value added by > college and a postgraduate degree fall by 30 to 60 percent. Taken together, > our results suggest that college and post-graduate education may be failing > some recent graduates as a financial investment

There is no doubt in my mind that someone's parents' status and education, and someone's financial acumen, are both leading to higher incomes and wealth.

Why does it make sense to "control" for these things? Doesn't this lead to a distorted view, where large real differences in income between two people are factored away?

Sure, financial acumen might be partly innate, or correlated with IQ or family status, but some people surely gain financial acumen precisely by going to college? Sure, parent's education is a great predictor or 'own education', but does that really imply the alternative- that when the professor's kid is a high school dropout that the kid is better off than other dropouts? Is that supported by the data? Maybe yes, because daddy prof has more money to support his kid, but what happens with the dropout's kids and future generations?

I'm not arguing that the premium isn't going down, it's true that tuition is out of control, but I'm not sure I understand how the methodology here isn't painting a starker picture than reality. Discounting 50% for 'acumen' is a _huge_ influence on the numbers, and when you don't discount for parents and acumen, the reality is that people with college degrees are earning a lot more actual money.

</comment><comment><USER52> Acquiring the "college income premium" is not the reason for going to college. College and universities allow students relatively unfettered exploration of ideas and social interactions. While some of us manage to do that without the umbrella of academia, most of us fare better at a college.

Moreover, colleges and universities (especially the great research universities) provide a way to push back the boundaries of human knowledge and transfer concepts and technology to a new generation. College is where you meet friends and lovers.

</comment><comment><USER53> Look, I'm studying undergraduate philosophy with no intention other than why not. Would I say I could learn the material on my own w/o college? Absolutely but I like the organized structure of college w/ professors, peers, etc. Am I getting into debt? A fair bit. Is it worth the trade off? I certainly think so. Will I say that five years from now? Most likely. Because here's the thing: education as a means to an end is not what it's all about, and so many of us subscribe to this fiction―to this warm stupor of society's fictions―that we forget what it is truly about. College will always be worth it such that you have an endless curiosity or enjoy erring in the direction of learning which is deeply rooted into failing, or rather, not understanding, over and over again.

<comment><USER35> > Look, I'm studying undergrad philosophy...Am I getting into debt? A fair > bit.. Is it worth the trade off? I certainly think so. Will I say that five > years after I graduate? Not sure but most likely.

Spoiler. Been there, done that. Unless you're at an Ivy, if you're majoring in philosophy, you'll not think it was worth it in five years. My sin was Classics, but similar outcome.

Assuming you're on HN because you're teaching yourself programming, the sting will be somewhat lessened (that's the route I took), since you'll at least be able to get a job.

But it'll still sting to make those massive loan payments knowing that nothing you learned is helping you with your professional life, and that things like philosophy, mathematics, and languages (and computer science!) can be learned just as easily with discipline, YouTube, and a few good textbooks.

It's _very_ easy to delay the pain of loan payments when you're in school, but they'll be there waiting for you, inevitably, through sickness and health, marriage and divorce.

If you have endless curiosity, college is even less worth it. Instead, being loan-free gives you the freedom to work in areas that truly intrigue you, and to work in very low-paying internships while you're learning.

But I know I won't convince you. Likely no one could have convinced me at the time (although only one person tried, once).

Edit: if this were the 1970s or earlier, when you could pay for college classes from waiting tables or a $10,000 loan (inflation adjusted!), I'd absolutely say go for it. But taking out even $50,000 in debt at age 18 for anything less than a guaranteed job with a good income (physician assistant, nursing, accounting) is mortgaging your future. Taking out $200,000, which is the going rate for most [edit: should read "many, private", and is probably closer to $100,000] liberal arts 4-year-degrees, is insanity, but between culture BS about degrees and "academic counselors", I know it may not seem that way to you right now.

<comment><USER53> Thank you for the input. It's interesting, and hey, it might be the case down the road. But my main philosophy behind my seemingly naive post is this: I don't mind what happens. I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter what is but how you think about what is that matters.

Edit: I saw your edit, and again, thank you for your input. I would just like to note that I'll be graduating with ~12k in debt - I went to a community college first while living with my parents and transferred to a UC, and California's higher education system supports low-income, first generation households fairly well - to which I owe great gratitude to.

<comment><USER54> I'm about to finish paying off about $65,000 dollars that I took out for my CS degree. I graduated 4 years ago and have a good paying job. So, I'm lucky to have to be paying it off early. However, even with my 6 figure income, paying off this large sum off money has been a huge burden and has majorly affected other choices in my life like investments, career (I.e. I had to take the high paying jobs), buying a house, etc etc. If I could go back and do it again I would avoid any student loans like the plague they are.

Edit: just saw your edit reply to above edit :) that is much more reasonable than the situation that I put myself into. Still, I would recommend doing everything you can to avoid the debt. Paying back 1000's of dollars is a large burden.

<comment><USER55> The $40k I had to pay back wasn't a burden to me at all because I went to a state school and took public loans.

I had the option of an income based repayment plan too, so if I wanted to take a low paying jobs my monthly payment would have just dropped.

The only reason it would have been a burden was if I felt like I _had_ to pay it off in 4 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> When signing up for my current job, I didn't even bother bringing them my master's degree. Too bad because it's from one of top two tech unis in the country. Not to downplay the benefits of higher education, but it's certainly not a prereq for good employment these days.

</comment><comment><USER57> Higher learning was is and will always be "worth it." Knowledge is good. Bloatful College administrations not nearly as much. Funny how no one ever studies their utility/cost returns.

</comment><comment><USER58> The last time I looked at this data (lifetime earnings) the difference was close to $1M on average for men and substantially lower for women. The opportunity cost of going to college is about 1/5 of that difference if you pay up front but substantially more if you take out loans. Here's another thought that's not discussed in any of the studies: what's the impact of someone attending college later in life? Say in late 20s? I'd argue that the degree has greater impact on remaining future income under that scenario.

</comment><comment><USER59> I made a very simple one spreadsheet model just yesterday after talking about this with a friend:

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KpmT8JdF-0CKyRk8_DL7...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KpmT8JdF-0CKyRk8_DL7m3EWB7v4Hguj8bVVws62Ym8/edit?usp=sharing)

Every student should do a cost/benefit analysis of what a degree from a given institution will be worth to them - too many students fall into massive debt they can never pay back.

</comment><comment><USER60> > _Combined with a continuing surge in the number of new college graduates > entering the labor market, this resulted in stagnating wages in those jobs > along with a "cascade" of college graduates into lower-skill jobs. These > underemployed college graduates, in turn, pushed some low-skilled workers > out of the job market altogether._

Right ... yet, believe this paper when it says that those pushed-out-of-the- job-market low-skilled workers with no college degrees are not any worse off.

</comment><comment><USER61> I'd offer a much simpler explanation: education is mostly a competitive tool, when more people have it, it's value naturally declines right? As fraction of population with a college degree increased from about 4% in 1940 to about 30% today, obviously advantage offered by it, declined. And went to essentially zero if measured by wealth because wealth is something only top of population pyramid has, in general: fewer than 30%.

</comment><comment><USER62> This paper argues implicitly for getting a college education. Reason is that very few people would be able to understand this paper before getting a college education. Many Americans may graduate college without being able to understand this paper. For those who do graduate able to understand the paper, I'm sure college increased their earning power and wealth.

</comment><comment><USER63> just want to add something that seems missing from much of the discussion of higher education; consider the question rephrased as, "is it worth learning to learn?" higher ed is not just job training. its exposure to ideas, opinions, people, and energy in an environment explicitly _not_ tied to a profit motive. it should be cheaper, and more accessible, but..

</comment><comment><USER64> It's rent-seeking. This outcome was obvious.

</comment><comment><USER65> Personally I feel like, one one of the variables that isn't considered in the returns conversation is time. Lots of employers have reimbursement programs that can be used while working up even of you currently work in big retail or corporate food.

It will likely take much longer but will leave you in a more controllable financial situation in the interim.

</comment><comment><USER66> I wonder if HN is a good place to discuss this, because we have a pretty niche group of ppl here.

A big chunk of the HN crowd seems to be self-taught highly intelligent and highly motivated young guys who as a result became astronomically good in their craft. For those people, potential employers will go out of their way and bend their own corporate hiring rules to get the no-degree candidate past HR.

And then there's the normal people working normal jobs. For those, not having a degree will immediately disqualify them from 50%+ of the available job openings. But this crowd is only marginally represented on HN.

Since it's like the last thing where young people need to be disciplined, I'm sure many companies will treat a degree more like a proof that you're reliable enough than like the additional education that it was supposed to be.

That also explains why "degree" has become a HR checkbox where nobody cares about the specific skills that you supposedly learned.

So the correct question is: How do you prove your reliability (by getting a degree) in the cheapest way possible?

As for grad school, that's really only for people who are idealistic and value research higher than job security or having enough money to feed a family.

<comment><USER67> You seem to make a lot of assumptions about people who do and do not visit/participate on HN. Is it based on a feeling or is there some data available on that topic?

<comment><USER68> Sometimes data is not the only thing you need. Example: the statistical significance of a parachute to avoid death or trauma when jumping from a plane. "Conclusions: parachute use did not death or major trauma when jumping from a plane..."

[https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/363/bmj.k5094.full.pdf](https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/363/bmj.k5094.full.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Three words. Income Sharing Agreement. Banks and insurance agencies have already calculated what a degree at a particular college is worth.

People just tend to get really butt hurt when they see that a degree in Tuba Performance from NYU is not valuable.

</comment><comment><USER70> college provides such access to knowledge not available anywhere else (not legally to my knowledge). any progress is most likely to come from academia first due to that concentration of knowledge.

so if we are truly heading towards a collegeless future, i am hoping that anyone who can contribute to research can get access to that knowledge. money is a major concern, but if we can't make progress then we have a bigger issue.

<comment><USER71> The internet changes this in a major way. However, colleges force students to learn what experts deem as important.

This is very important as students tend to want to learn what's interesting over what's fundamental and important.

In my mind, university is ALWAYS better then no university, the actual thing that puts this in question is... is the cost worth it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Why not study at a top German university instead? It's 100% free and you get a ton of international experience, learn a new language, and can still go to MIT/Harvard/Stanford/... for your master's or thesis

</comment><comment><USER73> Wasn't worth it in the US when I went (graduated 10 years ago). If I could go back in time, I'd tell myself to go right into industry.

</comment><comment><USER74> I work in software and I'm a high school dropout. I've never even been asked if I have a degree, I just leave that field blank.

</comment><comment><USER75> Disclaimer: I don't have a degree and I've had a very successful career as software engineer so far.

I think the concept of university is mostly a time waste and the reasons for it is:

\- University is the concept of someone teaching you a topic and then you being able to claim you are qualified in this topic. However, people nowadays need to train themselves in complete new fields multiple times in their lifetime and therefore we already have to teach ourselvs new things all the time and be able to proof that we are qualified in something without a university degree. So why a degree in the first place?

\- Before we had the internet, digital books, online training courses and other learning materials at our fingertips one had to go to a different physical location packed with other students and learn a subject at a slower pace so that everyone could equally follow the topic. Today this is a waste of time. If one has access to all the learning materials themselves, then they can consume it at their own pace, possibly learn a 3 year course in a single year. Why slow yourself down unnecessarily?

\- Experience > degree. After the first 2-4 years of work experience nobody cares anymore about your initial degree, unless it's medicine or law. Once you've worked, people are interested in your actual ability to deliver and after 2-4 years there's enough data to convince someone how good you are.

\- The more people have a degree, the less it's something which makes you stand out. I believe that being different is the best way to stand out from a crowded and competitive market, no matter how. Basically you want to be part of the minority. If nobody has a degree, you want to have a degree, if everybody has a degree, then you don't. People like to see something special in other people, if you can convince them that you know something without going through a lengthy programm like everybody else, then people will think you are smarter or something like that (even if it's not true). This only works though if your in the minority. It's the same pshycology which allows one person to charge 300% more than competitors and having the largest share of customers, because they think that there's something inherently better about it.

\- In many countries attending university means creating debt. There's good debt and there's bad debt. If I take credit to buy a property which has very high and real chances of drastically increasing in value, then it's good debt, but if I take credit in order to learn something which I can learn myself and which after 2-4 years won't even matter anymore, then it's possible very bad debt.

I know someone who paid 150k for an MBA at a business school and I think the money was wasted. If you pay 150k on an MBA in business, then clearly the course material will be entirely wasted on you. 150k is good money that could have been spent so much better in other areas, like buying property and then see the value grow whilst receiving passive income through rent or investing in an actual business which you want to create after the MBA.

<comment><USER76> > University is the concept of someone teaching you a topic and then you being > able to claim you are qualified in this topic.

University is _supposed_ to be learning from the experience of experts. Having a person with experience on hand cuts down the time needed to learn things. Online articles and tutorials aren't a dialogue. Online forums are good, but often can't promise somebody will care about your education. Universities have staff who are paid to teach, talk with, and answer you.

That's not to say you're wrong about the value of universities in practice. Kids are told to focus on reviewing textbooks with other students in the same class, getting high grades, and graduating with a degree. People say "visit professors during office hours," but don't stress that this is part of the most valuable thing in a university: an expert who is required to help you learn the field.

> Experience > degree. After the first 2-4 years of work experience nobody > cares anymore about your initial degree, unless it's medicine or law.

Assuming a similar skill level. But a student can leave a 4-year university with a higher skill level than somebody who learned on the job for 4 years. Those people usually just have time to learn about the job they have, so they might take longer to gain skills for the next rung on the career ladder.

<comment><USER75> I respectfully disagree with all your points. Unless you are privileged enough to attend an ivy league university you will not be taught by experts of a field. The majority of university teachers across the world are average people of average skill who often failed to achieve success in the open market and then defaulted back into a comfy uni job.

Also there's no evidence for your claim that 4 years university get you better skilled than 4 years of self disciplined learning and work experience.

Maybe you went to a top university in the states but with all respect these universities are not even a fraction of what the average student experienced in every other university.

EDIT: btw i went to uni in Europe, but never finished due to the reasons which I mentioned above, so i've got some experience what uni life is.

<comment><USER76> I've taken classes at two small private colleges and a community college in the US (total of seven years, mostly part-time, for an undergraduate). None were on the usual elite list. But you're right that I don't know much about universities in other countries.

>Unless you are privileged enough to attend an ivy league university you will not be taught by experts of a field. The majority of university teachers across the world are average people of average skill

Average skill of an expert in the field is good enough. Not an "expert among experts," but an expert nonetheless. And most people will end up as experts of average skill, so that's fine. I majored in math, and all my professors knew more about the subject, knew how it was used, and had their own research going on. Again, not an elite college, so they weren't big projects, but these people weren't just failures who found a cushy job. As a student, "more skilled than me" is all I needed. Anything they knew beyond what I should learn in college wasn't useful to me. It only mattered they knew how to teach it to me.

>Also there's no evidence for your claim that 4 years university get you better skilled than 4 years of self disciplined learning and work experience.

Alright, you got me there. Do you have links to non-anecdotal and contrary evidence? Otherwise, I'm going study-hunting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Degree never helped me for shit. Someone rescue me...

</comment><comment><USER78> College seems to be a thing to get done quickly, and cheaply. Probably even with the easiest courses. Why do I say that?

\- The more time you spend, the more time you're not working and making money/experience. You're also in a quite restricted social group with only the professors providing contact with older, more experienced people.

\- There really is nothing you can learn in college that isn't public knowledge. At best you get a better idea of what the experts think is important in a field. So for instance I didn't read Marxist or Austrian economics.

\- Nobody is going to know whether you did that advanced course on category theory for coders. I'm sure it's both interesting and relevant, but you have more time to learn this yourself, when you're not being judged by an exam.

\- You'll also learn things better when you're not constantly thinking about proving it on an exam.

\- Everything is college is really an intro. A really evil one where you're asked to fly over some field and then get asked some very specific questions when it comes to exam time.

\- Of course there are things that really are work relevant at college, especially programming related stuff. It's hard to know what they are as a novice, but looking at it now it seems anything where you're in the practice of using a repo and iterating a solution is what you're after, or using common tools like git or tmux (there's a lot). That can occur in many types of courses though, whether it's systems or human interface and so on.

Since there's a lot of Americans here, and I have some experience of that system, I'd say go to Europe. Or the UK, if you like keeping it in English. In Europe, most of the courses are very specific and short. I got a Masters degree 4 years after high school, and I wasn't even at uni for most of the year (3x8 weeks a year), so in theory it could have all been done in 2 years. Which puts into perspective how much you're actually learning there.

</comment><comment><USER79> College degree is only worth for high income positions like surgeon, medical degree, nursing and some engineering field (chemical?). It's just not useful for middle class income like teaching etc. But good luck in trying to get an interview without any kind of diploma. They will think something is wrong you.

</comment><comment><USER80> It's funny to me that people can immediately see the issue with falling returns here as prices increase, but can't see the same thing when it applies to the stock market. In the stock market, the prevailing wisdom is "buy and hold no matter what the price is, because you can't time/game the market." Why doesn't the same logic apply to college? Shouldn't the efficient market cause college costs to rise to the appropriate level? Given that, shouldn't you just do it and ignore the cost?

</comment><comment><USER81> What all these studies always fail to factor is that a college degree will give you an advantage over someone that does not have one in just about any situation. Just the fact that you have one will signal to the potential employer that you can accomplish goals, meet a deadline and the many things you need to deal with to get a degree over those that don't have one.

The real question is, "Does an ivy league degree, and those that are very expensive worth it?" I suspect that in most cases it's not. An art degree from Harvard will most likely not pay for itself. But an engineering one from a respected state school will likely have a good return on investment.

Bottom line a degree is worth it. But you have to make sure you pick a major that pays off in the end.

<comment><USER41> I also find the analysis strange because it depends heavily on whether you're profit focused.

If you are, then the average outcome probably doesn't matter to you, because you're going to select for profitability in your degree choice, you're going to move around for work, continuously study and train in adult life, and generally you're gonna be fine financially (if perhaps not emotionally, oho).

If you're not profit focused - if you're doing the degree primarily and substantially because you love X and want to do X - then what do you care if it doesn't pay back? You got to be an X! The question is almost irrelevant.

I think a lot of analysis suffers from this averaging effect whereby actually that average person doesn't exist.

There is no realistic path that would have lead to me making the average income for my cohort, for example, because I'm just not that sort of person - I'd rather just go relatively all out, or else work for a non-profit or scrappy startup or whatever, so I either bin high or low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> Hopefully the US can take a page from the Germans and institute vocational schools. We look down on plumbers, electricians, etc. We constantly couch our praise of them with phrases like, "Wait until your knee gives". I have a MSCS from GA Tech. I've got about 18 years official experience. I get paid $95/hr. Plumbers? $120/hr. Electricians are about the same. We need them. Let's teach them. Maybe with apprenticeships.

<comment><USER83> Are plumbers actually working 40 billable hours a week? And how much are they working that is not billable (driving from site to site)? I would be surprised if they made more in a year than educated STEM professionals. The attention- getting per-hour rate might not be a great metric.

<comment><USER84> 2018 median pay is $53,910 per year

[https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and- extraction/mobile/p...](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and- extraction/mobile/plumbers-pipefitters-and-steamfitters.htm)

<comment><USER85> Which, to be clear, is nothing to sneeze at in large parts of the country.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Spellchecker – an interactive, command line spellchecker - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/seales/spellchecker <comment><AUTHOR> A recent toy-project.

I was able to download scikit-learn, make ~148 spelling corrections, and submit a pull request within 5 minutes. [https://github.com/scikit- learn/scikit-learn/pull/6005](https://github.com/scikit-learn/scikit- learn/pull/6005)</comment>


Ask HN: When you started, what was your growth hack? (Local / online? ) - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious for the ones who are their own employer.<p>When you first reached out for customers, what was the first thing you did and how did it turn out? <comment><AUTHOR> When i started (1 week ago), my first customer had a mailing list with similar clubs. I gave him discount on the application in return for using the mailing list as a promotional list (not much, 50 emails or so).

Had some visits to the web application but untill now, it hasn't had any result.

I'l personalize the email list next time when i send it and improve the overall experience of the web application before my second try.. (that's my last try left).

</comment><comment><USER2> Targeted pitching, one at a time.

Pitches are as personalized as reasonably possible (review their website, product reviews, recent news).

Use what you learn from each to improve targeting & approach.

<comment><USER3> This is the approach we've used / are using. In my experience it tends to be more successful with a very specific personal link (I've used your product x, I live / work in the neighbourhood etc.)</comment></comment>


The unreasonable effectiveness of one-on-ones - <AUTHOR> https://www.benkuhn.net/11 <comment><USER2> Gonna donate some HN karma here and offer my opinion that this article is MBA- tier horseshit. Your girlfriend and you do not have "one on one"s. You talk about your lives and listen to each other like a normal fucking couple. Framing a normal relationship like a business practice feels like she's less a girlfriend and more a patient. Saying that you want to solve her problems with normal spousal communication makes you sound like her dad.

The more you try to sell me on your GENIUS business practice, the less I believe that you know what effective management entails.

<comment><USER3> My wife and I do have a weekly one on one. It's on our shared calendar for 8:45PM every Sunday. We call it a 'check-in' because 1:1 feels like unnecessary corporate speak in the context of our marriage.

It's a chance for us to talk through what went well and what went poorly over the last week. Having it on the calendar as a regular activity means that it never feels like we're calling the other person out on something, and it means that we never just let it slide because we're busy with something else.

We've been doing it for over a year and a half and have only missed it once when she was at a conference.

<comment><USER4> Talking with your SO on the predefined schedule is just a tad less frightening than not talking at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The biggest benefit to 1:1 is that the under person feels heard. Everything else is fluff. That said, the power of feeling like your voice is not silent is VERY important for most people in their work and having audience with their boss for even 20 minutes a week can help fill in gaps that matter.

<comment><USER6> "Feels" heard being the key word.

In my experience (having been through about a half-dozen 1:1s from the lower- level employee side at large corparations) is any complaint I raised in one, however professionally, is/was treated as a "morale issue with scottLobster" rather than an actual potential issue worth investigating.

Which on one hand is fair given the nature of the meeting. Actually providing resources necessitates more scrutiny than a 1:1 could provide. On the other hand knowing that the root cause of my "morale issue" will likely not be addressed (given an established track record) makes me less likely to raise it and give a non-committal "yeah everything's going as good as can be expected, hit a few snags but we really pulled through and it felt really good to finally push through that issue [subtext: which never would have occurred in the first place if you'd listened to 80% of the senior engineers on the program 8 months ago, never mind what I think]...". At which point the exchange can be boiled down to "Are you going to quit without notice or shoot up the office? No? Great!"

Maybe I've just had bad experiences, but the 1:1s described in the article basically define a strong personal mentor/mentee relationship, and I've never gotten or witnessed that from any formal business process (in this case a periodic, corporate-prescribed 1:1 on a large program where each manager has lots of direct reports).

<comment><USER7> I feel your pain. My manager treat problems I mention as just my problems and not as a team/culture problem that I am particularly vocal about. My current manager views me so negatively right now that they have criticized me every 1:1 for the past month. I wish I didn't have to talk to them anymore at this point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article is an excellent case for why you should stop working and spend time doing not-work with not-coworkers.

You don't need scheduled 1:1s. You need to have a conversation. You don't need to have a manager/report relationship, you can just be invested in someone and have empathy.

<comment><USER5> I understand your point and disagree. In many orgs it isnt practical not a good idea to be invested in a person beyond the work you do together.

<comment><USER9> I think that the parent is talking about outside work but I want to flag something else here.

> In many orgs it isnt practical not a good idea to be invested in a person > beyond the work you do together.

There are many difficult complications to relationships in a corporate. In the limit you might have to dismiss the person you have a friendship with, or choose between doing that and leaving the company (and your salary and reputation) yourself.

But, relationships at work are not zero sum games and you need to be careful to think through the risks in terms of probabilities - getting pushed into sacking good people is a rare situation (unless something is really, really wrong) - and to be able to mitigate these corner cases (like, no, I'm not doing that, I will get another job thank you).

I hear that in prison it is a bad idea to get involved in any relationships at all, unless you are going to go all in and commit to whatever gang or romance is on the table. Work isn't like that, there are tools to manage how work relationships evolve, you are not trapped and powerless - although many work contexts set up a dynamic to convince you that you are. Ask yourself: how many of my co-workers have left in the last five years? How many of them are dead now? When was the last shanking in the restaurant? Yes, if you have young children you need to be very resilient and put up with bullshit that you simply wouldn't otherwise, but even then take steps like investing an hour a week in developing a way out, I have seen people really surprise themselves with how many options they can generate over time.

And the rewards are significant. If you have a strong network at work you can expect better projects, better information about politics and prospects, help when you need it and also feedback about you and your contribution. All of these are immensely valuable.

<comment><USER10>
        Ask yourself: how many of my co-workers have left in the last five years?

Literally all of them, and that's in the past year alone. I'll be out of here soon, too. I have zero investment in this firm, I'm just here putting in my 9-5 while working on personal projects and studying for interviews.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Frequent 1:1s with the devs are probably a sure way to implement the manager's vision and work style. On the way it'll also make the manager solve all the conflicts.

Doing no 1:1s means devs come up with the work styles that fit best to them, learn to solve conflicts with no manager present and possibly be more effective and creative. Many 1:1s seems just like an excuse for introducing deep micro management

<comment><USER12> For what it's worth, I've asked the members of my team if they'd like scheduled one-on-ones or not. And that either way they should feel free to grab my time/attention any time they should need it.

Personally, I'd prefer if people just reached out when they needed it (and hopefully then ideas would stay fresh) instead of waiting for 1:1s.

Turns out different people like different things. I ended up doing scheduled 1:1s across the board every other week. In practice it ended up being something like a "minimum threshold" for how frequently we had 1:1s. If we'd been working on something closely we could skip them if they'd want to.

Disclaimer: I wasn't the manager, just the most senior engineer on that team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I see no evidence whatsoever for any effectiveness, let alone 'unreasonable' for one-on-ones. It doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, you should, but no magic is going to happen.

</comment><comment><USER14> Apologies for the rant, but boy do I hate 1:1s -- maybe even more than daily stand-ups. It's the epitome of cargo-cult corporate Kool-aid†. If this article doesn't convince you that one-on-ones are nonsense, I don't know what will. Let's see what the author, a proponent of 1:1s, uses them on:

1) Personal habits and self-improvements

 _Personal habits_ and _self-improvement_ are (at best) tangentially related to your professional life. Are you seriously saying I should be talking to my manager about my struggles trying to go to the gym more often? About my passion for painting? Or that side-project I'm trying to get off the ground? More often than not, this seems like professional suicide. Your manager is not your friend.

2) Project management

Unfortunately, this is basically status quo. Yes, most one-on-ones will devolve into PM discussions -- what's getting done, when's it getting done, what's the progress of X or Y, etc. Why one-on-ones aren't really the place to talk about these things is because I already have _weekly status meetings_ with my team, _daily stand-ups_ , and _monthly roadmap check-ins_ , also with my team. So if you talk about project management in a 1:1, it's a complete waste of time.

3) Communication

Author writes: "In addition to improving the form of my communication, I also learned a lot about how to improve my communication habits..."

Most people learn this by high school. I mean, if you're a functioning adult at a grown-up job, some decorum, emotional intelligence, and context come with the territory. But then again, point taken: most of us _do_ work in tech. I don't know about you, but I don't need a weekly 30-minute lesson in communication. My parents already did a pretty good job: I'm polite, responsive, and professional.

4) Alignment

I'm not sure how conflict resolution does anyone any good unless all conflicting parties are present. If I've got a disagreement with X, it seems we should probably hash it out in a meeting with X (sure, maybe with a manager present), but what do I know. And wait.. you need a _regular_ one-on-one meeting on the books for this? How often _do_ you get in conflicts at work?

5) Uncertainties

Author writes: "for instance, occasionally I'd get worried about some strategically important project elsewhere in the company because they'd forgotten to announce progress reports on it..."

 _Why?_ _Why_ are you worried about things you can't control in a company you don't own? Besides, I'm not sure how your manager -- who also might have no idea -- could ease your worries. Either way, this also seems like a waste of time for one-on-ones (and, to be frank, a non-issue altogether).

†The fact that the author believes corporate-style one-on-ones are part of the key to a healthy relationship is, in my opinion, doubly offensive. A relationship is about empathy, love, care, and longevity. Besides, a one-on- one is _defined_ by being run by your supervisor. What he was doing with his girlfriend wasn't even technically a one-on-one: there's no power asymmetry there.

<comment><USER15> I agree with your general take, but there are some details that I think are pretty far off-base, such as this about communication:

"Most people learn this by high school. I mean, if you're a functioning adult at a grown-up job, some decorum, emotional intelligence, and context come with the territory."

I've worked in a number of different fields including the military, computer sales/maintenance, and medicine. While there are plenty of people who had learned to communicate fairly well, there were also plenty of people who were nearly catastrophically bad at it. Spend a month in a surgery center to see how bad functioning adults at a grown-up job can get.

"What he was doing with his girlfriend wasn't even technically a one-on-one: there's no power asymmetry there."

There's a tremendous amount of power asymmetry in a lot of relationships, particularly if you land yourself a narcissist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm very glad that I don't have to have such a formalized relationship with my boss. We can just shoot the shit around the coffee machine in the break room. Of course, it's been eight years, in a very small company.

<comment><USER17> I was actually discouraged from doing 1 on 1s but I'd love to do them with the shy folks that don't speak up and don't join for a quick bteak time chat outside.

especially with the lack of privacy in an open office I learn to late if they start feeling bad for any reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> My hunch is that 1on1 is time when a manager tries to build a working mental model of his/her report: the manager tried to use empathy to read the employee.</comment>


Archiving in UIs - <AUTHOR> http://andrewacove.posterous.com/the-archive-pattern

<comment><USER2> Interesting idea. One I haven't heard anyone bring up before. Could be useful, but I don't know how one could implement this and make it transparent to the user. While the archiving idea makes sense for email, for anything else it might be hard for the average user to get use to this sort of thing. I would love to hear how you might envision doing this while keeping things simple and elegant in lets say, iOS and the Address Book.

<comment><AUTHOR> Adding archiving to the address book requires two things: A mechanism for archiving a contact, and an input for switching between two separate views of the contacts list: the filtered view (archived contacts hidden), and the full list of all contacts.

I suspect that adding an "Archive" button to the contact info view (to go along with the 'Share Contact' button) would probably suffice for the former.

For the latter, I'd probably use the 'Recents' page in the Phone app as reference. That view has a two-way button at the top to choose between "All" and "Missed" calls. Something similar for "Primary" and "All" contacts (though 'primary' isn't the best word choice) at the top of the contacts view might function well.

Interestingly, there already is support for one other view of the contacts list built into the phone: the Favorites list. The Favorites view forgoes the All Contacts view's A-Z# list, but ignoring that, Favorites is like the white- list version of Archiving's black-list. If every contact started as a Favorite when added, and "archiving" removed its favorite status, you'd have pretty similar results (though that's a pretty poor way to do it).

Those are my initial ideas for it. It would be interesting to see whether archiving could be sufficiently abstracted so as to be easily added to iOS's other default layouts (and whether there would be use in those cases).

<comment><USER2> Cool. I like you're thinking on this.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would your company consider guaranteeing homeloans to attract employees? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Some businesses that are already in the business of selling home loans (banks) offer more flexible home loans to their employees, subject to conditions...

Anecdotally, this seems to be of interest to some younger employees who want to get a mortgage but don't have enough saved for standard home loan.

This is arguably win-win : an employee who wants to get a home loan is able to do so earlier in career with less cash saved (although likely at cost of a somewhat expensive loan), the bank is able to sell a loan at a relatively high rate to an eligible employee but with reduced risk from having a lot more inside information about the employee's source of income from salary & job security.

But I am not sure if any of these employees knew about this perk before accepting a job offer to work at the bank!

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know if it is feasible in tech where the typical stint at a company is just a few years, but a mortgage is decades. My wife works at Kaiser hospital which does this for doctors, up to $200k interest deferred, and then forgiven after 10 years. If you leave before that time, the loan is due immediately.

<comment><USER4> Is it pro rata if she leaves Kaiser before 10 years?

<comment><USER3> She is is a nurse, so she is not eligible for that program. I only became aware of the program because she mentioned a doctor there who had to refinance to pay it back when he left Kaiser. I guess you pay no interest for 10 years, and when you hit 10 years they forgive the interest entirely but if you leave before 10 years the full amount plus interest becomes due immediately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They should instead guarantee interest free loan backed by your house if you stay with them over a year. That way if they go belly up you have that loan to so something yourself or while you look for the next gig. Removes some of the risks .</comment>


More Details on Sequoia Meeting - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2008/10/09/more-details-on-sequoias-economic-inconvenient-truth-meeting/

<comment><USER2> _This could be at least a 15-year downward cycle_

Huh?</comment>


Show HN: Bengal. Create any type of payment/funding page with your Stripe acct - <AUTHOR> https://www.bngal.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, this is still very beta but I'd love to get some feedback right away (I have thick skin so don't hold back). I know there's not even terms/privacy pages yet–those are coming soon.

Also, if anyone out there is looking to sell an ebook or other digital goods (icon set, WP theme, screencasts, etc.), I'd love to talk to you about using Bengal. Email is in my profile.</comment>


Ask HN: Any founders who self funded all the way? How was it? - <AUTHOR> We are actually considering going completely bootstrapped from idea to profitability. Is this insanity? <comment><USER2> This is the way the overall vast majority of businesses are started in the US, e.g. no VC money. The echo chamber of silicon valley is all about the need to raise money, which is just a false notion. Raising money is not evil but it is also not the only way to build profitable, sustainable and stable businesses.

I have done both, there are pros and cons to each side and both bring different headaches. My personal preference is not to raise money, but I am not against raising money either -- I am part of a startup now that raised.

A lot of the exceptions and premise of this depends on your idea and some ability to fund it until revenue comes in. Many times, you can use your day job to fund the business for now, get some traction, get some clients and work the angle to find what will sell. VC's will call people who do this non- committed and/or hobby/lifestyle businesses. There is truth to what they say of course, but in the end their point of view is also very self serving.

If I told you that you can build a $10-20M/year business with 10-30% margins in 5-8 years, owning 100% of it (or close to 100%) and enjoy life, would you be complaining? No most people would jump at that, and the people that don't are usually the outliers. Even wealthy people want to own these types of businesses because those businesses produce real returns consistently. But a VC would call this a lifestyle business because it isn't going to return to them the high value they need to justify investing -- which in all honesty is a fair position.

There are also alternatives to the VC highway of funding. High net worth individuals live all over the US and world, and almost all are interested in making decent investments with reasonable returns. Most small businesses that take funding in the US are backed by these people more than any other source (outside of family, friends). And the ownership these people take is fair given their risk/reward ratio.

There are also reasons to jump on the VC train but I have already written a book and I am sure others will point out those values.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wouldn't do it any other way.

I self funded my solo developer lifestyle business and am really happy about it.

I'd rather run a business that's profitable from nearly the start and eventually ramp up into something that's very reasonable, instead of beg for money and hope that in 5 years I get bought out by Acme Inc for an absurd amount of money that needs to get split up in a 100 different ways.

</comment><comment><USER4> No, it's sheer brilliance... but it's an order-of-magnitude harder than getting funding from a funding source. Still, at the end of the day, you'll retain 100% equity in the company you create, and don't need to fear VC- installed management teams or hostile takeovers or anything of the sort...

</comment><comment><USER5> Founded on a loan from father, story of two brothers from India. [https://qz.com/763927/the-worlds-newest-billionaires-are- two...](https://qz.com/763927/the-worlds-newest-billionaires-are-two-brothers- from-india-who-started-out-as-nerds/)

</comment><comment><USER6> _Plenty of Fish_ did this.

[http://www.thejournal.ie/plenty-of-fish- sold-2217455-Jul2015...](http://www.thejournal.ie/plenty-of-fish- sold-2217455-Jul2015/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for all your comments and insights. Very grateful to see the detailed responses which has given us a lot to think about.</comment>


Peloton prices IPO on high-end of expectations - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/25/peloton-prices-ipo-at-29-per-share.html <comment><USER2> The full Peloton monthly subscription is $40/mo and $20/mo for basic. The home bike starts at $2,250.

They have 1.4 million members. With a market cap of $8.1B, they're worth about $5700/member. $5700 gets you a bike and over 14 years of basic membership.

To me, it sounds like they needs more growth to sustain that valuation.</comment>


Aye Aye API – A Very Small and Easy PHP REST API Framework - <AUTHOR> https://ayeayeapi.github.io/Api/ <comment><USER2> Thank you Jheriko.

I kind of blew 1.0.0 (thus the patch bump) but hopefully it's all ok now.

I still need to give it a nicer website (and I'm making the changes you sent me directly), but it's out there now, and I really hope people enjoy using it as much as I enjoyed making it.</comment>


Nocode: Way to write secure and reliable applications - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kelseyhightower/nocode <comment><USER2> Kelsey is the best! High(tower)ly recommend all the things he puts out</comment>