It's impossible to work your way through college nowadays - <AUTHOR> http://www.randalolson.com/2014/03/22/its-impossible-to-work-your-way-through-college-nowadays/ <comment><USER3> We have to ask ourselves why college is so expensive.

When some people read articles like this, they call for more government aid to students. "We need to help young, hard working students from unprivileged backgrounds to pay for college!" Their hearts are certainly in the right place, and it isn't an unreasonable idea at first glance.

However, could this idea be part of the problem? Maybe giving people free money for college isn't the best idea.

There are four ways to spend money:

1) You spend your own money on yourself

2) You spend someone else's money on yourself

3) You spend your money on someone else

4) You spend someone else's money on someone else

When you spend your own money on yourself, you are very selective with how that money is spent. Not only do you gain from what you buy, you also lose money you could use to buy other things. The other three situations are ones in which being selective isn't as important to the spender.

Why does this matter? When people pay for college themselves, we are in situation 1; they have an incentive to choose a college they can afford while still being a great place to learn. When a student gets free money proportional to tuition, they can choose a school that charges ridiculously high rates for tuition. (Student loans are a middle ground. They are still spending money on themselves, but people the age of college students tend to be more frivolous with loans than money they earned, so they are still less interested in the price.)

The more students that get free money for college, the higher the cost of college becomes, because the equilibrium price of college gets distorted. If all student aid disappeared tomorrow, then certainly the cost of college would decrease.

If colleges get more money, then where does it go? Certainly not directly to education. It goes to fancy buildings to impress donors, and supporting the ultimate cash cow: government research grants. It goes to inflating the administrative staffs and inflating the salaries of the highest ranked members of that staff. If it was possible to pay for college on minimum wage, I wonder why we ever changed the system.

<comment><USER4> _We have to ask ourselves why college is so expensive._

It's certainly not due to inflation in quality of education. More and more classes are taught by graduate students and adjuncts rather than actual professors (who are mostly focused on their research programs in order to earn tenure).

There are probably a few factors.

\- increased student expectations of 'fun', leading to new facilities (dorms, student centers, etc), as colleges compete with each other for students

\- increasingly top-heavy administration (hey, let's add another $300K Assistant Deputy VP of Student Diversity, etc) providing a path for faculty to 'advance' in their careers

\- federally subsidized student loans make it less painful for colleges to increase tuition than if students had to borrow independently or pay out of pocket (this is especially egregious in for-profit education, where getting that federal money is key ... gotta get those marks, er, students enrolled so you get paid!)

Essentially, it's a racket where everyone has an incentive for the price to keep rising - except for the students and their families, and perhaps the government, who's underwriting this entire disastrous bubble.

<comment><USER5> _\- increasingly top-heavy administration (hey, let 's add another $300K Assistant Deputy VP of Student Diversity, etc) providing a path for faculty to 'advance' in their careers_

I'd like to point out that much of the administrative bloat has occurred because of new (bipartisan) laws forcing colleges to provide more services. There are services for veterans, services for the disabled, services for victims of crimes, oversight services for grants and such, etc. My girlfriend works for a university, and much of the administrative hiring they do is _directly_ correlated to new requirements, laws, and administrative rules passed down from the federal or state governments.

So I think you're right, but don't place all the blame on the schools, just as much belongs to the political parties that like to use universities as a battlefield for whatever agenda they've got at the moment.

Edit: It is especially wrong to think that the faculty are driving administrative bloat when, in fact, the faculty are the biggest opponents (and literally stage rallies against it at some schools) because every dollar the university spends on an administrator is a dollar they don't spend paying a faculty member).

<comment><USER6> " When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. "

<comment><USER7> The vast majority of people have no aspiration towards being an academic administrator, and academic administrators aren't exactly a powerful voting block.

<comment><USER8> But disabled veterans are a voting block and they vote themselves extra services on campus and those services come with administrator. Repeat this process with every disadvantaged group and you have tremendous bloat.

<comment><USER9> You could make the argument that disabled veterans are the MOST important voting block and with good reason.

Please refrain from reducing veterans to a political action committee. They deserve much more than they currently get under our system. Try and get through the red tape at the VA and then tell me how you feel about the outsize effect that the veterans are having on the benefits debate.

<comment><USER10> Is it so unreasonable to believe that non-conscripted veterans deserve exactly the same financial status as their equivalent non-veteran counterparts? (Disabled or otherwise). This argument comes from anti-nationalist, pro- equality-of-opportunity values.

<comment><USER9> Yes. I believe it's WHOLLY unreasonable.

Veterans who go to war come back bearing terrible scars. They are routinely subjected to horrific conditions that would make you cringe. They are asked to do terrible things to terrible people and still maintain a standard of professional conduct that civilians cannot maintain.

SO I _do_ believe it's unreasonable to treat war veterans, who volunteered to sacrifice themselves and their lives to defend our way of life, just like any other citizen who needs some governmental support.

Veterans who have no obligation to serve but do so anyway deserve our utmost respect and admiration. And on the list of people who contribute to the safety, security, and greatness of this country, they are at the very top.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> That chart assumes the only option available is to work minimum wage jobs. Which seems nuts, especially when one takes into consideration the possibility of working full-time during the summer at a real job in one's area of specialization. What you need to chart this is some measure of how much college students _actually_ are earning over time, not a measure of the lowest wage it's legally _permissible_ to pay them.

<comment><USER12> CS people are probably in a somewhat unique position where that is somewhat possible. If you study something that isn't tied to a specific industry or where you need many years of training and certification to become useful that's not so tenable.

<comment><USER11> I can't speak to other times and places but in silicon valley in the late 1980s I went to a temp agency and looked for unskilled work during the summer - I don't think I ever came across any jobs that paid as low as minimum wage. One summer I was a "shipping clerk" (meaning: guy who gets stuff out of a warehouse and puts it in boxes) at Syva - that paid over twice the minimum. Another summer I did data entry for the Accounts Receivable department at Dialog - that also paid much more than the minimum, and required only rudimentary typing skills. And yes, naturally once I was a declared CS major I could intern at IBM, but even before that I didn't see a need to work minimum wage.

(Even McDonald's was paying more than minimum in my area.)

<comment><USER13> Yes one problem with minimum wage is that it is fixed across the country even though cost of living disparities are huge. The high cost of living in silicon valley pushes up wages even at the lower end, whereas in some rural areas it might even seem a bit high

For example in my hometown it is still possible to rent a flat with a friend for less than $400/month meaning single people can survive on very little

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Forget minimum wage. I work a full time way above minimum wage and two things make it hard for me at school. a) tuition is a beast but at least my job as some reimbursement – though it pays for a semester 6 hours. b) the school barely has any classes geared towards someone who works. I know I could have gone to school at a technical school I did that years ago and I don't recommend it. I went back over 5 years ago and did community college first. I received my Associates and that allowed me to transfer right into a four year institution as a junior. But every class that I need now about half are never taught until after 10:00 am and before 3:00 pm. Guess what I have to be at work for my job. Now my company supports me going to school but its almost like the school doesn't support me going to work. They state they have an Adult Ed center where I can get help but guess what it closes at 5:00 pm?!? I don't understand how you are supposed to have an AE center to help people who work but then you are not open to help them when they need it.

I almost feel penalized for not working at night but how can I give up (and really why should I give up) working at a great job. The school states that they have more evening classes for the Grad students but what about us Undergrads don't we need evening classes? At least back in the 90′s (when I should have been in school), and in CA, I could have taken every Undergrad course at night. It would have taken me 6 – 7 years to earn a BS in Computer Science now I'm on year 8 and I still have a couple years to go at this rate.

Why am I being penalized? is the real question…oh and I'm earning straight A's and I'm on the Chancellor's/Dean's list. But it doesn't make sense to me.

<comment><USER15> _the school barely has any classes geared towards someone who works._

Reminds me of my time hitting the books. We complained about our schedules that had huge gaps in them, like a one-hour lecture in the morning, then four or five hours later, another lecture in the afternoon. Why couldn't they be scheduled more closely?

The response was "You are full-time students. You are expected to be free from 8 to 5"

So we replied "Why then is our main lecture set assigned for 7pm? That's outside this 8 to 5 timeframe" (evening was popular with part timers)

The response was... crickets. There weren't many contact hours - 20-25/week - but they were somewhat hostile to people being able to work at the same time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> CS student at a state school here. Top internships can expect to make $20K gross, $14-15K after taxes and expenses. Most internships are closer to $12K gross, maybe $8-9K after taxes and expenses (the higher paying internships tend to be in more expensive areas). There are a few oddities that pay more, and for longer periods, but these are what you can expect in general.

Housing+tuition is around $18K for in-state students. If you wanted to pay off your entire annual dues without taking out a single loan or getting support from family, you would probably have to work part-time for at least one semester, possibly two.

Of course, there are a fair number of students who pay for school by being self-employed; a number of my classmates make sufficient advertising or sales revenue to cover the entire annual cost of college.

</comment><comment><USER17> I graduated college in California late 2005/early 2006 (winter semester). My whole degree cost somewhere around $5,000 to $6,000. We didn't have much money, so I lived at home for the duration, went to a junior/community college for 1 year, then transferred to a local state college for another 18 months to graduate in a total of about 2.5 years. During that time I only took one summer off to work full-time.

During the school year I didn't work much because the way the school counted credits I could take as many courses as I wanted at the fixed full-time student rate as long as I 1) received approval from the professors and 2) maintained a certain GPA. So I'd just load up on a ridiculous number of classes and spend my days and nights in the library. The girl I was dating lived across the street from the school, so I'd just spend most weeknights with her to save the commute.

Even though the cost of my college education was low by any measure, we (my family) could still barely afford it and I almost had to drop out. I distinctly remember the conversation where my mom told me that she may not be able to afford to keep sending me to school. You'd think being a mix of Black, Mexican and Native American and being on the honor roll every year I'd have had a scholarship of some sort, but nope.

Anyway, last year I was back home visiting family and spoke to a buddy's girlfriend about her educational plans since she was going to the same community college I went to. The cost per credit hour is now about 3X what I paid just 8 years ago! WTF!? I'm not sure how much the fees have increased at the 4-year state school, but I can only imagine.

I was completely blown away. Maybe this is common knowledge, but I had no idea education prices had increased so much, especially at community colleges.

<comment><USER18> Wow - my degree lands me a beautiful $8k every year (2 semesters). But it gets better.

I thought about improving myself in high school by going into early college. A free AA degree and at the same time as my HS diploma? Hell yeah! They didn't tell me that almost none of the credits would apply to my degree because 4-year degrees have almost every single course planned - so I still have 4 years to go... Oh and the feds just made a law that says if you take to long your tuition doubles. So for about the last year of my college that's $16k instead. Oh yeah, and we forgot. This state school requires every single student to take 9 credit hours in the summer - where summers aren't covered by any federal loans.

So that's a lovely $40k pile of debt on me by the time I graduate.

EDIT: Oops, included living costs, not just tuition. Living cost is about $8k-$12k a year. So the real total of debt is $72k.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Actually, I think HN user mrxd hit the nail on the head here:

>Here's another graph showing that the recent rise in tuition in Michigan is due to declining state education appropriations.

>[http://i.imgur.com/5gYHQK5.png](http://i.imgur.com/5gYHQK5.png)

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

DING DING DING! Why did I have to scroll to the bottom to see this? As far as I'm concerned this is the major symptom that few people ever look at, much less ever try to think of a root cause for.

The states, nearly all of which have to "balance the budget" every budget period, have to find ways to make cuts when economic downturns hit. Seeing as so much of what used to be the purview of the state has been captured by the private sector under the guise of "we can do it better, just let us handle it," the only major expense left to the state other than healthcare is education.

When legislatures are faced with a choice of cutting Healthcare or Education, which one do you think is going to get the bigger axe? Which demographic does more voting? The not-of-age children and teenagers? The politically charged college students that paradoxically never seem to actually make it to the voting booth? Their parents perhaps? The same ones that love to hate on public education and talk about how terrible it is? Or... Is it the hundreds of thousands of individuals that rely on the state for medical assistance in one way or another?

It's not a surprise at all that education gets the short end of the stick. It is the politically expedient answer in the face of economic downturns, when already-stretched state social programs are tasked further still. But the real clincher is this: the state legislatures know that the federal government will pick up the tab; it is ultimately the guarantor of the loans it issues. Better yet, since the liabilities were shifted onto the students individually, the state legislatures don't even look like they had to seek the help of the Big Government they're all so keen to hate! And best of all, thanks to the continued infusion of capital from the federal government, their state institutions actually have the outward appearance of growth: new buildings, renovations, fancy stadiums and gyms and elite professors.

Of course, this is all on the backs of young students. And as a young 20-something, I'd like to know why the federal government agreed to balance states' budgets on the backs of its youths at all, much less without price controls. Just who is benefiting from such a laissez-faire attitude? It certainly doesn't feel like I am.

<comment><USER20> I had to scroll halfway down the page to find your comment, which still depressed me.

As another young 20-something, I always wonder why people are so quick to use the "administrative bloat" or "federal loans" arguments when discussing rising tuition. The data seems to clearly support the relation between state funding and tuition costs, and yet less substantiated claims continue to rise to the top.

Do I think college administrations could stand to lay off some people? Sure. Does that mean that those extra employees are the reason I'm saddled with $40k in loans? Hell no. If you don't want to pitch in to fund college educations, then fine, but don't act like the reason students are paying more isn't because of you.

<comment><USER21> If all you're paying is $40k in loans for your entire higher education, then you got a pretty good deal in today's economy.

 _Do I think college administrations could stand to lay off some people? Sure. Does that mean that those extra employees are the reason I 'm saddled with $40k in loans? Hell no. If you don't want to pitch in to fund college educations, then fine, but don't act like the reason students are paying more isn't because of you._

The graph [http://i.imgur.com/5gYHQK5.png](http://i.imgur.com/5gYHQK5.png) shows that from 2001 to 2012, the revenue per full time student went up by 50% (courses became more expensive), while the state's contribution was reduced by 50% (state is paying less money toward education). So it seems like the data is suggesting that the rising cost of education may be correlated with the state's reduced funding towards education compared to previous years. If so, then the reason students are paying more isn't because of the individual voters or the population in general, but because the way the administrations are allocating the budget.

It seems like the money has to come from somewhere, and politicians are choosing to take it away from education, which causes students to be saddled with ever-higher loans. The reason for that is because it's politically a pretty safe maneuver, because there are much fewer students proportional to the total population, which means politicians will lose proportionally less votes than if they tried to pull the money from something else like healthcare.

There doesn't seem much to be done except to make sure that you're voting and letting their offices know that your vote is going to whomever can stop the education cuts (if that's the topic which is most important to you).

<comment><USER22> Here's more graphs with more states showing the same trend:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/a-truly-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/a-truly- devastating-graph-on-state-higher-education-spending/274199/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Isn't this just basic supply and demand? There are more students trying to go to university now than there were in the 70s. It's basically become the next version of high school socially (and, sadly, also academically in many cases).

What we need is a culture that respects people who want to just work at a factory, a big box store, a mall, whatever, without pushing them into doing something they don't want to do (school). Trade schools also help in this regard. I actually believe we need more push towards trades like plumbing, hvac, and carpentry rather than having more degrees in over-filled areas.

<comment><USER24> The demand is artificially inflated by the ready availability of loan money.

Many loans cannot legally be denied. This removes what otherwise would be a barrier to frivolous spending.

<comment><USER4> And, on the flip side, the loans cannot be discharged through bankruptcy. Therefore, there's a huge incentive on the lender's part to make such a loan. (Similar to NINJA loans and liar loans in the mortgage banking crisis of a few years ago.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Maybe when employers start to figure out that smart, hard working people exist who don't have college degrees and can do the job just as good as ivy leaguers, then we may finally start to see tuition costs come down to earth.

Disclaimer: I have a degree from a top school

<comment><USER26> There aren't very many people who can do complex CS jobs. Or rather, there are a lot of people who claim they can do it because they read a "Teach Yourself X in 24 Hours" book, but who actually can only do the job poorly or not at all. I know because I've been one of these people and I've known many of them.

Everyone has to start at zero in any profession, so this is not a negative. I respect everyone who tries to learn something, and God bless "Teach Yourself" books. But becoming a good computer programmer takes many years of hard work.

A raw student who didn't already have a few successful projects using technology X would very likely cost an employer more than he/she would benefit the employer. Hiring such an intern has to be thought of as pro-bono work, or perhaps an investment in a future employee. With very occasional exception, undergrad interns in any profession don't deserve much above minimum wage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'll just leave this here: [http://www.geekation.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/03/Geekatio...](http://www.geekation.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/03/Geekation_NoamChomskyEducationDebt.jpg)

<comment><USER28> Perhaps Noam Chomsky should stop drawing a salary from those tuition-paying students.

<comment><USER29> As a professor emeritus at MIT, he doesn't. [0] It isn't clear how much faculty salaries contribute to the problem anyway, so I don't think it's hypocritical for professors critiquing tuition increases to accept a salary.

[0]: [http://web.mit.edu/policies/2/2.3.html#sub1](http://web.mit.edu/policies/2/2.3.html#sub1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The solution though, isn't to stop providing money to students for college. If you don't have Pell Grants, Stafford loans and the like, lower income bracket individuals would never be able to afford college. There is a simple fact: I could not pay my way through my Midwest university education without these things. I will graduate and be in debt, but I'll be better off having done it. Certainly the experience is worthwhile.

The solution though, as some people propose, is not to end subsidies for lower income individuals. I see several people putting forth the argument that people are the most efficient at allocating money for themselves. That is not true except in an Ayn Rand novel. If people were so rational, _everyone_ would go to college because the expected value of college still dwarfs the cost of college. Even for those individuals who would graduate with a significant amount of debt, it is far more worth it to have a degree than not.

So, how would a society reduce the cost of college education without removing the supports that enable low income individuals to enroll? Instead of giving colleges free money, we need to re-orient our structure of providing support for students that need it so that the college has the right incentives. For example, tying the cost of college to graduate's earnings.

Right now, a university gets money merely for pursuing higher levels of enrollment. There is no financial incentive for the university to involve students in student organizations, in leadership roles in their community, in politics or in networking. There is a tenuous link between those activities and pursuing alumni programs, but from what I've seen, alumni programs are a post-hoc solution to funding. A university sees an alumnus has done very well, and seeks to share in their wealth.

Let's simplify: the cost of a college education is 3-5% of aggregate gross income for the rest of your life. People who go on to be tremendously successful will benefit their university, and the university will have an incentive to churn out more tremendously successful people. This tax could be enforced by the IRS, automatically deducted in most cases, and manually reported elsewhere.

Now no one has to worry about the stress of student loans, and universities have every incentive to provide the highest quality education possible to maximize the value of their students. No more flooding the rosters of the university with under- and unqualified adjuncts in order to support higher enrollment numbers at lower costs to pad the pockets of administration. No more cutting student involvement to pad the athletics program.

<comment><USER3> > I see several people putting forth the argument that people are the most > efficient at allocating money for themselves. That is not true except in an > Ayn Rand novel.

I've never read an Ayn Rand novel, yet I still agree with that statement. I guess if you call someone an Ayn Rand supporter, that is supposed to discredit them? It's a pretty basic economic principle. If you take $10000 from your bank account, you are less likely to impulsively purchase a new car than if someone walked up to your house and gave you $10000. Seriously, it's super simple, and has nothing to do with Ayn Rand.

> If people were so rational, everyone would go to college because the > expected value of college still dwarfs the cost of college.

Many people get off fine without college. You are touting your preferences as the only "rational" set of preferences. There is more to life than the "expected value of college."

<comment><USER31> I thought the idea that people were better at allocating money from themselves is more like:

are you better off if I give you $1k no string attached or $1k specifying down to the cent how you are to use it?

Generally speaking people know what their needs are and how to balance them more than complete strangers or even, often, friends. Yes, people have weaknesses, but to try to rule over their weaknesses is highly paternalistic and demeaning. Moreover because of the fungibility of money, in the end often the person will find a way to spend an equivalent batch of the same money in the way they would have anyways.

<comment><USER3> > $1k specifying down to the cent how you are to use it

I would classify that as someone else spending money on you, with the superficial detail that the money _happened_ to pass through your bank account.

<comment><USER32> Not exactly. Food stamps can only be spent on food, but you can determine what food you buy. Financial Aid must have tuition(and often books) deducted before the remainder is deposited into your account. Your company may pay for your hotel room and meal, but only a room at a 3-star hotel or lower and a $20 meal at a casual dining establishment.

It's not as black and white as you guys put it. Strings can exist, but how much they control you can vary greatly.

<comment><USER3> I never said it was black and white. I thought that was the intent of the person I replied to when they said "down to the cent."

I agree with you that it isn't black and white. (This is simply a semantic argument.)

<comment><USER32> I agree his statement appeared to be making a black and white argument. Your reply seemed to be further defining the concept behind his statement. Perhaps you were redefining it and I misinterpreted it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> In years past, states contributed a much larger proportion of public school budgets than they do today. Much of that money now goes towards Medicaid. Much of that Medicaid money does not go towards the poor but rather middle class who go to nursing homes. They spend down their assets and transfer them to their children.

Hence, at least partially because of the middle class not buying nursing home insurance, the public universities are being deprived of their funding.

Nowadays, City University of New York tuition reportedly is $3000 per semester. At least in some fields (eg Engineering) you can get a very good education there I am told.

<comment><USER34> I actually moved from the midwest to NYC for exactly that reason. I can't afford the in state public university in my home state, so I had to move here, as ridiculous as that sounds. Luckily, NYC is not nearly as expensive as people make it out to be. I pay about $200/month more in living expenses, but it's $10,000/year cheaper to go to school here and I get free health care through medicaid (important since I have a very painful health condition). I have no family support, so I have to make it work through, well, work and what little money I can get from federal financial aid.

I'm really grateful CCNY still exists to provide me a path out of poverty. However, they're hiking tuition by $800/year for the next few years, so soon it'll be unaffordable, too...

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Here's another graph showing that the recent rise in tuition in Michigan is due to declining state education appropriations.

[http://i.imgur.com/5gYHQK5.png](http://i.imgur.com/5gYHQK5.png)

<comment><USER36> So for the last ten years there was a decline of ~51% in appropriations, but the tuition cost has actually declined. Do you mean a rise in the net revenue? Maybe I'm a bit confused with the graph.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The University of California charged NO TUITION until the 1970s.

Think about that for a second. While we bicker and boast on here about bootstraps and how to pay off debt by living like a pauper we have to realize that we are straight up being stolen from.

There is no reason why public universities should cost 10s of thousands of dollars for a 4 year degree. That's the whole reason they exist in the first place.

<comment><USER38> Just because the price is zero doesn't mean the cost is zero.

The main reason that college tuition has risen in America is that it become less and less subsidized by state governments. It's not straight up theft when that subsidy gets reduced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I know he is just crunching numbers for unrelated jobs and unrelated colleges and making a conclusion based on that and no real knowledge, but I know tons of people who worked through college.

A lot of them were work study program people, although on the east coast. If you Google the school he talks about, though, you can see they offer a similar program where the college pays half the student's salary: [https://finaid.msu.edu/work.asp](https://finaid.msu.edu/work.asp)

So a work study student only costs the employer half as much, and would generally be assumed to be earning a full pay check for working half the time and studying half the time. So it seems very doable. Generally a student with such low income isn't going to be paying full price anyway, so his other number is off too.

</comment><comment><USER40> This is my biggest concern since I'm currently a third year at university. It's only by luck that that I'm in a field that pays above minimum wage and it currently in demand for interns.

For others retrospect: I got an 8 month internship after my second year and saved up enough money to pay for my next semester and some savings. Following that semester, I took another 8 month internship with the same process. I'm now finishing my third year (so to speak) and I intend to get another 4 month internship so I can use my remaining savings for a last full year of tuition and spending.

I can't encourage enough that more people should look for and apply for internships for this reason alone if no other.

I hate the idea of being in debt and this seems like the only way to survive.

EDIT: Grammar

</comment><comment><USER41> Also important to note that this is talking about the time to pay tuition alone. When you add living expenses, it's even more absurd.

</comment><comment><USER42> It's certainly a troubling trend, but it's not as troubling as it seems. One huge factor is the corresponding increase in financial aid, particularly at top institutions——if you came from a poor family several decades ago, you would have had to work your way through Harvard, now you will get full aid and can even get grants for summer activities.

That's honestly a huge boon to meritocracy which we should not forget about. All these people pushing for the elimination of aid and a shift to market mechanisms need to seriously consider the impact that a zero-aid, market-based system would have: a return to a time when only the wealthy could attend great institutions and everyone else is relegated to community colleges and second- tier state universities. That's what market mechanisms are great at: matching products to people's ability to pay.

I dearly hope we don't actually want that for our country. It undermines the very meritocracy we pride ourselves on——if we can't get an equal education, regardless of economic ability, then the rest of the market-based American economy is a sham of wealth perpetuation.

\</comment><comment>---

On a completely different note, I do actually think it is possible to work full-time during college. I've done so for the past year, in a fairly intense job capacity. I'll be graduating with enough money in the bank for the down payment on a small house.

<comment><USER18> White kid from the lower middle-class. 4.7 high school with all honors and graduating with an AA. Had to start almsot completely over classes-wise because of the structure of the CS degree so what should have been 3 years is now 4 years at $16k a year. And $24k for the last year because of the new "if you go over X hours in your degree you pay double tuition" rule. So $72k of debt stepping out of that door. Almost all the jobs I've had offered are barely above MW, and the internships are the same or unpaid entirely (which is a scam, of course).

So good for you - you can get your house. Meanwhile the other half of us cannot work off our debt even if we worked full time and put 100% of our income into paying it off.

<comment><USER42> I'm also a white kid from the lower middle class. :)

Maybe you're not pursuing the right jobs? With a CS degree, even internships should be paying WAY more than minimum wage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> On the flip side, if you have a degree, this means fewer people can afford it and your degree becomes all the more valuable over time.

I've had a similar, but different thing happen as the state school I went to has shot up in the arbitrary US News and World Reports college rankings list over the last 20 years.

It enabled them to finance a bunch of new construction (research buildings, classrooms, specialized degree satellite campuses), all new dorms, etc. What used to be basically a small commuter school that happened to offer university (Masters and Doctorates) degrees has turned into the largest university in the the State.

The prestige it's offered my resume has gotten me endless recruitment offers and I ended up just taking it off my facebook profile I was getting contacted by too many people I didn't know wanting to form various alumni networks.

At any rate, rising tuition, etc. just means that what I already received is becoming a more valuable investment. I like that.

But I also feel empathy towards those going into college, knowing what a huge boost it was to my income earning potential.

I worked my way through college, Pell Grants, a few loans. I was doing an 2x minimum wage internship my last 2 years that made it suck, but doable. I made enough after graduation that I paid off my loans in just a couple years. It was really tight though. I think it's still very possible to do at the state school level if you get the loans. But it's definitely getting harder.

I couldn't imagine doing it at the private school or out of state level back then, and I can't imagine doing it today.

</comment><comment><USER44> It seems like there are needed alternatives to & reforms in secondary education. The secondary education industry needs to remove the fluff and drive more value & relevancy to it's customers.

The premise must be shifted toward students being able to choose their educational path. General requirements are expensive and a waste of money for students. Learning is a lifelong process. Students need to become self- motivated to educate themselves, instead of depending on a curriculum defined by authorities.

General requirements are coercive because the student does not choose to learn these subjects. This means the student will be less engaged.

There needs to be more emphasis on cross-functional & student inspired collaboration. Examples are engineering students collaborate with artists to create something. History students collaborate with theater & film students to create historical movies. Encourage professors, grad students, and undergrad students to collaborate on active research & projects.

Remove the notion that GPA intrinsically means anything other than someone is good at playing the school game. Make the goals more in line with life after college. A portfolio of interesting projects says more about someone than a GPA.

</comment><comment><USER45> There are good arguments to be had about why college is so expensive and exactly how much federal and local money should go to education. It's simply untrue that it's impossible to pay your own way through college - I just did it for the last two and a half of my education. Of course I was making more than minimum wage, but for all but a semester I wasn't making radically above minimum wage (my last summer I worked at a top tech company). I chose to major in an in demand field that I was good at, worked a lot instead of drinking or playing video games, and went to an affordable in state school. Not everybody can make it through college without loans, but if everybody put the same effort into their job and education I did, it should be a worthwhile investment to carry a bit of debt.

</comment><comment><USER46> This isn't true in Australia and many other countries where education costs are more reasonable. I'm in my last semester of a 4 year degree in mechanical engineering. The total tuition cost has been around USD$32K. I've worked the whole way through and will graduate without debt.

<comment><USER47> Educational costs are however drastically increasing in Australia.

See: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary_education_fees_in_Aust...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary_education_fees_in_Australia#Commonwealth_supported_students)

e.g. For CS (3 year course), pre-1997 you'd pay ~$9000. Today you'd pay ~21000.

Adjusted for inflation, you'd still be paying roughly half in 1996, what you are paying today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I had a well-paying software internship for most of my time in college, and still left college with ~$30k of debt. Even while making $600/week, it wasn't possible to manage living expenses and tuition payments without taking loans.

<comment><USER28> $30k total debt, to enable your future career, is nothing to be complaining about. That's ~$50/month service.

<comment><USER49> It's certainly something to be complaining about. It _may_ enable a career, but not always, and the career _may_ be enough to pay off a loan, but not always. At the very least, $30K of debt is a lot to have hanging over one's head for years.

Consider also those who are 3 years into the degree and decide that field isn't for them, and they want to leave school - that's nearly $20k down the toilet which will be hard to pay back.

BTW, your logic applies equally well to indentured servants. (Years of labor enables free passage to the US and the chance for one's own farm at the end.) Since I don't like the concept of debt bondage, I distrust logic which supports it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I bet half the audience sees this as an indictment of tuition increases, and the the other half sees this as an indictment of the lack of minimum wage increases.

I know what the author is trying to convey, but I'm not sure he has the best metric.

<comment><USER51> I see it as another sign that colleges are ripe for a shake up.

Colleges offer five things (from an academic point of view):

1\. Access to information. 2\. Directed learning. 3\. Time to explore your own interests. 4\. Research facilities. 5\. Qualifications.

Access to information is easy enough outside college (books, Internet, etc...). Lack of research facilities is only really a hindrance if you're trying to study a hard science or engineering. Time to explore your own interests is easy enough without college, in the worst case you could borrow money, not pay college tuition fees, and study just as long.

So that leaves two remaining benefits (and arguably only one benefit to real learning); directed learning and qualifications. The college system directs you towards the ideas in a field that are deemed as key to understanding the subject more fully. Having access to mentors gives the students guidance and reassurance. Qualifications are seen as the reward for the work (not by everyone, it's possible to study for the fun of it too, but that just preaching to the choir on a site like HN).

The requirement for colleges for certain qualifications would be easy to fix. The main factor that is lacking from non-college learning is the directed learning aspect. It can be fun to learn a little bit of everything, but colleges can bring you up to speed in something quicker because of this guru- led focus. If/when mavens from a field are simple to interact with, efficient learning is unlocked. The "hacker" community is a great example of this, we have all the resources at our disposal, including access to the leading lights, no other group has it quite as good. Now imagine how other fields could grow with the same blend of learning opportunities that our group has.

<comment><USER49> You left out physical access to peers. We formed study groups, and meeting in person to discuss and work through problem sets can be much more effective than mediated through telepresence. It would have been harder for me to graduate without that.

It's also hard to get a degree in most arts (eg. fine arts, dance, drama, and music) without physical interactions and without access to the physical resources that a university can provide. Yet that doesn't fall under any of your 5 categories. Perhaps #4 is the closest, but you argue that it's only really relevant to hard science or engineering.

Your last bit sounds more utopian than with basis in reality. I don't see why it's any harder to contact leading lights in chemistry, biology, mathematics, philosophy, history, or poetry than it is hackers. Nor do I believe many of those leading lights - hackers included - really want to engage in much unpaid "learning opportunity" to strangers.

<comment><USER51> > Nor do I believe many of those leading lights - hackers included - <USER2> > want to engage in much unpaid "learning opportunity" to strangers.

Perhaps 'leading lights' was a bit of a stretch, but the reality is there are many people in the hacker community that spend a good amount of time helping others to learn. Whether that's through blogs, hackerspaces, IRC, sites like StackOverflow, etc... there's a wide range of people helping others out.

Why does this happen? Beyond feeling good about it, there's another benefit, a good question from a novice can help a more experienced practitioner deepen their own understanding. These benefits need not only apply to hackers, they can apply to any skillset. The potential for resources that facilitate this exists, and in fact such arragements do exist elsewhere in more chaotic forms, but I'd argue the path for development as hackers is clearer than in many other fields (at the moment).

> fine arts, dance, drama, and music

What physical resources do you need to study such subjects? Do you think organising practice space and meeting likeminded individuals would be hard outside college?

> You left out physical access to peers.

Yes I did. I see the social benefits of learning with peers, and I'm sure that makes learning more fun, but why pay huge sums of money for that privilege when it's possible to arrange in a more straightforward way (hackerspaces being a good example)?

<comment><USER49> My point is there's a bunch of non-hackers which also spend a good amount of time helping others to learn. There are quilting clubs, and hiking clubs, and bee keeping clubs. Some of these organizations are over a century old. There are science cafes, and book readings, public lectures, and temperance organizations. I don't think hackers are notably more organized than other skillsets.

For example, near where I live are two rowing clubs, both with their own clubhouses and storage areas. I used to be a member of a tango organization, with its own membership structure and bank account. It would organize events, and bring in guest teachers. And so on. What is special about hackerspaces?

> What physical resources do you need to study such subjects?

Are you asking me because you don't have any experience with those programs, nor have any friends who participated in them? If so, that would suggest a large gap in your understanding of how colleges work.

A music program will have a large range of instruments, including large instruments like a pipe organ and more exotic instruments like a gamelan (and people who can build/maintain/tune the instruments), practice spaces, and performance spaces. An art program will have equipment ranging from paints and brushes to kilns to welding equipment and perhaps even a foundry. Some of these require support staff. A theater program will have performance spaces, costumes and props, plus again support people (eg, a licensed carpenter for stage building, someone to oversee the electrics, etc.)

This is not something that every small town will have, which is why people go somewhere else where those resources can be concentrated.

> Do you think organising practice space and meeting likeminded individuals > would be hard outside college?

Umm, yes? That's my point. In my town of 70,000 people, there probably aren't enough like-minded individuals interested in, say, early medieval music. Certainly not enough to have the instruments on-hand. While "[t]he Early Music Institute at the Jacobs School of Music [at Indiana University] provides a comprehensive program in the study of historical performance on original instruments of music before ca.1800." (See [http://www.music.indiana.edu/departments/academic/early- musi...](http://www.music.indiana.edu/departments/academic/early-music/) , which also points out that commuting faculty and students "makes it difficult to offer such a well-rounded educational experience and to have major ensembles of such caliber".)

Or take the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, which has "theatrical spaces outfitted with state-of-the-art intelligent lighting systems to animation studios equipped with the latest 3D computer graphics software." How does one get access to that sort of equipment, and put on a play which uses it, in a hackerspace model?

> why pay huge sums of money for that privilege when it's possible to arrange > in a more straightforward way

You've changed the topic. You originally said "Colleges offer five things (from an academic point of view)", while I said that physical access to peers is a sixth.

Physical peer proximity, in the hackerspace model, is hard to arrange for many subjects. I studied physics. There are some 5,000-6,000 physics graduates each year. (See [http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201112/backpage.cfm](http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201112/backpage.cfm) and [http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2008/04/13/the- extr...](http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2008/04/13/the-extreme- deficit-of-physics-undergraduates-aps-april-2008) ).

How does one establish a "physics space" when there are so few others in one's immediate neighborhood who are interested in learning particle physics? This seems like a prime reason to concentrate physics studies in one geographic area, and have people move there to study and to teach. In other words, college. Isn't that more straightforward than what you propose? (If not, how would your model be more effective than what we have now?)

I feel when you said "I'm sure that makes learning more fun" that you didn't get the point. This wasn't for fun, this was peer education. A few years ago a friend told me "I don't think I could have graduated without your help." And I know myself well enough to know that I do better with physical proximity than telepresence. There are _educational_ benefits of learning with peers.

Focusing now on "why pay huge sums of money for that privilege".

That's also a different topic, and you didn't bring it up earlier. I agree with you - college should not cost huge sums of money. I think higher education is a social good and should be supported by the state, either free or highly subsidized. Where I disagree with you is the idea that hackerspaces provide a more straightforward way than what we have now, which includes geographically co-located studies, and colleges with a strong distance learning component like the Open University in the UK.

<comment><USER51> > You've changed the topic. You originally said "Colleges offer five things > (from an academic point of view)", while I said that physical access to > peers is a sixth.

I didn't change the topic. The reason I mentioned the five factors I believe colleges contribute was in order to explore how they could be found without the financial burdens that college can bring. I mentioned them in order to find how colleges could best be disrupted from their position as gatekeepers to knowledge.

> How does one establish a "physics space" when there are so few others in > one's immediate neighborhood who are interested in learning particle > physics?

Let's take your town of 70,000 people as an example. How many people would you guess that would be interested in learning about physics? Would you say less than 20? More than 5? How many people would you envision is required for a decent physics meetup group?

<comment><USER49> And I assert that geographical proximity to peers is a sixth contribution.

The change in topic was when you said "pay huge sums of money" \- that's a negative to colleges, and then the question becomes a cost benefit analysis. Previous you were mostly focused on the benefits of college, which is all that I addressed. Hence "change of topic." (Perhaps I should have said "widening of topic"?)

I take it by the absence of a response that you are convinced that arts programs can require more than what a hackerspace-style organization can provide?

> How many people would you guess that would be interested in learning about > physics?

"Learning about physics" is uselessly broad. Classical mechanics, electricity&magnetism, thermodynamics, particle physics, astrophysics, and solid state physics are very different aspects of physics. A meetup can't be "learning about physics" but "learning about a specific topic in physics", and likely even "and at the same level of understanding", since an introductory quantum mechanics student likely won't make heads or tails of Cohen-Tannoudji or Sakurai.

(For that matter, my school didn't even have a solid state course for undergraduates, while some other colleges do.)

Why didn't you work out the math yourself? Assuming 6,000 new B.S.s in physics per year out of a US population of 317 million, times 70,000 students in the city => 1.3 students at a senior level.

Obviously at least two are needed for a study group, and some people prefer to work independently, giving a high likelihood that a small city cannot support a decent peer-based physics meetup group. FWIW, our study group had about 5 physics majors, out of 15 in the graduating class.

To put it another way, I grew up in Miami. The Miami metropolitan area has a density of 890 people/sq. mi. That's 1 physics student for each 60 square miles. For two nearby students to meet requires a minimum average of 5 miles of travel. More likely there's 30+ minutes of travel for _each_ hackspace- style meeting with 5 people. While on campus, when most people live on or very near to campus, the commute time is a lot smaller. Thus, moving to be close to peers can increase the amount of time available for studying and practice.

You then added a new thesis to the mix, which is that "colleges are the gatekeeper to knowledge."

They most certainly are not. Colleges are the gatekeeper to _certification_ in some fields (as your #5 points out; and as a real-world example, a Master of Library and Information Science is required for most professional librarian positions).

But "gatekeeper to knowledge"? Nonsense! How did you get that idea? What does it even mean? What knowledge is prohibited or withheld from those without a college education? Are you sure you aren't just using that term as a scare tactic?

So, ways to disrupt the expensive college education system of the US:

1) free or highly subsidized college education for anyone who wants it, in any field whatsoever.

2) minimize the importance of a (semi) classical liberal arts education and promote trade, craft, and technical colleges as the better route for certification-based skills training.

3) subsidize adult continuing education for those who have done #2 and still want a general liberal arts education. (A town of 70,000 people can easily have a few people interested in a common sophomore level course every other year.)

4) set up something like the Open University, that is, a state school/non- profit which has distance learning for those who can't attend a physical college for all classes, and with research/lab space for those courses which need it.

Is that disruptive enough for you?

Like I said, I see education as a general social good, and not a simple cost/benefit analysis for a single person's own career.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I am finishing my last year at Uni of Manchester (UK), and coming from a poor family in Eastern Europe.

On one hand, it really sucks that I can't really afford to focus mainly on education because I have no plan B regarding money and have spent enough time being totally broke. It was a bit crushing experience when I knew I could do much better, if I could spend more time on it.

But on other hand, that experience of working my up definitely helped me to grow up as a person. Which maybe is much more valuable, then the technical skills and the degree?

</comment><comment><USER53> Is college important to us as a society?

Assuming it (and other forms of further education) are, might we be better off funding state schools to the point that they have an affordable tuition? The upshot of this would be an cost competitive alternative to private schools. The looming debt these students take on now is not going to go away and will remain a drag on their forward progress for decades. Perhaps the collective interest being spent on all these loans might be better spent on actual education.

</comment><comment><USER54> The idea of consumption smoothing & college as a human capital investment (particularly in an arena with outsized rewards at the top end, which is now most areas with decent payoffs) imply that to the extent you don't absolutely have to, you shouldn't work through college. Other than perhaps connection- building internships during the summer, but those aren't really about the money.

</comment><comment><USER55> Why do you need to work your way through college? Get a loan, Take more credit-hours per term, and pick a field that will give you a greater pay increase and your work will be worth a lot more (per hour) when you graduate. I understand this is an oversimplification because some people can't get loans/grants.

</comment><comment><USER56> > Most students take 12 credit hours per semester and only attend Fall and > Spring semester. That's 24 credit hours per year.

24 credits a year?! I am curious, is this really the norm in the US? At the universitiy I attended in mainland Europe you were excpected to do 30 credits each semester, so 60 CP a year.

<comment><USER57> US credits and ECTS credits don't mean the same thing. A US credit is roughly equivalent to 2 ECTS credits in terms of amount of time spent. Additionally, 12 credit hours is an unusually small amount of credits to take. That's usually the minimum amount to qualify as a full-time student. If you want to graduate in the normal amount of time you have to take more like 16 credit hours per semester.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Isn't this mostly US centric? The entire conversation in here is all about why colleges are expensive in US. What do the european HNers have to say for their colleges? I hear they are mostly free but the cost-of-living in europe is usally what weighs down foreign students

</comment><comment><USER59> I think this graphic might point towards some of the reason that college is so pricy: [http://www.oftwominds.com/photos10/lifecycle- bureaucracy.png](http://www.oftwominds.com/photos10/lifecycle-bureaucracy.png)

Although it is somewhat cynical...

</comment><comment><USER60> I think it is pretty clearly the fault of student loans, roughly akin to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Home prices went up because anyone could get a loan to buy them even if they couldn't afford them.

</comment><comment><USER61> So a guy I know took his Yale scholarship, bought a boat and sails around the world and made the diff by working summers. Can't do that anymore.

</comment><comment><USER62> Pay your way through college? Of course you can. You just have be able to to think outside the box.

And if Belle Knox can do it, you can do it:

\- [http://www.sbindependent.org/belle-knoxs-lust- education/](http://www.sbindependent.org/belle-knoxs-lust-education/)

\- [http://www.the360experiment.com/2014/03/entertainment/colleg...](http://www.the360experiment.com/2014/03/entertainment/college- student-pays-ivy-league-tuition-smut-money/)

</comment><comment><USER63> I didn't realize this was ever possible outside community colleges.

<comment><USER64> I worked my way through school for both my undergraduate degree and a masters in computer science. It wasn't bad. Just have to work hard. The nice thing was, I finished up school with zero debt.

<comment><USER65> When did you do this?

<comment><USER66> I worked my way through university from 2006-2010. I was able to pay for my freshman year due to a gift from grandparents and random saving (2005-2006). Spring 2006 I got a full time job with the university. I worked for the school because they give great benefits to full time employees. My tuition was cut from ~6k/semester to ~2k.

I was making more than minimum wage, nearly double at the time at $13/hour. This helped, but I kept everything cheap. My apartment was $300/mo, phone, food, and insurance was less than $400. That left me with nearly $1000 left each month.

It wasn't easy and it wasn't glamourous. I worked 8-5 every day and went to class in the evenings until 8 or 9.

<comment><USER67> How did you do assignments? I was given about 2hrs work per lecture, and usually a long term project as well so would do around 5-6hrs of after school work often longer if I was stuck on some essay writing. Phil essay/argument to write, 2 chapters in Phys to do, 2 Math chapters, write a polisci essay and read 3 chapters, then churning out a small program while working on the midterm larger program was a typical night.

<comment><USER68> My CS degree cost me about an hour a day in homework on bad days. I skipped many classes, only took relevant coursework, and graduated in 3 years.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


At what point do you leave a stressful job for your health? - <AUTHOR>

I feel sort of silly asking about this because the answer seems sort of obvious, but I can't help but feel like the decision in my case is a little more complicated.
About a year ago and a half ago I started working for a startup as their first full time tech hire. After about 3 months I got promotion to VP of Engineering and since then we've hired 5 more engineers full time.
Currently I'm still filling roles that run the gambit and it's just starting to be too much. I have a chronic auto-immune condition, and the stresses of working at a startup have caused my condition to get worse. Last year I had to take some time off because my condition flared up, but I recovered. Since then I've gotten better with managing my stress, but now my condition is starting to get worse again. It's not as bad as it was before, but I'm worried it could start to really go downhill again.
It makes sense to me that I need preserve my health. Which means leaving this job and finding one with a healthier environment.   My main concerns in doing that are: - This is basically my first job out of college. What if I get another job and it sucks? What if I get another job and I have the same issues with stress + illness? - I'd be giving up everything that I've worked towards over the past year and a half. It means giving up my options (3% in seed round, not a ton, but something). - I feel like I would be leaving a pretty big hole in the company. It feels like I would be putting an unfair strain on the rest of the team by leaving.
Has anyone ever been in a similar situation? Any thoughts? Thanks! <comment><USER2> Unless you really want to leave -- and it sounds like you don't -- I would think your best strategy would be to negotiate a reduced role. Get together with the owners and figure out, of all the things you're doing, which are critical and can't be delegated. Maybe one of the newer engineers can take on team leader responsibilities. Or, maybe they need to find another VP of Engineering and let you be team leader, or even go back to an individual contributor role.

Unless there are hard feelings involved -- and you haven't said anything to that effect -- I think, surely something can be worked out here.</comment>


A year without conferences? How the coronavirus pandemic could change research - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00786-y <comment><USER2> I was at a conference last week that got partially converted to video- conferencing because NASA people were not allowed to attend. And as much as flying to conferences sucks I can say with 100% certainty: web-interaction is hilariously far away from being a useful replacement.

</comment><comment><USER3> Conference are nice if you have time and money to go to them. You can almost the same amount of research publishing it in a written form.</comment>


Newcomb's paradox - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox

<comment><USER2> Worth mentioning Scott Aaronson's blog post ([http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=30](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=30)), and a _lot_ of discussion on Less Wrong over the years ([http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Newcomb%27s_problem](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Newcomb%27s_problem)).

</comment><comment><USER3> For the risk-averse:

Make a bet with someone for $500,000.00 that you can prove The Predictor is fallible. Take only box B. If box B contains $1,000,000.00, then you have lost the bet and you are left with only $500,000.00. If box B contains no money, you have wone the bet and are left with $500,000.00.

<comment><USER4> Who would take the other side of that bet?

<comment><USER5> Since it is a rule of the game that the predictor is infallible, anyone with $500,000 would take that

<comment><USER6> It's not a rule of the game that the predictor is infallible, only that it's very likely to be correct.

<comment><USER3> It seems there are multiple versions of the paradox. It does seem reasonable that you can find someone to take the bet for <$999K if it is known that The Predictor is "very likely to be correct". Any bet amount <$999K is qualitatively the same as my original $500K suggestion, you increase your guaranteed minimum by decreasing your potential maximum without having to resolve the paradox.

<comment><USER6> I think any version of the paradox that _defines_ the predictor as infallible misses the whole point of the paradox. That's just defining the outcome of the game as the will of God. "Has always been observed to be correct" is the appropriate construction.

However, I think someone could resuscitate the original intent of the paradox by having the Predictor's actions also hinge on whether or not it predicts that you would make such a bet, and leave box B empty if it does predict that. Essentially defining itself to be correct in the situation where, without this addendum, it would have been incorrect and you would have won the bet.

<comment><USER3> I mean, now you're just creating a moving target.

I think you are intent upon maintaining the paradox, whereas I was just pointing out a loophole that allows a better outcome without resolving it. Gordian knot and all.

<comment><USER6> The paradox is supposed to be maintained. It is supposed to illustrate the incommensurability of the two decision methods that it illustrates. It's not supposed to be "solved" or "cut."

<comment><USER3> The paradox exists. I did not solve it., I worked within the confines of it to find a potentially better outcome.

You have changed the definition of the paradox. Both can be valuable avenues of thought. I tend to view paradoxes as learning opportunities or a way to practice critical and logical thinking skills. Both of us have achieved that, so yay, but there's definitely not a single way to approach a paradox when presented with one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _> When formulated using Bayesian networks, two standard decision algorithms (Evidential Decision Theory and Causal Decision Theory) can be shown to fail systematically when faced with aspects of the prisoner's dilemma and so-called "Newcomblike" problems. We describe a new form of decision algorithm, called Timeless Decision Theory, which consistently wins on these problems._

— Alex Altair, MIRI, "A Comparison of Decision Algorithms on Newcomblike Problems"

[https://intelligence.org/files/Comparison.pdf](https://intelligence.org/files/Comparison.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER8> I always find this kind of philosophical thought experiment unsatisfying.

Super-accurate predictions of human behaviour are just not possible. If I could do it, I'd be a gazillionaire philanthropist/playboy dating supermodels and advising heads of state because I can't be bothered to rule the world directly. As it is, I can't do better than a draw against a 5-year-old at rock-paper-scissors.

So this paradox tells us more about psychology than philosophy. Folks who think "A and B" is the right answer basically ignore the bit about the predictor never (or almost never) being wrong and go with a strategy that is great for fallible human predictors.

And well they should. The only thing more ridiculous than an infallible predictor is one that wastes his time playing shell games where the best he can do is break even.

<comment><USER9> I can be more interesting reframed as such:

The player is the AI, and the predictor is the AI programmer.

The AI programmer can look into the innards of the AI ie. the source code and can thus predict with high accuracy what the AI will do.

What is a winning strategy for the AI?

Or taken another way, you can have AI's that have access to each other's source code and are competing for some scarce resource, how do you design an AI that 'wins' when it's behaviour is known it's opponent?

<comment><USER10> Sure you can. The AIs behaviour could be as simple as "Always pick box B".

The difficult bit would be designing an AI which, given perfect knowledge of its logic, would pick both boxes despite appearing to be more likely to pick only B.

In that case, you could simply have an AI with a 0.499999 chance of picking both and a 0.5000001 chance of picking B. The expected winnings would be $1,000,500.

But then, once it comes down to probability, the predictor is no longer a 'perfect predictor' any more.

<comment><USER11> That would probably be counted as a random choice and as the rules state: > if the Predictor predicts that the player will choose randomly, then box B will contain nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not sure why it is a paradox - assuming the predictor is superintelligent, you don't try to fool it. By definition its intelligence can predict what you will do in the very last moment, so the fact that it doesn't get to change anything once prediction is made, is immaterial.

<comment><USER9> Let's reverse the numbers and make both boxes transparent.

If The Predictor suspects you will choose just box A, it'll put 1 million in box B and 1 thousand in box A, if it suspects you will take both A and B, it will put nothing anything in box B and 1 thousand in box A.

So now you standing in front of the two transparent boxes. You see that there is $1 million in box B, yet you still take just box A?

<comment><USER12> In that scenario, the predictor will always "predict" that you will take both boxes.

The lack of information of box B, is exactly what makes the other case different. Then you need to only rely on thinking and you do not know if box B has a million dollars till you open it. If you risk taking two boxes, you will lose it.

\---

Let me give another example to make the original scenario transparent.

Imagine I will write a function "decide(double content_of_A)" to decide whether B or both will be opened, given content of A.

Imagine you can examine the function beforehand, and you are super-intelligent compared to me, so any attempt to obfuscate the code in my part will be utterly useless and easily seen through.

And you are honest - in putting the $1M in box B if your analysis suggests that the decision function will only take B.

Note that my function gets called after you have placed the money, just as in the original scenario.

Would I not write the function to choose B? I would.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The standard "solution" (that isn't really a solution, but an explanation) is that the predictor has decided to reward the kind of person who one-boxes, and is extremely good at predicting whether you are that kind of person (perhaps even better than you yourself are).

So, if you can "decide to be the kind of person" who one-boxes (and perhaps by induction "decide to be the kind of person who decides to be a certain kind of person"), you can make out pretty well.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think there's a weak echo of this concept that plays out in an election. Except swap in the inconvenience of voting for giving up the $1,000 box.

On the one hand, why bother voting? It's a pain in the ass and my single vote has such a negligible effect. On the other hand, if everyone like me has that same attitude, then I and others like me lose our voice in the election. So should I vote, or not?

<comment><USER4> That's a fairly simple one. If all you value is the benefits to you of your influence on the election, do not bother to vote (and especially don't bother spending the resources required to educate yourselves so as to vote responsibly). It's very clearly not worth it except perhaps for the smallest local elections or closest large elections.

If you value other things related to voting, like feeling as if you've done your civic duty, or feeling like a member of a group (like a political party), then by all means vote if the hassle of physically voting is less than that benefit.

This seems like a pretty clear description of rational behavior, and if you expect people to behave largely rationally, this description seems to explain some of the problems often attributed to elections, like low voter participation and low voter knowledge of the candidates and issues.

<comment><USER15> But then if people only care about the benefits to them, then they'll be overtaken by "lizards" who exploit them but never get voted out because no one thinks voting passes a CBA. Populations who vote "despite" its wastefulness systematically win against those who don't.

Arguably, the only reason any population isn't overrun by lizards is because it's people are mostly "wasteful" in this sense.

One intermediate solution is to force everyone to vote so that it's no longer costly. This is arguably what is accomplished when people promote voting out of civic duty, etc.

<comment><USER4> But I don't think people are wasteful in that sense. Voter participation and voter awareness tends to be low, at least in the USA. Besides, if your government only works if people act in a specific irrational manner, I don't have high hopes for it, especially considering that one usually cited fundamental role of government is to fix problems where individual rationality does not lead to group rationality.

Forcing people to vote doesn't incentivize people to educate themselves on the issues, which is required to "vote responsibly" according to the usual Western civics class description of how democracy is supposed to work.

<comment><USER15> Voter participation is very high, and voter decisions very wise, relative to the lizard scenario; and it's not clear that "not being overlorded by lizards" _is_ a kind of irrationality.

Remember, the lizard scenario is something like "500 lizards outvote 300 million and put in 99% tax rates on non-lizards, to be spent entirely on lizards, all because none of the 300 million want to vote, reasoning that their vote doesn't affect the outcome."

Mandatory voting would definitely be an improvement over that for much the same reasons I gave before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I like Scott Aaronson's solution ([http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=30](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=30)). Basically, assuming:

1) completely infallible and incapable of error

2) to get a perfect prediction, the predictor must simulate you perfectly to the extent that the simulated you won't have any way to know it is the simulation

Therefore, at the time of the decision, "you" might actually be the "simulated you" and any decision you make will indeed affect the content of the boxes for the "real you". Which makes single boxing the rational decision.

</comment><comment><USER17> I guess this boils down to whether you believe in determinism.

If you do, then the predictor will always be right, and you have essentially zero chance of fooling it by "changing your mind" later for the extra money.

If you don't believe in such a thing, then theoretically some nondeterministic volition of yours could allow you to change your mind in a way that the predictor could not have deterministically forseen.

<comment><USER6> It's not about changing your mind for the money, it's about the fact that causality doesn't (shouldn't) run backwards in time.

Consider this: when you are faced with the choice, the allotted money is _already_ under the boxes. How could what you choose _now_ affect this outcome? It can't. You must always take both boxes to get the maximum amount of money possible. Either the $1,000,000 is under the single box, or it is not. If you take both boxes, you will get $1000 regardless of anything else, and possibly $1,001,000. If you take the single box, you will either get $0 or $1,000,000, but _your action can 't possibly change that_, unless you believe somehow that causality runs backwards in time.

<comment><USER15> Under a generalization of this problem, you can do transparent boxes and get basically the same paradox: in that case, omega never even presents you with this choice while putting $1 million in a box _unless_ you're "the type of person" who would one-box even then.

Still no causality violation: omega simulates everyone,[2] and only offers the filled box to one-boxers, but leaves it empty for two-boxers. [1]

But you don't even have to conser these esoteric, hypothetical situations to get a newcomblike paradox: even "merchants vs shoplifters" has a similar dynamic: you will only be in the position of being able to trivially shoplift merchandise if you're in a neighborhood that draws from the set of people who usually don't. Merchants (Omega) are accurate enough in their predictions to be profitable.

[1] See counterfactual mugging for a similar dynamic.

[2] With a thorough enough simulator, it may not be possible to tell whether "you" are in the simulator or doing the real thing.

<comment><USER6> That generalization is no longer a paradox; it's just a situation. The paradox is about choice theory and you have eliminated any element of choice.

People who choose (or act, if you don't care for free will) to take only one box _are always leaving money on the table_ , full stop. The point of the game is to maximize winnings.

The alternative approach is that people who have chosen one box _have always received more money than those who chose both_. Explanations about how or why are distractions and are inconsequential; the paradox is about these two -- both generally considered to be valid -- approaches yielding such different results.

In my opinion, the resolution of the paradox is that's an impossible situation. Either someone is lying about the mechanisms (in which case take one box like everyone else because it's a magic trick of some kind) or not (in which case the "predictor" can be wrong and the boxes are already set, so take both boxes to eliminate the risk of receiving nothing and to maximize your winnings).

<comment><USER15> >That generalization is no longer a paradox; it's just a situation. The paradox is about choice theory and you have eliminated any element of choice.

You're still choosing whether to use a decision procedure that results in how many boxes to take when offered this choice, which then determines whether you get this offer at all.

And I don't know what you're trying to say with the paradox/situation distinction; "Newcomb's problem with transparent boxes" is a paradox and a situation, just like the original: how are people ending up better off by "leaving money on the table"? (whatever that would mean)

>People who choose (or act, if you don't care for free will) to take only one box are always leaving money on the table, full stop. The point of the game is to maximize winnings.

But once you pin down what "leaving money on the table" means, it's not at all clear that the concept coincides with something you want to avoid. If the people "leaving money on the table" have more money, then "I don't want to be right", as the saying goes.

>In my opinion, the resolution of the paradox is that's an impossible situation.

I disagree. At the very least, you can play as omega against an algorithm, with varying degrees of scrutability. How should that kind of algorithm be written so that it gets more money (in transparent boxes, how to get omegas to offer you filled boxes in the first place)? Your answer would require addressing the same issues that arise here for humans in that situation.

There are also statistical versions of the paradox, like merchants vs shoplifters. Obviously, they aren't perfect predictors, but they do well enough for the sort of "acausal" effects in the paradox to happen, ie people not shoplifting, even when they could get away with it. Here are some more real life examples:

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/4yn/realworld_newcomblike_problems/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/4yn/realworld_newcomblike_problems/)

To be sure, people aren't predictable enough _now_ to get the kind of scenario described in the problem. But they are predictable enough for the uncomfortable implications: even an accuracy slightly better than chance gets you situations were one-boxing is statistically superior.

(I do agree that _in pracitce_ , whenever you see this kind of situation, you should assume there's some trick until overwhelming evidence comes in to the contrary.)

<comment><USER6> > But once you pin down what "leaving money on the table" means, it's not at > all clear that the concept coincides with something you want to avoid.

In this case (which I have to imagine is deliberate on the part of Nozick or Newcomb), "leaving money on the table" means literally _leaving money on the table_. Taking one box always, _always_ results in less money than the total amount of money available in the boxes to people who take both boxes. (Of course, the evidence to date is that people who choose both boxes always have less money available to them in the first place.)

But the equally justifiable decision-making method is to perform the action that has yielded the best observed results in the past for others, despite there being no way that one's actions _now_ can possibly have affected the _past_ (choice or determinism doesn't matter).

The nature-of-the-predictor stuff is just irrelevant nonsense in either approach to the problem, which is a happy coincidence because it is, in fact, irrelevant and impossible nonsense. :)

Edit: "there's no way that one's actions now can possibly have affected the past" is given in the original problem. Wikipedia's article quotes it as "what you actually decide to do is not part of the explanation of why he made the prediction he made."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Via Turing, we know that the Predictor would be able to decide programs, and since it can't, it can't be a Predictor.

The isomorphism between the program which defeats decidability and the two-box Newcomb problem is left as an exercise.

<comment><USER19> You assume that a human cannot be described with something less powerful than a Turing machine. There is no reason to believe that knowing what a human will do in this instance is equal to decidability of computer programs.

<comment><USER20> I almost objected, but you're right. The human has finite time with which to calculate. The predictor can easily be assumed to have more time. There's no problem calculating if a program will halt in finite time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What I don't understand is why would anyone risk taking both A & B just to gain a measly $1,000? Just take the million and be happy with it.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's not a paradox to those who understand _compatibilist_ free will, and how basic information-sharing means that events at two different points in time and space can be isomorphic. There's no impossibility being committed, and no retrocausality either.</comment>