Evaluate the ROI on Education

[Nameless Range]

As a glass-half-empty kind of guy, I think there will be very few worthy careers down the college spectrum. I have oversized fears for what AI will do/create to our workforce and society in general. I can see most white-collar jobs being replaced in short order, most of my work included. But the last thing AI is going to be able to do, are the trades. Sure we'll move towards more automation and that automation will likely have some AI component, but there's so much variability, there are so many "answers", that I think it'll be tough to replicate the value humans play. One of my kids is clearly a trades person and the other is an engineer. So the ROI just, is what it is, for the college bound one. As others have said, you just need to check that box, and if you're smart find a spouse while you're there.

There is some value in pointless major's as well, but the value is all for selfish reasons. Once you start down the road of life, and by that I mean married with kids, there is very little time to pursue general knowledge. IMO College is the last or only great space/place/time in your life to pursue real, deep, knowledge simply for the sake of knowing it.

I think anything we currently do sitting at a computer, will eventually be doable by AI. The timeline might be longer than folks think, but I agree that those jobs that will be hardest to replace will be ones that are chiefly physical.

As far as a time for deep knowledge simply for the sake of knowing it, I think if the desire is there it's never been easier to self-teach. For example, 2025 has been the year of reading my wife's dragon/fairy smut for me, and only 4 months in, thanks to the internet I basically feel like a black belt of elf lore and their carnal habits. Would've had to pay a lot for that at the University of Montana.

 

[Irrelevant]

I think in the metaphysical sense humankind will ultimately reject the AI takeover depending on how it goes. Maybe by reversal only, who knows. But I think we will reject it.

There could be no greater loss than the loss of purpose, which AI taken to its ultimate and perfect end would likely do.

I like to think AI will more likely integrate itself into the world more like Excel spreadsheets have - a tool that has allowed more people to do more things in complexity, scale, and pace that has never been seen before. I dunno if white collar jobs were lost because of it. Could be wrong. Or, perhaps, imagine the characters Ash and Bishop in their respective sci-fi films as how AI becomes integrated into the world.

Work and purpose is too integral to humanity. If we lose too much of that we will course correct or reevaluate. Or maybe I vastly misunderstand what "work" could look like in 50, 100, or 200 years.

Or, our ultimate end will be Wall-E or The Matrix. Luckily I'll be dead, I think.

I keep thinking about the line in Jurrasic Park about scientists being, "so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

AI is not Excel. in my mind it's it's apples and rocketships. The people who only see AI as a tool, are incredibly short-sighted and assume that a rapidly expanding and evolving field will stop and not continue. We are pushing the technological boundaries, or reasons I completely don't understand, to create life. It is predicted we'll have created consciousness in AI by the end of the century if not sooner. While I won't have to live with that. My kids may, and my future (hopefully) grandkids certainly will.

As far as a time for deep knowledge simply for the sake of knowing it, I think if the desire is there it's never been easier to self-teach.

The old adage is that it takes 10k hrs to become an expert at something. I have between 0-2 "free" hrs in my day, until my kids are gone or I retire. I can re evaluate then.

So on average, I can come up with 365 hrs per year, which would take me +25 years to become an "expert" in something else. You can hit close to that same threshold in college (at least in terms of # of hrs, though we all recognize they're spread over a large range of topics).

Factor in that statistically your mental faculties decline by age 60, and we're left with very little time to pursue deep knowledge about something that interests us.

One of the things I've noticed, and maybe this has always been true, but we seem to take a small about of knowledge about a new topic and assume it's more than it really is. But if you keep going, keep learning, you often find that the more you know the more you realize you don't know. I have attempted to deeply understand only a couple of topics in my life, and I can say after 15 years, that there is far more that I don't know, and will never know, than I ever expected at 25. However, that may not hold true for elf lore...

 

[TOGIE]

AI is not Excel. in my mind it's it's apples and rocketships.

Everything that's an apple was once a rocket ship.

 

[Steiny77]

Saw several comments eluding to the cost of trade schools. The vast majority of hands on trades can be learned on the job while you are getting paid entry level and up wages, learning as you go. Likely to be some after hours classroom time required on your dime, but that is typically not a huge time commitment. Most employers are starved for skilled trades and if they see a young person that shows interest and initiative they will work something out to cover the majority of any costs.

My nephew is a year and a half in to diesel mechanic trades and the dealership he works for is covering all the costs so long as he agrees to stay around XX number of years. They also give him a tool allowance every month that helps him build up his hand tool needs without as much cost out of pocket.

 

[Bonasababy]

As a glass-half-empty kind of guy, I think there will be very few worthy careers down the college spectrum. I have oversized fears for what AI will do/create to our workforce and society in general. I can see most white-collar jobs being replaced in short order, most of my work included. But the last thing AI is going to be able to do, are the trades. Sure we'll move towards more automation and that automation will likely have some AI component, but there's so much variability, there are so many "answers", that I think it'll be tough to replicate the value humans play. One of my kids is clearly a trades person and the other is an engineer. So the ROI just, is what it is, for the college bound one. As others have said, you just need to check that box, and if you're smart find a spouse while you're there.

There is some value in pointless major's as well, but the value is all for selfish reasons. Once you start down the road of life, and by that I mean married with kids, there is very little time to pursue general knowledge. IMO College is the last or only great space/place/time in your life to pursue real, deep, knowledge simply for the sake of knowing it.

I have a different worry. We have traditionally pivoted as new technology comes along and takes over duties or jobs--BUT that pivot has come with strong support from the government and with strong support of education and re-education.

The current administration is drastically curtailing that support. We should be doing a lot of things that they are cutting out or drastically reducing--so the fear we should have is not what AI will do but what this drastic change in administration will do to our ability to pivot into other careers that need development and support.

We are poised and already starting to fall behind much of the developed world.

 

[SAJ-99]

I would not say it's society as much as politicians, they find it easy to cut spending and claim credit while shoving the cost onto someone else...kids and their parents, local school districts at the state level...it's easy because they can deflect blame and point fingers away from themselves....and voters tend not to correct them.

True. I wish I could separate the two. They just seem the same to me given the voter ultimately drives the clown car. I can also read this thread and get an idea of the lack of understanding in the benefits of higher education to society as a whole.

@JAG, below is good one too, more recent, from Bipartisan Policy Institute. The National Center for Education Statistics has a bunch of stuff if you really want to go down the rabbit hole. I did some work on this late last year and concluded college funding sources are one of the hardest things to disaggregate with Federal, State, individual loans and grants, etc. The Federal funding started with the post WWII GI Bill, then the National Defense Education Act of 1958 (Cold-war drive into STEM), and then Higher Education Act of 1965. Grants covered a much higher % than they do today and schools reported them differently, creating a mess of the data.

Right now we are reaping what was sowed by those programs from the 50's-80's. We still have students coming to the US from across the globe to study at our Universities. As the Federal funds get cut in the name of "waste, fraud, and efficiency", America will be worse off in the long run. Research will shift to other countries. There is no reason to think that the best and brightest won't elect to go to school in another country, like their student comes here today.

To your original point, the ROI is a lot worse now. But the market will correct. Higher Ed enrollment is down 10% over the last 10-15 years. As more go into trades, it will increase competition and lower prices. The ROI might get worse. So we all have to get our kids to "skate to where the puck is going".

 

[Irrelevant]

I'm going to start a poll. Who has the most disproportionate political to hunting-related posts? We have plenty of candidates from both sides.

I have a different worry. We have traditionally pivoted as new technology comes along and takes over duties or jobs--BUT that pivot has come with strong support from the government and with strong support of education and re-education.

The current administration is drastically curtailing that support. We should be doing a lot of things that they are cutting out or drastically reducing--so the fear we should have is not what AI will do but what this drastic change in administration will do to our ability to pivot into other careers that need development and support.

We are poised and already starting to fall behind much of the developed world.

Dude, not everything bad in life is attributed to Trump. Did you use AI to help structure your answer, to verify the validity or accuracy of your post? If not why not? Did Trump force you not to? I did, because it's free and easy and the truth is that the US is the current leader and AI technology, and Trump isn't going to change that.

The five biggest AI companies in terms of their focus, resources, and efforts in AI development are:

1. OpenAI​

• Focus: OpenAI is a leading organization focused on creating artificial general intelligence (AGI) and promoting its safe development. They are behind the GPT series (including the model you're interacting with now) and DALL·E for image generation, as well as other AI research and products.
• Headquarters: San Francisco, California, USA

2. Google DeepMind​

• Focus: DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet (Google's parent company), is one of the top research labs in AI. Their focus is on deep reinforcement learning, neural networks, and achieving breakthroughs like AlphaGo and AlphaFold, which predicted protein structures with immense accuracy.
• Headquarters: London, United Kingdom

3. Microsoft​

• Focus: Microsoft has been a major player in AI through investments in cloud-based AI services, machine learning frameworks (Azure AI), and advancements like the integration of OpenAI's GPT models into Microsoft products such as Microsoft 365 and Azure.
• Headquarters: Redmond, Washington, USA

4. NVIDIA​

• Focus: NVIDIA is primarily known for its powerful GPUs, which are essential for AI training and inference tasks. They are a critical player in AI hardware, especially in deep learning, and provide software frameworks and platforms like CUDA for AI model development.
• Headquarters: Santa Clara, California, USA

5. Amazon (AWS AI)​

• Focus: Amazon, through its cloud computing division (AWS), has a strong focus on AI and machine learning, with products like AWS SageMaker for building, training, and deploying models. They also focus on AI-powered services across their e-commerce platform, Alexa, and robotics.
• Headquarters: Seattle, Washington, USA

These companies are all at the forefront of AI development, both in terms of research and practical applications. They are working on various aspects of AI, including deep learning, reinforcement learning, and natural language processing, among others.

 

[Bonasababy]

Lots of interesting graphs here showing trends in funding for colleges:
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/resear...in-federal-and-state-higher-education-funding

Figure 10 is interesting since it shows a lower variance in 'net tuition and fee' amount than the variances of state and private support. Federal budgets vary some but not as much.

I forget when Norquist and Gingrich started their movement we are still paying for, but would be interesting to correlate that with drops in government support for education at both the federal and state levels. I think to get the best picture you have to go back further than those charts do.

The change since I went to college and grad school in the 70s and 80s is incredible. Been too long to remember exactly, but I think I left my undergrad school--went 5 years as I was holding out for an opening in my field and grad school of choice too--owing less than a thousand bucks. I worked on campus and had a sizable Pell Grant. Worked for the family business in the summer

Part of that is due to changes in FAFSA and aid eligibility requirements too. Again a kid used to be able to declare themselve independent from their parents and thus show FAR fewer resources to fund their education--which in turn greatly increased their aid. Today as I said previously even if your parents won't help with one dime they are expected to fund your education with rules that are not realistic.

For example I was co-owner of some farmland with my siblings. I could not sell that land or even my interest in it unless they all agreed to as well--but the FAFSA process considered the sale value of that land as something we could use to fund our education. NO appeal of that at the public schools available at all--and we tried hard. We did have a successful appeal for the one kid that went to a private school on that issue, and it raised her aid award enough to make it a lot cheaper to attend that private school despite the overall cost being lower at state schools.

 

[JAG]

I'm going to start a poll. Who has the most disproportionate political to hunting-related posts? We have plenty of candidates from both sides.

That poll would have tricky parameters to define.

This has everything to do with hunting ()- the smarter ones - us and animals) improve their odds for getting the best opportunities, best food, best breeding opportunity, happiest wives, best sanctuary, best budgets to afford access to the best hunts, best time management, survive the winters better, and spend most efficiently on education so they can keep hunting with their kids.

 

[JAG]

I think in the metaphysical sense humankind will ultimately reject the AI takeover depending on how it goes. Maybe by reversal only, who knows. But I think we will reject it.

….
Or, our ultimate end will be Wall-E or The Matrix. Luckily I'll be dead, I think.

I think it’s already too late to reject it.

The gains, achievements, financial rewards, and overall attractiveness of AI in the present era far outweigh the ability for human race to scale back and restrain it. Everyone’s intentions for propagating their AI models are ‘good’ according to them, but will be questionably adverse to many others.

While too late to reject it, we are still in the early stages.

I need to rewatch the Matrix; in such a short time, the movie gives so many telling philosophical parallels and cues that spark myriad trails to chase about human nature, technology, power/politics, and theology.

I basically feel like a black belt of elf lore and their carnal habits. Would've had to pay a lot for that at the University of Montana.

What would be the ROI on something like that? (Just kidding)

To elaborate on your remark, I choose to respect people who earn a major in something they love to do and know it will likely yield little return on paper- even though it at first strikes me as a poor stewardship decision. They improve their chances of being happy regardless of the size of their paycheck instead of miserable with a large paycheck.

Additionally, I appreciate this age’s ability to access so much information quickly. I get along well with people who continue to learn, accept correction, and challenge their brain. One benefit is they often root out bad assumptions they didn’t know they had.

It is nice to be able to learn how to repair small machines, to hunt, about woodworking, finance, taxes, product research, theology, vast entertainment choices; almost all for free, at your fingertips, and without having to pay for a degree.

 

[TOGIE]

While too late to reject it, we are still in the early stages.

I need to rewatch the Matrix; in such a short time, the movie gives so many telling philosophical parallels and cues that spark myriad trails to chase about human nature, technology, power/politics, and theology.

I'm sure you at least remember the whole overarching plot is mankind's resistance (rejection) to the AI overlords

Then of course there is the movie's secondary antagonist who, when we are younger, hate to the core as the traitor and villain that he is. But, as we grow older, I think many begin to sympathize with him to some degree.

Myriad trails indeed.

 

[BrentD]

Y'all should check out "Player Piano" by Kurt Vonnegut from your local library.

As for college education expenses, the huge rise in tuition and fees is due almost entirely, to defunding by the state governments. They gleefully chop away every year, often reducing support in terms of numeric dollars uncorrected for inflation. They pretty much never give increases even close to inflation rates. Those kinds of cuts are brutal. They are coupled with targeted funding that takes funds away from other programs because the targets are not supported with additional funds.

 

[JAG]

I'm sure you at least remember the whole overarching plot is mankind's resistance (rejection) to the AI overlords

Then of course there is the movie's secondary antagonist who, when we are younger, hate to the core as the traitor and villain that he is. But, as we grow older, I think many begin to sympathize with him to some degree.

Myriad trails indeed.

View attachment 366401

What about the oligarch who survived the political clashes and became known as the Architect?
....
EDIT:
Whoops, no, the Architect (as you probably knew) was an actual program created by the Machines and created the Matrix - not an oligarch.

I started following the white rabbit, but stopped and avoided making another post by editing this one. Like Cypher, I like my status quo and don't want to get dinged or banned by Agent Smith or any of his Sentinels or Moderators.

 

[Fire_9]

As for college education expenses, the huge rise in tuition and fees is due almost entirely, to defunding by the state governments.

I often assumed it was because they knew kids would be able to get the money for tuition and couldn't default on it.

 

[SAJ-99]

This is a good explanation on the last 20 years. The further you go back the harder it is.

https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/college-costs/

 

[BrentD]

I often assumed it was because they knew kids would be able to get the money for tuition and couldn't default on it.

Nope.. Absolutely not.

 

[JAG]

This is a good explanation on the last 20 years. The further you go back the harder it is.

https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/college-costs/

Very good read. Thank you