A lot of this is driven by narratives—A narrative that college isn’t worth it anymore. A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more.
I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. They need to feel like they’re part of society. Nothing good can come of an entire generation that feels lost, without purpose, and unwanted.
I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something.
This. We are seeing the results of what was reported in the book Boys Adrift.
My older son just graduated high school. He has no interest in college at the moment, and has shown a gift for working with his hands. He is currently doing a carpentry apprenticeship with an acquaintance that runs a renovation and design company. He loves the work, loves the people he works with[0], and comes home and wants to build more stuff. He's making pretty decent money as an 18 year old, and is part of something that very much embodied.
[0] His crew is run by Swedish woman who was trained as a metal worker, so it isn't just a bunch of dudes, which is also great.
> A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them.
This is very perspective dependent. I’m a black college student now and every conversation with friends back home includes some mention of dropping out because it’s not for us as well. When you see people with equivalent resumes already coasting by in the job market because they could get their last names and LinkedIn photos past the screening and into an interview it’s hard to believe that’ll change post-graduation. And most of us are already in planning on entrepreneurship because we know we’re not what companies are looking for even with fancy CS degrees. It’s like if I’ll have to sell sneakers to make ends meet after college anyways I might as well drop out and use that money bootstrapping this inventory SaaS. Innovation out of desperation, I guess.
It’s no way to live. But I think we’re approaching an inflection point.
I had enough EE in college to change a light switch without burning the house down.
However, that book-learnin' fell apart when confronted with troubleshooting a strangely wired room, and I got very polite while asking him over to bail me out.
These fellows eschewing the ivory tower, where being of European extraction and bearing a Y-chromosome on the college campus is an indictment, are going to trade schools and will make fat piles of cash repairing plumbing.
Hopefully, they are gracious with all the Grievance Studies majors who are standing by to condescend in their direction.
I think that's exactly how racism works right? You segregate people by how they look like and you make them believe that because how they look like and their origins they are less important then the others. Kind of funny how we humans think: "let's correct a mistake repeating it over and over again".
"Narrative" makes it sound like there's nothing behind. The extreme cost of college - and living in general, rents/home ownership, etc - and the decreasing edge it gives to owners of degrees isn't a fabrication by any stretch.
It's easier to think people are being misled than to think people are taking different decisions because their reality is actually different.
Is it a "narrative" that college isn't it worth it anymore or is that largely based in fact in the US? Especially when it comes to specific degrees that don't have a demand in the workplace. The cost of higher education in the US has financially crippled millions. And trade jobs pay well for far less education costs. Doing a cost / benefit analysis would seem the wisest choice.
The bigger problem to me is that with such a high cost for university education, our future electricians won't have one. Whereas in Europe they very possibly might. I know which society I prefer to live in and it's not the one where people are less educated.
What narrative about uniform privilege? Can you give some sources?
I've also never heard privilege explained as making life "just easy". I've heard just for example that life can still be hard but your skin color is not one of the things making your life hard.
I'd be interested in reading these narratives that are so different from the narratives I've read about privilege.
Being a white male, anecdotally there is more peer and cultural pressure to care about sports, cars, tv, eating tons of meat, and drinking then there is to succeed at school. And for a few decades now a major political party has been bolstering anti-science and anti college messages.
It is unsurprising less men are finishing college in the face of that culture.
While there’s going to be many causes, the aforementioned seem more important than a message of privilege.
Is it entirely false though? What benefit does a college degree in sociology does to a person (and even broader society) when the person will likely be in over 100k+ debt?
No way. Being white is definitely a leg up. Well, at least for me, a white guy, no college degree. Life is much easier. I don't think there is any support missing for us, that actually sounds hilarious. We need to work on lifting others up.
I am definitely glad to be gay. I think it allows me to see things from outside the bubble of "get a wife, be a defender, raise your children, stay strong and never cry, man up and if you can't provide, you're useless, you can't cry because men don't cry." that heterosexuality seems to favour (both men and women perpetuate this).
Men who fail to provide or "fit in" to their "role" in society become depressed, and then they kill themselves. :/
I would like to bring up a point often missed with blue collar housing work (plumber, electrician, dry wall, etc). It is EASY to start your own thing. Once you are licensed and bonded you can quickly buy your own truck, hire an apprentice, setup yelp, setup an online receptionist and be overbooked. Right now plumbers are hard to get and electricians are months out. The plumbers I work with cannot keep up with the work and make over $80 per hour (no where florida). If "Bobs orlando plumbing" runs out of work, they just park the truck. There is NO overhead.
If you contrast to an attorney or doctor -- those firms/practices are extremely challenging to start and operate on your own. The salaries of your employees are high at best, marketing is extremely expensive, and insurance can wipe out a firm/practice.
They need options. I feel our current school system isn't set up for young men at all. A lot would prefer hands on work as opposed to classroom learning. Promotion of trades schools as alternatives that aren't "lesser" would help a lot.
...an entire generation that feels lost, without purpose, and unwanted. I'd argue that it is largely up to the parents to instill a feeling of worth and help kids/young adults find intrinsic motivation, not the educational system.
I wonder how woman feel reading such comments. Men dominated better paying jobs and positions of power since forever. It took 50+ years between equal rights before the law to equal opportunities in the labour market and education.
Men still have every opportunity a woman has. In addition, they are still recognized more for leading positions. They also dominate about every trade related job.
Yet, they are 'left without a purpose', when all they need it to do is do whatever they want.
Before any of that, I’d blame the disappearance of the sense of service. One’s general mindset should be on what one can contribute, and the rest will follow.
It's more accurate to say that Universities and Colleges are extinct so the story should be what is taking its place and what are the consequences...
Its just like the Ed loan program..
Many don't realize its a teaching goal tool, those that get that they need to form a business around their brand to pay off the loan win and those that do not lose and society loses.
We should not bet on society losing this time around such as the elites did in the US!
> A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them.
I doubt this has anything to do with it. What is the argument here? They hear this and believe it so they don't think they need school?
I grew up in a white, working class community, and in my experience nobody paid attention to liberals on Twitter calling them privelaged. Certainly not enough to decide not to go to college over it.
> A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more.
As a brown person I think the former is definitely still true. The latter is definitely not true, at least looking at the average white man's number of tinder matches compared to mine.
“Young men get little help, in part, because schools are focused on encouraging historically underrepresented students. Jerlando Jackson, department chair, Education Leadership and Policy Analysis, at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Education, said few campuses have been willing to spend limited funds on male underachievement that would also benefit white men, risking criticism for assisting those who have historically held the biggest educational advantages.”
So this is a direct result of the move away from color blind policies, to race based policies.
> Keith E. Smith, a mental-health counselor and men’s outreach coordinator at the University of Vermont, said that when he started working at the school in 2006 he found that men were much more likely to face consequences for the trouble they caused under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
This is exactly what black students report as racism in school.
Seems like evidence that race based policies are just racist.
> In 2008, Mr. Smith proposed a men’s center to help male students succeed. The proposal drew criticism from women who asked, “Why would you give more resources to the most privileged group on campus,” he said.
Funding wasn’t appropriated, he said, and the center was never built.
Obviously white men are not in fact privileged on university campuses.
“Female students in the U.S. benefit from a support system established decades ago, spanning a period when women struggled to gain a foothold on college campuses. There are more than 500 women’s centers at schools nationwide. Most centers host clubs and organizations that work to help female students succeed.”
Men are failing because it is the policy not to support them.
>assisting those who have historically held the biggest educational advantages
History is just that: history. A white male going to uni _right now_ hasn't really enjoyed those historical advantages; they were before their time.
Yes there are other advantages in the modern world to being a white male, but there are also equivalent disadvantages, too. Easier to get power...but if you're male nobody is there to defend you or help you. Help yourself, defend yourself _and_ others, be the breadwinner (otherwise you're useless) "man up".
> Men are failing because it is the policy not to support them.
And because men need the support. I suspect that a lot fewer men needed support in, say, 1950.
Why do more men need support than did in 1950? I think the first reason may be because of education. Our education system is failing in a way that it wasn't in 1950. (This may be too harsh. If, say, 10% of high school graduates went to college in 1950, and 50% do now, then that means that the top 10% then were more prepared for college than the top 50% are now. But apples-to-apples would be to ask whether the top 10% then were better prepared than the top 10% are now. I don't have a good feel for the answer to that question.)
I hear you, this is alarming. No support! We deserve it, right? Being a young white male is probably the hardest thing to be in the world. Getting profiled... by twitter. And then, not to mention, all the dirty looks we get when we lock our doors, protect our families from this new wave of white hate. I proclaim we change this, but it won't be easy. We'll need to wear some hoods... ... Or just stop being a sad boi, join society and have some fun? Don't be a jerk? Like actively try to make others lives better? Might just get, actually it will, get better for you.
I also wonder about those in Silicon Valley telling young men "don't go to college" and the mostly male fascination with entrepreneurship and crytocurrency. The entire meme stock and "apes together are strong" seems like a young male flex. Could it be that college is just seen as "gay"?
Are Academics Disproportionately Gay?
A new analysis suggests that's the case, and that academic work -- at once solitary and social in nature -- makes it particularly attractive to those who are not straight.
1. White-Males had the lowest college-enrollment-rates across all categories. They got the lowest in the two lowest income-brackets; basically a three-way tie in the next income-bracket; and just a little higher than Hispanic-Males in the highest income-bracket.
2. Asians had the highest enrollment-rates across all income-brackets.
3. Asians were relatively constant in their enrollment-rates, regardless of income or gender, always above 70%. (Always above ~83%, if excluding the lowest income-bracket.) The gender-gap still leaned toward Asian-Females over Asian-Males, but not by much.
4. Blacks varied heavily by income. Blacks had pretty low enrollment-rates in the lowest income-bracket, but got some of the highest enrollment-rates in the higher income-brackets (after Asians).
5. Black-Females had an odd pattern-deviation: like Black-Males, their enrollment-rates increased dramatically with family-income, getting the highest non-Asian enrollment-rate by the second-highest income-bracket. But then, oddly, their enrollment-rate fell by ~8% from the second-highest to the highest income-bracket.
6. Hispanics were pretty consistent with Whites, especially for Males. For Females, Whites had higher rates in the lowest income-bracket, while Hispanics had somewhat higher rates in all other income-brackets.
7. Ignoring race, enrollment-rates increased significantly with family-income.
8. Ignoring race, enrollment-rates were much higher for Females than Males across all income-brackets.
>Once barriers to female careers were lowered and their access to higher education was expanded, two key factors may have played a role in the female college advantage: relatively greater economic benefits of
college for females and relatively higher effort costs of college going and prepara-
tion for males. (girls exceeded boys in secondary school performance
and attainment)
Great news, the concept that you need college to succeed was one of the greatest lies told to my generation. Pleased the next generation is waking up.
End of the day if the loan can't be written off, if the loan is just handed out to 18 year olds and has almost no limit then the organization that asks for the loan will inevitably balloon out of all proportion and no longer be reflective at all of the value you get back for almost all cases.
I say that as someone who managed to actually pay off their student loan, dread to think how people who are late 30s, still renting and still with 5 figures of college debt feel.
Hope this trend continues, why throw away the down payment of a mortgage to an institution that has spent the past decade telling you they don't want you. If in 10 years I'm seeing headlines about colleges unable to stay open from low admissions I'll be smiling.
COVID has accelerated this big time. Why spend $5,000 a semester to watch a Zoom lecture from an average professor when you can open YouTube in a new tab and see a world-class professor share the same information for free? It makes no rational sense.
The moment that a serious, legitimate credential system appears, every average university will disappear overnight. We'll be left with an oligarch class that attends the top ±30 universities and everyone else getting a AmaGoogBook certificate of completion.
I can understand this. I think my parents never questioned the usefulness of a formal education. But I am starting to.
My brother tried several different educational paths, pushed by my parents. In the end he got a sort of burnout. After years now he is picking up some work, mainly helping elderly still living alone on any tasks (from computer related to doing groceries). He seems happy, finally.
My other brother hated all his schools, got bullied a lot, he specialized in agriculture in the end. Now he's a truck driver (with one of those super big ones), he likes it. He can still give nice advice on what to plant in my garden, so there's that.
I see that my son is also really interested in many things, but school is not so much "his thing". Sitting still, listening, it's not making him happy. If he has any aspiration of building a life without formal schooling I'd support it. There is so much to learn online. He can be an entrepreneur and we can help him get there. In fact, I'd enjoy it.
Who knows with the insane cost of education, this generation of men may end up self-taught, happy and (in the US important) debt free. Maybe we should worry about the people missing out on this opportunity?
What these men don't understand, and nobody is telling them directly, is that college is how you essesntially conspire to manage (extract value from) the people who didn't go. College education is a tribe initiation, and you are in or you aren't. The pretenses and pretexts of subject matter and socializing are secondary to this one big thing.
Everyone who graduates knows this, and this is the quiet part most won't even say out loud to themselves, and so we hear it's for other reasons like knowledge, relationships, and the experience. We will deny it and even gaslight people over it, because it's our source of social power, but for young men who need the concept framed concretely, this is the real choice.
What these young men need to be told is: the way the world really works is, there are people who graduated, and people who didn't. The latter almost exclusively work for the former, and the former find each other so that they can assign them to manage the latter on their behalf. Further, the former work together to ensure that they do not work for the latter, or have any accountability to them. As an individual non-graduate, you will always be working against a literal conspiracy against you. The exceptions who appear to "break through" and succeed, mainly exist and have their stories promoted to preserve the invisibility of the ceiling and keep you running on hope.
Sure, you can make "six figures" (the stupidest euphemism for 100k that is the very bottom end salary of membership in the current elite) in a trades job, but what you will not have is opportunity. Salary means nothing if it is not supported by opportunity, autonomy, leverage into assets, and transferrable social status to your kids.
The result is predictable, where they're having their countries, political levers, cultures and opportunities taken from them because they didn't realize they needed defending.
If you have decided not to graduate, welcome to the underclass. They'll tell you that you do it to yourself, and you'll probably never understand.
I figured that this was more of less rational.
In Australia, men have more options for decent traditional jobs without a degree. Construction, Manufacture, Mining, Agriculture, fisheries, warehousing, transport, utilities are all male dominated sectors, mostly not requiring a degree.
Retail, food and accommodation services only just skew female.
The big area where women are employed in much greater numbers than men is nursing/social work and teaching. All of which are increasingly becoming bachelor degrees. Historically these didn't require a bachelor's degree, just one year diploma or a two year or certificate. There is a trend for these work forces to become more qualified, take more responsibility and get paid more.
Industry stats:
https://lmip.gov.au/default.aspx?LMIP/LFR_SAFOUR/LFR_Industr...
Getting into debt to get a piece of paper that only lets you begin to enter the job market after gathering enough credentials by either working for free or talking to others and hopefully trying your luck even though there are 100s for a single internship... College is a scam unless you're paying close attention and don't get into debt in the first place.
Those who manage to jump through all of the hoops don't realize that there is a secondary scam waiting for them: working for a wage without significant stock options while someone makes millions sitting around doing nothing off of their effort. We've had movies made about this for many years and still it's so strange how it's not acknowledged.
Also: who is friend or foe? The lines have blurred significantly, which is a driving force in WANTING to change things in the first place. There's even loss of solidarity between family members, next generations.
There's no incentive to try. If I were the same age as these young men, I wouldn't bother either.
Stock options and other scalable forms of compensation are a huge deal for our organization now.
The funny thing is we also don't give a shit about credentials anymore. We just want work ethic followed loosely by experience.
Willingness to endure difficult things and learn is all we are really going for in a new hire these days.
What is amazing to me is all of the business leaders who still insist on upholding these arbitrary gatekeepers. You are leaving a ton of talent on the table.
I think the answer for many is to focus harder on the business value equation and to just let the people be free. Running a business like a power fantasy is not going to get you there. The more you try to control people the harder it will be to make money with them in the long term.
I agree on some of the points about support structures for women that don't exist for men. I've seen it occur even at the professional level, female co-workers are reached out to, invited to groups, given networking opportunities that I would have to put loads of effort to keep up with. It's biased treatment in the now, even if it's trying to offset the errors of the past.
The thing that struck me right off the bat was that the lead photo of this story is of 18-year-old with a PS5 and pretty sweet setup in his bedroom. I don't have anything deep to add to this, but if you can sit at home in your childhood bedroom indefinitely playing video games and working menial jobs, maybe the allure is there.
One thing is kind of obvious is that male-concentrated majors (hard sciences) in colleges are much much harder than female-concentrated majors (humanities, social sciences), see: https://twitter.com/whyvert/status/1434944460526342147
Boilerplate job/career options for young men thinking about attending vs not attending college...
1) Enlist in the military. pay is sub-par, but your living expenses are well taken care of. picking a job that has a civilian equivalent is clutch here.. eg combat medic, electrician, plumber, various IT-related fields.
2) Skilled trades - eg plumber, electrician, HVAC-related. These pay from 50k to 150k depending on what type of work you do. The "high end" for example being a new-construction electrician, working for themselves, making $75/hr with overtime. All these fields have high job security - plumbing, electricity, and HVAC are not a 'fad', and are likely to increase in demand over time.
3) Own a "low tech" business, the sort you might already work for if you are a teenager. Eg...landscaping. You can make $15/hr running a weed eater, or with a small investment and some people skills - you can pay other people $15/hr to run a weed eater, and you run the business. This is more difficult than it seems on the surface (management and people skills), but it is not something you need a college education to succeed at.
4) Specialty/niche fields...these are more difficult to break into if you don't know someone already. Some examples are mosquito spraying(for a city), [water] well digging, or roadside assistance for a larger contract(like cell phone roadside assistance, AAA, or dealer contracts). These are easier to break into if you already know someone who owns that type of business, who will show you the ropes so you know what you are getting into.
This isn't an exhaustive list by any means, but hopefully someone finds it stimulating enough to come up with some ideas about work options that do not involve a mountain of student debt.
To people recommending trades, there's nothing wrong with trades, but you can get more out of college than only a job. You can actually learn things that you wouldn't have learned otherwise. The environment also naturally stimulates and values learning, gathering knowledge and understanding. You can learn how to become a better person and think more critically.
Seeing how many misinformation is going around and the people swallowing it, this seems more important than ever before.
“Over the course of their working lives, American college graduates earn more than a million dollars beyond those with only a high-school diploma, and a university diploma is required for many jobs as well as most professions, technical work and positions of influence.”
From the article.
There are folks getting useless degrees and/or taking on too much debt, but getting a college degree on the whole is worthwhile.
Far too many variables to draw any clear conclusions, in my opinion. Have there been any of these studies that show the effect holding constant when controlling for high school GPA, SAT/ACT, and IQ?
I went to pick up a book at the circulation desk at my uni close to the first day of classes and of the people in front of me and in back of me there were 9 girls and 0 boys in line.
If the class were gender-balanced the odds of that would be 1/512; I have no idea what it means ("girls are much more interested in using the library?") but I think it's significant.
[+] [-] neonate|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baron816|4 years ago|reply
I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. They need to feel like they’re part of society. Nothing good can come of an entire generation that feels lost, without purpose, and unwanted.
[+] [-] bmj|4 years ago|reply
This. We are seeing the results of what was reported in the book Boys Adrift.
My older son just graduated high school. He has no interest in college at the moment, and has shown a gift for working with his hands. He is currently doing a carpentry apprenticeship with an acquaintance that runs a renovation and design company. He loves the work, loves the people he works with[0], and comes home and wants to build more stuff. He's making pretty decent money as an 18 year old, and is part of something that very much embodied.
[0] His crew is run by Swedish woman who was trained as a metal worker, so it isn't just a bunch of dudes, which is also great.
[+] [-] throwtheworld|4 years ago|reply
This is very perspective dependent. I’m a black college student now and every conversation with friends back home includes some mention of dropping out because it’s not for us as well. When you see people with equivalent resumes already coasting by in the job market because they could get their last names and LinkedIn photos past the screening and into an interview it’s hard to believe that’ll change post-graduation. And most of us are already in planning on entrepreneurship because we know we’re not what companies are looking for even with fancy CS degrees. It’s like if I’ll have to sell sneakers to make ends meet after college anyways I might as well drop out and use that money bootstrapping this inventory SaaS. Innovation out of desperation, I guess.
It’s no way to live. But I think we’re approaching an inflection point.
[+] [-] smitty1e|4 years ago|reply
I had enough EE in college to change a light switch without burning the house down.
However, that book-learnin' fell apart when confronted with troubleshooting a strangely wired room, and I got very polite while asking him over to bail me out.
These fellows eschewing the ivory tower, where being of European extraction and bearing a Y-chromosome on the college campus is an indictment, are going to trade schools and will make fat piles of cash repairing plumbing.
Hopefully, they are gracious with all the Grievance Studies majors who are standing by to condescend in their direction.
[+] [-] pelasaco|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kace91|4 years ago|reply
It's easier to think people are being misled than to think people are taking different decisions because their reality is actually different.
[+] [-] tchaffee|4 years ago|reply
The bigger problem to me is that with such a high cost for university education, our future electricians won't have one. Whereas in Europe they very possibly might. I know which society I prefer to live in and it's not the one where people are less educated.
What narrative about uniform privilege? Can you give some sources?
I've also never heard privilege explained as making life "just easy". I've heard just for example that life can still be hard but your skin color is not one of the things making your life hard.
I'd be interested in reading these narratives that are so different from the narratives I've read about privilege.
[+] [-] mint2|4 years ago|reply
It is unsurprising less men are finishing college in the face of that culture.
While there’s going to be many causes, the aforementioned seem more important than a message of privilege.
[+] [-] mercy_dude|4 years ago|reply
Is it entirely false though? What benefit does a college degree in sociology does to a person (and even broader society) when the person will likely be in over 100k+ debt?
[+] [-] happythen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fennecfoxy|4 years ago|reply
Men who fail to provide or "fit in" to their "role" in society become depressed, and then they kill themselves. :/
[+] [-] ransom1538|4 years ago|reply
If you contrast to an attorney or doctor -- those firms/practices are extremely challenging to start and operate on your own. The salaries of your employees are high at best, marketing is extremely expensive, and insurance can wipe out a firm/practice.
[+] [-] CountDrewku|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teekert|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gumby|4 years ago|reply
You give three examples but only tie the last to the admissions issue. Could you expand on the others and how they might be relevant to this issue?
[+] [-] zapnuk|4 years ago|reply
Men still have every opportunity a woman has. In addition, they are still recognized more for leading positions. They also dominate about every trade related job.
Yet, they are 'left without a purpose', when all they need it to do is do whatever they want.
[+] [-] aklemm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fredgrott|4 years ago|reply
Its just like the Ed loan program..
Many don't realize its a teaching goal tool, those that get that they need to form a business around their brand to pay off the loan win and those that do not lose and society loses.
We should not bet on society losing this time around such as the elites did in the US!
[+] [-] Miner49er|4 years ago|reply
I doubt this has anything to do with it. What is the argument here? They hear this and believe it so they don't think they need school?
I grew up in a white, working class community, and in my experience nobody paid attention to liberals on Twitter calling them privelaged. Certainly not enough to decide not to go to college over it.
[+] [-] rejectedandsad|4 years ago|reply
As a brown person I think the former is definitely still true. The latter is definitely not true, at least looking at the average white man's number of tinder matches compared to mine.
[+] [-] LightG|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] zepto|4 years ago|reply
So this is a direct result of the move away from color blind policies, to race based policies.
> Keith E. Smith, a mental-health counselor and men’s outreach coordinator at the University of Vermont, said that when he started working at the school in 2006 he found that men were much more likely to face consequences for the trouble they caused under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
This is exactly what black students report as racism in school.
Seems like evidence that race based policies are just racist.
> In 2008, Mr. Smith proposed a men’s center to help male students succeed. The proposal drew criticism from women who asked, “Why would you give more resources to the most privileged group on campus,” he said. Funding wasn’t appropriated, he said, and the center was never built.
Obviously white men are not in fact privileged on university campuses.
“Female students in the U.S. benefit from a support system established decades ago, spanning a period when women struggled to gain a foothold on college campuses. There are more than 500 women’s centers at schools nationwide. Most centers host clubs and organizations that work to help female students succeed.”
Men are failing because it is the policy not to support them.
[+] [-] fennecfoxy|4 years ago|reply
History is just that: history. A white male going to uni _right now_ hasn't really enjoyed those historical advantages; they were before their time.
Yes there are other advantages in the modern world to being a white male, but there are also equivalent disadvantages, too. Easier to get power...but if you're male nobody is there to defend you or help you. Help yourself, defend yourself _and_ others, be the breadwinner (otherwise you're useless) "man up".
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|4 years ago|reply
And because men need the support. I suspect that a lot fewer men needed support in, say, 1950.
Why do more men need support than did in 1950? I think the first reason may be because of education. Our education system is failing in a way that it wasn't in 1950. (This may be too harsh. If, say, 10% of high school graduates went to college in 1950, and 50% do now, then that means that the top 10% then were more prepared for college than the top 50% are now. But apples-to-apples would be to ask whether the top 10% then were better prepared than the top 10% are now. I don't have a good feel for the answer to that question.)
[+] [-] chakkepolja|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] teawrecks|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] happythen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wasmburger|4 years ago|reply
Are Academics Disproportionately Gay? A new analysis suggests that's the case, and that academic work -- at once solitary and social in nature -- makes it particularly attractive to those who are not straight.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/26/study-suggest...
[+] [-] _Nat_|4 years ago|reply
Observations (based on the figure alone):
1. White-Males had the lowest college-enrollment-rates across all categories. They got the lowest in the two lowest income-brackets; basically a three-way tie in the next income-bracket; and just a little higher than Hispanic-Males in the highest income-bracket.
2. Asians had the highest enrollment-rates across all income-brackets.
3. Asians were relatively constant in their enrollment-rates, regardless of income or gender, always above 70%. (Always above ~83%, if excluding the lowest income-bracket.) The gender-gap still leaned toward Asian-Females over Asian-Males, but not by much.
4. Blacks varied heavily by income. Blacks had pretty low enrollment-rates in the lowest income-bracket, but got some of the highest enrollment-rates in the higher income-brackets (after Asians).
5. Black-Females had an odd pattern-deviation: like Black-Males, their enrollment-rates increased dramatically with family-income, getting the highest non-Asian enrollment-rate by the second-highest income-bracket. But then, oddly, their enrollment-rate fell by ~8% from the second-highest to the highest income-bracket.
6. Hispanics were pretty consistent with Whites, especially for Males. For Females, Whites had higher rates in the lowest income-bracket, while Hispanics had somewhat higher rates in all other income-brackets.
7. Ignoring race, enrollment-rates increased significantly with family-income.
8. Ignoring race, enrollment-rates were much higher for Females than Males across all income-brackets.
[+] [-] nabla9|4 years ago|reply
https://scholar.harvard.edu/goldin/publications/homecoming-a...
>Once barriers to female careers were lowered and their access to higher education was expanded, two key factors may have played a role in the female college advantage: relatively greater economic benefits of college for females and relatively higher effort costs of college going and prepara- tion for males. (girls exceeded boys in secondary school performance and attainment)
[+] [-] whywhywhywhy|4 years ago|reply
End of the day if the loan can't be written off, if the loan is just handed out to 18 year olds and has almost no limit then the organization that asks for the loan will inevitably balloon out of all proportion and no longer be reflective at all of the value you get back for almost all cases.
I say that as someone who managed to actually pay off their student loan, dread to think how people who are late 30s, still renting and still with 5 figures of college debt feel.
Hope this trend continues, why throw away the down payment of a mortgage to an institution that has spent the past decade telling you they don't want you. If in 10 years I'm seeing headlines about colleges unable to stay open from low admissions I'll be smiling.
[+] [-] ceilingcorner|4 years ago|reply
The moment that a serious, legitimate credential system appears, every average university will disappear overnight. We'll be left with an oligarch class that attends the top ±30 universities and everyone else getting a AmaGoogBook certificate of completion.
[+] [-] teekert|4 years ago|reply
My brother tried several different educational paths, pushed by my parents. In the end he got a sort of burnout. After years now he is picking up some work, mainly helping elderly still living alone on any tasks (from computer related to doing groceries). He seems happy, finally.
My other brother hated all his schools, got bullied a lot, he specialized in agriculture in the end. Now he's a truck driver (with one of those super big ones), he likes it. He can still give nice advice on what to plant in my garden, so there's that.
I see that my son is also really interested in many things, but school is not so much "his thing". Sitting still, listening, it's not making him happy. If he has any aspiration of building a life without formal schooling I'd support it. There is so much to learn online. He can be an entrepreneur and we can help him get there. In fact, I'd enjoy it.
Who knows with the insane cost of education, this generation of men may end up self-taught, happy and (in the US important) debt free. Maybe we should worry about the people missing out on this opportunity?
[+] [-] motohagiography|4 years ago|reply
Everyone who graduates knows this, and this is the quiet part most won't even say out loud to themselves, and so we hear it's for other reasons like knowledge, relationships, and the experience. We will deny it and even gaslight people over it, because it's our source of social power, but for young men who need the concept framed concretely, this is the real choice.
What these young men need to be told is: the way the world really works is, there are people who graduated, and people who didn't. The latter almost exclusively work for the former, and the former find each other so that they can assign them to manage the latter on their behalf. Further, the former work together to ensure that they do not work for the latter, or have any accountability to them. As an individual non-graduate, you will always be working against a literal conspiracy against you. The exceptions who appear to "break through" and succeed, mainly exist and have their stories promoted to preserve the invisibility of the ceiling and keep you running on hope.
Sure, you can make "six figures" (the stupidest euphemism for 100k that is the very bottom end salary of membership in the current elite) in a trades job, but what you will not have is opportunity. Salary means nothing if it is not supported by opportunity, autonomy, leverage into assets, and transferrable social status to your kids.
The result is predictable, where they're having their countries, political levers, cultures and opportunities taken from them because they didn't realize they needed defending.
If you have decided not to graduate, welcome to the underclass. They'll tell you that you do it to yourself, and you'll probably never understand.
[+] [-] alexitorg|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frankbreetz|4 years ago|reply
5000 people applied for a single position and 15 of them were women. This was for a high paying tech job.
[+] [-] throwinthsaway|4 years ago|reply
Those who manage to jump through all of the hoops don't realize that there is a secondary scam waiting for them: working for a wage without significant stock options while someone makes millions sitting around doing nothing off of their effort. We've had movies made about this for many years and still it's so strange how it's not acknowledged.
Also: who is friend or foe? The lines have blurred significantly, which is a driving force in WANTING to change things in the first place. There's even loss of solidarity between family members, next generations.
There's no incentive to try. If I were the same age as these young men, I wouldn't bother either.
[+] [-] bob1029|4 years ago|reply
The funny thing is we also don't give a shit about credentials anymore. We just want work ethic followed loosely by experience.
Willingness to endure difficult things and learn is all we are really going for in a new hire these days.
What is amazing to me is all of the business leaders who still insist on upholding these arbitrary gatekeepers. You are leaving a ton of talent on the table.
I think the answer for many is to focus harder on the business value equation and to just let the people be free. Running a business like a power fantasy is not going to get you there. The more you try to control people the harder it will be to make money with them in the long term.
[+] [-] usename_Here|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pwthornton|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] temp8964|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Arete314159|4 years ago|reply
Zillow has a number of houses for sale in Toledo for under $40k. Like, they need some work, but a real house, under 40k.
I think that guy is doing fine, he should just keep doing exactly what he's doing.
[+] [-] clipradiowallet|4 years ago|reply
1) Enlist in the military. pay is sub-par, but your living expenses are well taken care of. picking a job that has a civilian equivalent is clutch here.. eg combat medic, electrician, plumber, various IT-related fields.
2) Skilled trades - eg plumber, electrician, HVAC-related. These pay from 50k to 150k depending on what type of work you do. The "high end" for example being a new-construction electrician, working for themselves, making $75/hr with overtime. All these fields have high job security - plumbing, electricity, and HVAC are not a 'fad', and are likely to increase in demand over time.
3) Own a "low tech" business, the sort you might already work for if you are a teenager. Eg...landscaping. You can make $15/hr running a weed eater, or with a small investment and some people skills - you can pay other people $15/hr to run a weed eater, and you run the business. This is more difficult than it seems on the surface (management and people skills), but it is not something you need a college education to succeed at.
4) Specialty/niche fields...these are more difficult to break into if you don't know someone already. Some examples are mosquito spraying(for a city), [water] well digging, or roadside assistance for a larger contract(like cell phone roadside assistance, AAA, or dealer contracts). These are easier to break into if you already know someone who owns that type of business, who will show you the ropes so you know what you are getting into.
This isn't an exhaustive list by any means, but hopefully someone finds it stimulating enough to come up with some ideas about work options that do not involve a mountain of student debt.
[+] [-] Simon321|4 years ago|reply
Seeing how many misinformation is going around and the people swallowing it, this seems more important than ever before.
[+] [-] albntomat0|4 years ago|reply
From the article.
There are folks getting useless degrees and/or taking on too much debt, but getting a college degree on the whole is worthwhile.
[+] [-] torstenvl|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cblconfederate|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikewarot|4 years ago|reply
Going deep into debt for a credential that doesn't have a reasonably large future value is a huge mistake many are pushed into making.
[+] [-] PaulHoule|4 years ago|reply
If the class were gender-balanced the odds of that would be 1/512; I have no idea what it means ("girls are much more interested in using the library?") but I think it's significant.