108's comments

108 | 12 years ago | on: Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

Do they? If government loan programs treat all degrees interchangeably, why do you have differential pricing for STEM degrees and Liberal arts, with the latter being cheaper and STEM, law and medicine degrees being the most expensive.

108 | 12 years ago | on: Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

> That's because in some countries you won't be paying more than 5k to go to a decent college.

And you would be earning a fraction, say $120 per month, that automatically makes the 5k college dream, a dream.

108 | 12 years ago | on: Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

> I was wrong about China, but apparently it is free in India.

Education has NEVER been free in India. You have to pay a lot of money at the University level. Almost all education is now privatized.

Germany, OTOH, has FREE education upto the PhD level and it does not figure on the Wikipedia page - This is exactly why Wikipedia should not be a citation source. People submit wrong information and it never gets corrected, perpetuating lies.

108 | 12 years ago | on: Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

>> I was wrong about China, but apparently it is free in India.

Education is NOT free in India, has never been. This is exactly why Wikipedia should not be a citation source. Anyone can edit wrong information and it never gets corrected, perpetuating wrong information. Here are better links to newspaper articles: * http://www.indianexpress.com/news/from-unemployment-to-innov... * http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/who-should-be-ente... * http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/financial-muscle-buys-... * An earlier HN thread "Students are the victims and culprits of India’s broken higher education system", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5756142 , http://qz.com/86903/students-are-the-victims-and-culprits-of... * An Open Letter to India’s Graduating Classes, By MOHIT CHANDRA, http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/an-open-letter-to-...

In India, some government education institutes are heavily subsidized (think IIT and the state REC's) but the rest of the private colleges you have to BUY seats - so your parents financial clout decides if you get to study at a good university or NOT.

Edit: Ironically, Wikipedia has a page on Capitation fees in India: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitation_fee#Capitation_fees...

108 | 12 years ago | on: The IIT Entrance Exam

More than stupid, the Indian government is clueless and careless about how it spends its earnings from the 2-3% of Indians that actually pay income tax. That coupled with rampant corruption and politicians only interested in saving their vote-banks adds to the woeful state of affairs.

If the Indian citizens started being more demanding about how their money was being spent, on whom and the ROI per rupee of tax collected, the government and the politicians would be forced to change. See, http://openspending.org/

108 | 12 years ago | on: The IIT Entrance Exam

"Students pay subsidized tuition at a fraction of the real cost of their education. The Indian government subsidizes over 80% of the costs of the IIT, with alumni donations only accounting for under 3% of the system’s budget. “While the total government funding to most other engineering colleges is around $2-4 million per year,” a critical article writes, “the amount varies between $18-26 million per year for each IIT.”"

I dont get why the Indian government will spend millions on subsidizing and educating its students and then allowing them to migrate to USA - if that occurred in the USA there would be an uproar on why the government is using the tax-payers money to fund another country's workforce. Something the Indian tax-payer needs to think about, eh?

108 | 13 years ago | on: Rent-a-coder hilarity (2008)

For many Indians, a degree is just a path to a cushy job. That is probably true for many other parts of the world too.

108 | 13 years ago | on: Why Can't Developers Estimate Time?

Actually, the specifier does not know it himself but try getting him to admit that. Its easier to lay the blame at the developers door.

108 | 13 years ago | on: The Idled Young Americans

> America should make it as easy as possible for highly > motivated and talented individuals to come here. Jobs, > heck, entire new industries will be created.

America also needs to remember that the high quality engineer they sent home has the world at his feet - if he has migrated out of his home country, the world is his oyster. He can migrate to any other country offering him a job and will not have to limit himself to the H1B.

108 | 13 years ago | on: Why Young Americans Should Work Overseas

How old are those numbers? Lets take one listing for an Apartment (3 bedrooms) in City Centre: Houston, TX is listed as $2,050.00 while Bangalore is $ 559.02. If you check out a property listing site: <http://www.magicbricks.com/propertyDetails/3-BHK-3000-Sq-ft-..., it says INR.60,000 which works out to approximately $1153.84 (around 52 rupees to a dollar). Obviously, numbeo.com has got the most important (housing) numbers wrong.

108 | 13 years ago | on: Why Young Americans Should Work Overseas

Its not just New Delhi. Hyperbole, but every woman in India is a potential rape target - All the women I spoke to complained of being touched, physically felt-up, had comments passed on their dress or female anatomy and yet they did nothing about it. What keeps them safe is still a mystery to me. The government sure aint doing much to change the sexist attitudes.

In the USA we take the freedom to wear bikinis and shorts for granted. Hard to see women in India dressing like Americans do.

108 | 13 years ago | on: Why Young Americans Should Work Overseas

That's right. Food and gas is cheaper back home (USA) than it is in India, where the cost of living is astronomical vis-a-vis the paycheck drawn by the average Indian. A per-item price comparison shows vegetables and meat are a lot cheaper (and cleaner) in the US than what I find in India. Metro cities like Mumbai and Bangalore are very expensive when it comes to rental costs, transportation costs and entertainment costs. Have you checked out how much beer/alcohol costs in pubs in Mumbai and Bangalore. Let me tell you, its way more than what we pay in the USA.

Schooling is the most expensive - there is no free public schooling worth sending your kid to. A good school can cost INR. 100,000 per year and even the poorest person I met aspires and scrapes money to be able to afford the astronomical fees required to send their kid to a "private English-medium" school.

108 | 14 years ago | on: Got one job offer, took it, then got another. Etiquette?

Hey, you didnt sign on the dotted line or anything while being employed with current employer. You were in touch with them BEFORE you joined Com#2 and are they contacted you now so are just exploring options. Its not wrong. When you look at it this way you wont feel like a heel for leaving if the first company makes a good offer :P
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