The time value of money is powerful, but specialization in unique intersections of skills entails earning power. The place where that intersection lies on a graph will be different for each person and some of it comes down to luck.
Do PhDs generally have positive expected value? Not really. Deep learning PhDs 10 years ago? Ask a retired 30 something.
In her case, 8 years would probably still have been worth it, from a purely monetary perspective, even assuming disciplined saving and excellent returns on savings during those first 7.5 years.
You're still talking about delaying her life for those years.
In what sense? She worked. She played. She loved. She got progressively better paying and opportunity-creating part-time jobs (aka internships). She learned. Etc.
There's a lot of negative things you can say about college, but "delaying life" definitely isn't one of them if you're doing things right.
I don't know enough to comment about how much different course providers are teaching, but if they really were managing to teach you the same things as a four-year degree in six months, that would surely make it more valuable, not less.
If you only get out of 4 years of education what you could have learned in 6 months, then yes. And I have no doubt that happens.
But if I could choose between e.g. $30K for a high quality CS+Bio+Finance BS or $30K for a high quality 6 month program in one of those, the choice is sort of obvious for me. The opportunity cost of the 3 years is more than worth the amortized increase in specialization (== earning potential) and risk mitigation over a 30+ year career.
The time value of money is powerful, but specialization in unique intersections of skills entails earning power. The place where that intersection lies on a graph will be different for each person and some of it comes down to luck.
Do PhDs generally have positive expected value? Not really. Deep learning PhDs 10 years ago? Ask a retired 30 something.
In her case, 8 years would probably still have been worth it, from a purely monetary perspective, even assuming disciplined saving and excellent returns on savings during those first 7.5 years.
You're still talking about delaying her life for those years.
In what sense? She worked. She played. She loved. She got progressively better paying and opportunity-creating part-time jobs (aka internships). She learned. Etc.
There's a lot of negative things you can say about college, but "delaying life" definitely isn't one of them if you're doing things right.
I don't know enough to comment about how much different course providers are teaching, but if they really were managing to teach you the same things as a four-year degree in six months, that would surely make it more valuable, not less.
If you only get out of 4 years of education what you could have learned in 6 months, then yes. And I have no doubt that happens.
But if I could choose between e.g. $30K for a high quality CS+Bio+Finance BS or $30K for a high quality 6 month program in one of those, the choice is sort of obvious for me. The opportunity cost of the 3 years is more than worth the amortized increase in specialization (== earning potential) and risk mitigation over a 30+ year career.