<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>jimmar</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a professor at a regional university. Not a big name school, but we have about 5,000 students. We would be bankrupt if we told students we&amp;#x27;d only be offering classes online this fall because students, by an overwhelming majority, want the in-person experience. We know we would lose enrollment if we went fully online this fall, and the drop would be significant enough for the university to declare bankruptcy. Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and other big names have enough reputation and big enough endowments to weather a storm of a temporary drop in enrollment due to shifting instruction online. Many universities cannot.</text><parent_chain></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Stanford cancels plans to bring half of undergrads back to campus</title><url>https://stanforddaily.com/2020/08/13/stanford-cancels-plans-to-bring-half-of-undergrads-back-to-campus/</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>eric4smith</author><text>I firmly think there is a sea change going on from standard “college” degrees to more practical training that will be a mix of apprenticeship and solid training like air&amp;#x2F;vac, electricians and online skills, since the vast majority of jobs don’t really need a college degree.&lt;p&gt;This has actually begun already at the high school level.&lt;p&gt;Once again I believe net&amp;#x2F;net the beer virus will be positive for America in the long run - even if only on the educational level.&lt;p&gt;Some will insist that a portion of the population will be disenfranchised and that is true.&lt;p&gt;But our education assumptions and priorities have been wrong for so long now that it has actually become the weakness of an entire generation for the last 10-20 years.&lt;p&gt;Just think of it! In a few months we are completely re-examining the utility of taking out a student loan that many cannot pay back in their working lifetimes.&lt;p&gt;We’re looking and complaining if colleges will go online or reopen in person classes - but there is so much more going underneath that conversation.&lt;p&gt;This is maybe (hopefully) the last generation of the “underwater basket weaving” so-called useless degrees.</text><parent_chain></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Stanford cancels plans to bring half of undergrads back to campus</title><url>https://stanforddaily.com/2020/08/13/stanford-cancels-plans-to-bring-half-of-undergrads-back-to-campus/</url></story>