College May Become Unaffordable for Most in U.S.

Source: New York Times

The rising cost of college — even before the recession — threatens to put higher education out of reach for most Americans, according to the annual report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

Over all, the report found, published college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007, adjusted for inflation, while median family income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade, and students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent families.

“If we go on this way for another 25 years, we won’t have an affordable system of higher education,” said Patrick M. Callan, president of the center, a nonpartisan organization that promotes access to higher education.

“When we come out of the recession,” Mr. Callan added, “we’re really going to be in jeopardy, because the educational gap between our work force and the rest of the world will make it very hard to be competitive. Already, we’re one of the few countries where 25- to 34-year-olds are less educated than older workers.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/education/03college.html?_r=1&hp

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There's a proposal in here to save costs by shortening college *from* four years!

That's... wrong in about 5 different ways! :rofl:

even with grants and loans and scholarships. This is horrible. :(

Why can't we take a page from Europe and other industrialized regions?

As far as I know, in most Europeans countries there is a very good, well funded system of public universities, and serious scholarship programs for private institutions. Granted, the access tests for college seem to be more demanding than here. But once you qualify to go to college, you will attend, one way or another. The precept that "a mind is a wonderful thing to waste" rules the mindset of higher education financing in Europe. If you qualify, your education will be paid for.

Here, with today's insane costs, kids finish college saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars they have to pay for life. This already sets our graduates back financially for most of their adult lives. It doesn't make sense, it's ridiculous, and doesn't guarantee a better education, or even access to higher education for those DESERVING IT.

It is broken. It needs to be fixed. If we don't fix it, we will not be competitive with the rest of the world in less than a generation. It's a shame.

Shorten it so we/they'll know even LESS!

Daughter just asked if we'd mind if she took 5 years to get her early childhood/special ed degree. Said NO; we'll figure it out somehow.

and graduated with either a broad education or an employable skill.

I spent 6 years in school, and I'm sure with a little more planning I could have shaved it down to 5, but especially with program cuts, 4 year degrees are becoming more and more rare. And shoot, I'm thinking about going back for a semester to pick up some stuff I missed. :P

I always thought the GI bill made us such a country along with the rest of the world torn up by war which we did not have in our country. It is almost as if every one in the world saw this but us and so many countries are now pushing education and it is being paid for by their govt. We seem to be stepping back into a few rich getting educated. Sad. We did not get to this place with names and old rich families but with talent which we need to feed. I re-call my aunt telling me that all her sister's and she had to go to free hospital schools to be nurses so they could sent their brother to a college to be a doctor. She was never happy about it. Thought it was un-fair. That was the 20's and 30's for many. One wonders what she would have done if she could have gone to college like her brother. She gave up being a nurse as fast as she could and did very well in the field she went into with her husband, a field which she liked.

working as a secretary for some lawyers; one day I said, OH, I can do that! My older daughter is going on for masters in public health/physical therapy, so none of us will have made it with only 4 years.

..all student loans though. :(

I don't care - I want the education that I want, and if the have to garnish my wages and I live in a box for the rest of my life, then so be it.

They can never take whats in my mind.

and willfully ignorant. Ever watch 'Jay-walking'?

but remember rover's 'formula' for winning '00 and '04? He targeted the under-educated and over worked, 'religious' types.

Please don't make me laugh.

US colleges and universities need to rethink this whole tuition thing. Seriously.

How is it that other countries can educate future generations for a fraction of the costs? Oh yeah, forgot, that's socialism. :eyes:

The Europeans for years have based college financial support on achieved merit in past school settings. If you have demonstrated you will do well in college, your education is paid for. If you demonstrate while in college that you will do well as you attain a post-graduate degree, you are supported.

Today state universities are having to do with less and less from their state legislatures as governors campaign in win on tax-cutting platforms (even the Democrats). So university boards are obliged to find the money to keep their operations going from SOMEwhere. Alumni giving is unreliable, so tuition raises are usually the only alternative.

Meanwhile, at the colleges more and more administrators who do very little are hired. They give themselves huge raises. Faculty salaries do not rise with inflation. They're pressured to inflate grades in order to keep their student evaluations up. Corruption galore.

And we wonder why our college graduates can't write a complete sentence.

(drum-roll please) 2%, non retro-active. So we're getting killed. We're also forbidden by state law from unionizing or going on strike, so we have no ability to negotiate and no legal way to protest unfair treatment. Our only option is to find better jobs at better schools, in states that take education more seriously--but for those of us in the liberal arts those jobs are increasingly rare, and therefore increasingly competitive: more and more newly minted PhDs and MFAs competing for a shrinking pool of available jobs. We now find ourselves looking down the barrel of a $2.1 billion state budget defecit, so the UW system will undoubtedly be slashed: that means a hiring freeze at best, and the likelihood of bigger class sizes, fewer sections, a shrinking faculty as no replacements are hired for retiring profs, more sections taught by adjuncts (they earn about 1/3 the salary of tenure-line profs, and aren't given benefits), further erosion of the degree as overworked profs are forced to assign less and less written work (no time to grade it all), etc. Of course there are lots of common-sense places we could make cuts: we're overburdened with assistant and associate deans for this and that, assistant provosts, vice-chancellors, you name it. We have whole offices full of people whose job it is to make it look like we could actually become a diverse campus if only we held our mouths right (we're a regional campus in West-Central Wisconsin, for God's sake--the biggest minority group in the area are the Hmong, who are, in fact, fairly well represented here). We pay an administrator twice my annual salary to run workshops on how to advise a student organization; this job didn't exist two years ago--we just advised them, and it was no big deal. We pay dozens of people more than the highest paid profs in my department to do "assessment"--which is the process of devising studies that make even our most dismal failures look like successes (we're forced to do this by what had been, until the last election, a hostile state legislature), and so on. There's also the ever increasing cost of healthcare, which is like a big tax on universities (and businesses) all over the country.

The school I went to is about to lose accreditation (!!!!) and they seem more worried about how to lure more black and Hispanic kids out to the middle of NOWHERE (7 hours from a major city).

(It's not that I don't think having a 95% white campus is a problem, it's that paying someone to come up with racist proposals like athletic scholarships is a waste of money when the school budget is being CUT every year while tuition is being raised.)

...plus share a public bathroom. It's highway robbery.

College was unaffordable to me 20 years ago.

What's the point of having a college education, if you can't get a job to pay off your student loan? :(

and thoughtful business people and states recognize that. Virginia has spent a lot on its higher education system so it can attract businesses who want an educated workforce, and those businesses spend a lot of time and $ promoting those interests in Virginia. (Was the case some years ago, anyhow.)

look at California. In the 1960's the governor unveiled the "Master Plan For Education" which delivered college education to every Californian for free at community, state colleges and universities.

it created an economic boom that was the strongest in the nation, the best higher education system in the nation and the best secondary schools in the nation.

this lasted for years until spending cuts resulted in tuition like "fees" (tuition still not permitted, but they charge registration fees that are just as high). the good secondary schools lasted until spending cuts ruined the public school system in many middle class and poorer areas.

education is an investment.

cutting education to pay for something else costs you more in the long run. you don't cut schools now and think that you can catch up when times are better, you won't. brain labor is how the leading economies are employing their people and if you don't invest in brains, you won't be creating the kind of jobs that pay for everything else.

:rant:

and a lot of students can go to college only with substantial financial aid, including for many massive loans that will have them deeply in debt before they even begin a career . . . some of the more affluent schools have all but abolished tuition for students whose families are below a certain income level, but most schools don't have the kind of endowment that permits this kind of policy . . .

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children...

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

From the Chance for Peace address delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953.

that were donated for scholarships and the schools decided to create huge investment portfolios instead.

Everyone's got a racket. And it all starts with the top 1%. They have the biggest racket going of all.

I recently received notices from my Undergrad and Grad schools that they have been hit hard by the stock market. Both schools have instituted hiring freezes.

One is private, the other is a public (state) university. They are no more immune than the average person to the downturn.

The cover story was: "How Colleges are Screwing U" (seriously!)

www.newsweek.com

They want people to take student loans.

The presidents at University's job is fund raising, to make those endowments bigger. Not to make education more affordable.

Of course it shouldn't be this way but who is going to stop them? Most people this is hurting do not even know it is a problem.

I have to admit, I've lost a lot of respect for big name schools. Especially any school that hires on any neocons and thier flunkies (i.e. Little Dougie Feith).

Yale, at least, doesn't plan to back off even in the Bush/Paulson recession. Harvard, meanwhile, has reduced the family contribution to zero if their income is less than $60,000 a year.

http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/12.13/99-finaid.html

And how are they able to do this? Because of those big endowments. Other elite private schools with smaller endowments have raised tuition throguh the roof.

years though.

They give $1,000,000 salaries to football coaches, but yet pay professors less than 1/10th of that amount in a lot of cases AND they cut scholarship funding.

Something's wrong with this picture.

The public universities have not done a good job at all of making
affordable education possible for state residents, and private
universities have definitely always been the high cost leaders.

Higher education has become less affordable for sure, and students
and their families have adjusted by using home equity loans, and other
loan 'products.'

Another example of how the public has used credit to leverage their
desired outcome. But its reaching the end of the road.

Other than at the Ph.D. or M.D. level, America offers very little opportunity
for someone with a four year degree, especially from colleges that
will let anyone in, which are not truly serious educational institutions, but
more like 'parking places' for post high school.

The public can change this situation, especially on a state level, but it will
require as much effort as was put into the last election. But, on the other side
of the issue is jobs after graduation. Not everyone can be an attorney from
Harvard or Yale with parents able to foot that bill.

Those at high incomes have a definite edge in today's university world, but they
are the ones who can pay for the Ivy League.

The problem also is that the lower tier colleges are too expensive for what they provide to a student.

I am aware of have begun recruiting international students at higher rates than ever before. Our college campuses are packed with wealthy international students at the expense of residents of the state whose families have spent their lives subsidizing these facilities with their state taxes.

We are an oligarchy. And we need a worker class. The illegal immigrants have proven that you can have reliable and cheap labor. As have the outsourced employees in India. And so of course in the "neo-con artist" world we do not need over-educated citizens who will demand more money but less-educated citizens who will have to work for the "prevailing wage" which of course is already set in many sectors of our economy by the illegal immigrants. Barbara Jordan warned everyone about the problem of illegal immigration. No one listened.

The universities themselves of course realize that as enrollment drops so will income. Some colleges and universities will not survive. So you will see "mergers" which are already being proposed because the endowment funds of many colleges and universities demand the option of merging or shutting down departments or just closing. The "free-for-all" on Wall Street included the managers of many of the college and university endowments who were often friends of one or more of the regents and often funds were directed at the request of regents in violation of both ethics and law. But of course we have been living in a Republican society. So there is no such thing as ethics and law. Some colleges and universities have been using the Enron accounting methods. They are basically insolvent. Which is why tuition increases each year.

The Bush and Clinton legacy in the end will be the legacy of Alan Greenpsan. They turned the richest and most developed nation in the world into a Third World country. The rich will continue to get richer. The poor will continue to get poorer. And only the rich will be able to send their children to college. But then they are the heirs apparent to the oligarchy. So you see, in the end, it all works out. For them.

What was a joke a couple of years ago now has a bit of reality to it. Welcome to the United States of Mexico. There are the ruling families, the middle-class aka the worker class, and the poor. Mexico is a classic oligarchy. Few people realize that. They may when they think they are in Mexico in a couple of years.

cheap labor in this country with their policies.

Many of the basic courses for entering college students could be delivered through a standardized on-line method. Think of basic math, for instance. Couldn't we have learned it through a computerized interactive program? Basic English usage, undoubtedly. I won't try to suggest other disciplines, but any course that deals with facts and process could be delivered more cheaply by some standarized method. These basic programs could be made available to everyone, free.
College presidents make too much money, in my opinion.
And what about professors? Haven't we all had a professor who earned a professor's salary by having only a few hours of classes a week during which he showed videos?
And why do professors have to publish as part of their responsibilities? Some, undoubtedly, produce valuable work, but I would guess that much of it sits on a shelf somewhere.
The whole system could use some improvement.

From an efficiency standpoint, it is wasteful to have a professor stand up and give the same lecture term after term. They could easily be videotaped and made available online. Student questions can be handled via email or chat. From what I've gathered, most professors prefer research to teaching anyway, so they should be happy with the change.

There will always be students who require hands-on attention, but the rest of us should be allowed to opt out.

There is definitely room for improvement in the process.

Following your proposal to its logical conclusion, one could get a college education out of a book.

The trouble is, with most professors, the lecture is never the same, and there are lots of discussions and questions that go on during the lecture.

I'm in school right now finishing my B.S., and I find the time spent in classes to be utterly useless. Very few students ask questions and the material covered is typically the same as can be found in a book. For classes without attendance requirements or in-class assignments, I typically stop going after the first week or two of classes and only show up for exams. I took a number of online courses for my A.A. and found them to be far superior, both because I didn't have to follow a rigid schedule (my most productive hours are between 2:00 AM and 6:00 AM) and because the discussion board format allowed for much livelier and thoughtful discussions about the material than in a class with a fixed length.

Part of the problem, too, is that many if not most students anymore aren't really interested in their studies. A bachelor's degree is just a means to try to avoid a life of poverty. Not having at least a 4-year degree in our economy puts one at a severe disadvantage (although having one is no guarantee of success either).

I heard someone mention a few weeks ago, when this subject was raised, that it's better for people to get the "college experience" and to "mix with others to swap ideas" and yada, yada, yada. In a perfect world, that would be great, but this isn't a perfect world and most people just need to learn a particular skill and develop a knowledge base more than they need to "round out their experiences." This need should be met in any way possible and the internet is ideal. I took half the classes I needed to get my AA degree online and it was great. But the type of IT work I do is being sent overseas and I'm worried I won't be able to find work for too much longer. I would love to get my BA in another field but now I'm older, I'm busy working and raising a small child. An online program would be great for me but they are so few and far between that they don't have them in the field I would like to go into. Even if they did, I'm betting the tuition would be ridiculous. I guess I'll be too old to go back to school by the time any improvements are made to the system. :(

I haven't seen anything suggesting higher education is any good. "Higher Educated" types have been running our businesses and government since time immemorial, and all I see is failure after failure, and serial failures to be responsible for those failures. What is it now, 800 Billion or Trillion of failure?

Oh, yes, education is unaffordable. I can't afford it: I can't afford the dishonesty, corruption, and shifty morals a college education apparently confers.

Your comments reek of the wing-nut types who exclaim, "We don't need any stinkin' education, by golly!"

And it's bullshit.

Bake

( most at the hands of educators, all of them at the hands of the "higher educated"), if you wish to invalidate what I've learned by judging it as "bullshit", I cannot stop you.

(by the way, when I first came on DU, I had a post deleted when I thought another DUer was a right-winger and stated so. I guess those were the days --- when DUs ruleset was enforced)

Higher education is the place that turns out the worlds best and most brazen LIARS. I now even believe I know the policy process by which it is done, and it's so simple it's amazing, every school I've ever attended implemented the policy.

While morals and ethics are no substitute for a good education, higher education apparently is and has been a substitute for morals and ethics.

I'm truly sorry if you find the most important and deeply ingrained lessons I've ever learned as worthless, but be advised that I consider your two-bit words at best deluded propaganda, and at worst ....

Thank goodness you cannot yet shut me up.

It is not the job of higher education to instill morals. Just as it is not the job of primary education to teach religion.

Bake

It's like looking at a couple of similar trees in the forest, instead of looking at the whole, dying forest.

I'm considering putting you on ignore.

And if you want to put me on Ignore, feel free to do so. You obviously have no desire to engage in rational discussion. Another by-product of your hard-learned life lessons, no doubt.

Bake

that is not "rational discussion".

That makes your words lies.

NT!

Sorry, was that too educated? Let me dumb it down: not everyone who has a college education is as you describe. You display an unfortunate anti-intellectualism streak in your post.

Let me guess, you have a college education: "not everyone who has a college education is as you describe"

And where, praytell, did I write that all college graduates were liars? Guess what, I didn't. Perhaps you should learn to read English before I take anything you say seriously.

When you cannot connect the dots between the massive frauds that have occurred at the "highest levels" and the fact that the people in these positions are college grads, then even your logic skills, along with your reading comprehension, are highly flawed. Oh, yeah, Enron, worldcon, warrantless wiretapping, the Iraq War based on lies, et all, are all 'my "anecdotal experiences"'! Hilarious!

The first step to solving any problem, is proper recognition of the problem. Until the real problem is discovered, efforts to fix it are likely futile. When crimes occur at the "highest levels", it's a very safe guess the job description's requirements included a college degree. However, I'm open to evidence that most of these frauds were perpetrated and directed by those without college degrees, but it is a claim so astounding that I believe evidence is required to assert that defense.

The power of indoctrination and propaganda runs strong in this so-called educated culture consisting in part of the most massive frauds and failures we've ever seen, and the best denial you've got is my anecdotal experiences are only correlation! :rofl:

to destroy the US. The Bush Administration has been doing al-Qaeda's work well.

Drag these college deans up to capitol hill and grill them about excessive salaries and profits

I started school 30 years ago. Private college. Parents paid less than 7k a year for the whole thing - tuition, books, room and board. Now the same school, 30 years later - just shy of 50k for the whole thing a year.

Where's all that going? What has gotten more than *7 times* more expensive in 30 years?

"Already, we’re one of the few countries where 25- to 34-year-olds are less educated than older workers.”

Wow. This being the case, America's standard of living can only continue to fall, and there isn't a damn thing any President will be able to do about it without investing unprecedented, huge amounts in public education. Which, of course, would be almost impossible in a land of demented politics.

This is not unlike our inaction on climate change. The pace of climate is now such that it is pretty well a sure thing that the second half of this century is going to be very nasty time in the life of humanity because we have consistently refused to do what is needed to either stop spewing GHGs, or to take action to deal with the coming environmental and social consequences.

I predict a similar inaction will prevail around education in the US. You folks are truly screwed. As a Canadian whose economy is closely tied to yours, I guess we're screwed too. My only comfort comes from the fact that I am of an age where I won't see the worst of it. I feel very sorry for people now under the age of about 30, who will likely experience at least the start of the Mad Max era in our decline.

- B

I think the idea is, rather than spend the money to educate our own populace, we will attract educated workers from other countries to do the high-skilled, high-paying jobs. Unfortunately, the minor glitch in that scheme is that, over time, more and more of the money and jobs that are produced in this way go back to the countries from which these workers originate.

Per the Repukes' biggest wet dream.

Why have the costs gone up so much? Because Colleges and Universities are being run like for-profit businesses while falling down on the job of controlling costs. Don't get me wrong, they should be run like a business by being effcient and productive, but not with the sole objective to be profits.

My wife manages a 2 million dollar grant-funded program at the University of Washington. UW takes 56% of every grant dollar right of the top. And that's considered low for most big schools. The actual program that won the grant only gets 44% of the money to work with. WTF?

Most big schools charge "overhead" (which I think is what you are talking about) of around 50% of the grant value. So if I ask for a 100K grant they ask for an additional 50K, and the total is 150K. The overhead works out to about 1/3 of the total grant. Not insignificant but not the majority.


Some programs refuse to pay overhead, including most private foundation sources. In this case the person getting the grant still gets their money, but the school does not.

Supposedly this money is to cover the cost of the buildings, electricity, staff members, etc. needed to run the place. But of course in reality many of those costs, especially buildings, are covered by other funding sources. Would agree that scholars are not getting their money's worth out of overhead.

their own sprogs will have to face less competition for the best jobs.

Should be grants open to all who are willing to learn.

This whole financing thing was designed to shut down the "Liberal Arts".

and nothing more.

We don't want anyone actually reading BOOKS, now do we?

Especially those anatomy textbooks.

BURN THEM! Burn them, I say! and bring the ashes to our New Masters!

Wake up, America.

I've been to the 3rd world many times. Does not even hold a candle to it.

to those issues.

America; best 3rd world nation on the planet.

Please cite some examples. I was in Nicaragua just last year and trust me, the US looks nothing like it.

There are states in the U.S., as well as areas just a mile or two away from the U.S. Capitol, where babies are more likely to die before they reach 1 year old than in such countries as Albania and Mali.

and spoke how the #'s were misleading due to the US's classification of "live births" and pre-term births. You may want to look into that.

If you follow your own advice and Google this up a little you'll find these:


Note the disparity in the graphs between "under five" mortality and "neonatal" mortality when comparing Western with developing countries. It's a big signal there's something weird with the stats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality
decent overview here

http://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/indneonatalmortality/en/index.html
World Health Organization weighs in with a good analysis

http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/mothers/2006/SOWM_2006_final.pdf
Save The Children's report...start reading around p. 7 for insight

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2007/09/another_reason_2.html
statistical distortion caused by fertility-enhancing technologies in the West - insight from EconLib blog

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/92/2/229
this journal article is from the American Academy of Pediatrics is titled Infant Mortality Statistics Do Not Adequately Reflect the Impact of Short Gestation

and so on, and so on

Time to Google Up :-)

The influx of foreign students going to U.S. colleges being reported will occupy all of those empty seats.

:grr:

massive run up in college costs:

1) the costs of equipment for the high tech/science degrees (you don't want to put out kids with degrees with info/techniques that are 5-10 or more years out of date)
2) the mindset that a student has to go away to and/or board at their college of choice
3) the large amount of money (both public and private) readily available for college education (that drives inflationary trends akin to those seen during the california gold rush)
4) the mindset that for anyone to be successful, they must, positively, attend college (this is not true - there are huge segments of the workforce that do not require college degrees - education, yes but a bachelors? no)

a college education is a finite resource, making more money available for college education won't alter that fact.

Paulson, 12-Nov-2008:

"Approximately 40 percent of U.S. consumer credit is provided through securitization of credit card receivables, auto loans and student loans and similar products."

The cost of attending college is high so that people have to borrow money so that the rich can get richer of the backs of the working and middle class.

If it were actually affordable or people could realistically work and save to pay for it, the whole ball of string unravels.

Why wait until it becomes a disaster?

So, no, I don't think it's all that far-fetched to "shorten" college from four years. Focus there will be on vocational learning, while the professions and liberal arts will be reduced to pastimes engaged in by the idle rich, which will further push society along the road back to medieval feudalism and the dark ages. Hyperbole? Don't think so.

Right now community colleges are a cheap way to get a lot of first- and second-year course requirements out of the way, streamlining both the academic and financial process for many. They're also an excellent way for nontraditional and older adults to remarket themselves in a changing economy. But how long will it be before even community colleges are out of the reach of the average American?

Since when has education, like health care, become a "privilege" rather than a right in this nation?

in that I feel a large number of people in this nation go to college with NO serious intention of ever having to THINK. It's all about social events, pissing away time drinking, doing the bare minimum, cheating if needed, and then the expectation of a large payout in the form of a high paying job. This is NOT what college should be and I feel the concept that "everyone" should be able to go is BS. These types of bums I just mentioned made college hell for me, and I feel brought down EVERYONES experience who was there for an actual education.

I feel there should be MUCH higher standards. Kick out the lazy asses, and let the ones who want to take it seriously and want an EDUCATION (not the "Oh I'm going to miss class 80% of the time for four years then get a paper and job" crowd) have a shot at it. It's gotten so bad I feel at least 50% of people have NO business being in a college.

Of course making it unaffordable for most isn't the solution because you will miss out on a lot of responsible people who just can't afford it.

The SO has finally transferred out of community college. He started taking classes in 2001. He is a junior now. He can take classes at a local tier two college without commuting, via the CC, and get his degree with the college's name on the paper. But...a lot of his credits didn't transfer. He has an associates' already.

Now it costs $1700 for TWO classes next semester. TWO. Did they offer any more he could take so he could finish up faster, maybe? No. See, a non-trad doesn't fit into the arbitrary plan designed by some beancounter administrator, and, they must be slashing classes anyway to save costs.

At this rate he might have his BA in 2012 -- and forget anyone hiring him without laughing. The decade plan??? Man. But oooh, we "work full time so no money for you" and we can "pay our way" and people can "retrain" and "adapt"...whatever. We fall through the cracks due to having too much/too little/average grades/part time/non trad students...and yeah, giving up seems sane at this point, but we are going to live in the shoebox apartment and get that degree finished if it kills us. And it will consume probably the first 7 years of our marriage getting it done. Out of pocket. Ourselves. And be worthless in the end when they say "oh that's nice, you need 3 years experience now to get hired." Yaaaaay America!

they don't require a college education, but they do require technical training.

of course, if our high schools had to meet the same standards as European ones, for instance, our high school graduates would have the equivalent of two years of college when they graduate - that's the equivalent now.

But European schools don't have sports as their main obsession and they route people into job tracks earlier than schools do here. There are good and bad things about that idea. My ex, from Europe, was not from a rich family and his parents were told that he could maybe be a plumber. They didn't pay attention to that teacher, but made sure their kids studied. My ex is a professor who teaches others how to be systems analysts and things like that... his masters was in math and his work is in math theory, so I guess he was able to do something other than use plumber's wrenches.

there's nothing bad about working as a plumber, btw, just to say. the point I was trying to make is that it's not a good thing to track kids.

In order to have better secondary schools, however, you have to pay teachers better salaries and you have to keep the fundies from trying to dumb down the entire nation b/c of their religious dogma.

How the hell you can afford $20K a year AND not work full time? How the hell can most parents pay $20K a year for ONE child's tuition a year, let alone 2 or three?

They don't. They get loans, which means they can't afford it. Or they refinance their home and use it as "an ATM" (to use an all-too-common phrase.)

NT!

and i'm still paying off loans...

and people wonder why there has been such a surge in Jucos and online degrees....

The ignorance, it burns.

It really hasn't, in my opinion, caught up with the times. I would imagine that a great number of us, perhaps I'd go so far as to use the word "most", cannot afford higher education.

I'm twenty four, dropped out of high school and got a GED at 17 for reasons of my own. Since then I've thought about college, many times, my family also pushes me to go, as they believe I'm intelligent, despite my claims to the contrary.

My parents are already helping my two sisters pay for school, on top of a multitude of other expenses which I have no desire to add to. That, and I'm really not sure enough of what I want to do to take out thousands of dollars in loans, provided I could even get them, which is by no means certain. The job market up here is not simply unstable - it is almost virtually nonexistent. We had 100 applicants (in a very small town in Northern Maine) for a Mcdonalds job.

Hell yes it's expensive, too expensive for me for certain. I can't even find a job at Mcdonalds here, forget college. It may not be the most pleasant, or the most prideful or ambitious of lifestyles, but I live at home with my parents and help them care for the house. In years to come... I think they may be glad they've got me around.

In my opinion that sort of living situation is becoming a lot more (and we haven't seen anything yet) common every year. In some instances now we have two or three generations of families living together to pool their resources. Which isn't really a bad idea - provided you have the space.

To me, for moral reasons and for financial ones (that tend to go together), college is presently an impossibility.

Amusingly enough, the Marines wouldn't take me when I went to see them - they refused on account of the fact that I have a GED rather than a high school diploma. They wouldn't even talk to me. So I went to the army and was told that panic disorder prohibits them accepting people with that disorder, which seemed like bull shit to me at the time... but whatever.

I'll live and die, most likely, where I am now without going forward a great deal. But that's ok, I've got a good family, I'm not homeless or starving like so many others. Would I rather things were different? Education, and life in general more affordable? Absolutely, but it isn't. So I'll do what I can to influence future generations through voting and occasional political activism. That seems to me, to be a worthy goal.

People think that you will be promoted if you have a college degree. Not true. Employers don't have to give you the time of day, and they will look at you suspiciously because you are overqualified. More than once I have been passed over for someone with 1/20th the experience I have.


I'm a baby boomer. My parents paid for the BA and the AA. I paid for the law degree (also from a private college of law) by working fulltime & going to night school.

I have a BA from a very fine private school, an AA vocational degree, and a Juris Doctor (law degree).
I do not have a license to practice law.

I graduated from college in 79 and from law school in 86. Neither the four years I spent getting the BA, or the five years in night school I spent getting the JD while working, ever got my any consideration for a job. So ten out of the twelve years I spent in college were wasted, from an economic viewpoint. Yes, I got a very fine liberal arts education, but it did not help me get ajob.

I looked for a job as a legal assistant, with a law degree and 15 years experience working in the courtroom, watching trials, and even grew up reading law books.

In several years of looking for a job, I got ONE interview. ONE.

And they didn't even call me back and tell me they didn't pick me. :grr:

If everybody could find a job in their field, that would be wonderful, but we don't support the arts. We don't support R&D, we don't support scientists, we don't support many professions.

"Students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent families."

:P