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A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College

UtahBill said:
We put our kids thru college, state schools, none of that private Ivy league crap....
It is the best thing you can give your kids in this era, a paid for college degree in a major that makes them employable.....
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What's worse, most kids these days are coming out of college with a degree and absolutely zero actual work experience. Most of them have never had a serious job in their lives, they've demonstrated no work ethic, they think that just because they have that piece of paper in their hand, they deserve a high-paying job.

Sorry, paper or no, they're just not qualified. Back in the day, we worked all the way through high school and college, we paid our own way and when it came time to take our newly minted degree out for a good job, we had a decent work history to put on our resume that proved we were not only educated, but responsible as well.
 
Arbo said:
Um, pointing out the lack of people to think ahead and then take responsibility for their decisions is not blaming them for the cost schools charge.
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Um, harping on about the choices a student makes in financing their college education has little to do with the soaring cost of college.

And here I thought you were the expert on deciphering sarcasm.
 
Cephus said:
What's worse, most kids these days are coming out of college with a degree and absolutely zero actual work experience. Most of them have never had a serious job in their lives, they've demonstrated no work ethic, they think that just because they have that piece of paper in their hand, they deserve a high-paying job.

Sorry, paper or no, they're just not qualified. Back in the day, we worked all the way through high school and college, we paid our own way and when it came time to take our newly minted degree out for a good job, we had a decent work history to put on our resume that proved we were not only educated, but responsible as well.
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The amount of time students spend working has been of increasing concern for the
educators that serve them and, in some instances, the students themselves. Recent
data would indicate that 80% of American undergraduates worked while attending
college in 1999-2000 (King, 2003).This represents an 8% increase over the class less
than a decade previously, among whom 72% worked (Cuccaro-Alamin & Choy,
1998)

http://www.indiana.edu/~ipas1/workingstudentbrief.pdf
 
JohnWOlin said:
False. Most colleges act as businesses first educators second. Making them non-profit however may decrease cost.
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You mean expand government controlled education?

Considering the stellar results and unparalleled efficiency of the current public school system, that sounds like a brilliant plan.

<sarcasm off>
 
Grim17 said:
You mean expand government controlled education?

Considering the stellar results and unparalleled efficiency of the current public school system, that sounds like a brilliant plan.

<sarcasm off>
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I know....it is as if someone is trying to claim public colleges cost more than private colleges........!
 
Arbo said:
Nobody said that, now did they? What has been said is that people should have the knowledge to figure out what the cost of school is going to run them in terms of monthly payments and how long, as well as they should put a little more thought into the whole thing in terms of cost to benefit ratio.

But I give you an A for effort to derail with falsehoods.
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This dysfunctional system amounts to your parents buying you a job. You can't expect 18-year-olds to believe how everything has been arranged to exclude them, no matter how much talent they have. Not so with talented athletes. What kind of recruits would the colleges get if the athletes had to live like the rest of the students? That tells you how inferior the rest of the students are. Replace this class-based indentured servitude with paid professional training. America is already paying for its mistake in establishing such an insult to intelligence; it will soon have to pay more than it has left.
 
Grim17 said:
You know, if student loans and government grants didn't exist, I'll bet the price for college tuitions would be cut in half.

On another note, they act like it's a tragedy that the poor girl was forced to move back in with her parents. It used to be that nearly all college kids lived at home with their parents (unless the distance prevented it) until they graduated. Often kids would live at home until their careers took off, or until they got married. Families used to stick together until their kids decided to have families of their own, and even then much of the time they would still live with parents for a while. It's still that way in most parts of the world, but hasn't been that way in America for a few generations.

With the economic times we're living in today, don't you think it might be a good idea to rediscover the concept of family unity?
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The economic times have been created by the absurdity of giving college graduates a job just because they could go four years without a job. Like Russia, we had to go through decades of such an absurd system before it started collapsing. Too late now.
 
PrometheusBound said:
This dysfunctional system amounts to your parents buying you a job. You can't expect 18-year-olds to believe how everything has been arranged to exclude them, no matter how much talent they have.
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I constantly tell my kids that life is hard, it is not fair, and just about nobody gives a crap about you or your issues. Nobody owes them anything. If you want something, you need to get off your ass and do something about it, if you don't, you get what you get, don't cry about it. I think it has sunk in to one of them, the other is a harder egg to crack, but we will get there. ;)
 
sawyerloggingon said:
I'm sick of these cry baby's thinking someone owes them a college education. When I was a kid we worried about real problems, like getting drafted and sent to Nam, cry me a ****** river punks.
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If you'd have stayed in college, then you'd have had a deferment and not been drafted.

That fact kept a lot of young men in college back in the '60s, many of whom shouldn't have been there at all.
 
Your Star said:
I'm doing it now, and it sucks balls.
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Really, there's no difference between that and being a slacker supporting himself childishly on part-time jobs while living in his parents' basement. Only athletes and preppies live the way they should when college-age. Guess we will have to rely on jocks and heirheads to lead us out of this national collapse.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
Most Americans, when it comes to finances are complete idiots.
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and that is where education is under funded.....
I know couples with multiple degrees each who are truly stupid when it comes to handling money...
 
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Cephus said:
What's worse, most kids these days are coming out of college with a degree and absolutely zero actual work experience. Most of them have never had a serious job in their lives, they've demonstrated no work ethic, they think that just because they have that piece of paper in their hand, they deserve a high-paying job.

Sorry, paper or no, they're just not qualified. Back in the day, we worked all the way through high school and college, we paid our own way and when it came time to take our newly minted degree out for a good job, we had a decent work history to put on our resume that proved we were not only educated, but responsible as well.
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to be fair, getting the degree is work, and shows a willingness to work...
Very few of us have to work a job to get the high school education, but college is different. I had no options in 1964 so the Navy was my ticket to employability, and I added to that later.
Today's kids got handed a raw deal. Everybody tells them the degree is worth the investment, then the jobs move overseas and the economy falters.
Too many people have manipulated the system for individual gain, with the attitude of letting the future genereations fend for themselves.
I know people with plenty of money who refused to help their kids thru college, and their kids resent it. ANd then there are poor people like my wife's folks who were willing to sacrifice to help their kids.
 
UtahBill said:
and that is where education is under funded.....
I know couples with multiple degrees eacy who are truly stupid when it comes to handling money...
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Sorta, it's the emotional dealings with money that are the ruin for most people.
That and not measuring the consequences of long term debt.
 
Many kids today have been tricked and fooled into making financial decisions in connection with their educations and hoped for careers that will haunt them all of their lives. The game is rigged against them. Current policy is for them to become drones who sacrifice themselves for people like me.
 
Dittohead not! said:
If you'd have stayed in college, then you'd have had a deferment and not been drafted.

That fact kept a lot of young men in college back in the '60s, many of whom shouldn't have been there at all.
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like a host of politicians who graduated at or near the bottoms of their classes....?
 
Ill let you on a secret a big reason that we have huge loan debt is because we as students are being told to study what we want not what we can get a job in. I started as an anthropology major then realized there where no jobs in that so i switched to Environmental studies and business to take advantage of the shale boom in texas now i will be debt free in 6 years after graduation next year. We have forgotten why we go to college it is to become more marketable not for elective hobbys.
 
YoungConserv said:
Ill let you on a secret a big reason that we have huge loan debt is because we as students are being told to study what we want not what we can get a job in.
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This. However, it should be noted that if all students were to use this logic there would be no artists, musicians or actors.

YoungConserv said:
I started as an anthropology major then realized there where no jobs in that so i switched to Environmental studies and business to take advantage of the shale boom in texas now i will be debt free in 6 years after graduation next year. We have forgotten why we go to college it is to become more marketable not for elective hobbys.
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(Bold mine.) I agree, and would only like to add the darker, less popular truth that people only figure out years after they graduate, which is that the main reason for going to fancy, expensive universities is to make connections. But who you meet being a factor to success is not something we like to admit.

So if you got saddled with a gigantic debt and didn't even come out of university with the connections to get you started in your new career, congratulations, you missed just about the entire point of university.
 
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Dittohead not! said:
If you'd have stayed in college, then you'd have had a deferment and not been drafted.

That fact kept a lot of young men in college back in the '60s, many of whom shouldn't have been there at all.
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You had to have rich parents to stay in college then, like I said, cry me a ****** river.
 
I takes effort though you arent just going to stumble upon those connections and opportunities. I also would chalang e your contention that we wouldnt have art or music we would just not institutionalized forms f it infact we probably would have more origional forms of media because they would not all have the same foundational training.
 
YoungConserv said:
Ill let you on a secret a big reason that we have huge loan debt is because we as students are being told to study what we want not what we can get a job in. I started as an anthropology major then realized there where no jobs in that so i switched to Environmental studies and business to take advantage of the shale boom in texas now i will be debt free in 6 years after graduation next year. We have forgotten why we go to college it is to become more marketable not for elective hobbys.
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Wow - Anthropology is one of the most applicable degrees. The field-work approaches you learn in anthropology go FAR in business - people just need ot learn how to identify their strengths and knowledge and apply it towards business.

I'd definitely hire someone who had an Anthropology degree into my business if I was considering someone to manage or take over the business completely - or even just to fix department issues.
 
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YoungConserv said:
I takes effort though you arent just going to stumble upon those connections and opportunities.
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Nothing about success is easy, but it does help to know that making the right connections is one of the crucial factors in that success. Being told "all it takes is hard work and talent!" from age 7 to 18 gives people the idea that making connections is unimportant or even shameful.

YoungConserv said:
I also would chalang e your contention that we wouldnt have art or music we would just not institutionalized forms f it infact we probably would have more origional forms of media because they would not all have the same foundational training.
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You've clearly never been to, say, art school. Currently there is no authoritative foundational training in art. I can't speak for theater or music.
 
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