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A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College

yes, we do know how to determine in advance which of us will better use higher education...we just don't do it because of liberal ideas like "no child left behind". We can't generate equal outcome in economics, nor can we generate equal aptitudes in our kids, or equal attitudes for that matter.

No Child Left Behind is George W. Bush's education plan that liberals hate.

No, we can't determine who is going to be successful. We can make some educated guesses. We can say this kid definitely isn't and this kid definitely is, but most kids really could go either way. I mean, the bar for somebody who is better off with a college degree than without one is a very low bar. The median income for somebody with a college degree is 65% higher than the median income of somebody with just a high school degree. That is the median, not the average. That means that even the most average guy that graduates college is doing 65% better because of it. Probably 90% or more of college graduates do better because they got the degree. By all means, colleges should have rigorous admissions standards. It is true that some people we can know with a high level of certainty that they're not going to be able to get a college-educated type of job after they graduate. But that's a process of trying to identify the very lowest performers and ruling them out, not a process of trying to identify just the very best.
 
Second, you are still just thinking about today. Compare what percentage of jobs today require post-high-school education to the percentage that did 30 years ago. It's easily 2-3 times as many as it was then. That is going to keep happening. In another 30 years, 2-3 times as many jobs as today will require at least a college degree. People who are deciding on their educational path today need to be planning for the job market 30 years from now, not just today.

No, he is thinking long term. Do what he said, go about your day tomorrow, and every place you see someone working, think if they need a degree to do that job.
 
liberals such as co-author Ted Kennedy?

Yeah, they did get some Democrats on board. But is was obviously a Republican thing. It was one of Bush's supposed major legislative achievements. But it turned out to be a disaster. Most liberals were against it all along. Obama is trying to push them to reform it. IMO they should just scrap it.
 
No, he is thinking long term. Do what he said, go about your day tomorrow, and every place you see someone working, think if they need a degree to do that job.

Read the whole post before you reply and see if you can come up with a counter argument. If not, don't reply.
 
look it up yourself....
instead of just denying it...
The USA does not NEED all the education it has, if a large percentage of our grads can't find work in their major...

That's pathologically unimaginative.

Here's a thought...if the way things are being done means lots of people (I'd say most) working at far below / far away from their potential -- with or without regards to formal education -- then how about DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY?

When I see/hear stances to the effect of We Don't Need So Many Educated People/We Still Need Ditch Diggers, my response is this:

How many software engineers did we need before the first software engineer?
How many genetic counselors, biophysicists, electric guitarists, and (insert-your-choice-here) did we need before the first of each of those?

As they might have phrased it in Mr. Mom... if you truly can't conceive of any productive role for having a greater number of educated people (formal or otherwise) in the economy... then the economy is 'doing it wrong.'

I absolutely agree that WITHIN WHAT WE'RE USED TO LIVING UNDER, there's not much space for a massive expansion of folks with high-level formal educations...to which my response is...OK THEN, let's live and work differently.
 
Read the whole post before you reply and see if you can come up with a counter argument. If not, don't reply.

good advice.....for you as well...
in my own family, it was clear that 2 of us were smarter and more willing to apply some effort to school, and one was probably average, and the other 2 were slow, poor readers, put little effort into school.
My parents tried to help the last 2, but eventually gave up. They both quit school at 17. BTW, our parents were the "18 and out" type. No help, not even allowed to live at home unless paying room and board, even if we could afford college, we couldn't afford the high room and board my mother wanted.
My grandparents recognized that I, and one sister, were more likely to succeed, and they didn't even see us but about a dozen times a year. They offered to take us in to their home, but my parents said no.
None of what you are saying is new, news, or rocket science. Most teachers can make a fairly accurate assessment of their students abilities and attitude, and can bring this to the attention of the parents, who may or may not make an effort to help the slow.
Long story short, we don't have unlimited resources to throw at limited children. Life isn't fair, we don't need a bunch of liberal arts majors sitting around discussing the finer points of some philosohy, etc.
If your kids are special, it is up to you to give them more opportunities. The schools don't have the money to go the shotgun approach, sometimes not even the targeted approach. The schools are there to make our kids trainable, and employable. Anything extra, you the parents should do.
 
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No, no. Those are two different things. We need all the education we can get. That is what propels us forward. It's like the gas in our engine. That we're still coming out of a recession at the moment doesn't change that one bit. People getting an education now are still going to be working 30 or 40 years from now. Making decisions about our nation's educational needs for the next four decades based on this week's employment situation would be insane.

we have been moving forward for generations without the masses being educated...it only takes one super brain to do it. Most of the scientists today are still riding on the coattails of those who moved us forward 80 years ago.

I agree that a lot of education should be AVAILABLE, but put it on the internet. Let people register for a small fee, take courses, then show up at school and take monitored tests. ONE algebra teacher and a lot of test monitors would be all that is needed to teach Algebra 101 to millions of students....
 
we have been moving forward for generations without the masses being educated...

No, we have been moving forward BECAUSE the masses have been getting educated:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...tainment.jpg/561px-Educational_attainment.jpg

it only takes one super brain to do it. Most of the scientists today are still riding on the coattails of those who moved us forward 80 years ago.

The way you think of this stuff is very strange. Like the world is one scientist and then a bunch of manual laborers lol. That isn't reality at all. In reality we have tens of millions of jobs that require at least a college degree and millions of jobs that require a graduate degree of some kind. Those jobs pay way more. The more of those kinds of jobs we can have, the better off we all are.

I agree that a lot of education should be AVAILABLE, but put it on the internet. Let people register for a small fee, take courses, then show up at school and take monitored tests. ONE algebra teacher and a lot of test monitors would be all that is needed to teach Algebra 101 to millions of students....

From the research I've seen, online learning isn't very effective compared to in person classes. I agree we should make it available for free, but that doesn't replace actual schools at all. At least not yet. Maybe some day it will catch up though.
 
in my own family, it was clear that 2 of us were smarter and more willing to apply some effort to school, and one was probably average, and the other 2 were slow, poor readers, put little effort into school.

What you're missing is that probably all five of you would have benefited from a college degree. At least, unless the 2 that were slow were say borderline mentally disabled. Almost everybody gets a better job if they go to college. The average guy makes 65% more if they go to college. That's the median difference. Maybe the below average guy makes 40% more, the way below average guy makes 20%, and only the ludicrously far below average guy can't make anything at all out of a college degree.
 
What you're missing is that probably all five of you would have benefited from a college degree. At least, unless the 2 that were slow were say borderline mentally disabled. Almost everybody gets a better job if they go to college. The average guy makes 65% more if they go to college. That's the median difference. Maybe the below average guy makes 40% more, the way below average guy makes 20%, and only the ludicrously far below average guy can't make anything at all out of a college degree.


These are made up statistics.

Not everyone needs or will benefit going to college. There are limited resources, not everyone is going to get access.
 
These are made up statistics.

No, that the median difference in income between a high school diploma and a college degree is 65% is an objective fact- Education pays ...

The 20% and 40% estimates are just guesses as I made clear. But obviously it doesn't just go from the average guy making 65% more to the guy 1 person below the national average making 0% more, right?

Not everyone needs or will benefit going to college.

Maybe it is true that not everyone would benefit, but obviously the substantial majority do, right? Again, half of people gain 65% of income more more by getting a college degree.

There are limited resources, not everyone is going to get access.

That just isn't so. There are not fixed amounts of resources. The median person makes $21,580 more per year by going to college. They work for something like 40 years. So that's an additional $863,200 of GDP per person that goes to college. The cost of college is somewhere around $180,000. The median American pays about 27% of their income in taxes between state and federal. So that means that by going to college a person adds $233,064 to our tax revenues over their lifetime. More than enough to cover the cost of their college even if the government paid for it flat out and then to boost up our tax revenues on top. And that's just the median difference. The average would obviously be much higher. Each person that goes to college isn't a drain on our society, they're propelling it forward. The more that go to college, the faster we move forward and the better off we all are.
 
No, that the median difference in income between a high school diploma and a college degree is 65% is an objective fact- Education pays ....

It is also objective fact that that income disparity will shrink as more and more people obtain higher degrees. There will be less need to reward those with degrees if everyone has a degree. Further, the more people business have to choose from, the less they have to offer in return.
 
It is also objective fact that that income disparity will shrink as more and more people obtain higher degrees. There will be less need to reward those with degrees if everyone has a degree. Further, the more people business have to choose from, the less they have to offer in return.

I just fundamentally disagree with that idea. You are assuming that there are a fixed number of jobs that require educated workers. That doesn't seem to be the case at all. An educated workforce is a massive resource. Probably the biggest and most central economic resource there is. The bigger and the more educated it gets, the more the market will continue to find ways to profit off that resource. It's not like if you have two islands one with 10 inventors and one with 100 inventors, they'll both invent the same things and 90 of the inventors will be sitting idle on the second island. The second island will invent 10 times as many things. Actually, it appears that because of synchronicities between their work, the second island will invent more like 20 times as many things. Same with everything. If we have a bunch more computer programmers we will come up with more clever ways to use computers and the internet to create new fields. It propels itself forward. Educated people create their own niches to work in. That's why today we have several times as many jobs that require college degrees as we did 30 years ago, and we will have several times more in another 30 years. We aren't all that far from the point where say 80% of jobs will require at least that much education. Certainly we'll cross that line in the lifetimes of people who are in high school today.
 
I just fundamentally disagree with that idea. You are assuming that there are a fixed number of jobs that require educated workers. That doesn't seem to be the case at all. An educated workforce is a massive resource. Probably the biggest and most central economic resource there is. The bigger and the more educated it gets, the more the market will continue to find ways to profit off that resource. It's not like if you have two islands one with 10 inventors and one with 100 inventors, they'll both invent the same things and 90 of the inventors will be sitting idle on the second island. The second island will invent 10 times as many things. Actually, it appears that because of synchronicities between their work, the second island will invent more like 20 times as many things. Same with everything. If we have a bunch more computer programmers we will come up with more clever ways to use computers and the internet to create new fields. It propels itself forward. Educated people create their own niches to work in. That's why today we have several times as many jobs that require college degrees as we did 30 years ago, and we will have several times more in another 30 years. We aren't all that far from the point where say 80% of jobs will require at least that much education. Certainly we'll cross that line in the lifetimes of people who are in high school today.

Not sure how old you are, but I am 66....been in the work force, now retired. Got 2 kids with degrees, and 7 grandkids that we will help go to college.
ONE of those may not get to go, health reasons. One has a blank spot on his brain when it comes to math, hopefully he can work around that by choosing his major in an area where math isn't needed.
I am all for educating everyone, but NOT having the govt pay for it past high school. High school is enough to make a person employable at a living wage.
Beyond that, the parents, the student, relatives, etc. get to pay for it....
We just don't have the resources for college educated truck drivers, store clerks, etc.
 
Not sure how old you are, but I am 66....been in the work force, now retired. Got 2 kids with degrees, and 7 grandkids that we will help go to college.
ONE of those may not get to go, health reasons. One has a blank spot on his brain when it comes to math, hopefully he can work around that by choosing his major in an area where math isn't needed.
I am all for educating everyone, but NOT having the govt pay for it past high school. High school is enough to make a person employable at a living wage.
Beyond that, the parents, the student, relatives, etc. get to pay for it....
We just don't have the resources for college educated truck drivers, store clerks, etc.

Well, where we disagree then is that I think the educated workforce IS the resource. We are creating resource when we educate people. So the idea that we lack the resources to educate people doesn't really make sense. Each person that goes to college increases our total pool of economic resources by several times more than they diminish it. So much that they even increase our tax revenues by more than the cost of their education.
 
There are other ways to go to college than paying for it. The GI Bill and state schools...someone could get a MBA.

And when does the free pass stop? Should we give out free PhDs? Keep people in school until 37 on free education? We have to put the breaks on it somewhere, and highschool is fine. We aren't even performing well on that stage and we want to extend education for another 4 years? Let those who are taking the lead, lead. Those who want to fall off to the wayside...fall away.

To quote a great, "If there is a will, there is a way."
You are making many common assumptions that should be questioned, though no one does. First, ignoring the fact that free education is still work without pay. Prison is free too. So why should somebody stay in school until he is 37 if that makes him unable to support himself? Second, that making it acceptable to everyone means accepting everyone. Only those with the most natural talent will be allowed to take advantage of this. There is not enough room for everybody. Third, that we don't need to offer anything to potential contributors to the economy; it is up to them or their parents to sacrifice for us. If there is no will to positively motivate the most talented to study outside of a reward 5 to 15 years down the line, then the people we need will have no will to take the burden totally upon themselves. Pay them for their grades or you will get what you pay for: no-talent brown-noses and bluebloods.
 
Well, where we disagree then is that I think the educated workforce IS the resource. We are creating resource when we educate people. So the idea that we lack the resources to educate people doesn't really make sense. Each person that goes to college increases our total pool of economic resources by several times more than they diminish it. So much that they even increase our tax revenues by more than the cost of their education.

Employer needs are a factor to consider.....employers don't NEED highly educated people in low tech jobs, and they won't pay a higher wage to get a college educated clerk when a high school graduate is available....
Likewise, if we all have degrees, the value of the degree is diminished. If ALL applicants for a job have the same education, the criteria becomes who is the best looking, or some other unfair criteria...
 
Employer needs are a factor to consider.....employers don't NEED highly educated people in low tech jobs, and they won't pay a higher wage to get a college educated clerk when a high school graduate is available....
Likewise, if we all have degrees, the value of the degree is diminished. If ALL applicants for a job have the same education, the criteria becomes who is the best looking, or some other unfair criteria...

No. Again, employer needs are not fixed by some mysterious external source. Nobody needed a database administrator until somebody invented the database. Nobody needed an internet marketing office until somebody invented the internet. The more educated our workforce is, the more new projects and new ideas and new inventions and new strategies are created, and then the more educated workers we need to carry those things out. It spirals up.
 
You are making many common assumptions that should be questioned, though no one does. First, ignoring the fact that free education is still work without pay. Prison is free too. So why should somebody stay in school until he is 37 if that makes him unable to support himself? Second, that making it acceptable to everyone means accepting everyone. Only those with the most natural talent will be allowed to take advantage of this. There is not enough room for everybody. Third, that we don't need to offer anything to potential contributors to the economy; it is up to them or their parents to sacrifice for us. If there is no will to positively motivate the most talented to study outside of a reward 5 to 15 years down the line, then the people we need will have no will to take the burden totally upon themselves. Pay them for their grades or you will get what you pay for: no-talent brown-noses and bluebloods.
I am perfectly willing to pay for grades, I do so with my grandchildren, but only thru high school. I won't do this for others....
and NO, I will not adopt you.
There are some no talent brown nosed blue bloods out there, but not enough to worry about.
Biggest problem is the no ambition young who have no desire to develop their talents unless they get a paycheck up front for it. Ever lend BIG money to a friend or relative? Try it, it will be a learning experience.
 
No. Again, employer needs are not fixed by some mysterious external source. Nobody needed a database administrator until somebody invented the database. Nobody needed an internet marketing office until somebody invented the internet. The more educated our workforce is, the more new projects and new ideas and new inventions and new strategies are created, and then the more educated workers we need to carry those things out. It spirals up.

The more tools you have, the more work you can do with less people. Law of diminishing returns says that you will come to a point where the sprialing effect collapses. There aren't enough consumers to support all these jobs you imagine.
I know quite a few IT workers who are unemployed, have been since BEFORE this recession started.
How do you know what emloyer needs are? even if you are in the position to hire, you are one person in one industry....
not an expert in macroeconomics...
 
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we have been moving forward for generations without the masses being educated...it only takes one super brain to do it. Most of the scientists today are still riding on the coattails of those who moved us forward 80 years ago.

I agree that a lot of education should be AVAILABLE, but put it on the internet. Let people register for a small fee, take courses, then show up at school and take monitored tests. ONE algebra teacher and a lot of test monitors would be all that is needed to teach Algebra 101 to millions of students....
You also refute the demand for lower-echelon workers with higher skills. Treat the superior minds like we now treat superior athletes, from childhood on, and you will get the people who make things user friendly. With a computer diagnostic, even the auto repairmen don't have to be very skilled. The more geniuses we pay for their grades, the more they eventually invent things that anyone can quickly learn to use.
 
You also refute the demand for lower-echelon workers with higher skills. Treat the superior minds like we now treat superior athletes, from childhood on, and you will get the people who make things user friendly. With a computer diagnostic, even the auto repairmen don't have to be very skilled. The more geniuses we pay for their grades, the more they eventually invent things that anyone can quickly learn to use.
first identify the geniuses, and educate them....there aren't very many of them, actually. So we agree to a point.
Computer diagnostics of autos has made mechanics lazy, if the computer doesn't tell them what is wrong, they replace parts til it works again. You still need to look at the potential failures that the computers don't monitor. A car that is completely monitored will cost a lot more money than you think....
 
The more tools you have, the more work you can do with less people. Law of diminishing returns says that you will come to a point where the sprialing effect collapses. There aren't enough consumers to support all these jobs you imagine.
I know quite a few IT workers who are unemployed, have been since BEFORE this recession started.
How do you know what emloyer needs are? even if you are in the position to hire, you are one person in one industry....
not an expert in macroeconomics...

No, that cuts the other way. The advance of technology is eliminating jobs that do NOT require an education. Those are the jobs that are most easily automated. Take landscaping. 50 years ago it required 2-3 times as many people doing that kind of work because they used hand clippers instead of weed whackers and shovels instead of back hoes and reel manual mowers instead of motorized law mowers. Manufacturing jobs are increasingly getting automated. Agriculture is increasingly getting automated. Hand car washes are fading away to mechanical ones. Even restaurants are slowly finding that they need fewer and fewer staff as cooking and dishwashing technologies get better and they can get pre-prepared components from the factory cheaper than they can make them themselves. As technology advances it chews away at the lower end of the job spectrum while creating new opportunities at the top of the spectrum. That's why we steadily need more and more education to keep up.
 
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