FReegards!
Posted on 04/01/2014 8:32:34 PM PDT by rightwingerpatriot
For the last few decades, students have been fed a whopping lie. This falsehood is that you'll need a college education to succeed in the marketplace and have a successful job or career. To that end, enrollment has skyrocketed, and along with that surge has been the increase of price of going to college. To pay for college, students take out student loans and go massively into debt. The sad fact is that after graduation, they find themselves with a normally worthless degree and tens of thousands in the hole. They've fallen prey to the college education scam.
From 1985 to 2010, enrollment in colleges nearly doubled and with that came a huge influx of revenue for the colleges. As restrictions on student loans lessened, it became easier and acceptable for students to go massively into debt to fund their education. Colleges began to swell with idiotic courses and professors teaching nonsense such as trans-gender cultural biases through the medium of popular culture and other such junk. Tuition has skyrocketed because colleges know they can charge essentially whatever they want and students will just take out more loans to pay for it. In my home state of Florida, I paid $40 a credit hour in the early 1990s, Fast forward twenty years, that credit hour will now cost you $210 (if you're paying in-state tuition).
From kindergarten onward, the mantra of having to go to college is drummed into our heads. Only idiots forgo getting higher education. Studies are touted that show that college graduates earn $17,500 more per year than those who do not go to college. In my personal opinion, that stat is misleading on several levels. The first is that not all college degrees are equivalent. A person getting a medical degree or one in law will definitely be a high earner during the course of their lifetime. But if you look at other degrees, such as in the liberal arts, then those earnings plummet in comparison. In fact, we've been told that a college degree is our ticket to success, but the reality is that only a few degrees are worthwhile. Many degrees really aren't worth the paper they're printed on when you're out in the job market. Major in history, psychology, sociology, or literature, and find out where that gets you.
In fact, there are many high paying jobs that don't require a college degree. Plumbers have a median income of $49,000, while steelworkers earn $46,000. Car mechanics average $39,000 a year. These jobs can be learned in trade schools or through apprenticeship. The cost difference between a trade school and a four year college is astounding. Going to college averages $15,000 a year in total costs for in-state students at four year public institutions (the cost goes much higher for private colleges). In fact, the average bachelor's degree costs a grand total of $127,000. The average cost for going through a trade school is $33,000. When you compare trade school wages to college degree wages, trade schools average only $3,000 a year less than four year graduates. If you factor in being able to work two years earlier and the roughly $94,000 in savings in the cost of education, the argument that colleges are the only way to go falls apart.
We also have to consider student debt. Most students graduate with anywhere from $26,000 to $29,000 in debt. If you add in interest over the course of the debt's lifetime, the amount goes even higher. Right now, 70% of college students take out student loans to fund their education. The total amount of outstanding student loan debt is over a trillion dollars, higher than credit card or auto loan debts.
So why the college education scam? The easy answer is that it boils down to money. Colleges rake in billions by creating the false demand for college degrees. The government and other lending institutions make money by giving out student loans. The only person who gets screwed is the student. Once they enter the workforce, many find unable to get a job with their degree. Many jobs are not high-tech like we've been led to believe. In fact, the government has been trying to fill positions at Hoover Dam for years, but has had trouble due to the fact that the facility is low tech. My brother works at a hospital power plant that is run by boilers. He and his coworkers are all ex-Navy who learned their trade in the military and do not have a college degree.
The sad fact is that colleges do not prepare students for earning a living. They're only about enriching themselves as much as they possibly can. It's a wise decision to look at a two year school, the military, trade schools, or apprenticeships in order to learn a trade. We have a vast shortage of tradesmen in our country and those jobs pay damn well. Such facts are hidden as those in power wish to perpetuate the higher education scam in order to fatten their bank accounts. You don't need a college degree if you're capable, have a great idea, or are willing to work hard to succeed.
How right you are.
bkmk for later
College graduates serve me and my crew in restaurants and bars.
FReegards!
I don’t know. I certainly agree that a lot of what’s offered in liberal arts today is b.s. And I agree that college loan debt is a trap that should be avoided. But as a job-hunter the way I see it, is that too many jobs that were done by high school grads 30 or 40 years ago are now demanding college degrees. I’m thinking of things like in the social work field, but not limited to that. I call it “education inflation”. Starting your own business may be an antidote, but just as not everybody is cut out for college(or home ownership, as we found out during the mortgage crisis), not everybody is cut out for running his or her own business.
Rush Limbaugh has talked about “education inflation” on his show though he doesn’t call it that. He believes that it’s just an arbitrary thing that HR depts use to screen people out when they receive so many responses to an opening— they could just as easily screen them out by the firstletter of their name, whether they lived on the odd or even number side of the street, etc. But if the listing asks for applicants to have a degree, are there that many people who ignore the minimum requirements of what they’re applying for? A friend has a theory that they would really like to use IQ tests in the hiring process, but can’t so require college instead. I have a hard time believing that they’d really want to use IQ tests or scores, but I’d rather take one of those than the damn personality tests which I always flunk. I have never once been called for an interview after Ive done a personality test because my personality sucks.
I’ve heard Michael Medved say that some college is worse than none too because it makes you look like a quitter. OK, I dropped out, but I learned a lot from the classes I did take and am a more well-rounded person, etc. so what Medved said bothered me. My advice and what I wish I had done, is the Tommy Boy plan. Chris Farleys character in the movie Tommy Boy took 9 years to get a 4 year degree but he kept at it. So if its health, money issues, having to stop to work, have babies, change majors, change schools, just keep at it with no apologies. It worked for Sarah Palin.
As a retired college professor, my first lecture always addressed this issue. Simply put, college does not supplant motivation and if higher education is a matter of making more money (or getting a ticket punched), crewing a crab boat may be a better option.
I agree with this.
Also, if not noted, FOUR YEAR electrical engineering degrees became FIVE YEAR degree chasing, making those who were already two years or three into that particular program, scrambling for the next classes, at the additional cost of the new five year curriculum. That happened to me, while I was attending Dowling College, in the ‘80’s. I had to make the choice to keep being broke chasing a degree, or just let it all go, which I did, in my third year.
I’ve done fine, since. I was the-guy-in-the-basement rebuilding PC’s for a HUD office. I’ve been an office administrator and a published columnist. I wrote my acceptance piece for, and graduated from the Long Ridge Writers Group writing course. I had more of a mentor, than an instructor, along the way. A sight better than a college professor, I tell ya.
Along the way, I have seen those who have used their college degrees like bludgeons, too.
The sad fact is that since the gov't has screwed up the economy, earning a living is no longer available.
One of the recent changes to policy is that if you want to even be considered for certain jobs you HAVE to have a college diploma.
In the past someone could work his/her way up from the bottom, and if they showed good people and management skills they could become a manager even without a college degree.
No more. Now we live in a "credentialocracy" where we are being nagged, cajoled, harangued, and badgered by those with the "proper" credentials.
Street smarts and good ole' fashioned commonsense are no longer valued. Instead we get twits who still have zits and a degree from MIT that tell us how to do our jobs.
I would expect this if I were working for some namby-pamby green energy outfit, but not the company I work for.
Sad. Sad. Sad.
For the last few decades, students have been fed a whopping lie. This falsehood is that you’ll need a college education to succeed in the marketplace and have a successful job or career.
If you want to have a successful job or career, you need to have that piece of paper to get into the door. You can be successful without it, but you are going to have to own your own business. The federal government won’t even hire you without a degree in most cases. Yes some military personnel can get in the door with years of experience, but most likely in the lower GS pay grades.
260,000 college graduates work minimum wage jobs
Emily Jane Fox (CNNMoney)
Monday, March 31, 2014 - 10:24am
NEW YORK (CNNMONEY) — If you thought paying tens of thousands of dollars for a college education guaranteed a high-paying job, think again.
About 260,000 people who had a college or professional degree made at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Things may be looking up a little, though — it’s the smallest number since 2008. The worst year was 2010, when the number skyrocketed to 327,000.
http://www.fox44.com/news/260000-college-graduates-work-minimum-wage-jobs
Somebody is making a killing off of textbooks. They change them each year just enough that you can’t buy used books. Quite a scam.
The sad fact is that colleges do not prepare students for earning a living. They're only about enriching themselves as much as they possibly can.
As a B. S. Engr., M. S., Ph. D., and post-doc, retired Golbal corporation senior research scientist, I wholly agree.
I was in and out of universities from 1954 on, until retirement in 1993. I saw the whole corruption brought on by government-backed student-loan bloated academic regimes taken over by power-hungry administrators, to the exclusion of reliable creative learning and advancement of intellectual frontiers.
The whole school/college/graduate educational system used to be to assuredly prepare the able youth to become a self-sustaining adult, viable as a citizen able to support oneself through value added by measured success in applying educational tools and discipline.
That function has been lost through misplacing the level at which further advancement is functionally limited for any given individual, and ought to be terminated.
My thought is the concept of introducing a justice system/tort law by which the purchaser of the product of an institution who finds promised employment elusive, to be able to have his/her tuition refunded by the institution when the degreed product is not economically viable.
Or something like that, a sort of killer factor against "hypereducation."
I retired from the army in 1986, went to college and earned my BA. After over a year of job hunting I realized there was no demand for a man in his 40s with over 20 years of service and a brand new degree. I gave up and delivered pizza. Several drivers also had degrees, one had a PHD.
I have several friends and acquaintances who own their own businesses and are doing very well. None have a degree. Trade schools and apprenticeships seem the way to go.
If your degree is in a hard science or in a useful soft one eg Economics you will tend to do all right if you apply yourself. If you go for fun and a poly sci degree or such you will flip burgers or be a pole dancer most likely
“Credentialocracy?” I like that one. Remember a few years ago when Michelle Obama was making a speech and complained that “they keep raising the bar?” Do you suppose this was what she was talking about? Probably not, but Ive always wondered.
I think Moochelle was complaining that the folks at her grocery store kept putting the candy bars on higher and higher shelves making it more difficult for her to reach them.
I think you’re completely missing the significance of the caliber of student involved in, for example, employees with a bachelor’s degree making more than workers without a college education. Likewise, smart history majors do just fine in the employment marketplace.
The problems are with marginal students not studying for a trade or profession. That’s where the cost/reward ratio is off.
Well, she’s pretty tall. She might have been talking about minorities, but that doesn’t make sense. Because of affirmative action and things like that, they’ve actually had the bar lowered.
One of the things that occurred to me is old-fashioned “keeping up with the Joneses”—more cars, newer cars, bigger houses, fancier vacations”, because of ones peers. But that is purely a personal choice to buy into that game. Don’t whine to me about it.
But then this was a woman who thinks that lots of people take high paid corporate jobs even though they would rather be something like a community organizer, or a community organizer. Some are even forced to abandon their dreams to take sinecure hospital administration jobs in Chicago that pay six digits.
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