What is a college education really worth? And shouldn't that be what consumers actually pay for?

American Thinker ^ | 06/10/2022 | Mike Robinson

[SeekAndFind]

The last time I checked, the price of a four-year bachelor's degree at the state college that I once graduated from was "slightly less than $325,000." The apparently now routine "lab cost" of a required engineering lab that meets for one hour two times a week is now, according to the website, $8,500.

Therefore, today, hundreds of thousands of students are buried in debt before they reach the age of twenty-one. They cannot throw this yoke off their shoulders. Yet this "enormous debt" has nothing to do with the actual cost of providing the thing that they supposedly bought...which, across the expanse of four years, is "much less than 200 hours of actual instructor time."

I demand we call a halt. In the place of this utter nonsense, I simply ask for a fair evaluation: "What does 'a college' physically consist of, and therefore, how much does it cost to run one?" The price that a student is required to pay for a service should be directly linked to the cost of providing that service.

So let's face it: the physical plant of "a college" is basically identical to that of any high school. It is a collection of classrooms, staffed by one instructor per room, none of whom is driving a Lamborghini. Incidental expenses include the snack machines and the janitors. Otherwise, that's about it.

Let the record show that in 1980, my total out-of-pocket expense for the same degree was $13,000, and it would have been a third of that had I lived "in state." (Fortunately for me, the entire expense was paid by a benevolent candy company.)

It is very unpleasant now to confront the true motivation for "student loan debt," but finally we must.

[goodnesswins]

Cost of living is high in Cali
...so...higher wage

[Chuckster]

About a year ago I negotiated a business deal worth a little over quarter of a million $ with a guy I’ll call “The Doctor”. Not a medical doctor but a doctor nonetheless. He had asked me earlier about my education so I had told him, truthfully, The High School I had attended in SoCal, Class of ‘66. He said “No. I mean what college” “Oh, three semesters at (the nearby state JC)”.

The Doctor grinned a clever grin and I proceeded, to use a term from the car business, to “Rip his head off and sh!t down his neck”. Metaphorically speaking of course.

I was negotiating the purchase of a business on behalf of a friend and set it up so that she will almost literally be buying the business (Including prime real estate) from him with his own money. In the end, he won’t have the property, the business or the money. He is now paying her a monthly rental fee which she turns right around to pay the note that HE is carrying at a rather cleverly structured interest and payment schedule that turns inflation to my friend’s advantage.

The fool laid right down for it. In about a year she will own it all outright. The business has strong positive cash flow that should have been his. But he, you know, being a Doctor and all, is uninterested in such things. In the end she will be set up for life and he will have neither the business nor his money.

I left thinking ‘Why, oh why did this clown not walk into the showroom when I was selling cars’!? That was three years, hard sell, straight commission, no safety net sales in the late eighties. I consider it an important part of my business education that has stood me in good stead over the years...but he didn’t ask about my work experience and I didn’t volunteer the information.

I wonder if he ever asked himself how an uneducated dummie like me managed to retire at 57 and spend the next 15 years cruising around in his boat while he is still working at 70. I wonder if he will ever figure out what happened.

[sbnsd]

bkmk