Posted on 08/08/2014 8:40:45 AM PDT by reaganaut1
For most of our history, few people paid any attention to higher education. Our colleges and universities attracted few students and except for a tiny number of professions where having completed a degree was necessary, no one cared whether a person had been to college or not.
At least a few people regarded college as a negative point for job seekers. We read, for example, in Professor Edward Chase Kirkland’s book Dream and Thought in the Business Community, 1860 – 1900 that some business tycoons thought that college spoiled young men for useful careers. Overwhelmingly, people learned what they wanted to know—both for work and to satisfy their intellectual curiosities – without sitting in college classrooms.
The role of government in higher education was negligible. It was not pure laissez-faire, as Daniel Bennett shows in his recent Independent Review article, since there was “a significant amount of state intervention that shielded it from competition and kept its doors open with a steady stream of subsidies and protections….” (The article is not yet freely available online, but will be in October.) Crucially, government assistance was state and local, and went to schools themselves, not to students.
There were plenty of “Animal House” kinds of students – wealthy kids who enrolled mainly to have fun and put off the day of needing to work. Nevertheless, most schools maintained rigorous academic standards and a curriculum that emphasized the liberal arts.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I think the writer is, as is just about everyone in the media, parent groups, prospective students and in finance, way understating the case.
Here is from an article from 2005, ten years ago, prior to the current federal takeover of the loan and aid program.
This is about Baylor, a typical, expensive private college:
‘...In fact, some of the alumni coming back this year were paying as low as 2.5 percent of current tuition.
According to the registrar’s records, students who graduated in 1955 were paying $9 per semester hour and the class of 1980 paid approximately $70 per semester hour.
Students today are shelling out $635 per hour, according to an average of 15 hours a semester...’
http://www.baylor.edu/lariatarchives/news.php?action=story&story=37555
At State U NY Stony Brook, In state tuition and expenses is yearly $24,000
In 1980 it was $2,500 yearly.
Parents had better wise up.
Kids are not equipped to make decisions incurring debt like this.
Already the repercussions are devastating.
Federal meddling will improve it?
They set rates for tuition. THey manage the loans. They can forgive the loans at any time, and already have done so, where kids pay a certain rate for ten years after which the loan is forgiven.
But these are not frivolous loans, The cost of the item is set by the lender.
All is forgiven at the whim of the lender.
If you believe that, you probably belive the government gives away free stuff.
WHo is going to take on the responsibility of that loan to the University, housing, books and meals service?
Are they like the MDs of Obamacare who work for free in fantasy land?
Someone pays. And someone pays those college professors. they are not about to brainwash for free.
My daughter qualifies for a full out of state tuition scholarship to University of Alabama. We are seriously considering it, and will will be visiting the campus soon. We already have one in college and my daughter is a twin. Next year, we will have twins in college.
It's a good thing robots and computers will be doing most of the work in the future.
We went to a $60,00.00 per year college for a visit.
The kids scheduled a meeting with the head of the department they want to study in.
His secretary was playing solitaire on the computer.
He showed up 15 minutes late.
Wearing...get this... basketball shorts and a sweaty t shirt.
Sandals.
We had to see his toes. It isn’t bad enough, I had to avert my eyes, as I didn’t want to se any more than that, with him sitting back and crossing his legs.
Kids pay sixty thousand dollars for this, when their parents don’t get in the car for the 4 hour trip back home and ask them what they think. Inquisitively.
If the kids want to say, ‘it would be like prison, and then to owe $240,000.00 with interest, as I am not the right race for a scholarship’, they need to be able to say it.
No.
And if they don’t know they are facing a 10% unemployment rate, ages 20 to 29, and the lowest labor participation rate of just that age group since the Carter fiasco administration, and that things are on te downward spin, and to disregard AP and NYT lies, then it’s real trouble.
NOO
A full ride is the only way to really consider it.
Keeping grades up is pressure, but it’s a good deal, especially if the college offers the area of study they are most interested in, which would be the case in a full tuition offer, I imagine.
And I think Bible Belt colleges are a good option, in terms of avoiding the onslaught of liberal brainwashing. And I speak as a practicing Catholic.
They need good logic and formation to combat it.
Ted Cruz went to Harvard and Princeton.
I would imagine he had to roll his eyes and zip it in many classes.
Oh it is a rip off in many cases. I could get started on that, but I’ve got to get up and going today.
The education itself has to be examined. The kids need our discernment on that. They’re happy to skim through and get a degree.
The lack of logic, classics, basics and the discouragement of thought, debate, and idea-sharing is an outrageous component to this major ripoff.
That doesn’t even count the non American teachers who cant speak our language coherently at $300 to $600 per credit
Awesome, congratulations to your daughter! UAH is a good school, especially if she has any interest in engineering. Plus, a surprising amount of career options nearby, should she wish to remain in the area after graduation. Lots of technology and defense-related companies in the area.
Unexpected.
Leftism and stupidity has destroyed the idea of what a college was supposed to be
6. Warren: "We believe that students are entitled to get an education without being crushed by debt."
Palin's response: "We believe that students learn to not make decisions that result in a lot of debt. And we believe that schools need to be more accountable for the insane increase in tuition... and their insane curriculum--many of 'em. It's no accident, Elizabeth, that the rise in tuition corresponds with the rise in government intervention. More government isn't the answer."
Modern colleges are little more than employment programs for unemployable leftists, rabble rousers, and gender studies graduates. Aside from the hard sciences there is little value to college.
Typical leftist thinking, get a foot in the door, make a mess and insist the answer is to get the other foot in the door.
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