Posted on 08/30/2024 3:31:35 AM PDT by karpov
A recent Gallup survey found that confidence in America’s colleges and universities has plummeted in the past decade, with only 36 percent of today’s adults expressing “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in our higher-education system—down from 57 percent in 2015. Respondents offered several reasons for their low opinions, including the cost of obtaining a degree, the difficulty in finding a high-paying job even with a degree, and the perception of college campuses as indoctrination centers.
I’d like to focus, in this essay, on the first of those reasons. The others are important, too, and may well provide fodder for future articles. Indeed, I addressed the third one here a few years ago. But I know many families with children in college or soon to be in college, and one of their chief concerns is how they’re going to pay for it. My audience for this particular piece is primarily high-school students who will be headed “off to college” in the next year or two, along with their parents, teachers, school counselors, and others who might influence them. In particular, I’m targeting kids whose families aren’t in a position to help them very much, if at all, with their college expenses—which, given the current state of the economy, is probably a lot of kids.
The trend these days, especially among conservatives, is to tell young people they don’t need to go to college to be successful. For some, that might very well be true. Plenty of relatively high-paying jobs—in the construction, maintenance, tech, and automotive industries, for example—don’t require a college degree. But for many young people, college is, for better or worse, indispensable.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
I had a full time job to pay for college. I never thought about taking loans.
I was a certified welder busting my arse in the hot Fresno sun paying my way through college. Now, I would imagine that was somehow racist. Work is for chumps.
“I had a full time job to pay for college. I never thought about taking loans.”
I also worked to pay for college. I didn’t even know you COULD take a loan for that (in the ‘60s).
I got a couple hundred bucks from the Coast Guard and that was it. That paid for my welding classes. After that, I welded in the early AM before class,
Amen. Fresno State was about $3000 a semester when I was there. That was so affordable with a couple weeks of pay.
I had the pleasure of taking history courses from Victor Davis Hansen who live just a few miles away on his raisin farm. Now... the commie MFrs put up a statue of that commie thug Caesar Chavez on campus. Ech.
God bless your kids.
I got one. From the North Avenue Trade School. All it cost me was 8 years in service and the GI bill. And working part time as a tech on campus. Finished in 12 straight quarters...
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