the boomer generation faculty increased their salaries greatly.
tenure was installed in the 1950’s to protect faculty from mccarthyism,
but did just the opposite: tenure kept conservatives out of the academy,
and afforded faculty salaries beyond their worth.
also, in the 90s faculty reduced their teaching by 1/3.
It’s all about debt creation.
A college education was worthwhile when it costs less and helped you land a decent job; nowadays it costs a lot more and gets you a lot less. The main problem is that the global economy has spread from manufacturing to white-collar professions, so American college grads are competing with those of India & China (and those countries have 1 billion + people apiece). Nowadays Americans in the trades (especially plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics) are probably the best off - their work can’t be sent to Asia OR easily done by an illegal alien here.
bump for later
This also comes at a time when getting the actual knowledge in a college degree is as cheap as it has ever been. Technology makes it possible to have access to the best teachers in the world 24 hours a day. Even MIT hosts free online courses. The future of education should be home schooling with local schools and public libraries changing into art, music, and science labs for hands on education and sports, specializing in the social aspects of education.
My son is a junior in high school. I think he should read this article.
I think he should get a degree in engineering like his dad and I got. He doesn’t know what he wants to do.
We’re in California, and the college scene here is awful. I know he likes UC Davis. It’s too liberal for me, and I don’t know if he’ll get in there. We are also looking at some out of state colleges.
I’ve told him he can go to a private college with a scholarship.
I just want him finding a major that will actually get him a decent job.
My son is a junior in high school. I think he should read this article.
I think he should get a degree in engineering like his dad and I got. He doesn’t know what he wants to do.
We’re in California, and the college scene here is awful. I know he likes UC Davis. It’s too liberal for me, and I don’t know if he’ll get in there. We are also looking at some out of state colleges.
I’ve told him he can go to a private college with a scholarship.
I just want him finding a major that will actually get him a decent job.
“A highly trained cat could pass most courses in the United States today.” Well, if you grade on a curve.
“Alright students, what did the man say after he fell down? Fluffy?”
“Me ow!”
“Frank?”
“Oranges?”
“Damnit! Another home-schooled cat making the rest of the students look bad.”
I’m a graduate of the Southern Hartford Institute of Technology. When you graduate from there, you know a lot of sh_t.
I just had a phone conversation with an associate in my field who is sending his child to the University of Pennsylvania. According to him, the total cost there is more than $55,000 per year. I paid a little over half of that for my undergraduate and graduate degrees combined -- and I'm not all that old myself.
You want education? That’s free. Complete MIT curriculum online: http://ocw.MIT.edu
You want certification? That’s what’s expensive.
I shed blood, sweat, and tears to get my BS and MS but, in hindsight, I know I'd be better positioned in the IT job market if I'd gone the certification route rather than for degrees.
For the most part college doesn't teach someone how to do things but where to find the information you will need to figure out how to do things in the real world.
Americans are competing and will be even more so in the future competing with foreign workers who will all have college degrees because in many places in the world you need a degree to even be a desk clerk in a hotel.
Conservatives need to get their kids those degrees if conservative ideas are to be around in their futures.
If a student is not sure of what they want to major in or the direction they want to go at university then it would probably be wise to attend the local junior college or community college to get their general education credits completed.
Interesting my 10th grader has been told he’s on track (if he works a little harder) to be Div.-1 baseball player. As a dad who’s taken an active role in shaping the kid, pitching to him, filming every swing, etc. it’s a helluva payoff.
However as I start to look at things I wonder if it’s even worth it. The baseball teams even if fully funded only have 11.7 scholarships. So in general a stud pitcher or catcher might get a full-ride but that’s about it. Everyone else is getting partial’s and there are plenty of walk-ons.
Yesterday they toured a D-1 school’s baseball facility and the head coach talked about some of the perks of being an athlete (meals twice a day most of the time, laundry etc.) so certainly it’s worth something. If you get get .25 scholarship I also assume that to be covering room/board/tuition, so I still plan to pursue it, but really look into options.
I personally think starting out playing at a JUCO might be best (here in Fla. the brand of baseball is very competitive) and they are not under NCAA rules about scholarship limits. While JUCO is lesser education like another poster pointed out you get two years to figure stuff out. Maybe at the end of that he decides being a college athlete is way too burdensome. Maybe he loves it, and wants to go D1 at that point. Hell maybe he gets drafted I don’t know but the point is that can be two full years of not paying out too much and lets him grow up a little.
Disclaimer: 97K student loan I am paying on. Dumb-dumb-dumb and I don’t want the kids to do what we did.
Yes, it not only possible- but simplistically easy. First, you have to decide whether you want an education or a social experience.
My son is just completing his first year of college. He is not going away to college at a cost of $20,000 per year, Rather, he is attending the local community college. The tuition cost is $2,700 per year and the federal government gives a tax credit of about $2,500 to cover that. The net cost is $500 per year plus books. Meanwhile, he is living at home and has a part time job which earns him about $10,000 per year. He is banking most of this money to pay for the final two years at a local university. (all of the credits he is earning at the community college transfer to the four year university.
If he decide to go to the local university and continues to live at home, the tuition will be about $9,000 per year instead of the $20,000 for the privilege of living in a crappy dorm. If he continues to work part time, the tuition is just about covered and when he graduates he should have more than $20,000 banked as well as real world job experience.