Posted on 08/02/2005 8:54:52 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
The grammar above made that particular post simply reek of irony. That being said, I've never understood the resent towards higher education amongst those who don't have it. When I was growing up, I can distinctly remember that the parents with little or no education were the ones who who most stridently preached the value of an education to their children.
Mine too, but I would insist that they be self-supporting.
Well said, my cousin got money from my mom to attend school, (we were proud when he was accepted, did not really thing he would get in) But later found out that in addition to the college money mom gave, he took out student loans at the same time. For "party" money. Now he has a degree in "film making" and works as a contractor. He is in debt. (He did not move back home though, his parents live in a mobile home.)
There's a certain level of jealousy, plus a feeling that colleges are just Marxist indoctrination centers.
Education is a good thing. In many cases, it isn't all that expensive. Sending your kids to a run-of-the-mill state school such as Michigan State is well within the means for most middle-class family. Conversely, the high cost of a prestigious school such as Harvard or MIT is worth it for all of the doors that such an education opens.
Yes, but how many of us would get accepted? (Harvard rejects 92% of their applicants)
I'm not saying you have to go to Harvard to get a quality education, nor do you have to pay Harvard prices, either.
In many states, there is a completely decent state college system that even middle class families can afford to send their kids to without them taking on more than a modest amount of loans.
My law school roommate went to Harvard undergrad and graduated from law school with about $120,000 in combined loans. He's been able to pay off almost all of his loans in the 5 years since graduation.
I don't know that I'd think a degree in feminist studies has any value except as an operative for the Democrat party. ;)
A friend of mine took an informal poll from his graduating class of electrical engineers, some 30 in all. After 6 years out of college, only 6 were still engineers. The rest were cops, dairy farmers, back in school for law degrees or MBAs, teachers and the like. I have degrees in philisophy and economics and have been a computer programmer/sys admin for 25 years. The logic training was very useful ;)
I also saw a story in my local newspaper last year that Hertz Rent-A-Car was looking forward to hiring 6-8000 people with newly minted BAs as "customer service" (read counter) people. Can you imagine paying 60K for a college degree and working as counter help for Hertz ? That's a job that high school graduates should be doing. College degrees now have the same value as a high school degree of 20 years ago.
"...you have an extraordinary amount of pride as your income increases, as it will if you work hard."
Pride??? What's that?
I think that too many young people don't have any pride - not honorably earned pride. (fake 'self-esteem' they have plenty of!)
They have been taught to do JUST as they wish, with no regrets, no consideration, no shame. So they have no pride. The kid moves in with M&D and expects them to acquiesce to whatever he wants to do. (=live like a teenager complete with sex+drugs+rock-n-roll)
They don't want to grow up. EVER. And society is starting to suffer from it.
(Naturally - I'm not talking about everyone, but I do see it as a trend.)
Those who take your advice will be the happy ones.
Those who want to be eternal teenagers will be miserable. They will think of themselves as LOSERS - and they will be right about that!
The week I graduated H.S.(I was 17) my folks started charging me rent...
Have you visited any college campuses lately? The percentage of students whose primary purpose for being there is very, very small. The amount of time and energy they devote to wild partying, hollering mindlessly at ball games, and promoting nutty political causes which they're far too naive to assess, is staggering. All at a tab of around $30,000 per student per year, to whoever's paying. Many if not most will eventually regret not having used their one opportunity for education more productively, but by the time they're serious about studying, the money's all been spent and nobody's offering them a free ride anymore.
I worked full time for 4 years between high school and college, for a fast food chain, starting as counter help and eventually becoming a shift manager, responsible for hiring, training, disciplining, and firing high school and college age kids, making sure my shifts met financial targets in both sales and expenses, and enforcing security procedures (on night shifts in an area where most stores in the chain had been held up at least once, including a mass murder at one; and with typical stupid kids for employees, who would do things like stash alcoholic beverages by the dumpster, and then try to head back there during or after closing work -- nah, no criminal would take that opportunity to put a gun to a kid's head to gain entry to the closed store and force the manager to empty the safe and rape her afterwards, as happened to one of my fellow shift managers nearby).
That was a whole lot more valuable than going to some college and squeezing in a little real studying around a jammed schedule of social and extracurricular activities, and undergoing freshman indoctrination (I was pretty indoctrination-proof by the time I got to college). And frankly, I would have benefitted from a couple more years in the work world before moving on to college and then law school, and would have done that if my parents hadn't been endlessly pressuring me to go to college (I lived with my mother during most of that time, paying half the mortgage, all my own expenses, and my own health insurance).
I'm not unique. I know the older students at my college were much more serious about their educations, and I've taken some science courses at an urban college recently, and seen a huge difference in attitudes towards academics, between straight-from-high-school students, and those who are either attending part time while supporting themselves with full time work, or attending full time after several years in the working world. In general, a dollar spent on college education for someone who's already been self-supporting for a few years, gets a whole lot more return than a dollar spent on college education for a kid straight out of high school. Certainly, a small percentage of high school students are mature and serious about academic work, and ready to take full advantage of a college education, but even those would usually benefit from a year or two out in the real world.
The reason it's so easy for colleges to brainwash young adults with ludicrous political and economic ideas, is that the brainwashees have so little real world experience to compare against what they're being taught. Someone who's starting college at the age of 30, after 8 years of full time work and financial self-sufficiency, isn't likely to be persuaded to major in "Peace Studies" or "Queer Studies", and a college where more than half the students were in that age range wouldn't even offer such majors. They sure couldn't convince me that socialism made sense, after I'd worked with several dozen fast-food employees who were refugees from the various socialist utopias of Asia. But they had no trouble convincing most of the kids who'd come straight from Suburban High.
Even in-state schools run close to 20K when you factor in books and fees. Penn State's tuition is 10K, and room/board is 8K. Add in about 2K per year in books. You think a middle-class family has 20K per year extra to spend per child, over 80K for 4 years ?
I'm sure your mom is a wonderful person, but paying for a kid to get a college degree in "film-making" is just plain nuts.
Dunno, I might search. I read it in a waiting room however, not on the net.
You forgot to add in the subsidy paid by the taxpayers. State colleges aren't any cheaper than private colleges, they just send the bills along different routes.
A lot more schools would have valuable prestige if they weren't admitting a parade of immature, self-absorbed party majors.
I entered college in 94 at U of Southern California, Transferred to Michigan, spent a semester in Cambridge, went to law school at Cornell and spent a summer at the Sorbonne. The only place where I saw a significant number of students "goofing off" was at USC, and most of the partiers were rich frat boys and sorority girls whose future was set, no matter what.
Do a lot of college kids party hard? Absolutely, but they also work incredibly hard, too. Go to the library of any college at midnight and you'll find a large number of kids studying.
All at a tab of around $30,000 per student per year, to whoever's paying.
That's the tab for a fairly expensive private school. It has been my general experience that the hard-core party schools are the lower-cost state schools.
One of the major downsides of starting college late (and then business school, med. school or law school etc.) is the fact that you are losing several years of earnings. Now, there's nothing wrong with a job as a manager of a fast food restaurant. However, if you have the means to go to college right out of college, followed by law school (as an example) you could be earning $125,000+ at age 25.
Many members of the younger generation failed to learn how to work. They watched TV and played video games instead of paying attention in school and getting a job when they were eligible. Many can't read their own high school diploma. Businesses don't hire uneducated, unmotived people who refuse to work. You reap what you sow.
I turn 49 on the 26th of this month. I normally work 60 to 70 hour weeks. It's not exactly a "grand" life, but I do own my home free and clear. Both vehicle loans will be paid off in two years and the 4x4s should last another 10 years with proper maintenance. One of my kids is off the nest and very successful. The other two fit the mold of video game/TV watching slackers who are barely capable of getting a job as a Walmart greeter. Very discouraging.
Not to mention filling out our W2 to ensure the mortgage interest/property tax incentive arrives in your paycheck. Turn some of that tax burden into personal equity.
The $8K a year is kind of misleading. Unless the kid lives at home (which, BTW, is an option for many students, too), he is going to be spending that much on room/board anyway. So, the 8K isn't an additional expense.
You think a middle-class family has 20K per year extra to spend per child, over 80K for 4 years ?
I'm assuming they've put something away during the first 18 years of their kids' life for a college fund. Even on the low end, assume they put away $1K per year for 18 years. Let's say that has grown to about $30K (it would probably be higher, but I'm being conservative). Even with your numbers of $20K/year, that really only leaves about $50K for them to pay. Let's say they can put another $5K a year in and the kid can work during the four school years for a total of $10K (again, probably on the low side).
You're left with $20K that needs to be taken in loans.
So, well within the means of the average middle-class family, with a little planning.
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