Posted on 06/17/2007 11:52:39 AM PDT by Graybeard58
My friend's son is moving back home. He is in debt, his mother says. "Up to his eyebrows."
Well, join the club.
Most Americans today carry about $8,000 in credit card debt, which sounds like peanuts to some of us out here, staggering under far more. Lots of this debt goes to all the doo-dads and gee-gaws that we once considered luxuries and now view as staples. But more, far more of that debt is going toward the very lubricant that Americans have been indoctrinated into believing will grease the economic ladder for them: Education.
Education, which Thomas Jefferson once proclaimed as the "great equalizer of the conditions of men," has become the great albatross of the working class. The difference between what a high school student can hope to earn today versus what a college student earns is the difference between Dinty Moore beef stew and bouillabaisse.
A college graduate earns almost twice as much as a high school graduate over his or her lifetime, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Add to that the attendant social and cultural benefits (college graduates tend to vote, read and attend cultural events), to say nothing of the soupcon of wisdom that students might inhale, and you've got a time-tested vehicle for success.
Here's the catch: You have to be as rich as Croesus to afford it. Either that, or you have to embrace indentured servitude. The average cost of a four-year private institution is $22,218 a year this year, an increase of almost 6 percent over last year, reports the College Board. The organization adds that tuition will increase an average of 10 percent each year for public schools and 6 percent for private ones.
College tuition has grown faster than family income for the past 15 years but that hasn't stopped families from doing whatever they can to get their progeny into the higher halls of academia. It is a tragic equation that is tearing at the middle class, leaving it caught between a rock and a hard place: Throw your children to the demons of debt or consign them to a life of dead-end jobs and missed opportunities.
The worst of it is that we are living shoulder-to-shoulder with what USA Today calls "the wealthiest generation in American history." The problem, if you could call it that, is that the people grabbing that wealth are typically over 55. Wealth for older families has actually doubled since 1989. For those 35 to 50, wealth has shrunk. They cannot manage to save and they are smothered by debt.
I graduated from college in 1984 with a debt I then considered crushing: $10,000. For 10 years, I sent little paper stubs of $117 a month off to Wachovia Bank in North Carolina. That seems like chicken feed now, but, remember, I was working in newspapers. Chicken feed is what they pay you.
Today, the average college student is graduating with more than $19,000 in debt, if they're lucky. Go to a "good" (i.e. expensive) college, and it's worse. USA Today reports on students who have six-figure debt, like Rutgers University graduate Joe Palazzolo, who graduated this year with a master's degree in public policy and student loans of more than $116,000. (That's an $800 monthly payment).
College costs will continue to accelerate, and you don't have to have a college degree to figure out why. There's a huge demographic bubble of kids in the college-age group, so it's a buyer's market from a college's perspective.
To make themselves attractive to students, they add fripperies like spas and widespread Internet access, to say nothing of trendy coffee shops, rock-climbing walls, state-of-the-art health clubs and princely dining halls. The University of Vermont recently spent nearly $100 million on student amenities, including an artificial skating pond. Boston University upped the ante with six racquetball and squash courts, a competition pool, a recreational pool, two gyms, a jogging track and a 35-foot rock-climbing wall.
Washington State University boasts the largest student weight and cardiovascular center in the country, a natatorium that features a leisure pool with a water volleyball net and water spa that can accommodate more than 50 people. Ohio State University's $140 million gym includes a natatorium with five pools and two spas, golf hitting stations with putting greens
What, you may ask, does this have to do with Plato?
Ah, but you would have to be a college graduate to answer that.
And that would cost a lot of dough.
A college degree us NOT worth zilch. My four kids all have degrees (only one a MA in History) and they are doing quite well. Two, including the MA in History are in the Army, and one makes over 200K per year, another about 100K with an engineering degree from Georgia Tech.
Our universities are doing a great job educating, except of course for the liberal propaganda.
“they cannot manage to save and are covered by debt”
These are some of the same “sub prime” idiots who are now losing their homes. If you choose to live like a millionare on middle class wages, what can one expect? These are the same values bding passed along to their kids who are “up to their eyeballs in debt.”
Well, let's see. You can go to the local community college for two years. I received a catalog from one of the local CCs this week and in-area tuition was something like $700 per semester for 18 hours. Or, as someone pointed out, you could use the military to pay your way. Or you could go to a local state college for about 2/3 of the quoted tuition (UT Dallas estimates a full time student's costs at $14k - $18k per year).
Don't know the answer to your question, Kev, but the engineering firm I work for is looking to add 200-400 engineers, but zero arts majors. I guess Power Plants don't need a fancy paint scheme.
Makes sense, because if you go according to the Consumer Price Index, today the average would be $20,014.34.
“That is strange. Once a kid is eighteen, their claim on their parent’s should be zero.”
I agree that it is strange, but it’s also the law here in Indiana.
In addition, if you have two children, as I do, the child support does NOT drop to 50% of what was being for both of them when one leaves home for college. It stays the same!
The reasoning in the law is that since it takes 75% of the child support paid for two kids to support one kid, dropping it to 50% would deprive the other child of the needed 25%.
I was stunned to find both of these things out, but it is written into the Indiana Code.
Child support law is way out of whack in many states.
I paid for my 4 year degree myself, because my folks made too much money to qualify me for aid. I did borrow money, but I paid it off the next summer... get this.. by WORKING a JOB... and one that I got when I was 14 and KEPT to this day, getting promotions and advancements, still only seasonal and part time. And I am paying for Law School now, again, with some debt, but I pay it as I go also, mostly. But I work, I study and I drive a 5 year old once new Car that my folks co-signed for but that I PAID for also.
As a side note and one poster mentioned the Fortune 500 non Ivy demographics... The VP of our Human Resource Dept DOES NOT HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE, and she is making 6 figures plus. When a job says “Or Equivalent Experience”, it means it. What’s wrong with my generation... and I see it all the time.. is they would rather be on MySpace playing than WORKING. And the kind of jobs they try for are Malls, Retail or worse.
Corporate America, the BIG companies will take interns. NON PAID, and those almost ALWAYS lead to a real job and a career path. But that seems beneath most folks these day. I could rant on this, but I see it everyday and thus have NO sympathy for those who treat college like a 5 year vacation on Daddy’s or the Taxpayer’s dime, then whine about how much they owe for the party later. BAH !!!
Just a thought:
Once you get above a certain level it is all anecdotal. For inspiration you read J. Paul Getty’s autobiography. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
I have not been talking about getting a ‘job’ but about kicking open some doors.
That’s okay. I was talking about the Boards of Directors of the Fed and international banking. Pay starts above $10 million and if it doesn’t you have kicked open the door to the janitor’s closet.
Community College is very affordable. In NYS tuition is in the $3000 a year range. The maximum Pell Grant is is around $4300. TAP grants are also available, as is Work Study. Colleges have Foundations which give out scholarships. College can be done if you’re smart about it.
Sure, they can find jobs. Many of them will include phrases like:
Would you like fries with that?
or
Priority or Express Mail?
Right. Law school, probably Yale, is where it’s at. How you get there is up to you, but grades count.
:)
Well, Mom n Dad didn’t raise “greedy”-— Generous he is, and will never have a payphone installed for guests to use...LOL....;^)
That’s right. I figure more and more doesn’t really add up to much unless you have something in mind such as might occur to somebody with a few $ billion to invest. A few $ million isn’t worth the stomach ulcers or chancing what happened to Alger Hiss, but a few $ billion is a different game.
When you are 18 years old, you don’t know what the future will hold.
I have a degree in computer science, and now I am a stay at home mom. Why did I get a degree?
Well, for one I worked for 10 years before I had kids. I met my husband at work. He was way more educated than the men I would have met if I hadn’t gone to college.
Because I have a college degree, I can substitute teach at my daughters’ school.
I figure I’ll be able to do something else with my degree later on when my kids are older.
Darn. I didn’t realize it was so expensive. I was planning on going back and earning a degree in Black Lesbian Feminist Native American Environmental Multi-Cultural Educational Studies...
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