Posted on 01/18/2009 10:34:57 AM PST by Graybeard58
Ever since my son was a tot, I have squirreled away as much as I could muster for his college education.
Education is a priority in our family, but every year that goes by, it becomes clearer that nothing I could ever amass will dent what it will cost to send him to college. Despite his desire, college may be out of the question for him — and for anybody else earning less than an auto executive's salary.
The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education reported recently that the rising cost of education has put it virtually out-of-reach for most Americans. By the time my son, 7, is college age, he may take his place among the first American generation to be less educated than its parents.
Indeed, that has already happened. We have fewer college-age kids enrolled in college than six other industrialized countries and even fewer American kids complete their degree. The kids in Japan, Ireland, Korea and France far outrank us in college completion rates. Why? Did you ever talk to an American high school graduate and compare it to the conversation you have with a European? It's like the difference between David Frost and Maury Povich.
Today's 25- to 34-year-olds are actually less educated than their Baby Boomer elders. Only 39 percent of adults 25 to 34 hold an associate's degree or higher in the U.S. Compare that to Canada, where the figure is 55 percent, or Korea, where the figure is 53 percent.
That's because while median family income has risen 147 percent from 1982 to 2007 in the U.S., the cost of college tuition and fees has soared 439 percent. How can anyone possibly afford that? They can't. Student borrowing has doubled in the last 10 years and the percent of a family's income it eats up is bigger than ever. A private, four-year institution will devour 76 percent of the income of a median American family.
"The middle class has been financing [college education] through debt," Patrick M.Callahan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, told The New York Times. "The scenario has been that families that have a history of sending kids to college will do whatever it takes, even if that means a huge amount of debt."
In Connecticut, for instance, we do a great job at preparing our kids for college — as long as they're rich. This state has the ignoble distinction of having the widest achievement gaps between rich and poor than any other state in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Education. So we get an "A" for preparing kids for school and an "F" for making it affordable, which is a bit like teaching a kid to ride a bike, and then not giving him one to ride on.
This might be merely onerous if the whole value of a college degree hadn't become so dubious.
Sure, all kinds of reports will tell you how much difference a college degree makes in terms of how much salary its recipients command, but, again, talk to some of these students and they'll make your eyebrows curl.
One study reported that less than half of college seniors knew that Yorktown was the battle that ended the American Revolution. A similar number could name the reason NATO was formed.
Not long ago, a college professor friend of mine wrote me about trying to prepare his students for a mid-term exam, which would rely heavily on the readings he assigned. "I've never really liked reading," one of his students sniffed. "I don't see the point in it." She added that she didn't think it was "fair" that, at the college level, her professor placed such an emphasis on reading.
Yes, the world is a cruel place.
Nobody who's visited a college dorm lately can deny that the place has been spruced up. In my day, the places looked like Soviet-era gymnasiums. Now they look like suites at the Doubletree. And the potentates presiding over these glittering dominions receive a king's ransom.
In November, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that presidents at 12 private universities pulled down more than $1 million last year. (So embarrassed were several college presidents over their income that they actually gave back some of their salaries after the report came out.)
If this country believes, as Thomas Jefferson did, that education is the great equalizer, it needs to pull the plug on fripperies and sinecures and start doing a better job at teaching its kids.
Because at this price, it just isn't worth it.
Reach Tracey O'Shaughnessy at tosh@rep-am.com.
I agree with most of the posters on here, but would sum it up as follows:
1.) Do not bitch about the cost of an Ivy League education. We don’t want to hear it.
2.) A college education is not the end-all be-all to success in life.
3.) How you approach your education and what you do with your knowledge for an employer is more important than where you went and how much you paid.
4.) If a parent is assuming the entire cost of the education without requiring the student to work and contribute, do not bitch. We don’t want to hear it.
I got my degree from a state college after spending four years in the Navy. My parents gave me free room and board, but I had a job the entire time and commuted to school.
I think I provide quality work and good value for my employer, and even though I got degrees in both Nuclear Medicine and Chemistry, I have never, ever used my BS in Chemistry, and stopped working in Nuclear Medicine in 1996. What I learned in college that was useful was not how to titrate a solution or calculate how much isotope would decay over time. What was useful was learning how to think things through and analyze a problem.
What are tuckpointers? Never heard of that trade.
Bricklayers.
In our climate the mortar between bricks gets beat up pretty bad, so every year we will have at least one exterior wall that needs the mortar to be filled in.
I find it so educational to talk with some of these tradesmen. They remember communism first hand.
I dunno about that, I didn't go to college and I had to wait 'til I was 54 to retire.
The bottom line is, if you work hard, you get to go to college. Not every person who skates through HS with Cs and Ds is going to cut it.
The bottom line is, if you work hard, you get to go to college. Not every person who skates through HS with Cs and Ds is going to cut it.
I wish more teachers had that attitude. I rarely read anything, although I took lots of notes in class. I spent way to much time cramming for exams rather than "learning" the material.
Same thing here, the girl had her brain eaten in college.
this was the rate 20 years ago in nebraska, to the best of my recollection. It’s probably doubled by now, I suppose.
Oh, the humanity!!!!
Mark
I agree completely... Something that takes skill, education, and can't be sent overseas...
A career as an electrician, plumber, or HVAC. Or becoming a skilled carpenter, though depending on your area, the market may be flooded with illegal aliens, mostly unskilled. But it will still dilute the market.
All of these are terrific careers, and you can make a great living at them, though it can be hard, dirty work.
Mark
He can go any college he wants to all he has to do is tell them that he Mexican and everything will be free works that way in mexifornia.
I doubt that. The Baby Boomers who had more education had fewer children.
[I'm going to assume that your class is taught in a run-of-the-mill lecture format, i.e., professor lectures, students take notes, etc.]
Put yourself in your students' shoes for one moment. If all you are doing is asking a question, that's fine, but if you are openly "peppering" them with questions, you are walking a fine line between testing a student's knowledge (in possibly a Socratic way?) and outright humiliating him in front of his peers.
Education is a business, and teachers (professors, instructors, and so forth) are delivering a service to their students. And, I, for one, would drop out of a class if the instructor openly treated me in a condescending manner. [That said, I wouldn't call the instructor obscene names to his or her face; that's just nasty.]
Depends on the major, on the professors, and...on who the student associates with, within his or her peer group, at the school.
Smart kid was conservative until college.
I was a raging Big Government neocon Bushbot/McCainiac when I got to UVA. [Hell, I would have agreed wholeheartedly with McCain's positions on amnesty, bailouts, wars, etc. at that time.]
I am not sure if it was solely due to college ethics coursework, but after getting my first paycheck (replete with line items for taxes withheld) and running into a few financial bumps along the road, I didn't swing just "conservative"...I swung libertarian.
As for the rest of this thread, I am a tad disheartened by some Freepers' attitude towards formal education. Going to college can be a good thing, so long as you recognize that it's just a means towards achieving your life goals and that taking out loans to the tune of $30K+/year for a Vanderbilt music degree is just plain silly. [Several of my friends are cases in point on that last one.] Of course, if you've got the cash to burn, by all means, go for it.
No worries, I was just having a little fun but forgot to add a little smiley face :)
Don't ever believe that. I was Valedictorian of my high school class, and a National Merit Finalist, but I went to a podunk high school way out in the sticks, and they simply didn't teach any advanced math. When I got to college, I had to take remedial math, and it was always a struggle to get caught up, but I did so. Got my BS , and then PhD in chemistry. And did that while paying my own way with scholarships and student jobs.
Bottom line---with motivation, it CAN be done.
this woman is an idiot who has no clue what she is talking about.
my son is a jr. in high school. we are constantly receiving notices from
private colleges informing us we can afford that school should our son be accepted.. they offer
grants which don’t have to be paid back and are available to even kids
in upper middle class. as mentioned, there are state universities, online
courses from colleges. any number of ways to get through school. but
she also seems to feel that going to college is meaningless now. so, help
me out here, does she want her kid to go to college?
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