Posted on 08/16/2010 2:50:46 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
WITH the academic year about to begin, colleges and universities, as well as students and their parents, are facing an unprecedented financial crisis. What we’ve seen with California’s distinguished state university system — huge cutbacks in spending and a 32 percent rise in tuition — is likely to become the norm at public and private colleges. Government support is being slashed, endowments and charitable giving are down, debts are piling up, expenses are rising and some schools are selling their product for two-thirds of what it costs to produce it. You don’t need an M.B.A. to know this situation is unsustainable.
With unemployment soaring, higher education has never been more important to society or more widely desired. But the collapse of our public education system and the skyrocketing cost of private education threaten to make college unaffordable for millions of young people. If recent trends continue, four years at a top-tier school will cost $330,000 in 2020, $525,000 in 2028 and $785,000 in 2035.
Yet most faculty and administrators refuse to acknowledge this crisis. Consider what is taking place here in New York City. Rather than learning to live within their means, Columbia University, where I teach, and New York University are engaged in a fierce competition to expand as widely and quickly as possible. Last spring, N.Y.U. announced plans to increase its physical plant by 40 percent over the next 20 years; this summer Columbia secured approval for its $6.3 billion expansion in Upper Manhattan. N.Y.U. is also opening a new campus in Abu Dhabi this fall.
The financial arrangements for these projects remain obscure, but it is clear that they will not be completed without increasing the universities’ already significant and perhaps unsustainable levels of debt.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The Communists are just laundering money to the fellow travellers in the University system. That is all.
If I had a kid going to college today, Hillsdale would be on the VERY short list.
Were I a political leader...gradually seeking to enslave a populace..the first thing I would do would be sure that its leaders...the college educated , were chained to my wheels.
Hence the debt demanded of our children to be “educated”
My youngest son is taking a year off from college after taking two years of classes.
After hearing at length what is going on in his classrooms I am finding - for the first time in my life - that maybe a college education just isn’t worth it anymore. You can learn what you like on the web and in less expensive classes and only need the diploma if you want an institutional job.
Even then the standards for getting the diploma are getting so low as to be meaningless in determining someone’s competence or even basic knowledge in any particular field.
You’re much more likely to be useless if you have a modern college degree.
The only guarantee you have on an American college campus is that you will be overwhelmed with marxist indoctrination and enforced PC lifestyles.
So true. Lately I've been butting heads with a homeschooler who wants to attend one of the pricier universities, which I happen to know is a cesspool. Even if it were free and not infested with ultraliberal hedonists, the idea of wasting 3-4 good years makes me ill.
I say learn a trade, run a business, discover how it all works in practice...and then you will have some resistance to the brain diseases that are epidemic on campus, and when you find you've made a dumb move, at least you will have wasted your OWN money.
Finally parents and hopefully eventually students will begin to question whether they are actually getting their money’s worth in a college.
Some of the hard sciences (certainly not climate science) are probably worth the money at a less expensive state university, but how can one justify $40K a year to get a degree in art or history unless one goes on to become a lawyer? In any case one can learn all this stuff online or out of books at home.
Another great school and a great value: Grove City College.
The program my youngest is taking a break from is allegedly an “engineering” program, a new four year program to take advantage of new technologies.
It turns out to be a green politics program where you learn very little about engineering and a lot about how to “manage” projects that can be turned towards “green technologies.”
What a disappointment for my conservative and bright son. His grandfather was an outstanding electrical engineer and was a great role model for actually being good at the subject matter.
When about the only thing discussed is the politics of the subject and you learn a smattering of technical expertise on your own it quickly becomes not worth enduring.
It tears my heart out to say that if he decides not to go back to college then I won’t care as long as he continues to have the interest and work ethic he was raised with. He can accomplish anything with the skills he already has, including learning whatever he needs to know to succeed.
At the university I work for, the number of highly paid administrators is stunning. Some of the Deans have one or even two assistant deans that make almost as much as their boss. You also have people in the diversity mafia making top dollar. Many of these people add little or not value to the system. There is also a loss of revenue as many minority kids go to school for free or nearly so (diversity again). Its almost comical when the Dean asks you a question via email, followed by the assistant asking the same question.
That being said, a good part of the rise is due to the skyrocketing cost of benefits, especially health insurance. The latter is not just a university problem, but academia will try to pass it on to the students.
Universities today, regurgitated propaganda from one useful idiot to another useful idiot, IMHO.
Been thre and done that. Worth every penny. And he now teaches social studies. Think he gets it RIGHT?
Not one of the professors I had could function outside the campus environment... not for one instant. They live in that rarefied and artificial world where their significance is conditional only to the campus environment.
It is something to see. In the private sector, they would be eaten alive by people with nowhere near the same ‘education’ but with tons more practical savvy and real world smarts!! They are basically so unrealistic in their approach to WORK that they could not disguise being the misfits they actually are...they would starve.
sadly Universities are all TOO relevant these days when it comes to formulating all of the crackpot ideas that go into making up Obamunism.
I'd be interested in any recommendations from fellow Freepers as to solid engineering schools, preferably not too far from the mid-Atlantic region. So far, I think Penn State, Drexel, Pitt and Princeton are on our 17 year old son's list of likely targets, with Princeton a stretch and only happening if he's offered a lot of financial aid. I suggested he look at Olin, but he's turned off by the small size. We've visited Penn State and Lehigh, and although neither one bowled him over, he and I both felt uncomfortable with Lehigh. It felt somehow confining, and it wasn't just size - more a feeling of wanting to shut up the cheerleaders who were pushing it so hard.
Thank you for any suggestions.
We'd actually like seeing him at a southern school, and we have family roots in NC on his father's side. It's worth considering.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.