Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 09/11/2010 1:05:39 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Across the region and around the country, parents are kissing their college-bound kids -- and potentially up to $200,000 in tuition, room and board -- goodbye.
Especially in the supremely well-educated Washington area, this is expected. It's a rite of passage, part of an orderly progression toward success.
Or is it . . . herd mentality?
Hear this, high achievers: If you crunch the numbers, some experts say, college is a bad investment.
"You've been fooled into thinking there's no other way for my kid to get a job . . . or learn critical thinking or make social connections," hedge fund manager James Altucher says.
Altucher, president of Formula Capital, says he sees people making bad investment decisions all the time -- and one of them is paying for college.
College is overrated, he says: In most cases, what you get out of it is not worth the money, and there are cheaper and better ways to get an education. Altucher says he's not planning to send his two daughters to college.
"My plan is to encourage them to pursue a dream, at least initially," Altucher, 42, says. "Travel or do something creative or start a business. . . . Whether they succeed or fail, it'll be an interesting life experience. They'll meet people, they'll learn the value of money."
Certainly, you'd be forgiven for thinking this argument reeks of elitism. After all, Altucher is an Ivy Leaguer. He's rolling in dough. Easy for him to pooh-pooh the status quo.
But, it turns out, his anti-college ideas stem from personal experience. After his first year at Cornell University, Altucher says his parents lost money and couldn't afford tuition. So he paid his own way, working 60 hours a week delivering pizza and tutoring, on top of his course load.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The bubble hasn't burst yet but is about to. There are way too many law school graduates who can't find any jobs right now.
Thats the way it works everywhere.
$200,000 to go learn to play bongos in Black Studies or about menstruation in Women’s Studies is stupid.
However, do the research and take nuts and bolts classes at a reasonably priced college and tell the overpriced liberal “arts” schools no
Truck drivers make 80G
Some of us joined the Armed Forces, traveled to exotic lands, met exotic women, and did some VERY exotic things with them . . .
. . .and they STILL paid for my college (evil grin)
# ACT Composite: 27 / 31
# ACT English: 26 / 31
# ACT Math: 28 / 33
My daughter made a 27 in Science, I believe, or maybe it was Math back in 1st semester of 7th grade, missed going to the awards Duke TIP by one point. I’ve tried to steer her to Med or Legal and she is not interested. Their junior and senior class went on a field trip to UAH yesterday where many reps were and she talked with Auburn, AL, Vanderbilt and I think UNA. They “say” in the literature we get from Vanderbilt to not “worry” about the costs but yeah right, easy for them to say. It would be nice though as we are located about 85 miles south of Nashville. Georgia Tech she could get flights out of Atlanta to home BUT I’d NEVER want her to leave campus since it is near downtown, although we haven’t visited . . . yet.
I would think being in-state the Georgia Hope would cover pretty much all, except maybe room&board, but we’re next door in AL . . . but where there is a will there is a way and they like a diverse student body so I’m sure they work with you. Our college savings for both kids took a big hit like everybody else, were’ within almost 10% of where we were so have basically made up some lost ground and treaded water the past 2 years.
And in 15 years, the guy with the degree will be making close to $100K a year when he gets laid off. have a $300K mortgage, and a wife that's looking for the exit while she can still get alimony and child support pegged to the (former) $100K level. He may have his student loans half paid off by then. Meanwhile, the truck driver will at least have a job. And if he was smart enough to have college as an option, he may own a trucking company and have been the one to lay off the college grad.
I think you’re right and I think I know why. As colleges and universities are taken over by politically correct Anger Studies majors, which are taught to kids who graduated knowing less than what we had to know to make it out of the sixth grade to junior high, the college degree becomes less and less valuable to employers looking to hire somebody who can actually THINK, DO, and PRODUCE something meaningful and profitable for the company rather than somebody whose only skill is to oversee human resource diversity and sensitivity.
Beyond that, expecting academia to respond to the needs of the business world is akin to expecting oil to volunatrily emulsify with water. The cocky, snotty, angry, arrogant snobs of academia who loathe capitalism and hate America wouldn’t be caught dead curtailing curricula to the needs of the industries that will actually have to harvest from the crop of indoctrinated leftwing grads pumped out by these commie institutions every year. Of course, they expect the capitalist system to FUND their overpaid, fat-assed jobs within these academic Disneylands.
Another thing one can do is go to a VO-Tech school. There are some well-paying jobs when one has a vocation. I’d sure like to see the community colleges add a tech degree in gun smitthing. We don’t have enough gun smiths around the country, and the ones I know are getting along in years.
It takes an ignorant person to live in a house that he thinks was wired by an “unskilled” or semiskilled electrician! Would holyscroller like to climb into a car after an “unskilled” person has done a brake job on it?
An “unskilled” job is sweeping the floor or something similar, a job where a person can be on his own and doing the work by the end of the first day. Not electrical or plumbing or carpentry or any of that.
One thing, and I consider it a MAJOR thing, that is wrong with this country is that there is so little respect for people who do the work that is so necessary to keep this country going. Two of the people I like and respect the most are a father and son auto mechanic team. They are so far from unskilled it is absurd, if degrees were given for what they do they would both have doctorates.
Don’t hold back, tell us what you REALLY think ;>)
Nobody, without a college degree, can be considered a true engineer. That is simply a bastardization of the English language. There is a mental discipline in undergraduate engineering that can’t be replaced. If you want ANY respect in the engineering field a degree is mandatory. I have never heard of a manager in my field without at least a 4 yr, engineering degree. If it ever got out that somebody faked that, the shit would hit the fan.
That’s funny.
Engineering is doing - not a piece of paper.
..and for that 22K difference per year, in 6 years the guy with no college will still be making $28K
Not necessarily. Those with ambition and guts to take a gamble start their own trucking business or become general manager of a huge trucking company, perhaps even president.
One does not need to cram all of their education in their 18th to 22nd year of life. Many achievers continue education throughout their lives, learning what needs to be learned to get ahead and stay ahead in their fields.
I know quite a few very sucessful people with no college at all under their belt.
There are too many kids in school today who have no idea why they’re there or what their goals are, yet owe thousands in student loans in disciplines they’ll never use.
BTW, what’s your field?
Rare to find those guys who are pocketing what their shop charges. Yeah, shops charge $75-$100/ hr but often $50-$75 of that is overhead.
EE
Until college costs deflate down to the level they were back in the 1950’s it’s absolutely no bargain ... and unlikely to pay off compared to a trade.
Thanks for posting that. Way too many people on FR see college in narrow terms. If the degree doesn't get you a specific job, many think it is worthless.
To them, college is just a high-falutin' trade school.
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