Posted on 03/15/2012 6:20:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Everytime the trustees meet, Californians protest and express their position on reducing college costs - but the Board and the unions tell them to go to hell so it is not the vast majority of Californians causing this - it is government and unions.
California will look to Uncle Obama to bail them out again and if he gets re-elected he most certainly will.
Supply and demand.
Prices go up so long as enough people are willing to pay them.
Education, per se, is free for the motivated.
A thing is worth exactly what someone is willing to pay for it.
Funny, you’d think a student would grasp such simple concepts.
No, it is students willing to pay whatever price is charged. If they stop paying, prices will drop in a hurry.
Not when everyone and their dog tells you from the time you're three years old that you HAVE to go to college.
Businesses are just as much to blame, too. No college? No thanks.
Some people aspire to be more than dishwashers. It's the world we live in.
Too much money chasing too few real educational opportunities.
The excess of money comes from some wrong-headed belief that “education”, in and of itself, is an unmixed blessing. First of all, what is going on in our colleges and universities is more indoctrination than any kind of useful education that prepares the individual with the tools to meet and overcome the challenges that arise in life which nobody could predict.
But more than that, the excess of money available encourages persons who cannot absorb the basics of higher thinking to enroll anyway, only to drop out, now hopelessly in debt and still unable to earn a meaningful wage. The burgeoning student loan debt threatens to become even more vexing than mortgage loan debt, and for much the same reason, the acquired values have dropped far below the cost of acquisition.
So today’s youth (and presumedly the generations to follow) are placed in harm’s way, without means to avert the certain disaster that shall overtake them. Destined to be forever destitute and hopeless, their response will be to become the new proletariat, sullen and secretly fuming at what fate has handed them.
Some, of course, will beat all the odds and actually acquire a real education, and have the capability to parlay that fund of ability and native inquiry into a decent, even excellent, living for themselves.
At which point this newly minted and certified clever few become the object of the wrath of the many now disenfranchised cohorts, who strike with a righteous rage and absolutely no coherent reasoning power whatsoever, pulling down whatever feeble gains made against the widening chaos at every hand.
The John Galts disappear into their redoubts and keeps, until the storm has passed. Even then, it may not be safe to venture forth, as the age of unreason shall die only with the last of the proletariat.
The proletariat are still among us.
Wow!
In short, there are no longer enough rich Californians to tax further to make up the state shortfalls. Nor can Californians explain why nearby states, with far less natural riches and without state income taxes, seem to be no worse off than California.
These students are pretty stupid if they can't figure it out.
The result is that we are left with mostly liberal students angry at mostly liberal policies of a mostly liberally governed state.
Once again proving that liberals are nothing more than spoiled children.
Fine, so go. There are options aside from blindly signing up for an untenable bill.
My wife & I have 5 degrees between us (including from Ivy League), owed nothing upon completion, total cost under $100k, with the last one paying her to attend.
There it is: the goose that lays the golden eggs! LET’S KILL IT TO GET AN EGG AND MAKE AN OMELETTE!
I quit CA because I could no longer stand the combination of insanity and stupidity which has taken root there.
>Campus administrators likewise want more state money for universities.
Yes, I bet they do. Give to em. Accelerate the implosion of the whole liberal experiment.
You seem to be misunderstanding. I agree with your assessment, but EVERYONE tells kids they MUST go to college. No real guiding on degree programs or skill sets, just “go to college, get a degree, and you’ll be OK.” It’s stupid, it’s counterproductive, but that’s how things are right now. I don’t know what it will take to break the cycle.
Can prices for college ever get too high before parents, students, and companies decide that it’s just not a great idea anymore?
True, but not for the reasons usually attributed.
They exist insofar as they will not act on opportunities, will not do the work necessary to reap greater rewards. The only ones holding them down are themselves. Per this discussion, they are the ones who sign up for classes (usually incurring enormous debt) then simply will not do the assigned work needed to demonstrate basic, even minimal, mastery of the material taught. The proletariat in our culture are those who think showing up is enough; they have little/no wealth because they will not create/earn it.
On the large scale: At some point the credit market for tuition will either crash, or foresee a crash and put on the brakes by demanding some indication that the loan will in fact be paid off. Alas, the federal government just took over that market, and is guaranteeing those loans with “if the borrower defaults we’ll just extract the remainder from taxpayers”, so there will be a crash.
On the individual scale: At some point those signing for loans will go “there’s no way I can pay this off, so I’m not going to sign.” Those will succeed, and pass on the viable meme. Those who don’t will self-destruct, perhaps over the course of several generations (”sins of the fathers punished unto the third or fourth generations”) and burn themselves out of the loan system.
Cultural flaws are like disease, rendering the whole ill until either the immune system eradicates the cause and heals, or the patient dies.
This country is in dire need of some “comprehensive” tuition “reform”. The Marxists at the “institutions of higher learning” are charging us way too much to indoctrinate our children.
... or which they could otherwise not afford if not for taxpayers picking up the balance of the inflated costs.
“This country is in dire need of some “comprehensive” tuition “reform”. The Marxists at the “institutions of higher learning” are charging us way too much to indoctrinate our children.”
#####
Step One, and by far the most important one, would be to get government COMPLETELY out of subsidizing “higher education”.
Subject academia to the rigor of the free market and many of the problems would be on their way to being solved.
When I was a kid in the 50’s-early 60’s, California was using free college and other perks to lure people to them - much as Alask and Australia were doing to try to build up the population. It’s mistake was that it attracted so many libs and other “gimme-gimme” folks that, instead of dropping the incentives once population was pumped up, they kept “sweetening the pot” (double entendre on purpose).
What a joke!
Remember when the once-Golden State lead the world?????
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