Posted on 05/17/2013 10:51:24 PM PDT by george76
How the College-Industrial Complex drove tuition so high.
Class of 2013,
No one else is going to tell you this, so I might as well.
You sit here today, $30,000 or $40,000 in debt, as the latest victims of what may well be the biggest conspiracy in U.S. history. It is a conspiracy so big and powerful that Dan Brown won’t even touch it. It’s a conspiracy so insidious that you will rarely hear its name.
Move over, Illuminati. Stand down, Wall Street. Area 51? Pah. It’s nothing.
The biggest conspiracy of all? The College-Industrial Complex.
Consider this: You have just paid about three times as much for your degree as did someone graduating 30 years ago. That’s in constant dollars — in other words, after accounting for inflation. There is no evidence that you have received a degree three times as good. Some would wonder if you have received a degree even one times as good.
...
about 17% of those with student loans are more than 90 days’ delinquent on their interest payments. Yet he also calculates that 44% haven’t even entered the repayment period at all.
If you turn to the pages of any newspaper, you will read a lot of hand-wringing about this. You will hear attacks on “predatory” student-loan companies and “predatory ... for-profit colleges.” You will hear about cutbacks in Pell Grants and federal aid and proposals to lower the interest rate on subsidized federal loans. But all of these comments ignore one basic problem.
It’s the cost, stupid.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
We need another State Proposition for more money for the schools. /s How much lottery money do they get too?
Well, Texas did just that and added $3.9 Million back into the school fund in this legislative session. New tax breaks for business but no rebate on the property tax for we common folk, the vast majority of which also go to support schools.
About 27 percent of our lottery funds go to support schools. Yes, our state is among those that is solvent but dumping more money into schools is, IMO, not going to improve public education in Texas one iota.
School cartoonist at one University drew a great cartoon showing the graduating students of the University marching in line to get their degrees and then the line continuing to the unemployment line where they were signing up after having received their degrees.
When I went to college, a high-priced sister school but not as high as Sarah Lawrence and Bennington, which were the highest at that time, the cost was $2,200 a year. No, there’s not a zero missing.
When it was time for my daughter to apply to colleges, we went to visit Harvard, as everyone did, and were told they were on a campaign to bolster their endowment by one billion dollars. One of the parents asked why they needed so much more money.
The answer was health care, for all of their faculty and staff. I assume pensions too, but the answer was “mostly for health care.”
So maybe that’s the problem. Not college education per se.
I am sure those Feminist Theory and Basketweaving degrees will pay for it all.
“New tax breaks for business but no rebate on the property tax for we common folk, the vast majority of which also go to support schools.”
Local school taxes are 3/4 of our property tax bills in NJ (among the highest in the country); thankfully Governor Christie capped our tax increases at 2%, so when the teachers get 4% raises cops, firemen, and teachers with the least seniority get laid off. This has been happening for years, and has chased many taxpayers (individuals and companies) out of the state. Initially it was because the taxes were too high (many of us basically pay a monthly rent on top of our mortgage); now it is because though they are stable (at a high rate), there is no money left to fix roads, fight crime, etc.. Teachers’ unions have destroyed our state; they are the enemies of those they “serve”, and are fighting any kind of immigration enforcement because many schools would close for lack of students without the foreign invaders filling the seats.
“School cartoonist at one University drew a great cartoon showing the graduating students of the University marching in line to get their degrees and then the line continuing to the unemployment line where they were signing up after having received their degrees.”
That’s great; the biggest problem I see is that the high prices of the higher education are being matched by falling wages and diminishing opportunities. Never mind the cost of the school; what chance do these graduates have of ever earning a living (never mind paying back loans)?
That's really not so bad for the Lesbian/Gay/Transgender Studies graduate who plans to work on Wall Street for $350,000/year. Not bad at all.
As Thomas Friedman is quoted, “What cannot go on forever, won’t.”
It will eventually correct itself, even if there’s a lot of pain beforehand. If I were younger, I’d probably consider, for as many courses as possible, get the textbooks and use internet sources and self- study until I knew as much I could about a course, then challenge the course.
The small college down the road from me is having a problem getting Freshmen for the next school year.
It’s just like the “Roach Motel”...they check in but they can’t check out.
The bait in this case is government money given to the students to pay government paid colleges and their highly overpaid staff.
Once the students (roaches) check in and take the bait, they will never be able to free themselves of the shackles the government placed on them.
Did you see the Cal-Berkley student on Fox’s “Man on the Street” last night who not only had no clue what Benghazi was about, but didn’t know who was Vice President?
No one that ignorant should be awarded a college degree. These low-information students, who are absolutely clueless, will be voting Democrat their entire lives because their Leftist professors told them to.
The biggest problem with schools are the overpaid administration..... something GOP budget cutters ignore (mainly because they want those jobs when they leave politics)
Those overpaid positions not only drain budgets with excessive salary.... they have sweeter benefits than the rank and file (union) employee.
Problem I have with folks like Scott Walker is that they do not cut these positions.....they focus too much on “Economic Envy” low info voters jealous that someone still has a job.....and cut the low paid jobs
You cannot cut school (and government) spending until you cut the overpaid admin and executive jobs
It IS correcting itself - now. The correction involves importing foreign students while leaving Americans with high school educations that in our day would have been 8th grade educations (and I’m only in my early 40s).
The American youth are acknowledging this with every new facial tattoo, out-of-wedlock child, and CDS arrest; they have the same despair the permanent welfare recipients have shown for decades.
If students went to in-state schools instead of out of state, this wouldn’t be much of an issue. The Uni’s market heavily to out of state students who will be paying the big bucks... freshman week concerts with A list pop stars etc It’s hilarious, but for many kids College is a right of passage now, an expensive four year summer camp with a bit of studying thrown in.
Could not agree more. Here in Westchester County, we have a town tax, school tax, and a county tax. There are sewer taxes, refuse district taxes, water taxes, automobile registration taxes, automobile insurance taxes, gas taxes, oil (heating and vehicle) taxes, a myriad of taxes on our electricity, telephone and cable bills, not to mention hotel taxes, sales taxes, mortgage recording taxes, taxes on commercial rental leases (in NYC), and the list goes on. The fascist governor put a 2% tax cap on budget increases but included no relief on the mandate side of the expenses—the pension and healthcare insurance for municipal workers and medicaid. Towns are being forced to cut their DPW, police, fire and other essential services while teachers unions keep getting more and more money. They are the biggest donors to politicians. In one town in the county, the school budget is $500 million dollars. They refuse to allow their books to be audited by the town council. The council is suing to audit them. They love illegal alien students because they get money for each one that is enrolled in the schools. Teachers unions are bankrupting the local governments.
They give everybody a scholarship to make them feel good.
I sat at the Senior Awards Assembly at our school the other day to find that one of my middling AP students had been granted a full scholarship to UNC-Chapel Hill. This individual’s demeanor throughout the class rendered him virtually unteachable. His essays were always poor; his contributions to discussions were negligible. He came up to me one day to complain about my hard grading policies and how it sapped him of any desire to do much work (poor baby). When I asked him if he wanted me to just give him an ‘A’ his response was, “Well...yeah.”
I give him 2 semesters—only because I assume the scholarship has been granted to him on a year by year basis.
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