The Economics Of College: Part II (Thomas Sowell)

GOPUSA ^ | April 23, 2008 | Thomas Sowell

[dynachrome]

“Those who are not serious — which includes a remarkably large number of students’

Must have checked dynachrome’s record!

[jazusamo]

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Thomas Sowell

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The Economics of College
Political Crusaders
A Living Lie

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[TheZMan]

Ditto

[dynachrome]

Parenthetically, I will say I had no free ride. My folks paid half and I worked to pay half. I still wasn’t that serious, though.

[jazusamo]

LOL! Me too, don’t think you’re the only one.

[rabscuttle385]

What is truly repugnant to some people about college students issuing stocks as well as bonds is that this not only takes the government out of the picture, it takes the intelligentsia out of the picture as prescribers of how other people ought to behave.

I would love to do this. However, in defense of those subsidies for loans, I have paid thousands in Social Security and Medicare taxes on my summer internship earnings that I will never see again. The same goes for my folks.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

IOW, there are lots of “Educated D@mn Fools” running around out there. :)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I worked on my degree on Uncle Sam’s Dime while I was in the Army. Which was really MY dime, as I’ve been a taxpayer since I was a teenager, as well as paying taxes on my income for all of those years in the Army.

(Well, I guess some of you kicked in a little bit over the years too, LOL!)

But, in other words, I’m a Self-Made Woman. :)

[george76]

I knew and know now kids who pull a Jon Belluchi ( 5 to 6 years in college with a useless degree ).

They might get a job at Starbucks.

[tbw2]

If we’re going to have Senate hearings, how about hearings on why the cost of inflation can go up so far above the rate of inflation?
College presidents making millions a year.
Colleges sitting on endowments of 1BILLION plus, and still jacking up tuition rates
Tenured professors making 100K, and only teaching 2-4 classes, WITH a TA

[george76]

Must have checked dynachrome’s record!

?????

[Huntress]

Another option would be to allow students to sign enforceable contracts by which lenders would pay their college or university expenses in exchange for a given percentage of their future earnings.

This is a very interesting concept. I suspect it might well lead to an increase in the number of students seeking degrees in business, engineering, and the hard sciences, in that such a degree would be a safer investment for the lender (and thus easier to get for the student) than a degree in, say, oppression studies or some obscure language.

[dynachrome]

My record in college was nothing to boast about!

:)

[jazusamo]

We footed the bill for my daughter but my son had a college fund from the Army and used it all and like you say, he earned it.

[jazusamo]

That concept would put a lot of Liberal Arts profs out of work. :)

[jazusamo]

I can’t speak as an expert but from what I’ve read there are far too many who consider college party time and much of that is at taxpayers expense.

[don'tbedenied]

Knowledge is Good—Faber College

[Calvin Locke]

Those who are not serious — which includes a remarkably large number of students

I'm more concerned with the growing number of schools that aren't serious about education.

Or those that prefer offering degrees in pretty useless subjects that don't provide knowledge or skill that benefits anybody but the schools, con artists, and other types of grifters.

As for "education" in exchange for a portion of future income, the world changes too fast. Changing careers half a dozen times hasn't been unusual since the end of the Carter era. (Is four years of misery an "era"?)