College Tuition Inflation.

I'm trying to figure out how to engage with this topic. It's tricky in no small part because I'm conflicted.

I didn't go to college, and I have a great job. I earn more than many of my peers who have gone, I love what I do and I've got excellent career growth potential.

I feel like there's an over-emphasis on education in the vocational market. Do we really need our secretaries and middle managers to be college educated? That they couldn't possibly pick these skills up another way (say, on the job)? I don't know, really, I'm just throwing that out there. There are lots of great jobs that don't require a college education (think skilled trades) and there are even more that in practice are demanding a college education that isn't even slightly relevant to the position. So part of me thinks the answer is to just not go -- see what happens if a percentage of our youth decide that they just don't really need college. Of course, to do that, we'd have to find a way to shake the cultural meme that college is essential, and that anyone who doesn't go is automatically and by definition a failure. I have this feeling that the institutions themselves were complicit in creating this perception, and I'm not at all certain how to go about dismantling it.

So there's that. However.

I do feel that education is one of the very basic necessities for a society to prosper (right up there with healthcare and adequate nutrition). And encouraging scores of youths to forego a higher education runs counter to that notion. Furthermore, there are plenty of degrees in the arts that lead to very little monetary gain but enrich our culture in other ways -- I wouldn't begin to propose that we should do away with the arts or history, because these are the things that a culture is built on.

I think in my ideal world, college would be paid for by the state, and students would be encouraged to go if they want to go. It shouldn't be presented as the be all and end all, or as a necessity even unless you want specific careers. I wouldn't want a doctor who hadn't gone to college, but I couldn't care less if the guy who builds my software did.

Regardless, I think we can all agree that the current model is rapidly on it's way to shitsville.

 

Sure, they're out there, the median income of less than college ranges between $400 to $600 per week. The average income is just under $800. I myself fetch less than $800 (and I have both a university and a college degree). I know what it's like to have a low income, but I also know what opportunities an education can get you when you have more than just a high school diploma.

And I'm not sure what jobs you're talking about wanted by the "spoiled, entitled youth." Do you mean the jobs that the "spoiled, entitled old people" have? Most of those are the ones that require something more than high school. I can't think of many careers people aspire to that only require high school and nothing else. I don't think many people aspire to $400 to $600 per week.

The undocumented workers you are referring to are willing to work for less because they're coming from a place that offers less, and few can probably achieve more because they're undocumented workers. I'm not sure they work at jobs people aspire to either. They are probably working jobs that only high school dropouts would work, especially at such low wages for low skilled work, with no benefits.

But maybe you're right; those making less than the average American income should probably "know their place." Because that's what America, the land of the free, is all about.

 

I don't know. Why would you even say that? (It doesn't really make any sense.)

You have no sympathy for the unemployed and you don't understand why many are unemployed. The two might be connected. (They probably are.)

 

Oh, Mr. Van Horn, you and your facty facts and rational rationales!

Next you'll starting going on about cyclical unemployment and economic troughs! Enough of your bleeding-heart devilry!

 

Eddie, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you aren't entitled to your own facts. The facts exist and are what they are.

 

too abstract? how so?

Any one who works at least a single job, knows wage/hr. It's simple mathematics to see that taking out a loan of $60,000 will take almost 8,276 hours or 345 days to repay at $7.25 (US Federal minimum wage). I don't think it's too abstract, it's more that many don't understand value and return of investment.

 

That's my point. It isn't abstract. I'm just accounting for doing NOTHING but repaying the loan. I'm talking worst case scenario, minimum wage (guaranteed minimum), no deferment and only focus on paying off that loan as soon as possible. While you may pay it over time, the total amount of time is going to be more than 1 year, more than likely closer to 10. You're being much more pragmatic in including the rest of the cost of living.

Now I know I'm strange in comparison to others in the way that I think of my outgoing money when it comes to purchases meaning, I think of how long I have to work to buy something to help me clarify the value. Spending $800 for a new iPad2? Not so fast as it will take me X hours of work to earn the money to buy it.

Looking down the barrel of paying for college wasn't something I was interested in back in the late 80's. I didn't want to borrow money and my parents could only afford so much and made just a little too much to get any of the grants and better loans. I knew I didn't want to have a $40k student loan debt just for a BA. Back then minimum wage was $4.35/hr. I just had a good friend's daughter start college and he doesn't make a ton of money but that is one thing that he beat into her brain that she didn't want to exit college with a huge debt load, not just student loans but also no credit card debt.

Learning some sort of finance skills should be a graduating requirement.