Entirely too many rent-seekers have their hooks into the present system. And anyone who suggests changes will be demonized and cast out by the voters.

Ironically, those supposedly the most likely to 'get it' - the college 'educated' will be the most ardently opposed.

What can you expect to learn from people who are lying to you? Poly sci?

All kidding aside, Its another industry driving itself off the cliff. Give them unlimited credit and they will race off the cliff.

It has been my experience that the higher "education" one receives the more predisposed a person is to be blind supporters of higher education. Don't try and tell someone with 150k in student loans that they wasted their time and money getting them. Especially if you didn't and you are pulling down the same or a greater salary than they are. ;)

Advances in technology have concentrated the jobs from the manufacturing and farming sectors to the service and finance sectors. Too many people not enough jobs. No one cared about the cost of education when everybody found a job. Its like no one cared about stock options until the dot coms crashed.

What do you cal. 85,000 bartenders with bachelors degrees, the new normal. Figure a $100,000 a year in tuition, room, board, lost wages, about 8-9 B in lost productivity.

Full-time student = not in the unemployment numbers. The Department of Labor gets to hide more of the problem for longer. Also, college keeps young, unemployed men busy and off the streets. At this point, college helps prevent recognition of the weakness in the job market. It is another bloated social program, but one for which the recipient is self-funding and will be paying for decades.

Az, you got it exactly right. I know a lot of folk that are in their 40s (and older!) who are back in school full time on student loans for retraining or getting a different degree because they cannot find full-time jobs above or even at minimum wage.

Is this an improvement? Probably not, but at least they have A/C here in the Florida heat. That's another thing we've had to cut out as being an unaffordable luxury when in the past (last year) it was regarded as a necessity.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

The Biggest lie is the hardest one to accept as false.

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What has our government proposed? Further support even more people going to college with even more "free money", which will simply drive up the cost further while at the same time driving down the value of the earned degree!

Yep, this is little different than counterfeiting or printing currency. Anytime you create more of something, it drives down the market value by increasing supply. I suppose over time it will solve itself, as the input cost becomes increasingly unattractive verses wages. This of course depends if our high school grads can apply basic math skills.

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I suppose over time it will solve itself, as the input cost becomes increasingly unattractive verses wages.

Perhaps. But on a long enough timeline, we are all dead. If you'd like to have some fun, try to bring up in conversation the idea that college is a complete waste of dollars and a likely to be millstone around the families/kid's neck for decades to someone who has a child who is 17 or 18 and college-bound. And soon to be debt bound.

Especially for BS degrees that are very common. Three core American beliefs you do not question.

1. Someone's religion
2. Someone's political party. (I'm a democrat! Well, I'm a Republican! Yay!)
3. The concept that college is good and the only way to prepare for a life of economic and social prosperity.

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This of course depends if our high school grads can apply basic math skills.

And oddly, those scores keep falling. Coincidence, I am sure of it. Read that a 4 year degree today is equal to a 1950 HS degree. I wouldn't even be that charitable.

I went to the University of Puget Sound from 99-03. The first year was around 25k, the last year was close to 30k. My cost was 4k out of pocket (parents) and 16k student loan. I checked the other day and the cost is now close to 50k a year. They have quite a few nice new buildings, but I'm not sure what else that extra 20k a year is buying you. Looking back, most of my fellow students were rather ordinary, despite attending UPS, the 'Harvard of the West'.

I majored in computer science. I'm fairly certain that my education could be had for free today using the Internet. College is clearly not for everyone, and for the most part I just feel sad for all the young people being sold this bill of crap.

There are so many non-educational motivations for a kid to go to college I don't think there'll ever be a shortage of those who choose debt slavery and short-term gratification over a rational, efficent approach to accumulate real value that is marketable in the workplace. Kids want to be with their friends, go to the weekend parties, be a part of the college sports comraderie, have lots of access to romantic opportunities with living arrangements independent of their parents, etc... for young kids those are super strong motivations. When I was in school probably 50% of the student body had no business being there. Either full-time students in their 6th year working on a 4 year degree or in a major that was worth $15/hr tops. But that was back in the day when it was rare to see anyone with more than $10,000 in student debt at graduation. Most I knew graduated debt-free. Things have changed and the stakes are much higher today. The only thing that hasn't changed is the social drives of a 19 year old. And when both clash - the social drives generally win, especially when there is access to lots of upfront government bait to pay for it all. The school administators know all about this and use it to their best advantage.

I just hope this bubble pops before my kids are college age. Lots of colleges have incredible campuses, beautiful gyms, climbing walls, virtually four years of resort-style living, followed by years of grinding out those debt payments. And now we've hooked in parents and their cash on hand becomes a factor in how much assistance their kid gets.

A degree is still extremely important and those with them have much lower levels of unemployment and much higher average incomes over their life. Even today it is a good investment, it's just not a great one like it used to be. And certainly for some people, such as the indolent, the marginally-intelligent, and those inclined to take liberal arts degrees, it probably isn't worth the trouble .

Love that comment from Ichiro, "UPS, the 'Harvard of the West'" That's a joke, right? Never even heard of that school. Another over-rated, narcissistic institution of higher theft (both in time and money). Wonder how many Poly Sci and Sociology and other liberal arts majors they graduate yearly that the U.S. doesn't need - or could have come out of the community college system?

I looked at some recent data on college majors. In 2008-09 there were about 375,000 degrees in Communications, Psychology and Social Sciences/History. Unless you have an inside connection somewhere it's pretty hard to find a job with a livable wage in any of those areas - or unless you work in the government which hires most anyone. Some of the other majors like 'Visual and Performing Arts' are hit and miss too. Even someone with a basic degree in Business Administration can have a hard time. It's really a tough time to be a parent with a kid(s) approaching the college age. Good parents want the best for their children and to maximize the chances for their success. And most are willing to sacrifice greatly to make that happen. Personally, I hope it works out for everyone. But the direction in which this nation is moving makes me very skeptical.

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/f....

Not trying to diss on UPS but they are ranked like 176th compared to top 5 for Harvard.

Heck, they are #81 for small liberal arts colleges

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Reason: I suck at typing on ipad

Doesn't everyone?

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Reason: I suck at typing on ipad

Doesn't everyone?

Such a task is exceptionally difficult for those of us that went to UPS.

Poodlelover -


"A degree is still extremely important and those with them have much lower levels of unemployment..."

Not the recent trend plus half the recent grads are currently unemployed.

Employment status 25 and under

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t....


http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-05-....

"Nearly 50% of grads over the last five years are unemployed or underemployed, according to a Rutgers University study released Thursday."


Of course the sales pitch at these pos institurions of retarded learning is that in four years the economy will be better so go in debt and get that nearly worthless degree now.

So by going to College, mostly to be getting a rather worthless qualification in a subject that's no use to man nor beast (I hesitate to call it anything approaching 'Education' these days, tbh), you take yourself out of the 'earning a living' market for several years, which has an effect on overall gross and net lifetime income, then you get lumbered with a huge chunk of debt, which also equates to an effect for years on gross and net lifetime income, plus, by not being involved in generating lifetime income from the earliest age possible, you have put yourself literally years behind not just the earnings curve, but also behind likely promotions from being involved in your work if employed (gaining invaluable on the job experience in the process), or growth in your business if self employed?

At what point in your life do you catch up, if ever?

I'm reminded of a couple of friends that joined the RAF.

One was very smart, and went straight from school into a radar tech school with the RAF. He refused to learn to drive or get a licence for anything other than a motorbike, deliberately. He could have easily gone in as officer material.

The other friend grabbed a funded RAF Uni course, intending to go in as a pilot, and went in as an Officer. This friend tried to talk the other one into doing the same, and I remember sitting in on the discussions with great amusement. Friend number two could not grasp what friend number one was talking about (all he could think about was the free degree).

Two years before friend number two entered Uni, friend number one was a qualified radar tech, traveling the country doing emergency repair work on radar installations.

Because he didn't have a drivers licence, he was provided with a driver. Both driver and friend easily lived on expenses, and banked all their income. Having a driver allowed friend number one, to sleep in the back of the car on the way to the next job, so he could arrive reasonably fresh and crack on with urgent work.

By the time friend number two left Uni, friend number one probably had enough to buy a house outright, already in the bank, and friend number two had no money in the bank.

Friend number two now found himself in an environment, where he had obligations to attend functions as an Officer, and obligations to run up very large expenses in the Officers Mess.

After both served full terms of long service, friend number one retired with a house paid for from the day he bought it, plenty of money in the bank, and a decent pension (retiring as sergeant, which he never had any intention of being promoted beyond).

Friend number two came out, with hardly anything but his pension, gave it 12 months, and signed back in to the RAF.

Both are very intelligent people (great guys), and I remember friend number two saying, after he had been in the RAF about 7 years, that he simply could not live long enough to achieve the income and savings that friend number one would manage to stash away.

I'm a bit surprised that so many parents are encouraging their children to put themselves into similarly disadvantaged predicaments (and far worse, because due to the RAF scholarship, my friend actually had no debt from Uni, at all).

Mind you, even friend number one will never live long enough to catch up with the income of friend number 3, who also left school as soon as possible, and went to be trained as a carpet fitter. Worked for a company while training, also doing carpet fitting on the side (he could do 3 or 4 rooms an evening, plus he worked weekends), then went fully self employed.

I don't think a brain surgeon could live long enough to even make a dent in what friend number three earns.

I talked to a friend on the phone a few hours ago. He is in his early 40's and is going to law school. He told me it was a scam and that it cost about $150,000 to go. He got some grants, but the guy has already been somewhat successful and is pretty damn educated. $150,000 for 3 years in class, being taught the basics of law? They will need to work 5 or more years, if they have a good job when they get out to pay off the debt with every spare dime they get. K said Dallas could probably get by with 10 new lawyers a year if the system wasn't so corrupt.

Related article explaining that Asians are now the largest category of new immigrants, surpassing Hispanics for the first time:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/asia....

While it says nothing about debt, it does point out:

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"The educational credentials of these recent [Asian] arrivals are striking," the report said. Sixty-one percent of 25-to-64-year-old Asian immigrants come with at least a bachelor's degree—more than double non-Asian immigrants, making the recent Asian arrivals "the most highly educated cohort of immigrants in U.S. history."

That will be tough for college graduates saddled with debt to compete with.