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The Myth of Working Your Way Through College
The Atlantic ^ | 04/01/2014 | SVATI KIRSTEN NARULA

Posted on 04/01/2014 7:22:48 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

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To: Mariner

Soon NOBODY will pay $200k or more for a 4year degree in stupid from the average State University.

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Most of these discussions about the utility of a college degree and passing these 200K numbers seem to be missing something.

That assumes the cost of a private college.

State school tuition for an in state public university in Maryland is under 10K. Throw in books and fees for another 2K. And that is the main campus of the Univ of Maryland in College Park.

I looked up California, also under 10K.

Oklahoma - under 8K

As this seems to be a favored topic (handful of threads over the last week or so it seems), we ought to at least be discussing facts.


61 posted on 04/02/2014 7:01:17 AM PDT by dmz
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To: usconservative

I also worked my way through college at a local state university, from 85-90. Tuition was $1800 per year for me, and minimum wage was approx $3.50. I worked 15hrs/week min wage during school, and worked construction for $10/hr every summer, 40hrs per week.

My son is now going to the same university. Tuition is $14,000 per year, and minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Like I did, he lives at home and commutes to save money.

So it took me approx 514 hours of work at minimum wage to pay my yearly tuition. It would take my son approx 1931 hours to pay his. 3.75X more. He’s young, energetic and ambitious, but he can’t work 56 hours a week during school and 150 during the summer and still do well in school.

Millenials are deserving of their fair share of criticism, but we can’t ignore the math. The federal government has greatly distorted the market by pumping money into education. And don’t even get me started on the price of textbooks these days...


62 posted on 04/02/2014 7:41:47 AM PDT by Fletcher J
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To: SeekAndFind

For those without the academic bona fides to earn a merit scholarship, two years at a community college, followed by a transfer to a state school should work just fine. A 40-hour-a-week worker taking two courses per semester, three times a year should take 2 1/3 years for the first half of a degree (and an associates) and 2 1/3 years for the second half of a degree (and a bachelor’s).

That’s actually quicker than the now common five-year plan through a supposedly four-year institution. It should also leave the student debt-free and readily employable with a substantial work history in 4 2/3 years time.


63 posted on 04/02/2014 7:48:12 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: Marie

Yep.

But even with the system we have now, if we simply stopped with the government subsidies of various types, community colleges would immediately have a higher caliber of student—just like the state colleges had in the old days before everyone went to a four-year school.


64 posted on 04/02/2014 7:51:01 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: Fletcher J

Excellent post. That explains clearly the problem. Costs are 3.75 times more, and much more in many places, and the costs are clearly out of reach of minimum wage with the problem being taxpayer monies pumped into the system.


65 posted on 04/02/2014 7:54:54 AM PDT by CodeToad (Arm Up! They Are!)
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To: Mamzelle
Education has become a money laundering machine for the rats.

The costs go higher, the loans get bigger, and the money is funneled back into the dem coffers by lib institutions of higher learning.

66 posted on 04/02/2014 7:57:32 AM PDT by going hot (Happiness is a momma deuce)
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To: SeekAndFind

I worked my way through college. I got a job as a night shift janitor, and was a full time engineering student by day.

4 years and DONE!

Thankfully, I got laid off after about 2 years and got to keep my “scholarship”.


67 posted on 04/02/2014 7:59:18 AM PDT by Travis T. OJustice (I miss you, dad.)
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To: SeekAndFind

My brother has 3 sons. One is a Sophomore at Georgetown. He’s on a 50% academic scholarship but my bro still has to come up with $27k a year. His middle son is a senior in HS and just got his acceptance letters. He got in to Dartmouth, Cornell, Duke, and Middlebury. His youngest son starts HS next year. He told me yesterday that he’s running out of kidneys to sell to afford this...


68 posted on 04/02/2014 8:03:19 AM PDT by strider44
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To: dmz

People tend to also like to eat. And have a roof over their heads. And shower. So you have to add living expenses to the tuition and books.

I agree that the $200,000 mark isn’t realistic, But $25,000 a year at a state school is the standard when you add it all up. (Tuition, books, room, board) And that’s actually for a 9 month school ‘year’. They kick you out of your dorm during holidays and summers. So now you’ve got to compete with other broke college kids for summer jobs and the jobs aren’t there.


69 posted on 04/02/2014 8:07:34 AM PDT by Marie (When are they going to take back Obama's peace prize?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Ditto.


70 posted on 04/02/2014 8:12:42 AM PDT by moehoward
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To: 9YearLurker

That’s another ‘trap’ that I’ve seen many of the best and brightest of my children’s generation fall into.

Here’s the math:

You’re offered a $10,000 scholarship to a state school, leaving you with a $15,000 student loan at the end of the first year. You keep your grades up and have the same thing at the end of the second year. You’ve got $30,000 in loans for your Associates.

The community college is $4,500 for tuition and books. And about $5000 for room and board. At the end of two years, you’ve got a student loan (providing that was your only method of funding) of $19,000 for an Associates.

But these kids are convinced that it’s better to have that extra $11,000 in debt for the same education because they got a scholarship and somehow it would be wrong to ‘waste’ it.

And nobody’s even brought up the fact that college isn’t for everybody and most of these kids washout and never finish anyway. (That’s why the actual average for student loans is $29,000 per student. More than half drop out and never even get the degree. All they get is debt.)


71 posted on 04/02/2014 8:16:20 AM PDT by Marie (When are they going to take back Obama's peace prize?)
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To: redlegplanner
....also ROTC scholarships, simultaneous enrollment in the National Guard, and, one that I did not know about until too late and regard as the coolest one of all, the “degree completion program”.

Thanks to my ROTC scholarship and summer jobs, my parents didn't have to pay one thin dime for my college education.

It wasn't a "free ride": at my school, ROTC commitments averaged 15 hours a week, including a weekend training exercise every month. My spring breaks were spent trudging through the forests of Fort Lewis for four days.

I'm not complaining, it's one of the best breaks I ever got.

72 posted on 04/02/2014 8:28:33 AM PDT by Night Hides Not (For every Ted Cruz we send to DC, I can endure 2-3 "unviable" candidates that beat incumbents.)
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To: Marie

I worked my way through college by working summers and weekends at a local factory making $2.75 per hour.

Of course, full-time tuition at the time was $450.00 per semester.


73 posted on 04/02/2014 8:28:47 AM PDT by catman67
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To: Marie

I’d argue that for academically strong students, a case can be made for a marginally more expensive education—even if it means living at home, rather than on campus. And, I’ll admit, room and board for a community college seems oxymoronic to me.

I think there are advantages to having smarter classmates, as one may have in rigorous classes at at least a state school, and more academically prominent professors.

Really, online ed ought to be competitive with community college solutions in pretty short order.


74 posted on 04/02/2014 8:43:49 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: catman67

Yup. And I’m willing to bed that milk, bread, gas, and rent was a little less back then, too.


75 posted on 04/02/2014 9:21:44 AM PDT by Marie (When are they going to take back Obama's peace prize?)
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To: 9YearLurker

Know what else would help? Only letting the book-smart kids into college. Stop letting in kids who can’t even do remedial reading and math. No more ‘catch up’ courses. If you don’t have the skills to actually succeed in college, why are we letting these kids take out loans when failure is almost certain?

“Everyone should have the opportunity to go to college,” is the mantra. You just have to barely pass your high school classes and be willing to put your neck on the debt chopping block to get in somewhere. High school grades don’t even matter anymore. I know that grades don’t always show talent, but they do show the basic discipline to do well in school. Too many kids have the brains, but they’re scattered.

So yes, everyone should have the opportunity; but if you fritter away that opportunity, you should lose it. For your own good. We’re setting kids up for failure and they’re paying a heavy price for an unrealistic ideal.


76 posted on 04/02/2014 9:31:11 AM PDT by Marie (When are they going to take back Obama's peace prize?)
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To: SampleMan

A job with the flexibility to be a full time student, you aren’t going to get much over minimum age, I made about $10 an hour and worked my way through college, at that time that was more than double minimum wage, of course today that same job still pays about $10 an hour and is about 30% of over minimum wage.

Meanwhile College costs, for my entire 4 years was about 20k same school, same degree today cost is 20k a YEAR.

It is not impossible to work your way through school, but to make the 20k a year NET (not gross, got to pay your taxes) to cover your tuition means basically working a full time job at about 13 an hour just to pay your tuition, not your living expenses and other things....

Reality is school costs have risen annually and immoral rates, while wages have been completely depressed.

I graduated in 1994, I spent about 20k for my degree, and walked into a job making just shy of double that a year... today the same degree, same college will cost you 80k and the job will make you about 50k to start. So, in 20 years, College cost went up 300%, while wages for the degree went up 25%.

For me to do the same thing I did, which was work through college, I’d have to be earning $40 an hour, not $10 to just be equal... and very few college age folks are going to have the skills, let alone find a job with the flexibility needed to do full time work and be paid the equivalent of 80k a year.


77 posted on 04/02/2014 9:41:53 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: Fletcher J

Exactly, see post 77.

Anyone saying they can do it just like always is BLISSFULLY unaware of the fiscal realities of is very very bad at math.


78 posted on 04/02/2014 9:45:18 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: Marie

Absolutely! We waste years of their lives and taxpayer dollars because there are no consequences for paltry academic achievement through high school.

I wouldn’t give them free extra years for a high school diploma, either. It’s their job to learn while the learning is good.


79 posted on 04/02/2014 11:40:11 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: Marie

Six hours a day? Wow. I might have spent six hours a week. But I was in business school and accounting came easy to me. So did economics.


80 posted on 04/02/2014 1:51:44 PM PDT by Fledermaus (I support Joe Carr in the TN GOP Primary against Lamar!)
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