Posted on 11/27/2011 12:54:53 PM PST by Libloather
Rising tuition, 'Occupy' spark new campus activism
By LINDSAY PETERSON | The Tampa Tribune
Published: November 27, 2011
TAMPA - Dani Leppo planned to keep her head down, study and finish as fast as possible when she transferred from St. Petersburg College to the University of South Florida this year.
But as she crossed campus one day, she saw a group of people holding signs saying tuition was going up 15 percent.
An activist was born.
"We can barely pay our bills," Leppo said, "and here they are raising tuition."
USF government professor Harry Vanden sees the anger rising on campuses across the country.
"This is a very bad situation for students everywhere," he said. "Student debt is higher than it's ever been. There are no jobs to speak of. These issues affect all of them across the country and it could unite them."
Leppo joined the Tampa chapter of the SDS, Students for a Democratic Society, a modern day version of the student protest group from the 1960s. Another group of students recently formed an Occupy USF group to call attention to students' struggles.
(Excerpt) Read more at 2.tbo.com ...
OWSers think they have it bad... in my day, we somehow managed to graduate without being up to our eyeballs in student loan debt. The truth of the matter is they get very little for the exorbitant amount of money they spend to get a degree. Somehow no one ever questions if every one should be going to college in the first place.
OWSers think they have it bad... in my day, we somehow managed to graduate without being up to our eyeballs in student loan debt. The truth of the matter is they get very little for the exorbitant amount of money they spend to get a degree. Somehow no one ever questions if every one should be going to college in the first place.
OWSers think they have it bad... in my day, we somehow managed to graduate without being up to our eyeballs in student loan debt. The truth of the matter is they get very little for the exorbitant amount of money they spend to get a degree. Somehow no one ever questions if every one should be going to college in the first place.
USF government professor Harry Vanden sees the anger rising on campuses across the country. “This is a very bad situation for students everywhere,” he said. “Student debt is higher than it’s ever been. There are no jobs to speak of. These issues affect all of them across the country and it could unite them.”
Harry, you should take a pay cut so these students don’t need to pay tuition that is so high.
"We can barely pay our bills," Leppo said, "and here they are raising tuition."Yeah, the people actually paying her tuition also feel they're paying too much.
Nor do they question where all the money is spent by the colleges.
Although this article says the students are pushing back on the tuition increases, you know their solution is going to be.... more government money to pay for the increases - not any reduction in spending by the colleges.
Nor do they question where all the money is spent by the colleges.
Although this article says the students are pushing back on the tuition increases, you know their solution is going to be.... more government money to pay for the increases - not any reduction in spending by the colleges.
A better alternative, and one that is being figured out by cost cutting state legislators, is to rate all the majors being offered by colleges, on the number of students who are placed in jobs in that field within six months after graduation. Simple logic:
1) The purpose of subsidies to education is so that graduates can get better jobs than those with just high school diplomas, thus helping everyone.
2) Those majors that do not do this should no longer be subsidized. If students want to take them, fine, but they pay the full price. If they don’t want to pay, then those majors, their instructors, and their administrative support need to be cut off.
3) Ignore any nonsense about “society benefiting from cultural studies in the impact of minority lesbians in European history”, and other such worthless majors.
A better alternative, and one that is being figured out by cost cutting state legislators, is to rate all the majors being offered by colleges, on the number of students who are placed in jobs in that field within six months after graduation. Simple logic:
1) The purpose of subsidies to education is so that graduates can get better jobs than those with just high school diplomas, thus helping everyone.
2) Those majors that do not do this should no longer be subsidized. If students want to take them, fine, but they pay the full price. If they don’t want to pay, then those majors, their instructors, and their administrative support need to be cut off.
3) Ignore any nonsense about “society benefiting from cultural studies in the impact of minority lesbians in European history”, and other such worthless majors.
A better alternative, and one that is being figured out by cost cutting state legislators, is to rate all the majors being offered by colleges, on the number of students who are placed in jobs in that field within six months after graduation. Simple logic:
1) The purpose of subsidies to education is so that graduates can get better jobs than those with just high school diplomas, thus helping everyone.
2) Those majors that do not do this should no longer be subsidized. If students want to take them, fine, but they pay the full price. If they don’t want to pay, then those majors, their instructors, and their administrative support need to be cut off.
3) Ignore any nonsense about “society benefiting from cultural studies in the impact of minority lesbians in European history”, and other such worthless majors.
Sorry about the triple post.
However, I was right. I just found an article that not the US, but China, is doing exactly what I said. Haw.
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/11/23/china-to-cancel-college-majors-that-dont-pay/
GMTA via Instapundit.
Cheers!
Having worked at a College Book Store and seen the students majors, I’m not surprised at the signs. I wondered why about 50 to 60 percent of the students were even going to college. Recently they’ve been touting the fact that unemployment for high school graduates is about 12% average while unemployment for college graduates is about 7%. What they fail to note is that a significant percentage of the college graduates are employed in jobs that are not related to their degree (car sales, telephone sales, etc) or jobs that don’t require a college degree (MacDonalds, Wendys, cat wash, etc.).
A person with a BA in Hispanic transgender gay & lesbian studies might try looking for “work” in a Hispanic transgender gay and lesbian “cat house”. Pays probably pretty good for a job that you can just lay around. Just sayin ... got to look at all the angles in tough economic times!
Sounds like a dangerous job, washing cats.
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