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Congratulations, class of 2014: You’re totally screwed
Slate ^ | May 18, 2014 | Thomas Frank

Posted on 05/19/2014 12:06:25 PM PDT by QT3.14

Welcome to the wide world, Class of 2014. You have by now noticed the tremendous consignment of debt that the authorities at your college have spent the last four years loading on your shoulders. It may interest you to know that the average student-loan borrower among you is now $33,000 in debt, the largest of any graduating class ever. According to a new study by the Pew Research Center, carrying that kind of debt will have certain predictable effects. It will impede your ability to accumulate wealth, for example. You will also borrow more for other things than people without debt, and naturally you will find your debt level growing, not shrinking, as the years pass.

(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: classof2014; education; graduation; studentloans
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To: LucianOfSamasota; All
It's true! Life in America's University system is worse than life in Stalin's gulags or Mao's reeducation camps!

As in the link below:

Examples of why college students minds are so screwed!!

21 posted on 05/19/2014 12:48:08 PM PDT by QT3.14
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To: andyk

The author raised one good question—where does all that rising tuition money go in the universities? Certainly the upper echelon of Administrators must rake in hefty salaries and not all the profs are adjuncts. The real crisis becomes when these debt laden students default on their massive student loans. Guess who takes it up the arse? The productive, taxpayers that’s who. Government involvement again proves a sham and a shame.


22 posted on 05/19/2014 12:50:17 PM PDT by tflabo (Truth or Tyranny)
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To: Opinionated Blowhard

They won’t blame teachers but society, and eagerly push for a revolution that puts them in charge. Occupy Wall Street was the first sign of that.


23 posted on 05/19/2014 12:57:59 PM PDT by tbw2
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To: QT3.14

This article is incoherent. Maybe the author should investigate why Harvard is sitting on a $30 billion endowment. So-called “education” is big business these days.


24 posted on 05/19/2014 1:01:40 PM PDT by Bernard Marx
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To: tbw2

Astute observation. OWS fizzled out because it was disorganized and rudderless. But eventually the a talented demagogue will figure out how to harness them, then all bets are off.


25 posted on 05/19/2014 1:02:14 PM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: QT3.14

My daughter is about to graduate with a Chemical Engineering degree from Auburn with 0 student debt.none,zilch, nada


26 posted on 05/19/2014 1:15:01 PM PDT by SonnyBubba
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To: 17th Miss Regt

But if Obama had a son, he’d look like....
Oh, never mind....


27 posted on 05/19/2014 1:23:23 PM PDT by nevergore
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To: SonnyBubba
My daughter is about to graduate with a Chemical Engineering degree from Auburn with 0 student debt.none,zilch, nada

Good for her. A Chemical Engineering degree is a hard discipline. Not for the faint hearted.
My father-in-law had a degree in Chemical Engineering from Indiana U. In WWII he worked for a ammunition manufacturing company. Post WWII he went back to school for a degree in dentistry, then later, the Army sent him back to school for Oral Surgery. He made a career of the Army serving in the Korean War and later during the Vietnam era. He retired a full bird colonel.

28 posted on 05/19/2014 1:30:04 PM PDT by BluH2o
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To: SonnyBubba
My daughter is about to graduate with a Chemical Engineering degree from Auburn with 0 student debt.none,zilch, nada

My daughter would get the "you don't have a student loan?" reaction if the subject came up.

29 posted on 05/19/2014 1:36:36 PM PDT by Stentor (Maybe the Goldman Sachs thing is just a coincidence. /S)
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To: SonnyBubba
My daughter is about to graduate with a Chemical Engineering degree from Auburn with 0 student debt.none,zilch, nada

My daughter would get the "you don't have a student loan?" reaction if the subject came up.

30 posted on 05/19/2014 1:36:36 PM PDT by Stentor (Maybe the Goldman Sachs thing is just a coincidence. /S)
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To: QT3.14

Only bigger and bigger government, more and more regulations and higher and higher taxes can save us and solve our problems.

Until young adults view that statement as a complete lie - things will never change.


31 posted on 05/19/2014 1:52:05 PM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: SMARTY

” Then, When I started college, I had some money to work with and no crying need to borrow.”

Ha, ha, you sucker. :(


32 posted on 05/19/2014 2:10:27 PM PDT by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.")
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To: Stentor

My advice to her is to find someone in likewise condition when she gets married. I have read that this is just about the #1 modern-day criteria for a potential spouse!!

This is actually good news for fat,ugly,smart, hard-working and frugal people.


33 posted on 05/19/2014 2:13:45 PM PDT by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.")
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To: nevergore

I just did an inflation calculation on the starting salaries for EE’s back in my day, in 1960. In today’s dollars, about 55K. How does that compare to what you son started off at?


34 posted on 05/19/2014 2:17:59 PM PDT by Oldhunk
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To: QT3.14
When I went after WW II the annual starting pay was $2500 which exceeded the total cost for 4 years tuition [not R&B]. Oh yes it was government funded under the GI bill. Civilians were the same so Government participating did not cause the growth then. Today, if you pay it, they will charge it.

Solution is the college should loan the money. If the student can't repay, the college goes out of business for its crappy education.

35 posted on 05/19/2014 2:19:20 PM PDT by ex-snook (God forgives and forgets.)
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To: ex-snook

” Today, if you pay it, they will charge it. “

Correction: If ANYONE pays for it, they will charge it.

Remember when Eisenhower warned against the growth of the miliary-industrial complex? That was NOTHING...compared to the medical-legal-insurance complex and the education-union complex. Nothing. And they both turned into monsters for the same reason. Can you guess what that is?

I laugh my head off when I hear and read “we have the best educational system in the world”. Who, besides ourselves, actually says this? The numbers say otherwise. The graduate system is in decline, but still has a certain cachet, much like having worked for a good company or having an address in the “right” neighborhood. But this is inertia, and it won’t last.


36 posted on 05/19/2014 2:32:39 PM PDT by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.")
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To: Stentor

“My daughter would get the “you don’t have a student loan?” reaction if the subject came up.”

In a similar vein, when I go to a doctor, they always ask, what meds are you on? They literally don’t believe that I can possibly be alive, moving under my own power, and somewhat coherent living like this at my advanced age (specifically, very, very late middle age).


37 posted on 05/19/2014 2:38:03 PM PDT by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.")
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To: Oldhunk

He started at $53K with full medical and dental benefits, profit sharing, 401K etc....

They also give an end-of-year bonus that is 10% of annual salary.


38 posted on 05/20/2014 1:45:50 PM PDT by nevergore
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To: nevergore

Well done by your son. I wish we could figure out how to entice more of our best and brightest to study engineering and the sciences.

I’d like to see us stop bringing in so many foreign high tech people to take jobs away from our own citizens and hold down salaries.


39 posted on 05/20/2014 3:46:15 PM PDT by Oldhunk
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