Why Johnny Can't Pay

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ^ | Peter Morici

[OrioleFan]

Young people face a cruel irony. Most can't land a decent job without a college education, yet many graduates are locked into poorly paying positions that don't permit repayment of student loans.

[OrioleFan]

Professor Morici states the truth about Student Loans, and Liberal Education.

[TwelveOfTwenty]

The author could mention alternatives, such as trade schools or enlisting.

[count-your-change]

Let’s see if I have this right: Young folks can’t a job without a college education and can’t pay for it they do.

Would this not suggest taking a different course of action?

[DuncanWaring]

Rule 1: Any degree who’s title ends in the word “Studies” is an absolute worthless fraud.

[Weirdad]

Great post. Thank you.

There really is an “education bubble” and it also has been caused by the fascist/communist/socialist/progressive/Marxist/Stalinist/liberal and moreover completely illegal illegitimate government.

[max americana]

I have a cousin who is a licensed contractor as an electrician. He never intended to be one. It’s just that his college screwed up his registration papers for his degree in business mgmt and didn’t want to waste time so he went to technical college. Fast forward, he pretty much owns the contracts for condos and business companies in downtown.

His only problem is dealing with corrupt, scum city inspectors every time they inspect a business and dwelling whose electrical stuff he was sent to fix.

[OrioleFan]

I think what the author is saying is students who take the easy way out (the I went to college and got a meaningless piece of paper crowd) should expect a job that won’t cover their student loans.

[calljack]

It's not that Johnny can't read, it's that Johnny can't think. Johnny confuses feeling with thinking, and that is the real damage of a liberal education. The money he can eventually get over, but feeling instead of thinking will cripple him forever.

[OrioleFan]

My High School had an excellent shop, and a student run cannery. Unfortunately, it didn’t teach calculus which put me behind everyone at the Air Force Academy in ‘69. But I could weld, sweat a joint, and basically build anything.

[IAMIUBU]

Bingo!

[familyop]

"Most can't land a decent job without with a college education,..." During the mid-'70s, I helped to build houses half of each day in a building trades school--part of a high school vo./tech. program. We did all of the work, including electrical and plumbing. There were also auto mechanics schools.

Now, I live in a very sparsely populated county, where it is illegal to manufacture anything--no matter how small the operation--or to work on vehicles (zoning).

Have fun. Enjoy the slide. Young folks will be allowed to compete in business again, when most of us Baby Boomers (mostly socialist NIMBYs) are dead and out of politics.

[ottbmare]

Four or five years ago, when these young people started college, it was an intelligent investment. Many astute people did not anticipate that the world would change utterly in the fall of 2008 and that a college education would no longer be a ticket to a good job.

Even today, it’s hard to predict what might happen. I took career training for something that was supposed to get me a good job. I investigated carefully before embarking on the training. Yes indeed, employers I talked to were desperate, and were waving money at me—just show up with a certification in your paw, they said, and we’ll give you a job. A federal government ruling changed that, and I’m now out the training money and the employers aren’t hiring for those jobs anymore.

So it’s a crapshoot, and I don’t think it’s fair to criticize today’s young people for not figuring out that the economy was going to collapse and not come back.

[Tzimisce]

I have two college degrees and I can’t find a job.

How am I to pay for government giveaways to baby boomers when baby boomers won’t hire me?

Just another day in Obamaland. :)

[Ouderkirk]

See Griggs v Duke Power.

Used to be an employer could ask you to prove your abilities. Now the university education is the substitute.

[OrioleFan]

I was training to operate an analyst workstation on imaging flights over the Gulf oil spill untill Obama went for that photo-op swim in Pensacola Bay (part not affected by the spill) to send a message to the Coast Guard he wanted the Oil Spill off the front page. Coast Guard cancelled our contract and I was laid off. No one wants a 60-yr old programmer anymore.

[kingu]

College loans should be solely based upon future results. If you’re taking an engineering course, you’re far more likely to find a job which would result in repayment of that loan. If you’re taking Ethnic Studies, you’re most likely going to spend nearly a decade racking up student loans and exit college with a prestigious degree in a hobby with no economic worth.

But this is all immaterial. The core truth is that federally backed student loans are a subsidy to colleges to further the liberal agenda within those colleges. They tend to go towards the least useful degrees and programs, supporting departments and chairs that wouldn’t exist otherwise. Only problem is millions of young people are being more directly saddled with this future debt, rather than simply hidden in a mounting deficit.

That’s right, young people, you were lied to. Get used to it.

[TwelveOfTwenty]

Four or five years ago, when these young people started college, it was an intelligent investment.

Classes that taught an employable trade, yes. Liberal arts classes about LGBT studies for example, no.

So it’s a crapshoot, and I don’t think it’s fair to criticize today’s young people for not figuring out that the economy was going to collapse and not come back.

From this link, "As millions of young Americans struggle to land jobs, students in manufacturing trade schools are sitting in a sweet spot. They're being hired even before they graduate."

I'm sorry for the students who got into debt over some unmarketable liberal arts degrees, but they either needed to figure out or be told that they need marketable skills. That goes back to my original point, which was basically that we need to stop talking gloom and doom, and start talking alternatives, which are out there.

[P-Marlowe]

These days when kids graduate from College they have no work experience. The illegal aliens have taken all the part time jobs that students used to take and most of these kids today think it is beneath them to work at McDonalds or Taco Bell and they borrow money rather than work their way through college and pay for most of it themselves.

Then when they get out of college with their worthless degrees and their $2000 a month student loan payments, the only full time introductory level jobs that they are qualified for are the jobs at McDonalds and Taco Bell that are all filled by the illegal aliens.

[Tzimisce]

Well in a couple of years I’ll be paying for your healthcare and your retirement and you won’t have to worry about working.

And I’ll probably still be working at McDonald’s calling the high school drop out manager “sir”.

[Fee]

Far East is looking for Americans to teach English. You do not have to know the language of host nation, because the students you teach cannot speak in their native language. The contract is usually one year with room and board. Some Americans stay after several years because the Far East is where most of the wealth of the world is transferring to, and with it job and business opportunities. Worth checking out. If you are young and not averse to living in a foreign country for one year, check out the opportunity.