Posted on 05/26/2012 7:51:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This is what I see when i think about higher education in this country today:
Remember the housing meltdown? Tough to forget isn’t it. The formula for the housing boom and bust was simple. A lot of easy money being lent to buyers who couldn’t afford the money they were borrowing. That money was then spent on homes with the expectation that the price of the home would go up and it could easily be flipped or refinanced at a profit. Who cares if you couldn’t afford the loan. As long as prices kept on going up, everyone was happy. And prices kept on going up. And as long as pricing kept on going up real estate agents kept on selling homes and finding money for buyers.
Until the easy money stopped. When easy money stopped, buyers couldn’t sell. They couldn’t refinance. First sales slowed, then prices started falling and then the housing bubble burst. Housing prices crashed. We know the rest of the story. We are still mired in the consequences.
Can someone please explain to me how what is happening in higher education any different?
It's far too easy to borrow money for college. Did you know that there is more outstanding debt for student loans than there is for Auto Loans or Credit Card loans? That's right. The 37 million holders of student loans have more debt than the 175 million or so credit card owners in this country, and more than all of the debt on cars in this country. While the average student loan debt is about $23k, the median is close to $12,500. And growing. Past 1 TRILLION DOLLARS.
We freak out about the trillions of dollars in debt our country faces. What about the TRILLION DOLLAR plus in debt college kids are facing?
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.businessinsider.com ...
Tell them to pay their way through community college, then pay their way through the closest 4-year college.
Don't tell us we owe them a bailout for ignorant decisions they made.
My daughter graduated from college, is living at home, and is working to save money for graduate school. Her friends ALL think she's crazy for not taking loans and going to school. They say she'll never go to school if she doesn't go now. What they don't realize is that, in two years, when they are finishing grad school 40K in debt and looking for a job, my daughter will have 40K in the bank AND a job (in which she's already received a promotion).
You tell me who's going to be better off.
Well gee Mark, you’re a big liberal, just how the hell do you think this happened. Money for nothin and chicks for free.
Gosh, I wonder if the bubble of huge arenas put up at taxpayer expense for the benefit of professional sports team owners, long term player contracts, etc, will ever burst, Mark, you big-time Obama sucker.
If I were leaving home and starting out today, I would not go to college - there’s plenty of opportunities elsewhere. There are so many people who’ve been sold on the idea that you need a college degree to make it in life that we have an overabundance of educated but unskilled people with useless degrees and a shortage of skilled people with useful and practical knowledge (i.e. tradespeople). The influx of illegals ready, willing and able to work hard should have taught us that you don’t need a college degree to make it in America. Additionally, if you really want and education (not college, but an education) you can get that outside of a brick & mortar institution. There are cheaper alternatives than going in hock up to your eyeballs, getting a useless degree, and being forced to live in your parent’s basement because you can’t get a job as CEO after graduating.
A degree in Community Organzing with a minor in Sexual Justice ain't gonna get you a job as a : Nurse, CPA, or Bakken Drilling Engineer of which the marketplace sometimes screams for.
The parents, kids, and guidance counselors are all to blame at that point....
Ya, what happened to the concept of working your way through college?
I may get flamed, but, I think part of the issue is that money is a taboo topic. Families and their students do not ever sit down and have frank discussions about family finances, or talk about how these loans will have to be repaid. Some families tell their kids to reach for their dreams at whatever private university they choose, and never think about how it gets paid for. Getting loans defers the day of reckoning on the money side of things.
Another matter is that so many people are enamored of sending their kids to Harvard and Yale and other expensive private universities, regardless of cost. This ties in with borrowing and not thinking about how these loans ever get repaid. Going to the state university is beneath certain “yuppie” types. My God, they need to go to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, or Princeton, not old State U.
Financially, the best way for most middle class people to go to college is to work their way through. It might take them longer than the standard four years to get a degree, but financially, they will be much better off at the end.
There are also ancillary benefits to working your way through college. If you have to be responsible about studying and your work schedule, you learn some good life lessons along the way. Some college kids have too much time on their hands, and go out drinking and God knows what else when not in class.
Hey Mark, suck on a big Cuban cigar!!!
Hey Mark, all the debt is a problem. Also Mark you voted and promoted the people who create more of the problem.
Nobody tells them that indebtedness is slavery by another name. What they need is an understanding of the nature of freedom and how to identify its enemies.
Back in the late 1970's, there was a small book entitled, "Freedom in a Nutshell," by Dr. Kenneth W. Ryker. It was, and is, a priceless work which was published in two parts by FEE, the Foundation for Economic Education, and now can be read in two parts, here, and here.
"Freedom in a Nutshell" should be widely distributed today to the youth of our country. They could look around them and see evidences of the truths he outlines in such simple, yet profound, terms.
While I agree that the best way to go these days is to start out at community college and then finish up at a local, public, or otherwise affordable 4-yr college is the way to go--
Price out that 4-yr college. Have you attended college lately? I was a student in the seventies, and college was practically FREE for me. It was the dorm, books and gas that cost money.
We gave him a free place to live and free food. He did the rest.
Will the government at all levels look the other way for Americans to break laws the way the illegals have been allowed? I don't mean just crossing the border; I mean fracturing single family residential zoning laws, etc.
400% inflation since 1980?
The reason college costs have increased 500% (depending on your source) since 1980 is precisely because 18-year olds were willing to borrow the money, and the government was willing to enable them.
That 500% far exceeds the inflation rate during that time.
And some of that inflation is why we’ve seen increases in student loan debt in recent years. People are borrowing a bigger percentage of college costs than in years past. But the issue is whether it is worth it, to borrow so much for college?
We could discuss whether these loans are a good return on investment. For example, getting a degree in nursing or accounting, fields which lead directly to careers in the private sector, may show a payoff even after loan costs are considered. The relatively high rates of pay for certain careers could be considered, as to whether it makes sense or not to borrow to pay for such an education.
But if you get a degree in women’s studies, for example, what career path is open to you with such a degree? Are you really going to qualify for a job which pays enough to enable you to pay off the loans it took to get educated in women, in this example?
“Will the government at all levels look the other way for Americans to break laws the way the illegals have been allowed?”
Not likely. Americans have papers, illegals don’t, so we’re easier to catch and prosecute.
Laws are made for the law abiding.
LLS
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