Would you send your kid to college today?
Muddy
USA
I don't have a kid but if I did and he was 17 about to go off there is no fucking way I would do something like that. First off the costs. USC is 58,000 just for an example. That is take home pay for a pretty decent job working full time a year. Second. I almost feel bad for the parents who are so proud when they send off their children to school and they come home as some America hating commie. You paid for that shit!?!? No it's biggest scam going. All these new football stadiums, gyms, rec centers, pools, these schools got now were all built on the shoulders of 19 years olds in massive debt.
If I had kids, trade school, military or if you have to some major where you can keep the bullshit out of it and keep it to just the X's and O's. Engineering, Medical, something like that. My experience in college I thought most teachers kept it pretty professional. All this woke stuff is clearly being born on college campus's and I just don't think it's great place for a young person to learn about the world. If you want to see some of the best professors in the world lecture, you got youtube now for the price of whatever your internet costs as opposed to fucking 60k a year.
If I had kids, trade school, military or if you have to some major where you can keep the bullshit out of it and keep it to just the X's and O's. Engineering, Medical, something like that. My experience in college I thought most teachers kept it pretty professional. All this woke stuff is clearly being born on college campus's and I just don't think it's great place for a young person to learn about the world. If you want to see some of the best professors in the world lecture, you got youtube now for the price of whatever your internet costs as opposed to fucking 60k a year.
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Liberal arts college education is dead for the most part. It's a path to: a teaching career, an occupation totally unrelated to the degree (ie, realtor, insurance), or to some other path where liberal arts degree will suffice (law school). Otherwise, science and technology is the path to well compensated career following college degree, and the "well rounded person" contention in favor of liberal arts makes no sense at private school level tuition.
I will play along and answer your question:
Would you send your kid to college today?
College age kids are, in most cases, independent adults over 18 years old, so I can’t “send” them to college.
I will encourage my kids to do whatever they want to do, that makes them happy, and they already know they will have to work and earn everything they get to really appreciate.
What most of us in the “education industry” know is:
“High College Tuition Is a Blunt Instrument to Keep the Middle Class Down”
“In an increasingly unequal country, the stakes are high for debates over student debt and the prospect of free higher education. Driven by neoliberal politics, our current educational system is both a product of and a driver of deep social inequities.”
“The educational system was a highly predictable victim of the neoliberal reaction, guided by the maxim of "private affluence and public squalor."
“Funding for public education has sharply declined.”
“Tuition has exploded, leading to a plague of unpayable student debt.”
“For those with eyes open, much of what has happened was anticipated by the early '70s, at the point of transition from regulated capitalism to incipient neoliberalism.”
“At the time, there was mounting elite concern about the dangers posed by the democratizing and civilizing effects of 1960s activism, and particularly the role of young people during "the time of troubles."
“Student debt is structured to be a burden for life. The indebted cannot declare bankruptcy, unlike Trump.”
“There is no economic reason why free education cannot flourish from schools through colleges and university.”
“The barriers are not economic but rather political decisions, skewed in the predictable direction under conditions of highly unequal wealth and power.”
“Barriers that can be overcome, as often in the past.”
So do I. But our current world is different than the late-1980s world when I got my liberal arts degree. Despite the "well rounded person" contention in favor of it which I get and actually concur with, it's just not any more a pathway to a well compensated career for the most part if one stops there at higher education.
You are correct, the Fatherland does it right.
“Everyone can study in Germany tuition-free!
That's right: Germans, Europeans, and all non-Europeans can study in Germany free of charge - without tuition fees. It does not matter if you are from the EU or EEA. This applies to almost all study programmes at public universities.”
I’m the same as jackslash, parents paid my tuition and rent, I covered the rest after my freshman year with a part time job. Never went on spring break because that was a week off school I could make extra money. I would go on vacation in the summer. I graduated debt free and enough money in the bank to buy a used car and enough saved to buy a lot to build a house on 2 years after graduating. Man was tuition cheap then and this was less than 20 years ago. In-state tuition at the time I graduated was around $1,500 a semester, I think when I started it was $900.
I would send them if I had kids if they had a direction they wanted to go in. I would NOT send a freshmen into school using COVID since they are lesrndkng remote. My brother did that with his dumb add daughter and she already failed out (she’s not very bright to begin with). Many kids don’t have the discipline to do their work remotely without hands on help. Parents should know their kids well enough to be able to answer that question.
But no matter whether expensive or cheap, if it was up to me, I wouldn’t be paying for anybody’s school. I would rather treat an adult as an adult, which is a tougher mindset to have if they end up choosing to live their life different than your dollars intended for them. While they were in high school, absolutely be a tiger mom and push them to take all the AP tests available, so that they can rack up enough college credits. If the school district doesn’t offer enough AP classes, then homeschooling it is. But that is because there are more institutions that recognize AP than CLEP tests, so they would have the most choices available. From there, they can use the boost to get through college either more quickly, more leisurely, or not do anything because wow thanks to their teenage years they realize they really hate anything to do with a classroom setting and will choose a very different path.
If they decide they would rather go to a prestigious school that doesn’t accept AP credits, I would not care if anybody tried to shame me for refusing to pay for that. If one is at a high enough level academically, believe me they will find a way to manage that well enough. I had a cousin who turned down an offer from a *very* well-known east coast school, because the decently-prestigious-enough public school in-state offered a full ride scholarship. And he ended up getting a full ride scholarship from the east coast school later on in grad school.
But I agree that the majority of expensive private colleges are not worth the extra money. Any kid that is not accepted into a higher end private college will be directed to one of the better state universities, which are far more budget friendly. I don't mind paying the freight for one of the Ivy League schools, including the little Ivies, or another school on the next run down, but I'll be damned if I'm going to shell out several hundred thousand for some shitty "heartbeat and wallet" private liberal arts college.
As @skibum mentioned; there are many that state that the main-reason college has sky-rocketed in price *is* b/c of government intervention and government-do-gooding that “everyone deserves to go to college” – pretty-much anytime someone else is paying; the prices will often skyrocket – if it’s coming out of your own pocket one will be a lot more judicious w/ their expenditure and colleges will be more compelled to compete on price – right now w/ the government guaranteeing loans means that often times the student does not feel the pain to the pocket-book b/c he’s not paying now; it is a “buy now pay later” which makes it easier to accept the bloated prices (not to mention if you are low-income you get federal assistance which makes to where you don’t have to care about the price thus this glut of consistent federal assistance $$$ continues to inflate prices) – as w/ most things, the government will often negatively distort the economy just like it did in the 2000s with the “everybody should own a home and we the government will back it up” fiasco; which also led to house-prices sky-rocketing.
I've heard similar things - obviously the costs have a lot to do w/ it - but also unlike 30-years-ago, w/ technology today (online learning; etc) one can probably get a lot of the knowledge they need at likely a fraction of the price (hell, in most colleges, good professors that you can learn a lot from are often the exception not the norm - if anything, as @Muddy mentioned, online learning means one has more/better/more-cost-effective access to the better/best professors in the world) - I also think I heard that tech companies like Facebook were considering dropping the college/degree requirement but I don't really know the details).
I busted my ass in high school to go to a top end school, get scholarship money and a great financial aid package, and majored in a hard science. Fortunate to have middle class parents that sacrificed and busted their asses to send me there. I graduated with very little debt.
Now, unless my progeny were headed to a top 10 school with a real life plan, I'd tell them to delay college and educate themselves on YouTube, Great Courses, Master Class, or forego altogether.
Private colleges are the most privileged institutions in America.
And then do what?
The marriage market is a real thing. I watched a lot of guys my age get hitched right after finishing their grad school or law degree. They had options I just did not have, even though I made way more $$$ than they could at the time.
Stereotypes about feminists aside...young women who can get into a top law program and graduate are generally going to be ambitious and well put together in general.
STEM programs are absolutely flooded with young Indian and Chinese men, even if the school’s foreign born population is low otherwise. There weren’t many Americans left when I was there...about 20 years ago. Maybe consider doing local community college for prereqs and finishing your degree somewhere abroad.
Hard disagree about no politics in medicine. The craziest TDS guy I know is a doctor and that was even before covid started.
“MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a free, publicly accessible, openly-licensed digital collection of high-quality teaching and learning materials, presented in an easily accessible format.”
When you trap people in a system of debt, they can’t afford the time to think.
Tuition fee increases are a “disciplinary technique,” and, by the time students graduate, they are not only loaded with debt, but have also internalized the “disciplinarian culture.”
This makes them efficient components of the consumer economy.”
~ Avram Noam Chomsky
~ Born December 7, 1928 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
In California it's really UCs/State schools or bust for value. And on that note outside of Berkeley your kid is more likely to become super into asian culture than become a commie.
In terms of cost - I believe the all in tuition cost is like the MSRP price of a car - as it’s a starting point from which to work down. It’s entirely negotiable - and it’s rare anyone pays full price.
When I was in high school - I worked - and I worked more in college. My family didn’t have money saved for my college tuition. I was the first person in my family to graduate college, and there were lots of things they simply didn’t know about in the process. I learned - I made mistakes - but that’s just life.
I wouldn’t discourage my child from attending college. I also would be very careful about pushing my child towards a trade school. Unless you know the trade - it might be a true challenge to get footing as a small business owner.
IMHO that brings up another important facet of this discussion. I didn't raise this before because I was responding specifically about my own kids, who fortunately are decent to great students in advanced programs, so college is a no brainer for them.
But what about kids who are academically challenged? This "college or bust" mentality infecting our school guidance system is a real problem. IMO we send way too many kids to crappy bottom tier colleges who would be better off learning a valuable trade. We also have way too many kids graduating high school who already know that they aren't going to college, but have no marketable skills because they spent four years spinning their wheels in high school.
IMHO we need way more technical high schools. We also need a school guidance system that honestly assesses these kids in middle school and helps put them on the optimal track. Parents and school counselors know by 8th grade whether a kid is academically inclined or not, whether they are being honest with themselves is another matter. If one of my kids was academically challenged and put in "standard" (aka classes for dumb kids) classes in High School, you'd better believe that I'd explore other options that give my kid a better chance at a good life.
It is mind blowing. One woman willingly had sex with me two times to produce my children. But then a tragedy occurred. She recovered her eyesight.
-I saw one school had some program where for the 10 years following graduation the school would take a certain percentage of the students earnings. I like that over what's going on now, that way the school has a vested interest in the students success afterwards rather than just milking every 18 year old kid who doesn't even know anything yet. That's your job school to teach them and instead you fucked them.
-If I see a race and gender studies major, I instantly know without even meeting you, that person a complete fucking asshole. No need to dig any deeper.
-Perhaps the question is relevant to me even know because I could save for my future kids college fund....or I could say fuck it and let Gemini swallow it. Often I choose the latter and all this thread is, is just looking for confirmation to feel better about that decision, nothing more.
Free community college - woo hoo! It’s not actually free as we should all know. It’s also just 4 more years of high school. Those schools are not colleges, they are just offering a useless degree to the lowest levels of students.
If a kid learns a trade, that person still needs drive and determination to find work, and to stay employed. If that person wants to start his own business, he will need an understanding of how to run a small business. It’s not easy.
In my view, a college major matters far less than the persons determination and drive, and analytic ability. A fool from a well regarded college will generally become an expensive waste of salary.
I didn’t quite follow all his posts, but his previous posts about higher ed was interesting stuff.
I would encourage anyone who knows what they want to do to go to college. If the school wants you they will find grants or scholarships to make it work.
Even kids with decent grades and average SATs can get “academic” scholarships that take about 60-70% of the annual tuition. The schools are competing for kids that will not flunk out and pay (a reduced) tuition for 4 years straight.
They have some skin in the game, they establish credit, and it’s a motivator to get a paying job to pay it off.
Fuck these bums who expect the taxpayer to pay off their loan for them.
Hopefully that will happen.
Ridiculous that colleges have the balls to Jack up their tuition 5% every year no matter what.
Germany is different than the US in education and what employers demand. Their % of population with college degrees is 40% less than the US. I think they have better and more apprenticeship plus training programs for employees instead of demanding college scholarships.
As for universal health care, in all the countries that have that the doctors and nurses make much less compared to those in the US.
That war ended over 70 years ago.
Funny, in college some of the engineering and science professors would say if you were doing this for the money then you should be in finance instead. Less demanding and higher payoff.
@oliver clothes off (GREAT handle btw) “Do you really need a bachelor's degree, and the resultant debt, for a job in sales or customer service for instance? I think not.”
You may not think you need the college education, but a large number of employers disagree. Salespeople benefit from education by being able to speak the language of their customers. If you’re selling to doctors, engineers or execs, you’ll be better at your job if you can string intelligent sentences together. If you don’t go to college you’re limiting the number of employers who will consider you.
@burt “Like I told the grand kids. If you go...... then get a degree in engineering, law, or something that pays.”
This is nitpicking but law school is a graduate degree. You can major in underwater basket weaving in undergrad and go to law school.
Even the best paying trades are hard on a body. I don't think I ever met a successful tradesmen that didd'nt want their kids to go to college and have the opportunity for a better life.