Would you send your kid to college today?

And I'm rolling my eyes big time if I hear it's a great place to meet women. Maybe but if that's the case that is some pricey pussy.

@OP come back and talk to us when you have kids, until then it's pure speculation on your part, hypothetical conversations are meaningless

Alright fair enough give me some time and I'll bump it back up later.

1- You are talking private school tuition. State and Juco's are substantially less expensive. 2- If you have kids, you should start saving for this when they are born. But I agree with part of what you are saying. Taking on $200k in student loans is not smart. If a kid does not have the money, they should not borrow to go to USC.

->"Engineering, Medical, something like that."

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 have a liberal arts degree

I knew there was a reason I really liked you, Founder! Also a liberal arts degree! But then again, back in the 70s it was the cool thing to do.

College tuition has increased so rapidly that it's burdening graduates with enormous debt. My parents were by no means rich, but they paid for me to go to college (a state university, not Ivy League). I also worked while I was in school and during the summers. I graduated with no debt and $300 in my savings account. I paid for my 2 children's college educations in state schools. But today college costs are much too high. Meanwhile, Germany has free college education and universal health care. It makes you wonder who won the war.

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.”

->: @founder: "I have a liberal arts degree"

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.

I have two children who ended up in good careers by taking very different paths without breaking the bank. One enlisted in the US NAVY in the nuclear power program, reenlisted for two years with a $73,000 reenlistment bonus. Next reenlistment bonus that he was offered was $103,000 that he refused to get out and start a civilian career at a nuclear power generating station, now earning $150,000/year with OT. The other got a BSN for $25,000 in tuition, 2 years CC and two years at an in-state University. I definately lean toward the CC and in-state university for kids with good grades and discipline or military to grow up and receive the GI Bill for the less mature high school graduate.

@jackslash

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.”

The biggest thing I’m taking in from all of this is jackslash had either 2 women have sex with him or one woman had sex with him at least twice. Mind blowing!!!!

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.

OP belongs in the politics forum. Responses brought the thread back on track. Do what is best for your kids long term, including assessing the value of a college education. The overwhelming majority of well paying careers still follows a college or grad school path. I do love that today’s kids have the ability to turn a profit at nearly anything. If you’re good at something you can monetize it. That wasn’t true 25 years ago.

I think I read somewhere not too long ago that college enrollment for Gen Z is already starting to decline? I wouldn’t be surprised if the slight drop becomes a larger one as time goes on.

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.

Don't have kids, so I can't be sure how I'd feel. I do know that my parents, both of whom only had 8th grade educations, had a goal that all 5 of us would go to college, and we all did. Of course, public universities then were virtually free, and even so, I got an academic full ride for tuition and all my expenses. I got a B.S. in engineering which led to a lucrative and rewarding career, and later in life I got a masters in music, which led to a less lucrative but important-to-me second career. I suspect that each generation feels that the next is full of shit, but higher learning is for real, not just for practical reasons, but in general to have a fulfilling life.

There are very few paths to a good living that don't involve a college degree. It's also a path to a better life partner as most educated people want to marry other educated people. So for these reasons alone my 3 kids will be going to college.

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.

Hypothetical conversations are meaningless? Lol. Climate change - meaningless; covid chat - meaningless; Fake structural racism claims - meaningless. I used my Liberal Arts degree to go to Law School; so quite valuable imo. Lets see why is tuition so high? Well the Federal Government subsidizes it; liberals suck professor cock and the result is high tuition. The more liberal the school, the higher the tuition. Government fucked it up so blame those who believe in big Government. I paid for college, law school and grad school, which is why I bought my first house at 40. Paid back every cent at 7% interest. By the end of my 20 years of payments I was paying 7% on a loan for school and 1.5% on a car loan. federal Government remain the enemy of real Americans. The people whining about having their debt cancelled majored in phys ed; women's studies; art history; video games and the rest of the useless bullshit. I would only contribute to a child's college who was going for a career and not avoiding work. Plus to be fair college looks like a shit storm of liberal bullshit and no fun. Ahh the drug and alcohol soaked free east sex 60's; miss ya bruh.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch; “free college” is not really free; taxpayers are paying for it and the government is running it; not exactly the best-recipe for an efficient system IMO – in addition; anything that is “free” or the government give you will usually have a limit in terms of quantity; there is only so much you can give away – this is a big part of the reason there are a ton of foreign students in the U.S.; i.e. in countries with “free” education there are usually only so many slots available particularly for the more desirable degrees and many students get locked out particularly w.r.t. the more-desirable degrees – again government ran often results in more scarcity.

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 think I read somewhere not too long ago that college enrollment for Gen Z is already starting to decline? I wouldn’t be surprised if the slight drop becomes a larger one as time goes on ..."

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).

Papi nails it.

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.

===> "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."

And then do what?

There is not much difference between a $10K or a $60K school in terms of quality of teaching. That’s true.

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.

As with pretty-much anything; if education was left to the free-market w/ minimal government intervention; no doubt in the minds of most that it would be higher-quality and lower-cost

I tell my students that they theoretically and technically, in many cases, can learn on their own and “challenge” the class and “take the tests” and get credit for it, without having to attend.

“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.”

“Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society.

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.

My wife and I paid for both of our children's college expenses, because we were able to afford it and both our children were engaged in their academics. As a family, we also pursued colleges (public) that provided a quality opportunity for both our kids - with a decent return on expenses within our earnings capacity. The last tuition payment occurred 9 years ago and it wasn't an easy accomplishment to be debt free as the second child graduated. It has only gotten incrementally harder (since 2012) to not be overburdened by the costs of college on most familys.

As we get further away from the free-market w/ more-and-more government intervention and its deforming of the economy, the middle-class will get further and further squeezed - when the government is in charge of the economy, usually the wealthy/well-connected, and poor (via gov handouts), prosper, while the middle-class gets eviscerated

USC has always been stupid overpriced. It's for rich kids who couldn't get into anywhere better.

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.

Noam chomsky lol. Fucking traitor.

I have a kid who is a college freshman. I didn’t think twice about wanting her to attend college. It is necessary for many of today’s jobs. I started putting funds aside when she was a baby. I have both my daughters educations paid for through the use of 529 savings.

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.

About 50% of my client base is under 30. I advise them all that if they want a secure job and make a lot of money become an electrician or a plumber. Children of today are so work adverse, combined with the average age in both trades being 55, means those jobs are gold. One of my "causes" emailed me this morning that she is now a full-fledged union electrician at a local hospital. That doesn't amaze me; but the fact someone actually listened to me 8 years ago does.

===> "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.

"The biggest thing I’m taking in from all of this is jackslash had either 2 women have sex with him or one woman had sex with him at least twice. Mind blowing!!!!"

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 never found a High School Guidance Counselor's input worth relying on to make the choice in a child's "next" educational decision. They offer a homogenized analysis (in most cases), with the primary hope of not offering choices that bring conflict with the parents of the student. If I've noted one major parental mistake - it would be a parent seeking inappropriate choices for their trophy child for bragging rights, without acknowledging the fiscal toll of such a choice on the parents or the child. It is not an easy decision making process for anyone, but it is one of the biggest decisions that a family should make together!

Couple thoughts

-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.

I agree with rickdugan’s statements about sending certain kids to bottom tier colleges. That’s a good point. But, this “free college” stuff promoted by liberal dems is potentially offering that to a large portion of students.

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.

So I wonder what you would think about someone who sent his kids to private schools in Miami from Pre K through 12th grade, so that he had already “invested” about $600K before they even started college? Most people are willing to spend what they can afford - especially when it comes to their kids. It’s not always a ROI calculation.

Have to wonder how much money our last four presidents families spent on their college education, Wharton, Harvard, Princeton and Yale those are some of the most expensive schools in the country, and the money spent doesn't seem to have gotten us better governance.

Now that I think about it, I have spent a lot of $$$ on strippers who were “just doing this to help pay their way through school”.

And spending 600k on private school is a payer's entitlement!

In all seriousness, I could have sworn the actual San_Jose_Guy was very pro “Ivory tower”. He was definitely very unique in his study habits. I remember that when he wanted to study a subject, he would use the assigned textbook, but also find textbooks from previous decades because he considered the extra perspective helpful.

I didn’t quite follow all his posts, but his previous posts about higher ed was interesting stuff.

One of the things I think we get wrong as a society is having sort of a default presumption that it’s straight from high school to college and four years later you’re going to have a degree that you’ll profit from. That’s the right path for plenty of kids. But does a disservice to some of them that need some time to figure out their path. They’d be better off working a couple of years, banking money and then going for the degree they want. Nothing wrong with having fun but too many people major in beer drinking and are never really intentional about why they are paying six figures for a college degree.

HELL NO! TRADE SCHOOL.

Both kids in college. Son graduating with degree in construction management and has several nice job offers. Daughter double majoring in psychology and criminal justice and FBI internship lined up. I had them both take out loans so they could start building their own credit histories but I have paid off loans as they borrowed so they’ll have no debt.

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.

I don’t know who’s paying those full-boat private tuitions. Probably just very rich parents of very poor students.

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.

Nothing wrong with a kid graduating with reasonable student debt - $20k-$25k. 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.

I don't have kids. I have a liberal arts degree and a succession of OK-paying but no benefit jobs. My personal feeling is that unless you are studying for something that needs a license like nursing, architecture or engineering, college is a waste of time and money. Especially if you're going for a bachelor's degree. 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.

Like I told the grand kids. If you go...... then get a degree in engineering, law, or something that pays. If you chose wrong, and think you are getting all my stuff, you are dead wrong. I will spend it on Sugar Babes, strip clubs etc.and die somewhere in South America..

You’re not wrong Burt. We need more people trained in the trades and fewer with useless degrees. Hopefully that will happen. Ridiculous that colleges have the balls to Jack up their tuition 5% every year no matter what.

We have a private catholic high school down the road. The campus looks like a small New England Liberal Arts College. $19,500 a year.....for High School.

Meanwhile, Germany has free college education and universal health care. It makes you wonder who won the war

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.

Like I told the grand kids. If you go...... then get a degree in engineering, law, or something that pays.

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.

This may seem like pissing in your cornflakes on a Friday morning, but it’s just a counterpoint:

@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.

I think everyone knows a law degree is a graduate degree and any major is acceptable as long as you score well o0n the Lsat. Law is weird in that you get your doctorate (J.D.) before your Masters (L.L.M.).

Yet the Juris Doctor degree is the only doctorate title that is not awarded the honorary title of Dr.

I told my kids if they want to go to college they better get a scholarship because I ain’t paying. Three of them did and all four of them are doing a lot better than I ever have.

Paid 5k a semester for college. Total tuition costs 40k. First job salary: 82,500. 1.5 years later making 110k. It paid for itself immediately

^ Did you get a job working for Subra?

@ OP the simple answer is yes. Its supply and demand at work and the affordability of it is not fair by any means.

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.