Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Populi!

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop

Interesting. One year ago, my wife and I finished 10 consecutive years of financing private college educations for our three daughters. They worked after their first year and received scholarship money, but it ain't cheap and it ain't easy. But, as you say, it's important. And solving the affordability problem is complicated. It strikes me, though, that the country itself eventually pays a very dear price if its citizens become less educated and that there is a "cost avoided" factor involved here. I have no clue what it is.

Going into my 4th year now. Also did ~6 years myself as an adult. Not cheap. Not fun. Worth every penny though but I am not going to have much in my retirement account.

 

[rufus]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop

I definitely think trades are the best choice for some people, and we need more people going into those fields.

Yeah, but trades mean you have to work, and get your hands dirty, and kids these days don't want to do that.

 

[joecct]

Interesting. One year ago, my wife and I finished 10 consecutive years of financing private college educations for our three daughters. They worked after their first year and received scholarship money, but it ain't cheap and it ain't easy. But, as you say, it's important. And solving the affordability problem is complicated. It strikes me, though, that the country itself eventually pays a very dear price if its citizens become less educated and that there is a "cost avoided" factor involved here. I have no clue what it is.

But does college prepare you to think on your own and to survive in a universe that does not give a hoot whether you're offended or not?

And, if the economy tanks to 1929 -39 levels, a lot of those majors are useles . The repairman/plumber/etc. contribution will be worth more than a gender studies major.

 

[BassAle]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop

Yeah, but trades mean you have to work, and get your hands dirty, and kids these days don't want to do that.

I don't know about that. I know 'kids' getting their hands plenty dirty farming and busting their *** doing it, but then again local farming has been sold as a 'cool' and rewarding way to make a living.

 

[Handyman]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop

There is a middle ground...cover 2 years of public education. That includes trade schools and community colleges. Let students get the generals out of the way (or a two year degree) and test whether they want to do college beyond that. No federal assistance after that though unless at the poverty line.

 

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop

There is a middle ground...cover 2 years of public education. That includes trade schools and community colleges. Let students get the generals out of the way (or a two year degree) and test whether they want to do college beyond that. No federal assistance after that though unless at the poverty line.

Not bad...not bad at all.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop

There is a middle ground...cover 2 years of public education. That includes trade schools and community colleges. Let students get the generals out of the way (or a two year degree) and test whether they want to do college beyond that. No federal assistance after that though unless at the poverty line.

I'm on board with this.

 

[burd]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop

There is a middle ground...cover 2 years of public education. That includes trade schools and community colleges. Let students get the generals out of the way (or a two year degree) and test whether they want to do college beyond that. No federal assistance after that though unless at the poverty line.

Not bad...not bad at all.

I agree. The idea has merit.

Such a policy would probably also drive down the cost of privates.

 

[aparch]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop

I like it.

 

[unofan]

Yeah, but trades mean you have to work, and get your hands dirty, and kids these days don't want to do that.

And you walked up hill both ways to school through three feet of snow in June, too, I'm sure...

Kids not wanting to work for peanuts doesn't mean they're lazy. It means the potential employers are tightwads that would make Scrooge McDuck seem generous.

 

[Almington]

I don't know what the solution is, but I don't think I've heard it proposed yet. And that's because I don't think we've focused on what the real problem is. We seem fixated on inability to afford college as the problem, but the real problem is the cost of college.

If we focus on the inability to pay by basically having someone else pay for the kids/families if their income is low enough, by handing out grants, or any of those similar "payment" style assistance ideas, not only don't we solve the real problem, but much like health care and health insurance in this country, we probably exacerbate it. When you have one party selling a product, one party receiving the product, and a third party paying for the product, like in the healthcare industry the "free market" doesn't always work to keep prices competitive.

I'm a huge believer in advanced education, although it isn't for everyone. But I'd really like to see us focus on why college costs what it does, and what can we do to fix that, before we just start throwing more money at them through tuition assistance or subsidies.

The problem is that each individual student needs to have very specific answers to the what do I want to do, how will college help me achieve that goal, and why is college the best path to that goal.

Not everyone will know that at 18, but you sure had better know the answers to that before you spend upwards tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars on anything, because if it doesn't advance you towards your life goals, it's just time and money wasted.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop

Candidly, it's an idea that is already effectively in place.

Our girls took AP courses in high school that eliminated probably a years worth of generals for each of them. It's really what made it easier and possible to finish in four years. These courses were "free" to us (assuming you don't count our tax dollars spent on public education). Many, many people, including a close friend of mine, went to the local community college for a year or two for that exact reason -- to cheaply get your generals out of the way.

I don't think nearly enough people take advantage of that.

My wife and I talked about it, and decided against it for a couple of reasons. First, with many of the generals taken care of by the high school AP courses, there were fewer courses they could take at the local CC that would transfer to the University. Second, we thought it would be better to get them out of town and into the University setting before they started with the harder, core classes.

I don't know the numbers, but I suspect a very high percentage of students entering four year colleges and Universities today have already taken many of their general studies in high school AP courses, just as our girls did. Notwithstanding this, the degree is still very, very expensive.

 

[unofan]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop

We've got a little more than 18 years to think about it, but my wife and I are both theoretically on board with a gap year for our kid. I got way more out of law school having worked in the real world first, and looking back, there are definitely things I'd have done differently in college had I had that experience at that point.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop

The problem is that each individual student needs to have very specific answers to the what do I want to do, how will college help me achieve that goal, and why is college the best path to that goal.

Not everyone will know that at 18, but you sure had better know the answers to that before you spend upwards tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars on anything, because if it doesn't advance you towards your life goals, it's just time and money wasted.

I disagree with this.

I started at UND in the aviation program with a plan to be a pilot. First choice would be to fly for a major airline, but recognized there were other avenues I may elect to or be forced to choose.

I spent a fair amount of money flying planes. It wasn't cheap. I became disillusioned with my prospects primarily because of a few of my instructors. This was at a time when Vietnam War era military pilots were now back in civilian life and were clearly the more attractive job candidates. The instructors would talk about limited opportunities outside of flight school teaching, and it soured me on that career path.

But I've never regretted doing it. I always wanted to learn to fly, and I did. The flight school education has not benefited my current career in the least, but it also didn't restrict it.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop

We've got a little more than 18 years to think about it, but my wife and I are both theoretically on board with a gap year for our kid. I got way more out of law school having worked in the real world first, and looking back, there are definitely things I'd have done differently in college had I had that experience at that point.

I've always thought the opposite would have been better for me. I worked for a couple years between undergrad and grad school, and frankly I was a little too "well rounded" to join in the academic knife fights after that. It may be better to just burn through it as if you had a few redshirt years and finish up in your late 20s.

The other thing is kids fresh from college don't work in the "real world" -- the jobs they get give them no POV on the things that actually matter. About the best that can be said for a gap year is it reinforces how awful wage slavery is and encourages kids to go back, get an advanced degree, and become academics so they don't wind up doing mid level managerial sh-t work in the business world all their lives.

 

[Almington]

I disagree with this.

I started at UND in the aviation program with a plan to be a pilot. First choice would be to fly for a major airline, but recognized there were other avenues I may elect to or be forced to choose.

I spent a fair amount of money flying planes. It wasn't cheap. I became disillusioned with my prospects primarily because of a few of my instructors. This was at a time when Vietnam War era military pilots were now back in civilian life and were clearly the more attractive job candidates. The instructors would talk about limited opportunities outside of flight school teaching, and it soured me on that career path.

But I've never regretted doing it. I always wanted to learn to fly, and I did. The flight school education has not benefited my current career in the least, but it also didn't restrict it.

You did have a reason why when you went to college, the fact that reason changes with experience didn't invalidate that the original decision was made with more thought than "college is where everyone has to go to make a better life" and I'll figure it all out later.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop

You did have a reason why when you went to college, the fact that reason changes with experience didn't invalidate that the original decision was made with more thought than "college is where everyone has to go to make a better life" and I'll figure it all out later.

Not really though. This is one of the other reasons my wife and I wanted the girls to be in the university setting for a full four years, and not spend a year or to at the CC. I believe in the University setting you will be exposed to a lot of different people with a lot of different career paths and you'll get a chance to take some classes and see what you like, and maybe even what you have an aptitude for, and still have time to choose that path.

I had an idea what I wanted to do when I went to college, but I'm not going to claim it was all the result of detailed planning and thinking. If it had been, I would have probably figured out the job prospect problem long before I got into it. I went to college just thinking it would be fun to fly planes for a living.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop

And, if the economy tanks to 1929 -39 levels, a lot of those majors are useles . The repairman/plumber/etc. contribution will be worth more than a gender studies major.

I couldn't disagree more with your last statement, but the bigger problem is the conflation of college and professional training. We should have far better trade schools and apprenticeship programs in the US for people who want to learn a trade and gain credentials. That isn't what college is for. College is about creating talented and educated generalists who can turn their hand to anything in graduate programs in academia or law or medicine. Maybe 10% of students should go into programs like that -- that's the carrying capacity of the economy for those slots.

The root cause problem is prestige and pay. If graduates of trade schools went on to enjoy the SES of graduates of colleges and graduate professional programs, the number of colleges would plummet and the number of trade schools would sky rocket. People interested primarily in making money would flock to those credentialing programs. The colleges would dwindle to support only those people who seek education for its own sake and then "figure it out later" as to what they'll do.

We have a caste system which perpetuates itself because we don't give everybody the appropriate education for their needs and desires. Ironically, creating a multi-track educational system is one way to help break down the caste system in the US.

 

[mookie1995]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop

The (THE) major #1 issue is the costs colleges put upon themselves.

These are non-profit and do not pay taxes. Yet the admins pay themselves like outside real world companies. I don't even need to get into Pocahontas getting 400 large to teach one class, I can use silver at BU crying because he was given free housing as the schools pres, but complained that if he HAD bought a house in Brookline it would have appreciated to over a mill so the school gave him a mill mortgage at low low low rates (the story goes). Education is not an ROI industry and doesn't merit the salaries these folks are getting. Not to mention the arms race to build crazy new dorms and whatnot.
Frankly they get away with it because there is not a deep sticker shock.
Feds are more than happy to shovel grants and loans to the majority of consumers who take it and pass along to these schools. Then grant money flows from the other end to facilitate salaries and research et.al.

If these places had to compete for straight consumer $$$ they would have almost no customers (or all foreigners).

Again, Dems love to shape behavior via taxes. How about you cap tuition at .5x local median household income (all in tuition r/b etc). If a private school wants to charge more to citizens they lose property tax exemptions. They have to show and submit tax returns for income made. The whole works.
If they want to pay themselves as a corporation, they lose the tax benefits that educational entities have enjoyed historically.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIII: Clinton destrueretur est. Trump est destruetur. Vox Pop

Not really though. This is one of the other reasons my wife and I wanted the girls to be in the university setting for a full four years, and not spend a year or to at the CC. I believe in the University setting you will be exposed to a lot of different people with a lot of different career paths and you'll get a chance to take some classes and see what you like, and maybe even what you have an aptitude for, and still have time to choose that path.

I've taught at the CC level and I was impressed by the variety of students and their seriousness. It's not the four-year drinking binge of college. There are people of all ages, many with day jobs, and all there for urgent reasons. I think it's a far superior atmosphere for learning how to function with other adults. University as currently configured is a place where half the student population acts like they are still in high school.

What's needed is far more attention, funding, and appreciation for the CC system.