The only way for a lot of lower income kids. At least it's a very admirable way. It is way too damn expensive, though. Highway robbery. The money major schools pull it just plain make it rain and all they've ever done for decades is bleed students (and their folks) dry. They enter the real world tens of thousands of dollars in debt. There certainly isn't something right about that. There certainly needs to be some sort of reform in that. We started our daughter's college fund when she was born, I shudder to think how expensive university will be in another decade. But you can't just turn that all off. You can't just flick the switch and make it free, and a lot of these kids don't want to accept that.
I think a big part of the problem is that the government was successfully lobbied by the credit card and student loan companies to disqualify their debts from bankruptcy, thereby eliminating any checks and balances on their lending practices... they could now play the long game. Once that happened, most universities were able to raise their tuitions insanely high, because the students could pay the fees. Couple that with the push on "higher education" being the only way to get a job, and you've got a shit-ton of people being run through the mill and being fleeced with no payout at the end, other than crushing debt. Never mind the headspace that some students have that they go to school to learn something that they're interested in, rather than something that will make them employable and able to earn a solid income. My sister is a prime example of that... got an honours degree in Anthropology, but had no desire or option to work in the field. After getting that degree she was unemployable until she went off and did a 3 month basic computer skills course so she could then get a clerical job. Now she's a governmental cog, doing nothing with her degree. Personally, I think your first goal should be to get a skill/trade/degree that you can be employed with, then go back later and learn stuff for shits and giggles.
Community college is most certainly affordable. These kids want Ferraris on their used Toyota with 300,000 miles budget. And they want everyone else to foot the bill while they try and figure out what the fuck they're doing. The way schools are coddling these children there are going to be a shit load of lawsuits against the schools, and anyone else they can think of, when they figure out they're not prepared to deal with the cold, mean, hateful real world.
I'm a 29 year old millenial. I'm supposed to be part of the entitlement group, yadda yadda yadda. First I have to co-sign what Gravy said in regards to "Stop the get off my lawn shit, you fuckers were young assholes too." Secondly I have to co-sign what CJ said in regards to the public school system, that sucks too. But the thing we need to look at THE MOST is what Nettdata said. Parents (and overall the culture of America) need to push students away from degrees that lead two options. 1) Teaching the thing they got their degree in. 2) Nothing associated at all with their degree because it doesn't lead to a job. A friend of mine, Dave who got is first taste of vagina his Junior year of highschool, followed a girl (who is now his wife) to a school AND her major. That major was Anthropology. I majored in advertising, I secured a job before I even graduated. He came out of school saying "Oh my god, the economy. It's so hard to get a job." He tried being a freelance videogame journalist, that fell through, and now he's working in hospitals being a handler for aggressive mentally disabled people. His wife is now a pharmaceutical sales rep. That expensive degree means shit and never will. This is a bigger problem than anything else, people going to school to study shit that won't ever pay off to anything. There are just so many circlejerk degrees that never go anywhere. There was a grad school class I took called "Pop Culture in Film", where we spent a class talking about the experience of watching someone sing and the feelings one has. One of those feelings being embarrassment because the audience always expects the person to mess up and the audience is embarrassed, therefore when a live performance completes half the enjoyment is the feeling of not being embarrassed. Now, that is some interesting shit, but that's sure as fuck not getting me a job. That professor has no other career options outside of teaching that class. Now I'm not saying we shouldn't teach all these other non-applicable sciences and but we shouldn't be as happy-go-lucky-do-whatever-you-want about education with these huge price tags on education and the economy being behind.
Devils advocate... I agree that not everyone should go to college, and the way people are pushed into it and then saddled with a ton of debt at 23 is crazy. However, if nothing else, a degree is a good (not perfect) indicator that you can perform in a white collar job. Any idiot can graduate high school or trade school. And yes, I know many stupid people have degrees or even advanced degrees from paper mills or legit institutions. But the further up the educational chain, the better the prospects and the more the idiots are weeded out. I wont hire someone without an MBA. It just doesnt happen and I got very, very lucky to get the job without one. Are there some shitheads that I have to deal with? Definitely, but its not many. And most of the people I interact with are sharp and hardworking. So that anthropology degree might seen pointless if they arent an anthropologist. But they have their shit together enough to receive an anthropology degree which is the factor that most companies actually care about. This doesnt mean that everyone that goes to trade school is an idiot. Or everyone that goes to college is a genius. But its playing the odds. This post is going to catch some shit, but I teach companies how to execute strategy, and a part of that is personnel management philosophy. Its just the way it is.
I don't necessarily disagree with what you're saying here, as my buddy & wife aren't cleaning up trash for a living and are homeowners. Overall a degree does mean "Yes, this person can read, write and (hopefully) think critically about something that isn't cut and paste."And to further your point, it's beneficial to have multiple schools of thought in a business to promote innovation and new ideas. Yet in the competitive job situation there is, when there are 100 people with just random degrees, if you're a Marketing HR Recruiter, you're going to pick the person with the Marketing degree vs. the Anthropology degree. They're going to be ahead in the overall concepts and have a perceived reduced training time. The issue is why are people going to get anthropology degrees over others that are tied directly to careers. What is their expectation of a career when they get anthropology degree? My two friends who got their degrees just thought they could walk into some place and get a 9-5, but they didn't. I really have no idea why Dave got that fucking degree. Are these people just thinking "I need to go to college for reasons, so I'm going to get this degree."
Of course. Thats why a 3.0 GPA from an Ivy League school will probably get the job over a 4.0 from a state school. Does it mean the Ivy Leaguer is smarter? Maybe. Is the curriculum any different? Probably not. But one has something the other doesnt, all things being equal.
Yeah, except all things aren't equal, and if we're just talking about degrees, we should be encouraging people to get degrees that translate into careers. If people really want to do Latin Studies or Anthropology they can, but they need to be aware of the fact they're going to be at a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace when it comes to those entry level positions. On top of that, Latin Studies and Anthropology degrees aren't talking about specific careers, and therefore also aren't encouraging students studying them to get internships, which also holds you back competitively. I think I've posted about this before on here, but I didn't get an internship and ended up in Media sales instead of an ad agency right out of college. I thought I'll just get my masters degree in Advertising, and that'd make me competitive while I work this other job. When I had my masters degree, and went for ad jobs, I lost out to people who had one 3 month internship. It's just when you combine all the different factors, if you do in fact decide to go to college, you should have at least 1 major that is tied directly to a path and hopefully the Anthropology or Black Studies second degree can benefit it.
The education system in America really is a mess, no question about it and like most issues we grapple with there isn't an easy solution that will solve it. I agree with a lot of what has been said here; college is unrealistically priced for no good reason, which in large part, as discussed, is driven by too much available funding fueling undischargeable debt. We live in this world full of people who now have really unrealistic expectations, everyone believes that they are destined to go to college and land a great job, that isn't real anymore. In this globalized world, we are now competing against people from all over who have lower expectations of these same jobs in terms of pay and their treatment. Corporations are going to spend as little on labor as is necessary to produce their goods or services, that is the nature of business. Additionally, in terms of American college kids expectations, there is something to consider: Just like with kids wanting to be pro athletes; in high school are you the best player on your team? No, then you need to figure out whether you can work harder to be one of the best on your team or you need to start focusing on other goals. The same applies to academics: Are you a C student in high school? Are you applying yourself or capable of doing more? If not, then just because you CAN go to college does not mean you SHOULD. This world still needs mechanics, masons and garbage men; there should be a spot for everyone who is willing to work. Someone is far better off going to a technical school and learning HVAC-R to land a $15 - 20 hr job than they are saddling themselves with six figures of debt coming out of the gate in hopes of landing a $60k year job with a history degree or even a general business degree. Now, I recognize that is a grim assessment and flies in the face of what we are taught: American Exceptionalism, but that is the current reality. Until we recognize globalization is a problem for the American population and not a net benefit, this issue won't correct itself. We continue to make free trade agreements with nations that aren't required to follow American labor and environmental standards such as NAFTA, TAFTA and TPP which essentially incentivize corporations to offshore more work to lower wage countries, while there is no offset in America. We have all of these young people with little or no prospect for success, it used to be that kids coming out of college with an Anthropology degree could find work, not as an Anthropologist of course but they could do something productive and be proud of it....not now though. In my opinion, the best way to address this is going to be a combination of different methodologies. First, kids in America need to understand that they aren't all supposed to go to college, make college affordable but cut off the student loans for the kids who really don't need to be attending a 4-year institution. Fund trade schools again. Second, we need to curb globalism. We need to penalize companies for moving offshore. Taxes and tariffs, as bad as that sounds but we need to find a way to increase GDP in this country that amounts to something other than healthcare and the service sector, we need to start producing again. Third, H1 visas and mass illegal immigration need to be curbed. Tech companies and the like need to form industrial advisory committees at colleges to tailor student programs to what they need instead of complaining that American workers aren't correctly trained. Tell them what you need, don't try to bypass them as an easy excuse to bring in cheap labor. In conjunction, get American workers doing the jobs of roofers, masons, etc. again. I know I will catch flak for saying this but I live in Florida and there are very few non-latino tradesmen nowadays. This really needs to be a systemic approach. I'm sure there are better ideas than what I wrote there but it is at least a start. We need to do something drastic to work this out, it really affects our entire economy. Look at household formation numbers and real unemployment rates as an example. Times are bad and you can only continue to paper over the issue for so long before it breaks down. Otherwise, if we embrace the de-industrialization of America and the onset of robotics, automation and drones we need to figure out what's next? How do we as a society move to a system that is not in any way, shape or form driven by money? What else can it be if we no longer have jobs for people or ways for them to earn a living?
For me personally, I got a degree in Business Economics because I was lucky in that economics is something I enjoy enough to persevere long enough to get my degree - which took 8 years and 4 different majors. So I don't really begrudge someone who gets a low-demand degree if that's what it takes to finish college. And like Juice said, simply having a degree will open doors for you. But before you even get to degree choices, people need to take responsibility for the colleges they choose. I graduated from a state university that currently has a total undergrad tuition cost of $29,964 - expensive to be sure, but not crippling. On the other hand, Carleton College down in Northfield Minnesota charges $62,046 for 2015-2016 tuition. If that price holds, and it won't, the total cost for an undergrad degree from Carleton College would be $248,184. That's almost an entire order of magnitude higher than my school. Certainly that school's got a high rank and probably offers a better education than my school, but at 8 times the cost are you getting an 8 times better education? More importantly, for the overwhelming majority of undergrad degrees, is a degree from that school going to open doors to jobs that pay even 50% more, let alone twice as much or 8 times more - the difference in education costs? The cost of the Carleton tuition also includes $49,464 for room and board, but that's another area where people pointlessly drive up their own costs. Unless you're getting kicked out of your parents house or your home situation is just that horrible, going far away for college is a needless indulgence. (Obviously people in rural areas don't have a choice). People shit on degree choices, but frankly it's those other factors which make things worse.
I don't know if this warrants its own thread, but holy shit France. Coordinated attacks, borders closed, hundreds dead or taken as hostages. This is fucking insane.
@CanisDirus would you like to provide any associated commentary as to your opinions on the link you posted? Accurate/not accurate?
Thats completely the point that I took into account when I was looking at grad school to get my MBA. I had a pretty shitty couple of employed/un-employed years after undergrad, so I was in no position where an employer would pay for any continuing education, much less cover full cost. So while I applied and got past the initial stages at Northwestern, I ended up attending and graduating from another program in Chicago that isn't top 5-10 like NW, but is respected and with which I had no problem getting a job paying quite well. I graduated with around $60K in debt. At NW, it would have been closer to $150K. You're paying for a network and other associated features that being an alumni of a prestigious school provides, but its not like I went to U of Phoenix. I have the MBA, I have 3 years at a Fortune 100 company with good reviews, at this point it doesn't matter. And another $90K in debt wouldn't have gotten me anymore than possibly $10K MAX in starting salary.
I think he's pretty full of shit on his CO2 diatribe, but he does have some strong points on the whole "We have very little clue how any of this works." I'm of the opinion climate change happens, but anthropologically-caused climate change is the thing we're worried about. There's evidence for it either way, cooling or warming, but I think warming is most likely the current trend. However, I found it funny a former Greenpeace guy was willing to voice this opinion. Also, the arrogance to say life on the planet is continuing because we exploit fossil fuels... wow.
I'll admit, I didn't read the whole thing. I read the first few paragraphs before I identified him as being completely full of shit. Then I started skipping around. I read another 5-6 paragraphs before I gave up since literally everything I was reading was fundamentally wrong. He's so completely full of shit and contrary to all scientific study that it boggles the mind. He doesn't understand the long term ramifications of CO2, doesn't understand how these concentrations are balanced globally, and draws the most ridiculous straw man arguments. Just goes to show that holding an executive position doesn't mean you're actually educated enough to have an opinion. He's pretty psyched about contributing some CO2 to the atmosphere, perhaps he should set himself on fire and contribute his own biomass to that which he's celebrating?
Well this has gone south quickly: http://www.dartreview.com/eyes-wide-open-at-the-protest/ Apparently BLM's goal now is to now create new racists.