Since the Reagan era, funding has shifted from Federal and State grants directly to schools and students, to subsidizing and guaranteeing loans. Instead of schools and students being rewarded for academic performance, they are subject to market forces in the hands of 18 year olds deciding which university has the best rec-center. As a result, school campuses have taken on a resort like atmosphere at the expense of academics, with students shouldering the costs. Here's an opinion piece that mirrors my view.
You're the one that thinks your sweat and hard work are magically worth more than everyone else's. I bet the average McDonald's fry cook works harder on an average day than you ever did. And they actually help people on a tangible daily basis.
Holy shit, you actually made a good point. Nothing wrong with doing two years at a community college and then transferring to a university. But I agree with @Marso, not my fucking problem.
Nope. No degree needed. Just having a few semesters under your belt is enough to ensure you make more than someone who never went to college or trade school.
Big supporter of community colleges myself, and trade schools, too! There's nothing wrong with going to a trade school and becoming a plumber, electrician, HVAC technician, etc. All of those jobs tend to pay well and for the foreseeable future doesn't have the imminent threat of automation to contend with. That said, I believe colleges and trade schools should be free.
The whole looking down on the trades thing in our society needs to really be shifted away from. The trades traditionally pay well for the most part, are automation resistant. (Hint: The traditional top end for electricians is automation controls) As for colleges and universities, I think that there is too much academic bloat. Why should the government be funding degrees in subjects that arent promoting critical occupations, especially when theres a shortage in everything?
This path goes all the way back to the Space Race and how America was trying to get anyone with a pulse into Engineering sixty years ago. Add to that the GIs from WWII who now had a path to free college, and you get them telling their Boomer and Gen Xer children that college is worth the investment. And then Gen X and boomer parents parrot that same line, even with rising costs and stagnant wages and a market that went tits up right as the first of my high school classmates graduated college. I don't necessarily agree that we shouldn't fund colleges; there's value in the arts and history and of course scientific research. But a lot of things out there, a four year degree is unnecessary. And put colleges need to look more like the UK's, where it's assumed that if you passed your A Levels, you don't need to spend two years to rehash what you learned in high school. Gen Ed there refers to the core classes in one's major.
A degree in engineering or law or medicine warrants substantial debt, because those lead to high-paying professions. But to go $50-100K in debt to get a degree in art or history or poetry? That's very ill-advised for students who intend to pay the debt with the earnings from the jobs those degrees facilitate. Not demeaning those subjects, just recognizing economic reality.
Maybe getting a degree in those subjects shouldn't cost 50-100k? Maybe no degree should cost 50-100k?
How many jobs require a bachelor's degree as a prerequisite, though?My current job doesn't require a post-secondary degree, but plenty of comparable jobs in my industry demand it.
The cost of most products and services decline over time. Those that don't are probably subject to declining resources or government intervention.
When everyone has a bachelor's degree--regardless of what it costs or what opportunities come with it--it becomes a baseline for hiring. All else being equal, an employer would usually rather have a better educated worker, especially given that education is common enough that the worker may not be able to command any higher salary for it.
I'm all for funding colleges, at least partially, but only for areas necessary to the health of the nation. Medical, engineering, mathematics. Trade schools, too. I believe that the government should have its hands off of academic pursuits such as studies of the arts, culinary, or other humanities. Those are for the individual to pursue, and not really within the tax payer's purview.
TheBrew beat me to it, but in short, if fewer people attend college (either because trade school cuts into that or because more of us get priced out of it), the prices will fall. There's no reason state college should cost as much as it does, especially when the benefactors are the football coach and the dean in that order. There's a lot of bloat to be cut out. My high school econ teacher was a teen mother in 1975 with no babydaddy and even she was able to get her degree and her tuition per semester cost less than the yearly parking permit. Oh, and something else I found out? Even CEO salaries that have risen about 900 percent since the 70s haven't kept up with the pace in with tuition has exploded (1100 percent). If that doesn't give the capitevangelicals pause, I dunno what will.
You idiots keep blaming capitalism for rising college costs when it's government that has facilitated it, by making gigantic bankrolls of taxpayer money available for student loans and then guaranteeing them, thereby allowing colleges to jack up their prices without end. Cut out the government loan money, and tuition costs will stagnate. Colleges are basically gorging themselves on taxpayer money and leaving students literally holding the bag- not just the students with government loans, but ALL of them, because the supply of government money is allowing them to raise prices on everyone, including people like me who paid for their own kids' college educations out of pocket.
Basically what Marso and Tuttle just said. The government taking over student loans and telling colleges that everyone can have all the money they will ever need for classes (and they will be repaid by Dr. future you, not now you) is the cause of hyperinflation on tuition. It's also lead to an extreme amount of academic bloat because the bar to college had been so substantially lowered that almost everyone is going now. This means colleges need more faculty to keep up with demand, and offer courses easy enough to pass the people who would just dont have the academic talents for Stem or medical.
I've been thinking about this issue too. I'm just not sure how we can implement it fairly, across the board. You want to pursue an education (or related) degree so you can teach in under-served inner city or rural areas? Boom, you get help from Uncle Sam. You want to go into electrical engineering so you can get a job with NASA at Redstone Aresnal like a friend of mine just did? Bam, you get help from Uncle Sam. You want to study theology? You do that on your own dime at a private institution like I'm doing at SBTS. You want to study 17th Century Latvian Poetry? Your own dime, bud.
Okay, great. Now who decides where that line is drawn, and why does that 'who' get to decide and not someone else? Can't you already hear the shrill, entitlement-minded screams about 'FAIRNESS' ringing in your ears?
That's the part I haven't worked out yet. I'd also add that I'd streamline the whole post-secondary education process. Since you're paying for this, the incentive should be to get in and get it done. Frankly, you should have gotten Algebra, Geometry, Biology, Anatomy, Basic World History, Western Civilization, English Comp, and American/English Lit in High School. I did, 30 years ago in rural Alabama. Proving competence via SAT, ACT, or University Placement Exam should be enough to skip most of those craptacular prerequisites. Because it wasn't, the entirety of my Freshman year and the first semester of my Sophomore year of undergrad was a colossal waste of time and money. I'm not paying you to make me a "well rounded individual." I'm paying you to teach me how to be a bloody engineer!
