The scam they call college.

Fact Checking the "National Inflation Association"

Pretty dubious, but so's the video.

 

Goldbugs and education bashers in the same video? Well that's two parts down. We're just missing the big electric fence to score The Paranoid Trio.

 

i watched 10 mins and stopped...

Seriously?

Hogwash... I would never be where i am today without college... and I am happy I went... it helped me to define who I was... money well-spent from my own loans...

And most public colleges had extreme amounts of funding from state governments reduced in the last 5-8 years that has driven up the costs that are passed on to students... that is the reason why the increase has occurred while the rest of the economy had a downturn ...

 

The whole "colleges are part of the Axis of Evil" meme is nothing new and as such we've been hit by budget cut after budget cut pretty much 7 out of every 10 years. It's a great excuse to keep wages down. In a tight labor market, workers are forced to be more productive (there's less ppl doing the work).

Then, by demonizing college profs and teachers in general, the public is less likely to believe these idiot perfessers who insist that there's no more low-lying fruit. What do they know? "Those who can't, teach!"

Frustrated professionals get sick of the low pay and low respect and bail out on the profession, only to be hired by new ppl for a lot less money, and they're just happy to have a job b/c of the tight labor market.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Who cares about the billions of dollars schools waste in teacher turn-over. Who cares about time to graduation climbing and climbing in direct proportion to the decline in tenure track positions.

It's b/c these activist perfessers are incompetent idiots anyway.

 

Like Uppa 90, I also would not be where I am without college and the degree I got from it.

I guess that's the whole thing though - the degree that you get. A lot of people think that all you have to do is get A degree and that will magically make everything better. Well, you need to get a useful degree. I have an engineering degree, so yes, I was able to get a "desirable job in my chosen field" right out of school like the guy sarcastically says (implying that it's not possible) in the intro to the video.

But if you go and get some "Art History" or "Creative Writing" degree, well, how do you think that is going to help you get a job? Those are the type of people who feel "scammed" by college, but they only scammed themselves by going after that type of degree in the first place.

 

Ummm sort of. Choosing a practical degree does matter at the mid- and lower-tier colleges, but at the top tier it's not terribly important. Indeed, at some of the top-tier colleges (Harvard, Yale, Chicago) there aren't any practical degrees offered at all.

 

That's all well and good, but what about us who don't have math brains?

I have always, always struggled with math. Always. It doesn't come to me. I couldn't have faked my way through a engineering, or accounting degree. But I was told since the age of 4 college college college. Now I have a worthless B.A in history, seemed rounded and a good choice. One year out from graduation. I work at the mall. Part time. I can't even get a full time retail position in my area. I tried substituting as well. Nope, teaching isn't for me. So that was a waste.

I am going to go to grad school in 2012. But I wonder whether I will get the same results..........just with more debt and no parent's house to go back to afterwards.............with the money I make now it would be physically impossible for me to pay rent around here. I could maybe rent a room, and not have a car, gas, or food.


I am thinking about forcing myself to do something I don't like for a Msc or a MA in a hail mary hope I make myself employable.

 

1) It's not so much that your education is a waste so much as the failure of the job market. I mean, seriously, it's not like there would be no unemployment if only everyone got an engineering or a computer science degree.

Part of the problem is that corporations have successfully shifted the burden for training for specific jobs to the individual citizen instead of taking responsiblility for it like they did in the past.

2) If you have to take out loans for graduate school, don't go. If you can't get support in the form of teaching assistantships or fellowships, you'll have virtually no chance at all for G-school to lead to a job.

 

On #1, last week I ran into a guy who studied philosophy at Northwestern. I hired him straight out of undergrad. Any idiot could see he would be good at anything he did. He's now in his late 30s and worth I dunno, $20 million or something. A few days later I bumped into another Northwestern philosophy grad, the same age. Not as wealthy but still doing very well, making well into six figures.

Look, there's nothing I can do for you as a liberal arts major if you weren't good, OK very good. There are plenty liberal arts grads out there who can't write or think or reason as well as a strong high school senior. But that's not the fault of the major, it's the fault of the student and the school. What I can say is if you are truly good, and you are persistent, you are VERY likely to land on a healthy career path.

On #2, absolutely.

 

I had a 3.8 GPA. Is that good enough? Sure my school wasn't Northwestern, but I did very well and tried as hard as possible. I basically had a 4.0 my last 3 semesters. That wasn't just in history classes either. That was in Geography, Poli-sci, and literature.(when I didn't have to take.....................my math credits )

I've had job interview after job interview. And for some of them, I can't imagine who they possibly hired instead of me, I'm not bragging either, these are at places like Staples and Wal-Mart. And this is with "experience" The ever present "experience" issue.

I will probably get assistanships etc for grad school, I'm ASSUMING I will anyway.

And all things considered, my student loan debt is not excessive I am VERY lucky in that regard. A lot of the aid I needed was covered by work study, and my grandparents left all of us accounts to be used ONLY for education. That paid for a huge part of it.

 

You were overqualified, that's why. And for some jobs you'd be underqualified, Goldman Sachs does hire undergrads but they don't want you. (Wouldn't have wanted me, either.) You need to find the sweet spot -- positions that are too difficult and require too much learning for those who were hired by Staples, but not quite as tricky to get into as Goldman Sachs.

I know that's vague but take it from an ex-English major who scrapped around looking for work during the Reagan recession, you are needed. I ended up doing temp work for a year or so, then through networking landed an entry level position at a young, growing company in financial publishing, started a career in investment research. I had no effing idea that's what I would end up doing.

 

I think getting out of a rural area would be my first order of business...........

 

Yes absolutely. This is like China, you want a job you get the bleep out of the country and into the cities.

 

Hey, that's me! I was wait listed but eventually got into two law schools, but since I wanted to think about going to grad school in English to avoid debt, I deferred my admission. This was during the same recession. My first job out of college was making what passes for pizza at Dominoes in my home town. Beat out some damn good resumes to get the job (my home town was frequently mentioned by President Obama when he addressed the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and is mentioned often in the The Audacity of Hope as a town seriously damaged over the last 30 years). Got support for G-school so didn't go to law school.

Your other story of the philosophy major reminded me of a guy who attended a small Lutheran college where my wife and I used to teach. He looked like a hippy throwback (this is the late 80s now) and at one point got beat up by a bunch of guys on the football team. The administration took the side of the football players (they were undefeated that year, until they lost in the playoffs). Said philosophy major taught himself how to brew beer in college. His first post-college job was waiting tables in a brew pub. Eventually, he learned enough to do some brewing himself, and he learned enough about the business that he could open his own. About two dozen brew-pubs later, he's quite wealthy.

Far wealthier than any of the bizzo football players who beat him up. And he won't give his alma mater a dime.

 

Now there's a shock.

My philosophy guy cleaned himself up for the job interview. Then after he got hired, he grew shoulder length hair and bought a motorcyle. Very Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

The bizzo sports guys do alright with the rings and school ties but the Internet billionaires were either computer engineers or liberal arts majors.

 

i'm still watching the video, but some of these examples are just... come on. the dentist lady? ooh, i can't work on medicare patients anymore because i defaulted on a loan? umm... medicare doesn't even cover dental except in cases of medical emergency. and she still owes 300,000 after already paying in 100k? sounds like someone who doesn't read loan agreements and is horribly bad with money.

and how dare people be able to take out more loan money! how dare we hold people responsible for what they borrow? people used to have jobs during college, so now that we offer them more money they simply can't do that? hello!
how about you use your brain, only take out what you need, and get a part time job while you're going? that's what me and all my friends did. geez.

 

this video is hilarious. still watching. apparently people who get GEDs are all idiots, and we shouldn't be counting them in any statistics. lol

 

and apparently the future of the world is everyone in their pajamas skyping, ordering from amazon and never leaving their house.

sounds great.

wait a minute. how are people supposed to be farmers online?

 

duh.

 

That's what people around me are for (see earlier post)

We don't have dat fancy skype yet. Or those pajama thingamajigs.