My son grew up with a classmate in our neighborhood--they were friends as kids, and then again in HS (played soccer together as well), but I'm afraid the young man apparently is a rapist as well, although he's never been convicted or even charged, AFAIK. My son has distanced himself and they no longer associate. It's led to some uncomfortable encounters as the young man still lives at home and my son stops by to visit his mom and me regularly. He doesn't like to talk about it, but he has told me that he regrets not seeing some signs--the guy is small and somewhat soft-spoken, so there was some behavior as a teen that got laughed off or dismissed because he appeared so harmless. What my son might actually know, I'm not so sure--I don't think he knows details, it's just that he's heard the rumors and has decided he believes the woman/women making the accusations and has cut the former friend off.
I love this. Empowering states. What a novel concept. I think I'm beating a dead horse, but this is still new info to a lot of people:Mississippi's educational improvements are replicable! They shifted to a science-based reading curriculum and it's working!Your state could do this too!https://t.co/OlbSs2whAQ— PoIiMath (@politicalmath) May 7, 2025
America f******* hates black and brown people. Always has and the entire system has been in place to screw them over. It's certainly improved over the last 500 years but still plenty of systems and people in place that want to keep on oppressing.
You quoted something you did not read. The parents will have trouble affording tuition, so from his POV, the glass ceiling remains intact. According to cons, he's supposed to be on an assembly line somewhere, being supervised by a predator (he is only half White, so maybe kills but does not cannibalize, I don't have all the answers).
The relationship between income and educational success in the US has been explained to you multiple times. That the family has financial struggles suggest they are not at the top of the economic ladder, and thus do not live in a location with an academically successful k-12 school system, thus meaning that their kid is less likely to be accepted into a university. This is compounded by the historic lack of equality in education when it comes to race, highly favoring Whites AND disadvantaging Blacks (specifically) at the same time (and purposefully in a lot of cases). There is a reason the US has Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), yet those institutions have long lacked the same funding larger and more prominent universities receive. DEI programs were an attempt to help mitigate some of these imbalances and injustices, something that academics understood and knew as a benefit to society. Some Whites complained they were being pushed aside when they didn't rise to the challenge and thought they should maintain the level they are at.
Add in the school to prison pipeline, which is most prevalent in minority communities and it starts to really mess with people's prospects.
Given the American commercial education system, I get that only affluent people can afford tuitions for better or top colleges/universities. But are tuitions for colleges/universities for the lets call them plain vanilla ones, that high too to be unsurmountable?
It is not necessarily the cost of colleges and universities, but the acceptance in the first place. And that latter point - the acceptance - is what I was getting at. Of course, that latter point also points out a problem with the k-12 system in the US. As I have stated for a while, there needs to be a rethink and change to how the k-12 system is run. And it needs to be done in a thoughtful way rather than just throwing money at the problem, or restricting funding because of the problem. And for all that people say, thinks like charter schools or vouchers for private schools, also don't solve the problem. edit - the cost of post secondary education is a major problem, but only a problem one has once they get there (if they don't have wealthier family or scholarships/grants).
Ok, as the parent of a 16 year old in the suburbs of Virginia - an in-state school in Virginia goes from about 25k to 45k a year for tuition. Add 10-15k on top of that for room and board on campus. So, That would be 120k - 250k for four years for in-state tuition at a good school like the University of VIrginia, William and Mary, George Mason, etc. So the cost of a smallish house in a place nobody wants to live. And the private schools (the Boston University, Carnegie Mellon, etc) is say 65k for tuition and that same 10-15k for housing, so 400k for four years. Or the cost of a middle class house. It's crazy expensive. I've been saving since my child was born, have stayed in a small townhouse instead of a single family home, and bought crappy cars for 15 years because I paid attention to tuition rates. If I had a second child I would be wayyy less ready. I'm hoping my child will go to school in Denmark.
Boy oh boy. I'm glad we don't have the US system. Parents, not only of non white origin, must believe we over here live in a fairytale land.
Most of my peers in the military industrial complex as GenX and of course Boomers went to school a long time ago (30 years in my case). At the time, tuition at the University of Maryland was $1500 a semester. Yes, that's right. It's gone from $1500 a semester to $15000 or $20000 in 30 years. Which is why no politician is ever gonna fix it. They "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps" and "didn't drink Starbucks every day" and have no concept of how expensive everything is now. And they wonder why people aren't having kids!? So, even if people with lower income do get in, they go seriously into debt to get a degree, debt they may never pay off. And now the administration is going after them, because there is nothing more pathetic than a deadbeat over-educated degree holder in the eyes of the business and blue collar classes.
Increasingly, yes, because of a variety of factors, including administrative bloat, but primarily, the defunding of higher education at the state level via nea flat funding as enrollment increases year over year
My Dad's tuition at Boston College (class of 72) was a few grand, he got a partial scholarship and put together hot water heaters over the summer to pay for it, took out loans for law school which took him about 10 years to pay off. Anyways, his few grand at BC works out to like $21k in current dollars, and BC's tuition is $72k.
In the early eighties I met on the train from Bruxelles to Amsterdam 4 or 5 American young women. When the train crossed the river in Rotterdam they were in awe about the bridge next to the one we rode over with the train. Especially about it's color: "Wow, a pink bridge...never saw one with that color before etc." I pointed to the building of the Erasmus Univesity, you could see too and said that was my Alma mater. They were very interested about studying in the Netherlands, like how expensive it was etc. and how it was for me. I told them the Erasmus offered me a scholarship to study, which means you get a small allowance to study and live. However, as I was working and making money, I refused that and chose to work and study at the same time. When I told them my employer paid for everything the study required and on top of that I got three months a year to spend on my study and exams and still got paid for that time, they were flabbergasted. They thought I must be very good for having that arrangement, but I told them that, though my arrangement was luxurious, studying was almost always supported financially by employers.
So, basically, after finishing my study, I didnot have a debt, but a fat bank account and high level job experience.
Since my days the government at some point in the past changed the rules and put in a system that operated with loans to study. Recently that system was dropped again, as students ended up with huge debts after they finished their study.
In context, as an out of state student enrolled at UMd starting 29 years ago, my tuition was about $6k/semester, I think. Or something like that. College tuition is set by the individual institution (often), which varies between different states and public v. private. In the above example, for @MattR's peers who lived in Maryland, the tuition per semester was $1500. I lived in California at the time, but chose to attend the University of Maryland (think living in Netherlands and attending university in, so Portugal - not an exact comparison). My tuition was $6000 per semester as my "permanent" residence was in California, thus being out-of-state in Maryland. By additional comparison, I think tuition at UCLA at that same time was also $1500 per semester. @luftmensch I think will have better knowledge. Now, 30 years ago, if I had attended USC, a private university, I think the tuition per semester (or maybe year, I forget at this point) was $30,000. Mind, also consider that (I think) different state universities (think UCLA v. UC Santa Cruz) can also have different tuition even though they are part of the same university system (in this example, the UC - University of California - system).
I did a so called dual studium in Germany. It's a mix of an apprenticeship and attending university. Basically the school time of the apprenticeship was replaced by university courses. When there weren't courses we had to work at our employer, ideally doing the practical part of the apprenticeship. Of course the employer paid our university fees (which were roughly 250€ per semester), study material and we got a small salary as is usual for apprentices. This is becoming increasingly popular in Germany, though university fees in general are still only around 300€ per semester. It's not really a fee for tuition but finances a lot of extracurricular things like cheaper food in the cafeteria, a kindergarten for students' kids, sports facilities with the biggest chunk usually the ticket for public transportation (nowadays usable for nearly the whole of Germany).
I went to UC Santa Cruz for two years in the mid-90’s but have no memory of what I paid, partially a function of my dad covering the whole thing so it was out of sight/out of mind. But one reason he was able to do that was the fact that I did my first couple years at Pasadena City College and I got a $1k scholarship that covered the entirety of my tuition there. Doubt you could do that anymore even at a jr college. Incidentally I had some professors at the jr college who were at least as high quality as those at the UC. One philosophy professor in particular was a brilliant teacher. And one of the least impressive professors I had at the UC was the biggest “name” (David Chalmers, who may be a brilliant philosopher and writer but couldn’t teach worth a damn).