Article

2008-12-03 Home Front Economy

College May Become Unaffordable for Most in U.S

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Posted by tipper 2008-12-03 10:22|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top

#1 Ah yes, the better people are tired of hoi poloi trying to push their way up.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2008-12-03 10:56|| 2008-12-03 10:56|| Front Page Top

#2 Considering that home equity loans paid for a lot of tuition and that there is no more home equity in many locations ... I can see how that can happen.

Posted by crosspatch 2008-12-03 10:57|| 2008-12-03 10:57|| Front Page Top

#3 Next bubble to burst. I look forward to the schadenfreude. Maybe the price for a bailout should be the end of tenure.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-12-03 11:03|| 2008-12-03 11:03|| Front Page Top

#4 Far more likely that the price of these university places falls.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2008-12-03 11:16|| 2008-12-03 11:16|| Front Page Top

#5 The one good thing that may come from this is that there will be fewer jobs that "require" a degree....that really don't.

Posted by Cornsilk Blondie 2008-12-03 11:24|| 2008-12-03 11:24|| Front Page Top

#6 How much of that 'paper' requirement is lazy and ineffective personnel management who do not want to have to work in determining qualifications? It's so simple - must have a [paper mill] college degree.

Posted by Procopius2k 2008-12-03 11:45|| 2008-12-03 11:45|| Front Page Top

#7 Yer all correct. "Higher" education should crash and rightly so. Tenure should end. Most jobs don't require college degrees, let alone graduate degrees (and I am writing as one who has 3 largely unnecessary degrees, acquired because I was stupid, not smart).
Unfortunately, a lot of primary and secondary education is also a crock. One of my grandfathers had only an 8th grade education yet retired (early 1960s) as head accountant for a mid-sized steel company. My other grandfather didn't finish even 8th grade as he was a farm boy and needed at home. The point is, both learned reading, writing, and arithmetic in primary school and, through hard work in tough time, were able to succeed. Nowadays you've got to stay in school until you're 25 or so and still don't know enough to be useful.

Posted by Spot">Spot 2008-12-03 12:05|| 2008-12-03 12:05|| Front Page Top

#8 How to go to MIT (on the web) for free
10 free Stanford courses on line

Posted by 3dc 2008-12-03 12:32|| 2008-12-03 12:32|| Front Page Top

#9 If anyone's ever filled out a FAFSA form, the EFC (Expected Financial Contribution) from the parents (regardless of whether you're on speaking terms with them / moved out at age 18, etc.) is 20 percent. It's assumed that the parents will take out home equity lines or otherwise liquidate other assets to cover this percentage.

Posted by Raj 2008-12-03 12:39|| 2008-12-03 12:39|| Front Page Top

#10 I liken this situation to people buying more house than they can afford. Most kids don't need to go to Harvard or Yale. Two years of community college ($5,000 each here) and two years at a state university ($14,000 each here) gets you a college education for $38,000. I know a few people who have more outstanding student loan debt than that in a major that is available at most state universities.

Posted by Darrell 2008-12-03 15:19|| 2008-12-03 15:19|| Front Page Top

#11 Why not outsource to India? They speak English and have some good education facilities. The food's great too, if you like curry. For the price of one year of education here, you can get four in India and live in a nice hotel.

Posted by Richard of Oregon 2008-12-03 16:28|| 2008-12-03 16:28|| Front Page Top

#12 I think that one of the strangest aspects of a college education is that the curriculum is one that was tailored to the world of the rich where you went to brush up on your culture and network with your peers to be.

100 years ago no one went to college for "vocational" training. So why do we pretend that the same silly courses in the humanities and social sciences are what are needed today?

It's just dumb.

Posted by AlanC 2008-12-03 16:28|| 2008-12-03 16:28|| Front Page Top

#13 As well as becoming unaffordable, college education has become largely irrelevant. It has become irrelevant for many reasons: 1. embracing social engineering, 2. being used as a forum by professors to espouse personal beliefs instead of providing an education, 3. political correctness, 4. multiculturalism, 5. offering courses that have no content, 6. overpaid professors and administrators, 7. the proliferation of federal mandates required in universities such as OSHA, EPA, etc., and 8. elitism. The administrative burden in universities has increased tremendously over the years; thus adding to the cost of attending.

Posted by JohnQC 2008-12-03 17:23|| 2008-12-03 17:23|| Front Page Top

#14 Very astute observations, everyone. My prediction is that the educational establishment will be as rigid as the UAW in resisting any and all attempts at reform. But as long as they have control over the state legislature like they do here in California they won't need to worry about their jobs. Er, that is until the state goes broke.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2008-12-03 18:45|| 2008-12-03 18:45|| Front Page Top

#15
<i>100 years ago no one went to college for "vocational" training. So why do we pretend that the same silly courses in the humanities and social sciences are what are needed today?</i>

Maybe in the vain hope that some portion of the public is actually educated about the history, literature, philosophy and theology that made the West great for a millenium.

There is stupidity in academia. But you are kidding yourself if you think that ignorance is any improvement.

Posted by lotp 2008-12-03 20:03|| 2008-12-03 20:03|| Front Page Top

#16 Name a place where you should pay $150,000 to be ostracized for 4 years by foolish socialists in order to get a degree that will be no good when they take over anyways?

Ferris?

Anyone?

Posted by newc">newc 2008-12-03 20:22|| 2008-12-03 20:22|| Front Page Top

#17 Spend half that much at a state university or college getting a salable degree instead of one in French Medieval Love Poetry (unless one plans on acquiring a professorship in French Medieval Literature, of course). On the other hand, I've a girlfriend who, upon getting a degree in English Literature from the University of Chicago -- her senior thesis was an analysis of the lyrics of The Band, which will be familiar to some Rantburgers, I'm sure -- that gentle, cultured, and well read California girl was immediately snatched up by a white shoe investment bank in Boston to handle customer accounts. She apparently did this quite well, and was able to pay back her very large student loan.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2008-12-03 22:45|| 2008-12-03 22:45|| Front Page Top

#18 johnqc, ebbang, others - great observations

I believe that the price of an undergraduate degree has increased more, and faster, than any other measured "thing" in the last few decades - far outpacing even "health care". Naturally the actual cost to the consumer is often affected by things such as scholarships, differential tuition rates, loans, etc. But still.

Meanwhile, as johnqc points out, many college experiences, and substantial portions of most college experiences, have become nothing short of bizarre. Not irrelevant - pernicious.

Ebbang, I think you've got CA about right. "Education" is one of several "public service" complexes here that has a stranglehold on the legislature - seemingly, regardless of services delivered. I believe a survey showed CA public teachers received greater total compensation than their private sector equivalents (and that of course wouldn't factor in near total job-security and other advantages).

Nationally the problem may continue to be that, because there is such a massive de facto subsidy of "higher education" - and how will that do anything but increase given the incoming crew in DC? - there will be zero or greatly reduced "price/demand correction".

We may avert a ridiculous auto bailout, but the rathole of over-priced, politicized, over-abundant, subsidized "higher education" looks set to consume ever-increasing amounts of resources. Another dark failure of present day America. More to follow.

Posted by Verlaine 2008-12-03 22:55|| 2008-12-03 22:55|| Front Page Top

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