Light Rail - Where and how do we get started! (Cincinnati: student loans, house)

[CinciFan]

Originally Posted by ArtVandalay84

LOL, if anything is a "money drain," it's owning an automobile.

Seriously. Can't wait to move downtown and sell this thing.

[jmecklenborg]

>LOL, if anything is a "money drain," it's owning an automobile.

Not if your parents buy yours, er, "let you use" one of theirs.

It was the "tough love" I received with reference to cars that caused me to arrive at my current attitudes. I was forced to pay every last $ related to cars. The car itself of course, all gas, all maintenance, all insurance, and for driver's ed. I worked thousands of hours at minimum wage as a teenager just to get to those minimum wage jobs. The summer before my Senior year of high school and the summer before my first year of college I worked 7 days a week and was still totally broke because of the damn car.

[Briolat21]

You know you can be "for" light rail, and then don't have to fall back on "cars are evil".

If that's your argument (which is what this is devolving to), then you're going to lose a lot of people.

As to the "move downtown so you can lead a car-less existance" - as previously pointed out multiple times, many of us work in the 'burbs. At significant (several hundred employee) employers. Not every job in the 'burbs is hair stylist or mcdonald's employee you know.

So, moving downtown would just mean I would commute to the 'burbs every single day for work.

Instead of living in the 'burbs (and commuting btw them) and commuting into the city for leisure actitivies.

You know what's good for commuting out here in the 'burbs? Cars. (I drive a Volt, my gas costs are nearly non-existant)

You know what I'd be happy to consider for my occasional junkets into the city (games, events, concerts, special restaurants) ... commuter rail.

[kjbrill]

The argument about cars can go on and on. Our two oldest children were in college at UC at the same time, there is less than a year difference in their ages. The older one, a son, was in an Engineering Coop program, which is 5 years. The younger, a daughter, was in a straight 4-yr Business Administration program. We discussed it and I stated my feeling that living on campus was an expensive waste, and I wanted them to commute. They somewhat reluctantly agreed.

To encourage it, I bought each of them a new Fiat Strada, a small 4-cyl, 5-speed manual, hatchback sedan. Fiat had decided to exit the US market at that time and Bob Williams Ford in Montgomery who had the local Fiat franchise had acquired all of their remaining US inventory and had it shipped to a warehouse in Florence. I went over and visited the warehouse, told them I wanted to buy two and exited at about $4,500 each. And while a small car they came equipped with air conditioning and a decent audio system. This is the 1981 time-frame. A decision I have never regretted.

I told the kids this is our deal. I will pay for the cars, pay for the insurance, and provide you room and board. In return, I ask only one thing, you graduate from UC with zero student loans. In other words you will earn the cost of school.

So they commuted from Mason to UC. Yes, they would ***** about it.
I would just respond I did the same thing in 1957 and you are not immune.

The Engineer frankly had the easier route. He got a nice Coop job in Kettering Ohio and would drive his Fiat from Mason to there. Without the Fiat he would have been SOL.

The daughter had it a little more difficult. Not being in an actual structured program, she was on her own. But being a good looking female, she drove that Fiat to wherever she could get employment. It may be a bar/lounge at a suburban motel, wherever she could make money. During the summer break she would drive a beer cart at a local golf course, working over 12 hour days. When she would come home at night and empty all of her pockets on the bed, I would go H*ly Sh*t where did you get all of that money?

Needless to say, they both graduated UC in the same year, and true to our bargain with zero student loans. They were free to pursue their adult lives.
That is my most acute disagreement with the the current Higher Education?
environment.

Unless you are on the Public Dole, meaning being subsidized for partial or all of your education, college graduates today are expected to have large student loans. Why is that? Sorry, just one of my pet peeves.

[natininja]

On top of the fact that not every parent is able or willing to buy cars (let alone new ones) for their kids, or even let them live in the family home past 18 for that matter, there's this:



There's also the factor of whether a degree program at a non-local university is a better fit. Bachelors degrees don't guarantee jobs like they did in the early/mid-'80s. I think nielworms2 was onto something when he said you cling to an outdated worldview, kjbrill.

[kjbrill]

Originally Posted by natininja

There's also the factor of whether a degree program at a non-local university is a better fit. Bachelors degrees don't guarantee jobs like they did in the early/mid-'80s. I think nielworms2 was onto something when he said you cling to an outdated worldview, kjbrill.

You can call it outdated. I call it when costs were reasonable. Today's cost of higher education is rediculous and not justifiable. It is there due to government backed student loans, which the government is now reneging on. College is just like anything else, if the cost becomes too high people will simply not go. But young people have always been gullible. Tell them they can get a loan to go to school and they are right there. Put it off to tomorrow. They can't comprehend how much different it will be when they graduate and want to start their real life.

People comment on how the youth are waiting longer to get married and start a family. They make it sound like it is personal preference. BS, it is economic necessity. They simply cannot afford anything else, particularly if they have large student loans hanging around their neck.

I had a full time job before I graduated from UC in June '62. The wife and I had dated for some time and were hot to trot. Went down and bought a brand new car based on my income. We got married in Oct. and had a bun in the oven before the end of the year. But one major difference, other than the new car loan we owed nobody nothing! In less than two years we had our 2nd kid and had moved into our first house.

You can call my view outdated. I call what the young people are facing today genocide of the middle class. Those people who were able to fund their kids through college are disappearing right and left.

Please contradict me with your view of the world order. What are the driving forces behind what our children should expect out of their lives?

[neilworms2]

People comment on how the youth are waiting longer to get married and start a family. They make it sound like it is personal preference. BS, it is economic necessity. They simply cannot afford anything else, particularly if they have large student loans hanging around their neck.

This is completely outdated btw. SW Ohio tends to be a pretty outdated place where people marry immediately outside of college, other parts of the country aren't that way - I only have 2 friends that are married up here, and 0 that have children.

A lot of it is preference, though economics do play a role. A lot of people would rather do things like travel the world when they have extra income than be burdened by a family then have an extended retirement.

[Briolat21]

So in a world where children don't need to go to college -- how are they going to afford the increasingly expensive housing costs of downtown?

Or are they just going to repopulate the slum-areas?

While entrepreneurship is a fine avenue for those of a certain personality type, most people are going to work for someone else in their life.

Most people with college degrees (especially STEM) have a slightly more lucrative career working for others, and potentially rise higher within the organization.

Or is P&G, et al suddenly eschewing degrees and hiring H.S. grads into mid-management?

[jmecklenborg]

>Those people who were able to fund their kids through college are disappearing right and left.

No, there are tons of them, since we are becoming a very stratified nation, thanks to inheritances. Several trillion dollars are poised to transfer to the Baby Boomers from their dying parents, and those people will continue to be able to send their kids to college.

In France steep inheritance taxes have more or less eliminated the old aristocracy as an economic force, although the descendants still maintain social status despite their ordinary middle class incomes. In the United States kids are inheriting homes and stock when they aren't inheriting shopping centers, apartment complexes, and entire companies. These people begin their adult lives with what others work their entire adult lives to achieve.

[natininja]

Globalization is the dominant cause behind the lack of living-wage, middle-class jobs. The lack of these jobs has raised the expense tolerance for university tuition. Supply-and-demand then dictates the price goes up considerably.

You want to blame unions and subsidized loans, but what about employers who require a university education for unskilled, low-wage jobs? It's another supply-and-demand issue: having few jobs available allows employers to be extra-discriminating in who they pick to fill them. It almost demands it, as you have to find some arbitrary ways to pick some candidates over others when there are more qualified employees than jobs.

I don't think there's an easy solution, or even a solution at all. I also don't think there was some magical better path which could have been chosen, free of collective bargaining and subsidized loans (or whatever "causes" you like), which would have averted this crisis. You seem to think some bogeymen came and ruined a good thing. Everyone seems to point their fingers at some bogeyman or other, but globalization was inevitable and American middle-class prosperity, as you knew it, was not sustainable. There is no going back, and there are new realities which you seem unwilling to recognize.