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OP: Since you mentioned Scandanavia picking up the college tab, you also need to note that these countries also do not let everyone go to college simply because they want to go to college. "No college for you Bjorn. Have you thought about being a small engine mechanic?"
Sure, the system has limitations. Entrance to college is reserved to those with great academic skills. Germans and Asians probably do the same thing.
Sadly, in the US there are many men and women that are best served with a technical 18 months degree than a full blown 4 year college education in Criminal Justice.
However, in America College education is a business and the more that attend college the better. And everybody gets a loan to pay tuition and whether the education provided was useful or not is not important. And the liberals in power somehow think that a college education makes a dumb person smarter. And college loan debt cannot go into bankruptcy. A college debt loan is like owning money to the IRS.
I know of a woman with a BA in biology that opted for an 18 month tech training as a Medical Imaging technologist in a hospital. She was frustrated with seeing people with no college degree earning twice as much as she did.
And they end up working in a filed that has nothing to do with the college degree.
They need room mates to barely afford rent and food and are expected to pay back the money borrowed to fund a 200K degree,
Are kids and parents of this era being scammed by colleges?
Do you mean that the emotionally satisfying degree in medieval Italian poetry didn't turn out to be the financial bonanza that was anticipated? Who'd have thought? Colleges don't promise economic success. They promise an education, or a semblance thereof, in an area of YOUR choice.
Waiting for a prescription in Walgreens I picked up the latest Rolloing Stone who did an expose on the studednt loan scam. They blame the government and more recently the "snake oil salesman" Barack Obama and the DOE for preying on young folk who dont really know any better. I was surprised to see RS take the prez directly to the mat on this issue and even finally recognized that the real problem is the astronomical cost of college and that Federal grants and loans are driving those costs up
Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian658
And they end up working in a filed that has nothing to do with the college degree.
They need room mates to barely afford rent and food and are expected to pay back the money borrowed to fund a 200K degree,
Are kids and parents of this era being scammed by colleges?
Anyone who grows up in the US knows college isn't free. When reading the posts written by the belly-achers who apparently were surprised to learn it has to be paid for. It doesn't seem to matter how much is said, they still float around with that gooney expression complaining about the cost. If a person graduates and still can't comprehend it, mistakes happened somewhere along the way. I am SICK of the carping. Imo, I think the loan recipients have made it so clear they wanted the benefits without the payback. I pray daily they do not get a reprieve.
Anyone who grows up in the US knows college isn't free. When reading the posts written by the belly-achers who apparently were surprised to learn it has to be paid for. It doesn't seem to matter how much is said, they still float around with that gooney expression complaining about the cost. If a person graduates and still can't comprehend it, mistakes happened somewhere along the way. I am SICK of the carping. Imo, I think the loan recipients have made it so clear they wanted the benefits without the payback. I pray daily they do not get a reprieve.
So shouldn't all unsecured debts have to be paid for than?
Anyone who grows up in the US knows college isn't free. When reading the posts written by the belly-achers who apparently were surprised to learn it has to be paid for. It doesn't seem to matter how much is said, they still float around with that gooney expression complaining about the cost. If a person graduates and still can't comprehend it, mistakes happened somewhere along the way. I am SICK of the carping. Imo, I think the loan recipients have made it so clear they wanted the benefits without the payback. I pray daily they do not get a reprieve.
It is more than that. Someone needs to step up and stop this madness which is nothing but a gravy train for the college CEOs.
You accept the status quo and pay up. I pay too and I also believe you get better service in the private sector. Nevertheless at some point we need to evolve and grow up. A truly civilized society provides education for free. I do not advocate the demise of private institutions, but free college education is a must for those that are academically talented. I do not advocate college for those that cannot cut it. I am not a socialist. I simply believe we need to evolve. The current prices are a joke.
There is some glaring dishonesty in how colleges approve loans and award financial aid. It is a nuanced ethical dilemma though.
The riskiest loans that are made are to students from low income families. The students go into college with the completely unrealistic expectations that they are going to be doctors and executives making hundreds of thousands of dollars in a few years. In my experience, the lower the student's socioeconomic class, the more unrealistic are their expectations of college. Then the students end up failing out of school because they were completely unprepared for the rigors of a pre-med type program or graduating with a degree in general studies because they could not handle the major requirements of their intended discipline.
Also, college tuition is a much bigger problem for people with big families and or single parents. If a married couple has two children while in their 30s, helping pay tuition when in their late 40s and early 50s is typically not that big of a strain. However, a single parent with five kids in her late teens/early 20s is probably not going to be in a position to cover thousands of dollars of tuition in her mid to late 30s.
In other words, college is a winning proposition for people with affluent families and those that are academically talented. The deck is stacked against average students from middle to poor families, yet they get millions of dollars in loans. One could argue that the loans designed to encourage social mobility are also preventing it, although I think the opposite is also true. I do think that restricting access to loans for less affluent kids would not be good for social mobility.
Students from low income and single parent households have a much better chance at getting financial aid, as long as they get good grades in high school. One of my classmates in grad school came from a very low income family. She received The Gates Scholarship (from the Bill Gates Foundation) where she got a full scholarship for any type of college education. Her entire undergraduate education, public health graduate education, and medical school education was funded by this scholarship. In contrast, the wealthy will pay all their children's tuition. It's the middle class that suffers.
Students from low income and single parent households have a much better chance at getting financial aid, as long as they get good grades in high school. One of my classmates in grad school came from a very low income family. She received The Gates Scholarship (from the Bill Gates Foundation) where she got a full scholarship for any type of college education. Her entire undergraduate education, public health graduate education, and medical school education was funded by this scholarship. In contrast, the wealthy will pay all their children's tuition. It's the middle class that suffers.
They are the ones who "earn too much" and so end up in a lot of debt since they need to take out other types of loans.
Anyone who grows up in the US knows college isn't free. When reading the posts written by the belly-achers who apparently were surprised to learn it has to be paid for. It doesn't seem to matter how much is said, they still float around with that gooney expression complaining about the cost. If a person graduates and still can't comprehend it, mistakes happened somewhere along the way. I am SICK of the carping. Imo, I think the loan recipients have made it so clear they wanted the benefits without the payback. I pray daily they do not get a reprieve.
oh but it's ok for taxpayers and people that did get those loans to bail out corporations, ceos and homeowners when they themselves can't afford one?
oh but it's ok for taxpayers and people that did get those loans to bail out corporations, ceos and homeowners when they themselves can't afford one?
Everybody gets a bailout except college students. And they cannot file for bankruptcy regarding college loans. We are talking about 18 year old kids that are naive and somehow think they will have a great job and make a ton of money because after all they are going to college.
MAny folks continue to defend the right of CEOs to gouge these kids who are naive. They also claim they should know better. Not many are that savy at age 18.
And in the end the CEOs of these colleges make the money by enrolling kids that have no business being in college or kids that may have to spend a lifetime with no cell phone, computer, cable TV, or even drink coffee to at most pay the interest on the enormous debt.
I am paying for my daughter's college, but I can see it is a ripoff. She will struggle to get a good job and at the end may have to re-invent herself.
We are not very civilized at this time and assume this is OK because after all this is capitalism. IMHO, this is bad capitalism and will lead to a collapse. Sooner or later all these kids will stop paying these loans and the system will have to be changed. We continue to operate like animals in the wild. We are a very young country that needs to grow up. Our friends in Europe are older and a bit more advanced.
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