Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
When Henry Ford started paying workers a minimum of $5.00 a day in his factories, people thought that was a REALLY big deal.
Henry Ford thought it was a big deal too. That's why very few of his workers were ever actually paid that amount, and most who were had one or more of Ford's goons tailing them around and reporting back to the Ford gestapo on whether he drank, where he went to church, what magazines he took, and on and on. The NSA of today is not much to worry about in comparison.
Last edited by Major Barbara; 08-15-2015 at 05:25 PM..
I've never seen a time when the media pandered like now, nor have i ever counted on government to help me make my way in life like people who actually think government is there to help now. That's a big difference between then and now. We understood that if we wanted to do well in life it was up to us individually.
I'm not sure if you are serious or just drinking some serious "American good old days" kool-aid.
The housing boom that most Boomers generated their wealth from was created by government intervention. The ballooning costs of college being absorbed by students loan debt exist because government subsidies have been cut to record lows. Previously corporations invested in low-skilled workers with company paid training and state governments absorb the majority of the costs for public universities (that's how they got the name public universities). The company sponsored training also meant that low-skilled citizens did not have to go to college, community college or other private training programs that leave them deep in debt.
Today corporations require admins to have a bachelor's degree and state governments are catering to older generations who make more by cutting taxes and using any surpluses to fund unrealistic retirement programs. Where do you see a reality where any great american growth happen without the government lending a "helping" hand?
If you dig into why college is so expensive, the answers are kind of interesting. Inflation-adjusted, a college prof doesn't make particularly more than they did 40 years ago. What is different now is the enormous number of administrative and non-teaching support staff.
The whole debt issue is both a cost problem and the fact that there are a boat-load of people going to college who should have taken some other career track. The bottom 50% of people in college typically see a lousy return on investment. There are a glut of them and they're not the star performers so employers don't feel the need to pay them particularly well. The country would be better served by following more of the German model. They dump huge money into training but for people not in the top-20%, it's job/career-oriented skill training, not college.
That reality did not originate in Germany, we did that here in america quite well for generations. Corporations trained house-wives during major wars. Most corporations provided free training to all low-skilled workers here in america, now we require admins to have bachelor degrees. That forces anyone interested in a earning a decent living into a reality where they must attend 4 or 2 year universities or a private job training institute (unless they are lucky enough to get into a good union where they still have paid training).
Too many people associate student loan debt with traditional college. The biggest reason for the surge in student loan debt the last decade has been low-skilled workers attending job-trading private programs. I live in Boston and a decent culinary, HVAC or electrician training certificate program in this area is $15,000 plus a year. That's more than I paid to attend Umass Boston.
To be fair you CAN get a college degree from a decent school and come out with a debt load of 40K or less. I have a bachelor's (2007) and a master's (2010) from state universities and came out with $36K debt for both combined and admittedly about $8K of that was money I didn't need to take.
Where college really gets you is the "life" part. Room and board effectively doubled the bill, more than double if you got the better meal plan. I think we are moving toward a situation where "going off" to college is less and less available for the middle class and more have to live at home during their college years and take a degree from whatever regional state U. is in their area.
"Top" schools are ridiculously high though. My mom went to Notre Dame in the 70s and it cost her something like $2500 per year which she thought was a hell of a lot. Now it's $50,000 per year.
It's not like the U.S. hasn't had this kind of situation before. Prior to WWII college was mostly for more affluent people. My grandmother on my dad's side was the only one who went out of my grandparents, and that was because her entire extended family pitched in because she was "the smart one" and they wanted to give her a good chance. The "middle" class back then was more of a "20%" class - most people rented rooms, families struggled to get by - my great-grandparents were tenant farmers in the south and things sucked bad for them. I actually got along better with my grandparents politically than my parents because they remembered the Great Depression and understood what it was like to not be able to find good jobs no matter how hard you look. My parents (more my dad), thought that I was somehow not trying hard enough, not doing something right.
So if, as a country, we're moving back towards that pre-WWII situation, fine. I can deal with that if you tell the truth about it. Just don't whisper sweet nothings in our ears about how great life is for young people now and how amazing our opportunities are. If we complain it's because of all the propaganda you fed us growing up.
I know I'm not going to be telling my kids that education is the ticket to the middle class or that even being middle class for them is a given even though I am (on the lower end of it). I'm going to tell them that college is a 50/50 shot at best. You might land on the good side and get a good job out of it, or you might flop and have a lot of debt, their risk, and all things being equal it's likely they won't have it as good as even I had it, and that's less than what my parents had. Owning a home will be hard and maybe not possible and your hard work may or may not pay off because this country is in love with plutocracy. Vote accordingly and make better decisions than my parents did.
I graduated in 2013 without taking out any loans. I worked a job as an overnight supervisor making $38,000 a year, lived on my own and paid for school as I went. The problem is that we should not accept a reality where that is the path people have to take. How many millions can find a job making that salary without a degree? Many are lucky to earn that in their first job out of college.
Overly-Educated (if that's a word) citizens should an ideal that our society supports. Education should not be reserved for the talented 20%, any belief that it should be is absurd.
I graduated in 2013 without taking out any loans. I worked a job as an overnight supervisor making $38,000 a year, lived on my own and paid for school as I went. The problem is that we should not accept a reality where that is the path people have to take. How many millions can find a job making that salary without a degree? Many are lucky to earn that in their first job out of college.
Overly-Educated (if that's a word) citizens should an ideal that our society supports. Education should not be reserved for the talented 20%, any belief that it should be is absurd.
Traditional university education was historically elitist. With those high standards, degrees had prestige and value. With today's goal being basically to get as many people in the doors of the colleges as possible, it becomes harder to tease out the truly academically talented from everyone else.
Education doesn't have to be in the form of liberal arts. Technical schools and OJT are a now discouraged means of education. It's time to go back to that and stop focusing nearly exclusively on universities and academics.
Fact: Every generation of young people, imagine and claim that the older generations had it easier than it was for their generation to get jobs and enter adult hood.
They have been, and are still wrong on this.
Are you really going to sit here and claim that trading with China and the Internet boom didn't change the world?
The job market is much tougher for new grads. Claiming otherwise is nothing more than ignorance.
Are you really going to sit here and claim that trading with China and the Internet boom didn't change the world?
The job market is much tougher for new grads. Claiming otherwise is nothing more than ignorance.
change yes, harder no... so much easier to look for and apply for jobs while sitting at home. and trading with china created a whole host of new industries too, more than "lost" jobs... many entrepreneurs seem to import from china, in fact most companies do as well to one degree or another
Traditional university education was historically elitist. With those high standards, degrees had prestige and value. With today's goal being basically to get as many people in the doors of the colleges as possible, it becomes harder to tease out the truly academically talented from everyone else.
Education doesn't have to be in the form of liberal arts. Technical schools and OJT are a now discouraged means of education. It's time to go back to that and stop focusing nearly exclusively on universities and academics.
What your saying still doesn't hold water. MOST OF THE INCREASE IN UN-PAYABLE STUDENT LOAN DEBT TODAY IS DUE TO TECHNICAL SCHOOL TRAINING. Those Tech schools are charging more than public universities and churning out TECH SCHOOL GRADUATES WITH STUDENT LOAN DEBT AND NO GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT.
We wanted and needed post high school education to expand to the masses in order to develop the country and the global economy that we forced other countries into. The real question is does the American public still support education as a shared right like it did when the people being educated on tax subsidized campuses were largely and almost exclusively white.
To expand on the flaws of what your saying. Those technicals jobs that you mentioned did not require workers to pay any private company to do certification training. Most blue collar workers did/do learn those skills from their father, uncle or neighbor who already's works in the field. The other traditional route in was through a union. Those unions did/do provide paid training where the entry-level staff work part of the week and get paid to go to school the rest of the week. I know that because in Massachusetts we have fire fighter, pipe fitter, and sprinkler fitter unions where I have friends who have/are going through this process. They are not taking out $15,000 a year in loans.
Because so many teens and young adults believe what you have stated they are taking out huge loans to attend this private certification training programs and finding out that graduation rates are terrible and companies in the industries do not have jobs available to them.
The biggest issue with tuition costs rising is the massive expansion of support staff and university campuses and amenities.
The biggest issue with student loans for public schools is the fact that when "traditionally university education" was historically white the tax paying base had no problem funding public universities as a share costs through tax dollars.
Now that the enrollment has been expanded to the masses we are trying to claim that higher education should be limited to people who are already smarter than the general public. I focus on public schools because most private colleges that can subsidize their marketed tuition costs as they can.
Last edited by BostonAccountant; 08-16-2015 at 11:35 AM..
Fact: Every generation of young people, imagine and claim that the older generations had it easier than it was for their generation to get jobs and enter adult hood.
They have been, and are still wrong on this.
Yawn.
What about women entering the work force? Minorities and African Americans? The Internet shrinking the world? After world war 2, the developing world was not a factor, and half the developed world was in rubble? Effects of technology and automation?
Pax Americana? U.s Percentage of GDP after ww2? Most unique position of power in the history of the world?
Nahhhhhhhhhh, there isn't more competition.
Last edited by Thatsright19; 08-17-2015 at 04:41 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
