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And the REAL QUESTION is: "What nation is better off with citizens that start out their adult lives with $50,000 in student debt, but NO JOBS AT ALL (forget jobs that pay enough to live on)?"
At $12/hour they will still be on government assistance.
They need $28-30/hour to compensate for the price of these programs (SNAP, medicaid, free lunch in school). Actually need more if they are on more programs.
$12 won't do it.
SNAP in most states (or all) cuts out at $400 / week before taxes. But you are on the money when you say we need to pay people more money to get them off welfare rolls.
And the REAL QUESTION is: "What nation is better off with citizens that start out their adult lives with $50,000 in student debt, but NO JOBS AT ALL (forget jobs that pay enough to live on)?"
None. But most industrialized nations are proud to quote high percentage of college grads.
Industry nowadays is not what it was 50 years ago and even manufacturing is depended on computers CAD etc etc.
There is no going back to on-the-job training of the old days.
Of course not, you can read comic books, watch discovery channel or participate in online forums to get the same level of education .... Lol
The Internet is a larger library than the combined library of every university in the country. It's the largest collection of knowledge in the history of mankind, and it is largely free. All knowledge one could possibly learn at a college is on the Internet, for free. What is not on the Internet is the certificate we call a degree that says you paid time and money into a bureaucracy for 4+ years and now have their seal of approval.
College is nothing more than a membership fee, assessed over a four year period of time.
There is no going back to on-the-job training of the old days.
Why not?
If you're a high school kid who wants to become a software engineer, you will learn more in 6 months of real-world programming than you will 4 years of college coursework. College is glorified vocational training, and very inefficient at that.
Anyhow, the choice isn't between 4 years of college and starting at an entry-level straight out of high school. We could move toward a system of efficient, market-driven 1- to 2-yr vocational schools for kids coming out of high school. You want to be a programmer? Here's a school where you'll breathe algorithms and data structures for 2 yrs and come out being a programming wizard. Doesn't that sound like a better idea than sending a kid to a 4-yr university and having him take freshman weed-out classes and hopefully figure out what he wants to do?
Sadly, cheerleaders for the college system, guys who work for Princeton Review and such, like to sell college as a great way for people to spend their young adult years. For most kids, it's not the best way for them to spend their adult years. They come into college not knowing what they want to do, so they take the usual freshman weed-out courses until their options are limited and have to choose an unmarketable major. Meanwhile they have their education, room and board paid for by the government or their parents, which makes it all the more easy to skirt by partying and not even holding a part-time job or paid internship. Then they graduate and don't have any job options, so they decide to go and get a Masters or PhD in the hope that it'll make them more marketable. By the time they're 28, they're now finished with school and may or may not have any marketable skills. It's a complete joke.
Last edited by DeathGreetsMeWarm; 01-29-2014 at 12:19 PM..
If you're a high school kid who wants to become a software engineer, you will learn more in 6 months of real-world programming than you will 4 years of college coursework.
True this. What I do for a living with Data Warehousing and Analytics isn't taught at most schools, and what schools do teach use technology that is so old nobody in business uses it, thus making it of very low value.
None. But most industrialized nations are proud to quote high percentage of college grads.
Industry nowadays is not what it was 50 years ago and even manufacturing is depended on computers CAD etc etc.
There is no going back to on-the-job training of the old days.
Sure there is and it exists today in the trades.
Just these kids don't want to get their hands dirty, work long hours and make min wage while learning a valuable skill.
SNAP in most states (or all) cuts out at $400 / week before taxes. But you are on the money when you say we need to pay people more money to get them off welfare rolls.
The issue is we need to overhaul poverty. It should take a cue from Obamacare where you slowly lose SNAP at slightly higher wages (similar to the tax credits through 400% above poverty) because right now it is encouraging staying at lower wages because it is a make above poverty and you lose it.
Just these kids don't want to get their hands dirty, work long hours and make min wage while learning a valuable skill.
You can't blame the kids, though. It's the government and high school guidance counselors who say that no kid needs to be that work because every kid can become a nuclear physicist or social worker.
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