$10,000 Bachelors degrees now available in Texas... (San Antonio, Austin: 2013, houses, neighborhood)

[CptnRn]

I missed this news earlier, sounds like a good thing.

College Presidents Say $10,000 Degrees Available Now — Higher education | The Texas Tribune
Speaking today on a SXSWEdu panel in Austin, officials from a few Texas community colleges and universities said that $10,000 bachelor’s degrees are available now — and more will be within the year.

At Texas A&M-San Antonio, Ferrier said, a bachelor's in information technology with an emphasis on cyber security will cost about $9,700.

Jones and Mejia anticipate that starting in 2013, a bachelor's of applied science in organizational leadership will be available for under $10,000 in South Texas. Other cost-lowering strategies in the works, Jones said...

The need to lower college costs is a particular priority in Texas, Paredes said. Sixty percent of students in the state's K-12 pipeline are classified as poor...

[JayBrown80]

Originally Posted by CptnRn

I missed this news earlier, sounds like a good thing.

That is a sobering statistic. 60% are poor? I wonder how they arrived at that number....what their definition of poor is, etc etc.

I wonder if they divided it up per student, or per household. A poor "household" could have 6 kids in it, making for 6 poor "students". It's amazing what you can do with numbers.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by JayBrown80

That is a sobering statistic. 60% are poor?

I seriously question the accuracy of this figure. I'm thinking maybe somebody said "sixteen percent," which is about right, but somebody else heard "sixty percent" and wrote that down.

Originally Posted by JayBrown80

I wonder how they arrived at that number....what their definition of poor is, etc etc.

Here's a "Poverty 101" doc which explains how it works. Federal standards are used. There are newer files that are a bit more up to date, but this is probably easiest to understand.

http://www.cppp.org/files/8/poverty101.pdf

Originally Posted by JayBrown80

I wonder if they divided it up per student, or per household. A poor "household" could have 6 kids in it, making for 6 poor "students".

Seriously, it's not hard... just look at the chart.

[ClarenceBodiker]

Originally Posted by JayBrown80

That is a sobering statistic. 60% are poor? I wonder how they arrived at that number....what their definition of poor is, etc etc.

How many kids in K-12 today in Texas are 1st generation Americans from Mexico or Central America? How many have illegal parents? Is the number that far-fetched?

[CptnRn]

It is not at all uncommon for college age young adults to have incomes below the poverty level.

The Institute for Higher Eduction Policy reports:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...URCc8GOaJBp-DA
In 2008, there were 35.2 million young adults, of whom 15.5 million were from families
living at, near, or below the poverty level (U.S. Census Bureau 2008a). Despite facing
numerous socio-economic and academic challenges, nearly 60 percent of low-income
young adults were attending or earned a credential from a postsecondary institution
during this time.

In addition the Chronicle of Higher Education reports:

Many Young Adults in Poverty Have a College Degree, Report Says - Students - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Increasing proportions of low-income young adults are pursuing higher education, but some remain poor even with a postsecondary degree, according to a new report from the Institute for Higher Education Policy.
In 2008, among Americans ages 18 to 26 whose total household income was near or below the federal poverty level, 47 percent were or had been enrolled in college, compared with 42 percent in 2000. Eleven percent of them had earned a degree...

It is disturbing how many young adults, with an education, are still having difficulty making a decent living. If you can't make a decent living legally, even with an education, what are your alternatives if you want to get ahead?

Crime!

[JayBrown80]

Originally Posted by OpenD

Seriously, it's not hard... just look at the chart.

I don't need to look at the chart. I understand how they did it, I was illustrating how you could balloon the numbers up by breaking it down by kid rather than by household. Since poverty rates are usually done per household, and a lot of poorer households tend to have muliple children, by changing it to per child you are ballooning a number and doing your best to make it look as bad as possible.

[JayBrown80]

Originally Posted by ClarenceBodiker

How many kids in K-12 today in Texas are 1st generation Americans from Mexico or Central America? How many have illegal parents? Is the number that far-fetched?

3 in 5? Yeah, that seems rather high.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by JayBrown80

I don't need to look at the chart. I understand how they did it, I was illustrating how you could balloon the numbers up by breaking it down by kid rather than by household. Since poverty rates are usually done per household, and a lot of poorer households tend to have muliple children, by changing it to per child you are ballooning a number and doing your best to make it look as bad as possible.

No, that still makes no sense. Poverty rates given as percentage of the population or as a percent of households don't differ that much.

I'm sure this was just a mistake.

[JayBrown80]

Originally Posted by OpenD

No, that still makes no sense. Poverty rates given as percentage of the population or as a percent of households don't differ that much.

I'm sure this was just a mistake.

Sure they do. A household can contain one person, or a household can contain 10 people. It can contain anything. People that live alone are usually NOT poor. They can afford to live on their own after all. People that stack up 10 to a house usually ARE poor, because if they could afford it, they probably wouldn't stack up 10 to a house.

These are generalizations, and don't apply to ALL situations. But they apply to enough situations that it can greatly affect a statistic when you count individual people versus households. If you calculated say, all the poor people in Travis county as a percentage of the total population, I would wager you would get a very different number than if you counted all poor HOUSEHOLDS as a percentage of total households.

For example, let's say a neighborhood had 10 houses. In 9 houses lived 1 person each, a middle class computer programmer. In the tenth house lived a poor family of 10, mom, dad, 6 kids, elderly grandparents.

If you took the number of HOUSEHOLDS, the the poverty rate is only 10%. 1 house in 10 is poor.

If you took the poverty rate by POPULATION, it's almost 50%, 10 people out of 19.

So I disagree with the above bolded statement.

I repeat, it's amazing what you can do with numbers.

Originally Posted by OpenD

Seriously, it's not hard... just look at the chart.

Apparently harder for some than for others. Especially since I agreed with you that I think the number is inaccurate, and innacurate not because someone "heard" something wrong, but because they are fudging the numbers to make them look bigger.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by OpenD

Seriously, it's not hard... just look at the chart.

I mean seriously... look at it! Read it! The answer is right in front of you!

Page 2 shows 513 thousand families with children living in poverty
Page 2 shows 3.4 million of the total population living in poverty. 15.8%
Page 3 shows 1.5 million children under 18 living in poverty. 24.0%
Page 3 shows 556 thousand children under 7 living in poverty. 22.7%

Sooooooooooooooooo the 60% figure for K-12 age kids is clearly bogus, a mathematical impossibility, and it's pretty safe to say the actual figure is in the 23-24% range. The only thing not clear is how they made such a big mistake.

Your hypothetical example demonstrates why it's not wise to trust hypothetical examples, because it is meaningless. The result totally depends on the numbers you make up.