College Is Wildly Exploitative: Why Aren’t Students Raising Hell?

[marmar]

By David Masciotra, the author of Mellencamp: American Troubadour (University Press of Kentucky). He has also written for Salon, the Atlantic and the Los Angeles Review of Books.


Higher education wears the cloak of liberalism, but in policy and practice, it can be a corrupt and cutthroat system of power and exploitation. It benefits immensely from right-wing McCarthy wannabes, who in an effort to restrict academic freedom and silence political dissent, depict universities as left-wing indoctrination centers.

But the reality is that while college administrators might affix “down with the man” stickers on their office doors, many prop up a system that is severely unfair to American students and professors, a shocking number of whom struggle to make ends meet. Even the most elementary level of political science instructs that politics is about power. Power, in America, is about money: who has it? Who does not have it? Who is accumulating it? Who is losing it? Where is it going?

Four hundred faculty members at New York University, one of the nation’s most expensive schools, recently released a report on how their own place of employment, legally a nonprofit institution, has become a predatory business, hardly any different in ethical practice or economic procedure than a sleazy storefront payday loan operator. Its title succinctly summarizes the new intellectual discipline deans and regents have learned to master: “The Art of The Gouge.”

The result of their investigation reads as if Charles Dickens and Franz Kafka collaborated on notes for a novel. Administrators not only continue to raise tuition at staggering rates, but they burden their students with inexplicable fees, high cost burdens and expensive requirements like mandatory study abroad programs. When students question the basis of their charges, much of them hidden during the enrollment and registration phases, they find themselves lost in a tornadic swirl of forms, automated answering services and other bureaucratic debris. ............(more)

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/06/college-is-wildly-exploitative-why-arent-students-raising-hell.html

[antigop]

1. good question. nt

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. Don't the parents question these charges?

[AwakeAtLast]

6. The stdents are considered adults

Technically it is their debt to pay, so parents do not get a say in the charges, which is the way the admins. like it.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

9. Parents do pay

and would like a say.

[AwakeAtLast]

10. I don't disagree

But how do you take charge of another adult's bill, even if they are only 18?

[former9thward]

11. Because parents have to co-sign for student loans.

They are on the hook if their kid does not pay.

[SheilaT]

3. Lots of reasons.

I think the chief one is that most college students are simply too young and too inexperienced in the world to understand what's going on.

The parents also just don't get it. More than once I've had conversations with parents of kids getting ready to go off to college and they simply don't understand how expensive it's going to be to borrow all that money, and how almost all of the seemingly generous financial aid package is loans, or how the aid will drop precipitously after freshman year.

Mandatory study abroad programs? I'll confess I hadn't run across that one before.

In the end, people need to read EVERYTHING, especially the fine print. Don't be afraid to ask hard questions. Get your kid to understand it's not the end of the world if she doesn't get to Expensive Glamorous College a Long Way From Home to major in some field where there are no jobs, but instead goes to the local community college and maybe even takes a two year certificate program that leads to employment.

A while back someone here on DU was telling me that the only time most people would have to study various academic things (art history, anthropology, 17th century French literature, and such) was when young and first going to college and that (in the eyes of this member) it was simply not possible to ever get back to those things later. My opinion was and is quite different. Get a practical degree of some sort (which could also be traditional B.A. and then a Masters), get decent work, and if you still want to study early Roman lesbians, go for it.

Many years ago someone pointed out to me that one of the best things about this country was that you were never totally shut out of higher education. You can always go back to school and get more learning or another degree.

[former9thward]

12. The parents don't understand their own debt.

No wonder they don't understand their kid's.

[SheilaT]

13. I think that's a relatively small part of it.

From the conversations I've had with parents over the years (not exactly a statistically significant number I know) it's clear they simply do not understand how the entire financial aid system works.

Recently a mom was extremely misinformed about the value of Pell grants, and I had to gently let her know how much they really were.

The schools also share a lot of blame in the misinformation that's happening. They should have several hours of workshops for parents and students, preferably before the decision about which school to attend is made, and lay out in dollars and cents what a degree will cost, what the total debt will be, what the monthly payments will eventually be. And then show the payments side-by-side with expected earnings in different fields. Maybe then more students and their parents will make different choices.

I always tell young people to go ahead and major in something you love, but don't ever lose sight of the fact you're going to have to earn a living. Sometimes simply adding a minor or a second major in something more practical will make a difference.

[Warpy]

4. They're terrified of the amount of debt they're racking up

and that keeps them silent on the plight of their (adjunct) professors.

They get louder once they're out.

When the highest paid person in your state is a college football coach, SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG WITH THIS WHOLE PICTURE.

[6chars]

5. univs have a good thing going

pit student against student in the job market, and they will bid up the price of who gets to get the most education from the most prestigious places. the profs don't create the system, they just teach the paying students they have. so no one is to blame.

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. College is exploitive? My question is "Then why are you a student?"

Life is a math problem.

The path to a middle class income is either extraordinary talent, extraordinary work, or extraordinary investment.

Everyone opts for #3 and then complains that this debt negates the middle class wage. It becomes a hole that even falling back on #1 or #2 can't dig a person out of.

Other than the certificate, there's very little that colleges have to recommend them over public libraries and the internet. Particularly given that the costs to attend the school are vastly higher than most students anticipate - or for that matter have the maturity to comprehend.

Put it this way; Let's use a planning horizon of ten years. if given the choice of purchasing a four year degree to become a nurse at a promised salary of $50,000 a year, and working at Wendy's as an assistant manager, which is the better choice?

Wendys: 40 hours a week at $12/hour = $25,000 annually, let's say $21,000 net of taxes or $210,000 over the decade. Further, let's say you saved 10% of your pretax income and put it in the 401k at work; 8% return over 10 years = $38,000 in the bank.

Nursing: earning $50,000 annually for 6 years = $300,000 - let's say $225,000 after taxes. But college cost you $60,000 - which you borrowed at 4.3% interest. Amortized over 15 years, the payment is roughly $5500 each year, or $45,000 over the 10 years - bringing the decade's earnings down to about $180,000 and leaving a debt outstanding of about -$27,000.

Which is better? $210k and $38k in the bank or $180k and $27k in debt?

This all assumes that a) you can get a $50k job with your degree and b) it doesn't suck and you will stick with that job and c) Wendy's assistant manager is the top rung that your skills and work ethic could earn you without a bachelor's degree.

[SheilaT]

16. Someone making twelve bucks an hour who can save

ten percent of pretax income is highly unusual.

And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,

in 2013, the average income for registered nurses was $68,910 per annum, in May 2013. The mean hourly wages was reported to be $33.13. The total number of RNs employed throughout the USA was 2,661,890. As per the statistics of indeed.com, these professionals earned $66,000 in October 2014. It was 15% higher than the average salaries for all other occupations.

I'm going to guess that even with paying off the college debt, the nurse ought to be able likewise to save 10% of her pretax income. Not to mention, the nurse is a lot more likely to get raises than is the Wendy's worker. And nurses are in huge demand, so getting the $66k job isn't going to be very hard.

Nursing school looks like a vastly better choice than working at Wendy's.

added on edit: Many people making the kind of money that nurses make claim it's totally impossible to save a penny. So why in the world you'd think the very poorly paid Wendy's worker can save so much escapes me.

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. No more unusual than someone "working their way through college".

... college expenses generally consume far more than 10% of your income.

Repaying college debt isn't optional even to nurses who can't save a penny.

In my area, the average, not starting, wage for Nurses is $20.82 or $43,305.

[SheilaT]

19. You must live in an area with lower wages than most of the rest of the country. Tell me, what

does your local Wendy's pay?

Here in New Mexico, not exactly a bastion of high wages, only one city, Roswell, has a median wage as low as what you've quoted.

http://www.topregisterednurse.com/salary/new-mexico/
You'll need to scroll down a bit.

I still think someone who actually wants to do nursing would be vastly better off getting a nursing degree, even going into debt for that degree, because the wages are quite decent and there are lots and lots of jobs.

In some places a nurse can work just 20 hours a week and get paid as if working 40, with full benefits. Often those are undesirable shifts such as graveyard, or weekends, but it's still a pretty good deal.

[Heddi]

20. You're reading your link wrong. Average RN salary $37.17 hr or $77k a year

Go to page 11 for statewide averages for Registered Nurses

29-1141 Registered Nurses 53055 $37.17 $30.63 $36.73 $44.08 $77,315

I am a nurse. So is my husband. I worked for a state-run trauma center in Seattle, he worked for the largest hospital group up the street.

I started my RN career in 2006, he in 2008.

Never. Ever. Ever. Not once. In any position, did either of us earn ANYTHING close to $21.00 starting. My starting salary IN YAKIMA was $27 plus shift differentials until we moved back to Seattle when he graduated. His new grad pay, at the big hospital group on The Hill? Close to $31 an hour. And because we were both unionized, we got a COL increase and merit increases every year. WHen we left Seattle for the east coast in 2013, we were both close to making $45/hr base, not including night and weekend diffs.

I looked through the entire list of RN's (36 references), and the lowest salaries were in the $28-29/hr range.

I think you're looking at either LPN's or Nursing Assistants, which are nothing close in the education or responsibility, much less pay range, for RN's, so you're either mistaken or being misleading with your $21/hr for RN's. Because that's just not the case.

[lumberjack_jeff]

22. I concede the point. I used the line for "nurses, practical and vocational (licensed)"

Last edited Mon Jun 29, 2015, 01:06 AM - Edit history (2)

I should have probably used "registered nurses".

But the broader point still stands: it's a math problem, and colleges aren't in the business of cultivating that particular critical thinking skill.

[romanic]

8. Great article!

I've always felt Academia was a cipher of fake liberalism. Behind all the radical professors and social justice circles on campus decrying capitalism and the patriarchy; there are hundreds of fat cat suits and politicians siphoning off every single penny from these indoctrinated students who will slave away off campus to pay off these ridiculous loans while filling their pockets and widening the gap between rich and poor.

[RadiationTherapy]

14. My short answer: the workplace is in cahoots with the universities.

The workplace demands "over-degreed" workers for entry level work, the universities have leverage to pressure the students into debt, then the workplace benefits because people in debt are easier to manage.

But it is really a book-length answer in my opinion.

[seveneyes]

15. Lack of musical experience to express it?

[Vattel]

17. It's too expensive for sure because taxpayers are selfish and don't want to support

higher education like they used to. Still, most students I know still greatly value their college education.

[daredtowork]

21. Big investors are getting in on the education game

Diane Feinstein's husband Richard Blum is a regent of the University of California, which might explain a thing or two about the debt disaster students have been driven into there. He also pushed UC in the direction of online education at the same time he was busy investing UC money in his own diploma mills. He's also involved in an insider pork barrel contract scheme to rip off the Post Office.]

A couple of other articles on Feinstein's husband plundering the educational system:

http://www.truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=8589&Itemid=228

http://www.dailycensored.com/more-on-for-profit-college-sludge-and-richard-blum-who-funds-the-brookings-institute/

While I was looking these up, I saw some hysteria on IndyBay about leaked emails showing Feinstein had blocked competition to companies she had invested in? If that's true, it would b nice if it could be proven before she controls any more appointments.

[jwirr]

23. Some of them are - they are joining Bernie's revolution.