Only rich kids go to college - another Republican ideal

[Bobbieo]

We are rapidly regressing to Pre-WW2 educational standards. How many remember that prior to the GI Bill, only wealthy families were able to send their kids to college?

It was that bill that brought post WW2 America to its highest standards as a world power. Now, we are losing that distinction thanks to BushCO.

Their motto - “Keep ‘em poor, stupid and under control!!!”

[BigDaddy44]

1. Its the tuition

College tuition is out of control. Colleges have got to figure out a way to control costs or tap into their endowments in order to make it more affordable. Private colleges control how much they charge. If they would get back to a sane tuition level, then college would become manageable again.

[LiberalEsto]

3. Tuition + variable rate student loans

Not only does tuition keep going ridiculously higher and higher, but now it's impossible to find a fixed rate private student loan.

How can an 18-year-old commit to a huge student loan and not know what the interest rate will be after graduation? it's insane.

[BigDaddy44]

5. Thats why I hesitate to criticize government on this

These are private universities. They are choosing to charge these outrageous tuitions. And the market is bearing them (heard of a University closing due to low enrollment lately? I can only think of one... Antioch).

So, if we make more money available to students to help bear the costs......prices are only going to go up more. Its like a death spiral upward. I'm not sure how to stop it, but I think more federal aid to students is good in the short term, but useless in the long term.

[LiberalEsto]

6. The deregulated banking industry

which was forced on us by the G*D* M*F*cking Republicans is screwing Americans this way and that.

My daughter's student loan balance has actually increased because they keep adding "accrued interest" to the principal. This is stinking WRONG.

[Sophia_Karina]

13. another myth

\\\ These are private universities. They are choosing to charge these outrageous tuitions. \\\

it's the state universities that has raised their prices the most in the last 10 years.

private universities, on the contrary, are moving towards offering more need-based scholarships and extending it to middle-class families.

If a high-school graduate is accepted to top private schools, they often are able to offer him\her a better financial help package than local schools.

[Scooter24]

16. Interesting...

A friend of mine got accepted into Yale's class of 2012. Because of the new financial aid policy at Yale he now only has to pay $2500 a year out of pocket. Princeton, if I remember correctly, expected him to pay $4000 a year out of pocket.

The other financial aid packages at the six public schools he applied to didn't come close to what the Ivy schools offered him.

[Sophia_Karina]

17. same was for my husband

15 years ago.

[leftyclimber]

9. Don't forget housing

Living in the dorms or in some inflated rent sh!thole of an apartment in a college town is going to cost a bundle, too.

And it's not just private colleges/universities, who tend to have large enough endowments (at least the so-called "selective" ones) to provide substantial aid packages, but the public ones, who don't. First the federal government cut and cut and cut funding for public universities (land-grant universities' federal funding is being cut by yet another third in the 2009 federal budget) and states are finding it harder and harder to pick up the slack, especially thanks to the anti-tax lobbyists who seem to think that services should magically appear without anyone having to pay for them. So public schools jack up their tuition, and admit more and more students, many of whom don't have the preparation or skills to be in college, at the higher tuition rates to try to raise revenue. Dropouts? Who cares? We got a few bucks in the meantime and a new round of suck-- uh, students -- will be here next year.

It really bothers me. Many of the undergrads in my program are from very rural areas, first-generation college students, and they see college as a chance to make a better living than their folks. I worry about them having so much student debt that it doesn't happen. :(

[mediaman007]

2. That's the problem with public education. Too many lower and middle

class kids are prepared for college. That's the home school meme. Then, of course, there is the whole brain-washing called "class warfare." Republicans blame Democrats for it, while the Republicans have stolen the value of the dollar. Bush* accomplished was Reagan could only dream about.

[reformedrethug]

4. Sorry but I have to disagree

there are multitudes of programs out there to help pay for college. Everything from scholarships to grants, and personally when I was in college frankly there were kids there that did not belong there. They were NOT prepared at all for college level courses, they do not have the discipline required to set aside the required amount of time to study, to prepare for exams, to write papers, to come to campus if needed for outside help or simply to study in a more quiet environment.

I tutored remedial through business math my last year in school and I was amazed at the number of kids right out of high school or maybe a year or two removed that could not do basic algebra. Some could not even make change in their head, for example I would ask them if my bill was 12.32 and I gave them a 20, what was my change. Some could not figure it out in their heads and needed at least something to write it down with and some needed a calc to figure it out, much less figure out a simple 1(2x+2y) type of simple equation. Our parents and schools are failing horribly in preparing kids to live in the real world and it is showing. Kids today have not faced failure, have not had to overcome failure, and expect everything to be all nice and rosey then when they face reality they simply do not know how to deal with it. That is one reason we have been having so many school shootings, kids not able to deal with failure of any type. We are doing a huge disservice to our kids by handing out grades for just showing up in class like that is some accomplishment. You dont show up at a job you get fired, you dont show up to class you should fail.

[LiberalEsto]

7. Not if you're middle class

We've never made enough to be able to save for college for our two daughters, yet we earn too much to qualify for financial aid. I furnished my house from garage sales, and buy clothes from thrift shops and yard sales too. I clip coupons relentlessly, and we eat out once a year, on our anniversary.

My older daughter won a four-year scholarship that would have paid her tuition at a small private college, but we still would have had to borrow at least $10,000 a year just for room and board. This would have left her with more than $40,000 in private loans.

If your family is low-income enough to qualify, you can get all kinds of help in the form of grants and low-interest loans. And if you're wealthy enough, you don't need them. It's the people in the middle like my family that are getting screwed.

[LWolf]

10. Thank you for pointing this out.

I come from the working poor, and I was the first person on either side of my family to ever go on to college. I did so slowly, one or two classes per term, going to community college because it was cheap, and then getting student loans to finish my BA and post graduate work.

My grades were excellent, and so were my recommendations from professors. I didn't get any scholarships. The idea that there are enough scholarships and grants to fund the education of ALL poor scholars is just ludicrous. It's nice that those things have helped some, of course, but depending on scholarships and grants automatically narrows the field of opportunity for most of the population.

When my first son graduated from high school, he wanted to go to a 4 year university. I was still paying for my own student loans, and a single teacher doesn't make enough to afford tuition and housing for someone else, too. So he went to community college and got his AA. He really wanted to attend UCLA, and they wanted him. He looked at what it would cost, and the level of debt he would incur to do so, and passed. He took a job in retail management, and by the time he'd been there 3 years, he made more money than I did with 10 years in as a teacher, and he had no student loans to pay. He still makes more money than I.

He regrets not finishing his education. He also looks at his best friend, who went to Berkeley, and then Yale, on scholarships, grants, and student loans. He just passed the bar, and he'll work THE REST OF HIS LIFE to pay off the student loans. A law degree does not come cheaply, even with scholarships and grants.

The current mantra of preparing EVERYONE for college is hypocritical at best. College is not the right path for every person, and many of those who WANT higher education will not be able to afford it without incurring an unhealthy level of debt.

Personally, I'd like to see fully funded public education for everyone who wants to go to college, and who qualifies.

[sugerdady87]

8. This is natural

The rise of college cost has been predicted by many economist for years. Many more people are going to college now then any other time in history. As demand out-paces supply, prices (tuition) rises. As prices rise, usually there are new government or insurance subsidies to help an even greater number of people which would only exacerbate the "problem".

Also, when the supply of individuals with a bachelors degree rises in the labor market, the less your bachelors is worth. As something becomes increasingly common place, its prestige and value drops. If you are working on your undergrad degree now, it would be in your own best interest not to have to many people doing the same thing you're doing right now, which is going to college for the same degree. If, for instance, everyone in the United States went to college normally with the help of government subsidies, (universal college or w/e you might want to call it) a bachelors degree would be worth as much as a high school diploma does now.

[Sophia_Karina]

11. that's a myth

\\\ How many remember that prior to the GI Bill, only wealthy families were able to send their kids to college? \\\

UPenn tuition was $150 hundred years ago + living expenses. A small local college, Grandview, was $20 a semester. A skilled worker at the time was making $40\week. If you live in the area with your parents, no living expenses for you.

A centenarian alumnus has put himself through Penn -- an Ivy League, mind you -- by working in a local supermarket.

Good luck doing it now, with Ivy tuition alone topping $30 k.

People didn't go to college as much simply because it wasn't necessary to get a good job. Plus, it was harder to get in, minorities weren't accepted in many elite colleges.

Those were different times.

[sugerdady87]

12. was that response to me?

"People didn't go to college as much simply because it wasn't necessary to get a good job."

That's a really funny post. It cannot operate the way in which you're saying now. Jobs cannot require individuals to have a specific degree when there aren't many individuals in the labor market to choose from with it. As the amount of people who got into college increased, jobs were now able to choose from those crop of those individuals.

If, for instance, everyone in the united states recieved a BS degree, previous jobs which once required that degree might now opt to select employees with masters degrees. This, of course, is not true with all jobs. If they choose to stay with the BS degree requirement, they can now pay their employees far less then they would previously simply because of the excess supply in the labor market.

[Sophia_Karina]

14. no, it was a response to the original post

and yes I am aware that

\\\It cannot operate the way in which you're saying now.\\\

that's exactly what I was saying -- it's a different time now. A college degree, often an advanced one, is presently a barrier of entry to many professions for which it has not been necessary in the past. Never mind many of the people who now have to get it don't even want to go to college in the first place. College has become all about workforce training, instead of education per se.

The original post, however, 1) portrayed the pre-WWII educational standards as very low, 2) stated that people began to go to college en masse after GI bill b\c of financial reasons.

Both of those statements are inaccurate. One might want to search for sample 8th or 12th grade examination tests from 100 years ago, or look at sample writings from people who lived back then (e.g., "Lives of Undistinguished Americans as told by themselves"). Those people didn't go to college, but show a command of knowledge and language quite comparable to modern college students. Standards for primary and secondary education were much higher back then.

AS for the second statement, from the data I gave it is clear that college was more affordable 100 years ago than now -- to those who really wanted to go there and could pass the selection process. GI bill effect in society was more broad. In the end, historically, it was probably more important that the US was the only world power with plenty of cash and not in ruins after WWII. Bill or no bill, it did take the society to a new level, one of the result of which is inflation of educational achievements. AS it is now, it's a bubble that will burst one of these days.

[sugerdady87]

15. What's interesting

and funny is when he posts: Their motto - “Keep ‘em poor, stupid and under control!!!”

lolz

[spin]

18. Similar to the mushroom theory of management...

Keep the employees in the dark and feed them bullshit.