I sent my children to college and would do it again. They didn't go into debt to finance their experience. But their parents did. Our Higher Education System is broken. It is a lie and a con-job. We are killing off its true value. Indeed does anyone remember why it was truly valuable. Jobs, more take home pay, bigger car, nicer house? Is that why we have colleges? What the hell is the pay off?
To the cost they forget to add room & board, life style cost, transportation, and (the biggy) loss of income. Then they calculate it by an idea time to a degree when the average degree time is (idea+ 12.5%). The "economist" say 1/3rd of the students do not take out loans and thus incur no loan debt. Really? What do their parents think about that?
In 2008 the average graduate with a bachelors and a loan owed $28,000+. Really, well how much will it cost those students to pay back a $28,000+ loans. Will it take $72,000 over time? $136,000 over time? $240,000 over time? With deferments and defaults and refinancing it could be almost anything, but it isn't just $28,000.
People with degrees make more money over a life time. Yep, especially, using pre-2008 figures to prove it. So you add together the real world cost and subtract that from the 2011 and beyond real world take home pay. Is college a good life-time investment on a purely economic bases? I don't think anyone has really calculate that. Is it worth, deferring having children? Is it worth not having a house? Is it worth it to the society at large to have a trillion dollars plus resources tied up in student loans not available to be spent on goods and services in a consumer economy? Is it really worth deferring, deferring, deferring, deferring until you are too damn old to have what you are striving for and too damn tired to enjoy it.
College should be a worth while investment. An Investment in your mind, in your knowledge, in your character, and even in the way you live your life, but at these prices, and at these extended cost?
We have made the golden goose of Promise lay eggs of leaden Debt.
2 comments:
Couple of observations; in
my state we have a low higher ed graduation rate.
Whether drop out due to finance, academics or simply frustration. Ironically, as we cut our
colleges here year after year, tuition soars; yet the state runs TV ads with
businessmen bemoaning that they need bring qualified
types in from out of state.
The other observation is the latest scandal involving 'for profit' colleges..the internet U
scams which garner huge
profits from student loans.
One suspects Thomas Jefferson would be quite
upset with the state of affairs....
I suspect your higher education graduation rate isn't any worse than any other State. In my personal experience using the IPEDS data upon which that is based the schools lie like a rug. Only when there is some serious State level oversight does the data mean anything. Idaho's IPEDS coordinators have always been straight shooters. Truth is we can't face the truth about higher eduction, so we lie.
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