I read in a Wall Street Journal blog this A.M. some interesting stats...
- The jump in the measure of consumer credit held by the government comprised primarily of student loans since 2007: 368 percent.
- Did you know that nearly 10 percent of the debt in this country is student loan debt?
- It is old news that student loan debt has surpassed consumer credit card debt.
Wow! I had a single mom at our office door today stop by. She told me that her son got a great award from a small private Christian college, but that "he has chosen Colorado State." When I reminded her that she is the one writing the check, she looked as if she had no control over her own situation, and was resolved to go into massive debt.
So this single mom seemingly had no issues taking out about $30,000 per year in loans. But you multiply that by six years or more and the payment on that will be about $2,000 a month for the next 10 years after he graduates!
Single parents, please don't let emotions dictate such a weighty financial decision. Statistically, more than 30 percent of college students don't return to the same college for their sophomore year. By the time the student does graduate, their degree is from the third college they have attended. The average time it takes to get a four-year degree is 6.5 years! (The public colleges are the ones dragging down the averages).
The default rates on student loans are at all-time highs, and so is unemployment for 25- to 34-year-olds. And guess who is going to be holding the bag when the bubble burst? The sames ones who always hold the bag—the taxpayers!
Tell all your friends about our next seminar at our office in the harbor, 9 a.m. on June 16. For free seminars, WEBinars, and useful tools to help guide the college planning process, please go to GetCollegeFunding.org, and sign up for our "7 Mistakes Most Parents Make When Planning For College."
In this generation, are American children better off than they were a generation ago?
And, you can never seem to answer a direct question related to your blogs and posts. Why is that? It almost seems that you espouse an opinion of today's youth, their parents, and their schools as complete failures deserving of your derision. I must ask you, why would anyone read your blogs and posts and say, "Yes, I want to send my college bound child to the GetCollegeFunding.org to set goals for the future!"
That is irrefutable. (I hope this sub-thread continues to expand.)
As for how things are better for this generation, just to name a few things.... Education for girls and minorities far better than it was forty years ago and more on par with the education that only boys used to get. Great strides have been made in math and science curriculum and the math that kids were expected to know to graduate forty years ago is the equivalent of what we expect 7th graders to know now. Literacy and reading instruction forty years ago was about students sounding out the words and now it's focused on comprehension and analysis. As for how things are worse... funding per student is far less than what was provided 40 years when adjusted for inflation. To be continued....
But the hard truth is that while the military economy is advanced, the rest is going the other way. For instance today there are only 11 million manufacturing jobs in the US, (So Cal used to be an aerospace giant), and probably most of these are related to the military economy. And compare the with there being 22 million gov't jobs and it should be no mystery why everything is going broke. So it seems this too accepted line about all these people needing a college education is for the banks to get a govt backed income stream, which with the elimination of the Glass-Steagall restrictions are then bundled in so many mysterious ways and sold into the 1.2 quadrillion dollar financial derivatives stratosphere. And so it goes with health care.
Education today has become administratively top heavy when compared to forty years ago. The number of special education students has increased dramatically and that takes money away from the general education programs and the federal government has never held up to their legislative promises to fund special education. Education theorists are constantly adjusting what is the best way to teach impoverished and second language learners and there has never been a defined process for their instruction and they have fallen behind as the number of poor and second language learners in this country has increase. These are just a few examples...
1) Better for girls & minorities. But later on you say it is worse for impoverished and second langauge students, (mainly minority), who have fallen behind. This is contradictory. 2) Great strides in math & science. Wow, forget the Socratic technique. I could look some stuff up but can someone else offer anything? 3) Literacy & reading went from sounding out words to comprehension and analysis - really?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=R92OahqATIc
Seriously? The "occupy" movement did not even exist till, oh, last year. And people with no funding, no corporate backing, no jobs, are indoctrinating K-12 people? The word indoctrination has been cliched so badly that it no longer means the same.
When it comes to teaching the impoverished, there is a great answer if you look beyond the borders of the United States; here, we really don't care about those in poverty. In fact out educational system is designed to make people stupid because they are easier to control. ($30,000) for a state university? Surely you jest. One of the answers to teaching the impoverished, well actually everyone, is Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. One should also read Freire's Education for Critical Consciousness
There has been serious indoctrination in our schools for a very long time. But it's not what you imagine. You should read Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire, since you are tangentially in the education field. Every American should read it, actually, but very few will.
do you have any idea what would happen to the crime rates if we cut everything you suggest, or imply, we cut in all these threads? Forget that. Do you have any idea what will happen to the crime rate if we cut education any further? Which is cheaper running prisons or schools? Oh wait, I forget, you're in favor of privatized prisons because then the tax payer doesn't have to pay for them. But the only way that works is if they actually have prisoners to make money off of; so it would make sense, then to cut the safety nets, education and the rest so crime goes up and those running prisons profit in the true and unique American way. Never mind. Different question. Any idea why Mussolini compare business with Fascism?
Are you proposing that we let be fulfilled by Congress?
Of all the entitlements to pick on (banks backed by taxpayers, subsidies to farmers, oil, welfare), education would be among the lowest on my list. We are not going to advance as a nation with technological progress unless our people are better educated. Yes, that means college for the most part. I'd rather pay 1 billion in student loans rather than pay the same kids welfare/unemployment. I'd rather not pay either, but like Dan mentions, can you imagine a society in this century which does not have access to education? And no one goes to college cheaply anymore. With or without government backed loans.
What good is education if the end result is a drag on society and the economy?
Your comment reminds me of the book The Education of Henry Adams, in which he talks about "formal" and "informal" education and compares them. I think we need to reassess education on a societal level. Re-envision it. We tend to think of it as a means to an end. Go to college and you'll get a better job. So, of course, we see a degree as being educated. All it is, however, is a piece of paper and it really doesn't stand for much at all. Not when you compare it against a real education regardless of where the person was educated.
I attended the University of Minnesota for 2 and 1/2 years, realized I was only going to get a degree out of the place, and left. then I attended Macalester College for three years. They rightly devalued the University to being worth one year when I transferred in. I paid for all of it myself. The U of M was strictly loans and I think the tuition was about $2000 a year in the mid-70's. Macalester was about $12,000 for tuition in the early 80's. Took a spell off in between. Mac I paid for with a combination of loans, scholarships, and grants. Mac cost me $1500 a year with the loan, so it was cheaper than the University. Mac taught me three things. 1. Which building the library is. 2. How to think so I would know what to do with the information contained in the library. 3. Somethings are worth going into debt for. The third thing is key. Somethings are absolutely worth going into debt for. People buy houses and don't blink at going into debt. Not always worth it in my opinion. Most state Universities are absolutely not worth going into debt for and that would include all the U.C.'s. Penn State would be an exception. Private colleges and universities are definitively worth the debt. We have several excellent ones here in Southern California and I would encourage every student to figure out how to be admitted.
You obviously "win the internet" this week on LA Patch. I'm not sure what high school or college you went to, but I recommend you get a lawyer and sue them because they failed you. In what sentence above did I even mention privatized prisons or education cuts? I did not mention either. So you pretend to know my opinion on both? What I am against is government (taxpayer) subsidies of education loans. Why? Because all it does is artificially inflate prices of education and bankrupt the populace. Given George W. Bush's pressed law above, it is impossible to free yourself as a former student of such obligations, which now run into the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Given your responses below, I don't expect you to understand the finance or economics behind my argument above. Whether college education, housing, corn/bean or wheat prices - it doesn't matter. Wherever you find massive federal government subsidies, you can damn well expect artificially high prices, a reduction in competition, and quite possibly a financial bubble. I'm offended by your suggestion that my comment in any way supports fascism. I recognized govt-sanctioned AND subsidized debt slavery when I see it. What's your excuse?
Prices rise every year and education is no exception. The fact that education is not as good as it once was is not tied to the price. It's easier to control the dumb. It is not in our government's best interest to give everyone an exceptional education. That is reserved for children of about 1% of our population. And there are a handful of schools that will provide a first-class education to them. You see government subsidies. I see government investments. Our society would be much stronger if we received free health care and a free education, like most leading nations provide to their people. Just because I think your fiscal views are moronic and dangerous does not mean that I don't understand them. Read Jefferson. Without a free education, Democracy is impossible to sustain. Jefferson meant "free" on two levels: financial and academic freedom. So by arguing against "government subsidies for education" you are actually arguing for democracy's end. Notice that I attacked your ideas rather than you personally. You on the other hand lashed out at me personally. That's known as an ad hominen argument and it's a logical fallacy.