Slashdot Mirror
Beating the College Bubble
An anonymous reader writes "The real estate bubble is long gone. Oil prices are sliding down. Are we in
an education bubble? The author of
Beating the College Bubble says so.
He's written a short, simple guide to avoiding the crushing college
debt that he thinks is about to bankrupt all of us. Just as easy loans encouraged people to dream big and buy a
McMansion, big college loans are tempting students with too much Comp Lit and Frat
Parties. When they graduate, the debt is so hefty that the students are stuck living
in their parents' basement for 10 years until they've paid it all off. I can
tell you from personal experience that there's some real truth to the hangover.
The beer headache is gone after a week, but the monthly payments just keep going." Read below for the rest of cdog40's review
Beating the College Bubble
author
C. Davis
pages
140
publisher
Edububble Press
rating
9
reviewer
cdog40
ISBN
1438235909
summary
Don't go to college. Save your money.
The author spells out why he wrote the book:
his kids are graduating soon and he wants to do the right thing. Should he encourage
them to spend big on an impressive, Cadillac-grade education or should he
be really cheap so they can be free of loans? Which will help the kids?
Chapter 2 works through a handful of examples of people who spent too much on education. Of course he brings up the fact that all of the big guys in the computer business skipped out on college after a few courses. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates started the trend and now it looks like Mark Zuckerberg is following in the famous footsteps.
The author writes out that some of the people in Chapter 2 really did benefit from their education. The lawyers and the doctors who sell their credentials did very well with fancy diplomas.
Chapter 3 is a largely obvious summary of what we all know: lots of college courses don't have any real use in the world. It's not as bad as jokes like: What do you call an English major? (Waiter!) The problem is that the Internet is very good at exporting bits and most college degrees specialize in manipulating bits. The Internet can and will ship this work to the lowest-wage countries in the world. So if you're interested in making money by manipulating bits, the Internet is going to cut you off at your knees. The real secret to making money he says is getting a career in something like sewer maintenance because that can't be exported despite what that famous Senator says about the Internet just being a bunch of pipes.
Chapter 4 is a great piece that explains where the money is going: into the pockets of the college presidents. Many of them make more than a million dollars a year in salary. Well, that's not all true. Some of it is going into the big, expensive buildings. Apparently long ago, students put on shows without fancy state-of-the-art, high-tech arts complexes. They just used an auditorium. No longer. Schools love to spend money on big-name architects. There's a good mention made of the high price tag, the bar, and the leaky roof at MIT's Stata Center.
Chapter 5 is a kind of a nice guy section added so the author couldn't be accused of being completely cynical and nasty. It points out that most schools aren't just spending the cash on the president's new yacht, but on things the students use like fancy dorms and swanky exercise rooms. I know this is true of my school. The dorms are much better. You can't even see the mortar between the cinder blocks any longer. He's still annoyed by this because all of the fancy features pump up the tuition bill.
Chapter 6 is where the book starts to get useful. He talks about how to negotiate for better terms on the debt or how to avoid picking up too much. You can pretty much skip Chapter 7 and move right on to Chapters 8 and 9 which describe how to save money by getting cut rate degrees or skipping college altogether.
I'm not sure whether I buy all of the techniques. He suggests that internet forums like Slashdot are more informative than a college classroom, something I'm not sure I believe. Yes, there's more discussion and the moderation system does a good job of shutting up that bossy know-it-all in the front row, but it would be nice to have a professor. I guess that's what they mean when we're supposed to read the article before commenting. Hah. No one did at my school either.
There are good ones. He tells of low-cost degree programs at most schools. You can save 80% of the price of going to Harvard, for instance. I think he's pretty honest about this because he does point out that you lose something when you take the cheap route. But freedom is just another word for nothing left to pay on your loans.
The book's website is trying to make the book interactive by posting new news stories and alternative solutions for college. It listed the new School of Everything as an alternative.
This is where the meat of the book lies. The only way to avoid getting hurt by a bursting bubble is to get out early. This book made me think long and hard about college. You can't go back and do a scientific experiment because you can only live life once. But I do think that's how he put it. We're really in love with the idea of college that we'll spend anything. It's like when you fall head over heels over some beautiful girl that you don't even know. Then you run up your credit card on an expensive meal to impress her only to find out that she's kind of snobby or flakey or just not interested in the right things (PS3, BitTorrent, Android, Erlang etc). When the bill comes a month later, you feel kind of dumb. This book is trying to help the next generation avoid that headache.
You can purchase Beating the College Bubble from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Chapter 2 works through a handful of examples of people who spent too much on education. Of course he brings up the fact that all of the big guys in the computer business skipped out on college after a few courses. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates started the trend and now it looks like Mark Zuckerberg is following in the famous footsteps.
The author writes out that some of the people in Chapter 2 really did benefit from their education. The lawyers and the doctors who sell their credentials did very well with fancy diplomas.
Chapter 3 is a largely obvious summary of what we all know: lots of college courses don't have any real use in the world. It's not as bad as jokes like: What do you call an English major? (Waiter!) The problem is that the Internet is very good at exporting bits and most college degrees specialize in manipulating bits. The Internet can and will ship this work to the lowest-wage countries in the world. So if you're interested in making money by manipulating bits, the Internet is going to cut you off at your knees. The real secret to making money he says is getting a career in something like sewer maintenance because that can't be exported despite what that famous Senator says about the Internet just being a bunch of pipes.
Chapter 4 is a great piece that explains where the money is going: into the pockets of the college presidents. Many of them make more than a million dollars a year in salary. Well, that's not all true. Some of it is going into the big, expensive buildings. Apparently long ago, students put on shows without fancy state-of-the-art, high-tech arts complexes. They just used an auditorium. No longer. Schools love to spend money on big-name architects. There's a good mention made of the high price tag, the bar, and the leaky roof at MIT's Stata Center.
Chapter 5 is a kind of a nice guy section added so the author couldn't be accused of being completely cynical and nasty. It points out that most schools aren't just spending the cash on the president's new yacht, but on things the students use like fancy dorms and swanky exercise rooms. I know this is true of my school. The dorms are much better. You can't even see the mortar between the cinder blocks any longer. He's still annoyed by this because all of the fancy features pump up the tuition bill.
Chapter 6 is where the book starts to get useful. He talks about how to negotiate for better terms on the debt or how to avoid picking up too much. You can pretty much skip Chapter 7 and move right on to Chapters 8 and 9 which describe how to save money by getting cut rate degrees or skipping college altogether.
I'm not sure whether I buy all of the techniques. He suggests that internet forums like Slashdot are more informative than a college classroom, something I'm not sure I believe. Yes, there's more discussion and the moderation system does a good job of shutting up that bossy know-it-all in the front row, but it would be nice to have a professor. I guess that's what they mean when we're supposed to read the article before commenting. Hah. No one did at my school either.
There are good ones. He tells of low-cost degree programs at most schools. You can save 80% of the price of going to Harvard, for instance. I think he's pretty honest about this because he does point out that you lose something when you take the cheap route. But freedom is just another word for nothing left to pay on your loans.
The book's website is trying to make the book interactive by posting new news stories and alternative solutions for college. It listed the new School of Everything as an alternative.
This is where the meat of the book lies. The only way to avoid getting hurt by a bursting bubble is to get out early. This book made me think long and hard about college. You can't go back and do a scientific experiment because you can only live life once. But I do think that's how he put it. We're really in love with the idea of college that we'll spend anything. It's like when you fall head over heels over some beautiful girl that you don't even know. Then you run up your credit card on an expensive meal to impress her only to find out that she's kind of snobby or flakey or just not interested in the right things (PS3, BitTorrent, Android, Erlang etc). When the bill comes a month later, you feel kind of dumb. This book is trying to help the next generation avoid that headache.
You can purchase Beating the College Bubble from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Sure, except the colleges are a business like any other (at least to some extent) and they have to attract customers (i.e., students). The prospective students have been enticed into expecting fancy rec centers and cushy dorms. Once a few schools start offering those features, pretty much everyone else has to do so to stay competitive.
It's also worth noting here that the nominal price of tuition typically doesn't pay for the actual cost of sending student to college. At my alma mater (graduated ten years ago, for reference), our tuition -- huge those it was -- paid for about 1/3 of the actual expense.
Also note that most people don't pay full tuition. The high tuitions seem to exist so that those who can (apparently) afford it can be charged for it, while being "nice" and knowing the price down for others.
This reminded me of how lucky I was to have done my college degree in an engineering program at McGill, Quebec! Top20 university in the world and it costed me only about 3grands in tuition fees per year. I was debt free straight out of college while having worked only during the summers and got a job in the weeks after I started looking.
Can't say the same for the girlfriend from USA who'll get out of school with a debt equivalent to what I make per year now ;)
I wonder if Barrack "the savior" Obama will do anything about school fees?
Well, at least they won't be going and getting loans that they can't afford to purchase a house they don't need. ;)
The blanket directive "Don't consolidate" is just as specious as the blanket "You should consolidate". Be a smart shopper! We, too, got lots of those "consolidate with us!" letters ... we threw most of them out. We eventually did consolidate my wife's loans, cutting the interest rate on most of her debt by more than half. The rate is fixed for the life of the loan, and we get a further rate discount for automatic payments. The effective rate is so low that they are almost paying US to hold the loan once inflation is counted in.
bankruptcy does not wipe out student debt.
Correction: it doesn't wipe out educational loans. A student who racks up credit card debt who makes less than a prescribed amount of money (they changed it after my bankrupcy; I'm not sure how little you have to make now) can get that debt discharged.
It doesn't wipe out taxation debts, fines, child support, or some other types of debt either.
Free Martian Whores!
Things like credit card loans or car loans can actually be better when consolidated because they could be just as variable.
Consolidating credit card debt is nearly always a good idea, given those things usually just skirt the legal limits, and often run 18%+. Truly, the key is not to go into credit card debt in the first place... but once that ship has sailed and you are in debt, consolidating to a loan with a better interest rate should be a no-brainer.
Merriam-Webster would appear to disagree with you.
Ok, I'm sure this is a troll, but I'll bite. It really is scapegoat, and the source of the word is from the Hebrew story of Aaron sacrificing a goat which bore the sins of his people. This event is celebrated on the Jewish Holiday of Yom Kippur. Hmm... I guess Jews have a goat, Christians have a lamb
http://www.answers.com/topic/scapegoat
My Wife got her Masters from a state university and worked the whole time. I believe it took her about six years, maybe seven. I think she owed a little over 12k when we got married a year ago. We still owe more than that on her car.
Do you mean like scholarship-snatching visible minority ethnics who originate from assimilation resistant cultures and therefore have no allegiance whatsoever to the nation from which they benefit by reason of such opportunities unknown elsewhere in human history? Do you mean the kind that are carefully taught by their parents as they sit at their parents' feet day after day year in year out that 'we are here for the money and not for the values'. Do you mean the type who eschew personal hygiene as colonialism and wear sandals as a gesture of contempt toward the culture of the host nation under the color of podiatric comfort?
There is a growing problem in the USA when families do emigrate, one of the male children are encouraged (instructed) to go into the military ASAP to secure that family's immigration status. Moreover, these hope that in doing so, criticism for lack of allegiance would be deflected with the rejoinder "See, my son is in the military; how dare you question our allegiance to this country." The right thing is being done for the wrong reason.
Truth told. Downmodding expected.
It gets far, far worse. Think about rent and cost of living.
I attend a law school that costs ~$1,000/credit hour. That works out to $36,000 year, full-time, in tuition alone. Furthermore, students enrolled full-time are not allowed to work more than 18 hours/week. And although you may think a JD candidate could make a fair amount of money, they don't. You're looking at the same $8-10/hour pay you could get as an undergraduate, except now you're clerking or doing paralegal work.
As you'd expect, law school is far more academically intensive than your average undergraduate program. The rule of thumb is that you'll spend a minimum of three hours studying for every one hour of class time. On a standard full-time track, that's 12 credits per term; 12 hours per week in every class, another 36 hours studying. So, 48 hours/week devoted to academics. Let's assume that you get a job at $10/hour, and work the full 18 hours/week. That's $180/week, or $720/month.
The short of it is that any job you get as a full-time law student isn't even going to put a dent in tuition costs.
But now, add, say, $700/month for rent. Then you have bills. And food. And transportation. Let's say the student's frugal, and he gets by on about $1200/month (obviously this varies based on where you're living, but I'm trying to pick a number that would be typical of a suburban law school). And upwards of $5000 worth of books every year.
So... add it all up.
Tuition: $36k/year
Books: $5k/year
Rent, food, bills, etc.: $14.4k/year
Working income: $8604
YEARLY TOTAL: $46,796
TOTAL TO GRADUATION: $140,388
Now, consider the time constraints.
1 week is 168 hours.
You're spending 48 hours/week in class or studying.
You sleep 8 hours/night (or 56 hours/week).
You're working 18 hours/week.
That's 122/168 hours per week spoken for. That leaves 46 hours/week on average for leisure, additional studying, eating, and transportation time. That's almost 7 hours per day. In my personal experience, it's about 2-3 hours/day for relaxing and/or working out. It's not an impossible task, but it's stressful, and not fun. But going tens of thousands of dollars into debt for the "privilege" of being too damned busy all the time isn't much fun. Clinic and volunteer work - both of which the school pushes pretty hard - all come out of this time, too.
Thankfully, I'm at the school I'm at (as opposed to a more prestigious one) because they offered me an enormous scholarship. But I have friends that are borrowing their whole way through. One of them half-heartedly jokes that the only way to get through it is to pretend that loans aren't real money, because the debt is otherwise just stifling.
Last time I checked, the US has the most college graduates of any country. Our worst college-educated state, West Virginia, has more college graduates than any country in Western Europe.
You honestly think that a state with 1.8million people has more college graduates than the UK (pop. 60 million)? In 2003 the UK had 3 million full-time students aged 16 and over. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/labour_market_trends/economic_inactivity_students_LMTDec03.pdf/ and had 16% of the working population with a degree http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/Expodata/Spreadsheets/D7743.xls/.