Degree Hack: Cobbling Together Credit Hours For Cheap

McGruber writes "The Chronicle of Higher Education has a web episode about Richard Linder, a US college student who was determined to do the impossible: earn a U.S. college degree while not taking on any student debt. Mr. Linder cobbled together an associate degree in liberal arts for a mere $3,000. He did it by transferring academic credits to Excelsior College, a regionally accredited institution that doesn't require students to take any of its own courses. Mr. Linder's earned his transferred credit hours from an array of unexpected sources: from high school Advanced Placement courses to classes taught by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Fire Academy. He even managed to get one credit hour from Microsoft." I find his creativity in breadth and sources of credit-worthy instruction more interesting than the pricetag, though the commenters on the linked story are sharply divided on the value of the courses taken. While $3,000 is cheap for an associate's degree compared to many U.S. colleges, it's not unheard of; tuition for locals at a community college near me wouldn't be too far off that, even without transferring in any credits.

Comments

Lib Arts Assoc Degree for $3000

[Anonymous Coward]

You might as well have spent the money on hookers and blow. As it is, you've just wasted $3000.

Re:Lib Arts Assoc Degree for $3000

[cayenne8]

You might as well have spent the money on hookers and blow. As it is, you've just wasted $3000.

Yeah..sadly, I have to agree with you.

This 'degree' on your resume...will likely get your application directly filed in the circular filesystem by the HR person who will rapidly go to the next resume with a more 'real' degree....

Re:Lib Arts Assoc Degree for $3000

[SomePgmr]

It's may not be worthless.

Some universities will take an associates as part of a transfer compact agreement to knock out the 2 years of bullshit gened's everyone has to take. I don't know that the school he used would qualify.

I have a community college up the street from me that's much larger, nicer, and well funded than many universities in the country, and it starts at about $110 per credit hour. So it's a great way to knock out all the garbage a university makes you do just for added revenue, but on the cheap, with a much higher quality education than you were going to get in a lecture hall of 8,000 sleeping students and a disgruntled professor.

So if he's halfway to a bachelors for $3k...

Just something to consider.

Re:Lib Arts Assoc Degree for $3000

[jonadab]

It depends.

On the one hand, an Associates Degree by itself is about as useful as a solar panel in northeastern Ohio. It doesn't qualify you for anything that you weren't already qualified for with a high school diploma.

On the other hand, many schools will accept a larger number of (undergrad) credits in transfer if you have an Associates Degree than otherwise. That is, after all, the main purpose of an Associates: to bundle up the two years' worth of gen ed courses you've already taken, from a school that doesn't offer the major you want, so that the school where you want to complete your four-year degree will take most of those credits, allowing you to finish in another two years.

Of course, even with an Associates, the credits you transfer in are still only worthwhile if they count toward any of the requirements for your four-year degree. Many schools are willing to be a little bit flexible with this, though there are usually limits. For example, maybe the school normally requires Western Civ and US History plus one other social studies course, but if you're transferring in an Associates they may decide to accept any eight credits of history and four additional credits of social studies that you happen to have taken.

So an Associates can be useful, e.g. if you live near a community college that offers a halfway decent Associates program. You can knock out a lot of your gen ed *before* going to the better, more expensive four-year college where you intend to complete your degree.

All of this assumes that you are a returning adult student (e.g., someone who went out after high school and got a job to "save up" for college; after several years you have now saved up just about enough to cover your textbooks and maybe the occasional dorm sweatshirt). Anyone who just graduated from high school, with even remotely acceptable grades, is likely to be better off, financially, going straight to the four-year school the very next fall. You can often get a LOT more financial aid that way, and it's typically all renewable, so it will take you through all four years (assuming you keep your grades up and meet whatever extracurricular requirements the school has). Admittedly, this depends somewhat on the school, but your total debt for four years this way can potentially be less than what you would have paid just for the last two years, not even counting anything you had to spend to get the Associates in the first place -- because, transferring in from a community college with an associates, the financial aid department in most cases will basically tell you to see Uncle Stafford and Cousin Perkins. If you're fresh out of high school with reasonable grades, they're far more likely to hand you a package that includes grants and maybe the odd minor scholarship plus a work study option in addition to Stafford loans.

Re:Lib Arts Assoc Degree for $3000

[cayenne8]

So if he's halfway to a bachelors for $3k...

Oh, if part of a full degree, then I'd agree with you...I was under the impression he was going to try to use this as his sole college credentials for applying for first job 'out of school'......and in that case, IMHO, it is worthless to most HR folks culling resumes.

Re:Lib Arts Assoc Degree for $3000

[Miamicanes]

> You can knock out a lot of your gen ed *before* going to the better, more expensive four-year college where you intend to complete your degree.

Assuming that you, unlike roughly 97% of your peers, have the *slightest* idea what you actually want to do for the next 40 years when you're 19 or 20. That's the whole problem with the "get your general education credits out of the way" plan of community colleges... by packing all of your "major" courses into two years, and by extension DEFERRING nearly all of them until years 3 and 4, you've raised the stakes considerably, and made changing your mind about your major a much, much more disruptive and expensive process.

If you wait until the fall semester of your third year to take your first real courses in your major, then discover you don't actually LIKE your major after all, you've just *incinerated" at least one semester... maybe two. In contrast, if you've taken the first 4 courses in your major by the middle of your sophomore year, then discover you don't really like it after all, you've only REALLY wasted one or two of those classes, because the others ended up satisfying your general-ed requiremends anyway.

That's why most private colleges and universities encourage you to spread out your general-ed classes, and to begin taking your "major" classes early and often, and why they encourage you to satisfy many of your "general ed" classes with classes that do double-duty as the "intro/survey/101" courses for other majors. They have every incentive to help you graduate in 4 years... they're expensive, they know it, and they know there's a nontrivial chance you might not graduate at all if they seriously derail you. They know that 70% of their students change their majors at least once before year 3, and most of them have had more than a hundred years to refine the formula and get it right.

The generic community-college scenario only really works for two groups of students... those whose only goal is "a degree", regardless of what it might be in, and those for whom community college is a second chance to shine, catch up, and redeem themselves. A student who's already at the top of his high school class and a shoo-in at just about any university is basically just wasting his time, and is actually INCREASING his odds of stumbling and losing his way before graduation.

The fact is, the "2+2" formula just doesn't work for the majority of students.

Re:Lib Arts Assoc Degree for $3000

[david_thornley]

I'll second that about the courses not being useful.

My son graduated from high school with something over half the credits he needed for graduation. This included a very large chunk of math, and a good deal of science and engineering. (In a decent school system, there's lots of opportunities I never got, provided you have a combination of determination, ability, and wanting to in the first place.) An AA from a community college would be extremely unlikely to be this STEM-heavy.

Now that he's in college, a lot of the credits just aren't working into a degree program. He doesn't have to take any more math unless he wants to be a math major, and not all that many courses for that really, but that's unlikely to shorten his education much. The science and engineering courses aren't consider suitable for the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering. This means that he has to take all his major requirements (unless he switches to math), and that isn't going to happen in two years.

What he mostly got out of it, besides learning a whole lot and gaining confidence in himself, is that he has the course selection priority of a junior, and will get senior's priority from the sophomore year on. The courses also satisfy a few distribution requirements, but those wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

Re:Lib Arts Assoc Degree for $3000

[jonadab]

> Assuming that you, unlike roughly 97% of your
> peers, have the *slightest* idea what you actually
> want to do for the next 40 years when you're 19 or 20.

I believe, if you re-read my post, you'll find that I actually said that students fresh out of high school are usually better off going directly to the four-year school in the first place. (Granted, I stated a different reason for this. Your reason is also valid.)

My claim was that an Associates Degree can be useful for a _returning adult_ student, i.e., someone who upon graduating from high school said "I'm DONE with school" and went out and got a job, but then a few years later they started to notice that all they jobs they can get without a college degree are jobs they don't really want. The exciting glamor of raking in the dough hand over fist at $6.50 an hour has begun to pale. These students are frequently not eligible for enough financial aid to make four years at a real liberal arts school (or even a state university) an attractive option, fiscally speaking, and they've had a few years of real-world workforce experience to help them think about what they really want to do with their lives.

I'd hire him

[Captain_Chaos]

I'd hire this guy in a flash. This kind of stunt shows a level of creativity, commitment and out of the box thinking that's worth more than any college degree.

Re:I'd hire him

[Anonymous Coward]

But he's only got a liberal arts degree!

All kidding aside, I hope he takes this opportunity to start a career fast. Right now he can point to this and say "Look how eager I was to get into the real world and start working - here's a story about it" in interviews, but unless he supplements it with work it might start looking shaky.

Re:I'd hire him

[ackthpt]

I'd hire this guy in a flash. This kind of stunt shows a level of creativity, commitment and out of the box thinking that's worth more than any college degree.

Careful ... that's how Microsoft got started.

Re:I'd hire him

[Sperbels]

The doesn't demonstrate poor critical reasoning. That demonstrates an understanding of the reality of our society...that your resume is thrown away unless it has a degree on it.

Re:I'd hire him

[ByOhTek]

Yeah. That degree itself doesn't say squat, how he got it shows cleverness and a desire to put effort into a goal, as well as a drive to cost effectiveness.

Re:I'd hire him

[bluefoxlucid]

I never really got an education, seeing as I was born an orphan and went to art college...

Re:I'd hire him

[AshtangiMan]

Have things changed so much in education that this is astounding? I went to va tech (in state) and paid for it and living out of summer job cash as did most of the other engineering students with whom I attended in the late eighties (cool story bro) (tuition was like $2500 per year iirc). Even if the tuition costs have tripled I can't imagine that it's that hard to live of the economy or summer in more lucrative places to save ahead. Va tech at the time was a top twenty overall engineering school .... Unm now is not more expensive than that for undergrad so if you go to public in state schools it's easy and cheap to get bs degrees from four year colleges in the us (and yes, it's hard not to see that and chuckle). With any of those programs you get out of it what you put in to it, as with any degree. I am not promoting four year degrees as necessary or good value inherently, but do intend to compare $3000 for an associate's degree with $10000 for a BS as in favor of the BS for students wanting to be in technical fields and pursue knowledge as sport.

Re:I'd hire him

[jythie]

Not only that, but if this school has such lax requirements regarding people having to take classes under its control... I suspect that even though it has accreditation it is probably one warning flags that local managers watch for. They sound pretty sketchy, and sketchy places have a habit of giving out degrees that are rather suspect.

Re:I'd hire him

[Mephistophocles]

...valuing a piece of paper acquired by any means over actual subject matter knowledge

Oh wait - you mean, like 99.9% of employers and the entire US "higher-learning" education system? It's not him at all that has the problem - quite the opposite, in fact. Sounds like he knows exactly what the piece of paper is worth, and just decided it wasn't worth signing over his arm and leg to get something that worthless. The only points I take issue with are the assumption that one needs a degree to get ahead in life (I don't have one and am doing just fine, thank you - and I'm not an anomaly in my field), and the small quibble that he probably could have gotten a straight-up associates from a community college for about the same money.

Re:I'd hire him

[PCM2]

I never really got an education, seeing as I was born an orphan and went to art college...

BORN an orphan? Now there's a disgusting image...

Re:I'd hire him

[Anonymous Coward]

... and without your "20 years of solid experience" you'd have never heard from them, ever.

Re:I'd hire him

[s73v3r]

Good for you and your pointless anecdotes. I'd like to see actual data on who has it easier, though. And how many people who don't have degrees find it "easy" to get top offers.

Re:I'd hire him

[aicrules]

Yeah he proved he can used a technicality to appear to have accomplished a goal. So if you don't tell him in exquisite detail what you need him to do, he'll spend a bunch of time figuring out the cheapest way to have "done" what you asked for, but possibly not actually accomplish what you wanted.

Re:I'd hire him

[geekoid]

Paul Allen?
Richard Branson?
Dean Kamen?

Re:I'd hire him

[TheCarp]

> Do you really want to hire someone who insists on doing things the hard, time consuming way?

Depends whether there is a good reason for it or not. The article, unless it is longer than what I saw, it looks like just a blurb to me, doesn't go into what the exact classes were, or why he chose them.

Did he go to some classes, then realize that he could transfer credits? Are the courses, in and of themselves, going to be useful? I mean, its awesome to put the degree on the resume, what if he can put the degree...and list some of the individual classes too...since they are relevant....if he can do that, then choosing classes that allow him to double dip his resume.... very very smart.

If he just took different classes, and wound up with the same price tag, over a longer time, then I totally agree with you. However, since he got to choose his classes, I would like to think he was smart enough to choose them wisely and double up his benefits.

Re:I'd hire him

[AlphaWolf_HK]

I wouldn't mind starting a multi-billion dollar a year company. Though I would be careful about sticking a fat salesman in the CEO spot.

Re:I'd hire him

[dkleinsc]

If you think that's disgusting, you should see the results of the fights he had with his younger brother!

Re:I'd hire him

[camperdave]

Mothers die during childbirth all the time, even single mothers. There's no reason why he couldn't have been born an orphan.

However, the Art College thing is entirely his fault.

Re:I'd hire him

[fredprado]

Sure, but a large enough collection of them at least has some meaning.

Re:I'd hire him

[ericloewe]

To be fair, he makes a hell of a salesman. People would buy anything advertised by him Windows 1.0 style, not because they're convinced, but because they'll never get that off their minds.

Re:I'd hire him

[AlphaWolf_HK]

I'm sure he is, but a lot of big tech companies have declined once they replaced their retiring tech savvy CEO with a salesman. Apple did it once, and they may very well do it again. Yahoo, Hewlette Packard, Xerox...

Re:I'd hire him

[ImprovOmega]

Luckily this is on the decline, though since 2000 it's bubbled up a bit. Still, going from 1 in 100 (!!!!!!!!!) to 1-2 in 10,000 is pretty decent.

Re:I'd hire him

[camperdave]

I imagine the rate is going up among Wealthy North Americans because they are going through with riskier pregnancies (getting pregnant later in life, fertilization regimens, embryo implantation, etc) that the poorer nations could not afford, or would have the medical know-how to perform.

Re:I'd hire him

[jpate]

As the saying goes, "the plural of anecdote is not data." Anecdotes by their nature are subject to sampling bias: an anecdote is not brought up unless it is somehow interesting. Taking a larger sample of anecdotes just inflates the sampling bias. You need to make sure your observations are representative, typically through taking a random sample or running a controlled experiment, to call it "data."

Re:I'd hire him

[Half-pint HAL]

Those three didn't "get top offers", they founded businesses and invented stuff.

Paul Allen and Dean Kamen were on specific courses of study, and developed things in that field. Richard Linder's patchwork degree is the exact opposite of these guys: they focused on a field, and stuff the degree. He focused on a degree, and stuff the field.

Allen was lucky in that demand for programmers was vastly outstripping supply at the time, and I'm sure there are plenty of other individuals dropped out of university to take up programming jobs (in fact, stories like that convinced a lot of us to take up computer degrees in the 90s, and one of my classmates had to do a partial resit of one year, got work, resat the failed module but never went back), but that was unique to the computer field, and it's now much, much harder to do as there are plenty of

Kamen and Allen wouldn't have gotten anywhere if they hadn't started on a course of in-depth study of their chosen field.

Re:I'd hire him

[Half-pint HAL]

For a couple of years, I'm sure there'll be plenty of employers who do value this as it shows "initiative, drive and determination", but the more it's pushed by the netniks, the more it'll lose its impact before finally being seen for what it is: a non-degree. A degree has to show depth, which is why associate degrees are only currently considered an academic "stepping stone", and not a full degree. A hacky degree like this is even less impressive than a community college associate degree, once you take away the novelty factor and the "initiative" angle.

Re:I'd hire him

[Half-pint HAL]

Worse -- it appears he managed to find 18 credits of free stuff that needed accreditation by his local community college anyway. He then got another 43 credits that he presumably paid for. So he had around 30% of the degree for free. If he'd just transfered in the free stuff and then continued with the college that accepted it, he could probably have got his degree for less -- and it wouldn't be from Excelsior College. I know the name, and I'm not even from the US. If a guy from Scotland has heard of it, that means it's pretty famous, which in this case isn't a good thing. It doesn't have a great reputation....

Re:I'd hire him

[tehcyder]

However, the Art College thing is entirely his fault.

To be fair, he probably went to a lot more parties, took a lot more drugs and had sex with a lot more people than most STEM students. It depends on your priorities in life. In the battles of Fun versus Success, I know which one I've always gone for...

Re:I'd hire him

[baubo]

"They sound pretty sketchy..." The Statement of Accreditation Status report from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education for Excelsior College (accrediting body) is here: http://www.msche.org/documents/SAS/170/Statement%20of%20Accreditation%20Status.htm The list of institutions accredited by Middle States is here: http://www.msche.org/institutions_directory.asp I won't bother to link the school's own statement on how they assess prior learning and consolidate it into a degree, but that's on Excelsior's website. The stated aim of the programs is to help adult, mid-career students finish their degrees.

Re:I'd hire him

[JimFive]

I went to Michigan Tech about the same time for about the same cost and it was 3x10 week quarters a year. Current annual tuition is over $13,000 now and 2x16 week semesters, room and board hasn't gone up quite as much and is ~$9,000 a year where it used to be about $3,000.

For a better comparison, minimum wage in 1990 was 4.25/hour, tuition was 2500 or about 15 weeks of full time work. Now minimum wage is $7.25/hour, tuition is 13,000 or about 45 weeks of full time work.

So yes, in 1987 you could work minimum wage for the summer and cover tuition and work part time during the school year to cover your expenses. Now you have to work full time all year just to cover tuition.
--
JimFive

Re:I'd hire him

[AshtangiMan]

Interesting. My jobs then paid twice minimum wage. At Michigan tech now you could make it working at twice min wage, but yes it's harder. There are states where school is cheaper than that though. of course this doesn't change the point that i may not be a good value exchange. But I think it's better and just as manageable to get the 4 year ba than the 1 or 2 year associates. Perhaps a combo is the best way ...

Sounds like it's worth it

[phantomfive]

Sounds like it's worth as much as a typical associates degree. We're not exactly setting the bar high, here....

Re:Sounds like it's worth it

[i kan reed]

Contempt for associates degrees is part of the mechanics that drive up the cost of college degrees. If you're ever in a hiring role, I hope you'll reconsider your position. With the huge percentage of people going to a four year school and simply not caring about academics, the distinction of a BA doesn't seem like it holds much more(if any) value than an associates.

Re:Sounds like it's worth it

[dcollins]

Contempt for bachelors degrees is part of the mechanics that drive up the cost of college degrees. The fact that bachelors are the new high school diploma is why so many people now need a Master's to distinguish themselves in any way.

Re:Sounds like it's worth it

[aicrules]

When McDonald's starts rejecting midnight drive-through shiftworkers because they don't have PhD, then I'll be concerned :)

Re:Sounds like it's worth it

[phantomfive]

Thanks, I have been in a hiring role, and I only take into account ability, and willingness to work even when things get hard.

Impossible?

[ComfortablyAmbiguous]

I struggle with this concept of it being impossible to get an education without taking on student debt. My wife and I finished four year degrees (Engineering and PolySci) and she did law school at an Ivy league with a total of 5,000 in debt. Neither set of parents paid for anything in any significant way. We got together after undergraduate and I had a real job that paid for law school for her, but otherwise it was pretty self supporting. Lots of work was required, and probably less fun, but it is possible.

Re:Impossible?

[h4rr4r]

How many years ago was that?

Even when I went to college the yearly cost exceeded what someone making minimum wage or near it would have for a gross income. Never mind that you also have to eat.

Re:Impossible?

[TheNinjaroach]

law school at an Ivy league with a total of 5,000 in debt.

Um, Ivy League and other high-end private universities offer insane amounts of tuition assistance to any and all students who manage to get accepted. You don't make it into the Ivy League and leave buried in debt. You're either super-wealthy when you go in, or you're one of the very rare public high school graduates who made the cut and received heavy amounts of financial aid in return.

Re:Impossible?

[NicBenjamin]

There are a couple possibilities here.

1) You guys really worked the financial aid system. All the Ivies have excellent financial aid systems. They pride themselves on never losing a kid due to his inability to pay, and they've got the brand-name to charge scions of the Kennedy clan enough to cover their own education, plus a full scholarship for some other kid, plus the staff to to teach a bunch of 18-year-olds who suck at paperwork how to apply for said scholarships. They also have large endowments.

Paradoxically this means that kids who actually look for cheap options in schools tend to screw themselves. The place that only charges $8k a year cannot cut it's prices for you no matter how poor you are. And it can't can;t afford a guy whose entire job is to scour the student records for kids who qualify for the Left-Handed Redhead Scholarship.

2) This happened more then a decade ago.

3) You had really, really, really cushy jobs in college. Base cost for the Ivies is currently $30-$40k. That $30k does not include room and board, and if you're earning the cash yourselves you had to pay income tax on it. So you had to have a part-time job in the $50-$60k range.

Re:Impossible?

[HornWumpus]

On a college campus and you can't find a better gig then minimum wage?

Seriously?

Start a birth control delivery service. 30 minutes or it's free. All you need is a phone, inventory and an unusual sleep pattern.

Sell pot. Make fake IDs. Start an underground brewpub. Buy an old slushy machine and rent it out for parties (get deposits). Not your job to keep tequila out of it.

A very large percentage of college kids are suburban rich kids following a script provided by the rents. They are often flush with cash and short on sense. Take them for all they are worth before they flunk out. It's a life habit that will serve you well.

Re:Impossible?

[s73v3r]

How long ago was that? And how work intensive was your degree? There are a lot of degrees that require a huge amount of work, meaning that it's much harder to find time for a job. And if you're going to try and get more out of college, by joining an extra-curricular academic organization, then forget it.

Re:Impossible?

[Rockoon]

Even when I went to college the yearly cost exceeded what someone making minimum wage or near it would have for a gross income.

Why is minimum wage part of your consideration here? Anyone that doesnt have a BAD work history (not the same as NO work history) and no criminal record can typically get quite a bit more than minimum wage in the service industry with no prior experience as long as they have a high school diploma or a GED. Granted we are in a recession right now, and the jobs in question wont be in your chosen field, but that doesnt defeat the point.

Minimum wage is for suckers and people that screwed up their lives.

Re:Impossible?

[hackula]

I did it and graduated in 2010.

Who says you have to make minimum wage? Get a job as an RA. Free rent and several dollars above minimum wage. Hall Directors often get free rent, ok pay, AND free/reduced tuition. If you are capable of succeeding in school, but not capable of earning above minimum wage, then you need to find a good book on negotiation and/or marketing yourself, because that is a problem that will not go away upon graduation. Also, there are loads of other jobs above minimum wage open in every single college town I can think of. Coffee shops are always above minimum wage (employers are required to pay at least that much, plus you get tips). Colleges have book stores, convenience stores, and alumni call centers. I would hope someone in school could get through an interview at a grocery store. Even the baggers make over min wage. Most people should even be able to land some sort of management role, which could be double or triple min wage. Every college has bars nearby and they typically have loads of business. Bartenders can make well more than many full time office workers. Mow 10 lawns a week. The going rate in my area is $60 per lawn. That is $2400 /month. Pick up web design freelance work. The going rate here for a noob is ~$60/hr. Do an internship in your field of interest. If that does not pay above min wage, you might want to consider something else. I did an internship one summer, then asked if I could continue through the school year at 20 hours/week. They were happy to have an enthusiastic and cheap software engineer, and I was happy to make more money than any of my friends.

Sure, getting through on 7k per year is going to be impossible. Getting through on 20k though? You should be able to make that work pretty easily.

Re:Impossible?

[h4rr4r]

20k/year is about what tuition was.

Re:Impossible?

[h4rr4r]

Please explain how that works out. If you work 40 hours a week you can't really go to college unless it is a joke school. Even then at $10/hour you would spend 100% of that on tuition and not be able to eat.

Re:Impossible?

[Rockoon]

So you upgraded minimum wage to $10/hour, as if you are making a point?

While you are pulling numbers out of your ass, why not at least look at real ones?

The lowest sub-categorized figures here as of Nov 2012 is $13.38/hour, the next lowest is $16.40/hour, and the 3rd from the bottom is $20.85/hour. These are "Leisure and Hospitality", "Retail Trade", and "Other Services" in that order. Above those are all forms of manufacturing, where the lowest average is $21.86.

People who make $10 an hour, just like the people who make minimum wage, are suckers and people that screwed up their lives.

Is it really so hard for you people to not pull demonstrably insane numbers out of your ass while you are trying to justify your preconceived notions?

Re:Impossible?

[Jhon]

It depends on where you live and how you live. I did that myself on ~$6.50/hour (1980s) and rented a cheap room (and for a few months was actually 'homeless' (lived in my truck*, got a $29.00 motel room once a week and had a locker at school where I kept most of my stuff)). The homeless part was because I made the mistake of leaving my books in my truck (which were stolen) and I needed to re-purchase those. I backed out of my apartment rather than risk getting evicted. I eventually found a converted garage I rented (1/3rd the price of my apartment) and ended up with spending money, too!

I also did that in Los Angeles. They weren't "good" years, but getting out of school with no debt hanging over my head was worth it.

Top Romen will be your friend.

*Note: a beat up old mini-truck (4 cyl) I know how to fix. Still have it, too after 20+ years. My wife hates it (heh)).

Re:Impossible?

[h4rr4r]

Because at the time that would have been a hell of a wage. $10/hour is still pretty decent in some parts of this country.

We are talking about a college student, which means young inexperienced and unlikely to have any real skills.

Those are averages, let see median numbers.

Re:Impossible?

[h4rr4r]

How you live?

When the cost of college exceeds your gross income how do you not end up with loans?

I took loans and have paid them off, but comparing to your 1980s experience is a joke. Tuition costs have gone up far faster than inflation.

Re:Impossible?

[Jhon]

"When the cost of college exceeds your gross income how do you not end up with loans?"

How is this possible working 40 hours a week? Go to state college. The local CSU runs about $6500 per year. Add another $2k for books and are still well under "gross income" at even minimum wage. Share a studio for $350/mo and eat cheap. Get your first two years out of the way at the local CC for much less and save so you have extra money when you hit years 3-4. This is not rocket science.

My wife did this -- and did post grad at USC (in a program that didn't cost her a thing). Her brother did the same and did post-grad at Howard in DC and is now a dentist (although, he took loans for that, but nothing gut-retching and certainly affordable based on the LOW estimates of his expected income (which he dramatically exceeds)).

And *IF* someone is going to take loans to go to school, at LEAST let them do a BIT of research as to what their expected income would be and how employable they would be.

Re:Impossible?

[Jhon]

Just a note: I have a son and daughter both less than 10 years away from entering college. I've already looked at their options and I'm aware of what's do-able based on what my wife and I have done.

Re:Impossible?

[ComfortablyAmbiguous]

Not exactly true of the professional degrees. Especially in those days there was basically no financial assistance for Law or MBA programs.

Re:Impossible?

[ComfortablyAmbiguous]

Hmm, to be clear. Neither undergrad degree was at an Ivy, they were boring state universities, workable with part time and summer work along with merit based scholarships. Her law school was at an Ivy, there is little to no financial aid available for professional degrees. Yes, I was working as an engineer by that time and had a good salary.

Re:Impossible?

[NicBenjamin]

That's news to me.

I got a work history. Two years the same job. I still get a raise every time minimum wage goes up.

Re:Impossible?

[NicBenjamin]

That's a lot less doable now then when you did it in the early '90s. In Ohio full-time minimum wage during the summer (call it 12 weeks), plus half-time the other 40, earns les then $10k. Tuition at state schools starts at $4.5k per semester. If you get a $5k scholarship you have $6k to live on, all year. It has to cover taxes, car repair, food, gas, cell phone, parking, books, rent, and clothes. This will not work.

Granted change some assumptions (16 weeks of summer, slightly more then minimum wage, 25 hours during school) and you can get that $6k up a couple grand. But rent is gonna be $350 a month minimum ($4,200), gas is at least $100 ($5,400), a cell is at least $20 ($5,640). Books are a couple hundred (call it $6k, even). And you still don't have car insurance, a parking pass, or food. A couple grand might cover it. But God help you if your car isn't 100% reliable.

Keep in mind that when people say it's "impossible" to get through school without debt they are exaggerating. What they mean is that it was trivial for baby boomers to do it, but given that a) college costs have skyrocketed, b) minimum wage is down in real terms, and c) kids haven't magically become better planners/workers/etc. it's much more difficult for Millennials.

Re:Impossible?

[ComfortablyAmbiguous]

Yea, I agree it's harder today than it was then. To be fair, I usually worked during the school year, but that's not always feasible for people to do while maintaining good grades. Undergraduate some Pell grants are generally available, and some borrowing may be a necessity without any support from the parents. I don't understand the people that walk out of undergraduate with a six digit debt.

Re:Impossible?

[NicBenjamin]

Obviously the folks with six-figures from undergrad have done something wrong, in many cases something very wrong, but it is possible.

It's actually really easy even if you go to a state school, as long as it's in another state. Ohio State is $25k. A year in the dorms is $10k. If your parents can't/won't pay, and are too rich to qualify for financial aid, you will end up with six figures in debt from Ohio State. If it takes you five years even a school with less unreasonable out-state rates it's gonna add up. Taking five or six years due to alcohol, frequent major-changes, etc. is not unheard of for college-age kids.

If you're going to one of Ohio's smaller liberal arts schools, which have no endowments for financial aid, and which charge $40kish, it's even easier.

So if you're 18, and you decide you want the Ohio Northern Experience, or the Oberlin Experience, and that when you've graduated money will take care of itself because you'll have that magical college degree...

Re:Impossible?

[Rockoon]

We are talking about a college student, which means young inexperienced and unlikely to have any real skills.

We are talking about $16.40/hour average retail jobs, so why are you injecting experience and skills?

Let me tell you how this works. You pick a hypothesis, and before you act like its a fact, you try to disprove it yourself. You examine shit like your assumptions, perhaps even look at an official reference or two where data is available (its Google wonderful? Not on your case, eh?)

You have made assumptions after assumptions that have either been trivially shown to be wrong, or not at all relevant (skills? retail? really?) Things you could have discovered if you followed that one simple step between the forming a hypothesis and the acting likes its fact.

Re:Impossible?

[Rockoon]

Oh, one more thing.. in another store you said (about me:)

"Mod this idiot down please. The funding act he refers to is the wrong one."

Ask yourself why you thought that it was the wrong act, yet the person who first claimed that it was the wrong act later corrected himself and admitted that I had the right act?

The answer is obvious. You simply accept unsubstantiated claimed unquestionably if they reinforce your preconceived notions, and are also willing to make unsubstantiated claims and act like they cannot be questioned (as if they are facts.)

This is not the behavior of a free man that thinks for himself. This not the behavior of someone who while highly critical of the claims of others at every single step, is even more critical of his own thought and puts effort into not acting like he knows what he is talking about when he doesnt.

Your behavior is the behavior of a sheep. A follower. A zealot willing to ignore reality, a broken way of thinking where beliefs are more important than veracity.

Lots of Cheap Education

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get a degree for very cheap, even a decent one.
1. Find a good state school
2 Pick a degree and read all the requirements for that degree very carefully.
3. Look in the transfer database for that school. Take every course that can transfer in exactly from a local community college
4. Take the rest of the courses from that state school.

I got my Engineering degree without taking a single general elective from the school. Everything came from online/summer community college courses for 1/4 the price. Most people spend to much at college because they go where it is convenient and they don't pick a degree until the 3rd or 4th year.

Re:Lots of Cheap Education

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

All good points and very doable. Understand that it will take you at least five years to do this.

Re:Lots of Cheap Education

[ackthpt]

You can get a degree for very cheap, even a decent one.
1. Find a good state school
2 Pick a degree and read all the requirements for that degree very carefully.
3. Look in the transfer database for that school. Take every course that can transfer in exactly from a local community college
4. Take the rest of the courses from that state school.

I got my Engineering degree without taking a single general elective from the school. Everything came from online/summer community college courses for 1/4 the price. Most people spend to much at college because they go where it is convenient and they don't pick a degree until the 3rd or 4th year.

Or you can find some full-time job in the university so your tuition is largely covered as a fringe benefit, like I did. 2 degrees (c:

Fees and books I still had to foot, but that was insignificant compared to the price of tuition.

I really hadn't though about it before, but that fringe benefit has opened a lot of doors and kept me in wasabi peas for a mighty long time and I never really tallied up the amount in zorkmids my employer footed. Pretty good deal all around. HOYVIN-GLAVIN!

Re:Lots of Cheap Education

[ByOhTek]

Yep.

Actually, the state university I work for, encourages exactly that behavior. Heck, we even encourage students to take lower level major courses offered by the local community colleges, at the CCs. I've heard a few groups talk about getting us out of the lower-level course offerings, and just working with the local CCs since they tend to do it better anyway (we a a research institution, and a lot of our profs don't want to be bothered with lower level stuff).

Re:Lots of Cheap Education

[CodingHero]

All good points and very doable. Understand that it will take you at least five years to do this.

To be fair, it's becoming more common for the "4-year" Bachelor's degree to take five or more years anyway, at least with engineering.

Re:Lots of Cheap Education

[ByOhTek]

Only if the degree itself would normally take 5 years, which typically only happens when switching majors.

Re:Lots of Cheap Education

[ackthpt]

Yep.

Actually, the state university I work for, encourages exactly that behavior. Heck, we even encourage students to take lower level major courses offered by the local community colleges, at the CCs. I've heard a few groups talk about getting us out of the lower-level course offerings, and just working with the local CCs since they tend to do it better anyway (we a a research institution, and a lot of our profs don't want to be bothered with lower level stuff).

Yeah, those JC's and Community Colleges work pretty well. A friend had a full scholarship to Stanford, but found his first semester was not to his liking - sitting in 300+ student lecture halls taking notes while a TA flips through slides and answers questions with an accent so thick he had to ask three times for it to be repeated. Came back home, knocked off his first two years in classes of 20-40 students and then returned to Stanford to finish up.

Re:Lots of Cheap Education

[PCM2]

To be fair, it's becoming more common for the "4-year" Bachelor's degree to take five or more years anyway, at least with engineering.

It's happening with lots of fields. One thing that I've seen happen to students in all types of degree programs is that they'll need one more class to complete their requirements but the school isn't offering the class they need this semester, due to budget cuts.

Also, anyone who has strict scheduling requirements -- say, they have a job to pay for all this school, so they can only take night classes on certain days -- is especially susceptible to this.

Re:Lots of Cheap Education

[ByOhTek]

I had smaller classes at the large university, than a friend had at the local CC (but I took honors courses). Class isn't always indicated.

Re:Lots of Cheap Education

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people spend to much at college because they go where it is convenient and they don't pick a degree until the 3rd or 4th year.

too

Quality electives?

Re:Lots of Cheap Education

[Obfuscant]

I got my Engineering degree without taking a single general elective from the school.

Interesting school. When I tried the same thing, the state school required that a specific number of credits be earned at that school even when I had three years worth of required courses covered by the community college. So, I took essentially a full year's worth of "electives" on all kinds of stupid things (like "COBOL", "Linguistics" and "African Political Systems").

It's still not bad, considering that half of your academic load in the last two years at a state school then becomes fluff, allowing you to concentrate on the harder advanced science classes.

Re:Lots of Cheap Education

[hackula]

I did this, and graduated a semester early with a double major and a minor. This is very doable. Many tech schools even have partnerships with universities in the area called "2 and 2" programs, where you can knock out all the prereqs in the first two years at the tech school almost for free, then transfer for your major classes at the higher rate.

Re:Lots of Cheap Education

[Dahamma]

1. Find a good state school

Of course, it's only a good price if you are a resident of that state, so the options there are a bit more limiting that might sound. Out of state tuition is usually just as expensive as a private school. And many schools only allow a certain number of credits from another school (that's why the article specifically mentions "Excelsior College", which doesn't have that requirement but sounds a bit like a made up school in a Stan Lee comic).

Taking the average of the top ~10 public engineering schools, it's about 10-12k a year for in-state tuition alone (doesn't include room and board, fees, etc). Assuming full time and not being lucky enough to have family in the same town to mooch off of, most people would have to include those as well. So, it still sounds like $30k+ for a "good" state school, which is hard to call "cheap" under any stretch of the definition...

Re:Lots of Cheap Education

[Dahamma]

Considering Stanford only allows 45 (1 year) AP or transfer credits out of a minimum 180 required for a degree, your story is a bit exaggerated...

Re:Lots of Cheap Education

[mjr167]

I took no gen eds at college because they all transferred in. I graduated a year early with a double major in Math and Comp Sci and had to take piano my final semester to be a full time student.

Re:Lots of Cheap Education

[fliptout]

Somebody with a free ride to Stanford voluntarily gave that up to take classes at community college? This story is missing some information. That or your friend chose a vastly inferior educational option.

Re:Lots of Cheap Education

[usuallylost]

All good points and very doable. Understand that it will take you at least five years to do this.

I agree that the trade off is time vs. cost. Which considering the situation so many students are in with student debt now seems like a reasonable trade off.

Another thing you could do to reduce costs, at the expense of more time, is get an associates degree while you are at the community college. Then use that degree to get an entry level job at a company with an education assistance plan. You will be trading still more time for reduced expense. On the other hand when you get out of school you have some work experience on your resume, no (or very little debt), plus you have been paid, gotten health benefits, paid time off etc while you completed your degree. That is pretty much what I did. The plus is no debt the cost is it took me almost 10 years to complete my degree.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Here come the degree snobs. "You didn't really get an education unless you paid a fortune for it, like me."

UNNECESSARY SEMICOLONS, TIMMY!

[Anonymous Coward]

While $3,000 is cheap for an associate's degree compared to many U.S. colleges, it's not unheard of; tuition for locals at a community college near me wouldn't be too far off that, even without transferring in any credits.

Timothy,

Please refrain from your unnecessary misuse of the semicolon. You should have written the sentence above as two sentences.

Yours,
A retired English professor

Re:UNNECESSARY SEMICOLONS, TIMMY!

[HornWumpus]

Welcome to old age.

The word you are looking for is 'Comma', also I was going to put in an unnecessary, gratuitous, run on, comma spliced sentence, just to annoy you, but I decided not too.

Re:UNNECESSARY SEMICOLONS, TIMMY!

[nedlohs]

You probably need to start using a bigger font in your old age if you read that semicolon as a comma. Or a better font the f and the ; might merge and look like f, in some.

Re:UNNECESSARY SEMICOLONS, TIMMY!

[rubycodez]

Read the writings of educated 18th century people, the comma was popular while semicolons were not; today the semicolon is popular, but a profusion of commas is not.

Re:UNNECESSARY SEMICOLONS, TIMMY!

[rubycodez]

like my hero Yoda, the voice in my head when reading them is similar to

Re:UNNECESSARY SEMICOLONS, TIMMY!

[Half-pint HAL]

Nope, he should have used a colon: he expanded and explained the point.

A currently-employed English professor.

More value then you think

[borcharc]

An associate degree in liberal arts is a highly valuable degree quite contrary to what most posters will say. Most 4 year schools will accept an AA to meet all of the universities general education requirements allowing the student to move on to upper division course work in their interest area. That same course work would need to be completed in your first two years anyway, but would cost at lest 4 times as much. A good student could complete the course work listed in the article in well under an academic year saving both time and money.

Re:More value then you think

[HornWumpus]

Not that useful for any serous science/engineering/math degree.

Any math or science taken in the _bachelors_ of Liberal Arts program would be remedial for STEM programs. If your not in real Calculus 1st semester you're going to take more then 4 years, just on stacked up prerequisites.

Which leaves you with a little english, history, a foreign language, maybe econ (econ would have been the 'bear' class in the liberal arts track). Maybe 30 credits transferred.

Re:More value then you think

[borcharc]

Most STEM programs have calc as part of the degree requirements and can easily be done in the first year. As long as he is calculus ready there is no hold up. At most it would take 2.5-3 years to complete but he is still ahead of the game. Very few are able to complete a STEM program in 4 years unless they arrive with AP calc, chem, phys, comp, etc.

Any state school will take all 60 credits will transfer and exempt you from whatever gen ed program exists and cover any electives that may exist once your program is done. There is no way around the 40 credit of gen ed. Have you taken a look at a degree map recently? Or how transferring with an AA works? Interestingly, most state schools take grades of less then a C that are part of an AA in transfer.

Re:More value then you think

[HornWumpus]

If he was calculus ready he would get as associates in a useful subject, then transfer that.

Oh the critics...

[girlintraining]

Let's be honest: You're getting that degree to get a better job and/or shut your parents up. There are no other reasons for the majority of students outside of highly specialized fields like engineering, medicine, or law, where you have to pass a formalized state exam and screwing up can have side effects like, I don't know, people dying. For the rest of us though, there's very little you actually need to learn, and the rest is just fluff you don't care about (and neither does any potential employer). College these days is one giant rip-off created by the rich to enslave the poor under massive debt loads.

Anyone who can find a way around the system has my vote, nay, my standing ovation. The whole system is a joke; it's the result of colleges becoming privatized and profit-orientated. Some things simply shouldn't be... education is one such thing. That's why we're losing ground to every country that didn't take this ass-backwards "free market" approach to education. It's a right, and everybody gets it -- that's how it should be.

Re:Oh the critics...

[aristofanes]

BBC world news has an article today on the student debt in th USA. There is a list of about 40 related articles.
There is not one mention about free university education in some countries...Finland :Germany (grad school) are a couple.I read about Finland in Linus Torvald's book "Just for Fun"

Re:Oh the critics...

[Hatta]

Any society that does not enable citizens to persue higher education if they wish fails at civilization. We do not exist merely to eat sleep shit and fuck. No everybody doesn't need to go to college, everybody shouldn't need to or have to go to college. But everybody deserves the chance to better themselves, and society as a whole benefits when they do.

It's deeply troubling that the response to "tuitions are too high" is "not everyone needs to go to college" these days. Education is not a luxury that we can afford to go without, it is civilization itself.

Re:Oh the critics...

[SJHillman]

Education is still very affordable in most fields for anyone who bothers to take the time to plan it out before committing. The problem stems from people also wanting a big screen TV and all the major consoles at the same time as working for their degree. I can't speak for most other states, but NY's state university system offers a huge range of degrees and the vast majority of the population lives within a short distance of at least one - often more - two-year state school. Four-year state schools are only a little less common and still very affordable.

I went to a four year state school, got a great education, and am almost out of debt after 30 months of paying on loans in spite of making some horrible financial credit card decisions the six months right after school. It's definitely do-able for anyone willing to put forth just a bit of effort... not even exceptional effort, just a bit.

Re:Oh the critics...

[sl4shd0rk]

Education is not a luxury that we can afford to go without

I think you're confused. The cost of education at the University level is egregiously prohibitive for many ordinary "citizens". Just because it's available to a select few is hardly making anything better for society. It only "makes it better" for those who can afford to absorb a $50k debt.

Re:Oh the critics...

[dcollins]

I have basic arithmetic students at my college who can only divide 22 by 2 if they count on their fingers (2, 4, 6, 8... then see how many steps it took to get to 22... onoes, ran out of fingers). More generally, about 1/3 of this lowest-level class never memorized the one-digit multiplication table. Do they need to go to college? Does the state need to fund the attempt with financial aid?

I agree that society should support higher education, but I think by necessity there has to be some criteria by which one qualifies for it, else it's a massive waste of resources. If I'm not crazy, then maybe the society that I'm living in is.

Re:Oh the critics...

[dbrueck]

Agreed! Higher education is widely available to those who want it enough to work for it. It could be made more affordable perhaps, the system isn't perfect, etc. but if somebody is truly motivated to pull themselves up and pursue a degree, there are many, many ways to make it happen without going into huge amounts of debt. Taking away the challenges (including labeling it a universal "right") isn't helping anybody - many of the challenges of going on to higher education are exactly the things that are needed to transform high school students into mature, responsible adults.

Re:Oh the critics...

[Anonymous Coward]

And it is completely accessible to go learn whatever the hell you want in our society.

This is a separate matter of getting a prestigious institution to vouch that you know what they say you know for the purposes of looking impressive and getting the job you want. That's the grandparent's point, that it's not about education and learning, it's about getting a slip of paper that helps you get a job. Most of the time. I agree with him that important degrees, engineers or actual doctors are still important to teach the people what they need to know to do their job. Anthropology? Not so much. If someone was interested in learning about anthropology, there are more than enough resources for them to go learn about it outside of a educational institution. And most colleges offer serious discounts if your take classes without the credits. Hell, most professors wouldn't notice an extra body in the class.

Re:Oh the critics...

[khallow]

No everybody doesn't need to go to college

[...]

It's deeply troubling that the response to "tuitions are too high" is "not everyone needs to go to college" these days.

What's troubling? I agree that the statement is true, You agree that it's true. What's going on is that the US government is massively subsidizing education not only resulting in large increases of the cost of tuition, but also putting a lot of people in college who shouldn't be going. They got enabled and all they did was collect a bunch of the worst debt you can have in US society.

Re:Oh the critics...

[Hatta]

It's troubling that we as a society are not willing to invest in our citizens. That we are not able to see how we benefit from having educated neighbors. There is absolutely nobody, not one person, who "shouldn't be going" to some sort of educational institution or another. There's always something to learn, and we should strive to make learning the cheapest possible source of entertainment, to encourage as many people as possible to learn as much as possible. That's what makes a society great.

Re:Oh the critics...

[girlintraining]

Education is still very affordable in most fields for anyone who bothers to take the time to plan it out before committing.

My bullshit-o-meter just broke on that. Seriously, you killed it. Let's roll some numbers, mkays?

• 1 bedroom apartment in my area: $650 ($7,800/yr)
• Avg. groceries/person/month: $240 ($2,880/yr)
• Electric: $30 ($360/yr)
• Phone: $50 ($600/yr)
• Transportation: $120 ($1,440/yr)
• Tuition: $5,500/yr

Now tuition doesn't cover the cost of books (That'll be another $600), or supplies ($250), or any incidentals you may need like a computer, car, furniture, etc. But we'll ignore those incidentals -- you're still looking at about $20 grand a year. Most of these things you aren't going to have at 18 unless your parents were affluent and gave them to you. Which means... you're gonna have to buy them to live on your own. Even with a roomate. Or several. Oh wait... you have no employable skills -- that's what you're going to college for!. Say hello to minimum wage at $9.50 an hour. And from 18-25, the student loans you can take out are capped, and although most parents do not contribute to their child's education, outdated calcuations based on your parents' income still determine eligibility for a wide variety of assistance programs. Your first year of college will be capped at $5,500 in loans. That's only a mere $14,500 short of what you need to survive your first year. But hey, let's say you take that summer job and you work a full 40 hours a week for three months straight (ahahahaa! Crazy, I know, but Republicans believe it's possible, so let's play along)... Congratulations! Your full time job has earned you... $4,936 gross. Oh wait... forgot taxes. That'll be $4,066.. net.

OH NOES! You're still short $10,434. So about that "very affordable" and how you were "not even exceptional effort" bit? How about a nice resounding Fuck you from the Department Of People Who Can Do Basic Math. There's a reason there's a trillion plus dollar student loan crisis out there, and an entire generation going bankrupt. You don't get to just handwave and say "Well, I was smart. Everyone else was just stupid." It doesn't work that way. You got lucky. Most people didn't. Statistical. Factual. Truth.

Re:Oh the critics...

[khallow]

It's troubling that we as a society are not willing to invest in our citizens.

It has to have a positive return to be an investment. For example, how do we benefit from a slightly educated person with a bunch of debt and no job experience?

There's always something to learn, and we should strive to make learning the cheapest possible source of entertainment, to encourage as many people as possible to learn as much as possible. That's what makes a society great.

My view is that what makes a society great is infrastructure. It isn't just a group of people, but a group of people with powerful tools that enable them to do a lot of stuff. Traditional stuff like electric grids or transportation networks are infrastructure that enable people to do vast amounts of work or move people and stuff to other places really fast. In that sense, education and training are particularly potent forms of infrastructure since they enable people to do and be things that they couldn't be before.

But infrastructure, even something like education isn't always a net positive benefit. For example, if you get a degree from a college that practices indoctrination instead of education and you borrowed a lot of money to do so, then how does that help you or society? You just borrowed a lot of money that is going to be hard to pay back for an "education" that neither prepares you for the world or helps you think. You probably got some things, such as "polish" (improved social skills), but you also picked a lot of problems.

This is one way that a normally valuable good, education can be turned into something that harms us all.

Re:Oh the critics...

[bogjobber]

While I agree that you can definitely get a great education if you want, to call it "very affordable" and pass off legitimate complaints as people simply being lazy and materialistic is an incredible stretch.

I live in Utah, a state that has a very low cost of living and an affordable, high-quality research institution in the University of Utah, and a very affordable community college system that feeds into the university. Let's run the numbers for a standard four-year plan.

I'm going to assume that you have a pretty decent job, and that your commute to school and to work are both reasonable and cheap (not the case for most people, but that's a choice so let's assume they have aligned their life around school and work). Rent here for a single one bedroom is about $500/month, so let's say you spend $600 with utilities and internet. $200/month for car insurance, gas, and maintenance, $200/month for food, and $200 for random expenses and a little bit of entertainment. Note that these are all conservative estimates for someone trying to keep costs at a minimum in a place that has a very low cost of living. That comes out to about $1200/month after-taxes, about $9/hr., which is an average wage for someone who has no education past high school. So this assumes that you have an average full-time job, one that allows you to pay all your expenses and save very little or no money every month.

Community college tuition is about $1800 a semester full-time. So you take all of your gen-eds and pre-req classes at the community college, that's going to cost you roughly $2200/semester with books and other fees, so $4400 a year. This is *less* than what subsidized loans will cover for the first year, and roughly the same cost as subsidized in the second year.

University costs $4000 a semester full-time, plus books or fees so about $4500 a semester. This is far less than what subsidized loans will apply, so you're going to have to take out some unsubsidized loans.

So here's where you stand after four years, assuming that you can work 40/hrs. a week full-time and go to school full-time, which by the way, is an incredibly difficult thing to do if your job or your major is even remotely challenging. You're going to come out of school with $19,000 in subsidized loan debt and $2800 in unsubsidized loan debt, not counting the interest that has accrued while you were in school, and launch yourself into a job market that is mildly depressing to say the least.

And this is a *best-case* scenario. One where you know *exactly* what you want to do before you start school, get it done in the proper order, with no mistakes or changes of mind.

Notice that there is no budget for health insurance. No savings, even for the short term. No budget for "a big screen TV." No budget for emergency car breakdowns or trips home to see your parents. No gym membership. No going out to eat. No dates. No fun activities at all, more or less.

And what happens to you if you have a health crisis during that time? You're fucked. What happens if you happen to have a child? Sorry, no school for you. Car breaks down? Sorry, you're fucked. Lose your job, even for a short period? Sorry, no school for you. Your budget can't stand losing even one paycheck.

Not to mention that your'e going to miss out on all the things that most (affluent) people take for granted as part of the college experience. You're not going to be doing much socializing. Not making a whole lot of connections. You're not going to have time to get involved with clubs or organizations. No leadership experience. No partying. You're definitely not impressing many potential mates with your unhealthy lifestyle, lack of free time, and lack of money. So I'm going to have to say that you were either *incredibly* lucky or that you had some outside assistance. Nobody that goes to school and pays their own way has that type of attitude about it. Unless you were just incredibly short-sighted about living your life on the edge of survival every day for 4+ years.

Re:Oh the critics...

[Hatta]

Not everything we buy has to be an investment. Some things we buy just because we want them. If everything you do has to be an investment, what are you going to do with the returns on that investment, invest again? For what purpose? Investing for the sake of earning more money to invest is pointless.

Re:Oh the critics...

[khallow]

So what does this have to do with education as a investment?

Investing for the sake of earning more money to invest is pointless.

To you maybe. Not to the people doing the investing or the targets of their investments. "Earning more money" is code for "producing more things that others value".

Re:Oh the critics...

[Hatta]

"Earning more money" is code for "producing more things that others value".

Bullshit. Earning money is not the same as producing value. There are many many ways to earn money that produce negative value, and many many ways to be valuable that are not rewarded with money. Earning money would be the same as producing value in an ideal world, but we do not live in that world.

Re:Oh the critics...

[EmptyHead]

Any society that does not enable citizens to persue higher education if they wish fails at civilization. We do not exist merely to eat sleep shit and fuck. No everybody doesn't need to go to college, everybody shouldn't need to or have to go to college. But everybody deserves the chance to better themselves, and society as a whole benefits when they do.

It's deeply troubling that the response to "tuitions are too high" is "not everyone needs to go to college" these days. Education is not a luxury that we can afford to go without, it is civilization itself.

Censorship is obscene.
Patriotism is bigotry

Yeah, let's lower our standards so EVERYONE can go to college. I guess that worked for you. Must have been Columbia, noticed your "Patriotism is bigotry" tag line. That one always warms my heart, dear comrade. Healthy patriotism (not xenophobia or racism) instills competition, it's necessary until we have aliens to compete with... Human nature or something...

Most degrees are already nothing more that a metric we must all achieve to get through the automated HR filters. Sure we should all look to improving ourselves after high school but we don't necessarily have to water down the worth of a degree by diluting the workforce with it. Having everyone get degrees entails dropping academic standards (so everyone that wants one can have one - I feel so warm inside), wasting obscene amounts of tax dollars and encumbering the poor sheep with massive amounts of debt to work in menial jobs that likely didn't even require a high school education 30 years ago.

There are other avenues such as tech schools for some.

I don't hate degrees, I finished mine for the sake of career advancement. Doctors, lawyers, architects, most scientists and real engineers certainly need them.

Re:Oh the critics...

[Hatta]

Who said anything about lowering standards? Education, at all levels, should be free, voluntary, and rigorous. The primary concern for a prospective student should be whether they are academically qualified, not whether they have money.

Re:Oh the critics...

[sjw02001]

It's deeply troubling that the response to "tuitions are too high" is "not everyone needs to go to college" these days. Education is not a luxury that we can afford to go without, it is civilization itself.

I think you are assuming this means that not everyone *has the opportunity to go to college relatively easily*. I think that college should be relatively easy to go to for someone who wants to go and is willing to put in a small amount of effort to make it happen. It will always be easier for some people than for others. But not everyone needs to go to college, because not everyone wants to go to college. Some people HATE the traditional classroom experience, and much has been made of other respectable, relatively well paid jobs like plumbing, welding, etc. that are a bit more hands on. Forcing me to extend high school an extra four years with people who don't want to be there helps none of the students. I would argue that until just about all physical labor has been mechanized to a large degree there really isn't a reason for EVERYONE to go to college. (By that point, AI may also have advanced to the point that a lot of desk jobs are no longer needed too, which will force some societal choices.)

To me, one of the biggest problems in higher education is the idea that everyone should go to college. People sometimes just aren't cut out for it at all, and some people would benefit greatly from the "gap year" common in many other western countries where you live life for a while instead of going straight from high school to a university. It helps you focus on what is important. Students can and do burn out too after 12+ years of the exact same thing. The problem is that administrators have a panic attack because OMG ONLY 40% OF OUR STUDENTS GRADUATE ON TIME without considering that perhaps only 40% deserved to graduate. Then comes the administrative bs programs to keep butts in seats rather than actually helping students figure out how to succeed in life. There is no "succeeds in life after college" measure that universities can use to reliably judge how well they are doing, but "90% graduate within 4 years" sounds like a close approximation regardless of relevance. If I spend 4 years slacking off and getting Cs and learning nothing of use, but graduate on time, that is just fine and dandy with the administration because it keeps their numbers pretty.

Please, kids, if you have no desire to go to college other than mommy and daddy said I will be a miserable failure if I don't, DO NOT GO. Full stop. Find a different, creative way to get money and support yourself. If after a while you decide college is a good idea, you can always go back. It might be harder, but it can be done. And just maybe you'll never miss it.

Re:Berea College is Free*

[Trepidity]

Hell, Harvard is free too, if your family makes under $60k (about the 60th percentile). Well, assuming you can get into Harvard.

Excelsior College

[whitroth]

Is not just "regionally" accredited - it falls under the SUNY accreditation, and is a real, valid college degree. I should know: I have a BS from there (or rather, from when it was called Regents' College). You get accredited credits from colleges, accredited tests, etc, and when you have the right point spread, you get your degree. None of this crap from every other college about "oh, well, yes, you took compiler design there, but they have a different *emphasis*, and so we'll only call it an anonymous in-program upper-level elective, and you'll have to take it again", as UT at Austin told me in '91.

There's also no more of this "you have to take the last 30 or 60 credits of your degree *here* (and pay us the money), and those credits aren't transferrable....

It was created in '72 specifically for nursing and... can't remember, another program - students who were in the military, and "yes, we know you're three months from your degree, but Uncle is sending you to Germany for the next two years."

Note this is *not* U of Phoenix, or some such, nor just a "credit bank".

              mark, BS, CIS '95, and proud of it.

Re:Excelsior College

[Anonymous Coward]

Over 8 years ago I earned my degree there and I'm a successful info sec professional. I really could not have gotten in the door without that 4 year degree so I owe a lot to the schools existence. I was a two time college dropout and had a lot of credit hours under my belt. But the third school I enrolled in would not accept all of the credits because i had to earn a certain amount at the school. I can understand since they only exist to make money but I couldn't afford to do that. Luckily I actually lived in upstate NY where Excelsior is based so I was able to learn about their program. You know HR and hiring managers really don't give a crap about what school you went to (in most cases) so I think Excelsior is a great bet to get an education.

Re:Excelsior College

[niado]

Is not just "regionally" accredited - it falls under the SUNY accreditation

Regional Accreditation is generally the most-respected accreditation for schools in the US. SUNY is not an accreditation, it is the state higher-learning system for New York.

Re:Excelsior College

[Half-pint HAL]

I was a two time college dropout and had a lot of credit hours under my belt. But the third school I enrolled in would not accept all of the credits because i had to earn a certain amount at the school. I can understand since they only exist to make money but I couldn't afford to do that.

That's not fair. They have to guarantee the quality of their graduates, and you can only take so much on faith ("credit" comes from the French for belief/trust, after all). A university that doesn't test students sufficiently can't personally vouch for the abilities of their graduates.

The more levels of bureaucracy you add, the more you erode trust. Notice how the guy in TFA had courses from FEMA that he had to get accredited by a local community college to get onto an academic transcript in order to submit them as qualifying credit to Excelsior. So he has a degree from Excelsior including academic credit from another college that consists of professional training courses from third party suppliers. Where exactly does the buck stop? Who in that chain can actually give an academic reference for the guy? Who personally vouches for his degreeworthiness?

I can see that Excelsior's original intent was good, but if they're letting people take a bunch of CPD courses and a handful of AP and bundle them together as a degree harms their image. Excelsior college is already viewed by many people as a "mail-order degree factory" (I can't quantify that "many", but enough that I've already heard of them here in Europe) and this sort of thing getting too high a profile can only make things worse.

They've got a choice: short-term gain by exploiting the current bubble in freeform self-education or screw down the requirements and preserve as much of their reputation as possible.

Not possible any more

[SuperKendall]

I also finished college with under 10k in debt for a CS degree at a great college.

However look at the tuition for any school now - even working full time there's no way it would be possible to escape any modern college without significant debt.

Something is going to have to give as there are just WAY too many students now who will never be able to pay back the debt they owe. Some might recommend global debt clearing for students but is it really fair to funnel so many taxpayer dollars into colleges who get off scott free for vastly overcharging students?

Re:Not possible any more

[Cenan]

Well, you could just not use taxpayer dollars. If it's possible to determine which college the student has gone to to collect the debt, how about billing them?

Re:Not possible any more

[Githaron]

How expensive was college when you went?

Re:Not possible any more

[borcharc]

The cost of attendance at the University of Minnesota is $24,718. That includes room, board, tuition, and some expenses. The same student would need at least and extra $3,400 for expenses during summer break based on the schools calculation. A full time job at minimum wage after taxes brings in $12,617.28 if worked year round. If the student qualified for Pell grants, something that most all middle class students wont, he would receive $5,500.00. That would leave $3,200 in loans per year if the student was from a dirt poor family or $8,700 per year short for the average american.

With youth unemployment becoming an increasing problem its hard to say that they can even get such a job as older unemployed workers are crowding them out in the fight for jobs. Middle class families have become so debt ridden by bad economic policies and their own runs of unemployment they are ill equipped to help their kids cover almost $9k per year. My mother was able to pay for college in the early 70's with no loans, no grants, just working full time during the summer. Back then technical colleges were free and cranked out skilled workers. Everything is fucked now.

Re:Not possible any more

[ComfortablyAmbiguous]

Tuition where I attended was pretty cheap, 5k a year or so. The wife's law school was not cheap, 24k a year. Add living expenses as needed. This was in the early/mid 90s

Re:Not possible any more

[jerquiaga]

I just finished my Master's (graduated last Saturday), and I don't have any debt. It's entirely possible to do, you just have to be willing to work and go to school at the same time (most kids aren't, or can't get a job because they don't have any experience because they weren't willing to work during their undergrad).

Re:Not possible any more

[SuperKendall]

I believe it was around 10k/year when I went. I worked part time, I also had some grants as well.

Re:Not possible any more

[AshtangiMan]

I posted above but with respect to state schools it not. I witness thousands do it every year in my city of half a million.

Re:Not possible any more

[CastrTroy]

Yeah, but tuition itself only comes out to $12000 a year. Live at home or with relatives in the big city and you can save a lot of money while going to school. If you get together with a few other students and rent out a house, it's often cheaper than paying for residence at the university. Not only that, but the food included at most universities is also overpriced, as well as unhealthy. You'd be better off financially and nutritionally if you just made your own meals.

Re:Not possible any more

[berashith]

I am currently taking classes at a public university, and paying as I go. I am avoiding debt and also allowing myself time for a full time career and the opportunity to participate in my children's lives. I have the advantage of not needing school as I am well into my career, so this is purely for personal gain with no hurry to the finish line. That said, with the fees that get tacked on every semester, I am paying more than $1100 per class, before books. If I took 3 at a time I could get that down below $900, which is still pushing six grand for 2 almost full time semesters a year. It is expensive on low paying jobs, but not impossible if someone is determined.

Re:Not possible any more

[hackula]

I did it just fine and graduated in 2010. I went to a tech school for my first year (basically free with automatic grants). Worked as an RA for 2 years, which meant pay and free rent. In the last year I worked an internship which easily paid rent and tuition and I graduated early. I worked my ass off every summer teaching sailing. I ended up with $1500 in debt in the end, which I was able to pay off in a couple months after graduating. I really would have zero sympathy for many of the people floating 100k in debt from school if I did not also know that practically whatever I do now, I will always be ahead of nearly all of them because of choices we made when we were 18. I have loads of friends completing grad school now from Ivy League schools. I am doubtful that many of them will ever have a higher net worth than our HS classmates who decided to go into plumbing. Education is awesome, and can allow you to do amazing things, but debt can do the exact opposite.

Re:Not possible any more

[dbrueck]

Amen! I finished my degree without any debt and it wasn't always a cakewalk, but it wasn't insanely difficult either. I knew my parents wouldn't be able to pay for it, so I got good grades in high school and landed a scholarship that helped. I had a job all through high school and college and tried to be frugal - stuff that I assumed everybody else would do.

I have a hard time feeling sympathy for people who leave school with absurd amounts of debt. Some debt might make sense in some cases, but huge debt seems foolish, especially when the graduate then whines about their burden and even more so when their degree is in a field with generally low wages and/or few job prospects. Nobody forced them into it, were they just not thinking things through? Did they have no plan?

Re:Not possible any more

[s73v3r]

This is a student. There aren't many jobs out there that would give you the flexibility you need as a student that pay much more than minimum wage.

Re:Not possible any more

[crazyjj]

Also, a lot of schools still require you to live on campus and buy meal plans for your first year or two (more if you're out of state).

Re:Not possible any more

[geekoid]

tale a course the require 8+ hour of study per day on top of the course and lab.

The talk to me about working and going to school full time.

Re:Not possible any more

[jerquiaga]

Alright. I took between two and three classes a quarter, worked full time as the Information Systems Director for a non-profit, and have a one year old (he was one when I started). I was able to do it, with the required study time, papers, projects, etc. I also volunteer with a non-profit that takes me out of the country for a couple weeks at a time every six months or so.

Was I tired most of the time? Yep. Was it hard to balance everything sometimes? Yep. Was I able to do it? Yep. Maybe I'm getting old, but I'm tired of all the kids out there that whine about having to work hard. Nobody owes you anything. Get out there and work hard for the things you want in life.

Re:Not possible any more

[jerquiaga]

Sorry, I meant to say I have a three year old who was one when I started my Master's.

Re:Not possible any more

[jerquiaga]

First off, I'd like you to show me any single course that requires 8+ hours of study per day. If there is one (or you think there is) you're probably doing it wrong.

Re:Not possible any more

[bored]

There aren't many jobs out there that would give you the flexibility you need as a student that pay much more than minimum wage.

Yah, I will buy that. When I was going to school I was pretty lucky because I had an extremely flexible employer (software development of course). But, I often went looking for other work, and it was basically impossible to find part time/flexible employment that wasn't either an internship, or retail. I had a long talk with the HR people at seagate and a couple other companies about this. Funny thing was the university should have hired me to recruit companies for their internship programs because later I had friends get internships at those companies because the HR departments turned around and signed on with the university and started hiring people as interns.

Frankly, a lot of companies have this myopic view that nothing useful can get done by part-time employees. Which is patently false, most companies have tons of small goal, low risk projects that can add to the bottom line that are perfect for someone working 20 hours a week for 6 months. Testing is the perfect example. A good intern can automate a bunch of tests and prove his worth 10x over. Plus, in the end if the testing scripts or whatever are garbage you don't loose much by throwing them away. The friend who got hired at seagate software wrote a big chunk of their installer for one of their primary products while working part time. The product I work on now, has fairly significant parts of our web UI that were written by interns. In the end, sometimes the best value is being able to make full time offers to students that are proven good employees when they graduate.

Finally, A big choice here can be the school too. I discovered that many of the "top" schools are really unfriendly to non traditional students (read ones working during the day). Basically they are more interested in their rankings than providing an education to the students that need it the most.

Re:Not possible any more

[whtmarker]

However look at the tuition for any school now - even working full time there's no way it would be possible to escape any modern college without significant debt.

Actually it is possible, and people do it all the time. Some earn scholarships, use AP credit from HS, have help from parents, or just work hard. I worked 25-30 hrs/week with a 3/4 course load and full time in summer with a 1/4 course load, tuition was $2000/semester so I paid $5k/yr, rent was $2500/yr. I worked full time during christmas break and other school breaks, bought textbooks online, rode a bicycle (w/ snow goggles in winter), no grants, minimal scholarship money, no debt. With no car and no cell phone, and by not living on campus, you can save a lot of money. If you find yourself short on cash, take less classes that semester, and take more hours at work.

Re:Not possible any more

[threecolorable]

Agreed. In cities where off-campus housing is more expensive, I can imagine that living in a dorm might not be such a terrible deal, but it was absurdly expensive at my university.

The fees came out to around $930/month for a double room (utilities included, but no meal plan). Since I had a roommate, the effective rent on that room was $1860. That would cover rent and utilities for a 4-bedroom house here! When I first moved off campus, I got a pretty nice studio apartment for under $400/month that was actually closer to campus than one of the dorms. It was also a lot more convenient during breaks. The dorms were closed over breaks (and you were supposed to be out within 24 hours of your last exam), so if you wanted to work or take winter/summer session classes, you pretty much had to live off campus.

Re:Not possible any more

[NicBenjamin]

"Not thinking things through," and "not having a plan" is kinda the definition of being 18.

For the baby-boomers it was actually possible to be quite successful if you did both at 18. In fact if you ask most of them about the time they screwed up do to not having a plan they will tell you about something that happened much later, with eyes full of nostalgia, and swear up and down that they don't regret it. OTOH somebody who takes the not completely irrational decision to focus on their studies, and studies a non-lucrative subject because they're good at it, can easily end up with $50k in debt even if they only devote two years to the stupid plan.

Re:Not possible any more

[david_thornley]

FWIW, I recently paid a tuition and dorm statement of a little over $10K for fall semester. Spring semester will likely be the same. My son is living in a dorm (St. Paul campus, but the intercampus shuttle buses work great) and taking a fairly heavy load in the College of Science and Engineering. What specifically do your figures ($3K higher than mine) represent?

Re:Not possible any more

[mog007]

I graduated with a CS degree two years ago, and I only had about 3k in debt when I got my diploma.

Granted, I lived with my parents and commuted to school, instead of living on campus. It was also a state university, and I've seen it in the top ten for best value schools in the country a few times.

Re:Bullshit

[ackthpt]

Here come the degree snobs.
"You didn't really get an education unless you paid a fortune for it, like me."

Or

"You didn't really get an education, unless you are massively in debt, like me."

Re:Bullshit

[crashumbc]

No but you DO get what you pay for in life.

  A Bachelors in Liberal Arts is "almost" worthless in terms getting a job(avg . A associate degree is worth less then less half that...

A Worthless degree for only $3000

[h4rr4r]

Not only is an AA a worthless degree but it only cost him $3000. I guess it is better than spending more on an equally worthless degree.

Thomas Edison State College (NJ)

[kdataman]

When I decided that my music degree wasn't going to give me the career I wanted, I decided to get an accounting degree. I used Thomas Edison State College in NJ which is regionally accredited but was all non-resident at that time. I was able to use CLEP, ACT, and other similar tests to test out of 75 accounting and business credits over 2 years. TESC combined those with my liberal arts credits from my music degree to award my accounting degree. When I went to Trenton State for graduate study I was prepared to explain my degree, but I didn't need to. The admissions person said that they had very good luck with Thomas Edison grads because they knew how to study on their own.

Re:Bullshit

[ByOhTek]

The bigger a degree, the more interest it'll engender. I've know people who've succeeded with associates degrees, but typically they don't get very far, very quick. The bachelors crowd tends to do a bit better.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

I got my PhD without any debt along the way or money from my parents. Go to a good undergrad that gives grants instead of loans to cover most of financial need (the annual price tag was $30+k, but few people actually paid anywhere near that...). Work a summer job to cover the rest, which doubles as gaining experience by working in a lab, etc (which often would be enough to cover most state university programs without any grants). Then most engineering and science programs will pay you to go to graduate school if you work as a TA, or better, as an RA essentially be paid to get your thesis done and papers to pad your resume.

Re:Bullshit

[ByOhTek]

Nah. Got a full bachelors of science without debt. No parental help either. Scholarships and grants.

I've got that beat

[oodaloop]

I received a BS in Liberal Arts from Excelsior College without having taken a single college class, for a total of about $600. I took 30 CLEP, DANTE, and Excelsior exams and transferred some military credits.

Re:I've got that beat

[ILongForDarkness]

Can you get credits for machine gunners and scout recon courses? If so that would be cool ;) It is cool that more colleges are recognizing things like military service courses as both some of them are directly useful (say leadership or accounting stuff for officers) and some are just plain character building which to me seems to be half of the idea of cramming some of the killer course combinations together in one term (I had for example 2 calculus courses and nuclear physics in the same term). Sneaking behind enemy lines with a rifle, canteen, shovel and a few field rations for a week has got to be worth something more than the joy of the experience :)

Re:I've got that beat

[oodaloop]

Actually, some of my credits were for things like Intelligence Analyst course and other courses. I took some correspondence courses from the Marine Corps Institute on everything from Math for Marines to CBRN Protective Measures. I was a Sergeant at the time, but if I had waited a few months I would had received another 35 credits just for being a Staff Sergeant in Intelligence Analysis. So yes, there are multiple ways of getting credits for military service. And Excelsior College is one of the few places that will take as many of those credits as they do.

Re:I've got that beat

[Half-pint HAL]

$600 is a lot if all they're doing is rubber-stamping other people's course certificates. And that's with their military discount too, I imagine. (I'm starting to get curious if I could get a US degree out of spare academic credit I've got kicking around, but it's an expensive option when I can just graduate from the Open University for free...)

Re:I've got that beat

[oodaloop]

Yeah, on the one hand, it seems like a lot since all Excelsior did was take my paperwork and give me a degree. I paid them an entrance fee and a graduation fee, and after the VA paid their share, I ended up paying about $600. On the other hand, $600 is extremely cheap for a degree. The DANTE, CLEP, and Excelsior exams are typically $65 or more each, but free for active duty. All the military credits were free, or at least didn't cost anything on top of the time involved and the fact I was making peanuts working for the govt. I guess a graduation fee is typical for a college (?), but I'm not complaining either way.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand where your coming from, not to mention the PHD/doctorate comment killed his point, but in this case.. an associate degree in liberal arts? I can't think of a more pointless degree.

$3,000 not that impressive

[superdave80]

My local JC (Santa Rosa, CA) offers a Liberal Studies Associate Degree that requires 42 units. At $46/unit, that works out to $1,932. Granted you will still need to buy books and things, but I'm not sure what the big deal is with this guy's cobbled together $3k degree. And I've heard that my local JC is considered one of the best in the state.

Re:$3,000 not that impressive

[aicrules]

The idea that at least portions of an otherwise potentially more expensive college degree could commonly be accomplished with less expensive "outside" courses is an interesting one. One that most universities aren't going to be all that interested in beyond their existing credit transfer policies. And that won't change until people do like this guy and show a demand for it in enough numbers that cause competition to push it that way.

And I actually replied to you because you hail from the city I was born and I don't generally expect to run across someone else from there on any given visit to the slashdot forums.

Re:$3,000 not that impressive

[ILongForDarkness]

My school if I recall correctly allowed transfer credits but they had to be the minority of your degree requirements and I think you were limited to a few for upper year courses. Effectively you had to spend more than 2 years in a 4 year degree at that actual institution to get the degree. But top 3 universities in the country so might be just to prevent a bunch of people jumping on board to get a more prestigious degree.

I agree in principle though that outside credit should count. A MSCE might not be fantastic but it has got to be equivalent to at least a few intro to OOP courses no? Building core infrastructure at a company has got to be worth a networking course or two, (and potentially requirements analysis part of a systems engineering degree, technology strategy in a management program etc). You might not learn everything in a text book but at least if you are competent enough to not get fired/be hired by the next guy you probably have a deeper understanding of the pieces you did deal with than you'd pick up on a 2 week module as part of a course.

Re:$3,000 not that impressive

[Trepidity]

California has actually formalized it for half of a 4-year degree: the 4-year UC and Cal State schools are required to accept transfers in for the last two years from a community college. So you can pay the $2k/yr CC rate for the first two years, then transfer in to a $10k/yr UC, ending up with a UC degree but at effectively a ~40% discount.

Re:$3,000 not that impressive

[twotacocombo]

When you factor in the various tax credits/deductions, I think I paid effectively $0 in tuition for my AS degree. Books and parking were my only major expenses, and some of the book costs can be offset by buybacks/ebay. School was more an investment in time, in my case.

Re:$3,000 not that impressive

[Half-pint HAL]

I agree in principle though that outside credit should count. A MSCE might not be fantastic but it has got to be equivalent to at least a few intro to OOP courses no? Building core infrastructure at a company has got to be worth a networking course or two, (and potentially requirements analysis part of a systems engineering degree, technology strategy in a management program etc). You might not learn everything in a text book but at least if you are competent enough to not get fired/be hired by the next guy you probably have a deeper understanding of the pieces you did deal with than you'd pick up on a 2 week module as part of a course.

My problem is that "deeper understanding" is a trade-off against a "narrower understanding". Before I left IT, I could see how real-world experience and vendor-specific training generally led to a fairly closed mindset, whereas a traditional university education aims at developing broad, open minds. The two are complementary, but not equivalent, and the modern trend to recognise "prior experiential learning" (as it is typically termed in the UK) devalues the degree by dismissing the importance of the open mind.

Much Easier Way - SAT Scores

[Corporate T00l]

The route described in the article is kind of arcane, and he leaves out one of the easiest ways, not just for getting partial funding, but even getting all of your costs funded: High SAT scores.

There are plenty of fully accredited 4-year universities out there who will pay for everything just based on SAT scores or a combination of GPA and SAT scores.

We're talking "Full Ride", like tuition, room, board, and books in many cases:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ridescholarships.html

or significant scholarships that can get the net 4-year cost down to varying levels:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=automatic

All based on quantitative measurements alone.

It's hard to say why Richard Linder went through such obscure means in order to get his credits rather than just studying his ass off for the SAT's, but I suspect the reason why he went for "cheap credits" is where the real untold story is.

Re:Much Easier Way - SAT Scores

[dkleinsc]

It's hard to say why Richard Linder went through such obscure means in order to get his credits rather than just studying his ass off for the SAT's, but I suspect the reason why he went for "cheap credits" is where the real untold story is.

My guess: He's smart, but not *that* smart. If you leave high school with a 4.0 GPA, some AP credit, 2400 SATs or 36 ACTs, and a couple of extracurriculars, you're right that you're pretty much set as far as college admission and financial aid. But if you're poor, and have a 3.5 GPA, no AP credit, and good but not great test scores, it's a lot more questionable.

Re:Much Easier Way - SAT Scores

[Corporate T00l]

Take a look at some of the full ride scholarships in those links. You need far from 4.0 GPA or 2400 SATs. There are programs with GPA requirements as low as 3.0 and SATs at just the 1400's. Certainly above average, but by no means extraordinary...

Re:Scholarships?

[ackthpt]

That's how we used to do this in the olden days.

They still exist, but I don't think they cover as much as they once did. Something I became quite aware of was the "Raise The Tuition Through Fees Game" which became quite popular a couple decades back. Higher education realised they could only get away with so much in "Tuition" so they added "high cost fees (for courses requiring an expensive setting or special equipment)", "lab fees", "renoberation fees", "froylavin fees" and "potrzebie fees", which tacked onto tuition began to hurt, particularly as Scholarships and Financial Aid would mostly cover the standard tuition, but were more circumspect about covering fees.

Re:Berea College is Free*

[ackthpt]

Hell, Harvard is free too, if your family makes under $60k (about the 60th percentile). Well, assuming you can get into Harvard.

Yep. One thing to get that free ride, another to have a place to reside during those years (notice how I didn't use the mythical word 'sleep')

It takes only four years depend on your lifestyle

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

at least for the first two years in a community college, "summer vacation" did not exist in my vocabulary. I managed to crank out 133 semester hours in two years with no student loans.

Re:Bullshit

[ackthpt]

I got my PhD without any debt along the way or money from my parents. Go to a good undergrad that gives grants instead of loans to cover most of financial need (the annual price tag was $30+k, but few people actually paid anywhere near that...). Work a summer job to cover the rest, which doubles as gaining experience by working in a lab, etc (which often would be enough to cover most state university programs without any grants). Then most engineering and science programs will pay you to go to graduate school if you work as a TA, or better, as an RA essentially be paid to get your thesis done and papers to pad your resume.

A friend of mine is having his PhD entirely footed by the university he's performing research work at. How sweet it can be!

Re:Bullshit

[King_TJ]

I don't know about that? I'd say that there's more of a bell curve in effect here. You can *generally* get further along, faster in the job market with the bachelors than the associates, but those going beyond that to earn masters' degrees often wind up unable to convert them to productive, higher-paying jobs.

There's such as thing as becoming "too educated" for the majority of people to take an interest in hiring you. Sure, it works out great if someone is really seeking the niche you're specialized in and has the money to afford the salary such a position commands. But all too often, it just means the individual spends a LOT of time unemployed or very under-employed.

As just a couple examples I've witnessed myself?

I used to do on-site computer service for a guy with a PhD who had a job proofing science textbooks for a major publishing house. They wound up laying him off and he spent the next year trying to get another job, with no luck. He finally wound up having to sell his house and move to another state just to find employment again - and he took a big loss on the whole thing.

One of my former in-laws had her Masters in Criminal Justice and guess what it got her? She had a job for a while as a prison guard and worked, briefly with someone else running a bail bonds business (which failed when the associate didn't live up to her end of some of the promises she made). I'd say overall, she was far better off never wasting time on that degree.....

Re:Bullshit

[Opportunist]

Yes, MISTER Wolowitz.

Re:Bullshit

[ArhcAngel]

Quite right! Much better to go for philosophy. You won't be able to get a job but at least you will know "why".

Re:Bullshit

[ackthpt]

No but you DO get what you pay for in life.

  A Bachelors in Liberal Arts is "almost" worthless in terms getting a job(avg . A associate degree is worth less then less half that...

Degrees only make the Filters in HR deparments happy when screening job applicants.

I've been on interview committees where we've scanned portfolios and been mildly impressed until we asked a few questions to see how the applicant uses that hard earned knowledge. Beats me how some people get their degrees. Some have been utter frauds. Meanwhile, some of the brightest, most energetic people I've known only have a high school diploma, associates degree, certificate from a technical school or spent some time in the armed forces doing the sort of work which is largely being outsourced by the DoD these days.

It's what you make of it and how you spent your time while pursuing it. On the evening of my 21st birthday I was pulling an all-nighter in the computer lab while my friends were all getting drunk at a party in my honor.

Scholarships and the Army

[davydagger]

Two ways to get a free/cheap post-HS education

1. Smart enough to get a schollarship

2. Join the military.

While in the military, any classes you take in the military at any college, are paid for by the military.(still have to do your duties as a solider in the mean time). University of Phoenix specializes in doing this for soliders.

Two, GI Bill, 3 years of active duty or more, and you get the New GI Bill, which gives you 36 months of education in an accredited school, payed for %100, by the army. in addition the government gives a stipend for living expenses.

Re:Great, but...

[jerquiaga]

Except that he didn't get a BA, it was an Associates degree, which he could have earned for roughly the same price at the local community college.

Re:Bullshit

[jythie]

Depends on how good of a job you want. Many jobs no longer accept a high school diploma as a minimal education and require at least an associate degree. Often they do not care what the degree is, only that the person has one. I know a woman who was kicked out of college that slams into this barrier pretty frequently.

Not that big of an achievement.

[Westwood0720]

I have two Associates degrees and I found it easier than high school. I also have two Bachelors of Science degrees as well. Harder, yes, but nothing too drastic. I mean, I was still able to commit to gaming on a daily basis. Weekends were filled with four wheeling, wrenching, fishing, and spending time with friends.Finals week was pretty much the only time I had to set time aside to accomplish my work.

IMHO, in today's standards an Associates degree is nothing. I think the time you put in could be better off used by saving funds, starting a business, or establishing your career at an earlier age. I only see and Associate's degree useful if you intend on extending your education to at least Master's degree.

We need a badges system that is not big years+ b

[Joe_Dragon]

We need a badges system that is not big years+ blocks that a Degrees are.

Re:Bullshit

[jythie]

In 30 years it has changed dramatically. Given how common degrees are, many HR departments will simply filter out any resumes that do not have one.

A Gateway Degree

[GeneralSecretary]

I have an Excelsior bachelors degree. It was inexpensive and the credits were cobbled together from all over the place. The main value I got from the degree was that I was able to use it to enter Graduate School. While I learnt a lot of stuff in the course of getting my BS in Liberal Studies, the knowledge I use for my job I got from my Grad School education. It seems to me that this country has a liberal arts based education. To get a bachelors degree you have to take a lot of courses in stuff like languages and social sciences that I was not interested in. I understand that the colleges want students to have a broad educational base, but I feel that that is a decision best left up to the students to decide what they want to learn. I think we should have a more a la carte education system with a vocational focus. We should give more power to the students to let them choose what they want to learn while still giving employers a good idea of the skills that come with a given degree. In essence I used my Excelsior degree to bypass the part of education I didn't like and to focus on the parts I did like. I am grateful to them.

Re:Bullshit

[preaction]

I dropped out of a BS program, have 6 years of career experience, a dozen years total experience, and have never had a door shut on me (that I know of) due to my lack of "formal" education.

But I also recognize the gaps that a formal education would have filled, and work to educate myself.

A degree is nothing without the ambition, and ambition is everything.

Misguided/Happens all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

I fully believe many college degrees are awarded each term to people who have incurred zero debt (meaning no residual debt after they graduate, not that their degrees didn't cost something), so I find this venture to be entirely unimpressive. I would never hire this guy, because he has prioritized the wrong goal. He should be most interested in obtaining the best education--just as I would expect an employee to provide the best service, not the cheapest. He's wasting time--wasting his life--on minimizing the financial outlay.

Re:Bullshit

[hackula]

Liberal Arts will not typically give you a set career path like EE, CS, or Medicine, however, it does give you a real leg up in wide array of business fields. An English major has better chance of getting that marketing rep position (you know, the one where you do nothing but go out to fancy lunches and get hammered with clients all the time), than the CS grad which most HR people assume (incorrectly) directly translates to "borderline autistic". BTW, I definitely do not mean to bash the engineering jobs. I dreaded the thought of a typical "humanities" career path after double majoring in Poli Sci and Philosophy, and ended up in software engineering. Clearly not every employer thought it was worthless...

Re:Scholarships?

[tompaulco]

Higher education realised they could only get away with so much in "Tuition" so they added "high cost fees
This. The state schools in my state raised tuition by a multiple of 15 in the last 20 years, but when you add in the fees 20 years ago and the fees now, the net effect is a 30 fold increase in 20 years. Yes, fully half of the cost of attending a class at this school is made up of fees.This is outside of the cost of residence, although a lot of the fees you would think would be tied to residence, like laundry fees, gym fees, etc. No, you pay those, too , even if you live off campus. Unfortunately, a lot of scholarships (for example, the GI dependents bill that my stepson is on) only cover actual tuition, so what was described as a "full ride" when we paid into it, turns out to pay only for tuition up to a certain amount per month, and it is definitely per month. Like when they say $900 a month, they don't mean $10,800 a year. They mean if school started on the 15th, you get $450, so in effect, the bill covers for us around $4,000 a year, which covers around 7.5 credit hours per semester. But, if you only take 7.5 credit hours, they don't pay you on a fulltime basis. Definitely not worth it. Don't pay into the GI Dependent College fund. Better to put the money in a savings account.

There's more you can do with just a little debt...

[Missing.Matter]

There is much more you can do if you're willing to take on just a little (comparatively) debt. I posted about this before, but my undergraduate institution had the highest tuition in the nation at the time. Through scholarships and grants, I got the tuition cut down in half, and through work study and a part time job (plus a small loan from my parents, which I paid off before I graduated) I managed to leave with two Bachelors degrees and only 30k in debt. That may sound like a lot, but the full tuition at the time was about $30k a year + room and board. I figured for the cost of a new car, which many people don't have a problem taking out a loan for, I got myself a world class education.

But you can be even more frugal than that. My PhD advisor went to a local state school for his undergrad, did his master's at a top 20 US school, and did his PhD at an Ivy League school. He got paid to do his Master's and PhD, and left the PhD debt free after paying off his low tuition state school loans. The entire time he was in school he was paying no interest of course, by taking out only federally subsidized loans. So while Mr. Linder's associate degree for $3000 is great and all, there are some paths you can take that will lead you straight through a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. with no debt accrued at the end.

"the impossible"?

[sideslash]

I worked my way through college debt-free. After working as part time as a programmer for a year after high school, I started as a full time programmer at the same time I started college. It took 5 years, but I got an accredited BS CS and graduated Summa Cum Laude, all without any debt or parental assistance. Success in school and life in general isn't magic -- just focus a lot more on the hard work rather than the goofing off.

Winston University

[Nkwe]

Winston University is always a cash positive option.

Re:We need a badges system that is not big years+

[preaction]

Badges? BADGES? We don't need no STINKING BADGES!

Re:But will HR accept it?

[Steauengeglase]

That is the price of not having 32 years of .NET experience.

Re:Bullshit

[PCM2]

Or

"You didn't really get an education unless you completed a full degree program."

In the U.S., associate degrees are generally two-year college degrees. They are NOT the equivalent of a university degree. They are the kind of degrees you get if you want to go into specialized professions, like being a lab assistant, or some types of nursing (though many hospitals now require four-year degrees), and various other things.

Don't get me wrong, it can't hurt you to get an associate degree. But an associate degree is not generally what most employers want to see when they're looking at your CV.

Re:Bullshit

[PCM2]

Don't know about that. I dropped out of an associate's degree program, so don't have any degree, and my career is doing just fine. There are plenty of people with the same amount of experience and a bachelor's who are well below me on the career ladder.

There are always exceptions to the rule ... and I'm not even sure I agree that it's a "rule" that you need a degree.

But, not having a degree myself, I can say that it does make things harder for you in some ways. You're going to have to struggle a bit. Your career might progress more slowly than if you had a degree. But then, on the other hand, college takes at least four years of your life to complete and it can be pretty hard, so isn't it sort of a toss-up?

Maybe the only real rule is that if you want to get anywhere in life, you're going to have to work hard, one way or the other. Some people make the wrong choices and end up doing their hard work on a factory floor.

Re:Bullshit

[jasper160]

We have an English professor as our receptionist. Her own teachers union screwed her when she moved to this state after her husband was transferred. Due to her seniority she must be hired at a certain income level even if she wants to be a janitor in the education system of this state. Luckily she can type, make coffee, and answer the phone.

Different strokes...

[maotsan]

My oldest high school friend earned his PhD and is now on tenure track at a branch of UT. He paid for it all by working like a demon. He had a good chunk of savings when he graduated. He is the most productive person I have ever met. This is including raising two children and GMing several multi-year pen-and-paper RPG campaigns. He's smart enough, but not a mad super-genius. He's done it all with an inhuman work ethic.

A 19-year-old girl I have known since she was in her mother's womb danced (read: stripped) her way through college, graduated with a 4.0 average too early for her nursing program (they won't take her 'til she's twenty). So she has a year off, with no debt. New car. She already makes as much as I do, and I'm a software architect with a decent job.

I have another friend with four bachelor's degrees, is a professional dancer, masseur and piercer. He owes over $100k in school debt, mostly to the federal government, a bit to private parties. He earns his living doing amazing custom carpentry. Never plans on paying the federal stuff back, he can't, realistically, unless he devotes a good chunk of his life to it, and you only get one.

Re:Different strokes...

[PolygamousRanchKid]

A 19-year-old girl I have known since she was in her mother's womb danced (read: stripped) her way through college

. . . definitely not an option for most Slashdot readers . . .

. . . well, at least, not getting paid for doing it . . .

Re:Bullshit

[ByOhTek]

notice the 'quick' part, 30 years isn't quick.

Also, I said 'tends to' not 'always', so a sample size of one doesn't really even come close to countering what I'm saying.

Re:Bullshit

[ByOhTek]

What part of 'tends to' was confusing?

Not really all that difficult

[Anonymous Coward]

I put myself through college. It took me 6 years, at an average of $4000 a year which is hardly enough to drive one into debt.

Shop around, evening degree programs are out there, and aren't any worse than the day classes. In fact, Harvard's Extension School is arguably BETTER than their day college.

And hey, the degree on that says Harvard.

Re:Bullshit

[jasper160]

Don't know about that. I dropped out of an associate's degree program, so don't have any degree, and my career is doing just fine. There are plenty of people with the same amount of experience and a bachelor's who are well below me on the career ladder.

Of course, 30 years of experience means it was a different game when I was getting started than it is today, a good degree might well be a necessity if you don't have experience. But in my 30 years and 8 jobs in IT, my education, or lack thereof, has only been brought up once, and I got a job offer from them anyway. (And, yes, every job I've had listed "Bachelor's Degree" as a requirement. It never really matters if you have a solid track record.)

Same here. I will never make CIO or upper management but I really don't want to either. They don't make much more than I do and their work load consists mainly of meetings, powerpoint, and a Dilbert like lifestyle.

Re:I'd worry if I hired him.

[s73v3r]

If you have to worry about shit like that, then your company is likely working on boring ass shit that no one wants to do anyway.

Community colleges and 4-yr degrees

[ortholattice]

Although community colleges are often low-cost, it is hard to find one that gives more than a 2-year degree. One of the reasons is that private colleges, such as University of Phoenix, have lobbied against it, since it would hurt their profits.

Reference: University of Phoenix' plot to corner the cheap education market

Re:Bullshit

[CaptainNerdCave]

I don't mean for it to appear "whoosh-like", but I found a BA in Philosophy to be something that was fairly useful.

Much like high school calculus and chemistry don't teach anything about calculus or chemistry, but give you tools to solve problems; philosophy equips you with the ability to quickly wrap your head around things that you don't already know much about, and appreciate your own shortcomings enough to realize that you can learn something from almost everything.

Congratulations, Mr. Linder.

[Revotron]

And yes, I would like fries with that.

Re:Bullshit

[geekoid]

Wrong.
You can get one through a vocational school but they are also part of university programs as well. Also, there are different types of associate degrees.

Re:Bullshit

[geekoid]

The HOPE scholarship is a scholarship for people who would have likely gone on to college anyways.

Where is the scholarship for repletion who happened to have fucked up once? or take into account that person was also supporting a family and an alcoholic mother?

Another divide to prevent people from getting out of a low income hard life.
How about a universal education program?

Re:3K for an associates?

[jason.sweet]

Maybe so. But if you take all your courses online, you have more time to smoke weed instead of going to class.

Re:Yes, -1 me!

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a freaking mod point. You are not being burned at the stake, beaten, raped or assaulted in any way shape or form. Please get over yourself and grow up. I have been on Slashdot for about ten years (sad, but true). I've been mod bombed two or three times where I was actually banned from posting to Slashdot for a couple weeks. Getting a downvote or two isn't the end of the world and you really need to get some perspective.

need to cut down on the filler / fluff classes

[Joe_Dragon]

need to cut down on the filler / fluff classes and not all stuff should be part of a "4-year" Bachelor's degree we need have more 1-2-3 year plans as well.

We all don't need the full load of college classes that come with big skill gaps.

transfer in exactly = retake at our costs as we ma

[Joe_Dragon]

transfer in exactly = retake at our costs as we make a very small change.

Sounds like best buy it's the same TV with a differnt SUK so we don't price match it.

it's lack of tech / vocational / apprenticeships i

[Joe_Dragon]

it's lack of tech / vocational / apprenticeships in fields. The TECH field has lot's stuff you need to do hands on to learn.

Yes jobs do need post high school but they don't all need college.

Re:College Should be Free

[Jeng]

You started out with a good idea, then completely turned it to shit.

Re:But will HR accept it?

[geekoid]

ha!

Meh

[Malenx]

4 years in the Air Force after high school provided me with an associates, an awesome resume bonus, and 4 years of schooling where I'm paid about 1000 a month to attend with full tuition and a books stipend.

When all is said and done I'll have spent 7 years being paid to get my bachelors but man it's been a lot of fun.

so

[ILongForDarkness]

What exactly does "regionally accredited" mean? Does it mean if you want to do a masters you have to do it in the same region? Is it anything other than a diploma mill? Better than nothing I guess but I prefer my degree to be internationally recognized.

Re:I'd worry if I hired him.

[Sperbels]

If you have to worry about shit like that, then your company is likely working on boring ass shit that no one wants to do anyway.

Those are the companies that are making money.

Re:Bullshit

[jimbolauski]

Here come the degree snobs. "You didn't really get an education unless you paid a fortune for it, like me."

Not snobs, just people that realize that they would not be as successful today as they would be without their bachelors degree or higher. On top of that many of the people that visit this site have engineering or science degrees and they know there is absolutely no way that a 2 year program could teach them everything they need in their current position. Associates degrees fall in between liberal arts degrees and science and engineering degrees in terms of actual probability of success in life.

Re:I'd worry if I hired him.

[GameboyRMH]

Bad news, that's most of the tech industry.

Re:Bullshit

[The Dancing Panda]

And they are all completely useless, except for as transfer credits to a 4 year university.

Re:Bullshit

[thomasw_lrd]

How bout an MBA from Phoenix Online?

Re:Bullshit

[EricWright]

A friend of mine is having his PhD entirely footed by the university he's performing research work at. How sweet it can be!

That's how I did mine ... combination of TA and RA = no grad school debt plus ~$1500-1800/mo income (back in the mid-late 90s) to scrape by on.

Re:Bullshit

[Marc_Hawke]

I did the same thing, but TWO degrees, (my wife and mine, both on one income.) Now I was going to a State University and not some fancy place that gets a lot of press, but still I've never understood why my experience was so much different from all the stories that you hear, (and headlines like this.)

Boring Stuff Is The Majority

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have to worry about shit like that, then your company is likely working on boring ass shit that no one wants to do anyway.

It sounds like you're one of the people I was referring to when I said; "workers that fancy themselves to be business experts".

Boring stuff is the majority in business. Look at all the boring stuff around you that is essential to your daily life, tiles on the floor, switches in the wall, food in the fridge, tires on the car, pens on the desk, toilet paper in the bathroom. All these things are the products of big businesses, billion dollar industries.

All these things are boring as hell, but the companies that got them to you all need to have employees doing seemingly boring jobs making, transporting, marketing, and accounting. These companies, like mine, need good employees that can think for themselves, get the job done and further the company on which I and they all depend. It's the boring jobs that make the world go round.

Richard Linder, from the article, doesn't seem like a good fit for any of these companies/jobs.His associates degree in Liberal Arts and penchant for "bucking the system" also suggests to me that he isn't cut out for running a business of his own either. Something that not only requires creativity as well as an eagerness to do the same boring shit day in and day out, sales and marketing, supplier negotiations, transportation, accounting, payroll, hiring and firing... Mind numbingly boring, but that's what pays the bills.

Re:Bullshit

[jimbolauski]

In today climate if you were just starting out with no degree do you think you would even be considered for an entry level position when you would be competing with people that had a bachelors. It's not that you can't succeed without a formal education there is just a higher probability that you will succeed with one.

Re:Berea College is Free*

[Trepidity]

The Harvard version actually covers the full "cost of attendance", including the price of staying in the dorms and buying a meal plan.

Re:Bullshit

[rubycodez]

why not, you can go on to a specialized Bachelors degrees. Even with a bachelors in the liberal arts or humanities there are many specialized graduate programs one can enter, including some major med schools

Wow!

[viperidaenz]

A liberal arts degree! Your mom must be so proud. Seems like a waste of $3000 to me.

Re:Bullshit

[hackula]

I don't see how that is relevant. There are COBOL programmers out there with 40 years of experience who cannot get hired as a junior programmer these days. Clearly you can get screwed in any career. Her issue was not that she has a degree in English, but that she got burned by a dysfunctional workplace. Since we are talking about degrees though, we are really talking about people closer to the beginning of their careers anyway. Someone with an English degree has loads of possible routes, if they are proactive about it.

Community College costs

[tompaulco]

In my area, Community College tuition is free to local residents. Books are extra and residency and a lot of other stuff, but the coursework itself is free. Or free after having been taken from the local citizenry via taxes.

northwestern college has more programmatic accredi

[Joe_Dragon]

Northwestern College has more programmatic accreditations and approvals than any other similar two year, private college in the state of Illinois. We are accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and strive to meet the criteria established by the specific boards that approve individual programs of study.

They are not the big ten one with just about the same name.

Re:Bullshit

[AlphaWolf_HK]

I participated in a contest held annually in Phoenix called the Avnet Tech Games. In the event I was doing, which included not only practical lab work, but also a written test, the community college students scored 90% and above. The university students were all below 70%.

It only makes sense too when you think about it. Universities focus on the theoretical while community colleges focus on the practical. That, and community college teachers are there to teach, and genuinely care for the success of the students. Most university professors on the other hand are there to do research, and have upwards of 300 students to a class.

I've mentioned on slashdot before about how I have zero debt and the benefits of community college, and the replies I often get are from people with terrible grammar (I've only taken one English class before, by the way) who tell me that I got a cheap education because community college sucks, though they can never offer any reason why they say that. I mean if it was Harvard or MIT, sure, but most public universities that most people attend aren't anything special, yet are still expensive.

Re:We need a badges system that is not big years+

[Obfuscant]

Badges? BADGES? We don't need no STINKING BADGES!

If you're going to use a movie reference, at least do it right.

"Badgers? Badgers? We don't need no stinking BADGERS!"

Re:Bullshit

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Well, it wouldn't be entirely incorrect in my case. The key is to impress the hell out of somebody in a high place. Even if they themselves don't hire you, word tends to get around.

Re:Bullshit

[erice]

In 30 years it has changed dramatically. Given how common degrees are, many HR departments will simply filter out any resumes that do not have one.

Certainly. But a budget associates degree won't help if the next filter is for a bachelors or masters from a well known school.

Re:Bullshit

[ArhcAngel]

I actually got that from someone who HAS a BA in Philosophy. He has been a profound influence on me and I deeply respect him.

GRE Subject Tests

[smchris]

Back when it was Regents, you could get a "concentration" basically just by getting an above mean score on a GRE subject test. Since I believe the guy who started the Triple Nine IQ Society had about a dozen of them, that became a bit of a fad. I picked up English Lit, Sociology, Political Science and History -- yup, accredited as long as you say it's a "concentration" -- in a year for chuckles for slightly over a $1000 total back when the economy was good to add to my traditional two majors. I always had a sneaking suspicion the college hated our guts for making fun of the process and we may have screwed it for other people. You can still get credit but, offhand, I think it's more like half a concentration for a score significantly better than mean.

Nonetheless, if you pass several GRE subjects tests, I imagine that's still a lot of elective credits received very, _VERY_ cheaply.

Re:It takes only four years depend on your lifesty

[IndustrialComplex]

OK, so assuming 2 Fall semesters, 2 Spring Semesters, and 2 Summer Semesters...

You averaged over 22 credits per semester. First, I'm guessing that wasn't an engineering degree. Second, I've always held that it takes about 3 hours per credit hour of non-classroom work in a decent program.

Honestly, that puts you at about 60hrs per week in pure study/class time. Unless you started with a lump sum of cash, I don't see how such a schedule is possible to do while not picking up any loans.

22+ hrs/semester.... Outrageously aggressive, but possible.
22+hrs/semester while working a job to pay for school and actually learning the material? I'm not buying it.

Re:We need a badges system that is not big years+

[idontgno]

If you're going to use a movie reference, at least understand which movie is being referred to.

Easier then you think

[Splat]

I've looked into this myself. I have an associates and have been slowly chipping away towards a Bachelors for years. http://www.degreeinfo.com/forum.php has a lot of good resources on this, but basically you can hack together credit from a combination of CLEP, DSST, among other equivalency testing, and then transfer them into one of the friendly-towards-this-kind-of-thing schools like Excelsior or Thomas Edison State college.

I was actually enrolled in Thomas Edison prior to knowing about this, slogging away at online courses. After learning about this "hack", and even figuring out a sure-fire way to a Bachelors degree in like 6 months, I didn't do it and I now haven't continued any further with Thomas Edison. For some, having a "BS" or "BA" in and of itself might be worth it, but for me the whole idea/thing just made the online degree seem like a joke if you can test your way out of an entire degree basically

Re:Berea College is Free*

[dkleinsc]

Generally speaking, a "free ride" at an institution that has on-campus residency includes room and board. I actually was good enough in high school to get a couple of offers like that at some no-name universities, which I didn't take but would have if I hadn't been lucky enough to be born into relative wealth.

Re:We need a badges system that is not big years+

[dkleinsc]

That's another parody. The original was Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

The sad part:

[fredrated]

When I went to UC Berkeley in the late 60's, cost was $100 per quarter + books.

$2224 at a comunity college in California

[bcrowell]

This is really, really stupid. At the commnuity college where I teach in California, an AA degree requires a minimum of 60 units. Fees are $36/unit, and you also have to pay a $16/semester health fee. That's it. Total cost for a two-year degree: $2224. No "hacks" required.

And this is all assuming that you don't qualify for any merit- or need-based grants. An awful lot of our students qualify for Pell grants and fee waivers.

For typical working-class people, the financial problem with getting an AA degree isn't the cost of the coursework itself. The problem is that you have to pay for rent and groceries, and if you work full time, you'll have to take such a small course load every semester that it'll take you a decade to finish two years of college. One way around this is to cut your expenses, e.g., by living with your parents and not owning a car. Another way is to take out loans; if you have a low income and aren't dependent on your parents, then you qualify for subsidized Stafford loans, which have a low interest rate. If you're a veteran, the new GI bill allows you to get a stipend that's enough to live on, based on your zip code.

Anybody in the US who claims they're being excluded from a college education because of their income is full of baloney. Our state and federal governments spend lavishly to subsidize college education, and the subsidies are set up very carefully so that working-class people have a good enough deal to have access.

The real reason that working-class people get excluded from higher education is that they often got terrible K-12 educations, which didn't prepare them for college.

wouldn't *not* consider...

[globaljustin]

But I agree...it shows a fundamental lack of understanding at what happens at college.

People, unless you came out of your undergrad having studied a bit of every subject and *most* of *one* subject with the guidance of experts...well...you didn't go to college...

You got a piece of paper...which is all this dumbass did with his stunt.

However...it *does* show intelligence and more importantly persistence. He saw the stupid idea through and that's worth something.

I wouldn't consider him for any academic or research-based job at all...but he could be a hell of a manager with some training.

Re:wouldn't *not* consider...

[tehcyder]

I wouldn't consider him for any academic or research-based job at all

Well, you'd need a PhD for that anyway, so whether you did a 2 year Associate degree leading to a Bachelor's degree, then a Master's then a PhD or just a Bachelor's, Master's, PhD is irrelevant.

degree != college education

[globaljustin]

I agree he's hirable...but he demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of learning...

You didn't go to college unless you studied *all* disciplines as a survey and study *most* of *one* subject under the supervision of recognized experts in the subject..

If you didn't do that you didn't get a *college education* you got a *piece of paper*

However, he does demonstrate intelligence and more importantly persistence. He followed through with his stupid plan to the end...that means something.

I wouldn't consider him for a research or analytical thinking position, but he'd make a hell of a manager.

Re:degree != college education

[cwsumner]

You seem to assume that a 2 year college is inferior to a 4 year college. I have done both, and I think that is an unfounded assumption.

Re:It takes only four years depend on your lifesty

[fotbr]

Roommate of mine had a couple semesters in an engineering program that on paper were 27 hours, because he tested out of some low-level humanities classes. In real life, they were more like 18 hour semesters.

better idea:

[buddyglass]

Hack the SAT and get a scholarship that covers four years of tuition and fees at a decent state university. This is easiest if you're still in high school: in that case hack the PSAT. Despite the "A" in their names these exams only really test "aptitude" in the absence of any preparation on the part of test takers. That is to say if no students prepped then those with higher aptitude would generally score higher.; however, it is eminently possible to game them. Hone your basic test-taking skills, memorize a bunch of vocabulary and master the fairly basic level of math that's tested. Being smart lets you do well on the PSAT/SAT without much preparation, but (in my opinion) even a student of average intellect should, with some dedicated effort, be able to score very highly. For the PSAT it also helps to live in a state with generally poor student performance since the National Merit Semifinalist designation is given to the top 0.5% of students in each state. Much tougher in Mass. than in Miss.

Re:Bullshit

[icebraining]

No but you DO get what you pay for in life.

Ah, another proud owner of Monster cables!

Re:Berea College is Free*

[ZombieBraintrust]

Berea is not exactly free. It is a work college. You work 10 hours a week building stuff that the college sells. More accurate to say Berea is very good deal.

Re:Bullshit

[swillden]

Where is the scholarship for repletion who happened to have fucked up once? or take into account that person was also supporting a family and an alcoholic mother?

I have a very good friend who got in trouble with the law as a teenager, was basically ordered by the judge to join the Navy at age 17, did three years in the Navy before they "allowed" him to terminate his enlistment early (read: he was such a screwup they didn't want him), then ended up with a couple of felony drug convictions. By the time he got straight, he also had a semi-insane wife and two kids (twin boys), and was working full-time to support them, pay for a mortgage, etc. He took the GED and went to a local four-year community college, where his poor math and English skills put him in remedial courses (which increased his tuition). He continued working, a mixture of full-time and part-time, and supporting his family, while he went to school. Along the way his wife wigged out on him and he ended up alone with his (now three) boys. It took him about seven years, but he finished a BS in pure mathematics with a minor in CS, and was selected as outstanding graduate by the math faculty and strongly encouraged to continue on to get an MS and a PhD. He graduated with less than $4000 in student loans, and never received any scholarship money.

How? He worked hard. That's all.

Personally, I got math and CS degrees from the same four-year college with no debt at all (but without the other challenges he had). I did get academic tuition waivers for two years, based purely on my college GPA -- each year they sorted the applicants by GPA and gave waivers to the top n, so I had to maintain > 3.9 to be sure of getting my waivers, and I joined the US Air Force reserves to get the GI Bill (which I didn't actually need, as it turned out -- that was just spending money), and I worked part-time, first in the library tutoring math and later for the math department, writing math ed software for $7 per hour. By the time I graduated I had a pretty solid resume as well as a degree.

It can be done... lots and lots of people do it. You just have to want it.

Translation:

[uvajed_ekil]

Mr. Linder cobbled together an associate degree in liberal arts

Translation: he got half a useless degree.

Re:Berea College is Free*

[Half-pint HAL]

Thunderwood College is free for everyone!

Dr Half-pint HAL BA MSc

Re:Bullshit

[Xacid]

I'm calling bullshit on bullshit. My associates has landed me two decent jobs (sys admin).

To be fair - all my electives were geek classes - like network security and various programming. School is entirely what you make of it. You can float through, get your paper, and learn nothing. Or you can rock the fuck out and learn a lot of cool, useful, shit.

Re:College Should be Free

[Half-pint HAL]

The great masters of Tai Chi allow their students to train with them for as long as it takes to be ready. This isn't entirely altruistic: they don't want anyone going out and ruining their reputation by going out and being crappy teachers while telling people "I studied under Li Wan" or whoever...

Re:I'd worry if I hired him.

[tehcyder]

Newsflash, most normal people think that all work is boring ass shit that no one wants to do anyway. It's just a case of finding the least unpleasant way of wasting half your life.

Re:3K for an associates?

[Half-pint HAL]

Maybe so. But if you take all your courses online, you have more time to smoke weed instead of going to class.

Nonono, you've got it wrong: if you take all your courses online, you can smoke weed in class. By combining the rampant alcoholism and drug-taking with the study, you can replicate the full student experience part-time while still holding down a full-time job!

What part of "tends to" was confusing?

[King_TJ]

I don't know? I think the confusion stemmed from your first sentence:

The bigger a degree, the more interest it'll engender.

That, IMO, is simply untrue.

Re:Bullshit

[hackula]

I dreaded the thought of a typical "humanities" career path after double majoring in Poli Sci and Philosophy, and ended up in software engineering.

I write/design software in the field of geospatial analytics.