How Colleges Are Pushing Out the Poor To Court the Rich

An anonymous reader writes "A change from 'need' based financial aid to a 'merit' based system coupled with a 'high tuition, high aid,' model is making it harder for poor students to afford college. According to The Atlantic: 'Sometimes, colleges (and states) really are just competing to outbid each other on star students. But there are also economic incentives at play, particularly for small, endowment-poor institutions. "After all," Burd writes, "it's more profitable for schools to provide four scholarships of $5,000 each to induce affluent students who will be able to pay the balance than it is to provide a single $20,000 grant to one low-income student." The study notes that, according to the Department of Education's most recent study, 19 percent of undergrads at four-year colleges received merit aid despite scoring under 700 on the SAT. Their only merit, in some cases, might well have been mom and dad's bank account.'"

Comments

living in america :(

[acidfast7]

nm

Re:living in america :(

[erroneus]

I read somewhere...

We spend more per capita on prisons than we do on school. Something it really messed up with our priorities.

Re:living in america :(

[BitterOak]

I read somewhere...

We spend more per capita on prisons than we do on school. Something it really messed up with our priorities.

I hear this statistic a lot as some kind of indictment of our education system, but if you think about it, it makes sense. People are expected to pay for or at least contribute to their (post-secondary) education because the purpose of that education is to benefit them, at least in the sense of given them a better chance at a higher paying job. If money is spent to help increase someone's earning potential, it makes sense for that person to pay at least some of it back.

Prisons, however, decrease people's earning potential. You can't work or get job experience while in prison. (You might be able to take college courses in some prisons, but a criminal record may still make it difficult to be employed in a high income job.) Since people aren't employed while behind bars, it would be unreasonable to expect them to pay rent. This means the government has to foot the bill. So it actually makes sense that the government spends more on prisons than education. It would, in fact, be quite strange if it were the other way around.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a total bottom -- and I love rough sex! That's why I'm went to prison instead of college. Just imagine -- a bunch of cute (and straight!) guys fucking my asshole and making me suck their cocks. And I don't even have to pay for it!

The only downside: the food is not very good. And the prison uniforms are sooo not fashionable.

APK

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

People are expected to pay for or at least contribute to their (post-secondary) education because the purpose of that education is to benefit them, at least in the sense of given them a better chance at a higher paying job.

Keep telling yourself that.

Re:living in america :(

[MasterHundinco]

2007, around $74 billion was spent on corrections. The total number of inmates in 2007 in federal, state, and local lockups was 2,419,241. That comes to around $30,600 per inmate. In 2005, it cost an average of $23,876 dollars per state prisoner. State prison spending varied widely, from $45,000 a year in Rhode Island to $13,000 in Louisiana. $4,020 is the basic cost of raising each child per year as estimated by the Department of Health and Human Services for 2013, whether there is one child or many children. The total basic cost of raising a child from birth to age 18 is by their estimates $389,670, based on the 30 year average inflation rate of 3% increasing the $4,020 annual cost every year. According to Globalissues.org, "Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day." This statistic includes children. Using $2.50 a day, the cost is roughly US$900 for raising a child for a year, and US$16,500 for raising a child from birth to age 17 As per the cost of public education spending Colorado, for instance ranks ninth nationally in "quality" of education but spent an average of $9,155 per student in 2009, putting it among the 10 states spending the least per pupil. Wyoming though ranked 29th in quality spending the most averaging $18,068 per student. Alaska, ranked 41st for its education quality, spent an average of $16,174 per student. Overall, the U.S. spent an average of $11,665 per student. Prison stats Sources: http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p08.pdf http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?_r=0 http://www.pewstates.org/uploadedFiles/PCS_Assets/2008/one%20in%20100.pdf Education stats sources: http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/education/analysis-how-much-states-spend-on-their-kids-really-does-matter-20121016

Re:living in america :(

[BitterOak]

The only downside: the food is not very good. And the prison uniforms are sooo not fashionable.

Yeah, but the food is a REAL downside. A deal breaker for me, in fact.

Re:living in america :(

[alexander_686]

IIRC, California passed the mark for spending more on prison then post-secondary education about 2 years ago – so I don’t think it’s true for America as a whole – but it is still a sad fact.

Re:living in america :(

[Fluffeh]

I hear this statistic a lot as some kind of indictment of our education system, but if you think about it, it makes sense.

Wow, that train of thought has completely blown me away. I am not even sure on where to start replying to you.

If you spend more on education, not just tertiary, but primary and secondary, it will nurture youth to have higher aspirations, it will teach them more. If you have someone leaving secondary school with a good understanding of basic subjects (math, English, at least one science and computers) as well as a rounded splash of some elective subjects such as history, economics, art, music, religion they are much more likely to either look for further education on their own (even if they have to pay as much for it as in the US) and move on to being a productive member of society rather than ending up in prison.

That's not to say that everyone with a good education will never do anything illegal or end up in jail, but the number of people in prison with a poor education should stand out above anything else that to keep people out of prison, give them an education. Give them the ability to actually join society as a peer rather than as the bottom of the ladder cleaning the bathrooms or working as a parking attendant.

This concept of paying more earlier also has the advantage saving more money in the long run. If you don't need to pay for putting someone in prison AND have the benefit of that person contributing to the society they live in, it clearly is a win-win scenario.

Re:living in america :(

[ATMAvatar]

That only makes sense when you take it for granted that it is normal to have a large prison population. The US is #1 in terms of prisoners per capita.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how you stopped after the first sentence.

Schools don't provide shelter, health care, or three meals a day. They are not required to maintain a secure facility both to keep people from getting in and to keep people from getting out. Nothing you said, literally not a single word of your reply, actually addresses whether it's more expensive to have someone in school or prison.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

I think there are a couple issues as to why spending more on prison than schools is terrible.
1. Schools are preventive. Prison is reactive. So spending more on a reaction indicates lack of resources for prevention.
2. Why is prison expensive? It should be cheap. Expensive prisons mean that something is wrong. Also, a large number of prisoners indicates a sickness is society. Again, preventive solutions are merited.
3. Imprisoning people (as you mentioned) cuts off earnings potential, as well as tax potential. Another point where society shoots itself in the foot.

I'm sure many more points can be added here.

Re:living in america :(

[BitterOak]

That only makes sense when you take it for granted that it is normal to have a large prison population. The US is #1 in terms of prisoners per capita.

Again, that's another statistic that people quote a lot, and just sort of leave it hanging, without explaining whether they think it's a good or bad thing. It could be either, depending on the reason. It could mean (a) the United States has more crime (which would be a bad thing), or (b) the United States is better at catching and prosecuting criminals which would be a good thing. The size of the prison population, in and of itself, is neither good nor bad: we could reduce our prison population to zero by letting everyone go and closing the prisons, but that might not be such a good thing!

Re:living in america :(

[jcr]

If you spend more on education, not just tertiary, but primary and secondary, it will nurture youth to have higher aspirations, it will teach them more.

This turns out not to be the case. Look at what's happened to student achievement since the 1970s, during which time this country more than doubled spending per student.

-jcr

Re:living in america :(

[erroneus]

Going to school to get a good job is not longer a reasonable expectation.

And it doesn't make sense. We are spending the money. If we could spend the same money to keep people out of prison, we would simply have a better life and culture here in the US. But as tone of your comment suggests, we will perpetuate this "every man for himself" mentality that got us where we are. Reality is far different from your notion of reality. Reality says that people give up on themselves long before the 12 years of public school are over. Their expectations of life have been defined for themselves already.

Prisons decrease earning potential even after getting out. That's another problem we are failing to face. Once a person has a prison record, they are black-balled for life. It's okay if prison were a deterrent to crime. For some people, it's a rite of passage.

Government doesn't "foot the bill." *WE* foot the bill. They just decide where the bills go. Once again, if the money that goes to prisons went to schools, even in part, it could make a huge difference in the long run. The problem is it wouldn't make a difference for several election cycles. And no way a republicrat will vote in money for schools instead of prisons when the opposing party would get the glory.

Once a person has gone to prison, they are no longer full citizens. They lose the right to vote and to bear arms.... legally. We have decided their career for them.

Re:living in america :(

[AK Marc]

Education spending may have doubled, but spending on education didn't. The Anchorage school district is paying $250,000 a year on nurses for a single student because the disabled student happened to be born into a family of lawyers, while the amount spent in the classrooms isn't greatly changed. We've added regulations and cost, but not education. Unfunded mandates like NCLB require reduction of in-classroom spending to pay for compliance costs. The total cost of "education" goes up, but not on education-related expenses.

That's why so many "liberal" examinations of the issues have resulted to separating out "in-classroom" spending, but they are dismissed as inconvenient, and the numbers used by the school-haters are always total funding.

Re:living in america :(

[Fluffeh]

In reply to yourself and the AC above you, let me provide a decent snip of the conclusion of a rather detailed study from Berkley:

Full PDF link

There are many theoretical reasons to expect that education reduces crime. By raising earnings, education raises the opportunity cost of crime and the cost of time spent in prison. Education may also make individuals less impatient or more risk averse, further reducing the propensity to commit crimes. To empirically explore the importance of the relationship between schooling and criminal participation, this paper uses three data sources: individual-level data from the Census on incarceration, state-level data on arrests from the Uniform Crime Reports, and self-report data on crime and incarceration from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.

All three of these data sources produce similar conclusions: schooling significantly reduces crim- inal activity. This finding is robust to different identification strategies and measures of criminal activity. The estimated effect of schooling on imprisonment is consistent with its estimated effect on both arrests and self-reported crime. Both OLS and IV estimates produce similar conclusions about the quantitative impact of schooling on incarceration and arrest. The estimated impacts on incarceration and self-reports are unchanged even when rich measures of individual ability and family background are controlled for using NLSY data. Finally, we draw similar conclusions us- ing aggregated state-level UCR data as we do using individual-level data on incarceration and self-reported crime in the Census or NLSY.

Given the consistency of our findings, we conclude that the estimated effects of education on crime cannot be easily explained away by unobserved characteristics of criminals, unobserved state policies that affect both crime and schooling, or educational differences in the conditional probability of arrest and imprisonment given crime. Evidence from other studies regarding the elasticity of crime with respect to wage rates suggests that a significant part of the measured effect of education on crime can be attributed to the increase in wages associated with schooling. We further argue that the impact of education on crime implies that there are benefits to education not taken into account by individuals themselves, so the social return to schooling is larger than the private return. The estimated social externalities from reduced crime are sizeable. A 1% increase in the high school completion rate of all men ages 20-60 would save the United States as much as $1.4 billion per year in reduced costs from crime incurred by victims and society at large. Such externalities from education amount to $1,170-2,100 per additional high school graduate or 14-26% of the private return to schooling. It is diffcult to imagine a better reason to develop policies that prevent high school drop out.

Highlights are mine.

Re:living in america :(

[Billly Gates]

Actually student achievement is much higher now than back then.

With No Child Left Behind enacted the average student is now 2 grade levels higher with reading, writing, and math. Still behind the other countries of course, but is a big improvement

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm, this only makes sense if you have the same number of people in prison as the number not in prison. You miss the point of the statement.

Re:living in america :(

[tnk1]

Actually, I'm with you on most of that, except that prison should be less expensive.

Maintaining secured living quarters, with medical, dining, and other facilities is not cheap. And that's if we just left them there to rot. With other programs like GED programs, work release, and college classes, it's starting to look like about the only situation in America where you can stay with the same provider for your entire life without worrying about lacking food or medical care.

Mind you, I'm not suggesting those things make the place a vacation spot, but it certainly does not make it cheap.

Still, as for the rest, I have to agree, more educated people will not only cut down on crime, but it will cause people to maybe not do stupid shit like taking loans they can't afford, or gambling, or high risk behaviors in general.

For my new job, I'm now commuting by a "car title loan" place that offers quick cash, in return for your car title. It occurs to me that given the gigantic interest rates that places like that tend to charge, I wonder why anyone would actually take one of those loans. Even if faced with a serious immediate problem, if you don't have 10K saved up, you're not certain to have the income to pay off their extortionate rates either. And you certainly won't if they take your car. Some education might well give you the opportunity to see that scam for what it is: a dead end.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

USA has more of all crimes than almost any other first world country.

Re:living in america :(

[Immerman]

Are they though? Or do they simply *test* as being two grades higher? The biggest complaint I've heard about the NCLB act is that it rather brutally encourages "teaching to the test", often to the detriment of imparting an actual education. When you get right down to it memorizing the proper process to solve a specific class of algebra problems (for example) will boost your test grade significantly, but be utterly useless in real life - the world very rarely packages problems in neat, clean, grade-appropriate form. Meanwhile the teacher that takes the time to teach general principles and strategies that are far more broadly applicable will have students that, for the most part, test more poorly because learning how to effectively use those underlying principles is a lot harder than memorizing useless routines.

Re:living in america :(

[FuzzNugget]

It would, in fact, be quite strange if it were the other way around.

Yeah, it's not like it would be an investment in the future or anything.

Re:living in america :(

[MickLinux]

I have an engineering degree (BS, AOE) from an in-state university. At this point, 20 years down the road, having lived frugally the whole time, I own a mobile home that is older than I am, on a rented lot, no retirement 401k, medical care plan is over 1/3 of my income, and no significant savings or money to send my 14 year old to college in 4 years. No land, either.

The companies that have used my skills have all profited heavily from them, but I have not. Nor is my anecdotal evidence far from the truth for most other college educated americans, recently.

Since the sole beneficiary of a college degree is the employers, I categorically refuse to send my kid to college, and have advised him not to waste his time on it, either.

Nor have colleges satisfied their charters, that I should support them.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, Micklinux here again. I should also note that when I went to college, it was on a 4-year National Merit scholarship with a 5300 SAT, and a 57 PSAT, perfect math on PSAT, 790 onthe math SAT. I mention it, since it applies to the original article. As far as I am concerned, college is no longer a fit place for an education or for developing a career. It is only useful as a way to waste four years and a lot of money.

Re:living in america :(

[Immerman]

Cut us some slack, we're doing our best! We're already responsible for something like 25% of the worlds prison population despite being only 5% of the worlds population. And as of 2009 we were up to 0.74%, whereas those slackers in canada and China are barely in the neighborhood of 0.120%. Sure, we have a long way to go before we equalize the prison-versus-population ratios, but given the last few decades of convoluted law creation we're probably nearing the point of having a 100% criminal population, if we haven't already passed it. And at that point it just becomes a matter of enforcement and we can *really* show the world how it's done!

Re:living in america :(

[nbauman]

Citation needed.

The best data on educational achievement is from the NAEP.
http://nationsreportcard.gov/ltt_2008/

The NAEP shows a small but steady increase from 1971 to 2008 in math and reading scores. The major change over that period is that the hispanic students, and especially the black students, had a fairly significant increase. That's the result of ending the blatant discrimination that existed in 1971, and improving the schools in black neighborhoods where they couldn't overcome segregation.

Diane Ravitch was assistant secretary of education under both GHW Bush and Bill Clinton. At first she supported these reforms. Then when she looked at the data, she decided she was wrong. Here's what she thinks about NCLB.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/ravitch-no-child-left-behind-and-the-damage-done/2012/01/10/gIQAR4gxoP_blog.html

Ravitch said elsewhere that the most significant factor in student achievement is parent income. Raise the parent income and you raise the student achievement. Ravitch said that (based on an NAEP study) charter schools were worse overall than public schools, when you correct for parent income (although a few charter schools did well).

Re:living in america :(

[ShanghaiBill]

We spend more per capita on prisons than we do on school. Something it really messed up with our priorities.

We spend far more than any other country on both education and prisons. Some states spend far more than others on prisons, but the difference in crime rates is minimal. I think it is clear that we are spending far too much on prisons. Whether we are spending too little on education isn't so clear, since other countries get superior results for a small fraction of we spend.

Re:living in america :(

[kermidge]

Not bad, and I agree that education is a key element to much.

But why does damn near every 'good' job these days require a fucking college degree? Many use little more than what can be gotten readily with a year or two of voc-ed, if that. (1986 want ad in local paper for a dish washer at country club ended with "Send resume [sic]..." Inflation indeed.)

Further, ask yourself why have we effectively demonized such activity as parking cars or cleaning? It's useful work which in some manner makes life better for others. Should this not be a source of pride? And a liveable income as well? Why do we continually stratify tasks such that we have people upon whom we look down our noses? Doesn't this say something a bit nasty about the fragility and skew of our own perceptions about self-worth? Why is someone who brings food to a table or washes the dishes that come back somehow a lesser being? Is it required to have a de facto caste system? Or is that just the way it is because that's just the way it is? Seems to me what humans make they can generally un-make, or make differently.

Re:living in america :(

[demonlapin]

And, unfortunately, that entire quoted section is either weasel words or confuses correlation and causation. Educated people commit fewer crimes: I'll buy that. It's the education that makes them so: Not so much.

Re:living in america :(

[kermidge]

You left out c) there's a lot of shit laws on the books. And d) Prison is a big profit machine for a very few businesses. Go look up their connections for a real eye-opener. Also putting people in prison is great for the idiots running on law and order planks, never mind the real cost to the voters. Prisons are a basic suck to the economy. Stats are most crimes of violence are way down over the past forty years - and the correlation with prison population is weak at best. A low percentage of inmates are there for violent crimes. But don't believe me, go dig around a bit, all the info is there and fairly easily gotten.

Re:living in america :(

[Zontar The Mindless]

I hear this statistic a lot as some kind of indictment of our education system, but if you think about it, it makes sense. People are expected to pay for or at least contribute to their (post-secondary) education because the purpose of that education is to benefit them, at least in the sense of given them a better chance at a higher paying job.

No, that's fucked up.

The purpose of education is to provide society with more productive members.

(Your comment epitomises one of the very worst problems with America and Americans, and one of the reasons that this American doesn't live there any longer--not only is it always All About Me And My Money, but it's automatically assumed that the rest of the world thinks this way, too.)

Re:living in america :(

[kermidge]

Prison food and medical care for all but the better Federal prisons are not things to be lusted for, or equate to that available in civilian life for all but the most poor, say around poverty level or below.

Re:living in america :(

[Samantha Wright]

To break up the wall of responses pointing out the moral and social quandaries of your post, here is some material about how you can, in fact, work while in prison. The rehabilitation of prisoners is not completely a dead concept in the United States, although it is severely weaker than it is in many other Western democracies.

Re:living in america :(

[chrismcb]

Since the sole beneficiary of a college degree is the employers, I categorically refuse to send my kid to college, and have advised him not to waste his time on it,

Of course the employers benefit, but so does the person attending, and society as a whole. Everyone should benefit. But it also depends on how you use the education you received. Some use it more wisely than others.
College isn't for everyone. It is a place to learn and discourse. It is not a place to learn how to do a job, although you can learn skills that will be useful down the road. Should your child go to college? That depends. There are a lot of things to do in life that don't require college, and like I said it isn't for everyone. Some people are better at hands on learning than book learning.
But college is about broadening your horizons. It doesn't sound like you broadened yours very well. And make sure you give you child enough information so they can make a well informed decision. And not just based on your cynical views on life.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Both have a point, "in-classroom" spending is the spending that provides most benefit, the total funding is what it costs the taxpayer. Ideally the two should be quite close together but, not only are they very far apart, they are diverging over time.

Re:living in america :(

[bhcompy]

Send your kid into the Armed Forces. He'll get a free(or heavily subsidized education), businesses will want to hire him(since they get incentives for hiring veterans), and he'll get plenty of ancillary benefits(VA loans, VA health care, hot chicks, etc)

Re:living in america :(

[tompaulco]

Both have a point, "in-classroom" spending is the spending that provides most benefit, the total funding is what it costs the taxpayer. Ideally the two should be quite close together but, not only are they very far apart, they are diverging over time.

Yes, since I was a kid, the total amount acquired from taxpayers per student has grotesquely outpaced inflation, while the amount spent in the classroom has stayed flat or decreased. The school district I went to has maybe 20% more students than when I was a kid, but for some reason, has 20 or 30 times the number of administrative staff as when I went there.
As another point of reference, the other day I was on the highway and saw a bus go by for a nearby school district. Not a standard school bus, but a decked out tour bus. One of the ones that cost $250,000+. No wonder they can't afford to educate our students when they spend all this money on busybodies and luxury buses (probably for the football team).

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

People are expected to pay for or at least contribute to their (post-secondary) education because the purpose of that education is to benefit them, at least in the sense of given them a better chance at a higher paying job. If money is spent to help increase someone's earning potential, it makes sense for that person to pay at least some of it back.

If it were only about the individual, you might be right. But an argument can be made that the state should pay for your schooling as an investment because you will be bringing in more tax revenue. On the other hand, if you "overeducate" the populace, the price of educated labor comes down, giving your industry a competitive edge in the global marketplace.

(Disclaimer: I live in Finland where your tuition is free and the state pays you for studying.)

Re:living in america :(

[symbolset]

The way to win college is not to go.

Re:living in america :(

[Khashishi]

Yeah, you can work in prison... for 12 cents an hour. Let's face it, it's basically slavery.

Re:living in america :(

[JDAustin]

Then you made poor choices.

I got a BS in psychology and did HR out of college. I ended up becoming a self taught SQL DBA because HR was low paying w/ crappy rewards. I own a house, work for a large company w/ good benefits and 401k.

Re:living in america :(

[Samantha Wright]

Actually it's possible to get a GED while in prison, which can then open up jobs that net up to almost ten times that ($1.15.) Also, it's non-compulsory, which is kinda a deal-breaker for the definition of slavery. The point is that it's still possible to learn and better yourself from behind bars, and even these marginal jobs help inmates build job skills that reduce the rate of recidivism (repeat offences.)

Re:living in america :(

[cyn1c77]

I would counter that something is messed up with the population.

What is your priority? Would you rather be raped and murdered while getting your government-subsidized college degree? Or would you rather pay more for your degree and have less criminals on the streets?

Also, prisons cost more because you have to pay for everything (room, board, medical expenses, education, legal fees, etc.) for prisoners. There are no football games and donors to offset the costs.

Re:living in america :(

[AK Marc]

But the conservatives believe in "starve the beast" and once they succeed in starving the beast, they blame the sequester on the Democrats, even though it's been a stated goal for years.

It's the "starve the beast" mentality that screws education. The conservatives won't cut funding, but they add as much regulation as possible, and fund none of it. The hope is that the schools will fail, and we can regressively tax the poor to pay for the education for the rich with vouchers and such.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

In many cases, you can actually have those rights returned to you even if you are convicted.

In some (all?) states, you cannot ever have the right to own a gun returned to you.

Re:living in america :(

[bickerdyke]

But doesn't he have to *survive* first?

Re:living in america :(

[Cenan]

Education isn't going to live your life for you. You have to do actual work in order to improve your situation. If the work you provide to an employer is of such a high quality that it can generate "heavy profit", then there should have been plenty of room to negotiate an increase in salary, 401k or a health plan. Your situtation now has very little to do with your education; for the most part your education is only relevant for your first job interview.

Re:living in america :(

[Cenan]

The armed forces only have room for so many cooks before the rest are trained as grunts and shipped to some desert to die. Getting veterans benefits only works out if you survive. Of course OP might get a cool American flag for his trouble of raising one unit of cannon fodder.

Re:living in america :(

[KGIII]

Nah, they can still vote in some states.

Re:living in america :(

[Drakonblayde]

Depends on what you define as a good job. I'm a network engineer for a very well known service provider. I make twice the average household income in America. I would consider it a good job.

I have an Associates Degree, but it wasn't even a consideration for the job, all they required was a high school education, along with the ability and temperament to do the job. I demonstrated those quite handily that I was offered the position in under 24 hours.

The longest I've been unemployed since I turned 16 (I'm well into my 30's) was 3 months, and every time I change jobs, my pay rate goes up.

I personally think alot of folks use lack of education as an excuse. There's no magic recipe to being successful. No checklist to getting a 'good' job. It takes some effort. Virtually every out of work or underemployed person I know is severely lacking in motivation and will to better themselves and has perfected the victim mentality. My evidence is, of course, anecdotal, but it's all I have to go on, and I calls 'em as I see's em.

Re:living in america :(

[gordo3000]

actually, your point is a pretty gross misstatement of what republicans are saying about the sequester. They are saying that slightly smarter budgeting by agencies could minimize the impact of the budget cuts on end users (in line with their stated goal of more efficient government). Whether or not you believe this will actually happen (though the FAA fix implies at least one counterexample), they do not blame the sequester on democrats, but rather claim the democrats are pushing for sell harming policies to maximize the pain of spending cuts to validate higher spending.

As stated above, the big difference between now and previous generations in the incredible increase in spending on administrators and special needs children. Whether or not you think it is valid for public education to have special medical and education instructors in each school for handicapped children, we may need to rethink this so we don't sacrifice so much for what isn't an incredibly efficient outcome. We could switch to the Japanese model where the government funds a small number of special needs schools where students in a large radius are aggregated so they can get both the education and health needs taken care of with reasonable gains from scale. You are not forced to move to be near such a school when you have a child with special needs, but if you do not, no special dispensation is made in your local public school.

Nothing is easy when we decide to publically fund universal access to anything. It's all very complex. And in most countries, we can show that the beast has to be starved to clean out the rot from time to time (look at US defence spending for a great example, or medicare doctors who only will perform procedures of questionable value simply because medicare reimburses new procedures at a higher hourly rate for it's first several years in existence) to understand why. A forcibly constrained budget makes people address painful questions and at least consider a more reasonable response.

Re:living in america :(

[MagusSlurpy]

Actually, it's the same food.

Re:living in america :(

[AK Marc]

in line with their stated goal of more efficient government

The stated goal is to "starve the beast" and cutting funding while not cutting services helps starve the beast. The House is more Republican than Democrat, and spending bills come from the House. If the Republicans wanted the sequester to be "easy" they are the sole party with the power to do that now. But they are doing their best to do their worst and point to the Democrats.They got what they wanted, and are doing the opposite of what they promised. Just as you'd expect a politician to do.

The proof that politics is broken is that one party claims they would fix everything "if only" then they get all they ask for and do the opposite of their promises. Every time. Both parties.

Re:living in america :(

[roman_mir]

The purpose of public education is to keep the power to the elites by instilling a specific set of believes into the populace.

The purpose of police is to protect the power from the populace.

If you actually want education today as opposed to a mortgage and no house, you can get that education for just the cost of your time, it's easier than ever before. But that's if you are determined to get that education. If you attend public school and most colleges you won't get anything better than that.

Google now only considers graduates from the most elite schools, if you didn't go to some Ivy league school don't bother sending in the resume, that's because Google (and other companies) are doing the same thing exactly as this guy from an earlier /. story, you CAN thank inflation in education for that, and that's a direct consequence of government money in education.

The way to get a productive member of society you have to have society that offers him freedoms that are guaranteed by an equally applied law. You have to get rid of government wars on drugs, wars on poverty, wars on money. You have to have a wealthy society if you want members of it to be productive.

You can't have people coming out of artificial college settings into a society that is poor due to socialist/fascist nature of it and expect them to do well. Why would they do well in a poor society? Socialism does one thing: it guarantees poverty in the long term, an equal outcome of poverty.

Individual freedoms do not guarantee any outcomes, but they guarantee that you can try and not be punished for trying and if you fail you can try again and you won't be held back by the system that promotes unequal treatment of people on the institutional level.

It is OK to try and fail, but in a poor society you are going to be very limited as to how many times you can attempt (if any at all). At the extreme, you have socialist or fascist societies that tell you how to live, where to work, what your economic output will be, it's all predetermined before you even get out into the real world. You cannot be all you can be, you can only be what you are told (or you can be a criminal and the system will eventually destroy you).

Productive members of society.... they don't come from hive mind, they don't come from a place, where from the early age you are told that society OWES YOU something, anything, any product, any service. They come from a place where from young age you know that you are equal under law but your failure is yours alone.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Better than nothing, then?

Re:living in america :(

[Stormthirst]

Then college did you no good. You could have spent no money going to college, taught yourself SQL and gone off to be a DBA and got where you are now far faster.

Re:living in america :(

[Stormthirst]

If it were true that anyone doing better would be able to negotiate a higher wage and better benefits, then the average wage would have gone up over the last 30 years. It hasn't - it has stagnated.

Re:living in america :(

[Stormthirst]

I love how the sequester "starves the beast", except for Congress. Congress hasn't taken a cut in wages - why not? Oh that's right because the Republicans (who control Congress) are entitled little whiners and hypocrits. The FAA debacle is prime example of that.

Re:living in america :(

[Stormthirst]

And a liveable income as well?

There's your problem right there. These "demonized" jobs are all minimum wage which is not intended to be a living wage.

Re:living in america :(

[Salgak1]

Au contraire !!! The OP has a credential saying that he or she can follow pointless directions for long periods of time. That's invaluable in today's Corporate environment. . .

Re:living in america :(

[stenvar]

The purpose of education is to provide society with more productive members.

It is. And having people pay for their secondary education is a way of achieving that, because that way they will choose jobs that are actually productive and hence let them pay for their education. If you make post-secondary education free, then people have much less incentive to choose productive jobs.

not only is it always All About Me And My Money, but it's automatically assumed that the rest of the world thinks this way, too

The rest of the world clearly doesn't work that way, which is why the rest of the world is not doing as well economically.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

$1.4 billion a year in our Obamacomony is a trifle

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing you said, literally not a single word of your reply, actually addresses whether it's more expensive to have someone in school or prison.

It's unquestionably more expensive to house an inmate than to teach a student. Per capita spending on inmates is about $50k; per capita spending on K-12 students is about $10k. The question is whether total spending on prison programs is greater than the total spending on education.

Every dollar you transfer out of the prison system into the education system touches five times as many people. If you can do education well enough that 80% or more of your graduates can find work that keeps them out of prison, then you win.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

If you spend more on education, not just tertiary, but primary and secondary, it will nurture youth to have higher aspirations

This sounds right in theory, but the reality in my state is that some of the poorest schools have some of the highest per pupil spending rates. It doesn't do good to throw more money at a school when no teacher will teacher there (because the neighborhood looks like a DMZ and the students are all aspiring gangbangers).

Re:living in america :(

[TWiTfan]

Ravitch said elsewhere that the most significant factor in student achievement is parent income. Raise the parent income and you raise the student achievement.

The second sentence does not necessarily follow from the first. If the parent is some druggie or gangbanger piece of shit, then yes, their income (at least their reported income) is going to be shit too. And they're probably going to be an awful parent, with kids who perform poorly in school. But it does not follow (in this case, or many others) that giving said parent higher income is going to make them any better a parent. It's not like a higher income is going to get a meth-head or crack-head to quit drugs and clean themselves up, or make a gangbanger parent quit the gang and become a proper parent. There is without a doubt a CORRELATION between low-income families and kids in those families performing poorly in school (and being more likely to end up in prison). But I suspect the low-income is just another symptom of a larger disease, not the root cause.

Too often, it's the neighborhood itself that's the biggest causative factor. I expect you would get better much results from removing those families from their neighborhoods and putting them some place where crime was the considered unacceptable, not normative, behavior.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

It's because those dishwashers want the same "living standards" as the ones whose dishes they are washing. Chinese crap costs so little even the diswashers can afford huge tvs, but can't get a decent small house (their money goes to tvs and phones). It's all because of inflated expectations, due to ads, culture etc. If you want there to be people who serve others as a living there has to be someone that can afford to be served, that eans there must be big differences on income.

Re:living in america :(

[AlphaWolf_HK]

He's right, actually. If you don't pay for your own schooling, then it sort of becomes meaningless to you. That was part of my motivation to do better in college than I did in high school. I paid for my college tuition on my own (save for the GI bill and fafsa - mind you I was only eligible for a single year worth of the GI bill) and I never had to borrow a cent.

Personally I think the problem is people are going to schools that they probably shouldn't be going to to begin with. For example, I know of a handful of people who are in law school and medical school, and the return on investment for those degrees is shitty. I once read somewhere that there are 40,000 new lawyers graduating each year, and some industry study indicated that we only need about 7,000 new ones each year. It's pretty common to spend upwards of $100,000 to $250,000 for medical school, and most people never make enough to pay for that in any reasonable amount of time.

Take a gander at the link in my signature. The video is about 20 minutes, but it is a pretty good narrative on why "follow your dreams" is more often than not very horrible advice. The "do what you want to do" mantra that is common today is part of the cause of these huge tuition hikes.

The other cause is loans being made available to people who shouldn't be taking them out to begin with, which artificially increases the demand, and thus increases the price. The loans don't even take into consideration whether or not the person going for their degree program is even smart enough to handle any job beyond bagging groceries for example; rather they just hand them out like candy to whoever wants them. This is why real estate became very expensive, if you may recall. People were getting loans where they shouldn't have been able to, and for the same reason as well.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically you've made some wrong decisions. Seriously wrong decisions. #1 being you had kids before you were financially ready. An unpopular reality but certainly only your fault.

Even as a socialist, I don't feel sorry for you and your child's bleak future. We have to take some personal responsibility and realize churning out children doesn't take skill, it's instead something that should be done with great care.

Re:living in america :(

[RevDisk]

US military fatalities are pretty low. The reality of military life is a lot different than left or right wing fantasies, and generally pretty boring to the average person 99% of the time. 1% of the time, it does get pretty exciting. This will sound dorky, but it has a lot of truth in it. If you're smart, motivated, etc you can learn a lot on or off the books. You get out of it what you want to, if you're willing to put in the work. Pretty much like college.

There's not much cannon fodder left in the US military. Even infantry is pretty geared up these days, and not interested in unnecessary fatalities. Too much so at times. Too many commanders are too risk adverse, and it is hindering getting things accomplished.

Re:living in america :(

[The Dancing Panda]

My medical care plan is 200 dollars a month. Even if you're paying 4 times that, That puts your total income at 2400 a month. Which is ~14 dollars an hour. Which is less than my sister is making on her internship right now, and is quite a bit less than any of my engineer friends are making. College isn't the problem dude. It's you.

Re:living in america :(

[coinreturn]

I have an engineering degree (BS, AOE) from an in-state university. At this point, 20 years down the road, having lived frugally the whole time, I own a mobile home that is older than I am, on a rented lot, no retirement 401k, medical care plan is over 1/3 of my income, and no significant savings or money to send my 14 year old to college in 4 years. No land, either.

The companies that have used my skills have all profited heavily from them, but I have not. Nor is my anecdotal evidence far from the truth for most other college educated americans, recently.

Since the sole beneficiary of a college degree is the employers, I categorically refuse to send my kid to college, and have advised him not to waste his time on it, either.

Nor have colleges satisfied their charters, that I should support them.

Then you must suck at your job, negotiating pay, and/or budgeting. After 20 years with a BSEE, I have two houses, 220 acres of land, nearly $1M in retirement accounts, family medical plan that is $240/month, one kid through college, another in it, and a third on the way there. No, I did not get a dime from my poor-as-shit parents.

I agree that college is not for everyone - someone has to flip burgers, be a Walmart greeter, mow lawns, and clean houses.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Good job. You've categorically insured that your child will be living in a trailer park too.

What is he supposed to DO without a college education? What job is he possibly supposed to get?

That's just sick.

Re:living in america :(

[cayenne8]

I have an engineering degree (BS, AOE) from an in-state university. At this point, 20 years down the road, having lived frugally the whole time, I own a mobile home that is older than I am, on a rented lot, no retirement 401k, medical care plan is over 1/3 of my income, and no significant savings or money to send my 14 year old to college in 4 years. No land, either.

You're doing it wrong....

Most people I know with those or even lessor credentials, are doing much better in life.

Not trying to sound callous, but sounds like you don't know how to negotiate for salary or move to where the better jobs are...?

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Au contraire !!! The OP has a credential saying that he or she can follow pointless directions for long periods of time. That's invaluable in today's Corporate environment. . .

Well, not invaluable. Maybe required, but "follow[ing] pointless directions for long periods of time" doesn't really pay all that well and you risk your job being outsourced to counties whose citizens follow directions better than you.

What you really want to be is an "elected yes man." Politicians who do little thinking and let industries write legislation are invaluable.

Re:living in america :(

[cayenne8]

College isn't for everyone. It is a place to learn and discourse.

More that than, it is the method by which you get your foot in the door for a job.

Today, a Bachelors degree is roughly the equivalent of the high school diploma of about 3-4 decades ago.

Employers for any job above the level of janitor aren't going to (in general) to even consider you for a job if you don't have a degree of some kind.

Much as one would like to think of college as an ideal place for broadening your mind, and it can do that too...but in the US, it is primarily there as the next step from HS to getting a decent paying job.

Re:living in america :(

[cayenne8]

Then college did you no good. You could have spent no money going to college, taught yourself SQL and gone off to be a DBA and got where you are now far faster.

It did do him good.

Without a college degree in most 'anything', you're not going to even get your foot in the door for any of the jobs he just described.

You have to have a degree these days to get most any decent job.

Re:living in america :(

[zildgulf]

But..But..But...That would hurt the profit margins of private prisons and how would law enforcement get "tough on crime" with less criminals?

Re:living in america :(

[gorzek]

It's true, Aramark food is pretty godawful.

Re:living in america :(

[nbauman]

I don't know of any prospective, randomized, controlled trials in which they gave a treatment group of poor people enough money to lift them out of poverty and left a control group in poverty for many years.

If that were the kind of evidence we demanded to make policy changes, we'd never be able to do anything.

However, if you look around the world, those countries that have eliminated poverty -- for example, the Scandinavian countries and Germany -- have better educational performance than we do.

It also makes intuitive sense to most people that if you lower family income significantly, children's educational achievement will decline.

Poverty is also associated with other social pathologies, such as crime and poor health.

Considering education, crime, health and other factors, I think it's a good policy to eliminate poverty, as the Scandinavians and Germans have done. They did it with free education and transfer payments, among other things.

Re: living in america :(

[P-niiice]

any kind of IT or engineering work, can be shipped overseas regardless of the quality of the work you do. That applies to almost any white collar job nowadays.

Re: living in america :(

[P-niiice]

any kind of it. on engineering work, can be shipped overseas regardless of the quality of the work you do. That applies to almost any white collar job nowadays.

Re:living in america :(

[volmtech]

OK, the money goes to schools. How do you keep the students in the schools, shackles? In 40 years we have tripled spending on schools, what more do we need? Armed guards and compulsory attendance for 12 years may keep a boy in class but will that make him learn anything?

Re:living in america :(

[houghi]

Where I live I know people who have about the same degree. And 20 years down the road, they have not lived frugal, own their own home. Have a retirement plan. No medical bills to speak of. Savings that still keep on growing by 500-1500 per month and kids in University.
Oh and 24-40 payed holidays per year. 13th and sometimes 14th month pay.

But call yourself lucky, because if you want the same, you have to become a socialist. And that is apparently worse then living in poverty.

Re:living in america :(

[slew]

That's why so many "liberal" examinations of the issues have resulted to separating out "in-classroom" spending, but they are dismissed as inconvenient, and the numbers used by the school-haters are always total funding.

I see why you put the word "liberal" in quotes...

I'm curious how "rubber-room" spending is categorized? (fwiw, new york city statistically has one of the highest in-classroom spending ratios in the country)

An interesting read, if you have the time...
http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Books/Education/Where-Do-School-Funds-Go-Book-Review

Re:living in america :(

[TWiTfan]

Well, of course, no one is going to stand against the idea of eliminating poverty. I'm just saying that it may not be the magic bullet many expect. If you have a criminal culture in a given neighborhood or region, simply throwing more income at them probably isn't going to change them (not for a long time anyway). Hell, I've got relatives who are criminals and trash--and I can ASSURE you that more money isn't going to help them. A mental (and preferably spacial) change has to take place too.

Re:living in america :(

[lsatenstein]

I have an engineering degree (BS, AOE) from an in-state university. At this point, 20 years down the road, having lived frugally the whole time, I own a mobile home that is older than I am, on a rented lot, no retirement 401k, medical care plan is over 1/3 of my income, and no significant savings or money to send my 14 year old to college in 4 years. No land, either.

The companies that have used my skills have all profited heavily from them, but I have not. Nor is my anecdotal evidence far from the truth for most other college educated americans, recently.

Since the sole beneficiary of a college degree is the employers, I categorically refuse to send my kid to college, and have advised him not to waste his time on it, either.

Nor have colleges satisfied their charters, that I should support them.

===
Sorry for your misfortune. Had you been living in most any other country, for example, Britain, Australia, or even Canada, for your skills and employment history, you would have been able to own a home, have $0.00 school debt, have had the equivalent of universal healthcare, and the ability to send your kids through 1st year university for free. The other years range from $2500.00 to about $4000.00, and with no guns. Yes, the world other than the USA is what is called a social democrat world, where you and your children can live well, and receive a good education.

Is the American dream still alive? Only if you are a clever lucky business person.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to add more people died in the 80s due to accidents then have died during wartime + accidents in the 90s and 00s. But like you said not according to the media.

Re:living in america :(

[SillyHamster]

If you spend more on education, not just tertiary, but primary and secondary, it will nurture youth to have higher aspirations, it will teach them more.

Spending money on "education" != improved education. I can spend $10 eating out, or $1 for self prepared food; the $10 meal is not necessarily 10x as filling or tasty.

Yes, we do want an educated citizenry, but raw money spent is not the way to measure that.

Re:living in america :(

[superdave80]

Nearly everybody I know with college degrees (many like myself in engineering) have made out quite well. I am most assuredly going to encourage my daughters to go to college.

I'm not sure how you have managed to have nearly nothing saved after being an engineer for two decades. How is it possible to have NO 401k? Every single job I have worked the past 15 years has had a 401k.

I have a feeling that your current financial condition doesn't have anything to do with the fact that you have a college degree, but is some combination of poor choices/bad luck.

Re:living in america :(

[kermidge]

Understood. I was never too good at talking my way into a job that used my cerebral side, unless you count process control and management at a photo lab; on the other hand, once in I usually got regular raises, sometimes every paycheck. Thing is I generally really wanted to work and at least employers figured that much out.

Best job 'up my alley' was totally accidental self-employment. Guy I knew from college asked a buddy to write a program for his company's energy audits. My buddy said he was busy, referred job to me. Best damn thing I've done, but after expenses, and the firm's lackluster 'marketing' the pay was shite.

As for anecdotal, I think I likely seen all kinds. Thing is, in my experience, the 'lazy and shiftless' often weren't - they were instead mostly crippled by a range of health issues often including mental, psychological, and emotional probs. They wanted to work, were good at some goodly variety of stuff, but had trouble fitting the procrustean beds available. And, without treatment, often not realistically open to them because of cost, they were mostly screwed. Seen others get a few breaks and do the bootstrap thing.

Congrats on your gig, man, and your path to it.

Re:living in america :(

[kermidge]

As in, go to prison or starve?
Jeez Louise, that's a tough call, especially when it's all you can see in front of you. Seen a guy pull the plug, faced with that one.

Re:living in america :(

[nbauman]

Eliminating poverty is a necessary, although not a sufficient, condition for improving educational performance.

If you just give cash to people and let them do what they want with it, some people would use it to improve in ways that you would consider socially beneficial and some would not.

However, when the government provides them with social services, such as health care, child care, academic and vocational education, libraries, housing, and even employment, that can change the culture of a neighborhood, even a criminal culture.

Science had a review of the long-term studies of preschool programs in low-income neighborhoods. Some of them did lead to higher lifetime earnings and less crime. Head Start didn't do all that well, but similar programs were effective.

I know that there have been studies of recidivism among convicted criminals in prison. There were programs in New York State that encouraged prisoners to earn a college degree, and they had zero recidivism. They were discontinued.

Intuitively, it seems to me that having large communities of people in poverty would create crime and social pathology. Reversing the poverty should reverse the social pathology.

BTW, I think I've seen people in the Wall Street Journal editorial page argue against eliminating poverty.

Re:living in america :(

[kermidge]

Speak it.
Was a time (up into '70s, anyway) one could support oneself on minimum wage. Nothing fancy, but pay rent, eat regular, own a cheap car. Support a family? Generally no, tho with odd jobs on the side, a garden, some rabbits or pigs, maybe dealing a bit of grass or 'shine, sometimes.

Re:living in america :(

[Stormthirst]

What you really want to be is an "elected yes man." Politicians who do little thinking and let industries write legislation are invaluable.

So you mean most politicians then.

Re:living in america :(

[HuguesT]

This is an interesting point, with some caveat.

One could look at other statistics to find out which of the alternative is more likely or if yet another series of reasons is the explanation for the current situation. For instance the rate of violent crime, which is rather high in the US compared with a lot of other Western countries (e.g. intentional homicide rate is basically 5x higher in the US than most of Western Europe), and the reasons why people are put (and made to stay) in prison. So violence rate is an explanation, but not the only one. In many Western countries, prison is the solution of last resort for violent and dangerous criminals. In the US, thanks to the ongoing "war on drugs" since President Nixon, it seems that even non-violent drug offenses can land you in jail for a long time. Also, sentences tend to be significantly longer in the USA compared to other countries. Sentencing laws (three strikes, etc) are way tougher, and last but not least, prison building and operating is a private business in the USA. Why don't you read about it?

Overall it perhaps emerges that the USA is vastly better at catching and managing criminal than Honduras, that has almost 20x as much crime than the US but only few prisoners. However it seems that the USA also likes to put and keep people in prison rather than look for alternatives for dealing with their problems (drug rehabilitation for instance).

Some statistics that I find interesting: about 90% of federal prisoners are there for non-violent offenses; there are currently more African-American in prison in the USA right now than there were slaves in 1850; and 67% of ex-prisoners reoffend within 3 years: when they get out of jail they cannot find a job, they are ineligible for welfare, and so they are caught in an endless spiral.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

I throw BS. Unless you chose to work somewhere not paying well, this is on you. We hire starting engineers with aero degrees at $65K+ right now. After 20 years, you either are a failure of an engineer or really really did not get the analytic skills you needed in engineering school (and are a failure of an engineer).

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

So why wouldn't the solution be to better align the test to what you actually want students to learn - broaden the class of algebra problems tested for instance.

Re:living in america :(

[Zontar The Mindless]

Your world sounds like a really dark and lonely place.

Re:living in america :(

[Zontar The Mindless]

I'm talking about Earth. Not sure which world you're referring to.

Re:living in america :(

[Pav]

Things are being done wrong... and doing the wrong thing with more more effort and money won't do much to change the outcome. Ken Robinson says it best, and with the entertaining delivery of a comedian. : http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education_s_death_valley.html

Re:living in america :(

[Cenan]

Yeah, and millions died in the 40s, what's your fucking point? Pick any decade you want, I'll pick a decade that'll beat yours in military death ratio.

Re:living in america :(

[Cenan]

Joining the armed forces carries a risk, and if the OPs kid is about as smart as his/her parent sounds, he's not going to be able to keep out of the front line. And subsequently, they're going to run a very high risk of getting fucking shot in the face.
Granted, there is a high risk of getting shot in the face just going to school in the US. Looking at it, the best choice for OP might just be to emmigrate the fuck out.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I know it must be taxing for Zontar of Venus to understand what's going on on planet Earth. But keep trying.

Re:living in america :(

[Immerman]

A wonderful thought, but difficult to do in practice. Broaden the class of algebra problems for instance and you will almost certainly see lower scores across the board since the fundamentals are more difficult to learn to use effectively - and a test where a 50% is a really good grade is going to be very disheartening to almost anyone taking it. Though perhaps that in itself would be a good thing to teach - get away from the "failure is bad" mentality that's being drilled into students. Failure is inevitable, it's how you respond to it that's important. Or we could make the problems easier, but for early algebra there's not really much of a way to do that, the problems are already mostly testing the stripped-down basics.

And that still doesn't address subjects like art, music, dance, and athletisism that are extremely important to developing a healthy, creative mind, but are virtually impossible to test in a standardized manner. And those subjects are already deeply under seige by funding based on standardized test results.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Talk about sucking! Is that all you've got? After 10 years with a BSEE, I have 5 houses, 7000 acres of land, nearly $30M in retirement, doctors pay me to come to the hospital when I'm sick, and all 6 of my kids are Fortune 500 CEOs. Perhaps you should consider a career change? I'm looking for a gardner for one of my estates.

Re:living in america :(

[kermidge]

Didn't mean to slough you off by not leaving a reply. You make a couple of good points; unfortunately, and perhaps a bit unfairly to you, I don't have much extra energy just now and am rather in a bit of a bad spot due personal crap going on.

My comments weren't so much about disparity of income, they were about disparity of perception of "personhood". Un-realistic perceptions and desires of living standards notwithstanding, and telling comment about where 'disposable' income goes being true for some, I simply stated that our remuneration structure right now guarantees a pool of serfs, those serfs not even earning enough to be considered by most standards to be self-supporting. (Yeah, clumsy language, worse than usual. Said I wasn't feeling good. Best I can do just now, left out some stuff, too.)

And no, I would not propose some external scale to re-assign wage and benefits, unless it were done by mutual consent, as is supposed to happen with all such in a representative republic. What I do urge is for us all to continually examine who we are, who we think we are, apply those thoughts to others, and ask ourselves "why am I so much better/worse a human?" and "Why am I a 'people' and they're not?" - or vice versa. One of the more common traits I've seen on slashdot, and all over, for that matter, is "I've got mine, fuck you." I suggest there's a continuum: me against the world vs. me and the rest of the world understanding and cooperating with ourselves. Everyone picks a place to stand, whether they admit it or not. Some feel the choice has been made for them. Many years ago a buddy in jail said "They've got your body, they fuck with your head. The only thing you have control over is your attitude." To which I added, "Choose carefully."

Re:living in america :(

[MickLinux]

Waited till the trolls left. Specifically, (1) Negotiating pay, and (2) budgeting. I contend that those I worked for profited heavily from my work, therefore I'm good at my job.

Ever take Serway's College Physics (CP) /PSE/POP? Did you end up buying the study guide? If so, why did you pick that study guide to buy? I did the page layout, the formatting, all the artwork, some rewriting, etc. A lot of what went into that was what I put into it. My customer's contact (Saunders/Harcourt) mentioned that I was the best at this, that she was aware of.

For a long time, that particular text was the top seller in the world -- no credit to me, all credit to others on that one. However, the study guide is typically a major money-maker.

Jump ahead to a career change, into prestressed concrete. The last place I worked -- where I was told to put a subordinate in a brakeless water truck, and asked "are the brakes fixed?", and was told that I had no right to ask that question... and subsequently fired in great betrayal, I was still later told that I was the best field engineer he ever knew, by the guy who betrayed me.

Now, I did get another job, nearby, at the same wage, doing the same thing, and was subsequently promoted to project manager. But I can say that it isn't that I suck at my job.

But I am not free to move. And I do suck at negotiating pay. But that is not just cause for a top performer to receive bottom pay; and I have seen enough other evidence that college degrees no longer pay off, that I do not intend to send my kid to college. Moreover, I have seen the colleges fail miserably at their primary mandate, and I don't intend to support that either.

I have told my kids, that they need to work at school such that they *could* go to college if they want to. But if they want a further education they should forget the degree, and just find out what the courses are, get the books, work through every single problem, try the stuff out themselves. If they still want a college degree, they should do 2 years of tech school, 2 years of work, 2 years of community college, 2 years of work, 2 years of university, and then they *might* have a chance of getting a job. But I'm not going to send them to that, because I don't consider it to be an idea that is likely to pay off.

At this point, my advice is more along the lines of agricultural and Christianity. Forget business and tech -- in our society's glorification of "greed is good/more for me, none for you", it made too much use of an empty promises.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

See my reply to another nearby thread; it applies to your post, too.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3742531&cid=43709853

Re:living in america :(

[MickLinux]

One of the most successful people at our high school reunion was a girl who got married in her senior year of high school to another of my classmates.

When she got divorced from him, she went into business with her father, as executive janitorial services [janitors for rental business locations].

She's a millionaire.

Re:living in america :(

[MickLinux]

See my reply to another nearby thread; it applies to your post, too.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3742531&cid=43709853

More to the point of your post, I think my horizons are pretty broad. My career has bounced through programming, ancillary textbook creation, education, and prestressed concrete/surveying through project management.

It's not just a cynical view of life. Record numbers of people are buying into the "retraining" hype... doctors retraining as plumbers, plumbers going to med school to be doctors, and they're just getting school debt without ever getting a job.

That isn't cynicism, that's pragmantism you're seeing in me.

My other post, that I referenced, tells what I think a better path is, that I am going to be suggesting for my kids.

Let me remind you of a standard career guidance. Ask yourself, "what kind of a standard of living do I want? What will it cost?" Then ask yourself, "What jobs does society find valuable enough, to pay for that standard of living?". That kind of thing, in the past, has led actors to abandon acting for insurance sales. It's really good advice. Acting is a great career move for maybe, what, twenty people a year. It's okay for another thousand. It's lousy for everyone else: our society really does not value acting.

But let me point out that recently, our society also does not value... computer coding, and grocery store clerks, and drafting, and drawing, and manufacturing automobile rivets, and ... the list goes on. Our society does not value the laborer. Unlike "the laborer is worth his wage", our society says "the manager is worth the laborer's wage", even when the manager couldn't do the laborer's job to save his life. But our society then took it a step farther: the owner is worth...

Yes, I have a job. That's a great positive. But the rate of actual unemployment/underemployment/no longer considered unemployed due to overly long unemployment is so great, I can validly say that there is almost no job that our society places a living ... much less family ... wage on.

In light of that, going to college doesn't make sense. I rather say, prepare yourself as if you *would* go to college, and then wait on that.

Re:living in america :(

[MickLinux]

The budgeting I do as well as I can, but there are certain costs that are not in my control, and that does hamper me a little. One of the other posters very nearly hit my current family income on the head --sixty, which is just barely poverty level in our area--but before that, counting backwards year by year, it was probably pretty close to 60,60, 53,47, 43, 37, 35, 33, 30, 30, 12, 45, 30,25,22, and thn splitting my work and my wife's work, (17/43, 11/41, 8/40). Before that we weren't married. I made 4,12, 10. All numbers in thousands. We had all our children late (heavily related to the poverty.)

Re:living in america :(

[coinreturn]

The budgeting I do as well as I can, but there are certain costs that are not in my control, and that does hamper me a little. One of the other posters very nearly hit my current family income on the head --sixty, which is just barely poverty level in our area--but before that, counting backwards year by year, it was probably pretty close to 60,60, 53,47, 43, 37, 35, 33, 30, 30, 12, 45, 30,25,22, and thn splitting my work and my wife's work, (17/43, 11/41, 8/40). Before that we weren't married. I made 4,12, 10. All numbers in thousands. We had all our children late (heavily related to the poverty.)

I don't know where you're living, but in 1985, I was making $30K fresh out of engineering school and it has only been up from there - now pushing $200K. Yes, I've lived in some expensive places, but college paid off in a MAJOR way for me. I knew plenty of the so-called "non-degreed engineers" and believe me they were paid way less and looked down on as merely lab rats. The problem is, now you need the college degree just to get in the door, so your advice will probably fail you kids.

Re:living in america :(

[MickLinux]

I don't intend for my kids to work for others. I hope to buy a eight acre plot of property, and they get started in biointensive organic gardening, specifically in the form of a community christian garden. First hour, reading Bible and praying. Subsequent hours, limited talk as needed for work and training, but working the garden in a planned manner. Those who work use their working hours to bid on the produce it yields.

Doesn't sound profitable, maybe, but I could see it being a very valid way to live in this coming era. Plus,I suspect they'll have far more free time for learning and engineering, than I ever had.

Re:living in america :(

[MickLinux]

Mostly, I lived in Virginia, though we spent 3 years in Lithuania. Also, 1985 was still a good year, economically speaking. By 1992, when I graduated from college, NASA was involved in a huge layoff, there were few jobs for new graduates who were not in a preferred minority, the Alumni association made the specific (and publicised) decision not to help new graduates who had not yet held a job, and that year was t_e year Generation X got its definition in a novel.

Clinton, whowas running for his first term, declared, in response, that if Generation X had been x'd out of everything by the greedy and spendthrift Baby boomers, they would fix everything by volunteering their time to Baby boomers for free.

It was not the best of years to graduate.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

First hour, reading Bible and praying.

Oh... I think we found an explanation for your current situation.

Re:living in america :(

[bingoUV]

I have an engineering degree (BS, AOE)

I did bullshitting with Age-of-Empires during my engineering degree course too. I can't even hold a job.

Re: living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

You are soooooo right.

Re:living in america :(

[Anonymous Coward]

1530, not 5300. texting sometimes goes bad.

Re:living in america :(

[terrycarlino]

You are making an unwarranted assumption here. That assumption is that you could have prevented most of those prison inmates from being in prison if society had only spent more money on their education. Yet the United States spends more per student than Switzerland, Denmark, Norway or Germany. South Korea spends much less and its students do much better. The problem is not one of money spent on education. There are many reasons someone might become a member of the prison system, however almost always it concerns the failure to make good choices and to live a disciplined life. People with those traits typically also do badly in schools. As a matter of fact for all the money the U.S. spends on education or results are pretty abominable. We don't do education well, and the reasons we don't do education well have very little to do with how much we spend on education.

Goodbye

[gagol]

Social mobility. Welcome Feudalism 2.0

Re:Goodbye

[lister king of smeg]

feudalism 3.11 for workgroups

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when you the Federal Government into the Education Industry--crony capitalism (i.e., progressiveism).

Re:Goodbye

[akeeneye]

Oh there's plenty of social mobility. For most people, it just happens to be downwards. I was surprised to discover recently that a friend of mine, a staunch Republican, had his Cadillac-plan health insurance cut by his defense-contractor employer and replaced with a bare-bones high-deductible plan. The shit is really starting to trickle uphill if it's reached his level. He's got a couple of girls who'll be going to college in a few years so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out, to see how many hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt he'll let them take on.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of people vote republican because they think that sort of thing couldn't possibly happen to them...until it does.

Re:Goodbye

[hairyfeet]

Yep, got a nephew that is gonna end up having to drop out of college halfway through because he can't get the aid to finish even though he has high marks while the same school trips over themselves to court these third and fourth generation money kids that can just fuck off for four years for all they care, they'll have a diploma and a cushy job waiting at daddy's firm when they get out. He is gonna end up buried in 37k of debt without even a piece of paper, damned shame is what it is, poor kid worked his ass off and got screwed..

George Carlin said it best "Its called the American Dream...because you have to be asleep to believe in it"

Re:Goodbye

[pwizard2]

What you're describing is fascism, not progressivism. Ever since Reagan, the USA has been going balls-out towards fascism. Lots of people would say that we're already there. Us progressives want to create a society that cares about its people instead of just the very rich and where it's possible for everyone to achieve a decent standard of living regardless of where they start at on the socioeconomic ladder.

Re:Goodbye

[roman_mir]

But you wanted it, your entire ideology is based on destroying equality under law.

Your entire ideology requires to discriminate against some to provide subsidy to others, this is just a tide going the other way, you have pushed and pushed and you have gotten now what you inevitably pushed towards - inflation, lack of productivity, lack of personal responsibility and lack of individual initiative.

The government creates the moral hazard of fake loans that nobody in their sound mind would EVER give you out of their savings to go 'study' sociology, philosophy, literature. There was a story earlier in the day on this site about an employer not interested in these graduates, they are not worth the time, they have huge debts and they have proven themselves to be incapable of not following the crowd, they have proven to be lemmings.

Obama's new 'Pay as you Earn' idea is going to change the way people pay back loans, no more the loan payment will be tied to the actual loan amount, now it will be tied to your yearly earnings, so it will make sense to rack up the biggest debt you can and stay in college as long as you possibly can stretch, and then find a low enough paying job so that you won't be repaying too much. In 10 years the remainder of your loan is forgiven, and so colleges will raise tuition faster than ever before in history, I even fully expect to see doubling of tuition in a single year. Why not, you are not paying for it, you are not price sensitive.

It's a bail out, it's inflation. Elizabeth Warren wants to push interest rates for student loans to be the same as the rate the affiliate banks get at the Fed's discount window.

Good politics, I am sure 99% of you will agree and 99% of you want that to happen. Of-course it's terrible economics, the banks should not be getting that free money, that's inflation.

Of-course the banks are getting it from the Fed so that they can turn around and buy US Treasuries, to maintain the artificially low interest rates, to maintain the ability of the gov't to spend on your bankrupt social and military programs. The Fed also wants the banks not to fail for as long as they can stretch it, so the banks make the spread between the Fed's discount rate and the Treasury yield, a couple of percent, nothing fancy.

Except that it's over 2Trillion a year not counting the new 85Billion a month in just mortgages and refinancing. The Fed wants to reinflate the housing market, they are somewhat successful. The banks use these 'record profits' to inflate the bond and the stock market, stock market is record high.

Guess what, Warren's plan will make college tuition record high for the same reason that the stock and bond markets are high: inflation. Enormous inflation.

But her bill won't pass, however Obama's plan will and so don't worry, you'll be able to rack up all the debt you want and never have to repay it, just pay a little bit over 10 years. Of-course what are you going to pay it from? Who is going to hire these sociology and ethnic studies majors?

PhDs are going to wash floors in McDonalds.

Yes, it's the new feudalism, the politicians, your gov't, the bankers that are part of it are the feudals and you are the useful idiots.

-

Now go ahead, this comment only has one way to go.

Re:Goodbye

[Penguinisto]

I was surprised to discover recently that a friend of mine, a staunch Republican, had his Cadillac-plan health insurance cut by his defense-contractor employer and replaced with a bare-bones high-deductible plan.

...and the massive financial cost upheavals induced by Obamacare had nothing to do with that happening, right?

Incidentally, I find it curious that we're in year 5 of Obama's administration (mind you, two of those years gave him full run of Congress), yet there are still progressives blaming presidents who are long gone.

Re:Goodbye

[gagol]

I do not live in the US. I live in a "socialist" country, and we are doing very well, thank you. Economic crisis. which economic crisis?

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1970, Roger Freeman, an educational advisor to Nixon, and then working for the election of Ronald Reagan, said, "We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. That's dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow to go through higher education."

Later that year, Reagan ended free education at the U.C. system, starting us down this path, in California.

It is class war, waged by the rich parasitic class upon the poor, and you are correct, the subjugation of the majority of the population to the tiniest minority of rich parasites is the goal.

Re:Goodbye

[Penguinisto]

Fun question here... how is your nephew going to school, and where?

I've known folks who paid their own way through school, who got their Bachelors' 8 years after they started, but they paid their own way along, CLEP'd out of the drudge-work classes, used the GI Bill, used employer-sponsored tuition reimbursements, got their undergrad at the local (read: cheaper) community college but their BS at the state uni, etc.

There's the traditional (and IMHO stupid) way of doing college, and then there's the smart way to do it. Do it traditional, and (sadly) prepare for the consequences.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

name the country please?

Re:Goodbye

[roman_mir]

Greece wasn't considered to be in trouble until it could no longer borrow. The socialists 'borrow' from the productive people. Once the interest rates for them go up they can no longer pay for their socialism. So they circle the wagons around their ethnic majority, that is the natural progression for docialists to nazism. So Greece has this growing a rather smooth transition.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

U.S. Progressives just want to tax any one that can pay and loot treasures for themselves and their cronies. Solandra anyone?

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Now go ahead, this comment only has one way to go.

Ah yes, the old passive-aggressive "I know this comment will be downmodded" nonsense.

So if you're downmodded, you still win because you get to appear that you were the victim of downmod abuse from those who disagree with you but can't accept you're right.

Or you make it less likely that you'll be downmodded in case it appears the downmodder is doing so for the above reasons. Or you're more likely to attract upmods from those that agree mildly or are gullibly sticking up for you on principle to counter all that abuse you're sure to receive.

You'll probably be downmodded anyway for transparently pulling the same old manipulative trick, but that's probably your plan- you can't lose, right?

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama has higher priorities which will help the country on a longer term basis, such as removing assault weapons from the hands of all but the military and police and following the path of Venezuela in firearm regulation (which IMO is the fairest of any country out there), so another Sandy Hook doesn't happen on our soil again. However, we have a Congress who believes that China has to get paid first before our military does.

Obama's gifts to the US during his administration won't be realized until 2016, just like Clinton wasn't lauded as a hero until after Bush was in office for a few years.

Re:Goodbye

[Savage-Rabbit]

feudalism 3.11 for workgroups

Guillotine 1.0 for disposal of feudalistic workgroups.

Re: Goodbye

[alen]

You can go to your state school with in state tuition and not spend a lot of money

No reason to send your kids to another state unless its one of the top schools in the country

Re:Goodbye

[akeeneye]

His health plan was changed so that his defense-contractor MegaCorp employer, that feeds almost exclusively at the trough of the Socialist military, could make more money. There's absolutely no question that this fantastically huge and wealthy company couldn't have maintained funding for the current plan. They simply chose not to, because In These Tough Economic Times, they can get away with it.

Re:Goodbye

[davydagger]

No, Progressives want to create a society which is actively managed by the top, instead of passively managed by the top.

The hallmarks of progressivism have always been regulating the working man "for his own good", in addition to aid and funding.

Fascism(real facism) is similar in concept, except more stringent, more violent, and more racist and factionalist.(progressivism is far friendlier).

What we've been heading towards since Reagan is Corporate Feudalism.

A good example of "fascism", would be the old Prussian style education system, where education was free, but it was harsh, strict, designed to teach group think and obediance and manditory.

Facists don't let people starve on the streets, but they aren't above shooting them there either.

Re:Goodbye

[ButchDeLoria]

This is why I dropped out.

Re: Goodbye

[akeeneye]

I strongly suspect that that's what my wealthy Republican friend will be doing: sending his kids to Socialist in-state public schools (oh the irony). As you say they cost a small fraction of what private unis cost and if I understand correctly the two top schools in Washington state are quite good.

Re:Goodbye

[gagol]

Canada

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

and the massive financial cost upheavals induced by Obamacare

Funny, my company's plan actually got cheaper after a decade of increasing prices and increasing deductibles.

The only companies that were actually affected, really, were the ones that had more than 50 full time employees and didn't offer health insurance. Everyone under 50 is exempt, everyone over 50 who already offered insurance didn't need to do a damn thing except for the whole contraceptive flap.

Also, keep in mind that Obamacare doesn't even make the company pay for the health insurance as long as they contract a "cheap" (relative to the employee's salary) policy. Maybe the defense-contractor employee was making $15k/year? Or maybe his boss decided to cut expenses and pad his bonus while blaming Obamacare.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

You are aware that the very fact that you are using the un-word "progressives", and act like progress was a bad thing, makes you a mentally ill Glenn Beck drone?

Seriously: Get a therapy!

Also, I'm actually from Germany, and you have no fucking idea whatsoever what fascism is!
Well let me tell you something: The *exact* type of person that you are, with the exact mindset (raging anger and blind following of bullshit comforting beliefs) that you have, is the foundation of fascism and tyranny. Glenn Beck and all neocunts are *factually* fascists of the worst kind. The Goebbels kind! To use Germans, YOU are a fascist. All that's missing is the rallies, idolizing of soldiers and glorious songs praising the own nation... oh wait!

And all because you can't handle reality and have fled into comforting delusions, just like people back then. Because you are *such* a frightened little *pussy*, crying at every change.

You are a *coward*! That's what you are.
If you can't handle changes, go kill yourself, because sooner or later, natural selection will do it to you automatically.

And because it can't be said enough:
THIS IS AN INTERVENTION!
GET. A. THERAPY!

Re:Goodbye

[thomasw_lrd]

So a guy who votes Republican is being oppressed by a healthcare law passed by Democrats? I don't understand you're logic?

I'm not commenting the ACA as much as I'm commenting on why you're argument doesn't make sense. I also vote Republican, and my health care coverage has increased almost 5 times as much in the last 6 years, and my wife works for the insurance company. My companies insurance is so stupid, I actually feel like it would cost me less to just do without (barring any serious illnesses).

There is also plenty of upaward mobility in the US if you are willing to sacrifice and work for it. My wife and I both went to school fulltime, I worked fulltime and we raised between 3 and 5 kids during that time. 5 years ago we were making about 40-50k a year, today we are making above 100k. We have a lot of student loan debt, but not much other debt. It's not unbearable though. The payments are affordable, we live outside of town, but it's a good area, with some of the best in the state. We both started new jobs in the early part of this year. There are jobs, there are ways to increase your personal well being (I don't want to call it mobility), and there are ways to go to school (yes most of them involve going into debt), but the alternative is perfecting "Do you want fries with that?'.

I actually feel like this is the best time for intelligent people to be alive. Between programmers being able to create apps and sell them on the various mobile phone marketplaces, between writers being able to avoid the publishers with ebooks and blogs, and with recording artists being able to bypass the RIAA with the various music marketplaces. Any intelligent person who can't make a living with a little hard work and ingenuity is really just a lazy person. (I've been there, done that). No everything not rosy, but I feel like if people would do less complaining and more working, then maybe this capitalistic society will survive and might even be a better place to live.

Re: Goodbye

[buddyglass]

Perhaps only marginally socialist. My alma mater (large, well regarded state school) gets on the order of 13% of its budget from the state.

Re:Goodbye

[thomasw_lrd]

Hey if you like Venezuela so much, why don't you fucking move there. This is the US, not some other fucking foreign country. That's the great thing about having freedom, you have th freedom to get the fuck out.

Sorry, I don't mean to take it out on you, but I'm so tired of people comparing the US to other countries. The US is not other countries, it has different priorities.

By the way, an assault rifle was not used in the Sandy Hook shooting http://www.ijreview.com/2013/01/30208-nbc-admits-no-assault-rifle-used-in-newtown-shooting/
Only pistols, so please explain to me one more time how banning an assault rifle would have stopped this or other tragedies?

Re:Goodbye

[speederaser]

two of those years gave him full run of Congress

Nope, unless by "years" you mean "months". Actually it wasn't even a full 2 months.

The Democrats only had a supermajority in Congress between July 7, 2009 when Al Franken was seated in the Senate, and August 25, 2009 when Ted Kennedy died of a brain tumor.

Ted Kennedy represented Massachusetts in the Senate, so when he died the then-governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, appointed a Republican to replace Kennedy and the Democrats lost their supermajority.

Kennedy had been suffering with a brain tumor for more than a year, and towards the end during that period of supermajority he was not well enough to attend most Senate sessions and only voted a few times.

Re:Goodbye

[Ragnarr]

Ever consider investing in his education? It's not just his parents responsibility to get him through. And, it certainly doesn't have to be a government program either. Crowdsource it.

Re:Goodbye

[symbolset]

Some colleges admit up to 80% freshmen they know they are going to push out in this way. For them it is a point of pride that most people admitted can't get through their program, rather than a point of shame. For every graduate given their "exclusive" degree they ruin four lives, and they aspire to get that figure up to five.

Re:Goodbye

[jcr]

What you're describing is fascism, not progressivism.

ToMAYto, ToMAHto. "Progressives" are just another label for power-seekers.

-jcr

Re:Goodbye

[akeeneye]

Germany likewise is roaring along whilst providing worker protections, ensuring that everyone has health insurance, and, if I understand correctly, free university educations for a large segment of the population.

Re:Goodbye

[Attila Dimedici]

What you're describing is fascism, not progressivism.

Fascists, like all other progressives, believe that the government should manage the economy in order to promote the best interests of "the people". Of course, since like all other progressives, fascists believe that most people will not make the proper decisions for themselves, certain people will have to be selected to make those decisions for them. The difference between fascists and other flavors of progressives is that fascists select people who have demonstrated an ability to make economic decision in their own interests as the people to make those decisions for others, whereas most other flavors of progressive prefer to select people who have demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of economics to make economic decisions for everyone else.

Re:Goodbye

[Nimey]

You really shouldn't be surprised. There are people who still blame Carter for various random things, after all, and even at the end of Bush the Lesser's admin one could regularly see certain people blaming Clinton for other things.

Water is wet, shit stinks.

Re: Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

And a 4 ounce bottle of shampoo never a plane, but I don't see any conservatives rallying in the street protecting their 4th amendment rights from the DHS. What is it about guns that gets them off their butts?

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Canada is not a country it's a colony.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

unfortunately, I have to agree with you 100%. it's all about who has the money. what a sad sad world it is now - yep feudalism 3.11

Re: Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

I will have you that shampoo the plane.

Re: Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

That's 4 years of income lost by taking extra time to finish college.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

There are things that are common to all countries. Keeping grade school children's brains from being blown out by rampaging lunatics is one of them. I hate mentioning Chavez and his ilk as good, but they had the cajones to do actions which have completely stopped the gun violence in their country. "Only criminals will have guns". Once the police see someone with a gun, that's one less gun and one less criminal on the street.

I' have never understood the gun nut mentality. When someone shoots up a school or another public place, the first thing they do is go into defensive mode. I guess they seem to condone this type of thing as part of the Second Amendment... and completely ignore the part of "a well regulated militia".

Where is your fervor for the First Amendment, or how about the Fourth?

Re:Goodbye

[Billly Gates]

Countering Mir, Canada has a much better financial discipline than the Yankees do. The US is about to head the way of Greece. Not from a radical socialist black muslim president, but Canada makes sure its taxes are appropriate for its level of funding. In the US ... NO NO MORE TAXES!! So they borrow instead and laugh at Greece while the US has the same symptoms but without the same spending.

Re:Goodbye

[AK Marc]

Fascists, like all other progressives, believe that the government should manage the economy in order to promote the best interests of "the people".

That's what the Repbulicans do too.

Trying to define terms so that your team is the best is stupid. We waste so much time in-fighting about whether Republicans are more fascist than Democrats that we aren't paying attention when another in a long line of fascists is elected.

Re:Goodbye

[AK Marc]

Hey if you like Venezuela so much, why don't you fucking move there. This is the US, not some other fucking foreign country. That's the great thing about having freedom, you have th freedom to get the fuck out.

Libertarian: A person who encourages everyone to move away from them, and tries to ban anyone from moving near them. Libertarian is the party of misanthropes.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

It is no longer possible to work your way through most University programs if you work for minimum wage.

I get in-state tuition, and the total cost of my living expenses and tuition is more than 25,000 dollars a year. If you allocate 30 hours per week for studies and find a way to work 40 hours a week at $8.25 an hour, you would only earn $17,490.

That leaves more than two thousand dollars per year. Now, one could realistically borrow this money, but who would lend it? I have a friend who was offered 13% interest. Fuck that bank.

College access has become primarily a credit issue.

Re:Goodbye

[AK Marc]

Or maybe his boss decided to cut expenses and pad his bonus while blaming Obamacare.

I see that all the time. Minimum wage goes up 10% and a company cuts jobs 50%, blaming minimum wage. Or the insurance was going up 20-30% per year from 1990 to 2010, and once Obama comes in, they change from one of the premium plan to a cheaper one, and blame Obama. I know my health insurance was cut the year before Obama, after having absorbed the cost previously, if they had lasted one more year, they could have blamed it all on Obama, and some more people would be ranting about evil Obama when he was unrelated to the issue, other than being a convenient scapegoat.

Re:Goodbye

[I'm New Around Here]

Governor Reagan did not end free education in California's universities. That was done after he was president, in 1982. He did allow increased student fees, and tried to end the tuition-free policy, but in no way "ended free education" since tuition was not instituted until 8 years after he left office.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ted Kennedy represented Massachusetts in the Senate, so when he died the then-governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, appointed a Republican to replace Kennedy and the Democrats lost their supermajority."

That's the complete opposite of what occurred. Governor Deval Patrick (a Democrat) appointed Paul Kirk (a Democrat) to fill Ted Kennedy's seat so they could get the required votes to pass the president's health care bill. He was eventually replaced by Scott Brown (a Republican) in the following special election.

Re:Goodbye

[TubeSteak]

Feudalism 8: Where's my Start button?

Re:Goodbye

[AK Marc]

I see people still blaming FDR, JFK, and LBJ on here all the time. FDR caused the recession by prolonging the depression with the New Deal and oppressive banking regulations passed.

Re:Goodbye

[thoth]

yet there are still progressives blaming presidents who are long gone.

As they should, because the bills and spending Bush ran up didn't magically vanish when his terms ended. He left the country fighting 2 basically unfunded wars, deep tax cuts, and a special going away present of a Wall Street bailout. Did you forget all that stuff?

Re:Goodbye

[ranton]

That leaves more than two thousand dollars per year. Now, one could realistically borrow this money, but who would lend it? I have a friend who was offered 13% interest. Fuck that bank.

Anyone can get $57,500 in student loans from Stafford loans. Since it cannot be discharged, you can get it even if you declared bankruptcy yesterday. The subsidized portion is 3.4% interest and the unsubsidized portion is 6.8% (not 13%). In this case you only have to make $10k per year; $8k if you spend your first two years in community college. Even if you do have to take out the full amount, your after college income only has to be about $6k/yr more to account for your $300k monthly college loan payment.

Re: Goodbye

[khallow]

It's not extra time, if you're not going to finish any other way.

Re:Goodbye

[Holi]

Because Im an American, Sorry if that offends you, But hey Born and raised here and it's my right, no my duty to try and fix our broken country. Quit acting like the Constitution is perfectt. The guys who wrote knew it was flawed, that's why they implemented ways to amend it. They just expected a lot more amendments. We stopped updating our governing document and thus we're stuck with an archaic system that hasn't kept up with the times.

Guns and Cities are a bad mix. You don't want to stick a bunch of people in close quarters then give them guns. It's just not a smart idea. I have no problem with hunting or shooting crap in the country for fun, but we have to allow common sense regulation to keep them from becoming a problem in areas of dense population.

Re:Goodbye

[khallow]

and the total cost of my living expenses and tuition is more than 25,000 dollars a year

You can do better. Community college for two years for starters. And there are cheaper colleges than your in-state university.

And I'll just note that if college is too expensive for you now, then don't go. Work a few years and build up some savings. Sure, you might have done something (like have kids) which screws up your college plans, but so does dropping out of college with a lot of debt.

Re:Goodbye

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

> it will make sense to rack up the biggest debt you can and stay in college as long as you possibly can stretch,
> and then find a low enough paying job so that you won't be repaying too much

Wow, you must be a hardcore tax evader to believe that. Deliberately getting a low paying job so as not to have to pay back a gubermint loan. As if not paying the loan is worth wasting ten years of your life as a burger flipper.

Re:Goodbye

[AK Marc]

College in the US is more like high school from 50 years ago, but now, we get to pay for it.

The "real" socialists want to scrap most of the education system and re-build it from scratch, rather than what we have now.

Why are you on about Elizabeth Warren so much? She didn't appear in the summary or TFA. Is she the demon behind all you find reprehensible?

And the schemes you are talking about for loans are a reaction to the insane push by the conservatives to make education loans un-dischargable. The "smart" thing to do is collect credit cards in college, then, once out, take out the max cash advance and put it against your loans and declare bankruptcy. They can discharge the credit card dept on your college loans, but not the loans themselves. When Trump is on his 5th or 6th bankruptcy and still a billionaire, but a poor student can't discharge most of his debt through bankruptcy, the system is broken.

Re:Goodbye

[0xdeadbeef]

So brave.

Re:Goodbye

[hairyfeet]

Sorry friend but you can't just do that anymore, you can't even keep gas in your car with a minimum wage job as they won't let you get full time hours anymore, he looked at the GI Bill but considering how they have refused to let soldiers leave when their enlistment is up? No thanks, not to mention his grandma is getting up there in years and her health is declining and if my mom passed on while he was overseas he would be devastated, and its pretty much just the one college here as the only other one in the state is a 120 mile round trip which again, gas prices.

So its all well and good you got lucky by being born at the right time but...that America? Really doesn't exist now, being 19 today is a hell of a lot different than being 19 then, nobody will give you full time hours, jobs are scarce, there just isn't any real paying jobs to be had. Hell I've had 3 guys, including one in his 50s bless his heart, trying to get the job mowing my mother's lawn, things are THAT bad now friend.

Re:Goodbye

[Nimey]

That thing about FDR's certainly what conservatards like to tell themselves, yes.

Re:Goodbye

[hairyfeet]

Dude my mother has been in the hospital 4 times in the past 3 years, I'm probably gonna end up seeing her back in the hospital before the week is out because i wouldn't be surprised if she broke another bone with this latest fall, dude i just don't fucking have it, I really don't. PCs and laptops are really luxury items and one of the first things to go when the economy is shit like it is now so between that and the time I have to keep taking off because my mom just decides she is gonna go do something and takes a header? I just don't fricking have it.

Re:Goodbye

[hairyfeet]

Yeah and sadly talking with these douchebags i get the feeling its EXACTLY that, they don't give a shit about ruining lives, its all about image and squeezing every dime they can out of a kid before spitting them out. If they can come up with the Benjamins to graduate? Fine, if not fuck 'em, they can just add another mark to show how "elite" they are and how only "the best" can graduate there, which sadly in reality translates to whether or not you are old money since i know guys that graduated that majored in fucking off but daddy and granddaddy went there and cut big checks so they didn't have to worry about shit.

Re:Goodbye

[MickLinux]

When I moved from theUS to Lithuania, ten years after they were released by the USSR, I learned a valuable lesson. In places where there is plenty of freh, clean air, people don't talk about the air. In places where there is freedom, people don't talk about freedom. They live it.

Keep talkin, you're comin' thru.

Re:Goodbye

[hairyfeet]

Oh and I forgot to mention both his parents were minimum wage earners and are now deceased, leaving nothing but memories, the two boys, and their dog.

Believe me if i could think of a way to help the kid I would as frankly his life has been hell and he deserves a break, but if I sold every single thing i own that wouldn't get him more than another 8 months, tops.

Re:Goodbye

[Aonghus142000]

Jimmy Carter? He's history's greatest monster!

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging by all the vast amount of dipshits I've meant in the last twenty years in the work force, I'm inclined to agree with the progressives and fascists that many people need others with a clear head making decisions.

If you actually look at what the NAZI party planks where the encompass the belief's of these three American political parties: The Green Party, The Democrats, and the Republicans.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, got a nephew that is gonna end up having to drop out of college halfway through because he can't get the aid to finish even though he has high marks while the same school trips over themselves to court these third and fourth generation money kids that can just fuck off for four years for all they care, they'll have a diploma and a cushy job waiting at daddy's firm when they get out. He is gonna end up buried in 37k of debt without even a piece of paper, damned shame is what it is, poor kid worked his ass off and got screwed..

George Carlin said it best "Its called the American Dream...because you have to be asleep to believe in it"

Where were his parents? By my calculations, his parents would have only invested a mere $137.14 a month with a ~4% return for them to have been able to pay off that $37,000 in debt. I bet the probably pay more per month in cable TV. Hope the cable TV was worth their son's education.

Re:Goodbye

[symbolset]

If their goal is to ruin the lives of 80% of the students they accept then the primary goal of the institution is to ruin lives and creating educated humans is a byproduct.

Re:Goodbye

[hedwards]

Around here if you've got the scores for entry in the local community college during your junior year, the state will pay for you to take a couple years at the university. If you select your courses correctly, you can just about have your associate's by the time you're ready to graduate high school.

And considering that fully half of all students find high school to be too easy anyways, it's a good idea to take them up on the offer if available.

Re:Goodbye

[thoth]

...and the massive financial cost upheavals induced by Obamacare had nothing to do with that happening, right?

No, it didn't. Private Corporation XYZ said let's make 2 billion a quarter PROFIT (and throw our employees under the bus) instead of 1.99 billion a quarter PROFIT (and cover their healthcare). Fuck them and you for being their brainless apologist.

Re:Goodbye

[nbauman]

My staunch Republican friend is complaining that at age 71 he can't afford to retire, and has to keep working.

The free market isn't treating him as well as he thought it would.

Re:Goodbye

[hedwards]

Fascists aren't progressives.

And progressives don't believe in a centrally managed economy. We believe in a country that's run to the benefit of the people and progressing to a higher state. Which means that people have the resources to succeed if they're willing to put in the effort and that people are not permitted to become dead wood by hoarding the wealth of the nation.

It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant some people are about this subject. Progressives just want people to get their fair share of things and to improve the quality of life for everybody. Time and time again, it's the progressives that raise the bar and change their views as times change.

Re:Goodbye

[hedwards]

Well, how long did it take for the US to recover after the Great Depression? And I don't recall the opposition party deliberately sabotaging the efforts to fix things.

And the Democrats had a filibuster proof majority for a few months between when Al Franken was finally permitted to take his seat after the specious challenge in courts by Coleman and when Sen. Kennedy passed away and was replaced by a Republican.

Even during that period it was dicey as the Blue Dog Coalition was often times selling them out on social issues.

Re:Goodbye

[dfenstrate]

What you're describing is fascism, not progressivism. Ever since Reagan, the USA has been going balls-out towards fascism. Lots of people would say that we're already there. Us progressives want to create a society that cares about its people instead of just the very rich and where it's possible for everyone to achieve a decent standard of living regardless of where they start at on the socioeconomic ladder.

You must mean the new sense of 'fascism', which is "things I don't like." Clearly you can't mean it in the traditional sense, because you'd know that 'brave dissidents' such as yourself would have been hauled off to concentration camps or simply executed in a truly fascist regime. You must also mean the new sense of 'progressive', which means not an advocate of progress, but someone trying to implement ideas that have brought much of Europe to it's knees. (Real fascists did that by spilling blood.) The 'progressives' there have run out of other people's money to hand out that decent standard of living you're so keen on.

Really, it must be fun to re-assign words like fascist and progress to suit your political agenda, and be largely unchallenged on your mauling of the language.

But hey, I could be wrong. That next knock on the door could be the Neo-SS come to haul you off to a concentration camp for daring to criticize those in power. Good luck in there.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

And considering that fully half of all students find high school to be too easy anyways

Maybe it's too easy because it's absolute garbage and they're not doing anything other than memorizing material.

Most people are imbeciles who aren't capable of doing much more than that, anyway.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

My companies insurance is so stupid, I actually feel like it would cost me less to just do without (barring any serious illnesses).

Not commenting on the rest, but I just wanted to point out that this is always true. Barring serious illness, insurance will always cost you more than you receive. Barring statistically improbable serious illness, the total paid by everyone in your company group is always more than the cost of everyone in that group. It's how insurance works.

They take your money, they pay a small portion back, and a portion goes to the guy down the hall with big bills. The insurance company gets anything left over.

Re:Goodbye

[I'm New Around Here]

Do you mean the Wall Street bailout that was written by a Democrat controlled House and Senate?

I blame Bush for signing it, but he can't be blamed for it passing Congress with a strong majority.

Re:Goodbye

[I'm New Around Here]

And I still see people blaming Reagan for airline delays. Oh wait, I mean that people blame today's airline delays on one action Reagan did over 30 years ago.

Your comparison for FDR would be someone claiming the Great Recession never ended because he forced a bank holiday, and the economy has been in the crapper for 80 years for that one act.

I haven't seen those arguments. Please let me know if you have.

Re:Goodbye

[triclipse]

The laws and of supply and demand apply to education, regardless of how warped the dynamic is by government interference. Is anyone surprised by this?

Re:Goodbye

[kermidge]

Went through similar stuff back in '65 and again in '06; scholarship and work the first time, grants and loans the second. Health issues put the kibosh on latest attempt; exhaustion and rising costs on the first. Sorry to hear of your troubles.

Re:Goodbye

[Zontar The Mindless]

I actually feel like this is the best time for intelligent people to be alive. Between programmers being able to create apps and sell them on the various mobile phone marketplaces, between writers being able to avoid the publishers with ebooks and blogs, and with recording artists being able to bypass the RIAA with the various music marketplaces. Any intelligent person who can't make a living with a little hard work and ingenuity is really just a lazy person.

I felt this way about 20 years ago.

Turns out that I was right. :)

Re:Goodbye

[im_thatoneguy]

2 years of full run congress? Try 2 months.
http://www.winningprogressive.org/democrats-had-a-filibuster-proof-senate-majority-for-72-days-during-president-obamas-first-term

And since then Congress and the Senate have been completely blocked by endless procedural blocks and filibustering. 5 years without being able to actually enact law is not 5 years. For those who don't live in America or flunked out of Civics we have multiple branches of government and the President in spite of popular belief cannot pass laws nor even submit a bill for consideration. So he has 72 days of real power and party backing--but we're talking about the democratic party. To quote the famous line "I'm not a member of an organized political party, I'm a democrat."

Also I feel completely within my right to blame Bush for crises which take more than 5 years to resolve. I never expected anyone to "fix" the economy after the disaster that was 2008. I didn't expect anyone to magically "fix" the middle east nor do I expect even the next president to fully fix it.

There are things that I can blame Reagan, Bush and Bill Clinton for since they're ongoing problems that they caused or failed to correct. We can blame Clinton in a large part for the DOMA. I don't blame Bush for that even though Bush had 8 years himself to deal with it.

Re:Goodbye

[I'm New Around Here]

And progressives don't believe in a centrally managed economy. We believe in a country that's run to the benefit of the people

How does your head not explode from the contradictions within it?

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't bother. roman_mir is the APK of socio-economic theory.

In fact, I've come to suspect that he *is* APK--when APK remembers to take his meds, that is.

Re:Goodbye

[PrimaryConsult]

Still possible to work your way through school in NYS... source.

We may have some of the highest taxes in the country but things like this is what it goes towards. There's also the Tuition Assistance Program (additional financial aid) and things like the Education Opportunity Program for students of low income households.

It can be made even cheaper by living at home (subtract room and board cost). Hopefully home is near a city (not necessarily *the* city, there's SUNYs everywhere). If not, that's simply the tradeoff of living in the middle of nowhere.

If you're not living at home, the "keeping gas in the tank" argument disappears - who says you need a car? That's several thousand a year going to what, exactly? You're not living at home so no excuse - you can select your state school and residence based on public transit requirements. Minimum wage jobs tend to also line public transit corridors. Many state schools offer public transit discounts for the regions they are in (or even flat out free transit).

Basically, if you are a resident of NY and cannot afford to go to college, it's most likely your own fault - do some research and be willing to adjust your lifestyle habits. If your home state is a lot less helpful, well, that's your lower tax rate in action.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet it's run ever so much better than that vast labour camp you lot like to refer to as a "country"...

Re:Goodbye

[Zontar The Mindless]

In 1970, Roger Freeman, an educational advisor to Nixon, and then working for the election of Ronald Reagan, said, "We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. That's dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow to go through higher education."

Much as I'd like to buy into that, I'm gonna have to play the [citation needed] card. Please provide a reputable source for this quote. Thanks.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonetheless, it couldn't hurt to punctuate your sentences...

Hope your nephew doesn't write like that ;)

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

None of this matters anyway:

The way things are going, college nowadays is a means to get a job. Only the wealthy go to college for "higher learning", useless crap. The poor go to college for upward mobility, aka A [good paying] JOB.

With social networks, you don't need a college degree for a job. You need connections and a good personality to learn, aka a salesmen mentality.

As for the wealthy, social networks tell them they don't need 'higher education', cause their linked-in network will get them funding, deviantart will get them the ideas, pinterest will get them communications, and facebook will market and sell it. Then they can ask daddy and his poltiical ties to allow you to monopolize the industry and make the poor pay up.

The tech future for the poor looks pretty bleak aside from access to good entertainment.

Re:Goodbye

[AK Marc]

No, they blame today's recession on the regulations FDR passed. If FDR was never president, then we wouldn't be in a recession now. At least that's the theory. The regulations artificially depressed the economy, and Clinton relaxing them caused the Democratic one-two. The businesses would have regulated themselves by the free market forces, if the government hadn't interfered. If FDR didn't pass the regulations, we wouldn't have had the private businesses misbehave.

That's right, the argument is lack of regulations would have resulted in good behavior by corporations, but imposing a regulation and lifting it will result in misbehavior, and that misbehavior isn't caused by the people at the company that break the law, but the government for not allowing the invisible hand to step in sooner.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Only reason you do traditional is for connections.

I doubt you CC/State Uni friend has graduated and hob-nobbing with the Clintons. We as I know someone who did the W&M, hardvard route and is talking with the Clintons (and making some good coin at it).

otherwise, yes the traditional method sucks.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

... Where's my Start button?

Feudalism 8: Where's my Serfs button?

Re:Goodbye

[I'm New Around Here]

That's my point in regards to Reagan, and blaming past presidents. Some are blamed for long term changes made by legislation they pushed through Congress. Some people still blame Reagan for late flights because he fired the air traffic controllers in 1981.

He's blamed for other things as well, but that is the one that I find ridiculous.

Re:Goodbye

[LordLimecat]

Have you put out the fires in Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece yet?

Re:Goodbye

[AK Marc]

I blame him for the middle east. He (or members of his election team) committed treason by dealing with our enemies in return for sabotaging the hostage talks to sink Carter's election. The Republicans cheated '72 and '80, and probably most since then, just caught less. I blame him for so many of the problems we have in the middle east, meddling, selling WMDs to Iraq to help counter the weapons sold to Iran. A soulless arms dealer creating wars to fill the coffers of the military industrial complex in return for us getting tied up in wars and attacks since then because of his illegal and immoral actions.

Firing all the controllers was a bad move, but at least one he thought was good, not one of the many he thought was deliberately evil.

Re:Goodbye

[hairyfeet]

That's nice...if you live in NYC or don't give a rat's ass about your family. none of what you just described is anything at all like what it is like here and again, he has an elderly grandma that is getting sick and if she died while he was halfway around the country, after he has already buried both of his parents before he even turned 18? i don't think he'd be able to live with himself, he'd end up in an institution or a suicide.

So again, real great if you live in NYC and can find something rat and roach free for under 2K a month, most of us don't have the luxury of living next to 8 million others in a megacity.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

You shouldn't refer to the UK as a labor camp. You forget what we do to petulant little colonies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

the very fact that you are using the un-word "progressives"

You fail it.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/progressives

Re:Goodbye

[Jessified]

Ditto. We laugh in your general direction, US. (that is, south...for those of you priced out of knowing that we are to your north).

Affordable education, free healthcare (even in taxes it costs less per capita than what you pay, and our population is healthier by most measures), fewer crazy extremists....

Get it together, America...you're embarrassing the continent. Especially when you scream "We're number 1!" Number one in what? Per capita incarceration? Yay.

Re:Goodbye

[KGIII]

I prefer to think of them both as Authoritarians.

Don't blame me, I'm an extreme moderate. ;)

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

They tried a EUR 500 / 5 months tuition for some time in Germany. The last substate (Bundesland) recently gave up on it though (for people studying their first subject. Though honestly with people expected to work till age 65 I am not convinced they won't have to make some adjustments there, too). On the other hand it's not so easy to get loans or jobs for living expenses (and other issues at school level), so there is still a lot of correlation between how well off people's parents are and whether they go to university.

Re:Goodbye

[davester666]

We already did. Colleges/universities get bundles of cash dropped on them from gov't.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Have fun when your oil reserves dry up.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

But think of the bright side. The money they saved on his education they can buy more drones and invest in more surveillance tech to keep your nephew safe. They can also help buy more influence from warlords in Afghanistan which should help keep more Afghanistan people safe.

Re:Goodbye

[roman_mir]

Authenticated Public-Key?
Advanced Power Kit?
Amplitude Phase-Shift Keying?
Alex P. Keaton ?

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer the Norwegian socialist model. All universities are state-sponsored, so there are no tuitions. And to cover your basic needs, you get student loans of $15,000/yr from the state for up to eight years. These student loans are interest-free until you graduate, and you get 40% of your loans converted to a scholarship when you graduate. (If you don't believe me, check out Wikipedia.)

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys over there could just do what most of Europe does: the student pays a fixed amount $X (just to deter people with no intention to graduate), the state pays a (much larger) amount $Y, if a university doesn't want to accept $X+Y as payment then they don't get the $Y and they have to justify the then greatly inflated price to the students. Instant control on prices, instant improved prospects for poor students, no debt spiral for anyone and a net benefit to all tax payers because education is a sound investment on average for the state. Your current solution just wastes tax payers' money because you forgo the benefits of an educated workforce and all the money you do pay to that just goes into inflated university fees. There might even be a positive return for the state on PAYING people to study (as happens in Denmark, for example), as long as the payout remains less than what you'd get on unemployment benefits. Having future brain surgeons spend years of their life waiting tables to avoid debt before they become brain surgeons is an inefficient use of resources.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd, because I graduated with my BS six years ago doing it that way. And now I'm doing my masters that way. It took me 6 years to get my BS, and it's going to take me over 3 to get my masters, but I'm still doing it with the help of employer sponsored tuition, working full time while going to school, just like I did my BS.

And I go to school with 3 or 4 guys going the GI bill route, I'm not sure, but I don't believe the military can hold on to you after your enlistment is up unless you agree, as that would make it slavery, and slavery is illegal. They might however make it very attractive to stay on, but I can't believe they can force you to stay on. And I have no pity for your friend if he isn't willing to take options that aren't pleasant as it sounds he just wants things handed to him on a silver plate, and doesn't want to make some potentially tough sacrifices.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

ROTC. That's how I did it.

Re:Goodbye

[PrimaryConsult]

Places that are not NYC also have public transportation. Almost every state has at least one city with public transit. Middle class Americans seem blind to it because it tends to be viewed as only for "poor people" or the elderly, but it is there. The colleges around here (not NYC) educate these individuals on this with freshman car bans (parking shortage), so it's either learn to use the bus or never leave campus. It may not be convenient at all times but than can be worked around.

Also, your statement "rat and roach free" tells me you aren't properly understanding the solution - when you need to be frugal, sometimes you may have to live in a place that is less than pretty. Around here we'll often have three unrelated students sharing a 3 bedroom apartment. If there is a mice problem, they get a cat. Roach problem? RAID. You make do with what you have.

As for your heart rending example, that is an unfortunate situation but doesn't really describe the average college-bound individual.

Re:Goodbye

[davydagger]

"he looked at the GI Bill but considering how they have refused to let soldiers leave when their enlistment is up?"

What? That is a lie.

Re:Goodbye

[davydagger]

And the point is, they are making it harder and harder. taking 8 years to get a 4 year degree should not happen.

your "smart" way to doing college isn't smart, its an ugly hack of the education system, thats going to break the next point release.

The problem is that treat school like a business, more students, higher tuition, and then make the coursework easier so everyone who can PAY will get a degree. Then you can't default on loans when you can't find a job.

A college degree has been the new nobility for some time. Its a status symbol who's supreriority over the plebians is purely rhetorical and asthetic(with the exception of a few programs notable in engineerings and hard sciences).

Its a thinly vield justification for how people on top of society explain why they are treated better by those on the bottom.

Now they are trying to make it more like old fashion nobility. Your earn it by birth, and nothing else.

Re:Goodbye

[davydagger]

There is no living in NYC on minimum wage without paying for school.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

This. I got through college having saved money for it by working through high school and college summers instead of partying too much (a situation that, in hindsight, I now regret actually) and by working sometimes during school. This was because I didn't want student loan debt from back then (early 90s). I obviously had no idea. That debt would have been totally easy to deal with compared to what people have to put up with these days. I could actually write a check for my tuition myself from what I saved up working over summers. I don't know anybody who could do that these days, including some current-day "me" starting out right now. Costs have simply not kept up with income, which of course has been the economic goal of this country ever since Reagan was elected.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Education that is publicly funded is Big Business just like other Big Business that gets government money. It's just that socialists love this version of Big Business while being against other versions of it.

The real difference between Big Business and other business is government money and government money = corruption.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Progressives want to regulate the rich and powerful because we have this funny belief that material wealth should not translate automatically into political power, which of course generates more material wealth for those who have it.

Somehow, if you manage to take care of that one little thing, the rest of society seems to prosper and otherwise take care of itself.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama's new 'Pay as you Earn' idea is going to change the way people pay back loans, no more the loan payment will be tied to the actual loan amount, now it will be tied to your yearly earnings

Wow.. this actually sounds like a good idea... make the banks do their homework instead of just using the government as a bill collector/enforcer. It will be harder to get loans and will force value back in the education market ( where they'll be competing for less $$ ). Did you ever call it wrong!!

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama's new 'Pay as you Earn' idea is going to change the way people pay back loans, no more the loan payment will be tied to the actual loan amount, now it will be tied to your yearly earnings, so it will make sense to rack up the biggest debt you can and stay in college as long as you possibly can stretch, and then find a low enough paying job so that you won't be repaying too much.

Do you really think that someone who needs to pay back 10% of their salary for a loan will intentionally take low paying jobs and have less income for themselves just to pay back less than they borrowed purely out of spite?
No one would skip a $40,000 job and take a $20,000 job just so the government only gets $2,000 instead of $4,000. No one would intentionally live on $18,000 instead of $36,000 solely to avoid repayment. The world doesn't work that way, no matter how badly you hate this plan.
It will never make sense to rack up the biggest debt you can. What if you get your dream job at a high salary? You'll have to pay it back. How about your not-so-dream job at a moderately good salary? You'll have to pay it back. Not many people go to college with the intention of making a lower salary after they're done. This program will not change this at all.

I don't have time to disect the rest of this post, but economics doesn't work the way you think it works. People generally prioritize what's best for them; giving the government the finger is way down on their list, not number one.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know his or her ideology, you fascist bellend?

Re:Goodbye

[Drethon]

At my college I worked an internship at a local engineering company for three semesters (essentially one full time year of work) over my four years of college. This internship covered half of the cost of tuition for my four year degree.

Yeah things are pretty bad now but it wasn't a whole lot better in 2002-2003 when I was applying for my internship. Also many companies I talk to are short handed for software engineers. So options are there, though definitely not completely across the board.

Re:Goodbye

[blackraven14250]

If I understand it right, it's not so much that everyone gets to go to a university for free, but that there's actual training options for trade jobs that are government sponsored, and tons of worker retraining options available when companies fail or downsize. It's a more holistic system than dealing almost exclusively in college-level education.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.thorschrock.com/2008/05/19/how-to-respond-when-people-threaten-to-sue-you-on-the-web/

This guy. Note he's in the comments. He's been at large on the Internet on various forums for like 15 years, maybe longer, filling his posts with complaints about the HOSTS file and a curriculum vitae of every time somebody famous has ever agreed with him or appeared to. And you can't ask him to talk like a normal human being or he'll scoff that you're not an English professor. Even if you're an English professor. One time he was quoted in some magazine once, and one time Mark Russinovich said thanks in some comment on his blog or something, so you know he's hot shit.

Recently some slashdotters have taken to trolling him by posting things in his name and using his style, since he refuses to get a username on slashdot and always posts AC. The original troll looks almost identical to him. There seem to be ancillary trolls that are not nearly as good at trolling.

I don't want him stalking me so I'll post this AC.

Re:Goodbye

[drinkypoo]

Places that are not NYC also have public transportation

No, they really don't. They really, really don't. I lived in San Francisco, which has a lot of public transportation. It took me 15 minutes to drive to work (from Bernal Heights to Potrero Hill) including parking. It took me an hour and fifteen minutes to get to work on public transportation. The fastest route involved two buses and the subway. It would have been faster to walk. That's normally an option for me, in good weather, but it's not an option for elderly or infirm people. And right now, I'm infirm; I have a knee problem.

Vanishingly few cities in the USA have a working public transportation system. We had better public transportation in the forties and fifties, but the automakers bought up and shut down profitable transportation lines to increase demand for their product with the blessing of the federal government, which implemented the interstate highway system with the excuse that it would be better for troop movements. This is poppycock. You can repair rail lines, too, and once you have a convoy heavily loaded you can't just divert around the highway anyway, highways can be bombed too. The interstate system was not designed for military benefit, but for economic manipulation.

As for your heart rending example, that is an unfortunate situation but doesn't really describe the average college-bound individual.

[citation needed]

Re:Goodbye

[drinkypoo]

There is also plenty of upaward mobility in the US if you are willing to sacrifice and work for it.

No, no there isn't. only 1.3% of those born into the poorest 10% managing to âoestruggle upwardâ into the top 10%, while nearly one third of those born into the top 10% are able to hold on to their class position. Hard work is the least effective way to get ahead in America. Being put into right womb by the right penis and coming out of the right vagina is the best predictor of success, and it's not because of inheritance of genetic traits.

I actually feel like this is the best time for intelligent people to be alive.

Probably true. That doesn't mean that it couldn't be much better.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd. Bare-bones high-deductible plans are about to become illegal, thanks to the ACA.

Unless his employer is just making preparations to dump all their employees on the exchanges.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

What? That is a lie.

As somebody who was caught by stop loss, I'd ask you to shut the fuck up.

Re:Goodbye

[Stewie241]

Disclaimer: IANAA (I am not an American)

I thought one of the core characteristics of the USA was democracy and the idea that the country is ultimately ruled by the people. As such, there is nothing that excludes somebody from still loving their country but seeing how things are done somewhere else and wondering if it is a good idea.

Of course the USA has different priorities, but aren't those priorities set by the people? If 90% of USAians decide they no longer want to allow people to own guns in their country, does that make it any less USA? (Note, I'm not saying 90% do and I'm not saying guns should be outlawed - just making a point about democracy).

The great thing about democracy is that you have the ability to influence the country in which you live. The great thing about freedom (as you pointed out) is that if you disagree with the rest of your country people you can choose to leave (provided there is somewhere else that will have you).

I believe that as the world changes, so too must people. Representatives are elected to make decisions as to what the priorities should be. The hard part about government is that it seldom happens that people agree on every single issue. It doesn't matter who is elected to govern, both individually and as a collective, they will disagree on *something* with almost everybody in the country.

So to me, to say that there is no room for people to want things to be different is un-'American' - indeed, few politicians get elected on a platform of "I'm going to keep things exactly the same as they are" (as if that is even possible). Rather, most politicians get elected because they have a vision of how their country can be better and a plan for how that might be brought about. If you happen to disagree with choice that your fellow citizens have made, well, you either advocate for your position in hopes that it might be changed, or, as you said, you go somewhere else.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where you live, but I have difficulty in accepting that the scenario presented above is an impossibility. Going the non-traditional route, working full time while taking classes at night or online, is accessible to most anyone willing to pursue it. It may not be the most pleasant experience, and I can personally attest to that, but a degree can result from the hard work.

As to the GI Bill comment, if your nephew is willing to gamble on deployments, there is always the National Guard/ Reserve option, which would allow him to use the GI Bill now instead of waiting on the completion of an enlistment. Depending on his aptitude, there is a strong likelihood of being far from the theater even if he were to be deployed based on Military Occupational Specialty.

Re:Goodbye

[hibiki_r]

The stock markets are high due to enormous inflation? I guess that's why food is 20 times more expensive than it was 3 years ago, and why TIPS have double digit rate of returns.

And of course I want to pay extremely expensive tuition, and then strategically live like a pauper so I don't have to pay back loans. Then, after the first 10 years are up, I can go to any employer with my decade old education, and expect to make a bunch of money. It seems like a foolproof plan of action, because not only are 10 year old degrees very important, but humans are great at delaying gratification.

There is no way that, after colleges only get a percentage of earnings instead of a flat fee, we'd see colleges shrinking their budgets on majors that don't lead to good career prospects. They will willingly spend millions on students that will never pay back, instead of, say, focus on majors where graduates actually make money on average.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to move. You live somewhere with $18k a year tuition??!?!?!?!? That is rediculous.

For that price he would have finished his diploma living ON CAMPUS WITH A MEAL PLAN in South Carolina.

Sorry that you got ripped off, but BUYER BEWARE.

Re:Goodbye

[thomasw_lrd]

You are absolutely correct. The funny thing is that I somewhat agree with the OP on banning large capacity magazines. If I saw a poll that was scientific, and unbiased, that said that 51% percent of USians agreed to ban all guns, I would have no problem with laws being passed to ban them. I am not going to write my Reps though and ask for that to be done though. I feel that by giving up any right, then we are giving consent for the Govt to ask for us to give up more rights. This doesn't just apply to gun laws, it applies to free speech, copyright, search and seizure laws. The "free" peoples of this world (mostly Westerners) have allowed the govt to take our rights in the name of safety and think of the children. This is unacceptable to me. Every person who lives in a democratic nation needs to stand up for their rights, and declare that we are going to take them back.

Re:Goodbye

[roman_mir]

The stock markets are high due to enormous inflation?

yes, of-course. That's where inflation went, bonds and stock market. That's what the Fed does when it gives the banks free money, so that they would buy Treasuries and stocks pushing those prices higher.

By the way, food is getting more expensive, so is energy, so is shelter, so is medical insurance and care, so is any type of insurance, so is transport, utilities, everything.

That you are not observing huge spikes in the consumer sector is the result of the foreigners still absorbing US created inflation (lately Japan, EU, Australia, New Zealand, Mongolia, Poland just to name a few) of-course China is still buying US dollars and Treasuries and exporting goods to USA. They are still absorbing US inflation, but now plenty of it is in the stock market, in the bond market, in housing (Fed is pushing).

What do you think it is, you think USA companies are so much more productive that the US stock markets are going up? That much more productive? How is that possible, full time employment is record low in history of USA. Energy consumption is lowest in over a decade, energy imports are lowest in 25 years.

USA is so much more productive with lowest employees, lowest amount of energy imported and used, highest number of people on social welfare programs, disability, food stamps (sorry, it's called SNAP today, that's the PC term)? I don't think so.

It's not productivity that pushes the stock market up, it's inflation. That's where inflation is going, that's the assets the new money is chasing, NOT YET the consumer items as much.

And of course I want to pay extremely expensive tuition, and then strategically live like a pauper so I don't have to pay back loans. Then, after the first 10 years are up, I can go to any employer with my decade old education, and expect to make a bunch of money. It seems like a foolproof plan of action, because not only are 10 year old degrees very important, but humans are great at delaying gratification.

- what you want is irrelevant, you are going to respond to INCENTIVES.

Here are your incentives:

Pay as you Earn plan limits federal loan repayment obligations to 10% of "discretionary income" defined as total income above 150% of the federal poverty level.

That's $16,000 for individual, $33,500 for a family of 4.

If you earn $80,000, then you'll be paying about 4,500 per year.
If you earn $50,000, then you'll be paying $1,500 per year.

So given that, and the fact that the more you earn, the less of the interest you'll be able to deduct from your taxes, the incentive is not to maximise pre-tax, pre-loan repayment earnings but instead to maximise the post-tax, post-loan payment earnings and those are different goals with different incentive structures.

Sure, if your choices are 50K or 150K you should go for 150K salary.

If your choices are 40K or 65K then it's absolutely not clear that you will take 65K over 40K once you calculate what you'll be taking home (and of-course there are other considerations, such as where you have to live to make a higher salary, what will your other expenses be, other taxes).

Basically paying a loan is exactly the same as paying a tax and people act to minimise paying taxes all the time when the choices are: work harder and get almost no (or no) extra benefit or work less, live cheaper and get the same monetary outcome at the end.

Re:Goodbye

[usuallylost]

You were never able to work your way through school in the way you describe.

The way you work your way through school, and I did this at about minimum wage for the first part, is you go to an inexpensive school, typically a community college. You take your courses at the rate you can afford. Then you get your associates degree and use it to get a job that pays a bit more. If you are lucky you will get in at a company that has a tuition assistance program. You then go to a reasonably priced state school part time taking as many courses as you can manage and afford. Can you work your way through college as a full time student without loans, grants or scholar ships? Probably not. Can you get a college education and all the benefits of that? Sure you can it will just take a huge amount of work and a lot of sacrifice. It took me just shy of 11 years. On the other hand I came out of it without a cent in student debt.

This isn't new either. My father went to school in late 50's and he had to do pretty much the same thing. My father worked full time a during the week, attended classes during the week and then worked as a contractor laying tile in office buildings during the weekends. College is more expensive now but it was never cheap. If you aren't born rich or lucky odds are you are going to have to take longer and put in a lot more work than the other guy. Still it is possible. It just a matter of how bad you want it.

Re: Goodbye

[Penguinisto]

That's 4 years of income lost by taking extra time to finish college.

I disagree. During that extra time, you should be working in the same field you intend to make a career of. For instance, if you're working towards a BS in Nursing, it would make sense to work as a CNA, then LPN, then RN... (to use my ex wife's example). Same with IT - Start at a help desk, then work your way up while you're going to school.

Do it that way, and you not only get your sheepskin, but you get something in parallel that is more valuable to employers - experience.

Re:Goodbye

[sociocapitalist]

Long rant, I won't quote it.

Here in France, university costs relatively nothing. Students who cannot afford to pay for housing get aid for this as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_France#Tuition_costs

There are a limited number of places available in any given school, as well as total in the country, and competitive exams to eliminate those who do not merit continuing.

Re:Goodbye

[operagost]

Sorry, but people like the average Slashdotter let the government take all means to defend ourselves from a simple robber, much less a despotic government. Good luck with that.

Re:Goodbye

[RevDisk]

In theory, you are wrong. The USA is technically a constitutional republic. The notion is that a majority cannot vote away the rights of the majority, with a constitutional amendment. First there is a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, then three-fourths of the States (38 of 50 States) must approve it. Short of this, Constitutional rights (such a free speech, firearms, habeas corpus, etc) cannot be overruled. Theoretically, tiniest minority that could overrule the majority would be the thirteen least populous states, which make up 4.98% of the total population. So, you're close. Worst (or best) case, you'd need at least a maximum of 95.02% of the population to remove a constitutional right if folks wanted to really make a hash of things.

Reality is, they can and do infringe on pretty much all rights to various degrees. For instance, felons are deprived of many fundamental rights.

Re:Goodbye

[RabidReindeer]

Places that are not NYC also have public transportation

Not Florida.

Yes, most cities have so-called bus systems, but their routes are inconvenient and their schedules are abominable. A few cities have commuter rail systems, which are generally treated as expensive and useless jokes.

Most urban development occurred after the advent of the automobile and the terrain is too flat to force people closer together so the sprawl is horrendous.

Re:Goodbye

[stenvar]

You really don't know much about Germany, do you. Health insurance in Germany is private and you have to pay for it (but it's mandatory). And although there is no (or little) tuition for universities, you still have to pay for living expenses and many people take up subsidized loans; yet, the percentage of university graduates in Germany is still much below the US. German GDP growth is anemic, and it would be even worse if you took into account the shell game of exports and bailouts Germany is engaged in.

Re:Goodbye

[hedwards]

There are no contradictions in there. And I can't help but notice that you couldn't find any either, as you failed to point out any contradictions.

Re:Goodbye

[roman_mir]

Here in France, university costs relatively nothing

- right, when you say 'nothing' you mean nothing to you, conveniently forgetting that somebody is paying for everything. France is bankrupt, by the way, it can't pay its debts either so all this socialism will end on the streets, similar to Greece or so.

Re:Goodbye

[stenvar]

Us progressives want to create a society that cares about its people instead of just the very rich and where it's possible for everyone to achieve a decent standard of living regardless of where they start at on the socioeconomic ladder.

You progressives want to accomplish that by restricting individual liberties. Even disregarding the immorality of that, the problem is that it doesn't work. You cannot mandate people to be educated, healthy, ethical, or industrious. All one can do is create economic incentives for them to do the right thing, but you are creating economic incentives for people to do the wrong thing.

Re:Goodbye

[kilfarsnar]

Lots of people vote republican because they think that sort of thing couldn't possibly happen to them...until it does.

And then they blame the "liberals"...

Re:Goodbye

[akeeneye]

I wonder how much you know about Germany? Health insurance is public AND private. You only get to opt-in to a private plan if you make over a certain amount of money. I never said that you didn't have to pay for insurance. But in Germany you pay a % of salary and nobody is uninsured - IIRC if you're poor, the cost of the insurance is subsidized. If there's a smaller # of uni grads in the population (citation needed), maybe more people go into the trades than here, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Unemployment is much lower in Germany than in, for example, the US.

My point in all this is that being what a US reactionary would consider a "socialist" country does not translate into necessarily having a basket case economy. A prior poster mentioned Canada as a similar example of what a US wingnut would describe as a "socialist country" that's doing relatively well.

Re:Goodbye

[sexybomber]

Oh, it's even more fiendishly perfect than what you describe.

See, at the end of the 10-year repayment period, the remaining balance does, in fact, get wiped, but the amount that's wiped is treated as taxable income. So if you've "racked up all the debt you want" and have $100,000 worth of forgiveness, say hello to a $35,000 tax bill.

What's that? You can't pay the tax on your newfound "wealth"? Well then, men with guns will come to your house, seize your property, and put you in a cage.

It's not feudalism, it's something rather worse.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans are happy to blame everyone and everything for their own failure, except themselves.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it our problem?

No everyone with a diploma makes a good living. So thinking that a degree is an instant ticket to wealth is buying into the hype.

I don't have a degree and I make $55k+ a year in an area where median income is $35k... so yeah, I'm a rock star.

If its more important to be there for every medical issue your mom has that's your choice. I wouldn't give the tuition because mentally your head is not in the game.. but pissing and moaning about your mom and how hard you have it.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

THIS!

It's free is the socialist motto. And the shitty part is that while the are in the 'free university' they are STILL no taught the economic principle of wealth redistribution and how it hurts the middle class.

Re:Goodbye

[zildgulf]

I worked my way through my Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Computer Science, paying for my tuition and books myself, but that was back in the 90s. I wouldn't be able to do that now. My suggestion for the working class student, which is a bit radical, is work a year after high school while studying hard on MOOCs so they can CLEP out much of the core curriculum the next year and finish the core in a cheaper community college. If it is difficult to get re-entry into the community college for the year gap then take just one non-CLEPable course per semester while spending your free time on the MOOC courses for CLEPing.

I think MOOCs, used correctly, can save a student a year's worth of tuition and books or more. That is a major reduction in the cost of a degree.

Re:Goodbye

[zildgulf]

So your suggestion is to immediately pull the plug for those student in need of financial aid and those heavy in debt due to government students loans remain peasants of the federal government while those family that can use their money and influence to get their intellectually inferior children, on the average, through colleges?

And where would these peasants, without degrees, go to work when just about every job opening has 5 or more people applying for it? Do you think an entire generations of people would sit back and watch this happen without any adverse political action?

Re:Goodbye

[stenvar]

Health insurance is public AND private. You only get to opt-in to a private plan if you make over a certain amount of money

The "public" option in Germany is merely a regulated private market. And Germany's health care system faces the same problems as the US system.

IIRC if you're poor, the cost of the insurance is subsidized.

It's complicated. Of course, in the US, if you're poor, you're generally covered by Medicaid too, so what's your point?

My point in all this is that being what a US reactionary would consider a "socialist" country does not translate into necessarily having a basket case economy.

Germany is in no way a "socialist economy". Germany has somewhat less of a free market than the US (mostly rooted in conservatism and corporatism, not socialism), and it pays for that with a lower standard of living and lower growth rates, just as you'd expect. Canada is a sparsely populated resource rich country; using it as an example to emulate makes about as much sense as using Saudi Arabia or Luxembourg.

If there's a smaller # of uni grads in the population (citation needed), maybe more people go into the trades than here, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

Gosh, you want to have it both ways: the sky is falling in the US because the government doesn't arbitrarily continue to fund excess useless college degrees, yet in Germany going into the trades is supposedly a good thing.

As for statistics, ...

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=percentage+college+graduates+by+country

Re:Goodbye

[Bureaucromancer]

"What? That is a lie." No. It isn't. There's some subtleties to it, but the essence of stop loss is in fact extending enlistment terms unilaterally. Legally speaking it's a matter of involuntarily converting time in the ready reserve to active duty. No, it isn't illegal or technically a change to the contract, but for essentially all intents and purposes it's an extension of the enlistment.

Re:Goodbye

[prisoner-of-enigma]

he looked at the GI Bill but considering how they have refused to let soldiers leave when their enlistment is up? No thanks

I'd love to see some sort of proof that soldiers, sailors, or Marines are being refused exit at the end of their enlistment terms. I'm a former Marine, and I have lots of friends who are still in the service. Nobody's reported on this. Nobody's even *heard* of this.

Re:Goodbye

[kilfarsnar]

Yep, got a nephew that is gonna end up having to drop out of college halfway through because he can't get the aid to finish even though he has high marks while the same school trips over themselves to court these third and fourth generation money kids that can just fuck off for four years for all they care, they'll have a diploma and a cushy job waiting at daddy's firm when they get out. He is gonna end up buried in 37k of debt without even a piece of paper, damned shame is what it is, poor kid worked his ass off and got screwed..

George Carlin said it best "Its called the American Dream...because you have to be asleep to believe in it"

Where were his parents? By my calculations, his parents would have only invested a mere $137.14 a month with a ~4% return for them to have been able to pay off that $37,000 in debt. I bet the probably pay more per month in cable TV. Hope the cable TV was worth their son's education.

Right, because everyone is, or should have been an investor. Or do you realize that not everyone has an extra $137 a month or the wherewithal to invest it successfully? Douchebag...

Re:Goodbye

[Bureaucromancer]

Speaking as a social democrat, you can go fuck yourself if you feel the need to spout absolute nonsense about my beliefs.

Re:Goodbye

[kilfarsnar]

The US cannot go the way of Greece because the US can print it's own money. Greece can go bankrupt while the US cannot. On the other hand, the US can inflate its currency into oblivion.

Re:Goodbye

[Attila Dimedici]

Typically, the "conservative" position (by U.S. definition of the term) is that individuals should be responsible for managing their own economic decisions. Progressives (fascists among them) believe that people cannot be trusted to make such decisions and that "the people" will be better off if centralized experts make such decisions such as how much corn is grown each year.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Whhhhhhhhhiinnnnnneeeee

Yet my wife and I both did exactly what the previous poster said. She finished two degrees in 2011.

FYI, Stoploss has been part of military deployments since WWII at least. They actually do expect you to serve in order to get all that college money, on top of the pay, hiring preference, technical training (varies from crap to awesome, depending on your specialty) and experience. Go figure.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

First, wealth does not automatically translate into political power. Billions, if not trillions, of dollars have been spent by many a political campaign on both the left and the right throughout history only to lose the election. What matters more than dollar bills is ideas -- always has, always will.

Your desire to 'regulate' the wealth of others runs counter to freedom and is little more than robbery dressed under the cloak of public service through government. While we all need a basic government to establish and enforce a framework of freedom, government should not be seen as a vehicle to steal money from one group of people to give to another group of people. All must work for their own money by learning a skill that will allow them to provide a marketable product or service to society. Those that make more money than others, have learned a skill that's difficult to attain. While it is entirely their decision, those who make money, tend to want to spend that money either on products, services, or on investments to make yet more money to spend another day. The more money we produce, the better our quality of life and the quality of life of those we care about. This enriches others in society, which then further enriches others as the cycle progresses to enrich all. There's nothing inherently wrong with making money and lots of it. It's simply an efficient method to facilitate the free exchange of products and services among people. It is one of the great advances of the human race that has allowed us to evolve and progress as quickly as we have.

Money is not the problem, corrupt ideas enforced by a tyrannical government in the name of bettering society, on the other hand, is. Little by little, it's what's eating away at our freedom and our free economy, which is the source of our prosperity and what makes this country great.

Re:Goodbye

[Straif]

He may have but you seem to forget that for the last two years of Bush's term the Democrats controlled congress and therefore the federal purse strings.

So who exactly was in charge of federal spending during the bailouts?

The Dems didn't even bother with Bush on the final budget of his Presidency but opted instead to keep issuing extensions until Obama could take office and sign their budget into law.

Bush definitely had his spending problems and was no financial genius but at least he knew enough to understand the problem with the housing bubble well before it burst and tried to do something, only to be blocked in congress by the likes of Barney Frank.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

On the flip-side, there is a lot of growing sentiment that college isn't the right direction for most students and that trade school or technical vocations/apprenticeships are more appropriate.

Would it make sense that we as a culture push towards alternatives to college?

Re:Goodbye

[jcr]

Since its inception, the Libertarian Party has advocated open borders. Got any more lies you want to toss off?

-jcr

Re:Goodbye

[__aaxtnf2500]

Oh the country to the north of the US which has almost identical unemployment, ranks below the US on the UN human development index, and is so fundamentally dependent on trade with the US that any financial crisis in the US immediately and significantly affects it?
That country?

Re:Goodbye

[astrodoom]

Well, with your 31 years of experience as an independent country, I'm shocked we haven't all followed your example...of partial governance...of your own "country"...

Re:Goodbye

[houghi]

Look at the plus side. When China's economy gets a boost, they will need to outsource to a country where there is a lot of unschooled labor and no unions to speak of. He will be golden then.

Re:Goodbye

[parkinglot777]

Obama's new 'Pay as you Earn' idea is going to change the way people pay back loans, no more the loan payment will be tied to the actual loan amount, now it will be tied to your yearly earnings, so it will make sense to rack up the biggest debt you can and stay in college as long as you possibly can stretch, and then find a low enough paying job so that you won't be repaying too much. In 10 years the remainder of your loan is forgiven, and so colleges will raise tuition faster than ever before in history, I even fully expect to see doubling of tuition in a single year. Why not, you are not paying for it, you are not price sensitive.

Even though I agree with you that there will always be people doing what you mentioned, it should not be concerned unless the U.S. is populated with those evil mind set that plan ahead to suck as much blood as they can from their host (the U.S.). I doubt that.

Unless I am very far off, a regular person would try to get the best job he or she could. Salary is one of the major reasons for taking a job. It makes no sense to take a less payment on purpose for the student loan payment. If the person is too lazy to work, the person would never get a job at all because low-payment job does not always mean less work (often times it is the opposite).

The part I agree is that there should not be any time limitation of the loan. With limitation, it actually teaches people to ignore consequences of what they have done. The loan should not be forgiven until it is paid in full.

Re:Goodbye

[Panruru]

Given the current state of our (Canada's) government, especially the Prime Minister, I don't think we should really be pointing fingers. You know, in all politeness.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Cry me a fucking river. $37K for 2 years. Try a state school dumbass.

Re:Goodbye

[NateTech]

Run to the benefit of the people... by whom, and what's their incentive to do so? Do they eschew personal gain in this "process"?

(I already know the answer. Let's see if you can figure it out. Do your Progressive "leaders" eat any better than you do? Do they have fancy houses or cars? Maybe a free ride on a private jet at your expense from time to time?)

Re:Goodbye

[AK Marc]

US Conservatives state people should be able to make their own economic decisions, unless they are rich, in which case they get welfare for poor choices. In practice, they payout different groups, but still believe in a welfare state.

Re:Goodbye

[Jessified]

Fair enough :) my bad.

I'd still take Canadian healthcare and affordable education with the Harper government over the US approach.

Re:Goodbye

[Jessified]

cool story bro. Pay more for less if it makes you happy :)

Your country is hardly a shining example of independence, giving the hold corporations have over your "elected" officials.

Re:Goodbye

[AK Marc]

It's not a lie. The "party" may advocate open borders, but try actually going to a meeting sometime and see what the attendees say and do. the LP is anti-immigration, even if the platform states otherwise.

Reality trumps theory every time.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

I explained why people will take lower paying jobs, if the choice is between 50K and 150K, even then it depends on how much debt you have to return, but in that case it does make sense to take the 150K job. If the difference is between 36K and 65K, then it's not clear at all that the incentives are right to take the higher paying job.

Re:Goodbye

[jonadab]

A merit-based financial aid system doesn't absolutely prevent poor people from getting financial aid. It just makes it harder than a need-based system. (More merit is required.)

Also, once you do get the scholarship, you have to keep it -- which generally means you have to keep your grades up, and in some cases there can be additional requirements (e.g., one of the better scholarships I received required participation in at least two extra-curricular activities every semester). If you fail to meet the requirements, your scholarship renewal evaporates and you can no longer afford to attend. Thus, if you want to graduate, you can't cruise through with Cs. You need mostly As and maybe a few Bs, and you work for them. This is how the college I attended kept its grade statistics up without dumbing down the course material. It also improves other stats (like median income of your graduates five or ten years later) -- all of which makes your college more attractive to prospective students and also to their parents, *and* it makes alumni happy, which improves the donation rate. Win, win, win, win, win.

Re:Goodbye

[jonadab]

> he can't get the aid to finish even though he has high marks

Uh-huh.

Students that have genuinely high marks *do* get the aid they need. I suppose there are colleges where this does not happen, but there are plenty of schools out there where it *does*. Otherwise, I for one would never have been able to afford to attend college. I think my parents scraped together just about enough to cover my transportation expenses and clothes.

I did have to take some Stafford loans; but I paid the last of that off four years after I graduated.

Re:Goodbye

[Attila Dimedici]

U.S. conservatives did not support TARP, nor do they support the Dodd-Frank law designed to guarantee government support of "too big to fail" institutions. This is not to say that all Republican politicians are conservatives, nor is it to say that all politicians who claim to be conservative are indeed conservative. However, I am unaware of any person or organization which is otherwise conservative (that is, which I considered conservative before they took such a statement) which supports government payouts to protect the "rich" from their poor choices.

Re:Goodbye

[AK Marc]

So they object to the bailouts under Obama, but where were they when the bailouts were coming under Bush? No, they complain when done by the other party, but do the same when they are in power. They have done it before, and will do it again.

Re:Goodbye

[hairyfeet]

"less than pretty"? dude I live in AR, anything in the capital where you ain't dodging fucking gunfire is $1800+ a month and again it'll cost you $5K+ to get in to that place.

And you obviously haven't been anywhere but the coasts, they can waste points modding me down but THERE IS NO PUBLIC TRANSPORT in most of the flyover states, there really isn't. i have lived pretty much all over the south and you get a couple of buses that go from scumtown to the mall and back and THAT IS IT, that's all there is. You certainly won't be going to college and riding the bus because a trip that would take 30 minutes by car takes THREE HOURS by bus. I'm not fucking kidding either, a trip on a greyhound from where we are to the state capital (which just FYI but if you haven't looked at a greyhound ticket you should, you'll see you won't save shit by taking greyhound) takes THREE HOURS because there is no less than 34 stops in the 60 miles between here and there, they stop at every. single. one. horse. town. between here and there. As for "public transport" it goes from MLK to the mall and back, that's it, and you can scream racist all you want but a white guy won't survive a month living on MLK, hell the cops won't go in there after dark without SWAT and choppers.

And if you wanna see what you get for an apt if you can't afford an 80 mile trip daily? Look up "banging in little rock" on youtube and see for yourself,where even the meatwagon has to have the driver wear a BPV because they won't stop firing at each other long enough to drag the body out.

So its not a case of won't pal, its a case of can't. He simply doesn't have the finances to live in the state capital, doesn't have the finances to commute at least 80 miles a day (anything closer and you are either looking at 3 grand to move in or needing a BPV to check your mail because we are in the middle of the meth highway) and no place around here will give anybody a full time job because they don't want to pay benefits, its all part time but they won't even work with you so you can have 2 jobs.

Short of winning the lotto or robbing a bank the kid is screwed, that is all there is to it. he has already buried both parents before he was even 18 so I honestly don't think he would be able to live with himself if his grandma died while he was halfway across the country as she practically raised him while his mom was dying of cancer and even if he could somehow find a miracle that would let him go to state u that doesn't change the fact that thanks to the way the private school fucked his paperwork he'd have to come up with 6k in cash just to get back in.

sadly he is gonna end up another statistic, buried in student debt because he thought that if he worked hard he could graduate the private college, he didn't know that as another poster put it the private colege wears its 80% fail rate as a badge of honor and that fail rate wasn't the students fault, it was the way they had the thing set up.

Re:Goodbye

[hairyfeet]

Dude it ain't just FLA, I have lived in most of the south and parts of the midwest and the buses which only run in the state capital in nearly all the flyover states only go "from welcome to the jungle to the mall and back". In my home state the ONLY public transport is in the capital and it ONLY runs during daylight hours and it goes between MLK and the malls, that's it. And people can scream racist but no white guy is living on MLK, hell the cops won't go there after dark without dozens of them and choppers.

So that other guy can give us his "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" bullshit all he wants because that is what it is, bullshit. The 18-24 demographic is looking at 30%+ unemployment in a lot of places, no place hires full time anymore so they don't have to worry about benefits or overtime, and with gas at $3.36 a gallon here there is no way in hell he could afford the daily 120 mile round trip to work and go to school in the state capital.

And before anybody says "Well he should just move closer to the capital then" yeah...good luck with that. There is only 2 types of apts here, the nice ones where even a small apt will cost you a good $4k in fees just to move in (first month, last month, security, etc) and which will cost him $650-$900+ a month and that is figuring a 50-60 mile daily commute, closer and it goes right off the scales.

The other choice? Well look up "bangin in little rock" to see for yourself, there are places here that can easily compete with south central LA on the shit-o-meter and where the cops won't even go in broad daylight without having a show of force.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

A vote for a republican is a petition for the ruling class. Looks like you made it, you future murderer! Congratulations! I hope your children get drafted and die for oil you fucking conservative scumbag!

Re:Goodbye

[Attila Dimedici]

So they object to the bailouts under Obama, but where were they when the bailouts were coming under Bush?

They were objecting then as well. Sorry, your argument is incorrect as I was reading comments on conservative forums and the overwhelming sentiment was that the banks that "needed" a bailout should be allowed to fail. Conservatives expressed the belief that the problem had occurred in part because the bankers had become complacent and knew that the government would not allow them to go bankrupt. These complaints started during the Bear Stearns bailout.

Re:Goodbye

[sociocapitalist]

Here in France, university costs relatively nothing

- right, when you say 'nothing' you mean nothing to you, conveniently forgetting that somebody is paying for everything. France is bankrupt, by the way, it can't pay its debts either so all this socialism will end on the streets, similar to Greece or so.

It costs me money in that I pay taxes in France but at least I get something for it - excellent free medical coverage and education (and a whole bunch more). What are you getting for your tax money?

With regard to France being bankrupt...according to the IMF even with all 'this socialism' France (89.97% debt to GDP ratio) is in better financial shape than the US (107.1% debt to GDP ratio) and can't be at all compared to Greece (170.73% debt to GDP ratio): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt

You should check your assumptions before posting them.

Re:Goodbye

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Well, if you live in Europe, I propose this little hypothetical for you. Tomorrow, the USA's contribution to NATO disappears. No more bases. No more soldiers. No more weapons. No more obligations to defend. Suddenly, every country in Europe must pay for their own defense.

So, how long, do you think, your generous social benefits would last under those circumstances? Please provide numbers, and sources. Not hot air.

Re:Goodbye

[datavirtue]

I'm sorry about your troubles Hairy. I hope things get better for you.

Re:Goodbye

[datavirtue]

This is true. If you cut decent check to a college you get whatever you want. The people cutting the checks know they are getting something in return and those processing the checks get the picture as well. I've witnessed the power of "donations" first hand in a college.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

So, how long, do you think, your generous social benefits would last under those circumstances? Please provide numbers, and sources. Not hot air.

How long do YOU think it would last? Rhetorical questions are only good if you know the answer yourself. Please provide numbers, and sources. Not hot air

I actually did look at some numbers, and I actually think it's possible to cut all US contributions. The guideline states the US pays over 20% of funding. If they leave, that can split to the 27 other countries so individually they won't be burdened so much.

Of course, the popular rhetoric (including the rhetoric of the GGP, which the GP was responding to) is that much if not all government spending, including military spending, is excessive and unnecessary, so if the US pulls out, that might actually be a good thing for both sides as it'll wake everybody up to clean up their houses and be more efficient.

Re:Goodbye

[jcr]

I've been to LP meetings, I've talked about immigrations with plenty of other libertarians, and that's how I know you're lying through your teeth.

-jcr

Re:Goodbye

[AK Marc]

I've been to LP meetings, and that's how I know I'm telling the truth. You "know" I'm lying because you wish it to be so.

Re:Goodbye

[davydagger]

I wasn't talking about your beliefs.

I was talking about progressivism, not social democracy, nor any other form of socialism.

Re:Goodbye

[davydagger]

stop loss is not how it was portrayed in the movies.

It simply says, if your on a deployment, you can't get out until the deployment ends.

Once the deployment ends, they have to let you go.

Re:Goodbye

[USAProud]

Your right the world where work is expected is gone, the world where you had to work to succeed is gone. The world where you were expected to handle your own business, and if you were successful you werent required but were expected to help out others is gone. Now somehow the government is supposed to fix all this... I didnt wait around for someone else to fix the situation.

At one point i was working 5 jobs. I worked and scraped, sometimes having to skip semesters or taking part time classes (never had a new car till I got one for my wife). It took 8 years to get my bachelors. It is possible but you have to work your ass off. It wont get handed to you, sorry, that's a fantasy land that will likely never exist. True success requires effort. And its not fun, my grandfather passed while I was in the military. He asked for me on his deathbed and i could not go, but I know 100% he was proud of me, he knew I was taking care of business, doing the right thing, and working hard. He knew i cared for him and would have been there if i could have.

The world is not all roses and light, it is hard. You might need to move to where the work is. You might need to work more than you play. In large parts of the world its still possible to move to the work. You might have to do a dirty job or two or three. The idea that its not possible is bull. If one job only gives 10 hours; work 5 or 6 jobs. Demonstrate your value 1st and you will get ahead eventually. It sucks but it will get you money to move ahead

You might not be responsible for the economy near you, or the life situation you are in. But In nearly all cases YOU are responsible for your future and YOU can succeed. The people who fail generally chose to fail. The people who succeed are the ones who failed, and tried again, sometimes 100s of times. Saying how bad things are, is simply an excuse.

You need to work to succeed its that simple. Any "proletariat" message has been proven to be wishful thinking.

Re:Goodbye

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect. That's what RINOs do.

Re:Goodbye

[AK Marc]

Ah yes, the "no true Scotsman" claim every time someone's "team" is made of idiots. "Just because everyone I associate with is an idiot doesn't mean I'm one too". But if everyone is saying the same thing, it ends up looking like the entire team is made up of nothing but idiots. You know it's bad when they make up a term just to describe it. Apparently 99.9% of Republicans are RINO. And the other 0.01% are what, teabaggers?

Under 700 on the SAT?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they calculating that by dividing the score based on 2400 by 3?

Re:Under 700 on the SAT?

[Mr. Chow]

I thought that was the case as well, but unfortunately it isn't. That is the combined reading and math score according to the article's source http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012160.pdf page 7.

Re:Under 700 on the SAT?

[bored]

I was pretty shocked too, I didn't know you could get in anywhere with under 700. Christ, those have to be athletes because a 700 on the SAT is like 6th grade education.

It doesn't say what percentage of the students getting aid are under 700. Even so, how does one function in college if you don't have a grasp of algebra or any kind of reading comprehension?

Universities are a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

They run like one, and their main goal is to create the two tier society that the power elite dreams about.

Re:Universities are a cult

[Eightbitgnosis]

Maybe it's the community college I'm at, but I've only had one teacher I thought was trying to indoctrinate me: Nutrition

Re:Universities are a cult

[Penguinisto]

Community colleges are too busy trying to get kids educated to bother with indoctrination. Sniff around at a big-name or state uni, and things are a bit different.

Re:Universities are a cult

[ButchDeLoria]

Not all universities are like this. My state engineering school was more of a diploma mill than a reeducation center.

Re:Universities are a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

most community colleges are too busy sucking in money for teenager babysitting services, this is why I just wasted a grand for a manditory course for my wife called "wellness" which was nothing more than a timesink tailored to 18 year old's

Re:Universities are a cult

[Anonymous Coward]

A thousand dollars for one course? I hope that wasn't the in-district rate--and if it wasn't, why isn't she going to a four year college or university which would cost about the same per credit hour (and which might still make her take a "wellness" or other health/physical education course to graduate unless she waives out because of age or transfer credit)?

Q&A

[girlintraining]

How Colleges Are Pushing Out the Poor To Court the Rich

It might have something to do with making it too expensive for the poor. Just a thought...

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is to provide college up to PHD level for free like decent countries do. The USA is only exceptional in how we fuck over our own people (and the rest of the world for good measure).

Re:Q&A

[Rockoon]

Their only merit, in some cases, might well have been mom and dad's bank account.

..and it might well have been because Obama personally called and told them to give them a scholarship...

Isn't guessing fun?

Re:Q&A

[quickcup]

Okay, you pay for it.

Re:Q&A

[pwizard2]

You'd rather live in a society where there is no escape from poverty if you weren't talented^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^hlucky enough to be born a millionaire? That's where we're headed if what TFA is about becomes commonplace. The idea is that everyone pays for it through taxes. This inherent selfishness of "I've got mine so fuck everybody else" is what is destroying my country and I'm sick of it! All the conservatives who bitch about taking care of other people have benefited far more from society than they can fathom and yet they can't see it. Taxes are the price we pay for civilization and part of civilization is making sure that everyone has a decent standard of living. Yes, you're paying for other people, but guess what? Other people are paying for you at the same time so it all works out. If you don't want to pay taxes you clearly don't want to live in a civilized country either.

Re:Q&A

[quickcup]

No what you want is for a third party to collect the money by force (violence) and then redistribute it as they see fit. And the way they see fit is to keep most of it for themselves, destroy some, and give a tiny bit that's left back to you. THIS IS WHAT IS DISTROYING YOUR COUNTRY and mine. Liberals like you never ask yourself how much more efficient it would be if people would not be taxed and instead donate even 10% of what they would have been taxed to the causes they believe in. You can't see this because you are so selfish and greedy that you cannot comprehend that anyone would donate money.

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

Go look at the 1800s. People didn't donate enough.

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

All the conservatives who bitch about taking care of other people have benefited far more from society than they can fathom and yet they can't see it.

That is one of the keys to why they are the way they are: they believe that somehow they've done all the work and the money they have is entirely thanks to their own two hands and their singular work ethic. Poor people simply are lazy or stupid.
 
Another key is that most of the people thinking that way are poor and will always be poor, but have that attitude because they believe they will be rich and they don't want to have to pay lots of taxes in that never-going-to-happen future.

Re: Q&A

[LordofWinterfell]

So how does that pay for police, safe food and pavement? Oh, you want to have a street bill, a police bill and a private food inspection service...works if you have enough money to pay for it, but the majority, well they should just stop being lazy, right?
Living in a bubble...it won't work.

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh god, this simple-minded bullshit again...

Taxes are the price we pay for civilization and part of civilization is making sure that everyone has a decent standard of living.

You've glossed over the fact that how much, and what we spend them on are the always the topic of conersation. There's an entire fucking galaxy of difference in how people feel about both, and that includes those "conservatives" you hate so much.

Yes, you're paying for other people, but guess what? Other people are paying for you at the same time so it all works out.

"It all works out"? Holy. fucking. citation. needed.

How my tax dollars are spent matters to me, and tax dollars are not magic. They don't necessarily make societey better. What matters is what you spend, where, and at what cost to the people you took it from. Some programs are worthwhile trade-offs. Some are not. And what people think about each, varies.

In other words, lay off the Daily Show. It's funny, but it's making you lazy.

 

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor people simply are lazy or stupid.

no, poor people are enslaved by the massive welfare state. government intervention has created a system that has eliminated upward mobility.

Re:Q&A

[BitZtream]

I escaped from poverty on my own, without someone else paying my way. I really can't stand when some prick like you acts like its impossible for someone to pull themselves out of the slums in America. This isn't fucking Kenya. In America, contrary to what all you Occupy Wallstreet douchebags with your North Face backpacks and tents think, you make your own way in this place.

You can too. It just takes actual work rather than begging for and spending some elses money. This bullshit you spew is just an excuse to expect someone else to support what you believe you are entitled to.

I don't want to pay taxes to carry someone who thinks they are entitled to anything in life. You are not, and I'm sure as hell not going to support your ass with my hard work. Even worse, I don't particularly want any more American's tainted into thinking that college isn't about money for lazy professors and administrators who also think they are entitled to this fantasy world that acts like a big hippie commune.

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah good, the self-righteous person who doesn't realize that there are plenty of people who work just as hard -- or harder -- than them and remain poor, and that the vast majority of the rich are people born into it. You got a break, good for you, stop acting like it's solely because you deserve it and other people don't.

Re:Q&A

[pwizard2]

Ah, you must be one of those "self-made, pulled-themselves-up-by-the-bootstraps" people I keep hearing so much about, the kind they would trot out on stage at the republican national convention. You spent lots of time stereotyping and insulting me but I can't help but notice you neglected to elaborate on how you single-handedly escaped poverty with nothing but your own two hands. I'm sure lots of people would love to know. Secondly, I have no idea how old you are (or how much of what you said is true) but it's gotten a lot harder to climb the ladder these last few decades. Do you feel confident that if you lost everything today, you would be able to rebuild if you had zero resources at your disposal? That's where society comes in. However, the pull-themselves-up-by-the-bootstraps people tend to be hypocrites, kind of like how Ted Cruz is asking for FEMA money after that fertilizer plant blew up that town (all due to a lack of safety regulation) a few weeks ago. Of course, a self-sufficient person like you would refuse help no matter how bad your situation was, right?

Where exactly did I ask for a handout? All I want is a society that fosters social mobility and has a decent safety net for when things go wrong.

Re:Q&A

[Billly Gates]

You people ...

Yikes that is a little too personal if you ask me? Especially for a candid discussion vs a flamewar aguement.

I have to say people are stupid and do dumb things that keep them poor. On the otherhand the hardest working people I know are the poorest. They work 2 or 3 jobs, have health problems, get treated like crap on the job, and just break even bill to bill. Meanwhile bankers and CEOs eat 2 hour lunches at the finest restuaraunts for free and play golf on the job and make 1,000 as much. Life buddy is sure not fair.

Many of the ones conservatives like to blame as irresponsible are being responsible by working so much and paying each bill that they can't go to school to better themselves when you have 2 7 hour shifts in a 14 hour day earning $45 a day after taxes for each one? Or they try to do the right thing by working one job and going to school and then get ostracized for being irresponsible for taking in all these students.

You can't win once you have been screwed over. As I stated in another comment. Unless you have that magical piece of paper you can't get promoted. Sure you can always work harder but not everyone had the opportunity you had to go school and get the financing and room and board and then do the internships and network and so on which lead to your success today.

I have been in poverty and I am working my way out and things are looking up for me workwise more this year than any other! But I am lucky. Not everyone is camping at Wall Street. Many are working at Target to get paid for crap wages hoping at least that reference will help them when they can hit it big later. If you went to college in the 1990s and started your career in 1999 then you are alouf and do not live in the same world poor young people do today!

If you could spell HTML in 1999 and have a degree in English employers would throw money at your and beg you to work. Tuition could be paid by working 1 job part time. That is not true anymore. It costs as much as a medical doctors degree for that bachelors degree just to beg to start for that $12/hr job that pays $22,000 a year! That is the world of 2013 and why these kids are pissed off and occupying Wall Street. They never got the opportunity others had for the same amount of work.

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

Not exactly, it's more price discrimination. If you're a top student, college is cheap if not free (or even profitable). If you're an above average student then it's reasonable. If you're average or below then it's expensive.

Now, pretend for a moment that colleges want to make as much tuition money as possible. A top student doesn't pay much, but they can laud their academic (or athletic) achievements for marketing purposes and increase overall demand (thus allowing them to charge higher tuitions to more students). A below average student does the opposite, so they extract as much money as they can from them. The average students fill in the gap, providing both tuition money and some measure of academic quality.

Now, is this truly the case? Well, the average IQ of a college student is 103, while the average of the general population is defined as 100. You can get that bump merely from excluding the moderately and severely retarded. Thus, apparently colleges are admitting lots of average and below average students. Not surprisingly, tuitions and scholarships have both risen dramatically, as has overall college enrollment. That's good from a politics perspective, but horrible for the economy (student loan debt) and deflates the marketing value of a college education for job applicants.

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

Assholes like you always want to believe you built the log cabin you were born in.

Re:Q&A

[Billly Gates]

A lot of these folks assume you are living on welfare and are fat with food stamps paying for steaks and caviar every night, and are rich sitting on the couch watching TV with the welfare/social security entitlements, with your free government IPhone posting on slashdot if you are more liberal minded and do not agree.

After all it is on Hannity and Rush and FoxNews so it must be true! If you whine you must not have a job otherwise you think just like them

Re:Q&A

[AK Marc]

Donations are not sufficient for most of those functions. If you firmly believe in donations, then run the jails and prisons on donations. If we feel the government isn't doing a good job, convicting people of non-violent victimless crimes and such, we'll stop paying for them. The "democracy" will come down to distribution of donations. Earmark your donations for the programs you'd like to see funded. It would be interesting to see the government shut down anything that didn't get donations.

Re:Q&A

[AK Marc]

Poor people simply are lazy or stupid.

Even if we accepted the idea that all poor are lazy or stupid, should we condone a plan that punishes people for not being smarter than some arbitrary measure? Why not just speed up the process and institute IQ tests for all, anyone scoring lower than 90 will be sentenced to life in prison.

Re:Q&A

[AK Marc]

I escaped from poverty on my own, without someone else paying my way. I really can't stand when some prick like you acts like its impossible for someone to pull themselves out of the slums in America. This isn't fucking Kenya.

Statistically, you are more likely to work your way our of poverty in India than the USA, and India has a formal caste system.

That you are a statistical anomaly doesn't disprove the generality.

Re:Q&A

[girlintraining]

You'd rather live in a society where...

Argh. Strawman. As to the rest, nice rant. Have you considered jumping to conclusions as a career choice? You're really good at it.

Re:Q&A

[Zontar The Mindless]

You can't see this because you are so selfish and greedy that you cannot comprehend that anyone would donate money.

No.

*You* are motivated by greed, and thus you assume that everyone else is, too.

ProTip: This is known as "ascribing one's own motives to others", and it's almost never a smart thing to do.

Re:Q&A

[Zontar The Mindless]

You wouldn't know a real welfare state if it jumped up between your legs and bit off your nutsack.

That's okay--neither would about 99% of Americans.

Re:Q&A

[quickcup]

I can't see where I did this in my post, but hey, if you say so. Not sure how it relates to the argument either way.

Re:Q&A

[quickcup]

Which country in particular are you referring to. The voluntary societies I have researched did quiet well.

Re: Q&A

[quickcup]

In a voluntary society you wouldn't have police. The market would put any provider of unsafe food out of business. Pavement (roads, infrastructure) is completely attenable to the private sector.

Re:Q&A

[quickcup]

Almost all current social services are either unneeded or attenable to the private sector. The very small remainder can only be covered in one of two ways - 1. Donations 2. Everyone has a gun put to their head.

Re:Q&A

[AK Marc]

Schools, jails, police, fire, military, all abolished unless they get enough donations to survive. Sounds like anarchy, but still better than the Republican ideal of fascism funded through slave labor at gunpoint.

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

Generally, the self-made man story does not have a tutorial that is repeatable - a common theme is that they identified opportunities and made the most of them. Returning to the central topic at hand though, you escape poverty the same way minorities and the poor have always done it, be better than the rich at something. There is no fundamental barrier to earning merit aid as a poor person, and I find it insulting to the poor to assume that merit aid is the purview of the wealthy. If you have a strong enough application, schools will give you money regardless of your family's wealth.

Re:Q&A

[stephanruby]

The answer is to provide college up to PHD level for free like decent countries do.

Sure, but don't expect me to pay for your PHD in Art History, or Anthropology.

Please focus on the fields of study we actually need.

Re:Q&A

[drsmithy]

I escaped from poverty on my own, without someone else paying my way.
So no public schooling ? Never taken a dime of welfare ? Parents never on welfare ? Never taken public transport ? Never called the police ?
I really can't stand when some prick like you acts like its impossible for someone to pull themselves out of the slums in America. This isn't fucking Kenya. In America, contrary to what all you Occupy Wallstreet douchebags with your North Face backpacks and tents think, you make your own way in this place.
America is one of the least socially mobile societies in the civilised world.

Re:Q&A

[drinkypoo]

Sure, but don't expect me to pay for your PHD in Art History, or Anthropology.

Please focus on the fields of study we actually need.

If we paid more attention to anthropologists, we'd be at a better pass today. We need anthropologists. And then we need to listen to them. Of course, more anthropologists won't help, what's needed is more listening.

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

So when you were poor, I take it since you "escaped on your own" that you didn't attend a public school or use a public library to educate yourself. I also take it that you didn't use public transportation to get to any of your part time jobs, or even use public roads.

Re:Q&A

[Zeromous]

Pulled myself out of the gutter. Wasn't rich but had a roof- family was divorced in to gutter. Thanks Family Court. Mom Broke, Dad Broke.

Couldn't have done it without:

1) Employment insurance
2) Robust secondary education system
3) Subsidized housing (80%)
4) Fuck-ton of luck. (see 2 and 3).

I didn't take any student loans, or carry debt load > 5k at any given time. Still needed a ton of help, some of which many people just don't receive for a variety of unfortunate and perplexing reasons (many caused by the attitudes of people such as yourself).

Basically, while I find your story similarly inspiring, I also find you a vapid self-centered moron.

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't see this because you are so selfish and greedy that you cannot comprehend that anyone would donate money.

Why would anyone donate money if they weren't forced to, unless they either got some benefit for it (including social status, "look, I donated money, I'm better than you!"), or were so rich they wouldn't even notice a difference? Most would use their extra income to get the brand new iGadget.

Re: Q&A

[DetriusXii]

You do realize that the market had its chance to provide rural electrification and yet it failed to do so. It took government mandates to force the utilities to create power lines to rural communities.

Re:Q&A

[girlintraining]

Actually, I was just snarking the headline... but you know, it makes everyone look so damn smart, emoting several paragraphs on a 1 line comment that didn't have anything to do with your rants

Re:Q&A

[ThreeKelvin]

Yes, you're paying for other people, but guess what? Other people are paying for you at the same time so it all works out.

"It all works out"? Holy. fucking. citation. needed.

Here's a state you'd most likely call socialist, high taxes and everything, and they're doing quite well. Also, it's more or less the same in the other nordic countries and the Netherlands.

Re:Q&A

[TheRaven64]

Liberals like you never ask yourself how much more efficient it would be if people would not be taxed and instead donate even 10% of what they would have been taxed to the causes they believe in

It's an interesting thought experiment. You can see a lot of what happens from the current tax exemption rules for charities in the US: most people with surplus income give to things that will directly benefit themselves (educational trusts that run schools predominantly for wealthy people, heart disease charities, and so on). Of course, most people wouldn't donate anything. There's a reason why economists have the term 'the tragedy of the commons' and it's not because they invented a hypothetical scenario, it is based on large numbers of historical examples.

guessing it's more complex than that

[buddyglass]

For instance, if your parents make less than $65k/year (approx. 150% median U.S. household income, or 300% the cutoff for "poverty level") you can attend Harvard for free. Assuming you can get in. Which, in the grand scheme of things, sort of makes it a "merit based" scholarship after all.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming you can get in, you say?

Not exactly as easy as it sounds when the portion of your application involving your grades is a very small part of whether or not you get accepted. Most top colleges these days are obsessed with students that show profound personal initiative and social engagement, which are both activities that cost money. They do not currently "compensate" for the extra advantages a wealthy student has in the application process. Added to the emphasis on alumni connections (oh hi MIT) you might as well flush the application fee down the toilet.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[NicBenjamin]

The problem here is that most families with $65k have no idea how to turn their 90th percentile kid into the kind of kid who gets into Harvard. They don't know about "SAT Coaches," don't know which extracurricular activities to push, don't have friends who can donate massive amounts to the orphanage little darling just founded in Kenya, etc. If one parent makes $150k, the other makes $60k, and their friends all work at Hedge Funds, it's really easy to look great on a college application.

More importantly they generally don't know that Harvard will be free for their kid. They see the Harvard name, they see the price tag in USNews is astronomical, maybe they google the actual tuition charges of roughly $37k, and instead of pushing their kid to apply to Harvard and spend $0 they push him to apply to [cheap state school] and spend $10,000 or so a year.

There was recently on article on three Latina friends from a small city in Texas. The one who went to Emory had loans, but that was because as a teenager she didn't understand all the paperwork requirements needed to get aid. Her family had nobody who had ever gone to a school like Emory, so they couldn't help very well.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[buddyglass]

They (elite schools) seem to be locating and successfully recruiting the lion's share of low-income high-ability students. At least if this article is to be believed:

Low-income high-achieving students at these schools have close to 100 percent odds of attending an Ivy League school or other highly selective college...

"These schools" are "from 15 large metropolitan areas. These areas often have highly regarded public high schools, such as in New York City or in the Washington, D.C., area." It's the 30% of low-income high-ability students outside those metro areas that aren't heading to elite universities. Harvard also claims that 20% of its class falls under the $65k/year threshold and therefore pays nothing.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[buddyglass]

I'm not saying more wealthy families don't have advantages. They do. But Harvard is somehow managing to fill 20% of its class w/ kids whose families fall under the $65k/year threshold. So some of these families, at least, are doing "what it takes" to get into Harvard.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[ButchDeLoria]

$10,000 a year for a state school? Like hell, both major state universities in my state are $20,000 a year, supplies, housing, and additional fees not included.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[buddyglass]

Which state? And what percentage of their students pay full sticker price? (Hint: probably only the wealthy ones.)

For fun, here's a list of top public universities and their in-state costs (from US News):

1. UC-Berkeley, $11,767
2. UCLA, $12,692
3. UVA, $12,006
4. Michigan, $13,437
5. UNC, $7,694
6. Wm. and Mary, $13,570
7. Georgia Tech, $10,098
8. UC-Davis, $13,877
9. UC-San Diego, $12,128
10. UC-Santa Barbara, $13,671
11. Wisconsin, $10,384
12. UC-Irvine, $14,090
13. Penn State, $16,444
14. Illinois, $14,428
15. UT-Austin, $9,792
16. Washington, $10,574
17. Florida, $5,656
18. Ohio State, $10,037
19. Maryland, $8,908
20. Pitt, $16,590

So which state's two major state universities are both $20k+?

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[poity]

You make it sound as if high school is 4 years of doors being slammed on helpless waifs. Did any of you take a risk to run for student office despite being a soft-spoken nerd? Did any of you practice music every day at home in order to make the All-state band/orchestra? Did any of you have the imagination or drive start a club and convince a teach to sponsor it at your school? Did any of you call the neighboring school that had a robotics club and ask if you could join? Did any of you try all of these things again the following year after not making it or being told "no"? Did any of you consistently go to bed near midnight in order to finish papers/projects worthy of recognition? Did any of you take on a weekend job for extra cash? Did any of you ever say "No mom, I can pay for it with my own money"?

My brother did. He's currently at Harvard on full financial aid.
None of the things I listed took much money or time from our parents.
Most people think admission to top tier schools is impossible because they themselves didn't get in. What they don't realize is that 70% of Harvard students are on financial aid. They also don't realize that they overestimate their own "hard work" in high school.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[Nimey]

Check out the Kansas/Missouri border. We've got a couple second-tier state universities here that'll do you for maybe $10k/year with everything.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[russotto]

19. Maryland, $8,908

They call Maryland a "top public university"? Ha! US News is slipping.

Room and board add another $10K, BTW.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to be a douche, but some of the things you're talking about are physically impossible at low-income schools. I'm glad your brother did well and got into Harvard, and that's certainly an incredibly achievement. I just want to point out that the things your brother did aren't possible for everyone.

Did any of you take a risk to run for student office despite being a soft-spoken nerd?

Nope. You got me there.

Did any of you practice music every day at home in order to make the All-state band/orchestra?

Nope. My school didn't have a band. I supposed I could've learned on my own but musical lessons are expensive.

Did any of you have the imagination or drive start a club and convince a teach to sponsor it at your school?

I did. I wanted to start a computer club, but my school cancelled ALL after-school activities due to a fight with the teachers union.

Did any of you call the neighboring school that had a robotics club and ask if you could join?

Yep, turned out this is actually against state law in my state.

Did any of you try all of these things again the following year after not making it or being told "no"?

Yep. The answer was still "no." K-12 schools don't really listen to students, though. They do, however, listen to highly involved upper-middle class parents who are friends with the school board. Then their children can take credit for founding a new club or whatever that their parents actually pushed through.

Did any of you consistently go to bed near midnight in order to finish papers/projects worthy of recognition?

Yep. I got all A's in my classes. As has been noted, that isn't enough to get into a top-tier school these days.

Did any of you take on a weekend job for extra cash?

I sure did. In fact, it was a necessity for me. And that might sway the adcoms at mid-tier universities, but the likes of MIT/Harvard will be unimpressed.

Did any of you ever say "No mom, I can pay for it with my own money"?

I did. In fact, for many, that's the only option.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends on what you consider cost. I am finishing up the year at a community college. 42 credits cost me just slightly more than $12,100. There's tuition, then course fees, materials fees, site fees in some cases, books, additional mandatory materials that are not covered, and finally parking. I have no idea what the difference is between course, material, and site fees. It appears no one in admissions or the billing department does either but they all cost about the same amount as tuition. By the by, parking can be a huge expense at inter city community college. At two dollars an hour my total cost for just this last semester was 900 dollars (five classes, three hours-sometimes less, two days a week for 16 weeks).

My tuition may have only been $3,000 but that certainly wasn't the total cost I paid.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[tompaulco]

I'm not sure where they get their statistics. I live in a state with a fairly low cost of living (Oklahoma), and the cost of sending my stepson to Oklahoma State is pushing close to the $20,000 a year mark. I went to University of Oklahoma about 25 years ago, and the cost was less than 1/5th of that amount. I don't think they can argue that inflation has multiplied by 5 in 25 years. Minimum wage has not even doubled in that time.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[ButchDeLoria]

South Carolina's.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Most top colleges these days are obsessed with students that show profound personal initiative and social engagement, which are both activities that cost money.

My extracurricular activities in high school were drama club, marching band and church choir. That was enough to get accepted at MIT and Princeton. Neither cost much money.

What an acceptance at an elite university will cost you . . . is time. You need to work hard in high school to get top grades. I was doing my homework while others were partying. The local reps from both schools grilled me in interviews about political, social and science issues that were outside of high school curriculum. I was an avid reader of "Time" magazine and the "World Book Encyclopedia." Others were watching "Dallas" and pondering profound existential questions like, "Who shot J.R.?"

Sure, money helps. But you can get by without it, as well.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[LordLimecat]

"Blame" is the new "do".

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[NicBenjamin]

You do realize that roughly 60% of 18-year-olds live in households that make less then 300% of poverty, and only 20% of Harvard's class, which means the top 40% claim 80% of the slots?

In other words, assuming virtue is not correlated with parental income, a poor kid has to three times as virtuous as a top 40% kid to get into Harvard, and the top 40% kid can get in if he's only half as deserving. I'd be stunned if the numbers aren't more skewed as you get to more extreme incomes. Roughly 1/10 of 18-year-olds are in sub-50% of poverty households, I'd be stunned if 5% of Harvard's incoming class is that poor; I'd be equally stunned if they turn anyone in the top 0.1% away.

I am glad Harvard let's some poor kids in. I don't blame them for preferring the rich. Without subsidies from rich folks Harvard would not be able to give poor folks a free education. That does not mean college admissions are anything like a fair judgement of the talent-level of the admittees, or that people aren't extremely silly for thinking that Affirmative Action devalues black degrees compared to a white kid named Ford or Walton.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[NicBenjamin]

They ask the colleges for their costs.

The number in USNews is pretty deceptive. Most schools quote the cost for in-state tuition plus mandatory fees, and (maybe) some cash for books and computers. As a father you are probably paying for all that, plus room and board, and a little walking-around money. But the only real info you had when deciding which school to apply to was probably USNews list.

As for tuition inflation, I honestly have no idea how these guys are spending their money. It's not sports, sports departments frequently get subsidized from the general budget but they don't get subsidized much. Benefits for college employees are great, but not that great.

It seems of be a combination of state governments cutting their budget deficits by cutting aid to state schools, massive inflation in administrative salaries, and equally massive construction budgets.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[NicBenjamin]

According to it's webpage Clemson is $22k including room and board. Their estimate for tuition, fees, and loan costs is roughly $13k. That $13k number is pretty close to what USNews has. USNews has USC at about $10k.

So if your little darling can get into those schools, but won't qualify for financial aid at someplace like Emory or Harvard, it'll save you money. The Emorys and Harvards of the world tend to be $35-40k in tuition, and located in very expensive towns, so room and board ain't cheap. But even Room and Board in Boston is probably significantly cheaper then $22k a year at Emory, if your darling can be one of those 20% of Harvard's class that gets a full ride due to being on the lowish end of the middle class (300% of poverty is the cutoff, and 300% of poverty is slightly above average), you'll save money.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[buddyglass]

assuming virtue is not correlated with parental income

Who said they're admitting kids based on "virtue"? They're admitting them based on expected future performance. In fact, I suspect they've had to lower standards for the sub-65k crowd just to juice the number to 20%. I agree with you, btw, that "virtue" (e.g. kindness, honesty, etc.) isn't correlated with household income.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[buddyglass]

Room and board add another $10K, BTW.

Guy to whom I was responding specifically said: "$20,000 a year, supplies, housing, and additional fees not included.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[buddyglass]

Much of it goes to need-based financial aid. You raise the stick price so that those who can afford to pay more do, then turn around and take some portion of that extra money and use it to defray the costs of those who can't. See this piece from NPR on sticker price vs. actual price paid. Inflation-adjusted net price has gone up by about 30% for public schools and 22% for private schools over the past 15 years. That's obviously a growth rate that exceeds inflation, but it's a good sight less than the growth in sticker price over that same period.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[buddyglass]

Are you including room and board in that $20,000 figure? Because the original poster claimed his nephew was paying $20k/year excluding "supplies, housing and additional fees". For Oklahoma State I used this estimator to calculate tuition and fees for 30 credit hours (i.e. two semesters) of 100% engineering courses, which carry the highest per-credit-hour fee. Result: $9,229.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[im_thatoneguy]

Harvard also claims [harvard.edu] that 20% of its class falls under the $65k/year threshold and therefore pays nothing.

Wow, that's actually more depressing than I thought. Seeing as the median household income is around $48k that means that probably 75% of their students come out of households with a household income at least one full standard deviation above the mean.

"Hey, come from an "average" middle class household. Good news you have a 20% chance of being accepted to a top university!

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that most top colleges like Harvard or MIT will require in-person interviews, which can be far from possible for poor people if they don't live nearby.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, if they make less than 65K, you can go free. And if they make more than a million, there's no worry. The poor schmoes who make 70K? There's no chance.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[NicBenjamin]

I'm using virtue in a slightly obsolete sense of the term here, which is basically synonymous with "merit."

As for lowered standards, you have to keep in mind that standards can be extremely misleading. Lets say you have two kids with nearly the same numbers. One went to a private school which puts everyone in AP classes in the 10th grade, builds it's curriculum around getting into college (ie: doing well on the SAT/ACT), everyone has a tutor to make sure they do well, and the rich kid took the test multiple times. The poor kid's first language was Spanish. He went to a small school that does not offer AP classes, and designs it's curriculum around getting into a Trade School. He had no tutors. He took the SAT once because it cost money and money was tight.

According to most people's definition of "standard" rich-kid is just as deserving of a slot in school as poor-kid. But the simple fact is you know those numbers from rich-kid are a ceiling, OTOH the numbers from poor-kid are a floor. Ideally you'd take both, charge rich-kid enough to educate both, and let poor-kid learn for free. But if you've only got room for one poor-kid is probably more academically deserving even if his GPA and SAT are slightly lower.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[tompaulco]

Are you including room and board in that $20,000 figure? Because the original poster claimed his nephew was paying $20k/year excluding "supplies, housing and additional fees". For Oklahoma State I used this estimator to calculate tuition and fees for 30 credit hours (i.e. two semesters) of 100% engineering courses, which carry the highest per-credit-hour fee. Result: $9,229.

It is deceptive if they don't include housing and meal estimations in the price. Of course that was included in the amount that I pay. What I found equally deceptive these days is the extra costs per credit hour. When I went to school, it was about $25 per credit hour plus books and lodging. Now it is over $100 per credit hour plus books, lodging and also the "extra costs" which they interestingly denominate in per credit hour pretty much totals up to the being the same as the per credit hour. In other words, after fees, you are paying $200 per credit hour when they quote online that their costs are $100 per credit hour. These aren't fees that you can just decide not to take advantage of either, like meals on airplanes. You have to pay the base rate and you have to pay all of the extra fees, or you don't take the class, period. So in fairness, they need to indicate that the cost per credit hour is not $100, but $200.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[poity]

I didn't mean to dismiss your or anyone else's personal hardships. I spoke generally as most Americans live in and around metropolitan areas and their access to opportunity isn't as hard as some make it out to be. The part about joining another school being illegal is interesting, I wonder if it has to do with school districting. In any case, my brother went to a public school but that club was part of a private school in the area. A lot of times, just being the first to ask can impress people enough to bend the rules for you.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, that list of 20 contains the following 13 states which are rather southern/mid-western with the exception of California. I wouldn't harp on people too much for cost with such a small sample:

California
Florida
Georgia
Illinois
Maryland
Michigan
North Carolina
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Texas
Virginia
Washington
Wisconsin

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Which state? And what percentage of their students pay full sticker price? (Hint: probably only the wealthy ones.)

For fun, here's a list of top public universities and their in-state costs (from US News):

1. UC-Berkeley, $11,767

2. UCLA, $12,692

3. UVA, $12,006

4. Michigan, $13,437

5. UNC, $7,694

6. Wm. and Mary, $13,570

7. Georgia Tech, $10,098

8. UC-Davis, $13,877

9. UC-San Diego, $12,128

10. UC-Santa Barbara, $13,671

11. Wisconsin, $10,384

12. UC-Irvine, $14,090

13. Penn State, $16,444

14. Illinois, $14,428

15. UT-Austin, $9,792

16. Washington, $10,574

17. Florida, $5,656

18. Ohio State, $10,037

19. Maryland, $8,908

20. Pitt, $16,590

So which state's two major state universities are both $20k+?

What do you mean by "costs"? Just from randomly choosing UNC from your list, their current site says the 2013-2014 tuition is $8,340. Add in room, board, books, fees, travel, and their own site suggests expected yearly cost for in-state residents is $23,416.

http://admissions.unc.edu/Aid_and_Scholarships/Tuition_and_Fees/default.html I'm sure the others are very similar.

That is certainly not far off unless you are one of the lucky few who live within driving proximity to one of schools in your list...

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[Anonymous Coward]

And, you can actually do better than that if you go to the "master's only" style schools like my alma mater, Cal Poly (SLO). When I was there, ('04-'08) tuition was only $4500/year (looks like it's gone up to about $8500), but you get a discount off the "premium" schools (UCSD, UCLA, UC-B), but still have a quality education to show for it. (I've met several employers who would only hire Cal Poly grads, something I can't say about those "premium" schools.)

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[buddyglass]

This is approximately what you'd expect given the following assumptions:

1. All else being equal, there's a positive correlation between general intelligence and ability to get into Harvard.
2. All else being equal, there's a positive correlation between general intelligence and household income.
3. Intelligence is, at least to some degree, heritable.

In other words, if your parents are wealthy then they're more likely to be "smart" and if your parents are "smart" you're correspondingly more likely to be "smart" yourself, meaning you have a leg up on the race to get into an elite school.

We might also add the following:

1. Having parents with a certain style of parenting (supportive, stable, stressing educational achievement, etc.) correlates with the sort of academic achievement that gets one into Harvard.
2. One is predisposed to use the same type of parenting style used by one's parents did and to stress the same things one's parents stressed. If your parents were abusive or negligent then you're more likely to be an abusive or negligent parent. If your parents stressed education then you're more likely to stress education as a parent. If your parents read to you as a child then you're more likely to read to your own children. Etc.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[buddyglass]

Often this is because state legislatures exercise tight control on "tuition" but not "fees". btw, It's not deceptive to give "tuition and fees" figures (sans room & board) as long as they're clear about what the number means. Most of them are. Also, the original poster to whom I was replying (ButchDeLoria, who introduced the $20k figure) specifically said "excluding supplies, housing and additional fees". My strong suspicion is that he's mistaken.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[AthanasiusKircher]

But Harvard is somehow managing to fill 20% of its class w/ kids whose families fall under the $65k/year threshold. So some of these families, at least, are doing "what it takes" to get into Harvard.

I'm not at all criticizing this or the recruiting efforts of top schools. But this statistic doesn't necessarily mean what you claim.

Maybe, some of the kids are doing "what it takes" to get into Harvard, due to natural intelligence, talent, etc. Intelligent kids do occur across all socioeconomic classes.

I find it easy to believe that Harvard could find 400 or so kids per year from across the U.S. who are just naturally intelligent and talented enough -- even without the extra perks a wealthy family could get them -- to compete with rich kids that have SAT coaches, etc.

The issue isn't the 400 super-talented lucky ones who get into places like Harvard with great financial aid, even without the perks of a "rich kid education." The issue is the thousands and thousands of the not-quite-as-talented-but-could-easily-compete-with-rich-kids-if-they-also-had-SAT-coaches kids. Those kids may not "deserve" to go to Harvard any more than the rich kids that only got in due to alumni connections and years of coaching... but they may deserve to go to a really good second-tier school.

But they probably won't have that opportunity, because the second-tier schools don't have the resources or the prestige to find and draw these kids, nor the financial aid packages like Harvard's to make them look affordable to poor people. And instead those second-tier schools mostly get filled up with the rejected coached rich kids from Harvard's pool, as their "safety school."

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[Anonymous Coward]

South Carolina.

Both Clemson and USC come in at around 20k a year.

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[bingoUV]

most families with $65k have no idea how to turn their 90th percentile kid into the kind of kid who gets into Harvard

.....

pushing their kid to apply to Harvard and spend $0 they push him to apply to [cheap state school] and spend $10,000 or so a year

More importantly they generally don't know that Harvard will be free for their kid

And all that is Harvard's loss, isn't it? One less super-achiever in Harvard list of Alumni. The other "rich" kids have one less reason to pay astronomical sums for a Harvard education.

So to get "profit", Harvard has to do some advertising, some "public information", public re-education to make talented kids know about this zero fees program. Like any other business has to. Whodathunkit ?

Re:guessing it's more complex than that

[Dripdry]

Uh, UC Berkeley is actually about 30K in-state now, all total. Just a heads up.

I got scholarships for hard work, not for poverty.

[Anonymous Coward]

God forbid these schools actually attempt to make a profit (gasp)! I thought they were all supposed to run on rainbows and oxygen, or on borrowed government deficit money. Give me a break.

Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[Musc]

Why is it that schools are grouped into either the comparatively prestigious category of 4 year academic B.S. degrees, or the lowly 2 year trade school degree?

If you want to learn theory and go on to do basic research or become a professor, then the B.S. degree is ideal. But if you want to get a really good education of the type that would prepare you to work a skilled job, where is there to turn to? A trade school is geared towards career training, but these are not prestigious and are considered lowly and are typically just 2 year programs. Why can't there be a four year program from a high quality school that has the emphasis on teaching the skills you need for a career in industry? People complain that college is useless, and maybe it is in practice, but couldn't college be very useful if it taught the right things? Why not teach what students need to know to succeed?

Re:Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[Eightbitgnosis]

If there were a good vocational school in my area for finance I'd drop out today.

But that isn't going to happen, so I'll just continue taking bullshit classes to get a piece of paper that says I can start my real education(hopefully) in my last 2 years of college.

Re:Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[Musc]

I went to an awful lot of school to learn computer science. My shiny fancy degree got me an interview for a job. But guess what? None of the questions in the interview were answerable based on what I learned in school. I knew the answers because I wrote code for fun as a hobby, starting at the age of 15. But I knew the answers and got the job. And guess what? I have not used anything from school in the job. My job is all about the useful programming skills that I had to pick up to write fun little toy programs as a hobby.

Re:Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[NicBenjamin]

A lot of the reason people complain college is useless is that it doesn't teach you things that can only be taught with actual experience in industry. You can't teach a kid how to maintain a company-wide computer system that's filled with random cruft nobody understands (and you can't delete/fix any of it without breaking things you didn't know were there) if a) all your programmers are PhDs who consider it their life-work to avoid poorly-documented cruft in their computer systems, and b) the Dean pays for major upgrades every few years (students won't go to a school where they have to use outdated software). You can't teach a kid to use every software package he might come across because really old shit shows up in surprising places and you've only got four years to do it. You can't teach kid how to deal with a distracted Pointy-Haired-Boss-type if the kid's paying you $20k in tuition. The kid's just gonna transfer someplace that doesn't charge $20k to deal with a jerk.

Re:Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[Anonymous Coward]

AMEN

I am a CS Student at a Texas State College and the "education" that we are paying for is a fucking joke hell I know more than most of my professors who themselves are masters students or P.h.d. candidates. The few actual professors could not care less about actually teaching. The only reason I am still here is because it is hell to get past HR department screening without a BS these days.

Re:Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[Billly Gates]

Easy. HR drone sees trade school? Then your resume goes in the trash etc.

If you want that awesome $29,000 a year job working 60 hours a week at the gringoDepot as a manager you need a full 4 year degree! To do anything aboe $17,000 a year you need a 4 year degree.

Perhaps someone in Silicon Valley or New York will rebuke my comment, but in the real world (Florida) that is what the jobs are and the lines for them are out the door and people are at the mercy of H.R.

Until their attitude changes on what is really required to perform a job they will just get an Indian instead with no experience but has the magical piece of paper. By the way I do have that magical piece of paper in case someone wants to tell me I am bitter. It just blows for those who did not get their careers started in 1999. For those who are reading this comment you are in a bubble.

If you are under 30 and have a 3.8 GPA but dropped out after your second year due to the lack of cash, well I am waiting for my coffee and fries. No H.R. will dump you for working at Starbucks or McDonalds instead of having an awesome job immediately which they also hypocritically turned down because you didn't have the magical piece of paper, so it cycles to a self fulfilling prophesy where there are no qualified applicants and we have a crises OMG.

Re:Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[Eightbitgnosis]

In my experience, all the people who studied on their own and knew what they wanted to do and before they entered college became distracted and depressed. The filler classes just suck up time, motivation, and money. Then they'd just feel worse and worse for not focusing on their real studies

Re:Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[Penguinisto]

Why can't there be a four year program from a high quality school that has the emphasis on teaching the skills you need for a career in industry?

Actually, Utah has something exactly like that. You spend the first two years hands-on in the trade at a campus of the Utah College of Applied Technology (there are 10 campuses spread across the state). Each campus is partnered with a state-level university, so if you want that 2-year degree to become a 4-year one, you take 3-4 "bridge" classes, then the 2nd two years of the 4-year degree.

The coolest part about the system? a top-grade high school student can go to UCAT as early as they can start 11th grade (assuming they clear their state HS required classes). They can complete the 2-year degree at around 6 months after graduating high school, and the state pays for all of it. This leaves paying only for the last two years plus one full-time semester's worth of bridge classes.

Re:Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[tlambert]

I went to an awful lot of school to learn computer science. My shiny fancy degree got me an interview for a job. But guess what? None of the questions in the interview were answerable based on what I learned in school. I knew the answers because I wrote code for fun as a hobby, starting at the age of 15. But I knew the answers and got the job. And guess what? I have not used anything from school in the job. My job is all about the useful programming skills that I had to pick up to write fun little toy programs as a hobby.

There was an accreditation change in the mid 1980's that forced colleges to stop teaching programming languages directly, so instead of teaching C, they teach things like "database programming using C", and you're expected to pick the language up on your own, rather than as part of the curriculum. And yes, after that time, colleges started turning out people who practically could not program.

These days they teach "game programming in flash" for all those people who don't realize that Flash doesn't actually run on iPhones and think they will come up with the next great computer game. The Academy of Arts College in San Francisco is basically turning out a bunch of unemployable Flash programmers who couldn't program C to save their lives.

If you want a good education, you have to go to some place like Brown University, which provides self directed programs. You'll find these at the Ivy League schools, but a lot of universities or state colleges these days are basically diploma mills which arrange for you to spend 5 years there instead of 4 by choosing not to offer classes you would need to graduate when you are at that point in the program. The California State Universities are practically famous for that little trick.

Re:Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[Joe_Dragon]

and if we don't stop this over use of needing 4 year degrees then it will be need 6 year need 8 year just to get people with loads of book knowledge but little to no real work skills.

Re:Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[Billly Gates]

Already happening where I am working. Unless you have an MBA you can't be a manager.

Re:Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[Musc]

> A lot of the reason people complain college is useless is that it doesn't teach you things that can only be taught with actual experience in industry.

Indeed this is true for many things such as the examples you give.
Although actually I did take a college class that did simulate the clueless pointy-haired boss.
The class was in our senior year, and we had to form small teams and design and implement a software product according to a customer's requirements.
Us undergrads did the coding, and the teams were run by graduate student "managers". The professor was the "CEO" and had final say.
The undergrads did all the work, but the graduate student said this: "My grade depends on me running the meetings. So you till me what we are meeting about, and I will then repeat your words and thus earn my grade by leading the meeting". Part of the customer requirements was that our application be distributed across a network. We were aware of CORBA, but choose to use a simpler, cheaper, more appropriate RPC system. The professor insisted that we use a full-blown Borland CORBA product, so that she would have an excuse to buy it for her research team and bill it as a classroom expense. Sounds like something right out of Dilbert if you ask me.

I still think there are a lot of useful things that could be taught in school, but aren't. What programmers need is experience writing programs. Not just theoretical knowledge of how to find the big-O of an algorithm, but how to actually design and implement a substantial amount of code. A lot of what it takes to create software is tedious, obnoxious practical stuff like figuring out compiler flags, selecting appropriate libraries, learning how to use those libraries, and figuring out unintended interactions between components that lead to bugs. Programming assignments in school are usually of the form "Here is a framework where everything is architected and coded except for one algorithm, go code that algorithm". This is fine for teaching the algorithm, but it misses out on all those other things I just mentioned.

When I was a TA for a graphics class, a big part of my job was handing out the programming assignments. I was given a fair amount of leeway, but I roughly stuck with what was done the previous year. An early assignment was to write a polygon rasterizer. We had a framework that allowed the students to just write the rasterizer and nothing else; they were given code to take input from the mouse to describe the vertices, and an output framework in the form of a setpixel function. The framework displayed the pixels as large blocks so you could see gaps between polygons that should have been adjacent (in case your implementation was flawed), and used color to indicate overlap (in case your implementation was flawed).

I thought this made the task too easy, so later when it was time to write a raytracer, I just gave them a set of requirements and suggested they use libPNG to write their output. Everybody succeeded in making a raytracer, and they learned how to think through the task of setting up the whole program. A more traditional approach would have just asked them to write ray-object intersection code, losing sight of the big picture.

Re:Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I don't think that colleges are the best place for people who love programming and just want to learn it well enough to get a job that they keep until they retire. College is the right place for people who are smart but don't know what the fuck they want to do with their lives, and want to interact with a bunch of smart people that might give them some ideas. But I think the latter type are more common than the former. What's sad is that it's become so expensive that nobody can really just go there, relax and wait to discover their calling. If colleges require a "plan" from day one in order to make economic sense, they are really failing at what I consider their primary mission, which is to give some wisdom and life direction to confused but smart young people.

Re:Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[Anonymous Coward]

Anecdote: I am over 30, with a BA in nothing special, but I have years of web experience. When I first moved to Florida two years ago it took me less than a month to find a very nice ($65k + benefits) job that was willing to train me in Drupal 6. Currently I'm making $90k as a Drupal developer, and I have job offers from recruiters on a nearly daily basis. I can't speak for every industry, but at least in mine there is still room for random upstarts to break in out of nowhere simply by knowing what they're doing.

Re:Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[cheekyjohnson]

College is the right place for people who are smart

Then you'd better tell a majority of college students that they're not in the right place.

Re:Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[cheekyjohnson]

They don't even necessarily have loads of book knowledge. Or intelligence, for that matter.

Re:Academic degrees vs. trade school degrees

[volmtech]

If you have a law degree and experience in contract law my son is looking for a team member in the Orlando area.

College used to be a place for the rich to put the

[Joe_Dragon]

College used to be a place for the rich to put there kids whiles others went to the trades / tech schools or just had on the job training (the rich part dates back to middle ages).

Also some people went to college mainly for sports and not so much to learn.

We need to stop this idea of college for all and give trades / tech schools more respect and / or cut them out of the collgle time frames / credits systems.

Some colleges over the years have dumbed down and stated to let anyone as long as they can pay or get a high cost loan that is very hard to get rid of. I say if they made it easier to get rid of collgle loans prices will come down and some of the junk / fully majors will go a way.

Too many merit scholarships? Troll harder.

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to be seriously deluded to believe the problem with American Universities is too many merit scholarships. I normally like the Atlantic but this is easily the dumbest thing I've read in print this year.

My high school graduation had 2 national merit scholarships awarded to "Home Economics"-grade Valedictorians. The remainder of the graduating class was divided in to two groups of people: the kids with poor or divorced parents that could manipulate their FAFSA to look shit poor, and everyone with an EFC higher than the families take home pay after groceries and gasoline.

The kids lucky enough to be born to crack head parents got free rides. The kids from the middle class got yoked with private student loans or didn't get to go to school at all. Grades had NOTHING to do with it.

-If you had a pulse and your mom was a pack of cigarettes from turning tricks: Harvard.
-If you could program an FPGA to run the Attitude Control System on a pico-satellite, you may get a $1000 check if you wrote a 20 page essay on why GWB was the best president in history.

I delayed my Freshman year until I was 22 just so I could get my parents off my FAFSA only to have those pig fuckers raise the age to 24 on my 21st birthday.

Fuck FAFSA, fuck The Atlantic for publishing this drivel, and fuck Slashdot for legitimizing it.

Re:Too many merit scholarships? Troll harder.

[Eightbitgnosis]

I delayed my Freshman year until I was 22 just so I could get my parents off my FAFSA only to have those pig fuckers raise the age to 24 on my 21st birthday.

This shit right here is one of the big ways financial aid sucks. Are you a 22 year old who has been living on your own for years? Lulz, your parents are totally going to give you tens of thousands of dollars suddenly to go to school. No need to give you any money.

Re:Too many merit scholarships? Troll harder.

[Anonymous Coward]

The government has that requirement because Congress believes it is the responsibility of the parent to foot part of the bill for college for their offspring. The fact that some parents choose not to do so does not mean that the taxpayer should pick that up. People who run out the clock so their parents presumably high incomes don't count in need analysis are lucky that older students get aid at all.

Re:Too many merit scholarships? Troll harder.

[Anonymous Coward]

People whose parents qualify for need based analysis should study harder so they can be competitive on metrics other than pity.

Why should the children of middle class tax payers who put 30% of every paycheck in to the system have to give up their seat at university to the anchor baby with poor test scores using their financial aid check to buy video game consoles from the bookstore?

Here I am 25 years old making $50K on a high school diploma, and I'm paying 25% of my paycheck to the government so they can put a liberal arts diploma in the hands of a goddamned future-barista!

Where is the incentive to succeed or study hard when your local state university is divying up chairs between the kids who can't read good, and the kids whose parents pay for tuition in cash? The insult to injury is that the kid who didn't get a seat on the boat is expected to buy food stamps and life vests for the retards who fell overboard. Meanwhile, the lucky few who could afford a ticket are drunk on champagne at the helm with accountants to make sure they have no taxable income at the end of the fiscal year!

Re:Too many merit scholarships? Troll harder.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the Mitt Romney method of education: have your parents loan you $20kor so and pay them back after you've bought your first investment bank.

Re:Too many merit scholarships? Troll harder.

[heelrod]

Why you gotta hate on Crack!?

Re:Too many merit scholarships? Troll harder.

[chuckybucky]

Could not agree with you more. The entire system is driven by University greed and the government's ridiculous ability to grant anyone breathing with a loan so large they'll be paying it off for the rest of their lives. It has nothing to do with merit or ability or hard work. The Universities keep increasing the tuition, and the government keeps enabling it by increasing the amount people can borrow. Eventually when the student loan crisis hits (which it will very soon), the entire system is going to fall to shit.

Re:Too many merit scholarships? Troll harder.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry about your being born at the wrong time.

Emancipate yourself or get married. It will also cure those FAFSA blues.

Wilie Sutton

[ISoldat53]

That's where the money is.

In capitalism...

[elloGov]

Wealth and Power are compounding, always siphoning to the top. Unless you place restrictions, i.e. socialist policy, it's only a matter of time before serfdom ensues, It's no coincidence that 80% of the wealth created over the past two decades have gone to the top 1% of the population. Remember the dream of being millionaires in the 90s? Nowadays, billion is the dream. Yes, inflation over time is real, however it doesn't warrant an increase of 10^3 magnitude.

Re:In capitalism...

[quickcup]

So let me get this straight. You want to have a third party threaten everyone with violence in order to get everyone to turn over a percentage of their property so that the third party can keep most of it for themselves and then redistribute a small portion of it with the net result being that almost everyone is poorer than they would have been. This is what you want? And where did you get that this is the only way that serfdom can be prevented? In the early part of the past century the trajectory of the American working class was moving up - and fast. Then the third party decided to fix it.

Re:In capitalism...

[elloGov]

Relax, I never expressed my desire to give your money to a third-party, simply stating an observation.

Re:In capitalism...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's no coincidence that 80% of the wealth created over the past two decades have gone to the top 1% of the population.

it's no coincidence that massive government intervention facilitated that.

GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION ISNT WORKING, LETS INTERVENE MORE. said every socialist ever.

Re:In capitalism...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. Because there are never classes of power and privilege in socialism.
 
Get your head out of your ass.
 
Maybe we can start to reform the education system by changing people's attitudes towards junior college, having creative commons text books and not insisting that every broom pusher and stoop dweller be given more education than they ever plan on using. We have at least one generation who takes pride in the fact that they don't use what they're taught in public high schools... fuck em, let them be ignorant if they have no plans on doing anything more than partying and shitting out welfare brats for the rest of their lives. If they come around at some point in the future they got to own up and put in to complete their first 12 years before they can move on.

Re:In capitalism...

[Frosty Piss]

One problem here is that for some reason we as a society have said *everyone* should attend a four year school and aim for a BA and then perhaps a Masters.

But many people - many who do attend a four year school - simply are not cut out for it. For some reason, we have decided that a skilled "vocation" is down-scale and to be avoided.

Fewer and fewer people study Machine Tool, complex welding, mechanical trades - but these areas can be as well or better paid than many "white collar" jobs, they are needed skills, and fit for many people.

Indeed, I know a number of people with advanced degrees that over time decide that it just isn't worth in, and go back to vocational school to learn a trade.

Re:In capitalism...

[OhANameWhatName]

however it doesn't warrant an increase of 10^3 magnitude

The real trick in a capitalist democracy is to figure out what would warrant that sort of an increase then start a marketing company to seel people on the idea.

Re:In capitalism...

[Zaelath]

Nope, I want you to keep going like you are until the poor eat the rich. It's going to be fun to watch.

Re:In capitalism...

[I'm New Around Here]

Oh, that's not what's going to happen. Soon, the poor are going to eat each other, the middle class are going to be next, and the rich are going to withdraw to armored compounds, or just move overseas, taking a large chunk of wealth with them. All that will remain will be the people who can survive on their own. This goup does not include many who depend on the government for everything today.

Re:In capitalism...

[I'm New Around Here]

It's no coincidence that 80% of the wealth created over the past two decades have gone to the top 1% of the population.

Is that because the lower 95% would rather spend all their money on the products the 1% sell, rather than put it into a savings plan that would ensure their children would end up being in the top 3%?

Actually, saying they spend all their money isn't even accurate. They actually borrow money from the 1% in order to buy the products that the 1% sell.

Re:In capitalism...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nowadays, billion is the dream.

For who?

Give me five million and I'll do everything I want, while never working another day in my life, and be able to live damned well unless I reach 120 or older.

Even then, it's sketchy math and I'll probably be fine til 140 or so, because I'm probably not going to be all that mobile once I hit three digits. And I figure we can bump it up to 500 or so once Ron Popeil invents the technology to keep heads alive in jars.

Re:In capitalism...

[Anonymous Coward]

If your definition of violence is taxation, then I am perfectly happy living in a "violent" society.

Everyone is technically doing better, but the people on the bottom get a tiny slice of the growth while each person higher up is getting more at a faster rate. Everyone is climbing a ladder, but the ladder is getting taller faster than the people at the bottom are climbing--even though they are still making progress in absolute terms. It doesn't matter that they're "doing better" based on some metric because they are still relatively worse off than the people around them. This has real negative effects on the health of the individual and on society. It's a sickness, and it eventually kills the society that doesn't address it as it has before in history. Don't be surprised if your countrymen are unwilling to follow you into that hell just so they can remain morally pure as you define it. The smug satisfaction you'll get from having lived free of coercion won't count for much when you're living in a slum with the rest of the new serf class. You're not a member of the elite either, and the most charity you can hope for from them is the privilege of being eaten last.

Rising inequality is the real threat of today. You solve that by what you call violence, but what the rest of the world calls taxation. Wealth flows and accumulates at the top, that's the natural state of things, and unless measures are taken to push some back down you end up with disaster. You end up with disaster by trying to flatten the curve too much also, like some idealistic societies have tried, but we are far from that today. We've gone much too far in the other direction, not enough redistribution, not enough opportunity to prosper for the vast majority so that the top ten thousand families can horde more and more.

Eventually, things WILL change. People won't put up with it forever. We will have a more equal society either through a period of blood, or through a period of measured, deliberate, structural changes. I, for one, would rather not have humanity lose another hundred years of progress and prosperity while we sort out our economic system; because the mob isn't going to get it right the first time either.

Re:In capitalism...

[Xarvh]

This.
Power is a positive feedback.
Those in power are in a better position to gain more power and more privileges.

Re:In capitalism...

[Anonymous Coward]

The interest on saving accounts don't even keep pace with inflation. Banks are where people put money that isn't properly invested.

Re:In capitalism...

[I'm New Around Here]

First, I didn't say saving accounts, I said a savings plan. Those plans would be designed to grow money much faster than a bank savings account would.

As far as inflation, it is based on how much money people have available and are willing to spend on items. As I said, people are borrowing money to buy items. So inflation is higher than if those people put their money into a savings plan, didn't borrow continually, and lived more frugally. But since they they are willing to spend so much for items, prices can rise more and the people will still buy. That is the driver of why the lower and middle classes can't keep up with inflation.

Re:In capitalism...

[Anonymous Coward]

and the rich are going to withdraw to armored compounds, or just move overseas, taking a large chunk of wealth with them.

No, they won't go offshore, the other countries already taxes them more (even the "tax heavens" are not that sure anymore: look at Cyprus)
So, if they are going to retreat in armored compound, they'll get to live just a little bit longer, but only until the Chinese (or any other that favors collaboration over individualism) will move in.

Re:In capitalism...

[JockTroll]

If you try to forcibly redistribute the wealth, what happens is that the wealthy have no reason to stay in your country anymore. They'll leave for better and more welcoming places and take what they have with them, so you won't have any more tax revenue from them. If they have any activity left in your country they will shut it down and fire all the workers, so you'll have more unemployed and needy people. And should you ever impose socialism on the whole world, than there will be no more incentive to amass wealth so everyone will be equally poor. This is not an arm-wrestling match you're having with the rich, it's a tug of war with a loaded shotgun, you're desperately pulling the barrel aimed straight at your chest, and their finger rests confortably on the trigger.

Re:In capitalism...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that those people are being replaced by welding robots and tooling machines etching from 3D. It IS a bad idea to just send a kid into that sort of trade because they have to know that at some point, they are going to be replaced.

Building construction/maintenance is more the trade for the vocational, and many do go into it is because the pay is pretty good. And for the foreseeable future, we won't be doing construction with robots.

Re:In capitalism...

[drsmithy]

So let me get this straight. You want to have a third party threaten everyone with violence in order to get everyone to turn over a percentage of their property so that the third party can keep most of it for themselves and then redistribute a small portion of it with the net result being that almost everyone is poorer than they would have been. This is what you want?
People who wonder what a Straw Man argument is, should read the above quote.
And where did you get that this is the only way that serfdom can be prevented?
History. The greedy and powerful are incapable of self-regulating.
In the early part of the past century the trajectory of the American working class was moving up - and fast. Then the third party decided to fix it.
The single most prosperous period of human history was post-WW2 America. Right up until the early '70s when the neo-liberals took over and started implementing policy to concentrate wealth, eliminate the burgeoning middle class, and slam the brakes on social mobility. Since then, as the GP noted, the vast majority of productivity and wealth increases have gone to an increasingly small section of society.

Re:In capitalism...

[Frosty Piss]

The problem is that those people are being replaced by welding robots and tooling machines etching from 3D.

The machine tools for building complex tool and die work may be computer controlled, but in fact humans still run those machines and assemble the complex dies and service / manage / feed the machines. Cars still need to be fixed, HVAC still needs to be worked on, engines (car / generator / other) still require humans to keep them going, elevators are mechanical, toilets flush, computers need service, and robots need oiling.

Re:In capitalism...

[Anonymous Coward]

"You solve that by what you call violence, but what the rest of the world calls taxation."

What a pile of bullshit. My people are hungry and poor and sick, yet our government still deficit spends and has a multi-trillion dollar deficit, and my tax dollars go toward killing and spying equipment. That's not the reason OP called taxation violence, but it remains violence for some people nonetheless.

Re:In capitalism...

[Anonymous Coward]

If your definition of violence is taxation, then I am perfectly happy living in a "violent" society.

Everyone is climbing a ladder, but the ladder is getting taller faster than the people at the bottom are climbing

Eventually, things WILL change. People won't put up with it forever. We will have a more equal society either through a period of blood, or through a period of measured, deliberate, structural changes. I, for one, would rather not have humanity lose another hundred years of progress and prosperity while we sort out our economic system; because the mob isn't going to get it right the first time either.

They already figured out a way to stop rich people from extending the ladder - it's called "bitcoin". Inflation is a giant invisible tax aimed squarely at the poor, and you're right - we won't put up with it forever. But the problem is unequal rules between individuals, not unequal wealth (which is merely a symptom).

While you're squabbling amongst yourselves about who and how to rob more efficiently, we're building a new violence-resistant system under your noses.

Re:In capitalism...

[krischik]

post-WW2 America

Not just America. Same for Europe (Germany, France in particular). Here the neo-liberals imported cheap labour from neighbouring countries and spoiled it all — but for the 5% that is.

Re:In capitalism...

[NewYork]

"If you wish to keep slaves, you must have all kinds of guards. The cheapest way to have guards is to have the slaves pay taxes to finance their own guards. To fool the slaves, you tell them that they are not slaves and that they have Freedom. You tell them they need Law and Order to protect them against bad slaves. Then you tell them to elect a Government. Give them Freedom to vote and they will vote for their own guards and pay their salary. They will then believe they are Free persons. Then give them money to earn, count and spend and they will be too busy to notice the slavery they are in." --Alexander Warbucks

Re:In capitalism...

[chuckybucky]

I tell the kids at the school I work at daily to consider trade and technical 2-year schools. A lot of them are not meant for college, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It doesn't mean they're going to turn out to be useless idiots. I wasn't meant for college, I don't learn the same way everyone else does, and classroom environments are ineffective for my learning methods. No one should feel as though they won't be able to make ends meet if they don't attend a 4-year (more like 5 on average now) liberal arts college and be stuck with massive loan payments for some degree they could give two shits about. If I could do it again, I would have bypassed the system entirely and independently studied and learned my trade, because my college degree has nothing to do with my job in the IT field anyway. I am 100% self-taught, and owe my education to library books and the internet. Total cost for my IT education was the cost of a monthly internet connection. College is a waste of time and money for any profession that does not require direct teacher interaction or hands-on training. And most stuff can be learned in the field on the fly if you have practical base knowledge of how things work.

Someday colleges and universities will be obsolete

[DeathGrippe]

Colleges and universities, as places of higher learning, are gradually being replaced as information becomes ever more widely available through the internet.  Certainly these institutions are valuable as places of hands-on research in physics, biology, and other fields.  However, the dissemination of information, and the learning of it, do not ultimately require classrooms and libraries if that information is available through online resources.
<br><br>
Perhaps these trends toward elitism are related.

Calm down

[oldhack]

It's always been thus, only bit more so recently.

UC (California) schools are recruiting more out-of-state and international students who pay higher tuition. Other state schools are probably doing similar.

Ivy League schools have always done so giving preference to legacy and wealthy applicants (on the hush). Other private schools are the same.

fact check?

[Artifex]

The study notes that, according to the Department of Education's most recent study, 19 percent of undergrads at four-year colleges received merit aid despite scoring under 700 on the SAT. Their only merit, in some cases, might well have been mom and dad's bank account.

The study doesn't actually say that, at least not according to the chart on page 4. It says that 18.8% of the students in college who had scores of 0-699 got merit aid. Not that 18.8% of all the students in college received aid with such low scores.

2-4 years mixed school / on the job is fine

[Joe_Dragon]

emphasis on teaching the skills you need for a career in industry does not need a full 4 years in the class room the 2 year programs are fine and can use some kind apprenticeship systems.

The older collgle system does not fit to well into teaching the skills you need for a career in industry and the tech schools are held down by being forced to be part of the collgle system.

It is Reagan's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

No, really.. Started the slide for UC from egalitarian master plan for California: top eighth of HS seniors can attend essentially for free to today's 30k/yr and up. (even as recently as the late 70s, the annual fees to attend UCLA were less than $1000, something that you could earn in 10 weeks of full time work at minimum wage)

Reagan, as California Governor, didn't like those radical students supported by public funds and started cutting budgets, a trend that continues to this day. Lots of other things that RR did to hurt California, but that's the one that probably has the most lasting effect.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rosenfeld-uc-reagan-kerr-20130510,0,7344574.story

Re:Someday colleges and universities will be obsol

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps, but not in my lifetime. Universities play a LOT of important roles which can't be replaced by online materials.

No credit for calling something correctly 80 years in advance.

SAT score must have changed alot over the years

[Anonymous Coward]

In the 70's I was fairly happy with a 720. I was in the 99.9 percentile. Now it is not enough to be considered for a merit scholarship? (720 was math, I don't recall the verbal score, well below 700, but it was still in the 92 percentile).

At least I redeemed myself on the GRE where I got an 800 (logical reasoning, don't recall the other 2 scores).

Re:SAT score must have changed alot over the years

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they are referring to 700 combined, math + verbal.

Re:SAT score must have changed alot over the years

[damnbunni]

The *minimum* score on the SAT now is 600.

The maximum is 2400.

It's three sections now, not two, so you get three scores that range from 200 to 800.

The ACT has also added sections, but each section is still graded on a 36 point scale, and the sections are averaged, so the total scores haven't changed.

Re:SAT score must have changed alot over the years

[Mr. Chow]

In fact this article is referring to the combined english and math scores (their source: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012160.pdf page 7). Nobody cares about the essay score, as any selective college will be reading essays you wrote themselves.

Re:SAT score must have changed alot over the years

[Anonymous Coward]

I was about the same, had a combined 1470. After the Great Revaluation or whatever they call it (and before the fucking essay) it would be about 15 points higher. Depending on your scores, the adjustment ranges from zero to around 30 points, if memory serves.

Re:SAT score must have changed alot over the years

[bored]

as any selective college will be reading essays you wrote themselves.

Ha, I know someone who sells college admission essay help.... Basically, give them some money, your essay gets corrected/rewritten.

Its nice to have money..

Re:SAT score must have changed alot over the years

[Mr. Chow]

I don't really disagree, but by the same token you could just have someone take the SAT for you....

It should be a combination of need and merit

[Anonymous Coward]

Using one metric by itself is stupid. It should be a combination of their GPA, accomplishments and need. I think this is a reaction to all of the people highlighted in the media who got a free ride while VASTLY different GPA's and almost no accomplishments yet a another person with a higher GPA, and a long list of accomplishments couldn't get anything.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking teddy with a trust fund. I'm talking normal joe (or jill) from a medium income family who can't afford college for joe (jill), yet their combined income exceeds blind limits.

Samzenpus on the left, Timothy on the right

[Anonymous Coward]

Just an observation.

Re:Samzenpus on the left, Timothy on the right

[Anonymous Coward]

Your mom in the middle.

Re:Samzenpus on the left, Timothy on the right

[Anonymous Coward]

My mother died in a car accident two months ago.

Nice post.

Something suddenly makes sense:

[RaccoonBandit]

The article mentioned South Carolina as one of the states where public universities are affected. I have taught physics courses at a large SC school and at the end of the semester there is the usual rush of emails from your students telling you that they deserve a higher grade than they got, contrary to all the evidence of their lack of ability and effort. Well, maybe they should have thought about that earlier and actually cared about doing work for the class.

Among them there are also always some who say "If I don't get a B in this class, then I lose my scholarship" (sorry guys, grades are not given out according to personal need). Several such students every semester. And I wonder, how did these students ever get a scholarship in the first place given their highly mediocre academic ability?

Now it all makes sense.

Re:Something suddenly makes sense:

[moeinvt]

Thank you for providing a comment from the front lines.

I heard about a recent study comparing test data from students across nations. One of the parts of the study asked students to assess how well they thought they had performed on various parts of the exam. One place where the USA led the world was the gap between self assessment and actual performance.

IMO, this is what happens when our schools focus on "self esteem" and give everyone a medal just for competing. They think they are inherently deserving of good outcomes for marginal effort.

Re:Something suddenly makes sense:

[volmtech]

My two oldest children had top marks in high school and had full academic scholarships. Unprepared for the freedom and responsibility of collage life (i.e. partying) they both lost their scholarships because of poor grades. My son joined ROTC to get a military scholarship. After 4 years in the Air Force he went to law school and got his law degree. My daughter just took out student loans and has a PhD and tons of debt. I hear this is common.

I dont know how this is a surprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

Schools are a business that are in business to make money. That is their entire purpose and nothing more.

For anyone who believes the majority of colleges/universities in America are open to educate, give people a future, help us become a smarter country and so on then you are truly a complete and utter moron who has no idea how the real world works.

So yeah of course most schools want rich students instead of poor students. That's like saying "This just in! Most stores want rich shoppers instead of poor shopper! Stay tuned for our next story you wont believe, the sun will rise in the morning!"

This is a new twist ...

[BitZtream]

Wait ... no, its not. Never in my life has college been anything other than a money grab. If you don't already know this, you're just living in the dark. The idea that its about education is perpetuated by the schools to stay in business, typical marketing.

Look at salaries versus time spent teaching and tell me how its about education.

Look at costs spent on administrative staff and compare those same salaries to other industries.

Nothing about college even indicates VIABLE businesses, they only continue to exist because people think its a good idea to indoctrinate their children into thinking college is about making a better life for yourself.

School is now about getting you to incur as much debt as possible in the time you are there.

Re:This is a new twist ...

[dfghjk]

"Never in my life has college been anything other than a money grab."

Your life is likely too short to matter. Don't need kids giving history lessons.

The California university system used to be free. When I went to college I paid $4 a semester hour, worked part time and graduated debt free without financial assistance. Never spent as much as $100 a semester on books and was always able to sell them back. Things have changed a great deal in a pretty short period of time.

Re:This is a new twist ...

[wikdwarlock]

While I believe that the amount of debt I accrued during my time in college was high, and is a significant part of my monthly budget now (~1 mortgage payment), I do not believe that I could have gained the knowledge, experience, and training in any other way.

It may be argued that life experience, time in the local library, etc, can give someone a great deal of useful education. And honestly, I don't disagree. However, my population 6,000 hometown had none of the resources available to compare to 3.5 years of undergraduate mechanical engineering curriculum from my alma mater. "Stress" was a psychological term, not a mathematical description of load and area. "Fluid dynamics" sounded like a plumber's job, not the study of pressures and flows in liquids and gases. Nobody in Small Town, Ohio knew about AutoCAD, or Maple, or Fortran, or differential equations, mechatronics, or engineering management. These are all things I learned first in college, and have since refined in my professional practice on a daily basis.

I agree that not all costs for college seem rational for the student, and indeed, many colleges do take advantage of their "customers". For me, I'm glad I made the investment, as it's expanded my understanding of the world and my earning potential (well in excess of what it costs me, even 10 yrs beyond graduation). I would make the same purchase again. And I'll teach my kids about the costs and benefits and help them pay if they choose to and our college savings are adequate.

This is just a symptom of a larger problem

[GodfatherofSoul]

Our country is devolving into an oligarchy. If you're not upper crust, your opinion is irrelevant. Our politicians cater to the fat cats who write their campaign checks. Businesses are running on that statistical razor's edge where customers are maximally pissed off yet not quite enough to pack up and move to a new vendor. Petitions mean nothing. When I was in support, I talked with 2 financial institutions that admitted to me that unless some heavy roller asked for a new feature or a change to business practices, it never happened. One guy with $10M in accounts could come in and ask for change and make it happen.

Hell, even certain segments of the working class devalue themselves and the worth of their labor. They regularly vote to marginalize themselves and empower their bosses.

Re:This is just a symptom of a larger problem

[Kittenman]

Our country is devolving into an oligarchy. If you're not upper crust, your opinion is irrelevant. Our politicians cater to the fat cats ....

Forgive me, isn't that a plutocracy? Oligarchy is government by the few. Plutocracy is government by the rich. Sorry to split a hair but I thought it worth splitting.

Re:This is just a symptom of a larger problem

[GodfatherofSoul]

You're probably right. I thought that's what oligarchy meant.

Re:This is just a symptom of a larger problem

[AK Marc]

They are mostly interchangeable anyway. Rule by the Few (if those few are the rich) is both.

Four months is not two years.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate from Sept. 24, 2009 to Feb. 4th, 2010. This includes such reliable Democratic votes as the Blue-Dog caucus and Joe "I want to be John McCain's Vice President" Lieberman. Also note that because Republicans filibuster everything it takes 60 votes for the Senate to do it's job.

Re:Four months is not two years.

[I'm New Around Here]

Considering the 60th vote the Democrats needed was Al Franken, and he was sworn in on July 7, 2009, I think you need better sources for your groupthink.

As for the filibuster, I bet you weren't complaining about it when the Republicans were in the majority, and Democrats could use it to their advantage.

Personally, I like the filibuster. It usually keeps 51% of the people from riding roughshod over the other 49%. If you can manage 60% of the Senate, there is enough support to claim a mandate. Barely more than half doesn't cut it.

Re:Four months is not two years.

[Anonymous Coward]

While Al Franken was sworn in on July 7th, 2009 let's not forget that Ted Kennedy was absent much of the time because he was dying. Paul Kirk was appointed to replace Kennedy on Sept. 25th, 2009 and until Feb. 4th, 2010. So the Democrats had control for a grand total of 72 days, and that's including a single day when Mel Martinez resigned.

Re:Four months is not two years.

[Anonymous Coward]

First: Ted Kennedy was dying between the time Al Franken was sworn in and Sept 24th. I suppose if you want to count someone literally on their death bed as a vote, then sure, knock your socks off. Changes it from 4 month to 5 and a half, that really changes the argument substantially.

Almost nobody was complaining about it when Republicans were in the majority, because Democrats didn't use it nearly as often. Republicans use it so consistently now that basically any legislation that isn't about protecting puppies from being kicked is just automatically considered filibustered until broken. The Washington Post has a very nice graph that illustrates this point very well if you google "chart filibuster usage."

And of course you like the filibuster, you already have all the privilege and power that you need to be successful and happy. It's completely shocking that someone for whom the status quo is working would want there to be as many blocks to change as possible, morality and ethics be damned.

Re:Four months is not two years.

[I'm New Around Here]

Kennedy's sickness is immaterial to the question. The Democrats had 58 seats, and both of the Independent Senators were former Democrats who voted with them on social issues. They had 60 seats. The had the super-majority.

You even recognize they had at least 72 days of it. They could have passed anything they wanted for over 2 months. Yet they had to keep bribing their own party members, Nelson and Landrieu in particular, to get those last votes.

My main contention is just that liberals want to 'blame' the Republicans for the Democrats not using their super-majority efficiently. As if it's their fault.

Anyhow, thank you for the specific dates.

Re:Four months is not two years.

[I'm New Around Here]

Maybe the Democrats should have told Kennedy to retire the previous election cycle, and name his successor. It's not like that person wouldn't have won easily. So, the blame for the Democrats not being able to capitalize on their super-majority status is entirely on them, as a party and as individuals.

As for the Democrats not using the filibuster in 2001, it was because other than reactions to the September 11 attacks, (which includes the Patriot Act, Dept of Homeland Security, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, etc.) the Republicans didn't push their extreme agenda at all. Because of both the Bush v Gore decision and the fact that the Senate was split 50/50, the Republican leadership acted like they had to kowtow to the Democrats, which the Democrats and liberals across the country insisted was correct.

And then in June 2001, Senator Jeffords left the Republican party to become an Independent, and the Democrats took over the Senate again, with their 50 seats. In 2003, the Republicans were back up with 51 seats, and again acted like they weren't entitled to the leadership. So the Democrats didn't see legislation that they felt was so far right-wing that they had to forcibly block it.

Compare that situation to the way Obamacare was shoved through, with almost no substantial input from Republicans, and then replacing the House version in its entirety for the Senate version, and it's almost unbelievable that you think there is a comparison in the recent use of the filibuster between the two parties.

As for why I like the filibuster, other than what I said was my reason, you are so far off concerning my privilege and power, it's comical.

Re:Four months is not two years.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, power is very material. The Republicans had the power to obstruct, and they did. The Senate has arcane rules, like moving to end the debate to start the debate, which requires hours (and even days) of debate, whether or not anyone is even present in the Senate. Your position is without merit.

Re:Four months is not two years.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Personally, I like the filibuster. It usually keeps 51% of the people from riding roughshod over the other 49%."

California has over 38,000,000 residents, Wyoming less than 600,000. Both get two Senators.

Re:Four months is not two years.

[I'm New Around Here]

And your point is???

Re:Four months is not two years.

[hedwards]

No, it means that 40.1% can run roughshod over the 59.9%. One of the features of Democracy is that sometimes the 50%+1 get their say over the 50%-1, and yes that does suck when things are that divided, but that's how the system is designed to work.

Ultimately, in a majority wins system you get the majority getting to win sometimes even when it's not the best idea out there.

Re:Four months is not two years.

[I'm New Around Here]

No, they did not have the power to obstruct when the Democrats had their super-majority. Other than being completely wrong on your main argument, you are correct that the Senate has rules.

Re:Four months is not two years.

[I'm New Around Here]

Excuse me while I call you an idiot.

You're an idiot.

40.1% cannot push anything through the Senate. 40.1% cannot push anything through the House. 40.1% cannot do much of anything.

As for your statement that Democracy is designed to work that 50%+1 gets to kill the 50%-1, I would have to say that the Senate has the filibuster rule for that exact reason.

And I'm sure you are another that wasn't complaining about the filibuster when the Republicans controlled the Senate. Which is why my sig is so relevant so often.

Re:Four months is not two years.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point would be that in reality filibuster might allow 30% of the people to ride roughshod over 70% of the people... Which is a bit hard to claim to be a good thing.

Re:Four months is not two years.

[blackraven14250]

40.1% cannot push anything through the Senate. 40.1% cannot push anything through the House. 40.1% cannot do much of anything.

What 40.1% can do is prevent 59.9% from doing anything, which is exactly the situation we're now in. The filibuster is only designed to give disproportionate power to the 40.1% instead of the 59.9%.

Re:Four months is not two years.

[hedwards]

Like Blackraven said, 40.1% can prevent legislation from being enacted.

If you're too lazy and or stupid to understand that, then I'm clearly wasting my time. BTW, AFAIK the GOP is using the filibuster far more frequently than the Democrats were back during the Bush administration. The Democrats were at least trying to work with Bush, who refused to work with them in most cases, whereas the GOP isn't even pretending like they're trying to work with the Democrats now.

Re:Four months is not two years.

[kilfarsnar]

"Personally, I like the filibuster. It usually keeps 51% of the people from riding roughshod over the other 49%." California has over 38,000,000 residents, Wyoming less than 600,000. Both get two Senators.

Do you know the purpose of the House of Representatives?

Re:Four months is not two years.

[I'm New Around Here]

Like Blackraven said, 40.1% can prevent legislation from being enacted.

Yes, and Blackraven is essentially correct. However that is not what you stated. You stated that 40.1% can "run roughshod over the 59.9%." That is categorically false. Insisting legislation is debated and amended until you feel it has met your concerns is not running roughshod. It is called being a politician. But beyond that, you are arguing that the Senate is not being run according to its design, while the filibuster is exactly what the founding fathers wanted for that chamber, for these exact reasons.

If you're too lazy and or stupid to understand that,

That's funny, the ignorant calling their opposition stupid. As I just said, the Senate is designed to do what you are claiming is destroying it.

then I'm clearly wasting my time. BTW, AFAIK the GOP is using the filibuster far more frequently than the Democrats were back during the Bush administration. The Democrats were at least trying to work with Bush, who refused to work with them in most cases, whereas the GOP isn't even pretending like they're trying to work with the Democrats now.

I answered in why the Republicans are using the filibuster when the Democrats didn't. It's because when the Republicans were in charge , they acted like a pack of cowardly dogs, afraid of their own shadows. They'll howl to let you know they are there, but when the time comes to act, they cave to the false "public sentiment" that the media concocts to support the Democrats. Time and again. And it still is happening with Speaker Boehner in the House. That's a big reason I don't vote for Republicans.

Re:Four months is not two years.

[I'm New Around Here]

Correction on my above post. The last paragraph was supposed to start:

I answered in another post why the Republicans are using the filibuster ....

Re:Four months is not two years.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're arguing semantics here. Preventing congress from passing gun control legislation is running roughshod over the other 60% of the people. And no, the Senate isn't meant for that purpose, the Senate is meant as a deliberating body, not as one that will prevent the will of the people from being expressed. For the first 150 or so years, the filibuster was used only occasionally.

And liberal Jerry Browns fault ...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, really.. Started the slide for UC from egalitarian master plan for California: top eighth of HS seniors can attend essentially for free to today's 30k/yr and up. (even as recently as the late 70s, the annual fees to attend UCLA were less than $1000, something that you could earn in 10 weeks of full time work at minimum wage)

Late 1970s is the middle of liberal Jerry Brown's two terms as governor. It seems to be a quite bipartisan effort to make students pay something.

The students are just being tapped to pay for the extravagant spending. Cut back on the extravagance and we can lower tuition with raising taxes.

As a graduate of the UC system I can certainly attest to the fact the UC system "gold plates" everything. They overspend on nearly every project. Every building seems to have to be an art project, not simply attractive. The equipment inside the labs often excessive, latest greatest and most expensive oscilloscopes in a freshman electronics lab where most of the students are non majors taking an intro EE class to satisfy their degree requirements (not because they have any interest). This sort of stuff repeats itself over and over at UC.

The problem is spending not funding. I've also attended classes at Cal State universities, same content at a fraction of the cost. Freshman labs with more modest equipment but far beyond what the students will need.

No Child Left Behind?

[nickmh]

Hang on a second. Wasn't one of the matras "No Child Left Behind"? It'll be alright. Just have to print and borrow more money. It's a shame the freedom to compete, which makes it easier for those already well resourced, multinationals for instance, and therefore redistribute resources is being strangled. HHHHmmm to big to fail anyone? Can't have the innefficient going broke now can we? Think of the children? We really are screwd aren't we? What a load of crap modern "Leadership" is. Bunch of collectivist cronies!

Good

[Charliemopps]

Lost in all this is the fraud that a $50k/semester college is better than a $5k/semester college. Yes, if you're at the top of your class it will garner you more prestige and maybe a better shot at a higher paying job. But will you actually know any more or have any better skills than if you'd gone somewhere else? Not at all. If your goal is learning, then this is no barrier what-so-ever. If your goal is getting into this countries upper cast, then there's a lot easier ways than attending one of these schools.

When I graduated high school, I went strait to state college. No one in my family had ever attended college before so I didn't have anyone to ask about it ahead of time. At the time I looked down on technical college thinking it wasn't up to par. But the fact is, 66% of the people that attended by state college dropped out. At the local technical college the graduation rate was more than double. The classes were smaller, the teachers more hands on. Now that I have my own son, he'll get taught that technical schools are great and that's exactly where he should start his college years. If he gets to the point where he needs to go to a bigger school to learn the skills he wants to learn then fine. But technical schools are where everyone should start.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post is confusing. State schools are nowhere near $50k/semester unless they are out of state ones. It is the elite liberal arts/private research universities that run $50k/year. If they had 33% graduation rate, that is either a regional state school or a terrible flagship (even Arkansas and Ole Miss in two of the poorest states have better rates than that). At a (large) regional state school, you are a number, and you will get out of it what you put in. At an elite liberal arts school, you'll get the same or better attention as at the tech schools, but have a generally more skilled peer group in your classes.

Re:Good

[AK Marc]

You are wrong, but not for the reasons one might guess. The $50k college gives no better education, but delivers better outcomes. How's that? Because you surround yourself with the rich. If I had $5,000,000 at two points in my life, I'd have $100,000,000 or more now (even after paying back 10x the initial investment). If I had gone to a $50k college, I'd have been surrounded by people with that money, and might have been able to borrow $5 million from a friend. But, having gone to a $5k college, my friends likely wouldn't be able to loan me $5,000.

It's not about the education, but the opportunity. So far there have been three times where I saw a need where a few million would have made lots, but I morally object to vulture capitalism, so loans are required, and two of the three were unloanable (business loans aren't given to start-ups, but you must have an existing business to get loans on it, probably to stop people from making up businesses to get loans and running off with the money). The third was an issue because the business owners didn't want to sell, so they rebuffed my offers, not taking me seriously, claiming it wasn't for sale until they sold it to someone else. If I had $5,000,000 of flash cash, it would have been a sale. They were a horribly mis-managed ISP, and a quick turn-around and it'd be worth $50,000,000 by now. Instead, they sold it to a competitor that shut it down and converted the customers, essentially buying the customer list, and nothing else.

Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[drnb]

He is gonna end up buried in 37k of debt without even a piece of paper, damned shame is what it is, poor kid worked his ass off and got screwed..

How did that happen? The average for 4 year public schools is $13,600 a year. A part time job and a summer job could put a pretty huge dent in $13,600 a year. Note this figure includes room and board.

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

A part time job and a summer job could put a pretty huge dent in $13,600 a year.

In the year 2013 during the worst economic times the US has seen in many decades:

1. Those jobs are very hard to come by. Just look at the unemployment rate for kids from 18-24. Just saying that they need to get the gumption and get a job doesn't reflect the reality of what kids have to deal with today.

2. You wouldn't even make close enough to put a ding in those expenses let alone a dent.

3. Average what? Tuition? Books will take up Summer earnings and colleges love adding all these other fees.

4. Unless you're really sharp or majoring in Women's Studies, a part time job during school is a burden and makes it hard to keep grades up and ...

5. In this day and age, kids are competing with people from all over the World. A GPA less than 3.5/4.0 means you are going to have a hard time getting employed. Compared to back in my day, just graduating with a 3.0 meant you were golden.

7. With Globalization, the opportunities available to kids are declining rapidly. Back in my day, Big Corp had an entry level track for us State U. grads and the Fast Track for the Ivy League grads and groomed folks for the future. Today, they want folks who "can hit the ground running" and entry level means two years of experience.

8. There's no going back. This is just a symptom of the rest of the World catching up with the West and our inevitable regression to the mean, if you will, of standard of living. Meaning, there are only so many basic resources on this planet and we are all going to have to reduce out living standards - except for the super rich 1%'ers.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

Summer job isn't entirely feasible if someone is taking summer classes. Part-time work takes away from relaxation (no, not a drug reference) and study time. Although, I guess work/study would be accomendating.

What I'd like to see if the federal government offer to pay the first two years of tuition free of charge regardless of income level. There'd be a cap based on the state average tuition rate. Paid for by federal income taxes. To continue receiving free tuiton one must be in good standing. An F here or there won't hurt, but if one's GPA drops below 2.0, the student should have to pay.

I'd also like to see Direct Loans have their maximums tripled for borrowing. I'd like to see an interest rate based on the Consumer Price Index and not this 6.8% or whatever it is now.

I'd also like to see, maybe as an experiment, 0% interest for those on the 10 year repayment plan for their Direct Loans.

I'd like to see the federal government help subsdize state colleges. And I too worry that the affluent, domestic or foreign, will get preference in our domestic colleges by the sheer nature of the price alone

Not my idea, but I like the idea of a repayment plan based on income. That is, opt to pay like 5% to 6% of one's (taxable) income for like 20 to 30 years regardless of how much or little you earn. One idea is to have 1 year of college require 6 years of repayment. So, if someone took two years, graduated or not, that's be 12 years of repayment. Another idea would be 25 years of repayment regardless, but 1.5% of one's income for every year of college attended. A year of college would be credit-based. (Example: Taking 225 quarter-credits would be 5 years, or 7.5% additional income tax on taxable income once someone graduates or drops out.)

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[AK Marc]

5. In this day and age, kids are competing with people from all over the World. A GPA less than 3.5/4.0 means you are going to have a hard time getting employed. Compared to back in my day, just graduating with a 3.0 meant you were golden.

I've never had a job ask me my GPA. Despite all the wording otherwise, aside from college admissions, my high school grades have never come up ever again. And, true to lower school experience, my grades in college never came up. The only time someone could have argued they mattered is when I went back for a masters, and even then, it was solely an issue of seeing if I completed my undergrad, not with what grades. My test scores have always been in the high 90-something percent, so maybe it matters more for the 50%ers, but for me, I know that nobody ever cared about my grades.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[aaarrrgggh]

You are wrong on a number of your points which I lack the energy to refute, but this one needs response:

5. In this day and age, kids are competing with people from all over the World. A GPA less than 3.5/4.0 means you are going to have a hard time getting employed. Compared to back in my day, just graduating with a 3.0 meant you were golden.

We actually avoid hiring people with a GPA over 3.1.

The problem is that the cost of education pushes people towards "high earning" careers to compensate for debt. To succeed in school today, you need to understand that no matter what your degree is, you need entrepreneurial drive and to learn what (little) an MBA of yesteryear did. A better strategy is to focus on aptitude and market demand.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

When I went to college a decade ago, it only costed me $1800/sem, it has ballooned up to $3k/sem in the past few years. But hey, 100% 6-month post-grad job rate with an average of $60k-$80k/year. Seems like a good deal to me.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[hairyfeet]

Dude I've had guys in their 50s stop by my mom's house just trying to get the job mowing her lawn, you have NO idea how fucking BAD things are out there right now, I've known people that have abandoned their homes and are living on a relatives couch 4 states away just hoping its better there than it is here, and while you might find a school at the price you named it sure as hell isn't here, there is only the private college and if you can't go there its a 150 mile round trip to go to State U. and a shithole in "welcome to the jungle" land costs $1800 a month PLUS first and last and security and utilities down payments, hell we are talking $6500 just to move into a shithole apt. he just can't afford that nor the gas to do a 150+ mile round trip daily.

Dude things are a hell of a lot worse out there than you know, a HELL of a lot worse. in my area the small towns look like something from Omega Man, just rows of boarded up buildings, business districts that are now nothing but empty parking lots and abandoned buildings, its fucking B.A.D. out there right now man, really bad.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

We actually avoid hiring people with a GPA over 3.1.

This anecdote, while cute warm fuzzy, is totally meaningless as far as "refuting" the point.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[readingaccount]

On the bright side, sounds like a good place to direct a post-apocalyptic movie. On the down side, the number of locations such a movie could be made in the US appear to be rapidly increasing (though possibly a good thing for the movie industry).

But seriously, your country seems kinda fucked. How the hell are you guys gonna get out of that?

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[LordLimecat]

I am in college now, and familiar with tuition costs. Right now, a Va resident can attend basically any college in Va for ~ 10k / year. Thats tuition, books MIGHT add another 1-2k, but you can generally rent books for $50/class x 4 classes x 2 semesters.

Yes, if you cant cover that, you dont have the gumption. Sorry.

And I love how the headline demonizes merit based aid. Oh the horrors.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[hairyfeet]

You remember Germany of 35-45? Well i figure that will be the USA, and south and central america is gonna be Poland. You got a country that is armed to the teeth, is one of the most powerful militarily on the planet,and is looking at an economic collapse not unlike what happened in the early 30s...don't take Nostradamus to predict how this is gonna end, and it ain't gonna be pretty.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[RubberChainsaw]

GPA does definitely matter, especially for continuing one's education. A very close friend of mine desires more than anything to become a practicing physical therapist. Unfortunately, her undergrad grades are quite poor. During her undergraduate work, she thought (like you espouse) that GPA was not important. Her GREs are middling, and due to her GPA, no medical school is giving her a chance. It is rejection letter after rejection letter. I actually admire her tenacity. Its been more than two years and she is still applying and searching for a way to achieve her goal.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[KGIII]

It would be interesting if, under those same rules, we loaned the money directly to the kids so that they can start a business or whatnot. Sure, some will waste it. Given the percentage repayment plan you offer I'd suggest we'd be financially in the black with the program before too long. Allowing the people who didn't go to college to get a running start on life with some leeway as a safety net may be a solution that could work.

I say this and I self-identify as a classic libertarian. Limited socialism and a strong social net haven't anything to do with liberty - nor do taxes - and neither particularly scares or offends me. Most people don't seem to actually understand the platform. Sorry about the Ashamed Republicans who have stolen the name, identified with the idiot Rand, and hidden themselves among us while vocally declaring that they're not neocons, conservatives, or Republicans.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[AK Marc]

As I said, I had good test scores. Maybe it helps that my GRE was 99%. Med school doesn't follow regular rules. The AMA artificially restricts students, so the schools can be as selective as they like because there are so many more entrants than spaces.

I had a friend that couldn't get into med school, so she went and did her first two years in Grenada. With good grades there, she was able to get into a US med school. But the Granada classes didn't count, so it was a 2 year waste of time and money to get into med school, and wasn't certain. But she made it and is a doctor now. As the article hints, it's much easier having rich parents.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

If there's rows of boarded up buildings, that means no one wants to live there. That means rent is NOT going to be $1800 a month. I call shenanigans. I lived in an Ivy League university town within biking distance of the lectures in a spacious and perfectly nice apartment for $700 per month. If you're willing to drive or get a room in someone's home, I'm sure you could get that price down even further.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

Has she thought of going back for a second undergrad degree? Hopefully one that allows her to boost her GPA.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the US is going to invade Mexico for what? Tequila and salsa? Germany invaded Poland because they wanted more land- this is not an issue the US has. Besides, the military-industrial complex sells more weapons when there's more borders.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

aka she isn't looking forward to her certain future at Starbucks. I'm sorry but if she wasn't smart enough to research the requirements for getting into medschool, she isn't smart enough for med school.

Boo hoo.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[khallow]

GPA does definitely matter, especially for continuing one's education.

That's what AK Marc said, aside from the observation that GPA doesn't really matter for other uses than continuing one's education. I've only been asked my GPA for continuing education and a job at the US federal Census Bureau. Nobody else has cared.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps if her GREs are middling (now) then her GPA was on par with her abilities (rather than not thinking GPA would matter during undergrad)? No disrespect, but everyone has his or her own ability level and the schools may be looking for someone with different abilities than your friend.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

North Dakota? Bakken shale paying high wages to people with no skills.

http://www.bakkendispatch.com/north-dakota-oil-jobs?pid=9517828190396959&l=north+dakota&pg=1

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[sociocapitalist]

I am in college now, and familiar with tuition costs. Right now, a Va resident can attend basically any college in Va for ~ 10k / year. Thats tuition, books MIGHT add another 1-2k, but you can generally rent books for $50/class x 4 classes x 2 semesters.

Yes, if you cant cover that, you dont have the gumption. Sorry.

And I love how the headline demonizes merit based aid. Oh the horrors.

Indeed you are lucky to be a resident of a state with relatively low costs.

Does that 10k include housing, food and transportation costs?

Not everyone can find non-school hours work that is going to pay enough to cover most or all the costs after taxes and not everyone has parents to pay it for them.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[LordLimecat]

Most in-state tuitions for community colleges are at this level. Have you actually looked?

Worst case, move to Va. This is how state competition works. If your state sucks, leave it.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[ezelkow1]

Really? I remember when applying for jobs during the last few years of college, many companies wouldnt even talk to you if you had less than a 3.0. It was the first step to get past and a microsoft or google wouldnt touch a sub 3.5 with a 10ft pole.

Now that Ive been in my current job for a while an am up to a senior engineer and interviewing people, GPA still definitely comes up. However as someone who had a slightly below 3.0 I know that GPA doesnt really mean much since a 3.8 from one engineering school could equal a 2.8 from another. Something I try to remind my managers of all the time when they are comparing one engineering grad from a known good engineering university in the USA to a student with an engineering degree from a school they dont know anything about from another country

So while I agree it really shouldnt factor in much to a decision, it is most definitely still widely used by companies when talking to a fresh grad

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

The only problem with this thinking is that you are applying for positions AFTER you have had experience.

A lot of students in the 18-24 range can only get experience either from knowing someone or doing internships/co-ops. If you aren't one of these students, then the only metric to judge is your GPA.

It's the Catch-22 of needing experience to be employed and only employed experience counts. GPA is the only other thing you can count on until you get your first job for experience. Even if the interviewer doesn't ask, it is the screen that Human Resources uses until you have experience.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone lives in Virginia.

Your statement applies to residents of Virginia. People living in a more expensive state are still looking at close to 20k/year. Moving to a cheaper state still does not qualify them for in-state tuition rates.

How do I know? I just graduated from college last year in New York State

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I mean, who'd be worried about a medical professional who was only mediocre? What's the worst that could happen? Oh, right...

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't take Nostradamus, just an idiot and a keyboard.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

2.83 GPA here, working with other sub-3.0 GPA coworkers.

I make about $62k a year and my coworkers make slightly more in a mixed engineering and design environment. I'm applying for entrance to an m.sc program next year.

I just don't have the attention span to do all the bullshit work AND brown-nose the professors into receiving higher grades.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, so your friend wanted to go to medical school and didn't think that grades mattered?

I'm glad this idiot is NOT going into the medical field.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[AK Marc]

Really? I remember when applying for jobs during the last few years of college, many companies wouldnt even talk to you if you had less than a 3.0. It was the first step to get past and a microsoft or google wouldnt touch a sub 3.5 with a 10ft pole.

Yes Really. I had a friend who was in my grade, and he failed out of college and got a job with Microsoft in 1994. He made more while I was in college than I made for my first 10 years after.

When you are only applying to the "top" employers that everyone is trying to work for, then yes, you may run into issues. I have only applied for jobs at places who were advertising for open positions at local unknown companies. Nobody ever asked about my college. They were always more interested in my job history, after the first few jobs, who were lower end tech jobs.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[AK Marc]

My first job out of college was $15k. Get a job in the field, build experience. Perhaps it's my perspective because I wasn't silly enough to think that straight out of school I'd be making $150,000 for Google in a sexy job with free soda and pizza.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[jonadab]

> Her GREs are middling ... and she is still ... searching for a way to achieve her goal.

I can tell her how, but she's not gonna like it.

It's simple, really. (Note that "simple" is not the same thing as "easy".)

What she has to do is study her everliving tail off and go back and retake the GREs and ace them cold.

Either that, or say "it's too hard" and pick an easier goal. Her choice.

(Taking a couple of graduate classes from a regular college -- ones related in some way to medicine if possible -- and acing them solid wouldn't hurt either; but the test scores are more important.)

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[hairyfeet]

Oil, natural gas, plenty of resources, especially in south america, and if nobody will take your paper money because you printed too damned much of it how else you gonna get it? Hold out a tin cup?

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't have to, most big companies have policies in place where HR filters them before it even hits the hiring managers. I do a lot of hiring, I mostly ignore GPA, but I do know HR filters it.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[rmdingler]

Years ago now, my sister-in-law was headed to a job interview when she confessed to me she had no HS diploma. She asked me what she should tell the employer. I thought about the number of times I actually had to present my HS diploma...three times: military service, college, and state examination. I told her to say she had one. She's been saying that for twenty years.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[sociocapitalist]

Most in-state tuitions for community colleges are at this level. Have you actually looked?

Worst case, move to Va. This is how state competition works. If your state sucks, leave it.

You haven't answered my question about the 10k including housing, food and transportation; nor have you addressed my point about being able to find work or have parents to pay the costs for you (or to put you up for free in their home while you're at school).

I had five years of College / University and ran up huge amounts of student loan and credit card debt even though I was working one or two part time jobs making as much as I could in such jobs. No parents to pay for anything so I was covering it all myself.

When you're covering it all yourself and you're working shitty part time jobs to earn whatever you can while not failing out of school due to lack of time to go to classes and study, 10k is a lot of money. Assuming your 10k doesn't include food, housing and transportation, it's that much more painful.

As for not liking it...no, I don't like it. I think it's a formula for failure for the society over time.

Going back to the original point of the article - merit based scholarships should be based on grades and not based on the family's ability to pay. If they were - if school were free for the students who work hard enough to deserve it - then you have a system that wins for the society in the long term.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[LordLimecat]

Housing, at least in VA, I have seen advertised for ~$200/mo. I myself lived in an apartment at $350/mo for a few years; thats ~$4000 / year.
Transportation can be done with bike (which is really not unusual) or public transit. Alternatively, you could get a car, in which case your ongoing costs would most certainly be under $100 / month.

If you're asking for on-campus costs, I dont know the answer to that.

I may have been a bit harsh by implying that you should be able to pay the full of the loan off by working part time, but you should DEFINATELY not be ending with a massive loan if you cant pay it off. One poster mentioned paying $20k / year in-state in New York, which really sounds like a state issue-- thats roughly what you would pay for out-of-state for UVA, JMU, W&M, etc in virginia. Perhaps the real issue is that some states need to fix their schools, rather than this being treated like a national problem.

When you're covering it all yourself and you're working shitty part time jobs

Well, life IS about working to earn your keep. I imagine that the attitude of "its a shitty job" is common, and part of the problem. I wonder what your immigrant ancestors might say to that attitude? Or your ancestors during the great depression? If you need money, you work a job. If you dont, you can certainly take on overwhelming debt, but then dont complain to anyone about how the system is broken.

Going back to the original point of the article - merit based scholarships should be based on grades and not based on the family's ability to pay. If they were - if school were free for the students who work hard enough to deserve it - then you have a system that wins for the society in the long term.

Well, I dont disagree, except that the school is really the one to decide "if it should be free". I think for public schools that would probably be a good policy for some percentage, sure. What I disagree with is the narrative that the system is deeply broken because some vocal minority racked up roughly the cost of a house in debt because they couldnt contemplate going to an in-state school on a reasonable budget.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[LordLimecat]

Out-of-state tuiton for most VA schools is ~20k. This really sounds like a "your state needs to fix its crap" situation, if their in-state tuition is barely competitive with our out-of-state tuition.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

Boarded up buildings means the bank owns them. They're not for rent.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[sociocapitalist]

Hi -

I don't mind working shitty jobs to accomplish my goals - my points were rather that the salary one gets for working such isn't enough to pay for school + living and that the more time you have to spend working the less time you can spend learning.

After five years of working and going to school I ended up working so much that I wasn't able to keep my grades up. I do not actually have a degree but I still had to pay off a large amount of student debt. The system is broken.

I don't think that the school should decide if it's going to be free. That's something that the society should decide, as an investment in the society for the long term.

As a point of comparison, I now live in France, make six figures and pay French taxes. While I complain just as everyone else does about paying taxes, at the end of the day my family has free medical coverage and free education through university level (assuming the passing of the competitive exams which decide who gets into which school, or if they get into school at all).

End result is that the society stays strong because the best and brightest do indeed go to school for free - based on merit.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it's not asked -- because employers expect it to be at the top your resume. If it's not, they assume it's below par and won't even call you in for an interview.

Re:Average public univ = $13,600 a year

[AK Marc]

I've been hiring for 5 years now and have *never* seen GPA on a resume, and I know of nobody who puts it on their resume. Maybe if you have zero job experience, it might matter, but I've always been hiring manager for non-entry positions.

Prisons are highly profitable

[rsilvergun]

because it doesn't cost near what we pay to operate them. Stuff like this is what made me a socialist. The rich are going to find a way to use the government to their benefit and our detriment. I don't see any reason to pretend they'll not. So if we're going to have a powerful government that hands out socialism to the rich why not just get some of it for the rest of us? Start by making education in all forms free, and keep going from there.

Re:Prisons are highly profitable

[erroneus]

That's an awesome reality. "Socialism for the rich, but not for us." There's quite a bit of truth to that when you realize how much tax money and public debt goes into subsidies for business.

Re:Prisons are highly profitable

[tnk1]

I don't know. I think it is a losing proposition to look at what the rich get and try and hone in on that action. The reality is that the rich get what the rich get because they concentrate resources in the hands of a few people. If you try and give everyone what the rich are getting, you're going to fail simply because to get what they have, you have to exploit someone. And if you're giving everyone everything, you have no one to exploit. That's why you end up with either hybrid capitalist-socialist systems like in Europe, or command economies. And we all know how well command economies go.

You may be able to make things marginally better if you could somehow reallocate what the rich have, but since you're simply reallocating the riches of a relatively few people, it doesn't go as far as you think it might. If you outright confiscated, not taxed, but grabbed every asset of the so-called 1%, you'd get about 1 trillion dollars *total*. That's a lot of money, but the US government goes through 4x that much in one year.

The real solution is certainly trying to somehow temper the avarice of the rich as much as possible, but primarily to work on protecting and efficiently reallocating what you already have allocated to "everyone else".

The only problem I have with "socialism" is that it expects the central government to do something efficiently. At a national level, I'm not sure that's realistic if the country is big or complex enough. If it can be brought down to a local level, there may be more opportunity to keep things realistic owing to fewer administrative costs to get the money where it is needed.

I'm not against giving people things for free, but one does need to wonder how it is going to be paid for, and you're not going to get very far if you are relying on fleecing the rich for it.

Re:Prisons are highly profitable

[pimp0r]

Instead of concentrating as much money as possible into 1% of the population, the same money could be in use by a much much larger middle class.

That's also where you will find the ones to pay for socialism. The poor can not pay for the aid they receive because they are poor. The rich avoid paying anywhere near a decent amount compared to their income or assets, even if it means moving to a different country. So the middle class is what supports a socialist system. And if you look at the countries with the happiest populations, you'll notice they have the largest proportion of middle class, and are welfare-states.

Socialism isn't a big on/off switch, it's a sliding scale of attempting to rectify the injustice of the powerful (rich) exploiting the powerless (poor).

Merit 'vs' Money

[OhANameWhatName]

Nobody seems to focus on the real problem here, talent isn't genetically inherited.

Let's take Bill Gates as an example. He's been incredibly successful. Will his son follow in his footsteps? That's unlikely. But his children end up getting the best support, the best education and the best opportunities. Meanwhile, Manny at the local grocery store has a son Terry whom is as talented as Bill Gates. Terry doesn't get the opportunities of Bill's son so winds up becoming a street corner entrepeneur. By the time he's 20, Terry owns 3 crack houses, 4 brothels, is driving massive demand for international trade, has a workforce of 300 people and is a multi-millionaire.

Terry is just using his gifts in the best way he can, and because he's so damned smart .. he accomplishes amazing things and doesn't end up in jail. The end result is that society is less rich for not encouraging Terry's gifts. It's not that the rich are taking the education spots, it's that society doesn't recognise and encourage the gifts of individuals. Bill's son might be the greatest basket weaver in human history, he's just never going to weave a basket.

The education system forces people into boxes and tries to shoe-horn them into positions which fit with our current identification of what society represents. What society should represent should be driven by the individual drives of the people expanding it's boundaries, not by limiting the range of education to fit into a social model which has never not been broken. It's not about the money, it's more fundamental than that.

Re:Merit 'vs' Money

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nobody seems to focus on the real problem here, talent isn't genetically inherited."

That is simply not true. Although politically uncorrect there is massive evidence that both IQ and "intellectual giftedness" (in which IQ is a component) have a very large genetically inherited component. See for example the Wikipedia discussions on this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_giftedness

To state the opposite is in my view on the intellectual level of artificial supporting intelligent design.

Re:Merit 'vs' Money

[Anonymous Coward]

More importantly, Gates was already rich. The risk he took starting Microsoft was essentially zero - if he had failed utterly and completely, he would have just gone back to Harvard on his free ride. Contrast this with someone who is not already rich doing the same thing, start a new company. The person has one chance to succeed, and failure means a life of debt and poverty because there would be no way to recover the losses.

Re:Merit 'vs' Money

[drinkypoo]

Nobody seems to focus on the real problem here, talent isn't genetically inherited.

Uh, what? Yes, yes it is. Not only is talent genetically inherited, but skills learned by long practice are genetically inherited. Please try to keep up, I know it's a complicated world.

Let's take Bill Gates as an example.

Yes, let's. He had well-connected parents and he started this game with money. Bill Gates did not succeed on his own merits.

Re:Merit 'vs' Money

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody seems to focus on the real problem here, talent isn't genetically inherited. ...

It's an example of Galton's Regression to the mean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean#History

Anonymous Cowards

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous Cowards are Slashdot's Niggers. .|..

Re:Someday colleges and universities will be obsol

[Iskender]

The net has a lot of the answers but it sucks as providing the questions, unfortunately.

If you want to experience downward social mobility

[symbolset]

If you want the worst possible outcome then leverage yourself to the hilt with loans and get into a premium university only to be failed out in year three or four to maintain the university's aura of being challenging through the failout percentage. Now you've got no degree, no job, no way of paying back your student loans that amount to decades of your newfound gross income - and they can't even be forgiven in bankruptcy. You are well on your way to participating in the underground economy, living out your twenties under the roof of some charitable soul until you discover identity theft.

I would like to see an analysis of how many billions of dollars are burned each year in this way, how many young lives ruined. This has become an institutional process where premium schools compete to have the highest failout percentage and thus be the most premium school rather than raising entry requirements to ensure entrants can graduate if they apply themselves. If these halls of higher learning are the font of science and knowledge they claim to be they ought not ruin so many lives in the process of making more educated humans.

Uh... no.

[rsilvergun]

the hallmark of progressives progress. A focus on a better way of life for everyone. The second feature of progressivism is applying the scientific method to society and politics. Specifically observation and a willingness to change you're mind (See Tim Minchin's Storm for a better (and funnier) explanation of science, and apply that to politics and society.

What progressives have observed, time and again, is that power collects at the top. No matter what. People pass the advantages they have to their offspring, who use those advantages to increase their share of wealth and power at everyone else's expense. The American housing bust is a great example. Millions lost their homes and the equity in them. That wealth wasn't destroyed. It's was claimed by banks owned by the 1%.

So if power is going to gather at the top we're left with two choices. Either a strong central government that can stand up to that power, or hoping against hope that the money and wealth 'trickle's down'. We've also seen that money and wealth don't do that.

I'm open to alternatives (I'm a progressive after all). But I've never once heard one that doesn't boil down to some form of socialism, or that isn't just wishful thinking.

Re:Uh... no.

[Anonymous Coward]

So if power is going to gather at the top we're left with two choices. Either a strong central government that can stand up to that power, or hoping against hope that the money and wealth 'trickle's down'. We've also seen that money and wealth don't do that.

What stops the government from becoming the "top" instead?

Re: Uh... no.

[JWW]

Nothing. In fact if the previous poster had been paying attention that already happened in 2008.

No government devised by man will ever bring equal prosperity to all of its citizens. The most they can do is bring equal misery. We've seen quite a few that managed that.

Re:Uh... no.

[l0ungeb0y]

Having lived in SF for over a decade I have firsthand knowledge of what these so called "progressives" really are: FASCISTS.

Maybe not the brand of fascism that we see in the NeoCons, but every inch as fascist in believing that they are some how superior to everyone else and that they and they alone have the right to tell others how to live their lives.

They want to tell you what to eat (let's ban the happy meal! Let's ban bad carbs, lets ban sugar!)
They want to tell you what to drink (no soda mmm'kay?)
They want to tell businesses what they can and can not sell in their stores (sorry Drugstores, you CAN'T sell cigarettes!)
They want to monitor your lifestyle (lets send a predawn police force out to inspect everyone's garbage to make sure they put their trash in the right bins)

These "progressives' are every inch as bad as the NeoCons in my book.
And frankly, I'd like nothing more than to see all them, Neocons, teabagger and progressives alike go fuck themselves and get the fuck out of this country and go build their dystopian hellhole on some island far from here.

I've seen the progressive propaganda flicks like "zeitgeist" and it's sequels.
What a load of crap.

These lefty ideologues who think they have the answer constantly overlook one "inconvenient truth":
HUMANITY IS CHAOTIC! WE ARE NOT UNIFORM, WE DO NOT LIVE BY SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPAL.

We are not orderly little ants needing their "scientific control" We do not want to live in orderly boring little societies where our daily lives are managed by a "scientific" elite.

We want chaos, we want spontaneity, we want to explore, take risks and die or thrive taking them.
We want to make our own decisions and create our own experiences.

So if you think these "progressives" have the answer I suggest you go get yourself put into some sort of institution.
There your life will be very well ordered. You will be told what and when to eat, when to sleep, what to do, what to wear. You will be given limited access to bad things such as TV and books. And all of this dictated by "scientific" principal and "resource management"

And I'm sure you will be quite happy. And I'll be quite happy knowing you are there instead of out here trying to take away my freedom to live my life the way I want.

Because if you ever did get "your way" I can guarantee you it would result in mass slaughter.
We all saw what the prohibition of alcohol and drugs have done to create power in the hands of the criminals.
Imagine when normal everyday life is outlawed and the masses are forced to live to your "scientific" regulations.

Rivers of blood in the streets will ensue. Because we will all be criminals then. And when the sugar eating, booze loving junk food eating population are considered criminals, you and your kind will be vastly outnumbered and rubbed out in a fit of violence.

Re:Uh... no.

[kermidge]

Nothing, so far. The U.S. Constitution, once upon a time, helped. Other than that? Regular fair publicly financed elections. Term limits (although I dislike the thought of losing good people who've just learned enough of what their job involves being arbitrarily removed, it's the only way I see to having a chance to yank out the empire builders.) No revolving doors to industry or judiciary. (Also a loss, as above, but also a protection.)

Tongue in cheek, anyone wanting "to serve" in public office is disqualified. Select by lottery from pool, as with jury duty, vote for whomever seems to best have their shit together.

Re:Uh... no.

[LordLucless]

So if power is going to gather at the top we're left with two choices. Either a strong central government that can stand up to that power, or hoping against hope that the money and wealth 'trickle's down'.

Because this "strong central government" is distinct from this "top" you mention? You're wanting to place more power in the hands of the powerful in order to stop the powerful from becoming more powerful? Let me know how that goes for you.

Re: Uh... no.

[Anonymatt]

Good thing progressives got such a sweet name!

Re:Uh... no.

[Omestes]

What stops the government from becoming the "top" instead?

Enforcing strict accountability, transparency and keeping money away from politicians to as great an extent as possible? By forcing them to judge things on "for the good of all of us" as opposed to "for the good of a small percentage of us".

Re:Uh... no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who are you to tell me I can't put lead in the milk I sell to people? Don't tell me how to live my life or what I can or cannot do. Or maybe it does make sense sometimes for the state to interfere. Unless you want lead milk, you are not disagreeing on that, you are just disagreeing about the details of when exactly that interference is proper, which renders your rant illogical.

Re:Uh... no.

[khallow]

Enforcing strict accountability, transparency and keeping money away from politicians to as great an extent as possible?

That hasn't happened so far.

By forcing them to judge things on "for the good of all of us" as opposed to "for the good of a small percentage of us".

That's pathetic because it is trivial to game. They'll just provide a rubber stamp to some flunkie somewhere and that will become the rigorous judging process.

Re:Uh... no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Soo... Your "fascists" want to ban unhealthy foods, smoking, and enforce recycling.

Man that's right up there with Mussolini!

Re:Uh... no.

[kilfarsnar]

So if you think these "progressives" have the answer I suggest you go get yourself put into some sort of institution. There your life will be very well ordered. You will be told what and when to eat, when to sleep, what to do, what to wear. You will be given limited access to bad things such as TV and books. And all of this dictated by "scientific" principal and "resource management"

I can understand your sentiment, but I have news for you. We are being managed by an elite already. They are the people sit on corporate boards and in executive suites and make decisions about what will be made, marketed and sold and how it will be done. They lobby congress and write "draft" legislation. They fund think tanks and foundations to shape policy and public opinion. They move in and out of government to make sure government and industry play nicely together.

Through PR and advertising you are already being told what to buy and eat, what to value and who to vote for. You are given a limited range of ideas to choose from in politics and can vote for Coke or Pepsi in every election. The major news media tell you about what goes on in the world, and you have no choice but to trust them even though you know that the message is being spun and massaged and they are leaving out the parts that are embarrassing to our government or against the narrative. I mean, do we really know who the rebels are in Syria and why we are supporting them?

The difference between this and what is envisioned in Zeitgeist (for the record, I find the idea of a resource based economy intriguing, but do not fully endorse it) is that in Zeitgeist they are open about what they are doing and why. And they advocate it for the betterment of everyone. You may not agree, and I don't agree with all of it either. But what we have now is a covert means of manipulating and influencing people's thoughts and opinions. It is being done for the benefit of a very few, not for everyone. And most people, by design, aren't aware that it is going on. We are already being managed. But instead of doing it by sustainable scientific principles, it's being done for power and profit.

Re:Uh... no.

[stenvar]

The second feature of progressivism is applying the scientific method to society and politics.

Your "scientific method" is nothing but warmed over and toned down "scientific socialism", the kind of claptrap they were teaching on the other side of the iron curtain, a scientific theory that contradicts basic economics and psychology. You can't claim to be applying "the scientific method" if you ignore basic results from economics and psychology, and that is exactly what progressives are doing.

Re:Uh... no.

[Anonymous Coward]

the hallmark of progressives progress. A focus on a better way of life for everyone. The second feature of progressivism is applying the scientific method to society and politics. Specifically observation and a willingness to change you're mind (See Tim Minchin's Storm [youtube.com] for a better (and funnier) explanation of science, and apply that to politics and society.

The problem, of course, is who gets to define "better" and how it's defined. The point of the parent poster is that progressives generally think they should be the ones to make that determination, and allowed to go against the will of the majority to "improve" (ie. move towards better). How much do you want to bet that "better" involves more money towards them ?

Re:Uh... no.

[Anonymous Coward]

If progressives were actually 'applying the scientific method' in determining the effectiveness of their solutions, they would have abandoned their socialist policies long ago. Nearly every progressive endeavor has failed miserably. The welfare state has failed to eliminate poverty as FDR sought to do more the 50 years ago. The state run education system is considered by most a failure. State funded higher education and medical care has resulted in record high costs for these services. Excessive state regulations has inflated costs and increased unemployment. Progressive fiscal and monetary policy has failed resulting in high unemployment and inflation. State meddling and funding in the housing sector has resulted in economic calamity and yet they continue the practices that were the cause. On and on and on . . . and yet so-called progressives are stuck on the same counter-progressive note, wondering why things keep getting worse, while still blaming capitalism as it fades yet further under the tide of their socialist policies. They are completely unwilling to change their mind, ever-convinced of the merits of Socialism.

If progressives dislike power collecting at the top, they should be against collecting power in government, the entity that's at the top of it all and actually capable of forcing the people to their will through the law. No individual or group of individuals, outside of government, has such power. Progressives seem to think those in government are somehow designed differently than those outside of government. They think those in government are somehow incapable or less capable of greed or failure or the undesirable traits they see of those in the private sector. There are no perfect men in or outside of government. The difference is that government can force others to their will. Given that knowledge, it's best to greatly limit the power of government, as the founders of America wisely prescribed.

Also, those who increase their wealth aren't doing so at the expense of others, unless they are actually stealing the money out of someone else's pocket. For example, if I create a table and chair and sell it, I didn't do so at the expense of anyone else. When someone purchases that table and chair, I receive their money and they receive a table and chair that they find of equal value in their life. Otherwise, they would have made their own table and chair or bought it from someone else. Both of us benefit from this voluntary exchange. I didn't benefit at the expense of others. Now let's say I spent my life producing and selling tables and chairs and decided I'd like to pay for my son's education in college, so that he too can make a living selling something that others benefit from. I would hope that he can learn a skill that would earn him more income, so that his quality of life would be better. It's human nature for people to want better for their children and it's this nature to want better for one's self and one's children that has grown this country from virtually nothing to the beacon of freedom, innovation, and productivity that it is today, despite being dimmed by its detractors. You and progressives like you would look poorly on such ideas, but it's part of the very fabric of human existence. Not to mention, there's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to better one's self and one's children. In a free society, all are free to produce what they choose and purchase the produce of others as they choose, and unless by force or coercion of government, it's never at the expense of others.

Re:Uh... no.

[Anonymous Coward]

In a free country, you can put lead in your milk, if you want. You should be free to do something, even if harmful to yourself. And, you should be free to sell something harmful to others, provided you aren't misleading anyone. Although, freedom has it's limits when your freedom impedes the freedom of someone else. If you wanted to sell lead filled milk to someone, under the guise that it was pure milk, and they were injured or died, you would have impeded the freedom of someone else. Government need not regulate that all milk be lead free, as the market would self-regulate as people avoided milk from producers that made them ill and demanded assurances that the milk is pure. Government does have a place, though, to make laws that stipulate that all contracts are honest, legitimate, and are executed as agreed. This would punish those who would deceive and sell lead filled milk as pure.

While the parent may seem to lack an ideology, a lack of ideology and the desire to be left alone is actually a preference in itself. It's called freedom, which fits more with the conservative view of things, as true conservatives are heavily influenced by freedom and individual liberty, whereas liberals are heavily influenced by government control and less freedoms for individuals in favor of the collective.

Re:Uh... no.

[Anonymous Coward]

"a strong central government that can stand up to that power"

Oh Jesus Fuck, can't you comprehend that strong central government both IS that power, and an irresistible magnet to people with the desire for that power?

Re:Uh... no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that's the key point isn't it? Being conscious versus unconscious about it. Also the difference in the current state of affairs is that the masses are being managed with a carrot. Well at least it is a carrot to me, whereas what you're proposing is explicit management by stick. From my point of view anyway, if I'm going to be managed and herded like sheeple anyway, I'd go with the former thank you.

You may prefer the latter, but that is just an individuals preference. I would suspect everyone would have their differing preference. In the end there is no one singular "correct" ideology acceptable by everyone. So why don't we all just sit back and smoke some pot and enjoy life.

Re:Uh... no.

[davydagger]

"the hallmark of progressives progress. A focus on a better way of life for everyone. The second feature of progressivism is applying the scientific method to society and politics. Specifically observation and a willingness to change you're mind (See Tim Minchin's Storm [youtube.com] for a better (and funnier) explanation of science, and apply that to politics and society."

applied top down, by the %1. They also address problems as percieved by the top of society, and only by the top of society. Are we talking about the actually "progressive" movement of the late 19th, early 20th century, or the "neo-progressives" of today?

The problem is your trying to apply "science" to human nature which often fails because of blatant and obvious biases of soft science, and either refusal or inability to weed the cranks and quacks out of said fields. Sociology was started by none other than Karl Marx, to promote his ideas as "scientific", and other early sociological schools of thought were feminist, or "social darwinism", echoing conservative political statements of the time. I will not get into the merits of various political systems, but it seems to me that most "scientific" aprasails of society are done from predijudiced platforms, unworthy of being called science, and little more than political shills.

"What progressives have observed, time and again, is that power collects at the top. No matter what. No matter what. People pass the advantages they have to their offspring, who use those advantages to increase their share of wealth and power at everyone else's expense. "

"So if power is going to gather at the top we're left with two choices. Either a strong central government that can stand up to that power, or hoping against hope that the money and wealth 'trickle's down'. We've also seen that money and wealth don't do that. "

There are certainly more solutions than those too. You seem to think, like most proggressives, the valid forms of government are strong top down solutions run by a handful of elites.(its either banks or government)

And proggressives do not challenge that. And they never will. Progressivism still proports that people on the top are there because they are inherently better. Its just that is rooted in morralism that that top should help the bottom. But no progressive ever wants to their positition of power and prestige reduced even close to the point it can be questioned.

They just replace one set of problems with another, leaving the same methods of power in place, just transfering them to themselves.

"I'm open to alternatives (I'm a progressive after all)"
No, if you were a proggressive, you're looking to attack, intimidate, and slander the opposition until they are too beaten to continue.

Here is an alternative. We create a grass roots democratic system, were the people, to mean invidual people, not corporations and not governments, get to vote on how things are done, and how to run their lives. We don't let self-proclaimed experts start off on fear mongering tirades to distract us from their power grabs.

We decentralize the system so there is no real central authorities to take over.

We make work place democracy a reality, as well as bring real democracy, and the transparency needed to run both economic and government institutions.

we deprussianize our school systems, lets have a good conversation about education reform that doesn't have to do with how much money we spend.

also big on my list are proportional represenation, and ballot iniatives at the federal level.

aid isn't aid

[buybuydandavis]

Aid is market segmentation based on ability to pay. Basically, schools suck as much money as they can out of everyone. Much like medicine, there are no real prices.

Re:aid isn't aid

[Anonymous Coward]

For need based aid, you are largely correct. Merit aid on the other hand is sort of like celebrity endorsements - it helps convince folks to shell out when you can point to alumni who became Rhodes scholars, etc. At my school, a lot of the campus leadership were drawn from a cadre of merit scholars.

The cognative dissonance is painful

[Torodung]

Let's see: Overly credentialed and fallacious lie of a "meritocracy" society finds out that it is an unacceptable policy to virtually require a credential of a B.S./A. to be in the equivalent of the steno pool at their think tank, or most "mail room" entry level jobs for that matter, fails to see the consequences of such idiocy combined with and driving ridiculous tuition inflation (because everyone has a gun to their head to get a B.S./A.), and how it, in fact, destroys both social mobility and the prestige and rigorous standards of the baccalaureate. Rather than deal with the plank in their own eye, they turn to the mote in the eye of the "undeserving" rich out of reflex. The crime of the wealthy: They love their kids and want to see them get ahead, and will use every legal means to help them. What terrible system can allow them to do that? And why are they undeserving? Because it suits the politics of the meritocracy. You see, politically speaking, the "meritocracy" keep score with tests, while the rich do so with bank balances. This is unpalatable to the "meritocracy" who think those being brought up in wealth need to be hamstrung to make things more "equal." At least when it comes to the numerical test scores, if not the bank balance.

My prescription is to instead try lowering tuition to the value of the education provided and repairing the status of a high school degree to be above that of "toilet paper." If necessary, shoot prejudiced liberals with 500 ccs of Haldol to deal with the schizophrenia. Merit is not a degree. Merit is proportional to the task at hand, and is demonstrated when you do the task at hand well. That's what used to happen in the "mail room." Now the "meritocracy" wants to replace that with performance on tests. Where, seriously speaking, your politics come into play more than they would on the job, where what you do is more important than whether you agree. What is especially galling is you do not actually need a bachelor's degree to do anything other than get past some lazy HR department's paper shedder in far too many of the employment scenarios that now "require" a bachelor's. It's not meritocracy, it's insanity, and the necessity for four-year degrees has dumbed down the four-year degrees to the point where employers can no longer rely upon them at all.

Sure it's anecdote, but I have spoken with a number of employers who have told me that the quality of even engineering baccalaureates has gone south these days. I don't know how that's even possible unless standards are in utter free fall to accommodate all the money universities are making from this "requirement."

And I hope that stat was a 700 sectional, which is setting the bar too damned high, IMHO. We do not live in a world where only near-geniuses are deserving of merit scholarships to a necessary education, and this particular political slant (and their baiting cut-off point) aims to ruin that for everyone but those that are favored by a far-more-arbitrary-than-we-are-lead-to-believe score. Sorry all you non-test taking geniuses, your particular form of genius is not needed. Maybe you're a genius composer? Well, fuck you buddy. We can't score that. Believe me or not, I scored a 1420, 710/710 two sections, on my SAT and it doesn't mean shit. It measured my testing skill, and that's about all. There were lots of people I knew closely and in passing who scored in the 600-700 range on one section (not necessarily both), who were smarter than me, and some who had a fair amount of money too, come to think of it, who deserved a scholarship as much or more than I did. I did get merit scholarships, but no one exactly knocked down my door because I had a bad day at the PSAT a year before. That's how silly this stuff gets, and I'm sure most people on Slashdot get it. One bad day shouldn't rule you out of a merit based scholarship. Test scores bear too much, not too little, weight.

So enough numerical analysis. Let's go qualitative on society's future. Let's start by returning the value of t

Re:The cognative dissonance is painful

[starcraftsicko]

This. Exactly this.

Re:The cognative dissonance is painful

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd not blame the liberals. The cultural shift has been going on across the board impacting all facets of life. I could go into the many factors I think contributed to the rise of it but that is a long post... It goes into politics and the media especially, who will reduce complex issues into 1 single number that is always a bad but people growing up into the idiocy are not exposed to alternatives. You've got to come up with things on your own because the culture isn't going to even give you a hint; other than providing ridiculous examples that might may a person discover the problem on their own if they don't tune out from the unpleasantness of the examples.

Education is falling prey to this crap on multiple fronts - the no child left behind crap which everybody now hates, is still living on and aspects of that are creeping in on us at the university now. I'm now being told to quantify all the main "outcomes" of the course so I can provide students 5+ grades on everything. Some of those "outcomes" that are listed (which is likely a result of the outcome based education fad of the 90s) are somewhat BS talk already-- those issues aside, many things that are listed in those are not quantified into some metric. You've then got to play number games so each one is weighted etc. and it eventually will influence how the course is structured. Students generally know what parts they are having trouble with already - if they don't, either they are not getting proper feedback or they are not emotionally or (less likely) mentally suited to college yet. I can judge skill level without relying upon numbers... The Lawsuit nation takes away subjective expert opinion; hell, people don't know the difference between fact and opinion anymore.

Another cultural problem is most students expect an A for hard work (a biased subjective judgement they perform on themselves) and will practically demand an A for effort. The system bends to the collective will of the students pushing for inflated grades and job training as the university is managed more like a BUSINESS churning out worker drones who are our "customers." Students will shop around for somebody will treat them like a customer. Just going to this dynamic is going to result in eventual structural changes! It is no different than subtle changes in language controlling people in 1984. Students are never customers and bad things come from conflating the two. Life is not a business metaphor!

Many students play any merit scheme you develop like a hacker on windows 95 (rev A.) A talent for playing the game is what a meritocracy promotes/rewards. The system pushes/enforces this meritocracy. Any static coded system will be out smarted by human brains... or now even by AI systems. It doesn't matter how complex it becomes, somebody will hack it because it is brain dead (and zero tolerance is a desperate act by policy coders in pursuit of Utopia.) Sure, a purely subjective system has flaws; people suck up, manipulate, etc. but we all know that happens anyhow because hacking the meritocracy is easy from both sides. I can use the system to knock an A student down to a B and defend it in court (which can happen, but is largely a risk that only has all the impact of a terrorist threat...) but the C I want to give is often just too much of a fight. Plus the management measures YOU by these metrics - if you flunk half because they deserve it you have a fight on your hands... and some assigned workshops... sometimes you just get a bunch of losers who need to flunk; but the cost of doing the right thing IS great. The customers are driving the whole system down the drain - and few old timers will discuss this because it is just so upsetting. Within a university giving "bad" grades is a relative judgement problem but within the whole system it is a larger problem - who wants to come to your college where a C means average/typical?? They grew up being "special" with inflated grades and unjustified HIGH confidence levels (another American problem as the studies show.)

Class warfare is part of the human condition. A worthy topic but so heated it is best to avoid it as much as possible.

Victimless crimes

[tepples]

It could mean (a) the United States has more crime (which would be a bad thing)

That's the impression I usually get from criticism of the number of prisoners per capita: the United States has declared too many victimless acts to be crimes.

Re:Victimless crimes

[Anonymous Coward]

You also have ridiculously long sentences for some things. In other places you might actually manage to keep your house/apartment while being in proson for 3 months for some minor thing (even 3 months isn't fun), in US you'll serve 5 years for the same thing, and when you get out your life is totally gone. Nothing to do but more crimes.

Poe's Law Again

[srobert]

Are you really a conservative? or is it just a cartoonish parody of one?

Re:Poe's Law Again

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

> Are you really a conservative? or is it just a cartoonish parody of one?

He's the face of the modern republican party - remember their embrace of "I built that" during the last campaign? Maybe that doesn't qualify as conservative anymore. Either way it is a sad state of affairs.

Re:Poe's Law Again

[Anonymous Coward]

Pics please! You can't just claim cartoonish parody without some pics damnit!

It's the Bubble

[geoffrobinson]

Most seem to be viewing this through the wrong grid.

College tuition is in bubble territory right now. That bubble is in the process of bursting. Kids with money are the way to prop things up for as long as possible. It's as simple as that.

A world for the rich?

[Xarvh]

It is anecdotal evidence, but I am developing the impression that more and more business (in this case, higher education) is catering to the rich, because there is where is the actual money.

This is frightening, because it means that numbers are no more enough to offset poverty.

Re:A world for the rich?

[gl4ss]

what it means is that they're giving 5k discounts on their 20k plans.

Article

[Pollux]

I believe this is the news article you're looking for.

Re:Article

[NicBenjamin]

Indeed it is. But it's blocked for me. I guess I've read my 10 NYTimes articles for this month.

It's a good thing I specifically downloaded it myself. It's an even better thing that NYTimes.com does not know I have three browsers, so I actually get 30 free articles a month.

There is a downside

[Anonymous Coward]

An over-educated workforce creates serious economic problems.

There are only so many jobs available that require higher education. When supply of educated workers is higher than the demand, a few bad things happen:

1) Lots of educated people simply cannot find work. The opportunities just aren't there. They wind up depressed, and working menial jobs that are below their skill sets and which do not pay them enough to make headway against their crushing student debt.

2) Salaries for the educated labor start coming down, since supply is so high. The people who manage to land the jobs must overwork themselves in order to hold them (since there is a line of people who would jump at the chance to replace them), and their low salaries means they can't pay off their student debts either (or if they do pay them off, it takes a very long time, which creates serious problems if they want to raise families).

3) Jobs that normally don't require an education start requiring one, since there are so many educated candidates (who cannot otherwise find work) applying. These jobs still don't pay enough for one to dig one's self out of debt, but now one must get an education and endure the mountain of crushing debt in order to get any job at all.

On the one hand, denying education opportunities to the poor is unfair. On the other hand, over-educating the population makes nearly everyone poor.

Re:There is a downside

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution is war. Death and destruction solves all sorts of problems by creating new problems for those that remain alive.

Re:There is a downside

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a downside to having too many folks who are trained to FIND a job, instead of MAKE a job.

Someone has to start the business that makes the jobs.

Re:There is a downside

[Anonymous Coward]

Degrees are more than Vocational training. You need the theory, you need the conceptual understanding. If you just want to be a (something) implementer, then go to a trade school or on the tools experience. If you want to be a manager that leads teams (either actual management or driving the concept of what your doing) of monkeys, go to university.

For me the difference is very clear. Degrees doesn't mean you will be great at front line coding. You don't need a degree to be a great front line coder. But you want someone to manage a team of 30 programmers and solve hideous problems, while incorporating legacy code then you want someone who is more than a front line coder.

  Think of an electrician and an electrical engineer. Both are important, and really, one shouldn't or can't do the others job. They have very different roles.

Re:There is a downside

[toddestan]

The problem is ultimately how expensive college has gotten. If it was like in decades past, it wouldn't be a huge deal if you wanted to take a few years off to study history or English literature. Sure, after you get out you may end up getting a job in something completely different than what you studied, but without the crushing loan payments it wouldn't matter as much. This also leads to the overeducated workforce - people figure that for the money they have to spend, they better put it towards a degree that will land them a job. So you end up with a large proportion of people in business and engineering degrees and less into the hard sciences and liberal arts.

But even if college was FREE sending all to

[Joe_Dragon]

But even if college was FREE sending all to it is a bad idea when you do that can skip over the trades / tech schools.

Re:But even if college was FREE sending all to

[PurpleAlien]

Coming from a country where college is free: you have to make sure there is no stigma against trades / tech schools. It's not that because it's college it's automatically 'better' or 'higher'. Also, it's not that because it is free, everyone is going to make it or even like doing it - far from it actually.

A Story

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew someone like you. He too worked his way out of poor slums and into a nice middle class life. He doesn't like to pay taxes to the government that didn't help him and support lazy people that did not work as hard as him.

What he doesn't like to admit (but is true) is that he lived in the projects -- government subsidized housing. He was on welfare, and back in the day when welfare actually would pay for you to have nice clothes to go on interviews, which he got, and allowed him to go on interviews. They sent him to community college for an education that was pretty much near damn free (yes he paid some, but practically nothing compared to today's standards), he got a good training to get a good job and moved up the totem pole. He had an opportunity because government programs gave him the support he needed to get thru the tough time (he had no family to fall back on, etc.), and now he likes to claim no one helped him and he did it alone. Except he didn't.

I do not know what your situation is. Maybe you are not like that, but maybe you are. The person I described had welfare in the 70s I believe it was (he's quite an old timer at this point), and it is important to point out welfare-type programs have really had the axe in the past few years with the conservative movements, and so it doesn't do near as much as it used to. Think very carefully. You worked hard to get where you are at, but how many lucky moments and sympathetic people did you run across to get the leg up to get where you are? Many of us do not like to think about it, and like to be independent, but we rely on each other much more than we admit.

Re:A Story

[Anonymous Coward]

He probably just wants to kick the ladder out now that he's climbed it. The pulled-myself-up-by-my-bootstraps types I know have a huge chip on their shoulder about being cheated when they were younger and have grown up all bitter and spiteful. They would screw over their younger self in a heartbeat and now that they have more means they feel that they can really make the world pay.

They're mean little people when they're poor and they're mean little people when they 'escape from poverty'.

It doesnt need to be this way...

[Anonymous Coward]

In the Scandinaian country where I live, all secondary education is free. It doesnt matter whether you're studying medicine, an engineering degree or art, as long as your exam score is high enough to enter the particular school, you're in.

And the government provides you with a scholarship for studying. Everybody gets 800$ a month for studying, and can borrow an additional 800$ monthly on top of that.

Other Scandinavian countries have a similar system in place, and all European countries offer their citizens a secondary education at a fraction of the cost of an American education.

So why exactly is an affordable secondary education so hard to find in the US?!?

Re:It doesnt need to be this way...

[Anonymous Coward]

So why exactly is an affordable secondary education so hard to find in the US?!?

The collegiate-athletic-entertainment-industrial complex probably has a lot to do with it.

Americans don't know where America should go

[Anonymous Coward]

These "progressives' are every inch as bad as the NeoCons in my book.
And frankly, I'd like nothing more than to see all them, Neocons, teabagger and progressives alike go fuck themselves and get the fuck out of this country and go build their dystopian hellhole on some island far from here.

I've seen the progressive propaganda flicks like "zeitgeist" and it's sequels.
What a load of crap.

These lefty ideologues who think they have the answer constantly overlook one "inconvenient truth":
HUMANITY IS CHAOTIC! WE ARE NOT UNIFORM, WE DO NOT LIVE BY SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPAL.

We are not orderly little ants needing their "scientific control" We do not want to live in orderly boring little societies where our daily lives are managed by a "scientific" elite.

We want chaos, we want spontaneity, we want to explore, take risks and die or thrive taking them.
We want to make our own decisions and create our own experiences.

So if you think these "progressives" have the answer I suggest you go get yourself put into some sort of institution.
There your life will be very well ordered. You will be told what and when to eat, when to sleep, what to do, what to wear. You will be given limited access to bad things such as TV and books. And all of this dictated by "scientific" principal and "resource management"

Heh, opposed to the teabaggers and the progressives. In that case, what direction should America go? How about the health care system? Should it be intellectually rationed, or should it be however much one pays? How good/expensive should the doctors be? How about city layout. There are only a few cities that have decently designed rail transportation systems. American cities do large public works projects poorly, and over budget. An intellectual elite would take care of that. I bet most Americans don't know which direction to drive the country, just like it was uncertain about Iraq, and yes, Iraq could have been less debt inducing to America, and Iraq could have been on a path to a stable, but bloody, Republic.

Re:I got scholarships for hard work, not for pover

[AK Marc]

What, you went to U of Phoenix? That's one of the few that's not a non-profit.

Re:If you want to experience downward social mobil

[Zontar The Mindless]

Spot on.

My kingdom for a mod point.

Just try to draw a line through that scatterplot

[JimtownKelly]

Class envy is like so, classless.

Self-Solving Problem

[LordLucless]

If these colleges are forsaking the poor-but-smart for the rich-but-stupid, they're going to start turning out below-par graduates. At which point, they will no longer have the reputation as a top college. Is this not so?

I didn't go through the US educational system, but it seems to me that if the reputation of these colleges is based on actual results, then the problem is self-correcting. And if their reputation isn't based on actual results, then the poor not being able to join a glorified frat house is no bad thing.

sunglasses fake sale

[oakleyss]

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This is why my grandfathers joined the army.

[Karmashock]

Both of them were educated either by the military or on military scholarships.

No really... My English grand father was taught trigonometry because it was important for calculating artillery strikes. Poor guy was in the Royal Artillery... they did not wear ear protection in those days... Deaf as a post by the time I knew him.

My American grand father went to UCLA on an army scholarship.

You can bitch about that if you want... but my grand fathers would call you pansies. They didn't have the money to pay for school and they didn't whine about it. They took the options life offered them and thrived.

Learn from that. If you engage every situation expecting a handout you won't be worth educating. What are you worth to society if you always expect society to foot the bill? What do you offer in exchange? Anything? Why are you worth the system's time? If you're poor... point one is that you'd better appreciate you're at a disadvantage. That's just reality. Don't compound your misfortune by antagonizing everyone with a guilt trip.

Re:This is why my grandfathers joined the army.

[drinkypoo]

You can bitch about that if you want... but my grand fathers would call you pansies.

I would call your grandfathers willing murderers.

They took the options life offered them and thrived.

On the suffering of others, more directly than most.

Why are you worth the system's time?

Ask yourself the same question. You are replaceable. In a system in which you constantly have to be keeping an eye on your value to society, we are all at risk. One medical problem and it's off to the glue factory you go.

Re:This is why my grandfathers joined the army.

[Anonymous Coward]

And I would call you a "slacker" - you want the benefits of college but are unwilling to make sacrifices to get there. Nothing in the world is free, and life is hard. Make a decision about what is more important to you and get on with it.

Re:This is why my grandfathers joined the army.

[drinkypoo]

And I would call you a "slacker" - you want the benefits of college but are unwilling to make sacrifices to get there.

I've been to college, it hasn't done me any good so far. Also, I don't want to be a murderer, so I'm not willing to sign up to be converted into one simply so that I can go to college and buy products made by slaves. Also, it doesn't matter what I call you, everyone can see that you are a coward.

Develop some intestinal fortitude, or continue to be a sniveling wimp who crawls along behind me eating the kernels out of my comments.

Re:This is why my grandfathers joined the army.

[Karmashock]

You criticize people that defend their countries from Nazis and then call others cowards?

You really are quite stupid.

Re:This is why my grandfathers joined the army.

[Karmashock]

Willing murderers? Perhaps. Just like every other human being in human history that ever was...

Welcome to planet Earth. I am a human being. If you find our species or ways to be difficult to relate to your alien mindset, appreciate that our societies and psychologies are complex. We would expect you to be open minded and simply try to understand us before passing judgment.

As to thriving on the suffering of others. I suppose you think the English should have allowed the Nazis to swarm all over Europe? Apparently you're an ally and supporter of the Nazis? An odd thing for a Nazi to say... to suggest that someone else thrives on the suffering of another.

I think you should expand on your support of Nazis. :)

You're clearly an idiot. I will respond to you further as amuses me. But none but another idiot could take you seriously at this point.

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like colleges are accepting less students. As a result, it's meaningless whether a school is paying out $20K versus 4 x $5K.

One thing that too many people ridiculously assume about parents able to afford college is that they will pay for it. The vast majority of my friends in that situation paid for it through--at least--a majority of student loans. The two poorest people that I know both received Pell Grants that covered their entire tuition. They also happen to be the two dumbest people that I know.

One has taken at least four years (perhaps longer, as I have not known her longer than that) to graduate with an Associate's Degree in French, which she knows less of than I do with two years of good High School French followed by two English-only French grades (bad, lazy teacher). She was not working at all during this time while she was on food stamps, welfare and--I suspect--social security for asthma. The last semester that I asked her about, she had dropped a "hard" English class, which would have given her an apparently rough nine credit semester. Finally, I was told that she imagined that her teacher was out to get her in the semester before the current one; it is possible that the teacher was, but I suspect that it was justified.

The other completely flunked out during his first semester. In all fairness, he simply did not have the maturity to go to college, and he went because his parents were excited to have him go. That does not change the fact that his grades were entirely undeserving of any scholarship, yet he received full compensation for his books and courses while still living at home.

Back to the article, the definition of "merit" is in question here. Is being of a certain race a merit based scholarship? I also noticed that there was no mention of government quotas (referring more to economic rather than race-based).

Besides, while I am all for options, why should a student be punished because he did well, but his parents happen to be not-poor (note: just because one is not poor does not mean that one is rich)? Similarly, why should a student unable to achieve the required "merit" be given some other form of compensation over anyone else?

Here's a real way to turn around things: stop giving scholarships for people going to school for pointless subjects. If someone wants to go to school for music or French, then they should pay for it out of pocket or via loans. The US government, and therefore its citizens, should not be bankrolling the next generation of worthless people that want a me-too college degree. Similarly, public universities should be pushing people to things that actually add value to the market and the economy. Having lavishly large Women Studies Departments is a nice-to-have that simply does not make sense from an educational standpoint. Heck, you can certainly become a feminist without one. How about steering those people into serious Psychology? And then widdle that down to realistic enrollment numbers, which will increase competitiveness in the program.

(Interestingly, one of the better programmers that I work with has a Music Degree from Virginia Tech, a known engineering school. I cannot help but to wonder how much better he might be had he spent his time in a CS program with music as a hobby, exactly as it is now? I know that being good at music tends to lead to above average math skills, but the collegiate level is a different ballgame, or at least it should be.)

*8 years* into bush clinton was blamed

[aepervius]

It is a fact of life, like the sun rising, that all administrations will put blame to the previous politically different one. I mean up to the end the reps were blaming clinton for stuffs, and I recall distincly the dems doing the same during clintons year with bush snr and reagan. Heck they do the same in nearly all country.

And it is partially true , aprtially bullshit. Partially true since some politics made by the previous administration (no matter which) clearly will fail (for example banking law relaxation, Tax stuff). Partially bullshit since some stuff like economics are more or less throwing dice.

But every politician do it. Blame the previous guy.

Ridiculous example, Gates = connections not talent

[Anonymous Coward]

Gates himself was the child of rich parents with lots of business and elite connections. That is how he got the IBM contract, the rest is manipulation and misuse of monopoly power.

Education means shit. I have two Masters degrees (Comp Sci and Telecomm). The job is taken from me and goes to an employees spouse with far fewer qualifications, less intelligence and abilities.

Mmh who are those 'poor' and 'rich' you speak of?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is measured by the amount of worthless monopoly money they have, right?

Which country?

[Sycraft-fu]

Because it would seem the economic crisis has been a world wide thing, not a US thing, and it would seem that many countries including many EU countries, are having problems. So, pray tell, what country do you live in that has been unaffected? Prior to answering, you might want to do a bit of research to see if you are talking nonsense or not.

Re:Which country?

[shutdown -p now]

Canada is one "socialist" country that did really well during the crisis. Though that had more to do with their tight regulation of their banking industry, rather than "socialist" policies (but the latter helped the population bear it).

Defects

[Anonymous Coward]

The glaring defect is the cost of education. There is simply no excuse for education requiring big bucks. We already see major courses being released on the net for free. If exams were graded and credit given for taking those courses on line and the tests machine graded what is the real cost of a course? Close to zero in fact.
                    The next issue is the lovely campus concept and the realities of keeping it going. We are now at the point at which technology will eliminate more and more jobs. A shock wave of side effects is upon us. Jobs for college grads are vanishing or paying poor wages. When a student loan is made there is an overwhelming chance that the graduate will never have reasonable employment and an even higher chance that the college drop out will prosper enough to pay off the loan.
                      Yet the public mind is not ready to confront the vanishing employment issue. Politicians won't address it at all. The economy is excellent while the workers perish. Symptoms include prisons hoarding inmates beyond historical levels, drug crises clinics overflowing, random acts of great violence, alcoholism, and a nightly news program that makes it look like we live at the bottom of a third world way of life.
                        The way out of this is to first grasp what is going on and then react to it. If good jobs are in short supply why would we want to limit abortions or allow immigration? Can we afford to have millions of convicts who do not produce something good for public use? How about finding a way for prisons to operate fish farms or some similar engine of production that benefits the public? Perhaps mushroom farming could be used to provide very low cost mushrooms in the market place. Surely there must be ways to actually get things done.

This ignores the external values of education

[efudddd]

[O]ver-educating the population makes nearly everyone poor.

There is a hell of a lot more value in an educated populace than can be put in dollars, even if one accepts the zero-sum premise you are outlining here. For starters, an educated population is much more likely to be a functioning civic population; that is, one that keeps its government under scrutiny and actually fulfills its end of the social contract rather than allowing the mindless pulling of a lever every four years to serve as a substitute for real governed consent.

That said, the employment value of being "educated" is becoming increasingly meaningless in a future where traditional vocational jobs that haven't yet been outsourced are being systematically eradicated by automation and the potential for AI-type programming to squash still more traditional "educated" work is growing. Cf. recent article in Mother Jones for a depressing analysis of the logical employment outcomes advanced AI could bring.

Look, it is free market out there.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

People with the money will buy what they want. If they want college degrees, they will bid up the price. Despite all that "shrink the beast", "government does nothing well", "government is your enemy", "all taxation is theft" crowd slashing burning the budgets, despite siphoning tons money to prison complexes and military, there is still high quality affordable education provided by the State University systems for their residents.

You compete with the rich on their pet things like Ivy League degree, you will lose the bidding war. But that is not the end of the world. Harvard is over rated. And if Harvard keeps prostituting itself to get more and more spoiled rich kids, it would lose its aura. The best way to teach a lesson to these univs is not to play the game they have set up. Ignore them, go to state schools, do well in the job market, the very same free market will rein in Harvard and its peers.

Thank US News College Rankings

[EmagGeek]

These ranking models depend heavily on the quality of admitted student. So, the desire to score high in these ranking models necessitates movement towards a high-merit model of admission, and since we all know that SES correlates well with academic achievement, the high-cost/high-aid model also lends itself towards acquiring better students.

Poor kids drag down rankings, just like having a trailer park next door drags down property values. So, it should come as no surprise that colleges and universities everywhere would drift towards a model that attempts to exclude poor kids.

What's worse, a lot of the "merit" based aid is really not geared towards merit at all, but rather SES. I tutor math and science at a local high school here in rural America, and despite the fact that there are kids here who score in the top 10% on the SATs, they still cannot qualify for "merit" based aid because that "merit" based aid has other requirements for things like volunteering, community outreach, and other touchy-feely things that rural working class poor kids can't have because they're too busy working part time or doing farm chores to partake in these types of programs. If they were rich urban or suburban kids, they would not have this problem at all.

I'd much rather hire a new grad who spend their childhood learning a good work ethic, helping their family, and busting their ass to learn something. That kid has purpose.

Re:Look, it's a government clusterf&^$# out th

[moeinvt]

Free market my AR$E !!!!

Government basically OWNS the entire market for K-12 education! They also pour billions into so-called "higher education". Who do you think guarantees all those billions of dollars in student loans? Who do you think runs the STATE university system? What about all the grants and other BS that government uses to distort the market? Not to mention the various tomes of regulation imposed on the whole system.

Government and the Federal Reserve WRECK the housing and mortgage loan business and bail out the banks, but the statists blame the "free market". Government destroys the healthcare system of the USA and once again "capitalism" takes the criticism from the government worshiping leftists. Now the problems in education (which is almost EXCLUSIVELY a government system) are the fault of the free market too?

Government does a few things well, like bombing and killing massive numbers of people, incarcerating millions more, and coercing individual behavior through threat of violence.

No surprises

[Anonymous Coward]

Cost for my father to go to school (class of 1972): $1,200
Cost for me to go to school (class of 2000): $120,000

I know there's a bunch of idiots who think "well I worked at a dive bar and put myself through college, these damned kids can too." Let me know when that dive bar job pays you the $120,000.

It's a go. Take 'em down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Eat the Rich.

What was "stop loss"?

[PeterM from Berkeley]

Lie? I remember hearing about something called "stop loss", where soldiers had to return to Iraq/Afghanistan even after their enlistment was up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-loss_policy

--PM

Re:What was "stop loss"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lie? I remember hearing about something called "stop loss", where soldiers had to return to Iraq/Afghanistan even after their enlistment was up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-loss_policy

--PM

You've always had an 8 year contract, the 4 / 5 / 6 year enlistments always came with the stipulation that you head 4, 3 or 2 years of IRR duty after the active term was up.

But, stop loss is over. Some stupid assholes sued the government to end stop loss.

So what they do now is recall you from the IRR; my IRR "class" had several hundred of us all called back. Of course, this was after we were already out for a year or so, and it put us with completely different units. Instead of having 6 months added to my term and working in a job I knew and with people I knew, I spent 6 months retraining and 6 months deployed with some random national guard idiots who were short because they had sent too many of their guys on leave.

Thank you so fucking much you fucking moron liberals for "fixing" stop loss. Great work, there.

Re:What was "stop loss"?

[Anonymous Coward]

See I'm ex-military and I would have been mad as hell if I got stop lossed... but it is what you signed up for and don't let anyone tell you different. You sign up for four and we can call you back for four after that, everyone knows the deal even the shittiest lying recruiters have no way of glossing over this issue other than telling you it's unlikely, which it is.

Re:What was "stop loss"?

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be relevant if the military wasn't trying to get rid of as many people as possible.

Re:What was "stop loss"?

[HungryMonkey]

Ok, I get a little pissed off every time I hear this crap. Let me explain to you how enlisting in the military works: You enlist for 8 years. not 3, not 5, EIGHT. Generally, it's 4 active and 4 inactive. The inactive years, IE:reserves, are put there on the end of the active to allow the government to call you back or retain you if they need it. It's not a mystery. It's right there on the contract you sign. Stop Loss activates those inactive years because the military has deemed you currently irreplaceable.

Source: 5 years ACTIVE 3 inactive, USMC.

Re:What was "stop loss"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, that means you're still getting paid, getting other benefits, and when not deployed can go to school evenings effectively for free. Between CLEP, DANTES and local community college night courses, I got 60 credits of prereqs and electives out of the way, for not a penny.

Don't complain about a sucky economy, then complain that you can't quit your job.

Re:What was "stop loss"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I don't usually post but I did have to pipe in here. I was one of the first soldiers to not be affected by stop-loss when I got out in 2010. Stop loss is no longer in practice. To answer the question stop-loss was a policy that if a soldier's enlistment was going to end with, I want to say 90 days of his/her unit's next deployment, then it becomes too much of a logistical feat to account for this to get another equally skilled (same job) soldier into the unit and trained up for the deployment. The soldier's enlistment would then be extended through the deployment and I beleive another 60 days for demobilization and saftey breifings and the whole rigamore involved with ceasing to be a soldier and becoming a civilian.

I don’t post often but I thought I’d speak up here. I was one of the first soldiers to not be affected by stop-loss which was a policy that kept a soldier who was approaching his/her end of enlistment from leaving if his/her unit was within 90 days of a deployment. The reason is that it had become a logistical nightmare to get a replacement soldier with the same skillset (MOS + Rank) into a deploying billet in time to train up and receive equipment and all that goes along with a unit deploying. So Obama did away with stop-loss while I was in Iraq in 2008, and the soldiers that had been stop-lossed had been compensated for the obvious impact to their personal plans for after they got out.
Anyway, I am going to school currently and am receiving one of these private school's scholarships at Capella University. I earned my Associates from a community college and replaced easier classes with CLEP tests (actually DSST but it’s sort of like the same thing). I am using my GI bill but I still have to pay for my wife's student loans. She financed her entire education at about 10% interest (we have consolidated and reduced a lot of it since). She didn't qualify for many scholarships despite being a straight A student with high SAT and ACT scores because her parents made just enough to not be considered low income.

Using a lack of government subsidy as an excuse to not educate yourself is pathetic. There are options available to everyone. You want a free education? join the Army, I did. You think I didn't have old grandparents? Your nephew needs to grow up and take accountability for his own life, nobody is going to just hand him a livelihood. Your right times are tough, act accordingly.

fun fact - just like health care

[quenda]

It sounds like education in the US is a lot like heath care.
The US governments spend about 8% of GDP on health care, more per capita than most other developed countries, but most people get little of no cover from that.
Apparently the US spends an awful lot on education, more than many other countries where anyone can afford college without risking bankruptcy.

From TFA:

Neat fact: If the federal government were to take all of the money it pours into various forms of financial aid each year, it could go ahead and make tuition free, or close to it, for every student at every public college in the country.

Flip that M 180%

[hebertrich]

In the US , there's this all around " Me " thinking that kills every attempt to progress. If you think about it , it's the reason why nothing is working on a society level. When you consider the real roots of why , for example , the health care is private , when most democratic nations have universal health care , why the public school system is failing , why most democratic institutions have stopped working , it is in very large part due to egocentrism. The " me " without a care for the neighbor. The individualism pushed to extreme which is the root of most societal problems. It holds true of why the schools fail the children . Profit . let to do it's work has proven time and tme again to do nothing good for the humans . They do good for the 1 % of very rich that pocket on your misery. It is deeply set in the ways d America . It is not sustainable in the long run. Very soon , the destruction of all social measures will be complete. You will be the only country in the world where there is no hope of getting help in case of need. You all want to pay 0 taxes , that destroys all hope for a better tomorrow. The rich want to pay nothing in return for the mountains of money they receive , the Corporations want to pay 0 and hide their cash in fiscal paradises .Individualism does not work as a societal system. I hope one day you will start thinking in terms of " We " What can we do as a society , not individuals playing alone , but as a group. What can we acheive , as a group . What can we do with our neighbors , as a neighborhood . Even Cuba takes care of the sick . Very well , Canada , Denmark , most civilised societies. To make the school system work for everyone takes funds , means taxes. If you refuse the equation , to play your part and pay your share of the equation , the whole school system will be gone. Not because it's no good , but because you refuse as taxpayers to contribute to it . It is not all about the individual . It is not all about your personal financial gain , there are things worth a lot more than the dollar and cents in your account. If you could get rid of your medical insurance bills , imagine what that money could do for you , imagine what would happen to the school system if you were to take 1/5th the money it cost you , and everyone in the USA for medical insurance and bills , and put that money in the education system . Repeat the exercise for the medical system .The things " We " could do are incredible. But then again it takes a shift of mentality from " Me " to " We " . While the rest of the free world lives comfortably , healthy and well educated , what has the " Me " given you ?

Re:Flip that M 180%

[PPH]

There's got to be an applicable "In Soviet Russia" quip out there somewhere. In reality, its not funny. The politics of "We" failed miserably. Even China is only paying lip service to it as they rapidly build up their wealthy and middle classes.

Time to pull all federal funding and grants

[Anonymous Coward]

Change the law so that the colleges receive zero funding unless all scholarships are need based - and I do mean all.

Don't even get me started on collegiate level sports - those should be removed altogether. Slavery's modern embodiment is wrapped up in college sports.

Nothing

[rsilvergun]

it's a chance you take. But at least it's a _chance_. Without the gov't you've got nothing to oppose the massive wealth of the uber-rich. Wealth inequality grows and grows. A rising tide drowns all but the biggest boats.

Re:Nothing

[RoknrolZombie]

Without the government most of the uber-rich wouldn't stay uber-rich. Most of them would lose their money in a hurry, because everything that they rely on for their cash is built into the system. The people that *would* make money would be those providing indispensable services or inventions (in a perfect world, of course)...

Re:Nothing

[davydagger]

thats fear mongering. Your not addressing how the uber rich became uber rich in the first place.

We give all economic control back to the people who do the work.

The government is run by the uber rich, for the uber rich, and there is no denying it. They merely crack down on eachother in bids for more power. The 99% have no fucking say. Making government more powerful is only going to enfranchise the %1 who got involved with the government vs those who didn't.

It takes a lot of backwards hats

[gelfling]

To pay for my three kids scholarships. Keep up the good work Brotards particularly the communications majors and environmental science majors.

Don't cut professor salaries! :-(

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

It's supply and demand -- cheap loans means more money means prices go up. This is the bubble people have been watning about since, hell, almost before Clinton.

Where does the money go? In most universities, the number of sinecure positions, positions unrelated to teaching, exceeds teachers. This indeed is something new.

Re:Don't cut professor salaries! :-(

[Uberbah]

It's supply and demand -- cheap loans means more money means prices go up.

False meme. If it's all about supply and demand, the supply of schools competing for student and state dollars would also increase, bringing tuition back down.

This excuse got started by conservatives and Randians avoiding the fact that low taxes have high costs. It's cuts in state funding and administration bloat driving up costs, not "supply and demand".

Capitalism..

[GigaBurglar]

There it is.. eat your bugs, watch Fox News, sit down shut up and pretend we live in a free society. FUCK THE SGAJGDJHGSA AJKDH ASdasdasdaskjdh akjsdh

What's that coming over the hill??... is it a monsta.. no it's Ricky Fosta!!

Why is college in the US expensive?

[Frankie70]

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/05/12/colleges-paying-the-price-for-expensive-facilities/

Wasn't sports the deal?

[SpaghettiPattern]

I'm not from north America. My perception is that you had to be good at sports to easily get anywhere. Now the game has changed and suddenly you have to be rich?

Merit Scholarships - Not So Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

There is another side to this. The middle class kids often get very little financial aid from the state because our parents make too much to qualify but don't make enough to actually afford college and we end up taking out huge bank loans that our parents co-sign putting their own credit and financial stability at risk since their only asset is their home. Merit scholarships take the edge off for kids in this situation often paying for books and meal plans. I know from experience and having just finally paid off $56,000 in college bank loan debt over 15 years (not counting the little state loans I received, only $5000 over four years) even with having had a merit scholarship based on leadership in almost 15 activities in high school I actively participated in.

Re:If you want to experience downward social mobil

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod point granted, because I came so close to having that exact thing happen that I spent many a nights in tears over the thoughts of potential failure.

It's a huge gamble, with rewards getting smaller while risk grows and grows. While college was a necessity for me, I would only encourage my (potential) children to go for it if it was an absolute requirement for what they wanted to do.

Anecdotal under-achievement

[istartedi]

Anecdotes of underachievement by those with far more advanced degrees and impressive scores are plentiful. To evaluate college you have to look at statistics, which pull in a large sample.

The general consensus is that a BS is the new HS diploma. Sad, but true. You need that ticket punched to get ahead. That said, go for the cheapest school that isn't a diploma mill or otherwise disreputable. Getting your ticket punched at State U is smart. Putting yourself deep in hock for an unmarketable degree from Big Ivy is where there's real potential for disaster.

FWIW, my BSEE was sold to me as the ticket to a steady career (50 thou a year will buy a lot of beer). Instead, it's been an up and down ride, with some stellar years but a lot of mediocre or bad ones. I don't blame school for that--it has a lot to do with personal circumstances that aren't measured by grades and SAT scores.

Progressive and Liberal were both redefined

[istartedi]

Everybody knows that Liberal was redefined, and that formerly it was what we now call Libertarian.

People are less familiar with the fact that Progressive was redefined. People who call themselves progressives these days are more accurately described as socialists or leftists in most cases.

Those who bear the true standard of the original Progressive movement today don't carry a particular name.

The hallmarks of the original Progressive movement were a "muckraking" press exposing corruption and proposing solutions. This occured around the turn of the 20th century. At the time, industrialists dominated the country and factored in most of the corruption.

Today, it's a mixed bag. There are corrupt leftists as well as corrupt right-wingers in government and society.

The acid test for me is the public employee unions. If you're a real progressive, you want to disentangle both unions and corporations from government. When you say that, the reaction you get really separates the wheat from the chaff. There isn't a whole lot of wheat out there, but it exists. The true progressive, Neoprog, if you will, recognizes that there is just as much muck to rake from one side of the aisle as the other.

Re:Progressive and Liberal were both redefined

[davydagger]

wrong, the original progressives where middle and upper middle moraliists railing against the problems created by industrialization, it started around the 1870s.

There were a distinct group from socialists, european in nature, 60 years older, who proposed a grass roots worker led solutions to worker problems.

Socialism was secular, progressivism was based on christianity. socialism was worker led, proggresivism was led by the uber educated middle class as a charge the robber barrons had no values except money. Hence, proggressivism not only pushed for the 40 hour work week, and living wage, but also alcohol prohabtion, and a strict regime on control of working class society. Socialism was dovish, against nationalist wars. Proggresvies saw national conflicts as a way to enforce their morales on other countries.

Progressivism is not the same as liberalism(American, NOT English), or socialism, all diffrent ideaologies that seem the same with diffrent motives and goals.

Progressivism lasted from the time of FDR, until it got smashed to bits over the war in Viet-Nam and the presidency of LBJ. For 30 over years, it was the de-facto political view of America.

After proggressivism went down in flames, its former followers were split between American Liberalism(Jefferson Style, not Adam Smith Style English Liberal), and neo-conservatism.

Neo-Conservatism, the "new right", was a social conservative anti-liberal branch of proggressivism, that put more emphasis on social purity, and social conservative goals, than social justice. As time wore on, they gradually eroded or didn't care about social support, but still supported a Big Government for enforcing their agenda, which became more and more business oriented to attract more backers.

Neo-Conservatism exploded at the end of the Bush II's presidency, much in the similar fashion as Proggresivism did with LBJ.

The people who call themselves "proggresive" today, I label "neo-progressives", as they are just as much liberal as they are progressive.

If you need a better example of progressive vs liberal. Think LBJ vs Eugene McCarthy

Re:Progressive and Liberal were both redefined

[istartedi]

I won't argue specific points. I'll just say that I believe your view is out of consensus on some points, and that I'll concede that I've omitted some things and aren't perfect either.

This is a difficult problem because labels are never perfect. They're blunt tools. I've reviewed the Wiki articles on the Progressive Era and Neoconservatism. You might want to do that too.

Merit for the bottom 7%?

[Anonymous Coward]

A quick search for "merit" returns this "something that deserves or justifies a reward or commendation".

Can anyone state with a serious face that an SAT score of 700 deserves "merit" aid? Look at the CollegeBoard site and you will see that a 700 ranks at the 7% percentile. Why on earth should the colleges provide any aid for a 700* score? Does such a person have any hope of graduating with a 4 year degree?

* this would be 700 on the Critical Reading + Math score, not the 3 part score.

1st solution, community college for 2 years

[company suckup]

and then finish at a state school. Making sure it's a state CC with lower tuition get all the Gen Ed out of the way there. Not everyone has to or will go or has the study skills to go to a four-year school right out of high school. If you're God's next gift to medicine, science, engineering, etc.......the scholly $$$ will be there. But for the mortals there's nothing wrong with a solid two years of study at a good community college.

Citation needed

[rsilvergun]

also, google for 'Railroad Monopoly' and 'Trusts'. Also the history of Unions and how they needed strong outside help from central government before they were effective at raising wages.

Re:Citation needed

[mikehilly]

I found that it is best to collect all four if possible. http://monopoly.wikia.com/wiki/Railroads

Democracy is hard

[rsilvergun]

Individual humans are chaotic in broad we're quiet predictable, and getting more so every day. Google 'Big Data' and see what I mean. Also, you're using a classic 'slippery slope' argument and assuming that as soon as we start regulating banks and eliminating wealth inequality the next logical step is fascism.

See, being a progressive is _hard_. It's hard because you don't have an ideology. You have the ability to make a hypothesis, take action based on it, and observe the results. It'd be so much easier when I can just do what I want based on an ideology and use that to make all my decisions.

So I'm stuck having to do a _lot_ of extra work. I've got to decide, as a progressive, if the benefit of regulating soda outweighs the downsides. And I've got to do that for _everything_. This is why we need 'elites'. One man's elite is another man's subject matter expert.

There's a difference

[rsilvergun]

between an elite that governs by hoarding wealth and pitting one man against the other and an expert in the field. One is peer reviewed and mistakes cost him his status as elite. The other runs North Korea. Investing in a strong central government is a risk, but siding with the Kim Jong Un's of the world because we won't even try to stand up to them isn't the answer.

Think of it this way. You're on a bridge and a train is coming. It's going to kill you. You can jump, but you don't know if you'll survive the fall. Do you wait for the train?

Once again, I'm open to a third option. I'd love to say the train is going to stop. But for 2000+ years of human history it hasn't...

Hasn't Obama...

[Anonymous Coward]

fixed this yet? It seems to me I read he had - low interest loans, etc.?

Or maybe that wasn't the right approach????

Enlistment Wasn't Up

[rmdingler]

When one enlists voluntarily in the military, a contract for eight years of a combination active/inactive service is now the norm. A three year active duty hitch nets you five years reserve duty, which can become active duty at the whim of your Country's Warlords. This is a part of the contract one signs when enlisting.... no big surprise, is what I mean to say.

Immigration

[sunimmigration]

SUN consulting Pvt. Ltd. Welcome to a New Beginning in Canada, USA and Malaysia. The MM2H commonly know as Malaysia My Second Home program is an attractive international residency scheme endorsed by Malaysian Government. It permits foreigners to live in the country on a long term visa of up to 10 years (Renewable). To qualify for this program, applicants must meet certain criteria listed below. For More Details : info@sunenterprises.ca Website : www.sunenterprises.ca

Can't take the credit

[rsilvergun]

it was Gore Vidal that noticed it before me.