From an article on Alternet:


I can't quote the whole thing but please read the rest of the article.

Questions for debate:
1. Is college on track to become unaffordable for a majority of Americans? If so, will that adversely impact our economy annd our future as a world leader?

2. How can our country's youth succeed in this country when saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt from the start of their careers?

3. Should the federal and state governments take action to reverse this trend and more aggressively fund higher education?

1. Well, I'm not sure if it will be unaffordable for a majority, but it certainly looks as if it will become more and more difficult for people to afford higher education. I'm also not sure if this is the major problem with the future of the American economy. What happens when we have a bunch of well-educated Americans who can't find good jobs anyway? But that's an entirely different debate. Overall, having better education is never a bad thing.

2. This is sort of a rhetorical question, of course. The only possible answer is that it will be more difficult for them.

I should point out here that the Department of Education claims that the default rate on student loans is at an all-time low, and that aid to college students is going to increase.

Link



So why the disparity? I would suggest that it reflects the skyrocketing cost of higher education.

Link



A six percent increase isn't going to help this problem very much.

3. Sure. It would be a good thing for private institutions and businesses to pitch in an help, too, for their own sakes. It would also be a worthy goal to try to keep the cost of higher education under control. Here's a Congressional report which addresses this problem.

Link (PDF file)

This report seems to place the blame firmly on the colleges themselves. In the list of conclusions, only this one is underlined:



I think this report goes too far in looking only at rising costs. A balance needs to be found between reasonable cost controls and strong public support for higher education.

No, they could, if they dont have enought money.... Work.



Thats ridiculous. They have chosen themselves to be put in debt. You can work at the same time as you study, millions of people are doing. Just because they are lazy, and dont want to, does not give them some sort of free-ride excuse. I have no doubt the somewhat older generation on this forum (and hopefully younger) agree to this simple logic.



No. NO !!

They should recommend them to get a job instead. The Fed´s could ofcourse sponsor more jobs, jobs are always needed, and make it easier for the students to find one. It´ll be good for them, most students are spoiled lazy brats. A Doze of reality is all they need.

Despite EricStanze’s simpleminded view of college debt, it’s not because of “lazy students.” I graduated college two years ago and when I got out I had around $24,000 in debt. I worked while I was in college and went to community college the first two years to control costs. I had to pay my way through college and there was no way to pay it all without borrowing.

I am in the process of paying most of the debt off now that I have a good job and the dept is manageable. The job market here in Florida is such that even if I lost my current job I could find new employment rather quickly.

1. Is college on track to become unaffordable for a majority of Americans? If so, will that adversely impact our economy annd our future as a world leader?

One of the major misconceptions is that “college tax credits” help make college more affordable. All those credits have accomplished is create tuition inflation. This is not widely reported and virtually undisguised by Congress. These tax credits are perfect campaign rhetoric that do not help.

2. How can our country's youth succeed in this country when saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt from the start of their careers?

I can only speak for myself here, but I am succeeding. Obviously, with higher dept it would be difficult, but for college graduates that do not have financial discipline it is very difficult.

3. Should the federal and state governments take action to reverse this trend and more aggressively fund higher education?

Here is the problem. If the Government could fix the problem, I would say yes, but the Government cannot help. As I noted earlier the tax credits have made tuition higher. If the government created tuition controls, the public universities would suffer. If Government directed money towards universities I doubt lower tuition would be the result.

Nemov, no disrespect, clearly you are one of the working people. And it shows, 24k is nothing. And i can only presume that you as an american get lots and lots more then ME, a none-american (atleast thats what your society usually claims), You should be able to pay that of in no-time. I know i would with the pay i get.

It should be obligatory to work Whiles you study, to show your even worth the effort of the school (i know most american woman educate themselves but then just live of their husbands being unemployed, i think even 60m had a report about these events happening to often in the States).

I'd like to clear up a few misconceptions here. First is that state colleges are indeed supported by the state, and it depends on the state just how this is done. The second is that working while studying will keep students out of debt. This only works if the pay is good enough to support the studying. Can't do it on a MacJob income.

When I went to college, a year's tuition, room and board came to about $2,000. During the summer, I could knock down $8 an hour to cover the expense for the coming year and take a few weeks off before starting. During the last semester, I worked a deal with the professors to do independent study, which got me out of class face time. I could work full-time like that, but it was a deal only for established students in a particular major. You had to have a good GPA.

Some universities offer online classes designed especially for those working full-time at something. Still, the overall cost of an undergrad degree runs around $30-40,000. That's like buying a new car, a real nice one at that. People finance their ongoing educations for the same reason they finance new cars. It's a Big Ticket Item.

Let's figure out a ratio here. At $8 per hour, 40-hour week and say 10 weeks working, the gross is $3,200. The net is something like .66 x $3,200 = $2,112. The ratio is $2,000 per school year to $3,200 gross, or 1 : 1.6.

The same ratio for today's college costs, say $10,000 per year, comes out to needing to gross $16,000 over the 10-week summer work time. This translates to $40 per hour.

That's about what I make now at a techie gig with 25 years experience. There are no jobs that pay this much for college kids, but at one time there were. Wages have stagnated and college costs have inflated, obviously. The cost of college has increased five-fold since the 1970s. Minimum wage has increased a little over one-fold.

So yes, if this trend keeps on going, college will be only for the well-to-do. What can be done to make college available to all who want it?

Heh, I'm afraid that in this country this simply isn't possible for the same reasons that universal health care isn't impossible, nor is full employment possible. Those who have don't care, those who have-not cannot be heard, and those who have-more control things. Nothing will change until the have-nots outnumber the haves. Then people might give a hoot. Meanwhile, sorry, not enough people care.

The effect this will have on the country will be to lower living standards, and that trend has been going on for a while. A good portion of the population will be functionally illiterate, depending on black markets for survival. This trend has been going on for a while. Natural disaster and war will augment the trends, and we have seen this happening recently.

Where will this ultimately lead? I suppose riots and a police state. The foundations of the police state are now being laid, and maybe this is with a conscious forward-looking plan. Or it might just be native human foolishness. Whatever, the US will be leveled to match the rest of the world. This will no longer be an attractive marketplace, nor will high consumption be sustainable. Maybe this is a necessary thing? Could be. I really don't see any way out, but my future vision binoculars are aging, and the lenses have been coated with jade. Trends have been reversed in the past, so I'll stay hopeful that this trend will also be reversed.

I know what I'd like to see: a society with true opportunity for all who want it and an increasingly interesting, enjoyable standard of living. I just don't see us getting there from here without making major and fundamental changes.

I agree to most of what you say, except that does that want to manage, will manage. They can work HARDER, or chose a less epxensive college, or lifetstyle. Its the CHOICE they make.

Regarding the quote, are you saying that the U.S is above the rest now? *confused*. The West European countries have much higher standard of living/life then the U.S,. So i see this comment as some sort of "we are the best but our standards will get lower", which is ludicrous considering the high poverty rate in the States.


In any case, the main thing is that people are responsible for their lifes, NOT the goverment. So stop blaming the goverment or anyone else for what THEY have CHOSEN to do (debt). I have no debts, STRANGE, why? I chosen not to have any, simple.



Then i recommend you to move to one of the Scandinavian countries, highest living standard, educated population, nice environment and so forth.

Eric, there are so many generalizations in your posts it is difficult to even know where to begin. Before you go leaping to conclusions AuthorMusician said “the US will be leveled to match the rest of the world.” The world is a lot larger than Western Europe. Besides, higher education in the US has been the envy of the world for quite some time. I do not believe that is controversial assessment.

AuthorMusician, I do not share your bleak assessment of the future. Living standards have been getting better for the average American, not worse (despite whatever short-term data that says otherwise). That type of comparison has to be done over generations. My parents, grandparents, and great grandparents did not go to college, but my four siblings are all going and should graduate. I do not mean to downplay the problem, just point out the positives.

As nemov said there are quite a few assumptions you seem to be under which are not true. I don't claim to know the details but I do know that how higher education in Western Europe and the UK works is fundamentally different than how it works here. I think I remember a report from the UK about 6 months to a year ago saying that for the first time students had to take out loans to go to school implying that it was free before - maybe Julian or someone can confirm how the system works over there.

There is only so much income you can provide working minimum wage or slightly above minimum wage jobs during college Eric. Every hour you work for lets generously say $8.00 takes away from your effectiveness at doing what you need to be doing - studying. Either you could have spent that hour studying or it drains your energy for class and studying. People do it any way but it is impossible to go to school fulltime and work fulltime.

Secondly, if we are talking about a 4 year school it doesn't get any cheaper than a state school here. This article isn't discussing kids going to ivy league or private schools and incurring debt.

I'd say the average price tag (as of about 5 to 6 years ago) for 4 years of state school is $30,000 to $35,000. You can get scholarships to defray that cost a little bit and if your family makes below a certain threshold you can qualify for grants from the government. A sizeable portion of people don't qualify for those things for various reasons which leaves you with student loans. This isn't about a choice, it is reality. Either you go to college and have the ability to provide better for your (future) family or you don't.


That is not in any way an acceptable solution or answer. I don't want to move to Scandanavia, I want to live where I'm living. I want to improve my country for my own benefit and for the benefit of future generations. That is why a lot of us get up in the morning, giving up is not an option.

This may be off topic, but I just wanted to say something I've said before -- and that is that college is not for everyone. There is good money to be made in skilled trades -- plumbers, auto mechanics, and electricians for example. I think too many kids are getting the "you need to go to college" pitch when there just aren't enough good jobs left for every college grad anymore.

I think the current college-costs situation is a direct result of colleges promoting the idea that parents OWE their kids a college education, and basing tuition costs on what they think the parents can cough up, rather than the more realistic method of basing them on what the student can (mostly) pay for with modest loans to cover the difference.

I didn't graduate from college, but I have one sibling who did, and thirty years ago, it WAS possible to graduate without owing your hind end and your firstborn to Sallie Mae. The fact that it isn't now is mostly the fault of greedy colleges.

Well, if I may be so bold, I personally have three higher-education degrees, two of them earned from arguably the best academic institutions on the planet. I am now working in academia as well as the private sector .I say this not to brag (well, maybe to brag a little) but to give you the background for my experience.

Despite a high-paying job, I am still paying of my student debts. I worked through my undergrad and was able to get through debt free, but both my MA and D.Phil were at foreign universities, so I had to pay through the nose.

Firstly, let me say this. During my MA, one could not work their way through the degree, there were simply not enough hours in the day. And I was doing history, one of my girlfriends at the time was doing Chemistry, and she was literally spending 10 hour days on study and labs.

EricStanze is right about one thing, it is a choice one must make, to get a higher education and go into debt or to not bother, and save the money. Sadly, while technically accurate, it is a vast oversimplification of the problem.

Tuition fees have been rising at rates far beyond inflation, in Canada the rate raise for an undergraduate has been over 100% in the last 8 years, and 200% in the last 12 years. So yes, people can 'make a choice', but fewer and fewer can afford that choice without incurring increasingly crushing debts.

Sadly, it is a basic truism that if fewer people choose to educate themselves, that society suffers. Education is not just some personal triumph, it is a massive benefit to a nation. The facts that tuition is spiralling is NOT the fault of greedy colleges, many of the major higher learning institutions are running even or even at a loss, including Oxford and Cambridge for example. The government has cut funding for academics enormously over the past two decades, even in the US. However in the US the result has not been higher tuition for state colleges, it hs smply been the vastly declining standard of education at most state colleges (with a few noteworthy exceptions)

So, EricStanze thinks that really only the right should be educated, as increasingly only they can afford to 'make that choice'. I think that is the surest and most impressive way to lower the standards of society and increase the gap between rich and poor.

Your "higher education in the US has been the envy of the world for quite some time." comment shows that you live in a bubble. Im not envy, and i never heard anyone claim to be envy of the U.S education. Perhaps im not talking to the "right" people.




I really dont understand your above comment. As im not a native speaker of english, i apologize. The only thing i was saying that people are responsible for their choices. To blame the goverment or someone else for the debts they have put themselves is an insult to other peoples hard work.

I am on Vibiana´s side here. You may not even want to go to college, i know lots of people whom chose not to, and earn and manage very very well. You have trainee positions as the good ´ol day, such as plumbers and similar, even the computer industry prefer self-taught people, as they usually prove themselves better.


But as said, how come some people manage and other dont? Is it "unfair"? Oh yes, poor them, give them more advantage then the ones that seemingly manage...

Some people are simpl better then others. If they cant handle it, perhaps its not for them.

Please note that I am not saying NOBODY should go to college. I am not saying that at all. What I AM saying is that for a long time, people have looked down on the trades as being for losers and dummies, when in fact, plenty of tradespeople make more money than college grads (depending, of course, on the degree field).

I've been a secretary for twenty years. I know lots of secretaries with college degrees, usually in fields like English or Sociology. A friend of mine has a Masters in Elizabethan Literature, but had no interest in working in academia. Where else are you SUPPOSED to work with a degree like that?

It's all very well and good to broaden your mind, but you also have to pay the light bill, you know? All I'm saying is that college is not for everybody. Neither is trade school.

As for the colleges being strapped for money ... some of the Ivy League schools have such massive endowments that they could offer every entering freshman in a given year a full four-year scholarship without making a noticeable nick. If that's not greed ... well, what do I know? I never went to college. LOL

Your blanket statements without evidence are maddening. Have a look at the survival guide sometime.

According to the economist, our higher education system is indeed the envy of the world. I suppose you could argue that the Chinese academics who do the ratings, or the UK-based editors of the Economist live in a bubble, in which case perhaps you could share your evidence for this with the rest of us.



Vermillion, I also self-financed my education, accruing no debt in undergraduate and borrowing about $40,000 US for a Master's (while I worked full-time). I simply did the math - would the $40,000 investment pay back. All I needed was a measly $5,000 raise from my current job to offset the loan payments. I am glad to report that I have done much better. Sadly, with respect to business school, costs are going up artificially because companies are paying for their employees' MBAs, so removing the costs from the individual and passing along to a company (with a bigger budget).

I think that better aligning the costs with the benefits will happen, if we apply free-market principles to higher education. There is no question that student grants and subsidies increase the cost of education. Increasing demand always increases costs.

Also, as noted by Vibiana, we are graduating more university degrees than we need, which will in time even things out as trade-school graduates continue to make good money as supply dwindles.

I'll have to completely disagree that it's impossible to go to school full time and to work full time, it just takes a large well of determination. I worked 35+ hrs/week the last 3 semesters that I was in college, and no less than 30 prior to that.

I do agree that the wages that college students often garner won't support the student as well as pay tuition, books, fees, etc.

What I would suggest is that students finding little/no help from their parents (or extended family) can do is to take a part time job to help shoulder the expense, as opposed to taking out 4 yrs worth of loans and expecting the magic job fairy to appear upon commencement.

I believe that I know at least 1/2 dozen peers that did not work during college, have been graduated for 5-7 years, and student loans are a financial point of contention in their lives.

I have a younger sister in college now who almost believes that the debit card refills itself, and I know that her peers have student loans as well. Not to mention when I was in college (more than a few years ago!), I remember coming home from work to roommates who'd make "rear-prints" on the couch on Saturdays...

I think the point that should be made is that, for the most part , the financial burden of going to a state school is often well-shouldered by garnering a far higher paying job than had the education not been part of the resume. However, had they not slept in every Sat morning, spent afternoons watching tv or playing videogames, etc... the debt may have been far smaller.

I believe that in many US colleges, working isn't necessarily a well supported part of the curriculum. What I found, is that in my career, the experience that I gained by working full time opened doors to a far more lucrative career than had I simply expected the sheepskin to open doors.

Finally, to give a real-world example... the cost of room/board/fees/books/car insurance, etc for an average student attending LSU will run between $12K and $15K. If said student worked at $7.50/hr for 20 hrs/week, that's $7800 per year, or more than half the financial burden. This doesn't take into account that over the course of the degree program, a kid could get promoted, raises, work over summers full time (I worked 50-60 hrs/week at times w/ a full time job and tending bar on Fri-Sat nights). Student Loans can help, just as the part time work can. Someone that maybe gets into a sales job, a low-level management job, or another field that may relate to their career may also find that when graduation comes that employers are most likely to hire someone with pertinent experience...

The cost of education is way too high.
I did work full time while attending college--I averaged 4 hours of sleep a day--I had to work full time. 40 hour weeks and averaging 10$hr for the most part.
With the cost of rent and food and insurance and car and..........
The only way i could pay for any of it was to get loans. My student loans barely covered anything.a t
No lasting bitterness but only after i was married and had my first child did the loans actually cover more than half the cost.
Oh well i owe less than most.
Looking back on it now--What a waste. Of the total time i spent in college i can only find 25% that I find to have truly been useful. The rest was just a nightmare. What a complete waste of life. Life i cannot get back--it was murdered by self important opinionated teachers and a never-ending parade of useless exercises and information that serves NO functional purpose in life.
I want my money back--or rather the schools should just cancel my owed balance in all fairness.

I would have been better off just getting a job and working my way up somewhere.

All that debt for a piece of paper that says what?
I don't see the worth of it.

College is many times more expensive than it is actually worth.

Someday when i have to hire people for my business i shall look at what people have done and can do. Forget the degree--get some usefull and marketable skills and don't waste the money--or even worse years of your life that could be better spent doing other things.

I shouldn't have used the word "impossible" I should have instead used the words "not smart" or "detrimental". You are probably in a small minority of students that could pull something like that off, but for it to even be possible highly depends on your circumstances.

It depends on your major, how many hours you are taking (you can still be classified as "full time" and be on track to graduate in between 4 and 6 years), how effective you are at studying, where you prioritize extracurricular activities which in a lot of ways can be more important than your GPA.

Just using yourself as a personal example doesn't disprove what I said. It is valid for a majority of students, I don't have data to supply a more detailed percentage.

ericstanz,

Oh yeah, the grass is always greener on the other side, isn't it. Moving isn't a solution; it is ignoring the problems, running away from them.

I'm done with my higher education, so the questions are pretty moot for me. But I do see the fundamental problem that education costs have risen a lot more than wages have. To match what I did in the 1970s (state highway and bridge repair crew, semi-skilled labor), the wage for a summer employee would have had to rise from $8 an hour to $40 an hour. The wage has not done so.

I'm taking the tack that either college costs rise too quickly or that wages rise too slowly. Probably both, as the systems in which we live in the US encourage both trends. The effect so far has been to increase college debt, and that's starting to look bad. The future effect will be to discourage the college path altogether, and so fewer college-educated citizens.

The cynic in me thinks that it is being done on purpose. It's harder to manipulate college-educated citizens. The voluntary military route looks like a good deal too, so the kids get a break on college and enter it with a high amount of conservative indoctrination from the military service.

My cynic is ranting away, so I'm done with this for now.

Perhaps you are not. Ever heard of Harvard? MIT? Cornell? Princeton? Yale?
They rank among the top schools on the planet, right below my alma mater of Oxford. Now of course, the Ivy league is NOT representative of the average university in the US, the average stanbdard of education is far worse than what those schools can offer. None the less, if you have not heard of any of those schools, then indeed you have not been speaking to the right people.




If, by withdrawing funding, the government has allowed the price of University tuition to triple in 12 years, then I think it is not unreasonable to blame them for some significant part of the problem.

As I said, depending on the degree, you can work through an undergrad, though degrees like Chemistry and Biology would find that a LOT harder than arts degrees, but it is VERY difficult to work your way through post-graduate degrees, there is simply too much work and no time.

Indeed, university is not for everyone, many choose not to go and end up making a great deal of money in trades, but many cannot go because of money, even if they chose to, because of the rapidly increasing cost. That is not a reasonable state of affairs.




You may not have noticed this, but some people are richer than others. Some people have parents with money, or parents with at least enough money to co-sign their loans. Others do not.

You say the first group are 'better' because they are richer. How laughable is that? Worse still, it has been proven time and time again by study after study that the best way to escape poverty is with a higher education. If the poor are denied that, then they are denied one of their main opportunities to get out of the cycle.

Thats just wrong.


EDIT to add:


Yes, a few of the Ivy league have massive endowments, Harvard in particular is nausiatingly rich. Thats why several of their departments offer huge scholarships to all the best graduate students, and many to undergraduate students. However, being Ivy league, Harvard is a private institution and thus not funded by the government like the state schools are.

In other words, they are not being greedy, they are turning around a lot of their profits and money made from endowments, and being private schools they are somewhat irrelevant to the argument anyways.

First, let me start off by saying that I do support federal (or state) funding for higher education. Although a fiscal conservative, my guiding principle for federal funding is that it should be done within a cost/benefit analysis. Educated people make more money, and therefore pay more taxes, and probably also are less of burden on various social programs. I myself received federal aid while in school. However, that being said....

1. Is college on track to become unaffordable for a majority of Americans? If so, will that adversely impact our economy annd our future as a world leader?

First, given the statement in the opening post, the implied assumption seems to be that reduced federal aid is the culprit. I would argue that rising education costs are, at the very least, at least as responsible for whatever supposed funding problem exists. Second, simply stating the federal funding is being reduced doesn't necessarily translate into unaffordability of education. As many here have stated, working while in college is always an option. In fact, many studies show that students who pay their own way through college do better in school, not worse. I worked three jobs in school, while taking 22 credits and playing football. My uncle worked his way through college working full-time at a shipyard, working 60+ hrs/wk. My Dad took advantage of the GI Bill, and military service still provides a variety of ways to pay for education. Don't tell me it can't be done...that's only true if you're either lazy, unmotivated, or don't have your priorities right. If you really want an education, you can get one. It might not be easy, and it might take more than 4 years....but it can always be done.

2. How can our country's youth succeed in this country when saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt from the start of their careers?

If the cost/benefit analysis of obtaining an education doesn't justify this, then don't do it. An education should provide a higher paying job, which in turn should generate enough money to pay off the debt. As noted above, working during school is always an option...postponing the payments is the student's option. Or, perhaps the flip side...why should others have to pay for someone else's path to success? To be blunt, why should I, who worked my arse off to pay for school (and in fact am still doing so), have to pay more taxes so people I don't know and will likely never meet don't have to? If funding is going to be increased, it needs to come from other programs, not increased taxes (see below).

3. Should the federal and state governments take action to reverse this trend and more aggressively fund higher education?

Yes, probably. An educated populace is a higher earning populace, and therefore a higher tax-paying populace. More educated, higher earning people also create less of a drain on other government programs. So, simple question....which programs should be cut to fund it? Let me guess...the military? Just for fun, let's rule that one out, or at least stipulate other programs need to be included. Which ones? HHS? SS? Medicaid/Medicare? Disaster Relief? What's a politician to do? Given these choices, and the fact that people can indeed still pay much of their own way through school, it's fairly clear, I think, why education funding is cut.

The article did suggest that education funding is the part of the problem, not the whole problem (at least I didn't read that anywhere). But I would argue that the cuts in federal funding and reduced eligibility for grants are a major part of the problem.

There are a lot of ways that college is becoming unaffordable, I didn't mention federal funding in that question. Since you bring it up, why do you feel that prices are going up? I'm curious what is behind that.


Because you both directly and indirectly benefit from others in the country being educated. The same principle applies to a great many things. If you don't benefit from interstates being maintained in Iowa, why should you pay federal tax dollars for them? In fact, why should I pay for roads in your home state of Texas when I don't benefit from them?

The country has a vested interest in having a highly educated population if we expect to remain a world leader and innovators in every industry.


Oh there is plenty of fat we could cut. We could roll back tax cuts on the top 1% of the country - those making millions and up. We could stop corporate welfare through our tax code and use that money for education. We could cut worthless programs like abstinence education. We could cut pork projects such as the "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska. We could absolutely cut some dead weight off the military without compromising national security or our military objectives. We could probably eliminate whole departments and cabinet positions in our government starting with the useless Department of Homeland Secuity and the 80K people they employ.

Even if we cut nothing and ran the government with the same efficiency expected of any Fortune 500 company we'd free up billions for education. I have to deal with people in the public sector quite frequently and the rumors are all true. People don't get fired, they get transferred sometimes even when they've committed a crime. There are tons of people that come into the office, read the paper and sleep - they do this for 20 years and then collect 75% of their salary as pension. Departments have absolutely no incentive to be efficient because if they save money they lose budget the following year. If we brought down that system we'd have plenty of money.

1. Is college on track to become unaffordable for a majority of Americans? If so, will that adversely impact our economy and our future as a world leader?

2. How can our country's youth succeed in this country when saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt from the start of their careers?
It depends on the jobs the youngsters get upon graduation. Unfortunately, there are people foolish enough to pursue Philosophy and Art History degrees in this uncertain economy. State funded Universities need to actively make sure that the studies that students pursue match the demands of the job market. This should be as simple as opening up the classified ads in the newspaper. There should not be 100 Art History major students when there's no Art Historian position being advertised in the newspaper. This should help ensure that nobody has to pay off his college debt with a McDonalds job.

3. Should the federal and state governments take action to reverse this trend and more aggressively fund higher education?
At the local and state levels, high schools need to teach more job skills so that a high school diploma can get someone a rent paying job right out of High School. That will cut down the stampede of youngsters blindly pursuing College. As Vibianna said, school districts need to teach trades like Carpentry or Plumbing because College is not for everyone.

As far as the Public Universities are concerned, the States need to hold the college administrators more accountable and have the college budgets transparent to the public. The major employers need to have influence over the curriculum for the students as well. As far as increasing funding goes, this is only throwing more money at the problem. I don't have statistics with me right now, but I'm certain that a great deal of the tuition increases went towards things like administration, top of the line computer labs, sports facilities, parking lot construction, and things that don't have to do with education.

skeeters,

You just made the case for tech certs rather than four-year college degrees. The big difference is, as anyone who has gone through the college situation can explain, the abilities discovered and honed in college have nothing to do with a specific job. They have to do with all jobs.

People with computer science degrees are having a hard time as well as those with liberal arts. The trouble is that the economy isn't generating enough jobs, not what people study in college. I've been through easy job markets and difficult ones, probably more difficult than easy. However, it is amazing how valuable the liberal arts degree is when companies are looking for flexible, creative thinkers to do jobs that did not exist just a few years before.

Unfortunately, the corporate situation seems to have blown its own warp core out of the ship and now depends upon snapping up those with just enough experience, but not too much. This reduces entry-level slots quite a bit, and that's what new grads need.

This heads towards some pretty big ideas. For example, why do corporations exist in the first place? I mean, what good are they? Why should people reproduce if the working world cannot provide enough jobs? Why seek higher education when the game seems to be rewarding sleaze rather than smarts? Are we all heading toward the Fifty-Cent deal of getting rich or die trying?

Aye, curses on higher education. I'd not be bothered with this had I simply gone to be an electrician or other skilled labor building million dollar houses for white-collar crooks. That's the implication of looking only at the classified ads to figure out the job markets.

Of course those with the ability to think things through know that the classifieds reflect only a small part of the whole job market. Most good jobs never make it to the classifieds. They get filled by professional recruiters, word-of-mouth, and those who actively seek goals that they have set for themselves through introspection, analysis, communication and plain old guts.

One of the things I've noticed changing in this sad old world is that communication has gone away. I'm pretty sure this is from paranoia that someone might be an investigative reporter or muck-raking author. In any case, people in corporations don't like to talk with anyone outside the inner circle. Start-ups are better, but not much. I do know from being involved with inner circles that policies are in place that discourage or outright forbid any communication with the outside world.

Anyway, yeah. Let's all just return to blue-collar jobs that require little thinking at those disturbing levels. Get the tech cert, turn the screws, knock off at the quitting bell, go home and vegetate in front of the boob tube. The life of Reilly, eh?

'Cept those days are long gone. Read those classifieds. They are mostly Mac-Jobs. The plumber knocking off big bucks is a myth, or if not, an exception to the usual. The ones I know are doing just okay and are sick of rooting the pipes. The job ads that look better, with bigger ones, are mostly sweat shops. The good jobs simply aren't advertised. They don't have to be. They get filled from within, and when the search goes outside, the pro recruiters have the first notification.

This is funny. I was thinking that if I were 18 again, I'd go for the tech cert rather than college. But know what? Just as some people are not suited for college, some are, and when one tries to go against his or her nature, things simply don't work out.

Well, back to the debate issues. College costs too much because wages are not high enough, and so people go into debt. Some blame the individual, some blame the systems. I blame the systems. Individuals have not changed over the past thirty or so years, but the systems have. College debt is nothing new. It was fairly common back in the 1970s too, but you know what? It was easier to pay off the debts because 1) job growth was stronger and 2) wages were higher. Shoot, you could go work in a warehouse and make as much as an entry-level programmer. Factory jobs were all over the place. The Rust Belt had not been dismantled yet, and the world economy deals were just ideas.

It's really pretty simple, which doesn't make it any prettier.

A couple things. Firstly, as I said above, everyone agrees that it is possible to work your ay through a university degree, though obviously far more difficult in some programs than others. However, it is VERY hard, and in some cases impossible, to work your way through a post-graduate degree.

Secondly, and more importantly, how long will this be the case at the current rate? Yes you and your father worked their way through Undergrad, so did I. But in the decade since I finished my Undergrad, Tuition has gone up 100%, while wages have gone up 18%. This is because of reductions in federal funding. Its one thing to advise people to get jobs to pay for university, but if the cost of university so vastly outstrips what people can conceivably earn, then that advice gets less and less useful.



Lastly, let me just addres this 'useless Art History degree' issue that people bring up from time to time. This is an old, tired, irrelevant argument, which has been beaten to death countles times. Study after study has shown that a University degree in arts makes you 38% more likely to find a job then not having a degree at all. If you look at your house of representatives in the US, how many of them have arts degrees? Most in fact.

The number one preliminary dgree at the moment that North American law schools look for in their applicants? History. There is this idea, propigated by I do not know who, that the market is flooded with unemployed people with University arts degrees. This is simply and blatantly untrue. The market is flooded with people with no university degree, in a job market where almost any business job requires a university degree.

That does NOT, of course, mean that the university is the be all and end all. Trademen can do very well, in some cases (such as plumber) earning as much if not more than their university degree ducated counterparts. If that is the choice you make, then power to you, and let nobody ever look down on you for that choice. There are also many Computer people who have either taken individual courses or are self taught. However, knowing many people in the industry, the chances of finding a job are MUCH higher if you actually went to university for your computer training.

If you are young, and you want to guarentee yourself getting a job in the future, there are MANY options available to you, but it has been consistently shown that the best way to ensure future economic stability is with a university degree.

With the disappearance of good paying factory jobs and the astronomical cost of college education, I suspect that Tech Certs are going to become more relevant in the future and college degrees less relevant. Also, because College Costs have gone up further than the general inflation, it should be logical that the wages haven't kept up. It is the cost of Higher Education that must come down. There are ways to do that without compromising on the educational quality. To do that, the college budgets MUST be transparent to the public.


I have a Computer Science degree and I know too well that my College Degree has far less value in the job market than it did 10 years ago. Right now, I'm teaching English in Korea hoping to someday get a better job in a couple years. The sad truth is that the Government and the Educational System of America has turned College Education into a high stakes gamble where high school students have to wager a fortune on what the job market will be 5 or 10 years from now. The Government and the entire Educational System of America have to be held responsible for their lies.

You know, that's a pretty snotty way to talk about people who don't go to college. You just proved my point more eloquently than I could have.

In no post have I stated that someone should "go against his or her nature" and skip college if they want to go. I HAVE stated that there is good money to be made in trades, and whether you think it's a myth or not, there will always be cars to be fixed and pipes to be rooted and houses to be wired. The attitude of the person who does those jobs is his own responsibility. If he's "sick of rooting pipes" because he would rather have become a doctor, well ... I never said someone who WANTED to go to college shouldn't try to.

Two things, I think. One is reduced state funding. The other is that there is no incentive for efficiency....as the concept of this thread suggests, everyone needs a good education. Supply and demand...limited supply, increasing demand. How many new universities are there? I can't think of many. Yet the number of people seeking (and jobs requiring) higher education has increased dramatically.



The difference being the roads won't be built without government funding. People can get education without it. Also, there is a much more personal incentive in them getting it....the roads certainly benefit the public, whereas education directly benefits primarily the recipient. However, as I said below, I am not against increased funding, just increased taxes for it, which, given your comments, I think we agree can certainly be achieved.

I would also add that it is exactly the first sentiment you expressed here that leads to the financial problems in your following paragraph. There is always a good reason to provide things for people....the problem, usually avoided, is in setting priorities and determining which programs really are worth spending taxpayer money on, and how much.



Amen to all that. If the government were a company, it would have gone bankrupt decades ago (what company out there operates with a debt 7 times its annual revenue, and increasing every year, with no end in sight?). The problem isn't funding, it's that education has a low priority for that funding. Personally, I think it should have one of the highest priorities, as it is one program that should more than pay for itself, thereby providing, long term, more money for the other programs that currently get higher priority. In essence, from a governmental financing perspective, funding of higher education is an investment, and a very good one.

Vibiana,

I wasn't trying to be snotty, just truthful. You're on thin ice because I grew up working class in Northern Minnesota. I'm the only one of my family who went to college because I had no alternatives. All of the iron mines turned down my applications due to inherent spinal weaknesses. That is not to say that I did not have a strong spine, just the potential of having problems in later life. My oldest brother, a retired plant electrician these days, brought up the idea to go to college, by the way. My folks were skeptical.

The first quarter of college (community), I had to prove that I could get good grades, having slipped on through high school with a C average (aced auto mechanics), expecting to get a job in the mines. This I accomplished with a 3.8 GPA, and so onward I went. However, in today's systems, I'd probably go to a tech school and learn something computer-related.

Am I being snotty again? Well, to heck with it. I was not born to be working class like my brothers and sister, my father and my mother. The very act of going to college caused huge resentments in my family and among high school friends. To heck with them, I had no freaking choice.

After college, I tried returning to the working class. That only worked up to a degree because I found no satisfaction in the jobs. I wanted a career, a direction, an industry that was making a difference in the world, and in 1979, I got my break into computers. You know, back when people were pretty dim on the concept. Going back home to visit became a royal pain as I tried to get my brothers to understand what I did for a living, let alone how I ever got the first and subsequent gigs.

My partner, Lydia, has a Master's. She grew up in a college-oriented family where the Bachelor's was expected and the advanced degrees encouraged. She tells me that I got born to the wrong family, and she's right on a certain level. However, my father encouraged music and was pretty darn smart on technologies, messing with the early calculators and picking up the digital electronics. He also started me on general survival skills like auto mechanics.

But listen: College has the potential of changing people to where they become better than expectations dictate. That's just the fact of the matter. Tech schools don't do this because their focus is on particular jobs, not the broader ideas found in college. For example, it is common for hiring people to slap prospective employees into boxes that fit an extremely limited view of reality. I learned in college that the boxes they make are false illusions, attempts at making chaotic reality easier to understand. I'm grossly oversimplifying this as I don't care to write a book on the subject, but the idea is to define yourself and reject the definitions of others.

This is how an English major (box #1) became a tech writer (box #2), mainframe systems programmer (#3) and Unix systems administrator (#4), plus a published author (MY OWN BOX!) and musician (no boxes allowed).

Maybe I deserve to be snotty, eh?

I'm not sure why you picked one specific sentence out of my post, but negated the point.

Kids can work part-time and offset the costs of their education, as many before them have done. They can study in large amounts, and work in little.

I'll give you a little more insight. I try not to bring these things up in circles of mixed company, as people have stigmas about Fraternity Men... but I'm a Phi Delt (Phi Delta Theta Fraternity) and graduated 5 1/2 years ago. I've been involved in fratnernity operations on a very limited scale since moving to Dallas 5 yrs ago. There's a common theme on the four college campuses w/ Phi Delta Theta chapters in the Metroplex (UT-Arlington, TCU, SMU, and UNT). It seems that regardless of the time of day, or day of week, you can walk into any student union (or of course the fraternity houses) and find young men spending time in front of TV's, w/ beers in hand, or behind a pool que. Is that wrong? Not at all. Heck, 1/2 of the excursions we've made were to hang out with them (along w/ getting them to think about grades and their future careers...)

The only point I'm attempting to make is that in many cases, these kids might have healthy student loans building, but haven't considered that they could take a job at Chili's waiting tables and knock down a chunk of that financial obligation... because 18 year old college students are generally less concerned with loans than they are w/ co-eds and cold barley and hops.

I'd love to see an alumni organization start a campaign to get kids out of their dorm rooms and into the economy. I personally seek out college kids during the summer, as they're easily trainable, are adept at computer technology, and don't mind leaving in September. If they only knew that the few thousand dollars that they got to save might help their debt to asset ratio enough to get them into that first home in their mid-20's...

I worked at least 20 hours/wk through both my Master and PhD programs...with a full-time job while working on my PhD. I finished my MBA one semester early while doing this.



This is indeed more important. The answer, however, is also quite clear. It will just take longer to go through college. In the example I cited previously of my uncle, I believe it took him 10+ years to get his degree. But he got it, and a wealth of real-world experience (which any grad that doesn't work during college just doesn't get) along with it. In the grand scheme of things, whether you get your degree in 4 years, 6 years, or 8 is really not important. What is important is the ability to get it if desired.



Completely agree. What one chooses to pursue for their degree is their choice. FWIW...I spoke with the placement coordinator at Anderson Consulting while working on my MBA, where they were primarily looking for IT consultants (programmers, really). Know what two degree programs they found had the highest success rate for them? Music, and English. Their conclusion from this was that the application of logic and structure in both was most similar to programming. The point being that every major has an application, and one isn't necessarily better then another. However, I do also think that students need to be very aware of the job prospects of their chosen field of study, and do everything possible to maximize them, or to choose an appropriate field.



Which is exactly why I am completely against raising my taxes to pay for this. They can drink beer and chase skirts on their own dime, thank you very much. I have my own entertainment to fund .

That isn't the point. The point is that you are paying for something which doesn't directly benefit you. Education primarily benefits the recipient but it also benefits their community and the country as a whole.

If there is a project on I-35 in Dallas being done by the federal government, some percentage of my tax dollars are being spent on it yet you and the other residents of Dallas are the direct and primary beneficiaries.

The same is true with virtually all federal spending Hobbes. We all pay for it and we are not always the direct beneficiary of that money being spent but in theory we should benefit from it as a society and a country.

Let’s not ignore the facts or underestimate the value of a degree.


Obviously someone with just a high school degree or associates degree can still be financially successfully. In the fortune 250 company that I work for if you ever hope to get into the higher paying positions, or as you put it “work your way up” you better have that diploma. No if’s and’s or buts.

1. Is college on track to become unaffordable for a majority of Americans? If so, will that adversely impact our economy annd our future as a world leader?

I could easily argue that we’re there now. Most universities have seen at least a 1000% increase in tuition in the last twenty five years. I don’t have to go searching for income figures to tell you that the average disposable personal income hasn’t kept pace. Extrapolate that variance over the next twenty years and that’s when it gets really frightening.

A vast number of technological, medical and other advances over the last century came from this country, often fueling and driving our economy. I don’t see us in this leading role with high school grads curing cancer in their garages. The overlooked factor that stands out for me is the opportunity cost. How much brilliant young talent is turned away at the bursar’s office?

2. How can our country's youth succeed in this country when saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt from the start of their careers?

I’ve read where this accounts for a large number of children living at home post graduation. Nothing wrong with that but it quite possibly delays marriage, having children and buying that first home. While they might be able to “succeed” professionally, their other “successes” may come later in life.

3. Should the federal and state governments take action to reverse this trend and more aggressively fund higher education?

They’ve started an interesting program here: investing through the state you can put money away now for future tuition at today’s prices.

However I think part of the real problem is the universities themselves. Most of those in this state have been on huge expansion projects and carry a bloated payroll. The idea being if they build more research buildings then they can secure more federal research dollars, which is part of the criteria used to rate universities. And like most government organization they are not financially efficient institutions.

Which is why it is precisely the point. Education both directly benefits an individual, and is capable of being funded by that individual. Roads more directly benefit the public, and can only be funded by the public. So, when push comes to shove politically, it's easy to bump education down the priority list.



The standard for 'taxworthiness' needs to be much, much higher than this, otherwise there would simply be no end to federal projects (wait, that's what seems to currently be happening, isn't it). I can make a reasonable claim that society and the country would be better off if the government gave me a million dollars, as could everyone else in the country. Does that mean the government should do it? Or, more importantly, does that mean the government has the funds to do it? Also, it is precisely this mindset which has led to the financial quagmire you described earlier (which I agree with).

As I said in my initial post, I think education does indeed deserve more funding. I just don't think that funding needs to come from increased taxes.

It may be easy Hobbes but that doesn't make it either smart or the right call. When we are considering questions of education funding we are talking about no less than the intellectual future of our country. It doesn't get much more important than that in my opinion.

If we aren't producing the brightest doctors, engineers, scientists, and business professionals in the world then we will eventually diminish our status as a world leader. If you assume that these people are only going to come from families of priviledge who can afford college then you are sorely mistaken.

In my ideal world higher education would be completely funded provided you made and maintained acceptable grades. However, I'm not talking about not everyone in the country getting a free ride. I'm talking about the government actively cutting funding so that programs are less available for those that need them. That combines with other factors such as the increased cost of school and the fact that the country as a whole has more debt and less savings than we have in a long time.


Other than rolling back the purely political and financially stupid tax cuts on the country's top 1% I haven't suggested increased taxes. I think we can get more than adequate funding by making cuts and doing things better.

I went on the web to look for some explanations about why the Cost of Higher Education has risen astronomically. One thing is for certain. Universities don't deserve more subsidies. They need to be scrutinized and reformed.

Below are some explanations offered by an economist for the costs.
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.23055/pub_detail.asp

OK, leta slook at the deep, intellectual analysis that this notorious right wing think tank performed shall we?




In what will become typical, a nonsensical conclusion placed on valid facts. Firstly, when you get a loan, you are still paying the bill, not somebody else. Secondly, government loans can BECOME grants once the person has graduated, a certain percentage of their debt CAN be turned into a grant. But this is only after the fact.
 


I'm sorry, does this think tank have any idea what non-profit means? At all? Non profit means it is not there to turn a profit, meaning any profit it does make is reinvested into its services. Non profit agenceis most CERTAINLY have a bottom line, just as much as any profit making agency. a High school economics class will teach you that. They have to worry about costs and efficiency just as much as any profit based agency.
 


Good heavens, you mean universities are offering scholarships to the most qualified people? Horrifying! Oh no... wait... no it isn't, in fact it is what Universities have been doing since the first public universities were set up in the 1200s. They do not charge 'what people can afford', if that is the case why are so many universities losing money? They charge what they need to, which has gone up enormously because of the cut in government funding.
 
 


Oh my god, salaries have gone up 50% in the last 25 years? Thats horrifying, astonishing! Thats (pulls out pocket calculator)... actually, thats about right. Actually, its quite low, less than inflation over the last 25 years, and far less than the increase in most industries. Hell even minimum wage has increased by 90% in the same time period.


Why is any of this even a debate? Universities were funded by the government. That funding has been cut dramatically, and now Universities are being forced to charge much higher rates for tuition. 1 + 1 =2

Thus, if tuition rates are beiing deemed to be too high, we should reinvest back in Universities. 2 + 2 = 4

This is an interesting topic and one that carries more significance than most people are willing to allow for. The cost of education in many fields is driving up the costs of services provided for those graduates. I will use the example I am most familiar with. I am a dentist, and many student graduating from my school or any of the other 5 Universities left school with over $200,000 in debt. The majority who do not recieve aid from familly members are going to have debts ranging from $125,000 to $260,000. It is not hard to imagine what this does to the cost of dental care when a new graduate is making $1500-2000 student loan payments. Obviously this effect is greatest in fields where graduates work independent of larger corporate forces that try to depress salaries.

That being one argument, I think the greater concern comes with the cost of education in comparison to the benefit. The great education boom started after WWII when the GI bill allowed thousands of vetrans to attend universities and attain degrees. The majority of these people came into the job market with sought after experties they had gained in critical skill sets, but the education system of todays america is not producing a proportionately balanced force of students in critical fields. two books when read together will shed a lot of light on this subject. One is The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman lays out an excellent description of the shift in intellectual currency out of the US and into the developing world countries. The other one oddly enough is Snobbery: The American Version by Joseph Epstein. Both books touch on this, but Epstein spends more time discussing the rise in prominence of the arts in america. Of the Many of the students elluded to earlier in this post that end up living at home after graduation, many have pursued degrees in Enlish, drama, history, or other fields that are considered noble but do not produce skill that can contribute to the work force due to lack of jobs. Combine the cost of education, the grade inflation in the humanities that makes them attractive to many students, and the availability of jobs out of the humanities, and you see a black hole of american productivity. Dont get me wrong - I love the humanities. I love literature, art, am an aspiring photographer, and would hate to see them cut from schools. But we have to look at the educational wasteland produced by all of the degrees comming out of the humanities. I know we have a lot of historians here and I have upset some of them, but sorry, it is just my opinion

On a side note. I funded my education. My parents could have paid for it but much to my chagrin said no because they thought it was good for me to take ownership. I didnt like it at first, but found that they were right. I valued my education and got more out of it then many of my classmates who's baby-boomer parents forked out the cash. The cost is much more real when you are taking out the loans yourself. Financially I will be able to pay for my childrens education later in my life, but have already made the decision that they will pay for their own. After all, what career you choose is going to have a greater effect on your financial quality of life than any other decision you make. We do our youth a great disservice by letting them make that decision without having to consider and manage the cost/benefits.

just my 2cents