Dunno if anybody is following this. The Great Student Loan Debt Default: Over $270 Billion in Loans Are 30 Days Or More Past Due But, if the loan agencies would have been a bit more discerning with whom they were giving loans too, maybe we wouldn't.. Ahh, never mind, we the taxpayers got the backstop.. Seriously though, WTF, how many "art history" majors can america really employ? I know 5 people who got degrees in "liberal arts", not one of them have had a job above minimum wage since graduating college.. While I'm at it, has anyone seen the curriculum for political science? NOT 1 MATH CLASS.. No wonder they can't comprehend debt, the economy, etc, etc.. just sayin
for many a liberal arts degree is the best possibility... many companies prefer them to speciality degrees... from where i sit in a small college the issue is that many folks are getting the loans and dropping out .... using the loans forf other purposes and never planning on repaying the loans... I've seen students get a loan attend class until the loan is payed....drop out get a refund and spend the money on a new car... It's not the students who are spending the $$ on education that concern me it's those gaming the system that need to be addressed....
Yes, I've seen that happen as well with friends and family.. My thing with liberal arts is, it don't give (i'm sure you just cringed at my grammer.. ccc) you the basis of the ability to create anything tangible, and that's where America is today IMO.. No skilz or the interest of doing anything that may require physical labor or some actual critical thinking. Working with my sons possible future FNL today who owns a painting/repaving/asphalt biz and he's telling me about how hard it is to find a person willing to put in an honest days work.. So it's not just the college kids, we also have a hard time finding people for the oilfield.. My ex's parents were English profs, my ex got her undergraduate in English, and had I not talked her into doing something else, woulda just continued on with English. She got a graduates in rehab counseling.. She worked in her field for a whole 3mos, has done nothing more than receptionist work ever since, cuz, she just wanted a "job" with no expectations other than answering a phone and taking notes.. Hard to bolster an economy or buy a house with that mentality..
If you look at the graduates from the Engineering schools, Nursing schools, and Medical schools, they are not having problems getting Entry Level Jobs in their fields. They are also paying back their loans, for the most part. Get a Technical Degree, and you can find work, get a Liberal Arts Degree, and you can starve, or move back in with Momma..... and that says nothing about the Technical Colleges, and Community Colleges......... YMMV.....
Keyword - "technical" There are satisfactory jobs for technical certificates and associate's degrees all around. Not so much for soft skills, taking as an extreme (and silly) example advanced degrees in Shakepearian play analysis. Back in the day, a high school shop class would be enough to land a job that paid enough for starting a family. No longer so, and more's the pity. I long ago came to believe that only those dedicated enough to go after advanced degrees in the liberal arts stand much chance of decent salaries. Few enough of those jobs available, and about all are in academia. With the gradeflation exhibited all up and down the line of our school systems, I have some doubts about even that. With gradeflation came inflated thoughts about what the American Dream was all about, too. No longer was it a house, car and family; it became a second house on (insert fave location here) and a month's vacation annually, and instead of a Chevy or Ford, it became an Audi or BMW, and a yacht. (A boat with oars was so proletarian.) It wasn't all that long ago that an MS in business was thought to be the ticket to mega salaries. I wonder what all of them are doing now that Wall Street is paring itself back, and (say) construction companies are going back to their core talents and products? (For one thing, they are battling foreclosure with no income.) No one has yet answered my enduring question - How many PhDs does it take to staff Waste Management trucks?
Here is a perspective and story from a “younger” monkey: When I was in High School I didn’t focus on anything I wasn’t good at, and I didn’t have to. I passed through with a 2.4 GPA and moved on to college. I received a scholarship for musical theater to a performing arts school and attended with an open mind. Once I got there I learned quickly how the world worked for liberals and it disgusted me (being a straight white male sucks sometimes). To say the least, I dropped out by the middle of my second semester. With nothing better to do and relying on my social skills and good looks I got into bartending and took the occasional class at community college. I did this for years until I realized that it was imperative for me to further my education in something solid. At 23 years old I hated working outside and saw that the “Hot Chick’s” didn’t want anything to do with someone who was working in a trade or construction job and that they were all going for Doctors, Lawyers, Stock Brokers, and Engineers. This lead me to go back to attend a state university studying economics as a business practice and science (not as a liberal art as MOST people do). I graduated with an A average and walked into a job the Monday after graduation (2 days later). I guess my point is this. I feel like many young Americans are taking longer to mature and realize what it takes to be a man. The world isn’t as friendly as it was for white males back in the day. Young men who would have gone into trades in my father’s generation (baby boomer) now go to college and get degrees. What this does is take away from the trade, construction, blue collar, and labor work forces. The guys who might have gone to tech school back in the 70’s and 80’s now get degrees in engineering. Who is to blame them? After all, we all know that engineers make dough and technicians don’t. You are right to say that the American dream is something everyone wants. Who doesn’t want a job that pays them $100,000 a year for what they do. Who doesn’t want the intellectual challenge? The answer is the lazy… Therein lays the problem…The lazy are good to no one. The smart get higher degrees and PHD’s, or they start their own companies and go into business for themselves. The lazy collected from Uncle Sam. This leaves us with two classes, those who give a damn and those who don’t. We need to stop subsidizing degree’s in BS majors and start focusing on quantitative, scientific, and engineering studies. I agree that we need people to learn skills that produce and create. But the problem is that a job doing concrete in someone’s driveway doesn’t pay dick and it isn’t something that most people, that are young, would be proud to say they do. Suerto, the issue is that people who are willing to do an honest day’s work want more than what painting, repaving, and asphalt jobs have to offer.
It is my belief that the first imperative of higher education is to teach young academics the fine art of critical thinking. Master this and all things are possible. A good thinker will never be satisfied with the status quo. They may never settle on one career and may never become the high man/woman on the totem pole but they will creatively solve the problems they encounter while the educated experts are allowing the project to flounder as they search for text book solution. But I also believe college is, at times, over-rated. I would rather hire a plumber who understood and could apply Bernoulli's principal rather than one who could recite it verbatim.
Not surprising at all............ Obama Relies on Debt Collectors Profiting From Student Loan Woe - Bloomberg
The field that I started in (a subset inside the oilfield) required an engineering degree.. Starting annual salary - $80,000, within a year, you would be making up to $150,000.. I am seeing this "entitlement" or "lazy" or un-ambitious attitude amongst engineers as well.. Attrition rate for new college graduates with no work experience is 80%, and is factored into the hiring process.. Retention rate for college graduates with work experience - 80%.. I am not just talking about un-educated manual labor positions that "don't pay dick".. Just to clear that up. Although, to someone with just a HS diploma or less, asphalt re-surfacing/painting/paving pays A-HELLUVA lot better than mcd's.. Roughly the same or maybe better than bar tending, depending on bar.. And even bar tending, you gotta have some skillz (looks, wit, character, etc) All that is required for construction labor type work, is the interest to try, learn, and be punctual.. Hot chicks are over-rated BTW, they expect to be treated good cuz they are used to guys falling all over themselves for them.. Mediocre chics are happy to please when they find a man who treats them well.. just sayin.. been there, done that. I agree with you, the lazy are good to no-one, problem is, they are 50% of america now.. And having more babies than the 50% attempting to make something of themselves..
I teach college part-time. The main class I teach is a core requirement and has a lot of math in it. A great many students wait until their very last semester to take my class (@ night) thinking it will be easier. Needless to say, a bunch of them don't graduate. I have a couple of sayings that students get used to hearing by the end of the semester: 1) "Your problems aren't my problems." (A typical response when someone tells me their printer ran out of ink so they can't turn in their homework) 2) "Everyone deserves the opportunity to go to college, but not everyone deserves a degree." Having a degree means you have at least a baseline knowledge of many core subjects. An employer who hires a "college graduate" expects the person to be able to read, write coherent sentences, and do math. If you can't cut that, you don't deserve a degree--no matter how hard you want it or how much effort you put into it. Some people just aren't smart enough or just don't have their act together and shouldn't be in college. Case in point: Student Tased After Outburst in Class | Inside Higher Ed
Everyone deserves the opportunity to reach thier potential, but that don't mean they deserve a house they can't afford.. Anyone coming to, or in America, legally, has that opportunity.. Appearantly, 50% are falling well short of fullfilling thier opportunity. So statistics show.. Just sayin..
