Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[AlabamAlum]

Correct. Another thing worth mentioning in the "cost of college" debate is that the crushing student debt isn't coming from state colleges (for in-state students). In-state tuition at Ohio State is $11K. Most other Ohio public schools are marginally lower. If you live in Cleveland you can attend CSU for $10K, live at home and graduate with $40K in student debt. There are plenty of affordable options.

The crushing student debt is, obviously, when you attend private schools or, for some crazy reason, go out-of-state to a state school. I have no clue why the American taxpayer should forgive the $150K debt of a Cleveland kid who decided to attend some small private school or an out-of-state school -- say, West Virginia.

In order to stop these types of inefficient decisions, once we decide to pay for college, I'd vigorously support a provision that says the cash can only be used in-state. You don't get some sort of lump sum in-state tuition grant and get to use it to offset the costs of Georgetown.

So, if it's worth it to you to pay private tuition for an English degree, then knock yourself out. But expect no help.

Exactly. Like Georgia's Hope Scholarship. In-state public schools if you have a 3.0 or greater HS gpa. You want to go to Vassar and study 16th Century French poetry? Knock yourself out. But you're on your own.

[iam416]

My son is going to college next month in the Computer Science program, if he completes the degree he is pretty likely to start off with a job paying 70k, they sell you on having to do internships in the summer that pay between 20-35 bucks an hour. The key is getting through the program, you don't want to start spend 30k a year and not finish. My stress level is high, at least nowadays you can check on the progress online.

This is also another evolving aspect of college -- marketing job placement. It's needed. Kids (and parents, heh) need to know what to expect from their degree. It's not a "liberal arts" world any more where you just learn for the sake of learning. It's becoming more "German" in its pragmatism. Marketing placement and wages is important, IMO.

I empathize with you, Froot. Godspeed! I'm nervous about my son starting middle school (a huge jump up in work). I can't imagine having a tuition check on the line.

[AlabamAlum]

Forget all this school jibber-jabber. If the Braves win tonight they will be tied for 1st with the Phillies in the NL East.

First. It's August. The Braves. Now, I know they will unravel later this month, but still. Tip of the hat to Whitley (my favorite female teacher) for having some faith in the Bravos several months back.

[froot loops]

In the IT field it is a real dilemma because you don't have to have a degree, but it helps and it really helps if it is a degree in the field. Some loudmouth guy at my job was running his mouth about when he worked at Ford he was a contract worker and Ford employs 80 percent contract worked versus Ford employees in their IT organization. He said they only hired in people with bachelor's degrees. He also proceeded to dismiss a degree as a worthless piece of paper, not realizing the contradiction.

[hack]

I see the logic in declining to fund the extravagant, half-baked, unmarketable plans of teenagers or their parents. Valid concern. On the other hand, an unintended consequence would be the further segmentation of opportunity by geography. This would end hopes for vast majority of Americans of becoming a diplomat, matriculating beyond the foot-soldier level in banking, getting a book deal, etc. etc. There are jobs that would become rich-people jobs. This moves us away from meritocracy. Unless the people doing the hiring were able to actually evaluate people, which is extraordinarliy hard so they rely on indicators like where the degree came from.

I am not certain of the following, but under a free tuition regime the financial flows wouldn't necessarily look that way anyways. You wouldn't have governments cutting a check for whatever galling figure Michigan thinks it can charge an out-of-state student. These aren't hard costs that reflect the actual monetary outlay required to educate the student. They are soft ones based on the ability to find people who are willing to pay more. Effectively you'd be removing that source of revenue for the schools, and forcing them to live on the public funding they get, which would obviously have to be increased. You might choose to incentivize the schools to maintain reputations for excellence by offering a small premium for out-of-state students. I'm sure there are unintended consequences here too, mind you.

[AlabamAlum]

The Hope Schollie doesn't mandate a certain degree and I am okay with that. But the funds are finite; they expire. I wish Alabama would start a lottery and do the same thing as Georgia. The problem is here we strongly believe that the imaginary bearded sky-dad is opposed to all forms of gambling, but church bingo and raffles are a-ok.

[Whitley]

Braves have good young talent.

Duvall gives them a big time power bat when he is on. Gausman and O'Day are solid pieces too.

[AlabamAlum]

Braves have good young talent.

Duvall gives them a big time power bat when he is on. Gausman and O'Day are solid pieces too.

Yeah, gotta give you props. You called that eatlier this year.

[iam416]

One advantage of funding in-state tuition only is that it should drive private costs down. In theory, at least. Michigan at $12K vs. Georgetown at $35K is one thing for an in-state student, but Michigan at $0 vs Georgetown at $35K is quite another. And there's room and board. In theory it should create high demand for the best in-state schools and increased demand for the 2nd tier in-state schools while forcing privates to cost-adjust. It'd also probably bankrupt some privates.

You could also cost control the in-state schools through funding. But all of this is going to require significantly more involvement from the Govt. When taxpayers start funding shit, they want accountability and it makes for easy political fodder. My mother, a retired HS English teacher, rails on about state testing standards, and probably rightly so (IMO). But the fact of the matter is that if you're going to fund schools with state dollars then the state is going to want some sort of metric to measure ROI. That is an absolute hard and fast rule of govt bureaucracy. Once the federal govt starts funding Higher Ed they will inevitably end up knuckle deep in that shit.

And, of course, there will be no cutoff -- the 3.0 gpa or whatever that is in place for Georgia will not be there.

[Kapture1]

Just admit you want college mandatory, and mandate a shit ton of humanities courses in order to graduate that are run by those silver ponytail post modernists in the hopes of indoctrinating kids into the "America was never great" crowd.

I would agree with you that post high school education is a good thing. I would even agree that we should fund it, but first we cut the funding to these public universities and let their staff go to war to decide which is more important and relevant, the hard sciences or the humanities. Calculus or Women's studies. Physics or Arts in the 20 Century. Science or Non-Western Culture.


I have a feeling that hard science would win, as it is, of the two, actually relevant to earning a living in the real world. If students want to take a course in underwater basket weaving or lesbian dance theory, they can pay for it themselves.

[AlabamAlum]

The arts and the humanities are very important. They deserve funding. Even Spock played a musical instrument. Reducing everything in the college experience to whether it makes a profit misses an important goal of education.

Students need to be pragmatic, though. They need to be asked questions. Parents need to counsel their kids. "Hey, so you like women's studies? Make that your minor to your accounting degree. Support yourself as a CPA while you work toward your "dream"".

$200k in student loans and a BS/MS in women's studies qualifies you to be a barista at Starbuck's. And they need to know this going in.

[Kapture1]

I just don't think the taxpayers should be on the hook for that 200,000 barista degree lol

[hack]

Women's-rights NGOs need accountants too. The universities want to sell a whole bunch of modern interdisciplinary nonsense; but even the do-gooder groups still need and value the hard skills. CPAs and lawyers and even MBA holders are in demand there.

[AlabamAlum]

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[AlabamAlum]

Women's-rights NGOs need accountants too. The universities want to sell a whole bunch of modern interdisciplinary nonsense; but even the do-gooder groups still need and value the hard skills. CPAs and lawyers and even MBA holders are in demand there.

Exactly.