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College Conspiracy

#3
Would you mind summarizing the main points of the video?

I suspect that I reaped an enormous benefit from my post-secondary education. I also suspect that my education has added to the productivity of the US economy.
 
#4
fdeck said:
Would you mind summarizing the main points of the video?

I suspect that I reaped an enormous benefit from my post-secondary education. I also suspect that my education has added to the productivity of the US economy.
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This sums it up pretty well, just change the word 'rent' to 'rate for a college education'.

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#6
That video (which I spot-checked) has all the elements of propaganda. It manipulates "facts" and interprets them in a way calculated to point to its own debatable conclusions. The hyper-conservatives and conspiracy theorists are always hard at work spinning their version of reality.

I'm not going to watch the whole thing - I work at a 4-year university and have 31 years' experience in higher education as three major land-grant institutions. I know my way around this situation and "debate" (which it is not, since it's an argument).

There are plenty of people out there who will lie to you and tell you only what they want you to hear. If you want to give yourself the best shot at success, get a solid education and the credential to get ahead in US society.

After that, it's up to you. But without the credentials, you have a much bigger hill to climb. A degree won't compensate for lousy interviewing skills, bad personal habits, lack of enthusiasm, lack of language skills, inability to express yourself, or generally crappy attitude. That's up to you!

My daughter graduated last year with solid grades and had a good job (more than $40K/year) waiting a month before she graduated. How'd she do it? Went to a job fair, met with a recruiter who was only there to offer internships, and came across so darn well that they created a job opening.

If you TRY hard, prepare well and have the moxie to sell yourself by interviewing well, there are jobs out there. The degree will help you get them.

Anyone who tells you something different has a political axe to grind, or is trying to sell their own view of the world - which may be true for them, but not for you.
 
#7
I turned it off after several minutes of absolute statements without proof. The final straw was a guy stating "as inflation continues to skyrocket" as if that were a fact--uh, it's not. The economy is sluggish, but we're not seeing skyrocketing inflation.
fdeck said:
Would you mind summarizing the main points of the video?
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That would require typing. The OP only posts links.
 
#8
fdeck said:
Would you mind summarizing it?
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I've only seen half of it and will finish the rest later, but so far:

1. The rate of college tuition prices have been increasing astronomically in recent years, as has the average amount of debt taken on by college students and their families. In the past, students would graduate with only a few hundred or few thousands of dollars worth of student debt. These days most students graduate with $20,000+ of student debt.

2. The money given out by the federal government for student loans through Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac will eventually create a similar bubble to the housing one which hit us not too long ago. They believe less people will be able to pay off their loans and will default on their payments, causing a sort of economic crisis.

3. As the rate of people with a college degree increases the value of actually having a degree will be lowered. This will force more people to seek even higher levels of education, take on even more debt, and become even less likely to pay off their loans. They say this is creating new, modern indentured servitude out of the American people.

4. Students wrongly believe that having a degree will guarantee them a job, car, nice house in the suburbs, and enough money to have a family. This dream is drilled into the American youth's brain from a young age and makes them believe they must attend college to become successful.

5. They believe that government intervention in our education system has lowered its standards and will hurt tax payers. Apparently the new health care reform bill had a clause in it which made it impossible (or something along those lines) for private banks to give out student loans. All loans for education now have to come from the government (I'm not sure if this is true or if I understood this correctly as I'm unaware of such a clause). They say the taxpayer will be the one who suffers as more and more students default on their loans and will have to cover other people's bill.

There's more, but that hits on the main prongs that I remember. Overall I found the video to be interesting, but there were a few of moments where I was questioning whether or not the stuff discussed was actually news to anyone. As a college student, a lot of the points made were real, "No ****, Sherlock" moments. That, and some of the points they made don't seem to have a strong base or factual backing, but are instead instances of fear mongering. Of course, this is just IMHO, YMMV, but some things they said I'd have to research further before accepting them as the gospel truth.

*edit* I just finished the video. To say the least, I am very unimpressed. The creators have an obvious agenda and political slant they're trying to push. The first half does hit on some good points (as well as a few questionable ones) in regards to education, but the second half, which focuses more on the current state of the market, just... well... words escape me, but it's a lot of ill-informed, non-sequential, and uneducated babble that doesn't add up to anything.
 
#9
I agree 100% with the text book issue it brought up at the beginning. It is a complete racket and there definitely needs to be legislation or something against it. I was shocked when I went to uni in the UK and spent a whopping 12 quid (about 15 bucks at the time) on my books for the semester. That is opposed to the usual 200-300 bucks back at Penn State. Not only is it a huge waste of cash but its also a waste of resources (oh that lovely paper industry) when you can't reuse older editions.
 
#10
I haven't watched the video, but I'd like to just comment on the summarization here.

jmattbassplaya said:
I've only seen half of it and will finish the rest later, but so far:

1. The rate of college tuition prices have been increasing astronomically in recent years, as has the average amount of debt taken on by college students and their families. In the past, students would graduate with only a few hundred or few thousands of dollars worth of student debt. These days most students graduate with $20,000+ of student debt.
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I do understand that debt has increased. However, has this been in increase in real debt or nominal debt?

2. The money given out by the federal government for student loans through Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac will eventually create a similar bubble to the housing one which hit us not too long ago. They believe less people will be able to pay off their loans and will default on their payments, causing a sort of economic crisis.
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I hear this a lot. I'm not sure about actual numbers. However, there are a ton of options when it comes to how to pay college loans, from deferrals due to economic hardship to consolidation. They're not like mortgages.

3. As the rate of people with a college degree increases the value of actually having a degree will be lowered. This will force more people to seek even higher levels of education, take on even more debt, and become even less likely to pay off their loans. They say this is creating new, modern indentured servitude out of the American people.
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This is somewhat of an endogeneity problem. Do people need higher level degrees to secure the same positions that they could get with a Bachelor's or Associate's two decades ago or does the economy demand higher levels of education due to more complexity and needed technical skills? The Bachelor degree is not a specialization degree. I can't speak for all fields, but any serious gig in the sciences has pretty much always required graduate level study.

As far as higher levels of education creating a greater debt burden - yes, that is an unfortunate part. But debt is probably easier to avoid at the graduate level than the undergrad level. They're called assistanceships. Many departments with Master's programs offer them. I don't have stats in front of me, but my guess is the majority of doctoral programs in the U.S. offer assistanceships, at least to their top performers if not all of their candidates.

4. Students wrongly believe that having a degree will guarantee them a job, car, nice house in the suburbs, and enough money to have a family. This dream is drilled into the American youth's brain from a young age and makes them believe they must attend college to become successful.
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You don't have to attend college to be successful. There are a lot of very successful people in the trades as well. Not everyone should go to college. However, not having any skills or talents that you can exploit is going to probably mean a lifetime of menial jobs.

5. They believe that government intervention in our education system has lowered its standards and will hurt tax payers. Apparently the new health care reform bill had a clause in it which made it impossible (or something along those lines) for private banks to give out student loans. All loans for education now have to come from the government (I'm not sure if this is true or if I understood this correctly as I'm unaware of such a clause). They say the taxpayer will be the one who suffers as more and more students default on their loans and will have to cover other people's bill.
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This is where it sounds like the agenda of the video is really coming in. I have my own bias, though. If it weren't for government help - and by that I mean cheap tuition at a state school as well as grants - college would have been difficult if not next to impossible for me to have attended.

*edit* I just finished the video. To say the least, I am very unimpressed. The creators have an obvious agenda and political slant they're trying to push. The first half does hit on some good points (as well as a few questionable ones) in regards to education, but the second half, which focuses more on the current state of the market, just... well... words escape me, but it's a lot of ill-informed, non-sequential, and uneducated babble that doesn't add up to anything.
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That's what it's sounding like. I don't want to sound like I have a confirmation bias, but from what you and the others are saying, I don't think I'm going to spend an hour on this. It sounds too "think tank-y."
 
#13
bmc said:
No it's not. Send me AUD $59.99 and I'll tell you why.
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:D

Even for Cashiers, College Pays Off
By DAVID LEONHARDT
ALMOST a century ago, the United States decided to make high school nearly universal. Around the same time, much of Europe decided that universal high school was a waste. Not everybody, European intellectuals argued, should go to high school.

It’s clear who made the right decision. The educated American masses helped create the American century, as the economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz have written. The new ranks of high school graduates made factories more efficient and new industries possible.

Today, we are having an updated version of the same debate. Television, newspapers and blogs are filled with the case against college for the masses: It saddles students with debt; it does not guarantee a good job; it isn’t necessary for many jobs. Not everybody, the skeptics say, should go to college.

The argument has the lure of counterintuition and does have grains of truth. Too many teenagers aren’t ready to do college-level work. Ultimately, though, the case against mass education is no better than it was a century ago.

The evidence is overwhelming that college is a better investment for most graduates than in the past. A new study even shows that a bachelor’s degree pays off for jobs that don’t require one: secretaries, plumbers and cashiers. And, beyond money, education seems to make people happier and healthier.

“Sending more young Americans to college is not a panacea,” says David Autor, an M.I.T. economist who studies the labor market. “Not sending them to college would be a disaster.”

The most unfortunate part of the case against college is that it encourages children, parents and schools to aim low. For those families on the fence — often deciding whether a student will be the first to attend — the skepticism becomes one more reason to stop at high school. Only about 33 percent of young adults get a four-year degree today, while another 10 percent receive a two-year degree.

So it’s important to dissect the anti-college argument, piece by piece. It obviously starts with money. Tuition numbers can be eye-popping, and student debt has increased significantly. But there are two main reasons college costs aren’t usually a problem for those who graduate.

First, many colleges are not very expensive, once financial aid is taken into account. Average net tuition and fees at public four-year colleges this past year were only about $2,000 (though Congress may soon cut federal financial aid).

Second, the returns from a degree have soared. Three decades ago, full-time workers with a bachelor’s degree made 40 percent more than those with only a high-school diploma. Last year, the gap reached 83 percent. College graduates, though hardly immune from the downturn, are also far less likely to be unemployed than non-graduates.

Skeptics like to point out that the income gap isn’t rising as fast as it once was, especially for college graduates who don’t get an advanced degree. But the gap remains enormous — and bigger than ever. Skipping college because the pace of gains has slowed is akin to skipping your heart medications because the pace of medical improvement isn’t what it used to be.

The Hamilton Project, a research group in Washington, has just finished a comparison of college with other investments. It found that college tuition in recent decades has delivered an inflation-adjusted annual return of more than 15 percent. For stocks, the historical return is 7 percent. For real estate, it’s less than 1 percent.

Another study being released this weekend — by Anthony Carnevale and Stephen J. Rose of Georgetown — breaks down the college premium by occupations and shows that college has big benefits even in many fields where a degree is not crucial.

Construction workers, police officers, plumbers, retail salespeople and secretaries, among others, make significantly more with a degree than without one. Why? Education helps people do higher-skilled work, get jobs with better-paying companies or open their own businesses.

This follows the pattern of the early 20th century, when blue- and white-collar workers alike benefited from having a high-school diploma.

When confronted with such data, skeptics sometimes reply that colleges are mostly a way station for smart people. But that’s not right either. Various natural experiments — like teenagers’ proximity to a campus, which affects whether they enroll — have shown that people do acquire skills in college.

Even a much-quoted recent study casting doubt on college education, by an N.Y.U. sociologist and two other researchers, was not so simple. It found that only 55 percent of freshmen and sophomores made statistically significant progress on an academic test. But the margin of error was large enough that many more may have made progress. Either way, the general skills that colleges teach, like discipline and persistence, may be more important than academics anyway.

None of this means colleges are perfect. Many have abysmal graduation rates. Yet the answer is to improve colleges, not abandon them. Given how much the economy changes, why would a high-school diploma forever satisfy most citizens’ educational needs?

Or think about it this way: People tend to be clear-eyed about this debate in their own lives. For instance, when researchers asked low-income teenagers how much more college graduates made than non-graduates, the teenagers made excellent estimates. And in a national survey, 94 percent of parents said they expected their child to go to college.

Then there are the skeptics themselves, the professors, journalists and others who say college is overrated. They, of course, have degrees and often spend tens of thousands of dollars sending their children to expensive colleges.

I don’t doubt that the skeptics are well meaning. But, in the end, their case against college is an elitist one — for me and not for thee. And that’s rarely good advice.

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Why College Brings a Huge Return - NYTimes.com

I guess my parents and the government should stop wasting money for my education ;)
 
#14
My wife and I firmly believe that a good eduation gives you more options in life. It has worked for us both and it is proving itself with our daughters, one of which has a semester to finish her undergrad, and the other who starts a post grad in Paris in seven weeks.

Like it or not, our society embraces higher education and this is reflected in pay scales and promotion opportunities. It's just a fact of life.
 
#17
Pilgrim said:
That video (which I spot-checked) has all the elements of propaganda. It manipulates "facts" and interprets them in a way calculated to point to its own debatable conclusions.
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All the elements of propoganda? Sort of like when I sat in my International Business class in 1999, and my professor told us that we would all be making over $100,000.00 in the next 10 years due to the emerging "global economy".


**Honestly, 10 years ago as a college grad., my degree opened up a few nice doors for me, and I Did well. However, int he downtown, over the past 5years, my degree hasnt meant sh*t.
 
#18
bmc said:
My wife and I firmly believe that a good eduation gives you more options in life. It has worked for us both and it is proving itself with our daughters, one of which has a semester to finish her undergrad, and the other who starts a post grad in Paris in seven weeks.

Like it or not, our society embraces higher education and this is reflected in pay scales and promotion opportunities. It's just a fact of life.
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I see a lot of bilateral (schools and students) desire for too much applied learning and little to no critical thinking courses (philosophy/logic being a basis to them).

That's a slippery slope into studying your field without knowing why and if it's a good decision.
 
#19
From my point of view, starting out life thousands in debt is nothing compared to being in the middle of life with no money, and no way to exercise the job experience accrued over the course of the previous decade.

If I had my Associate's Degree already (just a few classes shy, back in school) I'd be going to work by now instead of posting on TB.

Just my point of view, yours may vary, but I'd love to hear from people who are employed in a field outside of their degree, who are crushed by the burden of paying off their student debt. Most people I've met gripe about their unpaid student loans, but I've only met one person who said their degree was a complete waste of time and a bad move. I've met and worked with tons more wishing they'd stayed in school.
 
#20
bmc said:
My wife and I firmly believe that a good eduation gives you more options in life. It has worked for us both and it is proving itself with our daughters, one of which has a semester to finish her undergrad, and the other who starts a post grad in Paris in seven weeks.

Like it or not, our society embraces higher education and this is reflected in pay scales and promotion opportunities. It's just a fact of life.
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I agree completely! If not for my education, I wouldn't have been qualified for my job. Now, the qualifications were to have a college degree, not any specific degree. I asked why, my employers said it showed(proved) a degree of academic discipline. Like a receipt or proof of purchase and proof of completion.

My wife works in medicine. I really don't need to argue the fact that doctors, PA's and Nurses need higher education do I? If you don't understand, go to a doctor.

Not to mention, my College days were the BEST!!!
 

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