OT: College tuition rip-off

[Higgs Boson]

Our college-age children are being ripped off by Wall Street not just in Ca lif, per below article, but in **every*** state!

On the one hand, we're told that our children will never get good jobs with out a college degree. On the other hand, they're enslaved for decades to r epay skyrocketing predatory tuition loans. Is this OK with you? I thought not!

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Tell the Dept. of Education: Investigate predatory lending to students & sc hools

Our state's public universities and community colleges are drowning in debt to Wall Street ****due to predatory loans,**** and the schools have respon ded by passing the cost of these bad loans on to students in the form of HI GHER tuition fees. In the last 10 years, tuition has increased ***114%*** a t the University of California, ***134% at California State Universities,** and by ***43%*** at community colleges.

California's public higher education system is one of the largest and most highly regarded in the world. These public institutions are meant to be pla ces that foster new ideas and scientific breakthroughs, ****NOT yet another way for Big Banks to bleed the rest of us for profit.***

THE GOOD NEWS is that the U.S. Dept. of Education is conducting townhall me etings and could investigate these predatory loans if we put pressure on th em.

Tell the U.S. Dept. of Education: ****Investigate how much profit Wall Stre et and other lenders are making off our public colleges ****and crack down on predatory lending to our schools and students.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

***Ask him about the townhall meeting in your area.*** Show up and make no ise. It's YOUR tax money and YOUR children.

HB

[Stormin Mormon]

predatory tuition loans.

Is this OK with you? I thought not!

Investigate predatory lending to students & schools

Investigate how much profit Wall Street and other lenders are making off our public colleges ****

area.*** Show up and make noise. It's YOUR tax money and YOUR children.

1) emotional outrage 2) blame Rich Wall Street 3) go to the government to punish the rich

Right out of the lib/dem play book.

[philoÂÂ]

I went to school under the GI bill back in the early 70's.

I was making something like $400 a month and when I graduated I did not have a penny in debt. I paid my tuition and books from the 400 bucks plus the money I earned by painting houses during the summer.

[Fat-Dumb and Happy]

The recent gov't shut down showed us how well people manage their money. Fed employees, well paid fed employees, crying about how they couldn't pay their bills or put food on the table when they missed a couple of weeks worth of paycheck. The colleges raised tuition because they could, the easy loan system made it all possible. You want your kids to go to college then pay for it out of pocket.

[Percival P. Cassidy]

Yes. And the same for K-12 education? If not, why not?

Perce

[Tony944]

Yep! I paid for my kids and they worked part time but no freebies as some people gets today, and I do not have any English schooling but the hard work!!!

[Moe DeLoughan]

The major offenders are the trade schools and online 'universities' that charge outrageously high fees compared to conventional colleges. To add insult to injury, they have abysmally low graduation and post-graduation employment rates. These organizations are designed to fleece students of their money, not to educate them. In many cases, the diplomas or certificates they grant are viewed with laughter by prospective employers. It's a real crime what they do to returning veterans in particular: charging them the moon in exchange for giving them a sub-par education accompanied by a worthless degree that won't get them a decent job.

If anyone you know is considering getting an education from one of these alternative schools, look into it carefully. Compare tuition costs, graduation rates, and post-employment rates. Odds are they can get a much better (and more legitimate) education for a lot less money from a local community college or public university.

The sad reality is, college degrees have in large part are used only as screening tools used by employers to thin out the numbers of applicants. Just require a college degree even when the job doesn't require it, and you reduce the number of applicants to a far more manageable number.

[Ralph Mowery]

The company I retired from about 2 years ago has been cutting pay for the last several years. They are now making less per hour than they were over

10 years ago. Then the insurance went up and the 4 % matching 401k went away.

When I left the company at 62 I was bring home more counting social security and the pension than I was making. One thing that helped the SS was for a number of years I had worked a lot of overtime in the years past. If I start taking out about 5 % from my 401k (now IRA) each year I will be even beter off retired.

The bad thing for tax payers and good for the fed workers is they got back pay for those couple of weeks of 'vacation'.

[Ralph Mowery]

Friend of mine tought some courses at a comunity college. He did not understand the system. He actually tried to teach the students and failed about half his class. After that he was told he was no longer needed for the classes.

He just did not understand that most of the students were there being payed by the company they worked for. They had to have a C or B average to get repayed for the classes. The college just wanted graduated numbers and did not care about the education quality.

[Kurt Ullman]

Actually that is a very good question. K-12 education is every bit as bloated as the colleges, and we don't get a lot of worth from it any more. We rank internationally on education about as low as we do for healthcare. Without the gnashing of teeth and calls for action. Between 1978 and 2010, the CPI went up 107%, medical inflation doubled, and college education ***466.80% (inflationdata.com)

[Kurt Ullman]

The information doesn't support that. At least the figure I cited earlier (with CPI ~100%, college inflation 466% between 1985 ans 2010) were from the College Board and were specifically only for 4-year colleges.

This is true, but something different from the general cost inflation.

>

[Kurt Ullman]

If you think about it this was just taking the decades-long model applied to football and basketball players and applying it to the entire school.....

[krw]

I'm making the same as I was in 1997. I sure wouldn't starve if I missed a paycheck.

So you gamed the system. Including overtime in retirement calculations is simply stupid.

+1

Criminal.

[Frank]

Big surprise. The government makes more money available for something and prices increase. Then the government blames someone else and there are people dumb enough like you to believe them. How about those predatory insurance companies vis a vis Obamacare?

[Wes Groleau]

There are those students who are never told that there are huge numbers of scholarships and grants available--all the need is to look them up and apply.

Government intervention might help here.

There are others (I am well acquainted with two of them) who are told, and think accepting the loan is easier.

If you ban the loans, these kids will just find some other way to get their hard knocks.

And there is the tiny minority who listen to advice and leave college with little or no debt.

These are the ones the politicians are afraid of.

[hrhofmann]

The Chicago chapter of my engineering society has scholarship money availab le to students who meet fairly minimal qualifications. It amazes me that w e consistently have a minimal number of applicants each semester. When I w ent to school, I grubbed for every dollar that I could get.

[dadiOH]

Debt (loans) wasn't available when I went to college so I used the GI Bill ($135/month, I was married). I also worked for the local newspaper 20-40 hours a week; weekends I did dance photos.

I left college debt free with a new car and the equivalent of $20,000 2013 dollars in the bank.

[VinnyB]

On Wed, 06 Nov 2013 15:44:13 -0500, Kurt Ullman wrote in Re Re: OT: College tuition rip-off:

Well put.

[VinnyB]

On Wed, 6 Nov 2013 09:59:49 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson wrote in Re OT: College tuition rip-off:

Well, anyone who falls for the "never get good jobs without a college degree" b.s. is not very smart and is probably wasting their time in college to begin with. Stupid people are exploited everywhere and by many different groups, e.g. capitalists, religions, politicians, socialists, unions...

Get over it and devote more time to smartening up.

[Percival P. Cassidy]

That supports the assertion made recently in another ng -- that (some, at least) US degrees are of poor quality. I virtually lived in the lecture hall and the library when I was in college in another country. No way I could have worked 40 hours a week plus weekends and got decent results.

And does that GI Bill -- or anything like it -- still exist?

Perce