A coed's solution for student debt

[backbreaker]

I saw the article about tech schools charging 30k a year for an AA degree. What a ripoff! I have a masters degree and I didn't even pay that much.

I'm also suspect about this new "public servant" loan program. The website says that it is income contingent/income based which means it's basically a trap to lock new college graduates into low paying government jobs.

lol, if they were smart enough to realize that, they'd be in college.

it's quite brilliant actually. people who aren't in school generally have no idea how much an education costs.

TW BB, since I'm posting here anyways, I might as well bring up that I like the idea of taking an entrepreneurial path. I have read previous posts of you talking about it, since I'm posting, might as well ask if you have anything else to say to me.

I wouldn't recommend it for ALL. I was a very unique situation like squ has alluded to, I knew what I wanted to do my junior year of high school. I was born to be a techie. I did not have to go to college to be a good techie.. I had to be a techie to be a good techie.

In the computer tech field, 4-5 years working as a REAL pc tech somewhere or installing networks is more valuable than a computer associate degree talking about installing networks or being a real pc tech. My boss at best buy did not go to college and was 36, was the lead tech guy at the biggest hospital in little rock and literary, i'm not kidding, worked at best buy just to pirate **** he was so much of a tech, he did it for fun. it was fun.. one of the pure funnest jobs I ever had.. "hey you tech.. go back here and break and build **** and we are going to pay you for it"

If I had chosen a profession that required school, I would have went. I love history and believe it or not that probably would have been my profession had it not been for computers. That requires school.

Figure out what you want to DO then figure out the best and most efficient path of getting there. In my case, all I could see was me wasting 4 years of my life. I had sold my company 2 months to the day before my 2 best friends got their college diploma's.

 

[mrRuckus]

What we did to cut the crap, is becuase they were building custom computers, we'd lay the parts to a computer in a room and simply tell them to build it.

out of 70 something people 3 could.

What the hell? I could've done that when I was 12. Seriously. My dad took me to computer shows at my request and i was constantly spending my money on hardware. (4 megs of ram!! WOOHOO!!! I'm up to 8!!!!)

I don't have any certs. I have a computer science b.s, but they don't even teach the hardware side of things very much outside of the logic of it (circuits and logic gates and such...). A bunch of CS kids didn't know anything, but plenty could build a computer if no for other reason than they wanted to play LAN games...

That's how i started. I wanted to play Master of Orion in DOS and you needed to manually configure your hardware and allocate EMS and XMS memory appropriately and junk... when i wasn't playing sports or swimming with the neighborhood kids i was geekin out on my 286/386 just breaking stuff in the process of trying to get something or other to run. There was no google to immediately run to.

I wonder if all the people you interviewed were self selected because the people who knew anything already had better jobs elsewhere.