A coed's solution for student debt

[MatureDJ]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/your-money/student-loans/30money.html

If you want to become a public defender, Georgetown University can be a great place to get your legal education. So Heather Gatnarek expects to take on well over $100,000 of debt to get her law degree there and hopes to graduate in three years.

Here’s the problem, though. She’s relying on a new federal program that forgives part of the student loan debt for graduates who enter public service fields. And she was scared out of her mind when she read a New York Times article on Wednesday on problems in Kentucky, where significant cuts in one of its loan forgiveness programs have put thousands of indebted public school teachers and nurses in a painful financial squeeze.

“I would be completely up a creek” without a loan forgiveness program, Ms. Gatnarek said. “I don’t know what I would do. Marry someone rich, I guess."

Even a supposedly independent, career-focused coed looks upon a rich husband as a savior. :kick:

BTW, I don't think her sexual market value is high enough to pull that off. :yes:

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

most girls imagine that could get married to a rich guy if they really tried, it's just they've more important fish to fry.

Just like most guys imagine they could seduce a real hot lady if they really tried, only they've bigger fish to fry.

Self deception is a common skill.

 

[sodbuster]

Well, MEN usually have an idea of their value- we get dates and turned down by enough women to know the scale we have to work with. If we caught Angelina in a drunk and horny mood-we'd think we got lucky. IF a woman ended up with Brad in the same situation,she'd think that level was what she truely deserved

 

[Nutz]

Dang! If only comments were still accepted...

This one really bugged me:

12. Dave
Manhattan, KS
May 30th, 2009
9:46 am

I'm a bit dismayed at the self-congratulating haste to blame the recipients of such programs whose educations cost more than they will earn in the low-paying, socially beneficial professions that require those educations. No, I'm not such a beneficiary. But no, I think these are not a wast of precious government money. By comparison: recruits into the military are not charged for their basic training--the education that is required for their profession. If a realistic accounting of what such training costs were to be funded by recruits, to be paid for by loans... It's difficult to see just how this would work, isn't it?

Absolutely those people deserve blame. It's called being accountable for their actions. And yes it's usually women who we're talking about here wrt the low paying service industry jobs tied to the govt. Women generally go for the feel-good jobs instead of going after a career that pays the damn bills. This is one of the reasons for the wage gap, and it's also why that gap is justified. Women generally take lower paying jobs! Forgiving their debt or supplementing their income with social programs isn't the way to go. Cutting the numbers of people flooding those careers, as in supply and demand, that's what will improve their pay.

This program is just another step in the long line of entitlement mentality women expect from society. Makes a lot more sense when you realize exactly who it is that will be benefiting from this program. The large majority, upwards of 70-80%, will be women.

Bottom line is if you knowingly rack up $50-100K in debt going to school for a degree that will pay peanuts, that's your own dumbass fault.

 

[Luthor Rex]

How much is that degree worth?

 

[Nutz]

How much is that degree worth?

For a second there I thought it was going to be this article:

http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/03/10/english-degree-worth-8-55-per-hour/

 

[squirrels]

College is possibly the biggest, most socially accepted marketing gimmick of all time, contested only by the diamond engagement ring.

Colleges used to be for two kinds of people...highly motivated people who wanted specific knowledge to do something with it, and academics who wanted to explore their fields and learn more about the world.

As time went on, people saw a lot of the college graduates making a LOT more money than them, which was appropriate because these people had often busted arse or had a passion for what they did, earning them more compensation for their work in their fields.

After a while, the "middle step", the hard work, was lost from the equation. Instead of "go to college -> hard work -> profit", the equation became, "go to college -> ????? -> profit".

It became such common knowledge that colleges and universities abandoned academic integrity and started using the "new academic equation" as a marketing tactic.

And the schools bought into it hook, line, and sinker. They used to have different educational "tracks" for students...some academic and tailored toward college, some more technical and tailored toward trades, etc. But the school boards started basing school accolades and school funding over how many kids made it to college, considering it the ultimate measure of a school's academic value. So ALL students were encouraged to try to go to college.

Now you have a sh!tload of kids in college who just don't BELONG there, trying to decide what to do with themselves academically. What should I major in? What is my future? WHY AM I EVEN HERE??

Then "liberal arts" was created...a series of bullsh!t majors based on pseudo-intellectualism to support all of the students who weren't motivated, who were uninterested in learning, and were just in college to "pass so they could make lots of money".

After that, Universities became "13th grade". Essentially a complex and expensive adult day-care program, cramming kids' heads with nonsense they were almost certain to immediately forget and then after 4 years of sucking them dry of money, handing them a sheepskin and certifying them to work in a cubicle farm somewhere.

As more and more kids went to college, western businesses found themselves with a SELECTION of college-educated candidates. So having a bachelor's degree became a standard way of "weeding out" job applicants. Even if a degree was mostly irrelevant to the position, they somehow figured that these kids coming out of these schools with these bullsh!t majors were somehow "more responsible" than non-college candidates and they had so many of them that they could afford a weed-out like this.

Part of it, too, is that businesses are looking for someone who will "buy into a program" and stick with it for 4 years. Which is basically the life of an undergrad.

Once businesses started to weed out prospective employees this way, the colleges saw dollar-signs in their eyes. Now they could advertise not only that college COULD get you higher pay, but that college WAS A REQUIREMENT for any decent-paying job.

What happens next? They take in more students, build more dorms, beef up the lib-tard arts programs, and...you guessed it...jack up tuition.

College has been sold on the American public as such a necessity that universities are free to charge what they WANT. Students and families are willing to go into EXTREME debt for that sheepskin that entitles them to that cushy office-job. "Finance against future earnings!" That's their motto. The colleges don't care as long as they get paid.

Hell, the liberal entities in the government are even willing to step in and PAY FOR the less-privileged students to go to college. And once you get a government deal...woo-hoo!! Tenured professors and administrators making money hand-over-fist, cramming kids into classrooms to "process" them, getting rich people's trust funds, poor people's government grants, and every manner of student loan money in between.

Sooner or later, the third part of the equation gets lost as well. People are so used to the "go to college" idea that some even forget why they're doing it, just assuming that it's the "thing to do".

So we went from:

college -> hard work -> profit
to college -> ????? -> profit
to college -> ????? -> ?????

What we see now is people literally financing away ALL of the earnings promised to them by the university systems just to PAY for the cost of that education. For many it becomes a zero-sum game. They finance away their lives to get their education, then spend the rest of their days in servitude to those loans.

None of it makes a lick of sense.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

Nicely thought out and very well written essay Mr. Squirrels.

Well done.

 

[Teflon_Mcgee]

I just want to say a few things.

1. I got a BS without going more than 13000 in debt. I had no help from anybody and at times worked two jobs.

2. Most degrees are worthless. Some are not. The ones that are not require hard work.

3.Anybody who goes into deep debt to get an education is stupid unless they come from money.

4.Anybody can get a college education without going into debt if they are not completely lazy.

 

[squirrels]

I just want to say a few things.

1. I got a BS without going more than 13000 in debt. I had no help from anybody and at times worked two jobs.

2. Most degrees are worthless. Some are not. The ones that are not require hard work.

3.Anybody who goes into deep debt to get an education is stupid unless they come from money.

4.Anybody can get a college education without going into debt if they are not completely lazy.

Mine is worthless save for the fact that I am "college-educated" when I go to apply for jobs, as noted in my speech above.

I got mine on scholarship mostly. I took out maybe 2-3K in student loans, which were repaid within a couple months of my graduation. For a couple YEARS after that, I kept getting (and throwing out) offers to consolidate student loans that no longer existed. Finally they stopped coming.

That's when they hit you with the alumni assocation "requests for donation", the University Credit Card deals, etc.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

Another Timely Article - Same General Subject

From the New York Times

Headline: dude spends 30K on trade school and now makes $12 an hour.

http://finance.yahoo.com/college-ed...n-hard-times-lured-into-trade-school-and-debt

One fast–growing American industry has become a conspicuous beneficiary of the recession: for–profit colleges and trade schools.

At institutions that train students for careers in areas like health care, computers and food service, enrollments are soaring as people anxious about weak job prospects borrow aggressively to pay tuition that can exceed $30,000 a year.

and then..

"If these programs keep growing, you're going to wind up with more and more students who are graduating and can't find meaningful employment," said Rafael I. Pardo, a professor at Seattle University School of Law and an expert on educational finance. "They can't generate income needed to pay back their loans, and they're going to end up in financial distress."

 

[Nutz]

From the New York Times

Headline: dude spends 30K on trade school and now makes $12 an hour.

http://finance.yahoo.com/college-ed...n-hard-times-lured-into-trade-school-and-debt



and then..

And around and around we go again. The same exact thing happened 5-10 years ago with the MCSE & CCNA IT certifications. Cert mills pumped them out by the thousands and suddenly all the jobs dried up because of the huge increase in competition.

Supply & Demand people.

 

[backbreaker]

I remember distanly, sitting down at our high school graduation and my best friend, h appens to have a last name that is very similar to mine so he was one spot behind me, and the whole time was trying to convince me to go to school with him (college) and was telling me I was making a mistake.

he has over 80k in debt, a "audio engineer degree" (he is good but still).. and works at the local gym in little rock.

And around and around we go again. The same exact thing happened 5-10 years ago with the MCSE & CCNA IT certifications. Cert mills pumped them out by the thousands and suddenly all the jobs dried up because of the huge increase in competition.

hey damnit I was one of those! lol

I got my A+, CIW and MCSE

I will say, that the only one that remotely helped me actually GET a job is the A + and the only reason I got that is becuase I was already working there (best buy) as a customer service rep. I went to the gm and told him I was getting my A + and wanted to transfer he said okay.

"when i first transfered to the "tech bay" i was a fish out of water. I could do new pc system checks and that's about it. it took me about 8 months of working there to become a true techie.. where you could leave me back there by msyelf and i could fix damn near anything.

and even then, it took me leaving best buy and starting my own company to really learn how to build a computer, at least a bad ass one that people would want to buy.

my point is I guess, I will take experience over schooling 7 days a week. My Adobe Flex guy did not even finish high school and would run circles around most in college going to get computer information system degrees.

My dad got his MCSE and calls me becuase he doesn't know to get his daughters files off his computer. seriously.



Also, I have experience on the other side. AS some know I owned a computer company and well.. we had to hire people. I remember when we were hiring techs, literary, like 80% of the people that came in had the EXACT same qualifications. Either A +, ITT Tech or some BS computer information systems degree.

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.


now granted, these were not plug and play pc's... AT the time Sata had really just hit the scene so we had sATA hard drives and water cooling units and the whole gig, but we sale those so you had to know how to do them.

I guess these people just thought that they were entitled to a job becuase they have a degree.


To be honest, that's what is going on with the outsourcing of web work now. it's not necessary that the work is cheaper... the work is in most cases..BETTER... becuase they actually go to school to learn real **** over in India.. and believe it or not most Indian firms aren't that cheap.

Americans, the ones with half ass talent, have this sense of entitlement that because they have learned a skill and are somewhat good at it they have the right to charge you $85 an hour. It isn't so much that India does it cheaper, Americans are overpricing their work. I paid 10,000 to get our first website built for our company. Today It would be about a $3,00 dollar website, and probably have a few additional belles and whistles because those developers (American) weren't that good. it was good looking but I had to settle for not having some functionality that I wanted becuase it "would have jacked up the price". What I have found is that the avg american, who has something at stake in what they wanting developed has no problem paying a FAIR rate for a PROFESSIONAL product. What they will not do is pay $100 an hour for half ass work or even if it's great when someone else will do the same thing for $30 an hour.

that's the problem in the web development business. overhead and entitlement.

you still have the client, not many, that litearrly just look for the highest prices and want to see 150 page draw-ups and get on a conference with 3 directors and basically wast time so they can feel like they are doing something really important.. but they are few and far in between.

It's very hard to find good work.

 

[RMM]

If you think that's bad, consider many of the fields in Science, where you are expected to have your college degree AND spend several years getting your Ph.D., which typically ends up with a string of "post-doc" short term positions that earn you a few peanuts and "work experience."

By the time you're 35, you're ready to start at the bottom of the earning ladder for real scientists and start paying your student debt. Lovely, ain't it?

 

[Nutz]

If you think that's bad, consider many of the fields in Science, where you are expected to have your college degree AND spend several years getting your Ph.D., which typically ends up with a string of "post-doc" short term positions that earn you a few peanuts and "work experience."

By the time you're 35, you're ready to start at the bottom of the earning ladder for real scientists and start paying your student debt. Lovely, ain't it?

If that's what they want to do and go through to get that position, then so be it. Comes down to wants vs needs balanced against personal responsibility. There's lots of jobs I'd love to do, but I don't want the huge debt to get the degree, nor the pay cut from what I'm doing now.

 

[squirrels]

Remember when they had those commercials on the radio for computer training dot com and those other companies? I laughed at how the ads changed over time.

First they were, "Did you know that the average salary of a Microsoft Certified professional is over 80,000 dollars??"

Then maybe 6 months later, "Are you aware that the average salary of a Microsoft Certified professional is over 60,000 dollars??"

Then 6 months after that, "Are you still stuck in a job making 20 or 30 thousand dollars a year, when the average salary of a Microsoft Certified employee is still over...", then they cut in with, "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" because they don't even want to TELL you what the "average" is any more?

 

[Nutz]

Remember when they had those commercials on the radio for computer training dot com and those other companies? I laughed at how the ads changed over time.

First they were, "Did you know that the average salary of a Microsoft Certified professional is over 80,000 dollars??"

Then maybe 6 months later, "Are you aware that the average salary of a Microsoft Certified professional is over 60,000 dollars??"

Then 6 months after that, "Are you still stuck in a job making 20 or 30 thousand dollars a year, when the average salary of a Microsoft Certified employee is still over...", then they cut in with, "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" because they don't even want to TELL you what the "average" is any more?

Yup, remember them well. They've tapered off too I noticed. Almost never hear ads for them anymore. Strange given the huge presence of IT in our area. Guess they realizing that the averages they were spouting off also assumed a high level security clearance since all the high paying jobs in this area for that sort of work is for one of the govt agencies around here.

 

[TheHumanist]

This is worrisome to read, I'm in college right now as a Computer science major, so it is not completely BS versus liberal arts as Squirrels noted, but seems as RMM seem to point, it seems to say sciences are not very valuable either.

While I do have the learn for the sake of learning philosophy (I gave thought about college before too), but the practical aspect is important too. As good to gain more understanding, being massively in debt and etc a massive burden (I don't think I'm in to much debt with federal and state loans to me).

There's still value of a cs degree right. Okay, I know if I can get into working for Google, then it payed off, but I don't want to be one of those guys who just because they have a piece of paper, thinks that I'm entitled to a well-paying job, but productively worthless.

BTW 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.

 

[Dust 2 Dust]

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.

 

[Teflon_Mcgee]

This is worrisome to read, I'm in college right now as a Computer science major, so it is not completely BS versus liberal arts as Squirrels noted, but seems as RMM seem to point, it seems to say sciences are not very valuable either.

While I do have the learn for the sake of learning philosophy (I gave thought about college before too), but the practical aspect is important too. As good to gain more understanding, being massively in debt and etc a massive burden (I don't think I'm in to much debt with federal and state loans to me).

There's still value of a cs degree right. Okay, I know if I can get into working for Google, then it payed off, but I don't want to be one of those guys who just because they have a piece of paper, thinks that I'm entitled to a well-paying job, but productively worthless.

BTW 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.

You'll do alright with a CS degree. I'm an engineer and work with programmers. Programmers are needed everywhere. In fact, sometimes I think they have it better than engineers.