Is College Worth the Investment?

[ham]

You don't need a degree to start a successful business. It's time to accept that college can put shackles on some of our best and brightest. College was once considered a stepping stone but now has become a stumbling block for countless innovators of tomorrow. Let's accept the fact that the next Apple, Microsoft and Facebook won't be inspired by reading textbooks. Together, we can embrace the future and give the next Ford, Jobs, Gates, and Zuckerberg the freedom necessary to succeed.

That's as deceptive as the education cartel's propaganda.
Let's face it.
THEY are telling you that in order to be-come- the main character in one of those Michael J. Fox's success movies you have to get a degree; HE is telling you that you have to try your hand on the free market squandering whichever money you may have, beg, borrow or steal onto the dream of becoming the next Carnegie or Gates.
Most of whom are Barnums and swindlers anyways (Worldcom/Enron anyone? Lehman Brothers perhaps? Madoff?), who con the hopefuls with either junk or irrelevant services such as a geocities revamped to become facebook.
Oh yea, the guy made trillions and he's riding a limousine for every finger...so did Madoff, Worldcom, Enron etc...and so does the guy behind the Nth version of herbal-viagra-that-really-works-for-only-19.99...PFFT!
How real is that?
As if THAT was as easy as raking in money after getting a MBA...please...
Almost 20 years ago I - as part of an international team- developed an internet application. We tried to market it without success. No patrons. Perhaps we were too stupid...we had no connections, right background and party cards indeed...it was a flop.
Years later, the same application surfaced, still in use today...those other guys had the right luck, skin color, party card, whatever...
For every one Carnegie there are millions upon millions of hopefuls who fail after squandering money, which is what fuels the American dream after all...
The life that awaits 98 or 99% (yes, ninety-nine percent) of us is the headache gray, dead-end life of the average schmuck with not much going on for him, ever.
Does it chap your a$s?
Then bet your savings on that new stock-market tiger...you know, like the Madoff portfolio used to be...

[Martin Eisenstadt]

College Creates Plenty Of Debt But Not Much Skill
February 25, 2013 by Gerald Todd

Our children’s opportunities to learn based on technological advances has been more than offset by the loss of appreciation of literature and the humanities – including history, theology, philosophy and even economics. Our old friend Jon T. Barton, a classical violinist wrote an 800 page 2 volume work called “The Bible in Western Literature.” He co-authored with attorney John Whitehead a 1981 book, “Schools on Fire” – a prophetic work warning of the now deplorable and unnecessarily expensive condition of American education.

I met a young man recently with a degree in “Environmental Studies” from screwball UCal/Santa Cruz, home of the Banana Slugs. His student loan is $90,000 and he still can’t get a job. His girlfriend has a degree in Psychology and is only $60,000 in debt and can’t get a job either. In a two class society, only the wealthy and their satraps will be able to get a college education.

My Grandson’s Saudi ex-roommate at University of Alaska/Anchorage rolled out his prayer mat then went out to play. He wasn’t hungry to learn so he was happy to return home to his Ferrari’s and servants – compliments of American technology and insane energy, environmental and foreign policies. The “progressives” have created the biggest educational jerk circle in history and we all let them get away with it. History hasn’t been kind to such nations and empires. We’re intelligent enough to turn it around, but are we wise enough?

With the prevailing attitude that every kid should go to college or he’s a loser, we’ve lost much of our ability to make things, provide employment for all skill and intellectual levels and to maintain infrastructure and beauty. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are classic examples of men who eschewed college to avoid stifling their creativity or be drawn into the perverse world of political correctness. I want my grandkids to think out of their own boxes before they get destroyed by academia and debt as they set their life goals.

My old Cockney friend Leon Shaw made a part for my rare Omega Sea Master watch when Omega in NY couldn’t fix it. He also repaired Big Ben in London and dozens of ancient fancy gold embellished clocks from Brentwood after the earthquake in LA. He even rebuilt a cheap Chinese lathe and converted it to a precision auto-feed miniature parts turning lathe. He made all the stable vortex flowmeter and nozzle parts we designed and tested. He was a displaced Brit after WWII when England took a dive like the “progressives” are doing to us now. Their brain drain helped improve our once vaunted “Yankee ingenuity” – now better known as “Yangtze ingenuity” for obvious reasons.

My boys made usable kitchen spatula’s at Bakersfield’s Chipman JHS in the 1970’s. They learned to measure, cut, file, bend, forge, drill, grind, carve, polish and rivet – all needed to make a simple wood-handled aluminum spatula. We still have one and use it regularly.

Our young people of all backgrounds must be our pride and joy. Our hope and prayer for them is to creatively apply their considerable gifts and talents while growing in wisdom and grace. Who could ask for anything more?

[Harrison J Bounel]

Let’s Help Academia Destroy Itself
Kurt Schlichter
Mar 04, 2013

Conservatives should welcome the decline of academia as we know it. I, for one, will celebrate its death by engaging in the same activity that characterized my four years at what some call its pinnacle– drinking a lot of Coors Light.

There is still nostalgia among conservatives, especially older ones who have forgotten what college is really like, for the idea of higher education as a rigorous venue for intellectual growth, an environment of exciting and vibrant ideas shared by wise, caring educators dedicated to the pursuit of truth.

Today, it is nothing of the sort.

For the vast majority of traditional, liberal arts students, college is a four-year blur of cheap alcohol and tawdry hooks-ups, with their few sober moments characterized by interaction with pony-tailed TAs spouting off about “patriarchal paradigms” and trying to pick up on cute sophomores. Worse, this bacchanalia will saddle the participants with a couple hundred thousand in student debt that they get to carry off into real life, where they will discover that the only thing their degrees in Comparative Norwegian Feminist Literature qualify them for is exciting careers in the world of artisanal coffee retailing.

Call it the College-Progressive Complex. The first part consists of the schools themselves, with their herds of administrators, professors and impoverished grad students chasing the brass tenure ring. Think of it as a liberal tick, sucking blood and growing fatter off the efforts of Americans who actually produce something while contributing nothing to society except the clearly secondary contributions of those few in the fields of science and mathematics.

The other component of the Complex is the progressive element. Colleges and universities serve as a reservoir of leftism in society that serves several functions for those trying to turn America into a less blonde, less macho Sweden. First, it provides a taxpayer-subsidized lifestyle for millions of liberal voters to enjoy without actually having to produce anything. No wonder university types vote 95% for Democrats – they are voting themselves a salary and a sinecure. It’s welfare for people with graduate degrees and “Coexist” bumper stickers.

The Complex also provides an infrastructure for developing progressive ideas and a stage for agitation. It provides leftist access to the vulnerable minds of the future leaders of the nation, making the Complex a tool for the indoctrination of progressive obsessions that people in the real world would reject out of hand. Try talking about the importance of transcending traditional gender roles to an iron worker – he’ll probably think you’re hitting on him.

Sure, there are some relevant areas of study within the Complex, generally ones involving numbers. Rule of thumb: If it doesn’t require that you know calculus, it’s a phony major. The hard sciences are just afterthoughts today – Chemistry is boring and hard, but Oppressions Studies is so cutting edge! Yet, it is unclear why research and the training of scientists and mathematicians and such could not be done more efficiently in the real world. Bill Gates is famous for not being a Harvard alumnus – many of the high tech visionaries dropped out of school and found their own way out in the – gasp! – free market.

So, how does the Complex work? It’s actually kind of brilliant. It convinces otherwise intelligent people that their children must have a sub-par, dubiously useful product and then charges them through the nose for it. The government helps by providing loans at subsidized rates, but which can never be discharged. Make no mistake – the government is in on the scam. Every time the Complex hikes its fees, the government increases loans, which sparks more price hikes, in a vicious circle that leads to 50 year olds carrying $100,000 in non-dischargeable debt.

Except now the higher education bubble (to quote Instapundit Glenn Reynolds) is bursting. People are starting to see that maybe getting that piece of paper isn’t worth carrying around an anchor of debt for the next three decades. It makes no sense to go into hock when there is no job waiting at the other end of the tunnel. No, that’s not a light down there at the other end – it’s an oncoming train.

Look at how law school applications are in free fall. I hire lawyers and train them myself. They usually have about $200,000 in debt. To service that debt, I’d have to pay them about $133,333 per year. Do you think I pay a kid with zero experience $133,333 a year? There are far too many graduates and too few jobs, so I can hire a new lawyer for $50,000 – which is less than I made when I started 20 years ago. And that’s one near the top of his class at a prestigious school. Supply and demand is awesome for me; for young people, who largely voted for Obama, not so much. They get the hope but those of us who are established in liberal-approved fields like the law get to keep the change.

So, we have a higher education system that 1) empowers our opponents, 2) costs too much to both individuals and taxpayers, and 3) provides a crappy product 4) for which there is little market. What can’t go on won’t go on, and we conservatives need to help the Complex to die, preferably without dignity.

Let’s start by rejecting the insane notion that everyone should go to college. Fortunately, the old idea that your kid is a failure (meaning you, as a parent, are a failure) if he didn’t go to college is fading away. There are plenty of successful folks out there who avoided the schooling scam. In fact, getting some real life experience actually doing something useful is now the guarantee of a good career that college used to be.

Electricians, technicians, plumbers – people like that can't not get a job for good money. Let the smug gal with the sociology degree sneer at the auto mechanic pulling in $75,000 a year as she hands him his grande Javan Sunrise. Maybe her tribal tatts and self-esteem will keep her warm when she and her roommates can’t pay the gas company.

While common sense and caveat emptor will put two rounds in its chest, technology will put the coup de grace in the Complex’s head. A decade from now, why will someone bother sitting in a huge lecture hall listening to some second-string professor drone on and on when he can download a lecture by a Nobel Prize winner for free? “Bueller, Bueller, Bueller” is going to be replaced by logging in when and where it’s convenient.

The centuries-old lecture hall model will crumble. Distance learning is coming, and while the big name schools like Harvard will always have suckers lined up to park their kids for a four year vacation, the mid- and low-prestige schools are going to dry up and blow away. One piece of the puzzle, credentialing (which is all higher education is about anyway), needs to be worked through, but once folks like me who hire people realize that there is little meaningful difference between on-line degrees and in-person ones, the levee will break.

And we conservatives should rejoice at the resulting tsunami that will wash away one of the left’s most powerful bases of operations. Sure, the savings will be welcome and seeing liberalism lose its bully pulpit for zombifying future generations is gratifying. But the real joy will come from watching millions of the College-Progressive Complex’s inhabitants forced to actually produce something besides fascist speech codes and dissertations like A Three-Hour Cruise to Male Oppression: Gender Identity Issues on Gilligan’s Island.

Now fetch my latte, professor.

[ham]

[URL="http://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2013/03/04/lets-help-academia-destroy-itself-n1523876/page/full/"]Look at how law [/URL]school applications are in free fall.[COLOR="DarkBlue"] I hire lawyers and train them myself. They usually have about $200,000 in debt. To service that debt, I’d have to pay them about $133,333 per year. Do you think I pay a kid with zero experience $133,333 a year? There are far too many graduates and too few jobs, so I can hire a new lawyer for $50,000 – which is less than I made when I started 20 years ago. And that’s one near the top of his class at a prestigious school. Supply and demand is awesome for me; for young people, who largely voted for Obama, not so much. They get the hope but those of us who are established in liberal-approved fields like the law get to keep the change.[/COLOR]

So, we have a higher education system that 1) empowers our opponents, 2) costs too much to both individuals and taxpayers, and 3) provides a crappy product 4) for which there is little market. What can’t go on won’t go on, and we conservatives need to help the Complex to die, preferably without dignity.

Let’s start by rejecting the insane notion that everyone should go to college. Fortunately, the old idea that your kid is a failure (meaning you, as a parent, are a failure) if he didn’t go to college is fading away. There are plenty of successful folks out there who avoided the schooling scam. In fact, getting some real life experience actually doing something useful is now the guarantee of a good career that college used to be.

[COLOR="Blue"]Electricians, technicians, plumbers – people like that can't not get a job for good money. Let the smug gal with the sociology degree sneer at the auto mechanic pulling in $75,000 a year as she hands him his grande Javan Sunrise. Maybe her tribal tatts and self-esteem will keep her warm when she and her roommates can’t pay the gas company.[/COLOR]-...-The centuries-old lecture hall model will crumble. Distance learning is coming, and while the big name schools like Harvard will always have suckers lined up to park their kids for a four year vacation, the mid- and low-prestige schools are going to dry up and blow away. One piece of the puzzle, credentialing (which is all higher education is about anyway), needs to be worked through, but once folks like me who hire people realize that there is little meaningful difference between on-line degrees and in-person ones, the levee will break.

AS POSTED ELSEWHERE

A word to the wise. The other guy is reading this, too. There are so many plumbers, electricians, hairdressers, painters, welders in this locale that you may not actually believe it. Some truly know their stuff. Some 'might just do'. Many are just idiots who turned to welding after their pub folded, which was after their construction company also folded: do you catch my drift? There are no silver bullets and magic tricks. There is no greener grass on the other side of the fence. I heard stonemasons envy architects because they supposedly earn great and do next to nothing...and architects envying stonemasons...while the greatest profession, job or trade turns ideally out to be one neighbor's, this seldom proves to be the case..."oh, but that guy from the op-ed, internet chat, forum said he makes seven figures tax free and spends six months a year in Florida...Oh yea...do you really believe everything you're told? You can't beat MY GUY, tough...in addition to that, he has a line of nineteen year-old topmodels begging him for dates...and here's a secret...I DO, TOO...too bad then I wake up because it's toilet time at 4h35AM. PFFT!

[Travis Bickle]

And we conservatives should rejoice at the resulting tsunami that will wash away one of the left’s most powerful bases of operations.

Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.

[WilliamW]

Patricia Reaney, Reuters – 22 hrs.
Poll: Nearly half of US college grads are underemployed

NEW YORK - More than 40 percent of recent U.S. college graduates are underemployed or need more training to get on a career track, a poll released Tuesday showed.

The online survey of 1,050 workers who finished school in the past two years and 1,010 who will receive their degree in 2013 also found that many graduates, some heavily in debt because of the cost of their education, say they are in jobs that do not require a college degree.

Thirty-four percent said they had student loans of $30,000 or less, while 17 percent owed between $30,000 to $50,000.

"For our nation's youngest workers, as well as for the workforce at large, there is a real need for employers to reexamine how they hire, train and develop their employees," said Katherine Lavelle, of the global management consulting firm Accenture, which conducted the survey.

Nearly half, 42 percent, of recent graduates expect they will need an advanced degree to further their career and almost a quarter are already planning to take graduate courses.

More than half of graduates said it was difficult finding a job, but 39 percent were employed by the time they left college. Sixty eight percent said they are working full time, while 16 percent are in part-time positions.

The top industries that graduates wanted to work in were education, media and entertainment and healthcare.

Just over half, 53 percent, of graduates found full-time jobs in their field of study.

In addition to being underemployed, many graduates thought they would have done better in the job market if they had studied a different major, and more than half also intended to go back to school within the next five years.

The survey uncovered a gap between what students expect to earn in their first job and their actual salary. Only 15 percent of this year's graduates think they will earn less than $25,000 but a third of recent graduates said they make that amount or less.