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How America's universities became debt factories

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Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#461

Post by jltsiren »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #345
lordnacho wrote: post #47

I don't know if this is some kind of heresy, but here we go. I don't think universities provide much value at all to the common student who is not going to be a PhD. I went to a very well-known institution known for putting the students in a room with the professors, maybe two or three students, to one professor. My economics professor taught me one on one. I still think, in the end, the work is mostly done alone, in…

Not a heresy at all. I went to two of the top 5 CS schools in the US and I barely recall anything I learned in there, almost everything I know ended up being self-taught later in a much more efficient manner than being student n.200 in a class taught by a researcher who barely speaks English and doesn't want to be teaching. The main upside was associating myself with those two brand names which later got me jobs and…

When I went to a public university in Europe, I realized after a month or two that lectures are a waste of time, and I stopped attending most of them. But the structure and guidance provided by the university allowed me to study things more efficiently than I could have done on my own.

I think the key is that universities are not schools. They are places of learning, not teaching. If you go to a university and expect to be taught, you are probably wasting your time.

And that vision is not really compatible with tuition fees, because they can easily turn you from a student to a paying customer.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#462

Post by chii »

missedthecue wrote: post #414
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exactly - 12 years of education to get children ready to be citizens and not single class on how to manage a bank account, or even the most basic education about investments or actual wealth building. I kind of disagree with this. At least in my high school this was definitely taught, but at the time we were all dumb 14-17 year olds who didn’t care about any of that stuff we just wanted to know what is needed to ge…

I really don't understand the people who complain that they weren't taught about debt and loans and checking accounts. You were given a 6th grade math education, and you were taught how to read. High school classes cannot be expected to teach every possible circumstance or decision you'll find yourself in. At some point you have to self-start.

realistically, the complaint isn't about lack of things being taught at school (tho it's framed that way).

The real complaint is the lack of being told exactly what to do that leads to a path of automatic success. What they were told to do did not lead to automatic success, but is in fact, fraught with traps and dangers, most of which is avoidable but only for those with the foresight.

But i am a believer of personal responsibility, and that following the crowd (or common advice) without thinking critically about it will merely lead sheep to slaughter.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#463

Post by lmz »

bumby wrote: post #427
DiscourseFan wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a bad idea, actually, especially with all these new tools

Good idea from a job severity/ protectionist standpoint or from a “protect the craft and quality for the good of the public” sort of way?

Why not both? Even better if you have to obtain accreditation as a professional in every different market because EU software is different from US software is different from Indian software...

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#464

Post by chii »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #356
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exactly - 12 years of education to get children ready to be citizens and not single class on how to manage a bank account, or even the most basic education about investments or actual wealth building. I kind of disagree with this. At least in my high school this was definitely taught, but at the time we were all dumb 14-17 year olds who didn’t care about any of that stuff we just wanted to know what is needed to ge…

> at the time we were all dumb 14-17 year olds who didn’t care This is not teaching, it’s a fabrication Can you teach swimming to a guy who has never left Sahara desert and has never seen water? Can you teach teaching driving to a guy who’s never touched a car? Then how do we teach finance/banking to a kid who has never earned a salary, paid bills, and probably never even held more than $100 at all?

those are false equivalencies.

you can teach someone about financial concepts, without having the actual monies. These are not physical activities requiring actual mediums like driving or swimming. They are mental concepts - an extension of critical thinking and maths, with a bit of instruction following mixed in.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#465

Post by chii »

kiba wrote: post #367
maerF0x0 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people agreeing to these debts, by definition, do not have an education in complex debt instruments that cannot be discharged. I mean it's a pretty simple concept that you borrow money and you must pay it back. However we agree that the failure is that we do not educate them enough already in the first 12 years we force upon them. For that I blame a lack of options, government "standards" which become ceilings…

I am disinclined to agree with you. Homecoming, football, having fun in sports, are exactly what kids should be focused on. They should be enjoying life, not hunched over materials studying late into the night. Of course, focus on footballs, elaborate dance, and other sports can be excessive. I merely object to the excessive focus on academics, the rat race, and pressure cooker environment to get education at top ran…

> navigate life's challenge, such as avoiding scammers, how to judge quality information, how to diagnose and solve emotional challenges

where are the parent's? They're meant to be the ones teaching these non-academic education to their children.

School does not replace parenting. School is for academic studies - stuff that a parent won't have had the qualifications to teach.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#466

Post by chii »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #351
scoofy wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot the most important part. The people agreeing to these debts, by definition , do not have an education in complex debt instruments that cannot be discharged. Taking our a vast loan to study English literature might seem unwise, but it’s something I could definitely see a starry eyed 17 year old deciding to do.

> debt instruments that cannot be discharged Your regular reminder that debt bondage is a form of slavery, and is illegal in most countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage There are only two options with debt: bad debt are written off, lender takes a hit and the lender must be careful who they lend money to. Or bad debt lingers forever and accrues lucrative interest, in which case giving out bad debt is t…

> is the pledge of a person's services as security for the repayment for a debt

a student does not pledge their services as security for the debt. It's not debt bondage at all.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#467

Post by chii »

doctorwho42 wrote: post #459
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> 1) move most careers...out of the country....to the benefit of shareholders. You've hidden very carefully the causality in this sentence. Who moved them? Why? Its perhaps implied that since shareholders benefited, that they did it. Yet a careful examination reveals quickly the elephant in the room in that thesis: why did outsourcing now, and not before, if the benefit to shareholders has always been there? why di…

Well one of the reasons for outsourcing was the idea that becoming a service economy would improve our country and it's citizens... Unfortunately that turned out bust.

many citizens' lives were improved. The cheap material consumption and availability is an improvement. It's just that the benefit is so widely available that people stopped thinking of it as a benefit.

It used to be that owning a TV or radio was an expense you planned for and it had to last.

Of course there are those who were hurt from the move from blue collar manufacturing, but overall, the aggregated benefit is higher than the losses from those who were laid off. And it's not as if new industries did not spring up.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#468

Post by fortzi »

jackdaniel wrote: post #8

I wonder why there's no mention of a free education as an alternative solution to the broken system

It may be better to start with understanding why on earth the it’s so expensive to get educated in the USA, while in other countries it’s much cheaper, even when unsubsidized

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#469

Post by ProllyInfamous »

qazxcvbnmlp wrote: post #386
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a med school dropout (best decision of my life), were I to "go back" to early college: I would have instead pursued a BSN (which my college offered!), to set myself up into eventually becoming a nurse practitioner. That way, if I decided to not complete graduate school, I'd still have an applicable role/job within medicine. Were I to have graduated that program, I also would have been able to practice much earlier…

> the dumbest smart guy they know When you’re smart enough to understand the consequences the of your “dumb decisions” and have the EQ to navigate the aftermath.

It's incredible realizing that I have two decades of work experience, and have peers that have been "in the field" for less than a few years!

To each his own. I think higher education in America is primarily designed to degrate and beat students into submission.

As I've heard repeated elsewhere, the road to tenured PhD is paved with grad-student bodies.

Re: How America's universities became debt factories

#470

Post by sofixa »

dukeyukey wrote: post #352
sofixa wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The absurdly low numbers for Romania and Hungary make me think that people leaving to study abroad fall through the cracks in these stats.

If those students/graduates move to other European countries (which they mostly do), they'll be counted in their destination country, evening things out. Where did you get the idea most Europeans get a degree?

> If those students/graduates move to other European countries (which they mostly do), they'll be counted in their destination country, evening things out

If they move to the Netherlands, the NL will only count what % of its citizens have degrees, not everyone else (because many may go back or move elsewhere after finishing their studies, you can't count them easily alongside the rest of your population; students are usually counted as some sort of temporary resident, if counted at all). And then there's also the UK which is a top study destination for Eastern Europeans.

> Where did you get the idea most Europeans get a degree

I come from one EU country, live in another, have friends from all over the EU, have visited as a student and now working adult. Most young people pursue degrees, even in forestry or tourism or whatever topic. Of course some will fail getting them, but 30% of under 30s is absurdly low for stats to be reliable.

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