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It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

randalolson.com

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Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#111

Post by WriteYourRep »

dtmooreiv wrote: post #89
ronnier wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked my way through school for both my undergraduate degree and a masters in computer science. It wasn't bad. Just have to work hard. The nice thing was, I finished up school with zero debt.

When did you do this?

I worked my way through university from 2006-2010. I was able to pay for my freshman year due to a gift from grandparents and random saving (2005-2006). Spring 2006 I got a full time job with the university. I worked for the school because they give great benefits to full time employees. My tuition was cut from ~6k/semester to ~2k.

I was making more than minimum wage, nearly double at the time at $13/hour. This helped, but I kept everything cheap. My apartment was $300/mo, phone, food, and insurance was less than $400. That left me with nearly $1000 left each month.

It wasn't easy and it wasn't glamourous. I worked 8-5 every day and went to class in the evenings until 8 or 9.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#112

Post by geogra4 »

The University of California charged NO TUITION until the 1970s.

Think about that for a second. While we bicker and boast on here about bootstraps and how to pay off debt by living like a pauper we have to realize that we are straight up being stolen from.

There is no reason why public universities should cost 10s of thousands of dollars for a 4 year degree. That's the whole reason they exist in the first place.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#113

Post by acchow »

jdreaver wrote: post #17

We have to ask ourselves why college is so expensive. When some people read articles like this, they call for more government aid to students. "We need to help young, hard working students from unprivileged backgrounds to pay for college!" Their hearts are certainly in the right place, and it isn't an unreasonable idea at first glance. However, could this idea be part of the problem? Maybe giving people free money fo…

Cumulative long-term effort is much reduced when you can turn a signal into a moat. Currently serving supreme course justices come from only 2 schools. Look at the pedigree in investment banking and top consulting firms.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#114

Post by gambiting »

jdreaver wrote: post #38
brudgers wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, few students get much free money these days. Instead they get loans which charge hefty origination fees - like 5 points, and which are almost impossible to discharge via bankruptcy...despite the fact that many of them are backed by insurance and those which are not insured typically compound interest during the time the student is in school (typically on the full principle). The bloat has not been fueled b…

I agree. Most of those loans, however, are sponsored by the government and can't be defaulted on. No normal lender would give an 18 year old $50,000 to get a degree in anthropology, because they are unlikely to get it back. When the student is legally obligated to pay it back, then there is much little risk to the lender. If defaulting on student loans were possible, then the cost of college would decrease.

But this is exactly how UK student loans work - you only pay them off if you make more than X amount of money per year(and then the amount of money you pay off is proportional to how much you make), and if you never make that much money, then you never pay it off and after 40 years the loan is forfeit.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#115

Post by chrisbennet »

Is college important to us as a society?

Assuming it (and other forms of further education) are, might we be better off funding state schools to the point that they have an affordable tuition? The upshot of this would be an cost competitive alternative to private schools. The looming debt these students take on now is not going to go away and will remain a drag on their forward progress for decades. Perhaps the collective interest being spent on all these loans might be better spent on actual education.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#116

Post by bsder »

jdreaver wrote: post #17

We have to ask ourselves why college is so expensive. When some people read articles like this, they call for more government aid to students. "We need to help young, hard working students from unprivileged backgrounds to pay for college!" Their hearts are certainly in the right place, and it isn't an unreasonable idea at first glance. However, could this idea be part of the problem? Maybe giving people free money fo…

> We have to ask ourselves why college is so expensive.

Because you cannot discharge student loan debt through bankruptcy.

If students could discharge their debt, loans would match risk better and decrease. In turn, colleges wouldn't be able to raise their prices as far since they would price themselves out of students.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#117

Post by bsder »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #29
bequanna wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It goes to inflating the administrative staffs and inflating the salaries of the highest ranked members of that staff. This. Bureaucratic bloat, no accountability and terrible efficiency. Many Universities are the largest employers in their state. Do our Universities exist to be Research and Educational institutions, or to employ armies of admin workers that push papers?

It's popular here to blame the growth of administrative and non-teaching staff on a self-serving bureacracy, but I don't think that's the case, it is due to circumstances. The size of IT infrastructure has grown immensely compared to 30 years back, so you need people to take care of that. My department has four IT support people, and they carry a full workload. The amount of foreign students has grown, consequently y…

> The amount of foreign students has grown, consequently you need people to keep track of immigration requirements that seem to get worse each passing year, and you also need cultural programs, you can't expect people from non-western countries to be thrown into an alien culture and succeed.

Um, most of the reason foreign student enrollment has grown is because foreign students pay cash. Adding bureaucracy to manage students who whom you admitted primarily because they carry cash is not something I particularly sympathize with.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#118

Post by bequanna »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #102
HarryHirsch wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's popular here to blame the growth of administrative and non-teaching staff on a self-serving bureacracy, but I don't think that's the case, it is due to circumstances. The size of IT infrastructure has grown immensely compared to 30 years back, so you need people to take care of that. My department has four IT support people, and they carry a full workload. The amount of foreign students has grown, consequently y…

Here's how to deal with many of them - Cut them. They aren't necessary , they're nice to have. When it comes to budgets, the nice to have things that aren't really necessary get cut. It's not all that hard.

Exactly. If people saw the cost to provide these services as a % of their tuition, I am guessing most students would prefer to simply do without and pay less.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#119

Post by bequanna »

bunderbunder wrote: post #34
bequanna wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It goes to inflating the administrative staffs and inflating the salaries of the highest ranked members of that staff. This. Bureaucratic bloat, no accountability and terrible efficiency. Many Universities are the largest employers in their state. Do our Universities exist to be Research and Educational institutions, or to employ armies of admin workers that push papers?

Looking at my local university's budget, research and educational costs still account for most of the budget. But research costs are becoming enormous - they're spending over 1/3 of the budget on research, and only half as much on education. Which isn't to say that we shouldn't be spending money on research, or that universities shouldn't be the ones to do it. But considering that government funding for research has…

Ok...So, you are saying that less than 1/2 of the budget can be traced to actually supporting research and education.

Where is the other 1/2?

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#120

Post by jisaacstone »

glenra wrote: post #77
jiggy2011 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CS people are probably in a somewhat unique position where that is somewhat possible. If you study something that isn't tied to a specific industry or where you need many years of training and certification to become useful that's not so tenable.

I can't speak to other times and places but in silicon valley in the late 1980s I went to a temp agency and looked for unskilled work during the summer - I don't think I ever came across any jobs that paid as low as minimum wage. One summer I was a "shipping clerk" (meaning: guy who gets stuff out of a warehouse and puts it in boxes) at Syva - that paid over twice the minimum. Another summer I did data entry for the…

Yes one problem with minimum wage is that it is fixed across the country even though cost of living disparities are huge. The high cost of living in silicon valley pushes up wages even at the lower end, whereas in some rural areas it might even seem a bit high

For example in my hometown it is still possible to rent a flat with a friend for less than $400/month meaning single people can survive on very little

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