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More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

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Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im very skeptical of this post: 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades, do they pay more than the highest paying careers that require higher education? 2. Which boot camp? How many people ended up like your daughter? How much was it? Without these facts no compari…

A comment doesn't necessarily need to be accurate to reach the top, it could merely confirm the biases of enough people so they think "yeah, sounds right to me!"

I find it amusing your comment was greyed out when the the insight was so good.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#602
post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do teachers and forklift operators make after 10/20/30 years?

My wife has a doctorate in occupational therapy and works as a hand therapist, when pay is the only metric looked at you really do miss a lot. The body condition of construction workers, fork lift operators and even welders is worn down and in pain. Not to mention, they have to live with unfair medical standards. When she does hand strength assessments for workers comp the number is based on natural average. So lets…

Yeah, the only winning options long term, as a skilled worker is to get out before 40 and either start your own company or become a sort of project manager at a bigger company.

Neither options are super easy.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're way off on 3. You're saying that tuition alone at a state school costs $45k per semester, which would be $90k per year. This site says that the average in-state public school is ~$25k all-in for a year. That includes tuition, room and board, books and transportation. https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/average-cost-of-c...

That is not accurate at all https://admission.ucla.edu/tuition-aid/tuition-fees 56k 9 months. https://www.ohio.edu/financial-aid/cost 34k 9 months 9 months is considered 2 semesters. per semester. wouldn't consider ohio personally though. but beats your average by a good 30%. Not sure where it can get cheaper than Ohio.

> Not sure where it can get cheaper than Ohio.

Apparently lots of places, since the national average is substantially lower than the Ohio numbers.

But, more importantly, both UCLA and Ohio University are flagship R1s. Likely literally every other public university in Ohio is cheaper than OU, and I'd be unsurprised if UCLA is one of the more expensive public options in CA (wouldn't know, never lived in CA).

e: sure enough, the total cost at Youngstown State is 22K (tuition 10K, the rest is food and housing).

As an aside, including room and board in college prices always struck me as a bit odd (except in cases where living in a dorm is required, I guess, but that's somewhat rare). Do non-college-students not eat/drink/sleep?

Colleges/Universities and expensive enough and screwed up enough that exaggeration isn't necessary.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Many trades also pay like crap and have a very limited window in which you can do it. I'm not sure what you mean by limited window unless we are talking about professional athletes and some categories of manual laborers. > In addition many are not welcoming to women at all, regardless even if you take the highest paying trades This is rapidly changing. Also, there are also skilled trades that are mostly women (e…

> I'm not turning this into an ad for the school my daughter went to. Cost was literally 1/2 of he first year salary over $40,000. It was capped at a maximum amount. She ended up paying about $6k, but it was contingent on her getting a job that payed better than $40k. You already have. I want to see the graduation stats. > It didn't matter what education level they attained, across the population the outcome was cons…

Do you like to argue just to argue?

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#605

The dean of students at my daughter's university (Montana State) has been pretty upfront about this mostly being demographics- Gen Z is smaller than the Millennials. That being said, both of my daughter's had drilled into their heads how expensive college would be by their HS teachers and staff. We're continually telling them not to worry about it, it's our responsibility to pay, not theirs, don't feel bad for not go…

I live in Colorado. I don't see a lot that I would "anti-intellectualism" since I live close to Denver but I definitely see a much higher value placed on skills than degrees

Well, it won't surprise you that I live a little south of you. But even in Denver try telling people that your daughter is double majoring in history and classics- the looks I get mostly range from "she's crazy" to "you're an idiot for letting her do that". Nevermind that her 'hyper expensive education' will cost less than their dually F-250...

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#606
post #449

The bizarre thing with higher education costs that no one's really explained to me is why schools simultaneously spend more and more on administrators (who are full time staff), and push more and more teaching to adjuncts. The claim I've heard justifying the growth of administration staff is that regulatory compliance becomes more onerous over time. But no school is judged on their regulatory compliance. In industry,…

It’s interesting because universities over-produce academics for the number of tenure-track jobs available, so they then hire those phds back into adjunct positions, which is often the only academic job available to them, especially if they don’t want to move across the country to some small college in the middle of nowhere. So many phds just suck it up and take the adjunct jobs teaching undergrads. Actual professors at research universities aren’t really even doing teaching as their primary job. Their primary job is to do research and publish, which is how they progress in their career. But universities need people to teach so they hire adjuncts to teach undergrads, especially the entry level courses.

In regards to admin costs, just look at UC Berkeley, they now have a $25 million dollar diversity department that hires nearly a hundred staff, all making over $50k and getting access to the pension system. Lots of people will say departments like this are a good thing, but there’s no question these departments cost a lot of money and inflate administrative costs. Berkeley has 1 staff member for every 2 students at this point.

Look at this: “ Establishment of a Supplier Diversity Program at an institution is required when an organization is receiving federal funding for contracts or subcontracts as dictated by the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FARS). The delegation of authority to manage the program is issued through the Office of the President (UCOP) policy.” Talk about regulation causing bloat, to take federal contracts you need to establish an office that tracks and reports the diversity of your contractors. No wonder costs have skyrocketed.

https://supplychain.berkeley.edu/supplier-diversity-faqs

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#607
post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without that community college plus a cheap state school isn’t expensive. UCLA is 13k per year, *if* you are from California. Classes are likely impacted (even upper division) so even if a person goes to UCLA just for the last 2.5 - 3 years they could easily owe > 30k The real cost - rampant corruption (in california, if they ever opened the books on the non-profit entities it would be a major stunner and awakening…

I think 30K is quite a reasonable cost. Parents have almost two decades to save the money, plus they can do so with a 529 plan and avoid capital gains taxes. Even saving $100 dollars a month invested in the market will net 42,000 after 18 years (assuming 7% return).

> assuming 7% return

Tuition has been increasing at 8% per year.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#608
One month it's "too much student debt...blah, blah, blah" the next month it's "a significant number of student-aged people are no longer willing invest in something that results in too much debt and not enough return."

It can't be both ways. Unless of course you're the Higher Edu Industrial Complex and you know NPR and their ilk have no memory and no integrity.

Yes, there's some concern. There always is. But that doesn't make shamelessly crafting two opposing narratives.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#609
Here is a solution that avoids the 'noise' university environments create.

Ideally: 1. Attend an in-state university. 2. Look at your school's graduation report, which surveys students by major on their starting salary 3. Choose a program with a high starting salary 4. Take all general education classes online at a community college, starting the summer after high school graduation

This is the most probable way to achieve a high roi on college, for an average american.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#610
post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a third real issue is also important, the 'undue hardship' burden necessary to get rid of student loans through bankruptcy needs to be dropped.

Exactly, people get loans for houses and cars, and the banks make damn sure you're a good credit risk. For college loans, it's literally the opposite. Since the loans are so hard to get rid of, the only incentive is to increase the number and size of the loans. The issue is that if lenders looked at creditworthiness for college loans the way they do for mortgages, either the price of college would have to decline pre…

Very good points - I had no idea of this crazy situation for student loans.

So, perhaps, "student loans" need to go (in the sense of all of the awful regulation (or lack thereof) around them), but not necessarily "loans to students to earn a four-year degree".

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