With Financial Aid Declining, Many College Students Don't Have Enough Money To Eat, Studies Show, Even Though About 40 Percent Are Also Working (npr.org) 497
As students enter college this fall, many will hunger for more than knowledge. Up to half of college students in recent published studies say they either are not getting enough to eat or are worried about it. From a report: This food insecurity is most prevalent at community colleges, but it's common at public and private four-year schools as well. Student activists and advocates in the education community have drawn attention to the problem in recent years, and the food pantries that have sprung up at hundreds of schools are perhaps the most visible sign. Some schools nationally also have instituted the Swipe Out Hunger program, which allows students to donate their unused meal plan vouchers, or "swipes," to other students to use at campus dining halls or food pantries.
That's a start, say analysts studying the problem of campus hunger, but more systemwide solutions are needed. "If I'm sending my kid to college, I want more than a food pantry," says Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor of higher education policy and sociology at Temple University in Philadelphia, and founder of the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice. [...] According to a survey of UC Berkeley students, 38 percent of undergraduates and 23 percent of graduate students deal with food insecurity at some point during the academic year, Ruben Canedo, a university employee who chairs the campus's basic needs committee, says.
That's a start, say analysts studying the problem of campus hunger, but more systemwide solutions are needed. "If I'm sending my kid to college, I want more than a food pantry," says Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor of higher education policy and sociology at Temple University in Philadelphia, and founder of the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice. [...] According to a survey of UC Berkeley students, 38 percent of undergraduates and 23 percent of graduate students deal with food insecurity at some point during the academic year, Ruben Canedo, a university employee who chairs the campus's basic needs committee, says.
What is it going to take (Score:5, Insightful)
For people to wake the fuck up and realize that short-term profit-driven ideology is not going to work in the long term while sacrificing investment in and opportunities for young people. Future societies will hold the American system in almost all things as a cautionary tail rather than as the triumph it could have been.
Re:What is it going to take (Score:4, Insightful)
What is it going to take for people not to enrol in hamburger flipping degrees like gender-studies or sociology and do something society needs?
There's a shortage of people in the trades, why not take up a study/work program, become a tradeperson earning good money while you learn.
Re: (Score:2)
What is it going to take for people not to enrol in hamburger flipping degrees like gender-studies or sociology and do something society needs?
Probably fewer companies that give in to the loudmouths and actually create positions like "Equality Officers" that serve no purpose other than actually working people now not only having to prop up useless middle management but even more useless (and expensive) upper management.
Middle management was at least only useless, but these goofballs even create more red tape and busywork.
Re:What is it going to take (Score:5, Interesting)
Because of the stupidity in the first sentence. It's a very common right-wing talking point that all the people with college degrees, who can't find jobs that use those degrees, were in "dumb" majors.
It's a lovely-sounding talking point that lays the blame on the recent graduate so that you don't have to do anything to fix it. Problem is it's completely false.
For example, STEM degrees are something that poster would generally consider "something society needs". The US graduates 1.5 STEM students for every 1 entry-level STEM job opening.
Re:What is it going to take (Score:5, Informative)
Yes there are plenty of dumb degrees and people keep studying them. This is a major problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Man, I dunno where YOU live, but those low salaries aren't what the plumbers and other associated folks like AC guys make around here!!!
I calculate what they charge me...and it is well into the 6 figure area...has to be.
Re: (Score:2)
Because we will no longer need plumbers? Welders? Auto Repair, AC repair/Installation, etc?
What fucking planet are you on? A society needs people from the guys shoveling Shit to the guys talking Shit at universities and everyone in between.
Re: What is it going to take (Score:4, Interesting)
Plumbers make well over $60k and nothing about it is capped. Welders make 6 figures. Crane operators with a few years experience can make over $200k. There is a shortage of all of those and companies are willing to put people in apprenticeship positions immediately to train workers.
But you have to get your hands dirty, and that's a non-starter for many young people who have been programmed that such work is for the lesser people.
Re: What is it going to take (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, I expect most academics, except for Engineers perhaps, would drown in their own shit if not for plumbers.
They can't fix cars, they can't raise a crop, they can barely prepare food, they are pretty much helpless.
Re: (Score:2)
What the hell are you even talking about? Plumbers these days in most of the US are clearing $70k, lower in poorer areas of course. Mechanics - general mechanics only auto are clearing $65k in non-union shops. Hell 20 years ago when I was finishing out my apprenticeship the hourly rate of pay was around $17/hr(min wage $6.85ish) at a non-union shop. Wages have only gone up. If you want to live in a big city which will suck all your money away and leave you with nothing? Go ahead. Anyone who's smart wi
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You'll die from sodium related blood pressure before you're 50, but hey...
All of this was predicted in the 90s (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Until LEFT wing America started loaning money to college students in bulk, releasing the constraints on tuition costs and condemning students to a lifetime of debtors prison with nothing more than a "gender studies" degree to work from. What happened? Tuition rates went though the roof at a faster pace than inflation, schools built buildings and new campuses all over the place with the extra money, adding to their costs. All the while students and parents have been left holding the bill as debt.
This is a
Not true (Score:3, Interesting)
The loans were the result of out of control tuition increases. Those increases started when federal funding was slashed. That started with Reagan, continued with Clinton and didn't get any better under Obama.
We were _heavily_ subsidizing colleges to keep tuition low because mega corporations needed trained American workers. Outsourcing and H1-Bs eliminated that need and when that happened they cut funding. We could have stoo
Re:Not true (Score:5, Informative)
Nope...it's a fact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_tuition_in_the_United_States#/media/File:InflationTuitionMedicalGeneral1978to2008.png
Supply-Demand-Price is a formula that comes to a natural balance. The demand for a degree was always high while the supply of available admission seats was low. Despite that, without the availability of student loan money that meant that you were either on scholarship, parents paying for it or you were working your way through it.
Student loan money changed the formula to "how much are you willing to borrow" and removed the price constraint on the supply / demand economics. If people can't afford to pay a particular price, the price CANNOT go up without leaving an excess of supply. By ensuring that anybody willing to borrow money could pay for the education, demand skyrocketed.
This isn't a false narrative. In 1978 Congress passed MISAA and in 1979 guaranteed banks a favorable return on the loans. The explosion went from there.
The EXACT same thing happened in the medical industry as employer sponsor insurance programs removed individuals from ever seeing the price for their health care options.
The moment that you provide an outside money source to separate consumers from the price of what they are consuming, price sensitivity goes away and the service becomes basic supply and demand with no price constraint. Every aspect of the US economy where this has happened has seen costs explode.
There's no narrative involved in mathematical outcomes.
If that was true why didn't tuition skyrocket (Score:2)
I should add (Score:2)
Re:If that was true why didn't tuition skyrocket (Score:5, Insightful)
Educating children and young adults was _always_ this expensive.
Bullshit. Costs have skyrocketed. You're saying government paying in keeps costs down. That's absurd. It just means a chunk of the cost is paid for by the government. The government doesn't magically erase that cost. The government has stepped back because NOT EVEN THE GOVERNMENT can justify the absurd spending increases.
More students. Lower standards for admission, graduation, and conferment. Less value to any degrees conferred. Increasing administration salaries. Increasing faculty salaries. Mainly flat staff salaries. Administration growth far outstripping student growth. Faculty and staff growth tracking fairly flat with student growth.
And they keep expanding and building new buildings in some very expensive real estate areas with tons of red tape for any sort of construction. It's so bad that in California, the University of California has focused almost entirely on out-of-state and foreign students, since they can charge them more tuition. The state said "Fuck you!" to that, finally, and now there's a cap in place with regards to the number of out-of-state and foreign students vs. in-state students. But the campuses with the highest ratio of foreign and out-of-state students are grandfathered in, so they don't ever have to reduce their ratio despite it being above the cap. Guess which campuses those are.
The UC argues that they need more money for each student. Faculty just got a 3 or 4% raise. Union staff got raises. Non union staff got raises.
If you give a school a dollar, they'll ask for a dollar fifty.
Also, 3-4% raises are perfectly reasonable (Score:5, Interesting)
What _is_ surprising is that labor has gotten so weak that it can no longer demand that as the pie gets bigger they get a share of it. Hell, there was just a new story about how the 1% have finally have as much of the pie as they did right before the Great Depression. That's not a coincidence. We're heading for something nasty if we don't turn back...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:All of this was predicted in the 90s (Score:5, Insightful)
Most students don't get a gender studies degree. In fact, the vast majority of students don't get a gender studies degree. That's like a rounding error.
Woosh!
My point here is why are we loaning money for useless degrees? We have more "gender studies" and law degrees than we need right now and not enough STEM graduates, yet we loan money for all of these using the same rules and rates. Which is an illustration of how stupid this idea is. But the real problem is the unrestrained tuition prices. Nobody cares all that much, they can borrow to pay it... Never mind how long it will take to pay it off.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
LOL.. That was more of a lawyer joke than anything else. We seriously have PLENTY of lawyers. some say too many...
Q: What do you call a dozen lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
A: A good start..
Re: (Score:3)
Double woosh!
If you were around after the tech meltdown in 2000, tech jobs were considered just as useless as gender studies and law.
Oh I remember that it was my degree and experience that got me that new job in September of 2000. It was hard to get a job, but having a degree was helpful. Woe to the job seeker who didn't have a STEM degree looking for a STEM job. So the degree wasn't a "get a job immediately card" it was what it always was, "get the job before the High School graduate" card.
Re: (Score:2)
That's like a rounding error.
By far not the only error...
Re: (Score:3)
Even Adam Smith, in Wealth of Nations, included an section explaining in detail why higher education doesn't have competition of the sort that can create a free market, and that as a result it is non-Capitalist and benefits from being supported by the State to support industry broadly.
But you're a right winger, so you probably can't comprehend Capitalism.
Re: (Score:2)
Higher Education sure doesn't have to compete when the government will loan you money to pay education costs without much concern for your ability to pay back the loan. Capitalism has NO chance to work in that case. Price has been literally unconstrained by the federal student loan program.
I'm therefore saying that government interference, by loaning money, has NOT helped this problem and has obviously made it worse by taking away nearly all constraint on tuition costs.
Now you want to argue what? That hi
Re: (Score:3)
My advice, find a copy of the book and read the analysis about the costs and market. You don't seem to even have understood the part I quoted. Maybe you're one of these people whose brains stop functioning when you see the word Capitalism?
You want to argue, but you didn't read the book, so you're not ready to argue with it yet.
Re: (Score:2)
GI bill. Yep. Good idea. Sign up to commit murder or be murdered at the whim of a bunch of psychopaths in DC. The military isn't a summer camp -- once you realize what it actually does, the idea becomes less attractive.
Nothing wrong with a military career. Are there risks? Yep. But you can die as a clerk in a convince store too. Here's an idea... PICK carefully which branch of the service you choose. Not all branches are the Army or Marines. The Navy, for instance, would unlikely find you on the sending end of a gun or the receiving end of hostile actions. The Air Force doesn't do much shooting of small arms either, but you might get stuck in a missile launch control room for 48 hours at a time.
Of course, if war br
Re: (Score:2)
Murder ... unlawful killing, malice aforethought. War qualifies especially when you're talking about international law.
War is abhorrent. Advising people to sign up to serve the biggest group of warmongers out there is abhorrent.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, we all know the right wing dominates the education sector and runs the universities. You can barely find a left wing lecturer or employee at a university...
Let's face it, if there's something wrong at universities it's entirely the fault of the left. It's the left's fault standards in education at universities are so appallingly low, it's the left's fault that students can't handle criticism or debate, and it's the left fault that they universities they run are charging such absurdly high fees.
Re:All of this was predicted in the 90s (Score:5, Informative)
What was predicted is the entry of government-backed student loans would cause tuition prices to skyrocket, which they have (exponentially).
Allow student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy, remove the gov't from the equation and watch tuition prices plummet back to reality.
P.S. it hasn't helped that so many public schools have turned into vacation resorts, with lavish housing, recreation facilities and luxurious administration complexes (while ignoring the classrooms and library facilities).
Re: (Score:2)
When I was in school. The right wing in America said it would be fine and the kids would just take responsibility and work their way through college like they did (ignoring that they all had higher wages adjusted for inflation and 1/5th the tuition). What drives me nuts is we all knew this was coming and just said fuck it. And all we got for it was some paltry tax cuts that expire.
Well guess what? They were right. What was the problem though? Oh, right. It had nothing to do with lowering the standards so far that even idiots gain entrance, or pushing that everyone can succeed because the system will do it for you. Or that the only thing you need to do to get through university is to engage in rote memorization(gee where'd that idea come from - musta been all those right-wingers in academia). It wasn't all those kids deciding to pick up useless degrees and suddenly being soaked in
Funny how the ones for the 1% (Score:2)
Ramen (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Four.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Some went on to have amazing cardiometabolic damage and lower cognitive function: [nih.gov]
"Ramen noodles are particularly unhealthy because they contain a food additive called Tertiary-butyl hydroquinone (TBHQ), a preservative that is a petroleum industry byproduct. They're also incredibly high in sodium, calories and saturated fat."
"according to a new study by Baylor University researchers. If you eat a lot of ramen noodles, your risk of metabolic changes linked to heart disease, diabetes and stroke rise considerab
Re:Ramen (Score:5, Insightful)
How many college kids lived off of ramen noodles -- especially in tech -- and went on to do amazing things?
And how many did not or got sick? I remember those days when very often I'd survive with a muffin and a cup of coffee a day. It shits on your health, and then your grades. My college A-streak plummeted when I got my first C in trig - I had a serious bout of bronchitis on that semester (in no small part by not eating well), which seriously screwed me up. It was then that I started taking student loans (yeah, now I can eat some more and buy nyquil.) I shit you not.
I knew people back then that simply had to drop. I knew college students with broken shoes or health problems because of financial reasons.
We can all say "yay these kids survived on ramen and went on to invent the new mywhorefacebookgramspace", but many others fall through the cracks (not to mention the many more that crack even earlier in HS.
I could understand this is if we were in a 3rd world country. However, we are not. Not only are we in a rich country, we are in the richest one ever. This state of affairs, and the glamorization of it, it is atrocious and non-productive. This grind doesn't produce grit, it kills our potential social capital.
Re: (Score:3)
If only we had some manufacturing jobs for people to work at.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps you missed the memo on robotics. Low wage jobs are here to stay, unless you do something yourself, or allow yourself to become a wage slave.
I ate ketchup soup in college. Stretched the budget tight. Actually refused to go to the bars, spending my meager wages on yes, actual food. I worked through college. Full load, part time. Scrimped.
If you have half a brain, you plan how to deal with lots of study and how to feed yourself, sleep at night, and take care of yourself. If you can't do that, college i
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps you missed the memo on robotics. Low wage jobs are here to stay, unless you do something yourself, or allow yourself to become a wage slave.
Strange, why are all those companies suddenly repatriating and re-opening factories in the US then?
Re: (Score:3)
Perhaps you missed the memo on robotics. Low wage jobs are here to stay, unless you do something yourself, or allow yourself to become a wage slave.
Strange, why are all those companies suddenly repatriating and re-opening factories in the US then?
Because as other countries rise up, cost of labor is increasing overseas. Then we bring factories... with increased automation. Bringing back factories =/= bringing back jobs. Look it up. After doing it many times, I just got tired of googling references for this anymore.
If you are aware that factories are coming back, then you are also quite capable of being aware that most of them are relying on automation.
Re: (Score:2)
I could understand this is if we were in a 3rd world country. However, we are not.
At this point you may have to state where you are from. So far I thought this was bout the situation in the US?
Don't forget the effect of worrying about money (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What crack does the 17 cent pack of ramen fall through? Some of what you said was coherent opinions, most of it was whataboutism, but the part about ramen just makes no sense.
Re: (Score:3)
so, you admit to not being able to afford school (and all associated living expense costs), and you did it anyways. YOU are the problem.
Wow, reading comprehension ain't your forte.
Re:Ramen (Score:5, Insightful)
What kind of statement is that even? Like are you seriously expecting there to be some sort of data collection of what students ate in the past versus what they made in the present? What exactly are you trying to get at here? Are you trying to apply a stereotype to draw some conclusion like "all college kids eat diets of only ramen, some college kids become successful, ergo, an all ramen diet cannot be all that bad"? Do you understand how nonfactual, illogical, and just plain wrong that kind of basis for an argument is? And finally, using your loose argument for college, it would be more than fair to point out that a lot of tech giants dropped out of college as well, so I guess we should conclude that college isn't necessary? Which I do hope you see that, that argument is also equally flawed. We should not take a few successes as evidence of some underlying truth. That's not building a fact based argument.
College Tuition and Fees (Score:4, Insightful)
Blame the Colleges.
Raising the cost two or three times the rate of inflation for 20 years will do that.
Re: (Score:3)
Congress could solve this simply by refusing to guarantee loans for students at universities that increase tuition more than 2% for 10 years, then the rate of inflation after that.
The can also do a similar thing but mandate the number of sinecure positions be reduced by 1% a year until it reaches no more than, say, 10% or professional positions, rather than >50% at some of the more bloated schools.
At the end of the day it's driven by easy loans. People wince at adding a $2000 radio to their car, but add
Re:College Tuition and Fees (Score:5, Insightful)
Allow student loans to be dischargable in bankruptcy and most of the problems would be solved. There wouldn't be any more loans given for pursuing worthless degrees.
More like blame student loans (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Blame the Colleges.
Raising the cost two or three times the rate of inflation for 20 years will do that.
When you throw money at something, prices go up.
It's Economics 101. And all sort of government aid and government backed student loans that can't be discharged in bankruptcies, guess what, that's throwing money at it.
Not surprising (Score:3)
Given that tuition and textbook costs have dramatically increased, yet the minimum wage has not kept pace, this is not really surprising.
I remember many of my past professors that went to college in the late 60's and 70's, talked about how they would take the summer off to work and party, that they were able to earn enough to cover their entire tuition and books for the fall and spring semesters. LONG LONG LONG GONE are those days. Today, your lucky if you can find a summer job that will allow you to make rent, let alone, save any sort of money for tuition/books/living expenses. Student loans don't really help in the long term, as the future is mortgaged to pay for the present and that debt will be with you likely for a good 10+ years after one graduates.
With the current trend of steadily increased costs with minimal wage/salary increases to match, it is unlikely to improve any time soon
Re: (Score:2)
Depends where -- in NY state, public university tuition is maximum about $7500/yr for undergraduate in-state, and places outside of NYC are cheap to live in. This $7500/yr is also reduced by subsidies and grants, so it's not even really that much.
Nice to live in a state that actually gives a rip about its residents.
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Informative)
That's just tuition. Most of the costs are hidden in administration fees. In Louisiana for example, there's a program called TOPS that gives free tuition to state universities for anyone graduating high school with a 2.5 GPA and an 18 on the ACT. That program began about 15-20 years ago. Since then tuition has increased 1000% (since taxpayers are now on the hook for it) and they've added a $5000 administrative fee to students that isn't covered by TOPS. That single-semester administrative fee is double what I paid for an entire year of tuition, dorm and meal plan in 1992. Meanwhile, all of that money has gone to resort-styling housing, ludicrous rec facilities (floating river pools, rock-climbing facilities, etc), administration buildings that resemble Fortune 500 executive suites, etc. The library is still falling down since I was there though. Not a nickel for that or the actual classrooms. Oh, and they've created an entire lobbying department with a staff whose sole job is to extract even more taxdollars from the public each year.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Depends where -- in NY state, public university tuition is maximum about $7500/yr for undergraduate in-state
$7500/year is 682 hours at NY's minimum wage. There are roughly 480 full-time job hours during the summer.
So it's only 202 hours under what you can make during the summer.....assuming you do not eat, do not need books or other supplies, and don't pay rent.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What is surprising is how simple you made this argument.
Minimum wage will never keep up with the real problem: Tuition/Housing costs for a college. This needs to be put in check.
Working a summer and paying for college tuition for the year, ya that's outside of thought at this time, BUT they can take a job and earn what they can to keep their loans down.
"Student loans don't really help in the long term": Really? How about the extra money those people make for their first 10 years? What about the student
Finacial aid and loans is what drives up the cost (Score:5, Insightful)
Downstream of "$150,000 loan for gender studies undergraduate degree" is reduced quality of life, reduced lifetime wealth, and overall economical drag from less available income from consumers. If anything, these loans should have a California's mandatory cancer warning label attached.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a big part of it. It's also important to look at how schools compete for students based on amenities, not just the quality of education. I haven't studied the numbers, but I would expect to see that the budgets of schools are shifting more and more towards non-academic expenditures.
Now there is finally enough attention to the cost of schools that schools can compete on cost, so I expect to see the market forces coming into play as a bigger factor in the coming years.
Re: (Score:2)
Downstream of "$150,000 loan for gender studies undergraduate degree" is reduced quality of life, reduced lifetime wealth, and overall economical drag from less available income from consumers. If anything, these loans should have a California's mandatory cancer warning label attached.
My preference is stick to local state colleges, where you can get a degree at a cost of ~$13k per year in tuition and books. Much lower loans necessary, including the engineering track
Re: (Score:2)
It's much more complicated than that. Sure, easy access to loans can lead to trouble--e.g., the housing market crash in 2007-2010--but another major contributor is that public higher education is becoming that in name only, as largely Republican-led state government decrease funding to public higher education in favor of tax cuts:
https://www.insidehighered.com... [insidehighered.com]
But it goes beyond both of these as well, and is, in part, fueled by this issue. Universities want to attract students, and nowadays, students wa
Re:Not True (Score:5, Interesting)
I cover this elsewhere on this thread, but it was cuts to federal subsidies that raised tuition, not loans.
Got any evidence for that claim?
Here's some on the other side: https://www.mercatus.org/%5Bno... [mercatus.org]. Emphasis mine.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
" but it was cuts to federal subsidies that raised tuition, not loans"
That is absurd! There is a direct relation to subsidy and tuition increases hand has been since federally-backed student loans became a thing. The data is undeniable: tuition began growing exponentially the day after those laws passed and has risen to meet the subsidies every year since. Prior to that tuition was flat for decades, rising at or below the rate of inflation. Once the gov't began backing student loans there was no risk i
Re: (Score:3)
I cover this elsewhere on this thread, but it was cuts to federal subsidies that raised tuition, not loans. Public colleges do _not_ operate in a supply/demand model. They're non profit. And no, the dean's salaries didn't go up that much (football coaches did, but they bring in enough money to pay for it even though none of that goes to players). Anyone who says loans increase tuition at public non-profit Universities is lying to you to change the narrative and create a straw man to divert attention away from the raiding of the public commons that's been going on for 40+ years.
Loans go up, students can afford to go to a wider range of schools. Schools now have to compete with a wider range of other schools for students. To attract students they upgrade dorms to apartments, build multiple pools, have food courts instead of cafeterias, add or improve sports to entertain students, and hire staff to maintain and run all these extra amenities. To pay for it all, they raise tuition, which students can simply get a bigger loan to cover.
Tuition prices have to come down (Score:5, Interesting)
It is an open secret that colleges are abusing the good will of the government and the students.
College professors are paid no better or worse than they were in the 1950s.
Tuition adjusted for inflation, the cost of tuition is well over ten times what it was then.
So, if the professors are not being paid more, the students are not using 10 times as many professors... where is the money going?
Well, I'm not going to get into that because everyone has short attention spans. It doesn't matter. The point is that the costs can come down dramatically if you squeeze the universities. A lot of administrators and non-essential spending can be cut without impacting the quality of education for the students.
We can see this in other countries that didn't permit this to happen by writing blank checks to the universities. Education pretty much anywhere but the US is dramatically cheaper without being any worse for quality.
The solution is not to increase financial aid. In fact, that is a large part of what caused this to get out of control in the first place. The Feds really need to stop throwing around money. It fucked up the housing market, it fucked up US health care which has gone through the same radical inflation in cost, and it has fucked up college education.
It is a financial feed back loop. Write the colleges a blank check and they'll just get a little bolder every year seeing how far they can push it. You can either put your foot down and do some solid accounting or let it bankrupt you. It is a feed back loop. It doesn't matter how much money you have. Eventually, it will beggar anything as it increases infinitely.
Re: (Score:2)
"other countries" make people work hard and pass a real exam. Only then are the very best of the best allowed to study.
The USA also wants its university community to have the demographics of the wider US population.
So it has to drop the "merit" part and go for "tipping" and "lopping" to ensure admissions look like the wider community.
The USA wants a pluralistic society at universit
This is a travesty (Score:5, Insightful)
Could someone explain that to me? (Score:2)
Europe here so I don't get the situation in the US. But I have always been explained that a part of those tuition fees are due to the fact that they include room anbd board? So food is still an issue?
Re: (Score:2)
Many students choose to live off-campus instead of in dorms, because dorms have too many rules, like not using drugs, and not having loud parties all night, and you can't just get drunk and say anything to anybody like you can if you live on your own.
And partying uses up money fast. They run out of money for food, because at home they had Mom to do it, but they hate rules, so here they are. Every month. For the whole 4^H5 years.
There are other situations, but this is the most common. The general belief is t
Re: (Score:2)
And this is the part I don't get about the US system. Why should your wallet (or that of your parents) decide whether you should go to college? Your brain should. Over here, universities are free (or, IIRC, you pay a token sum like a few 100 bucks a semester). Which leads to entry level courses being flooded with people. Computer Science, in any area, was incredibly overrun in the past with more than 2000 people a year starting at my university.
Fewer than 100 graduate.
The rest is weeded out. Brutally. Here'
Re: (Score:3)
"The rest is weeded out. Brutally. Here's your assignment, do it or don't, nobody gives a fuck but you. "
In the US that's racist.
Food Insecurity Exagerated by Debt Fear (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)ve worked in public higher ed since I was seeking my BA myself. My generation was targeted by credit card companies and we also saw the massive defunding of public higher education and thus the increase of cost to the students themselves.
But what most people donâ(TM)t know is that, behind the scenes, the bigger public universities we able offset a major portion of that increased tuition/fees with grants funded be increasing out of state and international admissions (who get charged much more
Re: (Score:2)
My generation was targeted by credit card companies and we also saw the massive defunding of public higher education and thus the increase of cost to the students themselves.
I remember a friend of mine, on his way to getting a Masters of Psychological Anthropology degree, racked up about $25k of credit card debt. Mostly buying weed. No big deal, that's easy to solve with bankruptcy. The student loans for the useless degree (he wasn't even trying to be a teacher, so wtf?) are still dragging behind him, though.
Priorities? (Score:2)
What fraction of these students have a smartphone with a data plan? That's a few hundred dollars per year right there.
How much have these colleges and universities spent on luxurious campuses and sports facilities which could instead have been "spent" on (saved for) lower tuition?
Re: (Score:2)
Generally, they not only have smart phones, they also pay student fees that include access to campus-wide wifi, so they're double-covered.
Merit (Score:2)
That would give some sort of full academic scholarship and allow the best in every generation to study and be supported.
Cant pass the test but have wealth? Buy your way into some study thats fun and use your own wealth to pay for what is needed.
When poor and not that smart, consider something outside a university education you cant afford.
Something like HVAC, plumbing and electrical. Vocational training.
Full ride no longer (Score:5, Insightful)
My daughter got a full ride scholarship four years ago. The first year cost of very little since all of her food was paid. The next year they changed the food plans that caused her to be short toward the end of the year. Last year I started putting fifty a week in to her bank account so she would be able to eat when she could, due to the collage shutting down several of their little kiosk food nooks. This year they are replacing all of those with food trucks and her vouchers don't add up to three meals a day for the duration of her last year.
Added into that, she has been audited for three years in a row despite the last two times they found nothing wrong. All the while insisting its 'random'. She is still lucky in that she had the grades to get through collage without a crushing debt at the end.
This situation is attributed to a new chancellor who immediately spent five million on renovating his house and then doing more renovations the next year. He also wants to get a football team going. Its clear that collages do better without them. The quality of the students who are there to learn is superior to the meat heads they will get with football around.
Normal ..? (Score:2)
Welcome to the human race. Most humans throughout most of history have had to deal with 'food insecurity' perhaps this experience will help give those in college some perspective.
Speaking of respective, how insecure is there food in reality. I mean aren't ramien noodles till sold for something like 5 for dollar and tuna sold for cheap, what about those eggs. If you can get to a normal grocery store once a month a single person can live and not starve for less then $30 a month, you just aren't eating food
Re: (Score:2)
Jobs? (Score:2)
We read, over and over and over, how the workforce needs more and more education.[1] Meanwhile, the GOP keep cutting taxes.[2,3] Where is this "highly educated workforce" going to come from in the US, if this goes on? Asia? Eastern Europe?
1. I personally know that Philly Community College, in the early eighties, got 90% of its funding from Pell Grants, which have been hacked and slashed.
2. Check out the results of this in Kansas, where the GOP lege finally told Gov Brownback where to shove it.
3. When I was
College isn't mandatory! (Score:2)
I don't understand. We now live in a world where education is free and never ending. You can learn anything you want. Libraries of books became the internet of infinite websites. You don't need college to learn things. So the right to education has absolutely nothing to do with college anymore.
College is, what it always was: a certification of advanced skills. When brick-layer was basic, engineer required college. Great. In a world where few had college degrees, college degrees meant better employmen
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
> This food insecurity is most prevalent at community colleges
Given that community colleges are dirt cheap, as far as education goes, I suspect the lack of food money has more to do with the kinds of folks whose incomes land them in community college, and that the tuition is not the cause of their woes.
Both of my kids "landed in community college" because it was inexpensive. Both will graduate with STEM degrees and have zero debt because I am able to pay their tuition and books and they are able to live at home. They will have a great education and zero debt. It's not impossible though it's not easy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:this could be a good thing (Score:5, Interesting)
maybe it will solve the obesity issue
You joke, but maybe it will help pop the tuition bubble. State school tuition is something like 30x what it was when I was young - it's insane. The more money the government threw at the problem, the more universities raised tuition to vacuum up all that financial aid plus all the money they can from their students' families.
Like all bubbles popping, it's going to suck for a while. But university tuitions need to revert to something affordable when working part time, and that will never happen as long as the government funnels money though (some) students to the universities.
Re: (Score:3)
I no longer wonder why the average American is way less healthy than the average European. Thanks for solving a mystery.
Let them eat Ramen (Score:3)
It would be great if we could get Betsy DeVos to tweet that.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
High-Paying Trade Jobs Sit Empty, While High School Grads Line Up For University https://www.npr.org/sections/e... [npr.org]
Where are they going to learn those skills? Even intelligent people have trouble discerning legitimate trade schools from all the for-profit "universities" that prey off predatory loans and fudge graduation and placement rates. The US needs to go the European route with 2 tracks-university and technical/trades. This would reduce demand for college and make it cheaper (colleges won't have to up tuition to pay for all the extra perks and facilities to recruit students) and we will have plenty of skilled wo
Re: (Score:2)
Where are they going to learn those skills?
Apprenticeships and having a good work ethic. You understand that these jobs(trades) while dirty, require you to actually do more then stare blankly at a person while fucking up their order at the local fast food place right? A good work ethic will get you an apprenticeship almost anywhere. A very good work ethic will get you a head of the curve, and selling your services as a independent contractor.
Re: (Score:2)
You aren't. We are living in an attempt to sell off everything accomplished in the mid 20th century for short-term gain. The people getting rich from this are not at all concerned about the long-term.