Sallie Mae has enabled the explosion of over-charging at U.S. colleges and universities for a generation - but every dog has its day. There is no way these loans will be repaid - and there is no way that over 50% (and I am being VERY conservative in that estimate) of the private colleges and universities in the U.S. will be in existence 10 years from now.
Why would anyone pay $200k for a degree from an institution that absolutely, positively will NOT be here in the near future. Why are we paying for lectures that anybody can watch for free on YouTube? (Here is a link to the "most important lecture in the history of higher learning" - here is another link... why would we need to pay someone to repeat this live?) These institutions have fought the internet with everything they have... well, if they were to let the internet win that would mean the end of tenure, moca latte's, and co-ed's now, wouldn't it? It would also give away that fact that the emperor has NO CLOTHES.
NAFC.
Read the above link... I implore you. Don't this happen to your children. Don't pay $200k for something you can get for a free library card. If you have the money and want to indulge your kids, OK... but going into debt? You gotta have rocks in your head.
7 comments:
There is no doubt higher education (and health care) costs are exceeding the rate of inflation by 2-3x. Most of that money isn't going for the core mission, but to spruce up campuses with new buildings, and making going to the hospital more of a vacation that anything else. I could have gotten more from the living-on-campus college thing than I did, but I did get alot out of it anyway. For one thing, I got this $100,000 job because of college, and found two friends in college that, 21 years later, are still around. Both are now lawyers, and one of them got me out of a costly jam. :) College still has benefits, and a good many of the students don't pay all the tuition nor have loans (there's lots of internal tuition-funding/waving). I think I was one of the only ones paying full price cash for the tuition (thank you, Grandma).
MIT offers their courses online free - lecture notes, video, assignmenets etc.
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm
no registation required.
I think it goes much deeper than just Sallie Mae.
The government outright foots the bill for way too many students with a bias towards women (Now over 65% of all college students are women). There are almost twice as many title IX slots for women as there are for men.
Not too mention all these added in funds to colleges and allowing WYMYNS studies has completely ruined a liberal arts degree. Most degrees outside of hard sciences are useless these days in landing a job so most of these wymyns studies graduates took over the education field.
That has taken us to biased liberal, male bashing schools all across the country with the predictable effect of increased male high school dropouts.
A never ending cycle...sigh
Yes, there is a bloodbath coming in higher education.
Last August we talked about this and I mentioned how small college towns such as Middlebury, VT are going to be decimated when their anchor schools close or cut WAY back. Yesterday, I was in Hanover, NH, home to Dartmouth College (I'm not sure I have to point that out for readers of this blog, but better being clear than not.) I don't know if Dartmouth completely closes. Heck, it's been around since the late 1700s or so and I suppose it might be one of the few that hangs onto a shell of its current self, once again serving a smaller population of Elite, rich kids. But boy, oh boy is the economy of Lebanon/Hanover NH in for a tumble when the College shrinks.
I guess the multi-million dollar homes around the valley in places like Lyme, Orford, or Thetford (VT) are going to have to run some sheep or cows on the front lawns once again to pay the bills. Neither do I think the latte cafes on Hanover Green stand much of a chance of survival either.
Does it sound like I'm hoping for all this suffering? You Bet! There's so much hot air in those kinds of college towns it could keep the rest of us warm for years.
Too bad a lot of this pompous build out was done with tax dollars - yours and mine both.
I remember watching that lecture before, but it's so good I watched the whole thing again.
People have realised this almost rhythmic repetition of rise and fall in human civilization for hundreds of years. The earliest I can trace this theory back to is Ibn Khaldūn (1332-1406 C.E.) who was was a North African polymath.
He obviously understood the exponential function extremely well amongst other things. In fact these ancient Polymaths had a depth of all around knowledge which puts modern man to shame.
People seem to be so specialised nowadays they don't see the whole picture.
So check this out, he was an astronomer, economist, historian, scholar, theologian, hafiz, jurist, lawyer, mathematician, military strategist, nutritionist, philosopher, social scientist and statesman (!!!!!!!)
Anyway, one last thing, as brilliant as that lecture is, whilst giving you a good insight into the nature of things, there is nothing in it which would have helped me get a job after college in the career I chose.
"So check this out, he was an astronomer, economist, historian, scholar, theologian, hafiz, jurist, lawyer, mathematician, military strategist, nutritionist, philosopher, social scientist and statesman"
That pretty much describes every blogger on the web... well, in our own minds, anyway.
Ha, yea good point, I guess opinions are increasing exponentially too, along with the population, it's just lucky that the basic laws of maths are as sound as when Euclid laid them down them. Any opinions therefore not based on mathematical reasoning are just that, merely opinions and whilst interesting/amusing to read should not be taken too seriously. As the proffesor points out, we shouldnt let other people do our thinking for us.
Post a Comment