Just Say No to college! Why it’s the Worst Decision a Young American can Make

[Ronin Truth]

Just Say No to college! Why it’s the Worst Decision a Young American can Make

For today's grads, a job is no sure thing, but decades of debt may be. And don't get me started on the "education"

By Matthew Saccaro

Salon

August 7, 2014

Each autumn, millions of young Americans parade into colleges with cheap plastic furniture in tow, expecting their work over the next four years to result in a career worth going into debt for. Instead, they jeopardize their futures. There’s not a worse decision a young American can make than attending college sans parental money or massive scholarship.

Let’s start off with the basics. In 2012, 71 percent of all students who graduated accrued some amount of student loan debt, with the average amount of debt soaring to $29,400. More than half of student loans officially became delinquent or in deferral in 2013. New information indicates this trend will only worsen; recent college graduates face the worst unemployment rate in more than 20 years, as well as severe underemployment, with 44 percent of grads saying they could find work but not enough of it. Not even the vaunted STEM fields are immune from the perils of cheap labor, smartsizing, and the Great Recession.

Here’s where college apologists will say debt used to acquire a degree is “good debt” since it ultimately pays off in the end — both because the degree will land you a job and provide “intellectual enrichment” and “critical thinking” and other impossible to quantify, dubious buzzwords used in college marketing pamphlets across the country.

This baby boomer-esque sentiment is garbage.

First of all, there’s a decent chance that students will be indebted forever. Tuition is increasing so much it’s outpacing inflation. That money isn’t even going into educating the students and/or providing them with highly valuable internships during school or jobs after graduation. Instead, much of the tuition dollars are being funneled into administrator salaries, as well as salaries for coaches and athletic directors and other sports-related nonsense. Tuition dollars are also crucial in providing amenities that are absent in some 5-star hotels. Yet colleges across the country are sporting these luxuries, things like mega-gyms, gourmet eateries, washing machines that make the Curiosity rover look like an obsolescent tin can, and more. Colleges are spending money on salaries and sales gimmicks, not on what matters.

“Hey, kids! Come to our college; we’re Club Med. Oh and yeah there are some courses but that’s not important.”

It’s no wonder that in 2011, a Chronicle of Higher Education study found that “large numbers of U.S. college students can be accurately described as academically adrift. They might graduate, but they are failing to develop the higher-order cognitive skills that it is widely assumed college students should master.” To put it in less pedantic language, students are paying tens of thousands of dollars for a degree and walking away equally empty-headed as they were when they graduated high school, straight-A’s notwithstanding. The degree, which failed to get them a job, failed to educate them as well.

More proof: In September 2013, a report by a Washington-based think tank concluded that “many accredited public and nonprofit colleges and universities fail even basic tests of quality, yet remain accredited” due to the bureaucratically bloated accreditation process.

But people know this now! College is reforming; it’ll all be OK!

Read the rest of the article

Copyright © 2014 Salon Media Group, Inc.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/08/n...no-to-college/

Copyright © 2014 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are provided.

[Christian Liberty]

I'm going away to college in less than 2 weeks

[Ronin Truth]

I'm going away to college in less than 2 weeks

It's "fewer" not "less".

Good luck!

Enjoy!

[Lucille]

I bet you'll be shocked to hear that Slate's prog commenters are blaming capitalism. LOL

Some of the rest:

True, like winter, reforms are coming. Higher education still hasn’t plummeted to its nadir. Universities are ripping out their own guts. They’re slashing programs in history, economics and physics in an ”Idiocracy”-like display of irony and embarrassment. Colleges are eschewing their very purpose — to educate people — so they can attempt to become finishing schools for yuppies or discount degree mills. At a glance, trimming the fat and emphasizing coursework that builds “marketable” skills sounds like the proper solution. The professoriat disagrees. One Boston College professor referred to this process as “creating Walmarts of higher education — convenient, cheap, and second-rate.” And the price-cutting at many colleges is naught but an older-than-dirt sales tactic used to manipulate degree-seekers into thinking they’re getting a good deal when they’re getting shafted. Degrees are becoming intellectual and professional fast food, only pumped with worthless “life skill” coursework and barely (or non) paying internships instead of carcinogenic preservatives. In 2014, a degree means you can do work totally unrelated to your “education,” like answering phones or operating a cash register.

[Ronin Truth]

I bet you'll be shocked to hear that Slate's prog commenters are blaming capitalism. LOL

Some of the rest:

Wait till they get a load of the future much cheaper (sometimes free) Internet based college degrees. LOL!

[Philhelm]

It's "fewer" not "less".

Good luck!

Enjoy!

[The Free Hornet]

It's "fewer" not "less".

Good luck!

Enjoy!

It pains me... but FF is correct:

There are exceptions to these rules; for example, it is customary to use the word less to describe time, money, and distance (2, 3). For example, you could say, “That wedding reception lasted less than two hours. I hope they paid the band less than $400.” So keep in mind that time, money, and distance are different...

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/edu...fewer?page=all

Although that page states time is an exception, I believe the way FF used time is consistent with the general rule. Less that two weeks is not intended to imply a count of one week left or zero weeks left (as might be if one said "fewer than two weeks left" [awkward!]). Time is being used like a continuous mass of the same object and not discrete, separable objects like chairs.

[heavenlyboy34]

It pains me... but FF is correct:



Although that page states time is an exception, I believe the way FF used time is consistent with the general rule. Less that two weeks is not intended to imply a count of one week left or zero weeks left (as might be if one said "fewer than two weeks left" [awkward!]). Time is being used like a continuous mass of the same object and not discrete, separable objects like chairs.

Thanks to the phenomenon of semantic shift, the grammatically incorrect expression is as intelligible as the grammatically correct expression.

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

College needs more affirmative action, more public support, and more education.

[fr33]

It's a broad statement to make when you say "don't go to college" and easy to do as an armchair quarterback. I've been guilty of it because I didn't go to college. Ever notice that people often try to tell you what to do just because it's what they did? Yeah, guilty. It's still frequently beneficial to go the college route but today's economy is difficult to navigate. Some of those business degrees are just expensive pieces of paper that students waste their money on. I try to tell people to attempt thinking outside the box. Some of the richest people that I personally know didn't get a college education and either created their own small business or landed an entry level job as a teenager at decent company and worked their way up. In hindsight if I had dropped out of high school, I'd be better off today. There were so many jobs back then in the 90s. I took the ones I had time for.

But most of that article is aimed at students who are going to college just because they are told they are supposed to even though they don't know what they are doing it for exactly.

[tod evans]

Education is never a bad thing.

But..........Indenturing yourself to government is always a bad thing.

The modern collegiate system is a direct result of the entitlement attitude.

[Ronin Truth]

It pains me... but FF is correct:



Although that page states time is an exception, I believe the way FF used time is consistent with the general rule. Less that two weeks is not intended to imply a count of one week left or zero weeks left (as might be if one said "fewer than two weeks left" [awkward!]). Time is being used like a continuous mass of the same object and not discrete, separable objects like chairs.

Less time, fewer minutes. Less weight, fewer pounds. Less mail, fewer letters. Etc.

[Christian Liberty]

It's a broad statement to make when you say "don't go to college" and easy to do as an armchair quarterback. I've been guilty of it because I didn't go to college. Ever notice that people often try to tell you what to do just because it's what they did? Yeah, guilty. It's still frequently beneficial to go the college route but today's economy is difficult to navigate. Some of those business degrees are just expensive pieces of paper that students waste their money on. I try to tell people to attempt thinking outside the box. Some of the richest people that I personally know didn't get a college education and either created their own small business or landed an entry level job as a teenager at decent company and worked their way up. In hindsight if I had dropped out of high school, I'd be better off today. There were so many jobs back then in the 90s. I took the ones I had time for.

But most of that article is aimed at students who are going to college just because they are told they are supposed to even though they don't know what they are doing it for exactly.

Education is never a bad thing.

But..........Indenturing yourself to government is always a bad thing.

The modern collegiate system is a direct result of the entitlement attitude.

I'm going to a private school, and I'm doing it on purpose because I specifically want to teach history. I'm not just doing it because I think I'm "supposed" to.

[tod evans]

I'm going to a private school, and I'm doing it on purpose because I specifically want to teach history. I'm not just doing it because I think I'm "supposed" to.

You'd be well advised to refrain from borrowing money for this endeavor....

[Christian Liberty]

You'd be well advised to refrain from borrowing money for this endeavor....

Noted.

[LibertyEagle]

It depends upon what you major in. An engineering degree pays for itself in pretty short order.

[presence]

It depends upon what you major in. An engineering degree pays for itself in pretty short order.

Private schooled history teacher? Not so much.

[euphemia]

A two year degree from a local community college can pay off rather quickly in some communities. We have about ten hospitals within a 50 mile radius of my house. You can't swing a dead rat without hitting some doctor's office, walk-in clinic, or outpatient surgical center. It is a very good way to get a high paying job to earn money for a degree in another field.

[Ronin Truth]

A two year degree from a local community college can pay off rather quickly in some communities. We have about ten hospitals within a 50 mile radius of my house. You can't swing a dead eat without hitting some doctor's office, walk-in clinic, or outpatient surgical center. It is a very good way to get a high paying job to earn money for a degree in another field.

Agreed! Then finish the last two years of your BA at the college of your choice. That would save you quite a few bucks.

[PRB]

there's nothing wrong per se with college, it's just a waste of time and too much debt if you don't know what you're doing or are in it for the wrong reasons.

I wouldn't say it's the worst decision, houses and marriages can be much worse.