Has Higher Education Become A Scam?

In the beginning, college was intended for the best and the brightest of students. Back in the 1940s, a guy could get a well-paid unionized factory job without even a high school diploma. That was enough for a decent, middle-class lifestyle and a family. In the 1950s and 1960s, education was prioritized, a good move. Dropping out of high school came to be seen as a personal misfortune and a barrier to getting a good job. The well-paying manufacturing jobs started drying up over the decades, and by the 1990s a college education became the new ticket to the middle class.

Since then, the government has encouraged more students to participate in college. The intentions may have been for the best, but the results didn’t work out so well. If (using rough numbers) the best 20% of high school graduates are college material, then encouraging less-qualified students to enroll is going to cause some problems. Since they won’t be able to hack fields which will get them well-paying jobs, then they have to take less-demanding majors.

How does that work out for them after they’ve graduated? Many young people enrolled in college to ride out the recent lousy economy, but learned the hard way that the good jobs they were promised just weren’t there. Worse, they get encumbered with massive student loans. Further, the price of a college education has risen sharply, and not just any degree is a ticket to the middle class any more. For example, STEM degrees are useful (maybe), but fluff degrees are not. One can argue that the fine arts deserve academic study, but there are more unemployed art history grad students than there are new openings for museum curators and art history professors.

What was once a career-makng opportunity is all too often exploitation these days. The question is, why has the cost of education gone up so much? Why are students paying more but receiving less?

Executive pay

businessman_cigar_money

And they’re even helping me get a house. Woo hoo!

Let’s start at the very top. You might be surprised to learn that the average college president has over twice the salary of the average CEO:

College presidents on average earn $377,261 annually, or more than twice the average pay for CEOs, who take home about $176,840 on average each year, according to new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

At the same time, American students face ever-increasing tuition bills, with the growth in college costs for years dwarfing the rate of inflation.

If you thought this was something that only conservatives notice, think again. According to a Mother Jones article, which also touched on the perks for these jobs…

“In 1994, the study’s authors write, two private research university presidents made more than $500,000 (more than $788,000 in current dollars). By 2003, there were 42. While public institutions lag behind private ones—in 2004, 17 presidents of public research institutions were members of the “$500,000 Club”—they are likely to adopt similar practices over time.

The article includes a very interesting infographic showing forty university presidents making over a million dollars a year (data from 2010 and 2012), with the highest making over three million. How are their jobs so demanding that they need that much gravy?

Bloated administration

greedy-woman

Way better than I could get working at Fivebucks Coffee!

An even greater problem is the runaway growth in administration. Campus Reform (an excellent site) observed:

Between 1993 and 2007, the number of full-time administrators per 100 students at America’s leading universities grew by 39 percent, while the number of employees engaged in teaching, research or service only grew by 18 percent. Inflation-adjusted spending on administration per student increased by 61 percent during the same period, while instructional spending per student rose 39 percent.

So those are the 1993-2007 statistics. For a more inclusive picture, our good friends at HuffPo noted:

In all, from 1987 until 2011-12—the most recent academic year for which comparable figures are available—universities and colleges collectively added 517,636 administrators and professional employees, or an average of 87 every working day, according to the analysis of federal figures, by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting in collaboration with the nonprofit, nonpartisan social-science research group the American Institutes for Research.

“There’s just a mind-boggling amount of money per student that’s being spent on administration,” said Andrew Gillen, a senior researcher at the institutes. “It raises a question of priorities.”

So it looks like administrative jobs have become a make-work program. We’ve heard of welfare and corporate welfare; looks like this is academic welfare. For instance, being an Assistant Dean of Diversity and Inclusion must be a sweet gig for a Social Justice Warrior who can’t get a job in the real world. Still, the students have to pay for the proliferation of paper-pushing positions that didn’t exist thirty years ago, as well as taxpayers who pick up the tab for the rest of college funding.

Faculty pay

greed80-resize-380x300

I sure lucked out! All my other friends with sociology doctorate degrees are waiting tables or flipping burgers.

Professors, too, are getting a pretty hefty piece of the pie:

Through the first half of the 20th century, faculties in academic institutions were generally underpaid relative to other comparably educated members of the workforce. […]

With the 1970s advent of collective bargaining in higher education, this began to change. The result has been more equitable circumstances for college faculty, who deserve salaries comparable to those of other educated professionals. Happily, senior faculty at most state universities and colleges now earn $80,000 to $150,000, roughly in line with the average incomes of others with advanced degrees.

Not changed, however, are the accommodations designed to compensate for low pay in earlier times. Though faculty salaries now mirror those of most upper-middle-class Americans working 40 hours for 50 weeks, they continue to pay for teaching time of nine to 15 hours per week for 30 weeks, making possible a month-long winter break, a week off in the spring and a summer vacation from mid-May until September.

It’s quite a nice job to have. Compare that with a lawyer researching through dusty legal tomes 60+ hours a week, an IT administrator who must be on call 24×7 to respond to outages that can stop a company’s operations, or a surgeon who must make life-and-death decisions. A professor who is very knowledgeable in a valuable field should be paid well, but not all professors qualify. From my own days in the academic meat grinder, I remember quite a few classrooms the size of movie theaters, often taught by teaching assistants who didn’t know English.

Books

hypocriteprof

Almost all classes require books; that’s understandable. Unfortunately, they’re notoriously expensive. Back when I was in college, the justification for the extreme price was the limited print runs; economy of scale and all that. I could get five bucks off for a used textbook, and sell it back to the bookstore at a pittance at the end of the semester if I wanted.

Many college textbooks are now available by electronic distribution, which means no need to print anything, but prices for them are just as high. That fact exposed the scam for what it is. Let’s get real here. My own book catalog didn’t cost me a cent to write, my distribution pays better royalties than I’d get from printed books, and you can do all that too.

A trick that some professors do is to make a new edition of their own books every year. Some books do require updating (contemporary history and cutting-edge sciences), but some really don’t need updating too frequently. For instance, a calculus textbook from the 1960s (or for that matter, the 1920s) is as good as one that just came out. However, often professors will just rearrange the chapters, change a few words in the preface, and now it’s a new edition. That gets rid of the problem of bookstores selling used books which won’t get the professor new royalties!

Easy finance

banksters_robbing_sheeple1

It’s a basic economic principle that availability of easy credit is an inflationary pressure. The more people are willing to pay, the more suppliers will feel free to jack up prices. When people can spend beyond their means, many will do so, even though a wise man will avoid debt.

Recall also the events leading up to the 2007-2008 financial crisis: the government decided that everyone deserved to have a house, and loan officers wrote mortgages to everyone with a pulse. When everything went to hell, the government bailed out their “too big to fail” buddies on Wall Street. They also created programs to help borrowers who got themselves over their heads; they weren’t very effective, but all that’s another story.

This is basically what happened with student loans. How has the government responded? Congress caved into the banksters and made it extremely difficult to discharge student loans through bankruptcy. This seems to fly in the face of the legal principle of not treating separate categories differently, but I’m sure some lawyer will have a field day with that one of these days.

That leaves those who got ripped off with few other options. So the students who can’t find decent jobs are pretty much stuck with it, unlike those who get over their heads with credit cards or a house note. Further, predatory lending has become a big problem with student loans.

What can be done individually?

Social Justice Weenie

Don’t let this be your kid (or at the very least, not in your basement)

Parents need to be selective about where they’re sending their children and what they’ll be studying. Some things just aren’t going to be marketable: women’s studies, other grievance studies, sociology (for the whole cultural Marxism smorgasbord), art history, journalism, etc. Remember; Dad’s money, Dad’s rules. The penalty for disregarding this will be having a 28 year old living in your basement who has (perhaps) a part time job making expensive coffee.

Students should take care to manage their finances carefully. Although I got an acceptance letter from an Ivy League school, I went to an affordable university so I wouldn’t run out of money. I worked whenever I could. This left less time to study, but I don’t regret that. I graduated owing less than $10K. I did my best to live within my means, while others were running up their debts like there’s no tomorrow.

Another thing students can do is enroll in community colleges first to knock out courses that will be required by their preferred university; just make sure the credits will transfer. Also, they should apply for whatever grants and scholarships are available, and read the fine print on any loan paperwork.

If you’re only seeking to expand your knowledge, the good news is that many universities offer free online lectures, one of the best things to come out of academia lately, and I’m happy to give credit where it’s due. The Khan Academy is a great resource for math, with some other subjects included.

What can be done societally?

louis-xvi-guillotine

Just kidding!

We’re long overdue for cleaning house in academia. For ages, they’ve been indoctrination centers for cultural Marxism. In the 1960s, this was tolerated under the notion of campuses as places for the free exchange of ideas, but now they’re anything but that. Every year, thousands of personable young kids get turned into Social Justice Warriors brainwashed by cultural Marxist memes. Since tenured faculty can’t be removed, there’s no way to get rid of underperformers or those doing nothing but pushing thinly-disguised propaganda.

Other than that, the administration bloated with paper pushers should be trimmed down too. There’s no reason a college can’t operate with the same infrastructure it had in the 1980s. As for the predatory lending problem, the interest rates should be regulated, and perhaps include a maximum cap of 150% of the original loan amount. That’s quite enough gravy for the banksters as it is.

Fixing these problems will require a top-down effort, which will cause much resistance by entrenched forces, along with great weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Until then, consumer choice will be the best way to go. Choosing the truly best universities and academic departments will reward good efforts, and help to starve the beast where the worst is concerned.

Read More:  How To Get A Good Education Without Going To College

248 thoughts on “Has Higher Education Become A Scam?”

  1. Tell your kids to get maturity and make a plan before they go. So many flake off and either drop out or get a worthless liberal degree because they approach college the same way they did high school (without the parents nagging them). Out of high school, I spent about 3 years goofing off and working odd jobs before I took the plunge. By then, I was mature enough to take school seriously.

    1. This is so right. ANother thing is, and I wish someone had asked me this when I was younger, how do you want to live. I was, like I am sure many of you were, asked “what do you want to be when you grow up” Well duh…I wanted to be a short stop astronaut billionaire lead guitarist race car driver….that’s what I wanted to be when I grew up. What a stupid fucking question. The right question would have been “how would you like to live” I would have said I want a job in the city with a big desk and wearing a suit and making a lot of money and taking expensive vacations and I could have saved about a decade of my life dicking around with other shit. Some people might have said they want to live where they can go to the beach every day or someone may have said they wanted to live where they can see animals every day or where they have adrenaline rushes every day. Then you reverse engineer a path from the kind of life you want to live to the kind of job that will get you there.

      1. Agreed, decided that I wanted a solid family life and a job that I could spend the time doing what I wanted. After I reverse engineered it, I had a game plan. My job isn’t exciting, but it fulfills those requirements.

      2. That is one of three key questions one must ask themselves:
        HOW do you want to live?
        WHAT do you want to DO?
        What do you want to HAVE?

        1. yup. my blue heaven and your blue heaven might be very different places. Finding the place for you will make you a happier and more productive person.

  2. Well, if you speak french, you can have access to superior education. Universities are paid by the state. . Any university inscription is less than 1000 dollars a year here. In fact, the cost of living is far more costy than the education itself…
    Sure, we got our own problems. Universities are often old and some are sweatshops, but the core knowledge is a good as everywhere else.
    One of my female friends is doing research for Nasa (astrophysics). Her eduction cost her less than 6000 dollars…
    The only problem: it’s free, so you don’t get much help until your 2 or 3 year (Deug or Licence degree). You’d better hang on and have a good working method.
    Some mention endemic racism and annoying leftists. The first is just false, the second is partially true (but our female leftists are still bangable).

    1. This is exactly what I saw when I spent a year at the Sorbonne back in the late 90’s. A very good description of the excellent French education system.

      1. Sorbonne, from a she-cousin of mine, still offers good courses, as long as you know french and you really take your studies seriously. I also remember, one of the best teachers I had in school had finished studying in Sorbonne, I do not know if that was the reason but he had convictions and character.

        1. I was great. I spent some time there and some at ENS. I found the French educational system (and culture) to be quite enviable.

    2. Actually, universities are paid for by you 50 years after you received any utility from them. Nothing in the world is free. Nothing.

      1. I agree, but until very recently, i was happy to pay taxes to have a great education system. (not so great with primary school, nowadays).
        The Strange value of French University, is as you get no help until later degree, its quite elitist…
        We also have a system of ‘grandes ecoles’ who are much more expensive… But they yet are ‘no nonsense schools.

        1. Every program that the U.S. government touches turns both to garbage, and becomes evil. I’d rather just pay my own way, thanks. If your system works for you, that’s fine, but keep in mind that your population is being slowly replaced by Islamic colonists so there may come a day not too far in the future when you’re not so happy with this arrangement.

        2. Our cultures used to work differently. Anglosaxons were separatists, We were assimilationists. Il once worked quite well until the 70ies.
          Now, everything is falling appart, but it’s not the direct fault of the migrants. They’re a symptom.
          Our problem is the same as yours: a great deal of our ‘elite’ is sold to the globalists.
          Our infrastructure is still good. Now, the fight is about changing the rotting heads. People are painfully admiting it. Police agrees. The army is wondering.
          Then, every inner problem will be assimilated or destroyed. That’s our historical way.

  3. Who said that?
    “They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want…but I’ll tell you what they don’t want:
    “They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. That’s against their interests.
    “They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that!”
    “You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they want your retirement money – and you know something? They’ll get it.
    They’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fucking place!
    It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it! You, and I, are not in the big club.”

    1. The late great George Carlin! Unfortunately, his commentary is even more relevant today…

      1. when he takes his meds he usually hits at around 60%. A good egg.

  4. “University education” is one of the biggest scams running in our society today. A supposed ticket to the so-called “middle class” (there’s no such thing), in actuality it’s nothing more than a Marxist indoctrination institute and a cleverly disguised debt-trap.
    If:
    a) you didn’t graduate at the top 10% of your class, or
    b) you aren’t enrolling in a top-tier University with a decent scholarship or lower tier University with a full scholarship, or
    c) you don’t have a rich dad to pay for it all in the case of no scholarship, or
    d) you aren’t very well connected and have a job lined up upon graduation, or
    e) you have no intention of studying STEM
    then your degree probably isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. You should be very careful before investing a huge amount of time and money on something that will probably have a low return on investment.
    You’d be better off learning a trade at a community college (learn something that can’t be outsourced), get five years of experience at a firm and then go independent.

    1. essential the scam works of the post hoc fallacy that the American middle class buys into.
      When only the top 20% of students went to college they would graduate and walk into a very nice career which paid good money. The bottom 80% obviously saw less physically stressful jobs which paid so much more money and assumed that it was because they went to college, not because they were the top 20% of students.
      So the schools start admitting everyone, the government lets you put yourself into a world of debt to pay for it, the quality drops, those same top 20% of students still go on to do very well (though have a worse college experience because they are forced to take dumbed down classes that everyone can pass rather than to work hard to get through difficult classes where they learn stuff) and the rest go on to do, most likely, exactly what they would have been doing otherwise only with a huge disadvantage in the fact that they will be paying off loans for at least 20 years and probably more.
      The thinking that college education = good life was sold to people and then the college education was basically turned into 13th-17th grade. IN reality it was the case that the smartest and hardest working 20% always did well.

      1. “IN reality it was the case that the smartest and hardest working 20% always did well.”
        This.
        The smartest and hardest working 20% will always thrive wherever they go due to their work ethic, critical thinking, adaptability, ability to learn from their mistakes, etc. A lot of this is inherited from good upbringing in a proper household.
        They don’t necessarily need institutionalized education (they never have through the ages), although having it in today’s climate definitely helps.

        1. that is right, but when the institutionalized education was actually geared toward them in order to nurture their gifts and focus them it was a wonderful thing. The idea that everyone belongs in college ruined that. It is a shame too.

        2. Especially true with today’s information age, you can teach yourself to do damn near anything for free these days-if you have the drive. Youtube vids, good books & critical thinking will show you what leaches most professors in their fields are. Who dares wins.

      2. This can be witnessed also in Greece, but the situation here MAY lack student debt (we lack private institutions that only started a 5 years ago and none of them is prestigious enough to demand a ton of money) but having all our universities public is no big help either.
        Greek universities, the vast majority of the, exist only to give easy degrees, which are referred here as toilet paper. The reason behind this has to do with the whole mess that theses institutions are in. In Greek universities maybe even from the 70’s the parties have insitutions that indoctrinate the children and force people into signing into political parties, that help them progress through their degrees, I should not add the way also many members of the female of the species have to pass classes if they are considered beautiful by their tutors who may later communicate to them a specific desire for ascribing into them and they agree into it for some help, considering their diplomas. Add to this that student protests close down universities and what on paper should have been a 3-year course, becomes a 5-year one.
        The result is a mess that you go into it only because EVERYONE demands a degree in Greece for giving you work, only because anyone, or nearly anyone younger than 35 has a degree of some shorts.
        Private institutions on the other hand, dwell only on two ideas: they lack protests, you can’t copulate your way to graduation, the lack of parties and the fact that three-year courses are three-year courses.

        1. what a mess over there. Is there any hope for the future or does it look bleak?

        2. Well…
          Imagine that in your country there is an economic crisis for 7 years. Think that your country is in the IMF for 5 years and has signed 3 o 4 memoranda I have lost count. Think that all other European countries that entered the IMF with you a bit after you are now out of it and are on a steady way to fix their economies. Imagine that the reason why you are in that said-so crisis is because people want to get stuffed into the public sector for its job security. Imagine that the moment light shone at the end of the tunnel, under Samaras, when Greece turned in a small profit, everyone starts demandind a part of that small profit. Imagine that a politician that offered, basically free money and more jobs on the public sector, wins the election and he plunges you in just 5 months in far more serious situation. Imagine that your people voted for that guy again and even affirmed during a referendum. Imagine that most of the people you know, the vast majority, does not recognize, still, those “refugees” as a danger and demands the same things from the state that he demanded always and criticizes the current government for NOT giving enough jobs in the public sector.
          The word bleak is not adequate enough.
          In fact after careful consideration I started planning to emigrate, but cannot do it for some personal reason that I ‘d like to keep personal, mainly though that going to a foreign country alone, without a job or recommendations is suicide in my mind. In general though even the thought that I might live the rest of my life here starts to make me cringe and is the reason for some minor depression.
          Really I see no reactions from the Greeks, it is like they are not giving signs of life in reference to their environment. As a people we failed to see our mistakes and continue to do so. Even worse in the Greek parliament there is NO party that may be able to solve our most serious problems and be electable.
          A phenomenon like Trump here would not be feasible.

        3. wow that is insane. At what point do you start considering jumping ship?

        4. My problem is that I cannot jump ship, if I could I would have done it already! I can’t though, the moment I am able, I will do it, there is no reason fighting for a dead cause.

        5. Similar to the situation here in germany.
          When I think about it, I could be officially a Diplomingenieur in june – but instead I will get a shitty Bachelor of Science degree because of the Bologna process transforming german degrees a few years ago because of ‘Muh European Union’…..

        6. “because of the Bologna process transforming german degrees a few years ago because of ‘Muh European Union’”
          Sorry to bother you but could you elaborate on that a bit, if possible?

        7. Yes, but that due to our system that is being based upon school grades to progress to universities. The difficulty to enter a Greek university RARELY matches the struggle.

        8. Interesting, I read somewhere that students were essentially forced to parrot marxist shit their professors put out in order ot study at Greek universites.
          Any opinion not in the Party Line was unnaceptable thus the private universites have opened up so students can learn without this nonesense..
          Is this true?
          If so the university exist merely for left wing indoctrination. A pitty really..

        9. Until recently, Germany had a valuable trade sudies that you cann choose at an early age

        10. I cannot say to that, but if you like philosophy you cannot not be a marxist to go there. Honestly , though from some acquitances, they follow no stable system for giving tests, I mean discourses are not necessary to pass, and most pass through tests. From some other people I take the idea that most professors indoctrinate, not all but there is a problem to keep peace inside the room…

      3. While I agree with the points both of you make, we need to be careful not to oversimplify this problem. There were a couple of other contributors:
        1) The end of WWII. Over 12 million GI’s now had to come home to jobs that were filled by Rosie who didn’t want to give up riveting for boring housewife duties. Plus, the economy was heavily tilted toward wartime production of tanks, ships, planes, trucks, etc…that just weren’t needed anymore. So the government created the GI Bill to have somewhere to put all these guys coming back. That’s why a lot our your grandparents were the first in their families to go to college.
        2) Title VII passage in 1964. Prior to this, employers could discriminate in hiring decisions. So, now that its illegal to discriminate on certain characteristics, how do I turn down a belligerent gang banger that wants to work in customer service? Easy, I use higher education as a proxy. Everyone knows that most jobs, from factory worker to beat cop to receptionist don’t really require a Bachelor’s degree. But unless you have some standard that you can use to weed out undesirable applicants without facing charges of discrimination, then you’re going to find it difficult to keep from hiring shitheads or being sued into oblivion. In a way, this one feeds in to your observation because not only do people mistake cause and effect, but their mistake is reinforced by the fact that you can’t even get blue collar jobs without this arbitrary credential anymore.

        1. both of those are absolutely correct. I am talking about recourse that we could take here and now however rather than historical cause of the problem. Title VII killed us. It really did. It is amazing that people watched us turn from a meritocracy into an “everyone gets a prize” workforce and then was shocked when we got our asses handed to us by the Asians.

        2. White men need to stop bitching about what is killing them. What is killing white men is being faggots who complain about things killing them

        3. The problem is weak men…you want to blame women, blame the world, blame society … that is an inherently female trait. Your world is what you make of it. I admit there is a problem in your life — a problem that doesn’t exist in mine. When you grow up, find your dick and start being a man the problem will disappear from yours as well

        4. Oh the man up argument. Which is exactly why feminism will never be addressed.

        5. Ok. Well I’m going to go back to enjoying the fruits of being a man while you cry about why being a faggot doesn’t pay off

        6. I like some of the articles and some of the people. Why are you? Needed a safe space to cry?

        7. of course not. However, whining that life isn’t fair does. The man up argument is a good one. You don’t get the fruits of being a man without the work

    2. “You’d be better off learning a trade in a community college, get five years of experience and then going independent.”
      Very true. Commercial refridgeration is an underrated trade that often gets overlooked by guys looking to learn a trade. It’s usually 2 years of cc and more often than not employers pick up guys within their first year at school. Journeymen in this trade make over $30 an hour in most cities and are never short of work. I know this because I used to work in retail grocery and anytime we needed a refridgeration repair the same overworked guy would come out complaining about the lack of good help in the field.

      1. College education and the trades were stigmatized as “low class” work to discourage men from becoming self-sufficient whereas university education was sold as a ticket to the “middle class” lifestyle.
        There’s lots of money to be made in the trades and the cost to learn one is a fraction of what one might pay for a “university education”.

        1. My uncle has been a plumber for forty or so years.
          Owns a bloody mansion on 200 acres of land, raises horses and cuts Country albums on his own dime for fun (not for profit), had seven children, never saw a lick of debt in his life.

        2. Even better if a guy can get a union apprenticeship then it’s completely paid for. I’m not big on unions but the wage and retirement packages are great for those who make it through the programs.

        3. Yep. I’ve had to get plumbing repairs in the past and the bill made me doubt my career choice.

        4. Especially these days when plumbers do 90% of their plumbing using shoddy plastic push-fit pipes and fittings. Back in MY day, we had to bend IRON pipes and thread them the old-fashioned way! And when we were done, the painter and decorator would chase us for miles (uphill both ways!) and then beat us with his belt buckle for using too much PTFE tape. Aye, those were the days. Kids these days with their lead-free solder and their stop valves for EVERY tap and appliance don’t know they’re born.

        5. Did you use your teeth to bend the pipes? Because otherwise…you had it easy! We had to bend iron pipe, with our teeth, while they were still being forged in 2000 degree furnaces, and we liked it that way, because we were men!

        6. The furnaces were located in our throats and we wouldn’t have had it any other way! You people today are weak!

        7. “I had to get up in the morning at ten o’clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of dry rat poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work…and when we got home, our Dad would kill us and dance about on our graves singing ‘Hallelujah.’”
          …but you try and tell the young people today that… and they won’t believe ya’.

        8. ROTFLMAO! Surprised it took so long for someone to make “The Four Yorkshiremen” reference.

        9. “There’s lots of money to be made in the trades and the cost to learn one is a fraction of what one might pay for a university education.” – VERY TRUE!!!
          If you can provide a solution to people’s problems, develop strong business acumen and approach it with an entrepreneurial spirit, the sky’s the limit! Most people would be shocked at how many people in the “trades” are actually high-net worth individuals with nearly unlimited resources.

      2. Underappreciated trades include:
        – Refrigeration and HVAC
        – Electrical work (power engineering, maintenance, etc)
        – Plumbing (because toilets and clean running water are a plus)
        – IT setup and maintenance (from database administration to setting up office computers and VoIP services)
        – Vehicle maintenance and customization
        – Construction and building maintenance
        It’s a small list of just those trades I researched for a “friend” who acted as though he wanted to do something with his life. But he was “too good” for honest work, so now he’s being chased by debt collectors.

        1. “But he was “too good” for honest work”
          Pretty much sums up the attitude of most millenials. I’m 31 and have seen this attitude towards work for the better part of the last 10 years among people my age.

        2. He was hardly my first encounter, but he was the first sufficiently sociopathic to con me.
          Loaned him some money to buy a bike (with a solid contract – I’m trusting, but not stupid), repo’d the bike, and once all the paperwork’s through I’ve got a debt collector on speed dial ready to sic him with all the fees he signed on for.
          2017 should be nice for my wallet.

        3. add under the rubric of plumbing welding. A welder with high end certs (like x ray) will make a lot of money…..a real lot of money.

        4. They’re always “too good” for honest work, but never “too good” to be on the dole at the public’s expense.

        5. When I was in construction in Texas people didn’t want their homes torn open in 20, 30 degree rainy icy weather. Jobs decreased. I would throw papers, work at a gas station to not touch my savings. I would do whatever it took.
          Now I work 7 to 8, 12 hour days in a row to have days off to finish my degree. My coworkers, this is a hospital with more women than men, constantly complain, “I have to get my sleep, I want to binge on Netflix, I gotta go out on Fridays.” The majority of men whimper too. Always about them instead of the goal at hand.

        6. Is “on the dole” a phrase used in the US? I thought that was almost uniquely a Brit term

        7. It’s the one I’ve always heard growing up. I think it’s also used in the States, or was at one time anyway. I think I’ve heard it on old All in the Family episodes and maybe some Looney Toons cartoons?

        8. I wasn’t aware that it was possible to weld X-rays back together. That must take one hell of a flux.

        9. lol. Funny. But it is actually really amazing to watch the guys on gas lines like at the airport find hairline cracks via x-ray and weld those things.

        10. LT is where the youth learned everything from humor to classical music.
          While “on the dole” is used it is somewhat infrequent. But I do think “dole” and in having something “doled out” is actually quite common @disqus_fpIIU5cqkI:disqus

        11. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Roadrunner & Coyote. Etc.

        12. I was kind of surprised that Bob Dole didn’t get all slammed for having that last name when he ran for president in ’96.

        13. Anyone who tells me they’re “too good” for any single task or job can fuck the hell off from me. The most successful people I know were never “too good” for a job. Ever. I know a few CEOs, one retired, one dead who both started sweeping floors, and removing debris and trash where they worked.
          They didn’t just sweep floors for 3 months, then get better positions, they did it for YEARS. Now I’m not saying the workplace environment hasn’t changed – with layers of back stabbing middle supervisor/managers & VP level fucks who simply need their asses beat badly, hell bent on holding others back to prop up their “image” of value – what I’m getting at is persistence, positioning oneself for success. It’s ironic how natural wit and accurate persistence seem to always go hand-and-hand isn’t it?
          One became a billionaire of the 2nd or 3rd largest (depending on era it spanned across) glass empire in the world. He held at one point nearly every C-level position of the company, was briefly the president as well, literally mastering the entire industry, knighted in 3 countries, eaten formal dinners with Kings, Queens, Putin, the president, governors, senators, mayors, etc. How’d he do it? Decades of hard work, earning the trust of higher-ups, showing up before anyone else, staying later than anyone else. A pure business machine. He also had a penchant for interacting with politicians when needed to advance the business, but not becoming entrenched in their web-of-lies.
          The other, a CEO, of a landmark clean coal energy plant that supplied 750,000+ people electricity, owned by (in some years) the largest electric company in the U.S. Similar story, no one there worked harder than he did, and he could perform any single job on the site.
          When getting to know them both and asking what the keys to their success were, BOTH of them at some point said the exact same thing… “I was never too good to work any job.”

        14. In CA I became buds with a Paki with a golden business-opened a wheel & tire shop in the hood. Mounting and tending hood rat wheel & tire was a cash cow, he’d do their stupid, unsafe shit cheap and then sell them chinese rims as they ran through crap rims failing. Legit places like Discount wont mess with hood rat taste, but Sean the Paki would feed them their own shit while laughing all the way to the bank.

        15. I can vouch for the IT setup and maintenance jobs without a degree. Eleven years ago I started out as entry level tech support making just north of $30K per year. My current job title is Senior DevOps Architect and I make north of $130K as base salary with an annual bonus plus company stock and some assorted perks. I have no degree, no student loan debt, and no certifications.
          You don’t need a degree for most of the IT spectrum, especially if you have the aptitude for it and can learn quickly. Hell, most certifications are worth about as much as a women’s studies degree.

        16. Good list I’d add:
          commercial vehicle mechanic.
          commercial glass installer
          flat roofer
          journemyan welder
          One can see a pattern here: no matter what the economy is doing these things need to be done and are specialized trades..

        17. I saw that recently. I took a graduate course in database development and administration (it was free), but I wondered if certifications were a plus for me.
          Half of them are certifying that you know how to install and play with a particular version of SQL software. Nothing about getting the databases to work or techniques for development or anything that’s really worth a damn in the market.
          The moral of the story is “be picky.”

        18. That’s Real Work Ethic!… and it will remain with you for a lifetime. Always stay focused and Never Make Excuses; those that do will always fall by the wayside.

        19. The Rim and Tire Business ain’t no joke! I’ve known plenty of these business owners over the years when I still lived in SoCal… They wear old clothes, drive an old Toyota Camry to work, and go home to a $2-Million home with a fleet of exotic cars in the garage.

        20. They were straight with me and even loaned me tools, but the best was hearing paki ebt slang for sales- “How much sweet you want?” American values at work, regardless of origin dude was honest, hard working and beat competition. Watched him fix broke motherfuckers rides in the drivetrain for $20 also.

        21. Honest work is more appealing if it is a bridge to something better. Just because a idealists’ floor- sweeping led them up the ladder doesn’t mean this is what it normally does. I worked hardest of night shift overstockers for months and it got me part time bossed by some young college guy.

      3. I can back you up on how hard it is to get a good refrigeration mechanic. When one of my fridges broke (again), I decided to shop around because I suspected the guy I normally called was seriously overcharging me. The first guy I called did the job for half the price my usual mechanic would’ve charged, but the damn thing broke again within weeks (in exactly the same way as it broke before) and the guy who’d ‘repaired’ the fridge had mysteriously vanished into the ether.
        So I called a third guy who advertised himself as a fridge repairer. He asked me to describe the fault and the fridge over the phone. When I told him the fridge’s make and model he said “That’s a commercial fridge, isn’t it?” I confirmed it was. “Oh, I don’t do commercial fridges; I only do domestic.”
        Who the hell is paying to have their DOMESTIC fridges repaired? A fridge mechanic charges £100 just to glance at your fridge and tut disapprovingly! It might be (barely) worth paying £00s to repair a commercial fridge which would cost £000s to replace, but I can’t see the point in spending £100 minimum repairing a fridge that could be replaced for £300, especially when you factor in the fact that a fridge which is old enough to develop one fault is probably old enough to develop several more faults, each costing £00s to fix, in the near future.
        Long story short, I sold the knackered fridge for scrap value and bought a new one on hire purchase. The way I saw it, the monthly payments were about the same as I’d been spending on repairs with me getting a new(ish) fridge at the end instead of a clapped-out old piece of junk.
        TL;DR: Refrigeration Mechanic = Good choice of career.
        Refrigeration Mechanic who doesn’t know how to fix a commercial fridge = Good luck getting any work.

    3. The decision has consequences even in STEM.
      Take, for example, a degree in Biology. On paper, it’s a good degree – rigorous, intensive study of a real science that has consequences toward all living things. But in practice, it’s a very hard degree to market unless you’re hoping to advance toward something like dentistry or medicine – even in research, you’re fighting for one underpayed slot with hundreds of applicants.
      The same problem can be observed in Physics (too theoretical, not a lot of opportunities available), many of the mathematics disciplines (same problems as Physics), and even some rare engineering disciplines (chiefly Biomedical – not enough programming in the coursework to work in tech, not enough work in the labs to do bio research).
      If you have no idea what job you’re hoping to get, don’t even consider a college degree. Plan your post-college work first, and you’ll find whatever training is required to make it happen.

      1. Agreed. Even with STEM, people need to be careful and have a clear plan on how they plan to monetize from it upon graduation.
        The more theoretical the disciple, the more one will have to think of this beforehand. Otherwise one will end up with a very theoretical degree with no idea of what to do with it which will prove costly.

        1. If you have a degree in computer science from an American University then you have nothing to worry about with regards to the H1bs. They’ll employ you offer the Indians immigrants if you have the degree

      2. The key word is “plan”. To be honest, the problem for most of us human beings is at 18 years old we really are not sure what we want to do. In fact, even at 22 we do not know what to do. So what happens is that college becomes an expensive experimental stage for 18 to 22 year olds. This is okay if you have a plan. If you do not have a plan this is a very dangerous position to put yourself in.

    4. “You’d be better off learning a trade in a community college (learn something that can’t be outsourced), get five years of experience at a firm and then going independent”
      And specifically a trade or service that will also be pragmatic when the grid goes down, or when the next global reboot happens; and this would include something that I could do both in normal times and times of crisis – or armaggedon.
      Seriously, if I was a high school graduate who was unplugged (and hopefully already reading Return Of Kings) I sure as fuck would not be concerning myself with what type of college degree to get, but preparing for shtf and being flexible in seeking niches to fill when it all goes down.
      Even back in the 1980’s I felt college degrees where a waste of time because even back then I suspected that it will all come to a halt; but no convincing my parents of this.

      1. I admit I was blind – all we heard growing up was “go to college, get rich”. Mind you this from our parents, none of whom had gone to college. They were still in a 1950s mindset; that white-collar ANYTHING meant automatic wealth and therefore happiness. Fortunately I had a specific career in mind which required a degree so I approached college almost like a trade school; a means to an end.
        Still took way too long, cost way too much, and maybe locking yourself into a “career” when you’re 17 is not the best way to approach life.

        1. The notion of knowing your entire life’s career at 15 (they start them around sophomore year with “what do you want to do” crap) has never made much sense for me. As I recall, a man could start out life at 16 being an apprentice somewhere over a summer, then try something next summer, then maybe hit the military for a hitch, do odd jobs here and there, until he found something that really clicked. Yes, lots of young men took a job at 16 and retired from the same company at 60 but they didn’t necessarily have to. No you basically have to choose your “career” right out the door at 17.5 as you sign up for courses at college.

        2. I support your model. Kids should explore more, try as many things as possible to zero in on their inherent gifts, tendencies and interests, while at the same time developing the confidence to identify, embrace and develop these things as they’re found.
          In retrospect I certainly would have benefited from this approach.

        3. Well of course, and the career they’re selling you in the high school counselor’s office is in a “high long term growth” field. Here’s the kicker, they’re filtering everyone into those fields, thus increasing the competition for those jobs 4-7 years later out of college to the max. So you get to swim through a burgeoning sea of increasingly mediocre twats who’ll work for peanuts, to get noticed. No thanks. Add to that, Libtard central administering from K-12 through Doctorate education now.

      2. I think the problem with the community college is that some of these community colleges have some extremely marginal students at best. In addition, the behavior of some of the students at some of the community colleges is a bit below par. I think that eventually, there will be an increase in the number of private institutions that give certifications in various trades. These will be “elite” trade schools.

    5. Lets add to the fact that universities now favor International Students (mostly from India and China) than local students simply because International Students will pay a HIGHER and FULL cost of the tuition required to attend. In turn, these institutions don’t care much for the locals and cater more to the foreigners. Hence, shortage of graduates in STEM that are American citizens which leads to more H1b work visas being sponsored, which in turn leads to corporations profiting because they can pay a low wage to foreigners and get away with it. Welcome to the new America!

    6. It’s not a scam. It’s a business. Period. Just because you or somebody else didn’t see the dividends that others did doesn’t mean it was a scam. Of course the rich and connected are going to make sure their children get the very best. Wouldn’t you?
      Kids need to realize early on that higher education is a business and you will be making an investment merger with one department of a corporation (the school subject) and another (yourself). Make sure you invest in yourself wisely and run the merger.

    7. I work in the academia (I am a lecturer) in STEM and I agree with you. I speak with students which are in a non-STEM studies and the difference is huge: the STEM students are much more realistic and practical. The others dream about almost anything, without having a plan to fulfill their dreams.

    8. Graduate degrees in humanities are the worse. Undergraduate, they still have to deal with people who do not intend to be academics. So there is a certain need to pretend to acknowledge multiple perspectives.
      But once in graduate programs, you are required to create pseude knowledge that supposedly deepens the fake world view of PC academia. It is a sort of ritual that will reward the most unimaginative and obedient syncophants.
      Fortunately, fields like computers and science exist for those with the aptitude. That does not describe my son (who is great in language however, and in ROTC is a damn good wepaons handler.)
      But I felt like I was speaking with a religious zealot when I spoke with my nephew in envirnomental science (a fake science). He spoke carbon footprints as a sort of demon we were all exhaling. I would have been ruthless to anyone over 30 who said that, but I am not in the business of discouraging the young. So I just told him I was glad he found something he was into. And at least, they are getting some real hands on experience with actually installing some solar panels.
      But what I did say was this. It would be cool of the envirnomental movement worked with certain off-the-grid patriot redneck types who are interested in working with solar in a manner that increases autonomy rather than trying to get a socialist utopia.
      For example, environmentlism can tax cow farts and every single activity that humans engage in to make us slaves of the state. Or they can work with off the grid folks like me trying to use solar panels, fruit trees, nut trees, livestock etc to reduce my dependance on these systems.

  5. this article was long overdue American colleges cost so much that you could start a business with all that money and still have enough left for a world tour .a hypothetical question if you could deal with basement dwellers what would you do?

    1. The average cost of starting a new business and an MBA are pretty much the same and most people are now suggesting that the experience from running the business, even if it fails, is a more marketable kudo than the MBA unless the MBA is from one of the top 10 schools where the degree itself is less valuable than the connections you make. If you are doing an MBA and you aren’t at an IVY or one of the absolute top non IVYs then you are burning money.

  6. Learn a trade or a skill. Then learn more of them. Start a business. The more businesses you start and run, even if you “fail”, you learn so much by running them, that the experience is invaluable. Plus, you grow a set of balls. And the confidence you will attain is worth way more than anything a college degree might afford you (speaking of afford, you won’t be able to afford the tuition costs). The pay is a lot better, too, quite typically, even with modest success, than what you might earn with a college degree. So the hell with college. Colleges are debt-slave factories and leftist indoctrination centers that prepare you to go to work to make corporations richer.

    1. Great post Bob! This sentiment needs to be repeated over and over! Very practical and truthful. Nothing builds confidence and balls of steel quite like being your own boss!

    2. Article TL;DR
      “Colleges are debt-slave factories and leftist indoctrination centers that prepare you to go to work to make corporations richer”

    3. “Learn a trade or a skill. Then learn more of them. Start a business..”
      Yes like: independant magazine publisher!?

  7. Want to get college reform?
    1) Allow bankruptcy to discharge student loans again
    2) Tie federal student loan to a combination of graduation rates, students % paying their loans on time, employment rate, and average salary
    3) Get rid of pell grants
    Do that and you’ll see the cost of college tumble
    My personal opinion
    For undergrad – unless you are getting a STEM degree or otherwise valuable skill to a business (business, economics, marketing etc), don’t bother
    For grad school – unless you can go to a T20 program, don’t bother.
    Also, for those paying for themselves, really work college tax credits and going to a cheap local university/community college.

    1. Both very good ideas. Also, make admission standards so rigorous that 70-80% of the students who currently go to college don’t get in and make sure that those people have access to the absolute best trade or specialty schools whether it is learning to be a chef or a leather worker or a welder or a police officer.

      1. We’d have a nearly sane society in a little longer than 1 generation if that happened.

        1. The funniest thing about life it would seem is that the solutions to all the problems are a) simple b) fool proof c) often less expensive than the alternative. Yet here we is.

        2. Occam’s Razor is hardly ever incorrect. One of the major problems with Leftism and statism in general is that it is nearly impossible for these people to understand that yes, sometimes life really is that simple. As a teacher once corrected me when I was stumbling on a particular math procedure, I was thinking “too much like a German” in that I was making everything far more complex than it needed to be (this is a valid critique in Ohio where Germans abound). Instead of trying to engineer a twenty step solution to the problem, why not step back, look at it and look for the easiest path to the end result?

        3. There are some things in which very complex methodologies need to be applied to get a valid deeper understanding but almost all of them are either theoretical physics or philosophy…in almost everything else Ockham reigns supreme (though I am not fond of the religious connotation of the razor that was originally intended, the modern secular one works just fine. It really isn’t all the complicated.

        4. With some things in physics and even math, yes, but even then one should strive for the most concise answer, even if the best you can do is a twenty step algorithm. The razor doesn’t mean that life can’t have complex answers, but rather, that the simplest answer is usually correct, however, simple can mean twenty steps to solving X instead of the 80 being taught at school.

        5. right. notice I said theoretical physics. In practical or experimental physics the level of complication is not only unnecessary but, to be honest, counter productive. You are right about simple….it is just the most simple path. Ockham actually words it in terms of god…if a sentient and all powerful and all knowing being created the world the way he created it would be as simple as possible….
          I always like to think of Ockham’s razor in terms of effective rather than “correct” as I feel it gives us a much more sensible understanding of it. When reducing complications it has to do with real world applications. It may not apply to questions like “What does it mean to say that something is beautiful” or questions like “what are the consequences of uncertainty at a sub atomic level” but when it comes to anything from building an engine to engineering a civilization you can usually cut to the chase.

    2. We could borrow ideas from Japan:
      – Let each college devise a nationwide test for potential applicants. Only a top percentage get in, and only a fraction of them get any aid
      – Eliminate federal funding of any sort to colleges offering Liberal Arts degrees
      (As a side note, they also tailor their education so that kids are not obligated to stay in school past age 15. You test in to high school, you pay for high school, and if you don’t get in or can’t afford it you’re looking for other work.)

    3. And make the universities pay a percentage of the tuition debt of students encouraged to take sexualities, masculinities, and gender systems when they can’t find a job.

    4. An institution’s ability to accept Federal student loans has been tied to its cohort default rate since the 1980s. If 30% of a school’s borrowers default for 3 years, or 40% default in one year, the school can no longer accept Federal student loans.
      This played a huge role in the closing down of Corinthian Colleges and ITT Tech.

      1. That is a horrible default ratio, especially since students can delay student loan repayments for practically as long as they need to be, especially while unemployed. Typical accepted default rates for most loan products are 1-10% and those come with almost no forbearance services (or graduated repayment plans) like student loans do.

    5. 4) Undo 0bama’s monopolization of student loans to the federal government and their proxy, SallieMae.

      1. Obama deserves a heap of criticism but Obama did NOT monopolize student loans. He just cut out the unnecessary middle man for processing and giving the banks the profit on Federal student loans (private loans were untouched). Previously, the program was administered by banks who had a guarantee from the federal government to pay off the loan if the student defaulted, so it was a heads I win, tails you lose situation for the banks. If we (the taxpayers) were going to guarantee the banks in the event of the default, why should we not also get the upside? It actually saved taxpayers billions to do it this way plus makes it less confusing for the student borrower who may have ended up with 6, 10 or even more lenders at the end of their term.
        Private student loans existed before the change and exist after the change to centralize Stafford (gov) loans.

        1. 0bama did indeed monopolize student loans. Discouraging banks from touching them on one hand and OTOH setting up federal proxy SallieMae to fill the private sector void, stepping up to slap the shackles of debt slavery onto those who didn’t qualify for the handouts and cushy federal loans proper.
          There has been no positive change effected by 0bama.

        2. You have no idea what you are talking about with student loans. For federal student loans (stafford), the federal government was already setting the interest rate, the repayment terms, forbearance options, and was guaranteeing the loans in the event of default. The only thing the bank did was either collect the profit or get reimbursed from uncle sam to break even. All Obama did was take out the unnecessary middle man with federal student loans saving taxpayers billions a year and costing borrowers nothing. Again the RATE, TERMS, OPTIONS and RISK was already set by the gov BEFORE and AFTER the changes. The banks were basically skimming profit with no risk before the change.
          Private student loans were not changed – in fact the availability of private loans has soared in recent years – I just refinanced my student loans at 2.29% with sofi for example.

        3. I’m not sure what is causing the hangup on your end with this subject but here’s hoping you’ll get past it.
          If you want a student loan, there are really only two places to turn: the Feds and SallieMae. This is what 0bama has pushed for and it might by his greatest success in “fundamental transformation”.
          If you’re a straight white male, and you’re not impoverished per federal standards, most of your loan coming from SallieMae.; SallieMae is a federal proxy, private in name only.
          Private loan refinancing is a different animal entirely, it is just the latest vehicle for the unscrupulous to try and make a buck off of the misery of others. It could easily wind up being a major crisis, albeit one motivated more by avarice than government mandates (as the sub-prime crisis was).
          BTW, unless you’ve completely used up your in-school deferment re-fi is almost certainly a bad idea.

        4. You are conflating two different phenomena.
          With regards to Stafford/Plus loans (federal loans), the only thing Obama did was get rid of the un-ncessary middle man that was taking the profit on the upside with no risk. The rate, terms, and maximum loan amounts were already set by the US government and the risk was born by the US Gov (in the event of a student default, the gov reimbursed the bank). The banks offered no value except processing payments. All Obama did was take it the profit takers from the equation and make the US govt receive the upside and continue to set the rate, terms, and maximum loan amounts (which were expanded)
          With regards to private loans, they existed before and existed now. Obama did not change private loan programs at all and cannot short of changing bankruptcy laws. Two things have happened in the last 8 years that have reduced the volume of private student loans.
          1) Default rates on private loans went through the roof in 2008-2012 so most private lenders now require a co-signer (many don’t have one that can or will) and the rates are usually not as good as what the government can lend for (at least for undergrad) due to the higher risk rate.
          2) Obama increased the maximum amount of stafford loans you can take in college compared to previously, reducing the need for private loans.
          Private student loans are still nearly $150 billion in value and there are dozens of banks that provide private student loans, including but certainly not limited to Sallie Mae (Sallie Mae’s stock price is still half of what it was pre-recession so I think its safe to say Obama has not helped Sallie Mae).

      2. I recall making my last payment on my long-suffering student loan to those shysters over a year ago. Sallie asked me, via e-mail, if I were interested in their services (read: going further into debt). I responded with a lengthy, scathing, profanity-laced “letter” stating how I am never again using any of their services and discouraging anyone I know from borrowing to finance higher ed.

  8. College just delays adulthood.. College is a left indoctrination center also… DON’T send your kid to college ….

    1. Adulthood doesn’t start until 1 month after the 26th birthday in the USA currently.
      I expect most students going to college have graduated by then.

    2. But what if your children want to become lawyers or doctors?? Then surely they should go to college

  9. The only reason to go to an american college was to bang a lot of chicks, but feminazis even fucked that up, with fake rape-accuses etc.

      1. I wonder how much those comedies have devalued education. Surely watching “Animal House” and then see someone hand you their resume that says you have a Bachelors in Chinese history isn’t doing them any favors.

        1. When I got into University it was just that something that I had to do. I mean, considering also the Greek system, you do it because you cannot not do it. In fact, the only thing that now, after my graduation I detest is that being the booky kind I did not have fun…
          Needless to say one of the reasons people do not trust universities is because they have been devalued also in popular culture as places where you go to have fun for 3 to 5 years. Even worse the morons that believe those movies to the letter in their need to be accommodated by the system destroy the institution as it now also has to make room for parties, so you also have party-colleges (here we have party-universities, the most prominent I think are in Patra, it’s women are also known to be quite frisky).
          But now on the serious stuff, if one is serious and takes college seriously and selects the right courses and takes the right main course or the right course (some system do not allow you to select courses inside a course) you can still learn and flourish, provided you stay away from the partiers…

        2. To put things in perspective, my dad went to college in the early 60’s. After a year in the dorms, he elected to do the fraternity route because they were much quieter.
          I just did roommates thing, coordinated through the church.

        3. I am at a shock, my perception on fraternities is RUINED… RUINED!!!
          Well, I’d hope then for fraternities to exist here, they’d keep at least the students Christian!

      2. They sure made it look like a non-stop party! They never mentioned the studying, working, paying for it all…
        Really that crap was all I had in terms of exposure to college. I never even KNEW of anyone who’d gone to college until I was a junior in High School!

        1. I knew a cousin of mine who made nearly ten years to take a sociology diploma… Nothing exciting from his side, just studying enough to pass a lesson a year… The Greek system at it’s best.

        2. What a waste! The second I left high school I felt the clock was ticking to figure out how to make a living. Still took way too long, and I was very very broke for most of that time.

  10. This is why the Scandinavian model works..free education and a good, well-paid job at the end of it (given you have chosen a meaningful degree, of course..if you haven’t, at least you won’t be crippled by debt for the rest of your life).
    ..And don’t give me the “but taxes are at 50%” fallacy..the median wage for e.g. a worker in Denmark just after college is multiple times higher than the median wage in the U.S. Furthermore, as they have no debts to pay off when they start working, they get onto the property ladder immediately.

    1. Yeah, it works great, for the invading hordes of Muslims who are raping up everything in sight.
      Troll trolls. Film at 11.

      1. Denmark and Norway have some of Europe’s strictest immigration policies. They are also a lot stricter than in the US and there are a lot fewer immigrants than in the US.. Sweden is – of course – a different animal.
        Anyway, what has your comment got to do with this topic?

        1. The “model” is smoke and mirrors, that’s why.

        2. care to expand on this? ..and maybe with something slightly more insightful than “(…) works great, for the invading hordes of Muslims who are raping up everything in sight.”

        3. 1. The reason that your entry level is “several times higher than in the U.S.” is due to the effects of local economy, which is heavily influenced by taxation.
          2. You don’t graduate “debt free”, you’ll be paying for college your entire life, as well as the college of others, until the day you can no longer move a limb to work. Free does not exist. What you’ve been fooled by is a bait and switch, they call it “free”, you feel like you don’t have “debt” but you do in the form of the taxes *and* higher local economy (higher prices for various market items) imposed by your system. I’d wager that on a man-hour worked scale, your “higher salary” combined with your higher cost of living would come out with me here in the States on top. Whereas I may only have to work 10 minutes for a loaf of bread, you would have to work 15 or 20 minutes.
          3. Calling a 50%+ tax rate a “fallacy” ignores that the tax rate is high to pay for the things that you think are “free”, which in fact, are just a bill in another form that you don’t have a choice in paying…for the rest of your life.
          I’ll stick to pulling my own weight, thanks.

        4. 1. This point doesn’t really make any sense. The entry level is several times higher, period.
          2. + 3. These points could be lumped together, as they address exactly the same thing. I should have been clearer: The AFTER-tax purchasing power of the median worker is higher in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden than in the US..and that is without correcting for the massive student debts taken on by American students.

        5. Show me.
          Keep in mind that the U.S. is not a monolithic culture or economy, unlike small nations like Norway or Denmark. Even if your system was legit, it can only work in small homogeneous communities, not huge empire sized diverse nations. I’d expect that in mostly white non-diverse flyover America we’d beat you hands down, but if you include or overrated expensive cities, then we’re a wash. So really, what’s your point exactly?

        6. My point is that government financed education is potentially beneficial for society.. As this article touches upon, incentives quickly change when universities are privately run (yet completely protected by government).. Wasteful cash flows and overpaying staff are just some of the many issues.
          There are many things wrong with the Scandinavian model. I don’t think education is one of them, though.

        7. Yes, if we look at the average wages, Scandinavia are no match to the US (except for Norway, of course), nor is the rest of the world.
          ..but I thought the whole point of this site was to fight back against the crony corporatists/elites? Median wages are a much better measure of how the regular man is doing in a society.

        8. Nothing that the U.S. government touches becomes beneficial for society outside of roads and arguably a standing military (the jury is out on that though). If your “free” (ha!) education works in Demark or Norway, it’s because those societies are culturally and genetically homogeneous and little else. That shit will not work when Bob Niceguy & Family are forced to pay for Lil’ Tyrone to embark on a 10 year Voyage of Discovery in Liberal Arts (and make no mistake, there will be no degree usefulness requirements, because that would be “rayyyyycissss”) only to drop out at year 11 and start gang banging again.

        9. Getting a good paying job is hardly “crony corporatism”.

        10. I am not saying it is. I also earn well above the average wage (American and Scandinavian).
          ..but there are plenty of crony corporatists among the 1% in America..and the 1% is driving your once so great country more than ever before, skewing the wage average way beyond the median wage.

  11. From the moment one too many had a university degree, it lost its credential, in some cases it might have become needed, only because anyone has one and without it you can find no job.
    Is it a scam? Definitely! It does not give job security in any form whatsoever. Also most modern universities do NOT teach but indoctrinate to leftist ideals, all that because some sayings were tolerated inside there that they should not have been.
    A good example are the ideas of Rousseau in education. His ideas have shaped the modern education system in every country from top to bottom and they’re the reason why education simply collapses worldwide. He believed that: “society damages the child, because it is bad, and so the child should stay at a place away from it so that it can grow up to be good”. That is the modern school: a safe space, that is meant to create problematic un-socialized (not-being-part-of-society, no not-having-friends-and-dwelling-in-basements) teens and adults later, sometimes this leads to create anti-socialized (people-that-are-against-the-idea-of-society) people.
    To that dreadful realization Gustav le bon (bon-bon, I couldn’t resist, bon-bon is caramel) who said in his ‘psychology of the masses” that: “our schools create anarchists and revolutionists”. He even predicted, one may say, the refugee welcomers, race-deniers and inter-racial-mixers to come on the eve of the 21st century: “the masses will even destroy race”.
    All that could happen because one man who abandoned in orphanages all his children and only when he went to publish ‘Emile’ he searched for the only child of his that could have been located, his last son, was believed and taken for seriously on the subject of child-rearing and education.
    One more note, to Rousseau we also owe the myth of the “noble savage”, I think that was formulated on his “Discourse of Inequality”, or in “The social contract”, which states that: “the best freest and noblest of men was the man that lived in the primitive proto-society” I have taken some liberties on the wording as I quote from memory, but the word sociey alone would have failed to give the exact idea of this highly problematic thinker*. The thing is that the noble savage, which will be referred to as Tarzan from now on, is a fantasy… of Jane.
    Tarzan can not exist, the whole idea of the Tarzan is to make civilized people (from here on Claytons) appear bad and barbaric. Claytons are less violent and freer than any Tarzan that could exist the reason is that Tarzan lacks civilization, so how can he have honour, dignity or self-esteem. Tarzan has no idea of that, even if he lacks the bad characteristics of the Claytons he has no thing to withhold him. Clayons who sympathize with or want to be Tarzan will appropriately referred to here as Janes.
    Janes, on the other hand, are Claytons who do NOT want to be Claytons. Janes see Tarzan, his lack of self-control, as Tarzan lacks any idea of control and want to destroy the civilization of the Claytons so that they do what they wish, these means smoke weed, do dope, have coitus ’till tomorrow without protection eat and drink all they want and take their neighbor’s money in the whole process… and his wife too on top of that.
    Due to the belief on Tarzan: Degenerates are not confronted, we have feminism, we love the “refugees” even if they behave as savages, ’cause they’re Tarzans and that we reject any truth that is not rooted in materialism, ’cause Tarzan would never have an understanding of this.
    *The reason why he is highly problematic is only one: your typical Rousseau book starts to say one thing on the first half, in the middle of the work you have a very small part that moves from the first to the second, the second part of the book… says exactly the opposite of the first. In the end the conclusion is the most awkward mixture of both parts, the transitory part exists only to mask the lunacy. At least he gives some excuses for hiss lack of rationality… by throwing the fault to language (as-a-whole) or to the reader for not looking to the work as-a-whole.

  12. Said it before and I’ll say it again, any major other than STEM or law and you are literally pissing away tens of thousands of dollars (not to mention wasting years of your life).

  13. I know a guy who went to work at a car dealership at age 18. He loved it and excelled at it (he is a very charming and hard working guy). At age 30 he was the General Manager of two major dealerships and making over $350,000 per year. As the old saying goes, the cream always rises to the top. You dont always need college. By the way, he quit that job and has spent the last year traveling the world.

    1. I wish I could upvote this twice…once for the general picture but another time for the Oregon trail

  14. IT – very good if you stick with it
    Engineering – see above
    Construction management – see above
    Law – only if you’re connected
    Medicine – a combo of all the above
    Social Sciences – Fuck that
    Languages – only if backed up with other discipline
    General management – if you’re a slut or Machiavellian muthafucka, maybe.
    Academic Science (lab tech, etc) – tough to make real money in
    Disclaimer: you don’t need a degree for some of the above anyway
    Trades –
    Plumbing – good if you don’t mind getting covered in shit
    Bricklaying – tough work as you get older
    Sparks – yes, very lucrative. Especially if you get industrial certs
    Car mechanic – competitive now as manufacturers build in own, bespoke parts. In fact, it’s anti-competitive

    1. decent assessment, what ticks me off are all the teachers out there that tell you that you will get ahead by just having any degree to your name. What gets you ahead is if you have the ambition to get a degree, you will do better in life, not because of the degree, but because of the ambition.

      1. It’s a vague assessment based on the people in my life, but I’d bet it’s correct at a basic level

  15. Send your kids to a good Vo-Tech school where they will earn a great living in short time.

    1. Fuk “send”.
      At that age they should at least know where they want to go and what they want to do. Help them as you can, but the initial direction needs to come from THEM.

    2. In these parts, Vo-Tech->union membership->brainwashing to be a useful idiot for libtards.
      Forget right-to-work laws, external labor unions should be outlawed.

  16. Well… I’ve got myself 3 STEM degrees. If you’re American, I no longer recommend college. (Or mind you, universities. Some community colleges oddly enough offer a lot better real-world instruction.) Seen too many engineering and even physics graduates stuck in debt and can’t find a job. It’s really criminal how they hook students into it. Then they graduate and get to watch everybody from outside the US get a job. All that hard work for what? At least in Europe you get it for free… sort of. 😉
    And that’s just STEM stuff. The Underwater Basketweaving degrees are a farce on every level. 😉

    1. I know what you mean.
      I have 3 different tech qualifications.
      Gave up trying to find job.
      I attempted enrollment in concentrated boot camp course, that a pro recommended.(mostly for networking)
      Luckily I got the “we are looking for more diversity” letter..
      I’ve been mostly self-employed and have no debt…

      1. That’s the way to do it these days. Learn what you need on your own, then make it yourself. Forget college. 😉
        Tech companies tend to be… well.. asses. 😀 There’s usually a year or so window after graduating that you’ve got to land something otherwise you’ll generally get passed over. (For “John Smith” from India!) Anything over a bachelor’s degree is useless. (Useless for the tech industry mind you, if one is actually going into research for peanuts, that’s another issue.) Furthermore higher degrees than bachelors tend to make everybody nervous. The politics can get pretty lethal.
        The most interesting story I’ve got is a bright guy that graduated with a masters in computer science. Couldn’t find a job -at all- and the guy was great at everything. He found out he could get citizenship in a European country. So, he went through all that hassle, then started job hunting as a foreigner. Landed a job in no time.
        Another one was full on PhD. Had a foreign sounding last name. Managed to get interviews all over the place but no jobs. Finally one HR person broke down and told the guy the awful truth: the companies were looking for foreign quotas and his name sounded foreign. When they found out he’s white, no sale.
        Anyway, better to break in on your own making apps, or doing whatever interests you first. Better use of time than universities. And it’s a ton of money saved as well!

  17. Stem degree. — top of list , But easily in/out-sourced
    Network Admin/Installation/security – Requires more hands-on approach – hybrid between trade and stem. I imagine future-proof
    Trade – must be hands-on with other tradesmen (school optional).
    Sales – the highest paid hard work.
    Finance degree — first create relationships at College – the highest paid sales work…High IQ optional.

  18. Here in Oz they are starting slowly to wise up. Teaching as a profession now is only open to the top 30% of university grads. The problem we have is the HUGE influx of Asian (mainly Chinese) students who for some reason still think an Australian education is a good thing to have. What really p*sses me off is that 90% of them speak little english so how the actual f*ck do they do the coursework? Answer; they don’t and it does not matter, the University’s here are by and large diploma mills who hand out degrees for cash…and no way known they are going to turn down the Commie Cash Cow….

      1. Yes, and that shouldn’t be a factor! Bloody unfair on the smartest kids from the lower socio-economic strata.

    1. Top 30%? I’m a teacher in Aus and I can tell you that marks are not the only thing that gets you through. I aced all of my placements yet struggled to find full time work for a while, especially in the public sector, and I only graduated a few years ago.

  19. Good article, although the increasing trend is to hire academics on a casual/sessional basis. Most of the pay rises seem to be occurring in middle to upper management.
    Liberal arts degrees are a complete waste of time unless you are doing a double degree (with a business major) or want to be a teacher.

  20. If a man has-
    Drivers license
    Clean record
    Basic mechanical skills
    Is willing to work
    Isn’t a moron
    He will never be out of work for long unless he wants to be.
    I know of a couple of places that are begging for help. No they don’t pay 6 figures however, it is A JOB. You start out at the bottom and WORK your way up over time after you’ve proven yourself. You make more money at a JOB than you do playing video games all day.
    If you are young and not a moron get a CDL, I know guys driving log trucks that are making ok money.
    If you want live a minimalist lifestyle take off over the road 60k ish for driving back and forth. Over the road companies are begging for help too.

    1. Two of my nephews worked a feed lot, management liked their work ethic and had them spend part of the time assisting the heavy equipment maintenance folks. Liked them so much there, they trained them in house on a lot of diesel repairs. Impressed them so much they sent them to formal training/certification.
      In their mid-20s and own their own homes. They’ll only ever be out of work if they choose to be.

  21. My son is majoring in global studies, generally a worthless degree. You can take anything that is “global”. Fortunately, foreign languages count. So I told him to load up on Chinese and Japanese courses. And take advantage of heavily subsidized study abroad programs. In high school, got a free year in China (but as a parent I had to take in a rich spoiled brat elite Chinese kid in return for exchange program, but still worth it). And he got a free sophomore year in Japan, which he speaks but not writes fluently since his mother is Japanese.)
    Steer clear of humanities and social sciences which are now brainwashing degrees. Exception is languages, perhaps, where you can get a real skill. My son is bright, but I think, not gifted in math and science where the real money is.
    For an average but smart kid with liberal arts proclivities but not a math genius, a degree in Spanish or a foreign language is still decent, I think. Plus, with Spanish there is a chance for hitting South America. A popular manosphere destination.
    There may be some artificial oppportunities in areas like gender studies as the public schools create opneings for talentless perverts. As the system is chomping at the bit to teach 5 year olds about homosexuality. There will be an army of child predator school counselors and psychologists sent to indoctrinate kids at younger ages if you live in a liberal state like California.
    Fortunaltey, I think the red states will not see the “Adam and Steve” curriculum for a few more years. Even if there is still gay marriage because of the SCOTUS.

    1. There’s no need to see trends as necessary and according to a line. What has gone on in NYC and LA for a long time is rarely reflected in flyover. A few silly things, but the overall trends vary by area and how connected to reality a demographic is.
      You don’t see man Dennis Rodmans out here in flyover.

  22. I have a secret. I have two certifications at a community college, but never finished a university degree. The last 8 years Ive been a star player in multiple marketing departments. Everybody around me has had graduate degrees, including people Ive hired and trained. Its normal to hear coworkers tell me how smart I am or call me a rennaissance man (I play 4 instruments, study languages, travel, train salespeople, have published works of photography, produced succesful infomercials and tv commercials for clients.)
    …but I couldnt finish college.

  23. The astronomical increase in tuition cost should tell you something about the free market- namely, that it doesn’t always work. Universities should have an incentive to keep tuition costs low in order to compete with other universities for students. So why didn’t that happen? Because No one cares about the cost of tuition when choosing a university. We shouldn’t be blaming the universities. We should be blaming all the customers who reward their behavior.

  24. 1. If you are 18 and thinking of going to college take a year off. Get a real entry level job. Do construction, learn a trade, or just work as an office admin (nothing wrong with that). Just make sure you work a real full time job for a year. Save money if possible. After working an entire year decide then if college is really the way you want to go. If the answer is yes you will have some money in the bank that will help defray the need for loans.
    2. Go to community college as long as you can and pile up as many credits that you can transfer to your state’s flagship public university. Once you transfer take as many credits a semester allowed and get out as quickly as possible. Remember college these days is not for fun, especially if you are a white male. You are there just to get a piece of paper that says you did something, to some form of satisfaction, for a few years straight.
    3. Keep a part time job if possible. Working even 10-15 hours a week and using that income to help defray your costs is going to lower your loan debt by a substantial amount when adjusted for interest.

    1. I took 72 credits (need 120 to complete degree) at a community college and throughout the five or so years that its taken me to earn a degree (graduating this spring) I worked anywhere from 32-40 hours manual labor plus the full credit load every semester.
      I utilized loans and received some grants based on the fact that I have some Hispanic heritage but am still predominantly white. This has allowed me to reduce my debt load to less than $13,000 to earn a bachelor’s degree, most students exit college racking up $40,000+. The average for my school is about $32,000.
      I’m majoring in Philosophy and I was initially very hesitant to take on this major (I enjoyed the difficulty that many of the courses offer and most if not all of the professors refused to inject their own personal beliefs because it wasn’t appropriate to do so) because I wasn’t sure about job prospects post graduation.
      But statistics suggest many fields are happy to hire philosophy majors based on the fact that much of the coursework requires backgrounds in logic and reason, problem solving, critical thinking, data analysis etc. Out of all the humanities majors, I think I chose the right one, because it gave me the tools necessary to be someone who is able to adapt as well as be trained to do technical tasks and most importantly is intelligent. I suppose I will find out very shortly if this is true, but I have already been contacted by a HR recruiter for one company and the pay is north of $60k a year and I plan on making myself an attractive candidate for every application opportunity.
      Many people graduate with a degree (liberal arts, stem) and have no idea how to apply what they learned to the real world. I think one of the worst things to happen to kids these days is the level of entitlement they carry into college and then into the application process. No one is owed anything and we all have to fight our way to the top whether we are a stem major, liberal arts major or chose to work a trade. I’ve seen some comments that suggest the cream of the crop always rises to the top no matter what type of schooling one chose and I believe that to be true.

      1. Sounds like you took the right course of action. Sad thing is when I did college in the 90’s the average student loan debt was around $8,000 (which would be around $14,000 adjusted for inflation). But the interest rate I got locked in was around 2.75% (essentially no interest when adjusted for inflation…plus any interest was tax deductible so I might have made out a few bucks in the black). My loan payment was less then dinner and a drink out on a Friday night. It is sad to think that public college kids are leaving with 50K+ in loans and private college students are 100k+ in loans.

        1. Yeah man it’s absolutely insane now. My percentages when I first started where 4.75%-5.25% and the most recent loans I took, the percentages were 6.8%. The governor in our state froze tuition all the years I was in school, so at least that never went up. I think kids entering college now can “get” loans of 9% and non-subsidized are over 10%. just absolutely killer interest rates.

  25. “Has Higher Education Become A Scam?”
    Other than Business/Finance, STEM, Medicine/Health Care, and Law, it always has been.

  26. Let us take Finance degree, all you need is 20 core credits. Instead 80 credits of extra worthless classes are added to support the food chain called tenure!

    1. Yep…. “Women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who meet the requirements of this position are strongly encouraged to apply.”

  27. Wasn’t a scam for me. STEM isn’t for everyone and if you’re actually proficient in your chosen field and a hard worker, you’ll do well even with a liberal arts degree. I’d rather be an amazing English teacher who teaches piano on the side than a shitty engineer.

  28. “Choosing the truly best universities and academic departments will reward good efforts, and help to starve the beast where the worst is concerned.”
    ————————
    Choosing vocational or business schools in lieu of traditional college altogether might settle the whole thing in short order.

  29. The hardest college course I ever took was in high school. I graduated from a California State University engineering college.

  30. Here is what you do: get rid of financial aid all together. It is a scam and it allows the price of college tuition to inflate beyond normal market dynamics. If there were no loans, colleges would have to cut their cost and figure out a way to give young adults an education they could afford. Would less kids go to school, absolutely–but we already have too many going now, and it would open up a space in the market for short term, skill and vocation oriented post secondary education. Still make the kids pay, though. It keeps their attention.

  31. AYO you ever hurd such white privilege in this B?!
    “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
    — Robert Heinlein

    1. I read that when I was in my early 20s and have never forgotten it.
      I still haven’t gotten around to butchering a hog, but I am pretty solid on most of the rest.

  32. In that it makes you a better thinker, a stronger mind, a more complete person, higher ed is not a ripoff. It is still a super-viable way to learn an appreciation of the world, and how to thrive in it.
    But– it is a ripoff in that corporations benefit from these skills that families carry debt for and pay for for years, and seldom contribute to their development. It is a ripoff when teachers water down and simplify complex subjects as if they were slinging fast food. It is a ripoff when the government turns grants and financial aid into a financial bubble set to pop like the mortgage backed securities market did.

  33. College as it is designed, is meant to be an internship ground for those, who know exactly what stable business they are going to do. Not for those, who haven’t figured it out yet. Fake can’t exactly complain about it being a scam.

  34. There’s really no reason college should be 4 years. All those bullshit filler classes need to be cut. Someone majoring in engineering or physics shouldn’t have to take psychology or hinduism or art

    1. Stem graduate here who enjoyed African anthropology, Psych I and II, and my other easy A electives. Yep, it grated a bit that I paid so much for entertainment classes, however, it was nice to kick back and be entertained.

  35. regarding tenure, U of Toronto’s Jordan Peterson is the current target of the SJW witchhunt and how that plays out could have serious impacts on the ability to remove unwanted academics.
    Of course, Peterson is in the right, but if he loses, we could still find opportunity in the precedent it sets. Tomorrow, these marxist professors could be getting the pink slip for teaching, say, insurrection.

  36. This should be the motto of all Red Pilled fathers towards their college age sons:
    “Not In My Basement!”

  37. In the UK, the government want (and are close to getting) 50% of people from high schools into University,so much so that the first degree is now worthless. When I started Uni (1999) it was “get a degree to get a good job”, by the time I graduated four years later, needed a masters to get the same job, saw it advertised now, you need a PhD. [This is a lab chemist at Glaxo]

  38. The marketing companies are the world’s best practitioners of applied psychology. They have found that it is especially easy to entice women by appealing to (what I believe are) the three interconnected components of the female psyche:
    1) Chauvinism/ Vanity
    2) Misandry
    3) A Collective Victim Mentality
    This marketing strategy applies to all consumer products but is especially adept at convincing women to seek higher education because they will feel “special”. The women are then encouraged to apply for grants and loans. The school profits no matter how these females perform.
    Because women need almost constant assurances and affirmations, they tend to do better in communal, reward based constructs like college where it’s all about grades and girl power. However, once they graduate and enter the more competitive commercial constructs where men tend to excel, many women feel overwhelmed. They no longer feel special. That’s when they play the victim card in order to blame men and society for their own female gender failings. Women often realize that they prefer the domestic life to corporate life leaving them feeling less fulfilled and less ambitious in their chosen field. Since modern man-made technologies have made household chores far less difficult, it’s hard to justify being a housewife especially with a college degree. So now they are stuck in tedious jobs without the mental wherewithal to effectively compete. It’s discouraging for women to go from being “special” in college to being “just a face in the crowd” in the real world. Technically their degree is wasted because the commercials made going to college look so “empowering”. There are, of course, exceptions but I believe this applies in a general sense. The point is that in a consumer driven society, women are incredibly easy to psychologically manipulate.

  39. A recent article on PJ Media noted that George Washington University will no longer require history majors to take any courses in American history. Links embedded in the article led to a report by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. The report examines the history programs of 75 colleges (25 each, liberal-arts colleges, national universities, and public universities). Only one-third of the universities in the report required history majors to study American history. Among the universities with no such requirement are “elite” schools such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Michigan, and Northwestern.
    A similar study a couple years ago found that of the 50 liberal-arts colleges and national and public universities studied, just four require English majors to study the works of William Shakespeare.
    The standards of “higher education” are abysmally low or non-existent. A 1970s-era high-school graduate had more general knowledge that most college graduates today.

  40. Despite my G.I. Bill being able to pay for my college, I won’t be going. I don’t want to subsidize what they’re doing and I sure as hell don’t want to paint a bullseye on my back. Being a heterosexual white male on a university campus in the United States is like being Farrakhan at a Klan rally these days. Besides, I’m retired and everything I own is completely paid for so I don’t need to worry about getting a better job. Or any job for that matter.

  41. “A trick that some professors do is to make a new edition of their own books every year. Some books do require updating (contemporary history and cutting-edge sciences), but some really don’t need updating too frequently. For instance, a calculus textbook from the 1960s (or for that matter, the 1920s) is as good as one that just came out. However, often professors will just rearrange the chapters, change a few words in the preface, and now it’s a new edition. That gets rid of the problem of bookstores selling used books which won’t get the professor new royalties!”
    God damn, you hit the nail on the head. I had to take a RACE AND GENDER class in college (Yuck!) taught by this airhead who assigned 2 books – One was a standard textbook, and another was essentially a pamphlet she wrote, printed out on a computer printer, and stapled together. The pamphlet cost $60. And surprise surprise, we ended up not even using it that semester. But it gets better – Just like your example, when I went to try and sell it they said it had been updated. So I basically could’ve burned $60 and been in the same spot.
    I quickly learned after that to wait a few weeks before purchasing textbooks. I’d say half of all textbooks I bought were never used, and it was a huge waste of money (As well as time trying to track them down).

  42. I’ve talked about this subject so many times, because it really hits home for me – Yes, it is a scam.
    The cognitive dissonance around college first hit me in my first weekend where I realized almost everything cost money. My dad was helping me get set up in my dorm, and on top of the dorm fees and class fees he was paying out the wazoo for the weirdest things. When I moved out of the dorm they sent my family a bill for “repairs” to the dorm – Any pushpin holes in the wall that could easily be spackled over cost $5 to “repair”. I also had a broken towel rack, and that cost $82 to fix.
    I also didn’t understand why the classes cost so much. In high school you’re in school 6-7 hours a day, getting a break for lunch but otherwise learning the entire time. In college you maybe had 3 hours of classes a day on a full workload. Of course, you also had a ton of homework outside class, so you were basically learning more on your own than the professors were teaching you.
    I majored in a useless subject (Graphic design), and I now realize that I’m learning more teaching myself than these professors ever did. In fact, when I left college I was worse at graphic design and the arts than I was going in. I did get a lot of good social experiences going to school, but I’d honestly have been much better off never going to college and teaching myself.
    The worst part about having a useless education is I’ve been out of college almost 10 years and I still have about $10k left in student loans. And it’s not like I went to an Ivy League school, I went to a state school that was a cheaper option and basically like 13th grade.
    I don’t mean to sound ungrateful to my parents who paid my way while I was actually in school, but in hindsight it would’ve made more sense for me to just skip college and teach myself. The internet was really blowing up around then (The early 2000’s) so I could’ve easily found resources online. And with the internet the way it is now you can find almost any information online and teach yourself. I have a cousin who’s in high school, his mom wants him to go to college but his dad wants him to learn a trade. Let me put it this way – All the kids I knew who didn’t go to college are doing way better financially than most people who did go to college.

  43. One other thing I remembered about college – Before my first semester of freshman year began, we were allowed to take tests for computer science and critical thinking. If we passed each test, we didn’t have to take a required gen ed class. I failed the computer science test, but I passed the critical thinking test, and I was exempt from taking critical thinking classes in college.
    At the time I was lazy and was happy I didn’t have to take an extra class. But now that I reflect on it, it showed me that college is anti-free thought. Only the kids who excelled at critical thinking were exempt, so obviously they didn’t want us actually being critical in a critical thinking class. The next 4 years were me just bullshitting on papers and tests, regurgitating back what the professors taught us, because any deviation from the curriculum would mean a bad grade.
    On a side note, this was 2004 and every student had a school email address assigned to them before we got to school. But the results of the exemption exams were posted on a board outside a classroom on a building all the way on the other side of campus. It also showed me how far behind the college was, where they couldn’t even be bothered to email us with our test results, even though email had been an integral communication tool for about a decade at that point.

  44. I studied STEM thinking it would lead to a job after college. But the requiters would come to campus and only interview women and minorities. Apparently these companies were too white and male to get government contracts so they discriminate against me. Don’t waist your time on money on this SJW perverted shit.

    1. The fun is just getting started. Your workplace will be filled with foreigners who received their undergrad at $1,000 per year universities overseas.

  45. The ONLY way to stop this shit is to completely cut federal spending…tell everyone, “You’re on your own.” Then the UNLIMITED federal money will disappear, and colleges will have to find ways to provide VALUE for the bloated “education” they force children to submit themselves to. Can’t pay for college, serve in the military. Smart enough, but no money? Find scholarships & work.
    Furthermore, WHY do we need a 16th Century educational model in a 21st Century world? Anyone??? What is it about college that you CAN’T learn online? It’s certainly NOT “socialization” and “learning to work on a team.” What bullshit.

  46. I’m sending my children to university in Europe to complete their studies in a non-English environment (English-based courses are ridiculously priced like U.S. course.)
    U.S. system is a scam, yet there are always way to scam the scammer. Some learn how, most will never try let alone learn.

  47. One of my friend who majored in Computer Engineering was forced to take Western Civilization 101 as part of the curriculum.
    I’m like wtf???
    All these four years can really be reduced to one year of theory teaching and have most of the classes be internship paid by companies to make it similar to apprenticeship style courses.
    Experience triumphs education.
    If you know the right people, you can start working in engineering companies even without engineering degree. Just befriend an HR or someone in higher up and ask for any internship opportunity but you better do this when you are really young and also show them some startup attempts or programs you made out of some computer programming language. Instead of showing them your resume, you can show them what you made and how you can directly benefit the company.
    You can really bypass all the bullshit college course and start working and gain that experience.

  48. I agree with a lot of what is said here (especially regarding the administration and presidents, the situation is getting way out of control), however you are greatly mistaken about the position of faculty. Faculty are consistently shitted upon by the admins. I don’t know where you get your information, but in California you can look up the pay of professors at state schools. I’ve seen the pay of everyone who has taught a course I’ve taken; the results are depressing.
    Some professors (namely, those teaching business courses or at medical school) are pulling in some serious dough, which may inflate the average. However, your run-of-the-mill math, science, or humanities prof is vastly under-paid and terribly over-worked. We’re talking 60-80 hr weeks balancing teaching, research and mentorship, writing and publishing, plus committee duties, all for a whopping 40-50k. Teaching is a full-time job (you have to count grading, planning lectures, etc.), research is also a full-time job if you want to actually publish anything. When schools experience funding cuts, the admins give themselves a raise, lay someone off, and then assign those sections to others who already have a full-load.
    Just FYI, do not become a professor if you think it is some cozy ivory tower cop-out. You will be severely disappointed, trust me on this one.

Comments are closed.