Higher Education - Making it more affordable?

[Geoffrey]

I don't know how many of you are in a university setting or have been, but if you are/have, you know how ridiculously high it is to attend. Not just tuition and room/board, but everything down to the food is inflated in price. I can get a bag of chips off campus for $3 less than what I can on campus. I just checked. I can get batteries off campus for less than half of the cost they are on campus (4 AA batteries are $6 on campus).



And of course, there's the tuition stuff too. Can't forget about it.



What do you think about the high cost of higher education? Is it a problem? What should be done about it? And what should be done about the increasing loan debt for college graduates?

 

[Sinon]

Personally, I think higher education should be reserved for older people. The majority of people I know who are in university are doing it off the back of student loans and such that will take years and years to pay back. Then you have to factor in how unlikely it is that you'll actually get a job related to your chosen classes right off the bat. Tons of my uni friends are working in shit like Starbucks or supermarkets, and it seems like a waste to me. I never bothered with uni because it's too expensive, and jobs are thin on the ground. Hell, I can't get a job in retail and I have 5 years of experience in customer service. I can't imagine how tough it is for a student to find one.



But really, I see no point in it. Here in the UK, school finishes at 16, but it's hard to get a job until you're 18 because of licensing laws, insurance, etc. so lots of people do what I did. Skip getting a job and dive into college. I finished college at 19 and was told I should go onto university, but I saw no point. My college major required almost £1500 worth of computer programs, and I had no financial aid, nor did I have a job at that time. Really, university is very expensive and I don't think a lot of people actually realize how much it costs. So they come out with a degree and £20,000 debts, and get stuck working a menial, minimum-wage job because they have no work experience and their major is stupid as hell and is no use for getting a job (I'm looking at you, Liberal Arts).



A true adult will already have work experience, will probably have money stored away and will be able to pay for themselves, rather than taking it from the state and paying it back later. So, yeah.

 

[Geoffrey]

Before I reply, I'd just like to say that I use college and university interchangeably because they're basically the same here in the US. It's a bit of a different system than the UK.



Good points, though I don't think waiting to go to college is going to help much. You're just going to go into a minimum wage job sooner rather than later after school is done, and you can still be struggling to get by. Plenty of people actually DO get jobs after graduation, we just usually only hear about those that don't.

 

[Fatal Dawn]

College is not for everyone. It's not what college you go to or not even the simple fact that you are going to college which determines your future but what you do in college. I've seen people succeed with less-than-stellar degrees and some very bright people who basically waste their time in college. Life is not fair; there is no guarantee that you will land a job because you are the most qualified. Sometimes it's a matter of who you know, networking, and other opportunities and this is where college can work to your advantage. Generally speaking, it's so much easier to network and advance yourself when you have the resources that college provides at your disposal.



I live with the belief that one cannot put a price on education. I totally agree that college is very expensive. However, I also understand why that is. For one thing college isn't supposed to be about landing some job but about expanding horizons and paving a career. Looking at it this way paints college as an investment because instead of hopping from job to job you have a chance to advance. That's one of the reasons I believe college isn't for everyone. It's an investment. It is a good investment for some people and a bad investment for others. It's up to the individual to decide for him/herself whether it is a good investment or not.



Also there are ways to somewhat offset the expensiveness. In the form of financial aid there are some really good scholarships out there. I get emails of scholarships quite often (about 1 or 2 a week). Some of the scholarships are pretty good - simple to apply for and they offer a pretty decent amount of money. I know for a fact that assistance is out there. Aside from that staying local is a good way to save money. In-state tuition is actually pretty cheap depending on where you live. There's a school in Maryland that I've had my eye on, but I know it's cheaper to stay in Pennsylvania for a few more years.

 

[DrLeftover]

Oh, yes, make it cheaper for students to sit through this:

SEE IT: Columbia professor strips down to underwear in bizarre lesson to help baffled students learn quantum mechanics



'In order to learn quantum mechanics, you have to strip to your raw, erase all the garbage from your brain, and start over again,' Prof. Emlyn Hughes said. Against a backdrop of 9/11 and Holocaust images, he remained in a fetal position as two people dressed as ninjas blindfolded stuffed animals.

Video:



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...izarre-lesson-article-1.1267461#ixzz2LJlqqm6g







Or to have this happen:

A tenured professor who forced her students to sign pledges that they would vote for President Barack Obama last November should be fired, the college’s president recommended.

Sharon Sweet, an associate professor of mathematics at Brevard Community College in Florida, is guilty of electioneering, harassment, and incompetence, according to a three-month investigation into her classroom behavior leading up to the November election.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/18/college-fire-professor-who-forced-students-to-vote-for-obama/





Yes. We must do that.

 

[DrLeftover]

And this... we must make it easier for real people to send their children to Yale so they can participate in ....

On Saturday afternoon, Yale hosted a “sensitivity training” in which students were asked to consider topics such as bestiality, incest, and accepting money for sex.





During the workshop, entitled, Sex: Am I Normal, students anonymously asked and answered questions about sex using their cell phones, and viewed the responses in real time in the form of bar charts.



The session was hosted by “sexologist” Dr. Jill McDevitt, who owns a sex store called Feminique in West Chester, Pa.

http://www.campusreform.org/blog/?ID=4646