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[Zrk2]

I balk at the idea of "too much education." Why can't colleges teach trades?

I mean, you can't just suddenly say "I'm a plumber!" and have a job. You need knowledge and experience for that, too. Universities can and should provide.

They already have tradeschool, and the way it teaches is fundamentally different from university.

[Knight of Fools]

I'm in the very slow process of earning a degree with my own money. It's rough running with a job and going to classes, but since I've been going to a community college it's been doable, even though I've had to go at a slightly slower pace than if I studied full time.

Currently my plan is to avoid student loans entirely. If I can't afford a semester, I'll take fewer classes. Worst case scenario? I'll pay for my classes with a credit card through college and declare bankruptcy afterwards. Boom, no student loan debt.

Of course, it'd ruin my credit rating for a while, but you can build those things back up over time. As long as you can get a degree that's usable and/or in demand, you'll still be able to get a job and you won't be paying out of the butt for your education thirty years down the road.

The other thing is that I don't have the moral fortitude to intentionally go down that path, but it's still a more appealing alternative to student loans.

It's sad when defaulting on credit becomes more appealing than struggling with crippling loans. The system is really jacked up right now.

[palsch]

I'm a big fan of university for university's sake.

I don't pretend it is for everyone or that what I'm about to say is universally true, but the very fact of attending a university helps most people become more rounded citizens, even if they only take piss easy courses or (as in the UK) a single subject track for their entire time there.

Universities by their very nature draw a more diverse and wide ranging crowd than local primary and secondary schools. Someone who has spent time in tertiary education is going to have encountered people from a wider range of backgrounds, areas, races, religions, etc. The value of this sort of mixing is invaluable.

It also offers an environment for people to fuck up with relative safety. You can experiment and reinvent yourself away from your childhood home and family without the immediate pressures of rent, work and bills. Well, less of the pressure anyway.



As far as the debt goes, it's almost filling the role that mortgages did for past generations. Which is a bad thing.

It used to be that your mortgage was what locked you into an area, job and lifestyle. Once you have such payments to make each month you can't really afford to take chances on a new career or make major changes to your life without very careful consideration. These days buying houses is so often a pipedream, but student loans and other debt have inflated to fill a similar role. You can't afford to risk unemployment even if you are current underemployed, simply because the payments need to be made. This stops people taking the risks that you saw so much more of in the 80s and 90s.

[WealthyRadish]

It's hard for me to weigh in on this, since my college experience has been pretty much ideal. Since I grew up in poverty, federal grants and the like paid tuition and expenses (plus about a thousand a semester to live off of), and since there's a university and community college in my town, I've been able to stay at home for these first two years and not have to worry about housing. With the aid and a part time job, I haven't actually taken on any debt, and my savings grew last year.

My understanding of the system in many places in Europe is that students who are accepted into higher education get basically the same deal I got, only without the requirement of being poor and geographically endowed. I'm probably oversimplifying it, but that seems much better than the Eagleland method of charging ridiculous prices (and crushing the middle class in debt) to pay for football stadiums and similar crap.

[alexandertnt]

Here in Australia, everyone has access to an interest-free federal loan to pay for University costs. You pay it back when you income is above a certain threshold through higher tax rates.

I think its a pretty good system. Its not as expensive as providing university for free, yet it also permits poor/middle-class students to attend university without being crushed by deat by only requiring payments when the loanee can actually afford it.

I dont know what effect a zero-interest system would have on the American system in regards to course prices, given that our course prices at public universities are fixed.

We also subsidise trade courses to varying degrees (eg through TAFE). Though I dont know if any form of loan is available  for it. In Australia, tradies generally make very good money.

One thing I have always wondered about (though it seems more relevant to the American system), whats with the emphasis on sporting scholarships? I would have thought that there would have been more emphasis on academic scholarships.

[Furtuka]

Ticket revenue

[EnigmaticHat]

Let's dispense with the notion that universities still educate people. The thread on Cisgender/Transgender in this forum shows that universities long ago forgot how to teach useful philosophy and critical thinking and became a politicized cesspit of inanity and grievance-peddling.

The cisgender thread's still active and open.  If you're going to express your opinions by being insulting, say it where the targets can respond.

If you aren't willing to say what you think somewhere where it will be examined, you either have no confidence in your beliefs or are a coward.  And don't just respond to me here, go over to the cisgender thread and say whatever it is you're clearly burning to say.  I'm sure your useful, critical, not-taught-in-any-school philosophy will have all the educated monkeys over there aghast at your brilliance.

[Hár]

I'd rather not. The fact that they think they're discussing something intellectual is enough to indict them of being the academic rot prevalent in our times. I don't need to actually engage in inanity in order to call it out when I see it. When my son is drooling on his plastic toys, I don't need to drool on the same plastic toy to tell you that it's childish. There's no reason for me to post in a thread that I find to be distasteful.

Yes, I have a son. I can afford that. I have no debts. I'll probably have two more children, because I can afford that, and because someone has to make up for the population gap that all these broke-ass adult-children won't be filling up with their own off-spring. It's tough, picking up others' slack.

My humble brilliance is shown when I've got a trade, a house, and a purpose in society, and yalls still babbling about heteronormative this and transgenderized that in mom's basement, because being seen as a part of the educated intelligentsia with the 'right' set of beliefs was more important to you than actually having a useful skill and a role to play in society. Such are the wages of hubris.

[Toady One]

Banned Har for having nothing but antagonistic and/or trolling posts since arriving here.

[Sheb]

I was going to answer Hàr, but the Great Toad That Watches Over Us did it for me. Thanks!

I'd just like to point out that to single university as the place where culture is taught is damaging. Not only is it insulting to people that didn't attend university, but it ignores all the effort that should be made in continuous education. The Germans are currently flaunting their trade-oriented school system all over Europe (Never mind they had the same school system when they were in dire economic straits in the early 2000's), and their ambassador was saying "You know, culture happens outside universities too!".

I agree kaijyuu that society benefits from having cultured, educated members, but using an expensive institution that is attended by a minority is not the way to get an educated society. 

[Jimmy]

Here in Australia, everyone has access to an interest-free federal loan to pay for University costs. You pay it back when you income is above a certain threshold through higher tax rates.

I think its a pretty good system. Its not as expensive as providing university for free, yet it also permits poor/middle-class students to attend university without being crushed by deat by only requiring payments when the loanee can actually afford it.

I dont know what effect a zero-interest system would have on the American system in regards to course prices, given that our course prices at public universities are fixed.

We also subsidise trade courses to varying degrees (eg through TAFE). Though I dont know if any form of loan is available  for it. In Australia, tradies generally make very good money.

One thing I have always wondered about (though it seems more relevant to the American system), whats with the emphasis on sporting scholarships? I would have thought that there would have been more emphasis on academic scholarships.

This is extremely relevant and deserves recognition. Here in Australia, you have a choice to make at the end of high school. You can elect to forgo sitting the national standardized high school exit examination if you plan to pursue a trade as a career. Otherwise, you take a test that ranks you against the rest of the nation's high school students, and this forms the basis for your options to enter a University degree.

Once you get your result, you apply for your degree. The deal is, you get ONE degree. Just one, and no post-grad stuff. The government foots the bill for you for the course fees, interest free. You gotta pay for your housing, food, etc. But if you really want that uni education, you can have it, even if you're dirt poor.

Compared to the US system of apocalyptic debt that nothing short of death will get rid of, it seems a far fairer system. You gotta have the brains to get into Uni to qualify in the first place, but it doesn't cripple you for the rest of your life.

Tertiary education fees in Australia

[Sheb]

Over here (French-speaking Belgium), it's more of a government-funded, all-you-can-eat buffet. Tuition is roughly 1000$ a year (not including food and board), and except for engineering, we have no entrance exams or limits as to what you can study whatsoever. We have a further system of scholarship and subsidized housing for the poor or those that lives far away (Far away being relative, Belgium being small and crowded).

Great from a social point of view, and its good that it pushes a lot of people that would otherwise not be able to attend uni, but the fact that its free make students not feel invested. It's common for students to waste one or two year sampling various stuff, or just plainly partying rather that studying. The result is a failure rate for freshmen that goes from 50% in the social sciences to 80% in the natural sciences (With Engineering being an exception, due to the entrance exam).

[10ebbor10]

It's the same on the other side of the language border actually. With the only difference that Engineering requires no entrance exam (I believe), but Medicine studies do.

Also, I'd like to point out, that at least in Flanders, you can't mess around forever. You only get 3-4 tries before you loose the governement funding. Failure rates are a bit lower too, I believe, though there's quite a lot of variation between universities and degrees.

And yeah; the American system is going to crash soon. IIRC, the average student will have to pay back loans till his fifties, more or less.

[XXSockXX]

The American system is a bit extreme. In Germany university is basically free. A few years ago most states tried to implement a 500 EUR per semester fee, but this has since been abolished by most, since it was considered anti-social. However the higher funding from tution does benefit american universities, at least the few big ones.

[LordBucket]

I think if I were to offer advice to someone fresh out of high school considering taking on large amounts of student loan debt, it would be to not, and instead...get a generic 8-10$/hr job and stay living with your parents for a few years. Save all your money, then put a down payment on a house and rent it out to someone as a break-even-or-better proposition.

Instead of graduating at age 22-24 with a degree and $50,000 in loan debt, have 4-6 years of work experience and $50,000 equity in a house.