So what's wrong with this American dream?

The article is about young people. These kids went into debt so they could go to college, because that was the advertised route to success. What's sad is that being debt-free should be a dream at all rather than people's reality.

Back in the day, we used to save for things. People used to work in the summers to pay for college. Today everyone wants instant gratification and deny themselves nothing. When I went back to college as a mother, it was widely known that the 18 yr old students had better cars than the profs. Now that's sad

Princeton cost just over $2000 in 1960.
http://www.collegeview.com/admit/?p=1858

The price has gone up (in real, not nominal terms).



Do you know many Summer jobs that pay $30,000 for 3 months? I don't.



Those are the kids who aren't going to be in debt, because their parents bought them their college educations, as well as their cars.




Edit -- I changed the first line, because I'm not sure whether the figures my source quotes are inflation adjusted or not. (They seem too low to be inflation adjusted.)

The change in the cost of post-secondary education was a real shock when I looked into it a couple of years ago. I hadn't realized how dramatically it had gone up since the 70's/80's/90's (all decades when I took at least some university courses, if not full programs). The jump in the 15 years since I'd seriously looked into taking more courses was shocking.

pensions are not what they used to be either.

many folks from my generation will "retire" on what social security pays or does not...

I am debt free with 2 cars and a house that are paid for, but I am a long way from secure.

and as expensive as they are, college educations don't seem to be as valuable in general as they used to. unless you are a lawyer or doctor of course...

My first semester at UCLA, in 1960, the school had student fees of $19.00. I think the next semester it went up to $26.00. Just right for me; my family lived near by, was quite hard up in those years, and I disobeyed the advice to students and worked nearly full time during the school year, full time summers, to buy books, food, pay for the bus, blah blah. No tuition. Ronald Reagan changed all that. (I'm a believer in at least some free education, using some of our go to war funding). I didn't have my own car until I was 27. (No wonder I'm odd.)

Before I went there, I went to a small catholic college for a year (and how I've changed) - that was Mount St. Mary's in west Los Angeles, tuition $400 or slightly more a year.

Princeton being that low re tuition doesn't surprise me.

in my opinion, college has become a waaaay overrated choice.

There is no reason young people (and us middle aged and old geezers) can't get more than adequate training for a job by either (a) attending only community college, which is more affordable or (b) spending 2 years at community college, then going on to finish in a more expensive school. More expensive doesn't automatically mean better. That's not just for education, but for anything else is life.

I think everyone has been sold a bill of goods about how racking up big debt for the priv. of attending 4 more years of school.

Of course, many professions, i.e. engineers, physicians, the list could go on need advanced education, but I think the pendulum has swung to the far position of making it seem you're an automatic failure, or should be looked down upon, if you do go to 4 year university.

I know, it's an unpopular opinion to have, but it's my opinion.

I'm looking for work right now, I have a college degree. A 2 year degree, and a 4 year degree.
Almost every job I'm looking at does happen to ask for a degree (although there are a lot of jobs out there that aren't asking for that)...I said this before, and I'll come right out and say it again....I have never had a job where I felt my formal education made me successful at it. Oh sure, I would tell my employers it did, but that's just what they wanted to hear.
I didn't learn a damn thing in college that made me any smarter by the time I left than when I first went in. In fact, I would go so far to say it was a big waste of my time. I would have been better served if I had gone to nursing school, or some technical school. But I didn't and I'm not complaining.

I don't have debt either, and my house is paid for. It didn't get paid for by racking up debt, but by consistently putting small amounts aside.

That's why I can get by right now making, considering inflation, about half I hat I was making maybe 3 years ago....because I understand the power of small amounts of money, and living the dream of simplicity.

Me? I think the dream of anyone might be being able to get a good nights sleep more than half the time, without worrying about if they are going to be raped, abused or neglected.

I think part, maybe a big part of the reason you don't find people saying they don't think additional education is worth is a lot of the time, is because that might mean confessing they they did something not so smart....Spending a huge amount of money for something that will take them ages to pay off, and maybe ages for them to recoup.

I went back to school for another degree when I was in my 30's. It was one that I absolutely needed to have a particular career. I took one class at a time while working. Then, more than 1/2 through, I moved back to Texas and was told by UT they would not accept my credits, regardless of the fact the university I was going to was accredited for that degree (UT doesn't have to do anything it doesn't want to) I would have to start all over again, and the schedule was NOT friendly to adult, working students.
It didn't take me long at all to crunch the numbers to see that the higher income I would have been getting would never be recoup the dollars spent, so, I didnt give up, just did the smart thing and went to plan B

It's shocking in part because we're getting raped up the ass.

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, with some qualms.

I had this love of medicine when I was an early teen. My father had to leave med school in 1926 to take care of his mother, and went south to LA and became a film cutter... and took care of her until she died.. just about when my parents married. But he still liked science and I suppose I wanted to emulate him. He told me I could be anything I wanted to be, bravado, but also sort of bolstering for a girl of thirteen in 1955. I wasn't bad at science, it turned out, but was no whiz bang at it. (I have friends who were, so I recognize the difference.)

I started out liking school for science, i.e., career, life calling. Not too long after that, I switched majors to english, which we all know is near useless for jobs except for the lucky, but Wordsworth bored me to tears, so I switched to Psych, since I liked Psych 1A. But, alas, my science background made me growl at psych experiments of the time, as in psych 1b, pah, so I switched back to microbiology. And worked my way through that.

After twenty plus years, starting in high school and until I was 40, I worked in and around medicine, but I got more and more interested in art generally. What fool would do that as a way to get ahead? I had taken art classes after work for eight years when I chucked medicine and signed up for landscape architecture classes, not by any means cheap. That because I thought I would like it, sounded like fun, and also, maybe later I could get a job. I did like it, learned what the word design meant, no clue before that, and romped through the classes. When I started those classes, I quit my last lab and looked for a beginning job in the new field.

Nabbed one, another whole story, but interesting experience. You can say you know me as a designer of a major museum exhibit on land use. You can say I'm a fool underling who tried to have an exhibit not go to hell and pretty much failed. It was a new world. Things got better, but not really remunerative. But, I liked what I was doing the next 25 years.

In retrospect, I should have noticed myself drawing house plans at 11.
But if I had, and aimed then to be an architect, would I have experiences as much as I did?


So, on education, I'm a fan of a book Boomer sent to me, Shop Class as Soulcraft, by Matthew Crawford.

But I'm also a fan of keeping knowledge going in many fields, whether or not all that brings jobs.

for me this is absolutely what education is about



going to university to get a degree that is simply in aid of getting a job is IMNSHO a complete waste of time, energy and enthusiasm

oh, yeah, the whole "college experience" the learning, social contact.

Great, if it's not going to put you in the position that puts you in debt for a large portion of your adult life.

Also, saying it's a complete waste of time to go to school to "simply" be an aid in getting a job is saying it's a waste to prepare for a job via school so you can then afford to marry, have babies, travel and btw have a home, amongst other things that could not be called a waste.

So, it's a complete waste of time to go to a 2 year school, become a nurse, save lives, comfort the sick and also make a pretty good paycheck?

Isn't it possible to have energy, enthusiasm, passion about your job?

that's community college, not university

different thing

So, it's a complete waste of time to go to a 4 year university, become a nurse/nurse practitioner.....or get a masters degree in nursing....a doctorate in nursing, save lives, comfort the sick and also make a pretty good paycheck?

Going to university to prepare for medical school, and not really caring about much else besides the courses that will get you into medical school is a complete waste of time?

I don't really give a **** if my doctor enjoyed her "college experience", maybe she didn't either.

Isn't it possible to have energy, enthusiasm, passion about your job?

Not trying to focus on nursing, just saying going to university, and using it to get to where you want to go job wise afterwards aren't mutually exclusive.

3 of my five or six or seven women smart ass group (SAG) went to 2 year schools for nursing, as a start. One is highish up in the red cross, one has her own somewhat large company, and the other spends her time taking dastard plants out of native places.
Watch how you insult that we don't understand 2 year schools.

Me, I don't like the idea that ideas are only for the elite. I'm at the opposite end of that opinion. Send him to auto....

Not yet.

The thing is, some of the most interesting people I've met are in tool fields, with wide reading or wide thinking. I don't like the idea of scenario dumping.


(The school I went to for a couple of classes and my niece graduated from had a great auto department, and a friend's father ran it. Not sure if it has one now.
My niece, all this time later is graduating from a 4 year just now.)

Uh....insult?

I'm the one saying 2 year schools, or courses that may only last a few months, are what keeps this world spinning around.

I believe someone w/ a high school education can go far.

If you want to talk about elite ideas....go chat w/ ehBeth.

I'm the one saying I believe all this expensive education is partly a marketeing ploy to tell what we're supposed to want, and it can be a tremendous financial burden.

We need more good mechanics, lab techs and child care workers, not more people with marketing degrees.

I haven't reviewed to see where ehBeth and I differ (we often do differ and often agree).

I like the two year (whatever) colleges, I like tech learning (my ex's brother worked his way thru trade tech in LA, I think after he had a degree from USC.
He's the one who went into the peace corp and taught carpentry in Africa. Thus my niece, sometime later.
A romance circle of a sort.

But.... I don't like that knowledge of ideas in history are only available to the few who have the time - at the same time I don't want to see ideas just made easy.
I just want them open to knowing, and that usually means a longer degree.

Thus my interest in nearly free education being available.

You and I agree.

As near as I can make out, chai has now come to the point where she's arguing with her original point, so I''m outta here.

No, I'm absolutley Not arguing with my original point.

There's nothing wrong with the "American" dream of being out of debt, as being out of debt will enable you to gain whatever else you may want.

For some careers, a degree, whether it be 2 years, 4 years onwards is necessary.

For a lot of careers, if not most, going to school for years and years, racking up enormous debt because "we're supposed to go to college" is ridiculous, and a recent phenomenon (depending on what your definition of recent is).

If one really wants the information that is found in university, I'm convinced one can find it, for free or little cost on their own.

If one is seeking wisdom, going to school isn't going to get you there.

If one needs to make money, sure, school is fine.....However, for the biggest raise I ever gave myself, and securing my finances for my retirement, I got those results out of one weekend stock market class that cost a few hundred dollars, and a following up weekend a few years later at no cost. That gave me the tools to figure out the rest, for free.

I think excessive amounts of classroom time are being skillfully marketed to us by those same people who make us believe we need a huge SUV or can't get by for a day without an overpriced cup of coffee.