Comments on: Student Loans: Whither young college graduates?

By: This is What Frugal Looks Like: Funny About Money — Almost Frugal- a frugal blog

This is What Frugal Looks Like: Funny About Money — Almost Frugal- a frugal blog — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:05:29 +0000

[...] Student Loans: Whither Young College Graduates? Play nice: Share with others! [...]

By: funny

funny — Thu, 28 May 2009 04:53:48 +0000

@ frugal scholar: The frightening thing is, these are graduate students. Very high-functioning graduate students! The young woman seems to be convinced that she’ll be starting in the high five figures or low six figures. Meanwhile, in the absence of any figures, she’s planning to move home with Mom in Sacramento, a hotbed of six-figure salaries.

GDU actually JUSTIFIED jacking up its tuition (before the financial collapse) by stating that when tuition is higher, students are eligible for larger amounts of financial aid (read “loans”). Our university president, to a large degree, has underwritten his grand ambitions with the personal debt of our students.

And yes, the College of Education is a scandal. Has been for a generation or more: when I started undergraduate school, my roommate announced she had decided to major in education because it was the easiest course of studies available and it would guarantee her a job when she got out. In my junior year, I met a young man who had spent four years as an education major and had never…once…purchased…a…SINGLE…book in his major! Then–this was during Vietnam, when young men could still evade the draft by staying in school–my boyfriend graduated with a B.S. in public administration and avoided being sent to the front by pursuing a master’s degree in primary education. In his first semester, he earned three graduate credits for–this is NOT a joke!–a course in bulletin-board making!

This is not to say that colleges of education are devoid of some very bright men and women; it’s just that those bright young people are not being educated adequately.

And then, OMG, the phony degrees! Don’t get me started!!! Suffice it to say that too many of our public universities have decided to take a leaf for two (or three) from the books of the diploma mills. In higher education today, it’s buyer beware. With a vengeance!

By: frugalscholar

frugalscholar — Thu, 28 May 2009 03:57:52 +0000

I have so many thoughts about this issue. Here are some–presented in an incoherent manner as they roll around my head. Schools charge ever-increasing tuition because people are willing to pay. They are willing to pay because loans are readily available. Many undergraduates have parents who were willing to do cash-out refis based on the ever-increasing value of their homes (up till last fall!).

My students whip out calculators when I tell them that an assignment is worth 10% of their grade! If they can’t figure this out, then how can they gauge what loan repayments will be like?

Because students are paying with “funny money,” they tend to spend without boundaries and sustain a “life style” very different from my college and grad school life style.

I am sorry to say that my weakest students are in education…often in English education.

And I haven’t even touched on the “value” of many of these degrees.