Election 2024

[Oasis]

Originally Posted by HarmanKardon

It feels good that Elon Musk was not born in the United States of America - you know what I mean?

Was he born, or was he a genetic experiment gone wrong

[Human]

Originally Posted by Chicks

I've never been a fan of Biden's student debt relief plan - the college educated folks need to fend for themselves, IMO. Maybe some basic financial training in HS would have been helpful, as it seems too many college grads got themselves in a real bind, but I fail to see why the feds should bail them out (I paid my own way through college, FWIW).

How much did college cost when you paid your own way?

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by Human

How much did college cost when you paid your own way?

There's absolutely no question that college has gotten far more expensive. But giving away bundles of taxpayer money to high-earning white collar college graduates with law, medical and business degrees while blue collar workers' wages have a hard time keeping up with inflation is profoundly dumb politics.

Moreover, it doesn't address the source(s) of the problem. Injecting this much new money into the system does nothing to reduce tuition costs. It provides no incentive to restrain costs and will actually increase them.

In direct response to your question, my out-of-state tuition at Virginia Tech was ~$1,300/yr my freshman year (1971) and is ~$35,000 now. Then again, weeknight beer specials at some bars in town had $.05 domestic beers and $.25 Heineken drafts and $1 pitchers.

[Human]

Originally Posted by finnbow

But giving away bundles of taxpayer money to high-earning white collar college graduates with law, medical and business degrees while blue collar workers' wages have a hard time keeping up with inflation is profoundly dumb politics.

And what about those who don't graduate with one of those degrees?

Teachers need at least a BA to get started, and teacher's salaries are not great. There are too many fields to list where salaries are not great and job candidates are not even considered without a bachelors degree. My daughter's boyfriend recently had a job recruiting people for a variety of jobs for lower-end jobs for companies you've heard of.

They all required a degree.
The average starting pay was about $17 an hour.

So I guess just don't go to college unless you can make 6 figures right out of the gate, or unless your parents can pay for your education...

Tuition is NOT going to go down. The system is f$#@d up. It's not like this in civilized counties.

[Noogies]

The shift in thinking that needs to be negotiated is where we as a society come to the realization that in a lot of cases, post-secondary education is entirely unnecessary.

[Oerets]

Welcome to DumbFKistan!

[Noogies]

Originally Posted by Oerets

Welcome to DumbFKistan!

Was that for me?

[Oerets]

Originally Posted by Noogies

Was that for me?

No not at all.

Just making a statement on the current state of the USA.

The dumbing down fattening , up of America becoming more extreme has become the majority it now seems.

[Noogies]

Originally Posted by Oerets

No not at all.

Just making a statement on the current state of the USA.

The dumbing down, fattening up of America becoming more extreme has become the majority it now seems.

Yes, as I said in another thread: the fate of the country is now in the hands of people who only understand the word "illegal" when it's used as a noun.

[icenine]

Originally Posted by Noogies

The shift in thinking that needs to be negotiated is where we as a society come to the realization that in a lot of cases, post-secondary education is entirely unnecessary.

That is not true for health care related fields...some form of post-secondary education is needed. As an X-ray tech I can tell you critical patients are sometimes left alone with you in the x-ray room when a nurse should be present so a basic awareness of medical knowledge is necessary. I am not saying a 4 year degree but associate degrees and/or state licensing should be required.There is sort of a Catch-22 with health care jobs below the RN level...if you make it too easy they will hire anyone off the streets and try to pay them the least amount of money...the quality of the care will go down along with the quality of the employee. If you make licensing too hard with
degree requirements or fees the available workers will have a difficult time entering the field and staff shortages will result.

I personally feel that college fees are too high...however the anti-intellectual trend of the recent years dismissing the value of liberal arts degrees (another result of fees being way out of control) may lead to a less aware electorate subceptible to being bamboozled by demagogues. As we have just experienced.