I know countless people who have worked their butts off since freshman year to land a job at Google, Microsoft, Godaddy, Uber, Deloitte, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Guardian. It's a lot of work but it paid off. They have a solid job.
It's not possible for a ton of people because most of them are lazy.
College is expensive because school boards know they can increase the tuition and get away with it since students will still take out loans. Access to federal education loans is what caused this spike in costs.
and okay, i get the argument now, but i still don't see how free college would change the new standard to getting a graduate degree. you still have to perform well academically even if tuition costs less.
you're making it sound like the easiest thing in the world to just get a good-paying job and have a great career right out of college, which makes me question if you've actually experienced being in college/know people who have been in college. it really isn't that easy! in fact, it's not possible for a ton of people.
and "work super hard" in no way justifies how much college costs, which is again, the crux of the issue.
A high school diploma used to be the standard for job employment - now it's an undergrad degree.
When you make an undergrad degree the standard (and let any and anyone get access to it), the next graduate degree will become the standard in employment.
As idealistic as you want to be, people should be pushing trade school again.
No, because what I said is perfectly reasonable and is done by people who actually care about job security.
It's not optimistic - it's the truth. People who don't work on their career/professional life early in college don't end up in a good spot after graduation. People who do are much more likely to get good jobs.
Sucks to suck for poor people, but you can compensate with harder work.
i mean, making college free or not quite as pricey wouldn't mean that everyone suddenly enrolls in college. you would still need to get accepted and do well academically. i don't really understand this argument.
again, i think that your view of education/the job market is more optimistic than it should be.
in theory, you could land a good-paying job as soon as you get your degree and pay off all of your debt within a few years, but it usually doesn't work like that. the job market is super bad right now, and you generally have to work your way up the ladder with a degree, as opposed to starting off with a well-paying job.
a lot of these issues could be solved by just making college not cost a ridiculous amount of money.
majors like sociology/history are also still useful, but that's a different debate!
See the funny thing is that even though the US has costly higher education, it still leads the world in having the most college students/intelligentsia
When you make an undergraduate degree super accessible to everyone, people will then need to go to graduate schools.
Loans are one of the best ways to build credit and it's not bad to be in some debt.
People who actually take the direct approach to solving their debt work on their professional career as they enter college. They develop and make sure they can land a good job that can help support to pay education loans. It is NOT hard to pay down $50k of debt on your own if you get a half-decent job.
Things like "Gender Studies" and Sociology are useless humanities. There is no real reason why anyone should be doing to a flagship college to do $50k+ debt for a useless history/English degree. Go to your community college for that.
i think that you're underestimating how difficult it is to get a substantial scholarship/scholarships. it's certainly possible to work hard and maybe get a couple thousand dollars, but the chances of getting something close to a full ride/the majority of your cost covered? very small.
for example, i go to literally one of the cheapest schools in my state and the tuition is still sky-high. there is no reason that college tuition needs to cost such an insanely high amount, and the idea that you can work hard and get it for super cheap is straight-up just not true for the vast majority of students.
also, humanities degrees are important too! i resent that.
There are unalienable rights and there are privileges.
This is the same way in how the US tried to claim houses were a "human right" a few decades back and it led to unprecedented housing market inflation because they tried to make housing loans much more accessible.
College is a privilege and so you have to put work into getting it.
It's not hard to score merit scholarships if you are even just remotely smart. We have the world's flagship colleges and they get the cream of the crop in terms of college applicants. The only other ones that I can think of that aren't on US land are Oxford and Cambridge.
Sorry, not even sorry.
When there are people who are getting over $50k in debt to a useless humanities degree (like many people on this site), it becomes pretty clear some people are imbeciles.
College can be expensive, but if you put in the time to apply to numerous scholarship (eg. Scholly), you can EASILY get money. But of course, people are too lazy to write a few essays that explain why they are a compelling candidate for money to pay for college.
There are programs in all these top schools that give full rides to the academically-strong but financially-weak students (which isn't found a lot).
Fix K-12 first before even touching college. Common Core is a disaster.
Honestly this. There can be steps made to progress towards cheaper college, but our colleges are some of the best in the world while our public grade schools and high schools are garbage. Another issue of mine with Kasich is his support of Common Core, there needs to be a better way to educate.
From my sister being a teacher for years and my girlfriend student teaching and taking education classes, the issue is underqualified or uninspired teachers and a lack of school funding.
deletedover 8 years
I agree with that too our public education system is pathetic compared to other countries. Unless you are in all A.p classes you aren't prepped for college at all.
deletedover 8 years
if a better educated society is better, we should fix k-12 first
deletedover 8 years
My point is that its getting harder to be middle class and the raising tuition costs and difficulty to get a degree will just further the gap between middle and upper class
fam is also right that a well-educated society is a better society as a whole, meaning that the fact that higher education is often limited by the amount of money you have is very silly.
deletedover 8 years
Its not even about getting rich, I'm not even talking about a full ride, more help to at least get to an associates degree or help through a trade school would hep people tremendously. having more trained and educated people benefits the country and economy as a whole
higher education might be a privilege, but the criteria of getting that privilege should not be the amount of money you have but rather your ability to educate yourself and perform well in an academic environment.
the problem right now is that people can't get a college education without putting themselves into thousands upon thousands of dollars of debt.
and don't get me started on how you can just work hard and get to college for cheap through scholarships, because that -isn't- true for many people.
you can argue against free college, but having the position that "college is a privilege" completely ignores the issue at hand.
