The Real College 'Scam'

originally posted by: toysforadults

originally posted by: Edumakated
Only way to fix this college mess is to significantly curtail student loan financing. Government should get out of it entirely. Second, schools should be required to back at least 10% of said loans so they have some skin in the game to ensure that their students are capable and able to pay any debt the incur to attend school back.

Cutting back on financing and forcing schools to accept some risk of the debt would drive prices down significantly. It creates an incentive for schools to reduce costs as financing will not be readily available and it also makes the school want to ensure their graduates are getting good jobs and not taking on too much debt as the school is on the hook for students who fail.

I agree with this as far as post secondary is concerned but I think with a total overhaul in the k-12 age ranges we could redefine the system in a way where on a select few go to university and there they get to work on totally customized curriculum that gives them the tools they need to invent

thats it

what we have now is complete trash

A big problem is that socially and culturally, we look down on non-professional jobs. Every parent wants their kid to be in some white collar profession. That is why the emphasis on college, even for kids who clearly don't have the aptitude for it.

a reply to: Edumakated

before you judge these kids you have to look at what they are learning for those 12 years

what are they actually learning? then we expect them to be sitting back understanding how markets work when they don't even know what the hell the DOW is or the Federal Reserve?

it's totally unrealistic, the education they get is complete and utter trash, I mean seriously did you forget already? probably because you didn't learn anything past algebra and reading!

a reply to: Edumakated

let me tell you, the trades is not a good place to be even the unions are getting ready to lose their pensions, do you know that the trade unions have to pay companies to hire their employees and bid on contracts?

part of your pay is being spent on paying off companies because no one can afford union labor anymore and it's getting worse

then you get in on residential and non union work and the industry is crap. this is a fact I've been working on union and non union jobs for years

yeah sure some guys collecting their pensions now think it's great but guess what those things are going by by

originally posted by: toysforadults
a reply to: Edumakated

before you judge these kids you have to look at what they are learning for those 12 years

what are they actually learning? then we expect them to be sitting back understanding how markets work when they don't even know what the hell the DOW is or the Federal Reserve?

it's totally unrealistic, the education they get is complete and utter trash, I mean seriously did you forget already? probably because you didn't learn anything past algebra and reading!

I agree that k-12 education sucks. They should be teaching practical life skills. We need a more modern Home Economics course that focuses on personal finance and investing. Covering the basics of banking, taxation, debt, etc.

a reply to: Edumakated

yeah and law, it should be all law, accounting, investing and market strategy why even teach them labor when we can hire low skill people from other countries and pay them good money to do it while we manage the earths industries worldwide?

I'm just saying, it's another option like your idea

the way we run things is basically well, mentally retarded

and I don't mean that in a derogatory sense I mean it in a literal definition of the proper use of the word way

A study found that a third of people haven't detectably learned anything after four years in college.

Yep. I learned pretty much nothing whatsoever from my college. Some of my professors literally didn't teach anything. In one class, the professor would come in, sit at his desk, and say nothing the whole class. The students sat there silently doing the week's homework on their own. One time a student tried asking the professor for help, and the professor couldn't figure out how to do it, so he had to ask everyone else. This professor also admitted in front of the whole class that he fiddles with the grades so it looks like he's doing something. I uploaded a completely blank assignment once just out of curiousity and he gave me a 100% on it. He was just randomly grading everyone's work without even looking at it. Other classes weren't much better. The weekly homework for one of my major core classes was to read a chapter in an online book and do a quiz with 5 questions on it. We only met every other week in class, and when we did, the professor would briefly flip through some powerpoint slides, making excuses to not talk about most of them. The online courses were another thing - I was being charged over $2,000 for a "course" where all I did was read a book and answer some quiz questions.
I'm starting to look for jobs now and I feel kindof hopeless because I'm not qualified for most of them. On top of that, in a few months I'll have to start paying off the tens of thousands of dollars from my loans. My mother keeps telling me how I should be getting certain kinds of jobs because I have a degree in XYZ, and I have to think to myself "Yeah, but I don't know anything about that".

a reply to: trollz

I sat in some lectures are a pretty major university once to see what they were teaching in anthropology and psych classes and it was all essentially what I would consider very amateur information that anyone could get in 10 seconds on google and probably more so

who the hell is Jung??? what's the younger dryas?

simple stuff we've all heard or read about

this is at a prolific U

I probably could have learned everything I needed to know in college in 1 or 2 years at most. The only real benefit I got out of college was some maturity living on my own.

Professionally, the finance, statistics, and marketing courses were most useful (as in I actually use the material learned in the real world).

All the other stuff like lit, english, etc could have been self taught imho.

A big thing not mentioned is networking. Collage is a place to meet people and make plans. A ride to figure out what you like and don’t like. Socialize with people of common interest. Make lifelong friendships which you can be if it from if you play the cards right. My big problem is people never learned how to think with basic logic. I got a degree in philosophy. I learned how to analyze information and make judgements of value. I’m not doing great. But I am running three restaurants with the help of a sharp mind and a willingness to learn from my mistakes.

But most people don’t want to learn. They choose the easiest way to just get by. And that is why collage is not for everyone. Hell. A trade school is better for 40% of people in college. But loans are easy and the parties are great. If loans were not available, the price of tuition would not be so high because nobody would go.

a reply to: toysforadults

You become an adult at 18,time to start thinking for yourself,it wasn't hard I was 18 too,quit minumizing the ignorance of todays youth,growing up is being independant,it's all about control

a reply to: toysforadults

That's actually not true, there are plenty of skilled trade jobs out there (gobs and gobs of them), and not just in technologies either (in fact, technologies is pretty saturated right now...because it's easy). In fact, right now there is a huge shortage of skilled trades. Jobs like carpenters, electricians, pipefitters, plumbers, HVAC, iron workers, operators (and the list goes on and on). And it's good pay too, real good (often six figures)

No, the REAL problem is finding people who are willing to WORK! That's the real problem.

The whole college scam boils down to this; kids see it as the easy way out. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Add in the whole PC and diversity thing and you dumb-down the colleges to the point they are matriculating zombies (and I have some classic personal experience examples too). Then it's no wonder Mickey D's wants a Masters Degree so you can ask if someone wants fries with that. Why wouldn't they...if they can get away with it? You don't have that in the skilled trades world, the people just aren't there. Nobody is willing to "work" anymore. So they can't be selective like Mickey D's can, because they don't have this massive pool of resources to draw from.

I work with contractors every single day, and the message is universally the same...we can't find people. Same goes for well educated college grads. I've had requisitions out on the street for two years for Engineers, can't find 'em. I can find millions of "Business" grads, or some other BS degree (with exactly zero real-world skills). Everybody now feels like they're entitled to start out as a manager, but how can they manage a business they don't even understand from the ground up. Same thing; nobody is willing to "work"!

I could write an entire book on this subject, but I won't do it here. Bottom line: the REAL problem is nobody wants to get up off their ass and actually WORK!

originally posted by: schuyler
If you choose to get a degree in an easy field, you're wasting your time and money. If you choose to actually learn something like engineering, you won't have a problem getting a job or paying off debt. Unfortunately, the majority of students are neither smart enough nor motivated enough to actually work through a challenging degree program.

This ^

I chose to go into engineering school because I couldn't afford to pay and not get a job in the end. I always thought art,history,business, MBA degrees were for people with rich parents that had contacts and a guaranteed job in the end. I couldn't afford that luxury.

I never took out any loans either. I did my 2 year CC to stay close to home and decrease my tuition as much as possible for as long as possible. Also took 2 classes versus 4 per semester when I didn't have the money and worked all through college, but the cost wasn't as horrible as it is today.

The moral of the story is to go into a field of study that will be in high demand and do what you can to cut cost to avoid loans.

52 When I left high school I had no clue how to finance a home or car I had no clue how to write a resume .
I had no clue how to handle a interview .
On the up side I could sew I could cook I could do some metal and wood work .

Looks like the schools are focused on getting kids ready for labor jobs with little knowledge on things that can improve there life.
Ps took me ten years to fily learn enough to even get credit to by a home and frankly I am very very self motivated .

Classes have little to do with learning as the one thing no school teaches is HOW to learn .
all they really teach is repeat after me .
This has only gotten worse now a 4 year collage degree ,may as well be a high school graduation .
I know Over the years I have taken collage lv exams and come out as 2 - 4 years lv ( except in English )
So tell me how I can get such high scores on collage lv testing when I only went to high school ?

Ps I call the test monkey test because a monkey could pass them .
90 % is just check a b c or d a 25 % change on being right just guessing .
Once you understand how they format these test its easy to get a passing grade .
Add In using your brain ( when not knowing the correct answer )
Take out the ones you are sure are Incorrect .
Reducing the total answers left increasing the odds of a correct guess to 75 % .

Frankly you have to be a rock to not pass these test .

a reply to: midnightstar

I test into college in 7th grade because I refused to do any school work, they wouldnt put me in the classes I wanted

I'm not saying I'm a genius in saying thats how low the bar is set

Want a great high paying job from your college education ? Go to Religious College become a Televangelist .

originally posted by: toysforadults
you know what's really complete bull#?

first we educate kids for 12 years and they graduate highschool with literally no valuable skills, then we send to them to college for 4-8 more years and charge them enough money to buy a house or 2 and then they still graduate with no marketable skills

tell me that ain't broken? and these academics and left wing nutbags think that have it all figured out

for those of you who can't add after finishing a degree at Harvard in mathematics 12+4 = 16, yeah 16 years in school and can't do anything marketable, great system

High school is not meant to teach job skills, it teaches basic life skills. How to fit into society as an adult essentially. How you make your living is what you do after that. College should not be teaching job skills either. Education and employment are not the same thing. Knowing how to do one does not mean competency in the other.

originally posted by: Edumakated
A big problem is that socially and culturally, we look down on non-professional jobs. Every parent wants their kid to be in some white collar profession. That is why the emphasis on college, even for kids who clearly don't have the aptitude for it.

Because those are the only jobs that have a future. At the company I work for, on the products we make that actually deliver a substantial profit, to be a repair technician you need a phd in biology or chemistry at a minimum. The same holds true for being a factory worker.

Knowing how to do the regular tech work to service a machine is considered a totally irrelevant skill that anybody with two brain cells can learn. We would instead rather hire people who know what the machine is actually doing.

originally posted by: toysforadults
a reply to: Edumakated

before you judge these kids you have to look at what they are learning for those 12 years

what are they actually learning? then we expect them to be sitting back understanding how markets work when they don't even know what the hell the DOW is or the Federal Reserve?

it's totally unrealistic, the education they get is complete and utter trash, I mean seriously did you forget already? probably because you didn't learn anything past algebra and reading!

In terms of speed of material covered, one semester of college is equal to about 2 years of grade school. It's unrealistic to expect students to learn much faster than they already are.

You have a limited number of hours to teach everything. Between 1st and 12th grade you get roughly 14,040 hours to teach everything, from a pile of mush learning the alphabet and counting to understanding Shakespeare and advanced algebra. It's not a lot of time. Math, Reading, Writing, Science, Fine Art, Applied Art, Civics, Foreign language, History, Health, Social Studies, Computers, Life skills, and probably others. You're looking at 1000 hours over 12 years in any given concentration. Mastery, which is a minimum for entry level jobs require 10,000 hours. Of course basic education is going to fall short.

a reply to: trollz

So you never took it upon yourself to learn?

You pay for college for access to professors when you have questions, not for them to hold your hand and regurgitate information.