<p>Do colleges typically cap their need based aid at 4 years?</p>
<p>In our experience, yes.</p>
<p>Unless it’s a 5 year program, which would generally be a co-op program where they could work and earn money anyway. So…4 years of actual school, spread over 5 years.</p>
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<p>Yes, Yes, Yes…great condensed explanation…and why comparing ourselves and our system to the European perceived Utopia is even worse than comparing apples to oranges, it’s more like comparing rocks to elephants. </p>
<p>IMHO what is lacking in our HS system is a blue collar/technical career track. Bring back welding, bring back shop, bring back basic check book balancing. Just as not every college student can nor should be an aerospace engineer or nuclear physicist, so is not every HS student can, nor should be tracked for college. We have slid from the ideal of ‘equal opportunity’ into the expectation of ‘guaranteed equal outcome’ . And, in the process of reaching this guaranteed outcome have lowered our standards bar with the predictable results. How is it even possible the accepted college students are in need remedial English/writing courses or basic HS algebra</p>
<p>It may seem this comment is off tangent…but it all ties together.</p>
<p>Bring back welding, bring back shop, bring back basic check book balancing
Vocational schools can teach the trades better than high schools can. In order to teach those things buildings would have to be reconfigured & equipped.
Re checkbook balancing, don’t parents teach that?</p>
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<p>Well, since the original quote was directed at my post, let me just say that it is all very misleading. 1. I said I recognize, given the fact that we chose to spend all of our money on militarily defending the world, that we are in no position to create a “free” higher education system. 2. I only referenced Canada as a question. And I stand by that question: Why is canada able to keep educational costs down and we are not? Canada is not europe.</p>
<p>So, I think this entire line of thinking avoids the real question I asked, and goes off on a well-travelled argument against something I didn’t even propose, in effect discussing rocks in relationship to the elephants I originally brought up.</p>
<p>As for the trades and manufacturing. The reason there are less people entering the trades is because there are less opportunities in the trades, now, for a middle class career, and as even more of our manufacturing jobs leave the country (how many are even left?), and companies flee to right to work states (read: cheap labor states), I don’t know why we would consider this to be something many would prefer to pursue.</p>
<p>For generations, middle and upper class kids have benefitted from educational opportunities. I think you are off on a wild tangent when you equate affordable educational opportunities with equality of “outcomes,” unless you are insinuating that those born less well-off are being offered an “outcome” by being offered an affordable college option. </p>
<p>My question was, simply, “Canada can keep their educational costs reasonable, why can’t we?”</p>
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<p>I would concur with one caveat: public colleges ratchet up the admissions standards. Admission to ASU and NAU, for example, only requires a 2.5 gpa in College Prep courses. In today’s grade inflated high schools, that is tantamount to just passing. Not sure the public taxpayer should be on the hook for a college education for high schoolers who cruise for four years.</p>
<p>I agree.</p>
<p>In fact, I think below a 3.0 a student, under those circumstances, could attend a community college, and either learn a trade or find out that they were suited for further study, as the two to three years progressed.</p>
<p>We should send all those 24.5 year old folks who want to become BSN nurses, accountants, business managers, schoolteachers, and health system managers to vocational school because 10 years earlier they got a B-minus in Algebra.</p>
<p>Yes, and if they only got a C in algebra, they shouldn’t even be allowed INTO vocational schools. Sheesh.</p>
<p>Huh, mini, one can become a CPA, RN, etc by starting at a community college.</p>
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<p>Mini: it’s unlike you to twist other folks’s words. </p>
<p>(No one said anything about ‘vocational’ school. No one said anything about one B-minus.)</p>
<p>“Huh, mini, one can become a CPA, RN, etc by starting at a community college.”</p>
<p>I’m fine with making community college absolutely tuition-free (the students have huge skin in the game in any case.) I think the social benefit to ME way outweighs the cost.</p>
<p>“Yes, and if they only got a C in algebra, they shouldn’t even be allowed INTO vocational schools.”</p>
<p>Prison’s too good for 'em.</p>
<p>But again, it’s only ‘those people’.</p>
<h1>34 Lake Washington (we’re a bit off topic on this thread)</h1>
<p>You implied that Jordan was not worth his scholarship, and gives no money to help others attend college. I pointed out that Jordan was well worth his scholarship and does give money to various scholarships.
How you can go from there to implicating Jordan in another company’s decision to offshore manufacturing? Nike, and other domestic mfgs who offshore work, is a worthy discussion but in no way supports your assertion that Jordan was a wasted scholarship, nor does it refute any of my points, just sayin’</p>
<p>mini:
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<p>Hey, why not set a good example and send your family to the financial planners, doctors, hey even car mechanics and contractors who could not pass Algebra but were given a cost free or very under actual cost ride…this way you personally can support ‘those people’ (whom you have yet to define…but hey…you seem to ‘them’ ever so well)…Let us know how that works for ya!</p>
<p>“Them” is “those people” for whom $10k additional educational expenses would truly prove a hardship, and might be the breaking point whereby they wouldn’t be able to continue. Lack of resources/financial emergency-hardship at home is the single greatest cause of college dropout.</p>
<p>[Economic</a> Reasons Found for College Dropouts - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/education/10graduate.html]Economic”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/education/10graduate.html)</p>
<p>from the article, which is about the recent study by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation:</p>
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<p>poetgrl
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<p>Canada has a stable and comparatively homogeneous population of around 34 million. The US has a very non-homogeneous population of around 330 million. Most things do not scale simply in a linear fashion. This is pretty easy to see in one’s own kitchen. … try taking a cookie recipe for 1 doz cookies and scale it by simply multiplying the ingredients amounts by 100 in order to create 100 dozen cookies. It will quickly become apparent why simply ‘making it all bigger’ doesn’t result in the outcome one had hoped for and expected.</p>
<p>It a counterfeit correlation.</p>
<p>Thanks for providing the information on the top reason for students dropping out of college. After my first child was born - and having the support of a spouse, grandparents and other mom’s - I still was completely blown away by how much effort something so small actually takes. It seems that the place to start would be education before very young people start families. Something showing that short term pain (putting off the offspring…saving $$…doing school full time) was well worth the long term gain (more financially sound at start of family, better outcome for their own kids, etc). But, we are living in a 'I want it now, I want it fast, I want it free - or at least so cheap that I can buy all I want - society. And THAT…well…that is a whole other thread.</p>
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<p>Me too. I’d go one further by making the juco totally free, books included, for students taking transferable courses.</p>
<p>Given the snippet above that poetgrl quoted it seems that the financials may not be the primary cause for the people to leave higher education. Also there’s a lot of mixing of things on this thread since I thought the article was referring to the 3 Az state universities and doesn’t include community colleges which might be included in some of these other ‘studies’ and stats. This may be why I find mini’s oft repeated “24.5 y/o” hard to believe. </p>
<p>Even the $10K in cost, which would really be $8K in this context, but realistically range plus/minus depending on circumstances and the individual, is misleading since we’re not talking about the destitute person coming up magically with the $8K up front - it’s about paying back that amount in loans ‘after’ graduation and after they’re situated in their new likely higher paying career. Mini can call in $10K and I’ll call it $77/month *after college<a href=“less%20if%20using%20a%20longer%20term”>/i</a>. If their income doesn’t increase by more than $77/month by the time they’re already into their career they were enabled to get into with their college education versus their income when they were destitute (or at least - BC - before college) then there’s something else wrong.</p>