<p>“Tuition gouging for degrees that are useless in the real world and a failed business model have put U.S. colleges front and center as exacerbating income inequality.” …</p>
<p>Emphasizing the obvious?</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy-policy/2014/08/25/colleges-worsen-income-inequality/”>http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy-policy/2014/08/25/colleges-worsen-income-inequality/</a></p>
<p>They failed to mention in the article that researchers at colleges have spread the lie about global warming, to increase government size and regulation. That’s as wasteful as studying sex and gender in society! And we sure wouldn’t want students to study about “Guerrillas and Revolution in 20th Century Latin America”. Don’t want the 47 percenters who don’t contribute anything to get any ideas…</p>
<p>Of course it’s emphasizing the obvious…and it’s good to get the message out here on CC–you sure won’t find in in the lamestream media </p>
<p>Just close 'em down! We’d be better off without 'em.</p>
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<p>skrlvr… are you Sarah Palin?</p>
<p>I am not Sarah Palin nor do I play Sarah Palin on TV.
Would a true red-blooded American have a moniker like skrlvr? As Ann Coulter explained “No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer”</p>
<p>I’d hate to see this thread closed because it turns into a political spitting match.</p>
<p>Oh, c’mon–read the article, thumper1. </p>
<p>Statements like “Often, when students approach colleges for help, they instead get stuck with loans, anecdotal evidence shows.”</p>
<p>Gotta love anecdotal evidence.</p>
<p>And stuff like "income inequality was an issue for college grads with certain degrees: “Today, what you make depends on what you take.” It found that “unemployment is generally higher for non-technical majors,” such as the arts (9.8%) or law and public policy (9.2%).” </p>
<p>How is this revealing or helpful? Doctors makes more than nurses…so colleges are exacerbating income inequality.</p>
<p>And the notion of income inequality is not that certain professions are paid lower than certain other professions (this has always been true) but that the net worth of those at the top is increasing while those at the bottom is not.</p>
<p>The article itself brings in politics “as Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken, and Richard Durbin push for new legislation to help student borrowers, including more tax increases on upper brackets to help pay for student debt.”</p>
<p>And, of course, it brings up high tuition at places like Stanford and Harvard, but it doesn’t bring up that both provide over 35 million dollars of institutional aid. </p>
<p>Oh, and it claims that students received 136.7 billion dollars in federal and state grants, with a link to a College Board Table, but I don’t see how they got that number from the table. </p>
<p>Sorry, dude, the sarcasm went right over my head. I can’t decide if it’s because you were too subtle or I’m too tired.</p>
<p>Well, if Midd stands for Middlebury, it’s probably because of the education you received. After all, “At Middlebury College, students can satisfy their “Historical Studies” requirement by enrolling in the course “Blame It On Bossa Nova: The History of a Transnational Phenomenon” or by taking “Mad Men and Mad Women,” which uses AMC’s “Mad Men” “as a course foundation.”</p>
<p>Sorry, thumper, the original news story was plenty political.
There are fantastic articles about this that could spark discussion, but this is not one of them. It’s just a conservative typical Fox piece 
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<p>Ha ha, too funny! I didn’t bother looking at the article until you posted this, but I had to peak to see if you were pulling my leg. I can’t remember if there were classes like this when I was there. But really, it’s a liberal arts education. A good professor can take any “course foundation” and turn it into something that will be insightful, instructive and mind-opening.</p>
<p>P.S. Dave Berry, your agenda is showing.</p>
<p>LOLOLOLOLOL.</p>
<p>Neither my H or I have ever attended a 4 yr college.
I did not even graduate from high school.
Our oldest has a graduate degree, with a good job, and our youngest just graduated college earlier this year and has a very bright future.
( Incidentally, if the author looked at Ds college & didn’t think they offered a strong liberal arts education, I doubt they would be able to recognize it, if it bit them in the a$$)</p>
<p>So I’m not seeing the inequality, unless you are considering that our daughter & her husband are earning more in their early 30’s than her dad & I are earning now.</p>
<p>The Harry Potter course I took at my public university remains one of the most influential classes I’ve ever taken. </p>
<p>Then again, I work in adolescent health so it helps to understand childhood and adolescence through something as defining for my generation as Harry Potter. But, ah, kids can’t vote so who cares about them, amirite? </p>
<p>The main way elite colleges increase income inequality is through assortative mating.</p>
<p>Giving rich kids useless degrees seems like a way to <em>reduce</em> income inequality, personally.</p>
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It seems somebody is not in a good mode this evening. Watch out! Somebody so mad might bite you.</p>
<p>^ I think you missed the joke 
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<p>^ I indeed missed the joke. Thanks.
Maybe it is the author of that article who is not happy about the “big government” which is “overly generous” to hand out too much financial aid to many poor students. It is their fault to be born into a “wrong” family.</p>
<p>I’ve edited out some comments people reported as objectionable and some political comments. Try to stay civil and avoid the political churn.</p>
<p>Well, if no one went to college sure, people would all be poorer in general and so there would be less income inequality. I don’t think that’s good. That’s a good example of why it’s stupid to talk about income inequality. We could all be dirt poor and bam, now there’s very little income inequality. </p>
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<p>That is what they’re talking about and you’re right, it’s stupid. </p>
<p>And it throws something about debt in there, a completely unrelated thing, for some reason I can’t figure out. </p>
<p>Just an absolutely awful article. </p>
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<p>Someone should tell this lady what the term “income inequality” means, because it’s clear she doesn’t know what the term she’s writing about means. </p>
<p>Seriously, I’m wondering if a person wrote this or if they’re gonna come out later and say “Gotcha! This article was written by an algorithm.”</p>
<p>^^I agree. I prefer an economy where most people are doing ok and some are doing unbelievably fantastic and very few are truly struggling. I call that prosperity.</p>
<p>An economy where the vast majority are struggling is certainly more equal but there is a dearth of opportunities to get out of the rut.</p>
<p>I think of it like thermodynamics - when a system reaches maximum equilibrium it’s pretty much stagnant.</p>
<p>One of my pet peeves is when people confuse “income inequality” with poverty. To my mind they are very different, and it’s entirely possible that prosperity without inequality is impossible.</p>
<p>So in that sense it’s entirely possible that student debt equalizes the next generation since now almost everyone is struggling, but at the same time increases poverty.</p>