<p>Schools tend to be places to hang out while the economy is down. Get that education you did not get around to or had time for. Hopefully, we are not talking a depression, but faith in Washington seems to be erroding.</p>
<p>Interesting reading: [Analysis:</a> Depression unlikely but recession could be painful – baltimoresun.com](<a href=“http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-analysis0930,0,753134.story]Analysis:”>http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-analysis0930,0,753134.story)</p>
<p>We don’t need to look back at the depression to recall hard times.</p>
<p>Anyone recall the deep recession of 1982, when unemployment hit 10.8%? Here’s a short description:</p>
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The United States was experiencing its worst recession since the Depression, with conditions frighteningly reminiscent of those 50 years earlier. By November 1982, unemployment reached, nine million, the highest rate since the Depression; 17,000 businesses failed, the second highest number since 1933; farmers lost their land; and many sick, elderly, and poor became homeless.
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<p>Remember that this was a time when inflation was routinely in double digits and mortgage rates were too. I remember my first mortgage in 1983 or 4, with a 10.75 (maybe 11.75?) APR for an adjustable!</p>
<p>These were not depression level hard times for sure, but lots of folks were hurting badly. </p>
<p>Regarding our own future, State Universities are no refuge. Just look at the current costs to attend, where many middle folks are priced out. And if the past track record of our state governments is any indication (just look back at the early 2000s), as soon as tax revenues fall, state legislatures will slash higher ed appropriations first. State higher ed will have no choice but to raise tuition and fees just like they did a few years ago. </p>
<p>No one remember this?</p>
<p>In 1929 my grandmother (who had been a college professor at Berkeley) and grandfather (economics degree) bought a sheep ranch in remote Idaho to ride out the depression. When my grandmother arrived at the ranch, she had their last fifty dollars in her purse. Their bank failed, taking their meager savings, the day after she withdrew this money. </p>
<p>The war caused the price of wool and mutton to rise, so ten years, and a lot of sweat equity later, having home schooled their three children, they emerged from the ranch and back to city life.</p>
<p>They could not afford to continue their lives as academics in those years. My grandmother became a writer, high school English teacher, and much later, a journalism professor.</p>
<p>In '82 I was in school. It was a nice little protective bubble from the real world. I don’t remember anything about the deep recession that year. I was completely unaffected.</p>
<p>In 1982 I was a freshman at college. Dad was a mortgage banker and lost his job while I was home for Christmas break (Jan 83). Spring tuition was already paid by that point, so I was able to continue.</p>
<p>In 1983 I bought my first house, mortgage of $120k, payment over $1700 a month, essentially my salary paid the mortgage only. Crazy times, should have rented for a couple years, but there was such a desperation to get into the housing market before getting priced out in SoCal.</p>
<p>We bought our first house in 1987 and were absolutely delighted to get a fixed rate mortgage of 8.875%. Six months earlier they had been 9.5% Ofcourse, back then you could only qualify for a mortgage where the payments, taxes and PMI were no greater than 28% of your gross income. Maybe if there were still some of those restrictions in place we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in now.</p>
<p>Our oldest was born in 1982- 10 weeks early. We were renting within walking distance from where Bill G lives. Nice house- great yard. $650 a month.
Husband was working at the shipyards,he didn’t get laid off until a few years later- at which time he was unemployed except for odd jobs like mowing grass for 1 & 1/2 yrs. I was a nanny for a single mom- which didn’t really pay that well.</p>
<p>I think college costs are so high now that with a recession, we’ll have fewer attending. It’s marginal for the lower middle class folks as is, to assume loans can be paid off later.</p>
<p>We have many depression stories in our family, but my parents were kids during the depression, so college wasn’t an issue for them; clothes and food were. My aunt was denied piano lessons, though, which would have cost 25 cents each. It still makes her mad.</p>
<p>My grandma - with 7 kids of her own - took in laundry for extra money. My mom was the delivery/collections girl. A few years back, mom confessed that whatever grandma told mom to charge the customers, mom added a quarter, as her secret commission.</p>
<p>My mom also talks about grandma not going to chuch because she didn’t have anything to wear. That’s not as in staring at a closet full of clothes and sighing that you haven’t a thing to wear; rather, it’s not having a single dress appopriate for church.</p>
<p>In the early 1900s, my paternal grandmother and her brother went to school on alternating days because they owned only one pair of shoes between them. No depression: they were just that poor. She left school after the 8th grade to work.</p>
<p>I looked at the title of this thread and thought, “College?? What about high school?”</p>
<p>My father dropped out of HS because he was needed to work on the farm. My mother’s brothers didn’t finish HS during the depression because they couldn’t afford books and probably shoes. These men eventually served in the army and then got good jobs in factories or automobile dealerships, working their way up. Edit: Fortunately, all SURVIVED the army, WWII and Korea.</p>
<p>As one poster noted, at the age of 18 you were on your own and expected to make a living somehow. College was not assumed then, nor was it your parent’s responsibility to pay for it.</p>
<p>What was the % of young people in college in 1929 vs 2008?</p>
<p>I’ve enjoyed hearing everyone’s stories, even though many are heart-breaking. It’s hard to find data for this time period. This was the best I could find:</p>
<p>[Depression</a>, Recovery and Higher … - Google Book Search](<a href=“Depression, Recovery and Higher Education: A Report - American Association of University Professors, American Association of University Professors. Committee Y., Malcolm Macdonald Willey - Google Books”>Depression, Recovery and Higher Education: A Report - American Association of University Professors, American Association of University Professors. Committee Y., Malcolm Macdonald Willey - Google Books)</p>
<p>It looks like enrollment was around 1 million in 1929 and poplulation was 120 million. Enrollment dropped 4% in 1930 and was down 8% by 1931 so there was a bit of a lag. This was attributed to any savings being used up.</p>
<p>I remember 1982, I graduated from architecture school that year, it took me six months to find a job in the field and even then it wasn’t really an architecture job. I got laid off within a month (!), rehired part time, worked in a Caltech library and about six months later finally found a traditional beginning architecture job.</p>
<p>My mother’s parents (whom I never met) must have had a similar experience, having graduated from MIT architecture in 1929. My grandfather spent some of the depression doing WPA projects designing bridges on the Merrit Parkway and some working for a ship building firm.</p>
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<p>Excellent question. I don’t know the answer but my guess is it was quite low. The “every kid goes to college” thing is a post-WWII phenomenon. </p>
<p>I’ve been surprised reading some of the responses on this thread. So many people are talking about their grandparents being college students or even professors during the depression. It would seem CCers get their college obsessions genetically!</p>
<p>My grandfather had to leave school after 8th grade to work on the farm, he & my grandmother who were from the same small town came to Seattle during the war ( WWII) to find work, after the example of two of my grandmothers nine sisters. ( she told me stories of sleeping in the same bed with her sisters)</p>
<p>Despite not having much education ( my grandmother did finish high school), they found good jobs and were able to pay cash for a new brick home in a smanchy neighborhood in Seattle.</p>
<p>Don’t know much about grandparents on other side- my grandmother had been a nurse & married twice- my dad was with her first husband who then went on to marry several more times ( he was a carpenter, but a gambler first I believe)</p>
<p>My dad was born in 1912. He had to pay for college on his own. He took several years to get through because he’d go and when the money ran out he’d have to work full time. He also went from his first year at a private colllege to graduate from a public university.</p>
<p>My mom who was born in 1915 never got to college. Her dad passed away (no insurance or assets to speak of) and she had to work to support her mother and younger brother. She regretted not going to college.</p>
<p>My Aunt attended Radcliffe college from her home in Brookline during the Great Depression. She told me that it was easy enough to attend an ‘elite’ college if you could manage the tuition. Her dad’s position on the Egg Exchange in Boston managed that! </p>
<p>My Mom was able to attend Creighton (with a class of nuns) largely due to her mom’s (an immigrant) lack of trust in banks. The family gold went to put her and her brother through college.</p>
<p>My Dad and his sister attended LA City College living at home, with much scrimping and saving. Both their parents worked, at least part time, through out the period.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’m just glad the plus loan is in place for my son’s final year of undergrad. Whew!</p>