<p>SisterVengeance, you speak much wisdom, and I could not agree more!</p>
<p>@LadyDianeski</p>
<p>Oh thank you!! :D</p>
<p>I’ve seriously been thinking about writing articles on this kind of subject. I feel like there is so much misinformation. </p>
<p>Yes, that’s my ego talking. >_></p>
<p>To Olympic Lady:</p>
<p>Which of Goose7856’s post may cause a shitstorm? Also what does “bubble” mean in this context?</p>
<p>While I agree with most points, schools like Harvard are actually CHEAPER for some people.</p>
<p>If I myself were to get accepted into Harvard, my financial status would actually make it CHEAPER for me to go to HARVARD than say the University of Alabama.</p>
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<p>True, but we need to keep this in perspective. For the “some people” you’re talking about, the problem indeed is not paying. But when Harvard et al.'s acceptance rates range from mid single digits to low double digits, getting in is no cakewalk. I wouldn’t consider this a viable strategy for “some people.”</p>
<p>Sure, the rates are higher for scions of political families and the like, but then we’re not talking about “some people,” are we?</p>
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<p>My family’s status illustrated everything that is misleading about “X% of our students receive financial aid.” We did the EFC calculator, and it came out to ~$25,000 a year. So we would’ve qualified for a substantial amount of aid: six digits over four years. But the problem is, total COA is double our EFC. The “half” that my parents would’ve paid would still have come out to six digits over four years.</p>
<p>Per the NYT article in post #1:</p>
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<p>That means 1/3 graduate with no debt, and 1/3 graduate with less than $24K in debt. $24K is a reasonable amount of debt for a college graduate. Most people will take on a car loan for that amount. 1/3 graduate with more than $24K in debt, but how much more? I’m having trouble getting on the bubble-panic band wagon.</p>
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<p>Nitpick: You can only conclude that “1/3 graduate with less than $24K in debt” if you assume that the mean (average) is the median.</p>
<p>It’d be nice to know more about that two-thirds group, though.</p>
<p>Lol my family lives off of 15,000 a year, how much financial aid would I be awarded.</p>
<p>There is no higher education bubble. College is always worth it. The Collegeboard says that college graduates will make more than $1,000,000 than high school graduates. So how can you say it’s not worth it. Even if you take out $200,000 in loans. You will still make more than enough money to cover it up because college is by far the best investment you can ever make. Investing in knowledge, power and opportunities to unlock your mind, to pursue your dreams, and to really live the American Dream. Once you graduate from college, a magical six-figure job shall await you because you have earned it by going to college. So you people saying that we shouldn’t go to college are elitist snobs who want to keep all the six-figure salaries for yourself. I am going to Sarah Lawrence College to put myself in $250,000 debt because the financial aid office said it will always be worth it, no matter the price.
College!!! College!!! College!!!</p>
<p>The problem with the statistic that says “the average college grad makes one million dollars more over their lifetime than someone with a high school diploma” is that you’re reading too much into it.</p>
<p>First, there’s the ecological fallacy which has to do with interpolating individual situations from aggregate data. The classical example is the statement: “Half of the US population will get divorced. Therefore I have a fifty percent chance of getting divorced.” No, that’s not true. The data does not allow you to make statements about any individual within the population based on statistics about the population as a whole. What will happen to the GROUP – as a whole - -has nothing to do with what will happen to you.
There’s no way of knowing from that group data whether or not YOU will make a million extra dollars over your lifetime.</p>
<p>Secondly, there’s the problem with that tricky word “average”. JUST because the ‘average’ salary is higher for college grads again doesn’t mean that EVERY college grad in EVERY subject is making more money than EVERY high school graduate. Instead, a lot of people think that what is happening is that a FEW people in high=value majors (like engineering) from high-value schools are making INCREDIBLE amounts of money (hundreds of millions of dollars per year) and that these gains are then being spread over the pool of data – so that you get a high “average” earning which is unevenly distributed. This is why you would want to know about the median or the modal income or a college grad and not the ‘average income of a college grad.’ (The median is the number in the middle and the mode is the one which appears most often.) Statisticians refer to this principle by the shorthand phrase "So Bill Gates walks into a bar. . . " The idea here is that if Bill Gates is sitting in the bar next to you, all of a sudden the ‘average income’ of everyone in the bar goes up – but that doesn’t actually mean that anyone else has any more money. </p>
<p>Thirdly, there’s the problem with the word “graduate”. What you actually want to know is: what is the likelihood that I will graduate? that I will finish the degree that I have started paying for? If all of these hypothetical gains accrue to people who graduate, it’s still important to remember that many people don’t.</p>
<p>momzie, that was a satirical post
I was just presenting the various arguments you are likely to hear from college-for-all advocates</p>
<p>momzie, saynotoharvard was just making a satirical post. If you search saynotoharvard’s posts in his posting history, you would see his true attitudes towards student loans. Also can someone explain to me what the word “bubble” in the context of this thread means?</p>
<p>A bubble is, in financial terms, trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at variance with intrinsic values.
In the educational context, the value of the product(that is being traded at high voulume i.e. the bachelor’s degree) depends on the exclusivity of the product. So if the product is expanded to almost everyone, it has minimal value in context but if it is exclusionary by nature, then the value is relatively high.
The reason why we have a bubble is that excessive tuition prices are not justified by the similar end results(high salaries or even good salaries or even jobs at all)
However, i would argue that the system is inherently unsustainable because if everyone to college(which seems to be Obama’s plan regardless of its practicability, college becomes the new GED; similarly if everyone went to grad school, grad school’s degree becomes devalued as well.</p>
<p>Please Note: Only consider my post accurate if you expect that by going to college or even gaining higher education, you will get an increase in pecuniary reward</p>
<p>While I appreciate there is a difference in ability between prospective students, I regard higher education as not only an economic investment but an intellectual one as well. Teaching people to think critically is a vital service that is provided by post-secondary education. For that reason I believe education should be made equally available to everyone in terms of cost, regardless of what grade the school is in. However, I also believe that the higher value assigned to some university or college degrees over others grants their graduates a well earned status as leaders in their field based on merit. That being said, admission to these schools should be strictly based on merit (GPA, volunteer service, personal motivation) rather than ability to pay.</p>
<p>critical thinking should be done in high school; that is exactly what high school is for
post-seconddary should be for specialization; secondary school is for general education
i guess that’s where americans went wrong; the devaluation of high school</p>
<p>A recent article in my HR publication indicated that the unemployment rate for college graduates is right around 5%. Knowing that the overall unemployment rate is either 10% or 18% depending on how you formulate the participant pool, I would say that there is still considerable value in a college education. That said, different schools are affordable to different families. HYPSM level schools would have been full pay for our family. Top tier State Flagship schools were between 10 and 20/year. Looking at the profession my son is interested in, there is no pay difference between someone who graduates from a state school and an Ivy. For us, it’s an economic decision. We also have a retirement to fund.</p>
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<p>Just tuition? That’s sound very low for total cost of attendance (COA). At UIUC in engineering, its $32,000 a year – for in-state. Add another $10-12k for OOS.</p>
<p>debrockman, you have absolutely no idea how those stats are produced. as i like to quote “there are lies, there are more lies and then there are statistics”. thoses statistics are grossly misleading
aaccording to a Pew Research Center study, 37 percent of Americans ages 18 to 29 are unemployed or out of the work force. i would hardly call that a good roi.that 5% stat is very very misleading. to them, walking at walmart and kfc is significant employment. try factoring underemployment as well and you’ll gain a lot more perspective on the matter</p>
<p>debrockman – We went the stat-univ route for much the same reason. In fact, we went farther: the state-univ-that-buys-NMFs route. In our view, even our state flagship (UNC Chapel Hill) is not worth full pay. </p>
<p>At the same time, saynotoharvard does make a good point re underemployment. Well, at least if DS ends up flipping burgers, we won’t have paid through the teeth to get him there. 
(And he won’t be burdened by debt.)</p>
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<p>Maryland–College Park is $8K for tuition and about another $10K to $12K for room and board. </p>
<p>Illinois has always been expensive. It used to be that Illinois kids could pay OOS tuition in Iowa and it was still cheaper than Illinois. Sounds as though that has not changed.</p>