<p>Major problem is the FOR-PROFIT schools; they market to students without the academic ability to do college level work, they charge multiple times what the community colleges do for similar programs, they prey on the naiive. Their loan default rates are atronomical. sinful!</p>
<p>I’m a little slow snap, but I still struggle with finding your point, or points. (it is rather hard to discern given the online grammar and convoluted structure – your last sentence in post #16 totals 109 words…)</p>
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<p>IMO, fancy facilities are a red-herring. Well over 2/3rds of a typical college expense is labor – both faculty and admin and support. Our instate public is 68%. 14% goes to finaid. The remainder, 18%, is ALL facilities, which includes classrooms, lab space, dining, utilities, etc. (Some of the physical plant, including fancy dorms and athletic facilities – rock walls – is paid for by restricted donations.)</p>
<p>All of these issues really dance around the fact that college, officially for profit or not, has just become another racket to separate people, in this case students and their parents, from their hard earned cash. The way the system is set up is generational theft taking more from the have nots and transferring it to the haves . . University Presidents and administrators. There is NO JUSTIFICATION for the cost of many college admissions these days. $45,000 per year from Podunk U or Prestigious U for a degree in education? Who do these people think they are? </p>
<p>And yes, the Banks lobbied congress to pass all of this anti-student legislation to make these loans non-dischargeable. Congress has been dysfunctional, stopped serving the people long ago. The banks have cleaned up. Colleges have raised their tuitions far in excess of inflation and have cleaned up. Only the students and their families, i.e, the younger generation have been hurt by all of this.</p>
<p>Its well and good for the boomers to complain how everybody wants something for nothing and these people were at fault for not being smart about taking out these draconian loans . . but NOT EVERYBODY is educated about these matters, or at the least they hope for the best and do what they can to achieve success in life. But the system as it is is working against them No Jobs. Only non-dischargeable loans and a predatory collection process for those who fall off the wagon.</p>
<p>And let me add the boomers graduated into a growing economy and had lots of opportunities and benefits that have been deprived from the younger generations.</p>
<p>The late great United States. Personally, i think Reagan is to blame for sending our country in the wrong direction.</p>
<p>Regardless of the facts in the article being right or wrong, this should force some to take a different look at the way education is financed in this country. The evidence that students’ loans only have created the vast increases in tuition is highly debatable. However, the evidence that the education “system” will spend all the money that is made available to it --and then some-- is overwhelming. This is an industry that has never been forced to cut corners and has been entirely developed to benefit the service providers, abusing the fact that its “customers” are transient and that the people who pay the bills are really not interested nor invested in pushing for changes. </p>
<p>And, it would be a mistake to think that the excesses are only at the college level. The only difference is that the pain is felt a tad more directly, through either tuition payments or later repayments of loans. In the K-12 world, the confiscation is immediate and better hidden, as taxpayers are lulled to believe that education is free, and perhaps should stay free through college. The reality is that it DOES cost all, directly or indirectly. </p>
<p>Who is there to blame? Simply stated, none other than ourselves, or better stated the generations that came before us that allowed this cancer to grow through disinterest and indifference. Can you really blame thieves to rob you if you leave the doors open, never count your assets, and that thievery is in the DNA of thieves? </p>
<p>Back to the issue of students’ loans, here is an old story that should still make your blood boil. The story of the good Mister Lord:</p>
<p>[Albert</a> Lord Golf Course | Golfer sets own course - Baltimore Sun](<a href=“Golfer sets own course”>Golfer sets own course)</p>
<p>As you can see, not all the money went to the schools or the government. A lot of it ended up in the pockets of the well-connected and corrupt.</p>
<p>Let’s presume for a minute that you do away with the non-dischargeability of bankruptcy with regard to student loans. Other than the Feds who will offer a loan? No one. A bank/finance company cannot afford to take the risk and offer the rates that are being charged today. Either rates will need to go up to compensate the bank/finance company for taking the risk or they will require collateral. End of story.</p>
<p>If the bankruptcy issue is removed from the FDSL program who is on the hook? You me and the other 47% that pay taxes.</p>
<p>Why did the Feds take over the student loan program? Simple anwer. By taking the program over the Obama adminstration could book a gain that would help offset the cost of Obamacare.
Borrowers are paying more today than if the FFELP program was still in place.</p>
<p>It was and still is about the money.</p>
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<p>That’s the whole point. The market system has been manipulated by Congress. Right now the entire educational industrial complex is supported by these loans. Remove that support and prices would never have gone up like they have and would likely have to fall significantly. The system worked just fine until Congress meddled with it and gave the Banks and Sallie Mae a risk free golden egg.</p>
<p>And many students would be far better off without the loans instead of having the loans and worthless college degrees.</p>
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<p>From a practical matter, since the Dept of Ed has taken over responsibility, few/no banks offer educ loans today anyway; its a moot point. (The banks that do offer private loans require a parental co-signer and credit check.)</p>
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<p>Dunno about ObamaCare, but all cash is fungible. More importantly, the profits – such as they are - from the now federal lending is being plowed back into financial aid in the form of Pell Grants. Essentially, borrowers, particularly Grad borrowers, are paying a higher rate to offset the cost of the Pell grants.</p>
<p>Skirting the TOS, some of you?</p>
<p>“Never been forced to cut corners,” xiggi?</p>
<p>the evidence that the education “system” will spend all the money that is made available to it --and then some-- is overwhelming. All of them? All their assets? Or only the portion allocated for that year. Like may entities, they set budget. Well, my experience is they do not spend like Marie Antoinette.</p>
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<p>Would this qualifier help: “Never been forced to cut corners in a meaningful way”?</p>
<p>Oh, we all know that belt-tightening and massive cutbacks from the states are often hurled in news broadcasts. We all know there is never enough money! Just as government spending “curbs” work, the reality is that the only thing reduced is the level and rates of the increases in spending. </p>
<p>All what one needs to do is to look at the progression of the spending budgets in the past 5 decades to see that the “system” has never stopped increasing its spending, and that this was never truer than in the most recent past, and this despite all the “news” of cutting services, austerity plans, and low inflation.</p>
<p>There are places where spending needs to be increased at the K12 level, Xiggi. Technology being one of them. However, unfortunately, increased spending in and of itself, unless it is intelligently done, helps none of our students on this globally competitive world. </p>
<p>All that said, and back on topic, the increase in administrative spending at the college level, pensions at the state level, and decreased spending on actual instruction, makes me leery of the whole industrial-educational complex being funded by the future earnings of the next generation.</p>
<p>Or every campus should have one of those:</p>
<p><a href=“http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1360024/thumbs/o-ASDF-570.jpg?1[/url]”>http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1360024/thumbs/o-ASDF-570.jpg?1</a></p>
![http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1360024/thumbs/o-ASDF-570.jpg?1[/url]](http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1360024/thumbs/o-ASDF-570.jpg?1%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
<p>OSU did think so. :)</p>
<p>PS I do not disagree about the need to invest in more technology. But not through the fallacy of the “get an iPad in every kid’s hands” model, or through swallowing the “Apple in every school” Kool-Aid. We need to invest in technology that teachers understand and know how to deploy correctly. We can’t jump from whiteboards to what works today without a better qualified and better trained workforce.</p>
<p>With the simpler objective to graduate people who can read, write, and think at a minimum level.</p>
<p>Of course, even in the case of technology, I’m in favor of common sense spending, as you would imagine.</p>
<p>One option is to scale back loans to private college students and direct more to lower cost state schools. I happened upon a discussion among several faculty members of one of Pennsylvania’s actual state schools where the total annual cost was around 20 grand for locals and perhaps 10-12K more for OOSers. They were talking about declining enrollment and the need to look elsewhere for students to fill the classes. If the government started pulling back on the $50-$60K/year schools, these schools would get more and higher caliber students, and there would be some incentive for the privates to become a bit more responsible. </p>
<p>It’s like it’s OK to subsidize bus or subway travel, but not the Beamer/Lexus customer.</p>
<p>So many of us are being hoodwinked by rankings and elitism and some mystical idea that one will achieve a “better” college experience by spending four times as much on private or out-of-state colleges. Students - go to your state college or a college that offers you a scholarship! Do not take out huge loans to go to out-of-state or private colleges when you could get a very similar education in-state for a fraction of the cost.</p>
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<p>Penn State’s cost of attendance is about $29,000, not $20,000, for in-state students. A combination of relatively high in-state cost with poor in-state financial aid means that Pennsylvania students tend to have high debt levels even at their state schools.</p>
<p>The good warning is simply to watch one’s debt levels, no matter where. Plenty of kids are over-borrowing for whatever school it is, even those publics. Too many are fooled even where the initial sticker price is lower than many privates. But $X minus crappy aid can equal substantial debt. Caveat emptor.</p>
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<p>ucb, I wasn’t referring to schools like Penn State/Pitt/Temple. I believe they are considered state-related or something similar. Technically they are not PA’s state schools even though that’s what most people think.
The schools listed in the link below are the real state schools:
[Welcome</a> to the PA State System of Higher Education](<a href=“http://www.passhe.edu/Pages/default.aspx]Welcome”>http://www.passhe.edu/Pages/default.aspx)</p>
<p>However, for all practical purposes, don’t students inside and outside of Pennsylvania consider Penn State and the like as the flagship or generally most desirable universities with in-state tuition discounts, regardless of the technicalities of being “state related” versus actual state schools?</p>
<p>It also looks like those actual state schools’ costs of attendance are mostly higher than $20,000, up to about $24,000.</p>
<p>My point is that there are options for education such as this:
[Costs[/url</a>]
where you can get a college degree for about 20 grand a year, a bit less if you went off campus. They have a very good reputation for things like physical therapy, and I know a couple of comp sci graduates who are doing as well as any in this market. </p>
<p>Similarly, there are other such schools which have a good reputation and placement - eg. IUP in criminology, with a similar cost even before scholarships or grants are factored in:
[url=<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/indiana-university-of-pennsylvania-3277]Indiana”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/indiana-university-of-pennsylvania-3277]Indiana</a> University of Pennsylvania | Best College | US News](<a href=“http://www.sru.edu/academics/enrollment/financialAid/Pages/Costs.aspx]Costs[/url”>http://www.sru.edu/academics/enrollment/financialAid/Pages/Costs.aspx)</p>
<p>And yet schools like this struggle to attract enough students simply because there’s easy money to go to the “more desirable” universities as you phrase. I’ve known more than one parent who made their children go to these schools, often in the honors school at an even lower cost, and then they ended up in med school or top tier grad schools. </p>
<p>All I’m saying is we’d be better served not indulging a student’s desire to go to a “cool” campus like NYU by making easy money available and then have to deal schools increasing their tuitions even more and with students demanding the taxpayers pick up the tab because the debts are outrageous. If loans to privates were reigned in, the more cost effective institutions will get more demand, better quality students, and can even expand.</p>