A. that's the guy in Taco Bell wearing a neck tie.

WSS

@vaportrail said:

That's exactly what I plan on telling my kids (if I ever end up having any). College is a scam, and a bachelor's degree is pretty much useless unless you're in engineering, accounting, or education.

And if you go into debt to get a degree in sociology, philosophy,music, art history or even theatre arts I don't want to hear you bitch that you're not making 6 figures a year.

WSS

@vaportrail said:

That very well may be true....but I am also hoping that her marketing degree can fit on that list.

@westside-steve said:

That's exactly what I plan on telling my kids (if I ever end up having any). College is a scam, and a bachelor's degree is pretty much useless unless you're in engineering, accounting, or education.

@walterwhite said:

I think you are right - when we have tuition costs rising exponentially- and ridiculous freshmen requirements

of having to live on campus as mandatory in order to get grants and loans....

we call it a "racket"

If it isn't, why bother?

On the other hand we've had it pounded into our heads that people with a college degree make x times more money. Quite possibly because people who go through the bother of attaining a college degree are more dedicated then those who glide.

WSS

@walterwhite said:

Clearly since they are charging 5 times more for a dorm room than it costs for a luxury apartment.

@the-gipper said:

Hello free tickets...

@westside-steve said:

Sports marketing and management!!!

WSS

@gftchris said:

Yea, absolutely. My son is lucky because his undergrad school gave him so much in grants and scholarships that his student loans were not that bad. With working for two years before going on to grad school he has even pretty much paid them off (plus he got a little inheritance from his granddad). My daughter's case is different.....she will be saddled with massive debt that has been foisted upon her.

Needless to say, I am not happy with that school. Its endowment fund if 5 times the size of the endowment fund that my son's school. It probably has one of the highest endowment fund to student ratios in the entire nation. But they hoard their money. They have 5 times more money than my son's school....but only gave her a fourth of what my son's school gave. They even told me directly "your son's school has said that they are committed to meeting the financial aid needs of their students. We don't make that same committment". And they don't. Alice Walton went there. (of the Wal-Mart family....richest family in America). I suspect they gave a lot of money to the school. They probably want the money to go to shiny new facilities that they can put there name on....and not to educating their students.

Maybe in term time you work 25 hours per week, for the same rate, around $5.5k. All in, you might get around $15-16k. As you point out, at a place like Akron, tuition is $25k per year, so you're already short $10k, plus living costs, plus education costs (books be expensive) - don't know what that cost is in the US, but ballpark figure call it $5k. After a three year course, you're already down $45k.

It really bugs me when people talk about how they paid their way through college with just a part time job - Gip, I know you're saying the opposite and it's refreshing to hear someone from your generation understanding the problems.

Personally, having been in full time employment for only 4 years since university, I'm still in around $70k of debt. It'll be fun trying to pay that off and get a mortgage some time in the next 10 years - in the meantime of course, I'm renting, so losing more money from my overall portfolio.

@westside-steve said:

As you know, for undergraduate at Akron U, I worked my full summer after High School at a factory and earned enough money to pay my tuition for my first year of college....staying at home with my parents that year. The next summer I didn't have the summer income to do that. I could only pay for about one and a half quarters (we were on quarters). Went full time fall quarter of soph. year, part time winter quarter and had to take spring off as no job, no money. So I get the job working at ACME, working full time in the summer. I made enough to start going back to school. For the next like 4 years I would work about 25-30 hours per week and go to school, taking about a 2/3rds full time load. So overall it took me 5 2/3rds years to get through undergrad....working and studying. Then I took another full year off...working full time pretty much and saving for law school. Law school is 3 years if you go full time, which I did. The first full year I was a full time student. I paid for if from savings from working at ACME. After my first year I got a full time internship in the summer, then for the next two years I studied full time and worked part time. But yes, I did run out of money and all I had was the part time work money. To finish paying for law school I did have to take out student loans. At that time they were called "National Defense Loans". I guess the government felt that it was important for national security for law students to finish school or some such nonsense. I received no grants or scholarships at any point. Not that I couldn't have, I just was never given any guidance on how to acquire those. But that was OK as I was making it without them. When I did need the money CSU guided me to the student loan route. After graduation I began paying on those loans and did so for quite a few years until I paid them off. With interest rates in the teens in the 80s, my 3% government student loan was a bargain I guess.

Point is, today, no student could ever afford to do it the way I did. You can't work at even a decent job and live and pay for college the way I did....unless you take like one course a semester. The tuition has just gotten too outrageous. This, I believe is true even if you attend a state school like Akron U. When my son applied to his colleges the only state school he looked at was Miami Oh. Its tuition at the time....2009 was like 25K per year.

I believe Akron U now charges 24-25K per year.

http://www.uakron.edu/finaid/cost-of-attendance/index.dot

This includes room and board. Of course, if you didn't live in the dorm you would have room and board costs anyway. For me, for a while I was able to live at home......but naturally as a 20-21-22 year old you want to get out of that arrangement.

And, of course, the above are public school costs. Double those for private schools.

WSS

@calfoxwc said:

That is my deal, except it is more than 40K.....though fortunately some big chunks are covered in grants and loans.

40,000 a year - tuition and dorm. egad.

Hope the flip house we're helping redo, makes her a big profit....