The destruction of the west by education

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
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Is College A Waste Of Time And Money?

By: alexmark

Are you thinking of going to college? If so, please consider that decision very carefully. You probably have lots of people telling you that an "education" is the key to your future and that you will never be able to get a "good job" unless you go to college. And it is true that those that go to college do earn more on average than those that do not. However, there is also a downside. At most U.S. colleges, the quality of the education that you will receive is a joke, the goal of most colleges is to extract as much money from you and your parents as they possibly can, and there is a very good chance that there will not be a "good job" waiting for you once you graduate. And unless you have someone that is willing to pay your tuition bills, you will probably be facing a lifetime of crippling student loan debt payments once you get out into the real world. So is college a waste of time and money? In the end, it really pays to listen to both sides of the debate.


Personally, I spent eight years at U.S. public universities, and I really enjoyed those times.
But would I trade my degrees today for the time and money that I spent to get them?
Absolutely.
Right now, Americans owe more than a trillion dollars on their student loans, and more than 124 billion dollars of that total is more than 90 days delinquent.
It is a student loan debt bubble unlike anything that we have ever seen before, and now even those that make their living from this system are urging reform. For example, consider what a law professor at the University of Tennessee recently wrote for the Wall Street Journal…
In the field of higher education , reality is outrunning parody. A recent feature on the satire website the Onion proclaimed, “30-Year-Old Has Earned $11 More Than He Would Have Without College Education.” Allowing for tuition, interest on student loans, and four years of foregone income while in school, the fictional student “Patrick Moorhouse” wasn’t much better off. His years of stress and study, the article japed, “have been more or less a financial wash.”
“Patrick” shouldn’t feel too bad. Many college graduates would be happy to be $11 ahead instead of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, behind. The credit-driven higher education bubble of the past several decades has left legions of students deep in debt without improving their job prospects. To make college a good value again, today’s parents and students need to be skeptical, frugal and demanding.
When a lot of young Americans graduate from college and can’t find a decent job, they are told that if they really want to “be successful” that what they really need is a graduate degree.
That means more years of education, and in most cases, even more debt.
But by the time many of these young achievers get through college and graduate school, the debt loads can be absolutely overwhelming
The typical debt load of borrowers leaving school with a master’s, medical, law or doctoral degree jumped an inflation-adjusted 43% between 2004 and 2012, according to a new report by the New America Foundation, a left-leaning Washington think tank. That translated into a median debt load—the point at which half of borrowers owed more and half owed less—of $57,600 in 2012.
The increases were sharper for those pursuing advanced degrees in the social sciences and humanities, versus professional degrees such as M.B.A.s or medical degrees that tend to yield greater long-term returns. The typical debt load of those earning a master’s in education showed some of the largest increases, rising 66% to $50,879. It climbed 54% to $58,539 for those earning a master of arts.
In particular, many are questioning the value of a law school education these days. Law schools are aggressively recruiting students even though they know that there are way, way too many lawyers already. There is no way that the legal field can produce enough jobs for the huge flood of new law school graduates that are hitting the streets each year.
The criticism has become so harsh that even mainstream news outlets are writing about this. For instance, the following comes from a recent CNN article
For the
Read more at Is College A Waste Of Time And Money? | InvestmentWatch



Personally, I spent eight years at U.S. public universities, and I really enjoyed those times.
But would I trade my degrees today for the time and money that I spent to get them?
Absolutely.
Right now, Americans owe more than a trillion dollars on their student loans, and more than 124 billion dollars of that total is more than 90 days delinquent.
It is a student loan debt bubble unlike anything that we have ever seen before, and now even those that make their living from this system are urging reform. For example, consider what a law professor at the University of Tennessee recently wrote for the Wall Street Journal…
In the field of higher education , reality is outrunning parody. A recent feature on the satire website the Onion proclaimed, “30-Year-Old Has Earned $11 More Than He Would Have Without College Education.” Allowing for tuition, interest on student loans, and four years of foregone income while in school, the fictional student “Patrick Moorhouse” wasn’t much better off. His years of stress and study, the article japed, “have been more or less a financial wash.”
“Patrick” shouldn’t feel too bad. Many college graduates would be happy to be $11 ahead instead of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, behind. The credit-driven higher education bubble of the past several decades has left legions of students deep in debt without improving their job prospects. To make college a good value again, today’s parents and students need to be skeptical, frugal and demanding.
When a lot of young Americans graduate from college and can’t find a decent job, they are told that if they really want to “be successful” that what they really need is a graduate degree.
That means more years of education, and in most cases, even more debt.
But by the time many of these young achievers get through college and graduate school, the debt loads can be absolutely overwhelming
The typical debt load of borrowers leaving school with a master’s, medical, law or doctoral degree jumped an inflation-adjusted 43% between 2004 and 2012, according to a new report by the New America Foundation, a left-leaning Washington think tank. That translated into a median debt load—the point at which half of borrowers owed more and half owed less—of $57,600 in 2012.
The increases were sharper for those pursuing advanced degrees in the social sciences and humanities, versus professional degrees such as M.B.A.s or medical degrees that tend to yield greater long-term returns. The typical debt load of those earning a master’s in education showed some of the largest increases, rising 66% to $50,879. It climbed 54% to $58,539 for those earning a master of arts.
In particular, many are questioning the value of a law school education these days. Law schools are aggressively recruiting students even though they know that there are way, way too many lawyers already. There is no way that the legal field can produce enough jobs for the huge flood of new law school graduates that are hitting the streets each year.
The criticism has become so harsh that even mainstream news outlets are writing about this. For instance, the following comes from

Could you imagine investing four or five years and tens of thousands of dollars in a college degree and then working a job that does not even require a degree?
And the really sick thing is that the quality of the education that most college students are receiving is quite pathetic.
Recently, a film crew went down to American University and asked students some really basic questions about our country. The results wereabsolutely stunning
When asked if they could name a SINGLE U.S. senator, the students blanked. Also, very few knew that each state has two senators. The guesses were all over the map, with some crediting each state with twelve, thirteen, and five senators.
I have posted the YouTube video below. How in the world is it possible that college students in America cannot name a single U.S. senator?…
These are the leaders of tomorrow?
That is a frightening thought.
If parents only knew what their children were being taught at college, in most instances they would be absolutely horrified.
The following is a list of actual college courses that have been taught at U.S. colleges in recent years…
-”What If Harry Potter Is Real?
-”Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame
-”Philosophy And Star Trek
-”Invented Languages: Klingon and Beyond
-”Learning From YouTube
-”How To Watch Television
-”Sport For The Spectator
-”Oh, Look, a Chicken!
That last one is my favorite.
The truth is that many of these colleges don’t really care if your sons and daughters learn much at all. They just want the money to keep rolling in.
And our college students are

Read more at Is College A Waste Of Time And Money? | InvestmentWatch

 

Tecumsehsbones

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Mar 18, 2013
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You are smart AND lucky. Seriously, if you want to ruin a nation in one generation, education is #1 weapon and the debt seals the deal. I assume you can name a few senators.

Mitch, Ted, Susan, Harry, Liz, a few others.

None of 'em can drink like Teddy and John in the old days.
 

taxslave

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 25, 2008
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Got me from a dirt-poor rez kid to the 1%.

All depends on what one got an education in. SInce yours is in theft it is not surprising you made it to the 1%. For the most part those that got a degree in medicine or some kind of engineering do alright. Those that studied medieval literature or social work perhaps not so much. Most probably could have done better selling used cars.
 

damngrumpy

Executive Branch Member
Mar 16, 2005
9,949
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kelowna bc
To start with many people don't know how to look for a job today
There are all kinds who expect the job to come to them, that's
right. If I go to college or university the job should be waiting for
me at the other end. Nonsense the world does not revolve around
the student never did never will.
I remember when I got out of school, I packed groceries to get enough
to take a broadcast course and they were not that helpful back in the
early and mid sixties. After the course I had to find my own bloody job.
I traveled four thousand miles looking for work and when I got home the
station in my home town had an opening they had to fill. I wasn't lucky
I was prepared for an entry level position.
I never ever once found a job from a want ad. I went looking at places I
believed I wanted to work and I found all kinds of opportunities with all
kinds of experiences. There are tons of jobs out there if you go looking.
When I became the person hiring, I never hired a whiner. I never hired
someone just cause they had the degree and I never hired a person who
could not look me in the eye and ask for the job.
Out of 135 people I hired I was wrong seven times.
In the night club business I hire more than a hundred and less than ten
were unsuitable.
In farming there are only two I would never hire again and one is a relative.
Nope not the school system at fault, they can teach someone to learn how
to learn and the rest is up to the person to take charge of their own life
 

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
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You will remember the speel about our children being our most precious resource, well that resource is being and has been successfully depleted.
The continuation of civilization has always revolved around the student.
 

Nuggler

kind and gentle
Feb 27, 2006
11,596
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Backwater, Ontario.
What a law professor at the University of Tennessee recently wrote for the Wall Street Journal…
In the field of higher education, reality is outrunning parody"

He wrote that just to appear clever, realizing that most people who read it won't understand WTF it means.
Just one more building block in the destruction of the west by education ?
 

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
41,035
201
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RR1 Distopia 666 Discordia
To start with many people don't know how to look for a job today
There are all kinds who expect the job to come to them, that's
right. If I go to college or university the job should be waiting for
me at the other end. Nonsense the world does not revolve around
the student never did never will.
I remember when I got out of school, I packed groceries to get enough
to take a broadcast course and they were not that helpful back in the
early and mid sixties. After the course I had to find my own bloody job.
I traveled four thousand miles looking for work and when I got home the
station in my home town had an opening they had to fill. I wasn't lucky
I was prepared for an entry level position.
I never ever once found a job from a want ad. I went looking at places I
believed I wanted to work and I found all kinds of opportunities with all
kinds of experiences. There are tons of jobs out there if you go looking.
When I became the person hiring, I never hired a whiner. I never hired
someone just cause they had the degree and I never hired a person who
could not look me in the eye and ask for the job.
Out of 135 people I hired I was wrong seven times.
In the night club business I hire more than a hundred and less than ten
were unsuitable.
In farming there are only two I would never hire again and one is a relative.
Nope not the school system at fault, they can teach someone to learn how
to learn and the rest is up to the person to take charge of their own life

I can't fault your thinking about personal responsibility for finding work but I can fault your defense of a system that teaches first and foremost dependence on synthetic life systems over the vital natural realities of survival. The education system is as rotten as it can get and since it has failed to instill even the basic knowledge of nature that actually sustains an individuals life it cannot be deemed innocent. Certainly the education system is just a link in a chain of designed disaster and ultimately the wests loss of nerve at the leadership level is the cause. You are into farming now so you should know first hand how many do not know the origin of an egg or the chicken or which came first.
 

EagleSmack

Hall of Fame Member
Feb 16, 2005
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Many jobs are unattainable without a college degree. It would be a waste to even file an application as a bachelors degree is a basic requirement.

However a degree does not guarantee a successful career and a successful career can be found without a degree.

At my kid's HS graduation pretty much every graduate was going to college as they read off what each kid was doing after HS. One boy got his diploma and they announced that he will be starting his plumbing apprenticeship that summer. I thought that he will be way out ahead of all his fellow classmates for quite some time. I even bet that he will be better off in the long run than most of his classmates.

PS... this thread is HOOOOOSED!
 

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
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Education is what you give yourself, you can't buy one. If the problems of the west are not educational disasters I'm fracked if I can think of what else it might be. Education is the prime responsibility of the parents, it's our fault because we were educated by the aliens as well and knew no better.
 

coldstream

on dbl secret probation
Oct 19, 2005
5,160
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Chillliwack, BC
College is a joke now. In fact it was a joke when i went to university in the 1970s compared to the model that existed prior to the reformation of higher education in the 1960s along polytechnical guidelines that no longer provided an integrated core curriculum of Western philosophy, arts and sciences as a foundation for specialization.

What's worse they no longer put any emphasis on how to develop abstract reasoning abilities which formed basis the Aquinas/Newman model that was applied by the Jesuits with great success, along with others. People come out of advanced programs without a clue as how to think or develop solutions to complex problems now.

The ultimate degree in the modern scheme of things is the MBA, which teaches you how to manage by the slash and burn techniques of firing employees to improve return on investment. Some of the most intellectually impoverished people i know have MBAs and are filled with a lot of futile jargon and impressive but empty formulas.. with no understanding of the world about them.. only the ambition to 'succeed' regardless of its consequences on others.

You can still find places that provide a good education.. but they almost always exist in small independent colleges dedicated to the formation of reason and morality along traditional models (the two are inseparable).

It's almost impossible to find a large universities now in Canada or the U.S. that provides anything resembling a real 'higher' education. They are all steeped imposing conventions of political correctness and menial task based studies.

BUT at least when i graduated you could count on relatively well payed and secure job for your efforts. Now all that degree will get you is a place in line on the waiting list of your local Burger King.
 
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darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
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That's exactly where I was heading with my first comment. It's not the first time in the last thirty years that I've seen the same note of the disfunction of higher education. This was by design. All forms of conventional public education including the mass media are weapons against the citizenry designed to converge in this period of global crisis and render we the victims unable to wisely intervene in our own destruction. We've been employed in off shoring our futures and our childrens futures. That's what they meant when they said "education can make a difference." We helped them rob us blind.
 

Sal

Hall of Fame Member
Sep 29, 2007
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Is college a waste of time and money?

Depends upon the direction you have chosen for yourself...

Bottom line, not if you want a job outside of skilled labour. If you don't, then off you go.

Also a waste of time and money is a judgement best decided individually.

The world has changed. When companies say they want a certain level of education, that is precisely what they hire. It doesn't matter if you are better, if you don't have the paper, you lose.

Gone are the days of people hiring others on instinct. That's why so many work places are 'f'ed up. Often they use formulas to hire. What a balls up that is.

I am glad I went to university. I never used my degree per se but the experience changed who I was. It helped to mould who I became, it did open a few doors for me that would not have been available to me otherwise including who I dated over the years...I would not have given that up for anything.

Also it taught me how to play the game. But just the minor leagues. Still every experience is a positive one if you learn from it. What you learn, depends upon what you need to learn in order to survive. The job I worked at, well they would have hired me regardless of education because bottom line was ability to drive profit, that can be taught as a skill but is cheaper for a company if it is a natural instinct. I believe nothing is wasted expect what we waste due to either our ignorance or our attitude.

C'mon fix the thread!
what fuked up the thread 8O

there's no video