The Middle Class Dilemma

Well, that was your only argument to my post, was it not?


Let's try this....Would you agree education is probably the best investment one can make in their future?

 

You KNOW I would agree with that even if one has to take out loans to get that education. You earn on average a million more in income over your lifetime by getting an advanced degree. However, being in that "insular" environment as you call it, I can tell you it isn't necessarily money that keeps many out of the running for a higher degree. Due to the disadvantages one endures prior to even thinking about college, it isn't an option for many. I have already addressed those disadvantages while you prefer to ignore them. THEY DO EXIST! Just because they don't affect you doesn't mean that they have less impact on those that feel the burden of the situation they were born into. If one of us is really insular, in might just be more you in your socioeconomic status than me on my large multicultural campus. We actually assess socioeconomic based participation rates and know the reality. Believe me, you had it easy. Stop lording your success over those with a tougher row to hoe than yourself.

 

Well, since you seem to be our resident representative from the hallowed halls of higher education (and we agree an education is the cornerstone of success), why do you suppose college is such a pipe dream for so many?
Could it be because most associated with higher education have been & remain elitists?
Could it be because so many schools have continued to raise tuition & associated expenses to the point that it is the financial equivalent of raping students?
Could it be because schools have continued to raise the cost of education to the point that students are forced into taking on so much outrageous student loan debt- causing students to begin their life after college behind a financial eight ball?

Colleges & universities are lauded for the exact same business practices that most people would call vile if a corporation did it.

How do you sleep at night, being a part of such a ruthless industry?

 

*Sigh! I'm running out of both time and patience for this conversation. You obviously have your preconceived notions of all colleges and universities that certainly has very little to do with reality. These “elitist” institutions include people from all walks of life both liberal and conservative. If there actually were anything that amounted to elitist colleges (colleges are groups of disciplines within a university) within this university, it would have to be the school of business; a fairly conservative group by nature. So much for the liberal elitists’ theory.

The cost of tuition keeps rising not because universities are raking in the dough but because most universities are state supported land grant institutions that receive a portion of their operating budgets from the state. The states have been substantially decreasing their financial support over the years and universities have had to rely on tuition to fund their programs/infrastructure/salaries and just about everything else while still being under the thumb of the states. Research dollars and private gifts have also dried up at the same time. To make the financial situation even worse, the fiscal budget begins July 1 and we have yet to see a penny from the state so even the small percentage the state owes isn’t showing up. The seven university presidents of this state just sent a join letter to the state legislators begging them to meet their financial obligations or face the likelihood of forced furloughs, cuts in services to students already paying higher tuition costs, and unmet building repairs that force us to close entire buildings. Yeah, we’re a bunch of wealthy ruthless elitists alright.

You seem to know the most popular Right wing talking points when it comes to higher education but you certainly have no real knowledge of higher education that is worth a damn.

 

No, you sound like a business ill-prepared to face the same challenges every other business has to face.
Excuse me if I don't shed a tear for your school.
Perhaps a system that turns out a student $100,000+ in student loan debt (yet equipped to only earn $50,000 a year) should look at itself rather than everyone else as the problem. Perhaps lowering the cost of the product to make it more affordable to more people would help, huh? Continually raising the price & forcing students to go ever deeper in debt doesn't really make the higher education enterprise sound like a responsible community citizen, does it? Gee, kinda sounds like what those fiends over in the business school would advise, doesn't it?

 

Even using your made up numbers, the student would still realize $900 thousand more in income over their lifetimes than they would without the education. Almost all colleges on campus pay their faculty 3500 to about 5000 to teach one class per semester. The business school pays their instructors 12,000 to 15,000 per semester to teach idiots how to worship money. Does that take you back a bit?

 

But they start in a severe circumstance, don't they? I was listening to Dave Ramsey on the way to work the other day & a guy called in with $250k in student loan debt. He had gone to school for 6 years to become a high school school counselor. He was making $65k without much opportunity to earn more working for a school system. He had debt he could never get paid off. Not so much different than putting someone in a mortgage they can't afford if you think about it. Talk about worshipping money! Schools should be more responsible to their students, shouldn't they?
BO (when he was trying to connect with average people) claimed to have struggled with student debt well into his adult life..well after he & his wife both had become lawyers, he had written at least one book, etc...and I don't think he was saying it was a good thing. Heck, you even made mention of paying student loans for, what was it, 10 years?
In your pay example, you claim schools pay instructors $5000 to teach 1 class but business school pays $15000 for a semester. The professors I had in business school taught more than 1 class per semester, so you have to figure that in, right? Plus, the more advanced classes take much more of the instructor's time, right?
Try again.

 

I'm sorry, unless you went to Harvard, you couldn't possibly rack up $250K in tuition costs to become a school counselor. Our school counselor program is one of the top in that nation and all it requires is about 3500 for a year of coursework. Most of the students are already teachers looking to move into counseling. If this guy is working in a school already and making 65K, he is probably already a teacher. School counseling is just an extra certification. Don't believe everything you hear on the radio! Trust someone who actually works in the field of education.

The 5000/15000 figures were for courses taught above the instructor's regular teaching load. In other words, off-contract. Most instructors teach 3-4 courses per semester as part of their regular contract load. The difficulty of the course is irrelevant to the pay. Salary is more determined by what the instructor would make if they were to go out into private industry. For example, physical therapists make a ton of money in private practice. Why spend all that time in school just to get paid what academics make? So they end up making higher salaries than other instructors. Business school is the same way. Someone with an MBA can make more in private industry so they pay them more to teach. So it comes down to what society values more in the end. We don't value teachers, we don't value musicians, we don't value nurses, we don’t value journalists, but we do value people that sell widgets.

If you’re not careful, I’m going to start charging you tuition for all this schooling.

 

I hope your version of "schooling" isn't indicative of the product your school produces. I guess it's easier to spew your extreme leftist views (and have them taken seriously) to a new batch of impressionable college kids. Do you try this on them at the same time your making your "sales pitch" and showing them where to sign on the student loan paperwork? Just wondering.

 

Schools do not provide student loans, banks do.

 

I dunno know, when I enrolled in 1985 the school sure was making it easy to apply for student loans, if not fully endorsing them. They included a student loan application with my initial enrollment application, they offered courses on how to obtain not just grants but student loans as well.
Don't try to wiggle out of this with semantics.

 

Well, I just can't compete with the guy you heard on the radio and your experience from 25 years ago so I'll stop trying. This is one pissing contest you simply came to with more ammunition.

 

It's trully unfortunate if that's all you learned from this discussion. There is a real world outside of your ivy-covered little existence.
I do expect though that the majority of your exchanges do eventually wind up with you admitting to being outgunned in respect to knowledge & information.

 

The only thing you have present in any of these posts is your own experiences which certainly do not represent the situation generalized to the rest of the population. What's there to learn from that?

 

Why aren't my experiences, my real world experiences, not representative of the rest of the population? By the way, my experiences don't seem to be all that different from yours, do they? Humble beginnings? Working to get an education? Sound familiar?

 

Simply from a UK perspective I have to agree with David on the ease of student loans but having said that, it is precisly this that is scary and the fact that there are so few other options available.
Take a moment to think about those who have taken the steps to ensure that they are prepaird for the future by placing themselfs in great debt (Before they have even left education for work) who are now compleating there education only to find the world that they were promised (golden oppertunites for those with degrees) is no longer there that the recent finacial crisis has decimated employers abilties to hire that many have simply ceased to exist!
What about them? they now find themselfs crippled with a debt that they can not even begin to think about paying off

 

And what do you know about people from the inner city ghettos? Your answer should be "nothing" since you stated they are denied access to you institution of higher learning.

Here is what I know. The inner city youths you speak about grow up to be uneducated, unskilled adults with very little prospects. I know this because they end up working for guys like me and David while you rest comfortably in Academia. I have several guys who work for me presently who have served 10 year federal prison sentences for dealing drugs. They are rather intelligent, but uneducated. Working with them over the years, I have forged friendships with them. All of them have told me the same thing. They regret the decisions they made in their teenage (high school) years and take full responsibility for trying to take the easy way out leading a life of crime dealing drugs. Had they sacrificed and worked hard in high school, their grades would have gotten them into a state school, and the liberal government programs available could have helped them pay the tuition.

Now you can keep making excuses for them, but they have already admitted their mistakes and taken responsibility. It seems your complete detachment from the real world comes back to bite you again. Then you brag about "schooling" David. Let me tell you something, you don't know JACK and it shows in your posts!

 

I wasnt aware David, that you employed people. I thought you mentioned that you were employed with a banking firm of some sort. Am I right that the few cons and less educated that work for you lehigh, represent all minorities? I dont have the contempt some of you here have for the wealthy. Some of you for the liberal rich and some for the conservative rich, but the rich none the less. Why is that?

 

Originally Posted by Moen1305:

Are you really too dull-witted to know that you speak from a position of privilege? Let’s see, you're white, male, heterosexual, probably protestant, not first generation immigrant, didn't grow up in an inner city ghetto, and you think everyone else has equal access to better themselves because your family couldn’t afford to pay for your education? No wonder you are a Republican.

For someone who works as an "educator" (or with them) who hides behind the economical uptopia of teaching students how to make "widgets" in a classroom instead of preparing students for the real world...ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

I am in the process of filling out financial aide forms for my son who is heading off to school and do you know how many of these forms ask if he is a minority that will enable him for access to MORE money???

ALL of them!!

Fact of the matter is that if you are WHITE, you face more obstacles going to college than if you are a minority. Colleges now-a-days bend over backwards to fill their schools with everybody that is NON-WHITE.

You should leave your college office every now and then and work in the "real" world...you might get educated.

 

Craig, I didn't mean to imply the David actually has employees, just that we are the type of people who would be found in management level positions.

As for my employees, the ones in the story are minorities. It really wouldn't make sense if they were not. I would also like to clarify that when I say they are my employees, I am their manager, nothing more.

I have no contempt for the rich. I just wish I could join the club.