Originally Posted by
Jeff
I watched 60 minutes last night as they had the republican leader of the senate and house on and both immediately crushed the entire idea. Their reasoning is that it would be too expensive which I do agree with them. However, they both said they just worked their minimum wage jobs and paid their own way through.
Ok this is where I think a huge divide is. First, I agree with the republicans, where this would be too expensive. I also put myself through college back in the 80's working as well at Purdue. This was rather easy to do. I didn't need loans and didn't amass debt. However, 5 years ago I went back for a second degree, I make way much more money now than I did back then and I am graduating this year about 30k in debt. I also paid as much as I could for my classes while I was taking them, roughly $400 a month, my employer even paid a large percentage as well, and I still am in the hole.
However, here is the thing, the scale of the cost of college then, when the republican leaders went and the minimum wage was much closer. The cost of higher education and the minimum wage now is off the charts. A lot of it is just a profit grind. You look at Colleague Deans and they are making as much money as CEO's of large corporations. I personally would love to see the cost of college regulated, I believe things like medical care, education, among other things shouldn't be for profit. Your basing your education and the future on how much money you have or how much your willing to go into debt. I personally don't think this is working nor can the US continue down this path. When you look at the US is ranked very low in education anymore.
The other thing that really just screams scam, you look at books and that is a scam right there. I went to a math class one day I had to buy a new math class because a new edition came out. This was the 13th edition. $250. I couldn't buy a used book because this was the first semester of the new edition. Why? Math hasn't changed. They are not inventing different ways to add multiply and divide. The most upsetting thing, the teacher had the last edition. He couldn't afford the new edition, which he also pointed out he didn't need. He compared our edition and his older edition, page numbers, chapters everything was identical. The only thing they did was move around the problems. So Problem 3 in his book was problem 5 in mine. The problems were identical, they didn't even change the numbers. Every 2 years a new edition comes out and millions of student are forced to buy a book at top dollar that they will then resell at bottom dollar back to the school bookstore, which they will mark way up again and resell for the next couple years. These kinds of things are just plain wrong and some of the things that really needs to be regulated to drop the cost back down to a reasonable level.
The worst thing, as I graduate this year, with a second bachelors degree. This give me a Masters in Computer science, a bachelors in business management. I can honestly say I learned absolutely nothing, in any of my classes working on this second degree. I mean that wholeheartedly. I learned nothing, I am now in debt, and well you could say I learned a valuable lesson on the real state of the American Education System. I also know from a lot of experience, as I work with and am friends with a lot of Canadians. I think most Canadian High School Graduates are better educated than most American College Graduates. I have a great appreciation for this anytime I have meaningful intellectual conversations with them.