Why are colleges fully pledged socialists?

[Seeker]

This topic also brings up a second issue; namely, why do people think they have to pay these outrageous amounts of dollars for a college education?

Newsweek.com: Newsweek US Edition: Nation: The Worthless Ivy League?

The successful will be successful wherever they go to school. Because ultimately, it's the "drive" that exists within each individual that defines a person's "success or failure" in the things that they do.

[feh]

Originally Posted by Seeker

This topic also brings up a second issue; namely, why do people think they have to pay these outrageous amounts of dollars for a college education?

Newsweek.com: Newsweek US Edition: Nation: The Worthless Ivy League?

The successful will be successful wherever they go to school. Because ultimately, it's the "drive" that exists within each individual that defines a person's "success or failure" in the things that they do.

I haven't read the article, but I firmly agree with the position. There's no need to spend $30K per year on college.

A degree will get you in the door. How a person's career advances after that is dependent on the person's abilities, desires and goals.

[Caoineag]

Originally Posted by Seeker

This topic also brings up a second issue; namely, why do people think they have to pay these outrageous amounts of dollars for a college education?

Newsweek.com: Newsweek US Edition: Nation: The Worthless Ivy League?

The successful will be successful wherever they go to school. Because ultimately, it's the "drive" that exists within each individual that defines a person's "success or failure" in the things that they do.

I definitely agree. Which explains why I went to a cheap instate school instead of the expensive Ivy League.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

It is not true that schools do not have merit scholarships or that merit scholarships come only from outside sources. If you want the full information on sourcing scholarships at a university you might need to read not just the financial aid webpage, but the admissions office webpage. Sometimes the merit scholarships are handled through admissions, not financial aid.

I was also surprised to learn that my son's school has one program to offer additional money exclusively to people who do come with 529 savings. It as though one gets a boost for having been responsible about saving. When parents set their eyes on the 529 savings goal, they can also set their eyes on gathering that 529 supplement.

Yesterday my state legislature was scheduled to pass the funding bill for state colleges and universities: Billions of dollars. I need to check on what they did, as I did not read the news at the end of the day. Personally, I think higher education is one of the things I am happiest to join the social compact to provide for.

(I just want to mention that "Ivy League" does not mean just any very high quality school. It means only Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania, and Brown. Obviously there are world leader schools in this country beside the ivy league schools.)

[Caoineag]

Yes, Ivy League does mean those. Cornell is the one that guarantees affordability if you are admitted, I don't know about the rest. The only problem is their idea of affordability includes loans. My father at one point made 17K per year. They were charging 20k per year at the time. As neat as that school is, it wasn't worth the cost. At the time, they had even had one of my favorite authors teaching a course there. Would have been quite the experience but my heart stopped at the thought of 100k in loans (double bs in 5 years hence 100k). My high school counselor agreed that was a bit much and is the reason I got a lot of merit based scholarships to another school. She understood that without money, I wasn't going to get very far.

Incidentally, I do think where you go to school during your pre-college years makes a huge difference to whether or not you are successful. Without the support network the school district provided for me, I never would have made it into a university even with my parents pushing for me to go to college. They simply lacked the knowledge to make it possible.

[jIM_Ohio]

most schools give out aid, but you won't know that until after they accept you and you commit to the school.

do your homework and ASK existing students their aid (forms of aid and sources of aid).

In my case- parents made in excess of 100k, I received subsidized and unsubsidized student loans. My senior year I was not dependant on parents and lived on my own, and I received more aid that year. Better loan terms and higher subsized portion.

[GrimJack]

Originally Posted by jc3900

Yep, education is not at all a function of government period. For those of you who own a home, you probably don't even want to know how much money you pay up to have your two kids go through highschool for free.

Excuse me! Are you suggesting that the government should not be supporting free education for K-12? If so, could you please explain your thinking on this.

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
GrimJack

[kork13]

Just to throw in my own thoughts on the topic, I'm blown away by the rate at which college expenses are ballooning out of control. Tuition, textbooks, etc. From an article I recently read (sorry, don't remember it), education costs are rising at an average rate of 8%/year, next to the ~3% (average) inflation.

Why is this? Personally, I see it as a function of supply and demand... Colleges and textbook makers (to pick on them, since I've already mentioned them) recognize that it is becoming increasingly important for a person to recieve a bachelor's degree (at least), so they are collectively able to charge more because they know that whether they like it or not, people will still pay the increased tuitions, just in order to ensure they get a college education.

To piggyback off of that, what's with professors' salaries? Yes, they frequently are recognized experts/authorities in their fields, but colleges are hiring larger numbers of professors at larger salaries. More and more professors are hired by universities to conduct research/write books and teach on the side, rather than the other way around. More professors at increasing salaries... I see this as another major contributor to rising college costs.

[am_vanquish]

This thread amazes me. I was applying to college less than three years ago, and my personal experience was much different than what jc is talking about. I was poor graduating from High School, VERY POOR, and so were my parents. By your account, I should have been able to get funding at any school I could get into. Guess what, IT DIDN'T HAPPEN. I got accepted into some pretty good schools, but couldn't go because I still had to come up with 15k-20k per semester to go (sticker price was 30k/semester). Most of the reduction in that price came from merit-based awards, only 2 grants with a total of $1250.

I now attend a state-funded public institution that, by objective standards, is a much weaker education that I could have gotten at any of the other schools I was accepted to. I have gotten NOTHING for need-based funding, and it's hard for an incoming student to have more need than I did out of High School.

Maybe things have changed in the past few years, I dunno. But what jc has described is NOT what I went through 3 years ago.

P.S. I've paid nothing for tuition, room & board, books, food, or travel during my time in school. I have a scholarship award that pays for all of that plus a generous stipend. I don't mean this in an offensive way, but maybe if you worked harder & busted your butt, you could get a scholarship that has nothing to do with need. Then your parents' income wouldn't matter.

[jc3900]

am_vanquish: I am talking about the extreme case when you have an efc of 0$. Also, the main point is that you had access to need based grants. I will never get access to that money.

[InDebtInDC]

Keep in mind that for a lot of public schools, tuition paid by students go into the general state fund and very little actually goes back to the school.

It can get as bad as only $0.10 per dollar of tuition paid actually makes it into the school's pocket. The rest gets eaten up by the state government.

To compensate, public schools either have to become private or rate tuition just to stay in business.