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@Creditplz wrote:
Joe8185 i don't think school is a scam, I've had job offers that pay up $120,000+, due to my degree and qualifications (school cost my parents $180,000).
My good friend has $100,000+ in student loans from medical school mainly and its paying off for him.
I DO however think school is getting ridiculously overpriced! It's getting unfair for those getting master degrees to be a teacher making a honest $60k/yr give or take.
Indeed.
We have to remember the original purpose of the university. It was a center for acquiring and developing knowledge. For example: In the 1300's, the huge majority of people did not go to university, and did not care. Most of them could not even read. The people who did, were genuinely interested in things that they were studying. It was like being on a sports team where ever play is a star-player. Few of these people thought, I hate being here, but this will get me a good job when I graduate.
Fast-forward to the present, and that is exactly what is happening. Most people who go to college do so to secure their careers. And a career today depends highly on the utility of what is studied. What company wants to pay someone for knowing Plato?
Then, when considering utility, where some knowledge is not very useful to a corporation, such as philosophy, and some knowlege, if you are good enough, might get you a few million $ sign-on bonus/retention bonus, one must ask the following question:
Are all degrees equally worth $50,000 in debt?
The answer is: NO.
And therein lies the problem. The university does not distinguish between types of degrees when specifying tuition costs. They present one fixed cost, and all students pay that.
So you are both right.
If you major in engineering mathematics to work on Wall Street as a quantitative analyst (stock-trading programmer), then yes, $50,000 debt is probably worth it, because your starting salary will probably be $140,000 or more. If you major in Comparative Literature, then it is probably not, at least not beyond its use as proving that you have the discipline and determination to suffer through something distasteful, a virtue that you can prove in much less expensive ways.
And don't believe all that non-sense about the Humanities degrees giving people critical-thinking skills. That's a crock, cooked up by people who studied Humanities, to make themselves feel better in the face of a flip-flop-wearing engineer driving an $80,000 Lexus. To add insult to injury, whereas a Humanties major might hate working at Starbucks "for the time being", that flip-flop-wearing engineer actually likes his job.
College doesn't guaranteed a high paying job. Like you mentioned, if I was a art or a humanities major, I would not survive after college with 120,000 in debt! There are a few lucky people who end up in lucrative careers in those fields but the majority will be at the mercy of their debt for years to come. This is why I think college is a scam. They don't tell you the cold hard truth about your major and they offer you 6 figure number CASH to pay for tuition. I can't even buy a home with NO income, how can you just willy nilly hand hundreds of thousands of dollars to high school graduates?
@Creditplz wrote:
Joe8185 i don't think school is a scam, I've had job offers that pay up $120,000+, due to my degree and qualifications (school cost my parents $180,000).
My good friend has $100,000+ in student loans from medical school mainly and its paying off for him.
I DO however think school is getting ridiculously overpriced! It's getting unfair for those getting master degrees to be a teacher making a honest $60k/yr give or take.
I'm not the one who asserted that, you must be confusing me with someone else. I do agree with you, though - college is getting to cost WAY too much. The student loan in question, for law school, totaling $25k for law school in the second half of the 1980's and that would be cheap these days.
At that, though, students going to "traditional" colleges and universities, most of which are non-profits, don't have the issues of those who are going to for-profit universities. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if some of those for-profit schools are scams.
Thank God I'm down to $9,800!! Will be paid off by the end of this year! Woo hoo!!
@Anonymous wrote:I just had a chance to look at the whole picture of my student loans. It all amounts to $52,000 and that is just absolutely frightening. My summer internship should knock off a quarter of this total. Anyways, how much student debt do you have?
$0. I went to state college, and worked while I was in school. $2,200 a semester, including books. This was 2004-2007.
I have 86K WOOT WOOT! When I hear news stories about people with 20-30K in debt and unable to pay or frightening I just laugh thinking I would trade them my balance anyday lol. At least it sounds like your on the path to pay it off. My balance does not scare me, I just think of it as another mortgage since I already own my current residence. Monthly payments are 989$ which I just treat it as a entry level home payment. Thinking like this keeps me sane and not scared at all.
Graduated two years ago with $53K in Student Loan debt. Currently at $40K. It sucks, but without that degree I wouldn't have the job I do now. My goal is to have it all paid off within the next 5 years.
About $80,000 in student loan debt. Thankfully I'm working in my field and my grad degree does help (a bit) with my salary, but I live in a ridiculously expensive city that nearly negates the benefits. I downsized my apartment, overhauled my spending habits and am getting rid of my CC debt ($5K) in order to prepare for repayment that's coming up next year.
I try to advise recent high school grads to think long and hard about their options. Education is too expensive for little return and some of these institutions are predatory.
@Anonymous wrote:Indeed.
We have to remember the original purpose of the university. It was a center for acquiring and developing knowledge. For example: In the 1300's, the huge majority of people did not go to university, and did not care. Most of them could not even read. The people who did, were genuinely interested in things that they were studying. It was like being on a sports team where ever play is a star-player. Few of these people thought, I hate being here, but this will get me a good job when I graduate.
Fast-forward to the present, and that is exactly what is happening. Most people who go to college do so to secure their careers. And a career today depends highly on the utility of what is studied. What company wants to pay someone for knowing Plato?
Then, when considering utility, where some knowledge is not very useful to a corporation, such as philosophy, and some knowlege, if you are good enough, might get you a few million $ sign-on bonus/retention bonus, one must ask the following question:
Are all degrees equally worth $50,000 in debt?
The answer is: NO.
And therein lies the problem. The university does not distinguish between types of degrees when specifying tuition costs. They present one fixed cost, and all students pay that.
So you are both right.
If you major in engineering mathematics to work on Wall Street as a quantitative analyst (stock-trading programmer), then yes, $50,000 debt is probably worth it, because your starting salary will probably be $140,000 or more. If you major in Comparative Literature, then it is probably not, at least not beyond its use as proving that you have the discipline and determination to suffer through something distasteful, a virtue that you can prove in much less expensive ways.
And don't believe all that non-sense about the Humanities degrees giving people critical-thinking skills. That's a crock, cooked up by people who studied Humanities, to make themselves feel better in the face of a flip-flop-wearing engineer driving an $80,000 Lexus. To add insult to injury, whereas a Humanties major might hate working at Starbucks "for the time being", that flip-flop-wearing engineer actually likes his job.