Higher Education a Scam?

[dizzy21]

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Considering all of the college grads without jobs and the occupy wall street movement around the nation anyone else think higher education is a scam?

An interesting video out on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpZtX32sKVE

While I agree that if you go to princeton/harvard/yale you are guaranteed a stable and probably high paying job, I am starting to think that a lot of non ivy league higher and most middle/lower tier universities are a complete money making scam. The student debt crises is a ticking time bomb in this country.

Not only will you have unemployed people but jobless individuals with crushing debt.

To bring it back to the topic of anesthesiology, I think the now 114 nurse anesthesia schools have the same formula. Charge $50,000/year and promises of a high paying job with high interest student loans, but no future guarantee of employment. I think many nurse anesthesia students will find themselves in this position in the near future.

For MD's with constantly dwindling reimbursement and >$100,000k in debt, more and more liability, I think many young doctors will find themselves with so much invested time and money in education but no means to pay back debt. And the government and insurance companies will ask us to either work for less, or replace us with eager indebted NP's/CRNA's who are also drowning.

Meanwhile the dean/chair of XYZ higher education institution will be sitting in his leather chair wearing his cardigan toasting profits made off of the backs of a young persons broken dreams.

Get it straight, higher education is a business.

Buyer beware.

 

[ArMed]

These schools take advantage of the fact that students have such high-paying loans readily available to them. We are their personal ATM's, whenever they feel like they want more cash, they simply jack up the price. A state medical school on the East Coast raised tuition by more than 15% last year!!!!

The price hike was announced after they had already accepted the incoming class! Wanna bet that they made sure the loan-funds were readily available first?

Outstanding US student loan debt is now more than $1 trillion, only recently surpassing outstanding credit card debt (for the first time ever). There's one major difference.....Student loan debt is NOT forgiven by bankruptcy

IMO, there should be 2 regulations placed over these institutions:
1) the rate of tuition increases - a student who accepts admission at a school for $x should not have to be forced to pay $2x his second year
2) schools should be forced to document and disclose post graduation employment information

 

[anesthesiabucky]

Very interesting video. Thanks for the post. Although after watching the video I checked out their website (NIA's website). They are really pushing people to invest in gold in silver. Not a bad idea, although I wonder what they are trying to accomplish by giving this investment advice. Maybe some personal gain? I did some research into the organization and it seems its founders have a history of posting websites to get people to invest in stocks. Interesting. Don't mean to take away from the video though. I can't argue with the fact that college degrees are practically worthless today!

 

[Osteoimperfecta]

It has been a scam for decades. Forget scam, it is more like organised crime.

 

[pgg]

I can't argue with the fact that college degrees are practically worthless today!

That's overbroad.

People who pick up quantifiable, specific skills and knowledge in college still seem to be doing OK. An engineering degree is not a literature degree, and the people who get them are not equally employable.

It used to be that a humanities BA was evidence that a person was, if nothing else, someone who had at least a threshold ability to think and communicate. Such people were employable and sought after for many jobs, usually ones unrelated to whatever they studied. They learned how to do their actual job, on the job, and they stayed with an employer for an extended period of time.

Somehow they went from being sought-after employees by default, to irrelevant, or useless, or disposable temps.

Is that because so many graduates had neither the desire nor aptitude for a university education in the first place, but only went because they were promised a good job and given unlimited easy credit? And the job market is flooded with marginal students who punched the university clock for 4+ years but didn't actually learn to think?

I'm sure that's part of it, maybe even most of it. But part of me is afraid that there's a deeper problem.

I think one of the tragedies of our culture and economy over the last 20-30 years is that non-science degrees have become the butt of coffee shop barista jokes. I partake myself 🙂 but these people believed their high school guidance counselors, followed the formula that worked for their parents, and expected a career in something after 4 years of studying philosophy or art. Now, it appears many of them were wrong, and it's easy to point the finger at the naive 18-year-old high school grads who chose that path. It's easy to say they should've studied science instead of english. It's harder to admit that maybe as a country we've lost something more important along the way - the collective wealth, prosperity, or culture that used to make it possible for a young person to spend four years learning how to think and predictably emerge to find a career (not just a job) waiting.


I'm afraid the student loan bubble is just more weight on a deeper problem. At some point the bubble will pop and the debt will be purged, but we'll still be living in a world where university graduates are serving coffee for minimum wage.

 

[Mman]

Very few undergrad degrees are the key to meaningful longterm employment. My biology degree was useless by itself. I could've been a lackey in a zoo or a lab if that was all I had to fall back on. Then again, the only reason I chose that major was because it covered all my medical school prereqs and allowed me flexibility to take other science classes I found interesting including genetics, physics, geology, etc. I knew I was going to medical school so the degree was a means to an end. If I wasn't going to medical school, I probably would've been an engineer or gone into business.

An undergrad degree in the humanities isn't going to get you much in the real world. This isn't new information for anybody under the age of 30.

 

[pgg]

An undergrad degree in the humanities isn't going to get you much in the real world.

I agree. But this is a relatively new development (compared to 30 years ago) and it's a cultural/economic shift that concerns me.

This isn't new information for anybody under the age of 30.

No, and 18-year-olds are adults and legally responsible for their financial and other life decisions. I'm just saying I have sympathy for these kids who are doing what their educators, parents, and society told them to do, and what easy unlimited student loan credit enabled them to do.

 

[Mman]

No, and 18-year-olds are adults and legally responsible for their financial and other life decisions. I'm just saying I have sympathy for these kids who are doing what their educators, parents, and society told them to do, and what easy unlimited student loan credit enabled them to do.

I sort of agree. But I don't have that much sympathy for them. How naive can you be to spend a ton of money on a degree that doesn't offer much in the way of job prospects? I doubt even HS guidance counselors were suggesting that they'd get a great job with those degrees. Most were probably told to study something they liked with the understanding that graduate school is required in many areas before you can be productive and earn a good living.

 

[dizzy21]

I sort of agree. But I don't have that much sympathy for them. How naive can you be to spend a ton of money on a degree that doesn't offer much in the way of job prospects? I doubt even HS guidance counselors were suggesting that they'd get a great job with those degrees. Most were probably told to study something they liked with the understanding that graduate school is required in many areas before you can be productive and earn a good living.

A part of this problem is because the baby boomer generation has filled the heads of their children with the idea that "as long as you pursue what you love, everything will be ok." I remember hearing this at every graduation I've sat for and it's the advice of every hippy flower child school councilor I've talked to. The sad truth is that alot of work that needs to be done in a functioning society is work that no would in their right mind would like, much less love.

Someone has to be a toothbrush salesman, someone has to sell life insurance, or be an OR tech, or a civil engineer for strip malls and fast food buildings.

This idea that anyone can be a movie producer, or a fashion designer is what is wrong with this country.

But I guess spewing lies is the only way highs education institutions can continue to justify the absurd cost of tuition.

 

[IgM]

When I have kids I for one plan on telling them 1) you can only go to an expensive private/out of state college if you have a scholarship or a specific plan that includes how you will return $ on this investment (not to me specifically, but to themselves)
2) there must be a tangible reason that you choose this place over choosing a state school
3) you really don't have to go to university after high school if you have a plan of what else you might want to do. community college or no college is fine with me if you want to be a carpenter or some other kind of tradesman.

the cost of education is a total joke. i've talked before with friends about starting a class action lawsuit against our medical schools for raising tuition exorbitantly in the 4 years I have attended and, most importantly, for the "cost of educating a medical student" which they SWEAR they are actually subsidizing but in fact makes actually no sense - why in God's name could it cost that much to educate a medical student?

 

[RT2MD]

I sort of agree. But I don't have that much sympathy for them. How naive can you be to spend a ton of money on a degree that doesn't offer much in the way of job prospects? I doubt even HS guidance counselors were suggesting that they'd get a great job with those degrees. Most were probably told to study something they liked with the understanding that graduate school is required in many areas before you can be productive and earn a good living.

I remember talking to one of my cousins, who is many years older than I, back around 2001. I was having a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do in life, and was already on my 2nd or 3rd major. She told me "It doesn't matter what you do for undergrad, it just matters what you do for graduate school..."

I didn't really think much of it at the time, because I had NO plans to ever go to graduate school at that point. Obviously I ended up with an RT degree, which served me well. It provided a fair living, but more importantly, it gave me the exposure to realize that I wanted to go to medical school.

While I now agree with her statement, I don't think it necessarily applies to degrees like nursing, RT, etc. as much. It just depends on what in life will make you happy. There are several degrees that it is necessary, though. An example would be my wife, who graduated with a Psychology degree in 2001... and promptly found a job as a front desk receptionist at a internal medicine office. It didn't take her very long to realize that she needed a graduate degree to be happy.

 

[pgg]

I sort of agree. But I don't have that much sympathy for them. How naive can you be to spend a ton of money on a degree that doesn't offer much in the way of job prospects?

Pretty naive I guess 🙂

When I was 17 I had trouble deciding between Stanford and the Univ of California @Davis. I eventually went to UC Davis because I was planning on vet school, and UCD had/has arguably the best in the country. (10 weeks of an elective with horses and I swore off animals to join the pre-med horde.) Fees for UCD at that time was $996/quarter or under $3000/year, Stanford tuition was around $25K/year as I recall. My parents weren't rich, so loans (big ones) were assumed if I went there.

Cost never figured into my decision, and no one ever told me I should give it any weight. Debt, of any level, was going to be worth it.

When I have kids I for one plan on telling them 1) you can only go to an expensive private/out of state college if you have a scholarship or a specific plan that includes how you will return $ on this investment (not to me specifically, but to themselves)
2) there must be a tangible reason that you choose this place over choosing a state school
3) you really don't have to go to university after high school if you have a plan of what else you might want to do. community college or no college is fine with me if you want to be a carpenter or some other kind of tradesman.

I tell my kids their college is paid for ... at a public school. 2 of my kids have prepaid state 529 plans, and I tranferred my Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits to my 3rd. If they want to put that money toward some private school, they'll have to work or borrow the difference.

I'm starting to drill into their heads how awesome it is to have no educational debt, and how great public universities are. But ultimately they'll do what they want, naively, 'cause that's what 18-year-olds do. 🙂

 

[cincincyreds]

Not all of higher education is a scam, only most of it is. Going to any US MD or DO school should get you some guaranteed six figure job. So at least you can pay off the debt. But it seems every year, the tuition goes up and my salary just stays the same with longer hours.

I've bumped into a lot of people who went to ivy league colleges and could only get into Carribean medical schools. I have nothing against Carribean medical schools, but to me, if I actually went to an ivy league college and couldn't get a US slot, I would be pretty pissed off.

 

[michigangirl]

College has become a resort experience. Schools increase prices yearly because they know the kids will get loans and come. The tuition goes to making the gym more hip, making the dorm rooms into luxury havens-- gone are the days of a chair, a desk and a ghetto bed with a crappy mattress. Then folks spend 4-6 years getting their psychology degree and finish and are surprised when they can't get a job. they feel entitled. And it's society and their parents fault.

I agree with what was said about society feeding the "just follow your dreams" speech in an overboard fashion. My parents made it clear I could do something I loved, as long as ti meant a stable paycheck in the end. That was the expectation. So I did it. And if i want to screw it all now and do something else, I can-- cause I'll always have something to fall back on. The last few months have been a wake up call. i feel so blessed that I am in a profession that I know I will be able to make money someway somehow for the rest of my life. I hope I can teach my kids that.

I've long been annoyed with the glut of universities and colleges that seem to take advantage of the middle of the road teenager who goes to college "just because"-- we tell freshman and sophomores in college to take their time and "find themselves"- screw that. You know yourself well enough by 19 that you can surmise what you can and can't do. Realism is a thing of the past. Ok, I'm done ranting.

 

[deleted126335]

Education is more than a ticket to a paycheck. While the financial yield on higher education is clearly a lot lower than it used to be; scholarship, academic achievement and being an educated person is a meaningful pursuit in itself. Worth spending big bucks on. I live in a house that costs less than one year income and drive a 12 year old Camry so my kids can go to the best private schools. I don't regret spending that money for a second.

For my kids it has been worth it. Unless your kid is one of those rare driven self motivated types, being around kids who are serious about school is an incredibly powerful motivating force.

 

[michigangirl]

Education is more than a ticket to a paycheck. While the financial yield on higher education is clearly a lot lower than it used to be; scholarship, academic achievement and being an educated person is a meaningful pursuit in itself. Worth spending big bucks on. I live in a house that costs less than one year income and drive a 12 year old Camry so my kids can go to the best private schools. I don't regret spending that money for a second.

For my kids it has been worth it. Unless your kid is one of those rare driven self motivated types, being around kids who are serious about school is an incredibly powerful motivating force.

I'm not sure if your kids are in college yet, but if they aren't, then I 100% agree. And if they are in college, then obviously they are academically motivated thanks to your parenting. I'm speaking of the kids in the low-midele who aren't getting into the "best" colleges because they were not academically motivated in the first place. They pay 50,000/year to go to a podunk private school just so they can get a college education. They take out loans to do so. Their school has awesome dorms, great gyms, cafeterias, top notch. They finish with a psych degree, just because. And then what?

It's imperative that parents do everything they can up until college to guarantee their child has the best chance at a great education. I moved to a very expensive county so my kids could go to some of the best public schools in the state/country. As a result, my commute is 1 hour to work. but it's worth it. Because while my kids are under my roof I can make sure that they make the most out of their education and hopefully grow up to be one of those academically motivated kids who goes to a great college and makes something of themselves. Unfortunately, I think there are too many folks who just take a back seat to their kids education their entire pre-college years, assuming that the school will take care of it, and then when it's time to go to college, default into the group I mentioned in the first paragraph, because, hey, you gotta go to college, right? When in reality college, if you don't live at home and aren't one of the academically motivated kids, is just a life experience of living away from home.

My husband and I debate a lot about high school because he went to an elite private high school 3 hours from home because his parents could afford it and he got in. He says that was the key to him being successful. I disagree as I went to podunk hicktown high school but my parents were great motivators (and not rich) and my teachers were great. So the expectation when I went to a private college, got lots of loans and federal aid, was that I would go to be academically successful and get a job that paid well and was secure. There was no other choice.

 

[cincincyreds]

Wow, 50k/yr to go to CRNA school. I think I paid like 20k/yr for medical school. Truth be told, if I was the president of the ASA, I would do everything in my power to put the CRNAs out of business. Doctors are doctors and nurses are nurses.

 

[Per4mer8]

Not all of higher education is a scam, only most of it is. Going to any US MD or DO school should get you some guaranteed six figure job. So at least you can pay off the debt. But it seems every year, the tuition goes up and my salary just stays the same with longer hours.

I've bumped into a lot of people who went to ivy league colleges and could only get into Carribean medical schools. I have nothing against Carribean medical schools, but to me, if I actually went to an ivy league college and couldn't get a US slot, I would be pretty pissed off.

In my opinion there is far too much entitlement and perceived superiority with "top" colleges. Let's be honest, a lot of people get into these schools based on who they know etc. And while I agree with the idea as a parent of doing what you can to give your kid the best chance at success I feel like saying someone who goes to an ivy league school should automatically get anything is selling everyone short. What happened to merit and working for what you get not thinking you deserve anything?

I went to a public high school in one of the worst school districts in the country, class of over 800, 5xx graduated. Followed that with attending a university known for poor grad rates (<50% of those that register ever walk) and worked 40 hrs/wk to get thru it with no debt. How was I repaid? Lots of "sorry you're not good enough" letters from US MD schools. Did where I got my degree from cause that or hurt me? Who knows, it wasn't my MCAT or other markers of "merit" as I know of plenty of people with lower scores that matriculated allopathic. In the end, if YOU want something, go get it. Plenty of parents put their kids thru expensive schools with goals for their kids that never come to fruition just as lots of kids get to their goal without optimum support. Inner drive/desire is just as important as any other determinant in my opinion.

 

[kazuma]

Inner drive/desire is just as important as any other determinant in my opinion.

I agree, it's extremely important.