[anador]

I thought we were an autonomous collective

Truth is, if things go down they way I hunch they will... I wont have to pay back all of it before tshtf.

and I feel like my training will be extremely useful in a new world.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', 'T')hey study women psychology or art or history AND expect a good paying job. Womens psychology? Give me a break.

[dsula]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', 'T')hey study women psychology or art or history AND expect a good paying job. Womens psychology? Give me a break.

[Pretorian]

What's education got to do with the money?

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daniel_Plainview', '
')Instead of FULL DISCLOSURE, the government hides the truth, and willingly allows students to enter into perpetual debt slavedom, knowing that there will be no hope of debt repayment once the steep decline of peak oil ensues ...

[ColossalContrarian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Oneaboveall', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('teotwawki', 'H')igher education is a scam, the marginal cost per student to the University is close to zero dollars and yet they charge an arm and a leg for this crap.

[teotwawki]

http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/10/peter- ... education/

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')onsider the 2000 Nasdaq crash. Thiel was one of the few who saw in coming. There’s a famous story about PayPal’s March 2000 venture capital round. The offer was “only” at a $500 million-or-so valuation. Nearly everyone on the board and the management team balked, except Thiel who calmly told the room that this was a bubble at its peak, and the company needed to take every dime it could right now. That’s how close PayPal came to being dot com roadkill a la WebVan or Pets.com.

And after the crash, Thiel insisted there hadn’t really been a crash: He argued the equity bubble had simply shifted onto the housing market. Thiel was so convinced of this thesis that until recently, he refused to buy property, despite his soaring personal net worth. And, again, he was right.

So Friday, as I sat with Thiel in his San Francisco home that he finally owns, I was curious what he thinks of the current Web frenzy. Not surprisingly, another Internet bubble seemed the farthest thing from his mind. But, he argued, America is under the spell of a bubble of a very different kind. Is it an emerging markets bubble? You could argue that, Thiel says, but he also notes that with half of the world’s population surging to modernity, it’s hard to argue the emerging world is overvalued.

Instead, for Thiel, the bubble that has taken the place of housing is the higher education bubble. “A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed,” he says. “Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.”

[davep]

Great find teotwawki.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Oneaboveall', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', ' ')But most people are not. They study women psychology or art or history AND expect a good paying job. Women's psychology? Give me a break.

[Oneaboveall]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 'W')hat's education got to do with the money?

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', 'I') assume there's much if it warrants a special study field. It's just not something a whole lot of people are willing to pay for, hence low-paying job. Higher education is like business. You have to be smart about it. You have to pick the right subject to study, you have to understand the market, what people (future employers) are willing to pay for. Just to study something and expect good pay and then bitch about your loan is simply put 'stupid'.

[davep]

Now the English are joining in the fun: Guardian

The fun's over: students must weigh up the real worth of their degree

Rising university tuition fees mean finding out which courses will pay off in the long-term should be a priority

[Pretorian]

while we at it

Dear University Alumni Office,

I'm sorry to hear that the university's $750 million endowment has fallen in value to $500 million because of the recession and because your bank died. I'm also sorry to hear that you're dealing with declining enrollment due to the fact that middle-class families are no longer willing or able to bet their homes on a $45,000-a-year higher education for their children. I really am.

So, what I want to know is, why are you wasting money on glossy fundraising brochures full of meaningless synonyms for the word "Excellence"? And, why are you sending them to ME? Yes, I know that I got a master's degree at your fine institution, but that master's degree hasn't done jack shit for me since I got it! I have been unemployed for the past TWO YEARS and I am now a professional resume-submitter, sending out dozens of resumes a month to employers, and the degree I received in your hallowed halls is at the TOP OF IT and it doesn't do a fucking thing.

You know, maybe if you wanted a little bit of money from me (and these days you'd get about $3) maybe you should send me a fancy color brochure admitting your role in the bubble economics that got us all in to this mess.

For example, since 1987, higher education expenses have gone up 450 percent, while personal income in this country has gone up 87 percent, making tuition IMPOSSIBLE to afford without special financing. But, during this time, you were thriving because people could come up with the cash in two ways:

1. Get a home equity loan and use the inflated value of their house to pay for their kid to get drunk and/or raped at your school and then lose the house when the market crashed.
2. Get a federal loan.

HAD IT OCCURRED TO YOU THAT NEITHER OF THESE SOURCES OF MONEY ACTUALLY EXIST? THAT IT WAS BEING MANUFACTURED BECAUSE YOU MADE PEOPLE THINK THAT ONE OF YOUR DEGREES WAS NECESSARY TO CLIMB TO THE TOP OF THE BUBBLE?

Oh yes, federal loans. I've got $40,000 of those, which are in "forebearance" right now because I'm unemployed, meaning that the feds are paying the interest for a while, which is convenient for me, but not for our government which is now owned by China. You know, the idea behind federal loans was that it would allow more students to attend your university, not let you INFLATE your tuition to obscene levels! I mean, what the fuck were you spending the $16,000 per semester on, anyway? I was in a public policy program, so that meant we got to sit in classrooms and listen to Professor God up at the front of the lecture hall glorify Himself and Creation as He saw it and talk about how much smarter he was than anyone else and how much he'd learned at MIT and the RAND Corporation.

Really, that's about all you did for us -- gave us a lecture hall, gave us an arrogant bastard to listen to, and gave us a room full of computers we could use sometimes, and you gave us a degree that employers look at and say "This guy knows how to write reports. Amusing." And I will be paying for this privilege until I am 51 years old.

So I'm sorry that the economy's been rough on you. Maybe, if you wanted to save a little money, you could stop printing and sending brochures to my parents' house (oh yeah, that's where I live because I can't afford rent on ANYTHING). And, maybe I'll donate a little bit of money to you in 2030, when I get the loans for your imaginary education PAID OFF!

Sincerely yours,
Alumnus

[Quinny]

Much better than your usual racist shite
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 'w')hile we at it
Dear University Alumni Office,
I'm sorry to hear that the university's $750 million endowment... And, maybe I'll donate a little bit of money to you in 2030, when I get the loans for your imaginary education PAID OFF!
Sincerely yours,
Alumnus

[AgentR11]

As a point of reference in this debate, I just checked, and the current in-state tuition&fees for a full time student attending Texas A&M University (which does have a very solid, and respected science & engineering program for instance) $4800 / semester.

Now, if you want to set yourself up in a nice apartment, eat good, and have no job other that show up for class every once in a while for four years, then, perhaps you will spend quite a bit more than that. But, as one might suspect, a four year vacation from real life is expensive.

[mattduke]

Education, like housing and medicine, is one of those goods that government decided "to make more affordable", which of course drives the prices ballistic.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Quinny', 'M')uch better than your usual racist shite
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 'w')hile we at it
Dear University Alumni Office,
I'm sorry to hear that the university's $750 million endowment... And, maybe I'll donate a little bit of money to you in 2030, when I get the loans for your imaginary education PAID OFF!
Sincerely yours,
Alumnus

[Unconventional Ideas]

There are a few majors that can escape the exploitation. These include mathematics, chemistry, and physics. If you get good grades in these you may qualify for fully funded graduate study. Chemistry graduate students, for instance, earn $25K a year while in graduate school. If you're conservative with money, that's enough to live and pay off undergraduate loans all while attending graduate school.

Granted, many students aren't interested in such majors.

It's just that there is a way around the exploitation if you're willing to put in the effort.

[dsula]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Unconventional Ideas', 'I')t's just that there is a way around the exploitation if you're willing to put in the effort.

[graham]

What degrees do you guys think are worthwhile then besides hard sciences, medicine and engineering?

My degree is in architecture btw. Its not a great time for us at the moment.