If you already have children in College than the sticker shock of a College Education will still stun you, but at least you know the staggering cost. If you don't have any children attending College yet, then you probably don't want to know the actual costs and can stop reading at this point, because you don't want to know the truth. The incredible cost of college education is crushing hundreds of thousands of parents.
Many parents, grandparents have set a goal for their young ones to attend a four year college, and then onto graduate school, depending on the major chosen. Most students have also set similar laudable goals for themselves.
The answer seriously may be at this time, "WE DON"T NEED NO EDUCATION" and/or WE CAN"T AFFORD NO EDUCATION.
The question realistically being asked by parents, grandparents, is college worth it? Is a college education really worth the investment of time, money and energy? Is a college degree really worth becoming enslaved to student loan debt that will haunt you for decades?
The truth is that a college education is a massive gamble. For millions of Americans it works out well, but millions of other college graduates have found themselves completely unable to get a quality job in this economy and yet they are still trapped in a nightmare of student loan debt from which there is no escape.
American college graduates have discovered that they have become "indentured servants" the moment they graduate. The entire system encourages our young people to take out whatever college loans they "need" without worrying how they will pay them back because a college education is such a good "investment".
The system is breaking down. There is no way that the status quo is sustainable. Most families can't afford to shell out that kind of money for a college education.
At a time when the middle class are quickly being destroyed into non existence, and the first thing the crazy fucking GOP/Tea wackos want to cut is education, but at the same time, they're saying we've got to maintain tax breaks for the top 1 percent of millionaires, that's considered rational budget deficit cutting by these "geniuses".
Once upon a time, a college education was actually an almost automatic ticket to the middle class. Today, a college education does not guarantee you anything, there may not even be a middle class that will exist for them to be part of, but it does turn out to be an automatic ticket to student loan hell.
It wouldn't be so bad if college was not so darn expensive.Tuition alone at many schools is 30, 40 or even 50 thousand dollars a year.That DOES NOT even include housing, food, and book costs.
A typical State University Undergraduate college,once considered the best quality bargain around, such as the SUNY, now costs a NYS resident a total of $21,120 PER YEAR as follows:
| Tuition | $5,270 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Student Fees | $1,330 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Room and Board | $10,820 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Books and Supplies | $1,260 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal Expenses | $1,430 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Transportation | $1,010 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TOTAL COST | $21,120 P/YR |
For many American families with multiple children, the cost of college education is absolutely staggering.
Just consider the following statistics about how much debt our young Americans are going into just to get an "education":
#1 According to the Student Loan Debt Clock, total student loan debt in the United States will surpass the 1 trillion dollar mark in early 2012.
#2 Total student loan debt in the United States is increasing by approximately $2854 every single second.
#3 The average college student now leaves school with $24,000 in student loan debt.
#4 Approximately two-thirds of all college students graduate with student loans.
#5 The total amount of student loan debt in the United States now exceeds the total amount of credit card debt in the United States.
#6 Over the past 25 years, the cost of college tuition has increased at an average rate that is approximately 6% higher than the general rate of inflation.
#7 Back in 1952, a full year of tuition at Harvard was only $600. Today, it is $35,568.
#8 Average yearly tuition at U.S. private universities is now up to $27,293. That has increased by 29% in just the past five years.
#9 The cost of college textbooks has tripled over the past decade.
#10 Since 1978, the cost of college tuition in the United States has gone up by over 900 percent.
#11 One survey found that 23 percent of college students actually use credit cards to pay for tuition or fees.
Sadly, millions of recent college graduates that are drowning in student loan debt can't even get good enough jobs that will enable them to service those loans. Just consider the following:
1) According to the Economic Policy Institute, the unemployment rate for college graduates younger than 25 years old was 9.3 percent in 2010.
3) In the United States today, over 18,000 parking lot attendants have college degrees.
4) In the United States today, 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees.
5) In the United States today, approximately 365,000 cashiers have college degrees.
6) In the United States today, 24.5 percent of all retail salesperson's have a college degree.
The truth is that there are not nearly enough jobs for everyone. There are now more hard working Americans sitting at home without jobs than at any other point since the Great Depression.
For some fields, a college degree is absolutely necessary. That doesn't mean that a job will be there when you graduate, but if you are determined to work in a field where a college degree is 100% required, then it might be a gamble you are willing to take.
However, for millions of others young Americans college is simply not worth it.There are literally millions of disillusioned young college graduates out there today. Large numbers of them are living back at home with their parents.
What is perhaps one of the saddest things of all is that our colleges and universities are all about training our young people to become part of the "system". The quality of the education that our young people are receiving in return is absolutely pathetic.
Most of our colleges and universities are little more than indoctrination centers.The school adminisTRAITORS are as unaccountable as ENRON and Lehman Brothers executives, living in "ivory towers of academia, far away from the reality of life.
At many colleges and universities, when it comes to the "big questions" there is a "right answer" and there is virtually no discussion of any other alternatives.
In most fields there is an "orthodoxy" that you had better adhere to if you want to get good grades. Let's just say that "independent thought" and "critical thinking" are not really encouraged at most of our institutions of higher learning.
Tenured professors who cannot be fired for their poor teaching skills, are often out of touch with reality, can say and do just about anything they want, without fear of losing their jobs. At one of the "top" graduate schools for Architecture someone very close to me was told in front of a lecture hall of hundreds of other students that "women did not belong in the field of Architecture". This came from out of the mouth and moronic brain of someone who is not safe to teach Pre-K students, let alone graduate students. He has no clue nor does he care that his thoughts are insane.
So is college worth it? The fact of the matter is, there are still good jobs out there. They are tough to acquire with more competition than ever, no doubt about it, but they do exist. Plus,there is absolutely a lot to gain from attending college, even if the quality job doesn’t appear right away.
In the end, it seems that each student, with the help of their parents, grandparents, working part-time jobs while in High School, should take a good look at their own situation to determine whether to attend college, and if so, where they should attend.
College is not for everyone and there are many Trade Schools that teach desperately needed job skills that multiple industries are begging for employees to fill jobs.
College is not for everyone and there are many Trade Schools that teach desperately needed job skills that multiple industries are begging for employees to fill jobs.
Also, you want to look at ways to finance your education. Of course scholarships, grants or other sources of funds that allow you to pay for college without student loans still exist. You could consider working on,or off-campus to help finance your education.
However, if you find that you must finance college through student loans, make sure student loans match earning potential to avoid debt you will be required to pay off for up to 30 years.
So is college worth it, and when your kids undoubtedly get admitted to them, will you be able to afford it? Don't want to think about it, I don't blame you. Your kids will remind you eventually about it, so hide while you can.
