I got two kids currently in college. How broke do you think I am? :doh!:

A partner of mine has now sent 4 kids through St. Olaf, a private college in northern Minnesota, at the low low cost of just over $50K/yr.

Dude's spent just a tick shy of a million friggen dollars on goddamn liberal arts degrees from a college that nobody outside of northern Minnesota gives a shit about. His kids all had full rides from Truman State but he footed that bill anyway. So in essence, he set about 10 years worth of take-home income on fire. Can you imagine that? The guy's going to have a 30 year career and 10 years of it just up and vanished.

It is the single most absurd thing I've ever heard. How the hell can you even begin to teach your children about responsible decisionmaking when you let them do that? Now 2 of them are still 'finding themselves' and one of them is a paramedic...y'know, that thing you can do with a 1 yr certification course.

These decisions are hard but at the same time, some parents are enabling their children to make pretty staggeringly stupid ones.

Goddamn.

My best friend grew up in a poor family. Very poor. Like his Mom came to this country and they lived in a trailer as a kid kind of poor.
My buddy didn't make any excuses. He went to community college and worked full-time to do what he could. Graduated with his associates, got some scholarships and finished his last 2 years at a D1 school in the ROTC program. College paid for, masters degree paid for and now he's serving in the Air Force in a technical role making 85k as a 28 year old with an education diverse enough to land him a good job damn near anywhere if he chooses to get out of the military.

More kids needs to work hard like him.

I've been told by the time my 3 and 1 year old get to college age, ine gonna end up needing about half a mil for them to go to college at state schools and the such.

No thanks

Crazy.

At least my kids are both going into engineering fields at state schools and have been able to get some scholarships but it is still bloomin' expensive.

I suppose it's a lot less to forge a degree than to pay for one.

I am so broke, I asked Vince Young for a loan.

The problem is High School administration seems to pump up College as the way to success and put down Trade School To me that is totally stupid of them. Also alot of HS has done away with most trade type classes, I know they are under tight budgets but that does not help either.

I think the problem is not so much going to college, it's going without a plan. To many kids go to college and plan to "figure out" what they want to do once they get there.

Doesn't work out so well

The problem is by the time that becomes a thing, our gubbment will create a cheap foreign worker plan to import cheap labor and those jobs will not longer be available to American Born Citizens.

:rolleyes:

That makes literally no sense at all. First, it's a thing NOW. And it's a rapidly growing thing.

Finally, the H1B etc. visas are a completely separate hot tpic for discussion, but given the degree of technical competence, and limitations on immigration, this field isn't going to be dominated by foreigners like farm work.

You can't just blame schools though.

Education is self-driving. Both my wife and I have graduate degrees and were the kid to not at least get a college degree, we'd see that as 'backsliding' a bit.

As more and more people get degrees, they'll expect their children to do so as well.

It's a natural progression but at the same time, it has definitely led to some unrealistic expectations. No - not everyone is 'college material' or would benefit from 4 years removed from the workforce at the cost of a six figure debt.

I'm so broke I can't even PAY attention!

Things are so bad here,I've got to jack the dog just to feed the cat

It does make sense to me, busting your ass getting a certification or a degree, going broke spending money on it thinking you can get a good job and pay back the loan. Then WHAM you get out of school to find the job market flooded with cheap foreign labor, that not only makes it hard to find a job, but also devalues salaries.