College: Cost too much?

[PrometheusBound]

It doesn't pay to go to law school.

TaxProf Blog: Schlunk: Is a Law Degree a Good Investment Today?

Someone who gets out of law school with the idea that they will get a good job making good money is bound to be disappointed.

What a law degree does (and I am one that knows, intimately, what is required) is give someone a direction to follow. They will have to work much HARDER than they did while in law school. Be prepared to work 18 hour days, give up weekends, and holidays. A friend of mine spent all day Thanksgiving day preparing for a trial. For every billable hour, attorneys are expected to put in three more non billable hours. Then, the new attorney is expected to invest his miniscule salary in continuing education. Week end wordshops, seminars, courses. If the attorney goes to work for a firm, best to negotiate the firm to pick up part of these costs at the outset. Be prepared to waste time running around from court house to court house too. It's not like television where there is that one explosive appearance then back to the office to grab-ass with the secretaries.

Failure to do these things means to lock yourself into being the lowest paid of attorneys watching those who apply themselves leapfrog over you.

Someone who does want to be successful, wildly so, commanding the highest fees will not stop at a law degree at all. They will FURTHER invest. Give up Starbucks and bring sack lunches while they work through lunchtimes. They will go back to school to get a technical degree. One attorney I know got an engineering degree after law school, then went back to get an electrical engineering degree. ON TOP of all the work and education associated with just working as a lawyer. After going to a middling law school, he is quite, quite wealthy. Attorneys who specialize in medical malpractice have no problem whatsoever going to med school AFTER law school.

Thinking that graduating law school will open doors is going to doom you to being a poor lawyer endlessly scratching out a living in competition with all the other poor and lazy lawyers.

These workoholics sacrifice their personal lives and personalities for this zombie success. Greed for green grinds away the soul.

 

[Unkotare]

Maybe we should have colleges and universities like they do in China. Completely free. There are no fluffy courses. No social study programs, just hard core education. And, you do not get to fail. Failure is not an option. There is no partying, no drinking, no sex, no drugs. Fun seekers and failures have a different employment for them. After all, you don't think anyone really applies for those factory jobs, do you?

Unnatural, depressing, and insulting self-sacrifice creates zombies. That's why Red China has always been an ant colony.

First of all, the statement you quoted is not accurate. Second, how much time have you spent in China?

 

[Unkotare]

It doesn't pay to go to law school.

TaxProf Blog: Schlunk: Is a Law Degree a Good Investment Today?

Someone who gets out of law school with the idea that they will get a good job making good money is bound to be disappointed.

What a law degree does (and I am one that knows, intimately, what is required) is give someone a direction to follow. They will have to work much HARDER than they did while in law school. Be prepared to work 18 hour days, give up weekends, and holidays. A friend of mine spent all day Thanksgiving day preparing for a trial. For every billable hour, attorneys are expected to put in three more non billable hours. Then, the new attorney is expected to invest his miniscule salary in continuing education. Week end wordshops, seminars, courses. If the attorney goes to work for a firm, best to negotiate the firm to pick up part of these costs at the outset. Be prepared to waste time running around from court house to court house too. It's not like television where there is that one explosive appearance then back to the office to grab-ass with the secretaries.

Failure to do these things means to lock yourself into being the lowest paid of attorneys watching those who apply themselves leapfrog over you.

Someone who does want to be successful, wildly so, commanding the highest fees will not stop at a law degree at all. They will FURTHER invest. Give up Starbucks and bring sack lunches while they work through lunchtimes. They will go back to school to get a technical degree. One attorney I know got an engineering degree after law school, then went back to get an electrical engineering degree. ON TOP of all the work and education associated with just working as a lawyer. After going to a middling law school, he is quite, quite wealthy. Attorneys who specialize in medical malpractice have no problem whatsoever going to med school AFTER law school.

Thinking that graduating law school will open doors is going to doom you to being a poor lawyer endlessly scratching out a living in competition with all the other poor and lazy lawyers.

These workoholics sacrifice their personal lives and personalities for this zombie success. Greed for green grinds away the soul.

You lazy shit.

 

[PrometheusBound]

Someone who gets out of law school with the idea that they will get a good job making good money is bound to be disappointed.

What a law degree does (and I am one that knows, intimately, what is required) is give someone a direction to follow. They will have to work much HARDER than they did while in law school. Be prepared to work 18 hour days, give up weekends, and holidays. A friend of mine spent all day Thanksgiving day preparing for a trial. For every billable hour, attorneys are expected to put in three more non billable hours. Then, the new attorney is expected to invest his miniscule salary in continuing education. Week end wordshops, seminars, courses. If the attorney goes to work for a firm, best to negotiate the firm to pick up part of these costs at the outset. Be prepared to waste time running around from court house to court house too. It's not like television where there is that one explosive appearance then back to the office to grab-ass with the secretaries.

Failure to do these things means to lock yourself into being the lowest paid of attorneys watching those who apply themselves leapfrog over you.

Someone who does want to be successful, wildly so, commanding the highest fees will not stop at a law degree at all. They will FURTHER invest. Give up Starbucks and bring sack lunches while they work through lunchtimes. They will go back to school to get a technical degree. One attorney I know got an engineering degree after law school, then went back to get an electrical engineering degree. ON TOP of all the work and education associated with just working as a lawyer. After going to a middling law school, he is quite, quite wealthy. Attorneys who specialize in medical malpractice have no problem whatsoever going to med school AFTER law school.

Thinking that graduating law school will open doors is going to doom you to being a poor lawyer endlessly scratching out a living in competition with all the other poor and lazy lawyers.

These workoholics sacrifice their personal lives and personalities for this zombie success. Greed for green grinds away the soul.

You lazy shit.

Those who sacrifice their youth to show something to their corporate Masters are brown-nosing Mamas' Boys who were afraid to grow up.

 

[Unkotare]

These workoholics sacrifice their personal lives and personalities for this zombie success. Greed for green grinds away the soul.

You lazy shit.

Those who sacrifice their youth to show something to their corporate Masters are brown-nosing Mamas' Boys who were afraid to grow up.

Dedicating time and energy - and *gasp!* delaying gratification - in order to improve oneself, compete more effectively, and achieve long-term goals is not "sacrifice," asshole; it's what separates winners from losers.

Laziness, addiction to immediate gratification, fear of authority - and of success - are the traits of little animals who are unwilling and unable to grow into actual human beings.

 

[PrometheusBound]

You lazy shit.

Those who sacrifice their youth to show something to their corporate Masters are brown-nosing Mamas' Boys who were afraid to grow up.

Dedicating time and energy - and *gasp!* delaying gratification - in order to improve oneself, compete more effectively, and achieve long-term goals is not "sacrifice," asshole; it's what separates winners from losers.

Laziness, addiction to immediate gratification, fear of authority - and of success - are the traits of little animals who are unwilling and unable to grow into actual human beings.

Delayed gratification of necessities creates an emotionally crippled adult, which you prove every time you post. But I'm sure you believe that your childish sheepishness while submitting to the demands of your hero capitalists made a man out of you.

 

[Unkotare]

You lazy little fucking loser.

 

[Shepherd_Shaw]

College Cost is very high because they provide a good facility and they gives a High Education so they required a best lecture so they take high cost because they have to pay good salary to the lecture so College's cost is very high.

 

[Katzndogz]

College Cost is very high because they provide a good facility and they gives a High Education so they required a best lecture so they take high cost because they have to pay good salary to the lecture so College's cost is very high.

Are you in college or have a college education? If so, you have just proved the point.

 

[KissMy]

College can be free!!!!

Use iTunes-U. It lets you watch & listen to 340,000 college courses for free on-line.

 

[waltky]

Student loan debt contributing to bankruptcies...

Student debt pushing more people toward bankruptcy, lawyers say
February 7, 2012, More than four-fifths of bankruptcy attorneys have seen a notable jump in the number of potential clients with student loan debt, the National Assn. of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys says.

Student loan debt is pushing an increasing number of young people and their parents toward bankruptcy, according to a survey released Tuesday. More than four-fifths of bankruptcy attorneys say they've seen a notable jump in the number of potential clients with student loan debt, with nearly half the lawyers reporting a significant increase in such cases, according to the report by the National Assn. of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys.

Nearly one-quarter of attorneys say the number of potential student loan clients has risen 50% to 100%, while 39% of attorneys report increases of 25% to 50%. Student debt is rising for obvious reasons: steadily spiraling college costs, financial aid cutbacks at public universities and a stubbornly weak economy that's making it difficult for graduates to find jobs.

The average student loan debt of 2010 college graduates topped $25,000 — the first time it has exceeded that inglorious mark. Graduating seniors had an average loan burden of $25,250, up 5.2% from the $24,000 owed by the class of 2009, according to the Project on Student Debt in Oakland. Student loan debt can be overwhelming for people who can't pay it off. Unlike many other forms of personal debt, student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, meaning the debt can hang over students well into their adult lives.

The bankruptcy attorneys group says worsening debt levels could spur a financial crisis similar to the mortgage meltdown. "Take it from those of us on the frontline of economic distress in America," said William E. Brewer Jr., the group's president. "This could very well be the next debt bomb for the U.S. economy."

Source

 

[Gadawg73]

We will be paying for two next year. They have been offered no assistance because of our income. That's ok. We've saved since they were born.

What's not ok is the waste and corruption that goes on at these schools and the GD nickle and diming for extra fees, textbooks, health insurance, etc. What's not ok is using tuition and taxpayer money to pay for foreign students to attend for free. What's not ok is paying football coaches $2M a year.

And what really gets my goat is FERPA. If I am putting out $40K a year, I should have the right to monitor my investment. If they want to treat students as independent adults, then use THEIR friggin income to calculate the bill.

No taxpayer $$ goes for tuition for foreign students to go for free.
Football funds 90% of all of the athletic departments. Without it there would be few, if any, women sports. Academic domations to the univertsities from the football ticket sales exceeds 8 million a year for the top schools. I also believe their salaries are too much but the revenue generated does so much good for all sports as 80% of college sports teams in major universities lose $$. Most universities the only sports that make $$ are football and basketball. At GEorgia we have another, female gymnastics as The Gym Dogs RULE!!
The university does not pay that 2 million. 60% of that comes from radio and TV show, shoe deals and such.
Textbooks are the teachers, not the schools. Go online and you can get great deals on used books.

My oldest 2 graduated. My youngest is a freshman now.
Do not listen to the myths and fables of college funding and costs. I spent about 30K a piece on the older 2, they worked and each took out 20K in loans TOTAL.
Best investment ever. They both have jobs making over 40K a year in their mid 20s while the kids that did not go to college are making half that if that.

 

[Gadawg73]

The killer is the formula as Republicans have doctored it to their advantage.
This is what I advise everyone:
Buy a vacation home as that is not in the formula.
Run up your debt and mortgage the shit out of everything you own.
Max out the credit cards.
Max out car loans.
Spend all your $$$.
Only then will you max out on all of the aid.

 

[chanel]

We will be paying for two next year. They have been offered no assistance because of our income. That's ok. We've saved since they were born.

What's not ok is the waste and corruption that goes on at these schools and the GD nickle and diming for extra fees, textbooks, health insurance, etc. What's not ok is using tuition and taxpayer money to pay for foreign students to attend for free. What's not ok is paying football coaches $2M a year.

And what really gets my goat is FERPA. If I am putting out $40K a year, I should have the right to monitor my investment. If they want to treat students as independent adults, then use THEIR friggin income to calculate the bill.

No taxpayer $$ goes for tuition for foreign students to go for free.
Football funds 90% of all of the athletic departments. Without it there would be few, if any, women sports. Academic domations to the univertsities from the football ticket sales exceeds 8 million a year for the top schools. I also believe their salaries are too much but the revenue generated does so much good for all sports as 80% of college sports teams in major universities lose $$. Most universities the only sports that make $$ are football and basketball. At GEorgia we have another, female gymnastics as The Gym Dogs RULE!!
The university does not pay that 2 million. 60% of that comes from radio and TV show, shoe deals and such.
Textbooks are the teachers, not the schools. Go online and you can get great deals on used books.

My oldest 2 graduated. My youngest is a freshman now.
Do not listen to the myths and fables of college funding and costs. I spent about 30K a piece on the older 2, they worked and each took out 20K in loans TOTAL.
Best investment ever. They both have jobs making over 40K a year in their mid 20s while the kids that did not go to college are making half that if that.

The myth of football paying for all the other sports is just that. Most schools (with the exception of a few big ones) lose money on sports. I've done some research.

My younger son cannot buy used textbooks because many of his professors now use on-line homework assignments created by the textbook companies. You need a brand new book to get the the user code and password. $270 for a chemistry book he never opened except to get the pass code.

Are you sure that no taxpayer money goes to foreign students. Students from third world countries pay the same as us? That doesn't seem feasible.

 

[editec]

The various business models mankind is now using for education are about to change.

the high cost of education isn't, I suspect, going to be a problem for very long.

Thank you internet.

 

[Gadawg73]

We will be paying for two next year. They have been offered no assistance because of our income. That's ok. We've saved since they were born.

What's not ok is the waste and corruption that goes on at these schools and the GD nickle and diming for extra fees, textbooks, health insurance, etc. What's not ok is using tuition and taxpayer money to pay for foreign students to attend for free. What's not ok is paying football coaches $2M a year.

And what really gets my goat is FERPA. If I am putting out $40K a year, I should have the right to monitor my investment. If they want to treat students as independent adults, then use THEIR friggin income to calculate the bill.

No taxpayer $$ goes for tuition for foreign students to go for free.
Football funds 90% of all of the athletic departments. Without it there would be few, if any, women sports. Academic domations to the univertsities from the football ticket sales exceeds 8 million a year for the top schools. I also believe their salaries are too much but the revenue generated does so much good for all sports as 80% of college sports teams in major universities lose $$. Most universities the only sports that make $$ are football and basketball. At GEorgia we have another, female gymnastics as The Gym Dogs RULE!!
The university does not pay that 2 million. 60% of that comes from radio and TV show, shoe deals and such.
Textbooks are the teachers, not the schools. Go online and you can get great deals on used books.

My oldest 2 graduated. My youngest is a freshman now.
Do not listen to the myths and fables of college funding and costs. I spent about 30K a piece on the older 2, they worked and each took out 20K in loans TOTAL.
Best investment ever. They both have jobs making over 40K a year in their mid 20s while the kids that did not go to college are making half that if that.

The myth of football paying for all the other sports is just that. Most schools (with the exception of a few big ones) lose money on sports. I've done some research.

My younger son cannot buy used textbooks because many of his professors now use on-line homework assignments created by the textbook companies. You need a brand new book to get the the user code and password. $270 for a chemistry book he never opened except to get the pass code.

Are you sure that no taxpayer money goes to foreign students. Students from third world countries pay the same as us? That doesn't seem feasible.

True, but the ones that lose $$ chanel are not paying 2 million a year to their coach.
We know a coach at a small college and he makes less than a high school coach where the salary is a teachers salary plus a supplement of 10K to coach.
Most coaches in college and high school, as evidenced by your correct statement that those programs lose $$$, make about $20 an hour when you figure the amount of time they put in.
That is the norm as you are comparing apples with oranges.
Students from 3rd world countries come here, do not speak the language, work in their family businesses, save their $$, learn the language and make almost straight As.
They should be held up as an example and not used to make things up with.

 

[GHook93]

In part the cost of education rising has to do with the availability of loans to pay for college.

This incidently, in also why the cost of health care rose at a rate so much higher than inflation generally.

Ironic, no?

Right and WRONG. Education shot up because of the availablity of student loans via the government and the inability of them to be discharged via bankruptcy (all occurred in the 90s). Not to mention the elitist that run the colleges are hypocrites. The bitch and spew propaganda about the evil corps and evil 1%, while they pay tenure professor $300K a year!

Healthcare increases for other reasons. Cost to the insured is pushed off on the free care provided to illegals and the uninsured. Better equipment. Better treatment. Drugs costs more. Much more costly to comply with regulations. The cost of malpractice insurance. The cost of medical school to doctors. People live longer and it costs more.

 

[Gadawg73]

In part the cost of education rising has to do with the availability of loans to pay for college.

This incidently, in also why the cost of health care rose at a rate so much higher than inflation generally.

Ironic, no?

Right and WRONG. Education shot up because of the availablity of student loans via the government and the inability of them to be discharged via bankruptcy (all occurred in the 90s). Not to mention the elitist that run the colleges are hypocrites. The bitch and spew propaganda about the evil corps and evil 1%, while they pay tenure professor $300K a year!

Healthcare increases for other reasons. Cost to the insured is pushed off on the free care provided to illegals and the uninsured. Better equipment. Better treatment. Drugs costs more. Much more costly to comply with regulations. The cost of malpractice insurance. The cost of medical school to doctors. People live longer and it costs more.

Where is a tenured professor getting 300K from any university?
Mid 100s in top universities with the median at about 95K nationally.
And many are overpaid at that.

 

[Old Rocks]

We will be paying for two next year. They have been offered no assistance because of our income. That's ok. We've saved since they were born.

What's not ok is the waste and corruption that goes on at these schools and the GD nickle and diming for extra fees, textbooks, health insurance, etc. What's not ok is using tuition and taxpayer money to pay for foreign students to attend for free. What's not ok is paying football coaches $2M a year.

And what really gets my goat is FERPA. If I am putting out $40K a year, I should have the right to monitor my investment. If they want to treat students as independent adults, then use THEIR friggin income to calculate the bill.

No taxpayer $$ goes for tuition for foreign students to go for free.
Football funds 90% of all of the athletic departments. Without it there would be few, if any, women sports. Academic domations to the univertsities from the football ticket sales exceeds 8 million a year for the top schools. I also believe their salaries are too much but the revenue generated does so much good for all sports as 80% of college sports teams in major universities lose $$. Most universities the only sports that make $$ are football and basketball. At GEorgia we have another, female gymnastics as The Gym Dogs RULE!!
The university does not pay that 2 million. 60% of that comes from radio and TV show, shoe deals and such.
Textbooks are the teachers, not the schools. Go online and you can get great deals on used books.

My oldest 2 graduated. My youngest is a freshman now.
Do not listen to the myths and fables of college funding and costs. I spent about 30K a piece on the older 2, they worked and each took out 20K in loans TOTAL.
Best investment ever. They both have jobs making over 40K a year in their mid 20s while the kids that did not go to college are making half that if that.

Depends, Gadawg. We have electricians in their 20's making 100K a year. Millwrights the same age, making 60K to 80K a year. Of course, they are doing overtime, and working odd hours, but the trades are equal to college in many fields.

 

[Annie]

Interesting article that is a bit more open to fact checking than many of the posts here:

President’s bad remedy for college-cost crisis—Glenn Harlan Reynolds - NYPOST.com

O’s flawed fix for college-cost crisis

By GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS

Last Updated: 11:43 AM, February 7, 2012

Posted: 10:19 PM, February 6, 2012


Except maybe for Hollywood and Goldman Sachs, there has been no firmer source of support for Barack Obama’s presidency than academia. University faculties have been among his greatest sources of donations, while professors have happily charged his critics with racism on every imaginable ground.

So, naturally, Obama’s throwing them under the bus.

In his State of the Union speech, the president put colleges and universities “on notice” regarding skyrocketing tuitions. Later, speaking at the University of Michigan, he explained that he plans to punish schools whose tuition climbs too high by cutting federal aid.

Now schools will be judged by how much they cost, how fast costs rise and (apparently) how well their students are employed after graduation. It’s basically an extension of the administration’s assault against for-profit colleges — cheered on by the leaders of the traditional college and university sector — now extended to the traditional college and university sector. Gosh, who could have seen that coming?

Campus administrators were quick to warn of unfair scapegoating and the dangers of unintended consequences (things they tend to pooh-pooh when the targets are, well, everybody else). University of Washington president Michael Young called Obama’s plan “nonsense on stilts.”

Well, it’s not nonsense. Tuition has been skyrocketing for a couple of decades now, growing at several times the rate of inflation and showing no sign of slowing down even in hard economic times.

US student-loan debt now exceeds credit-card debt. And parents can’t subsidize their kids’ tuition with cheap home-equity loans, as they could a few years ago, making the pain harder to ignore.

So the problem of college costs is a real one, and a potential vote-getter. And while faculties and administrators have been loyal Obama supporters, they’re vastly outnumbered by students and their parents. The president’s just going where the votes are.

But his solution seems to be aimed more at getting those votes than at doing much about the problem. There are many reasons for college tuition’s rise, and most wouldn’t be changed by such a blunt instrument.

Probably the biggest problem is administrative bloat. In the Cal State system, for example, faculty numbers grew only 3.5 percent from 1975 to 2008. In the same period, the number of administrators rose by 221 percent, to the point where administrators now outnumber full-time faculty.

Other systems have seen similar changes. And a study last year by the Goldwater Institute found that administrative bloat was the major reason for higher college costs. (To be fair, Sen. Lamar Alexander points out that much of that bloat is created by the need to comply with federal regulations).

Another problem is the presence of federal subsidies themselves. Typically, when an industry is subsidized, prices go up to consume the subsidies. As Washington has vastly increased the size and availability of student loans and grants in recent decades, colleges and universities have raised tuition to take advantage.

A final problem: Although college is sold as an “investment in the future,” college programs aren’t rated (as investments should be) based on their returns. A degree in electrical engineering, for example, is likely to produce higher returns than one in peace studies or critical race theory, yet they cost the same.

If colleges had to provide accurate data about the earnings of graduates in different majors to students upon registration, many would make different choices. (And if interest on student loans varied with risk of default, the way it does with most loans, the engineering student would be paying much less than the “peace” major.)

Obama’s approach doesn’t do much to address any of these problems. And political observers say it’s not likely to get through Congress anyway, suggesting that it’s mostly election-year posturing.

Still, the president has opened the door to further national discussion, and perhaps made a useful policy possible.

Economist Herb Stein famously said that something that can’t go on forever, won’t. College tuitions can’t continue rising faster than inflation and family incomes forever. So they won’t.

Give Obama credit for raising the issue, even if he hasn’t come close to solving it.

Read more: President’s bad remedy for college-cost crisis—Glenn Harlan Reynolds - NYPOST.com