One more Debt

I read an article in my local paper this weekend about how applications are up at state colleges, hypothicizing that people are cutting back on paying private school tuition. The article mentioned that state colleges generally run between $8,000 to $13,000 a year, compared to private colleges which were over $40,000.

I was just astounded that the costs are that much. I knew that law school tuitions were that high, but I didn't know that a regular undergraduate degree now costs so much. I'm surprised that even state schools are so expensive (when I went to UCLA back in the mid 80s, it was only about $3,000 a year).

Its no wonder that so many 20 and 30-somethings (or their parents) are reeling in debt. Certainly most 'entry-level' jobs out of college haven't tripled their salaries. I just can't fathom coming out of college already $30,000 in debt, let alone over $100,000 if you went to private school.

Its no wonder the US population has one of the highest (if not the highest) debts in the world, with everything one has to pay for these days. These days, people are required to pay for their own healthcare, retirement, college student loans and their kids college fund. No other generation (that had the option of retirement and college) has had to fund so much completely by themselves. Are we really moving forward as a civilization, or backwards to the early 20th Century? It would be so bad if the costs for these items didn't increase so much more exponentially than their salaries.

Part of the problem, however, is that college has become the new high school. Everyone who aspires to work in something above minimum wage, has to have a college degree. Its not like one will always use the college education at their job, but the employer feels that they have some "reassurance" that their employee is smart enough to train. This is not always the case, I know plenty of people that got a BA degree and are still pretty dumb, and others who never went to college, but are incredibly smart. Yet the "dumb" people with a degree are still favored over the "smart" ones without.

As a result, virtually everyone has to go to college, even to obtain jobs as bank tellers and retail managers. This gives the colleges a virtual carte blanche to charge whatever they want, knowing that they have ready customers who have no choice but to buy their product. Thus, we get people buying the virtually worthless BA degree in history, sociology, philosophy, who then have no idea what they want to do in life and/or get jobs in fields that have absolutely nothing to do with those degrees (a friend with a "geology" major became a bank teller and later an HR manager - yeah that's related). There's only so many teacher/professor jobs out there.

Course, this is why so many students with BA degrees end up in lawschool, a scam which is a whole 'nother rant.

I think there needs to be an evaluation as to why college tuition is so much, and what can be done to bring it back down to affordability. Either that, or parents need to sit down and talk realistically with their kids about what they want to do in life. If its not going into some sort of science or technology based program for a BS degree, maybe they should look into trade school or a 2-year program at a community college. They need to figure out how the kid is going to pay back that minimum $30,000 debt (which is about $400 a month at 7% interest over 30 years - bigger payment if its 10 years) if a BA degree only gets them a job for $25,000.

I think education is a good thing, the more educated a person is, the less likely they'll get sucked into things like ARMs. But while there used to be lots of jobs to suck up the BA degrees, many don't exist anymore, or really don't need a people with a 4-year college education. One can (and should be able to) get an education going 1-2 classes a semester/quarter at a small(er) cost while working. Sure it takes longer, but better than being in debt. Companies just need to realize that not every mail room clerk needs a 4-year degree.