Ohio State - Free

[Alpha]

Don't get too excited, it won't be ready for 10 years
Ohio State University’s New Plan For A Debt-Free Undergraduate Education (forbes.com)

[dfrecore]

"With total student loan debt reaching as high as $1.7 trillion in 2021, those colleges that claim to offer a debt-free education have typically done so by replacing student loans in their financial aid packages with grants or scholarships that don’t have to be repaid. But like the Ohio State plan, “no student loans” is not the same as “free college.” Most universities will still require that students make some contribution and/or engage in part-time employment, while others may include parent loans in their calculation."

Soooo...STUDENTS may not have to take out loans, but PARENTS may? That makes zero sense. Shifting it from the student to their parents is stupid (as many parents will absolutely not do so - I wouldn't take out a loan for my kids under ANY circumstances, including them not being able to go to college AT ALL if that was the only way they could go, which it's not).

We shall see how the pilot program works out. The idea of kids getting paid internships makes the most sense. Having skin in the game AND getting skills in their field is really the ultimate win-win for all involved.

[bjcheung77]

We shall see how the pilot program works out. The idea of kids getting paid internships makes the most sense. Having skin in the game AND getting skills in their field is really the ultimate win-win for all involved.

This was what I was thinking too, the main reason we should have more apprenticeships, internships, co-ops for work experience, subsidies, etc. Creating a more affordable educational system not by using "loans" or anything that may bog the student down with debt. I think there should be a "good" medium for certs, degree, experience all bundled up into a program. EACH STATE should do something similar to achieve this, not just OHIO.

[Skirtlet]

Making parents pay or pay loans is not free education, but is 'debt-free' education (except the parents debt? What?)

Students are adults that should pay their own way- jobs through college, finding scholarships, working for a college to get tuition, finding cheaper schools, or taking loans on their own and repaying on their own. Parents used to pay for college more often, but not all. My family paid $0 and I didn't expect them to. I was an adult, I paid my own way.

I like the idea of 'free' college for all... but I wonder if that would devalue the college degree even more. A high school diploma used to be enough to get a good job that could support a stay home spouse/kids. Now a college BA/BS is hardly enough. Also, nothing is 'free.' Either the government funds education, the students pay for tuition, the parents take loans or pay cash for tuition, or someone foots the bill. No such thing as truly free.

[dfrecore]

A high school diploma used to be enough to get a good job that could support a stay home spouse/kids. Now a college BA/BS is hardly enough.

There are MANY jobs that can support a family without a degree.  My husband has supported us since we had our first child 19 years ago.  He doesn't have a degree.  Many of his coworkers don't either, and many of them don't have degrees.  My dad supported our family for many years, and he never went to college either.  My mom went back to work at some point, and her salary could have supported the family as well, and she did not have a degree (although she ended up getting one later).

It all depends on where you live, your lifestyle, the job, etc. Many variables, but I knew many people when I was a SAHM who had 1-income families.  They had all moved to somewhere less expensive to be able to do it though.

[Skirtlet]

A high school diploma used to be enough to get a good job that could support a stay home spouse/kids. Now a college BA/BS is hardly enough.

There are MANY jobs that can support a family without a degree.  My husband has supported us since we had our first child 19 years ago.  He doesn't have a degree.  Many of his coworkers don't either, and many of them don't have degrees.  My dad supported our family for many years, and he never went to college either.  My mom went back to work at some point, and her salary could have supported the family as well, and she did not have a degree (although she ended up getting one later).

It all depends on where you live, your lifestyle, the job, etc. Many variables, but I knew many people when I was a SAHM who had 1-income families.  They had all moved to somewhere less expensive to be able to do it though.

It was a lot easier 20 years ago to make livable money without a degree but it's getting harder and harder too. I made more 20 years ago than I do now. Dot com boom and thriving economy about 20 years ago made jobs plentiful. It's getting harder without a degree. 

Some skilled trades or working up to management are still possible without a degree now, but it's a different economy than 20 years ago. In another 20 years, a high school diploma will surely lose even more value. A college BA might even lose some value by then too. 20 years is a long time. It's possible to live on one income still, but it does taking moving to a cheaper city, living frugally, and some other sacrifices. Mid-1950s, it was easier for the average high school graduate to get a job that could support a spouse and a few kids without having to make all those sacrifices. I knew people in the 1990s that managed too, but that was a whole different era. It's not that easy anymore. People I know with no college education at all right now that just graduated high school are barely getting by. Target and similar's $15/hour comes with the fact that Target/similar rarely schedule people 40 hours so they can avoid paying them benefits. Amazon is decent money, but not ideal working conditions/hours and takes a toll on your physical health. I don't know anyone from today's generation, 18-22+-, with only a high school diploma that could make ends meet even in my cheap city. I know an 18 year old with 2 kids and the only way she gets by with her boyfriend is because of section 8, food stamps, etc. to go along with her fast food job (and her boyfriend's fast food job). No college means that's her only option. If she could get into manual labor/factory work, learning a skilled trade, etc., she could make more... but without that, she's got it rough. Things weren't so bad for us 1990s kids. Today's generation has it harder to get jobs without any college.

I would not want to see what 20 years from now with no degree would look like for the job market.

[dfrecore]

A high school diploma used to be enough to get a good job that could support a stay home spouse/kids. Now a college BA/BS is hardly enough.

There are MANY jobs that can support a family without a degree.  My husband has supported us since we had our first child 19 years ago.  He doesn't have a degree.  Many of his coworkers don't either, and many of them don't have degrees.  My dad supported our family for many years, and he never went to college either.  My mom went back to work at some point, and her salary could have supported the family as well, and she did not have a degree (although she ended up getting one later).

It all depends on where you live, your lifestyle, the job, etc. Many variables, but I knew many people when I was a SAHM who had 1-income families.  They had all moved to somewhere less expensive to be able to do it though.

It was a lot easier 20 years ago to make livable money without a degree but it's getting harder and harder too. I made more 20 years ago than I do now. Dot com boom and thriving economy about 20 years ago made jobs plentiful. It's getting harder without a degree. 

Some skilled trades or working up to management are still possible without a degree now, but it's a different economy than 20 years ago. In another 20 years, a high school diploma will surely lose even more value. A college BA might even lose some value by then too. 20 years is a long time. It's possible to live on one income still, but it does taking moving to a cheaper city, living frugally, and some other sacrifices. Mid-1950s, it was easier for the average high school graduate to get a job that could support a spouse and a few kids without having to make all those sacrifices. I knew people in the 1990s that managed too, but that was a whole different era. It's not that easy anymore. People I know with no college education at all right now that just graduated high school are barely getting by. Target and similar's $15/hour comes with the fact that Target/similar rarely schedule people 40 hours so they can avoid paying them benefits. Amazon is decent money, but not ideal working conditions/hours and takes a toll on your physical health. I don't know anyone from today's generation, 18-22+-, with only a high school diploma that could make ends meet even in my cheap city. I know an 18 year old with 2 kids and the only way she gets by with her boyfriend is because of section 8, food stamps, etc. to go along with her fast food job (and her boyfriend's fast food job). No college means that's her only option. If she could get into manual labor/factory work, learning a skilled trade, etc., she could make more... but without that, she's got it rough. Things weren't so bad for us 1990s kids. Today's generation has it harder to get jobs without any college.

I would not want to see what 20 years from now with no degree would look like for the job market.

I am thinking that this is completely unrealistic.  Wanting an 18yo to be able to support a family is just silly.  Now, a 25 or 30yo with years of experience, that's a different story.  The world has not really been such that an 18yo could just go out the day after high school graduation and get a job that could completely support a family on day 1.  It has always been that you would have a few years under your belt, have gotten some work experience, and have moved up on the job ladder before you think you can do this.

There are still jobs out there where you can support a family without a 4yr degree.  You may need a 2yr degree or else some work experience - but those jobs are out there.  Skilled trades is one.  There was just a guy on Mike Rowe's page where he has a painting company, and he'll pay $22/hr on day 1, and they can make $32/hr pretty quickly if they work hard.  Fully paid health insurance.  In Sellersburg IN, the average home price is $253k.  You CAN easily afford a starter home in Sellersburg $160k, making $66k/yr.

That's just an example, but there are plenty of places in the US where you can get a decent job making more than the annual average ($54k last I checked) and afford a small house.

But many times, people want that where they want it, rather than where it is.  Sorry, you don't get to decide the market.  Here outside of Charlotte, NC, there aren't many $160k homes anymore.  But then again, wages are fairly high.  But I've already told my kids, be prepared to go a little further out if you want to buy a house.  It takes time to move up to a nicer house in a nicer area.  You're not getting that with your first home.  They have realistic expectations because I've explained life to them.  They don't think they're going to live our lifestyle with 25+ years of working experience - they are going to have to start small, and work their way up over many years.  That's how life works.

[Skirtlet]

I am thinking that this is completely unrealistic.  Wanting an 18yo to be able to support a family is just silly.  Now, a 25 or 30yo with years of experience, that's a different story.  The world has not really been such that an 18yo could just go out the day after high school graduation and get a job that could completely support a family on day 1.  It has always been that you would have a few years under your belt, have gotten some work experience, and have moved up on the job ladder before you think you can do this.

Young adults in the 18-25 used to be able to support families just fine in the 1950s with only a high school diploma and one working spouse. The average woman in 1950 had a kid by 22.8 years old. I know very few 22 year olds that could support a spouse/kid with only a high school diploma today... or, 0. 

I'm talking the benefit of a degree over a lifetime. It's hard to make a decent income with no college education, unless you have a skilled trade or work your way up over the years of experience. No education hampers people's income potential even then. Average income in the USA stats include people with college degrees. People without any degree have a harder time getting a job that could support a family, whether they're 25 or 50. Years of work experience can help lessen the barrier of them not having a college degree if they work up to management or work their way up in general. By age 50, a college degree would be less significant because they have a good 30+ years of work experience by then, degree or no degree.

People not being able to afford a family at 18-25 easily shows the value of a college degree, whether a 2 or 4 year degree. At 25 or 30, people have work experience so a lack of a 4 year college degree is slightly less of an issue. A 2 year degree helps, but sometimes a 4 year degree isn't even enough anymore. A high school diploma used to be enough to get a good job. Now a college BA/BS degree barely is, but it's still better than nothing.

"Median weekly earnings for workers without a high-school diploma were $488, compared with $668 for those with a high-school diploma. Workers with some college or a two-year associate degree earned $761 and workers with bachelor's degrees or advanced degrees earned $1,193 – about two-and-a-half times the weekly earnings of workers without a high-school diploma and roughly twice the earnings of high-school graduates."

Trying to support a spouse and kids on $488 a week would be rough, and that's median incomes- not the poorest of the working poor with only a high school diploma.

I don't think a degree (2 year or 4 year degree) is a golden ticket, but it statistically helps. I know people with top tier degrees, along with JDs, that have been unemployed for a long time , especially during some of the economic downturns. I would not want to have no degree during a downturn unless I had impressive work experience.  

People could find a job with only a high school diploma that could support a spouse far more easily in the 1950s than now during their early adulthood, not specifically the day they turned 18. A high school diploma used to mean more and be enough for a decent number of careers. Fifty percent of the women born in 1950 had become mothers when they turned 22.8 years... making 25 rather 'old' to have kids now. It's not that people jumped out the gate at 18 back then and bought a house. It's that they could get married and afford a single household income with a spouse/kid more easily. Average houses back then weren't many multiples of starting salaries and it didn't usually take two parents working 40-80 hour weeks to support a house/kids back then.

The household median income in the U.S. in 1950 was $2,990 — roughly 40% of the median home value of $7,354. That includes people with only high school diplomas and college degrees, but the numbers were still far more in their favorite decades ago than now. There's no starting jobs that the average person now could find, take, and make enough to buy a house in a handful of years with a high school diploma alone. YouTube internet celebrity or rare anomaly aside, a high school diploma used to be valued by many employers more. It's not enough now.

Even minimum wage jobs in 1950 paid enough to make buying a house realistic within a decade or less. Now that's not the case. "Since the minimum wage was $0.75 an hour (on January 25, 1950), people working the minimum wage the average number of hours a week (43) made $1,677 a year. So, by working the average number of hours and making the federal minimum wage, you could make 52% of the average wage. In 1950, The estimated price of a new car or truck sold in the U.S. was $1,510, less than what minimum wage workers made a year. In 1950, a new house cost $8,450. So, if you never spent a penny of the money you earned, it would take roughly 5 years at the federal minimum wage to save the amount equal to that of a new house."

The bulk of teens in the U.S.A. now graduate from high school or get a GED, so most people have them and they're valued by employers less. If everyone had a college BA/BS, it would start taking a MA/MS and up to stand out to employers. Thankfully society isn't there yet and a BA/BS still is useful in job hunting. I agree with the Washington Post that the college degree (BA/BS) is about as valuable as what a high school diploma meant 50 years ago: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grad...-stagnant/

The Washington Post summarized it well: "Workers with a bachelor’s degree are forced into lower-skill jobs with lower wages. In other words, the bachelor’s degree is becoming the new high school diploma. Rather than a ticket to a high-paying, managerial job, the four-year degree is now the minimum ticket to get in the door to any job. Valletta wrote that his findings “suggest rising competition between education groups for increasingly scarce well-paid jobs.” 

We've devalued the high school diploma. We've started to devalue the college degree (BS/BA), but it still holds enough value to make it worth it. In a few decades, I would not want to enter the workforce without a master's degree or above. God forbid entering the workforce with only a high school diploma in a few decades. The master's degree could easily become, in a few decades, what a college BA/BS used to be in terms of rarity and value to employers. In the 1950s, a high school diploma was sufficient and valued.

People lived more cheaply in the 1950s too, on top of a high school diploma being of value to employers. Houses were smaller, people weren't spending hundreds a month on cell phones, some people didn't have central A/C, there were fewer cars/TVs/stuff per household on average and social culture was different too. 

Painting companies that pay $22+ an hour are extremely rare. It's $15/hour here no benefits, which is actually 'good' money around here and also hard to find. The pandemic has made jobs in retail, labor, and restaurant work easier in some cities, here included. I've seen jobs hiring here that want a master's but pay $15 an hour-- no college at all gets about half that wage. There's some outliers of companies that pay impressive money for unskilled work, but those are too often few and far between. Most young millennial with no degree aren't going to be making $22+ an hour with benefits outside of a pandemic with desperate employers, and this is the first pandemic in 100+ years.

[dfrecore]

I think most of the issue is lifestyle. Spending hundreds more each month on things like $1000 cell phones, car payments, wanting an apartment with granite counters, wanting 3x the square footage that the average used to get, etc. We've wracheted up our expectations, and then are surprised when it's unaffordable.

I've known MANY many families who have a single-income over the last 22 years of my marriage - MANY. Most even. The spouse may eventually go out and work part time after the kids are all in school full time, or work from home - but there are lots of places in the US where women stay home with their children, at least when they're little. I knew very few women that worked FT when our kids were tiny. Not all of our husbands had college degrees - mine was in IT, another's was a firefighter, another was a police officer, another was a carpenter (high end). I still know lots of women that don't work full time, and whose husbands don't have degrees. Lots.

I don't think most families have 2 people working 40 hours a week each. I think that's a myth. Some depends on where you live, and some depends on the age of your kids. But my guess from my experience is that there are a heck of a lot of moms out there that work PT, that work from home, or that work a lot less than 40 hours per week. Jobs like teachers, which is considered FT but who have a lot more days off and work when their kids are in school, and have off when they have off, and work fewer than 8 hours each day (not counting time spent grading papers and lesson planning which can be done at home). Jobs which are flexible - your boss is understanding when your kid has a basketball game and you leave early and then spend a couple of hours finishing your work that night. Or jobs where you can leave early, and just not get paid for it (my mom did this). It's generally speaking a FT job, but it's not 40 hours, it's 32 or 35.

There are also lots of men who work a heck of a lot more than 40 hours a week, and get paid OT to make up for their spouse's lack of working FT. Ask plumbers, electricians, lineman, elevator repairmen, how many hours a week they work, and I'm guessing most are men, and most work well over 40 hours a week. None need a degree, most get paid a pretty damn good wage after a few years of experience.

So, if you're asking if ALL jobs pay well enough to support a family, obviously not. I'm guessing if you work at McDonald's, you're not doing real well. But people can make a great living without a degree if they have a skill that's in demand, and are willing to put in the hours to become very good at their jobs. Again, this won't be everyone, but it could certainly be a lot more people if they didn't have an aversion to working really hard, and possibly not in great conditions. Which in the 1950's was a LOT of jobs.

[freeloader]

OI think the issue with this thread is that people are kind of talking past one another.  There are plenty of jobs that pay a living wage, a middle class wage that don’t require a bachelor’s degree.  HOWEVER, you would be hard-pressed to find such a job that doesn’t require an advanced skill which often requires a license (plumber, electrician, nurse, etc), working in difficult or dangerous conditions, working in remote or dangerous areas, and/or which require years of experience.  

So, what has changed?  The entire economy has changed. Education has changed, for one thing. In the mid-1940s around half of adults graduated from high school. Today, that number is around 93%.  A high school diploma is less valuable because they are simply so much more common. The same thing has happened with most higher-level credentials, such as bachelor’s degrees, as well.

America in the roughly 2 decades that followed WWII was the world’s workshop. We manufactured everything, at least everything that was worth having. Factory jobs paid well because our goods commanded premium price in the marketplace. They also paid well because more of business’s income were paid to employees and less to shareholders and senior management. That isn’t meant as a political statement, just a fact.

Something else, equally important happened because of the high wages paid to factory workers, miners, loggers, etc. Their high wages drove up wages of other workers in the marketplace. If you ran a store in Detroit across the street from a Ford factory and the factory paid $2/hr in 1950 and were constantly hiring, you had to pay a wage that was reasonably close to that $2 or you couldn’t keep workers. So, cities like Detroit and Milwaukee were excellent places for factory workers, but also excellent places for people adjacent to the manufacturing industries.  A rising tide did raise most, but not all, ships.

The three decades following WWII also saw the rise of something that was basically new in American history: consumer debt. Sure, farmers had long mortgages their crops and people took out small loans to buy the occasional large item, but the great majority of people lived with very little debt. The postwar years changed that. Credit became much more widely available. The first credit card as we know it, the Diner’s Club Card, debuted in 1950. Imagine if all debt was wiped out and we all were able to go out and start buying (and borrowing) how much we would buy, how much the economy would lurch forward, and how many jobs would be created. That’s kind of what happened in the 1950s-1970s.

As I noted above, the rising tide didn’t raise all ships, at least not equally. The golden decades that followed WWII were really a golden time for white American families. Cheap credit for home purchases (backed by the government), the GI Bill, cheap and expanding public universities, and hiring practices that strongly helped white males all combined to funnel money into the pockets of white men and their families. Part of that prosperity was built on intentionally inequitable distributions of wealth. To make it possible for that white male to make $2/hr, the black janitor in the factory might have needed to make 50c/hr for work that was just as physically demanding. That janitor’s wife almost certainly made even less.

My family originated in small towns in flyover country. In the 1940s/1950s a white male could “come home” to such a place after service in WWII or Korea, get a government-backed loan to buy a “starter” house, get a job at Sears or the (locally owned) gas station, get married, and support his family. True, he didn’t have an iPhone or an 80-inch plasma television, but he probably was in a bowling league and owned a car, something his parents who had been devastated by the Great Depression thought was remarkable.  

What is also interesting to note, however, is that the doctors in the small town probably drove Mercury’s (to our man’s Ford) and lived a little bit larger house, but still modest by todays standard. They made a little more than our man, but not 10x as much, as is often the case now.  There were fewer “rich” people and the line between normal and rich was nowhere near as stark as it is today. 

There were some huge businesses, sure, but there were also more small businesses than today. My wife’s grandfather went to business school (at one of the most prestigious schools in the US, mind you) in the 1940s. He was taught that as a manager/owner he should live over his store or next to his factory. He was taught that he should be making 2 or 3 times AT MOST what his employees were making. More than that and a) he wasn’t investing enough in his business, b) he wasn’t investing enough in his people and/or c) his people would hate him because of a and/or b.

Let’s also not forget that many of our worst societal problems, including people starving to death and left totally destitute with no hope of improvement, have effectively been eradicated. The poor of today have, on the whole, a pretty decent standard of living. People of color and women-headed households are far better off today than they were in those “golden decades”. Better or worse off today?  Hard to say, depends on who you ask.  But let’s not kid ourselves and say that it is easy, or anywhere near as easy, to maintain a middle-class lifestyle with a “basic” job.