Don't borrow money for school...it can hurt you and those close to you...

[sanantone]

I see nothing wrong with the way the system currently is. People take out loans over their hard to go to a school they know they can’t afford. Families work hard to be able to give their next generation a chance to attend college. The students that pay out of pocket for themselves know very well if they can afford to go to college or not. With a large percentage of them majoring in degrees that have an average salary of 35K, they then proceed to either blame the government or the schooling system for their debt or their low paying job. You would think that on a site like this where people spend 5K on a degree max that there would be a different opinion on this subject.

There are other options; you don’t have to go to college. People make it seem like it is the only way to get a decent job. Personally, I joined the military specifically to pay for my education. I scored high enough on my ASVAB to be able to get do a job that involves using technical skill instead of having to carry around a gun to point at people. Then again, if you don’t score high enough on the ASVAB to get a good job, maybe you shouldn’t go to college to begin with. (Probably wouldn’t be in the military if I knew of this site before I enlisted.) Another option that gets overlooked 90% of the time is trades. You don’t need a degree to be a welder, IT technician, plumber, electrician, translator, salesman, the list goes on.
Free tuition in the states would murder us, not even accounting that many courses are WAY too easy to be considered higher education. The government would be controlling too many private institutions it would eventually somehow get out of hand. For example if there are 13 million college students now paying an average of 8k a year, comes out to a cost of $104,000,000,000. Cool, no big deal, we have 300,000,000 people in the United States, that is 350$ a person. Only about 122 million pay income taxes so $852 a year. Now that taxes have been raised many people can’t afford it so there are less people to pay taxes, not to mention the expecting increase in college students because now it’s free. Not to mention the colleges would likely go bankrupt because they would spend an absurd amount of money to try to keep up with the unnatural influx of new college students that would eventually slow down. (but fuck it, who cares government will bail them out anyways)

Going to college is a privilege not a right. When it lowers its standards to accommodate for the below average student to get through is when the education system is flawed. College is not for everyone. Being in the perspective of the military I see many individuals that come in because they are in debt from student loans. They put in minimal effort in college, came out with 45 credit hours, a bunch of failed classes, a 350 credit score, and a large pile of debt. Ultimately, it was their own fault; they either didn’t try or comprehend the material. Similar people that put less than 20 hours of effort into school then complain that college is too hard. IMO you would give more effort to a class if you worked many hours to pay for that class.


( jeeze, this is longer than most of the TESC essays. If I just slap and intro and conclusion and a few citations then this wouldn’t have been a complete waste of time XD. Also another example of how they are dumbing down college level work. 500 words is way too short for an essay. )

Ironically, the U.S. is the one with the system of "if you can pay, you can go." Everyone can go to college here. This is not what is happening in the European countries that offer free tuition. Their higher education systems are generally more competitive. When private organizations can open up schools, they can accept whoever they want. If they want to accept students who can barely read, then that is their right. The government doesn't control accreditation in the U.S., so it can't force colleges and universities to raise standards. All they can do is try to pull Title IV or military aid eligibility.

Being a salesperson is neither a trade nor a stable career, but you'd be surprised at how many sales jobs require or prefer a bachelor's degree. If you live in a state with strong unions, then you might have access to a lot of apprenticeships. If you live in a state with weak unions, like I do, then apprenticeships that don't require prior training in high school (if the high school you attended even offered trade programs), a community college, or a technical college are hard to find. In my state, many younger people going into the trades are either attending a public community college or technical college (public technical schools aren't accessible to most Texans) or very expensive for-profit school for a year or two. It's actually cheaper to go to a public university than it is to attend many for-profit trade schools for two years.

Across the country, we have these expensive IT boot camps springing up everywhere that charge several thousands of dollars for a few months of training. Of course, one can self-study for IT certifications, but you can't erase stupidity. The same people who take out a lot of loans to attend private schools for low-paying jobs will be the same kinds of people paying thousands of dollars for IT training at boot camps and for-profit technical colleges. I'd also like to point out that it is becoming increasingly difficult to go higher than a technical support or help desk job without a college degree.