financial aid

[rockandrollsouls]

Those who say college is worthless either haven't gone to college or they are talking to people who go to college for worthless degrees like psychology, biology, humanities and social science.

If you go to college for a useful degree it'll pay for itself 10x. Degrees like engineering, physics (aka modern engineering), computer science, etc..

I just graduated, and had job offers flowing in like crazy, and signed on for 80K a year at a nuclear power plant. My fiancee just finished her masters in environmental engineering and shes doing better than I am.

Most people who go to school for USEFUL degrees actually get great jobs, it's all those social science and pointless degrees that land you 35k a year jobs that make college education look bad.

And you mean degrees for jobs that are being outsourced? Let's face it....in our economy, down the line the only job that will pay is one you have to be here to do.

 

[rockandrollsouls]

Well your first two years of college are usually pretty unchallenging and easy no matter where you go. I've studied at three major universities, U of Missouri, U of Colorado at Boulder to name a few. The education I got at my community college was just as good as at those schools and much more enjoyable as the classes were smaller and people were there because they had to be and wanted to learn. Can't say that's the case for everyone in a biology lecture filled with 200+ kids.

This is my experience as well. I'm banging out business and economics courses at community college and probably finishing off at Rutgers Business. Then again, I'm not making bad money now either so it's a tough decision.

 

[bambbrose]

And you mean degrees for jobs that are being outsourced? Let's face it....in our economy, down the line the only job that will pay is one you have to be here to do.

Well that is a given. Most engineering and physics jobs are on site. Computer science not so much.

 

[LiveFree79]

None taken lol. Engineers are a requirement for society. Regardless of what you hear about outsourcing, the only engineers that get outsourced are mechanical and some structural. A lot of engineering is done on site and requires overhead of the project.

You must understand that we are not lucky at all (I hate it when people call it luck). We are hard workers. We made it through college without debt, with three very useful degrees. We got great jobs because we have great skills. Just because someone else went to school to become an engineer and they didn't land a job, doesn't mean that engineers have a hard time landing jobs. It means that that specific person doesn't have the skills necessary to land a job. There are plenty of engineers that are not smart or skilled, but instead only good students. It is those people who don't land jobs. The people with real world skills, good work ethic/experience, AND good degrees will never have trouble finding work or making money, good economy or not.

Of course they are. I'm just saying in my opinion they are no more important than many other professions. I'll be the first one to admit I couldn't be an engineer. But we'll have to agree to disagree. There are great jobs to be had but it's a very competitive field and the market cannot possibly support all the engineering grads because of outsourcing/insourcing. Kind of like IT.

 

[LiveFree79]

Well that is a given. Most engineering and physics jobs are on site. Computer science not so much.

Surgeons used to say the same thing

 

[Primbs]

In the Virginia, DC, Maryland and Pennsylvania area, some computer science teachers teach at the community colleges of northern virginia and the four year colleges.

Some George Mason students take the same teacher or class at the community college and save money.

Many teachers rotate at the universities that they teach at.

Even the college professors are having a hard time making it.

Professor of Desperation
Bad pay, zero job security, no benefits, endless commutes. Is this any way to treat PhDs responsible for teaching a generation of college students?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A15182-2002Jul16

 

[LiveFree79]

In the Virginia, DC, Maryland and Pennsylvania area, some computer science teachers teach at the community colleges of northern virginia and the four year colleges.

Some George Mason students take the same teacher or class at the community college and save money.

Many teachers rotate at the universities that they teach at.

Even the college professors are having a hard time making it.

Professor of Desperation
Bad pay, zero job security, no benefits, endless commutes. Is this any way to treat PhDs responsible for teaching a generation of college students?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A15182-2002Jul16

Yes it's sad. But you know part of why this has happened is because college has been turned into a business. They are no different than corporations. They'd rather spend millions of dollars on a brand new football stadium to attract fans and super athletes in order to make more money and get more funding to attract more scientists to discover new drugs for big pharma Same thing with public schools. Administrators make three times as much as some teachers. Granted there are a lot of lazy, terrible teachers out there but most are underpaid. Anyone with a college degree who makes $30K to me is underpaid regardless of geographical location.

 

[mattc2345]

All this talk of "x should be paid more" and "y shouldn't make that" seems quite anti-free market.

College isn't for everyone (I hate book-learnin') but a college education I believe is a good thing to have even if you don't use it. We've all seen the stats on how much more an average college graduate makes in his/her lifetime than the non-graduate. We all know people without degrees who make good money and people with degrees who make a pittance. It is, in fact, not the norm though.

Jobs pay what they pay because of a free market. Employers don't make up a salary for a job based on throwing a dart at a dartboard. A huge number of things are at play. The market is a mad scientist.
I will stop short of going on an anti-union tirade though.

 

[LiveFree79]

All this talk of "x should be paid more" and "y shouldn't make that" seems quite anti-free market.

College isn't for everyone (I hate book-learnin') but a college education I believe is a good thing to have even if you don't use it. We've all seen the stats on how much more an average college graduate makes in his/her lifetime than the non-graduate. We all know people without degrees who make good money and people with degrees who make a pittance. It is, in fact, not the norm though.

Jobs pay what they pay because of a free market. Employers don't make up a salary for a job based on throwing a dart at a dartboard. A huge number of things are at play. The market is a mad scientist.
I will stop short of going on an anti-union tirade though.

Yeah well private school teachers are no better paid than their public counter part. In fact in some areas they make less.

 

[mattc2345]

Livefree.

Your wording would indicate that you are disagreeing with me however you are proving the point I was alluding to: unions interfere with a free market. I am aware of the pay difference vs the private sector. Public school teachers get paid much more. This issue is really complex. Private schools are competing for something that is free (not really free but already payed for) elsewhere so they need to be really efficient and that makes their teachers get paid less.

We could get into another whole can of worms about how schools should be funded ect. ect. I'm still a little wishy-washy on this though but the idea I have heard that I liked the best was the one I saw in Free To Choose. For college one of the guys suggested letting anyone who wants to come go for free and then pay a percentage of their future earnings back to the school to pay for it.