tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post5301770412771898359..comments2024-03-14T22:58:08.579-07:00Comments on Tales of a Fourth-Tier Nothing: These are the people who need to be helpedChief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-70401464832872265452011-05-30T08:45:20.698-07:002011-05-30T08:45:20.698-07:00A former classmate from Third Tier Drake told me t...A former classmate from Third Tier Drake told me that her 17 year old son just graduated from high school. He graduated one year early. He will enroll in community college, and enter the iron and welding department.<br /><br />His total bill - over two years - will amount to $7,000. He will have a valuable trade, which requires a skilled human to perform. Anyway, she told me that her family is upset with his choice. After all, a "smart" kid should go to a REAL college.<br /><br />My friend and her husband support his decision. She took out $120K in student loans, to attend law school. The fact that her friends and family are upset with this smart financial decision shows you the psyche of Americans.Nandohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06423524039657355134noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-24514296827703873822011-05-29T15:46:31.241-07:002011-05-29T15:46:31.241-07:00It's educational inflation that is taking plac...It's educational inflation that is taking place. As more and more people get degrees, the value gets watered down to the point where, for the most rudimentary of entry-level jobs, employers can now ask for SOME type of degree. Others have called it the "educational arms race", and rightly so. <br /><br />For the older Boomers, "higher education" to a large extent did pay off. For this narrow bracket of Americans, who came of age in the Post-WWII economic boom, a liberal arts degree in and of itself got many of them into real, paying white-collar gigs in large corporations. That was a temporary and very artificial set of conditions which the Boomers took instead as their own precious generation's accomplishments. They benefited to a large degree from the aftermath of a destroyed Europe and Japan, the pent-up consumer and industrial demand that resulted, and the fact other international players had not yet economically come to the fore. <br /><br />Now, these same early Boomers have kids going to college and grad school. It is still unthinkable for them to imagine their Bobby or Susie working on cars for a living or repairing HVAC. Nonetheless, the whole set of conditions which had underlain their college and work lives no longer exists and the realization just hasn't gotten to them yet. The economy certainly has changed and certainly not in the way many thought it would. This economy just will not support everybody being "white collar". But until the tuition bubble finally bursts, and legions of these kids end up unable to ever pay back these student loans, the higher education gravy train keeps rolling down the track.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com