Hey Soy Boy, Deep State, China Paid, Antifa Libz...

[GMDino]

(02-22-2021, 01:23 PM)Dill Wrote: Back in my teen years, there were still a considerable number of people who thought that college was about education as much or more as vocational training. Five of my mother's six brothers went to college because people in her family saw it as "bettering" themselves, but not only financially. They had a very protestant obligation to develop all their talents. The whole person.

It seems that rationale disappeared during the '70s, in part as educators at the tertiary level began to meet demand from employers and students to make education more "relevant"--i.e., in practice more useful to employers and less likely to produce civil disruption. By "disappeared" I mean that one began to hear the education rationale pushed less and less among family and educators and the "good job" rationale more.  This was still before students became education "consumers" and "customers" for whom colleges had to compete via spiffy facilities like dorm "suites" and leisure gyms.

(02-22-2021, 02:42 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: It really picked up with the Clinton years, which is when we saw such a push for people to go to college. I've definitely seen a lot of material from the Department of Ed talking up college and showing those sorts of tables.

Now, specifically to your last section, why do you think there are no longer private lenders? I started working in the field in 2012 and stopped that role in 2019 when I became an auditor. During that time frame, not only were private loans a regular part of the process, but they were growing in their proportion of the loan funds the university took in.

When I went to college in 1987 there was that same "push" that you *had* to have a BA/BS in order to get a "good" job.  When I was graduating four years later we were being told that you REALLY need a Masters to get a good job.

My field barely required a degree in the first place so I passed on that.

And I paid my $160 a month every month for ten years.  Plus $90 ever three months for three years for a second loan.

That was it.

My wife went back to college after we were married (2001).  Took her six plus years to get her BS because of going part-time and raising the kids (she got pregnant with out second child right before her first semester!) and we are still paying those loans off.  We did a refinancing on them and despite her being in a field where they would be forgiven after paying for ten years it was denied because we didn't make large enough payments.  Had we could have afforded to  have made those payments we wouldn't need it forgiven, but I digress.

Now our son is in his first year of college.  So far he hasn't needed a supplemental loan but he will, probably next year.  His four years at a state university will actually cost about as much as mine did at a private school 30 years ago when it is all said and done.  Books are more and he doesn't live on campus.  

It's just a crazy game and you have to choose how you are going to play it.