Lalo Alcaraz for May 20, 2014

I agree with you, Lalo. The college degree is over priced and over valued.

My son graduated Friday, no debt, several good job prospects, he just picked a major that HAS job opportunities. Combine that with a lot of different skills and training acquired in the Navy, and he’s very marketable.

Especially if it’s in a useless liberal art… Or worse, fine arts degree.

tigger: I didn’t actually mention it, but we DID set up college funds for our kids when our daughter was 6, and son was 2. She graduated college with NO debt (scholarships also helped), but her husband owed over $20,000! Our son had that fund to call on, plus VA, and his additional savings on his own, to ad to the fund we set up. It’s called, yes, planning..

I didn’t see any comments that read that everyone should go to college. The main point being made through several of the comments is that a burden of debt upon graduation is not inevitable. I’ve read reports that state that the average college graduate earns $17/hour more than the average person who only has a high school diploma. That’s over a million dollars after a 40 year career. That would seem to indicate that a degree is something of measurable value. There will always be those exceptions that test the rule. That is, there will be people with only a high school diploma who make more than the average college graduate and college graduates who make less than the average high school graduate. The exceptions don’t make the rule as is commonly misstated. I believe a person generally needs to either have a trade or a degree to earn a comfortable living. I have one child who is a journeyman in his trade, 3 who have college degrees, and one who has only a high school diploma. The journeyman earns the most income but the three college graduates all earn comfortable salaries. All three college graduates are free of debt for their educations and received little financial help from me. One had a full ride ROTC scholarship, one was a non-traditional student whose employer covered most of the cost of college, and one worked nearly full time at a car dealership’s parts department, attended school full time and was married with a child. They made sacrifices because they recognized the value of education and the lack of choices brought on by a burden of debt incurred to satisfy the wants of the moment. The one with only a high school diploma earns the least and life is a continual struggle.

dtroutma said, about 9 hours agoMy son graduated Friday, no debt, several good job prospects, he just picked a major that HAS job opportunities. Combine that with a lot of different skills and training acquired in the Navy, and he’s very marketable.————————————————————————————Sounds like you’ve learned some lessons in Personal Responsibility and being self-reliant.Maybe you should apply those lessons to all your ultra-left, mommy-government positions and join the Republican Party.

“If you think education is expensive, you should see the cost of ignorance.”

The tuition debt on the individual student is a problem for the student. More importantly, it is a problem for our society.The average college graduate pays about $5800 more a year in federal taxes than the average high school graduate. Over 30 years, that totals about $172,000. If that’s divided by the 4 years it takes to get a college education, the government would break even if it paid every student $42,000 a year to attend school.This doesn’t even consider that with the degree, the person is less likely to ever need unemployment or welfare, that more students would complete high school if they could see a clear way to a really good job, and that they would be enriching the Social Security and Medicare funds. They would also be paying a larger amount in all other types of taxes. And they would be buying more products which would boost the economy, and put more people to work at jobs that require all different levels of education.The best investment we could make to keep America strong is to not just forgive all student loans but to make all higher education, as long as the student is making decent grades, totally free, and increase the number of schools and teachers to make room for all who can profit from the education.We don’t, even at a time of high unemployment, have so much a lack of jobs as we have a lack of people who have the skills to perform the jobs that are available- in other words, a lack of education.

Wether plumber or physicist, what used to be through the skilled labor cycle, now requires perhaps two years of college, and the country DOES NEED more skilled labor, working in jobs here at home, that haven’t been shipped overseas by the same folks who’ve made college so expensive.

Get a useful degree or acquire a skill. Philosophy degrees are for times when the economy is good and jobs are abundant, not to mention when a healthy middle class exists.

Not that liberal arts aren’t useful but, what’s needed in America (and will help you pay your loans) are STEM degrees.

@proterm, two examples of extreme income for non-college graduates: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

Both dropped out.