Ted Rall for April 28, 2023

try a European college

“Capitalism is a wild beast. We need to tame it. But globalization has brought more people out of poverty than any other -ism. If somebody comes to me with a better idea, I’ll sign up.

There’s a funny moment when you realize that as an activist: The off-ramp out of extreme poverty is, ugh, commerce, it’s entrepreneurial capitalism.I thought that if we just redistributed resources, then we could solve every problem. I now know that’s not true…” – Bono

So true – and yet we redistribute the wealth of our young people before they even earn it, our old people in the nursing home, our sick people in the hospital, and our workers at the gas pump & grocery store.

If you’ve got money, watch the furk out! Young or old, sick or poor – it don’t signify.

Try not borrowing quite so much. Try going to (some years of) a less expensive, maybe 2-year institution. Try finding scholarships (they’re astoundingly various). And of course, DO consider whether you might actually prefer becoming an HVAC tech, plumber, IT specialist (though… here comes AI) or big equipment operator. I loved being a building contractor… right up until my knees started to give out right when there was a downturn in the economy. THEN I went back to school…

A few months ago, I wrote an article in Linked-In on this very subject and one earlier on the problem of student loans. In both, it’s NOT what you know, it’s WHO knows you. In the nearly two score since I left with an MBA, I’ve earned even less than a high school graduate. In the two jobs (not a career), I stayed at the bottom over a quarter century. Without those connections, it’s futile.

Neither of my adult children chose college, and both are making in the high six figures. Why would you want to enrich the worthless leeches that run today’s colleges?

I teach at a Florida State College. These along with our Florida Community Colleges offer programs which will cover the first 2 years of most 4 year undergrad programs in the State University System including USF, FSU, UF, UCF and several other 4 year universities. Thus students would only need 2 years at the larger universities (3 for engineering and pharmacy) and the advantage is that the tuition at the State and Community Colleges are half of these bigger school and in many regions of the state so students can go to class from home. We have also retained some of the remote classes which we utilized during COVID. It is still quite a bit pricey (the cost of tuition for local/in-state students is about $105/credit hour with some cooperative programs available to reduce these costs) but a heckuva lot less than the numbers Ted accurately lists for the typical upper tier private 4 year liberal arts institution.

On the downside DeSatan is the governor and he has already targeted one of the 4 year schools in Sarasota: New College and removed it board of trustees and replaced the president as it was a free thinking liberal arts university where the students designed their own degree and was essentially an “honors” college for enlightened students who wanted to make a contribution to society, this is unfortunately changing. As DeSatan infiltrates our campuses, our free speech will be muted. The Florida State Colleges and Universities are about the only place in FL which is a state facility where people can speak and debate freely. DeSatan wants to take that away as he has done in the public schools K-12. So, for now, State Colleges are a great bargain for those on a budget, heck we even give out lots of work study for those who are struggling to make tuition in these times. Hopefully the repubbas do not mute us along with everyone else. It is possible to get an education without going into debt via loans but it takes some research and perseverance.

Instead of having to get massive student loans maybe we need to look at reforming the college tuition situation. When a college can post huge profits then there’s something wrong. At least at the state level there should be a Medicare like program to cover tuition. If you want ivy league you pay through the nose but if you go to State U you should walk away with no debt.

I had the same thought the other day. Now I’m scared that Ted and I are on the same page, LOL! Only kidding Ted, I do agree with you occasionally!!

The point is, the loan ends and the income differential remains. I paid for my kids to go to state schools and am kinda annoyed that the gummint forgave people who planned poorly and had to borrow money and punished parents who saved and students who worked through school.

I went to CUNY when it was not only free, any HS graduate who wanted to go to college could go for free (to a two-year if grades did not support going to a four-year).

College isn’t for everyone! Depends on what career you’re interested in. Some trades make more money than a college grad.

One needs to go to college to be proficient at 8th grade math?!?!?

The importance of college will change once they have economically shut out the riff-raff.

College’s are to learn the skills of socializing, It’s seldom what you know that gets you the good jobs but who.. you know.

The right wing wants you uneducated and malleable.

Never saw quite such a batch of weak tea commentary, overcome with self-righteous clichés and pathetic banality straight out of the 20th century.

Ev’body foget that for about 30 or 40 years we all virtually guaranteed younkins that if they went to college and graduated that they would be set for life?

It was a lie.

Now we need to address it big time. A generation and 1/2 of our kids can have ruined credit for decades, or we can do something else.

There is no way of knowing what we have lost with our policy of not giving every person their best opportunity to achieve whatever they can. It is detrimental to the entire human race, not just to the individual. And, it isn’t just that the mind that could have discovered the cure for cancer could have been born in poverty and never learned to read.

The average college graduate pays more in federal taxes very year of their working life than the average high school graduate. If that’s divided by the 4 years it takes to get a college education, and public schools were free, those additional taxes would pay for the cost of college, with a net gain for total income taxes paid. The rest of us wouldn’t have to have a tax raise to pay for it, in fact the net effect would be more money coming in without one. This doesn’t even consider that with the degree, the person is less likely to ever need unemployment or welfare, and that more students would complete high school if they could see it as the way to a good job. They would also be paying a larger amount in all other types of taxes, social security and Medicare.

The best investment we could make to keep America strong is to not just forgive all student loans but to make all public higher education, including trade schools, etc totally free, as long as the student is making decent grades. There is no better way to spend money than, to give our people every opportunity to be the best they can be. Yes, It’s good for them individually, but the country is made up of individuals, so what’s good for one is good for the country.

We don’t, even during 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.

The one guarantee is that unless you’re rich you will be in debt the rest of your life.

On average, a Canadian student at a Canadian university only pays a little over $5,000 in tuition and fees for a year of education. In comparison, the average private school tuition in the United States is $32,100.

Ted Rall’s numbers are nonsensical. The average student loan monthly payment is nowhere near $2000/month. It is closer to $300. The number Rall presents appears to approximate the cost of borrowing the entire cost of college with no other financial aid, no family contribution, and no money earned by the student. That is hardly the situation of the average student. (Figures for four year degree at private nonprofit college)

Need to calculate long-term rather than short-term. Rall is only comparing starting salaries.

Typical earnings for bachelor’s degree holders are $36,000 or 84 percent higher than those whose highest degree is a high school diploma. College graduates on average make $1.2 million more over their lifetime.

Private college? How about community colleges, in state colleges, not borrowing money?

Brought to you by the Reagan Revolution……………

In the trades, Industrial Mechanic. No student loans and good pay.

So, maybe don’t go to a 4 year private college, unless you have a very well thought out plan to leverage that education into a job that pays more than $4,600 a month?

42% of Public University grads graduate with no debt. The median loan payment for those that did borrow, is $222.

Making college free for everyone isn’t a solution to the cost of education, it’s a wasteful jobs program for academia. It also fails to address one of the biggest factors in education discrepancy between poor people & rich people: opportunity cost. Taking 4+ years to go to school, means 4+ years of little to no income. The kids of line cooks & house cleaners don’t have that luxury.

I admit in my 20’s and early 30’s I envied my friends who didn’t go to college. They had so much money to spend and save. And then because of the economic downturn when I graduated, jobs were hard to get. My starting salary was not great out of college since businesses were enabled to pay college graduates poorly. Between that and student loan payments, it took a looong time to even start to catch up to my non-college going peers.

“Starting salary” is hardly a basis for comparison. I started at $397 per month. My highest earning year was $300K. (I’m semi-retired now.) Those are two entirely different concepts.

Also, student loan monthly payment isn’t a good basis for comparison since student loans payments are finite.

You learn how to budget.

Excellent cartoon Ted. As you know, my $6000 loan in the 1990s for a paralegal education is now at $50,000 owing. Sadly, all the representations from the long-ago-defunct school to me for a career path ended up being total misrepresentations.