Referencing the NY Times article yesterday.
A 30-credit computer science Masters Degree at Univ of Southern California: $57,000. Now, online, through Georgia Tech, online candidates can get access to the same highly ranked education for… $7,000. You don’t need “Free Education.” You don’t need more grants, loans, gov assistance, tuition reimbursement. You don’t need to perpetuate an archaic education system of cronyism, inefficiency, time wasting brick-and-mortar classrooms, “tenured” professors that you never see or talk to but who rake in comfortable salaries. What are you paying for? What is the return on that investment? What are going to do with all of your debt? What is that cost-benefit analysis?
What you really need is competition, transparency, information that translates into a knowledge base and skill set that adds value to an employer and/or customer that needs you to do something that he cannot do for himself. Where is the value? My guess is that it is not found at a desk, inside a building, listening to a boring lecture at Univ of Southern California at $5,000 PER CLASS! If you want information, knowledge, improved skills and perhaps a certain set of credentials, there are 21st century efficiencies and cost savings at your disposal. There’s even a thing called electricity.
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In response to a facebook reader that states that even $7,000 can be impossible for some people to come up with, I replied:
“… Of course, student loans are a relatively recent phenomenon. The generation before us worked and paid for school as they went because costs were manageable. That has all been changed through the crony gov-education cabal that raises costs at every extension of additional “aid.” Just like “health care.” Those inflation rates are astronomical in comparison with baseline inflation for a reason.
“My opinion is that with this level of tuition costs, kids could (SHOULD) work and do school (4-yr, or vocational) part-time. They can work full time and pay as they go. They have plenty of time in a 40-hour work week to do part-time course work. I’m doing it now myself. My opinion is that the current educational system spits out high school grads that often can barely read, dumbs down “higher education” in order to accommodate the near-imbeciles, extends adolescence into perpetuity, and handicaps kids to have NOTHING to offer an employer until they are in their mid to late 20s, maybe 30s, maybe never. And this is assuming that defined education paths are actually beneficial for many or most. People can pick up worthwhile information and marketable skills in any number of ways that do not require a piece of paper from a credentialing body.
“This is the future, IMO. Online, open courses, self-teaching, highly competitive pricing, etc. Brick-and-mortar and Gov-Run schools may not die because there are too many bottom feeders that maintain their parasitism on these programs of infinite inefficiencies and debt, but when competition is permitted and innovation is allowed, I think many of our systems can be drastically improved – not by a fiat decree from above, but from workable and affordable solutions that are built at ground level by those invested in outcomes. Health care, especially. Lots of middle men, parasites, bureaucrats, hidden deals, non-transparent pricing, etc….”
Also, I’m considering the $50K difference in the degrees from the two institutions. If a similar degree can be earned for $50K less, where did that money go? What did it support? What value was extracted for that money? Who is holding that debt? Or whose taxes were taken to fund that,… and what could that family have done with its FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS?!!! OMG. If the $50K weren’t taken, wasted, redistributed, whatever,… how many people would be in a position to just pay the $7,000 out of pocket over 2-3 years? The economics, root cause analysis and down-stream effects of this could fill a book.
And the debt. Cumulative student loan debt is now greater than $1T in the US. What has been purchased? How many practically worthless degrees have been “earned” upon which kids will be paying their student loans for 20 years while they wait tables and make coffee? What if that trillion had been spent in other ways, or better yet, left in the hands of those that earned it? Gov debt is about $20T and growing at roughly $1T per year now. Unsustainable. Every asset could be confiscated from every citizen in this country and not be able to pay off the debt.
There is no viable tax plan that can offer people what they want… “for free.” There is no plan to fund what has already been promised for social security, medicare, etc, etc, etc. It’s all a big lie. A Ponzi scheme. A fraud perpetrated by both parties and anybody that runs for public office. As Frédéric Bastiat said, “Government is the great fiction by which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.”
Rather than watch the clown debates and nauseating news coverage put on for the masses, I’m going to continue to look for understanding of and solutions to life’s problems from and with people that are driven to innovate, explain, share, create, invite and lead rather than those that mandate, tax, fine, punish, coerce, force, destroy.