The cost of higher education for students on the edge of poverty
I cannot stand these articles. It's time for the whole suburban-liberal "follow your dreams and go to college" attitude to abruptly implode.
Don't waste your time reading this article. I can sum it up for you:
1.) The first subject in this article is a theater major who has been in college for over six years. 2.) The second subject is paying a lease on a new vehicle and had studied abroad in Italy, despite barely earning above minimum wage.
There's no beating around the bush; you can't fix stupid. I have very little sympathy for people who effectively squandered what little they had instead of at least making an attempt at good decision making. To fight and lose is one thing. To say you were doomed from the start and that fighting would be a waste of your time is another.
> The brand-new white Hyundai Elantra was $17,000; her monthly payments, $262.
Wow, that's more expensive than the car I bought (and felt guilty about) as a newly employed software developer. I wonder if we should be offering financial counseling in addition to financial aid.
The article says she had some "poor advising" at the community college and she is currently trying to get a degree in music theater.
Liz spent 6 years enrolled at a community college without getting a degree and then transferred to a school to work on bachelors where she thinks she'll need to spend another 2.5 years. It doesn't really give the details of what happened during those 6 years, but if she was able to stay enrolled for 12 semesters without getting an associate degree there seem to be problems that go much deeper than a lack of resources to go to school.
If the advisors were seriously giving her advice that would prevent her from getting a 2-year degree in 6 years (even allowing for her trying to figure out what she wanted to study) the school should be liable.
As a person who almost didn't attend a school and dropped out from university, I can confidently say that many (if not most) schools and universities across the globe are completely useless. You may think I'm kidding or exaggerating. But seriously, what exactly they are "teaching"? For most part, I've seen school/university teachers who never care to explain core ideas, instead their so called "teaching" is mostly about mindless memorization. Since I was a kid, I always frustrated how stupid my teachers were.
I ended up studying practically everything on my own (except reading/writing/elementary math which my grandpa taught me). I learned myself how to write programs when I was 10/11 years old. My parents were not programmers, so I had no help.
I lived in Uzbekistan, Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands. I'm working as a software engineer since 2009 (I started my career working at internet-club in 2002/2003).
I can confidently tell that most of "experts" (in whatever field) who have so called "higher education" diploma don't understand a damn thing.
Cost of education = cost of books, nothing more!
If you have luxury to have internet access (no sarcasm, I didn't had internet access till 2002/2003), then add cost of your personal computing device (again no sarcasm, I had only 8-bit ZX Spectrum till 2000!) and internet access subscription.
Peter Thiel has a similar view on "higher education" system:
The most astounding thing reading the comments are from people that are pretty well of condemning some poor folk that are making mistakes. These people have not seen success, therefore it very difficult for them to come out of these situations. Countless articles have demonstrated how a majority of poor kids going to college have a tough time graduating. I am so happy to be living in a state where these issues are getting discussed.