College was cheap, easy, and fun

Well, I meant that in a relative way. Everything seems more competitive now in the academic world, and the easier majors no longer lead to decent jobs. But you always had to do some serious work to avoid flunking out.

Remember when some office supervisor jobs required a four-year degree, but they didn't care what your major had been? Quite a few companies used to think that way. That's gone forever.

 

I went to community college for two years before transferring to the university. If I remember correctly, the tuition was something like $45 per semester.

And I agree, Karen, that college is not like it was. For me, it was the most mind-expanding, eye-opening, limit-lifting experience of my life. The saying was ... "a mind, once expanded, never again returns to its original dimensions." I agree with that.

I gather, however, that it's not quite that way anymore. Sad.

 

My first year of college the first semester cost me (my parents) 450 dollars. Mid 1960s, never made it to a second semester to much time having fun!!!!

 

I agree, it was not easy. But was it worth it? No for me. And you could learn them yourself if you really wanted to learn, not in college.

 

yes and no. well i went mostly when it was free or cheap, and worth the effort of doing the reference research and lab work.

blender didn't yet exist, and there was no way in hell i could have afforded to buy autocad 13 or 14 to learn on.

the things i took classes for, were things you really needed access to the appropriate lab and materials.

of course if you could afford to provide for yourself access to all these things on your own, sure, of course.

and with the cost today, to indenture yourself for the rest of your life to pay for it, depending on what, i have to agree, i don't think most things would be worth that.

when the started charging tuition and community colleges, america really started screwing itself with that one.

and of course there's no resource that colleges are the ONLY way to get access too. especially now that we have the internet.

but there are many things its still useful to take the odd first year course in. just not worth what they want to charge for it these days.

university libraries are more oriented toward useful information, where as public libraries are more for entertainment. a university with a good engineering or science department will have things you won't find in the public library down town, nor at barns and nobles.

some of the things in university engineering and science labs you can't even buy legally, and even if you could, if you could afford to buy them at all, you could afford to pay cash for classes and never have to worry about loans.

but you're right about there being a lot of things you CAN do. it just depends on what you're interested in.

you CAN, for example, buy or build up from kits, at least hobby level 3d printers and cnc machines of all sorts. and the software to create the files to drive them you can find free versions of. and free tutorials to learn how to use them you can find on line too.

some things are useful to be mentored in though. some sticky point you can never quite figure out from the tutorials and reference sources, someone who knows and has used the stuff can make it simple for you.

even that though, yes, you can sometimes find outside of formal educational institutions.

making everything have to be about money, has taken the concept of higher learning, a loong loong way, from what the concept of university started out to be, hundreds of years ago, when it was first invented.

 

My first semester in college it cost 450 bucks and it was a good college in florida. Ah the good old days

 

One thing is, you have geniuses and halfwits, top degrees and crappy degrees.
And then at the end of it, huge numbers of grads end up in shit jobs. Or even shit grads are unemployed and useless grads get reasonable jobs, for a variety of reasons.

The big problem as I see it, is that big corporations run the show. And they couldnt give a shit about the country/people who's political system they are manipulating/abusing.

 

In hindsight, it's kind of disgusting that so many people used to feel so sure of getting good paying jobs that they weren't motivated to do anything more than just show up for class most of the time, and make a minimal effort to keep a B or C average. Unfortunately, when the mass layoffs of the last decade came, luck and job performance had about equal importance in determining who stayed and who left.

Big companies have so much structure that idiots can do limited damage. Not so in smaller companies, where there is nowhere to hide.

I can't figure out why tuition has gone up so much faster than general inflation. Professors haven't received massive raises.

 

I went to a two year college, got an associates degre in water and waste water purification. I haven't cotton rich in he job but I've had a job with no fear of lay off,
Kickass benefits and a decent wage. I did't get rich but I have been comfortable.

 

The work-reward aspect of college puzzled me. I worked very hard for my university entrance exams. Not so hard at university. Maybe there are numerous factors. 1stly, people are fearful that they won't have a work-life balance in the future. So they don't want to work too hard. 2ndly, I think many people secretly know they chose a course they didn't really have passion for. 3rd, tutors in certain courses like law will undermark their students - they don't want everyone getting top grades, even if they are worth good grades. Finally, I think students often lack study skills, which contribute to lower grades than their ability suggests.

I think the job market in the West has become ridiculous. Its one thing to have a market economy. But its hardly a "free market" in the West, because the fundamental forces are against young grads.

China made massive subsidies to jump start its economy. And I think the West has to do the same. Otherwise its gonna see Harvard grads in call centres their whole lives.

I think tuition has gone up for several reasons. 1stly, endowments probably weren't getting the returns that were hoped for. I also suspect govts aren't contributing to student fees (that is the case in England).
Finally, and I think this is perhaps the main reason, universities are becoming more and more commercial. Big building programmes and seducing students from Asia etc. My university's management was pretty amoral, and it was all about expansion and £££s coming in... mostly from foreign students.

Where that all leaves young people who want to study, I seriously wonder.

Looking back, I'd have gone straight into business instead.