Shoe by Gary Brookins and Susie MacNelly for May 02, 2014

Last I heard, maybe 30 years ago, Berea College in Berea, KY allowed students to work in lieu of tuition. Don’t know now if that’s still the case.

I took a summer job as a dishwasher when I was going to college. You won’t see today’s kids doing anything like that.

I used the G.I. Bill, went to Comm. Coll. at nights, which allowed me to work full time in construction. I wish I could say that I had planned it, but instead it just fell into place.

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.

@DLee4144There’s the real risk of becoming overqualified. I got a job at a Med School requiring some knowledge of chemistry. I had had a course in HS. Other applicants had BS and MS degrees. I was just what they were looking for.

A tremendous amount taught in secondary schools and colleges is theoretical and not applicable to real world. And that’s not all. I trained to be an Amphibian Tractor Crewman in the USMC. In stateside training the machine gun and passengers would ride inside the tractor. But in Vietnam the gun and passengers rode on top of the tractor. Formal education is as much a racket as any other.

That all sounds good, but the law of supply and demand means that the more grads, the less the corporations have to pay.

A bachelors degree is not job training! It’s general education, as in theory and logic so one can think and communicate clearly.

The prime point being made is that “real” wages have not increased in relation to the cost of a college education. Wages have lagged in relation to the cost of living, compare that to the cost of a University education (for sad amusement compare wages v individual medical insurance premiums).

-No. Having nieces and nephews in this position, I know that a lot of jobs formerly available to kids aren’t here now. One of my nieces has been waiting tables but this doesn’t earn her enough to pay tuition AND room and board.-My one niece and nephew used to be able to tutor foreign students in English, along with tutoring them to use computers, and working in the college libraries. Now that many of those jobs have turned into nonpaying jobs for volunteers, both my niece and nephew are actually teaching English as a second language in Japan and Thailand, to people who intend to come to the US and open businesses….

Thanks, dzw3030. Going to Comm. Coll. was a lucky mistake on my part. I had applied to a state U. The U., before accepting me, said that everything looked in order but I needed to provide entrance exam scores. Those living east of the MIssissippi R. send requests to Princeton, NJ and those living west of the River send requests to Berkeley, CA. I wrote to Princeton and they wrote back saying they were sorry that they couldn’t find any record of my test scores and they refunded my $2 fee. Then it occurred to me: I took the SAT in DaNang, Vietnam in Feb.,‘69 when I had an FPO San Francisco address. It was too late for me to get into the U. when I wanted, so I made the decision to go to CC. which didn’t require entrance exam scores. I’m grateful it turned out that way. Tuition was much cheaper and all of my 61 semester hours transferred to a state U.