Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for April 06, 2023

Should have gone to trade school.

It’s that thing that only pays in other countries.

I guess he didn’t go to his safety school?

$350K is far too much. Bob’s kid is an idiot to have gone that far in debt simply to get a degree from a “great college”.

When I went to a great college the tuition was 2750. The previous year there were protests, “2500 Too Dam# Much”

I find this phrase “start a family” quite annoying. Most of us are already part of a family. Our parents, our brothers and sisters, cousins, nephews, and nieces are part of our family. We don’t start a family when we have children, we add to the family we’ve already got.

Maybe the Crocs have the best idea. Forget college and the swamp of debt. Just go next door and eat Zeeba Neighba.

Generation Z has their own ideas about starting families.

Community colleges are a great inexpensive way for many high school grads to start. They also remedy the learning deficiencies in math and English that lots of high school grads come out with. Then transfer to a four year school later.

It’s the new American way. Back in the 20th century, you could work your way through college and leave without debt. Some state schools didn’t even charge tuition. No more. Now, the US makes getting an education ever harder while it falls behind to other countries that make a college education as accessible as high school, ie., free.

Times have changed. I went to a state college in the late ’70s/early 80s. Borrowed about $6500 dollars.

Here in Denmark education is not only “free” as in its paid for by all taxpayers, those who study get paid like $900 a month to do so. Most students work a few hours on the side and/or take loans that are actually cheap, so few build any debt worth mentioning.Education should be like that everywhere, since everyone benefits from people being educated and it should not be about what your parents can afford. In fact education being paid like that makes for greater social mobility ie. “the American dream” is also more real, since it is interest and talents that controls which education you get.Also the whole “free” thing means greater freedom for all, if parents wanna try building their own business it don’t mean risking medical coverage for the whole family or the children’s future (education). Likewise, no one works a crap job in order to hang on to medical insurance and bankruptcy because of medical costs is not a thing.

After the Military, then Trade School, then my company sent me to college, and I made enough money to send my daughter to college so she owes nothing, Learning a trade was the best thing I ever did! Working with your hands is so rewarding!

Learn a trade they pay you as you learn in an apprenticeship.

The most important thing he learned from his Liberal Arts degree was the phrase “Would you like fries with that?”

His future’s so bright he’s got to wear shades!

Let me help: although every effort has been made on the part of Congress and universities to make college unaffordable, it is still the best path toward a good career. College grads still make a significantly higher salary, have better health care, and have better retirement plans than non-college grads. The way you get $350,000 in debt is by going to a small private college without any scholarships whatsoever. And even then, you have to work pretty hard to spend that kind of money.

‘til debt do us part…? Poor Bob’s son!

The modern American Education Industry at work!

Who can name a politician who supported the law that excludes college debt from being discharged through bankruptcy?

Missing the point about the amount of debt; he’s making a point of the high cost of college debt for many students.

Didn’t know this about student loans: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/safeborrowing/student/bankruptcy/#:~:text=For%20cases%20filed%20on%20and,your%20family%2C%20and%20your%20dependents.

I know just how Bob feels. Even community college had me in debt for a long time, to the point where I wasn’t allowed to attend a semester unless my debt was fully paid and believe me, it took a long time to fully pay it.

One big lifetime debt ceiling sham

Why do I get the feeling this is based on a true story?

Well, if you go to a pricey private university, yeah. But not if you go to a public one.

The dictionary defines college like this: A land of indoctrination and poor decision making.

community colleges aren’t cheap you know

Wrong major…

His high -school classmate who didn’t study hard and didn’t get good grades, but who could play football, made $350,000 in NIL.

Explain college. You cut out pictures and paste then on a poster. Idiot, that’s a collage. Oh, sorry.

And he did what all the adults told him was the right thing to do.

I’m SO glad my daughter opted to follow her mother’s heritage and go to University in Canada! Her tuition was about 1/3 of what it would have been at a comparable school back here in the States!

Very sad how in this country good ol capitalism has destroyed higher education for many people. Other countries offer free or very affordable college/university education

Take profit out of education, and health care.

The current situation has been enabled by several factors. A) Many high school graduates have no classroom understanding of financial matters & no part time or summer job experience. B) Gov’t has encouraged borrowing to make higher education ‘affordable’. C) Colleges have taken advantage of this faux affordability to both raise costs & add offerings that don’t lead to financial success. D) Employer complaints that new graduates are often unprepared to ‘do the job’ have been ignored. E) With gov’t enabling, this has persisted & grown as a vicious cycle. End of Rant.

Don’t get loans for collage. Don’t have kids before you’re financially stable – if at all. Work at night (or day if night classes). Do work-study programs. Apply for scholarships. Get your degree in 3 semesters (for AA) or 5 1/2 semesters for others – in 20 years you’ll never miss that extra time but will miss the opp you had to invest for retirement.

College wouldn’t be so expensive if the head wouldn’t get a house, car, expense account, a plane, and over a Million dollar salary….

Once college loans began, tuition skyrocketed, far faster than inflation, and the colleges all built palatial buildings and hired thousands of administrators that contribute nothing to education.

Get a job in bank. Embezzle some money and you’ll have it paid off in no time.

The government should pay off everyone’s debt. (Don’t be concerned about the fact the government doesn’t really have the money either).

…all because of one article in the Washington Post 30 years ago…

“…went to a college with a championship sports program and two $50M stadiums…”

I don’t understand why people become so pressed over a comic strip. It’s ink and paper. It’s a joke. Move on and get a hobby.

and you agreed to it, went there, got the education YOU wanted and so now YOU get to pay for what YOU agreed to. Don’t want to pay, then don’t go. Figure something else out. Why should we pay for what YOU got.

They’ve really got to change that no-bankruptcy rule. If you don’t have the money, you don’t have it. Why do they think the Department of Ed is the only entity that can get blood from a stone?

Head of nail has been hit.

I attended a small college back in the early ‘60s and remember obtaining a $1,250.00 Student Loan for my final year there. In today’s money that would be over $12,000 and wouldn’t even cover the cost of the tuition for one semester there, today!

But he was able to find a well-paying job that exactly matches what he studied, right? RIGHT?

Recently read that people with a 4 year degree will make on average $1,000,000 more over their entire lifetime (adjusted for inflation) than someone without a 4 year degree. By the time it takes to pay off the $350,000 with interest over the course of a lifetime, you might break even.

It used to be about getting a well-rounded education… until greed set in and made it all about getting a high-paying job

An example of inflationary greed: My tuition at UW-Madison was under $200 per semester. Of course, that was 60 years, and one career and long retirement, ago.

Meh, I sacrificed to buy Education Trusts for my kids so they would not have any college debt and it is working. I did that because I know my kids are going to inherit the national debt (along with the extra costs that will come from Medicare and its $50-100 TRILLION of future unfunded liability and the unfunded liabilities of Social Security… which is also why I started retirement accounts for both kids when they were toddlers and which can, hopefully, grow enough to help.)

I graduated in 2008 and I STILL owed $350,000! (Buff State is an expensive school.) After my Neuroligist declared me “unable to ever gain meaningful employment again” after my 2011 TBI, it was DROPPED! Guess what though?!? BUFF STATE STILL EXISTS!!! D8

Let’s hear it for predatory lending!

If student debt is not to be forgiven, why not restructure the loans so they are like a mortgage that can be paid off or paid down?

And make their interest rate equivalent to the prime rate at the time of their mortgage?

The lenders could earn a profit, and they could keep their ill-gotten gains. Future students would no longer be prey.

Far better to have working class guys like ME pay for his education… Hope he enjoys his Tesla.

It’s not a matter of explaining college, it’s a matter of explaining American society.

Yeah,explain college to me.

Ron De Santis went to Yale and he’s STILL a know-nothing.

Whoopsss, missed a 0 there…

College, the school of financial hard knocks…

Explain college again? Easy: Most successful PR campaign in history.

I graduated in 1967. My classmates and I paid for college with summer jobs and part-time jobs during the school year.

My tuition in 1976 was $350/semester at the University of Alabama. God, I’m old.

Executive position requires university. University requires $$$. Therefore, only those with $$$ ever become executives. It’s called the class system.

Indentured servitude.

There was a time this would have caused me to say ‘We can do better’. Now I say ’Let’s do something else’.

Brainwashing you pay for.

It’s inexplicable, Pig. Ivy League is now $90K/year….

A better choice:

https://www.mikeroweworks.org/

College: Not free. Your choice.