generation limbo: 20-somethings today, debt, unemployment, the questionable value of a college education

different enough that it doesn't make sense to pay down all student debt bc some might be ameliorated?

My kids are 12/10/7. I opened up 529s for them when they were born. Have been scared for the past few years that I've been lighting money on fire.

Ugh.

in ten years it will still be dumb to go to a private college, unless you get a full ride

ameliorated via bankruptcy, sure, I think that's inevitably coming back one day. I wouldn't bet on anything nicer than that tho.

you'll only be lighting it on fire if they don't want to go to college and you make them. I'm a sucker who believes in the mission of higher ed and the value of a liberal education and of getting to fuck around in your late teens/early twenties in a weird liminal space between childhood and "real life"; just make sure they all learn how to program. xps

i used to be a sucker who believed in the mission of higher ed too :'(

it's not like personal bankruptcy is an especially desirable option either, and also there's a good chance anything that's done to change the structure will be grandfathered (reverse grandfathered?) so it will only affect debt taken on after a certain year.

Mordy, again, also keep in mind that "higher education" includes tons and tons of institutions that I would imagine aren't even going to be on the radar for most ilxors' kids. Like while "is it worth it to take on debt to go to Bennington" is a very good question to think carefully about, the person in that position is not anywhere near in for the kind of trouble that a person looking to take on debt for a for-profit U might be in.

My kids will likely want to go to college, it's a family tradition and all their friends will likely move lockstep towards it. And I believe in the cause. I just don't want them to end up with shitloads of debt.

I have a feeling like your 7 year old will have a way to get the letters 'BA' on his/her resume for less than 6 figures

it might involve something that isn't a 4 year summer camp w/ lots of booze

otm but i find just typing them on there works pretty well at this point xp

tbh people underestimate the amount of financial aid most schools give out; FAFSA calculations take into account the number of kids you have in school & will have in school, and most reputable places (i.e. anywhere but NYU) report meeting 90 to 100% of a student's demonstrated need through grants and subsidized loans. Whether your Expected Family Contribution matches your actual ability to contribute is another story I guess.

Hopefully she will be so smart that it will cost less than that.

tbh I worry less about my kids and a lot more about other kids who are starting out with a lot bigger odds against them.

the person in that position is not anywhere near in for the kind of trouble that a person looking to take on debt for a for-profit U might be in.

oh don't u worry - i rely heavily on the comfort of not being quite as screwed as most of the world

The solution to the problem: capping the tuiton fees.

water flows downhill

ya some of these places use tuition as a wealth transfer mechanism ie harvard probably should raise its tuition, given what many of its students could pay. the problem is the schools that aren't harvard but use it as a point of reference.

should higher ed retain its non-profit status?

it's hard to imagine how taking that away would improve things. considering how much $ comes from the govt, there's more leverage in putting strings on that than making colleges pay taxes. obama's already started down that path.

that's probably just me projecting my dismay of the athletic departments influence on higher ed

believe it or not I was actually an activist in the cause of fighting the creeping influence/dominance of the athletic dept at my university, and in spite of that, I don't really think athletic departments are a major part of the picture for the issues in this thread.

This is not the thread but I'd like to hear more about the athletics depts having too much influence. I know nothing of it.

well they're mostly just a money sink at institutions that have more than enough money sinks. it's hard to measure their real benefits w/r/t 'branding' and alumni donations and republicans not shutting down flagship universities because they hate their rival state's football team. as long as universities are selling an entertainment package it makes sense to throw money at a football team, tho non-football and basketball sports are harder to justify as expenses.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-has-alarming-level-of-pride-in-institution-tha,30853/

at public universities the athletic budget is generally separate from the academic budget, and is self-sufficient.

at privates who knows

http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-has-alarming-level-of-pride-in-institution-tha,30853/

― iatee, Monday, January 14, 2013 10:38 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

at public universities the athletic budget is generally separate from the academic budget, and is self-sufficient.

incorrect

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/2011-06-15-athletic-departments-increase-money_n.htm

With revenue growing faster than expenses, there has been an increase in the number of schools whose revenue generated by the athletics department activities exceeds the department's total expenses — the NCAA's benchmark for whether an athletics program is financially self-sufficient. There were 22 such schools in 2010, up from 14 in 2009; there were 25 such schools in 2008.

22 out of 218 in 2011 were self-sufficient

lol that's madness.

that's 218 public schools, mind you

well they're mostly just a money sink at institutions that have more than enough money sinks. it's hard to measure their real benefits w/r/t 'branding' and alumni donations and republicans not shutting down flagship universities because they hate their rival state's football team. as long as universities are selling an entertainment package it makes sense to throw money at a football team, tho non-football and basketball sports are harder to justify as expenses.

― iatee, Thursday, April 25, 2013 12:32 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well, there actually are studies suggesting that athletic departments are of pretty limited benefit for universities in terms of alumni donations, because what donations do come in as a result of football are usually directed to football. The general "branding" thing is harder to measure, although the argument I used to make was that you might be increasing a university's overall visibility, but you have to also consider whether you're bringing the right kind of publicity (celebratory campus riots, academic cheating scandals, rape cover-ups, etc.) And there's the question of what kind of students you attract as a result (maybe more applicants overall, but otoh you might be putting off some of the top students in your state).

On a philosophical level, you might argue that it's more justifiable to have participatory sports that lose money than "entertainment" sports that lose money -- I don't really know why assuming the entertainment part in your post makes any sense.

but as for this thread, athletic department losses have a relatively small financial impact on their universities afaict, at least in terms of things that could actually drastically affect tuition. OTOH there's a symbolic issue with not cutting athletic budgets while cutting everything else and raising tuition at the same time.

if you guys want to go look at public institutional budgets & check out how this works, be my guest. these things are heavily discussed within public universities & even when they don't "break even" on the ncaa numbers, what's important is whether the money from the academic side goes to the athletic side, or whether the athletic side has its own sources of income independent of that. now in the latter case it still can be that state money is going to athletics, & that that money "could" be spent on academic things...or it could be spent on tax cuts or whatever. but the budgetary lines are made clear.

worrying about the costs of college athletics is such a dumb thing, like the reason that universities are struggling isn't that they have women's cross country teams or whatever

obviously college athletes should be paid & I'd be happy dismantling the whole system but it's a very small part of what's wrong right now

On a philosophical level, you might argue that it's more justifiable to have participatory sports that lose money than "entertainment" sports that lose money

participatory sports cost almost nothing / exist everywhere...I mean I guess ohio state could attempt to organize a basketball tournament w/ its 60k undergrads but really people who want to play sports can always play sports. having gladiators to cheer for is part of the reason some people go to ohio state.

worrying about the costs of college athletics is such a dumb thing, like the reason that universities are struggling isn't that they have women's cross country teams or whatever

it's true that if college athletics disappeared tomorrow our higher ed system still wouldn't be in a great place, but it's not a non-issue either. I don't think worrying about the costs of college athletics - esp things like new construction costs and coach salaries - is dumb when it's part of the bigger picture 'misplaced priorities in higher ed' discussion. it's not *the only problem* but it is a symbolic problem.

but it is a symbolic problem.

OTM.

It would be impossible to figure the exact financial impact (p/l) for college athletics, especially given the halo effect or opportunity cost or whatever. But I fail to see how it is a reasonable part of the mission of higher ed, and there are sort of these large distractions associated with it...one of them being what amounts to a semi-pro sports league that absolutely affects many decisions of college presidents and even further, to the states that run them.

Gigantic stadiums filled with millions of people every weekend seems very much symbolic of where are priorities are with education.

And I say all that as a huge fan of college sports. So, yes, I'm a total hypocrite.

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/04/29/the-tragedy-of-cooper-union/

what kind of a douchenozzle talks like this:

I resonate very much to future-oriented thinking about higher education. I assure you that I will be guiding the institution to embrace these technologies and we’re not going to be trapped in the past. I think if we get over this hump there will be so much opportunity… I think we can lead… We don’t have a global brand. We’ve got to build that global brand.

Cooper Union has historically not been very well known, even among New Yorkers: they often think it’s some kind of labor union, rather than an undergraduate college.

not really

yeah what? I knew what Cooper Union was before I moved here, and I'm not even in a related field.

everyone knew Cooper Union, because it was free

also the school with campuses in Santa Fe and Annapolis that only teaches Great Books in tiny classes, because that seemed insane

Salmon is a graduate of the University of Glasgow

I once accidentally drove across cooper union, like I thought I was driving down an extension of 7th street or something, but it was actually cooper square

I don't think ilxors are a very representative sample set for these things, and 'new yorkers'... I think people who spend a lot of time in downtown manhattan probably are going to eventually get some sense of 'there is a school, it is called cooper union' but that doesn't mean they could tell you it has a good architecture program or it's free, more just that there's a building or two near st marks.

well anyway I think his point is right that it doesn't matter if it's a global name as long as kids in the fields that are relevant know it. Just like pretty much every would-be music major knows Eastman even though its overal national name recognition is probably not huge

I also have to wonder how long this has been in the works -- I mean the $175 million mortgage to met life, the new building, I feel like the people running the school can't have been planning to continue to run the school as a little quasi-socialist operation. "Oops, too many bills to pay, guess we'll have to start charging tuition" rings pretty hollow

"global brand" is code for money engine, right? Capital doesn't want to see all those resources go to waste.

eh it wasn't a conspiracy to turn this into a money machine, it was a conspiracy to 'be the best school at any cost'