On Wed, 5 May 2021 12:43:03 -0400, Frank "frank wrote:

On 5/5/2021 10:00 AM, Wade Garrett wrote:
On 5/5/21 9:40 AM, Frank wrote:
On 5/5/2021 8:52 AM, Dean Hoffman wrote:
This John Stossel article claims about a third of college enrollees
don't graduate after six years.* Why doesn't it dawn on them that
they aren't going to make it long before then?* Beer and women?
People expected to be out in four years way back when I was college
age. That would've been in the 1970s.
** It points to a woman who decided she couldn't afford college and
went to welding school instead.** She's making $3,000/week.** She may
well be an exception but there is work for people who get dirty.
https://www.wnd.com/2021/05/hardworking-taxpayers-bail-privileged-students/

**** My brother claims small engine repair shops in Omaha, NE have
waiting lists of weeks.* People don't want to mess with lawnmower or
snowblower repair.* There still are the old fashioned welding/repair
shops in my area.


I read that this morning and agree with Stossel.

Also, what happens when the government starts pumping money into it?
It gets more expensive that's what happens.

I went to college to learn and with summer jobs, living at home and a
little help from dad graduated college with no debt for me or dad.
Same for grad school with a teaching assistantship and in last year a
fellowship I graduated with no debt.

Now you have kids going to college just to get a degree.* They get
them in art history, women's studies, etc which are completely useless
in the work force.* College costs sour with availability of loans and
when the government took over the loan business they skyrocketed.

Pretty much the same here.

Back in the 60's, I lived at home, attended a local private university,
worked a lot of hours at the US Post Office (before it became the US
Postal Service) at a pay rate just over twice the minimum wage-- then a
buck an hour-- paid my own tuition/fees/books and graduated in four
years with no debt and a little savings in the bank.


I started college late 50's and just figured I made about $650 in a
summer and tuition at University of Delaware was $255 a year. I hitch
hiked and paid for rides the first year and bought a used car for $225
to commute the second year. Books were cheap and you could get most
even cheaper used. Today some text books cost more than my semester's
tuition at Delaware.

I went to college in the early '70s. The tuition at the University of
Illinois was $500 (first year) and was raised to $900, the second. I
got a scholarship my senior year. Illinois is one of the top EE
schools (pretty consistently #3), so it was really cheap. Books
weren't so cheap and many couldn't be resold.

My brother was in vet med school. He used to say that Illinois was
the #20 vet med school in the country (there are only 21). His texts
were at least 4x the price of mine and none could be resold. His
profs wrote the books they taught from and changed them every year.

I worked with a chemical engineer who when in grad school at DE and
another grad student with their professor wrote a chemical engineering
text book. He was bragging about getting a $6,000 royalty check from a
new edition. This was over 40 years ago and probably more than a
quarter of his annual income.

It was a few decades ago but I managed to pay full tuition and board at
U of D for our three sons. They worked summers but could not do what we
did at today's tuition. Having two in college at the same time was like
buying a new car every year and driving it off a cliff.

Because money for college is as easy as signing your name. There is
no reason to contain costs. Money is free and unlimited.