New grad can’t find job — so sues college
August 20, 2009 by Taylor HanniganPosted in: From the Courts, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views
A recent graduate of a New York college is having trouble landing a job. But is it the college’s fault? She thinks so — and that’s why she’s suing.
Recent Monroe College grad Trina Thompson completed her course of studies in April and graduated with a bachelor of business administration degree in information technology. But Thompson is still searching for a job, and she says the school hasn’t done enough to help her.
Thompson claims the school’s office of career advancement dropped the ball by failing to give her enough career counseling assistance. She says it’s the school’s fault that her phone’s not ringing with calls from potential employers. “They have not tried hard enough to help,” she claims.
Thompson’s suit has asked that the college be forced to return the tuition she paid – all $70,000 of it. For good measure, she wants another $2,000 to compensate her “for the stress I have been going through looking for a full time job on my own.”
The school says on its Web site that its Office of Career Advancement offers a variety of services to all current students, including workshops and individual career counseling services. It insists the suit is meritless.
How much should schools do to help its new graduates find jobs? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.
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Tags: career counseling services, job placement, Monroe College
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August 19th, 2009 at 8:30 am
I won’t hire her… a college graduate who can’t even spell tuition.
August 19th, 2009 at 8:32 am
What a load of bull. A school can’t be held liable for this.
August 19th, 2009 at 8:34 am
And reimbursement and defendant, among other things. You think the lawyer would have coached her on this. The school should sue and take her diploma away.
August 19th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Poor thing. I guess it would have been the school’s fault if she got a bad grade too. The younger generation is lazy. They have this sense of entitlement that is completely unwarranted. The parents are not doing their children justice by giving them this cake-life. When I got out of college the first time, it took over a year to find a decent job – and that wasn’t in THIS job market! The fact that she is suing for her tuition as well??? Give me a break – I’m sure she worked her way through college and SHE paid all of the $70,000 – not her parents; not grants or loans. SHE wants the money. Does she want to give back her degree too?
August 19th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Not only should this joke of a lawsuit be thrown out, but the girl should be handed a bill for every penny it cost to throw the paperwork in the garbage. There should be an additional $50 charge for the dictionary she is provided with a bookmark in the page labelled “personal responsibility”. If she still doesn’t get it, then maybe a slap in the mouth would knock some of the stupid out of her…
August 19th, 2009 at 8:51 am
I agree with everything Brandi had to say, and I’m terrified that we’re not really all that far away from this student and her peers finding jobs as lawyers. They will eventually become activist judges who see actions like this as meritorious! We can’t simply dismiss this as the foolishness it is, because the reality will change.
August 19th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Oh give me a break. I’m going to sue everyone that ever supported my efforts to get where I am today because my life didn’t turn out as I expected. Yea right…
August 19th, 2009 at 9:11 am
I’ve been out of college for 20 years and FINALLY paid off my student loan. But it took a fat $7,000 check to finally get rid of it. I blame the college for telling me that it was OK to major in Art. Right!
August 19th, 2009 at 9:21 am
I am surprised she found the right paperwork to file! Thank God most kids are not this dumb and many kids still believe you have to work for what you want – too bad this College didn’t teach her that.
August 19th, 2009 at 9:22 am
You have GOT to be kidding me! Maybe she should try developing a personality and take some responsibility. As it is, I KNOW I wouldn’t hire her. She might sue because she wet herself when someone didn’t lead her to the bathroom. What would be interesting to know is what kind of jobs is she applying for. I bet they’re all jobs that require years of experience and a degree… well by golly she DESERVES to be handed that job. God forbid she should actually work up to a position!
August 19th, 2009 at 9:26 am
If she thought her job prospects were dismal before, wait until prospective employers see what a litigious little lady she is. “I’m suing my employer because the office coffee was cold and I suffered emotional and epicurean distress. Plus, the guy in the next cubicle looked at me funny.”
That’s apart from her obvious grammar, syntax and spelling deficiencies, as Tuition Fee noted. She also had trouble with associate’s degree (Associate Degree), bachelor’s degree (Bachelor Degree), reimbursement (reinbursment), counselors (couselors), an interview (a interview) and suing (sueing).
Kinda makes one wonder how she was able to earn a degree in the first place.
August 19th, 2009 at 9:28 am
The “poor young thing” is an idiot. And her lawyer has done her a disservice by filing her suit. Both have destroyed her career.
I’ll never hire her. Nor will anyone I know. Her actions speak of someone who will sue an employer for any perceived slight (“I wasn’t promoted fast enough.”; “My office doesn’t get enough sunlight.”; “Everyone stares at me in my mini skirt and halter top.”; etc. etc. etc.) . Who needs the headache?
August 19th, 2009 at 9:37 am
As others have pointed out, this chick cannot spell and doesn’t know the basic rules of English grammar. Her resume and cover letters are probably the main reasons she cannot get an interview. Perhaps other alumni should sue the college, for lowering the value of their degrees by conferring degrees on dimbulbs like Ms. Thompson.
August 19th, 2009 at 9:45 am
well,
It really doesn`t matter what we all think of her. The fact is simple. She cannot and will not win because if she did, higher education as we know it would end. The universities would only be able to offer degrees with 100% placement, or they would be force to be personal job agents for the rest of their graduates lives.
You always know that a lawsuit with such consequences will not fly. Whatever judge or jury forced to decide this will also be forced to realize (by the defense) that their decision will crush the entire system. Nobody will have that courage.
August 19th, 2009 at 9:47 am
THE COURT CANNOT SPELL EITHER! LOOK AT PAGE FIVE!
August 19th, 2009 at 9:50 am
To all literary critics out there…Spell checking and/or grammar has NOTHING to do with the lawsuit.
August 19th, 2009 at 9:50 am
off with her head,
If she is too lazy to go find a job and wants everything handed to her then,
do the world a favor right now and save all the trouble of dealing with this individual in the future and sue for her life.
Yeah, this is extreme but, how many of you guys are tired with having to deal with people like this?
You know you wanted to say it. I said it first. End it now, save us the trouble later.
P.S. What else is she going to beg for in life? Here is an idea. Take her right to reproduce away. We dont want her raising kids to be this way either.
August 19th, 2009 at 10:12 am
To buttthatsjustme: Spell checking or grammar may have nothing to do with the lawsuit per se, but if you were an employer reviewing resumes and cover letters, would you even read past the first couple of typos and misspellings? Methinks not. And perhaps therein lies (part of) her “can’t get no job” problem.
Then again, she probably had someone help her craft her resume and cover letter. So if there are misspellings and typos, it would be their fault, not hers. Anyone else smell another lawsuit in the air?
August 19th, 2009 at 10:12 am
All the School has to do is get her a job at McDonalds and they have fulfilled their duty. This falls into the range of their “variety of services to all current students”
August 19th, 2009 at 10:13 am
What kind of lawyer would even take this case? Is he just taking advantage of someone who is easy prey?
August 19th, 2009 at 10:27 am
This is outrageous!
August 19th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Now now, no one adequately helped her find a job, so perhaps no one wrote the cover letters and resumes for her after all.
I hope she gets a lot of press and is deemed untouchable by every employer worth working for.
August 19th, 2009 at 10:36 am
This is just ridculous, The schools sole purpose is to educate the students not to find them a job. Career services was there to help with the tools not finding the job. I know when I graduated in 1986 the Career services providing opportunities to interview with many companies and helped with resume development. A job search is an opportunity to sell yourself to an perspective employer not necessarily someone one else selling you. Obviously this person does not want to work but earn money from suing the people who helped her get her degree. I too think the degree should be taken away, just for ethical reassons
August 19th, 2009 at 10:41 am
This person is selfish, greedy, and only wants attention. And we are giving it to her by even reading and responding.
August 19th, 2009 at 10:43 am
My heart goes out to her but she is in the same boat as thousands of other recent graduates feeling the economic pinch, especially those graduating with degrees in art and music and physical education. But her problem goes much deeper that than. When are we parents , high schools counselors, and others going to start doing a better job with career counseling with our children before they set off to college? Instead, we tell them how “special” they are and that they can be anything they want to be. How unrealistic is this when we let them pursue a degree in art history, then after graduation they discover that there are no jobs in art history? In addition, they have not learned how to parley their skills into gainful employment. We need to start to have honest discussions with our children about life, careers, and responsibility
August 19th, 2009 at 10:46 am
WOW – I had to find my own job.
August 19th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Wow! I have to agree with Brandi, as I was thinking the exact same thing when I read the story. Of course, I agree with everyone else as well but Brandi’s comment hit home because I returned to school in my mid thirties to earn a second bachelor’s degree. I was appalled at the lack of accoutability and what I refer to as an “air of expectancy” in many young people today. It sickens me. I’m afraid that Dave is right… this is the new reality and we should not dismiss it. The courts should not even entertain such frivolity.
August 19th, 2009 at 10:56 am
I agree with almost everything that was written above except for “…a slap in the mouth…” I thought we were wanted avoid a law suit. My concern with this law suit is not with the student but the Office of Career Advancement (Placement Office.)
I am wondering did Office of Career Advancement or any official of that University promise, guarantee or implied in anyway that their diploma will get this “cake-baby” a job when she graduated. Where did she get the ideal “…phone’s not ringing with calls from potential employers” from?
I personally think the law suit is weak but with a good lawyer you can convince a jury that it is McDonald fault for making a hot cup of coffee.
August 19th, 2009 at 10:58 am
She should sue her parents for passing on insufficient genes.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Outrageous…Yes…Should it be taken lightly…NO. Unfortunately, we in higher education only have ourselves to blame for this situation. First, the president, board of trustees, and the entire English faculty ought to resign in disgrace over the fact that they GAVE a COLLEGE DEGREE to someone who can not spell!
Second, colleges have turned into diploma mills and job training centers rather than institutions of higher learning. The business model has been promoted tirelessly for some time. In this model, students are either seen as consumers of a product (education) or as products themselves. In either case, when the product is faulty, than the consumer (parents, the student, society) can sue. Before you know it, Consumer Reports not US News and World Reports will be producing the “Best Colleges” issue and the Consumer Protection Agency not the Department of Education or the accrediting bodies will be accrediting universities. And I’m sure the proprietary schools are loving every minute of this!
August 19th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Trina and Dave have something in common. They don’t get it. Hard work and perserverance pay off. I am really sick of the entitlement attitutde of young adults. Get an education; find a job; get a life; and move on. It is not the responsibility of the college to find you a job; rather it is the responsibility of the student to find the job/career. Christine hit it on the head, NO ACCOUNTABILITY!! It is never the fault of the younger ones. They are the victim. I hope that Dave is not right. I hope the courts do not ever become so liberal as to even think about entertaining this frivolous lawsuit. I do think that career counselors and advisors are extremely important and perhaps Trina was let down (a little) by them. At the end of the day, Trina should look in the mirror and blame herself. The econmy sucks, but there are jobs out there.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Needless to say this is a sad situation. One of the hardest, but most necessary things about becoming an adult is realizing you carry your life on your own shoulders now. But your head has to be set in the right direction. There are no guarantees, you have to start at the bottom, and proving yourself in a work environment is necessary for success, but it may not be attained. This is reality, and it is not new.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:18 am
This is why we need tort reform. And we need more of our young people to take rersponsibility for their own lives rather than blame someone else fro their problems.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:20 am
As for the spelling errors, Trina did not type this article nor did anyone who might have helped her with her cover letter, etc. It was the person that posted it at this site who made these errors. That brings me to be a little more cautious about the ‘statements’ or ‘facts’ presented here to entice people to read this piece. On the other side, I agree with what everyone has commented on. Maybe part of the problem is that she has only a bachelor’s degree in B.A. All I hear and see on that ‘cathode ray tube’ (flat screen to you youngsters) is Masters, MastERS, MASTERS in B.A.
Editor’s Response: The errors pointed out in some comments exist in the plaintiff’s court filing. The editors of Higher Ed Morning did not participate in any way with that filing or any other court proceedings in this case.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:20 am
She’s suing her college for the wrong thing. She obviously has not learned how to write, nor has she learned the ethics of personal responsibility. She should sue them for granting her a diploma that she hasn’t earned.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:24 am
I know that I have already commented on this subject but I think this needs further comment. This is a sad situation, however it is not sad because she can not find a job or that she has not recognized that she must carry her life on her own shoulders but that a Lawyer convinced her that she could win this case. If she wins this class it will set a precedence that I do not believe we want to see. What this would mean is that if a student flunked out of school, the school could be sued for a breach of duties regarding educating the student. I think this student should be ashamed at what she is doing and in addition the Lawyer should be disbarred for his/her involvement.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Unbelieveable, if she wins I quit. 18+ years I’ve been teaching I’ve been watching students go from digilent to lazy. This generation is spoiled and thinks everything should be given to them. (No offense to those few young folks who actually work hard for what they get).
August 19th, 2009 at 11:28 am
My brother has been laid of for two years! Who do we sue!
Anyone notice (page 5) asking for 70,000 + 2,000 but default settlement is 75,000
August 19th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Before I pass judgment, I have some questions.
*Is Monroe College a real college or is it a trade school with “college” in its name?
*When she says they didn’t help, is she talking about evaluating her resume and her interviewing skills, or does she actually expect them to find her a job?
*Did they promise to find her a job when they recruited her?
*Do they report placement rates in their recruiting materials that are higher than their actual placement rates?
It is obvious you folks are biased. You have already made up your minds without knowing the facts. I wish you all were more open minded and inquisitive instead of being judgmental.
Perhaps you should read the following editorial on this case http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/money-trail/2009/08/12/sue-school?page=full
August 19th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Wow, we live in a changing world. People belive they have a right to everything. I would bet the jobs she has applied for are not entry level positions. Given her brass – you owe me – attitude I am sure she has not been applying for lower paying entry level positions. It would be interesting to read her resumee and cover letter along with a list of positions applied for. I also agree if she wants her money back they she is asking to return the product she purchased – her degree. The college might want to consider this a good deal and not have her listed as one of their graduates.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Madmonk: The spelling and grammar errors are in her own hand on the court documents attached to the article that someone else wrote.
These documents are part of “the ‘statements’ or ‘facts’ presented here to entice people to read this piece.”
August 19th, 2009 at 11:51 am
I think it’s wrong to sue anyone or any entity. This is the school’s fault for not defusing her before she went into law suit mode. I think there is a real lack of honesty and accountability at schools to admit when they make an error and fix it. If they had given her more attention she may have reconsidered. But do think for a moment what these kids are up against. A horrible economy # 1. A large debt that they cannot sell, that’s right at least with a home loan you have equity in it. (the debt is equal to if not more than a home loan) Here is the real issue, some colleges guarantee placement into a job following college in their commercials, they speak of competitiveness against other graduates and then you graduate and you cannot find work. Here’s a question to ask yourself if you purchased a product that cost $70K, and the salesman promised you would have x result by the end of a year would you be upset if it did not work. Schools are providing a service, it is a means to become gainfully employed. If that doesn’t pan out you might get a little upset. Most of these kids are not expecting much believe it or not. They just want work that will help them pay off their student loans and build a family, maybe someday even stop renting a tiny apartment well into their mid thirties, early fourties. But alas they cannot because employers also want experience on top of that degree. So do try to understand the frustration and the inequities that these kids face since my Father told me that it was very inexpensive to attend college when he was younger, just not many people did. So who’s lazy! These kids will work for free at an internship then to only find it has ended and they are not taking on full time workers. Oh and no health insurance benefits. And if they are expectant of certain things it’s only the people who raised them to blame with their McMansions and consumeristic lifestyles. No it’s not telling them that they are special, it’s telling them that there is opportunity where there is none. I am in my late twenties and I have been telling people that this credit crash was coming since 2004, and everyone looked at me like I was crazy. Then they lost huge chunks of their 401K’s so can you blame her for not seeing this coming most people do not have the forsight to see what is coming or not coming in their lives. Therefor a school’s message must be loud and clear, be realistic with opportunities given to graduates. Give them statistics on places graduates, and yes tell them they could be in the 5% that cannot find work after graduation.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:58 am
RE: Jeremy — Started reading the editorial and it’s obvious to me as others have noted that she is suing for the wrong reason. She should be suing for not receiving the education she paid for, not suing because the college didn’t find her a job.
As the editorial points out, she paid more money for a less “recognizable” degree. Most likely because she didn’t have the time or desire to spend “real” time with her education. She paid out the nose (double what she could have at a “community” college?) to get a degree. She paid for a shortcut and now it’s not paying out for her. To expect a degree of any kind to automatically get you a job is ludicrous. To pay money to a “college” that gives you a “degree” without requiring the actual class work or learning, well, I’ll just say I think she got what she paid for, a high priced piece of paper.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:59 am
This young lady is performing a service to the academic community, by reminding us that academia is not a business. The fact that she doesn’t have a job is not my concern, but I take note of her courageous stretch to the law. I, unlike the cynics that have posted before, am not prepared to attribute her intentions to greed and laziness.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:59 am
If I were Monroe College, I would negotiate a settlement wherein the student would withdraw the lawsuit and the college would post-withdraw her as though she never attended. I wouldn’t want her on my alumni list let alone her telling folks she had a degree from Monroe. How embarrassng it has become to see an “adult” acting like a spoiled pubescent child. In today’s world of the “hovering” parent, this particular scenario does not surprise me at all.
August 19th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Depends on what you consider a “college”.
Monroe ‘College’ is a VOCATIONAL SCHOOL, and not a particularly good one at that.
This poor woman would have been better off getting a degree at a community college or public 4-year school, rather than this nefarious diploma mill.
August 19th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Poor baby… Welcome to the REAL WORLD…! Opportunities are not handed to you, YOU need to go out and GET IT…! If you think you had problems finding a job before… Good luck finding a job at McDonalds at this point, now that your name has been smeared ALL OVER the United States…! NO ONE will ever hire you now, they would be afraid of a frivolous lawsuit if you were to get a paper cut… Good luck, your going need it…!
August 19th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
The Wikipedia entry on Monroe College says that this person had an average of 2.7. I’m sure that this is well below average.
August 19th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
It wasn’t the college’s job to teach this young woman that one has to work for what one wants. If that lesson wasn’t instilled before she reached age 18, that’s unfortunate, but it’s not a college lesson.
There is, however, a lesson that she will learn, and for which she will pay dearly: one can always find lawyers willing to take up frivolous lawsuits, who, whether billing on the sixes or the quarter, turn out to be the only ‘winners’ when all is said and done.
August 19th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
I would say it depended on what she was promised going in. I know that when I went to a certain school, I was told it had a “100%” placement rate and had an active, professional placement program that would work vigorously with me to find a position upon graduation. I made that very clear in my initial negotiations that it was critically important to me that I not only end up with the diploma, but that placement assistance be available afterwards. I asked to see statistics – and, being young and foolish, I accepted the numbers the recruiter provided as proof of what was promised. What they did not tell me was that the numbers included about 75% of the graduates being counted as having been “placed” when they were working in the same jobs they’d held prior to entering the program, and that the other 15-20% were considered placed if they were working anywhere at all (including behind the paint counter at a local hardware store) through no intervention or assistance of the department or school whatsoever. (They actually did have one or two people who had gotten internships with the feds based on having been in the program, so I can give them that these could realistically be counted as “placements” since reference letters were written for them by faculty.) There was no placement efforts by the department for any of us (it wasn’t just me, quite sadly) and the “career center” on campus had never heard of the major. They literally had to ask a few of us who went to see them as a group what it was we studied and what “we did with that.” So, basically, what I got was not what was advertised – a package of “education” and placement. If the placement part had not been in the initially offered package, I would have definitely not enrolled in that institution. So, given all of that, I have to say that if the young lady was promised a professional placement service upon completion of her program of study, then, yes, she should sue the pants off them IF they are not providing that service. It was false advertising. Fraud. I wish I’d have had enough sense to have done the same, back in the day…. However, if they are making a serious, professional effort to place her and the jobs just aren’t there or something else is keeping her from being placed, that’s another matter entirely. It’s certainly not something we can make any realistic judgment calls on from the peanut gallery here.
August 19th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
I had the misfortune of working for a recent graduate of an MBA program, when she was handed a job just because she “earned” the degree. It was quite an eye-opener, to listen to her banging on endlessly about her perceived entitlements. Rather than working, she spent her time constantly venting about how she was cheated on her salary. She honestly believed that she should have been hired in at the same salary as the departing PhD employee, who had been with the employer for 20+ years. She also believed that she should be able to bring her newborn infant to work with her, and upon being told that she needed to make other arrangements for him, she flew into a rage and shared with me that “they had to provide her with a place to breastfeed.” Uh…no….since you aren’t supposed to bring your children to work with you…that is just moronic thinking. It is very distressing to see the results of the hovering parent, who has told their little precious that the world is theirs for the taking. Too bad the rest of the world needs to be on board with that notion, before it will pan out. I hate to think what the workplace will be like, once it is filled with these self-involved infants.
August 19th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
If she sues the school and wins (anything can happens) then they should taka her degree away.
If she thinks that education is costly she should try ignorance.
Kindly advise her to get an advance degree as MS in IT.
Do not give up and please do not blame the school.
Best luck
August 19th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Hey Folks,
Jeremy is right on this one. Like most of you, I fell into the category of passing judgement before knowing all the facts. Indeed, Monroe is a vocational/tech school that tries to package itself as a “college.” Many for-profit schools, like Monroe, can be predatory since the loans they give to students are subsidized by the government. A recent AP article reported that for-profit schools are boosting enrollment using subsidized government loans (I speculate government funds have increased under the Obama administration). http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/us/2009/08/14/D9A2QVHO0_us_for_profit_colleges_loans/print.html
The plaintiff in this case is trying to recoup money lost (though it’s not known how much is in grants vs loans, but I suspect most of it is loans). She may very well default on her loans (9.5% of Monroe students) in which case taxpayers get stuck with the bill. She probably won’t win, but at the very least a case like this brings attention to what I see as a serious issue, and there are questions that need answering. Be sure to take a look at the link Jeremy provided.
August 19th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
BOTH are to blame. On the one hand, the school is responsible for passing her when she may not have been up to standard. Many profs are pressured into high passing ratios in their courses, so they pass them or let them cheat their way through the exams. I’ve seen it. They expect to pass because they paid or showed up, had their parents call the chair. They’re OWED and shouldn’t have to struggle bc now they have a diploma. Apologies to those 20-30% who are diligent and make a true effort… on the other hand, we have been tricked into believing that this is exactly what a college education guarantees. Ads filled with promises of a lucrative career and a Pier One lifestyle…
August 19th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
>>She says it’s the school’s fault that her phone’s not ringing with calls from potential employers.<<
Is she just waiting for her phone to ring, or is she ringing up her potential employers too?
August 19th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Jeremy said:
“Before I pass judgment, I have some questions.”
Thank you, Jeremy, for looking for the facts of the situation rather than just jumping in and sneering at this woman. I don’t see many of these responders using the scientific method that they are imposing upon Thompson. It’s easy to assume, not so easy to investigate.
“Perhaps you should read the following editorial on this case http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/money-trail/2009/08/12/sue-school?page=full“
August 19th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Hey people, stop blaming this on lawyers. There is no lawyer in this case; she is proceeding pro se & was succeeded in getting fees waived.
I’d blame TV lawyers and new organizations that report these cases without noting that the plaintiff is filing on their own behalf, expending no more effort than it takes to fill in a few forms with a ballpoint pen. The suing graduate makes no recognizable legal argument (fraud, contract, etc.) so it is extremely unlikely she talked to any attorneys. Most of these outrageous lawsuits are filed without attorneys; I’m a librarian and I see pro se litigants everyday complaining that lawyers won’t take their case.
If there is a legitimate problem here (that is, one that involves a pattern of fraud that impacts dozens of graduates), the NY attorney general should investigate.
August 19th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Whatever happened to learning for learning’s sake? Yes, finding a job is important, but it’s the knowledge that one gets from college that leads to the career path not just a piece of paper (diploma) which leads to a high-level first job. No one is interested in learning anymore.
Plus, the economy is the worst it has been in years – of course that impacts one’s ability to find a job. There are plenty of people with 20+ years of experience who are applying to the same jobs this recent grad is pursuing.
And, I agree with the person who said to take her diploma away.
This lawsuit is just ridiculous, and it would lead to the demise of higher education.
August 19th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I’ve graduated from two colleges, neither of which forund me a job. Can I recoup my tuition cost? You poor baby!
August 19th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I want to again comment, I want to also compliment Jeremy for his research, however with my comments before I too did some research and am not jumping to conclusions. It does not really matter what kind of school this is Vocational or non Vocational. The only promise a school makes to its students is to try to prepare them for the job market. I do not believe any of us mean to pass Judgement on the school or the person who is bringing suit. Our comments are more that to bring suit against the school is like bringing a lawsuit against a railroad company whose train hit a person because the person choose to walk on the tracks. If the education was as advertised and this person attended the prescribed classes to graduate then the school has done its job. If the student did not do very well but still had the credentials to graduate than the school has done its job. The placement office can put the student in front of employers but can not tell the companies or entities to hire the student. If all of this was done then the school should not be liable to this student. If the school did not do what it advertised then a settlement should be made, but in this case I do not believe this to be the case. Times are tough right now for job seekers and that must be considered here.
August 19th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
I think the graduate has a point.
Please speak for yourself, but many of these colleges promise more than they can deliver – of course for a fee. For example, why would a college charge a young person just starting out her life $70,000?
This also speaks to the general escalating cost of (college) education. Does the cost-benefit analysis justify what these colleges are charging anymore? Most college graduates will be lucky to get a job paying $30,000, yet colleges don’t blink asking for that much a year in tuition, dorm, etc.
Then they won’t deliver they semi-guaranteed. Just look at the brochures of these diploma mills (and I am not calling Monroe DM). Take a look and see how they never even mention the possiblity that the student may not get a job. Just pay, pay, pay – get your diploma and you are on your own!
If she was unprepared, as suggested, why did they graduate her? What happened to telling her at some point that she would be unemployed? Of course, they were blinded by the MONEY.
I hope she wins, so others can sue too.
August 19th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
This young lady needs to get a clue. No. She needs to get a brain. No. She needs to get a brain that works! Is she totally clueless to think a career center is in the “placement” business? These people provides career services to help students manage their career and coach them into being as competitive as possible in the job market. Placement? I think not. Get the knowledge from the career people and do the work! I’m sick of people like this young lady who seem to want A JOB (of all things) HANDED to her. Even if she was “placed”, my guess is she probably wouldn’t know what to do when she got there. So sad.
August 19th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
The saying “caveat emptor” certainly applies here. There are many institutions of higher learning like Monroe College. As a private enterprise of education its main purpose is to generate profit and to care less about the overall educational growth of its students. The proof of this is observed in the student’s writing. Numerous words were misspelled, and proper names not capitalized. The student is in need of remediation in English composition.
The student would have been off being educated at a public college or university. In a public institution of higher learning, emphasis is placed:
• On overall academic performance in areas such as Liberal Arts and Sciences, The Humanities and other academic studies. Public institutions have to develop qualified candidates for employment. Failure to do so makes the earned degree worthless and the reputation of institutions suffer.
• Public institutions of higher learning employ distinguish faculty in an attempt to ensure as best as possible that their students receive the best education possible.
• Remediation would have been given to the student so that the student can be elevated to the college level in English composition and other areas where remediation is needed.
• Career Service offices at colleges and universities offer extensive help in procuring employment for their students. Obviously, they cannot guarantee immediate employment after graduation because there are too many factors that impact successful employment upon graduation (job market, economy, etc.).
This is not to say that all private colleges and universities are bad, but “caveat emptor” applies to prospective students!
August 19th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
OMG, I have been working in workforce development for over ten years. And this tops anything I have ever heard! Did little miss muffet do any career research before chosing her path? There are many resources with statistical data available regarding up and coming careers. Maybe if she would have done some research she may have chosen a path in say… the medical field or perhaps green technology. Boo hoo for her, buck it up, take responsibility, stop blaming others for our decisions and move forward.
August 19th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
You folks aren’t reading each other’s comments… Rotimi, you are detailing my point… while at the same time, it’s partially the fault of alllll of those students who cannot accept responsibility for their slackness … the generation of those where EVERYONE got a trophy. It may be an interesting exercise to look at the history of how it has gotten to this point. Marketing and advertisement make those promises… Universities are doing their share by passing students or making classes so easy (again, my apologies to those universities which have refused to lower their standards. Not all of them seem to.). You are arguing over blame that cannot be placed… it’s all of our faults for accepting mediocrity for the sake of a dime, and at the same time being cowed by false promises… not thinking for ourselves anymore. It’s a draw. Nobody wins this.
August 19th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Well, these for profit schools seem like a big ripoff. Something should be done about them. Instead of the suit being to reimburse this young lady it sounds like it should have been to make the school pay off her loans. I doubt that she or her parents used money out of their pockets for this four year degree. Just for punitive reasons I would make them pay her something for her supposed stress.
August 19th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
WOW! after reading the link Jeremy offered, I would like to retract my statement and I feel stupid for jumping to conclusions. White-collar criminals are every where and why shouldn’t they be, there seems to be little if any recourse for the victims. BTW all of us pay the price for fruad.
August 19th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Who’s the plaintiff again… Miss Teen South Carolina?
August 19th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Regarding “education”. There is “education for education’s sake” which is lovely. If you can afford it. Or if that’s what you’re after. Then there’s “education which should be really called career preparation”. Which is what it seems this young woman (and a large proportion of kids who are jumping through the hoops) was after. When one goes into the second type of program, and especially if it’s advertised as having a placement program, one expects that the institution has either a placement person or department that rounds up job leads, invites employers to career fairs, and/or has internship arrangements with the industry in question. Actually, I’d expect most of that from any four-year institution, but would demand it from a training program such as the young woman completed (from what I can tell of it). People here are making fun of her use of language, her writing ability, calling her a slacker. For all any of us knew that young woman hit the books harder than anything any of us ever did, to learn what should have been career skills. Or maybe not. In any event, all of that is moot. She went to get a diploma that should have given her the appropriate skills to function and she should have been provided placement assistance if it was promised. If they told her they would be beating the bushes for her, and that was what she paid for, and if they do not do that, then they are not fulfilling their part of the contract. Period. But we don’t know what’s going on, and there certainly seems like there’s an awful lot of people looking down their noses at this young woman without having anything more than the barest outline of the situation. Do I smell elitism? Why yes, yes I do….
August 19th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
These Vocational Schools charge a lot and promise a lot. There is some merit to her lawsuit simply because she attended a vocational school. And yes, I am in higher education and have been for 18 years. Ohio no longer is giving state grants to students who attend for profit institutions and other states should follow suit.
August 19th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
And MomSays is probably the one who would sue McDonalds because their coffee was hot. Colleges offer Job Placement ASSISTANCE; this does NOT guarantee that they will get a job. Any college that would promise to “get them” a job deserves to be sued, but I don’t think our institutions of higher learning are that ignorant that they would promise to get someone a job.
August 19th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Well, maybe not so amazed. This is the logical extension of “complain for grades.” The Dean for Academic Affairs at my university raised a guys grade after the student (who actually got a C in the course) failed an open book test (twice, I let him retake it), stood me up in three office appointments made after hours so as to not inconvenience him, and failed to submit the final project for the class on time. The basis for the appeal? Having a C on his transcript would make him appear to be a poor student. Oh, yeah, one more thing… the guy is a teacher. Probably a poor one, but he has been employed by a large school for three years now. When his students are unable to graduate from high school because they know nothing, I will probably be sued. At that point, as in the previous encounter, I expect the university administration on the advice of our legal team to fold like a cheap suit.
August 19th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
I recently applied for a specialized job at UNLV that didn’t require a degree. There were seven candidates. Of the four with 4-year degrees, two graduated from UNLV – the hiring institution (one was me). The candidate hired had no college of any kind, and the least amount of specialized experience of the seven. What that tells me is that the institution itself really doesn’t care what happens to the graduate. I hope she wins.
August 19th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Dear Peanut Gallery,
It’s been quite interesting reading all of your comments [most of them anyway]. I just have a couple of things to say.
1. I had the misfortune of teaching at a diploma mill for a time. I was torn between not wanting to be part of it and not wanting to abandon the students who working so hard and had potential. Most of these schools prey on people who are working full time and attending this ‘last chance’ school in the evenings and on weekends, all while raising young families. I hope she wins.
2. Stop bashing young people. I’m proud to say that I gave my son every advantage I could. I sent him off to a university for a real degree, and made it possible for him to graduate with zero debt and a decent car. In turn he worked consistently from the time he was 17, declared a [marketable] major and began working in that field while still in school. He’s not a rare exception. Young adults today are up against a lot more than other generations, their early life experience is more complex than previous generations, and they have different values- not wrong values, different values. Stop bashing young people…can you say ageism?
August 19th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Wouldn’t it be nice if professors practiced objective open minded observation instead of jumping to conclusions without knowing all the facts?
It is obvious the author of the article, and most of you, are biased against this student. Do you remember when reporters actually researched the facts before they published articles? Do you remember when professors were open minded and objective? Things have gone downhill, and students are not the problem. It is your job to lead by example and shape their young minds.
I agree that colleges offer placement assistance. I disagree that the institution that calls itself “Monroe College” is a college. It is a vocational training facility.
August 20th, 2009 at 5:19 am
“Poor thing. I guess it would have been the school’s fault if she got a bad grade too. The younger generation is lazy.”
Good Job. That gross generalization was productive and meaningful.
“The younger generation” spends most of their day in front of a computer or with a book open, because “the younger generation” has to deal with an information flow that would turn your brain into a roast duck inside of five minutes. “The younger generation” was caffeinated from age twelve because “the younger generation” couldn’t keep up with the rest of the generation if they weren’t on drugs.
In college, my roommates were taking ADD drugs so they could handle the workloads presented to them without suffering psychotic breaks. The architecture school of WUstl lost so many students to psychological problems that they brought in a counselor to explain to their students that too many all-nighters “were bad.” The students subsequently suggested that the lectures worked because a) they were mandatory (the students had to attend, so they couldn’t be doing anything else) and b) they slept through them, increasing their hours of sleep per week.
We’re not lazy. Believe me, we’re not lazy. We just hate “the older generation” and everything you stand for, because everything you stand for is beating us into a bloody pulp.
This is not your world. The pressures kids deal with today are not the pressures of your era, and the methods of coping with those pressures are different. We spend less time out playing kick the can, and more time inside playing “write the term paper” and “find new drug combinations that temporarily increase productivity to the necessary level.” Rum and Coffee work well for that, incidentally, if carefully measured.
Technology doesn’t make things easier. Humanity learned that from the industrial revolution. It just raises the expectation of how much sh*t you should get done in an average week.
Telling us we’re “lazy” and then asking us to show you how to use the $#@* shift key so you can type your one email per week to aunt Sophia does not endear you to us.
To hell with that, and to hell with you.
… *cough* … /rant off
That said, this girl’s high or something if she thinks she’s going to get anything out of this beyond negative attention.
August 20th, 2009 at 8:56 am
This makes me mad. You can’t just expect to graduate from college and get a top paying job, sometimes you have to work your way up! I think it is ridiculous that she is suing the college. Part of growing up and becoming an adult in the real world is looking for a job. You have to be diligent, it will not always be easy, but the whole process helps give you more experience and then when you get a job, can help to make you feel thankful for what you have! As far as suing for the “stress” of the whole thing that is outrageous. The economy right now can make it harder to get a job, but there are still jobs out there! There are many families where one or both parents have lost their jobs or have not been able to find another one for months, but you don’t see them suing their employer for being laid off or their job terminated. Many are struggling but are thankful for what they DO have. They are still out there looking and doing their best to find work, not taking an easy way out by blaming somone else and suing them because things are not working out for them! Those that are struggling may be having a hard time but they understand the meaning of hard work and taking responsibility!
August 20th, 2009 at 11:06 am
It seems this young lady will always be blaming someone for what she is not doing for herself and that is most likely looking harder for a job. Maybe a little prayer would help and a more positive attitude. Maybe reading the newspaper also so she is aware there are many looking for jobs. Maby working at McDonald’s or such might make her appreciate a better but lower paying job when she does get one.
August 20th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Actually, she has learned the lessons of the new reality quite well, if you ask me.
First, she has internalized the truth that, “Nothing is ever my fault – it is always someone else’s.” The second truth is , “You have a right to everything you want and there is always a lawyer handy to help you get it”. Lastly, “Truth is relative.”
The question is: just where she was exposed to these twisted ideas?
We bail out AIG, the banks, home speculators and even the car companies despite outright incompetence and greed and possibly criminal intent. And then we reward the perps. Our leaders in finance and government have the courage of mice when it comes admitting wrongdoing, (ref. the legislator from Nevada whose affair was “nothing wrong”). The “name it and claim it” evangelists abound on TV. We try to talk our way out of traffic tickets even though we know we broke the law.
Any ideas yet?
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” – Walt Kelly in the comic strip, POGO
August 20th, 2009 at 11:47 am
“The second truth is , ‘You have a right to everything you want and there is always a lawyer handy to help you get it’.”
Bob, the REAL truth is that she is representing herself in court. She doesn’t have a lawyer.
It is painfully clear you have rushed to judgment without knowing even the most basic facts of this case. I hope you are not an instructor. I would hate to think students look to you to set an example.
August 20th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Jer;
You missed my point.
My post really has noting to do with the specifics of the case.
I maintain, we are individually and collectively responsible for the climate we set in our society and the messages we emphasize by our behaviors, hence the quote from POGO. (You may not be familiar with the strip as it has been out of print for decades).
In a particular way, we are all responsible for this lady’s attitude and the lawsuit.
That’s all.
August 20th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Representing herself?
Well, in addition to acknowledging the timeless wisdom of Walt Kelly, we should admit the the individual who represents him or herself in court has a fool for a client.
August 20th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Amazed, that’s hilarious… though true, it shouldn’t be… and who knows, maybe she’ll be good at it and land a job as a lawyer!
August 20th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Then again, maybe she’ll end up suing herself for malpractice.
August 20th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Gimme gimme gimme: Call me obtuse for sticking to “just the facts ma’am”. I find speculation to be a waste of time.
I’d like to know what the college did to provide employment references to the student and more importantly, what the student did with the employment references, and finally what, if any, was decided by the would-be employers. Sadly, the employers can’t say anything except, “Yes, she interviewed for the job”.
I’d prefer to wait and see what discovery/depositions uncover…there’s a real story hiding in there somewhere.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Younger Generation – I love that you accuse me of a broad generalization and then turn around and generalize my comments. I send multiple e-mails every day. I taught myself how to use a computer. When I was in school, computer classes weren’t part of the curriculum. We took notes with actual pens and paper, not on our laptops and we attended classes where we had to listen to our Professors rather than watch a streaming video of them at our own leisure.
I think it is safe to say that just about everyone generalizes. The thing about generalizing is that you aren’t targeting one person – as I didn’t you, but you did me. I imagine that you do work hard. I imagine you wouldn’t be reading articles on the HigherEDMorning website unless you had a vested interest in your education. I imagine that your parents are proud of you, except for maybe when you use symbols for expletives and tell a person you don’t know at all “to hell with you.” and are proud of the job they have done raising you.
I imagine Ms. Thompson’s parents are proud and supportive of her as well. Ms. Thompson, however, on the surface (which is all we were provided, even after reading Jeremy’s link) does not appear to be as diligent. In my humble opinion as an administrator in high school or higher education for the past 12 years, the plaintiff is a pretty good representative of her group. She applied for and was accepted to Monroe College – for such that it is – not once, but twice. Not only does caveat emptor apply, but how about “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me?” The fact that she was taken in by the advertisements without delving into the school itself before she enrolled twice, brings to question her diligence in choosing the “college” that she thought would prepare her for employment.
Ultimately, you get what you pay for.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Brandi: Ultimately, you get what you pay for.
If ‘pay’ equates also to the sweat equity put in, then I’m with you.
August 21st, 2009 at 12:07 am
All I have to say is that we should remember the words of Lazarus Long:
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
Of course, others might think of Forrest Gump’s statement he learned from his mother:
Stupid is as stupid does.
Later.
August 21st, 2009 at 2:17 pm
There are some very intelligent people out there who struggle with spelling, some of whom, I notice, have commented here. I agree that this lawsuit is ridiculous, but I do not think a person’s total merit should be based on his/her ability to spell.
August 24th, 2009 at 10:22 am
It is a fine line where the responsibilty resides between the college and the student when it comes to finding a post graduation job. Students can not have everything just handed to them, including jobs. With that said, at Wright State University (Dayton, Ohio), the College of Engineering has a job guarantee. If the student has a 3.0 GPA at graduation and fails to find a job in 3 months (documented of course), then they can pursue a Master’s degree tuition free. This applies to any Engineering or Computer Science degree. The jobs are so plentiful in our area, that we have very few students who need to take advantage of this offer.
August 24th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I think we all need to be open minded about this issue. I really think that a student who has the courage & knowledge to with stand the negative oppression of this world and still complete college, earning a Bachelor’s Degree should be commended.
Now I also believe that this young lady might be frustrated because she feels as though the promise made to her by this institution; which was to provide her with a certain level of support, was not fulfilled.
Is it right to sue the college? Well in many of our eyes the answer is no, but in her eyes, she feels as though we has a people have taken the promises of everyone and just accepted them and moved on with what we think life should be based on our society. But in all essence I think she has a right to say that no more will we accept false advertisement from any source of media, politician etc. just to gain our support or to gain our business. We are expected to do what we say we are going to do as a student in order to accomplish or achieve our educational goals why should we have to say that it is fine for an institution or any company of that matter, to lie about their services just to gain us as a student or our business.
This is unfair; (though I know life is unfair) this lady has taken a stand to say something that we all want to say but are too scared to say. If you as an employee, hired me to do a job based on a job description outlined, I’m sure I will get fired if I fail to complete my job or maybe even written up. So you should everyone else go by just saying and committing to things that they never complete. I’m so sorry that the college had to be the one to go through this. Though it makes no sense to you all I have to commend her for taking a stand for us all with no support. This has nothing to do with laziness because it is a lot of work to get something done especially when a great majority of the world views it as nonsense. I thank her for at least taking a stand against false advertising….if you can’t do it don’t tell me that you can because I will hold you liable for it just as though you would hold me liable if I was employed by you. I hope you all see my point on this if not take some time and think about all the institutions that promise us all things that we never received, some might say it is just advertisement I say don’t lie to me. If that doesn’t work think about how many politicians have made promises to do things and never do and we all just accept, well not anymore, for now this lady says no more. You either do what you say or don’t say it at all. Hey guuys let me know how you feel. I think this is a very interesting issue and we must think outside of the box or in other words the norm.
P.S. I hope i have my words selpt correctly..
August 24th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Interesting: I hope you all see my point on this.
No, not really.
August 25th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
I think the complaint is realistic. The cost of going to a 4 year university is ridiculous.
The probability of the case being thrown out is about 100%. The colleges and universities
do not care if you get a job. They only hope you get a job. They are teachers of books
and how to understand them to pass a test. Employers like college graduates because
it shows them you can learn a system and follow the rules. If you learn a system like computers
then chances are a computer company may hire you.
Parents should educate their high school children on the money sucking colleges that
do not care what courses you take——they only care that you pay for your 4 year stay!
August 26th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
As someone who used to work in the corporate world, I have first hand experience that it takes a lot more than a degree to get you a job – especially in this economy. I’d love to see this young lady’s cover letters, resumes, and hear about where/how she applied for jobs, did she do follow up calls or emails, etc.
Sometimes there just aren’t jobs or a person doesn’t have the right qualifications or there are only so many interviewing slots and for completely arbitrary reasons a person doesn’t get an interview. Life is funny that way.
August 26th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Justin is right.
I graduated with an MS in Geology and had over 100 rejection letters before I got my first job.
A friend’s daughter just graduated with a degree in engineering and is teaching high school.
Times are tough and you do what you need to to get through.
Tim:
Colleges are no worse than companies that use an employee until they are too well paid, (and probably over 45), and then cans them under the guies of a “layoff” for a lower paid and less experienced replacement. That even happens in Public Education! At least the college holds out some hope of employment.
August 26th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
When are you people going to realize Monroe College is a “college” in name only!
I keep reading about other people’s experiences with real colleges and universities as if they are relevant to this case. They aren’t. Unless you went to a vocational school, your experience doesn’t compare.
For the umpteenth time, Monroe College isn’t a real college or university. It isn’t listed on the U.S. News list of 1,400 colleges. It doesn’t require SAT scores for admission.
You would think the people who comment on articles published in a higher education publication would not speak from a position of ignorance. You would think….
August 26th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Yes, Jeremy, you would think that people would get their facts straight.
For example, the U.S. News list doesn’t include all colleges and many colleges don’t require SAT scores.
Monroe is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Colleges and Universities, having demonstrated that it meets the same standards as Columbia University and Cornell University among many others. Of course that doesn’t mean that all accredited colleges are equal, but Monroe has met the minimum standards.
And by the way, there are a lot of Columbia and Cornell graduates who can’t find jobs in this economy, so let’s not make that the standard of quality.
You would think people would get their facts straight…
August 26th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Most people here make excellent points. College or not, good student or not, this lawsuit has the potential to make some serious waves regarding precedent of a far bigger shift in the thinking of American education and accountability.
American society has adopted this position of entitlement and someone else being responsible for my failures — and this case is simply another expression of that. At the same time, however, the school or institution shouldn’t make promises that it may not keep; that’s false advertising.
Having been in the academic system for nearly 15 years now, I’ve noticed that there’s been a significant turn in the messages that we get everyday that determine and reinforce what our society accepts as normative. Consider the billboard I saw on a highway in FLorida “whocanisue.com” or something similar… Call them, tell them about your problems, and they’ll find someone from your life history who they can sue to get some cash in your wallet — and theirs of course. There is in my mind, a sadness to this. For one, I think it’s simply pathetic from all sides. Secondly capitalism has come to replace any form of social responsibilities. Even our government is being outsourced, overrun by self-serving capital interests that come with questionable accountability and oversight, and even when we KNOW they don’t keep promises and/or flat out lie, we continue to funnel money their way, using some partisan politics or legal semantics to find a reason to justify…
I think this is all part of the same problem we have everywhere right now: false advertising, rampant exploitation and empty promises juxtaposed against a pathetic attitude of entitlement, indifference or luke-warm reactions over anything that doesn’t involve our bank accounts directly (how many times have you been told that some very important political issue is “boring” by students simply because the consequences are not cut and dry, nor clearly expressed by those trying to get the spoils). This recent issue of health care reformation provides the complete example.
Our corporate attitude has been dominated by a mentality of seeking out only to make profit for those owning them, which is mandated by federal law, regardless of who or what you destroy in the process. To be educated or socially minded, that is not “socialist” but actually caring about your community and society as a whole, is no longer meaningful nor valued. We don’t reward this worldview (otherwise, the professors and NOT the “sons of capitalism” would be raking in the big bucks, no?)… Students learn that it’s not about what you do or how you think, it’s how much you make, and the flash and/or power that comes with it. I’ll never forget one of the little 15 second spots “The More You Know” they used to run between commercials and cartoons on Saturday morning. One of the “words to live by” was “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”
As long as these are the messages constantly thrown at us in this pervasive attitude of capitalism as religion, I think things like this suit will be quite common… what else could be expected?? To indulge in details is an interesting exercise, but that doesn’t solve the problem of things to come unless we approach the issues that lie at the core, regardless of the outcome of this case. But we don’t and seemingly won’t. Why? Because we can’t “prove it” via dollars and cents? The irony kills me.
August 27th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Hmm, great idea. I should go sue my alma mater! I can’t find a job either. Imagine all the lawsuits if every unemployed college grad decided to sue their college.
September 3rd, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I can understand her anger but not her approach. I have been looking for a different job for about a year now. I have graduated from college and also have eight years working experience with a non-profit organization and I am just sick to death. I have tried networking…half the time even people close to you don’t care enough to recommend you to someone who is hiring. My self-esteem has gone down…I will see a job that I am somewhat qualified for and just will not applying because I know it will be just one more let down. I am tired of getting my hopes up.
I live in Michigan, the hardet hit state in the country. As a result I have to stay in a job where there is absoluntely not room for advancement and I have had to take a pay cut from $7.75 and hour to $7.45. I don’t mind the last part so much. Also, as I keep this job my skill set is going down, I am falling behind and unable to keep up with the competition..and at 24 years old that is very depressing!
I feel that girls pain. It is stressful knowing that there are jobs out there that you are MORE then qualified to do but being passed up just because you are not the perfect match for the job or because organizations don’t want to pay to train their employees. You want to blame someone because you have run out of ways to blame yourself.
September 3rd, 2009 at 4:40 pm
This is just a sad issue all the way around. I recently graduated and found with eight years of work experience not only that my Communications degree is worthless but also that my eight years of telephone fundraising experience is also worthless. I am stuck in a job I hate and can’t even advance in and recently my pay of $7.75 and hour was cut to $7.45 can hour (bot even worht cutting). Although I have worked hard my whole life, am a two-time All-American in Track and Field, and have work experience it is not enough. Everything has to be better! Guess what I just can’t measure up. I am sick of it! I feel this girls pain but don’t agree with her approach.
September 25th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Some of these diploma mill colleges lure young unsuspecting students in with false advertisement of 90-95 percent job placement rates upon graduation. $70,000 is alot of money to spend on a vocational school. Seems she may have been led to believe that she would be able to quickly jump right into her career with the colleges assistance. However after graduating she felt as if she was hung out to dry with a boat load of debt to boot and broken promises made by the college. She actually may have a case here. But if nothing else, this will shine a bad light on these fake “institutions” that make huge profits off of the backs of our young gullible people. Good luck to her.
September 25th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Alright I need to chime in… yeah, we’re one of those parents that allowed our child to study the field of her choice, (gasp!), and interest, art history/studio art/& a foreign language. Yes, we are, as she was, aware that her earning potential would be limited upon graduation but there are entry level positions which, as we told her, will be a stepping stone to pursue other interests. Upon completing her undergraduate she plans to take one of these entry jobs, and continue with studies. There ARE jobs… you just have to live within your means… as we have our whole lives affording us the ability to provide these studies to her as a gift. She is not shackled with debt (nor are we) which would require her to earn high income to support. She has savings which will give her a good start in pursuing her dreams. It’s sad to think that the only reason people pursue certain studies is to be able to work with minimal interest. Our current economy is sad and this downward spiral is driven by corporate greed… thank goodness my daughter doesn’t want to provide her blood, sweat & tears to these ‘Bernie Madoff’s’ of our society.
September 30th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Wow… Maybe she should also sue her parents for raising a LOOSER!!!!!!
October 20th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I am a recent graduate as well with a Master Degree in Health Sciences. I have also not been able to find a full-time job yet and it has been 5 months since graduation. I don’t blame the school though, the problem is the economy. Many people who have years of experiences and diplomas are also out of work as well. All I can do is keep searching and hope my day comes soon. She has a poor GPA and her spelling is terrible. In grad school, if you can not maintain a 3.0 GPA minimum you are out. She should have gone to her school and asked for help writing her resume, cover letters, and practicing mock interviews. What does she want…someone to hand her a job in this economy because she is like thousands of other graduating students who are in the same situation?
November 17th, 2009 at 11:17 am
I’m a new grad with a masters degree and can’t find work since I graduated 6 months ago. I don’t blame my college, it’s just the economy and where our country is right now. Plus, I am in a high demand area of health care, yet still no job, I have my first in person interview this week for the first one in 6 months of looking! I don’t know what I’m going to do if I don’t get it. My student loans are $400/mo and I have to start paying them in Jan. Companies simply won’t invest the time to train new grads right now, regardless of the industry. It’s a terrible time to go back to school, I’d say keep whatever job you have and be happy until our system recovers. Sad times we are in…
November 17th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Dear Erin and sfl:
I looked for my first job during a similar recession and found that most job hunters concentrate in the desirable markets! Intense competition in the major cities such as San Francisco, New York, etc. and at major firms, too.
A professor suggested I expand my search to some “less desirable” locations such as small towns, the Mid West and so on. I snagged a job pretty quickly, not a great job, but a job in my industry! Not only was it a job, but come the end of the recession, I was the one with experience. I was far more employable than my peers who had not looked far afield.
I easily made a jump to a better area at greatly improved salary.
The effect was long term as I ended up as a boss of my peers by virtue of that extra experience.
Any job is a good place to hide out, even the VA. Future employeers will acept the fact that jobs were scarse when you were looking and give you extra points for having made your own opporunities and worked rather than sitting there and wringing your hands.
Another respected place to hide is the education system. Most systems, even those cutting back, are woefully short of math/science teachers! Alternative certification is available, too. I hid out there during one recession and it did not hurt my career at all. In fact connections through teaching students got me my next job in the field.
I’m very glad that professor suggested I broaden my search. I don’t think it would have ocurred to me on my own.
Sometimes, a short term sacrifice may be necessary to garner a long term gain.
Best of luck guys!
December 13th, 2009 at 1:46 am
Dear All,
This woman did the right thing. There are too many colleges and universities in the US and way too many satellite campuses. Few of them teach anything of any real industrial value. Most try to mimmic classic education and do so just to get the cash. If stafford loans and implied government guarantees on private loans were never invented, there would not be as many colleges and other post secondary schools.
This woman is well within her right to expect the college to either get her a job or repay the loans. Otherwise, it will come out of the tax base or the economy. The purpose of education for educators is to enlighten but the purpose for students is to get a good job to pay off the debt. In fact, the debt really outweighs the benefits of being an educated person. Further, schools are so greedy, they have taken so many unqualified candidates that they have watered down the value of a degree. The most desirable students today are those who keep their mouths shut, go through the assembly line and take their degree on the other end. Why do faculty and administrators now make six digits or even $60,000 or $80,000. Why aren’t they limited to making only $30,000?
The US is facing a huge student loan crisis that could be avoided if higher education tailored to industry. While, there may be a need to offer quintessential education, it should be required to come with a warning label, as does a pack of cigarettes. If we were to hold schools accountable for guaranteeing jobs, offers of admissions would immediately drop to only those who are truly capable of academic achievement. Employers would then have to invest money in training the rest. That is how it used to be. But now, with title Iv finding, anyone can go to college. Further, scholarships are given out for everything other than merit and all kinds of uneducated people with 4 year degrees are taking jobs that they really are not qualified to have. This is especially true in the case of civil service and the field of education itself. There are dumb people in our schools, colleges and universities and many of them are called teacher, professor, administrator business manager and the like.
There needs to be accountability in higher education and it needs to fall on the shoulders of the institution, not the individual. Granted, enforcing such an accountability would reduce college admissions offers substantially over night but that is what we need. We need to rank order society based on innate intelligence and talent, not hard work alone and certainly not one’s social demeanor, family name, connections and other such characteristics. We don’t do that. Instead, we make it possible for everyone to get a piece of paper and avoid discussing the fact that many of those pieces of paper are fraudulent on the part of the colleges and universities.
The criteria for not having to refund tuition plus all additional costs of attendance should be that the education/training resulted in the graduate making more money than could have been the case without attending the college or university. This would immediately end the practice of two year schools, satellite campuses and other such institutions creating bs degrees and creating bs classes that are designed as revenue nets and are intended to serve as a means to keep tuition paying and loan borrowing individuals on campuses, despite their inability to make it past the first semester “weed out” courses.
The courts should start putting the cost of education back on universities and schools. Doing so would benefit society and remove a burdensome cost to the taxpayer.
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
January 28th, 2010 at 7:22 am
You all are misinformed idiots. Wake up, the higher education system became a big business credentialing mill many years ago. There is something fundamentally flawed with the system when I spent $100,000 of hard and lost opportunity costs on my education plus 4 years of diligent studying earning a bachelor’s degree at a University, and graduating summa cum laude (top in class), and the best job I could land is earning LESS than the job I was offered ten years ago WITHOUT a college degree. To add insult to injury, my kid sister, who has a GED was offered a $30,000 year WITH benefits administrative position in the insurance industry, while I have been muddling by with a lousy “temp” job within a government agency with NO benefits, and making less than $8,000/year than the kid sister doing similar type work. We have been lied to and duped.
May 24th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
I have a bachelors Degree in Information Technology. I graduated in 2008 honor roll graduate. I wanted to have an education so I joined the Air Force earned my college money through uncle sam. Since I have graduated I have applied to over 600 positions I have had 3 interviews. I am not afraid of work so I rolled up my sleeves and took a job at Wal-Mart for 9 dollars an hour stocking produce. Yes produce. During the economic downturn my hours were cut to 28 and later the job laid me off. I collected unemployment for a year now all that is gone. My family pays my bills now and I make ends meat by mowing lawns. I am not a proud person any job I do I do well. I am a college graduate with a degree that cuts grass to get by. I am also a single father. So did college help me not really Iam 41 thousand in the hole on my student loans and I have no real job. I have often thought about sueing my college one of the things that was offered was job placement not a promised but inplied and when I graduated the job offers were for 9 dollar an hour help desk jobs that same money I was making at Wal-Mart with no degree or education. College is a big racket they make millions in tuition with the promise of a good life but in reality your better off saving your money learning a trade job skill and sticking with that. I plan on going back to work for minumum wage with my degree I should be able to flip burgers or maybe Iam overqualified!
May 25th, 2010 at 10:19 am
Dear All,
Something needs to be done about this problem. College and grad schools have become a scam, even the Ivy League. Many good local jobs, at least in my community, go to people who know people or are of the right family. It wouldn’t matter if they dropped our of high school, they still get the job. In that case, some local college degree is also just a scam because everyone else who gets it won’t get the same kind of job. The greater scam is that the schools give the tuition waivers and scholarships to the chosen people who they already know will get the god jobs and end up in important positions because they want to have good juju with those people and their families. But then to pay for all this free education for the chosen ones, they must pile student loan debt on the backs of the non-chosen and also rake their GI Bills dry. Dickinson college did that to my veterans benefits and Columbia did the same to my student loans. My local Penn State Hazleton campus does this to my community every semester.
What we need is a law that would place the economic burden on the shoulders of universities if they do not get their graduates jobs making enough money to repay their student loans. The whole thing is a scam. I used to get letters from top universities inviting me to apply for Ph.Ds and masters degrees but I no longer take any of them seriously. It think they were all scam attempts to increase the number of application fees and I would get them for everything from Math, Political Science, Logistics, etc…. But even if I took one one of them up on their invitation, applied and was accepted, it still wouldn’t get me a job because people hire form their social clique.
I have so much student loan debt that education not only did not provide a way out of a small town but it became the anchor that prevented me from escaping. Now I am stuck in a small town where the only thing that matters is who you know and where the unemployment office makes sure that I understand that my fancy education doesn’t mean a thing. I should expect nothing for it. But having the right friends does. Why? If the responses of Dickinson College, Columbia University and Penn State Hazleton all echo; “That’s the way it is.” Then why should I be held liable for paying student loan debt at all. I can’t pay it without a job and even with a job I will never be able to pay all of it but why should I be expected to pay any of it under these circumstances?
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
Hazleton, PA
May 25th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
@ Sean: Sounds like your claiming it’s all about the Benjamins from the school point of view and all the ‘students’ are playing by a different set of rules. Did I get that right?
May 25th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Sean: When I was forced to teach Junior High (despite a BS from Penn State and an MS from a top school on the West Coast) because there were no oil company jobs (1985), the teachers would ask complaining students,”Would you like some cheese with that whine?”
Unfrotunately, the folks at the schools are telling you the truth. You goofed. If you earn a degree in certain fields such as English or History, you should expect a hard time getting a job. Plumbers make more than PhD’s so, you might want to look at a different career or a trade. Find one that is learned in a mentoring situation, such as baking or finish carpentry.
I strongly suggest you begin to do some public service work: volunteer. Amazingly, it can lead to the very contacts you need to get a job in a smaller town. It will also improve you attitude and, since most small towns are pretty transparent, it would not surprise me if your attitude preceeded you with negative effect.
Yeah. I know, I’m older so I don’t know what I’m saying. I only had to withstand 70+ rejection letters before I got my first job. But try fighting age discrimination some time for laughs.
Best of luck in your job search, really.
May 26th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Dear “Grouchy Old Man,”
(1). I already must deal with age discrimination.
(2). Your advice misses the point. You seem to conclude that the universities bare no responsibility for employment and that they make no money. You are very far from the truth here. The Ph.Ds have been making well over six digits in the corporate world for a long time. Much much more than a masters degree or a plumber makes, especially when you consider that six digits is the expected base pay, not the risk based bonus.
(3). Dickinson college tuition was up to $45,000 per year a few years ago, they since brought it down. Columbia’s tuition + university housing was and is well over 45,000 per year. The end cost will not be less than that. Shared university apartments wit roommates we running about $800/moth back then.
(4). For this kind of money, I have the right to place practical and economic expectations on those schools. They did nothing out of kindness for me. They did it for the money. My attitude is well placed and spot on accurate.
(5). As far as a small town, i am unwilling to accommodate the old boy system. Meeting people is not necessary and should not be necessary. We are talking about taxpayer funded agencies. There are strict rules as to how hiring is supposed to be conducted and you knowing someone is not a part of that process. There are civil service exams, established criteria for qualifying for the job. The problem with our “small town” is that people do not adhere to the strict criteria. That is why we have so much corruption. That is why we have so much nepotism. That is why our tax dollars are continuously stolen. That is why the same small group of people control everything. That is why our community isn’t growing. That is why we have the lowest or next to lowest standardized test scores for high school students in Pennsylvania every year.
(6). Your problem “old man” is that you aren’t grumpy enough and that you went with the flow to look out for number one. There are huge problems in our society and one of them is existence of the old boy system you are trying to promote. I will not participate in it. We have regulations for a reason.
(7). Why do you think it is ok for universities to give free educations to so millions of foreigners, six digit paychecks to faculty and administrators, even 70K to faculty and office workers and the pay for it by piling student loans on the shoulders of Americans? Why do you so quietly walk away from this and accept it as just being the way it is? Those foreigners who get the free education then compete with Americans for the same jobs or just go back home. Now here is a rub. A European can apply for jobs in the U.S. and in Europe but an American can only apply in the U.S. To be hired in Europe, a European company must prove that no European could be trained to do that job.
(8). As far as suggesting “wood finishing” as a profession, what economy, time and place do you live in? How much work do you think there is for ornate wood finishing in this economy. I know a small builder who took a civil service job because the real estate market isn’t strong enough.
(9). How about instead of abandoning my education I take a stand and say; If you have someone who is being paid to do the job that I am trained for and he or she isn’t, the fact that you know him or her from some community service project is irrelevant, especially if the taxpayer is paying the paycheck. So he or she needs to be fired and replaced with someone who is qualified and available. How about I say to the colleges and universities; You took my money and made it very clear to me that I would get a good job and career coming out of your school. That didn’t happen. Therefore, you owe me my money back. That is the stand that needs to be taken across the country. Where is that million more per lifetime that a Neil Weisman from Dickinson came into my very first class at Dickinson College, as the guest lecturer, to tell us we would all get as a result of going to Dickinson College? I what to hold these people accountable for making these claims because I followed their advice based on my belief that I would get a bigger paycheck as a result of going to that college.
What you fail to see “old man” is that the education industry is exactly that. It is a for profit industry. Where do you think all that money for the 80K Dickinson salaries comes from? Where does all that money for the stone buildings come from? etc….. I was willing to borrow the money necessary to attend and use my GI Bill only because I was told that I would get a good career and job and would live in the upper strata of economic well being. My life would improve in an economic sense, political sense and social sense just for going to Dickinson. I was explicitly told this repeatedly in class lectures, conversations with advisors, etc… So where is it? I didn’t pay them money so that I could deliver on that promise. I paid them money so that they could deliver on that promise. I will not do something on a basis of—-”well we’ll see how things go…. we’ll decide what you get later……”. That’s unacceptable. The outcome for all parties involved in a transaction is decided at the beginning, not the end. In my case, only one college told me that they could not guarantee what I expected after graduation and even expressed doubts as to it being likely to occur. They admitted me, I appealed for a scholarship, they gave me more financial aid (a grant or scholarship) but chose not to attend on the grounds that the admissions officer expressed doubts as to whether I would get the exact job and career that I wanted. So I turned it down. Dickinson did the exact opposite and I have a right to hold them accountable.
We need a law that mandates that universities and colleges must either get you a job making more money that you would have without the degree and making enough to repay the loans or they school must refund the cost of education and take responsibility for the loans. If such a law is passed, admissions offers will be reduced to only those students who the schools are certain they can place in good jobs. The massive and growing student loan burden in this country will be reduced. People will be free of the student loan debt that they have no hope of ever being able to pay. Education will return to a merit based system, where grades and test scores get you access to college and graduate schools and people will get to keep their paychecks instead of having to pay all of it to tax and student loans. I would rather see teachers and professors lose their jobs than pay tax so that they can have good paychecks and pay their student loans. The biggest rip off in the US is “Traditional American Liberal Arts Education” and the public school system of primary and secondary education, at least in Hazleton, Pennsylvania where the teachers all got their jobs by knowing someone and the high school students all score pathetically low on standardized tests (with some exceptions).
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
May 26th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Sean:
You are right, I am in a different reality. I teach at a branch campus of the state university in a “southern” state where we specialize in associate degrees for trechnological fields and still have a 90%+ placement of grads into real jobs. I od ont think I am overpaid since both my daughters make more than I do as does my wife. The only time I’ve seen a six figure check is when I sold my home and that was still $5K less than I paid for it 10 years before. If you can give me an e-mail address, I’ll get you in touch with our people or get some propaganda sent your way.
By the way, I don’t believe you’ve said what your degrees are in.
In my reality, the real estate industry is not booming, but there are still trade jobs such as an inside carpenter (one who does the details on new homes or re-dos) or even as a roofer if you are willing to work harder than the average ethnic worker.
Now, as for the responsibility of your colleges for getting you a job. They had none any more than a deoderant company who promised you sexual attractiveness if you sprayed you armpits with their product. Anyone who goes to college and expects a guaranteed a job upon graduation is in the wrong economic system. They need to go to a more Socialistic country, say France or even Cuba. There IF you go the the “right” university, the government which is stacked with alums of the “right university” will get you a job. Oh, but that’s not an old boy network, so that’s OK then.
Is there nepotism? Is there favoritism? Do folks ignore and bend rules when it is convenient? You bettcha. Are tenured profs who sit on their duffs and have one office hour a month overpaid? Are college administrators and functionairies paid too much? Are football coaches so overpaid as to be obscene? YES YES YES!
But Sean, life ain’t all that fair. Example: You are still alive. But do you honestly think you had more right to life than one of your high school buddies who got nailed by a drunk driver or contracted cancer through no fault of their own? OK. The Declaration of Independence guarantees us the pursuit of happiness. But as Ben Frankling reputedly said, we have to catch it for ourselves.
I agree that there are flaws everywhere. It definitely is a world where, if you wish to dwell on it, you can see many things in need of some improvement. We live in a degenerating society where respect for law and or fair play is at a nadir. But I see only three choices. You can fight against the status quo from the outside (bet on the status quo except in several very notable cases). You can fight it from the inside (politics, lawsuit, get promoted and change behaviors)or educate those who will fight it along side you (teaching, community action, etc.). Or you can sit in one place moaning about how unfair things are, eating thistles and about how you really got the spiral inclined plane, and what a sick place this is.
Of the three I think the last option is the least productive, all around.
Maybe you should get off the East Coast and see what is happening amongst all the fly-over folks in the middle of the US. You may find us more to your liking.
May 27th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Dear “old man”,
No. Absolutely not. You think I am going to run off and get another degree, this time in putting crown molding in “southern” homes and forget about the issue. No. It wouldn’t matter if I made a million dollars per year installing fancy woodwork. The point being raised in this articles is that the woman from New York has a right to sue her college.
Right now, American are racked with growing amounts of public and private student loan debt. These debts grow at an unacceptable pace an the country’s economy is geared towards giving the very jobs that Americans are trained for to foreigners. I would do as you suggest. You don’t win a fight by walking away from it. The people at fault here are the greedy universities and the banks. They encouraged people to borrow with promises of making six digits plus bonus upon graduation. Well, they either deliver or they suck up the cost of those loans. That is what needs to happen. As soon as a law mandates that, we will see the American student loan problem solves itself. If the universities must bare the economic cost of a failed education, then they will immediately reduce admissions. The only reason these schools can afford to pay the ridiculous salaries for professors and staff is because of the growth of the student loan industry. Then never made that much before title-IV funding and before private student loans.
The missions of this woman’s law suit is much greater than just her law suit against a college that failed her. It is about getting colleges and universities to stop living on student loan funding and to make hold them accountable for delivering on specific jobs and careers. I am not going to switch locations and life plans so that I can make up for he error of a college. I did my part. I showed up and and graduated. I listened to their ridiculous lessons. They told me of the additional million I would make with my degree. Why should I have to get another one to make that million? If I do, why should I have to pay for the old one? Why shouldn’t they have to refund my GI Bill. I would have gotten much more from my GI Bill if I could have used it to by a home in cash then I have ever gotten out of my education.
I went to the schools that you speak of and the must either deliver or they must refund the money. Its that simple. DO not be fooled into thinking that I am among the only few dealing with this problem. I am not. I am the only one willing to go at the problem in the manner that I am. My reputation amongst men of no concern to me. For what kind of a man believes that something is wrong but couches his complaints in language that is politically correct and cloaks his name with monikers of anonymity? The best colleges and universities in this country, the student loan lenders and Wall Street firms are at fault. The nation must fight and that is all there is to it. They, not those who borrowed large sums of money to get advanced educations, are wrong. It was Senators like Arlen Specter who preached to Americans, borrow and get more education. Then it must be Senators and Congressmen of his ilk who solve this problem. The solution to America’s student loan problems does not lie in the careful installation of prefabricated ornate wooden onlay and inlay products within the southern regions of great nation.
Wake up!
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
May 28th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Well gee, that is how it works in a capitalist economic structure. If people are allowed to clog up the legal system because they didn’t get the job of their dreams with their degree (and really, how many of us actually do?) the universities may as well close their doors now. You may have a point that administrators get paid an awful lot of money, and so do the professors, but only in some departments–certainly not all of them. At our university, the English and Communications professors are paid about a third of those who teach technical, mathematical, business, or science courses. Presumably because those areas are much more difficult to learn and to teach successfully. As an undergrad taking Algebra and as a grad student taking Research Methodology, I can honestly say that two of the happiest days of my life were the days I completed the required coursework for those classes.
To say that the administrators get a ridiculous sum of money…well, I used to work in the Provost’s office, and saw firsthand what he had to deal with regularly. They get paid extra to worry about staying in business and dealing with angry parents who are upset when lazy little Johnny didn’t get handed an “A” for doing failing work. Without students, universities have no income, and so yes, they do rely on it, and if the students have to borrow money to attend, it is of their own free will. College is not compulsory education. I earned my degrees because I wanted them, and not because I believed that the university should be responsible to assure me a job when I got finished. It is a gamble as to whether it will pay off, but it is a guarantee that if you don’t pursue a college education, you will most likely not be a white-collar earner.
June 1st, 2010 at 10:58 am
TO ALL OF YOU WHO ARE CONFUSING THE ISSUES:
This news story is not about a student who attended a university and didn’t get the job of her dreams. This is a story about a student who attended a private trade school, was promised she would be placed in a job when she was recruited, and was not placed in a job as promised.
Please don’t confuse Monroe College with a university, or even a real college. This debate will go around in circles indefinitely if you allow this to turn into a debate regarding real colleges and universities.
You are comparing apples to oranges. If the plaintiff in this news story wins her case, it will have no repercussions for real colleges and universities.
Real colleges and universities give students the opportunity to choose their own major, and while a secondary goal is to make students employable, the primary goal is to educate them, regardless of how marketable their skills are after graduation.
To those who complain that “job placement is based on who you know and not what you know,” and suggest universities should be held accountable for graduates who can’t get jobs, get over it. Networking is a skill like any other, and if you want to be successful, it is a skill you had better develop and use.
June 1st, 2010 at 11:24 am
Dear Janine Marlowe,
You are not completely correct in your assertion that education is a business but in so much as colleges and universities approach it as a business, the business must be forced to bear the business risk. Your claim is contradictory in that respect. You argue that the universities and colleges must sell their education to customers but then you deny the customer the right to sue for a faulty product. You make the argument that math and technical courses are harder to learn and harder to teach but make no mention of charging the customer less for a liberal arts course than for a technical course. If you sell a service to s customer, you cannot turn around and claim that you are performing a public service when it comes to being held accountable.
You make the bold assertion that going to college will get you a white color job, as if you believe the reason people go to college is so they won’t have to get dirty. You make no distinction between a person who only answers the phone and xeroxes and someone who is in charge or a lawyer, MBA from a top school, Med Doctor, etc…. Instead, you are differentiating between those who get dirty and those who do not. You completely fail to consider that education is about making more money than you would without the degree. It’s not about getting dirty or not getting dirty. In fact, you can both make a lot more money without and education and keep a lot more of that money for yourself than you can with an education. Schools never tell prospective students this truth. In fact, liberal arts people are notorious at quoting averages that they do not understand and other statistics that they don’t understand in an effort to dupe people into borrowing money to attend their programs. In fact, when you describe it in your post above, you sound just like a used car salesman.
You are making the claim that it is ok and even necessary for universities and colleges to sell people on the idea that they will make more money from their education and that it is also ok for them to not be accountable for delivering on those promises. You use fancy wording like an insurance salesman or broker. You have clearly reserved yourself to the fact that you work at a school and the school must make money for you to eat food and it is therefore ok to take that money from young people who don’t have it. You acknowledge that most of them will not make any more money from the degree than they will without it and clearly stat that it is their problem. In doing so, you are taking the cut throat business woman stance that, you sold them on it, they bought the sales pitch and they didn’t read the fine print.
In response, I am taking the cut throat stance that if you do not deliver on both your explicit and implicit promises, then you need to be sued. I am also taking the cut throat stance that, if this is the “business” of higher education, then I want to be treated like a client. That means, all of this university community, university government and provost crap needs to be expunged from the system of Higher Education. You are not a government but think you are and you make your own consumer laws as you go. That needs to change. There needs to be client service representative, not academic advisors. There needs to be a clear understanding of who is in charge. It is the paying client, not the faculty or administrators. I, the client will dictate your duties and what I expect out of you and you, the service provider, will do the work. But you don’t see it in those terms. You see it as if someone came to you for mentoring and guidance but they didn’t. You sold a degree program to a client and the only thing the client cares about is what job and how much money is he or she going to make. If you can’t deliver on that, then you need to be sued.
As far as your claim that, if colleges and universities aren’t allowed to sell their education, that is; Make the pitch. Then they may as well close their doors. On this point I agree with you. There are far too many colleges and universities in the United States and there are far too many people getting degrees. Most of them are liberal arts degrees and most people shouldn’t have them. There is a naive notion that a liberal arts degree is so easy that it is the same thing regardless of where you got it. The end result is that having one does not serve as a demarkation of intellect over others because anyone can now buy one.
The problem that you completely missed is that colleges and universities are not merely businesses but are businesses that have the authority to grant store credit but not the obligation to bear the risk of granting store credit. This has to change. There clearly needs to be private student loan reform and more government loan reform. Student loan reforms needs to place a constraint on all universities and colleges that if a person does not make more money than he or she otherwise would have made without the degree, then the university or college must take financial responsibility for the student loans and refund state and federal grants and GI Bills. If such a law is passed, many universities will cut admissions offers overnight. This will reduce liberal arts schools and non-performing programs at universities to a very small number of students. Many Americans will be denied access to buying a degree, countless faculty, administrators and support staffs will be terminated and the quality of American education will improve. For example, instead of taking Algebra at college, you would be forced to take it at a high school night program, as it should be.
Let there be no doubt, Americas best colleges and universities have racked the American born citizens with mountains of debt that will continue to drag the economy down. People aren’t working for themselves, they are working for student loan lenders. Education has been allowed to become consumption. It isn’t an investment. Universities make up commercial degree programs through continuing education, many that have different names, offer no true specialty, all comprise the same exact courses and then charge more than other degree programs that include the very same course but are not offered through continuing education departments. The entire thing is a racket. Schools solicit applications from people they have no intention of admitting. Schools admit people they realistically should have no intention of graduating. The end result is that people like me end up having to compete with dumb people who bought a degree at some school with a satellite campus that allows them to feign intellectual achievement that people who think like you sold them because, “education is a business” and they have to make money or someone who thinks like you hoodwinked me into buying a degree. Either way, I agree with Trina Thompson, colleges and universities should be sued if the graduate does not make more money than would have been the case without the degree.
If congress makes such a law, droves of mediocrity will funnel out of the faculty lounges and from the administrative support staffs onto the streets wearing dark glasses and holding coffee cups. Many universities and colleges will be closed for good, standards will be aligned with financial risk management and profits and people like me will not have to be burdened with Ph.D. in BS or the endless supply of university office administrating Ed.Ds who lack the intelligence or experiences worthy of even being in the same classroom as me, much less in a debate on education or any other social matter.
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
June 1st, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Dear Sean Donuhue;
Unfortunately I do not have as much time as you do to argue with you point by point. I was only giving my opinion, but thank you for your lengthy address of how I am wrong in my opinion in every way shape and form. Maybe you can get a job somewhere that will provide you with a better outlet than spending hours attacking the opinions of others. I didn’t read it because I don’t care that much. Obviously you do. Sorry dude, for all of the bitter disappointments that life has handed to you. Also, soooo, sooooo sorry for expressing my opinion. I promise to NEVER waste my time in this forum again.
June 1st, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Jeremy:
Thanks for the heads up! That definitely puts a different light on things.
If it is as you say, she should probably prevail. And, can you say.”fraud”?
June 1st, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Dear Jeremy,
You are wrong about one thing; Your claim that this case should not open the door to suing college and universities over job placement and student loans. It needs to be done. The purpose of education is to make a country stronger than other countries or a planet stronger than other planets or a city stronger than other cities. You have a warped view of the world. You are assuming that colleges and universities are colleges and universities. Further, if that is all they are going to be, then Americans shouldn’t have to pay anything for education and should get paid to attend. After all, they will need the student loans and the pay for attendance to fund the cost of going to trade schools after graduation from colleges and universities.
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
June 1st, 2010 at 2:43 pm
In the “business” of education, students are not the customer! Students are the product!
Local employers who influence the curriculum, donate money, and hire graduates are the customers. In addition, taxpayers, who often subsidize between 2/3 and 3/4 of in-state tuition at public colleges and universities, can consider themselves customers, unless they are students.
This idea of students being “customers,” mixed with the idea that the customer is always right is part of the problem with today’s students. Many of them don’t get it, but the top students understand they are the product, not the customer.
June 1st, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Mr. Donahue:
It sounds like you have a wild hair up your ___ about higher education. Perhaps your perspective is warped. I have been a student and staff member at colleges and universities for more than a decade, so I have seen the issues from both sides. Also, I understand how case law works. In order to apply this ruling to real colleges and universities, the cases have to be quite similar.
Perhaps if you want to gain a better understanding about the purpose of higher education, the mission statements of prominent universities would help you. For example:
“The University of North Florida fosters the intellectual and cultural growth and civic awareness of its students, preparing them to make significant contributions to their communities in the region and beyond.”
“Harvard strives to create knowledge, to open the minds of students to that knowledge, and to enable students to take best advantage of their educational opportunities.”
“Like all great research universities, Yale has a tripartite mission: to create, preserve, and disseminate knowledge.”
Any ideas you have about schools “making the country stronger, etc.” or the promise of employment suggests colleges and universities have some control of the economy. They don’t, and they shouldn’t be punished with an inherently cyclical economy enters a recession.
If you just do a little research, and read a school’s mission statement before choosing a school, you can ensure the school in which you enroll meets your goals and desires. All of these mission statements can be found online. Do you research, and you can avoid these schools that don’t serve your needs.
June 1st, 2010 at 5:06 pm
Dear Jeremy,
I don’t disagree with you on the point that the views that you present are the views that colleges have of themselves and the client institutional relationship. I disagree with allowing them to go on maintaining these views. I disagree with those values being the values of most higher educational institutions. I do agree with the lofty nature of Yale and Harvard but I disagree with too much loftiness amongst too many colleges and universities. I greatly disagree with allowing government student loans, Gi Bills or grants for the purposes that you state. One reason I disagree is because I do not believe that the “colleges and universities” are even attempting to accomplish the missions that you claim they are, nor do I think they are capable of accomplishing that lofty mission. Instead, I believe that most of them use that lofty mission to evade being sued for not getting their graduates jobs.
But you are greatly downplaying the commercial relationship of higher education. It is ridiculous to state that the employers are the customers. Suppose the student wants to be self employed? The client is the one paying the bill and it is the students who are paying the bill. The laws governing both higher education institutions and student loans need to be changed so that if a client (the student) walks onto your campus, it is clear to you who is in charge and that is the person paying the bill, not you and not the school, unless you are paying the student to be there. This needs to be written into law as the defining characteristic of the relationship. Even the for profit schools that you speak of seem to harbor (hide behind) the philosophies that you are citing as the values of higher education in America. But we part way in that I believe that most of the institutions in the US, including the ones you cite, and their brethren, have also invented many cash cow programs that are explicitly marketed on the basis of promising commercial rewards for the graduates but then the schools hide behind the values you cite. Yet, those values aren’t part of the program. They are legalese to avoid being sued.
In short, the best way to solve the problem at hand it needs to be defined. I think the problem is this; Higher education costs a ridiculously high amount and at such high prices, universities and colleges must be held accountable for ensuring that graduates make much more money than would have been the case without the degree. I think the best way to solve this problem is to put it into law that universities and colleges must ensure well paying jobs or refund the total cost of the education. I believe that doing this will put many schools out of business (for that is all they are) and force many other schools to get rid of the cash cow programs that use and abuse both students and American student loan availability. There is a lot of administrative bureaucracy at colleges and universities because there is so much money available for them. But because the money must come from student loans, what happens is that every American is targeted for a degree or a certificate of some kind so that the schools can get more money. If they don’t want to suffer a loss in prestige, they invent programs for lesser minds and then march the people through. Then when employers ask what is the difference between all these programs, they say programs (1,2,3 and 4) all take the same classes but the students are arranged by order of quality, intellect and competitiveness. These schools never put this in the mission statements, nor in the puff pieces they send to the paying clients, the students.
You can fight me if you like but, our country, including and especially universities, is increasingly filled with people on staffs of organizations who have no real rigorous advanced educations, just degrees. What is more, there are so many of these people on staff at liberal arts colleges and especially at satellite campuses, that the Ed.Ds and phyco babble Ph.D. keep inventing distribution requirement after distribution requirement after distribution requirement. In the U.S., a person with a 2 year tech degree has to fill about 1 year worth of academic time with academic distribution requirements in liberal arts courses. This is unacceptable and a big waste of government student loans and a big waste of the property and income tax breaks that we grant to universities. Lets face it, if a university campus, especially a satellite campus wants money, it will invent a crappy 4 year degree to keep two year degree student on campus for 4 years and hire 5 to 10 more people for support positions to make put some cushioning in place so there is a long list of people who would need to be fired or let go before you ever get to the senior bureaucrats or administrators, or begin discussing closing or downsizing the campus.
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
June 2nd, 2010 at 9:50 am
Sean:
If we followed your advice, not only would we lose our position as a country that is one of the best at providing higher education, we would give the most influence to the people who pay only a relatively small portion of tuition expenses. Like I said, students only pay between 1/4 and 1/3 of the total cost of an in-state public college education. The rest is subsidized by the state. If students paid what a public college education is really worth, that would be a different story. All of your opinions seem to be based on the illusion that students pay the full cost of a public college education. You must be living in a bubble.
I noticed you conveniently concentrated as my status as a staff member, but conveniently ignored my status as a student. I have been a student longer, and my views are influenced by both experiences.
It is obvious you have an agenda, and that you do not value doctorate level knowledge. I am not going to fight you over your hair-brained opinions. You can keep them. Fortunately, your ideas are so wacky, and out of the mainstream, that I do not need to worry about them ever being enacted.
You do not do a very good job of hiding your bias in this issue. You obviously do have a wild hair up your ____ about higher education. I do not know if you flunked out, were expelled for cheating, or had some other defining experience that turned you against higher education, but it is quite obvious you have lost your objectivity.
June 2nd, 2010 at 9:54 am
One more thing, Sean.
Treating students as customers would effectively give them influence over curriculum and academic standards. Don’t you think that is a little like putting the fox in charge of the hen house? Academic standards would suffer to accommodate the many students who don’t want to do the work for a college education. Treating students as the product instead of the customer ensures high quality standards can be maintained, in spite of the protests of students who want a college diploma without the college education.
June 2nd, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Dear Jeremy,
Your accusations regarding my academic background are slanderous and uncalled for. I did not “flunk out” I was never “expelled”, nor has there ever been any disciplinary actions whatsoever. Why would you say such a thing? Your comment needs to be removed. Why did you even insinuate such things and why did they allow it to be posted?
I have a very different view of higher education than you do. I have made no attempt to conceal that. I also have an agenda and made no attempt to conceal that either.
The bottom line is universities do not get paid to do what you claim they are paid to do. They get paid to get graduates well paying jobs. Everything else is secondary. They are eating up too much of the wealth of the country and they are by no means responsible for the wealth of our country. Some are responsible for some of the wealth bus most academic programs in America have become degree mills.
Further, I am not opposed to Ph.D. level education and “knowledge” I respect economists, scientists and some social scientists but I do consider the vast majority of Ed.D and Phyco babble Ph.D.s to be bureaucrats and nothing more. Because they make their money from the bureaucracy, they promote any legislation that distributes more tax money their way. They also invent “bs” degree programs to keep the cash flowing. So, who is really wrong here? Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, there is a huge student loan crisis in American and that crisis is derived from more than just a slow economy. The system of higher education should be merit based, not credit rating based.
You are assuming that America is actually benefitting from so many Americans having liberal arts degrees. I don’t think we are. Beyond that, people are beginning to believe that all degrees are created equal, when they are not and that all schools are created equal, when they are not. So lets be blunt. There are too many Americans walking around with college degrees and the watering down effect is hurting all of us who have a real education. But this does not relieve the colleges and universities of the responsibility of ensuring that their degrees lead to graduates making much more money than would the case without the degree. But you tell me, if the degrees do not lead to graduates making more money than would be the case without the money, then where will the future money come from to pay the mounting student loan balance in out country? If those loans are not paid, then where will the money to continue providing student loans come from? I see a system that is going to eventually come tumbling down, just like the mortgage backed security industry does and colleges and universities are doing nothing to address the matter. The only thing they can do is cut costs. To cut costs, they need to get rid of staff, reduce salaries and stop wasting money on campus life. Instead of putting the money in to fluffy and useless crap, the money needs to go into hard science labs, tech training and paying for Americans to learn such things.
This is my education;
Dickinson College, BA Major 1: International Studies, Major 2 East Asian Studies, 1997
(Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude)
Columbia University, MIA (Concentration International Finance and Business), SIPA 2001
Columbia University, MA Statistics 2005
Mandarin Chinese, Middlebury College Levels 3,4,5
Mandarin Chinese Indiana-U, CET Beijing Level 1
Study Abroad at Yonsei in Korea
Two semesters of physics and science courses at Penn State Hazleton
Additional coursework taken at ever military instillation where I was stationed.
I have reached my views as a result of getting this education. You aren’t right. You think you are because you work at a university and see that side of the industry. You need to keep yourself fed and the policies and laws we have now do that for you. But I see the need for the universities to lose the authority complexes and cease viewing themselves as little governments that make their own laws. There is a consumer revolution going on in our country and consumers are gaining more rights. There is no reason that those rights should not apply to consuming education. But the bigger problem is moral hazard by the universities and colleges that don’t bear any of the risk in a student loan defaulting due to inability to pay. That needs to change. It is fair and reasonable to make the colleges and universities bear the risk of their degrees causing their graduates to make more money than could be made without the degrees.
WE NEED PRIVATE STUDENT LOAN REFORM!
WE NEED MORE GOVERNMENT STUDENT LOAN REFORM!
WE NEED TO HOLD COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE RISK OF EDUCATION!
If a company promised me at least $1million more in earning throughout my lifetime if I bought their product, I would be able to sue. So the same needs to be true of colleges and universities. People who work on staffs at universities and colleges, especially those with degrees in education itself for phyco babble, always believe that their program is useful and always refuse to be held accountable because if they were, they would be the first to go and the engineering programs would get the money. I agree with this. Engineers design ships, planes and machines and technicians build them. Accountants force MBA’s to cut costs and Lawyers ensure that the interests of all parties are addressed and that a striking point is met. They are the ones who keep the nation strong. So do the med doctors and soldiers. But the teachers in America, the professors in American and the university staffs and college staffs in America have become bureaucrats and greedy bureaucrats at that.
If the universities do not fix this problem, then in the next 20 years, when the congress gets tired of paying off student loans, when the banks begin to demand a congressional bailout for non-performing private student loans, when the public begins choosing not to go to college and when local communities begin to demand that colleges and universities pay both income and property tax, you will come around to see my side of the story. The system is economically unsustainable and if the players in the system do not fix it, a solution will be forced upon them from the outside. I have proposed that solution in my posts on this web blog.
LET THE AGENDA BE HEARD!
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
June 2nd, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Sean, you wrote:
“Your accusations regarding my academic background are slanderous and uncalled for. I did not ‘flunk out’ I was never ‘expelled’, nor has there ever been any disciplinary actions whatsoever.”
Are those really the only defining experiences you can think of that would explain your bias? It sounds like you “doth protest too much.”
Please don’t try to manufacture outrage by taking my comments out of context. I wrote, “I do not know if you flunked out, were expelled for cheating, or had some other defining experience that turned you against higher education, but it is quite obvious you have lost your objectivity.”
Like I said, your opinions are so far out of the mainstream, I don’t see the need to argue them.
There you go again, attempting to ignore my perspective as a student. Try all you want, but you can’t put labels on me that don’t fit.
I am surprised someone with all that education doesn’t know the difference between slander and libel. Slander is spoken. What you are accusing me of is libel.
June 4th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Sean, with all that education, I am surprised you don’t seem to know the difference between slander and libel. Slander is spoken. In writing, it’s libel.
June 7th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Dear All,
Brian Williams, of NBC, is featuring excerpts of commencement speeches on his evening news broadcast. In one of them, some guy tells a graduating college class that “flipping burgers” is not beneath them. He said to the graduates; “Your grandparents called it opportunity.” The speaker was completely out of touch with the current circumstance of the graduates. Their grandparents didn’t have to make minimum student loan payments or have their credit ruined so that couldn’t buy a home, a car or have a credit card.
The academic community is completely out to lunch on the issue of “flipping burgers” despite having one or several degrees. I washed dishes and flipped burgers in high school but it sure did not pay enough to make minimum mandatory student loan payments. Further, “flipping burgers”‘ does not compensate one for the opportunity cost of their time and the opportunity cost of the taxpayers who are backing those student loans. What people do with their educations is not a matter of dignity, its a matter of NPV or ROI, whichever metric you prefer. The bottom line is this; If a degree does not lead a graduate to make more money than would have been the case without the degree, then the entire cost of the education was not worth the expenditure. If the best a university can come up with is “flipping burgers”, then the universities need to start refunding the full costs of the educations. GI Bills, Pell Grants, Veterans Grants, Scholarships, Student Loans and out of pocket payments all need to be refunded.
If a university or college makes the argument that the purpose of education is to make for better society, then knowing that they are making society better is tuition enough. Thus, they need to refund the total cost of education. Brian Williams’ tacit endorsing of the claim that “flipping burgers” is ok is an unacceptable waste of our tax dollars. If there are no better jobs available, then we should suspend student loans until the economy improves. We should also allow veterans to take the GI-Bill in a full cash payment. The current GI-Bill pays for a full 4 year degree at a state school. Since most state schools cost 25,000+ per year in tuition alone, why not let veterans just take the 100,000 cash after their first tour of duty? Why waste the money on a 4 year degree that leads to “flipping burgers”. Why waste our tax dollars by mandating that they flow towards universities and colleges? Why not let every American utilize the full amount of Stafford loans, Perkins Loans and any other government backed loans to buy a home, land, cars, boats, shares of stock or start a business? Why mandate that the only credit available to all Americans, regardless of financial status, must be used for education? If Stafford and Perkins loans could be used for buying shares of stock, land or a home and the same deferments were granted for unemployment or economic hardship and the very same IBR was available, Americans would be much better off using those loans for nice homes for their family. Then, at the end of 20 years, when the remaining balances are forgiven, American would have something tangible to show for their Stafford and Perkins loans.
Very few people truly benefit from their degrees anymore because so many people have them. If I could have used my student loans to make a cash purchase of gold, a home or land and qualified for unemployment deferment, I would be much better off when the 25 years runs out than I am now because I would have the gold, a home or land. That is much more American use of money than is education. We need to hold sales people and business accountable. Colleges and universities are no different. You buy their service because it is their job to make sure you get a job that is much better and pays much more money than you would ever make without an education. If they don’t deliver, then they need to be sued and the law should make doing so as easy as filling out an online form with the Department of Education. If congress mandates something like this, we will see unprecedented cooperation between colleges, universities, employers and clients (students). If college big shots risked being unemployed and working for a living, they would do anything necessary to ensure that each client got a job making lots of money. If they couldn’t deliver, they would quickly reduce their risk exposure by reducing admissions and by eliminating no performing academic programs and subjects that don’t make the client any money.
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
June 9th, 2010 at 11:11 am
Thank you Mr. Donahue for all 9 of your opinions.
June 9th, 2010 at 11:18 am
“If a degree does not lead a graduate to make more money than would have been the case without the degree, then the entire cost of the education was not worth the expenditure.”
That is a matter of opinion, not fact. There are many philosophy majors tending bar, and many people like them who, despite the fact that they could have gotten their current jobs without their degree, value their experiences and their degrees.
The earning potential you attribute to a college degree is a value judgment you have made. You alone regard money as the only valid goal of a college degree. It isn’t. There are people majoring in theatre whose only goal is to volunteer in community theatre. There are people majoring in art who plan to create paintings and sculptures regardless of their monetary value, purely for the sake of creating art. Who are you to devalue the college degrees of people like this?
Employers decide who is worthy of a job, not a college. There are many employers who have standards higher than the school, so they only hire applicants with high GPAs.
Stop acting like student loans are something that has been inflicted upon you. If you chose to finance your college education that way, instead of paying as you go, live with the consequences of your decision. Man up. The fact that you chose to finance your education in such a way isn’t reason to blame colleges.
By the way, my previous comments were not slanderous. In order for it to be considered slander, something must be spoken. In writing, it’s considered libel.
June 9th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Dear Jeremy,
You are wrong. There is a huge contradiction in America’s private student loan industry. It won’t be fixed without complaining and outrage. But you are are really assuming that colleges and universities do not play on peoples’ desires to make more money. That is a ridiculous viewpoint. Schools never tout the line about education being just for the sake of education until after they cash the check. You can’t really believe that all the emphasis on clubs, activities, symposiums and all the other crap that goes on in America’s institutes of higher learning truly add value. College and university degrees have become diluted. Anyone can get a degree in America. Most of the degrees are crap but then the people who get them meet govt. requirements to be teachers, servants and to take numerous licensing exams, even if they would have never been hired in previous generations.
Also, your claim that student loans aren’t forced on people is false. It is the only option for most people to attend college and university programs. Schools feed like predators on American student loans. Take away the loans and university & college faculty and administrators will go back to making reasonable amounts of money. I frankly have found that everything that anyone in a leadership position ever said to tout education was just something they said and also something that they too felt was untrue.
The bottom line is that an education does not result in s person making more money. The correlation between the two is not always backed by causation. Like I said, where is my additional million dollars and I want that additional million to be delivered in terms of NPV after the PV of the total cost of my education has been netted out of the equation.
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
June 10th, 2010 at 10:42 am
“You can’t really believe that all the emphasis on clubs, activities, symposiums and all the other crap that goes on in America’s institutes of higher learning truly add value.”
Um, yes, I do. Of course they do.
“Anyone can get a degree in America.”
If that’s the case, why do I see students flunk out? You are really showing your bias, and I think patently false statements like that are hurting your credibility.
“Also, your claim that student loans aren’t forced on people is false.”
Really? My father worked his way through college to become a civil engineer. I worked my way through college after he died. I haven’t taken out a single student loan in my pursuit of a degree. It took me longer to get a degree while working full time, but I would rather take longer to get my degree than CHOOSE to graduate with student loans weighing me down.
“Like I said, where is my additional million dollars and I want that additional million to be delivered in terms of NPV after the PV of the total cost of my education has been netted out of the equation.”
Good luck with that. It will never happen, not as long as this country remains free, and people are expected to face the repercussions of their choices. I know our litigious country seems to be trending towards an attitude that says, “I made bad choices, but I don’t want to suffer the consequences,” but I think your expectations exceed even that attitude.
Really, good luck with that. You are going to need help coping with defeat. I can tell.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:25 am
Mr. Donahue,
I’ve tried to see your points, really.
> student loans aren’t forced on people is false.
I don’t see anyone putting a gun to someone’s head and forcing them to get a student loan. College education always has been and remains a choice.
> Anyone can get a degree in America. Most of the degrees are crap.
So in your thinking…colleges force people to take out student loans so they can get meaningless degrees.
> The bottom line is that an education does not result in s person making more money.
That is an untenable opinion. A person with a degree starting position out can expect a higher income than a person without a degree. Unfortunately, finding a job has gotten really difficult of late.
> college faculty and administrators will go back to making reasonable amounts of money
Again, an untenable opinion. I left the private sector and took a position at a university and lost income. I don’t whine/complain about it because I made the choice just as you did upon entering all of the under-graduate and post-graduate programs you listed in your 2 June post.
Thanks again for all of your opinions.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Dear All,
Most of you repeatedly claim that college is a choice but then you add the propaganda that the person who gets a degree will live a more secure and a better economic quality of life. You follow through with the propaganda claiming that those without such a degree will liver an economically dismal life. Further, you are mixing degrees. I never said that technical training for a specific job with a specific predetermined outcome and income is a waster. It is not. The waste is in the traditional liberal arts education. The wast is also in all those clubs and symposiums. They are all funded by they are all funded by the universities but I don’t want such things being paid for with US government backed student loans, grants or GI Bills. Such expenditures should be prorated and voluntary. I am not willing to have our tax dollars pay for it.
Further, your claims that individuals are held accountable for their bad and wrong decisions to go to college greatly contradicts your touting of higher education. Why not be so negative towards the incoming classes? Why not give that hardline speech to applicants? Why not give that speech to parents and do so before they make a deposit? Why not put in very large bold print; It’s not our job to get you a job. That’s not what we do at this college or university and if you can’t make enough money to repay your student loans, that your problem!
None of you present the argument in this manner to prospective students. Yet, all of you have presented the argument in this manner to me.
You are free to decide that it is not your responsibility to focus higher education on jobs but I say that it is and I want US backed student loans to be restricted to only those schools that get people jobs making more money than they would without the degree or they refund the total cost of education. I feel that the US taxpayer would get much more for his or her money than is currently the case.
Under the current set of circumstances, there is so large an outstanding student loan balance in America, that it will never be repaid. Much of it will come out of the tax base in the year 2020 and then again in the years 2034 and 2035. Much more will inevitably be written down by the private sector. There is no way around it.
What must happen is that salaries on university and college campuses need to be reduced to 30,000 year. That is more than enough for an educator to make and certainly more than enough for a staffer to make. College degree programs must be indexed by the amount of money you get from completing them and the institutions of higher education must be held economically accountable, to include jailing university and college administrators for misleading and perpetuating a fraud on the American public.
I was explicitly told in numerous classrooms by college and university officials that I would make more money just by graduating. That did not materialize and I intend for the system to hold those individuals accountable to their words. I do not care how this sits with the academic community or its support staff. I am willing to see and want to see the US Congress enact a set of laws that will force the closure of liberal arts programs, end the finding of foreigners to attend American Ph.D. programs or any other program and restrict the use of resources to only those endeavors that get Americans jobs making more money than they ever could without the education. Otherwise, the education is worthless. Any and all training programs, any and all skill sets, as well as any and all knowledge that will lead to higher quality performance, higher quality technology, higher quality manufacturing, higher quality heath care and an over all higher quality of human condition must be prioritized to serve the needs and benefits of born Americans first.
We cannot make our country better and stronger and we cannot improve the material quality of life of our people if we keep wasting money on liberal arts, clubs, symposiums and all that other crap. College should be boot camp its responsibility should be to mass produce skilled individuals who can implement procedures in a uniformed and redundant manner that improved their quality of life first. Regardless, society has two choices; It can either force colleges and universities to get people with student loans job making more than enough money necessary to repay the loans and live a much better quality of life than could have been lived without the degrees or society can take the stance that you are taking and find itself refunding the cost of the education. One of you make the claim that this will never happen but you fail to see that it already has. The problem is that the refund comes from the tax base but the tax base does not have a recourse for then charging the cost of that refund to the college or university. Providing the US government with such a recourse is the next step that must be taken in the legislation.
Why should the government just cancel the remaining balances on student loans without making the colleges and universities then reimburse the government for its having extended that refund to the general public?
Lear you facts before you criticize me.
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
June 11th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
“Most of you repeatedly claim that college is a choice but then you add the propaganda that the person who gets a degree will live a more secure and a better economic quality of life.”
All I said on this subject is that standard of living is more influenced by the economy than it is institutions of higher education. Colleges and universities don’t control the economy or the job market, yet you seem comfortable blaming higher education for macroeconomic problems rather than the policy makers who cause them, or the voters who elect the policy makers, or even the cyclical nature of all economies.
I agree that officials in higher education should choose their words carefully. If what you say is true (which is getting harder and harder to assume!), you were indeed misled, so take it out on the people who misled you instead of judging a group by the actions of a few (the very definition of prejudice).
“Further, your claims that individuals are held accountable for their bad and wrong decisions to go to college greatly contradicts your touting of higher education.”
Nobody said that either. We were talking about student loans, not the decision to go to college. There are other ways to pay for college, like working yourself through college. You seem to be making the assumption that student loans are the only way to go to college, and that our statements about financing apply to going to attending college in general. That is a logical fallacy.
Not all faculty members are equal. Likewise, not all institutions are equal. Yet you insist on treating them as though they are all the same. Don’t you see what’s wrong with that? Your judgments are based on your limited experiences, rather than an educated understanding of policy, assessment, and measured outcomes. Your definition of “success” is no narrow, it’s like you have blinders on.
June 13th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Mr. Donahue,
What makes you think that people who work at a college or university don’t work? You think that people who work in higher education don’t work for a living? Have you ever worked in one? I’ve worked in the field for the past 10 years, and I have worked more than 70 hours a week, sometimes more, for the past 4 years. Even on “vacation”, I’m usually working. I don’t know anyone in the private sector who works more than I do. I’m sure there are some, but I don’t know any. However, those who work in the private sector are compensated more.
I don’t disagree with all of your points, however. The government’s issuing of financial aid has not kept up with the cost of education. I also agree that not everyone should go to college – not everyone wants to go and not everyone will benefit. And, that’s OK. Trade schools or other career options should be viewed as plausible career paths. Those pursuing them don’t need college degrees, however. These other paths are needed. I also agree that money should be available for other things, such as buying homes and starting businesses. However, they should not be the same types of loans used for education. I, too, have a lot of student loans for the accumulation of several degrees over the years. In fact, I could barely afford a home in a low-income neighborhood even with all of my degrees. Do I like sending on my enormous loan payments every month? No. But, I view these loans as an investment in myself, something that contributed to my ability to learn and grow, and something that without having borrowed, I wouldn’t be where I am today, professionally. You’re the missing the point of higher education – to educate our citizens so that we can be better citizens than we would have otherwise been.
June 14th, 2010 at 11:40 am
Dear Kim,
You are incorrect about the purpose of education. The vast majority of WWI and WWII veterans did not have a college education and many argue that they were a much better generation of citizens than is the current and more educated American population. They same is true of the many Americans who served in other wars, including the ongoing wars.
The purpose of education is to make more money with the education than can be had without the education. If society is the beneficiary of my education because education for it’s own sake makes me a better citizen than I was when I was a soldier, then society should pay for the cost of my education.
You are making a very bold and false claim that the many people with degrees working at universities are better citizens than those with high school degrees. Most people at America’s universities who have advanced degrees in anything difficult aren’t even US citizens to begin with. Further, most of them harbor loyalty and duties to their own countries and they take technology and “know how” from the US all the time. Saddam Hussein’s number one nerve gas chemist taught at U-Kentucky. The Admiral who commanded the Japanese fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor went to Harvard.
Today’s American colleges and universities have become spoiled with the nectar of student loan funding. While intoxicated on this nectar, they invented all kinds of elitist garbage, cocktail party cultures and filled their support staffs and administrations with multitudes of unnecessary people. In short, they have become pork. Such lavish lives of luxury are fine for those who spend their own money on them but colleges and universities are living these lavish lives on a large lie of credit that falls on the shoulders of the general public and that needs to stop. Universities and colleges must be held accountable for fulfilling their obligations to get people the kinds of jobs they lead people to believe they care capable of getting people and also for doing so in a timely manner. The cure to the ongoing failure of colleges and universities to do this is to simply charge the colleges and universities to pay the present value of the remaining balance of all private and public student loans that are canceled or forgiven by the government at the 10 year, 20 year and 25 year expiration dates.
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
June 14th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Dear Mr. Donahue,
Where do you get your statistics? I see a lot of claims with generalizations and so-called facts without anything to back them up.
Overall, I am not incorrect about the purpose of higher education, but it does depend on the type of education which the student is pursuing. If the student is going to a trade school, then yes, the student should be able to find a career using those specific skills. It should not be guaranteed, however, because it is up to the individual student to take those skills, apply them, selll themselves in interviews, perform well to maintain a job, etc. Apparently, the purpose for you is very materialistic, but finding a job is not the purpose of higher education.
There are other ways to become a better citizen besides pursuing higher education. I did not mean for that to be exclusive. Becoming a soldier is one of them. I think you misunderstood my point. Im’ not saying that people with high school degrees cannot be better citizens. Neither of my parents have a degree and both are great citizens. However, if you look at the research, people with college degrees commit fewer crimes and are less likely to be incarcerated, tend to vote and participate in democratic processes more often, receive less in welfare benefits, have better health and smoke less, and are more likley to volunteer and donate blood (Education Pays).
Where do you get the statistics to say that most people with advanced degrees in anything difficult aren’t US citizens? And, what is “difficult?” Wouldn’t that be a judgment call by you? What’s difficult to you might not be difficult to me and so on. Does that mean other higher degrees are of lesser value? Yes, you named a few examples of people who were trained in the US who used their knowledge and skills against us. What does that have to do with whether or not American higher education institutions should be required to find graduates’ jobs?
I realize some people think that higher education institutions spend money lavishly and have excess staff. I’d like to see the evidence because in the several institutions where I’ve worked, that’s certainly not been the case. In fact, we’ve always had a staff shortage with more work to be done and not enough people to do it. Again, as others have mentioned, it is a choice for a student to attend a variety of colleges, for them to take out student loans, and the careers to which they aspire.
I never expected any sort of guarantee as a result of the loans I took out. This was a risk I was taking and investment I was making in myself. I knew if I were taking out these loans, then I better find something to do with my life so that it was worth it. Is it a struggle to pay them? Yes. But, I am a better person because of the risk I took. (Again, that is not to say that I couldn’t have become this person through another path. Maybe I could have. But, for me, this was worth it and was the path I chose. And, no one found me a job. I did this on my own as others before me have.)
You still haven’t answered my question about whether or not you’ve ever worked a college or university. In an economy like the one we are in today, how do you suggest that colleges and universities find graduates jobs in “a timely manner?” Given the large number of people who want to attend college today, do you suggest that we only admit those for whom we can find jobs “in a timely manner?” What about those students who would not be admitted? Is it fair to not even give them a chance?
And, it’s the government who selects through their financial aid formula who receives federal and state financial aid and who does not. By the way, student loans are in the form of federal, state, and private. I’m not sure what you mean by public loans. In any case, why should our government bail out individuals who aren’t able to support themselves with all that they have learned after 25 years?
As someone else has said, I’m sorry your experience in higher education wasn’t a better one. Life isn’t a guarantee. It is what we make of it. That’s what makes our country so great.
June 15th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Dear Kim,
(1). Go to any leading university and randomly spot check enrollment in any graduate program in math, science and engineering. You will find more foreigners then Americans and they are all getting full funding, with occurs at the expense of the American public. If universities had to pay tax, they wouldn’t have all this money to train foreigners.
(2). Given that you are a university employee, you are always going to consider the school to be understaffed. They are not understaffed. None of them are. What is true is that they expend resources doing things that they should cut. Examples are social events, public speaking events, clubs, activities etc… All of that cost money.
(3). Education that does not lead to graduates making more money than would have been the case without the degree represents cost, not investment. The mission of a college and university is to ensure that a graduate makes more money with the education than would have been the case without it. That is the purpose of education.
(4). Educational institutions never take the hardline stance about economic risk that you are taking here. Give this speech to the prospective students before they apply and then again after they get in. Why should they get degrees just so they can vote, not commit crimes and give blood?
(5). Government student loans are now canceled after 10 years if you work for the government and 25 years and don’t. After 2014, they will soon be canceled at 10 and 20. When they are canceled, the universities need to receive a bill from the government for the education not having gotten the person a job.
(6). Any university or college that takes a persons money for a degree in a subject is agreeing to get that person a job in that specific field. If the student clearly stated what job he or she wanted to get out of the education, then the college or university is bound to that specific job materializing. The institution had the option of saying; We can’t promise that. If they they went so far as claiming that they are “perfect” for that job, then the should have to refund the total cost of the education, not just the student loans.
(7). You keep presenting education as if it is some sort of privileged gift that colleges or universities graciously bestow onto their graduates. It isn’t. Education is a consumer product and service. A client pays for a service/ or product. If the service fails to deliver, the institution that sold the service needs to be held financially accountable.
(8). There is no such thing as a true private student loan, nor a true state student loan. State loans are just federal loans processed by the state and they are backed by the federal government. Private loans are also believed by the banking industry to be backed by the federal GSE, Sallie Mae. Private loans are also given the same protections that government loans get but they do not extend the same benefits to the borrowers that borrowers get from government loans. This needs to change.
(9). If a school leads me to believe that getting their degree will lead to me getting a specific job or specific kind of job, then I expect that to materialize and I expect my economic quality of life to be better than it would have been without the degree. Otherwise, I expect to hold the university or college financially accountable. I don’t mean trade school. I mean regular traditional colleges and universities. You all claim that you are training the next generation of world leaders. I never got that job. I’m not a world leader. So why did they waste my time, money and GI Bill for a job they they haven’t ben and don’t seem to be intent on ensuring I get? I wasn’t willing to get that education just to be educated. I never expressed those values. I expressed expectations. Once degree claimed not only that it was training me to be global leader but also to be a Wall Street leader. Yet, they never got me those jobs either. So why did they waste my time and money teaching me to do that? Further, why should colleges and universities be allowed to make such bold claims? If the overwhelming majority of graduates are not world leaders, then the colleges and universities should focus on training the next generation of followers. That’s their real mission and by focusing on “leadership”, they are failing at their mission by simply ignoring it.
(10). The mission of colleges and universities is to get a graduate a lifelong job making more money than would have been the case without the degree.
(11). I have already explained that colleges and universities have used Americans for their student loan availability. They take your benefits and then don’t live up to their obligations to get you good job living a much better quality of life than would have been the case without the eduction. The result is an aggregate outstanding student loan balance that can never be repaid by the post boomer population of Americans. My personal situation is irrelevant. This is the national situation. The balances are too large. The cost of education is too high because colleges and universities are inventing degrees so that they can get to every portion of the market of Americans, all of whom are born with a voucher to borrow student loans. Schools exploit this and they never tell you that you are taking on a high risk. No. They tell you that education is the best investment that you can make and that your career and life will advance from education. They claim that you will get to be a global leader but they are knowingly lying to people. Back before the existence of student loans, when colleges and universities had to extend the credit, which can be discharged through bankruptcy, they were much more honest and much better managers of risk. Today, anyone gets into college and the reason they get in is because of student loans. Regardless, in 9 years public loans will start being canceled and the government needs to go back to the colleges and universities and make them pay the cost of the present value of the remaining balance. Even if the loans are canceled because a person works for the government, the college or university must be made to refund the remaining balance.
(12). If all that crap you said about education being about making better citizens is what universities and colleges are going to claim, then they need to provide educations for free. After all, its not about money. The joy if knowing that they made better citizens is enough. I didn’t need college to make me a better citizen. I needed it to get ma much better economic quality of life than I could have had without an education. I did my part by graduating and taking out the loans but they got their money and thats all they care about. This is the problem with colleges and universities through out the country. The easiest way to cure this problem is to make the institutions accountable for refunding the entire cost of education to those who don’t get good jobs. Do that and schools will ensure that people get good jobs and stop taking money from people who they have no intention of getting a good job.
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
June 15th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
“Go to any leading university and randomly spot check enrollment in any graduate program in math, science and engineering. You will find more foreigners then Americans and they are all getting full funding, with occurs at the expense of the American public.”
That is dead wrong where I go to school. Foreign students pay out-of-sate tuition. Many earn scholarships and assistantships, but those have funding sources that are usually private. Regardless of the funding sources, the scholarships and assistantships are usually merit-based, so if they are awarded to foreign students, it is because either no Americans applied, or no Americans qualified.
“Examples are social events, public speaking events, clubs, activities etc… All of that cost money.”
Yes, they all cost money, but these events are never publically funded. Social events are sponsored by private companies, charitable contributions, and student dues for the organizations to which they belong. Clubs are also funded by member dues and charitable contributions. Many of the visiting speakers that come to my institution do so free of charge. The only expenses that get paid come from an account that is sustained by charitable contributions.
June 16th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Dear Jeremy,
The expenditures you are defending are all a bunch of wasteful crap that amount to nothing more than entertainment. Because money is fungible, any university or college that expends money on that crap is expending taxpayer backed loans and taxpayer funded grants. The fact that you wrote the check from a private fund is irrelevant. If you are going to waste my money and everyone else’s money on that kind of crap, then I don’t want your institution getting local, state and federal tax exemption. Further, I don’t want your institution receiving any federal funding. I want all federal money to be restricted only to those schools that can prove that all of their graduates make more money than would have been the case without the degree. For every graduate who does not make such money and for every student who withdraws because the school doesn’t seem to be committed to getting that person a job making more money with the education than would have been the case without the education, then that institution must refund the total cost of the education. Every time a student loan is canceled, the college or university must refund the balance of that loan to the government for a public loan and to the private lender for the private student loans.
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
June 16th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Arizona’s proposed anchor baby law may actually pass the Constitutionality test. The Constitution states anyone born in the US is a citizen BUT the person must be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. One could argue that illegals are outside of this jurisdiction.
June 16th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Sean,
(2). Given that you are a university employee, you are always going to consider the school to be understaffed. They are not understaffed. None of them are. What is true is that they expend resources doing things that they should cut. Examples are social events, public speaking events, clubs, activities etc… All of that cost money.
Why should these programs be cut? Are you saying that students don’t get anything from public speaking events, clubs, and activities. Most of these programs do not cost money aside from a staff member. Students learn leadership skills from these opportunities, learn about new things of interest, learn to work with other people as a team, gain public speaking skills, meet people to add to their network.
3). Education that does not lead to graduates making more money than would have been the case without the degree represents cost, not investment. The mission of a college and university is to ensure that a graduate makes more money with the education than would have been the case without it. That is the purpose of education.
You are incorrect. Gaining employment is an indirect result of learning and the attainment of new skills. The mission you note is not the mission of any college or university, aside from a school that teaches a trade. How can you say that ensuring a graduate makes more money is the mission? What does that mean for Bill Gates who doesn’t have a college degree? Should we be telling all college grads that they will make more than people with a high school diploma, including Bill Gates?
You completely leave the individual out of the equation. It is not about a piece of paper, a diploma, that is received upon completion. It is about what that individual does with the knowledge he or she has gained while enrolled in college that matters. If it were only a matter of the diploma, we could forget learning and hand out pieces of paper to any Tom, Dick, and Harry who wants one. And, it would be a heck of a lot of easier.
Should a person who graduated from college but can’t go to work regularly, isn’t accountable, is an awful employee still be ensured to make more money given that they have the piece of paper?
(4). Educational institutions never take the hardline stance about economic risk that you are taking here. Give this speech to the prospective students before they apply and then again after they get in. Why should they get degrees just so they can vote, not commit crimes and give blood?
I am not speaking for an educational institution in this regard. I am speaking from the perspective of someone who was the first in their family to graduate from college, from personal experience, and from the perspective of someone who studies higher education. It is a choice to attend a college, which college, and what to study. Individuals make those decisions every day. And, in those decisions is a certain amount of risk. For every person who graduates from college and who makes a good salary, we all know others who graduate and can’t hold jobs. That’s a signal to students that it is not a guarantee. No two people have the same experiences, knowledge, capacity to learn skills, or hold a job. It cannot be guaranteed. What you are suggesting is that the individual doesn’t matter. If you want to live in a country where a person graduates from college and is given a job, no matter their ability to perform in that job, then you need to go to a different country where all people are taken care of equally. That is not America.
What do you think of liberal arts colleges? For what job are those schools training graduates? Are you saying that because students study things like history, languages, communications, etc., they aren’t worthwhile because they don’t lead to a specific job? If so, that’s ridiculous. Look back at the history of higher education. People who learn to “think” in college at liberal arts institutions become thinkers who can learn on the job, are adaptable, have critical thinking skills and analytical skills, etc. In your view, these colleges shouldn’t even exist because they don’t lead to a specific job. I’m sorry you are missing out because there is a world of knowledge that you haven’t even opened your mind to given that it doesn’t lead to a job.
(7). You keep presenting education as if it is some sort of privileged gift that colleges or universities graciously bestow onto their graduates. It isn’t. Education is a consumer product and service. A client pays for a service/ or product. If the service fails to deliver, the institution that sold the service needs to be held financially accountable.
No, I don’t. I feel that I am lucky that I was able to attend given that no one else in my family attended, and I came from a low-income family from a town where very few people attended college. But, I don’t see it at all as a priveleged gift that colleges or universities bestow on graduates. I see it more from a personal view than from that of the college or university. However, I think students and graduates need to work for what they want. No one handed me anything. When I graduated, I had to make things happen for myself. Granted, our students today have a more difficult time given the job market. However, I attended a liberal arts institution where I was not trained for a job. Education is not the same as a product or service. You see the benefits of a product or service immediately upon purchase. With higher education, you don’t always see the benefits until years down the line. It’s a lifetime investment.
(9). If a school leads me to believe that getting their degree will lead to me getting a specific job or specific kind of job, then I expect that to materialize and I expect my economic quality of life to be better than it would have been without the degree. Otherwise, I expect to hold the university or college financially accountable. I don’t mean trade school. I mean regular traditional colleges and universities. You all claim that you are training the next generation of world leaders. I never got that job. I’m not a world leader. So why did they waste my time, money and GI Bill for a job they they haven’t ben and don’t seem to be intent on ensuring I get? I wasn’t willing to get that education just to be educated. I never expressed those values. I expressed expectations. Once degree claimed not only that it was training me to be global leader but also to be a Wall Street leader. Yet, they never got me those jobs either. So why did they waste my time and money teaching me to do that? Further, why should colleges and universities be allowed to make such bold claims? If the overwhelming majority of graduates are not world leaders, then the colleges and universities should focus on training the next generation of followers. That’s their real mission and by focusing on “leadership”, they are failing at their mission by simply ignoring it.
Maybe your college should have told you that you wouldn’t find the job you were looking for with that attitude. Maybe they should have told you right then and there that it wasn’t worth it to go to college. What is it that you want to do anyway? What was your major? What type of school did you attend? I would ask you why you wasted your time attending because it is your choice to attend. Did you try to get jobs as a “global leader” or a “Wall Street Leader?” Did you think someone was just going to hand you the job upon graduation? That’s a pretty high expectation to think a college or university is just going to slip you in the corner office upon graduating. Do you have financial skills to be a “Wall Street leader?” How many people get to be Wall Street leaders?” Shouldn’t that also be a signal as to how competitive it would be to get a job in that field? How do you define leadership anyway? Does a leader have to be the CEO making a million dollars a year? I know a lot of leaders who work for me, for example, and are not making a million dollars a year and are not “leading” an organization. Maybe they will be one day. No matter what, they are still leaders.
(10). The mission of colleges and universities is to get a graduate a lifelong job making more money than would have been the case without the degree.
There is no such thing as a lifelong job today. Who do you know who has had the same job for a lifetime? It doesn’t happen anymore. That’s why it’s even more important that students learn and not train for a specific job. People get laid off today and have to change gears and try something new. How could they do that if they were only trained for one specific job? They need transferable skills that allow them to perform in a variety of setting, using a variety of skills, and the ability to learn new skills.
(12). If all that crap you said about education being about making better citizens is what universities and colleges are going to claim, then they need to provide educations for free. After all, its not about money. The joy if knowing that they made better citizens is enough. I didn’t need college to make me a better citizen. I needed it to get ma much better economic quality of life than I could have had without an education. I did my part by graduating and taking out the loans but they got their money and thats all they care about. This is the problem with colleges and universities through out the country. The easiest way to cure this problem is to make the institutions accountable for refunding the entire cost of education to those who don’t get good jobs. Do that and schools will ensure that people get good jobs and stop taking money from people who they have no intention of getting a good job.
I would love to have students attend college for free. However, money has to come from somewhere to pay for the expenses associated with college. Where would that money come from? It sounds like you think we have money lying all around. That is not the case. Most people who work in education are underpaid compared to private industry. We work in the field because we care about the future of our students. I don’t know anyone who works in higher education who doesn’t care about that. Unfortunately, you have some pretty negative views of your experience which you then generalize to the entire industry. If you were misled, I’m sorry because it has ruined the perception that you have about many of the colleges and universities out there. We want our students and graduates to learn and to achieve their goals. We want to help them in any way we can. However, they also need to put in the time, effort, and dedication.
June 18th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Sean:
The idea about monies being fungible is another fact that just isn’t so, at least at public institutions in the state of Florida. In Florida, there are strict laws restricting and regulating the transfer of monies between and among charitable accounts and taxpayer-funded accounts. There are tight restrictions on what taxpayer monies can be spent on, so simply borrowing from Peter to pay Paul would be illegal and would be caught in a routine audit.
It is clear you haven’t bothered to research these issues at all. If you did, you would know the foundation of your beliefs is built on faulty assumptions.
The fact that you don’t appreciate the educational value of colloquia and symposia tells me more about you than it does institutions of higher learning.
June 18th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Dear Jeremy,
Money is always fungible and is so in the same way that objects of larger mass exact a gravitational pull on objects of smaller mass.
Are the lights on during these events? Are the staff employed during these events? Etc….. The fixed costs are still being paid by the general budget and those costs are funded by student loans and government grants.
Here is the point that you are missing. Education is too expensive and cuts need to be made. In fact, education is so expensive that the NPV of any degree is negative for most Americans but very positive for minorities and foreigners who don’t get racked with student loans. These losses are compounded by universities and colleges who have come to believe that it isn’t their mission to get people jobs and ensure that people are making more money than they would have without the degree. Any school that has that mentality is one that should be purely privately funded, receive no government grants and pay local, state and federal taxes. Currently it it the other way around. I want that to be changed.
I don’t want government money to continue providing a backstop to university and college losses. Instead, I want colleges and universities to have to cut social events, clubs, speaker events, cocktail parties and the like. I want colleges and universities to have to cut salaries and expanse accounts. I want colleges and universities to pay taxes, especially for the presence of foreigners. I want the resources to intentionally flow into the development and advancement of born Americans and I want that to occur with legal, conscious and intentional bias in favor of our own people.
For every compounded student loan dollar, including interest and fees, that is canceled by the government or paid by the government, I want the college and university that originally approved that loan to be charged the same amount as the canceled or paid accrued balance. I want to put the bulk of the risk involved in pursuing an education on the shoulders of the colleges and universities. If these institutions truly believe that the intangible social benefits of education are worth the cost of the education, then the employees of these institutions won’t mind giving up salaries, benefits and social entertainment in the form of speakers, exclusive dinners and cocktail parties. Institutions of higher education and their employees will gladly give up these luxuries because their compensation comes in the form of living in a better society. That striking point is what congress must force all American colleges and universities to consciously acknowledge.
You and those like you claim that education is so important that it is invaluable. If this is so, then university educators need to work in a regular job to get their salary and do their research and teaching during their off hours. The truth is, you live a cushy life with great amenities and the same is true of university and college employees throughout America. This must stop. Government money needs to go towards ensuring that all Americans make more money with a degree than they would without one, otherwise, colleges and universities must be forced to refund the present value of the cost of the educations. Currently, colleges and universities are getting all of the upside of those who do benefit economically from their educations but they are not being made to bear the downside.
Colleges and universities get the upside by increasing the cost of education to reflect an increasingly greater portion of the positive NPV of education from students that are projected to derive a positive Future Value from their educations. But those same institutions are not incurring any portion of the NPV from those students who end up deriving a negative Future Value from their degrees. Why should universities and colleges be so privileged that they get to broker millions of student loan trades, clip huge fees for themselves, build marble and stone buildings but then bear none of the downside risk? What is so otherworldly about college and university employees that you deserve so much economic security in life? The rest of us don’t have that. The British have the royal families who are entitled at birth to tax revenue. America has colleges and universities that have attained that same status and have begun to squander the money on lavish and unnecessary expenditures. Any activity, lecture, class, degree program, etc… that does not result in an individual making more money than would have been the case without the degree is lavish. Forcing universities and colleges to refund the costs of these degrees will cause universities and colleges to persistently ensure that that education = job making more money than would have been possible without the degree. That’s education!
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
June 18th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Jeremy,
- Also, you are wrong about no one having life long jobs. Professors have life long jobs in the form of tenure and I am unwilling to pay tax dollars for it.
- As far as thinking that colleges just have money lying around. No. That is not what I think. What I think is that despite the incessant complaining by colleges and universities that they need money if society expects them to continue providing their service, they still turn around and waste money on social event, speakers and other such crap.
- I don’t want colleges an universities to continue providing what they consider to be their service. I want them to start committing to ensuring that Americans get first access before anyone else, regardless of the qualifications of foreigners. I want them to charge all foreigners a highly priced foreigner’s tuition for all Ph.D., professional and graduate programs. No foreigner gets funding at all. I want colleges and universities to teach specific skills that amount to training people in the specific tasks they will do all day long and stop wasting peoples’ time with discussions that they will never be a part of in the real world. I want colleges and universities to guarantee that an American gets a job making more money than would have been the case without the degree and if the degree adds no monetary value, then I want the colleges and universities to be forced to refund the full cost of attendance.
-If these things happen, colleges and universities in the US will greatly downsize liberal arts programs and other such crap like psychology and teaching certificates. There will be fewer people admitted and American Universities can get back to making America’s weapons, space ships and the like. Currently, much of what is taught in all degree programs amounts to nothing more than conversations that would have been better had in a barbershop. Instead, we turn such things into degrees and the rest of the world laughs at our educations.
- I am unwilling to allow government money to back any degree or academic program that will not guarantee Americans jobs making more money than was the case without the degree. I want very tight restrictions to be placed on govt. student loans and university officials to risk jail time if they allow student loans to be used for liberal arts and the like. Further, I want student loans to be restricted to situations where the college or university already has a commitment of employment by a company for each specific student borrower. Make the universities bear the risk of the degree not being profitable and either guarantee jobs or pay up. Do that and you will both recover the taxpayer’s dollar, create a new focus at colleges and universities, improve the human condition and get people jobs.
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
June 18th, 2010 at 10:37 pm
Sean,
I wish your college or university could take your degree back. More seriously, I hope you find the happiness you are seeking. Maybe you will then lose some of your misplaced anger.
June 21st, 2010 at 11:55 am
Kim, I echo your sentiments. Sean obviously has a big monkey on his back. He could greatly benefit from the objectivity that you can only have when you lose the resentment.
As far as me living a “cushy life with great amenities”, that is laughable. My salary is anything but “cushy”! I don’t mean to complain since I chose this job for the tuition reimbursement, but this is yet another example of something Sean thinks he knows that is dead wrong.
June 21st, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Dear Kim,
Those of you in academia are all missing the point. So here it is in a nut shell. There are many Americans like me who are smart enough to build the defenses necessary to protect you from North Korea, China, and countless other things, as well as grow the economy. However, instead of being steered only towards those things that deliver a high payoff for America, we were driven towards liberal arts. The end result is that we now rely on foreigners to do everything for us. They do our math, they do our brokerage, they do our investing, they do our inventing, they do everything that involves making money and keeping us strong. But we can we have the benefit of knowing that our education makes us better citizens and that makes up for all the financial losses, jobs we can’t get and any impending attacks that eventually come from all the foreigners we trained for free at our own universities. Compounding these impending attacks by foreign powers is the fact that our educational institutions, like our banks and real estate institutions, will begin feeling bankruptcy pressures in the coming decades.
This will happen because all those student loan funded liberal arts degrees will not have paid off financially for the student loan borrowers. While people like you will say; “Make them pay. Make them pay. Make them pay.”, those with student loan debt will likely lack the resources to pay. Thus, the loans will be canceled. As the loans tumble into cancelation, Sallie Mae will go the rout of Fannie and Freddie. There will be discussions about institutional risk management and the same people who now say; “We must stop emphasizing home ownership.” will begin saying; ” We must stop emphasizing education.” So here is the deal for academic institutions. You can either listen to what I am saying and restructure academic programs so that all degrees lead to making more money than would be the case without the degree or you can wait for the system to crash and force that decision upon you and your industry.
As I see it, home ownership and individual economic wealth is much more the American way and much more so represents what we are as Americans, than does making sure everyone gets an education. We are much better off with a nation of people where most people have only a high school education but own their own home and even family business or farm, than we are with a nation where everyone has a college or graduate degree but rents and lives in an economy built on Alan Greenspan’s Europeanesque “inter-temporal consumption” or “smoothing consumption across time”. We need to do the following; (1) Exclude all those not born in America from welfare, primary education and access to scholarships and fellowships in the US. (2) Exclude all those born in American but to illegal immigrants. Stop treating such individuals as citizens. (3) Use gi bills and stafford loans for home ownership and business ownership, not education. (4) Set standardized testing thresholds for entering colleges and universities, at least for any university that receives tax breaks for being a non-profits and accepts any form of government money. (5) We must train our own with the explicit intention of defeating foreigners and foreign powers.
College is not about being well rounded or becoming the right kind of person. This is covered under basic citizenship and does not require an education. Colleges and universities are about improving the economic quality of life of the graduates and defeating a country’s current and future enemies. Education must never become something that is done for the sake of education itself. If it does, then the eduction institutions will take over the government and an elitist group of individuals with royal entitlements will make the spending decisions of a nation. Yet, such individuals would likely never be elected by the general public. The role of colleges and universities is to serve the consumer public, not guide it.
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
June 22nd, 2010 at 10:15 am
Sean, I think we get the point, but many people make lucrative livings working in the arts, and you seem willing to deprive these people of their freedom to choose. If you take away freedom to choose one’s path in life, why bother building the defenses necessary to protect us from North Korea and China? I thought that kind of freedom is what our military personnel was (and is) willing to die for, yet you seem willing to give our freedom away for free.
Liberal arts degrees are available because there is a demand for it. There is demand for it because people are free to choose their intended professions. Many of us are willing to fight for that right in ways other than picking up a gun. We fight for it by taking pride in our work and working hard for our students. You are free to not appreciate those efforts, but they will go on.
June 22nd, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Dear Jeremy,
People get liberal arts degrees because colleges and universities mislead them into believing that they will make the same additional million dollars per lifetime as will those who get an engineering or some other degree. It turns out that many people never make the additional million dollars per year and those with tech degrees make more money. Those with trade skills and no college at all have more disposable income than those with a college degree in liberal arts. Therefore, the liberal arts degree is a waste. It is only after the fact that people in academia are willing to take the hard-nosed stance that you are now taking with me. I bet you still do not take this hard-nosed stance with incoming freshmen and their families.
Academia promises a better quality of life before you pay the tuition but then denies accountability for providing it after you graduate. That must change. People told me I would get a good job as a result of getting an education and I want either that good job or I want to be reimbursed for my troubles involved in getting an education. If what you claim about society being a better place because I have an advanced education is true, then it is you, not I, who is benefiting from my education. So why shouldn’t you be the one to pay for it.
Where is my additional million? Where is my Wall Street Job? I was told that I was being trained to be the next generation of global leaders, where is my seat at the decision making table in the White House, at the UN or at some big corporate table? Education took from me but gave nothing back. Why aren’t governments and employers required to hire people with more degrees and fire people with fewer degrees simply because someone with more degrees is unemployed?
Bottom line, if a college or university does not get you a job making more money than would have been the case without the degree, then the educational institution must be required to refund the entire cost of the education, to include the opportunity cost. If that becomes law, then universities can begin drastically educing admissions and both college and university degrees will again be worth something to those who have them. Right now, their value declines with each additional graduating college class.
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
June 22nd, 2010 at 5:08 pm
“People get liberal arts degrees because colleges and universities mislead them into believing that they will make the same additional million dollars per lifetime as will those who get an engineering or some other degree.”
Yet again, you are dead wrong. I once took an acting class at a community college. The first thing they mentioned on the first day of class was how competitive the industry is, and how unlikely it was each of us would achieve the level of success most of us desired. Do you think visual artists like painters and sculptors are told they will make money at their chosen profession? No, they aren’t. They know the odds are stacked against them, but they choose their professions based on a love of art.
“Where is my additional million? Where is my Wall Street Job?”
If you want a million dollars, or a Wall Street job, you have to earn them. Those things require more than just a degree. They require candidates who are qualified in every way. Academic credentials are just one of many qualifications. You also have to be driven, focused, and capable. You have to have the skills to network and work in teams. A degree doesn’t train you to be capable of networking and working in teams. Those are life skills (people skills) you have to learn outside of school. Some people have these skills without any effort, and some need to develop those skills to achieve success.
Academic success and real world success have never been the same thing, and your desire to treat them them as though they are synonymous is futile. It will never be that way. There will always be those who are book smart but socially inept, and society doesn’t owe people like that a job. Nor does society owe you your “additional million” or a “Wall Street job.” Those things have to be earned. Now go and earn them for yourself. Nobody is going to hand them to you if you don’t deserve them, and a college degree isn’t proof you deserve those things.
I still can’t believe you asked “Where is my additional million? Where is my Wall Street Job?” Here is some tough love for you. You are never going to get those things handed to you in the United States of America. If you want those things handed to you, you will need to find a country with less freedom, where you can be placed in a career simply by virtue of having earned a degree. I believe you would have more success in a place like Cuba or China.
June 22nd, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Dear Jeremy,
You are again missing my point. Colleges and universities in the US rack Americans with student loan debt. If they do not get Wall Street jobs, then much of that debt can never be repaid. You seem to be missing this point. I did not make education about money. Colleges and universities made it about money. As soon as the congress or a bank made 10K available in student loans, schools charged 10K plus whatever number they thought a person had on hand. When congress or a bank made 20K available in student loan debt, then colleges and universities charged 24k plus whatever they thought a person had on hand. Then it just kept going. You are missing the point that I am making. Therefore, I will try to make it one more time.
There aggregate outstanding student loan balance in the US will never actually be paid. Colleges and universities know this so they make the argument that the benefits are intangible and all this education has made society a better place. I am arguing that, while the benefits may be intangible, the cost are not. I am further arguing that the costs are extremely tangible and so large that they greatly outweigh the benefits that the academic community claims is derived from education. But here is more, the cost of education has turned out to be so expensive for America that unless a university believes it could get an American a job making more money than would be the case without the degree, it is nothing short of theft to take money from a student. The sad truth is that America has educated far too many people and having done so is going to result in a worse society, not a better one.
I will just ask you again, when all of the people with student loan debt begin having their loans canceled, where will the money come from to replenish the cash register? You don’t seem to understand the point. If borrowers cannot make enough money to replenish the student loan budged from which the loans and the guarantees are made, then there will be no money to send to the colleges and universities. You are ignoring a point that is very obvious to me but for some reason, you are refusing to see.
What happens when an empire’s army and navy go to the palace to take more money from the treasury but discover all the gold was spent on lavish social events? The army and navy do without and their is then either a coup or a military defeat and the empire disappears. What will happen when the colleges and universities no longer get cash money from the government when a student gets a student loan? What will happen when the Dep. of Ed begins to stop sending cash but instead sends vouchers for store credit? When that begins to happen, colleges and universities will stop accepting student loans. The end result will be that college and university education will go back to being something that is only available if you can pay for it outright or if the college or the university itself is willing to either give you a full scholarship or extend the loan themselves. When that happens, admissions offers will immediately decline. That is exactly what we need.
You can continue to argue your values on education but I will continue to argue reality. As a university employee, you have become trained to believe that your institution is supposed to be free from having to bear any of the risk in higher education. You get the money from the student loans and you’re done. The risk is then bore by the taxpayer, the lender and the student. That means three very large parties within the American population must bear the risk while academic institutions live the high life. While you may refuse to see the writing on the wall, I not only see it, I am reading it and writing some of it. Here are the new rules; Colleges and Universities must ensure that a graduate makes more money with a degree than would have been the case without the degree. Otherwise, colleges and universities must refund the entire cost of the education, including the opportunity cost. Colleges and universities will no longer get away with claiming that they are creating tomorrows leaders. If they make such claims but only a hand full of people actually become tomorrows leaders, the rest will have the cost of their educations refunded. The creation of this law will force colleges and universities to become better risk managers.
If such laws are not passed, the end result will be that large amounts of student loans begin to be canceled and written down. As that occurs, lenders, including the government, will simply refuse to lend. Then, colleges and universities will still end up having to downsize. As the economy’s down business cycle drags on without improving for a decade or two, the number of applications to college and university programs may increase but the number of people who can get student loans will decrease. Universities will then wither cut salaries and amenities or just downsize. I think they will choose to downsize.
We clearly need consumer law reform for higher education. There clearly needs to be a consumer bill of rights for higher education. The government alone cannot pay off the nation’s outstanding student loan balance, neither can an unemployed or underemployed nation. So the money must come from some other institution. That leaves allowing the FED to print education money, creating a voucher system that the Dept. of Ed. can use as a means of printing education money but that colleges and universities will be unable to spend on anything or colleges and universities can change their focus and begin ensuring that graduates make a lot of money.
The bottom line is that the colleges bear no risk and that needs to change. If all parties involved “have skin in the game”, better decisions will be made. Colleges have no economic “skin in the game”. They only stand to gain money for each individual that purchases their service. Students, lenders and taxpayers bear the risk of both the upside and the downside but colleges and universities only bear the risk of the upside. The never lose money on a poorly educated graduate or on an unemployed graduate. That needs to change and if the congress does not change this circumstance on purpose, the economy will make the change naturally. Either way, the changes that I am calling for are on their way.
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
June 24th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
“I will just ask you again, when all of the people with student loan debt begin having their loans canceled, where will the money come from to replenish the cash register?”
Many student loans don’t get paid off on schedule, but very few never get paid. If you would like to resolve this issue, I could support modifying the loans to make it possible for those people to continue to make payments. I could also support penalties for nonpayment. Right now, too many people choose not to pay their student loans, and I could support forcing them to live up to their commitments. Perhaps the answer is to seize the assets of people who choose not to live up to their student loan commitments.
“You are again missing my point. Colleges and universities in the US rack Americans with student loan debt.”
I didn’t miss your point. I think it is obvious you have a SERIOUS “locus of control” problem. You write things that indicate you believe students have no control of choices that affect them. They do, and no matter how hard you try, you can’t make them do their due diligence before making important decisions, like a career path and whether to take student loans. There are plenty of resources (like career counseling), available to students.
The very premise of your position, that young adult students bear no responsibility for their college finance decisions, is laughable, and without that assumption, the rest of your argument falls flat on its face.
If you want to change regulations on how student loans are administered, I would be fine with that. If you want to change the rules to ensure students are presented with enough information to make informed decisions, I would be right behind you (even though we already do). If you wanted to reform the education system to address obvious shortcomings, you would get no argument from me. However, what you propose is so outlandishly radical, you would destroy important aspects of higher learning to resolve your personal grudge. You would throw out the baby with the bath water instead of targeting and fixing the true problem, that students are making decisions that may not in their best interests.
Colleges and universities do lose money on poorly educated graduates. If there are enough of them, employers won’t hire people from that college or university, and soon enrollment drops as a result.
There is no reason a college or university should lose money on an unemployed student. COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES DON’T CONTROL THE ECONOMY. Colleges and Universities react to the economy just like everyone else. We don’t guarantee jobs to any student, no matter how accomplished, and we can’t make a student make the most of her/his college experience. We also can’t control a graduate’s social skills. Unemployment is a problem colleges and universities help resolve by offering retraining and certification programs. They don’t cause it in any way, so why should they bear any responsibility for problems they had no part in creating?
There are plenty of underachievers who graduate each year with GPAs lower than they could have achieved if they had worked harder. Who owes underachievers a job? What kind of job should they get? Should it be as good a job as someone with a 4.0 GPA?
College is where young people are supposed to mature into adults, taking responsibility for their choices and being given a chance to succeed or fail based on their efforts. College has never been, and will never be, a place to go if you want to be guaranteed a job, at least not in a country with a naturally-cyclical free market economy. In order to guarantee every graduate a job, we would have to send every student to a socialist or communist country. No person in a free market economy is ever guaranteed a job… E V E R !!! … regardless of credentials.
Let’s say we have a freshman studying Computer Science based on the amount of jobs currently available. Two years from now, Microsoft and Dell send 5,000 programming jobs to India, making it harder for that student to get a job after graduation. Is it the university’s job it didn’t know two years ahead of time Microsoft and Dell would send 5,000 programming jobs to India? Career counselors are not clairvoyant after all. How will you address this issue?
If you really believe the economy will make this change naturally, then why make such a case repeatedly? If that is truly the case, there is no need to argue, and time will prove you right. In the meantime, DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH!
Please allow me to use an analogy. I teach a friend of mine a useful skill, like how to change the oil in his car. My friend pays me for this service, but since he doesn’t have the money, he borrowed it from a bank. After the lesson, I introduce my friend to the manager of a Jiffy Lube, but the Jiffy Lube manager isn’t hiring because business is slow. I also introduce him to the service manager at a car dealership, but he isn’t hiring either. I help him apply for some jobs doing basic mechanical work, but there are more qualified unemployed ASE certified mechanics applying for the same jobs. I had no idea when I accepted his money that he had borrowed it. I also didn’t know whether I was simply teaching a useful skill for private use at home, or a skill he would try to use in the job market. Should I now be responsible to make my friend’s loan payments?
July 12th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Dear jeremy,
Please cite the source and reasoning of your claim that few student loans never get repaid. Please state how those numbers account for the fact that student loan on prolonged deferment or income based repayment will appear as being “current” despite the fact that the government has not actually recouped the cash flow from those loans. Please state clearly how your numbers account for loans that are simply forgiven or canceled for public service or because 25 years have gone by.
In conclusion, what is the source of the numbers you based your claim on, what are the exact numbers for 2009, 2008 and what is the amount of reservation for those loans on deferment and those on income based repayment, as well as public service. What is the actual cash flow to the government?
Sincerely,
Sean M. Donahue
July 13th, 2010 at 11:10 am
All,
I have been following this debate fairly closely, even though I kept silence for the most part. I also discuss this with my wife, who at one time used to be a college lecturer too. I continue to teach, but as an adjunct.
I think for the most part, I agree with Sean (despite himself
Actually, the “himself” I mean is his extreme passion about this topic, with not enough credit to the side that says a 17-year old should be ble to figure out this inordinate confusion called students loand; a confusion that confounds even people old enough to be their grannies.
There are two issues that drive the argument on his opposite side. One, the student, who basically is still a learner might have made some learning errors in her writing, this I would chalk equally to her teachers and maybe her ability. Secondly, she might have got suckered into a profession that does not support the loans she was suckered into taking – by her school and society itself, that continues to make college education a do-or-die matter and also wants to democratize college education, both of which are untenable. First of, not everybody will be educated to every level. Some peak at sixth grade, some at high school, some at BS and some at advanced degree levels. Is this fact something a 16-year old can figure out? Quite unlikely. Some peak early, some much later and some never really peak. That is why society continues to push its members, especially, the young ones.
All I know is that way too many students go into life with a debt load they cannot carry and must be discouraged from carrying. How can a 21, 22-year old start life $100K in the hole? For many professions, they will not be able to pay this back, even if you gave them 100 years. What with other societal expectations getting in the way. I mean, society expects having a family, buying a car (to get to most jobs) and buying a home. All these cost money, and for a graduate starting out hs/her working life, a starting salary of under $50K may not even cover averages of these “essentials”.
Well, there is good news on the horizon.
Sean won
Congress is looking into this student’s loan debacle. Even children of solidly middle class are in this. So, many of the ideas being passionately argued by Sean are being considered by Congress. I think Sean, being a one-man lobby was able to convince Congress that:
1. Most students’ loans will not be paid back at salaries of the average graduate of most majors (and I forgot to throw in the now obligatory i-pod, i-phone, i-….; and other newly minted “essentials”
.
2. Many of these schools, especially the “colleges” who advertize at 2:00 a.m. Pacific are outright dishonest. In fact, Phoenix University was highlighted in one NPR report as one of those most guilty of such not so truthful advertisements, without disclosing that there might (heck, would) be no six-figure salaries for most of their graduates for decades to come, maybe never.
Then, whether due to the student’s fault, the “colleges’” fault or society’s, society pays. Society pays in terms of its members’ lost time, energy and most tangibly, the loans’ guarantees.
I rest my case – for now.
Rotimi Ogunsuyi