2020 Election Thoughts

[NWINFan]

17 hours ago, Two-Gun Pete said:

OK, I know this wasn't your intention in posting this, and I really don't mean to pick on you.

But, whenever I read shit like the bolded, I think, "OK, Boomer."

 

Fucking working full-time in the summer and part-time the rest of the year MIGHT, just MIGHT get you through a year or so of Moraine Valley or College of DuPage. The world has changed, and not for the better for today's generation. When you post shit like the bolded, it makes you sound as out of touch as geezing geezers who complain about how candy or The Tribune used to be a nickel.

No, that wasn't my intention. My point was that situations like this are hard to come by, and so, instead, people are left with incredible debt. My real point was that a person has to have some kind of training or education post-high school to get decent employment. Despite Trump's promises, blue-collar jobs are not coming back. So, as a society, how do we make education and or training accessible to people who don't have a great deal of money? A high school diploma alone just isn't going to cut it. By the way, I do remember when candy was just a nickel. Ah, those were the days.

[CentralChamps21]

An awful lot of student loan debt is unnecessary anyway. You can do 2 years at a community college and 2 years at a regional campus of a state university and finish a degree with very little debt and have pretty much the same earning potential as 4 years at a major state university or private college/university. Why pay $1000 per credit hour at a top state university or $2000+ at a private college/university to take essentially the same freshman English lit requirement that you can take at a community college for $150 per credit hour?

It's true that you don't get the same "college experience," but if that's what you're going into debt for then the government shouldn't be paying for that.

 

[Balta1701]

7 hours ago, WhiteSoxFan1993 said:

An awful lot of student loan debt is unnecessary anyway. You can do 2 years at a community college and 2 years at a regional campus of a state university and finish a degree with very little debt and have pretty much the same earning potential as 4 years at a major state university or private college/university. Why pay $1000 per credit hour at a top state university or $2000+ at a private college/university to take essentially the same freshman English lit requirement that you can take at a community college for $150 per credit hour?

It's true that you don't get the same "college experience," but if that's what you're going into debt for then the government shouldn't be paying for that.

 

Having taught a bunch of students who did that, it is false to say they don’t leave with debt.

Id also like to think I have a pretty damn good into level class too. 

[hi8is]

8 hours ago, WhiteSoxFan1993 said:

An awful lot of student loan debt is unnecessary anyway. You can do 2 years at a community college and 2 years at a regional campus of a state university and finish a degree with very little debt and have pretty much the same earning potential as 4 years at a major state university or private college/university. Why pay $1000 per credit hour at a top state university or $2000+ at a private college/university to take essentially the same freshman English lit requirement that you can take at a community college for $150 per credit hour?

It's true that you don't get the same "college experience," but if that's what you're going into debt for then the government shouldn't be paying for that.

 

It’s insane that CC cost is $150 per unit now. I recall when I attended CC, it was $12.

[Texsox]

On 12/21/2020 at 9:59 PM, Two-Gun Pete said:

Ya know, usually I roll my eyes when I see your posts over here.

BUT, college education's inflationary pressures are indeed tied to the easy money associated with student debt. Student loans are the only loans [to my knowledge] that are:

1. Not tied to the value of the item you're purchasing [i.e. your potential future earnings]. A year of tuition is $14,904 at SIU, whether you stoopidly pursue a degree in English, or a degree in Electrical Engineering.

2. Not tied to your future ability to repay. Again, you can borrow the SAME AMOUNT, whether you major in Art History, Recreation, Business Analytics, Nursing, or Civil Engineering.

3. Not able to be discharged through the courts, if one makes a bad bet, based on teenaged stupidity.

4. Not really subject to very much underwriting, given the previous 3 items in this list

 

The first two items speak to luring a stoopid child into a lifetime of debt servitude. The last two items speaks to lenders giving up loans like a $10 whore, without any worry about the ability to repay, or the consequences to the borrower or to society as a whole. 

 

On balance, the pricing structure of a college education is all fucked up. If future borrowers knew they could discharge their loans through a bankruptcy, maybe lenders would demand some reasonable sort of underwriting. Which would then tend to make the REAL majors that can lead to a REAL middle-class lifestyle properly priced, while worthless piece of shit majors that help grocery stores and starbucks in their recruitment more properly priced as well.

 

Then, there's this 19th Century relic of having to "go away to school," which was borne out of having centers of learned men being the only place you could learn anything. Nowadays? Not so much. Greg can learn real information about the real world, if he used the google machine. So can Gen Z-types, whether they're in their mommy's house, or away in Carbondale. To me, extending loans to a child, so that (s)he can live in a dorm [$10K+/year @ SIU, so a total of an ADDITIONAL ~$40K of debt before interest] doesn't make any fucking sense, either. Why do we allow borrowers to borrow money to live in a dorm at all?

 

And, seeing the vomit-inducing contract just given out to Bielema (sp?) as the new highest-paid state of Illinois employee, don't get me started. U of C, Loyola, and UIC all seem to do just fine without a college football program. But that's a whole other irritant to me as a taxpayer in a broke state with tons of shitty sports programs that waste taxpayers' and students' dollars. 

 

So, TL;DR: Children are enticed to borrow money. SOME borrow TOO MUCH money, relative to what they get. Lenders don't bother with underwriting. Schools get away with charging whatever they want. I agree with you. The pricing structure of a degree is all fucked up.

Karl Marx wrote that one of the features of capitalism is eventually the worker's only value will be what work they can perform for the capitalists. All art, music, theater, literature will die as value is only placed on commodities that can be sold for a profit. 

We've gotten there.  Go borrow money so you can develop skills that someone will charge their customers for and give you a portion of their profits. Forget about anything other than making yourself more valuable for capitalists. Anything you personally may benefit from is secondary to your value to your owner. 

Seems like if the business owners are benefiting the most from your education they should also pay for it. Any while they are at it,  educate folks in the arts and literature.  Aren't those the things that differentiate us from the squirrels and ravens who simply work for their living and do not create?

 

[Texsox]

15 hours ago, WhiteSoxFan1993 said:

An awful lot of student loan debt is unnecessary anyway. You can do 2 years at a community college and 2 years at a regional campus of a state university and finish a degree with very little debt and have pretty much the same earning potential as 4 years at a major state university or private college/university. Why pay $1000 per credit hour at a top state university or $2000+ at a private college/university to take essentially the same freshman English lit requirement that you can take at a community college for $150 per credit hour?

It's true that you don't get the same "college experience," but if that's what you're going into debt for then the government shouldn't be paying for that.

 

My daughter graduated from Urbana with a degree in advertising and had her choice of three job offers months before she left school.  They have one of the top programs in the country and employers lined up and offered some nice packages to hire top talent. They didn't visit the Northeasterns of the world. 

She wouldn't have been earning six figures her second year out of college if she attended SIU. (Which I have great memories of)

On to the practical side. I teach a class Senior Seminar with the focus of transitioning to college. I bring in about 25 to 30 recruiters each fall to talk to the classes. From private schools like Pepperdine to our local schools. After about five or six presentations the students start to realize dorms are dorms,  they all have clubs and study abroad options. So why pay more? 

At Stanford or UT you will be surrounded by top students. Your class discussions will be deeper and richer. You will learn more. The recruiters that visit your campus will be more willing to hire you. Some universities have pipelines with certain companies. 

Is it always a good bet? No. When asked my personal advice I tell them if they are borrowing money for school to stay home,  drive 15 minutes to our local community college,  then 5 minutes to our local university that is in our shadow. Then go get a graduate degree from a name university. 

But this perpetuates the class structure in our society. The rich send their kids to top schools and then their children get hired by the top companies with top salaries. 

[NWINFan]

Meanwhile, the "law and order" president just pardoned three crooked politicians who stole from their own supporters and four mass murderers.  Regarding young people who struggle with making decisions about college and debt? What does he care? He was born into wealth and privilege. He has never had to work for anything in his worthless life. It is ironic, though, that through his incompetence, he has amassed almost a half a billion dollars in debt. 

[Quin]

18 hours ago, WhiteSoxFan1993 said:

An awful lot of student loan debt is unnecessary anyway. You can do 2 years at a community college and 2 years at a regional campus of a state university and finish a degree with very little debt and have pretty much the same earning potential as 4 years at a major state university or private college/university. Why pay $1000 per credit hour at a top state university or $2000+ at a private college/university to take essentially the same freshman English lit requirement that you can take at a community college for $150 per credit hour?

It's true that you don't get the same "college experience," but if that's what you're going into debt for then the government shouldn't be paying for that.

 

Yeah ... no.

I can only use Missouri's School of Journalism as an example, but you won't get the same learning experience school-to-school, let alone the built in networking (which is a big problem in and of itself). Most schools don't have journalism schools (they often bundle them with communications), let alone the robust curriculum. I got my first job because I was working for Mizzou at a journalism conference and made a connection there to an employer, so it wasn't networking, but I know several people who it has helped.

I've got friends/classmates from Mizzou working at: ABC News, CNN, NASA, CBS, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Kansas City Star, ESPN, The Athletic, The Chicago Tribune, Reuters, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC News, NowThis, Fox News, Bleacher Report, The Daily Mail, The Associated Press, Newsy, Bloomberg News, and Cheddar.

I was at two of those outlets in my short career (got hit by layoffs in the summer) and currently interviewing with a couple now that the job market is settling.

I obviously have industry friends who went to other schools - Arizona State, USC, NYU, Indiana, Northwestern, Syracuse - but the route you suggest is a path rarely seen. I've had friends who tried to take it but found they lacked skills out of college. My fiancee went to a small college (her family mostly went to Penn State, but she didn't want to go to a large school) and her comms department still cut video on physical tape - she couldn't get a job in her desired field, book publishing, and has since gone into medical editing. She has the skills, but publishers take note of where your degree is from, which sucks. It's an industry problem.

Edit: It's worth noting that as far as big schools go, when I went that Missouri is more affordable than most if you establish in-state residency. And I still had friends incurring massive debt.

[CentralChamps21]

2 hours ago, Quin said:

Yeah ... no.

I can only use Missouri's School of Journalism as an example, but you won't get the same learning experience school-to-school, let alone the built in networking (which is a big problem in and of itself). Most schools don't have journalism schools (they often bundle them with communications), let alone the robust curriculum. I got my first job because I was working for Mizzou at a journalism conference and made a connection there to an employer, so it wasn't networking, but I know several people who it has helped.

I've got friends/classmates from Mizzou working at: ABC News, CNN, NASA, CBS, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Kansas City Star, ESPN, The Athletic, The Chicago Tribune, Reuters, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC News, NowThis, Fox News, Bleacher Report, The Daily Mail, The Associated Press, Newsy, Bloomberg News, and Cheddar.

I was at two of those outlets in my short career (got hit by layoffs in the summer) and currently interviewing with a couple now that the job market is settling.

I obviously have industry friends who went to other schools - Arizona State, USC, NYU, Indiana, Northwestern, Syracuse - but the route you suggest is a path rarely seen. I've had friends who tried to take it but found they lacked skills out of college. My fiancee went to a small college (her family mostly went to Penn State, but she didn't want to go to a large school) and her comms department still cut video on physical tape - she couldn't get a job in her desired field, book publishing, and has since gone into medical editing. She has the skills, but publishers take note of where your degree is from, which sucks. It's an industry problem.

Edit: It's worth noting that as far as big schools go, when I went that Missouri is more affordable than most if you establish in-state residency. And I still had friends incurring massive debt.

I guess I should have been more detailed in that I understand that for SOME degrees it really does matter where you go to school but there are a lot of things like business, engineering, even pre-med and pre-law where you can do very well in the community college/regional university path.

[Stinky Stanky]

12 hours ago, Texsox said:

Karl Marx wrote that one of the features of capitalism is eventually the worker's only value will be what work they can perform for the capitalists. All art, music, theater, literature will die as value is only placed on commodities that can be sold for a profit. 

We've gotten there.  Go borrow money so you can develop skills that someone will charge their customers for and give you a portion of their profits. Forget about anything other than making yourself more valuable for capitalists. Anything you personally may benefit from is secondary to your value to your owner. 

Seems like if the business owners are benefiting the most from your education they should also pay for it. Any while they are at it,  educate folks in the arts and literature.  Aren't those the things that differentiate us from the squirrels and ravens who simply work for their living and do not create?

 

Karl Marx notwithstanding, most art, music, theater and literature is kept alive by the largesse of people and governments who appreciate it and support the organizations and individuals that keep it going.  This is as old as civilization itself.  So Karl wasn't as smart as he thought he was.

Is this a bad thing?  Don't ask me, I only work here. ?

[Danny Dravot]

3 hours ago, Stinky Stanky said:

Karl Marx notwithstanding, most art, music, theater and literature is kept alive by the largesse of people and governments who appreciate it and support the organizations and individuals that keep it going.  This is as old as civilization itself.  So Karl wasn't as smart as he thought he was.

Is this a bad thing?  Don't ask me, I only work here. ?

If I more than anything wanted art, music, and literature, I’d want to be anywhere but the USSR, China, or North Korea.

And Russia has some great cultural icons too. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, all dead before the Revolution. Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Nabokov fled from it. Who came out of revolutionary Russia? Gorky? Alright then.

I’ve said it many times- I am a conservative who voted for Biden to stop Trump. I do not think Democrats in the main are socialists. I acknowledge that some of them are declared democratic socialists- I think they are idiots but they also wouldn’t ship me off to a GULAG and Democrats have rejected them anyway (for now).

All that being said, my point works a lot better if the “I’m totes not a socialist, guyz” crowd didn’t go around favorably quoting Karl fucking Marx. Not a great look.

[Stinky Stanky]

38 minutes ago, Danny Dravot said:

If I more than anything wanted art, music, and literature, I’d want to be anywhere but the USSR, China, or North Korea.

And Russia has some great cultural icons too. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, all dead before the Revolution. Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Nabokov fled from it. Who came out of revolutionary Russia? Gorky? Alright then.

I’ve said it many times- I am a conservative who voted for Biden to stop Trump. I do not think Democrats in the main are socialists. I acknowledge that some of them are declared democratic socialists- I think they are idiots but they also wouldn’t ship me off to a GULAG and Democrats have rejected them anyway (for now).

All that being said, my point works a lot better if the “I’m totes not a socialist, guyz” crowd didn’t go around favorably quoting Karl fucking Marx. Not a great look.

Just in the interest of a good discussion, Prokofiev fled to the USA, but he eventually went back and subjected himself to the whims of the commissars.  And miracle of miracles, wrote some of his best music after they told him to knock off the "bourgeois" atonality and write stuff that was easier to understand.  Shostakovich stayed and did battle with the commissars.  They both loved Mother Russia more than they hated the commies.

[ron883]

Andrew Yang filed to run for mayor of NYC. Bill de Blasio is terrible. I will be pulling for Yang. 

Edited December 24, 2020 by ron883

[Danny Dravot]

7 hours ago, Stinky Stanky said:

Just in the interest of a good discussion, Prokofiev fled to the USA, but he eventually went back and subjected himself to the whims of the commissars.  And miracle of miracles, wrote some of his best music after they told him to knock off the "bourgeois" atonality and write stuff that was easier to understand.  Shostakovich stayed and did battle with the commissars.  They both loved Mother Russia more than they hated the commies.

That’s fair, and thanks for providing those examples. Like everything, it isn’t absolute. But in general, Russia had a long history of producing great artists and seven decades of communism really quenched that flow.

And to the original argument, it’s really dumb to think that culture would flourish if profit motive wasn’t a thing- for one, the Renaissance was fueled by rich people who longed for great art. It’s sort of ridiculous that Karl Marx thought rich people would just hoard their money and sit in bland rooms with gray walls and no sound. No, that’s what tended to happen under communism where life turned into a miserable rat race to survive. Wealthy societies commission artists to bring color to the world. Not surprising that Marx was wrong, though.

5 hours ago, ron883 said:

Andrew Yang filed to run for mayor of NYC. Bill de Blasio is terrible. I will be pulling for Yang. 

I think Max Rose is going to run. We held the same rank and deployed with the same brigade (4,000ish people). I remember a Rose and his face looks really familiar, but I can’t really remember if we interacted. I don’t have a dog in the fight but I hope he wins.

[Balta1701]

19 hours ago, ron883 said:

Andrew Yang filed to run for mayor of NYC. Bill de Blasio is terrible. I will be pulling for Yang. 

I would still say that DiBlasio has the second worst performance of any politician in this country this year, and with as hard as the governors of Florida and Texas have worked at killing people on purpose, and with McConnell’s senate work...it takes some serious incompetence to be on that list.

[pcq]

Here's to the judges, officials, politicians, and election workers who followed the rule of law, discharged their duties and held our system in place during a difficult and challenging year. 

[NWINFan]

19 hours ago, pcq said:

Here's to the judges, officials, politicians, and election workers who followed the rule of law, discharged their duties and held our system in place during a difficult and challenging year. 

They did great work under crazy conditions and helped keep a dictator from stealing an election.

[caulfield12]

On 12/25/2020 at 10:34 AM, Balta1701 said:

I would still say that DiBlasio has the second worst performance of any politician in this country this year, and with as hard as the governors of Florida and Texas have worked at killing people on purpose, and with McConnell’s senate work...it takes some serious incompetence to be on that list.

Kemp in Georgia and Reynolds in Iowa, along with Noem in SD...the former finally stood up to Trump these last 4-6 weeks, but not knowing anything about how the virus is transmitted months into a pandemic is pretty pathetic.

[caulfield12]

On 12/24/2020 at 12:51 PM, Danny Dravot said:

If I more than anything wanted art, music, and literature, I’d want to be anywhere but the USSR, China, or North Korea.

And Russia has some great cultural icons too. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, all dead before the Revolution. Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Nabokov fled from it. Who came out of revolutionary Russia? Gorky? Alright then.

I’ve said it many times- I am a conservative who voted for Biden to stop Trump. I do not think Democrats in the main are socialists. I acknowledge that some of them are declared democratic socialists- I think they are idiots but they also wouldn’t ship me off to a GULAG and Democrats have rejected them anyway (for now).

All that being said, my point works a lot better if the “I’m totes not a socialist, guyz” crowd didn’t go around favorably quoting Karl fucking Marx. Not a great look.

Just look at the hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars paid for music catalogs...the exponentially increasing value of fine art collections, etc.

[NWINFan]

2 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

Kemp in Georgia and Reynolds in Iowa, along with Noem in SD...the former finally stood up to Trump these last 4-6 weeks, but not knowing anything about how the virus is transmitted months into a pandemic is pretty pathetic.

In various ways, the political leadership failed the country during the biggest crisis the country has faced in a century. This performance was horseshit.

[Two-Gun Pete]

On 12/23/2020 at 6:43 AM, Texsox said:

Karl Marx wrote that one of the features of capitalism is eventually the worker's only value will be what work they can perform for the capitalists. All art, music, theater, literature will die as value is only placed on commodities that can be sold for a profit. 

We've gotten there.  Go borrow money so you can develop skills that someone will charge their customers for and give you a portion of their profits. Forget about anything other than making yourself more valuable for capitalists. Anything you personally may benefit from is secondary to your value to your owner. 

Seems like if the business owners are benefiting the most from your education they should also pay for it. Any while they are at it,  educate folks in the arts and literature.  Aren't those the things that differentiate us from the squirrels and ravens who simply work for their living and do not create?

Yeah, I see that this had already been covered before i got back to you. But, centuries before petty nobility member Karl Marx wrote that bullshit, rich Dutch businessmen from Amsterdam and Rotterdam paid a fuckton to have paintings done of them. Centuries before that, the Catholic Church paid a fuckton of money to have paintings and sculptures done for them. Centuries before that, Roman emperors did the same, and so did the ancient Egyptian pharaohs as well.

So, aside from Marx having been a shit talker who never worked a day in his life, the rich have always supported the arts and music. 

 

To the bolded, what if youre self employed? Do you get screwed out of a free education, while sheeple who work in corporate America get theirs for free? What if you work for a non-profit that do not have the funding to pay for your education? 

 

While I agree with more equitable funding of education, I don't know that having "businesses pay for your education" will turn out at all as you envisioned.

[Two-Gun Pete]

On 12/23/2020 at 9:38 AM, Quin said:

Yeah ... no.

I can only use Missouri's School of Journalism as an example, but you won't get the same learning experience school-to-school, let alone the built in networking (which is a big problem in and of itself). Most schools don't have journalism schools (they often bundle them with communications), let alone the robust curriculum. I got my first job because I was working for Mizzou at a journalism conference and made a connection there to an employer, so it wasn't networking, but I know several people who it has helped.

I've got friends/classmates from Mizzou working at: ABC News, CNN, NASA, CBS, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Kansas City Star, ESPN, The Athletic, The Chicago Tribune, Reuters, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC News, NowThis, Fox News, Bleacher Report, The Daily Mail, The Associated Press, Newsy, Bloomberg News, and Cheddar.

I was at two of those outlets in my short career (got hit by layoffs in the summer) and currently interviewing with a couple now that the job market is settling.

I obviously have industry friends who went to other schools - Arizona State, USC, NYU, Indiana, Northwestern, Syracuse - but the route you suggest is a path rarely seen.

LOL, I have the exact opposite example of a client whose daughter wanted to go to Mizzou Journalism School. However, her parents were divorced, and the savings weren't in place for her to pay for it.

She wanted to stoopidly squander tens of thousands of dollars, taking 100-level classes, while living in a dorm for a couple of years. According to This, she was looking at $23k/yr, at least until she got Missouri residency.

Instead, she took additional AP level classes her senior year of high school, which cut into the entry level courses she needed. Then, she took more of the useless 100-level courses at a local juco. Between the AP classes and juco, she was able to finish all her prerequisites in one year, having spent some~$5k, all in; had she gone to Mizzou straight away, it could have been as much as $46k in debt, plus interest for the same outcome.

She then transferred to Mizzou Journalism, graduated, and is now working up in Milwaukee. What sets her apart from her peers is that she has ~$40k less in debt, and can support herself, AND pay off her debt. She can go to grad school without worrying about being perma-poor. She can choose to start a business in the future, and provide value, opportunity, and innovation, if she wants. She can settle down, get married, start a family, and buy real estate, if she wants.

 

Consigning our young to a lifetime of debt servitude aint worth a couple years in a dorm. The numbers simply don't lie. We as a society need to choose better, IMO.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Two-Gun Pete

[Jack Parkman]

54 minutes ago, Two-Gun Pete said:

LOL, I have the exact opposite example of a client whose daughter wanted to go to Mizzou Journalism School. However, her parents were divorced, and the savings weren't in place for her to pay for it.

She wanted to stoopidly squander tens of thousands of dollars, taking 100-level classes, while living in a dorm for a couple of years. According to This, she was looking at $23k/yr, at least until she got Missouri residency.

Instead, she took additional AP level classes her senior year, which cut into the entry level courses she needed. Then, she took more of the useless 100-level courses at a local juco. Between the AP classes and juco, she was able to finish all her prerequisites in one year, having spent some~$5, all in; had she gone to Mizzou straight away, it could have been as much as $46k in debt, plus interest for the same outcome.

She then transferred to Mizzou Journalism, graduated, and is now working up in Milwaukee. What sets her apart from her peers is that she has ~$40k less in debt, and can support herself, AND pay off her debt.

 

Consigning our young to a lifetime of debt servitude aint worth a couple years in a dorm. The numbers simply don't lie. We as a society need to choose better, IMO.

I took 2 years of Juco, got my Associates degree, and still had to go to university for 3 years to complete my Bachelors. 

It completely depends on what train of study you're taking. With a BA, sure....going to Juco is a good idea. I learned the hard way that going to JuCo with a BS is just a gigantic waste of time. 

 

[The Beast]

2 hours ago, Two-Gun Pete said:

LOL, I have the exact opposite example of a client whose daughter wanted to go to Mizzou Journalism School. However, her parents were divorced, and the savings weren't in place for her to pay for it.

She wanted to stoopidly squander tens of thousands of dollars, taking 100-level classes, while living in a dorm for a couple of years. According to This, she was looking at $23k/yr, at least until she got Missouri residency.

Instead, she took additional AP level classes her senior year of high school, which cut into the entry level courses she needed. Then, she took more of the useless 100-level courses at a local juco. Between the AP classes and juco, she was able to finish all her prerequisites in one year, having spent some~$5k, all in; had she gone to Mizzou straight away, it could have been as much as $46k in debt, plus interest for the same outcome.

She then transferred to Mizzou Journalism, graduated, and is now working up in Milwaukee. What sets her apart from her peers is that she has ~$40k less in debt, and can support herself, AND pay off her debt. She can go to grad school without worrying about being perma-poor. She can choose to start a business in the future, and provide value, opportunity, and innovation, if she wants. She can settle down, get married, start a family, and buy real estate, if she wants.

 

Consigning our young to a lifetime of debt servitude aint worth a couple years in a dorm. The numbers simply don't lie. We as a society need to choose better, IMO.

As an education system and in society, kids and young adults need better assessments of their skills and interests throughout their young lives, taking inventory of all of the possible careers they could be interested in, taking inventory of their skills and weaknesses that could be developed to get them into careers. It needs to be done early and reinforced better throughout high school so that young adults know more about themselves when they are looking at colleges in majors, that way they don’t just pick something for the sake of picking something. Doing all of this would help young adults make better career choices. 

1 hour ago, Jack Parkman said:

I took 2 years of Juco, got my Associates degree, and still had to go to university for 3 years to complete my Bachelors. 

It completely depends on what train of study you're taking. With a BA, sure....going to Juco is a good idea. I learned the hard way that going to JuCo with a BS is just a gigantic waste of time. 

 

Even if you are going into a health care profession that requires a BS?

[Jack Parkman]

Just now, The Beast said:

As an education system and in society, kids and young adults need better assessments of their skills and interests throughout their young lives, taking inventory of all of the possible careers they could be interested in, taking inventory of their skills and weaknesses that could be developed to get them into careers. It needs to be done early and reinforced better throughout high school so that young adults know more about themselves when they are looking at colleges in majors, that way they don’t just pick something for the sake of picking something. Doing all of this would help young adults make better career choices. 

Even if you are going into a health care profession that requires a BS?

No health care is different.