Fox News - What do Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Mark Cuban have in common? They're all college dropouts. Richard Branson, Simon Cowell and Peter Jennings have in common? They never went to college at all. But today all kids are told: To succeed, you must go to college. That's why I say: For many people, college is a scam. I explored the scam on my Fox Business show with Richard Vedder, author of "Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much," and Naomi Schafer Riley, who just published "Faculty Lounges and Other Reasons Why You Won't Get the College Education You Paid For."
Hmm, you know who else didn't go to college? The guy pumping my gas, the 4 guys hanging out playing Keno all day at Tedeschi's, the bums at the subway station, the guy washing my car window with yesterdays Boston Globe, the night manager at Target, and the single mother who works 3 waitressing jobs just to keep her cupboards full with Spam.
And I'm not saying college is a must, it isn't, I'm just saying college isn't the problem here, we shouldn't be knocking people for going, even if it isn't necessary for everyone in what they want to do in life it's still a valuable experience. The issue is with the cost of college.
Even kids who went to a 2nd tier state school are still likely to come out of college with a degree, a difficult job search in front of them, and anywhere between $20-40k in debt if Mom and Pops couldn't help with tuition. Nevermind the kid who decided to challenge his or herself at the more prestigious private institution, might as well declare bankruptcy right at graduation, spend the next 7 years with shitty credit and be done with it. That's honestly got to be the easier route than trying to service debt that could be anywhere from 50-120k just for a 4 year college.
And that's the real problem. It's not people bettering their education, that's always a good thing. It's that the degree which should be liberating and valuable is actually a gigantic ball and chain to most grads. Instead of taking the time to find a job and career path that fits what your plan for life and your educational background you're forced to take the first half decent offer to begin servicing your debt, you can worry about your career prospects later...or so you think, in reality that ball and chain is going to be with you for probably well over a decade, that's 10 years where one of your primary, if not your absolute primary goals is servicing a debt that allowed you to take your crummy job to begin with. It's almost similar to human traffickers extorting hardworking families after smuggling them into the country (less the human rights violations, relax people, I understand the difference). They were just looking for a better opportunity and a promise of a better future and are left saddled with a crushing debt, just like your average college grad (except sallie mae generally won't dig a shallow grave if you fail to pay).
You want things to change? Working on capping the tuition amounts in state schools can charge. Give private schools some actual competition via a price point they'll have to work to match. As long as prices are allowed to continue to soar to unreasonable levels you're going to continue to have grads taking menial work just to service their debt, instead of reaching into new, potentially riskier fields, but with potentially greater rewards for not only themselves, but our economy as well.
Ok, I'll get off my soap box, now back to your regularly scheduled nonsense.
