Another reason why going to college is WAY too expensive

[QUOTE="Nkemjo"]

[QUOTE="Zerocrossings"]

Wow. Where do you live?

mrbojangles25

It's not really uncommon, here in Ireland you just pay the initial registration fee and then third level education is free for the year. Of course you have to pay for housing and stuff yourself. Haha the only way people come out of college in debt here is from partying too much or buying a car when they don't have the money :lol: What you get to do in college here is completely dependent on your second level exam results and very little to do with your wallet.

wow...that sounds close to perfect

i wish my country viewed its people as an investment instead of a wallet

No it's not too expensive. A lot of folks don't seem to get college is not supposed to be for everyone or most people.

Pirate700

Read a book, get smarter, get scholarship. Behold, the key to college success. I pumped in 100+ hours studying for the LSAT to get a bulky scholarship from a great school. Vandalvideo

Yep. Loans suck, but they're not the only way to pay for an education if you've got sharp wits and internet access. Just start digging and apply for any free money you can find. Most people just apply for the obvious things and get ticked off when they win nothing because just about everybody who's entering post-secondary study has also applied for the same scholarship.

If you don't have the grades AND the extracurricular involvement... well, that's your fault. But if you're still in high school, you have time to change that. I won 50 grand for leadership and another 70 grand for academics going into undergrad, then pulled in another 30 grand for Masters. I was richer coming out of university than I was going in. And I was a music student... not exactly a field where people expect you to pull in that kind of money for an education.

No it's not too expensive. A lot of folks don't seem to get college is not supposed to be for everyone or most people. Hell state colleges are super cheap in relativity.

Pirate700

I disagree, it's too expensive. Everyone should have the right to better themselves through higher education, that should not be the right of a privileged few. I just graduated from college (UC Davis) and the costs of tuition combined with getting books (I'm not even including rent, because that varies wildly) is just way too high. Lucky for me I had a large scholarship which paid for me but a lot of other students had massive amounts of debt.

It's too expensive. Everyone should have the right to better themselves through higher education, that should not be the right of a privilege few. I just graduated from college (UC Davis) and the costs of tuition combined with getting books (I'm not even including rent, because that varies wildly) is just way too much. Lucky for me I had a large scholarship which paid for me but a lot of other students had massive amounts of debt. Fuzzy_Bear123

Well, everybody does have the right to apply to university. You don't need to go to an enormously expensive school to be successful. Anybody who's done university knows that in the end it's what you DO and who you know, not the institution from which you graduated, that makes the biggest impact on your career. Prestige won't get you anywhere if someone from Joe College consistently outperforms you.

I'm all for affordable education, and certain countries / institutions are exorbitantly expensive. I'd never consider studying at such places myself, unless I got a free ride through scholarships. But by the same token, I think you can make education affordable for yourself in most cases through effort. Just like everything else in a capitalist society, it comes down to how hard you're willing to work to make yourself attractive to scholarship committees, and to find opportunities to win free money.

Hmm... In Quebec College is free, I just pay a 150$ registration and a few hundred for books and im good to go :) In other words, I love taxes cause i directly see the benefits.Dr_Brocoli

The trick is still seeing the value when you're paying them. :P

[QUOTE="Fuzzy_Bear123"] It's too expensive. Everyone should have the right to better themselves through higher education, that should not be the right of a privilege few. I just graduated from college (UC Davis) and the costs of tuition combined with getting books (I'm not even including rent, because that varies wildly) is just way too much. Lucky for me I had a large scholarship which paid for me but a lot of other students had massive amounts of debt. pianist

Well, everybody does have the right to apply to university. You don't need to go to an enormously expensive school to be successful. Anybody who's done university knows that in the end it's what you DO and who you know, not the institution from which you graduated, that makes the biggest impact on your career. Prestige won't get you anywhere if someone from Joe College consistently outperforms you.

I'm all for affordable education, and certain countries / institutions are exorbitantly expensive. I'd never consider studying at such a place myself. But by the same token, I think you can make education affordable for yourself in most cases through effort. Just like everything else in a capitalist society, it comes down to how hard you're willing to work to make yourself attractive to scholarship committees, and to find opportunities to win free money.

It's true that you can go to schools which offer their services at much lower fees, but even those are steadily increasing their fee's very quickly (for example the CSU's in California).

The other problem is that if you want to for example go to pharmacy school it WILL cost you over $100k no matter which school you choose, which to me is just insane (the reason I'm using this example is because I am currently going through this process).

Edit: I do, however, agree with you that the name of the school is not a very big deal because it really comes down to what and who you know, so I can't argue against that.

Looking at the article it says she has over $200,000 in debt :O. Here the maximum we pay for a course is $10,000 a year (undergraduate Commonwealth-supported). I thought paying $50,000 for my 5-year course was bad.

However, I won't be paying $50,000. I'm paying all my fees up-front, so I get a 20% discount (meaning I'm only paying roughly $40,000). However, if I couldn't afford it I would, like most of my friends, gets a HECS loan (like your student loans) from the government. This, unlike your student loans, only has interest at the level of inflation, and is paid through your tax.

It's true that you can go to schools which offer their services at much lower fees, but even those are steadily increasing their fee's very quickly (for example the CSU's in California).

The other problem is that if you want to for example go to pharmacy school it WILL cost you over $100k no matter which school you choose, which to me is just insane (the reason I'm using this example is because I am currently going through this process).

Edit: I do, however, agree with you that the name of the school is not a very big deal because it really comes down to what and who you know, so I can't argue against that.

Fuzzy_Bear123

Pharmacists don't do too badly for wages, and I assume that $100 000 is pre-scholarship. But if the cost is too much to bear, I just wouldn't become a pharmacist... there are certainly other fields that are in high demand that won't set you back nearly that much. It is a right for people to have access to education, but I don't think it's a right for people to be pampered through it. You make your choices in life - and it's your responsibility to deal with the consequences. I wouldn't complain if higher education cheaper, of course. Frankly, I'd rather my tax money be spent on education than on, say, bomb development, but that's not the view of the majority, and there's only so much money to go around.

[QUOTE="Fuzzy_Bear123"]

It's true that you can go to schools which offer their services at much lower fees, but even those are steadily increasing their fee's very quickly (for example the CSU's in California).

The other problem is that if you want to for example go to pharmacy school it WILL cost you over $100k no matter which school you choose, which to me is just insane (the reason I'm using this example is because I am currently going through this process).

Edit: I do, however, agree with you that the name of the school is not a very big deal because it really comes down to what and who you know, so I can't argue against that.

pianist

Pharmacists don't do too badly for wages, and I assume that $100 000 is pre-scholarship. But if the cost is too much to bear, I just wouldn't become a pharmacist... there are certainly other fields that are in high demand that won't set you back nearly that much. It is a right for people to have access to education, but I don't think it's a right for people to be pampered through it. You make your choices in life - and it's your responsibility to deal with the consequences. I wouldn't complain if higher education cheaper, of course. Frankly, I'd rather my tax money be spent on education than on, say, bomb development, but that's not the view of the majority, and there's only so much money to go around.

That's exactly what I'm trying to get at. I honestly would not mind paying a bit more in taxes if it is guaranteed to go towards education and not spent on some pet project for a politician (or what you said avoid research in "bomb development" and put it towards education). Unfortunately that just won't ever be the case because even if the money went towards education most people would adamantly oppose an increase in taxes.

If you read the article very carefully, you'll see that you really shouldn't feel bad for her situation. No because she's a doctor, but because she took out all of those medical school loans while accumulating credit card debt. When completed, her loans were either in forebearance and accumulating interesting or she basically neglected to pay them and again accumulated more fees, one of which was over $50,000.

She is a family practice physician in the United States. One of the hardest working, yet most underpaid specialty within medicine next to pediatrics and right below internal medicine. She will likely never repay her debt before the time that she would have otherwise retired.

I have $178,000 in medical school debt. I feel her pain, but she has made some incredibly stupid decisions to get where she is right now.

As for the person that believed that physicians make more than $500,000 per year, that is very incorrect. The vast majority of us are primary care physicians and we make $200,000 or less with 40% of our income paid back to the government in the form of one tax or another plus medical malpractice insurance costs continue to rise, as well, leaving us with meager incomes for the amount of education and sacrifice that is made to get where we are in our profession. To be honest, the majority of nurse anesthetists are paid more than primary care physicians.

We work 80-100 hours per week during residency and over 60 hours per week after residency with little to show for it, but incredible debt, often failed marriages, no families, and chronic depression.

[QUOTE="mrbojangles25"]

[QUOTE="Nkemjo"]

It's not really uncommon, here in Ireland you just pay the initial registration fee and then third level education is free for the year. Of course you have to pay for housing and stuff yourself. Haha the only way people come out of college in debt here is from partying too much or buying a car when they don't have the money :lol: What you get to do in college here is completely dependent on your second level exam results and very little to do with your wallet.

LJS9502_basic

wow...that sounds close to perfect

i wish my country viewed its people as an investment instead of a wallet

Obviously it's taxed since it's a public facility, but in the context that everyone is talking about you know what I mean when I say that. People don't end up with debt when they come out of college.

[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"][QUOTE="mrbojangles25"]

wow...that sounds close to perfect

i wish my country viewed its people as an investment instead of a wallet

Nkemjo

Obviously it's taxed since it's a public facility, but in the context that everyone is talking about you know what I mean when I say that. People don't end up with debt when they come out of college.

The cost of college is there as a natural control mechanism to limit the amount of people going to and coming from the institutions.

There simply arent enough degree requiring jobs or careers to support the amount of people that would be a result of college being free.

Armed forces is a good way to pay for college with zero loans; except for the whole prospect of possibly dying.

[QUOTE="Nkemjo"]

[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"]It's not free. Has to be paid in some way....undoubtedly taxes.LJS9502_basic

Obviously it's taxed since it's a public facility, but in the context that everyone is talking about you know what I mean when I say that. People don't end up with debt when they come out of college.

Yeah that's true, but which is worse? If you ask me huge debt coming out of college is worse than being taxed a reasonable amount for something productive. And right now with those kind of articles and the responses in here I think we can tell which is working out for the better. ;)

Armed forces is a good way to pay for college with zero loans; except for the whole prospect of possibly dying.

dracos9000

[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"][QUOTE="Nkemjo"]

Obviously it's taxed since it's a public facility, but in the context that everyone is talking about you know what I mean when I say that. People don't end up with debt when they come out of college.

Nkemjo

Yeah that's true, but which is worse? If you ask me huge debt coming out of college is worse than being taxed a reasonable amount for something productive. And right now with those kind of articles and the responses in here I think we can tell which is working out for the better. ;)

[QUOTE="dracos9000"]

Armed forces is a good way to pay for college with zero loans; except for the whole prospect of possibly dying.

MaddenBowler10

You take small steps towards college if you can't afford the more expensive ones. A very small local university or technical school can give you your general education credits or degree, then if you feel like it, you can pursue a more lucrative goal.

The end goal of college is to receive a higher education to try and make a better living down the road. The initial investment is very high, but the rewards from it, if you apply yourself, can be substantial.

Can you make a living if you don't go to college? Of course. Is it likely to be something you want to do for the rest of your life? Probably not.

[QUOTE="mrbojangles25"]

[QUOTE="Nkemjo"]

It's not really uncommon, here in Ireland you just pay the initial registration fee and then third level education is free for the year. Of course you have to pay for housing and stuff yourself. Haha the only way people come out of college in debt here is from partying too much or buying a car when they don't have the money :lol: What you get to do in college here is completely dependent on your second level exam results and very little to do with your wallet.

LJS9502_basic

wow...that sounds close to perfect

i wish my country viewed its people as an investment instead of a wallet

that is what taxes are there for. To be returned to the people. I'd be happy if my taxes were spent that wisely.

honestly if any of you folks are in school, stay in school for as long as possible. Its a horrible time to start a career; 1 in 5 graduates with a BS degree have a job in their field.

dont want to take a loan? work while youre in school. Its what I did...it took me six years, and I had to take a few quarters off to generate funds, but working for 10 bucks an hour I was able to graduate debt free.

the problem with loans is that most kids dont want to work and they want to play too much. I can understand that, but just cut down on the high life...youre freaking 18-24 years old, you shouldnt be set up in a nice house, buying a keg every week.

Its kinda sad, the days of the "starving college student" are over.