I read this awhile ago. I thought it was well written. I wish the majority of the younger generations would read and ponder this.
We have so much anger right now throughout the world, really. Especially here in America, I just don't get it. I get up in a conditioned home, drive a good enough car to a job, work, earn a paycheck. Then I come home, eat well and do "life".
Is my life perfect? I only wish. I, like others have my crosses to bare but I keep up with the journey.
No one outside of me really affects my life that much. President Trump hasn't caused me to significantly alter my life and neither did Obama when he sat in office for 8 years.
"Education/college degree" is the 21st century form of american slavery, plain and simple.
I'm going to have to call Butter Sticks on this one.
Yeah there’s that whole choice conundrum that the slaves never had....
"Education/college degree" is the 21st century form of american slavery, plain and simple.
So wouldn't it be more like indentured servitude?
The indentured made a promise to someone making a profit off their efforts in return for the guarantee of a loan. At one time the "loan" was an exchange, services (goods transport, housing, food) for labor.
Maybe the anger should be directed toward those that made the false promises, those that portrayed a college degree as a road paved in gold. Get a college degree and you too can be like the people in the advertisement. You can appear well-rested, wearing safety goggles and a spotless lab-coat while staring at a beaker. Better yet, you can be attending a board meeting where you might be standing next to an easel presenting charts and graphs. Maybe you can stand over someone's shoulder who is seated at a computer while you point at the screen. Doesn't everyone who gets a college degree get a convertible Mercedes or Porsche and a penthouse or expansive loft apartment? Doesn't everyone get a supervisory position making the "big decisions" right out of school? Doesn't the college graduate get to head up the research and development team of the next big project, casting aside the senior employees that have thirty years plus of experience? Doesn't a college degree "increase your chances of success"? That's what I have heard for years. Well, so does buying a lottery ticket but it doesn't guarantee I will win.
I have worked in aerospace for a long time now. Seeing the youngsters coming in from college these days and hearing their stories is just one face-palm moment after another.
It usually takes three years for them to realize they were misled about the real world. At five years they have started to become bitter, jaded and resentful or they have learned the true path of gold is management and they have transformed themselves into a corporate tool.
The folks that have (and continue) to profit off the backs of America's next generation are the educational institutions that have pulled the wool over their eyes. Preparation starts in junior high with stories of college so the student body can be prepared for indoctrination during high-school college-prep courses while invoking fears of how low SAT/ACT scores may prevent them from being able to get into their institution of choice.
The easy/availability of student loans and grants makes money flow into colleges who then feel free to raise tuition rates that exacerbates the problem of the students, requiring more funding that puts more money into the system. Then more people can become introduced into the higher minded, morally superior thinking of the college graduate that elevates their belief in socialism that puts them above the ranks of the "uneducated and deplorable".
Meanwhile, this system of liberal-arts indoctrination and continual reinforcement from within is so strong and sanctimonious that the idiots they are producing don't even know how to use a hammer...but they sure know how to download apps and shop from their smart-phone!
Much like the liberal-infested cities that think they have a "raise the minimum wage" strategy out of poverty. No matter how much you raise the minimum wage, there will ALWAYS be someone at the bottom. At least until all the animals are created equal, just some more equals than other.
So the young people have been misled by the collegiate system that has been growing and feeding off itself for generations and has grown drunk on its own power and greed so much that everything has become threatened by its existence and no one can really do anything about it other than wait for the entire house of cards to collapse in upon itself.
It isn't slavery, it is brainwashing. It is about control emanating from a system that by serving its own principles feeding upon itself and causing its own destruction. Eventually everyone gets screwed over in the process, the whole arrangement falls apart and we have to start all over again. Welcome to civilization.
Did I miss anything? Oh, congratulations to those that survive the meat grinder and move on to become productive citizens in their own right and find some happiness during their brief time upon this world.
Maybe it's just me, but I never go into anything without my eyes wide open.
When I selected my degree, I already knew what the job market was for that degree, the average starting salary, and what my debt payments would be. One of the reasons I chose mechanical engineering over Aeronautical (which is what I really wanted) is that the market for Aero is much smaller than the market for mechanical.
It boggles me that everyone doesn't use what seems to be a pretty common sense decision making process. Count the cost.
I also knew I wanted a desk job, because I had spent enough time laboring to know that, while rewarding and low investment cost, was REALLY hard. Laboring also had a ceiling unless I wanted to start my own company.
When I bought my house, in 2005, I could have doubled the amount I borrowed with some clever financial wrangling. Aren't I glad I didn't 3 years later. Why? Because I did my homework. What happens if the rate on my short term ARM doubles or triples in a down market? What if I need to sell my house? etc.
As P.T. Barnum may or may not have said, "There's a sucker born every minute."
I think the biggest part of the problem is that what Karl described is being done with our money via the government. Congratulations to you, but Just how many high school kids, and their parents for that matter, can see all that through the fog of school and media indoctrination? So yes, they are suckers but we suckered them...
If people can't do basic arithmetic to figure out that a $250,000 loan being serviced by a $40,000 income is a bad idea, then they get what they deserve.
If people can't do basic arithmetic to figure out that a $250,000 loan being serviced by a $40,000 income is a bad idea, then they get what they deserve.
To each is given what is earned (good or bad) but...
The offense is that the rest of us get to deal with it.
The rest of us have to hear story after story about how unfair things are.
The rest of us get to shoulder the financial burden. Where did those government secured loans come from?
The rest of us, society as a whole, gets to suffer from this untenable condition.
If people can't do basic arithmetic to figure out that a $250,000 loan being serviced by a $40,000 income is a bad idea, then they get what they deserve.
I'm just cannot fully agree with you. I do in principle, but when virtually every advisory influence in their lives tell them this is the path to happiness, success, and security and then the supposed adults are making it all work for them, just where are they supposed to learn this? Where did you learn this? No one goes in and borrows $250k it is a little at a time...
First, every college will proudly tell how how expensive they are in brochures and on their website and everything else.
Second, when you fill out the FAFSA, it tells you how much you get to pay.
Third, when you sit down at the Financial assistance office at the college you want to attend, they tell you how much they're willing to knock off.
Then you can easily look up average salaries for your line of work. Or better yet, you can just talk to people in that line of work and see how much they make.
They even offer online calculators to figure out what your payements will be and how long you'll have to make them. Literally nothing is hidden.
The only thing you have to watch out for is your own avarice, and the stupid assumption that things will just magically work themselves out in the future.
I understand your point, but I'll go with Ingomike on this. The bulk of our current students are being taught PC culture rather than math and personal finance. They've been sold a bill of goods that going to college is what you must do to succeed in life. They aren't being pointed towards the analysis process you outlined, which is effectively the same as hiding it. Most of them haven't a clue that they should do it, let alone have the skills.