Letters and Comments

New College Cry: Affordability

By U.S. News Staff

December 4, 2008 RSS Feed Print

Benjamin Franklin said that education provides the highest return of any investment ["49 States Flunk College Affordability Test," usnews.com]. Many Americans are already unable to afford a higher education. America's status as the world's sole superpower is based largely on the fact that we have a considerable scientific and technological edge over other countries. Unfortunately, the edge is eroding fast. If we fail to educate our future generations, we can be certain that our economic and military power will wither away. This country needs to get its priorities straight. One of the top priorities has to be fixing our education system, and not just higher education. Our public school system ranks near the bottom among industrialized nations.

Comment by Mike of VA

Here's a thought. All high school graduates do two years compulsory military or government service. They come out with the equivalent of an AA [associate] degree and get to continue their education at a reduced/subsidized rate. It's good for the country and good for the kids.

Comment by Teri of NH

The message of this story is that the free market is a failure when it comes to lowering prices for the average consumer on the most critical of life issues. Education and health must be subsidized by government. Asking the average American citizen and family to pay for a son or daughter's college education is becoming impossible and only leaving potential students with a lifetime of debt. The fact that schools and healthcare operate for profit is an outrage. Sure, colleges like Harvard and Stanford have huge endowments that can finance full tuition for any one of their students. But how many students get the benefit of going to Stanford or Harvard?

Comment by Byron Gordon of CA

Joe the Plumber makes a decent living and much better than a lot of college graduates. We need plumbers, electricians, and other tradespeople as well. Too many people thumb their noses at such good-paying jobs. They want their kids to go to college to get an art or literature degree, which is completely worthless in the real world.

Comment by Bob Green of TX

A basic four-year college education should be a birthright of an American citizen. In decades past, the concept of publicly financed K-12 education has made sense. In this day and age, with a decreasing percentage of our population in rural and farming communities and with greater need than ever before to have a higher degree of qualification in virtually all job environments, a four-year college degree is rapidly becoming the equivalent of the high school diploma. Education equals opportunity. Education provides the means for a person to adapt to changing times, technologies, and opportunities. These days, on a scale never before witnessed, there is increasing competition from millions in other countries. This is the single greatest generational priority in the United States today. It's time we rectified this situation and started taking steps to provide free basic four-year college tuition to all Americans.

Comment by Jill Holmes of CA

If you want a free education, just get a library card. The more difficult it is to get a college education, the more it is worth. A high school diploma used to be a big deal, but now that everyone has one, it is not worth anything. If everyone had a college degree, then the job market would be saturated even more than it already is. Now that more people are getting four-year degrees, you really need a master's to be competitive.

Comment by Mike Lanier of GA

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Thinkexhibition of 10:30AM December 07, 2009

It should be no surprise to anyone that Universities have become unaffordable. I graduated from Harvard and quite a few of my classmates are Professors, and a few head up major departments in some of the most prestigious Universities in the US. Out of curiosity, I looked up several in the course outlines to see what they actually did.

They all have tenure, and, at most, they only teach a few hours a day, not even every day. Of course they say Harvard is a research University, and judging by course loads is not useful. So, I looked up their production of books, articles, and other scholarly materials. In the few cases I did look at, their production was very limited, typically in twenty years, one or two books and a handful of articles, mostly using the text from the books. Now. these people have high salaries, good fringe benefits, and worldwide travel and perks.

It is astonishing to see a list of the total compensation for the University of California. There is no Professor who makes less than $200,000 a year and quite a few make $999,999 -- I suppose to avoid the criticism that they make a million dollars a year. I found this information on SFgate.com

We also pay a heavy burden in taxes. There are very large government grants given to study abstruse and petty things which cannot benefit anyone. And, it seems that in the case of "global warming" the University reseachers ballooned a simple concept into a global CO2 and energy reduction movement which threatens to bring industry to its knees. President-elect Obama has promised to put severe controls on CO2 emissions which directly impact energy use which can only be accomplished by shutting down a large number of plants and causing a very severe recession. And after taxpayers funded studies like these, to the tune of forty billion dollars, there is still not one shred of evidence that CO2 controls the climate. The cost of this will run into trillions of dollars.

But, the most foolish University programs are the politically correct faculty positions and large departments for black, hispanic, and women's programs. These departments produce political activists who have been taught to believe that all societies are equally talented, and that the works associated with their groups are discriminated against. Whenever I got a résumé from someone who had wasted his University education in a program like this, it went straight into the wastebasket.

Of course, Universities like Harvard seek color of skin diversity, and provide substantial scolarships to minority students. This is problematic because it increases the burdens on non-minority students, because this subsidy has to come from somewhere. Actually, Harvard and other prestige Universities have enormous endowments, and could actually use the endowment funds to subsidize scholarships, and they do. But, tuitions rise inexorably anyway.

Arthur E. Lemay of CA 1:50AM December 05, 2008

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