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Guest Post: Students - You Are Exploited Debt-Serfs
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
Students: You Are Exploited Debt-Serfs
Students and parents, wake up: your only salvation lies in political engagement and action.
Of all the exploitative systems in the U.S., none is more rapacious than the Education Cartel. Like the proverbial frog that is unaware that it's being boiled because the water temperature rises so gradually, college students and their parents are unable to recall what higher education was like before students were herded into debt-serfdom.
Apologists for the Education Cartel like to blame Corporate America or the banks, but the reality is that the Federal and State governments and the employees of the Cartel are willing partners in the exploitation and fraud. How did we get to the boiling-water point where students are expected to take on $100,000 or more in debt to attend college--even a mediocre one?
Answer: immensely profitable Government-backed loans. If the Central State wasn't partnered with the Education Cartel, today's debt-serfdom would be impossible.
The partnership plays out on multiple levels. The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported that "Liberal" U.S. Representative Nancy Pelosi is fighting vigorously to defend the debt-serf-based empires of for-profit "colleges." Why? because these billion-dollar empires give her hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions (duh!).
("Conservatives" love for-profit "colleges" for the same reasons, of course.)
There is nothing remotely educational or liberal about an exploitative Cartel that provides no measurable value to its students while graduating 10% of them. As reported in The New Republic, when General Accounting Office (GAO) investigators posing as prospective students applied to 15 major for-profit "colleges," every one made misleading sales pitches.
The largest for-profit, the University of Phoenix, graduates less than 10% of its students within 10 years.
You may not get any useful skills or a meaningful diploma, but you will end up with $100,000 in debt that can never be written off. Loans imply risk: nobody forces a lender to take on the risk of lending money to a borrower. If the borrower ends up being unable to pay his debts and declares bankruptcy, the debt is wiped off the books and the lender loses the money that was at-risk.
Thanks to the Central State's partnership with the Education Cartel, student loans cannot be dismissed even in bankruptcy. This makes them unique in the world of credit and debt.
Banks lobbied the Central State for guaranteed, no-risk student loans, and the Government was pleased to oblige. The Status Quo fully supports colonizing the "home" population of vulnerable students and turning them into debt-serfs that banks can hound til death and beyond; they're much more pliable and less troublesome than foreign populations who might rebel against the Imperial lash. (This is drawn directly from the Survival+ critique.)
The Education Cartel has mastered the art of propaganda. You can read hundreds of media stories on the plight of K-12 education in the U.S., and the only salary numbers you will find are those for entry-level teachers--usually poverty-level wages below $30,000 in low-income states and in the mid-$30,000s in coastal states.
This careful pruning of published salaries naturally creates the impression that teachers everywhere are toiling away selflessly for poverty wages.
But this is not the case for senior teachers in high-wage states. Courtesy of correspondent Anthony T., here is a database of Illinois teachers salaries, compiled from data provided by the Illinois Board of Education (ISBE). Here are a few sample salaries:
Salary: $172,163
Position: High School Teacher
Full/Part Time: Fulltime
Percent Time Employed: 100%
Assignment: Physics (Grades 9-12 Only)
Years Teaching: 30.5
Degree: Master's
Salary: $163,526
Position: High School Teacher
Full/Part Time: Fulltime
Percent Time Employed: 100%
Assignment: Driver Education
Years Teaching: 32
Degree: Master's
For comparison's sake, this is twice the salary of an Associate Professor at one of the top public universities in the world, the University of California.
These high school teachers' salaries are more than triple the median household income in the U.S., which according to the Census Bureau is $49,777 annually.
This is not to suggest that all teachers are pulling in salaries in this range; the point is the Education Industry is extremely selective about which wages, pensions and benefits packages (for teachers and administrators) get publicity.
Apologists for the Education Cartel always compare these salaries with bloated CEO compensation. In other words, $170,000 a year and $120,000 a year pensions (not counting medical benefits) are "cheap" compared to $30 million pay packages.
Missing in this snapshot is the relative scale: there are about 5,000 CEOs of publicly traded companies which can support bloated CEO pay, while there are 22.5 million public sector employees, millions of employees in the Education Cartel and tens of thousands of bureaucrats, senior teachers, etc.
In other words: let's say we just expropriate ALL corporate profits for Central State spending. Corporations skimmed $1.6 trillion last year, record profits, and companies without GE's tax-avoidance Panzer divisions foolishly paid some $350 billion in corporate taxes, leaving $1.25 trillion to be expropriated.
Given the $1.6 trillion Federal deficit and the states' $150 billion deficits, that means taking every dollar of corporate profit would still leave us a $500 billion Government deficit. If we look at government expenses, we find that roughly 80% are personnel-related: salaries, benefits, pension costs, outside consultants, etc. Most of the Federal entitlement and Defense spending is also direct transfers to beneficiaries and employees.
One person's "waste" is another person's $150,000 a year salary and $100,000 pension.
Since the Federal government spends $3.8 trillion and state and local governments spend another $1.5 trillion, then we can estimate that the State (all government) accounts for $5.3 trillion, or 36% of the entire U.S. GDP.
In other words, it's not that there's "no money for education"--it's that trillions of dollars are being squandered on other "priorities" like prisons, $1,000 per gallon fuel in Afghanistan, $170,000 a year "defense consultants," pension payments, etc. etc. etc. Public-sector toadie California Governor Jerry Brown is out whipping up support for his "increase taxes or else you all die" campaign by threatening students with higher tuition and fees--as if they haven't already been stripmined for years by skyrocketing fees: Brown warns of soaring UC costs in all-cuts budget.
In other words, if you don't give us more tax money, we're going to nail students--even though the UC system accounts for a meager 3% of the state's bloated expenses.
This is propagandistic thuggery at it's best/worst.
Where the state once subsidized about 2/3 the cost of its public university education, that has shriveled to 20% as tens of billions are funneled into bloated pensions and skyrocketing healthcare benefits for retirees and current workers.
As education costs outstrip inflation by leaps and bounds, who's looking at where the education funding is going? Those benefiting from the Education Cartel are like the nephews and nieces living in the alcoholic, abusive, rich relative's rotting mansion. They are silent about the abuse because their only goal is to get their share of the swag.
How many educators refuse to oil the debt-serf machinery? How many are willing to publicly broadcast the endless gaming, graft, fraud and grifting that plays out in the Education Cartel? How many speak truth to power as bloated administration costs crowd out classroom spending?
How many other public-sector employees are calling for cuts in the 97% of the state budget which isn't spent on the university system so more funding can be channeled to the top-tier education that everyone agrees is the future of our economy? How many voices are there in favor of slashing administrative headcount and costs back to 1996 levels so the funding could be redirected to classroom education?
Expecting the system to reform itself is a futile fantasy. Expecting tuition costs to double every few years and students to fill the gap with another trillion dollars in borrowed money is not just self-defeating for society, it is rapacious. Courtesy of the excellent dshort.com, here is a chart of inflation from 2000 to Q1 2011. In a low-inflation decade, tuition has more than doubled. This is the acme of unsustainability. Students loans are the only sector of credit which is expanding, and they now exceed $900 billion.
By all means, blame the rapacious banks for student loans, but please note the banks' partner is the enabling power and the enforcer: the Central State, and the Education Cartel which feeds off the rising costs and debt-serfdom of its "customers," the students.
Oh, and don't forget the mainstream media, that willing handmaiden to debt-serfdom. My oh my, the vaunted, self-glorifying Washington Post reaps most of its profit from its ownership of a for-profit diploma-mill, mostly funded by debt-serfdom and Central State swag: How Team Obama is Wreaking Havoc on The Washington Post.
Wake up, students and parents. It's time to become politically aware and politically active. You're not going to escape debt-serfdom passively accepting passage to the slaughterhouse. You'll have to demand radical changes of institutions and fiefdoms which "came to do good and stayed to do well," and demand an affordable education for the real world instead of a gatekeeper's worthless stamp of approval.
Related entries:
The Ratchet Effect: Fiefdom Bloat and Resistance to Declining Incomes (August 23, 2010)
The Irrationality of Public Teachers' Pay Scales (January 5, 2010)
It's Time to End the Student Loan Rip-Off (February 25, 2010)
The Lifecycle of Bureaucracy (December 2, 2010)
Inflation Is Rampant in Tuition, Healthcare and Property Taxes (December 1, 2010)
»
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Best choice I made (out of a lot of bad ones) was to not go to college and learn a trade. I run a small business, and I mean small. But it is enough to be comfortable. Unfortunately my wife went the college route. Now some of the money I make goes to pay for her degree. Ironic.
i tell a lot of them around here to go into hvac and /or plumbing or electrician work. learn a trade. college is just bullshit........the days of high priced colleges and this educational bureaucracies that have grown up around them and their little local hegemony scams that they have, are over now. it is done and finished. more and more colleges will be closing as the number of prospective students becomes smaller.
So when I was 17 and had no idea what I wanted to do,my folks talked me into The Art Institute of Dallas. We signed the paper for the loans,I partied for two years and didn't get shit done,dropped out. I'm a paramedic now and last year decided to go back and Get my R.N.. Got all the way through the grant process(fuck anymore loans,Uncle sugar can pay my fucking way from now on) and was advised there was a hold.Called the "collection" people on my loan.They say "hey guess what we are gonna start taking 30% of your income to pay back these loans(I had completely forgotten about the loans,hell I was 17). I worked out a payment plan with these douche nozzles and they had an error on their part,they used the wrong bank account number.
So the money didn't come out of my account the first month,I call. I get this pencil necked little prick telling me that since the money wasn't in the account they were going to start garnishing my wages. I explained that his people had made an error gave him the correct account number. He basically says "so what". I tell him I don't have the money they are wanting,I can't afford it,it would literally put me on the streets. I ask "well who else can I talk to about this?". His answer..."Obama" and hangs up.
At this point I'm ready to fly to whatever shit hole part of the country this fuck lives in and take care of his ass.Luckily my wife, much more cool calm and collected than I,calls back,talks to a supe..the whole thing gets settled,I'm paying a little every month. The moral..these people don't give a shit about whether or not you can pay,this fuck was willing to put me on the streets for a loan I took out when I couldn't even sign for the loan!
Ive decided I own nothing. The guubment can at any time have access to my life,money,children and property. The illusion of freedom. This fucking pile of rotting shit cant collapse fast enough for me.
well now that they know you have a job, they will garnish your wages and there is nothing you can do about it. i know, its a raw deal. this shit never goes away. never.
Nope. They have free acess to all the fruits of my labor. We are like a cow in a pature..youre free to do whatever you want...in these fences. The farmer controls your food your movement your fucking money...
Sometimes I pray for an asteroid to hurdle from space and smack dead center into DC..time for a reset.
Am I missing something here or did you just say you took out loans, ratified the loans after reaching the age of majority, and now don't want to pay?
Did you not know that your creditors can garnish your wages?
What part of the proposition did you not understand? Sounds like sour grapes to me...
PS, DO NOT TELL THEM WHERE YOU WORK AND DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR ACCOUNT NUMBER... If you must give them an account number, only make transfers to it with cash.
I wish I knew about interest rates and loans at 17. Its not about not paying the loan.Its about their ability to take by FORCE the fruits of my LABOR. Maybe banks shouldn't be making loans to 17 y/o kids with no means of paying it back? Cause I'm sure they told me all about wage garnishment and ridiculous interest rates before I signed on the line....oh wait,they didn't.But why would they worry about who gets a loan and informing a teenager of the possible repercussions of said loan? They cant lose..they get bailed out and then come after my wages on top of it. Yea that sounds pretty fair to me.
And as far as not telling them about where I work or my bank accounts...what universe do you live in where the federal government doesn't know these things about you?
Right. What you did was called "ratification". After making a possibly voidable note, you decided to ratify your defense of capacity by entering into a subsequent agreement to pay the debt... In other words, STFU about being 17 when you signed it... unless you were 17 when you ratified, you're up shit creek.
I would however suggest checking into possible foregiveness, etc., programs for medical professionals and other giveaways associated with student loans... you might find a shoe that fits. Of course, it will probably be taxable...
Further, the federal government has a good idea about quite a few things... but, that doesn't mean that all of your loans are with the federal government... apparently they are... news to me...
Not in PA. The only garnishment in PA is for deadbeat dads and the IRS. That it. No mo. No bodi else.
I did not graduate from college. After retiring from the military, I went into a trade school (on line classes at night) and got my trade certifications. Cost me about 3k. Between that, my prior experience and connections in the industry, I am making north of 6 figures. In the SouthWest.
College has its place. If you are learning a specific skill (engineering, medicine, etc) it can pay off. Otherwise, it is a debt trap you will never recover from!
a lot of people are blowing off college now. they think it is too expensive (and it is) and they see no job opportunities (and there aren't ).
when i was a child growing up, there were engineers in the oil industry that never went to college but learned their craft by experience. learning by experience , instead of book learning may be on its way back.
Should have never gotten rid of of the apprenticeship system. Was good for all parties involved. But hard to justify funding a bloated academia system when you have people doing the job teaching others on the job.
hope u didnt stick your daughter with the 22K of dropout debt and paid it off for her
sub-prime. education sector - style. repleat with all the hangers on and usual suspects
Harvard Entrance exam back in 1869 - thanks to http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvardexam.pdf
good luck
Maths portion is quite easy. I suppose this is the entrance exam to Harvard. Any bright 8th grader (at least from India) will ace it. Of Greek, Latin, and French geography, I have no idea, but that information is irrelevant in today's world.
I could name about 50 "degrees" that are offered at today's universities that are definitely "irrelevant" -- in any world. A real education is not dependent upon what passes as relevance, but upon developing thought processes. Knowing a classic language is one of those things. I rely upon the Latin classes that I took in the 6th to 8th grades and consider that part of my education quite relevant. If you don't know why, my point has been thus made. QED.
Bravo for your brave post!
To even imagine that you need a "degree" to be a Nurse's Aid or a Medical Billing Clerk, to name just two! Occupations like these, which were traditionally taught in house but for which competition for even these "marginally above minimum wage jobs" is so high that people will actually take out loans to attend classes in the hopes of securing employment show you just how bad things have become!
As for Universities, until someone can prove to me that there are different kinds of algebra, literature and business ethics to be learned (as opposed to taught using the education model of Abe Lincoln), when it can be proved that what you learn is more important than who you meet at one accredited university as opposed to any other then the whole thing is a sham, a farce and a scam.
Those were turned into degree programs to get extra profits. Every time you can turn a one year program into a two or four year program that is extra revenue for the teaching institution.
but who would trade in those (6 years) of partying and sex
Wow , all those young female graduates buried in debt , willing to do ANYTHING to make money. Wow this has all the makings of a porno movie plot.
My first son went to a private engineering school. He had some scholarships and co-op jobs during school.
Total education cost (gross) $135000. He owed 15k at graduation. We came up w/the scratch and paid it off. He is 24 and has had 3 jobs that paid a little over dog turds,(his words) for engineer status. Worked for chinese firm, blah blah until he got a good job. I also found him grant for defense engineering manufacturing masters degree program (a fluke). $500 a credit hour, but not our cost.
My second son, wanted to go to physical therapy school, (7 year program). My wife and her relatives said "just get loans, and stuff and let him go away to school, to have the college experience." I did the calculations and it came to over $175,000. I said bullshit and fought with them for months. My son did some legal fuckups and showed he was not mature enuff yet to take on such a program let alone the debt. I drew the line in the sand against my wife and her naive relatives and told them, "I will not intentionally or motivate my son to get into debt, up to his eyeballs to party and a goodtime with the "college experience".
He is currently taking classes at the community college and trying to get into a nursing program or something to named later.
Yeah and all FASFA bullshit, just to get loans.
I had been bitching about inflation (near hyper) in education and healthcare for over ten years. No one cared. "free markets will work it out", bullshit comments.
I had my security licences in the late 80's, and knew free markets were bullshit then too. WHy I trade now? College educated and probably didn't learn a thing. Oh well what the hell buy the fucking dip?
I'm with you, Ruffcut. My oldest son is 3 years away from college. My entire wife's side of the family is in the "do whatever it takes" camp, which means take on unlimited loans. They also think it's perferable to take 5 years instead of 4 for a bachelor's degree. I'm fighting a lonely no-student-loans-I'm-only-paying-for-4-years battle.
There is a solution. People have choices if they just wake up.
Talking to an American couple in Paris last week, here is what they did.
4 years ago, they bought an apartment in Paris for their daughter instead of using that money on expensive tuition and fees in a US university. Schooling in France is FREE, so what better way to make use of that money than not paying for her to go to medical school in the USA? More opportunities for her outside of the states. It has been a very good investment both for their daughter and the apartment.
...and the new grandchildren.
Let's talk a little more about the student loan scam. My grandfather graduated high school, went to work as an airplane mechanic in World War II, came home, and went to work for a large company. He was marked as intelligent early on and was made a clerk. He never went to college. His wife never worked. They had five sons. They bought a spacious house in a pretty small town and raised their kids there. They retired to Florida, bought a small house in a retirement commune, and lived there for 15 years until his death from colon cancer.
Today, his simple job of "clerk" has a four-word title and requires a master's degree in Paper Pushing, with the requisite $60,000+ in debt. No one can explain to me why US businesses lost their mind, and why they now require years of writing bullshit term papers to write short reports and keep track of figures.
ditto to everyone calling this out, I dropped out of highschool after freshman year and went to a university instead, full debt. In one of my linguistics classes (taught by the head of the department) I argued with her premise on animals not being able to possess language. A few years later I was vindicated when sitting in on a lecture by the man who wrote the book she was teaching from, who agreed with my exact point.
Several instances like this prompted me to drop out after my freshman year (this time of college) and pay off my debt, the entire experiance was insane, none of the kids cared, cheating was rampant, completely pointless "discussions".. can't beleive that people that stick through this are "better qualified" to do mindless clerical work than I am.
before you comment on what an idiot I am, please refer to my handle..
How do you make a living?
You would probably have done well in an engineering or hard science or accounting program.
Accounting may sound boring but forensic acvounting or working for an investment fund is a good way to use the degree.
I like forensic accounting... seems like the only place that I use it is digging for wifey's money that hubby is trying to hide... but, still interesting...
The neatest part about an accounting degree... if you can stand to sit through the classes, they give you the degree! I would recommend watching paint dry as practice for class... if you can do that for a couple hours straight every day, you can be an accountant.
PS, you'll probably need to study for the CPA exam... and any associated professional qualifications, e.g. CFE etc.
I came out of rice university and then a public medical school with 69,000 in total debt and i was scared as shit.
There is no bankruptcy.relief for student loans. I couldnt.get a credit card until my second.year in medical.school when american express.gave me one. I am only 45 and things have changed.drastically in terms of debt peonage. I dont know what people are thinking going 80,000 in debt for an undergrad degree
so are you an md now? are you raking the bucks?
Some people might say i am raking in the.bucks.
You are apparently.ass deep in.periods.that's fer sher.
70,000 aint bad. I got an undergrad for 20K. I have had a good job since i graduated college seven years ago. Was unemployed for a year. I am, fairly good at my porefssion though so I'm lucky. Plus I'm lucky by nature. Knock on wood.
There is no bankruptcy.relief for student loans.
That was Billy Clinton work.
While higher ed is mostly BS(just read the book for F*sake),I think it's useful if you've got a plan. Someone above already posted this,I'm being redundant. But before I boost my two geniuses into school, they're going to have a gameplan with a timeline and a mutually approved goal. No.No Women's Studies and Whale Watching won't cut it.
I got early decision to an Ivy in the early 80s,took me a year to realize it was not advancing my goal and the socialist profs chapped my a@@.Cost 35K.Next 2 years at UofKeg.Cost 10K.Pvt Med.Sch 4 years.Cost 60K.
No loans.Priceless.
This informs my decision for the kids.
Yea having debt sucks but I plan to pay it all off. 24k is not too bad, especially if I rush the payments. I'll be too busy earning money to change the system. The idealistic ones who do hope to change it, the polisci majors getting set up in dc are stuck in low level positions in consumer protection groups or high paying positions helping coordinate the realpolitik if they're actually bright.
I am a polisci major, as well as an econ major and going into the public secotr and politics is last on my list of things to do. Of course, there are other ways to change things.
Too busy earning money with a newly minted polisci degree? Unless you make like Obama and get a cushy job with Kissinger Associates right out of school, or your dad is a big donor and creates a cushy position for you, Good Luck with That.
Did I mention an econ degree? I'm gainfully employed, right out of college, teaching Korean kids English, and I have a night job trading after work from 10:30 to 5.
My father had $300 dollars in cash on him when he came to America and I could barely introduce myself.
Given that experience and the things I read on this site, I find your suggestion of work for the kissinger associates downright insulting.
Tumbler,
Pay off the loan like a car payment. Once paid off get a new car and payment, rinse and repeat, until you die. They be happy for your "consumer" loyality. Some day they may have to enact consumer loyality tax credits.
Let me just understand your point (if you have any). Are you saying that going to college was unnecessary in the first place or are you saying I should not pay off the debt?
Either way whatever you are saying is not smart. College has been pretty useful, for the experience, the connections made, as well as encountering good professors and literature. Defaulting on the loan is not possible. You would have known that if you read the article.
My consumer loyalty was a straw man argument and your whole reply is logically fallacious. Philosophy 101 was particularly useful for understanding rudimentary logic.
What was your point here?
Universities and colleges are becoming amusement parks for young adults. The complete joke degrees and watered down classes have made this a big circus where weekdays serve as an inbetween for the weekend.
At my state school there were things on campus that were previously a function of private business. It is slowly becoming its own town. To name a few functions: There are travel agency offices, corporate owned fast-food restaurants in the student union, overpriced university oriented clothing shops with the school logo on everything (they get % royalties for anything with the logo on it) computer stores, chain coffee shops, etc.
Also, there are 'custom' textbooks with the universities name embossed on them, and have a $40 premium. It is marketed as something totally unique. In reality they are the massed produced edition with a special cover.
More and more buildings shooting up every year, funded in part by the perpetual increase in tuition mixed with an apathetic student body who wont stop to take the time out to ask why. The majority of new contraction is not for instruction either, they are labs to meet the needs of various public and private contractors requesting research.
Tuition has more than doubled over the past 10 years. This whole system is a joke.
Hey Americans: go to Germany!
In Germany most public universities are tuition-free. If you don't want to be debt-serfs, go to Germany!
Choose your German university:
http://www.ehow.com/list_6509386_list-tuition-universities-germany.html
This article is right on the mark, but misses one important issue. Many of these schools have huge endowments, yet beg for donations constantly. And the rising cost of tuition isn't being driven by increases expenses at the schools. I bet some/many/most of the larger institutions could keep the lights on and classes going for a generation without receving a single tuition dollar the whole time.
I'm among the fleeced - post grad degree from a top 10 school in my field (spouse has a post-grad degree from a top school in hard sciences -- in the hard sciences they pay students to attend, so it's different).
This is a serious issue - thanks for raising it!
education is the great society
.
US colleges are just another form of job control from paperwork... you go until you can write you new initials...
.
BA MA PHD
Just like any other debt, it depends on how you use it.
I took out a $14k student loan to go to wooden boatbuilding school (and buy about $2k in tools). I graduated a year later and was able to pull in $30 an hour right off the bat. Should have that sucker paid of in a year or so.
On the other hand I see these idiots out there racking up $100k plus for a four year degree and they come out of collage knowing next to nothing.
Wooden boatbuilding school? You building another noah's ark?
Next, they will have wooden airplane building school to build a fleet of spruce gooses.
I know the alliterative aspect of "spruce gooses" is attractive, but the school I went do taught us that it was "geese". Maybe since Spruce Goose is a proper name it would be Spruce Gooses? What a conundrum.
All that fancy talk is further proof that edumacation is for ducks.
The way things are going in the world, that might not be a bad idea...
I pretty much figured that since wooden boatbuilding is the most difficult type of woodworking, if I could master it, I would be in good shape for any "lesser" form of woodworking.
Electric Lineman. Great job, get paid to learn. Just need math and the desire to work in the elements. If Electric Linemen start getting laid off, it's COSTCO overpriced survival food time anyways.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Student_as_Nigger
Here is one of the highlighted comments from the nytimes story about student loans:
**********
Law school was expensive as hell, but I would not have been able to go without loans, which tempers my impulse to complain. I find that the government is very helpful and is always willing to defer payments if you have an "emergency." This problem of unemployed grads with large loans must be addressed by the government.
****************
God, save the nation from such intelligent lawyers.
WTF? These idiots feel entitled to be given a loan by the government, now they want someone to entitle them to success so they can pay off the loan. Sorry fucknut, you need to earn that bit. At what point does the "I am entitled" bullshit end?
Someone remind CHS he has his own webpage to manage. No need to post his ramblings here.
Don't be ridiculous. I'm sure Charles Hugh Smith was invited to re-post the articles on his website here at ZH.
Well spend roughly $100 per textbook and are told: WHITEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL.
That sums university today in the USSA.
Affirmative Action and all the rest, yes a bright future for your investment.
Do the math, folks. I have a degree from UCLA, but...
1) About 1/3rd dropped out, & most had debts.
2) Most grads don't work in their field of study.
3) Most students forget most of their learning a few days, weeks or months after a class ends. Cram & then brain dump.
4) Many lessons taught are colored with leftist political spin & indoctrination.
5) Most prof's do not want critical thinking or dissenting opinions, better grades given for parroting a prof's opinion.
Undergard college is fine for good students, technical fields & prepping for real grad school work, though it's value otherwise has been over-rated. Bringing back Vo-Tech ed at the high school level is a good alternative.
this article was a good opening salvo in the war on academic terrorism....education is a total racket especially at the upper reaches....and those 6 digit incomes are not atypical....i have the peoria il district 150 salaries for a very recent year and can assure you that the list is teaming with teachers and administrators making 6 figure incomes - some of whom i once knew and can attest to their fucktardedness...
the idea of teacher poverty is a carefully crafted myth.....
but to the larger point of benefit, i assure you that for most business professions, a college degree is overkill and larded bloat....the fact that employers often don't care what your degree is provided that you have one is further evidence of the meaninglessness of it...employers testing on skills tests and subjects for which you might have taken college course work further proves that the degree is pointless and meaningless - it has no ability to predict competence...
but the education terrorists in conjunction with business pigs demand a degree no matter its content. you just have to have a degree to be employed. profession churn proves what a fraud the entire panhandling scheme is.....i have two nuclear engineers who became software developers never having worked a day in the profession....fukushima thanks you.
the same trick was used for high-mounted rear stop lights....make it mandatory to create a racket with no palpable benefits....
education should be reserved for those who benefit from it....i have used a very small fraction of my education....very wee....
industry should move toward iq testing and bok testing....it is infinitely cheaper....their managers are too fucking stupid to evaluate candidates on their own, so instead of passing the buck to larded education, they should pass it to iq testing and bok....
and yes boys and girls education and iq are two rather different entities...
Upon first learning of Student Loan program that was promulgated by the banking industry, i understood the gambit.
The new law enabled banks to make government-guaranteed loans to students, in volumes limited only to fractional-reserve creation of electronic accounts.
That explained the craze to offer loans to any student---naive kid or silly child or newly-18 yr old adult---even begging the student to take the cash...because the 18-yr old kid suddenly had a signature worth a fortune to the banker-is-an-authority-figure scammer.
The bankers simply had no risk of loss playing with OtherPeoplesMoney. Not gambling and not speculating at all, just rigged clever-stroke theft...a license to steal...literally, a privilege.
The government guaranteed the loan.
There was no chance of any loss to the banker.
We're at the point where only fools actually end up paying down the loans, regardless of their inability to discharge them in bankruptcy.
The gov't knows full well that whacking a generation with the debt slave hammer isn't going to help a bunch of their other immediate problems... Solution? Offer to write off most of the debt. First it was offered to civil servants and teachers, and now pretty much anyone can do it.
Google "IBR".
My monthly student loan payment is zero.
Sure... if you actually called your shots correctly, went down a degree path that actually provides a return on your investment, and are not otherwise up shit creek, then you get left in the cold... maybe you're right... maybe these are the fools.
We are all exploited debt servants. But we're really really good at it.
This is a feature of Fractional Reserve Banking.
To function, the level of loans and debts have to grow every year. There is only 900 billion in cash in existence, 9 trillion in credit, and 50 trillion of debt. So it isn't possible to actually pay any of the debt off. So. You kick the can down the road. You take out bigger loans to pay the existing debts. That really is how a monetary system based on fractional reserve banking works. It is why "growth" is the word of the century. Just like Ponzi.
ok, so the loans grow and grow, credit cards are maxed out for anyone with a good job and ability to pay.
How do you continue to "grow" then? To avoid crash and burn of the economy?
You gotta persuade more people to take on debt. To make more loans, to create more credit.
The housing boom, the student debt problems, the national debt are the same thing. Growth of credit and debt in order to kick the can.... All the time making more money for bankers.
The logical conclusion of this particular monetary system is to have a single world currency where babies everywhere in the world are endowed with debt at birth, to pay the medical costs of their birth. Makes sense, no? A new meaning for original sin. It can't go much beyond that.
What a world we live in.
Pulled both my kids out of public school years ago. They finished "high school" at local community college, for free, taking only classes that were somewhat useful.
End result, both finish high school and get 2 year associate degree when 18 and don't put up with wasted baby sitting.
Son went on to other college but quit in 6-months to start his own business. At 21 he is miles ahead of his peers in real economics with great income, no debt and a growing business.
Daughter finishes this spring and will head out to work immediately with no debt.
I have been telling my friends for years that the entire school system is already dead just like libraries, newspapers and magazines... they just don't know it yet.
Zombie systems eating the flesh off other parts of the economy.
CHS: Master of the Obvious. Except when it comes to seeing hyperinflation approaching, then he's Helen Keller.