The Higher Education Thread: Justify Poor Life Choices

Xequecal

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This is every school. Certain for-profits are being far too aggressive recruiting but then again so is basically every school that survives off the teet of Direct Loans.

Basically, if you milk students for football stadiums and skim off the top it's OK. If you are just for-profit, it's a no-no.

Turns out if you increase Stafford loan caps by $500, guess how much tuition at pretty much every school goes up by.

$500

For profit school students default on their loans at almost eight times the rate of not for profit school students.
 

Palum

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For profit school students default on their loans at almost eight times the rate of not for profit school students.

That's not even close to accurate.

Official Three-year Cohort Default Rates for Postsecondary Schools

As of 2012 cohort, Properties are around 16%, Public around 12% and then the Private schools around 7%.

You are using cherry picked and old data, lots of effort has been made on cleaning them up, though not enough. UPhx got sued, ITT lost TIV and closed down, and others have been subject to suits and enforcement actions.

The problem isn't the fact that the schools are for profit exactly, the problem is that student aid is too loose and ever increasing. There's literally no pressure to improve a school besides intaking more students to increase TIV milk. GCU is probably the poster child, check out its historic freshman class size as it changes over time. Yikes.
 
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BrutulTM

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Yeah, kinda interested in more details on why the government has such a hard on for putting ITT out of business. No articles really go in depth.

I work with a lot of people from Full Sail (the entertainment / gaming industry version of ITT) and no complaints. They can do their jobs for the most part.

If "student loan debt" is an issue, then accredited US private colleges are far, far worse offenders.

I wonder about this too. I went to DeVry and while I wouldn't particularly recommend it, it would be a big stretch to call it a scam or a ripoff. They taught me the shit I needed to know. It wasn't particularly easy, in fact I worked my ass off to make good grades and so did the other people from my class. Of the dozen or so graduates that I am still in touch with, only myself and two others are not enjoying successful careers in the tech/computer industry. I left electronics after 10 years for reasons that had nothing to do with my degree, one guy decided to become a helicopter pilot, and the third was a Mormon woman who as far as I know never made any attempt to get a job in electronics and quickly got married and became a stay at home mom. The rest of them are working for companies whose name you would definitely know and have had good careers. Almost everyone in my class was placed in the industry BEFORE we graduated and many large companies came to campus recruiting every semester. I probably had 10 interviews during my last semester and received two offers before graduation. When I was working in the industry I worked next to a lot of people from Berkeley and Stanford and didn't suffer by comparison. I was also accepted to grad school and didn't finish but that was entirely the fault of Everquest. I knew several DeVry grads that got master's degrees, a couple of them from Stanford. Interestingly, the UC and Cal State universities screwed you over hardcore with transferring credits from DeVry but Stanford accepted them no problem.

Maybe ITT is way different than DeVry in some way but they are always mentioned together. I wonder what these so-called predatory practices really amount to, or maybe it has something to do with people seeing these tech schools as easier than going to "real college" and then fail when they find out that they are wrong. It cost a little over $5k per semester back in the late 90's but I had a half tuition scholarship so I left with roughly $24k in debt which I paid off in about 3 years.
 

Palum

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I wonder about this too. I went to DeVry and while I wouldn't particularly recommend it, it would be a big stretch to call it a scam or a ripoff. They taught me the shit I needed to know. It wasn't particularly easy, in fact I worked my ass off to make good grades and so did the other people from my class. Of the dozen or so graduates that I am still in touch with, only myself and two others are not enjoying successful careers in the tech/computer industry. I left electronics after 10 years for reasons that had nothing to do with my degree, one guy decided to become a helicopter pilot, and the third was a Mormon woman who as far as I know never made any attempt to get a job in electronics and quickly got married and became a stay at home mom. The rest of them are working for companies whose name you would definitely know and have had good careers. Almost everyone in my class was placed in the industry BEFORE we graduated and many large companies came to campus recruiting every semester. I probably had 10 interviews during my last semester and received two offers before graduation. When I was working in the industry I worked next to a lot of people from Berkeley and Stanford and didn't suffer by comparison. I was also accepted to grad school and didn't finish but that was entirely the fault of Everquest. I knew several DeVry grads that got master's degrees, a couple of them from Stanford. Interestingly, the UC and Cal State universities screwed you over hardcore with transferring credits from DeVry but Stanford accepted them no problem.

Maybe ITT is way different than DeVry in some way but they are always mentioned together. I wonder what these so-called predatory practices really amount to, or maybe it has something to do with people seeing these tech schools as easier than going to "real college" and then fail when they find out that they are wrong. It cost a little over $5k per semester back in the late 90's but I had a half tuition scholarship so I left with roughly $24k in debt which I paid off in about 3 years.

The reality is most FPs offer mediocre educations, in many cases about on par with your local community college. Success is 100% personal and the degree itself is going to be looked at with skepticism from a lot of these schools. TL;DR: college has become high school part 2 but also has to take the place of OTJ training for most people. If you don't navigate that properly you will fail.

The scam part for most of the schools is admissions more than the education itself. I'd add price to that but that's true at every school.
 

Pasteton

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I've heard similar about devry, in that it is a real 'you get out of it what you put in' thing which is great. For me such establishments I think are a great thing because they act like a safety net for people who had bad luck or needed a second chance to get their lives straight and it really does reward those who are skilled and hard working. Sort of American dreamish but I've heard this from multiple people about the place
 

BrutulTM

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I've heard similar about devry, in that it is a real 'you get out of it what you put in' thing which is great. For me such establishments I think are a great thing because they act like a safety net for people who had bad luck or needed a second chance to get their lives straight and it really does reward those who are skilled and hard working. Sort of American dreamish but I've heard this from multiple people about the place

I agree with that. For me I'm not sure it was exactly the right choice since I went at 18 straight out of high school and might have benefited from a place with more social interaction (aka girls) but a lot of guys I went with were in their 30s, had kids already, and had to work while they went to school and DeVry really caters to that. On top of that their placement assistance was outstanding and that is a lot of their sales pitch. Their placement numbers are their stock and trade and I don't think I would have gotten that kind of help finding a job at a traditional university.
 

Papashlapa

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The smartest person I've ever met is a kid I went to high school with who got a degree in EE, worked in the field for 18 months, then decided he wanted to be a doctor instead of programming sonar systems.

He is a cardiologist now.

He told me "it's staggering how many not-very-smart people are in medical school and get through just fine because they have a good work ethic, but then end up being not-very-smart doctors."

When you're a genius, everyone around you seems "not-very-smart". Maybe this friend of your just lacked perspective.
 

TrollfaceDeux

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she spent 500 dollars on grocery (probably eating with friends) but that includes toilet papers and things such as make ups. being a girl who needs to attract some major penis dollars, you need that kind of investment.

1600 a month and not even a full time job as a barista. she should have worked 2 jobs.
 

Borzak

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Uhh... you serious bro?

In education, EVERYTHING is racist. IQ tests are racist. The SAT is racist. School districts where anybody can buy a house there but the district is 90%+ white are racist.

In shitty school districts/schools they used to try to separate the kids who were there to learn but that has been deemed racist as well.

THIS IS FROM 1988 30 motherfucking years ago

The Tracking Controversy

I took the ACT in 1989 as a senior. I got a letter a year later giving me one more extra point on my ACT since the test wasn't ethnically diverse enough. Who knew math had to be ethnically diverse.
 

Borzak

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I have a GED, a double major BS and a minor. I have a MS in the same.

The BS and MS do not apply to my everyday life at all and for the most part I got it to be able to effectively manage family land. I started college out of school after I got my GED and started in IT (Industrial Technology, which a lot of the PMs, designers, and management in the industrial world here have). Gave it up after the first semester when a professor asked me for a job when he found out I worked as a draftsman/designer/detailer at a place he passed on his way to work everyday. Took a CAD class and I knew more about AutoCad than the instructor. The biggest thing I got out of college was the people, still do things annually with a fair number of them including a few professors. Fair number of "connections" as well. I worked part time as a designer/detailer on the kitchen table checking drawings and such. I left school with more money than I went in with and took out no loans, lived super cheap. Rent was $250/month for a house on 15 acres that a guy built and needed someone to stay there to keep an eye on stuff. Dean of forestry knew him and he gave me a reference. Waiting several years out of high school was the best thing I ever did.

The program I was in was heavy into getting you quickly to find out what was out there in that field and what they made. Constant field trips to talk to people in the field, what they did, what kind of money they made etc...Nobody graduated and said "I don't know what I can do". First class the first semester for all freshman was nothing but what was out there and what you would be doing, lots of reserach in that class. Drop out rate in the program was close to 50% in that first class because people had no clue other than "it sounded cool".
 

TJT

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I think you're a bit of a different case as you got job training for what you do from your father if I remember correctly. Definitely an outlier in that regard.

My father is a commercial fisherman. Its good money once you own your boat/multiple boats. But its damn hard work. Learning something such as industrial design for petro-chemical engineering plants wasn't something most were born into.
 

Papashlapa

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I dropped out of high school when I was 17. When I was 26 I decided to go back to school, and enrolled in a business-type program at a local community college. I quickly learned that college was not a good fit for me, and thanks to good grades was able to transfer to university (Toronto). Now (at 31) I'm in my fourth year, about to graduate with an honours bsc in math & economics and applying to grad schools for next year. I'm also TAing enough to support myself (both math and econ courses) and interning at the bank of canada while finishing my last year, which is all upper year math courses (econ requirements are finished at this point).

I can't imagine having been this successful in my education when I was 18-22 years old. Mental and emotional maturity, work ethic, the feeling of being above all the stupid social nonsense, all go a long way towards excelling academically. Education is what you make it I guess. I'd be lying though if I said that I didn't look down on all the people taking english or sociology or gender studies or whatever. Those topics are fine if you're taking them on the side of your "real" studies. They're the asparagus on the side of the real food. But you don't make friends with salad, and you don't make a living from an english degree. These scrubs need to learn more math.
 
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TrollfaceDeux

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we should do a meet and compare our relative success in our late 20s. I do believe, that working full time for three years and making some good money by the end of it has benefited me tremendously. It teaches discipline, following orders, ability to get along with your coworkers because you are stuck with them forever...etc...

It widens the scope of view and overcomes that sense of "hey I am a new cool kid in school. I am gonna do so much better than the next guy" or "LET'S EXPERIENCE SCHOOL!." At the end of the day, better perspective, at least for me, was seeing the end result and what I am going to get out of it.

Some people set their path so narrowly or not at all in the high school. I am sure that there are people who are making triple digit income in their mid-20 because they followed their vision. Good on them. Some of us are lost.
 

Swagdaddy

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I dropped out of high school when I was 17. When I was 26 I decided to go back to school, and enrolled in a business-type program at a local community college. I quickly learned that college was not a good fit for me, and thanks to good grades was able to transfer to university (Toronto). Now (at 31) I'm in my fourth year, about to graduate with an honours bsc in math & economics and applying to grad schools for next year. I'm also TAing enough to support myself (both math and econ courses) and interning at the bank of canada while finishing my last year, which is all upper year math courses (econ requirements are finished at this point).

I can't imagine having been this successful in my education when I was 18-22 years old. Mental and emotional maturity, work ethic, the feeling of being above all the stupid social nonsense, all go a long way towards excelling academically. Education is what you make it I guess. I'd be lying though if I said that I didn't look down on all the people taking english or sociology or gender studies or whatever. Those topics are fine if you're taking them on the side of your "real" studies. They're the asparagus on the side of the real food. But you don't make friends with salad, and you don't make a living from an english degree. These scrubs need to learn more math.

This is kinda how I'm feeling about the college I'm attending at the moment, way too fucking easy and therefore probably under my potential level.