Irrespective of what you think of Vox Day, this is a freaking classic.
If you are considering going to college, then you need to read that post.
If you are in college and are considering taking any student loans, then you need to read that post.
If you are a parent of a child who is in college or is considering college, then you need to read that post.
The student loan scam is an insidious form of slavery that our government has actively and passively enabled. And it is long-past freaking time that we shut that scam down. It’s long past freaking time that we decided that we really don’t give an airborne rodent copulation if universities go Tango Unform.
Amir,
Amen to that. I had to start paying on my loans from undergrad. When we took out the loans there were twenty pages of fine print [about eight point font]. Now, we found out that on one of those pages they would only allow five years of in school deferment. We both totally missed it when we read it. Hence, I have had to work in order to pay back my loans.
As I think I said to you, I have always said that there is a simple solution to this problem. Have students work for the university, and, instead of giving them a paycheck, use the money they earn to pay for their tuition. We already have work/study programs. We can just make it an extension of that.
Also, another thing that is one of my pet peeves is government universities. The government pours money into these institutions so that the tuition is cheap. However, the professors are hard leftists. Hence, if you are a Christian, and you want a Christian education, you have to go to a private school where the tuition is out of sight. You are then already more than half way to $100,000.00 by the time you graduate. It seems like, no matter how you cut it, you are in trouble.
God Bless,
Adam
In addition to the student loan scams, there’s also the unpleasant fact that college tuition has increased at a much faster pace than the rate of inflation over the last 30 years or so. Somebody needs to hold college presidents and administrators to account, but that’s not going to happen when the presidents of top universities are paid fatter salaries than the president of the United States.
@singleman
No kidding! At my alma mater–Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the tuition was $125 per credit hour when I started. After books, lab fees, SGA fees, and room and board, the total cost for a non-flight student was about $7,000 per academic year.
(It was no walk in the park, but a student who worked hard, could get through with little or no debt.)
Today, that same tuition is over $1,000 per credit hour. That doesn’t include room and board, SGA fees, lab fees, or books. That’s at least $30,000 per year JUST FOR THE TUITION!
Unless your parents have deep pockets, and unless you get an ROTC scholarship–and there are plenty of those at Embry-Riddle–who the hell can afford it?
I attended the University of Virginia during an era of double-digit inflation and double-digit interest rates. Not surprisingly, costs increased substantially during my stay. The total cost for my final year was somewhere around $3,500, which is about $8,100 in today’s dollars when adjusting for inflation. By comparison, in-state students currently shell out around $23,000 annually for tuition, room, board, books, fees, and incidentals.