A college degree is a lousy investment

[AMCDeac]

It's not just Wake, every private school (minus a select few with massive endowments) have priced themselves out of the market for lower middle class families.

The strategy behind tuition pricing is to charge every student the maximum they can "afford" (or the numbers say they can afford) to spend. See http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversat...et-price-myth/ (very good comments to the article, as well.)

IMHO, that is a foolish way to purchase anything. I suppose in theory a family making $150-200K per year could afford full freight at WFU for their kid(s). However, that seems like a foolish waste of money because the family also needs to save for retirement and might have life goals in addition to sending their kid to a country club university.

Wake is no longer a rational choice for upper middle-class families. I don't know enough about the student aid to say whether the price gets low enough to make it a rational choice for lower middle income families. However, Wake would be a rational choice for lower-middle income families if, after discounts, it is priced at or below the cost of UNC.

[Caturday]

The poorer you are the more affordable college is. The people who really get screwed are those who make $250k or so and are considered rich.

[OldGoldandGrobe]

What kind of dumbass borrows money for a liberal arts degree? Wake students are, by and large, a unique group of collar poppin' legacies whose parents can afford to support four years of mental masturbation. Do I regret my PoliSci degree? Not one bit. But I didn't have to pay a penny for those four years of drunken hedonism either.

[DreamOnDemOn]

What kind of dumbass borrows money for a liberal arts degree? Wake students are, by and large, a unique group of collar poppin' legacies whose parents can afford to support four years of mental masturbation. Do I regret my PoliSci degree? Not one bit. But I didn't have to pay a penny for those four years of drunken hedonism either.

If you had been required to pay for it as you went, would you have spent those years in drunken hedonism? Are you going to pay real time for your kids to spend four years mentally masturbating?

I'm so glad that the .govs have seen fit to "invest" my paycheck in low cost student loans. It is the only way anyone could ever get an education.

[awaken]

Sad stories about graduate degrees

[DistrictDeacon]

Sad stories about graduate degrees

A lot of poor decision making in those examples.

[PhDeac]

Agreed. I'm sure you could also find someone in their same degree program who is benefiting from their degree.

[leftcoastdeac]

Sad stories about graduate degrees

Kind of surprised about the guy with all the science degrees. I guess biology is not as valuable as chemistry..?

[buckets]

the first guy with "MBA in media management from Metropolitan College of New York and a master's in organizational leadership from Mercy College" thinks he is competing with Harvard MBAs for jobs?

[DistrictDeacon]

Kind of surprised about the guy with all the science degrees. I guess biology is not as valuable as chemistry..?

Lots of red flags in that guy's bio. Starting with the picture.

[PhDeac]

the first guy with "MBA in media management from Metropolitan College of New York and a master's in organizational leadership from Mercy College" thinks he is competing with Harvard MBAs for jobs?

Maybe the Harvard guys are slumming it.

Based on the picture, I'm guessing the chemistry guy is cooking is own meth.

[buckets]

how in the hell does it cost $120k to get a masters in HR in minnesota?

[ThinkingWithMyDeac]

Kind of surprised about the guy with all the science degrees. I guess biology is not as valuable as chemistry..?

If that guy looks like his picture while going on interviews thats the problem right there. The problem with lots of these stories as PhD pointed out is that they are a snapshot of a couple of people that failed while others im sure flourished. I also think the first case illustrates one of the biggest problems for advanced degrees, and that is it is similar to where you go to undergrad. Just as you are competing for jobs after undergrad where you go to school after that matters as well. Great you have a masters from bumfuck university with a program ranked in the 100's graduating 75 people a year lets all go compete with the big name schools for the same jobs.

[buckets]

some people in this world just don't get it

[PhDeac]

If that guy looks like his picture while going on interviews thats the problem right there. The problem with lots of these stories as PhD pointed out is that they are a snapshot of a couple of people that failed while others im sure flourished. I also think the first case illustrates one of the biggest problems for advanced degrees, and that is it is similar to where you go to undergrad. Just as you are competing for jobs after undergrad where you go to school after that matters as well. Great you have a masters from bumfuck university with a program ranked in the 100's graduating 75 people a year lets all go compete with the big name schools for the same jobs.

Geography is a big problem with higher education. People who are locked into a specific location may not have access to an elite education. I wanted to stay reasonably close to home and I could go to Wake Forest, 3 hours away. Well in NC, I had to pass by two other top 30 institutions to get to Wake. Most people don't live reasonably close to great schools.

This is a big problem for trailing spouses or people with family obligations, particularly parents who need support from family. I have a women in one of my classes who was in school to be a dental assistant, but she had to move around a lot with her husband and the local school didn't always have a comparable program, so she switched to Sociology so she'd be able to complete her degree. She's finishing up at my institution because that's where her husband is, not because she couldn't get into a better school.

I have an MA student who wants to get his PhD. He and his sister help take care of his dad. He can't apply to our PhD program because he got his BA from here. The only other PhD program is about 90 minutes away. So he's probably going to just get a job because getting a PhD would make it harder to fulfill his family obligations.

[tau06]

Ph, that's one thing i've never understood, why do some schools have a system where you aren't allowed to go get your PhD at a place due to having already gone to school at that institution?

[PhDeac]

Ph, that's one thing i've never understood, why do some schools have a system where you aren't allowed to go get your PhD at a place due to having already gone to school at that institution?

So you're getting a broader education and range of experiences before getting an academic job. Such a set up is fine for a student in the Triangle but requires moving in most places.

[Deacon923]

From Bloomberg:

"With college costs climbing faster than the rate of inflation over the past four decades, students have taken out more loans, swelling outstanding education debt to $1 trillion, more than what Americans owe on their credit cards.
The University of Pennsylvania filed at least a dozen Perkins lawsuits last year, according to court records. Penn, based in Philadelphia, gave out more than $8 million in Perkins loans in the year ending June 2012, according to the school.
The university is seeking to recoup $22,607 from Kyle P. Lopinto, including $7,000 in Perkins loans and $15,039 in unpaid tuition charges, plus attorneys’ fees of $3,027 and additional interest and anticipated court costs of $387, according to a suit filed on Nov. 15 in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas. An arbitration hearing is scheduled for July.
Promissory Note
Lopinto, who signed a promissory note in June 2008 to study at Penn’s School of Design, according to the university’s court filing, didn’t return messages left with his father or by e- mail. According to his website, he earned a master’s degree in sculpture from the school in 2010."


The dude should pay his debts, but come on - who is stupid enough to extend $22,000 in credit to a sculptor? And apparently they let him graduate (i.e., gave away their collateral) before collecting the unpaid tuition. Hard to feel sorry for a "lender" that is this dumb.

[AnonymousDeac]

Been away from the Pit but just caught up on this Wake article today: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...eling/1862605/

Definitely sounds like significant improvements over the Career Center I remember.

[Deacon923]

Been away from the Pit but just caught up on this Wake article today: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...eling/1862605/

Definitely sounds like significant improvements over the Career Center I remember.

that is impressive, especially the piece about the up front assessment and telling kids what they are likely to make for a given major.