
The cost of higher education for students on the edge of poverty - Geekette
https://story.californiasunday.com/cost-of-college
======
seabird
I cannot stand these articles. It's time for the whole suburban-liberal
"follow your dreams and go to college" attitude to abruptly implode.

Don't waste your time reading this article. I can sum it up for you:

1.) The first subject in this article is a theater major who has been in
college for over six years. 2.) The second subject is paying a lease on a new
vehicle and had studied abroad in Italy, despite barely earning above minimum
wage.

There's no beating around the bush; you can't fix stupid. I have very little
sympathy for people who effectively squandered what little they had instead of
at least making an attempt at good decision making. To fight and lose is one
thing. To say you were doomed from the start and that fighting would be a
waste of your time is another.

~~~
spaceseaman
You're asking people who are freaking 17 years-old to have excellent decision
making skills and awareness of what industry will be _in_ half a decade when
you get out.

WHO IS THAT SMART? WHO IS THAT AWARE? I just got lucky cause I liked
computers, was nerdy, and did decently on exams. I assume most other
programmers are the same. I didn't know anything about SV (grew up in rural
Kentucky) - I didn't know what the industry was like. I just believed Google
when it said I would get a job. Don't act like we all thought very hard and
carefully, meticulously planned out whether the thing we enjoyed would be
profitable. Most people were 17.

If you were 17 or 18 when you decided to go to college, it probably wasn't a
very well-thought out decision. The fact that you look at such students with
such ire and derision _for wanting a better life and working for that_ is so
heartbreaking and pathetic. There are much more productive places to direct
your malice than the students themselves.

You don't have to feel bad for people who made worse decisions than you.
Congratulations, people make bad decisions. It's more productive to ask
ourselves, "Why?" and "How can we prevent this" and "What can these people do
now" rather than just getting all "old man yells at cloud" about "suburban-
liberals". Lemme tell you real quick. I know people from every end of the damn
political spectrum in this situation, so whatever political image you're
projecting onto these students is just nonsense. It isn't a "liberal
snowflake" or "feminist" problem or whatever else whacked out narrative you
have in your head. _The only conclusion you 've come to is that teenagers are
make bad decisions._

A lot of students of this generation felt that their only way to success was
through college. It isn't because they're dumb. It isn't because they're
"lazy". It's because they made the wrong decision. Let's all try and be a
little more productive and ask "Now what?".

~~~
maehwasu
As soon as you become a theater major, you lose the right to the "I just was
trying to make more money and have a better life" narrative.

~~~
mjmahone17
Why? If you are an actor on Broadway, your minimum pay is $1,861 per week[0].
So if you're working 40 weeks per year, you'd be making, as a minimum,
$74,000. This is higher than many teachers' salaries, and in line with many
other professionals. Plus there's a very high (if very narrow) ceiling on
those salaries.

You can make the argument "well most actors never make it as a broadway
actor". While true, do most software developers make it as a Google developer?
And how likely is it that someone whose talent lies in acting is also talented
enough to do well at software development? Sometimes, you should play to your
strengths, even if the relative bargaining power of your strengths are not as
strong as someone else's strengths. That doesn't mean you're not following the
best path to "have a better life".

[0]
[http://www.actorsequity.org/agreements/agreements.asp?code=0...](http://www.actorsequity.org/agreements/agreements.asp?code=001)

~~~
ng12
I don't think you've met many professional actors. Someone with a role on
Broadway, even as a supporting actor with no dialog, is considered to have
"made it". An Off-Broadway or regional theater role pays something more like
$500 a week. And even if you're good enough to land these gigs there's very
limited stability as shows/casts rotate.

Sure, not everyone works at Google, but the people who don't can still land
jobs at a million different companies for a living salary. An actor who's not
landing roles is working a survival job (waiter, barista, etc) so they can
afford to spend time auditioning. And remember we're talking about somebody on
the verge of homelessness -- they're going to have to compete with actors from
wealthy families who paid for their rent and a degree from Juilliard.

------
ng12
> The brand-new white Hyundai Elantra was $17,000; her monthly payments, $262.

Wow, that's more expensive than the car I bought (and felt guilty about) as a
newly employed software developer. I wonder if we should be offering financial
counseling in addition to financial aid.

~~~
wnevets
For a brand new car that's not the a lot, the problem is she bought a brand
new car.

Americans are being groomed to think in monthly payments rather than the total
cost which leads to silly decisions like buying a brand new car instead of a
getting a used car.

~~~
tabeth
It's a myth that a brand new car is a bad deal. Brand new cars are way
superior to used (1-2 year old). However, this is only true if you own it
until it no longer works. This is where most people go wrong. If you don't own
it for its entire working life (~20 years) you're better of buying a 5 or 6
year used model and saving ~40%.

~~~
jackmott
I'm going to need to see a spreadsheet or something for that claim. 1 year is
about 19% depreciation. but only ~5% of life of car

~~~
tabeth
I'd have to dig it up, but it's the warranty that makes the difference.

~~~
jackmott
I see. I imagine that math is going to depend a lot on brand/model and one's
skill at identifying and fixing problems themselves.

~~~
twblalock
Jack Baruth wrote a great article a few years ago about how owning cheap used
cars is a privilege reserved for people who have the skills and time to fix
their own cars: [http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/02/no-fixed-abode-
gott...](http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/02/no-fixed-abode-gotta-rich-
cheap-car/)

It seems that he was partly inspired to write this by "the TTAC reader whose
response to Bark’s article on subprime buyers was to straight-facedly suggest
that a working father swap his own minivan transmission in his apartment
parking lot."

I used to own beater cars when I was in college and shortly after. I never
paid more than $3k for one, and I did all of my own work, including replacing
all of the brakes on one of the cars myself. But I like working on things, I
already owned the tools, and I had access to good public transit when my car
broke down. I would not recommend beater cars to most normal people.

------
troupe
The article says she had some "poor advising" at the community college and she
is currently trying to get a degree in music theater.

Liz spent 6 years enrolled at a community college without getting a degree and
then transferred to a school to work on bachelors where she thinks she'll need
to spend another 2.5 years. It doesn't really give the details of what
happened during those 6 years, but if she was able to stay enrolled for 12
semesters without getting an associate degree there seem to be problems that
go much deeper than a lack of resources to go to school.

If the advisors were seriously giving her advice that would prevent her from
getting a 2-year degree in 6 years (even allowing for her trying to figure out
what she wanted to study) the school should be liable.

~~~
bphogan
From the article:

> Like many students, she took classes she didn’t need, partly due to poor
> advising and partly because she was feeling her way toward a major.

I taught at a community college. A lot of people there are really just feeling
around for what to do with their lives. A lot of them also didn't do so well
in high school and needed to skip ACT/SAT requirements to get in to a 4 year
school to do what they really needed. This translates into lots of general ed
classes/GPA boosters.

When a student doesn't know what they want to do, it's hard to give them good
advice. And if they didn't take school seriously in high school, it's harder
for them to start doing it more seriously now.

Combine that with not knowing where you're sleeping that night, or trying to
concentrate on an empty stomach, and yea, it'll take you a while to dig out.

I learned a lot of empathy teaching at a community college. Now, sure, we
could talk about "personal responsibility", but there are a lot of things at
play here. Lots of responsibility to share.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>I taught at a community college. A lot of people there are really just
feeling around for what to do with their lives. A lot of them also didn't do
so well in high school and needed to skip ACT/SAT requirements to get in to a
4 year school to do what they really needed. This translates into lots of
general ed classes/GPA boosters.

Then I think we need to stop expecting that there's going to be some special
path they'll ever take in life that's specific to them as individuals, at
least work-wise. We should instead set up a general path that someone can take
to earn a living without needing a personal drive in any particular direction,
and let them be a unique individual _outside_ work.

~~~
troupe
I think that pretty much describes an Associates degree in pretty much
anything. You graduate with a 2-year degree of mostly general ed, but a few
classes in something you think you might be interested in. If you want to get
a 4-year degree you should have a much better idea of what types of things
you'd be willing to spend another 2 or 3 years learning. If you don't go on
for a 4-year degree you at least have an associate degree which is a huge step
in employability above just having a high school diploma.

------
hal9000xp
As a person who almost didn't attend a school and dropped out from university,
I can confidently say that many (if not most) schools and universities across
the globe are completely useless. You may think I'm kidding or exaggerating.
But seriously, what exactly they are "teaching"? For most part, I've seen
school/university teachers who _never_ care to explain _core ideas_ , instead
their so called "teaching" is mostly about _mindless memorization_. Since I
was a kid, I always frustrated how stupid my teachers were.

I ended up studying practically everything on my own (except
reading/writing/elementary math which my grandpa taught me). I learned myself
how to write programs when I was 10/11 years old. My parents were not
programmers, so I had no help.

I lived in Uzbekistan, Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands. I'm working as a
software engineer since 2009 (I started my career working at internet-club in
2002/2003).

I can confidently tell that most of "experts" (in whatever field) who have so
called "higher education" diploma don't understand a damn thing.

 _Cost of education = cost of books, nothing more!_

If you have _luxury to have internet access_ (no sarcasm, I didn't had
internet access till 2002/2003), then add cost of your personal computing
device (again no sarcasm, I had _only_ 8-bit ZX Spectrum till 2000!) and
internet access subscription.

Peter Thiel has a similar view on "higher education" system:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvBlOFU3ry8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvBlOFU3ry8)

~~~
daxorid
> most of "experts" (in whatever field) who have so called "higher education"
> diploma don't understand a damn thing.

While this is generally true of the charlatan fields like psychology and
sociology that can't even replicate their own results, I'd hazard to guess
that Moore's Law is entirely reliant on Ph.D.-level work in materials science,
etc.

------
neo4sure
The most astounding thing reading the comments are from people that are pretty
well of condemning some poor folk that are making mistakes. These people have
not seen success, therefore it very difficult for them to come out of these
situations. Countless articles have demonstrated how a majority of poor kids
going to college have a tough time graduating. I am so happy to be living in a
state where these issues are getting discussed.

