[boriscleto]

Harvard, Yale Now Cheaper Than CA State Schools. This Is Why Students Protest. | Crooks and Liars

[kenafein]

Harvard, Yale Now Cheaper Than CA State Schools. This Is Why Students Protest. | Crooks and Liars

Now they're just going to say we should privatize all state universities.

[BigDave]

Now they're just going to say we should privatize all state universities.

However, Harvard has an incredible endowment they can pull from. The interest alone is incredible.

The state schools, being state schools, are subject to the whims of the government. Privatizing state schools might, MIGHT be a good idea, but first the substantial endowments would need to be in place so they had interest to pull from. I do not see that happening, unless all the millionaires pool in their dough to do it!

With two of my kids going through the state system here in NY, this would be a tough nut to swallow (30% increase!!). Do you think the government is trying to get people to move OUT of the state?

Regards,

[Ratmagiclady]

However, Harvard has an incredible endowment they can pull from. The interest alone is incredible.

That much is true. If out of all the Ivy League, it could have been *Harvard* I'd gotten into, I might have a very different life-story: they don't let you wash out over money. But in part that's cause they're one of the oldest and most elite schools in the nation, and they have that endowment *because* they're that long-endowed and top-tier. Every school in the country simply couldn't be expected to do that. (Yale probably could, for instance, but they keep that high tuition a barrier because that's the real class-gatekeeping, there: I don't think they even *counted* National Merit, (I was a finalist) or if they did, it was nowhere near enough. I mean, even if I *wasn't* a runaway when I got the acceptance package, it would have been a white elephant even if my folks mortgaged the house again. You know, the proverbial great honor of a title and estate you couldn't possibly maintain.

The state schools, being state schools, are subject to the whims of the government. Privatizing state schools might, MIGHT be a good idea, but first the substantial endowments would need to be in place so they had interest to pull from. I do not see that happening, unless all the millionaires pool in their dough to do it!

Part of the problem there is that the privatizing (or just conservative-ifying) of state schools (part of how *my* plan to work my own way through a once-respected state school got knocked out from under me because, yes, pro-corporate conservatives 'restructured' my education out from under me, is because the 'endowment' goes to shoving the money into massive sports stadiums and all-but-pro-football spectacles, and the corporate subsidies go to a) farming out research for for-profit companies, while pushing science and engineering types into overspecializing... and b) bloating and coddling the business schools by feeding them enough money to get their way over everyone else: including both cutting all other major programs and giving the business school kids transcript-padding classes other majors *need* ...They increase course *requirements* while cutting course *availability,* claim, 'We did this without raising tuition, but now you need five grand a year in 'fees' (which every merit scholarship in the book don't cover: change majors to something without lab fees, then try to get a job with English or art history. if you even make it,) and then wonder why a four-year education ends up to be six years of struggle and a load of debt... that neither guarantees a decent job nor seems to meet employer demands for 'the workforce of the future,'


And it's hardly any wonder: the 'reagan conservatives' say 'We're going to run this school like a business,' and promptly start *gutting* it for balance sheets, meaning people pay more and more and get less and less... Until a job isn't an economic transaction of work-for-currency: it's a *commodity* that you take out huge loans on for *from* the big money, and from which they extract labor for debt and interest on debt.

(Anyone noticed how 'jobs' became something the corporations *grant,* rather than someone buying our work? I kind of watched it happen. Though it's actually kind of funny: when I was like three or four, I used to think, (from seeing my Dah depositing paychecks,) that jobs were something people paid to do, so the rich people could afford better jobs. This came to be closer to the truth than proved comfortable for me. )

And while the employers keep demanding more and more education and wonder why they don't get well-trained best-and-brightest (except in making incomprehensible derivatives schemes that eventually implode) ...it's cause they neither train well nor *get* the best and brightest: they get those whose families have the best credit ratings.

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Last edited by Ratmagiclady; 03-08-2012 at 09:58 AM.

[unixrevolution]

As to the subject of whether or not waiting tables is a "real job" I would say it depends on the restaurant. Waiting tables is one of the jobs where someone can make a wage which supports a healthy young single person (high school through new college grad) can earn a living wage which support themselves or pay their way through college. But if someone is getting into their late 20s and they are still waiting tables at Applebee's or comparable they do not have a real job. I don't know where this place falls in the totem pole of restaurants in newport beach, but a waiting job at a nicer place here you can easily earn a middle class income around $50,000 with health care, 401k, and time off. Any job where a walk-in who is still in high school with zero experience could be your next co-worker or replacement is not "a real job" in my book.

It is not your, my, or anyone's place, in any economic situation but ESPECIALLY in this one, to tell someone they do or do not have a real job. At best, it is unsolicited advice, and at worst, it is an insulting, terrible, elitist thing done out of pure malice and contempt.