[monochrome]

OT: I assume the target is to block any attempt of social rise from poor people, I am happy to be born in a country where the government paid me to get an higher education and they also paid for my studies abroad.

On the contrary. The plan was to make college available to poor people..

The government made available to virtually anyone the ability to borrow money for college at preferential, Government-guaranteed interest rates and pay off the loan with the higher income earned over approximately the first ten years after college (that was the original design of Student Loan Marketing Association loans).

Colleges responded by raising the tuition and expenses twice the rate of inflation over the past thirty five years. They responded to the ability of poor people (and selfish rich parents) to borrow. They even took care of all the paperwork - Sign Here x _________________ . It is a total travesty.

College has gotten stupid expensive. Half of graduates would have been better off taking Union Apprentice classes as an Electrician or Plumber and paying back the Union loan out of Apprentice wages in five years.

I paid for college myself - I earned my way through. I spent $43,000 over the four years, and I had a healthy social life. The same four years at University of Virginia if I started today would cost $245,000, $57,365 a year plus inflation over the four years!

No way does someone earn an additional $245,000 over ten years just because he went to University of Virginia instead of a Union laborer job.

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Last edited by monochrome; 12-28-2015 at 06:05 PM.

[ChrisPlatt]

Prior to New York City's fiscal crisis in the mid-1970's there was no tuition charged at CUNY schools.
Admissions were merit-based. My mother had attended my school Queens College for free.

http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/forum/2011/10/12/when-tuition-at-cuny-was-free-sort-of/

Chris

[Cuthbert]

On the contrary. The plan was to make college available to poor people..

Then the plan is simply stupid and the results are the opposite of what they wanted.

In serious countries like Sweden, Denmark, Finland college is free for everybody (given that you achieve the academic goals) because graduates are considered a resource of the country so a sort of State investment on people.

And judging from the standard of living, it works.

University is also very cheap in other countries like Germany and Switzerland, not exactly communist regimes.

[monochrome]

Then the plan is simply stupid and the results are the opposite of what they wanted.

In serious countries like Sweden, Denmark, Finland college is free for everybody (given that you achieve the academic goals) because graduates are considered a resource of the country so a sort of State investment on people.

And judging from the standard of living, it works.

University is also very cheap in other countries like Germany and Switzerland, not exactly communist regimes.

Nothing is free. Nothing is cheap. Inother countries you just don't pay for it directly.

Sweden has one of the highest effective income tax rates in the world. Sweden, Denmark and Finland are assuredly Socialist economies. In Germany, UK, Switzerland, university is limited to only the academically gifted - the soft bigotry of the academic elite who don't want to allow access to the less educated. They're the ones who want to keep other people out of college, not Americans.

The US Government plan was a good one. The colleges, controlled by an avaricious, closed set of tenured Deans Professors and Administrators, expanded their economic hegemony and personal wealth at the expense of the very students they were supposed to academically enrich. It's the faculties and administrators and Trustees of the colleges - the captains of the education industry - who screwed up the plan.

[pathdoc]

In Australia you pay your tuition back through the tax system once you earn above a certain threshold. Those who have the capability to pay up front get a discount for doing so, but nobody is actually locked out. Entry is ultimately on academic merit - or it should have been, but I heard a disturbing tale a while back that an admissions interview panel had taken it upon itself to make subjective decisions as to who got into a certain medical school, and that they were subsequently caught red-handed blocking the entry of objectively academically superior students with strong science backgrounds.

The plan was not stupid, Cuthbert; what was criminal was the way the colleges rorted the plan, and what was negligent was the way the government did not bring an iron fist down on this bullsh*t. At the end of the day, though, what you now have is tertiary education institutions offering courses with ZERO application to real-world vocational employment at exorbitant cost, and starry-eyed idealists who are gullible enough to think they can make a career out of it signing their lives, or their parents' retirement funds, away to take them. There are some courses that seem only to lead to positions in academia, teaching the course you just took, and that's unsustainable for any industrial nation that aspires to remain at first-world status. If you want that, you actually have to manufacture stuff. There is no such thing as a first-rate first-world major-power service economy.

To quote Arthur C Clarke, you can design a system that's proof against accidental failure, but you CAN'T design one that's proof against deliberate malice.

[Nesster]

I have two daughters. One attended college in the early 2000's, the internet bubble burst during her sophomore year; the other started right after the most recent financial crisis. The 10 year treasury was bouncing around 4-4.5% during the first one's time, and the loans are at around 2.5%. The 10 year is now under 1%, and yet today's college loans are at near 7%. This is after so-called improvements to the student loan system. Sounds to me like someone is making a nice spread off students... I wonder who

[boriscleto]

I have two daughters. One attended college in the early 2000's, the internet bubble burst during her sophomore year; the other started right after the most recent financial crisis. The 10 year treasury was bouncing around 4-4.5% during the first one's time, and the loans are at around 2.5%. The 10 year is now under 1%, and yet today's college loans are at near 7%. This is after so-called improvements to the student loan system. Sounds to me like someone is making a nice spread off students... I wonder who

And you can't ever get rid of student loan debt through bankruptcy...

And although it is not really related, I ran across this today

American Management Explained. This Guy Nails It.

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Last edited by boriscleto; 12-29-2015 at 07:16 AM.

[monochrome]

I have two daughters. One attended college in the early 2000's, the internet bubble burst during her sophomore year; the other started right after the most recent financial crisis. The 10 year treasury was bouncing around 4-4.5% during the first one's time, and the loans are at around 2.5%. The 10 year is now under 1%, and yet today's college loans are at near 7%. This is after so-called improvements to the student loan system. Sounds to me like someone is making a nice spread off students... I wonder who

I have three children. I saved my money and paid their way, subject to them choosing their colleges based on best Merit Aid scholarships.

I'll just note that the Obama Administration consolidated all private Student Lending issuance under the Government-serviced SallieMae early in 2009. One of its first Executive Actions. Interesting to see how rates changed when competition was removed and Borrower / Co-signer Credit Score was no longer considered. College Loans are now "Must-issue" and applications are managed by Admissions Departments. 14% of college loans have gone into default within 24 months of repayment initiation the last 10 years and a further 17% are in suspension. Would you lend a college student $50,000 at Prime with that lending experience?

My Credit Score is north of 790. I'll bet I can borrow $50,000 at 2.5% with a phone call.

Draw your own conclusions.

[monochrome]

In 1977 a solid cherry Queen Anne eight place North Carolina Dining Room table w/ 2 leaves and upholstered chairs cost $479.

[wombat2go]

After I got my ME Super kit, I wanted to get the SMC Pentax-M 80~200 f/4.5.
But that lens was really costly at that time in Australia. Pentax said about it : "..Weighing only 555 gram.....The ideal zoom for photographers on the go .."

I ended up getting the larger, heavier Tamron equivalent with a K adaptall for a lot less. (I can't remember the prices.)

[tim60]

The rhetoric in some countries is 'right to education'. These countries seem to have moved to 'user pay' and prices to study have risen, and universities offer degrees with sexy names, many of which are not job useful.
Other countries see education as investment in the future competitiveness of the country and the fees are much lower and the degrees available are in economically useful fields of learning.
One rhetoric I have never yet heard is a government that takes the investment line and adds that those with education earn more, and so, at least if salaried, pay more tax - so government spending on education is actually government investment in future tax revenue! I did the sums on that some years ago. By the time the graduate gets to retirement age their increased tax each year is equal to the dollar amount of their while education.(OK, we must add in TVM discounting, but it is still a very good ROI for the government.)

[pathdoc]

After I got my ME Super kit, I wanted to get the SMC Pentax-M 80~200 f/4.5.
But that lens was really costly at that time in Australia. Pentax said about it : "..Weighing only 555 gram.....The ideal zoom for photographers on the go .."

I have that lens secondhand; the database here mentions a late variant which was a little heavier (closer to 600g) and that appears to be the one I got.

I also have the fractionally faster Vivitar 80-200mm f/4.0 "macro" (basically close focusing at 80mm), which feels substantially lighter and better balanced, but which at the time was out of service with nonfunctional aperture blades and no certainty of being able to be fixed, hence my acquisition of the slightly slower OEM variant. I really should pull it out and stick it on my ME next time there's a film in it (the P30T is currently doing those honours).

[monochrome]

The government has no ownership of me; neither right nor obligation to 'invest' in me nor in my education. Neither do I owe 'government' any part of me or my output as an obligation. Sure, there are various taxes here, all based on commercial transactions (other than Real Estate tax), but I retain the opportunity to choose not to transact and thus owe less or no tax. I am not OBLIGATED to expose myself to taxes. That is unfortunately a difficult concept to grasp for most people.

Nothing is free. Someone's taxes paid whatever the government 'invested' in that education, and the government expects a return on its investment. Interestingly, which type of country has had the higher return over the last 150 years?

[lesmore49]

Now back to the original poster's question.

My new Pentax S1a and it's 50mm lens cost me $ 159 CAD if I recall correctly. Bought it in Feb., 1968. Came with a beautiful leather camera case too.
It didn't have a light meter so I bought a new Sekonic Selenium hand held meter, for around $ 10 CAD.


My black bodied Pentax ES ll with 50 F 1.8 lens and beautiful leather camera case, went for around $ 365 CAD in '74 .

I almost bought a new (Old Stock) Nikon F Photomic with 50 mm (F 1.4 I think) Nikkor lens for $ 450 CAD.

I think if I had I would of probably still been in the Nikon camp to this day, as from around 1975 on, I started buying camera equipment in a bigger way. As I had two Pentax bodies then, it was all Pentax as that was the system I chose, way back when.

[gofour3]

Put it in context for us younguns - what else cost in the neighbourhood of $500 back then?

I went to Europe in 1976 for 10 weeks:

The return Wardair flight + taxes from Vancouver to Amsterdam cost $497CDN in 1976, for the same flight dates in 2016 on KLM now costs $1652CDN.

My two month 1st class Eurail pass cost $300CDN, the same two month 1st class pass now costs $1531CDN.

A one way sleeper train ticket from Moscow to Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) cost $12.60CDN in 1976!

Phil.