Comments on: Dropping out: Is college worth the cost?
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- It is ridiculous for someone to go into tremendous debt to pay for their education. One issue America faces is that most students are drawn to the business studies rather than math and science, which explains why our children grade 17th in the world; they do not study math and science because they have no intention to pursue those professions. The other issue is economics: universities focus on the funds available through sports, paying millions to coaches while barely hiring adequate professors. While a college degree does not guarantee a job or great wealth upon graduation, it definitely places you in a better position than those without the degree.
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- Higher education is worth having, the question is, is it worth the exorbitant cost it now takes. It is becoming just another means of seperating the haves from the have nots and creating a defined underclass.
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- I am all for kids getting educated but I am against the inflated costs that keep most college grads in debt for the rest of their lives.
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- The jobs are there for the right degrees, get a business degree and 80 to 90% will be waiting tables. Get a service oriented degree and you will have work, doctor, dentist, tec.
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- This is obviously true in SOME rare cases, but FIRST, the individual must HAVE that "PROMISING IDEA" and sufficient "PASSION", besides the essential "INNER DRIVE" to actually pursue the idea to fruition. Unfortunately, this unique rarity, having ALL the essentials, is going to succeed with or without a college education, so WHAT will be getting proved? We already knew that by the examples of people like Benjamin Franklin, whose formal education ended at age 10. It is the unique person who can accomplish this feat, not just any willy, nilly college student, who is gifted $10,000!
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- Twenty years ago, before I got my degree, a company offered me a co-op job starting out as an intern. I worked for that company for 10 years. Today, there are absolutely no such things for me and for thousands of college graduates as companies shift jobs overseas in the hectic pursuit of Globalization.
This is the only reason why there is a glut of college graduates vs. number of available jobs. It is a problem of supply and demand. Furthermore, we are in a period of jobless recovery which has begun for over a decade now. College graduates have to compete with 11 million illegal workers, high school graduates, H-1B visa workers, experienced laid-off mature workers, etc. in order to get any job at all.
I would like to make a point about Peter Thiel's naive assumption that entrepreurship skill can get you anywhere. We are in a period of high consumer debt, of financial crisis, of government bailout of Wall Street, GM, and Chrysler. Large and medium companies are shredding workers and are filing for bankruptcy in order to stay afloat in this global economy.
Billionaire Peter Thiel's idea that all you need is to have a passion to pursue your idea won't stand much of a chance in this world. Before the spread of secondary education and higher education, children old enough to handle the plough skipped school to help their parents on the fields farming. Later, these kids would work in the factories doing menial work. In India today, you can see kids doing heavy manual labor. As a result, many of them will grow up having an intelligence a little bit above that of your smartest household pet. - Reply to this comment
- Are there individuals who don't need to complete four years of college to have a productive life? Of course. Does that make quitting college good advice for the vast majority of students? Of course not. This is just more of the cost-benefit analysis, nothing matters unless it earns you money garbage that the 1% are trying to sell to the rest of us. Why do you suppose they're so anxious to get the 99% out of college? So their taxes won't rise and they won't have to deal with college development officers, begging them for contributions.
(No, I'm not a fan of for-profit schools; I wish Congress had allowed Arne Duncan to really clamp down on the worst ripoffs. But for most people, spending a few years learning how to think in ways that don't necessarily make money is a valuable experience.)
I'm surprised Morley Safer wasted his audience's time on this narcissistic billionaire's self-indulgent theorizing.... - Reply to this comment
- Where's my comment?
Seriously? - Reply to this comment
- Mr Thiel, I implore you to contact me!
I'd love to share my innovative idea about my own automotive alternative fuel with you!
I look forward to hearing from you/your representative soon!
Sincerely,
Ronnette - Reply to this comment
- How is it possible for you to do this segment without once asking about the value of education aside from how much money you will earn from it? What is the value of an educated populace? This was a very poorly done segment, and a waste of an opportunity to talk about something critical to the success of our country - the value of an educated and informed citizenry.
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