Joke One:
Gerald Murphy sent me an Easy Sunday story. Gerald is a playwright, composer, and musician. He writes moral plays, skits, stage shows, and musicals for schools, youth, and church groups. He retired in Medford after a long career teaching high school.
My cousin Willy told me he was vehemently opposed to President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. “Hey, when you make a stupid mistake, you have to pay for it.”
He likes to point out that his own personal student loan amounted to less than $1000. “College was a lot cheaper back in the 70’s,” he said, “and I saved even more when I dropped out after one semester. Sure, I missed out on a lot of good jobs because of this, but I wasn’t about to pay good money just to get a good paying job with bennies sometime in the way-out future.”
I congratulated him on his fiscally responsible behavior. “I guess you did the right thing,” I told him. “And could you hold the pickles on my Big Mac?”
Joke Two
Here is another way to look at this. I stumbled upon this story:
A rich guy noticed a rapid leak had developed under his kitchen sink. It was wetting his kitchen floor and dripping down to the floor below. He called a plumber.
The plumber arrived, looked under the sink and said an elbow joint had a crack. He turned off the water at the meter, used a large pipe wrench to loosen two pipes, replaced the elbow joint, and retightened everything. He presented the bill.
"It's $150 for the service call and diagnosis. It's $3 for the new elbow joint. The repair labor is $150. Total: $303."
The homeowner said. "Gimmie a break. It took you six minutes, tops, under the sink for the "repair labor" as you call it. That's $1,500 an hour! That rate is ridiculous. I'm a litigator at a downtown law firm and I bill at $800 an hour."
The plumber answered, "Yeah, that's all I made, too, back when I was a lawyer."
13 comments:
Some college degrees are worth the time and money. STEM, for instance.
Others, particularly ones whose names end in “studies” (eg Women’s Studies, Black Studies, etc) are only good for acquiring student debt that you will never be able to pay off with your job in fast foods. Demand for these college majors is going to drop even more as the red states cut spending on worthless and divisive DEI bureaucracies.
Good stories. It’s true that state colleges and universities used to be much more affordable. I was able to pay for most mine with work/study and summer jobs. Not anymore. Like so many things, including objective reality itself, affordable education has become political.
Would you believe? I spent two years in the undergrad program at Texas Tech, in Lubbock , Texas. Student loan? Huh? No thanks.
Tuition was $50 per semester or $100 per YEAR. Additionally there were the cost of “fees”. Total $110 per year. I coughed up $45/month for a crummy half duplex, including utilities, in a bad neighborhood.
Second year we upgraded. Near new apartment, with the very necessary swimming pool, utilities included. $100/month.
I was easily able to support myself and my former wife, by working as “everything” at the local Safeway, paying &1.60/hour. No, wifey didn’t work. In Texas, a real man didn’t allow such a thing back then.
Seems like affordable education, like affordable housing and affordable health care, have become oxymorons over the last 50 years or so.
Happy Fathers' Day, Peter.
I am aware that numerous retired professors from SOU receive annual pensions in excess of $100K annually. These aren't retired physics or computer science professors, but rather retired art and music professors (whom I think have less value). If you want to know why college is exorbitantly expense, then who do you think pays for these ridiculous retirement packages? Students do. Add to the fact that colleges like SOU are loaded with worthless administrators who accomplish little. Students pay for that waste.
The median salary for professors at SOU is about $87,000. Their pension is a percentage of their salary. Since we don't know Anonymous' preferred pronoun, about all I can say is s/he/it is being less than honest.
Mike....the professors MAY earn $87K now, but SOU professors had to have earned more in prior years, because I've personally seen the Form 1099's for retired SOU art professors, and they were six-figured pensions. I don't need to fabricate anything. Adjunct professors at SOU currently earn less than an elementary school teacher does.
Another reason college costs have risen faster than inflation is the metastatic growth of DEI bureaucracies whose only purpose seems to be the imposition of an ideology inimical to both free speech and the pursuit of excellence.
The office of DEI at SOU has 3 staff - not exactly a "metastatic bureaucracy." And by the way, the highest paid staff in most universities are the coaches.
SOU is just one data point.
https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2021/08/do-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-offices-achieve-their-stated-goals/
It would be nice to see a budget for a year at SOU or UO.
How about getting back on topic. Why should taxpayers relieve students of their student loans debt without any conditions?
The students, their parents, and the colleges are of course partially responsible for this debt, as are HS and College counselors. Society and the state, local, and federal governments for pushing students into higher education.
College and university degrees are helpful, when the right studies are pursued for the right reasons. And not everyone is a good match for some of these degrees and/or careers.
Lack of reading comprehension and personal finance skills also contributed to the problem of incurring debt to pursue a career that could never pay back those loans.
Almost all students and their parents considering higher education complete FAFSA applications to determine financial aid. That aid consists of scholarships and loans. Students and parents may not understand the difference, and that lack of personal finance knowledge leads many into a course of study and degrees that will never pay off those loans.
Why aren't we holding the people responsible for this mismatch and lack of financial misunderstanding?
As for the pensions some commenters are mentioning, those pensions may also have been unfunded or the fund returns had unrealistic guarantees.
Those of us without pensions likely understand this, especially if we were financially responsible, paying back our loans, and using 401Ks and IRAs to prepare for retirement.
Too many got bad advice, and pursued course of study that do not have the payback ability to pay off those loans.
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