Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion go to college or no?

I agree that hard work and talent don't seem to add up in today's economy when stacked against privilege and the right pieces of paper from this or that school, but I don't think they ever have.

I often think I've done some hard work (not ENORMOUS AMOUNTS of hard work, mind you) and by luck have a brain in my head, so I am hanging in there.
But then there are days when I realize, in the grand scheme, I *am* fairly privileged with *ok* pieces of paper...huh.

(I have just run into enough serious problems by my own ignorance of 'how things work' to keep me from thinking that others should DO WHAT I DID to get where I am!

Please, good heavens, hope nobody follows the meandering path I took!

......

I am also reminded of a conversation I heard in an IT office a few years back where one woman, in her 40's, no kids, recently married, was congratulating herself for paying for her new car with cash, and another like minded individual, in his late 50's was agreeing with that...she said, 'we're a dying breed!'.

My snarky thoughts on this exchange will remain untyped.

The fact is that the sentiment "Nice work if you can get it" was famously used-- and ironically intended-- in a popular song penned by the Gershwins in... 1937. Even then, it was hardly a revolutionary idea, since it was the basis of a kind of tongue-in-cheek jab and a translation into interpersonal domains.

"Let them eat cake" and all that.

So yeah, I think this is not really a new phenomenon.

I used to have to bite my tongue REALLY hard when some of my colleagues would bemoan the 'talented' students who just couldn't seem to pull it together enough to 'take full advantage' of all of those fantastic opportunities in front of them...

Made me mad as anything, though, that such students (many first-gen college students or those from low SES homes) were judged as "unmotivated" relative to more privileged peers.

In theory the places that hire on paper, privilege, and approved hair gel are not the places that oddball talented people want to be anyhow. There is just a disturbing bi-directional signal to noise ratio issue.

As much as anything else, I was referring as much to the stratospheric cost of a college education combined with employers wanting a college degree for menial positions.

UC costs roughly $30,000 a year unless you live within commuting distance and you can live at home. Tuition is $13,900, and even if you live at home, the cost is still about $18,000. You can't pay for that with a part-time job. In 2003, tuition was $5,500. It used to be nearly free.

People are leaving a public university with debt in the mid-five-figure range. And many end up in menial jobs that don't even pay enough to cover the interest. So they watch their loans balloon. The loans aren't discharged by banktruptcy or death. There's a 25-year forgiveness program. But the forgiven debt is treated as income and you pay tax on it.

It's like there's no way out of debt and no way to avoid incurring unless you're very wealthy. This is wrong.

ETA: And because of overcrowding there is a high chance of having to go on the 5-year-plan or go to summer school, or both, which just add to your costs. The latter option also reduces your ability to earn money over the summer.

YES.

This is NOT what I was talking about!

rephrasing...the debate goes on:

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE92B06R20130312?irpc=932



To me, Mayer sounds like someone who assumes that without a B.S/M.S. from Stanford or equivalent school you will not be able to think. That idea in itself shouts 'not thinking' to me.

But as to school costs going through the roof, that is very very scary; I personally did the 'barely servicing' a loan thing, and balloon it did. Thankfully I have dealt with it, but it is just crippling a huge number of people financially unnecessarily.

In a vague attempt to dodge any semblance of political discourse, it was what I was talking about in relation to what Chris and HK were saying in relation to what you were mentioning in relation to the broader topic but then rerelated back to the original concern of the specific instance of one person considering entering the workforce through an atypical path with an atypical background drawn with the illustration that the entry points when approaching it from that perspective is to cut through the noise and excessive "requirements" and identify the like-minded who are actually looking to hire the very sort wanting to work for them.
i.e. bifurcation happens

Mayer is also the one who built a nursery in her office, at her own expense, so she could continue working long hours. I'd say she's already established her misplaced priorities in life.


Indeed. And the larger point is that, at double-digit annual increases and flat salaries, the model is not sustainable. We're already looking at college debt being the next economic bubble to burst.

Well, except that bankruptcy reforms have made it impossible for the bubble to burst, precisely...

which is even scarier, now that I think it over.

Yeah, we are pretty much thinking that borrowing for college is something that needs to be looked at with a SUPER-critical eye at this point.

Not that college isn't worth it, but maybe "college that I can't afford to pay for" is more of a question mark.

Then again, you're reading the words of a person who is pretty much convinced at this point that sticking up liquor stores is a reasonably sound retirement plan, given the other options available to my spouse and I, and our desire for adequate medical care in our dotage. So take that into account.