College Degrees and Masters..Are they worth the investment?

• ptown_trojans_1

  

  Degrees are worth the investment, but it really boils downs to the person and the field they are in. A degree is essential in some fields and not in others. But, what is most important is how the person utilizes the degree they obtain to better their career.
  
  I have 3 BA's from OSU (International Relations IR, Arabic and History) I knew a History BA is worthless unless I teach, and that Arabic is a incredibly useful skill to have, especially in DC. So, I used both of the degrees as background to my primary degree in IR, which is what got me into graduate school. In grad school, at UMD, I received a degree in Public Policy, but even then it was up to me to really utilize my skills and act fully apply the degree to the real world.
  But, that is just me, someone else will have a completely different track, but my point is that people need to go to college planning that one degree may not be enough to land a job.
  
  The student debt question/ problem is pretty complex. There are many ways to pay for school. I had a few thousand dollars at OSU, mainly from traveling abroad, but at UMD, it ballooned as UMD nailed me on out of state tuition my 1st semester. I had it lowered and partially paid for as I was a GA, but my student debt now is around 65,000.
  
  But, the problem lies in the confusing nature of student loans (public and private who is eligible, who are the borrowers etc.) and the fact that tuition keeps going up and up and up along with the price of books.
• fan_from_texas

  Increasing the availability of student loan money enables schools to raise tuition. There's always going to be tension between giving people easy access to credit and keeping tuition down. The problem, as I see it, is an information one--schools misreport true employment statistics, and students for the last 20 years have been filled with all sorts of bad advice from guidance counselors (just go to college and you'll be set; major in what makes you happy, because a focus on money won't make you happy). Unsurprisingly, we end up with tons of humanities majors from crappy schools who can't find jobs and are mired in poverty. Is that the fault of the 16 or 17 year old student who listened to parents/guidance counselors give advice that was solid for a generation? Is it the fault of the parents/guidance counselor for giving outdated advice? Is it the fault of the school/government for enabling bad decision making?
• dwccrew

  

  believer;391968 wrote:Keeping in mind I received my bachelor's degree back in 1983, I only amassed a student loan debt of $3,000. There ARE ways of financing your education without necessarily graduating in debt by tens of thousands of dollars.
  
  How about deferring college for a few years and save? What about seeking financial aid and grants? Work study?
  
  I joined the Army to qualify for the GI Bill and then "double-dipped" by re-enlisting in the Ohio Air National Guard who paid 100% of my tuition. The Guard also gave me a guaranteed summer job!
  
  Massive student loans aren't the only ways to finance your education.

  
  I also joined the military to pay for school. However, you can no longer double dip on the GI Bill. They stopped that within the last few years, but you can get your tuition paid for by the military.
  
  Also, tuition as increased exponentially since you were in school. Credit hours are much more costly these days than they were 30 years ago.
• Footwedge

  dwccrew;393251 wrote:I also joined the military to pay for school. However, you can no longer double dip on the GI Bill. They stopped that within the last few years, but you can get your tuition paid for by the military.
  
  Also, tuition as increased exponentially since you were in school. Credit hours are much more costly these days than they were 30 years ago.

  
  Price per credit hour at John Carroll was $39.00 per hour in 1972. And....back then only about 50% of high school grads gave it a whirl in extended education. Today, about 65% of Americans go to some sort of post high school grad school. The default rate on student loans is yet another huge bubble ready to pop.
• David St. Hubbins

  

  I have heard that increased subsidies/financial aid programs only cause universities to raise prices that much more since they know students can pay more, and that that is what is driving the explosion in tuition.
• Footwedge

  David St. Hubbins;393351 wrote:I have heard that increased subsidies/financial aid programs only cause universities to raise prices that much more since they know students can pay more, and that that is what is driving the explosion in tuition.

  
  Exactly. The whole thing is a fuckin ruse. Nobody, but nobody can convince me that the price of higher education isn't collectively fixed. Free market enterprise? Hahaha. Not a chance. Students pay $160 for a calculus book that costs a buck fifty to to produce...and which has the exact same derivative formulations that the calc books had 40 years ago.
• sjmvsfscs08

  I think it also has to do with all those damn old professors. The baby boomers cost a shitload before they retire...
  
  Buy the whole college books thing is a ridiculous scam I despise it. I would propose some legislation against it and I'm a small government sort of guy haha
• iclfan2

  

  I'm pretty sure the teachers are in on the whole book deal. I had a few teachers that would find books cheaper, or use older versions, or get only few chapters bound, to save the students money. Others would just pick the $200 one and call it a day.
• LJ

  

  iclfan2;393784 wrote:I'm pretty sure the teachers are in on the whole book deal. I had a few teachers that would find books cheaper, or use older versions, or get only few chapters bound, to save the students money. Others would just pick the $200 one and call it a day.

  
  Unless they wrote the book I think it is more laziness than anything
• dwccrew

  

  College is the only thing that I can think of that doesn't follow basic economics. Generally, when supply goes up, demand goes down. But supply and demand of college is both up. College has unfortunately become another racket.
• I Wear Pants

  LJ;394075 wrote:Unless they wrote the book I think it is more laziness than anything

  My Psych professor wrote the book we used last semester. It was $100. It had worksheets in it that we had to do as part of the grade. We couldn't copy the pages and had to rip them out to turn them in. Needless to say it was impossible to sell back that book.
• dwccrew

  

  I Wear Pants;395479 wrote:My Psych professor wrote the book we used last semester. It was $100. It had worksheets in it that we had to do as part of the grade. We couldn't copy the pages and had to rip them out to turn them in. Needless to say it was impossible to sell back that book.

  
  When I was in school I was in the exact same situation with a professor that wrote the book for the course. I don't know whether to be pissed off that they are putting us over a barrel or impressed that they are taking advantage of the capitalistic system we have.
• sleeper

  

  dwccrew;395452 wrote:College is the only thing that I can think of that doesn't follow basic economics. Generally, when supply goes up, demand goes down. But supply and demand of college is both up. College has unfortunately become another racket.

  
  LOL what?
• goosebumps

  

  They're worth it if you aren't stupid....
  
  Example of a stupid person. Getting a degree in social work at a private school.
  
  Smart. Getting a degree in social work at a community college.
  
  
  If you will never pay the loans back with your degree then its the wrong career choice.
• I Wear Pants

  dwccrew;395452 wrote:College is the only thing that I can think of that doesn't follow basic economics. Generally, when supply goes up, demand goes down. But supply and demand of college is both up. College has unfortunately become another racket.

  Brain fart?
• dwccrew

  

  sleeper;395541 wrote:LOL what?

  I Wear Pants;395841 wrote:Brain fart?

  
  I don't think I explained myself very well. By supply, I meant the availability of education through financial aid, government subsidized loans, etc. Many more people are able to go to college now then in the past. The supply of aid to pay for college is available to almost anyone no matter what your personal financial situation. When supply goes up, it means the demand is down (basic econmics). But the demand for college is not down, it is very high. When demand is high, like it is for college aid, the supply should be down and the price should be high (which anyone that has paid for college, knows the that price is high). But currently all three are up; supply, demand and price. This goes against basic economic principle.
  
  So pretty much, since the price of a college education is so much higher than it was in the past, there should be less students. There is many more students in college these days than in the past though.
  
  Is that any more clear?
• I Wear Pants

  When supply goes up demand doesn't go down. Price goes down.
  
  But I get what you're saying (and did the first time I just liked messing with you). Usually as industries mature the products become more affordable and refined or at least drop in price relative to inflation. College has skyrocketed in price both in actual terms and relative to inflation. This makes no sense.
• Footwedge

  Part of the reason that the demand is up is because the future is so very grim. So the cost of education becomes inflated which compounds the problem in the first place. As a sidebar, isn't is a little bit of a head scratcher that IT advancement has decreased costs across the board in other industries (has hurt employment which deserves a thread of it's own though), yet online courses are just as high if not higher per credit hour?
  
  Where are the market forces here?
• I Wear Pants

  There is no such thing as the free market, especially when we're talking about the higher education industry.
• Footwedge

  I Wear Pants;396608 wrote:There is no such thing as the free market, especially when we're talking about the higher education industry.

  My question is why IS that? Who is responsible for artificially inflating these prices? I understand oligopolies and how they can manipulate prices...but education? Really? Who is doing the price fixing here?
  
  If we are not going to play by free market rules, then let's blow up the entire system and start over.
• LJ

  

  Footwedge;396615 wrote:My question is why IS that? Who is responsible for artificially inflating these prices? I understand oligopolies and how they can manipulate prices...but education? Really? Who is doing the price fixing here?
  
  If we are not going to play by free market rules, then let's blow up the entire system and start over.

  
  The private schools. I think the public schools are only following suit and going along with it.
• I Wear Pants

  It's all of them. If the private schools raised prices dramatically while public schools stayed the same price or raised prices more reasonably eventually people wouldn't go to the private schools because it wouldn't be worth it.
  
  But that isn't what happened. They all raise their prices drastically no matter what is going on with the rest of the economy. Nothing to do with education plays by the rules that the rest of us have to live by.
• Captain Cavalier

  

  fan_from_texas;392662 wrote:Increasing the availability of student loan money enables schools to raise tuition. There's always going to be tension between giving people easy access to credit and keeping tuition down. The problem, as I see it, is an information one--schools misreport true employment statistics, and students for the last 20 years have been filled with all sorts of bad advice from guidance counselors (just go to college and you'll be set; major in what makes you happy, because a focus on money won't make you happy). Unsurprisingly, we end up with tons of humanities majors from crappy schools who can't find jobs and are mired in poverty. Is that the fault of the 16 or 17 year old student who listened to parents/guidance counselors give advice that was solid for a generation? Is it the fault of the parents/guidance counselor for giving outdated advice? Is it the fault of the school/government for enabling bad decision making?

  Agreed.
  
  In conversations I had with others about college degrees the one common question was..."Where's the money?" Meaning, will this degree get you a decent income later.
• slingshot4ever

  I think students have to have a good plan in deciding what they want to major in to make their post high school education worthwhile. As someone already eluded to, a history degree is worthless if you don't have the education part to go along with it. I majored in pharmaceutical sciences at OSU, got a job in the medical device industry as a lab tech and then project manager. I then obtained my MBA from BGSU knowing that I wanted to get into management and I recently accepted a position as a supervisor for one of our labs.
  
  It is crucial to have a plan and with the limited amount of jobs available it is becoming more and more important to intern with a company you would want to work for while in college so that you can build a relationship and open doors towards job opportunities once you actually graduate.