The Higher Education Confidence Game

More and more I am waking up to the fact that higher education is a con-game.   The colleges/universities are grifters who use the Dept of Higher Education as shills, and the students as their marks.

Here's how the con works.   The mark (students) are lured to higher education because they want the illustrious degree.  This degree is allegedly a key which will open doors for them (so they're not doomed to working minimum wage jobs for the rest of their lives).  On other words, they will get a degree which will enable them to get a well paying job.  (Allegedly - being the operative word here). 

Meanwhile in order to obtain this illustrious prize, there is a heavy price to pay.  The student must pay tuition - the cost of which can range from the very cheap (community college) to absurdly expensive (prestigious private schools). 

These schools send their lobbyists to Washington D.C. to persuade congress to raise the amount of money that students may borrow (for college).  When the U.S. Dept of Education raises the ceiling of how much may be borrowed, miraculously and if by sheer coincidence, the board of directors of the colleges and universities make the colleges raise their tuition rates (citing that they hate to do it, but if they don't they'll be forced to shut their doors - because the cost of running the place is so out of control).   And so goes the never ending upward spiral of elevated borrowing allowances and subsequent elevated tuition costs.  

The student (the mark) meanwhile has no choice by to go along with this scam - or else he/she will miss out on their ability to get the coveted prize - the degree.   So they borrow and they borrow and they borrow.  And before you know it, they are tens of thousands - to hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.  This is debt that they MUST pay back.  They have no choice.  It cannot be discharged through bankruptcy due to financial hardship.

What compounds this scam is that while tuition costs are relatively the same for all students (plus or minus a little bit here and there), not all degrees are of the same earning potential.   A degree in liberal arts and sciences is not as valuable as a degree in petroleum engineering.   A film major will have a tougher time repaying his loans than the person who gets a degree in economics and finance. 

To even further compound this problem, there are so many people who have a bachelors degree today, it's really not that special anymore.  It doesn't stand out and give the person a competitive edge over the competition as it once did.   And it really doesn't matter where the degree comes from.   A bachelors degree from Penn State University is not more prestigious than a bachelors degree from West Virginia University, Ohio State University or the University of Pittsburgh.  

I value education and think for the most part a person is better with an education than without.  But people need to wake up and realize that there is a serious con game going on here, and they need to smarten up and do their homework.   There should be a pragmatic and justifiable reason for working toward a degree.  They should be able to come out of the program and have a considerably higher earning potential.  That means they can't be music majors, business majors or art history majors.  They need something like mechanical engineering, physics, or economics.   Additionally it's a good idea to go to a community college for the first two years and get 1/2 the credits taken care of as cheaply as possible.  Then transfer to a very inexpensive four year university and finish up there - while getting the degree with the least amount of accumulated debt load.  Another choice would be to enlist in the U.S. military and have them pay for your education while you serve your country for a few years.   Still another choice would be to have one parent work for a college - which will then allow their children to go to school there tuition free. 

The U.S. Dept of Education currently holds more than a trillion dollars in student loan debt.  That means they have enslaved a LOT of people - who are bound and chained to that debt, reducing them to endentured servants.   If you care at all about your kids, you need to do everything in your power to prevent them falling into that trap.  Allow them to get their education, but don't allow them to get buried in debt in the process.