How The American University was Killed, in Five Easy Steps

**CosmicCowboy** · 08-20-2012

http://averagelawyersalary.net/TX/1/.../Lawyer-Salary

The old rap on St Mary's Law was that they taught to the bar exam, not the law. Don't know if that's still true.

I know of a firm that had a ton of recent St. M graduates interviewing for an opening and they were only paying $12 an hour with no benefits.

**leemajors** · 08-20-2012

I went to UT from 95-99, and my tuition was rarely over 2k per semester, even loading up on Athletic passes/tickets and parking. My brother dropped out in 98 after two years, and went back a few years ago. It basically cost 10x as much as when we went previously. Totally and utterly ridiculous. I lived off campus, but still.

**Blake** · 08-20-2012

Originally Posted by johnsmith

Question for anyone willing to answer.....do you plan on persuading your children to go to college? I have 17 1/2 years to think about this one, but right now, I'm leaning towards no.

High schools will shove the importance of college down their throat.

I'd rather stress the importance in picking a career first, then picking degree. I'm not spending money for her to get a history degree unless she has very specific plans to use it.

**coyotes_geek** · 08-20-2012

Originally Posted by johnsmith

Question for anyone willing to answer.....do you plan on persuading your children to go to college? I have 17 1/2 years to think about this one, but right now, I'm leaning towards no.

My wife and I will certainly be pushing college, and we're saving money to prepare for that, but the main thing we want is for him to have a plan for how he intends to make a living.

**boutons_deux** · 08-20-2012

yep, one of the worst hit professions in the Banksters Great Depression was lawyers (the ones that weren't at the top of crime pyramid in the financial sector). 10s of 1000s of lawyers lost jobs.

But when USA has 95% of the lawyers on the planet, you have to ask why USA is so over-lawyered and litigious. Actually, with so many lawyers, they certainly go around looking for clients. so the more laywers there are, the more lawyering.

**TeyshaBlue** · 08-20-2012

Originally Posted by boutons_deux

Ryan's plan, which Gecko says is essentially identical to his own:

"According to an analysis by the Education Trust that was provided to the Huffington Post, the House Republican budget would ultimately knock more than one million students off of Pell Grants entirely:

More than 1 million students would lose Pell grants entirely over the next 10 years under Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget, according to an analysis that the national reform organization Education Trust provided to The Huffington Post.

And by the looks of it, the Ryan budget, which is slated to hit the House floor this week, would hit the poorest kids hardest. [...]

The budget would cut Pell grant eligibility for students who attend classes on a less-than-halftime schedule — which usually means low-income students who need to work their way through college.

And it gets worse. Sixty percent of students who receive Pell grants also take out loans — twice the rate for college students overall — so they might be doubly hit by the Ryan cuts: In addition to receiving less Pell money, they would have to start paying interest on their loans while still in school."

http://thinkprogress.org/education/2...n-pell-grants/

some people used to work their way through college, but working for $10/hour, or usually less, full-time, that's $20K/year, but what college student works a job 40 hours/week?

Repugs had twice passed House budgets that hard poor people of all ages.

After WWII, going to college on the GI Bill was quite common, since the wealthy were paying 90% marginal tax rate and ALL taxpayers were paying higher than now. Today's military assistance for college doesn't enable people to pay for college, and the 1% are paying 15% or less tax.

lol Repugs. An estimated 1 million losses over 10 years...bout 100k/year. The enlightened progressives clearly have taken an early lead in the cut-a-thon.

http://www.dailycal.org/2012/03/22/h...student-loans/

"However, the federal government has already made recent cuts to federal financial aid. In December, President Barack Obama signed a legislative compromise that tightened eligibility requirements for Pell Grant recipients, cutting Pell Grants for an estimated 100,000 students nationwide"

Personally, I would like to see a broader plan put in place than Pell. It can be difficult to qualify under some Pell guidelines and with a $5,500 annual cap, it's not even remotely comprehensive. Students have to string together many different funding sources. Of the 3 kids I've put through college (only 2 more to go

.), none have relied solely on a Pell grant. , the average grant is only $2900. The implication that cutting Pell would doom 1 million students is asinine and intellectually dishonest...bout what you would expect from Fox News or Thinkprogress. lol

**boutons_deux** · 08-20-2012

Repugs have cut Pell grant program since coming into power in 2010 (along with -25% heating oil support for poor people), so there is NO DOUBT if Gecko/Ryan win along with a Repug Congress, Ryan's refusal to specify which spendnig cuts will pay for the tax cuts for the 1% and corps will very clearly fall on Pell as well as all the other safety net programs. NO ING DOUBT

**TeyshaBlue** · 08-20-2012

Originally Posted by TeyshaBlue

The implication that cutting Pell would doom 1 million students is asinine and intellectually dishonest...bout what you would expect from Fox News or Thinkprogress. lol

**boutons_deux** · 08-20-2012

TB

**spursncowboys** · 08-20-2012

My kids are going to any college they want for free... But only if they get a degree that pays them right out of college, above poverty level.

I think if people put 50k in a psychology, english, or art degree and cannot find work, then that's their problem.

**SA210** · 08-20-2012

One of the biggest frauds/rip offs are the cost of books. Amazing how they get away with that crap. 1 to 2 bills for a frickin book! Add em all up and daaaaamn.

What a frickin scam.

**Venti Quattro** · 08-20-2012

I'd enroll my kids in UTSA. loljk

**LnGrrrR** · 08-20-2012

Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

For some dumb reason, the universities always are able to fill the classes. Less help from the government would make it harder to fill the classes and the universities... supply and demand again... would lower the costs.

Originally Posted by ElNono

That makes no sense, unless you're stating education would suffer in that scenario. Would you please elaborate?

WC, you could've just said "Yes education would suffer". That would've been much shorter.

And boy, I wonder why all those dummies are taking college classes?

**LnGrrrR** · 08-20-2012

Originally Posted by johnsmith

Question for anyone willing to answer.....do you plan on persuading your children to go to college? I have 17 1/2 years to think about this one, but right now, I'm leaning towards no.

Yes, not even a question.

**Venti Quattro** · 08-20-2012

Unless you have a superpower or talents that will get you millions instantly, go to college.

People in the hoodz all dream of getting into college, and you shouldn't waste that opportunity.

**leemajors** · 08-20-2012

Originally Posted by SA210

One of the biggest frauds/rip offs are the cost of books. Amazing how they get away with that crap. 1 to 2 bills for a frickin book! Add em all up and daaaaamn.

What a frickin scam.

The scam is the sellback at 25-50% of cost tbh.

**LnGrrrR** · 08-20-2012

Originally Posted by leemajors

The scam is the sellback at 25-50% of cost tbh.

I just keep them. Who knows, I may actually need to reference them one day.

**leemajors** · 08-20-2012

Originally Posted by LnGrrrR

I just keep them. Who knows, I may actually need to reference them one day.

I kept a lot of literary anthologies, but little else.

**baseline bum** · 08-20-2012

Originally Posted by SA210

One of the biggest frauds/rip offs are the cost of books. Amazing how they get away with that crap. 1 to 2 bills for a frickin book! Add em all up and daaaaamn.

What a frickin scam.

Check this ; it's ridiculous.

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=115596

This is amazing; I was on Amazon looking for a copy of one of my favorite books of all time, Structure and Interpretation of Computer programs, and I saw two copies of the book that looked almost identical except the cover on sale for wildly different prices.

Book 1
http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Inte...3284221&sr=8-1

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Second Edition (Hardcover)
by Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman
Hardcover: 657 pages
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math; 2 edition (August 1, 1996)
Language: English
$111.60

Book 2

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - 2nd Edition (MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science)
by Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman
Hardcover: 657 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press; 2 edition (July 25, 1996)
Language: English
$59.04

I was in shock. The exact same edition of the same book, both hardcovers, and one is twice as much. Then I read the critique from a Caltech professor whose class uses this book:

Originally Posted by Michael Vanier, professor of Computer Science at Caltech

http://www.amazon.com/Press-edition-...sin=0262011530

As I tell my students, the MIT press version uses dark blue ink (really violet) on the cover, whereas the McGraw-Hill book uses light blue ink. Obviously, light blue ink is so much more expensive than dark blue ink as to more than double the price of the entire book.

Snark aside, the real reason is that textbook publishers gouge the textbook-buying public, and specifically the bulk-buyers. I tried to bulk-buy the MIT Press version, hoping to save money for my students, but I was told that only the McGraw-Hill version could be purchased in bulk (e.g. 100 copies at a time, for a course). I find this system reprehensible, but don't blame the authors; they've put the entire contents of the book on the MIT Press website where it can be read for free. I've met two of the authors and they are wonderful people.

Note that there is exactly zero, zip, nada difference between the two editions. They are identical except for the cover.

Sickening. Like the prof said, this book is completely free to read online; one of the authors, Hal Abelson, is the founder of the Free Software Foundation (Its most famous work is in funding the GNU project; the one that has given us all GNU/Linux for free both as in free beer and as in freedom). The other author, Sussman, is also a member of the FSF and publishes his texts online for free also. It's certainly not greed of the authors causing this .

Here's the full book online; if you have any interest in computer science, this is maybe the best book ever written on the subject.
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html

you McGraw-Hill.