I just stopped in to read page 22.


its so good, I'm headed to page 1.
good times.

Enjoy the shit show.

I think we can all agree that that circumstances that a baby boomer came up in and a millennial are completely different. Either way hard work is required, I know boomers that live paycheck to paycheck, I know boomers that have a couple million in the bank from pensions and modest investments.

As far a working minimum wage and paying off a college degree, I did it as a Gen X'er. 2 years of junior college, 2.5 years of ASU, paid my tuition/books off by the end of every semester. Did I have fun, FUCK NO. I drove a clapped out car, ate ramen and worked 40hrs a week while taking 12-15 credit hours a semester. Never went to a college party, never went to "spring break".

There are no guaranteed outcomes in life, some people work their fingers to the bone and have nothing, others barely lift a finger and have way more than they will ever need. I don't hear people alive during the depression bitching and moaning.

preach.
same here.

bad decisions by all.

For the intelligent few like yourself, the rewards will come after you graduate and you are no longer in school.

But they don’t.

I mean they do, but they have been decimated.

Junior could head of to college in 1968, after a summer job at say 2.00 an hour (minimum wage was 1.60.)
He had like 700 bucks.
Tuition and fees at state U were 450/year
Rent was 75 dollars a month.
He brought in 30 bucks working every weekend.

That’s like, in today’s dollars,
an 18$ an hour job.
4K a year tuition and fees
660 a month rent.

Those numbers were much worse in 1988, more worse in 2008, and today
The same university is 20K a year tuition/fees
The same apartment is 1800 a month.

Also, when that guy graduated -with his new engineering degree-
His starting pay was more than the median household income.
And while corrected for inflation that median household income is about the same as now,
That was majority single income households, not majority household incomes like now.

Most engineering majors will be starting at less than median household income now.
They will also not be getting a defined benefits pension or covered medical/dental like he would have had like a 60% chance of getting then.

1968 guy, if young and single also bought himself a kick ass corvette for about 40K in today’s dollars and a Rolex GMT or Submariner for about 1500 in today’s dollars.
That little home in the nice area he bought was 200K in today’s dollars.

A new Vette is now 80K, the Rolex is 12K, and the exact same home is 400K.

He settled down, got married, got a few promotions, wife got pregnant, and bought a new big home on the lake for 350K in today’s dollars.  That exact same home is now a 750K home.

The same work, effort, and accomplishment do not gain the same reward.  The same rewards are out priced.

If millennials knew how much college costs and they still chose to go then why are they crying about how it costs more then it did 40 years ago.

Because boomers started requiring 4 year degrees to manage a shift change at a Wendy’s

Poor parenting

I always wonder, when these threads run, what kind of grades do most of these college bound have in HS? What classes did they take? Did they take the basic Algebra 1 and 2 or did they take the harder courses like trig, calc, function and statistics and the hardest sciences? Was most of their times spent on what are basic ''shit'' courses that really don't even teach the basics of education and are mostly ''human fluff'' throw away lib trash?

Did they go after all the little scholarships that there are and which roll over yearly if your grades are decent? Those little scholarships are everywhere, sure they take a bit of work to apply and most want a short letter and some have some course type requirements but they are out there WAY more then people think.

What courses were applied for in college and are they centered in area's that are proven money earners and hard sciences or the typical bullshit DEI liberal claptrap with low earning potential for most even if some people do succeed is earning decent money. If loans were applied for, did those students also try to work at the college or a PT job or was it ''PARTY TIME!!!!" and using student loan money for things that have nothing to do with actual education? [sorry, pizza, alcohol, gaming computers and gaming BS and parties are NOT education related, FU if you spent student loan $$$ on the above] Did the students work hard at actual learning in college or cheat as much as possible and scrape by? Did they even finish college and get a degree, if you drop out part or almost all the way through, you still owe but you don't have the degree/sheepskin.

A huge percentage of college bound people never bother to think about the financial aspects until they don't want to pay for it and cry foul. WaHHHHHH.

Because you can’t have a surgeon, engineer, dentist, materials science guy making better body armor, comp sci guy, etc. without college, and some people want to be that guy.

And someone going to college now is paying proportionally twice what their parents paid and four times what their grandparents paid for that education.

While merit based scholarships have cratered and largely been funneled so social justice matriculants without merit, and other useless prospects based on need, not potential.

While concurrently watching a lot of other useless mouth breathing oxygen thieves receive housing, food, medical, etc. subsidization but they themselves getting ass raped proportionally compared to their parents and grandparents on housing, medical, transportation, insurance, etc. costs.

These young adults and families know shit got better each generation and kind of peaked for late silent Gen/first half of the boomers,- and has gone downhill since.

All they want is the same economy, culture, society, etc. that cohort had.
Or at least not to be shit on for wanting it or mocked and denied that they got fucked.

The below was written by Robert A. Heinlein I believe in the late 60s.  I had first read it in the 1980s and again in the early 90s and understood it better.  I had a professor that had heard him speak on the topic- and the basic premise is post WWII there was a 50% increase in college enrollment and a lot a new little colleges formed to lap up .gov money- and that the intent of getting more good people meant for college that couldn’t afford it was overshadowed by a lot of sub par institutions and students and the democratization of education.  And that by the time the kids born in the 40s got to college and flood of enrollment- and demand for degrees without having to work hard or be smart or do hard classes, and impact of compulsory secondary education ,etc. had already been changing even more reputable institutions that were - while still full of hard courses and majors and bright students, were developing a growing sub population of “non college material students with horrible elementary and secondary educations learning nothing to get a worthless degree.”  And obviously the trend hads grown and evolved into what we have now.

buy Expanded Universe.  This is included in it.


Decline of Education
My father never went to college. He attended high school in a southern Missouri town of 3000+, then attended a private 2-year academy roughly analogous to junior college today, except that it was very small—had to be; a day school, and Missouri had no paved roads. Here are some of the subjects he studied in back-country 19th century schools: Latin, Greek, physics (natural philosophy), French, geometry, algebra, 1st year calculus, bookkeeping, American history, World history, chemistry, geology.

Twenty-eight years later I attended a much larger city high school. I took Latin and French but Greek was not offered; I took physics and chemistry but geology was not offered. I took geometry and algebra but calculus was not offered. I took American history and ancient history but no comprehensive history course was offered. Anyone wishing comprehensive history could take (each a one-year 5-hrs/wk course) ancient history, medieval history, modem European history, and American history—and note that the available courses ignored all of Asia, all of South America, all of Africa except ancient Egypt, and touched Canada and Mexico solely with respect to our wars with each. I’ve had to repair what I missed with a combination of travel and private study … and must admit that I did not tackle Chinese history in depth until this year. My training in history was so spotty that it was not until I went to the Naval Academy and saw captured battle flags that I learned that we fought Korea some eighty years earlier than the mess we are still trying to clean up. From my father’s textbook I know that the world history course he studied was not detailed (how could it be?) but at least it treated the world as round; it did not ignore three fourths of our planet. Now, let me report what I’ve seen, heard, looked up, clipped out of newspapers and elsewhere, and read in books such as Why Johnny Can’t Read, The Blackboard Jungle, etc. Colorado Springs, our home until 1965, in 1960 offered first-year Latin—but that was all. Caesar, Cicero, Virgil—Who dat? Latin is not taught in the high schools of Santa Cruz County. From oral reports and clippings I note that it is not taught in most high schools across the country. “Why this emphasis on Latin? It’s a dead language!”

Brother, as with jazz, in the words of a great artist, “If you have to ask, you ain’t never goin’ to find out.” A person who knows only his own language does not even know his own language; epistemology necessitates knowing more than one human language. Besides that sharp edge, Latin is a giant help in all the sciences—and so is Greek, so I studied it on my own. A friend of mine, now a dean in a state university, was a tenured professor of history—but got riffed when history was eliminated from the required subjects for a bachelor’s degree. His courses (American history) are still offered but the one or two who sign up, he tutors; the overhead of a classroom cannot be justified. A recent Wall Street Journal story described the bloodthirsty job hunting that goes on at the annual meeting of the Modern Languages Association; modern languages—even English—are being deemphasized right across the country; there are more professors in MLA than there are jobs.

I mentioned elsewhere the straight-A student on a scholarship who did not know the relations between weeks, months, and years. This is not uncommon; high school and college students in this country usually can’t do simple arithmetic without using a pocket calculator. (I mean with pencil on paper; to ask one to do mental arithmetic causes jaws to drop—say 17 x 34, done mentally. How? Answer: Chuck away the 34 but remember it. (10 + 7)2 is 289, obviously. Double it: 2(300 - 11), or 578. But my father would have given the answer at once, as his country grammar school a century ago required perfect memorizing of multiplication tables through 20 x 20 = 400 … so his ciphering the above would have been merely the doubling of a number already known (289)—or 578. He might have done it again by another route to check it: (68 + 510)—but his hesitation would not have been noticeable. Was my father a mathematician? Not at all. Am I? Hell, no!

This is the simplest sort of kitchen arithmetic, the sort that high school students can no longer do—at least in Santa Cruz. If they don’t study math and languages and history, what do they study? (Nota Bene! Any student can learn the truly tough subjects on almost any campus if he/she wishes—the professors and books and labs are there. But the student must want to.) But if that student does not want to learn anything requiring brain sweat, most U.S. campuses will babysit him 4 years, then hand him a baccalaureate for not burning down the library. That girl in Colorado Springs who studied Latin—but no classic Latin—got a “general” bachelor’s degree at the University of Colorado in 1964. I attended her graduation, asked what she had majored in. No major. What had she studied? Nothing, really, it turned out—and, sure enough, she’s as ignorant today as she was in high school. Santa Cruz has an enormous, lavish 2-year college and also a campus of the University of California, degree granting through Ph.D. level. But, since math and languages and history are not required, let’s see how they fill the other classrooms.

The University of California (all campuses) is classed as a “tough school.” It is paralleled by a State University system with lower entrance requirements, and this is paralleled by local junior colleges (never called “junior”) that accept any warm body. UCSC was planned as an elite school (“The Oxford of the West”) but falling enrollment made it necessary to accept any applicant who can qualify for the University of California as a whole; therefore UCSC now typifies the “statewide campus.” Entrance can be by examination (usually College Entrance Examination Boards) or by high school certificate. Either way, admission requires a certain spread—2 years of math, 2 of a modern language, 1 of a natural science, 1 of American history, 3 years of English—and a level of performance that translates as B+. There are two additional requirements: English composition, and American History and Institutions. The second requirement acknowledges that some high schools do not require American history; UCSC permits an otherwise acceptable applicant to make up this deficiency (with credit) after admission. The first additional requirement, English composition, can be met by written examination such as CEEB, or by transferring college credits considered equivalent, or, lacking either of these, by passing an examination given at UCSC at the start of each quarter. The above looks middlin’ good on the surface. College requirements from high school have been watered down somewhat (or more than somewhat) but that B+ average as a requirement looks good … if high schools are teaching what they taught two and three generations ago. The rules limit admission to the upper 8% of California high school graduates (out-of-state applicants must meet slightly higher requirements). 8%—So 92% fall by the wayside. These 8% are the intellectual elite of young adults of the biggest, richest, and most lavishly educated state in the Union. Those examinations for the English-composition requirement: How can anyone fail who has had 3 years of high school English and averages B+ across the board? If he fails to qualify, he may enter but must take at once (no credit) “Subject A”—better known as “Bonehead English.” “Bonehead English” must be repeated, if necessary, until passed. To be forced to take this no-credit course does not mean that the victim splits an occasional infinitive, sometimes has a dangling modifier, or a failure in agreement or case—he can even get away with such atrocities, as “—like I say—.” It means that he has reached the Groves of Academe unable to express himself by writing in the English language.

It means that his command of his native language does not equal that of a 12-year-old country grammar school graduate of ninety years ago. It means that he verges on subliterate but that his record is such in other ways that the University will tutor him (no credit and for a fee) rather than turn him away. But, since these students are the upper 8% and each has had not less than three years of high school English, it follows that only the exceptionally unfortunate student needs “Bonehead English.” That’s right, isn’t it? Each one is eighteen years old, old enough to vote, old enough to contract or to marry without consulting parents, old enough to hang for murder, old enough to have children (and some do); all have had 12 years of schooling including 11 years of English, 3 of them in high school. (Stipulated: California has special cases to whom English is not native language. But such a person who winds up in that upper 8% is usually—I’m tempted to say “always”—fully literate in English.) So here we have the cream of California’s young adults; each has learned to read and write and spell and has been taught the basics of English during eight years in grammar school, and has polished this by not less than three years of English in high school—and also has had at least two years of a second language, a drill that vastly illuminates the subject of grammar even though grasp of the second language may be imperfect. It stands to reason that very few applicants need “Bonehead English.” Yes? No! I have just checked. The new class at UCSC is “about 50%” in Bonehead English—and this is normal—normal right across California—and California is no worse than most of the states. 8% off the top— Half of this elite 8% must take “Bonehead English.”

The prosecution rests.  This scandal must be charged to grammar and high school teachers … many of whom are not themselves literate (I know!)—but are not personally to blame, as we are now in the second generation of illiteracy. The blind lead the blind. But what happens after this child (sorry—young adult citizen) enters UCSC? I TELL YOU THREE TIMES I TELL YOU THREE TIMES I TELL YOU THREE TIMES: A student who wants an education can get one at UCSC in a number of very difficult subjects, plus a broad general education. I ask you never to forget this while we see how one can slide through, never do any real work, never learn anything solid, and still receive a bachelor of arts degree from the prestigious University of California. Although I offer examples from the campus I know best, I assume conclusively that this can be done throughout the state, as it is one statewide university operating under one set of rules. Some guidelines apply to any campus: Don’t pick a medical school or an engineering school. Don’t pick a natural science that requires difficult mathematics. (A subject called “science” that does not require difficult mathematics usually is “science” in the sense that “Christian Science” is science—in its widest sense “science” simply means “knowledge” and anyone may use the word for any subject … but shun the subjects that can’t be understood without mind-stretching math.) Try to get a stupid but good-natured adviser. There are plenty around, especially in subjects in which to get a no-sweat degree; Sturgeon’s Law applies to professors as well as to other categories. For a bachelor’s degree:

1) You must spend the equivalent of one academic year in acquiring “breadth”—but wait till you see the goodies!

2) You must take the equivalent of one full academic year in your major subject in upper division courses, plus prerequisite lower division courses. Your 4-year program you must rationalize to your adviser as making sense for your major (“Doctor, I picked that course because it is so far from my major—for perspective. I was getting too narrow.” He’ll beam approvingly … or you had better look for a stupider adviser).

3) Quite a lot of time will be spent off campus but counted toward your degree. This should be fun, but it can range from hard labor at sea, to counting noses and asking snoopy questions of “ethnics” (excuse, please!), to time in Europe or Hong Kong, et al., where you are in danger of learning something new and useful even if you don’t try.

4) You will be encouraged to take interdisciplinary majors and are invited (urged) to invent and justify unheard-of new lines of study. For this you need the talent of a used-car salesman as any aggregation of courses can be sold as a logical pattern if your “new” subject considers the many complex relationships between three or four or more old and orthodox fields. Careful here! If you are smart enough to put this over, you may find yourself not only earning a baccalaureate but in fact, doing original work worthy of a Ph.D. (You won’t get it.)

5) You must have at least one upper-division seminar. Pick one in which the staff leader likes your body odor and you like his. (“I do not like thee, Dr. Fell; the reason why I cannot tell—”) But you’ve at least two years in which to learn which professors in your subject are simpatico, and which ones to avoid at any cost.

6) You must write a 10,000 word thesis on your chosen nonsubject and may have to defend it orally. If you can’t write 10,000 words of bull on a bull subject, you’ve made a mistake—you may have to work for a living.

The rules above allow plenty of elbowroom; at least three out of four courses can be elective and the remainder elective in part, from a long menu. We are still talking solely about nonmathematical subjects. If you are after a Ph.D. in astronomy, UCSC is a wonderful place to get one … but you will start by getting a degree in physics including the toughest of mathematics, and will study also chemistry, geology, technical photography, computer science—and will resent any time not leading toward the ultra-interdisciplinary subject lumped under the deceptively simple word “astronomy.” Breadth—the humanities, natural science, and social science—1/3 in each, total 3/3 or one academic year, but spread as suits you over the years. Classically “the humanities” are defined as literature, philosophy, and art—but history has been added since it stopped being required in college and became “social studies” in secondary schools. “Natural science” does not necessarily mean what it says—it can be a “nonalcoholic gin”; see below.

“Social science” means that grab bag of studies in which answers are matters of opinion. Courses satisfying “breadth” requirements Humanities Literature and Politics—political & moral choices in literature Philosophy of the Self Philosophy of History in the Prose and Poetry of W B. Yeats Art and the Perceptual Process The Fortunes of Faust Science and the American Culture (satisfies both the Humanities requirement and the American History and Institutions requirement without teaching any science or any basic American History. A companion course, Science and Pressure Politics, satisfies both the Social Sciences requirement and the American History and Institutions requirement while teaching still less; it concentrates on the post-World-War-II period and concerns scientists as lobbyists and their own interactions [rows] with Congress and the President. Highly recommended as a way to avoid learning American history or very much social “science.”) American Country Music—Whee! You don’t play it, you listen. Man and the Cosmos—philosophy, sorta. Not science. Science Fiction (I refrain from comment.) The Visual Arts—“What, if any, are the critical and artistic foundations for judgment in the visual arts?”—exact quotation from catalog. Mysticism—that’s what it says. (The above list is incomplete.) Natural Science requirement General Astronomy—no mathematics required Marine Biology—no mathematics required Sound, Music, and Tonal Properties of Musical Instruments—neither math nor music required for this one! Seminar: Darwin’s Explanation Mathematical Ideas—for nonmathematicians; requires only that high school math you must have to enter. The Phenomenon of Man—“—examine the question of whether there remains any meaning to human values.” (Oh, the pity of it all!) Physical Geography: Climate The Social “Sciences” requirement Any course in Anthropology—many have no pre-req. Introduction to Art Education—You don’t have to make art; you study how to teach it. Music and the Enlightenment—no technical knowledge of music required. This is a discussion of the effect of music on philosophical, religious, and social ideas, late 18th-early 19th centuries. That is what it says—and it counts as “social science.” The Novel of Adultery—and this, too, counts as “social science.” I don’t mind anyone studying this subject or teaching it—but I object to its being done on my (your, our) tax money.


(P.S. The same bloke teaches science fiction. He doesn’t write science fiction; I don’t know what his qualifications are in this other field.) Human Sexuality Cultural Roots for Verbal and Visual Expression—a fancy name of still another “creative writing” class with frills—the students are taught how to draw out “other culture” pupils. So it says. All the 30-odd “Community Studies” courses qualify as “social science,” but I found myself awed by these two: Politics and Violence, which studies, among other things, “political assassination as sacrifice” and Leisure and Recreation in the Urban Community (“Bread and Circuses”). Again, listing must remain incomplete; I picked those below as intriguing: Seminar: Evil and the Devil in the Hindu Tradition. Science and Pressure Politics—already mentioned on page 237 (Volume II) as the course that qualifies both as social “science” and as American History and Institutions while teaching an utter minimum about each. The blind man now has hold of the elephant’s tail. The Political Socialization of La Raza—another double header, social “science” and American History and Institutions. It covers greater time span (from 1900 rather than from 1945) but it’s like comparing cheese and chalk to guess which one is narrower in scope in either category.


The name of this game is to plan a course involving minimum effort and minimum learning while “earning” a degree under the rules of the nation’s largest and most prestigious state university. To take care of “breadth” and also the American history your high school did not require I recommend Science and Pressure Politics, The Phenomenon of Man, and American Country Music. These three get you home free without learning any math, history, or language that you did not already know … and without sullying your mind with science. You must pick a major … but it must not involve mathematics, history, or actually being able to read a second language. This rules out all natural sciences (this campus’s greatest strength). Anthropology? You would learn something in spite of yourself; you’d get interested. Art? Better not major in it without major talent. Economics can be difficult, but also and worse, you may incline toward the Chicago or the Austrian school and not realize it until your (Keynesian or Marxist) instructor has failed you with a big black mark against your name. Philosophy? Easy and lots of fun and absolutely guaranteed not to teach you anything while loosening up your mind. In more than twenty-five centuries of effort not one basic problem of philosophy has ever been solved … but the efforts to solve them are most amusing. The same goes for comparative religion as a major: You won’t actually learn anything you can sink your teeth into … but you’ll be vastly entertained—if the Human Comedy entertains you. It does me. Psychology, Sociology, Politics, and Community Studies involve not only risk of learning something—not much, but something—and each is likely to involve real work, tedious and lengthy. To play this game and win, with the highest score, it’s Hobson’s choice: American literature. I assume that you did not have to take Bonehead English and that you can type. In a school that has no school of education (UCSC has none) majoring in English Literature is the obvious way to loaf through four years. It will be necessary to cater to the whims of professors who know no more than you do about anything that matters … but catering to your mentors is necessary in any subject not ruled by mathematics.

Have you noticed that professors of English and/or American Literature are not expected to be proficient in the art they profess to teach? Medicine is taught by M.D.’s on living patients, civil engineering is taught by men who in fact have built bridges that did not fall; law is taught by lawyers; music is taught by musicians; mathematics is taught by mathematicians—and so on. But is—for example—the American Novel taught by American novelists? Yes. Occasionally. But so seldom that the exceptions stand out. John Barth. John Erskine fifty years ago. Several science-fiction writers almost all of whom were selling writers long before they took the King’s Shilling. A corporal’s guard in our whole country out of battalions of English profs. For a Ph.D. in American/English literature a candidate is not expected to write literature; he is expected to criticize it. Can you imagine a man being awarded an M.D. for writing a criticism of some great physician without ever himself having learned to remove an appendix or to diagnose Herpes zoster? And for that dissertation then be hired to teach therapy to medical students? There is, of course, a reason for this nonsense. The rewards to a competent novelist are so much greater than the salaries of professors of English at even our top schools that once he/she learns this racket, teaching holds no charms. There are exceptions—successful storytellers who like to teach so well that they keep their jobs and write only during summers, vacations, evenings, weekends, sabbaticals. I know a few—emphasis on “few.” But most selling wordsmiths are lazy, contrary, and so opposed to any fixed regime that they will do anything—even meet a deadline—rather than accept a job. Most professors of English can’t write publishable novels … and many of them can’t write nonfiction prose very well—certainly not with the style and distinction and grace—and content—of Professor of Biology Thomas H. Huxley. Or Professor of Astronomy Sir Fred Hoyle. Or Professor of Physics John R. Pierce. Most Professors of English get published, when they do, by university presses or in professional quarterlies. But fight it out for cash against Playboy, and Travis McGee? They can’t and they don’t! But if you are careful not to rub their noses in this embarrassing fact and pay respectful attention to their opinions even about (ugh!) “creative writing,” they will help you slide through to a painless baccalaureate. You still have time for many electives and will need them for your required hours-units-courses; here are some fun-filled ones that will teach you almost nothing: The Fortunes of Faust Mysticism The Search for a New Life Style The American Dilemma—Are “all men equal”?

Enology—history, biology, and chemistry of wine-making and wine appreciation. This one will teach you something but it’s too good to miss. Western Occultism: Magic, Myth, and Heresy. There is an entire college organized for fun and games (“aesthetic enrichment”). It offers courses for credit but you’ll be able to afford noncredit activity as well in your lazyman’s course—and anything can be turned into credit by some sincere selling to your adviser and/or Academic Committee. I have already listed nine of its courses but must add: Popular Culture —plus clubs or “guilds” for gardening, photography, filmmedia, printing, pottery, silkscreening, orchestra, jazz, etc. Related are Theater Arts. These courses give credit, including: Films of Fantasy and Imagination—fantasy, horror, SF, etc. (!) Seminar on Films Filmmaking History and Aesthetics of Silent Cinema History and Aesthetics of Cinema since Sound Introduction to World Cinema Sitting and looking at movies can surely be justified for an English major. Movies and television use writers—as little as possible, it’s true. But somewhat; the linkage is there. Enjoy yourself while it lasts. These dinosaurs are on their way to extinction.

The 2-year “warm body” campus is even more lavish than UCSC. It is a good trade school for some things—e.g., dental assistant. But it offers a smorgasbord of fun—Symbolism of the Tarot, Intermediate Contract Bridge, Folk Guitar, Quilting, Horseshoeing, Chinese Cooking, Hearst Castle Tours, Modern Jazz, Taoism, Hatha Yoga Asanas, Aikido, Polarity Therapy, Mime, Raku, Bicycling, Belly Dancing, Shiatsu Massage, Armenian Cuisine, Revelation and Prophecy, Cake Art, Life Insurance Sales Techniques, Sexuality and Spirituality, Home Bread Baking, Ecuadorian Backstrap Weaving, The Tao of Physics, and lots, lots more! One of the newest courses is “The Anthropology of Science Fiction” and I’m still trying to figure that out. I have no objection to any of this … but why should this kindergarten be paid for by taxes? “Bread and Circuses.”

I first started noticing the decline of education through mail from readers. I have saved mail from readers for forty years. Shortly after World War Two I noticed that letters from the youngest were not written but hand-printed. By the middle fifties deterioration in handwriting and in spelling became very noticeable. By today a letter from a youngster in grammar school or in high school is usually difficult to read and sometimes illegible—penmanship atrocious (pencilmanship
—nine out of ten are in soft pencil, with well-smudged pages), spelling unique, grammar an arcane art. Most youngsters have not been taught how to fold 8½" x 11" paper for the two standard sizes of envelopes intended for that standard sheet. Then such defects began to show up among college students. Apparently “Bonehead English” (taught everywhere today so I hear) is not sufficient to repair the failure of grammar and high school teachers who themselves in most cases were not adequately taught. I saw sharply this progressive deterioration because part of my mail comes from abroad, especially Canada, the United Kingdom, the Scandinavian countries, and Japan. A letter from any part of the Commonwealth is invariably neat, legible, grammatical, correct in spelling, and polite. The same applies to letters from Scandinavian countries. (Teenagers of Copenhagen usually speak and write English better than most teenagers of Santa Cruz.) Letters from Japan are invariably neat—but the syntax is sometimes odd. I have one young correspondent in Tokyo who has been writing steadily these past four years. The handwriting in the first letter was almost stylebook perfect but I could hardly understand the phrasing; now, four years later, the handwriting looks the same but command of grammar, syntax, and rhetoric is excellent, with only an occasional odd choice in wording giving an exotic flavor.

Our public schools no longer give good value. We remain strong in science and engineering but even students in those subjects are handicapped by failures of our primary and secondary schools and by cutback in funding of research both public and private. Our great decline in education is alone enough to destroy this country … but I offer no solutions because the only solutions I think would work are so drastic as to be incredible.

You said it man. Nothing says pull yourself up by your bootstraps like being able to put $200 down on a 2,400sqft home. Meanwhile, $50,000 maybe covers a 1/5th of a decent home now. Very cool.

I'd love to disagree with him but I can't.

My son went to Kettering for Chem and then went on and got his Masters and I know how many hours he spent studying when he did come home. If he wasn't sleeping or eating, the vast majority of his time was hitting the books/computer. He got a full ride from Kettering [I paid for all else] and then he worked full time, went on with his education, and got his Masters and paid for it all. He walked out with zero college debt. It CAN be done but you aren't going to be ''the'' party dude either and you need an area of study that can financially reward your hard work and sacrifice. [and it is for the people that want an education in the harder areas]

I had Algebra 1 and 2 in junior high school 7th and 8th grade back in 1970-71
You mention people taking those courses in college?
I took trig and calc. in highschool.

Did all the same in junior high and high school. Y’all actually don’t think they teach algebra and stuff below college?

No, high school.

But talk with people involved with getting courses set up for  lot of HS kids going on to college. The first year of classes [and sometimes more] are often nothing but high school courses to bring the now college student up to a level that they can take even the basic college courses. And those courses are not ''free'' anymore, but if they aren't taken, the student is likely screwed because they have no idea what they are doing because they have nothing to base what the first year college courses are on because they never learned the prior knowledge those courses build on.

I'd wager a small sum that a significant minority, if not a slight majority of ''hard math and science'' college courses were really merely high school level that were never learned in high school or, the student was passed thru HS and had a grade school education at best. [up until 9th grade]

Similarly, in the 80s Algebra was a freshman (college) required core class unless you could CLEP out of it (I think they could take a test, or alternatively you could have gone to a certain level of math in HS (Precalc or Calc maybe), to CLEP out of Algebra. Was a crazy number of kids having to take Algebra during their 1st semester of college .

Depends on the students typically. I was taking Calc 2 my first semester of college, I also know people who took remedial math. We graduated the same year in high school.

Now do that with the cost of having and raising a child.


There is no way we get out of this trajectory with, “you can only work on yourself to pull yourself up by the bootstraps!” There really isn’t a way out of it without the gubmint so do you want an AOC solution or a conservative solution?

This was my experience as well, 20 years ago. I placed out of Calc 1 with my AP Calc score from high school, started college in Calc 2. Took Calc 3 and a few other math courses (mostly in the engineering department, I seem to remember some matrix math thrown in). Ended up with a History degree because I decided that designing circuits all day wasn't for me, and I didn't like writing software.

Still ended up with a nice career in IT doing endpoint management and sysadmin stuff...with a decent bit of it writing code for automation, ironically enough.

Lol. Scholarships. There are millions of college students that attend every year. Way more students than available scholarships. Especially true if you are a Straight White Male (SWM) without connections to rich/elite. I think there was 1 scholarship that I even qualified for, $500, and I wasn't selected.  Then again, I didn't have a ton of time to do scholarships between commuting all over the place, going to school full-time, homework and studying, working 30-36 hours a week, and trying to keep up with National Guard stuff.

No time for parties. My friend that wasn't in college went to more than I did.

I took classes required for my engineering degree. The most useless course I took were Medieval European History (not joking) and 18th Century English Literature. Figure 4.5 classes a semester, and I attended 11 semesters, so took over 50 college courses, those were 2.

Public speaking was completely worthwhile. Everything else was math, science, or engineering.

You do hit on one important point though.
Most people who have student loan debt (as in, over 50%) do NOT have a degree.

Standard college prep in the rural schools typically had A1 as freshman, geo/trig as sophomores, A2 as juniors, pre-cal as seniors.  They simply didn’t have the numbers for starting in junior high and being done with BC or even AB Calc.
These are places with like 15-40 kids per Grade.  
Non college prep tracks did not even get algebra.

Bigger schools can get the A1, etc. knocked out at the end of middle school / what used to be junior high because they have more than a couple of kids to do it and have the staffing for it.

But yes, many college graduates for the past decade or two have completed no math in college.  They can graduate with the same Algebra One that used to be a junior high/freshman class.  Or, failing that, a basic stats class or something.

And there is argument against that. The unfairness of a college graduate having to pass some basic math.

TLDR; OK Boomer

You can directly thank FJB for this mess.

When the FBHO administration took over student loans, the price of college went up exponentially.  They were told this would happen. They acknowledged this would happen. FJB even bragged that while the price of education would go up, more people would get to go to college.

All this is by design to make housing and education unaffordable, to make an entire generation dependent on the government. Socialism is less than a generation away.

You'd be amazed at how many scholarships go un-awarded because no one applied for them. Problem is, they are not 50K scholarships, they are $1000, $1500 and the like. However, most will follow the student if their grades are kept up and the awarding concern gets an occasional update. Free money is free money.

My kid is a SWM. Had scholarships thrown at him. navy offered him a full ride and a officer slot on a nuke. Kettering made their offer and he had one day left to accept and he had heard nothing from the navy so he took it. Of course right after he accepted, the navy offered him their ride. Kettering even came down and awarded the scholarship at his HS graduation. And Kettering doesn't toss out full rides like cotton candy at a clown convention. They offer 2 a year. [or did when my son went]

However, if you are a mediocre HS student, middling grades, no harder courses [calc 1/2, advanced sciences and so on] and not really college material, don't expect scholarships to fall from heaven like manna. [unless you are a jock that will pull in far more $$$ for the school then what the actual educational costs truly are]

Exactly, but you were paying for a far higher skill level of education VS jr high/early HS educational levels. And, your advancement in college was likely far faster with a better understanding of advanced material.

My wife spent 19 years training to become a physician, her first full year on the job she billed 2x the median for her specialty and got paid, in inflation adjusted terms, 70% less than her father would have in 1992.

She'd make more if she took a W2 job, but still less than Boomers made. They had it good.

And when did your son go?

The world has changed significantly, even in the last decade.

It was written by an early Greatest Gen guy about college going to shit to accommodate Boomers.

I wish he was around to comment on how Boomers grew up and revamped college to make it even shittier and more expensive.  But he would be pushing 120 years old.

Yes.  I have seen dozens of National Merit Finalists/Scholars in the past five or ten years that got Jack shit where they went/wanted to go.
In the 60s/70s/80s they would have had a free ride plus anywhere.

That is more a statement of the education system in general not necessarily of the kids efforts or intelligence.  

As a military kid I saw some of the best (Redmond Wa) and worst public schools (S. Weymouth MA or St Amant LA, it's a toss up) in this country and there were some bright kids but down right horrible teachers and school systems that just didn't work.  I was taking trig in college because my HS teacher in South Louisiana wasn't qualified to teach 2nd grade math and she just didn't give a shit.  In college the physics department had to put in place a beginners physics class because too many STEM track kids were getting wiped out by the freshman physics requirements.  They just didn't have the foundation they needed.  

As to money, i started out with tuition at roughly $800 by graduation it was $1200 or so.  I was making $5 an hour working in oil change and tire shops, moonlighting at bars on the weekends for spare cash.  I finally got some scholarship money my last 2 years but still graduated with loans.  I paid them back, I just looked tuition is now $4k a year.  Average starting salary for my profession has not quadrupled since I graduated.  

Graduated HS in 08.

Even then, I was laughing my ass off seeing youts interviewing for 100k scholarships in ratty sneakers, shorts and a shitty t shirt. The kiddo wore a suit and polished dress shoes.

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Gen X here. I worked through college. Community college for a trade, some quarters I went part time. I did stay at home to keep expenses down. I drove a cheap car. After 3.5 years, I had an associates degree. I didn't buy a home until 2013. The county I had always lived in had high property taxes, so I bought in an adjacent, rural county with low taxes. I had kept my debt low, so I got a 3% interest rate. I had myself prepared to buy when the time was right. I fix up the house, I'm single with 2 cars that have over 100k miles, 4 year old phone and keep my expenses low. Keep your expenses down and be ready to buy when a good deal finally comes around. In the late 80's we had 18% interest rates, etc. I couldn't buy anything then, but I didn't whine about it.

Ok, I’m probably being out-satired here-but-
You’re telling me a kick ass Gen-X generation guy lived at home with mommy and daddy after HS,
Was pushing 4 years to knock out a tech school AS,
Claims he couldn’t buy a house in like 1989 stating a rate twice what some people were getting mortgages for,
Rents for the next 24 years while being single, then buys a fixer upper, etc.

You’re like the Anti-Gen-X.  

I love watching everyone blame the greatest generation for their own laziness and poor spending habits.

I thought the greatest generation pointed and laughed at us boomers for our long hair and bell bottoms. I overheard an uncle at a family reunion say "look at our kids out there, they look like fucking clowns".

Can we get a graph of governemnt handouts for tuition please. I'd like to see the if theres a corralation

The difference between applying to college, going to college, internship, applying for a job, getting a scholarship, etc. from 2008 to now is far more changed than it was, say from 1988 to 2008.

I would agree, we're seeing a lot of financial needs $$$'s flowing with very little in the realm of merit.  

This little jewel popped up, apparently we're going to be more selective in who we let into the flagship universities....

Attached File

But he can use his anecdote to say everything is fine.  Never mind it's 16 years and 3 President's ago.

The funny thing is people take pride in it.

“You know  I got here I am right now because on day one I called and called and stopped in person to get my interview appointment, I showed up dressed professionally, walked in, charmed the hell out of the Director running the board, made eye contact, perfect handshake, and wowed the boss.  I crushed that interview impressed them all, why I …”

Which worked great in 1968, 1988, and even 1998-

But right now your calls would be blocked, you wouldn’t even get into the building or past security,-
If your CV passed the process for an interview, out of the thousands scanned, and you get an appointment, that lady you charmed is now a man hating lesbo who will fight hiring you, the board is under pressure not to hire white males until they have equal numbers of diversity hire representation, the boss you wowed is not some kick ass pilot that was in WWII, Korea, or VN that is so confident and proven he’s dying to hire some kick ass guy in his company he built from the ground up,  it’s an appointed MBA who doesn’t want kick ass threats.  Hell, if he leaves 100 positions un filled this year making others do that work he gets a 10% bonus of the salaries he saved money on.

I repeatedly cannot understand why people that make 87% of their post about how much the world is different, how crazy things are, how expensive stuff is-

All of a sudden- when talking about the cost of education, housing, land, transportation, medical, insurance, etc. or how many others things or so different- for young adults and families-
All of a sudden that concept goes out the window.

So should the government just make it free for them?  That way they won't have to work at all?

I'd guess that's what they really want, but won't just come out and say it, because they'd find out how many people think they are leftists.

But, from their responses, and ramair's pages and pages of rambling, they clearly a) just want us to stop offering our experiences on the off-chance they may get some insight that could benefit them in their own predicament, and b) they want us to repeatedly offer our condolences for their scary future while admitting that they have it worse today than the Boomers and GenX ever have. They are proclaiming their victim status.

Realistically the government should quit spending money towards any tuition to attempt to reverse the damage that started in the last quarter of the 20th century. But that’ll never happen.

Fixed, old boy.