The state of education:

[ginny]

I know that most of out teachers are running a full on marathon each and every day to do the most they can for the greatest number of children. I also understand that children come from different backgrounds and that not every family values education. I am pretty sure I live in a highly educated bubble. I have never seen children attend school hungry or wearing the same clothes they slept in because they had to watch their younger siblings while mom got high. What I do know, though, is that the only way out of that mess for those children is a good education. I come from the west coast. Our state schools are great (or they were). We are a very diverse nation. How do we educate all strata? How do we ensure a better life for those who come from nothing? We ensure that early education is adequate. We ensure that higher education is accessible. 10k/yr is not accessible to a large majority of individuals in this country. If the kids wearing grubby jeans and ratty t-shirts somehow get through high school, sure they can maybe get loans to cover undergrad, but that starts young adults off in the hole. I don't know what the answer is, but it saddens me that we are pricing a higher education out of reach of those who need is most. I know.... I'm completely idealistic. Those kids probably don't want to go to college anyway, but what if there was just one who did? ... and now he/she gives up her goal because of a 32% tuition hike? -shaking head- I dunno... it just seems sad...

[Veronica]

I grew up on welfare. I was one of those kids who wore the same thing to school because I had nothing else. My mother wasn't a druggie, she worked a forty hour a week job at minimum wage, took overtime when she could. But with 4 kids at home and no child support, it was tough.

I knew I had to work hard in school and get some scholarships. I was lucky and I did. Then I decided to get married after my freshman year and transfer to a school in CA to be near my husband. Good bye scholarship. And yeah I finished school and my teaching credential owing a lot of money. I don't know why it's too hard for 20 somethings now to deal with that. That's life... We were paying off our debt into our early 30s.

Veronica

[OakLeaf]

And yeah I finished school and my teaching credential owing a lot of money. I don't know why it's too hard for 20 somethings now to deal with that. That's life... We were paying off our debt into our early 30s.

Veronica

Salaries don't even cover student loan payments any more. That's the result of the combination of the increase in loan interest, the decrease in grant money, and the decrease in real wages.

I did a refinancing and got (I think two) extensions, lived very modestly, and still the only reason my loans were paid off before I was 45 was because my second husband helped me out.

It's no wonder educated women defer motherhood... they have to pay off their loans first...

[Veronica]

Salaries don't even cover student loan payments any more. ..

That's scary. My first job paid me 20K a year and Thom's first post Marine job paid about 28K. I guess getting married young was a good thing since his income really paid off my college loans.

We had no money for extras. Our rent was $600 a month.

Veronica

[lph]

In Norway university tuition is free (well, apart from books). You get a student loan and a stipend, which together is enough to live on, frugally. Most students hold a part-time job to have a bit more than that. But the loan has very good terms, so a lot of people choose to take up the full loan. New mothers get a stipend about the size of 6 months loan, if I remember correctly, to be able to stay home with the baby. If you hold a fulltime job when you give birth you're allotted almost a year's paid leave.

Don't shoot me, I just live here.

Oh, and we also have taxes that a lot of Americans would find horrendous. I don't, I pay them willingly.

[malkin]

It's as true today as when Woody Guthrie wrote it:

California is a Garden of Eden
A paradise to live in or see,
but believe it or not,
You won't find it so hot,
If you ain't got that dough-ray-me.

[Crankin]

Very true, Malkin. My DIL doesn't understand this yet, as she has only been there 4 years. My son, on the other hand, has seen what's happened to AZ and it isn't pretty.
Re: the student loan issue. It's just a whole different ball game now. I had 3 loans that were totally cancelled because I went into a field that needed people (special ed). But, they didn't total that much. My older son's girlfriend is a perfect example of what happens today. She has a degree in interior architecture from RISD (supposedly the premier art school in the country). Her parents gave her no help and in fact, didn't even encourage her to go to college (they are both drop outs from BU). She is incredibly talented. She got beat up in the Boston Public Schools and got herself scholarships to a private HS. But, she has not been able to get a decent job in her field. She is turning 30 in a couple of months and owes about 60K. She lived in NYC for 2 years, to get experience in her field, where she was barely paid above minimum wage and treated like a slave. She is now working as a trainee at a locally owned, very socially conscious BBQ place that actually is a huge supporter of the local cycling community. They are going to open another place and hopefully, she will get to design it and manage it. She does some graphic design freelancing on the side, but there are no jobs in her field. She is not lazy by any means. But, that 60K is hanging over her head. It's been deferred a lot. My son is afraid her credit will not allow them to buy a house if they get married. It really sucks! Most of this is because her parents gave her no financial education and the fact that she could have gone to MA College of Art and had the same education for a fraction of the cost.
I am not sure what the answer to all of these problems are, but I don't think we're going to see educational equity in the US in my life time. It takes money and commitment, both of which are lacking.

[Atlas]

In Norway university tuition is free (well, apart from books). You get a student loan and a stipend, which together is enough to live on, frugally. Most students hold a part-time job to have a bit more than that. But the loan has very good terms, so a lot of people choose to take up the full loan. New mothers get a stipend about the size of 6 months loan, if I remember correctly, to be able to stay home with the baby. If you hold a fulltime job when you give birth you're allotted almost a year's paid leave.

Don't shoot me, I just live here.

Oh, and we also have taxes that a lot of Americans would find horrendous. I don't, I pay them willingly.

I tried to see if I could still claim Norwegian citizenship but I think I was one generation too many in the United States

Concerning college, there are so many angles to it. I graduate in December and I'm really happy. Tuition and books keep going up and I and I'm really anxious and nervous to find a job in this market. On the class level, there are a quite a few people who are in college because thats what their parents told them they were doing, or they didn't want to start working full time. I listen to them talk about football scores in class or how drunk they're getting that night. But there are a lot of people who are there for an education, it just took me a while to get to the upper level classes to find them. The saddest part for me is watching professors get budgets slashed and still try to maintain the same level of education. I have a class right now that we didn't get a syllabus in class because the department didn't have enough paper and we had to print it ourselves. Maybe if they cut the football coach's salary we'd be able to afford supplies where they are needed.

[shootingstar]

I have a class right now that we didn't get a syllabus in class because the department didn't have enough paper and we had to print it ourselves. Maybe if they cut the football coach's salary we'd be able to afford supplies where they are needed.

Amazing, a shortage of photocopying paper.
Canadian universities don't have much on the collegiate sports team funding side anyway compared to the US. Community colleges in Canada support their teams (if some have any) even less.

My second university that I went, hugely supported its football team at the time. And annual fall homecoming game, parade, etc. was celebrated by the university and city. Very unusual for a Canadian university football team to have that level of high local support. Even so, at that time, there wasn't much money spent on the football team, etc. Judging from all the alumni propaganda that I get, probably hasn't change much. All the major Canadian universities have been aggressively fundraising by beefing up their full-time prospect research funding team members, renaming their university libraries to mirror the big benefactors, etc.

[Dogmama]

The saddest part for me is watching professors get budgets slashed and still try to maintain the same level of education. I have a class right now that we didn't get a syllabus in class because the department didn't have enough paper and we had to print it ourselves. Maybe if they cut the football coach's salary we'd be able to afford supplies where they are needed.

Sorry, I have problems feeling sorry for most professors. They b*tch & moan if they have to teach over three classes/year and please, don't ask them to teach any class over 30 students without a teaching assistant to do the grunt work. And, they get tenure which means "job for life." I saw very few professors who really gave a damn about the students.

Collegiate athletics are often supported through donations by big money people. That's how they excuse giving themselves big salaries because the color of money is different. However, recently an ex-college athlete "hero" was vacillating between giving $2M+ to the athletic department or to the department of his major. Since he didn't graduate, it didn't take long for him to quit vacillating and the athletic department is getting a state-of-the-art training facility.

Meanwhile you, dear student, are printing out your own syllabi.

[Grog]

Oh, and we also have taxes that a lot of Americans would find horrendous. I don't, I pay them willingly.

I wish I could say the same. I am appalled at how the Canadian government has been cutting taxes continuously for the past 10 years, while cutting the services that the most needy among us can't live without.

I used to actively fight against this, now I just don't know what to do anymore.

[Crankin]

I don't mind printing my syllabus. I bought a laser printer, just to print the large number of articles I need to read. Much better than spending hundreds on xerox machines, as I did last time I was in grad school in the eighties.
My school is a very small university that used to be a women's college for educators. The grad school has been coed and has other had other majors for many years, but the undergraduate college just went coed a few years ago. There's a few sports teams, but, that is definitely not the focus.
Like Oakleaf, I don't think I've ever had a professor who didn't care. I've had a few who were horrible instructors and I agree with Shooting Star that they need some basic lessons on instructional strategies. I actually did that for my pyschopathology prof last year. He's interesting and I'm sure, a great therapist, but very disorganized and unclear in his written directions/expectations. I showed him how to write a rubric for assessing group projects and he was rather surprised at the whole thing. It made him think, at least.

[shootingstar]

Our state schools are great (or they were). We are a very diverse nation. How do we educate all strata? How do we ensure a better life for those who come from nothing? We ensure that early education is adequate. We ensure that higher education is accessible. 10k/yr is not accessible to a large majority of individuals in this country. If the kids wearing grubby jeans and ratty t-shirts somehow get through high school, sure they can maybe get loans to cover undergrad, but that starts young adults off in the hole. I don't know what the answer is, but it saddens me that we are pricing a higher education out of reach of those who need is most. I know.... I'm completely idealistic. Those kids probably don't want to go to college anyway, but what if there was just one who did? ... and now he/she gives up her goal because of a 32% tuition hike? -shaking head- I dunno... it just seems sad...

Canada has the same problem of increased college and university tuition for degree/credit programs. For past 25 years, it is norm that if a student doesn't have family to financially assist, not enough money from summer/part-time job, then it is the norm the student will acquire a sizable debt at graduation. (Just to dispell ideas that Canada is a social state in all areas of our society. Mindboggling that in Germany, university tuition was free for Germans at German universities, until approx. 5-10 yrs. ago. Even now they only pay several thousand $$ annually. I found out last year from our German ex-patriate work staff.)

However I must admit, I am amazed by the number of university students who head to tropical areas during reading vacation week for a good time. I often think: "How can they afford this?" It was a rare trend when I was university student in cold Ontario...in late 1970's to early 1980's. Meanwhile I was slugging it out at K-mart as a cashier part-time during my university years.

So glad I did my degrees back then.