Even the Europeans Think Our Education System is on the Brink of Disaster!

Angel,

I was perusing the BBC and saw this article.  It doesn't discuss law school but does a good job of identifying the huge surge in university attendance while presenting the staggering cost.  I think it would have been better if it then touched on the need for advanced degrees, adding yet another staggering cost in the baseline expenditure for a (maybe) useful degree. The best part about this is that it is international in scope and will reach a much larger European audience, where university education is much more subsidized!

It is just shocking.  I have never commented here but follow all the law school scamblogs almost religiously.  I have good grades and am prepping for the LSAT now.  I haven't made a decision but if I score below 175, I won't go.  It means that my chance at getting in a top 5 is a stretch and precludes me from any opportunity at getting any subsidy.

Thank you for your work, I hope to contribute more in the future.  Just today I was talking to a customer in the bar I work at who was waiting to hear back from the UVA waitlist for the law program.  I told him all about scambloggers and wrote the names on a card for him to look up.  He had not a thought in his head that the schools might be misrepresenting the figures.  I told him everything I could and told him to seriously research the job prospects and to contact UVA and ask them to break down all of the statistics for him.  He thanked me and gave me a huge tip (which was nice), plus he was super cute...ha!

Anyways, check out the article and keep fighting the good fight!

Sincerely,
BIDER READER

I did check out the article and it seems the Europeans are onto the education scam. It is ridiculous that we send our kids to school for $200K, and even more so when the kids go on borrowed money.  Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I have always loved the BBC as a source for news.  They aren't owned by Turner.  I hate Turner.  That's another story for another day though.  Thanks again.  Also, I second your idea about 175 or bust.  Sounds like a plan.  Good luck!

How Much Are They Paying You, Dawn Connor?

I can only hope that the for-profit scam artists and their friends on Capitol Hill are paying you, Dawn Connor, or at least forgiving some of your student loans for shilling on their behalf. Either you will make millions continuing to lobby on the behalf of for-profit colleges, or you will be back in Eau Claire neutering cats and dogs for the rest of your life -- if you're lucky.

This makes my blood boil, but this looks like the few options for-profit graduates have these days. Either become part of the industry that scammed you, or end up thousands in debt with no job prospects.

A few months ago, Dawn Connor was just another college student, attending night courses to become a veterinary technician and practicing her trade by spaying and neutering dogs and cats from a local shelter.

These days, the 33-year-old from Eau Claire, Wis., is shaking hands on Capitol Hill and speaking at news conferences in Las Vegas, the new public face of the satisfied for-profit college student.

Standing closely behind her is the Career College Association, a lobbying group for for-profit schools that provided the organizational muscle to launch the grassroots-sounding Students for Academic Choice at a time when for-profit colleges are under fire.

The Career College Association helped the students establish a website, draft bylaws and set up an online election that resulted in Connor being elected the group's president — all at a time when for-profit colleges are intensifying lobbying efforts against tougher federal regulations expected to be proposed in the coming days.

Who is Dawn Connor? The article lists her "credentials" which include enrolling in three different nonprofit colleges without earning a single degree. She is the face of the for-profit industry because, really, what else would she have done to pay off her student loan debt without her new job rubbing elbows with politicians to make more money for the for-profit thieves?

Connor was a collegiate drifter. She said she graduated early from high school and enrolled at three different nonprofit colleges, changing majors a few times without earning a degree.

Then she found the Eau Claire campus of for-profit Globe University, which offered a flexible schedule that allowed her to attend class at night while she worked full-time in a health care job.

It wasn't cheap. Tuition to complete a two-year associate's degree in veterinary technology at Globe runs $44,820, and lab fees and books are extra. Connor said it cost her less because she had transfer credits.

Even so, she said the state-of-the-art surgical suites and small classes is worth the extra expense.

Connor seems to come off as the type of person who never should have went to college, would have been better off working for the last ten years instead of drifting from one crappy for-profit to the next, but continued to rack up student debt at any "college" that would take her in. She is the perfect example of why these nonprofit schools should be closed down and a warning to students like her. Do you want to be 33-years-old, still in school with no job skills, and owe thousands of dollars in student debt?

The article does not state how much student loan debt she owes. I wouldn't be surprised if she owes upwards of $100k after attending four different colleges before finding her calling as a for-profit shill for a so-called student organization that Lauren Asher of the Institute for College Access & Success calls "an industry-sponsored group".

Any last words, Ms. Connor?

Connor said lower tuition "would be great. In the real world, that would be great if we could lower the price for everything. But that's just not an option at this point in time. That's not the point we're trying to get to right now."

She is an idiot and a clueless hack, which makes her perfect for the for-profit industry in their propaganda. I suggest Connor to milk as much as possible from these thieves while she still can or convince her for-profit school to hire her as a spokesperson, because there is no way she will be able to survive in the "real world" as a 33-year-old with no work experience and a Global University associate's degree. Good luck paying off that $45,000 loan and whatever else you owe to those three other diploma mills.

Another NYU Graduate with Six-Figure Debt. Quelle Surprise!

Or not. New York is an expensive city, folks. If you go to an elite school there (NYU or Columbia) expect to fork over your life savings unless you get a lot of financial aid and scholarships.

The New York Times has found another student loan slave in the Big Apple, not really a difficult task. I have a friend who is getting her second Master's degree at NYU. I don't understand why anyone needs two Master's degrees, but this is what happens when young people can't find a job and buy into the higher education myth that an elite degree is sure to bring in the big bucks after graduation, which we have learned is no longer the case.

Like many middle-class families, Cortney Munna and her mother began the college selection process with a grim determination. They would do whatever they could to get Cortney into the best possible college, and they maintained a blind faith that the investment would be worth it.

Today, however, Ms. Munna, a 26-year-old graduate of New York University, has nearly $100,000 in student loan debt from her four years in college, and affording the full monthly payments would be a struggle. For much of the time since her 2005 graduation, she’s been enrolled in night school, which allows her to defer loan payments.

I don't think most graduates in a similar position as Ms. Munna are idiots or irresponsible. They were misinformed like the rest of us. Students and their parents invest $100k for a degree from an elite institution because they believe it will land them a job that pays enough to pay off those loans in a reasonable amount of time. No one plans to default or flee the country when they sign up for a student loan. You get a degree from an Ivy League or top tier college and you expect to get a decent paying white collar job. I can't speak for third tier graduates, but back in the good ol' days, the majority of graduates from my college and law school found jobs that paid more than factory line workers. That is why people, and especially working class people with academically gifted children, believe higher education is a good investment - perhaps the only investment - that will allow their children to enter a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle.

I don't understand why people are beating up on Ms. Munna in the comments for majoring in Religious and Women's Studies. And? I know people who are unemployed who majored in Humanities and Science. T14 law students are graduating without any job offers. Does your college major really matter that much anymore unless you are in Pre-Med or Engineering? Any degree in the Humanities is going to end you up in the unemployment line these days, whether it be Women's Studies or Political Science. More people should start questioning the financial aid offices and banks who take advantage of clueless teenagers by allowing them to take out a $40k loan in the first place.

Which is why I am glad the author questions how Munna was allowed to take out a $40k Citibank loan when she was only 17-years-old. In the process, the article reveals a bit of the the higher education scam at work, and why students are able to take on massive debt without any warning or advice from the financial aid office (emphasis mine):

The financial aid office often has the best picture of what students like Ms. Munna are up against, because they see their families’ financial situation splayed out on the federal financial aid form. So why didn’t N.Y.U. tell Ms. Munna that she simply did not belong there once she’d passed, say, $60,000 in total debt?

“Had somebody called me and said, ‘Do you have a clue where this is all headed?’, it would have been a slap in the face, but a slap in the face that I needed,” said Cathryn Munna. “When financial aid told her that they could get her $2,000 more in loans, they should have been saying ‘You are in deep doo-doo, little girl.’ ”

That’s not a role that the university wants to take on, though. “I think that would be completely inappropriate,” said Randall Deike, the vice president of enrollment management for N.Y.U., who oversees admissions and financial aid. “Some families will do whatever it takes for their son or daughter to be not just at N.Y.U., but any first-choice college. I’m not sure that’s always the best decision, but it’s one that they really have to make themselves.”

The complications here go well beyond the propriety of suggesting that a student enroll elsewhere. Colleges don’t always know how much debt its students are taking on, which makes it hard to offer good counsel. (N.Y.U. does appear to have known about all of Ms. Munna’s loans, though.)

Then there’s a branding problem. Urging students to attend a cheaper college or leave altogether suggests a lack of confidence about the earning potential of alumni. Nobody wants to admit that. And once a university starts encouraging middle-class students to go elsewhere, it must fill its classes with more children of the wealthy and a much smaller number of low-income students to whom it can afford to offer enormous scholarships. That’s hardly an ideal outcome either.

Finally, universities exist to enroll students, not turn them away. “Aid administrators want to keep their jobs,” said Joan H. Crissman, interim president and chief executive of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. “If the administration finds out that you’re encouraging students to go to a cheaper school just because you don’t think they can handle the debt load, I don’t think that’s going to mesh very well.”

That doesn’t change the fact, however, that the financial aid office is still in the best position to see trouble coming and do something to stop it. University officials should take on this obligation, even if they aren’t willing to advise students to attend another college.

Is Munna to blame or should we start criticizing the universities and banks for lending young people money knowing that students usually start college with little idea of how to manage their finances or any sense of their income prospects in 4 years. What do you think?

Purdue Graduate Tries to Sell His Diploma on Ebay

Do you feel this way about your degree?

Back in February of this year, a Georgetown Law graduate attempted to sell his JD on Ebay for $59,250 to pay off the remainder of his student loans.

Today, Purdue University graduate Nick Enlow attempted to do the same thing, placing an ad for his 2008 B.A. in psychology for $36,000 to cover his $470 monthly loan bill to Sallie Mae. He also has a degree in philosophy from Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Enlow works as a substitute teacher and lives with his fiancé who is working for Teach America. This is what Enlow had to say(emphasis mine):

"Going to college made my life worse," Enlow said Wednesday from near Jacksonville, Fla., where he lives. "That is something that I don't keep to myself. I tell everyone."

His line of thinking isn't the kind that Purdue officials find amusing, nor are they too keen on the auction itself.

But Enlow, 29, said he considers himself stuck in indentured servitude to Sallie Mae, his lender, because he is unable to get a decent-paying job with his current degrees to start paying a $470 monthly student loan bill. In addition to the Purdue diploma, he obtained a philosophy degree from IU through IUPUI. That one is not for sale.

The eBay sale is part stunt and part hopeful act of desperation that an "eccentric millionaire" will pick up the tab. Either way, the Indianapolis native is serious about kick-starting conversations on the worth of a college education and how it can be paid off.

"The universities are handing out too many degrees that have zero real-world application," Enlow said. "It seems to me, almost any major in the humanities or liberal arts will not gain you employment with a bachelor's degree."

Enlow admits to not having a clear post-college career path. During school he fell in love with learning -- reading classics and learning history -- and he assumed that after earning a diploma a job would come easily.

"I think that some of us still believe that when we walk across the stage and get that diploma that we are going to have some type of social status and businesses are going to look at us differently," he said. "But that is not true."

I hope Enlow finds BIDER and the other school scam blogs just so he knows that he is no alone and that he is even better off than most law and graduate school graduates who owe much more than $36,000 in student loans. Several days ago, Angel posted a CNN story about a NYU graduate who owed $275,000 in loans. Of course, Enlow's alma mater is not amused and fired back with a lame response that didn't address the student loan and unemployment crisis facing most graduates today:

"A degree in the liberal arts is not an automatic ticket to a job, but then again, no degree is," said Irwin Weiser, interim dean of Purdue's College of Liberal Arts."However, studying any of the disciplines in the arts, humanities, or social sciences prepares students to be successful because they learn to think creatively, critically and ethically, and to communicate what they think effectively."

"However, studying any of the disciplines in the arts, humanities, or social sciences prepares students to be successful because they learn to think creatively, critically and ethically, and to communicate what they think effectively."

Ebay later took down the sale today which violated its terms of use. Enlow even caught Sallie Mae's attention. The loan company contacted him yesterday to "discuss payment options". Hah. They contacted him to make sure he has enough money for next month's payment. Just another publicity stunt to act like they actually care.

Enlow said he would not contest eBay's decision.

"The dialogue has been started," he said. "What's done is done."

Don't Go to College, Experts Say

This will be the BIDER quote of the day:

"A four-year degree in business – what's that get you?" asked Karl Christopher, a placement counselor at the Columbia Area Career Center vocational program. "A shift supervisor position at a store in the mall."

I know someone with a college degree who now works as a manager at a mall store. She spent years looking for a "respectable" white-collar job, but gave up after a long line of low wage internships that went nowhere and didn't end up in a full-time job offer (sound familiar?). She's actually quite happy at her job which gives her a stable 40 hours each week, benefits, and enough money to support her young daughter. No, being a store manager doesn't sound as fancy as a job working for a non-profit, advertising company, university, shitlaw firm, or newspaper. But being a store manager probably pays as much or even more than these so-called white-collar jobs. At least it beats doc review for the JD crowd, right?

Which is why this young woman's decision to go to welding school over college might be a good idea:

In a town dominated by the University of Missouri's flagship campus and two smaller colleges, higher education is practically a birthright for high school seniors like Kate Hodges.

She has a 3.5 grade-point-average, a college savings account and a family tree teeming with advanced degrees. But in June, Hodges is headed to the Tulsa Welding School in Oklahoma, where she hopes to earn an associate's degree in welding technology in seven months.

"They fought me so hard," she said, referring to disappointed family members. "They still think I'm going to college."

Hodges should send her parents over to BIDER. Many of our readers have expressed the desire to work as welders, plumbers, and electricians. Why? Because it sure as hell beats being unemployed or working in doc review. Attending college and graduate school no longer guarantees anyone a decent paying, 40-hour/week job.

The notion that a four-year degree is essential for real success is being challenged by a growing number of economists, policy analysts and academics. They say more Americans should consider other options such as technical training or two-year schools, which have been embraced in Europe for decades.

...Spending more time in school also means greater overall student debt. The average student debt load in 2008 was $23,200 – a nearly $5,000 increase over five years. Two-thirds of students graduating from four-year schools owe money on student loans.

Angel and I have always said that college is not for everyone. I lean more towards college for good students who can get scholarships and vocational school for the rest who couldn't even get a 3.0 in high school. Really, what is the point of spending money to continue something one doesn't excel in when they can make money doing something else like being a store manager or welder which pays as much as what most college and graduate students end up making these days in an entry level job (if they can find one). Ninety-nine percent of college graduates shouldn't even bother with graduate school unless you get a full scholarship to a top 10 school or your parents are rich enough to support your "funemployment" trip around the world when you graduate. In this new economy, work experience gets you the job before someone with an advanced degree:

"College is what every parent wants for their child," said Martin Scaglione, president and chief operating officer of work force development for ACT, the Iowa-based not-for-profit best known for its college entrance exam. "The reality is, they may not be ready for college."

...Scaglione suggested that nothing short of a new definition for educational success is needed to diminish the public bias toward four-year degrees. He advocates "certification as the new education currency – documentation of skills as opposed to mastering curriculum."

"Our national system is, 'Do you have a degree or not?'" he said. "That doesn't really measure if you have skills."

Good Idea or Another Ploy to Get College Students to Attend a TTT?

I hadn't realized until recently that Massachusetts was home to so many non-accredited law schools. I blogged last month about the opening of The University of Massachusetts School of Law at Dartmouth. Now I've come across an article about a new program with the American College of History and Legal Studies and the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover:

So you're a community college student working full time and looking for a path to law school.

A college designed for you is close to opening, pending approval by Gov. John Lynch of a bill that cleared the House on Wednesday. The American College of History and Legal Studies would enroll students for their final two years of college and award bachelor's degrees in one field: history and legal studies. Classes would meet in Salem three nights a week, and the $10,000 tuition - modest for any baccalaureate institution - would be cut in half for students awarded a scholarship.

The college guarantees students with high grades admission to the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover, and it allows high achievers to shave a year from their studies by combining their final year of college with their first year of law school. It wasn't a difficult arrangement to make. The dean of the independent law school, Lawrence Velvel, is the founder and dean of the new college.

Velvel began work on ACHLS after seeing bright students shut out of the legal profession because of a modest economic background or youthful inattention to their studies.

"A lot of people think that they cannot go to law school, that there is no way they will be admitted," Velvel said. "It gives a chance to people who otherwise academically wouldn't have the chance."

Actually sounds like a pretty good plan at first glance, doesn't it? Lower tuition rates and the ability to finish law school in two years instead of three. What the article doesn't mention is that the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover is a non-ABA accredited school. Essentially anyone can get into this school if they want to attend. Since it is non-accredited, LSAT is not required as part of the school's admissions criteria.

I'm not accusing Velvel of not having good intentions for this low cost college and I'm no fan of the LSAT, the ABA, or its accreditation standards. But I can't support the idea of anyone wasting money on a non-accredited law school when the legal industry is imploding and jobs continue to be outsourced. Despite that most academics were high achieving students who attended elite universities, for some reason they believe they are doing low achieving students a favor by allowing them to attend low ranked schools when perhaps they'd be better suited at learning a trade instead. Learning history is important, but most people aren't meant to get a JD or a Ph.D in history. High achievers from lower income families will get the financial aid and scholarships to attend state schools for around the same amount ACHLS charges for tuition. For those who did not excel in school, getting a certificate from a fourth tier school in a subject like history will not help them find a job in the real world.

Attending a third-tier ABA accredited law school is bad enough but if your grades and LSAT scores are so low that you have to attend a non-accredited school, it's probably best for you to abandon the idea of becoming a lawyer. The best place to educate yourself and learn about history and the law is the library. You have thousands of books at your disposal for free. You'll learn more in a year reading a book a week at your local library than a year in any law school classroom. Don't waste even $10,000 towards a degree that won't help you find a job. All I can say to anyone about to attend a non-accredited law school is to run the other way while you still can.

UPDATE: I was curious as to how much Velvel makes for running an unaccredited law school. According to a Boston Business Journal article from 2006, Velvel made $268,985. Nice work if you can get it.

Hedge Fund Manager Thinks College is a Bad Idea

I don't agree with everything that James Altucher says but he is someone who would definitely agree with Angel that everyone shouldn't go to college. It's true that college is a just a four year party and drinking binge for some kids but it can be a valuable experience for more serious students who can get the financial aid and scholarships to attend without taking on a ton of debt. It is also worth noting that Altucher attended Cornell University and Carnegie Mellon University.

Sorry, can't embed the video but you can watch it here.

Read. Now.

If you enjoyed our discussion on education and the elite, this is a must read. Here are a few excerpts from The Disadvantages of an Elite Education but I strongly recommend visiting The American Scholar to read the article in its entirety.

It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him. So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so mysterious his very language, that I couldn’t succeed in engaging him in a few minutes of small talk before he got down to work. Fourteen years of higher education and a handful of Ivy League degrees, and there I was, stiff and stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness. “Ivy retardation,” a friend of mine calls this. I could carry on conversations with people from other countries, in other languages, but I couldn’t talk to the man who was standing in my own house.

....

The first disadvantage of an elite education, as I learned in my kitchen that day, is that it makes you incapable of talking to people who aren’t like you. Elite schools pride themselves on their diversity, but that diversity is almost entirely a matter of ethnicity and race. With respect to class, these schools are largely—indeed increasingly—homogeneous. Visit any elite campus in our great nation and you can thrill to the heartwarming spectacle of the children of white businesspeople and professionals studying and playing alongside the children of black, Asian, and Latino businesspeople and professionals. At the same time, because these schools tend to cultivate liberal attitudes, they leave their students in the paradoxical position of wanting to advocate on behalf of the working class while being unable to hold a simple conversation with anyone in it. Witness the last two Democratic presidential nominees, Al Gore and John Kerry: one each from Harvard and Yale, both earnest, decent, intelligent men, both utterly incapable of communicating with the larger electorate.

But it isn’t just a matter of class. My education taught me to believe that people who didn’t go to an Ivy League or equivalent school weren’t worth talking to, regardless of their class. I was given the unmistakable message that such people were beneath me. We were “the best and the brightest,” as these places love to say, and everyone else was, well, something else: less good, less bright. I learned to give that little nod of understanding, that slightly sympathetic “Oh,” when people told me they went to a less prestigious college. (If I’d gone to Harvard, I would have learned to say “in Boston” when I was asked where I went to school—the Cambridge version of noblesse oblige.) I never learned that there are smart people who don’t go to elite colleges, often precisely for reasons of class. I never learned that there are smart people who don’t go to college at all.

....

In short, the way students are treated in college trains them for the social position they will occupy once they get out. At schools like Cleveland State, they’re being trained for positions somewhere in the middle of the class system, in the depths of one bureaucracy or another. They’re being conditioned for lives with few second chances, no extensions, little support, narrow opportunity—lives of subordination, supervision, and control, lives of deadlines, not guidelines. At places like Yale, of course, it’s the reverse. The elite like to think of themselves as belonging to a meritocracy, but that’s true only up to a point. Getting through the gate is very difficult, but once you’re in, there’s almost nothing you can do to get kicked out. Not the most abject academic failure, not the most heinous act of plagiarism, not even threatening a fellow student with bodily harm—I’ve heard of all three—will get you expelled. The feeling is that, by gosh, it just wouldn’t be fair—in other words, the self-protectiveness of the old-boy network, even if it now includes girls. Elite schools nurture excellence, but they also nurture what a former Yale graduate student I know calls “entitled mediocrity.” A is the mark of excellence; A- is the mark of entitled mediocrity. It’s another one of those metaphors, not so much a grade as a promise. It means, don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. You may not be all that good, but you’re good enough.

Finally, Colleges are Trying to Prepare Student for REAL LIFE!!!! It's about Fucking Time!

Although I think that most colleges that charge over $10K a year are toilet bowls, I have to give credit where credit is due.  Colleges have started to see that most liberal arts degree prepare you for nothing aside from a life of being a parents' basement dweller who smokes pot and philosophizes.  A tipster, Maria, pointed me to an article about how colleges are trying to become more relevant.  Ha. Thomas College, in Maine, is allowing students to come back after six months of unemployment "...to take classes free, or have the college pay their student loans for a year."  Love it!!!   A college that is, on its own accord, making it their business to get you a job!  That is the least they can do for $28,850 a year. University of Louisiana and Michigan State are doing away with worthless majors like Philosophy and American Studies.    Bravo!!!  English Majors at University of Texas are learning how to write RESUMES, of all things!?  As a reader of my blog, you should know that I have been hoping that this would happen.  I'm pleasantly surprised that colleges are taking initiative to make an education relevant to the workplace. I'm SHOCKED that they are doing it without the financial pressure of student loans that are dischargeable in bankruptcy. Previously, I was pretty sure that it would take a change in the bankruptcy code to make this happen. I thought they would have to feel the pinch of students being unable to pay for their education because loans would be harder to come by.  I STILL think that an education is way more expensive than it should be, considering it often does not prepare students for employment.


In any case, this is a major step in the right direction.