tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5452025352696285200.post222735598555982244..comments2024-02-23T04:59:26.907-05:00Comments on But I Did Everything Right!: The Corporatization of Higher Education Has Made It Less Valuable to the Millenial GenerationAngelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820446523257638689noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5452025352696285200.post-28839876349693620182010-09-14T22:56:23.071-04:002010-09-14T22:56:23.071-04:00Oh, another thing. My father was pretty easy on me...Oh, another thing. My father was pretty easy on me and pretty much let me pick my path in life, but once he did grab me by the neck, so to speak, and pull me back from danger. I mentioned offhand that I was thinking of getting a motorcycle, to which he replied something like: "If I ever see you riding a motorcycle, I'll throw you out of this house on the spot, disown you and never give you another penny." One of his friends had died in a motorcycle accident, the other ended up a quadriplegic. My father wasn't perfect, and there things he did that I resented and that I still think were wrong, but even at the time, I never resented him for that warning about motorcycles, because I knew he was doing it for my own good.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5452025352696285200.post-74735559899715550272010-09-14T22:48:38.350-04:002010-09-14T22:48:38.350-04:00It's called "tough love" Demosthenes...It's called "tough love" Demosthenes. Being polite is fine when it works. But if if doesn't work, and you can't get through, then you have to take drastic steps. <br /><br />The law schools, the ABA, the higher education business aren't the problem. 50% of the businesses in this country are selling garbage. If people want to buy garbage, that is their problem. That the government provides loans and makes defaulting nearly impossible IS a problem. But I can't change that. What I can do is try to help people I care about to avoid a big mess.<br /><br />One of these scam-bloggers, I forget who, wrote that he wished a guardian angel had materialized from thin air when he first contemplated going to law schools using loans to pay the costs, and grabbed him by the neck and threatened to beat the living cr*p out of him if he ever did such a thing. I didn't threaten anyone with physical violence, but I suspect they'll wish I had at some point, just like that scam-blogger.<br /><br />The education and healthcare industrial complexes, like the real-estate complex before them, have somehow managed to cast a spell over the thinking of the US populace, such that clear thought about what these complexes are doing is impossible. With real-estate, the consequences were fairly benign. People lose their house and life savings, perhaps declare bankruptcy, and after that they start over again. With student loans, you can't wipe the slate clean and once you go into default, your life can easily become a nonstop nightmare of dealing with debt-collectors, with no end in sight. With healthcare, you end up with your health destroyed because some quack doctor convinced you to undergo surgery for back pain or whatever. Trying to break the spell these industrial complexes have over people's minds is very difficult. Reason and logic do NOT work.<br /><br />What would you do if someone you cared about was planning to take on $200K of debt for a degree that will almost certainly lead nowhere? Politely and rationally discuss your views and then shrug your shoulders when she responds with nonsense about how it'll all work out in the end?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5452025352696285200.post-20622488131418453402010-08-08T17:20:21.537-04:002010-08-08T17:20:21.537-04:00@ Anonymous - 4:57
Based on what you just describ...@ Anonymous - 4:57<br /><br />Based on what you just described you might be one of the biggest assholes I've seen comment on these blogs (and that's saying a lot). Your family is probably right to shun you for such behavior. I think the better present would be for crazy old Uncle Frank to drink a nice warm glass of shut the fuck up next year.Demosthenes of Americahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07607959111321385635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5452025352696285200.post-83600515258527368182010-08-08T16:57:15.571-04:002010-08-08T16:57:15.571-04:00@Demosthenes of America: "book" learning...@Demosthenes of America: "book" learning (specifically, learning by reading, including reading blogs) is not synonymous with formal education and I disagree that experience trumps reading, at least for those with the wit to learn from reading: "The wise learn from the mistakes of others, the ordinary learn from their own mistakes, the fools never learn." <br /><br />I pretty much gave up several years ago on advising my nieces and nephews to be wary of the education racket. The final straw was when I lost my temper and was asked to leave my cousin's house at Christmas when I ripped into one of these nieces so bad she started crying and threatened to kill herself. I got mad because she was planning to go to NYU to study theater, paying for everything with student loan debt because the family isn't rich, and I attacked her psychological motivations, as in "you're an emotionally vulnerable kid from a screwed-up family from back-of-bumf*ck Louisiana and you think that going to college in the big city is somehow going to wash away all the shame of what you are now and turn you into a beautiful butterfly and NYU is just exploiting this vulnerability to turn you into a debt peon who can be securitized and sold in the capital markets." I was becoming the laughingstock of the whole family what with my suggestions to put their savings into bonds rather than stocks, sell their house and avoid debt like the plague--crazy old Uncle Frank, always talking about the coming deluge. Since the crisis started in 2008, of course, I'm packing a mighty big shut-'em-upper and no one dares laugh at me any more. "The mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small"--the same cousin who threw me out a couple of years ago had to listen silently as I drowned on last Christmas for hours on the subject of financial management, which she obviously doesn't understand too well, since she is on the verge of losing her house to foreclosure. <br /><br />BTW I highly recommend "Influence" by Robert Cialdini, which describe the 6 ways to mind-f*ck a person to make them do what you want, such as sign up for overpriced colleges paid for with non-bankruptcy-dischargeable debt. That was my christmas present to my young relatives last Christmas. I think the URLs for these education scam blogs will be next Christmas's present.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5452025352696285200.post-83810656414710233472010-08-08T08:03:58.643-04:002010-08-08T08:03:58.643-04:00Yes, everyone wants big box. And higher ed is no ...Yes, everyone wants big box. And higher ed is no exception.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06407349749045900365noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5452025352696285200.post-92079760125877263102010-08-07T23:02:45.426-04:002010-08-07T23:02:45.426-04:00If I could offer another opinion in this debate it...If I could offer another opinion in this debate it would be this: I firmly believe that education is THE silver bullet to most of lives problems. However, I do not believe nor can I prove that "higher education" is equivalent to that silver bullet. As someone who has gone through 7 years of "higher ed" I can attest to the fact that a single day of real world experience trumps everything that I have ever read in a book. Books are a miraculous invention, in fact I would put them in the top 3 of humankind's ultimate discoveries/inventions. However, life is ultimately something that must be lived to understand. Even amongst my friends who are teachers, they constantly bemoan having to teach towards tests or as I posited in one of my posts the "cognitive sorting" that we have transmuted formalized education into these days. Go seek, go do, and question everything. This will serve you more than any formal, systemic educational system could ever hope to achieve. If you do so, you will not regret it when you look upon your life as a whole.Demosthenes of Americahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07607959111321385635noreply@blogger.com