“College essentially provided them with nothing”...

Sound familiar?  Well, given the difficulty of finding a job as a college or professional school grad--it should be.  Except this statement was made by a Chinese man, Zhang Ming, in China. Yes, the world's biggest super power, China, took a pass-go card through middle class prosperity to over-education and under-stimulation. And you thought this was an American problem.  Think again!

In a kind of cruel reversal, China’s old migrant class — uneducated villagers who flocked to factory towns to make goods for export — are now in high demand, with spot labor shortages and tighter government oversight driving up blue-collar wages.

But the supply of those trained in accounting, finance and computer programming now seems limitless, and their value has plunged. Between 2003 and 2009, the average starting salary for migrant laborers grew by nearly 80 percent; during the same period, starting pay for college graduates stayed the same, although their wages actually decreased if inflation is taken into account.

The latter paragraph sounds much like what we have going on in the good ol' U.S.A.  Of course, we shipped our factory jobs to China--so there is no comparison in that respect.  Arguably, the college grads in China have it worse though.  Since their parents are farmers and factory workers, they can't take their children in when they fall on their over-educated faces.  Instead, they are living in a modern day ghetto of intelligencia:

Liu Yang, a coal miner’s daughter, arrived in the capital this past summer with a freshly printed diploma from Datong University, $140 in her wallet and an air of invincibility. 

Her first taste of reality came later the same day, as she lugged her bags through a ramshackle neighborhood, not far from the Olympic Village, where tens of thousands of other young strivers cram four to a room.

Unable to find a bed and unimpressed by the rabbit warren of slapdash buildings, Ms. Liu scowled as the smell of trash wafted up around her. “Beijing isn’t like this in the movies,” she said.

Wow.  That makes your momma's basement sound lovely, doesn't it.  In china, they call their unemployed graduates "ants":

Chinese sociologists have come up with a new term for educated young people who move in search of work like Ms. Liu: the ant tribe. It is a reference to their immense numbers — at least 100,000 in Beijing alone — and to the fact that they often settle into crowded neighborhoods, toiling for wages that would give even low-paid factory workers pause.

We call educated people "poor." It's easier and requires no sociology report.

It's nice to know that we're not alone.  China took our factory jobs, but is suffering nonetheless.  I said it before and I'll say it again--an education is a luxury that many can't afford, especially when it results in lesser earning power.  It's the possibly the worst investment out there.  Connections will get you farther.


Thanks tipster!

Millionaire College Presidents Grow Along With the Soup Line for Their Graduates. When Will American Students Take a Stand?

Something you won't see in America anytime soon. Students in London protesting a tuition hike from - don't laugh - $9,600 to $14,400 in tuition a year. Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Things aren't going too well for the young people in the UK. Many of them are just like you and me; highly educated, overqualified, and underemployed. One unemployed masters degree student in the UK has resorted to standing on the street like a hobo asking for any type of work.

So I was very proud when I read that our British counterparts weren't just going to sit on their asses and do nothing about skyrocketing tuition rates whilst their nation goes to hell in a handbasket. Why isn't a tuition protest on a scale such as the one in London last week happening in America, land of the free and the home of the brave? Why aren't parents, students, and unemployed graduates storming the universities with pitch forks for raising tuition to pay its presidents more than $1 million each year?

Thousands of students in London are willing to be arrested and scuffle with armed policemen to stop the conservative party there from increasing tuition by a mere $5,264. That is chump change for American students nowadays. Isn't that how much American students spend to eat in the damn cafeteria?

I think we are pass the point of trying to be nice with these people. For those of you who attended one of the 30 colleges who pay their president close or more than $1 million per annum: ask yourself how much of your non-dischargeable student loan debt went to paying these scumbags along with their country club membership. Are you angry yet? You should be:

Thirty presidents received more than $1 million in pay and benefits in 2008, according to an analysis of federal tax forms by The Chronicle of Higher Education. More than 1 in 5 chief executives at the 448 institutions surveyed topped $600,000.

Most of the pay packages were negotiated before the full force of the recession. But even if the numbers dip slightly in next year's survey, executive pay is expected to keep climbing over the long term as colleges compete for top talent. And schools are rewarding executives while raising tuition, exposing themselves to criticism.

At large research universities, the median pay was $760,774; it was $387,923 at liberal arts colleges and $352,257 at undergraduate and graduate colleges and universities.

The highest paid executive in the Chronicle survey was Bernard Lander, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi and sociologist who founded Touro College in New York in 1970. He died in February at 94.

Lander received a compensation package of nearly $4.8 million. In a statement, the college said $4.2 million of that was retroactive pay and benefits awarded after an outside consultant determined Lander had been "severely underpaid."

Several deals reported the Chronicle survey, which covers the most recent available data, included deferred compensation or other unusual circumstances. Comparisons to past years aren't possible because of changes in how data is reported to the Internal Revenue Service. Colleges were asked to report salaries by calendar year instead of fiscal year as in the past, so most dollar amounts overlap with what was reported the previous year.

Another change: Perks including first-class air travel, country club dues and housing are now included in reported pay.

In 2007-2008, 23 presidents received more than $1 million. As recently as 2004, no college president had broken the seven-figure threshold.

While some presidents on the latest list lead ultra-selective schools such as Columbia, Yale and Penn, executives from schools such as the University of Tulsa and Chapman University in Orange, Calif., are on it, too.

Not all the most elite schools are represented, either. The presidents of Harvard, Princeton and Johns Hopkins all were paid in the $800,000s.

"Value is in the eyes of the beholder," said Jeffrey Selingo, editor of the Chronicle. "Some boards think these presidents, even at small institutions, are worth it. On the flip side, the prestige of serving at other institutions is enough of a paycheck for some."

Still, numbers in the tax forms don't always tell the whole story.

Chapman University President James Doti's $1.25 million compensation includes two "golden handcuff" deferred compensation deals worth almost $665,000, spokeswoman Mary Platt said. She said the board did not want to lose Doti, who since taking the job in 1991 has raised the school's profile and overseen expansive building projects.

He and other college presidents have donated a portion of the earnings back to the college. Doti gave a $1 million gift for an endowed chair in economics.

I knew America was headed downhill the moment the education system became a for-profit business as with our health care system and everything else that most developed nations cover for their citizens rather than having it privatized to greedy CEOs.

The real revolution against the corporate machine is now in Europe and I hope for the sake of humankind that people in other parts of the world will not allow what is happening in the United States to happen in their country. If this is the way to prevent the education scam from starting in the UK, then by all means these students should do whatever is necessary to stop it from happening. American students and recent unemployed graduates, this is how you get these leeches and swine to listen to your concerns.

Credit: Dominic Lipinski/Press Association, via Associated Press

The Indentured Educated Servant Class of St. John's University: Driving Dean Chang

Remember Dr. Chang?  She was the St. John's University Fundraiser that raised funds to gamble, shop and put her son through law school.  She was charged with grand larceny and forgery, consequently.

Well, she's baaaaaaaaaack and the story has become so much juicier.  We are all "educated indentured servants"--"They are trapped, and their choices are restricted by debt. Many recent graduates feel that they lack the freedom to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors, start families, stay at home with children, or choose lower paying jobs that may be a better fit. Financially, this puts them at a distinct disadvantage." Sound like you?  It should, because it's you and every other person browsing this article right now.

But, for Dr. Chang, some of the students at St. John's were actual servants--maids, cooks and chauffeurs.  Believe it or not, students that were on scholarship at St. John's were told that they had to complete work-study programs at Dr. Chang's home or they would lose their scholarships:

Many of those tasks were to help with Taiwanese dignitaries visiting Ms. Chang’s house, where she frequently entertained out-of-town guests for fund-raising purposes, Mr. Rubenstein [Dr. Chang's defense counsel] said.

“The fact that this is even a crime is shocking,” he said outside court. “Cooking a meal doesn’t sound at first blush like work-study, but wait till the trial. I’m not going to give you the defense now.”

According to the complaint, one student, identified only as CI1, “drove Chang to the hair salon, to restaurants and to the airport.”

“As a driver,” it adds, “CI1 was also responsible for taking out the garbage and shoveling snow at Chang’s residence.” 

This is our future folks.  Dr. Chang cut out the middle man, but we all wipe Sallie's ass every month.  She said, forget Sallie, come over and cook me dinner or you're screwed.

Sign of things to come? Maybe not, but is this story would be the first in Angel's Fables: Stories Designed to Teach the Educated a Lesson in Life.  Truth is much stranger than conjecture and hyperbole.

Okay, this video is not entirely related, but someone needs to go Taxi
Driver on Sallie's Ass.