The Guardian: 30-year economic betrayal dragging down Generation Y’s income

[outlawauron]

ReimTime said:

outlawauron said:

There are always some caveats to this. Looking up rates that are charged, they seem pretty similar to what you'd see at universities in the US.

The biggest issue in making international comparisons is that education is largely legislated at state level, not national level. For instance, my state university has free tuitiion for all students who live in that state (through the TOPS program) who keep up certain GPA requirements (that are fairly easy). So, it's not like everyone in the US is completely screwed when it comes to school. There are so many scholarships, grants, and programs available to students, that many can get college for free. My wife was paid money by the state and federal government to go to school. :-/

For the rest of the post, I agree that administrators see themselves as sacred cows. No one wants to cut their own salary. Spreading out cost through hidden fees is pretty terrible, but that's how things are in most industries dependant on recurring customers (I think about rent tenants, airline customers, etc).

Really? I had no idea, that is good to hear. See the biggest thing when it comes to my area - to do with scholarships and grants that is - is that many are not even applied for and are thus wasted. There are a huge amount of scholarships and grants here too but almost nobody applies for them; it's quite sad really. A lot of them are virtually unheard of too unless you specifically look for them - which is probably why many go unclaimed annually. For instance, the Japanese-Mennonite scholarship of Canada, which you must write a short essay for in the application. It is open to all Canadian residents, but unless you had an in to the community or stumbled upon the web page - like I did - you will never even find out about it due to virtually no advertisement. There is a very small pool of students that extensively research scholarships/grants which is a shame.

I wish education wasn't associated with being an industry tbh

It varies by state. Some states have tons of assistance (that you may have to search for), others have absolutely nothing (which is where most of the horror stories come from). That compouded with those students choices in college can make it really bad. If you don't have any scholarships or grants, why the hell would you go to Boston College or NYU. That's not a good life decision.

and I understand that education isn't and shouldn't be a business, but in a lot of ways, it is. With so much money being spent and with it employing so many, it's inevitable.