I’m so, so, so totally fucking over this. It seems like once a week I run into a TV show, a movie, or some other fiction in which a major plot point or point of drama is that someone “can’t afford to go to college.” The breaking point came today with a rerun of Roseanne in which Becky throws a big fit because the family didn’t have a “college fund” and “now she can’t afford to go to college.”
Everyone I know that has a degree got it by taking out student loans. A lucky subset of those were able to supplement this with grants, scholarships, and other such things. The Federal Government has an entire departmend dedicated to providing financial aid and federally-underwritten student loans. In addition, there are private loans available through commercial banks that have special requirements that allow them to function as privatized student loans. [And finally,
The less money you have for college, the MORE financial aid you can get.
Being broke actually HELPS you to go to qualify for financial aid programs so that you can go to college. The MORE poor you are, the MORE you can get. Sure, you’ll be paying it off for the next 20 years, but you’ll most likely be able to get a job with your degree that enables you to make those payments.
I’m just so, SO over this weird memetic idea, and I’m sick of it. It’s lazy! It’s stupid! It’s COMPLETELY inaccurate!
But I think this is the kicker. People who think they are too poor to go to college usually do not know very many college-educated people or folks with “good” jobs who can afford paying off 20 years of debt. They see people struggling just to pay the light bill. When this is your perspective, of course you’re going to be afraid of a student loans.
Also, simply going to college does not guarantee anything. There are plenty of college-educated people working at minimum wage jobs, living with their parents for years and years, watching the compounding mountain of student debt, regretting their decision to go to college. Poor people tend to be pragmatic because they HAVE to be. A poor student may think, “Why risk putting all my eggs in an investment that will probably fail, when I know I can make money now, driving a bus or doing people’s hair?” Unfortunately, poor people are more likely to worry about potential failure because they see it all the time. And they don’t have a protective buffer to soften the blow of failure. Whereas most middle-class kids have parents who will help pick up that student loan debt, at least for a few months, if they find themselves working at Starbucks. Or they may have enough connections through family and friends so that their 2.0 GPA doesn’t keep them from getting a “good” job after graduation.
Finally (sorry to be so rambling, but I’m bored), you assume that people are properly educated on scholarships, loans, and etc. Good schools have guidance counselors that assist students with this stuff, but even in good schools students can fall through the cracks. At my high school, it was really up to the students and/or their parents to do all the research. If your parents aren’t hip to college, and you don’t register on the guidance counselor’s radar, you will be left to form your own conceptions (or misconceptions) about what college is like.
I don’t blame poor kids for being intimidated by the whole college thing.
Err, there is a way not to be able to afford college. I’ve been there and done that - I was unable to take out federal loans due to my convoluted residency and age at the time. I am more than able to afford it now that I am over 24 and married however; in fact I am not paying for it at all. But there are fucked up loopholes and a lot of people don’t know the way out.
Right now my university is trying to “diversify” the student body. They have found that students from a Hispanic background tend to “pay as they go”, having a culture that is uneducated about loans and/or unwilling to take out debt. This of course leads to a low retention rate for that group. It’s a hurdle that that community needs to get over, sure, but things take time.
Having just submitted the FAFSA for my daughter’s junior year, I can say you are damn right. Lots of merit scholarships have need based payouts also.
When Roseanne aired, it might have been true that kids might have been confused, but today anyone who is going to do well in college should be competent to search for scholarship info on the web.
I never watch that kind of show, but does community college come up at all? That’s a way of getting started for almost nothing.
Well, I wasn’t gonna say anything, but…why the hell not?
Until I got married in February, I didn’t qualify for FAFSA because my parents don’t file taxes or keep tax records, and even if they did they make too much money on paper for me to qualify.
Because of my parents’ financial status and tax status, I also did not qualify for most scholarships. The one scholarship I did qualify for only let me go to a school I was not even remotely interested in.
Because I managed to screw up my credit and my parents have bad credit (mine’s recoverable…theirs is horrid) I didn’t qualify for most student loans.
So yes, it is very, very possible to not be able to afford college. As someone who watches Roseanne frequently (when stuff on Adult Swim is crap, I switch two channels down and watch whatever’s on TV Land) I can say that Becky probably wouldn’t have qualified for student loans simply because her and Mark racked up bad credit (discussed in one episode), and she could have applied for FAFSA but then they would have had to rely entirely on Mark’s income; I’m not sure when it changed, but when Roseanne was being produced I’m fairly certain FAFSA was only available for full-time students. I very clearly recall one of my cousins being infuriated about this. Scholarships you can apply for but as she hadn’t graduated from high school she probably wouldn’t have qualified for most of them.
So yes, it’s quite easy for someone to not have the money to attend school. Very, very easy. I’m living proof.
More or less correct, but you do not even need large student loans. 1st- Go to Community/Junior college until you have maxed out on transferrable credits. Many such colleges cost a trifle, and what trifle they cost can be free through Aid programs. My parents earned too much to make it completely free for me, but I was able to get back some through aid programs, abd doing odd jobs for the college.
That leaves you 1.5 - 2 years of “State” to pay for. Aid will pay for lots of this, and then there is “getting a job”. I worked my way through college as a security guard. Many security jobs are nights or evenings and will allow you to study, do homework and perhaps even papers. Just be honest with the company you apply at- tell them you want to work your way through college, don’t mind working weekends or holidays but you do need some time to study while on duty.
I had only $3000 in student loans to pay back. My parents provided R&B, I paid for the rest.
Unless you have to support a family, anyone in the USA can afford to go to college.
Does anyone else see anything at all wrong with this line of argument? While it’s factually correct that college “doesn’t guarantee” anything, it sure as shit stacks the odds in your favour, and makes you eligible for jobs that are simply impossible to get without a degree - like Engineering, for example. If someone (meaning, a prospective college student, not you) can’t Google for half an hour and find plenty of cites comparing the odds of success with and without a college degree, then, well, I guess it wasn’t meant to be.
Don’t let the fact that the SDMB “appears*” to have an inordinately amount of over-degreed and under-employed people fool you into thinking that the real world works that way.
Observational-based opinion, not a factual assertion.
$19,000 is an incredibly small amount of money to be in debt for the return of a college education. That’s less than one year’s differential between the average of Bachelor’s and non-Bachelor’s salaries. In fact, adjusting for taxes, it likely is less than the net for one year’s average. Throw in some interest and fees if you want to do so, the break-even period is still pretty low.
Oh, definitely. I didn’t mean to imply that college doesn’t give you more options. But jobs that are “simply impossible to get without a degree” tend to be supported by academic programs that are quite selective and rigorous. Engineering is not for the student who has trouble with math, for instance. Nor are any of the sciences.
Unfortunately, I see many working-class kids suffering in these programs because they come from high schools that don’t prepare them well, or they are dealing with external stressors (like full-time jobs or family issues) that make it difficult to fully concentrate on the work (like chemistry labs that last five hours). So they end up choosing majors that are easier but provide less marketable skills. When in fact, they are the ones who can least afford soft balls and esoterica in their curriculum.
I blame academia for this. The Ivory Tower has the tendency to treat students as if they all belong to the leisure class. I’m glad more students are going into college, but I worry sometimes if we aren’t setting up people for disappointment by raising the bar so artifically high.
I think you’re correct - I mean, high school did not prepare me for college at all, nor any of my friends AFAIK. And it does take a lot of work to make it through something like Engineering, often the most difficult (or at least one of the most difficult) undergrad degree on campus.
But I think it’s more than just will to work and time management. When I’ve gone to speak to students at elementary school level, junior high, and high school level, there’s some simple, elegant opinions held by the students that stand out.
Here’s what’s I hear according to the American students I meet and greet.
Journalism is cool. Everyone knows journalists. They see them on TV.
Being on TV is cool.
Playing “B-Ball” is cool. Sports stars get on TV.
If you want to play sports, you can’t take a hard degree. Take journalism or business school.
Computer science is cool. Some degrees all you do is write video games!
Engineering is not cool. All you do is work. You never see Engineers on TV or making a million dollars.
The students not only don’t really know what Engineering is, once I tell them they really don’t care. Oh, there’s always some loner guy or (much more rarely) girl who is interested in it, but even they aren’t really serious, because they’re convinced that if they want to make the big money, they need to go and write video games, or make pregnancy avatars for SecondLife. Hey, and some woman became a millionaire on SecondLife! rAWK!
You would not believe how many kids in this day and age tell the story of “some 18 year old kid who just designs cool websites and drives a Ferrari!” When I try to challenge them on that, they repeat it as if it’s the gospel truth, and sort of look at me with this smug smile, as if I was just some poor, deluded psychopath they let out of the asylum on a work-release program. Because we all know web designers that pull in 6 or 7 figures, and hire physicians as poolboys, right?
…and back to the OP, which was about the use of the “can’t afford to go to college” PLOT DEVICE in movies and TV: The Roseanne case was actually better than the norm in that prior plot evolution sets up a scenario where it is plausible the character is not in a position to obtain some kinds of assistance, as tashabot indicates.
HOWEVER , as mentioned in that same post, that is IF the person is seeking to be a full-time student and is not eligible for scholarship aid… as DrDeth points out, there DO exist alternatives, and movies/TV often fail to answer why THAT is not the case for this story, creating a situation where it seems the writers can only imagine “going to college” as the full-time, 4-year, late teens and early 20s, profitable-or-highly-intellectual major, thing, and it never crossed their minds to have the character toil part-time through Community College, your regional State U. of Yourstate at Yourtown, and COSC, for 9 years to get a BA in Office Management. (Which may not lead to glamour or 6-fig salaries but DOES improve your chances of advancement and of getting other jobs that may require “a BA and 5 years experience in a position of responsibility managing people” but not necessarily a degree in a specific field.)
But you know what is REALLY bad? When the plot device of “cannot pay out of pocket” or “cannot enter the school of my choice” is then used to set up the protagonist concocting a hideously implausible scam to avail him/herself of that education (e.g. pass as being someone else) and that is the source of great hijinks and in the end nobody goes to jail for fraud; THAT is stupid and IS a tired old cliché.
Sometimes I worry that college/universities forget that most students aren’t there to learn. Rightly or wrongly, they are there to get jobs.
The leisure class can afford “knowledge for the sake of knowledge”, because they don’t have to worry about developing money-making skills from what they learn. They can afford to delve into esoteric subjects because no one’s paying for them to study something “important” or “useful”. Indeed, historically our storehouses of knowledge were constructed and nurtured by rich people.
Most college students today are not rich enough to be able to afford “knowledge for the sake of knowledge”. This is a sad reality, but it is a quite real reality. And yet academia does not tell this truth. It espouses the virtues of intellectual curiosity over pragmatism, and scolds the student who wants to know “Why are we learning this?”
I don’t think academia should waver from its philosophy of “knowledge for the sake of knowledge”, because I think students should learn the beauty of all subjects–including those with pure aesthetic value (I have taught some pretty esoteric topics myself). However, I wish professors didn’t consider “vocational training” to be such an ugly concept. And I also wish they would think more about the skills they want their students to acquire, rather than insisting upon the importance of the specific facts and ideas. The facts are important, but if a student can’t communicate those facts in a sophisticated way, what is the point?
When I taught ecology as an adjunct, on the first day I put up an overhead which listed occupations that require a background in ecology. I did this for two reasons. One, it advertised the field as something other than what those “tree-huggers” represent. And two, it informed the students that they should be thinking of what kind of job they want to go into post-graduation. I think many kids expect to find out what they want to do when they go to college (I know I did), and when the answers don’t come, they continue with graduate school (which is also what I did). If someone had informed me about major-related careers, and had given me pointers on how to be qualified for these jobs, maybe I wouldn’t have sought refuge from the real world by hiding behind more books. Career counselors help to a certain degree, but I think professors could also step up to the plate because they are held to such esteem. And they could start by ending their snobbery towards professions outside of academia. Listening to my graduate advisor, taking a non-research government job or (heaven forbid) a position in the private sector is crossing over into the “dark side”. Academia is the “light” side, because there you can feast on “knowledge for the sake of knowledge” without worrying about money. When professors take this attitude, they are basically telling their students that worrying about finding a good job is a petty concern–a worry of only dullards and remedials.
Rich students can afford this lesson. No one else can.
I suppose I’ll elaborate on my situation, as it more closely examines Dr Deth’s post.
I am a resident of the state of California. I began my residence here before I turned 18. I attended a California community college for several years, since I had to make up for dropping out of high school. I got accepted to UCLA. My parents are divorced, my father lives in California and my mother in Colorado. Dad’s out of the picture. Mom’s doing what she can to help me, and it isn’t much, about $100 a month and a little more when she can send it. The $100 stipend I am receiving comes from the VA through my stepdad’s service in Vietnam. My mom has to claim me on her income tax to do this, and I consent. I had no idea what effect this would have on my residency requirements; aside from my husband and my aunt, I had never had any close contact with anyone over a high school education. Ignorance on my part, and fought pretty well, through a lot of pain.
I’m living with my boyfriend at the time (now husband) and we’re barely scraping a living. Because I am 23 at this time and unmarried, I have to include my mom’s income on my FAFSA. I get slammed with out of state tuition to the tune of $30k/year. I don’t have the credit to take out loans, and having a certain sense of pride as a fucking adult, I won’t stomp my feet and throw a tantrum and demand my Mom get a PLUS loan. Because of my non-resident status and the amount of money my stepdad had made that year, I was automatically disqualified for a large number of scholarships.
UCLA’s policy allows a review of residency - if I had graduated from a California high school, I would have been qualified for resident tuition (some people are trying to get this loophole closed now). This only applies to high school. Never mind that I had worked, voted and graduated from a community college in California (90 credits, so it’s not like I was transferring with nothing to show) - all of these things amount to nothing, the high school counts for everything. Here’s the kicker - I would qualify for in-state tuition after my first quarter there. But I couldn’t afford the first quarter, and UCLA policy states that I have to attend the first term I was admitted to. I had to withdraw my application from the university. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
And that is how you can not afford college. Sure, it’s convoluted, but people fall through the cracks like this all the time. I was lucky enough to get accepted a second time, and lucky enough to be awarded several scholarships that amount to a full ride - I made good in the end, but not everyone does.
What monstro says in an excellent argument for separating college from trade school–which frankly has already happened. College = liberal arts, trade school = engineering and technology. Really, it’s only the liberal arts (and some sciences, the kind that don’t make for good career foundations) that spout off about knowledge for the sake of knowlege. If you’re majoring in English, you’re declaring yourself to be part of the leisure class. If you need to get a job, get a degree that will get you a job.
For what it’s worth, here are the average annual expenses in various levels of college, according to the American Council on Education (they’re figures for the 2005-2006 academic year but I figure they have to be close to this year’s figures). They range from an average of $11,692 per year for a live-at-home student going to a public two year college to $31,916 per year for a student attending and residing at a private four year college.
I’d actually like to see colleges and trade schools coming together more, not less. The separation forces students to choose a track that may not be suited for them, while encourageing people to villify one over the other.
On Roseanne, the problem was that Dan and Roseanne fell into something of a ‘donut hole’ – too poor to afford 4-year college without significant help, but too middle-class for Becky to qualify for hardship loans.
At this point in the show, Dan had become a business owner (taking over a motorcycle restoration shop). Though the business started off okay, due to the recession things in their town had turned sour, with the big local factory closing and everyone unemployed. This meant locals had less disposable income for stuff as frivolous as classic bikes. Roseanne, meanwhile, was on her last few weeks of employment as a waitress at the mall coffee shop, which too was being closed. So it was a lousy time for all concerned.
And yes, in the episode in which Becky is filling in the applications, Dan mentions she might qualify for a scholarship (which Becky says is a “big big maybe”); he then says that she could go to community college. Becky becomes furious because she’s been working hard to get great grades to and feels as if her parents let her down by not informing her about their financial situation. Which, although she’s behaving kinda bratty, is a good point. Dan & Rosie were gambling with their finances at this point, and I think they were in denial about the fact that things at Dan’s bike shop weren’t gonna improve. This was one of the many realistic portrayals of lower middle class life that Roseanne did so well in its early/middle years.
Sweet Christ I know way too much about this show. It’s a favorite, what can I say?
