Good thing that isn’t what I said then, eh?
And you just got done telling me I am stupid for not wanting to pay to send everyone to college…:dubious:
That must be why the OP is so upset that our state has gone into the financial toilet and cannot afford to subsidize the education of her kids.
Let me set you straight–I do not believe parental wealth (good or bad) should be a factor in a child’s decision-making process when it comes to choosing to go to college. College is neither for everyone nor for every field, and I have never asserted otherwise.
At the same time, no one can deny that there are fields one cannot enter at anything other than the basic, secretarial-type level without a college degree.
Many of those fields are objectively critical to the long-term well-being of our country as a whole–medicine, science, engineering, management, law. Many others are subjectively important–economics, political science, cultures/languages.
It makes sense, given the critical nature of those fields to our national well-being, that our country should subsidize the education of people who–despite parental idiocy, short-sightedness, or plain bad luck–cannot otherwise afford the debt load of a typical college degree. Asking those people to double the length of their education, and bust ass at multiple minimum wage-type jobs, or take on loans at the commercial rates while doing so is damaging their medium-term prospects, increasing the personal debt load of this nation, and ultimately a bad idea.
Neither do I. However, I also don’t believe that the adult children of parents who could not be bothered to plan for their future should not expect that others will foot the bill for any higher education they may want to pursue.
Why? How can it possibly affect our national well-being if some of the doctors, engineers, etc end up having to go to school for longer than if someone else had footed the bill for them? Do you really think we are going to run out of doctors, engineers and lawyers if we don’t pay to send every kid who thinks they want to be one of those to college?
Plus its not like everyone going to college is getting an education to become something that will be useful to society. My mother, for example, has a Masters in archeology and she was a secretary. OTOH, my husband has only a two year degree in business admin, yet he is a pilot product engineer in the field of durable medical equipment and holds patents.
As for increasing the personal debt load of this nation, by forcing taxpayers to cover higher education for every child, you are merely robbing Peter to pay Paul. People simply cannot afford to continue to pay an infinite amount in taxes. You want to send your kids to college? Start saving. If you can’t, there is nothing wrong with a trade school or working one’s way thru college.
Not to mention that education was entirely wasted on you, and that you are a financial drain on both society and your family.
:rolleyes:
A) I wasn’t allowed the privilege of getting a higher education - I had to make do with learning a trade. Since I used that for almost 30 years, I don’t see how that could be considered a waste.
B) Simply because you don’t agree with all of my opinions doesn’t mean that I am a drain on anything.
C) I could say that you are a drain since you seem to have an awful lot of time to post here when you are supposedly working for a living.
D) As someone who doesn’t even live in this country, much less in the same state as I do - it’s really none of your business. However, I really cannot wait until you retire and then to be able to tell you that you are a drain on both Canadian society and your family for daring to quit working. Enjoy my inlaws pension money - they never claimed it.
Bolding mine.
Ya’know, I’ve been of the opinion curlcoat is a troll for months, just saying most of the stuff she says to get a rise out of people.
She also has to have the last word in most of the threads she posts to, I think she’s like a (now banned) poster named andrew used to be: A “last word” troll…doesn’t matter what you say, she’ll keep calling you wrong just so she can have the last word.
And it is foolish to PRESUME that they would *want *to work in your industry. Perhaps their interests lie elsewhere??? Have you ever heard of small business owners? Or perhaps a guy who just so happens to really like plumbing or welding? Or maybe being a teacher is where it’s at for them. Some of those proffesions require college, some do not. All have perfectly acceptable income potentials.
Which is why, like I said, if they *want *to go to college (like for example to make it into your industry), then I’m sure they’ll figure out how to get through it. Or maybe not. And if they need to live at home while they do it, fine by me. If they need money for food while they’re at college, I’ll probably help them out. But I ain’t saving up no $80 grand to give them a home-grown free ride. Either way, life will go on. Difference is my kids will have been raised to understand that happiness is not tied to your fucking degree, or the fake promises of a career it dangles in front of you. Education is a tool, and there’s no sense picking up a tool that you have no use for, no desire to use, or are unable to use. Our society thinks about this entirely fucking backwards…
Quality people are made while they are young, like, between 1 year old and 20 years old, NOT between 18 years old and 26 years old.
It’s no wonder colleges are so damned expensive, they KNOW that there’s a bunch of parents out there saving every little penny so that little Johnny can go to college and “Have all the things I never did”. Equine feces.
[QUOTE=curlcoat]
Quit expecting someone else to pay your way and you will too. If you have to whine, whine at your parent.
[/QUOTE]
What the fuck difference does it make in the child’s mind if daddy warbucks paid their way or if the taxpayer paid their way? A sense of entitlement is a sense of entitlement.
I KNOW there are often shortages in certain specialties and fields, simply because the cost of college is so high that people go into more lucrative choices rather than what they want to do or what is needed.
As with the health care debate, can you explain to me how exactly we are so different from other first world countries who DO pay for things like public college aside from the fact we seem to have the world’s largest reserves of insane right-wingers?
This is the crux of why your position is incoherent. What the fuck do MY wants have to do with anything? My daughter’s wants are the relevant bit when discussing her college education–and as long as the government at all levels is tying need-based aid to my salary rather than her own assets and income, they are effectively punishing her for my choices, which is asinine.
If you wanted to go to college and you had any aptitude whatsoever for the field you would have chosen, I consider that outcome a poor reflection on how fucked up our priorities are as a country.
If we spent the money we’re spending on our wastes of time in Afghanistan and Iraq on education aid, that alone would pay for anywhere between 5 and 8 million full scholarships even if we’re discussing top state colleges. Double that, at minimum, if we’re talking small state colleges. Considering total college enrollment as of 2009 was about 25.5 million, and that not all those students will need assistance, that’s a significant fraction.
Taxes don’t even have to increase, we just need as a nation to stop spending money on stupid shit that doesn’t help and start spending it on smart and useful things.
Echo, of course higher education is not for everyone. My concern is that parents do a disservice to their child by arbitrarily deciding to not save any of their disposable income toward their child’s higher education at a stage in the child’s life when it is not known if the child will be pursuing a career that requires higher education. It closes a very significant doors to the child’s future, rather than keeping that door open until that child is in the position to decide what path in life he or she will be taking.
Ah yes. What a blow would society suffer, were you not still around to punish the springs of your Barcalounger, suck up your daily trough of validation from Fox News, and slowly transform pallets of taxpayer-funded Fritos and Ding Dongs into impacted stool!
Agreed. I’d think, worst case scenario and your kid doesn’t want to go to college, you move that fund right over to your retirement account/ vacation fund/ whore and coke savings. It’s win win, really.
I hear you. And I appreciate your level headed and reasonable response. A big keyword here is *disposable *income. It’s also been referred to as **discretionary **income. Hence, spent at my discretion.
Plus, it’s not an arbitrary decision.
I just think differently than you and curlcoat. Maybe it will work out for me, maybe it will not. But whatever the outcome, neither I nor my children will be the first our society has had go down whatever path is blazed by the decisions we make.
And ultimately, what I’m trying to say is, I really do believe that life will go on, and happiness will be within reach for my youngsters, regardless of the outcome of my choices regarding their “college fund”.
Ya know, I ignored Fear Itself’s post because I felt bad about not knowing about his wife. Even after three years, I’m sure I’d be sensitive if it were my husband who was dead. However, jackass, you have no such excuse. You come into threads where I have the temerity to post just “to get a rise out of people” and blather on about things you know nothing about. So, I’m calling you on it. Take up Fear Itself’s belief that I don’t know anything about SSDI and try to prove. Or shut up troll.
I don’t care at all about any difference in the child’s mind. What I do care about is what the entitlement attitude of “I/my child deserves to go to school on the taxpayer’s dime” has done to the state of California, and will most likely also do to the rest of the US in time.
Well, lets see. I’m not wasting my employers time and money by posting from work, I don’t think I’ve ever sat in a Barcalounger, I avoid Faux News like the plague and I don’t eat either Fritos or Ding Dongs, but if I did they wouldn’t be taxpayer funded. So, you lose.
Well, we can’t do anything about those who choose to go into more lucrative careers, but if there is a shortage of say, podiatrists, it would make sense to subsidize just that, and not anything and everything that is available at all colleges.
Oh man, I’m not touching anything that vague! Pick a country and provide some cites and we can discuss it. I will point out however that California has the world’s largest reserves of bleeding heart left-wingers and we are broke because we simply cannot go on paying to house, feed, educate, medicate and diaper all of these people who have been taught to expect the government to take care of them. Such as the OP.
Oh fercrissakes. OK, your wants are not as important as your daughters, fine there. However, IF your daughter should want to go to college, will you have the ability to pay for any of it, or are you just going to end up like the OP, looking around for someone else to foot the bill?
And hooray for the government for actually getting something right, because your daughter’s assets and income have fuck all to do with it. This is the problem with so many parents these days - the kid turns eighteen and boom, they are no longer responsible. Why is this? You created her, you decided to keep her, you raised her and then at eighteen she is the responsibility of random strangers off the street? Because you didn’t pay for her education from K-12, you think you shouldn’t be responsible for any additional schooling to, you know, help her be independent?
Our priorities as a country had nothing to do with it. I left home the day I was 18 because of an abusive father, and had to work to stay alive. Not only was there no money for college, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to take the time to go.
Then go forth and demand that the PTB quit getting us into stupid wars! Yes, if we quit spending all that money, we could send all sorts of folks to college and probably even lower taxes! But your knee jerk reaction was that taxes should go up to pay for the OP’s kid to go to college, despite her obvious lack of responsibility on the subject.
Actually, the OP is a classic example of why this state is in such terrible trouble. She had three kids, and it was either at number two or number three that she knew she was going to need government help to raise them. So right off the bat, she has more kids than she has to know she won’t be able to do much more than feed, clothe and shelter. But she expects that the government will pay to send the first one to college even tho she knows that our state college system is in serious financial shape. And she won’t even compromise on how long it takes the kid to finish school, or the type of school she goes to. Nope, her speshul snowflake must go to a four year school and she must be finished as soon as possible.
You keep saying why punish the child? Well, because our resources are finite, we are going to end up punishing a heck of a lot of “innocent” children due to the selfishness and/or lack of planning of their parents. The well has almost run dry here, yet people go on having kids they can’t afford, creating debt they won’t pay off, getting healthcare on the taxpayer as if we were still able to dig gold out of our backyards. Then you come along and say that I’m an incoherent, insane right-winger simply because I point out the facts of life where I and the OP live.
No, she becomes her own responsibility. At some point, children become sentient, you know.
Happiness may be in their reach, but the reality of our economy makes me believe that if we’re talking 10-15 years from now, your kids are gonna resent you like hell. Especially if they see money that could’ve been put into a high yield account (or a 529 plan account) being spent on “interactive learning activities” like rocket building that are a load fun and yes, educational, but won’t do jackshit for funding college or getting them a career.
I have no disagreement with subsidies being at least partially tied to declared major.
At least part of California’s problem, going by secondhand information from the LA and SF branches of my family, is that spending and taxation are decoupled (in that tax increases often need to pass the referendum process, while spending is a mere legislative act, IIRC) so you guys have a near-constant budget crisis because that arrangement makes it a complete no-brainer for politicians to spend more than they tax.
I was thinking primarily of Germany, which doesn’t do it at the federal level but at the “state” level in most states, that being the country I’m most familiar with the education system of other than my own. I understand most of western Europe and Scandinavia have similar policies—Spain, France, Italy, Finland, and Sweden I know for sure. None of those countries are in any particular crisis right now. According to the IMF figures I can find (http://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/index.php), all of them have debt-to-GDP and deficit ratios in the same general ballpark as the US–that is to say, currently shitty due to the fact we’re in a serious recession, but generally pretty acceptable. In point of fact, the US’s debt ratio got worse faster than most of Europe, despite having lower taxes and providing fewer services.
I counter with “this is the problem with so many kids these days–when you’re 18, you are supposed to be able to get out on your own. Parental HELP is okay, but if you are still RELIANT on your parents at that age, there is something wrong.”
Point in fact–whether I have saved for college for her or not is 100% irrelevant to whether or not she gets financial aid. Only my income and my assets are considered, even if I have no intention whatsoever of providing them. Your own case is proof positive of why that’s an insane policy–it was not your fault that your father was abusive and didn’t want you, and no sane policy starts from the completely false presumption that he is going to pay the lion’s share of your college bills.
I work with what I have. I think we pay too low taxes and provide too few government services in general, even if I also think we need to slash the everloving hell out of the military budget.
No, you’re broke because your voters were duped into imposing artificial restrictions on property taxes.
Exactly this.