I guess at Harvard they teach you how to interpret romantic poetry better, which will get you a really nice bank teller position. In my experience, however, from Three Rivers Community College to Yale, Pythagorean’s Theorem remains the same, the North still won the war, Edgar Allen Poe was still born in 1809, and Jean Paul Sartre still wrote No Exit.
[QUOTE=Fear Itself]
Perhaps your daughter can marry a rich man.
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No, no, no! Men need more opportunity to marry a rich woman. I support the OP and her daughter’s efforts.
[QUOTE=Kimmy_Gibbler]
Why? I, and all the other American taxpayers, paid for yours.
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No, you paid a fee to avoid working 12 hours (on a short day) per day, 6 days a week in the breezy 125-degree Saudi Arabian desert, while wearing full battle gear, for 6 month stretches, several times over 20 years. The Services chose to spend that fee, in part, to send its service member volunteers to school to get an education. You, and the OP, should really consider that option. Not only is your education mostly paid for (completely in a few states–and the number is growing) but you’ll have the self-satisfaction of participating the the defense of your own life and liberties instead of relying on someone else to do it for you.
Minnesota does this too, and you are right. Taking a partial load is expensive, but once you cap out, you can take as many classes as they’ll let you register for (and I think it is six). So a lot of students bulk up.
The other thing we do wrong is - apparently (I only know this from listening to other students who had aid, I didn’t), they need to maintain a full credit load to get aid. That’s rather silly when you are talking about adults who are working full time to support a household and trying to get their degree. Its pretty silly for 19 year olds who might do better with a smaller courseload over more years and who require a job to survive.
I know for a fact that some students, even when they are clearly going to perform terribly, refuse to drop the course before the Add/Drop deadline because removing a course would fuck up their financial aid. They’d prefer to take an F on their transcript. I’m not sure how to fix this problem, but it clearly needs fixing.
My company won’t even look at your resume unless you go to one of the colleges they consider high class, or unless you have someone who wants you enough to jump through some hoops. Plus, good colleges have halo effects, and help you network when you get out.
If you just want to do the minimum and take classes, it won’t matter. But great universities give great opportunities. My daughter got to work with a famous professor at Chicago who helped push her along to doing research in grad school. Everyone at MIT these days gets involved in some kind of research. We sent our younger daughter to Maryland instead of a UC, (which weren’t in as much trouble 6 years ago) and it could still afford a guy whose job it was getting people fellowships after they graduated. She got a Fulbright partially thanks to him.
There are companies like that, but 1) not everyone wants to work there 2) not everyone can get into an Ivy League school to start with in order to qualify for that sort of job 3) while those jobs can often be lucrative (investment banking), if you aren’t getting a career sort of degree, affording that sort of tuition for a hobby degree is something for the wealthy and 4) a lot of people think you are better off going to a “respectable” school for undergrad and saving “wow” for grad school (of course, “wow” for undergrad makes “wow” grad school easier to get into). For the vast majority of college students, college is a stepping stone to 30 years of working out of a cubicle processing TPS reports. It isn’t necessary to get involved in research, or work with Noble Prize Laureates to do that.
Thats how I did it. Community College is a huge bargain, I got all the various “101” classes out of the way, it took me 2 1/2 years. I worked 8 hours a day as a security guard, making sure to get positions where I could study,write, etc. My parents gave me food & lodging at home, my Grandfather paid for the books. I had about $1500 in Student loans when I graduated with my Masters. It took about 8 years, couting the time in Community coll.
No one cares where you got your AA if you go on to a BA. In fact, if you go on to a MA, few care about where the BA came from.
Oh, and there’s lots of great well paying professional jobs (nursing, law enforcement, medical/dental assistant) where you can come in with just a AA degree. Mind you for nursing, you’d want to continue on to get your RN, etc.
Wait a minute. You had (at least) two children that apparently you couldn’t afford - see references to applying for WIC, Head Start and inability to save due to crisis management - and now you are upset that the government won’t take over the cost of your eldest’s education? I see only a reference to your husband working, so I take it you are a SAHM? These are choices you made - it’s great that your daughter wants to go to college but why should someone else pay for it when it was your choice to do things that resulted in not being able to save for it yourselves.
You know our state is in a financial crisis, right? Send her to a trade school so she can get a decent paying job, then she can save the money to study biomedical engineering later.
Well, on the flip side, if she receives health insurance from the government in any capacity they are legally prohibited from providing health services to obtain an abortion. So, there’s that.
Let’s assume you’re right about what a terrible, terrible parent the OP is. Why should anyone suffer lost opportunities for the rest of her life because of her parents? I don’t see that the daughter made any wrong choices: she did well in school, applied for college, applied for scholarships. How is it to society’s benefit that a rich person’s child, or a thrifty saver’s child, should have an advantage over her?
Acerbic drollery aside, it might be something to consider. Where I live, in the L.A. area, the community colleges vary widely in how appropriate they are likely to be for your daughter’s goals. Some seem to be more vocational and trade oriented, and others seem more geared to those seeking to complete the first two years of a bachelor’s degree. Santa Monica College has an outstanding transfer program; my stepdaughter started there and has since done extremely well at university, graduate school, and career.
I imagine that other population centers around the state are the same in this regard, and your daughter would need to look around at the different local CCs to find the best fit.
Yeah. Or, you could save time and simply ignore any advice/finger-wagging offered by curlcoat on this sort of topic, being that she’s revealed herself to be a colossal and unrepentant hypocrite with a skull like a concrete cistern filled with runny oatmeal.
Oh please. This is the argument that is always used in this sort of thing - think of the children!!! Meanwhile, parents everywhere are not bothering to plan for their kids futures other than perhaps assuming the government (read: the taxpayer) will deal with it. This is one major reason why California is so deep in the hole.
Besides, the daughter doesn’t need to lose any opportunities, she will just need to get to them in a different manner - get a job and save for it, take out a loan, go to a “lesser” school for awhile. As far as I could tell from the OP, it looks like they are only trying to find a way for daughter to go to college for free, or very reduced cost. If so, why is she, an apparently more or less average student, more deserving of a free ride than any other student? And no, we cannot afford to send every child to the four year college of their choice…
Welcome to our world. Here in Ohio, the cheapest state school (Ohio University) is about $9-10k without room & board, $17-20k with. And the state cut education funding even further this year.
Actually, if I remember correctly, very high up on collection of public benefits which she vociferously decries the use of (for other people). As in, “I’m using unemployment/SSI benefits because I earned it, those lazy fuckers just suck at trying to find a job and love sucking at the government teat.”
That’s how capitalism works, Toots: Individuals look out for their own self-interest. Or are you afraid someone will prove to be cleverer than you and be able to benefit from it?
Because being rich allows advantages, and getting rich, and then enjoying the fruits thereof, is what a free society must permit.
A wealthy parent can buy their child private schooling and dedicated tutors. A penurious parent cannot. Allowing this inequity to exist is the inevitable result of a free society. If rich people cannot take their resources and spend them on their children – or, indeed, on whatever fancy they wish – then we are not free.
Society does not owe children a college education.
I said this when I was stinking of food grease and earning $3.15 per hour to allow me to afford books, and I say it now that I am comfortable, money-wise.
I am merely a lowly taxpayer trying to stay afloat in the stupidity that is our liberal government. What does anything I said have to do with our government? That I think people should plan ahead and earn what they get? CA government does *not * believe in that!
Look at it this way - would you sign up to pay a few thousand a year more in income taxes to throw more money at an educational system that you yourself was urging the OP to avoid?
I haven’t taken unemployment since the 80’s nor do I get SSI. What unemployment has to do with this I don’t know, but if you cannot get any closer to the truth than this, you probably shouldn’t go about smearing others.
Oh, I don’t have a problem with anyone trying to get a free ride, tho what capitalism has to do with tax funded education I don’t know, it’s the fact that the OP pitted her lack of ability to find a way to get that free ride. As if she expected and felt entitled to it, which I find to be a rather typical attitude these days.
Without being a terrible parent - all kids get different opportunities depending on who their parents are and how they were raised. A friend of mine has a father who works for the U.N. The twelve year old grandson has been to 15 countries on five continents and speaks three languages - they aren’t wealthy or thrifty - its just that the opportunity is there. That kid is simply going to have advantages and we can’t even them out as a society. Some people have the advantage of growing up in New York City - with a ton of opportunities - others end up in a one room schoolhouse on Lake of the Woods. Someone whose parents care enough to turn off the TV and force them to do their homework has an advantage over a kid whose parents don’t bother to make sure he gets to school every day. Life isn’t fair.
If a kid’s parents didn’t save, that isn’t a dead end, but they might not be able to go to their dream school or get out without loans. College might involve working full time and going to school nights and taking eight years. It might involve community college. Are these options inferior over “I really want to go to Carelton, live in a dorm and have the whole college experience?” Possibly. But we don’t all get all the choices in life.