College (Today) ≠ Education?

College (Today) ≠ Education?

Education – e-duct-o (Latin) to lead out of

(ex- from; ducere – bring out, lead forth)

            If anything, College has become IN-ducto - INdoctrination rather than educto – education.

And yet despite the facts below, we conflate college with education, learning, knowledge and or skill transference.

            If anything today’s colleges hold themselves out as educating when in reality they are merely a camouflage brand. The Collegiate masquerade engages in the frauds of misrepresentation as well as bait in switch harming students and parents – economically and education wise with its personal financial ebola and indoctrination.

            The question is: is College worth it on a cost benefit basis given private College cost for 4 years or more being over $200,000+++ and public colleges being$80,000++ (1) when all is said and done.

Cost / Benefit (To Whom????) Analysis of ‘College’

To Students & Parents

Cost

• $80,000- $200,000 +++
• Opportunity cost? (1)

• Personal Financial Ebola: i.e. tuition at the University of Denver in 1967 $1500, today over $43,000 when inflation adjusted the tuition at DUh would be $10,300 (and over just 4 years $120,000  over inflation at the expense of student indenture and or parent Personal Financial Ebola)

DU 1500 to $10, 300 to 43,000+ = 120k personal financial ebola

• Deferral of first time homeownership
• Tuition increase on average from 1978-2012 of 1125% per Bloomberg
• Bait and Switch (fraud???(2)) as 70%+ of courses are taught by teaching assistants
• Dishonest publication of average class size using average versus mean (akin to same Oreo’s package with less cookies – let alone ‘stuff’ – for the same price)
• Teaching loads on average of the professors of less than 11 hours per week
• Second class teaching: there is a teaching  monetary disincentive as research payoffs at Colleges moreso than teaching students paying $80,000 - $200,000+++
• Suppression of freedom of expression by the Political Correctness
1. Speech codes
2. Safety zones
3. Micro aggressions
4. Trigger Warnings (& without Roy Rogers’ Trigger)

• Snowflake, Cupcake & Crybully enabling – “in loco (weed) progressives” for the perpetually aggrieved & offended
• Academic welfare (Tenure) for Scholar Barrens on the Honor Dole
• Tenure in the name of Academic Freedom & Freedom of Expression when now there is wrongful termination laws for protection
• Tenure in the name of Freedom of Expression while practicing PC censorship and indoctrination

• Academic gibberish

Benefit:

• Supposedly higher earnings?????? (emphasis supposedly given % of graduates living in their parents basements – unlike previous graduate experiences).

Is The Cost Benefit Ratio of Today’s College – Economically & Education Wise Worth It

To Students & Parents?

Or, In Reality, is Today’s

A Rip Off, at be$t, A Fraud (2), at wor$t?

(1)    Opportunity cost – had the student worked, interned, and or done apprenticeship during the 4 or more years earning a degree – and not working while investing part of their earnings (even while living at their parents) that would add to the cost side to determine the true cost benefit ratio.

(2)    Fraud = deception, scam, racket, hoax, smoke and mirrors, sham

           

Mooching Free Tuition Begs (Literally & Metaphorically)

The Question & Problem

Good Old F.U!: Rah, Rah, Siss, Boom, Flimflam Bah– Personal Financial Ebola

Good Old F.U!: Rah, Rah, Siss, Boom, Flimflam Bah– Personal Financial Ebola (2)

(EpiPen has nothing on Good Old F.U.)

What is college for?

Is it for:

• Personal Financial Ebola: i.e. tuition at the University of Denver in 1967 $1500, today over $43,000 when inflation adjusted the tuition at DUh would be $10,300 (and over just 4 years $120,000  over inflation at the expense of student indenture and or parent Personal Financial Ebola

• Tuition increase on average from 1978-2012 of 1125% per Bloomberg
• Bait and Switch as 73% of courses are taught by teaching assistants
• Dishonest publication of average class size using average versus mean
• Teaching loads on average of the professors of less than 11 hours per week
• Teaching as monetary disincentive versus research
• Suppression of freedom of expression by the Political Correctness
1. Speech codes
2. Safety zones
3. Micro aggressions
4. Trigger Warnings (& without Roy Rogers’ horse  Trigger)

• Snowflake, Cupcake & Crybully enabling – “in loco (weed) progressives” for the perpetually aggrieved & offended
• Academic welfare (Tenure) for Scholar Barons on the Honor Dole
• Tenure in the name of Academic Freedom & Freedom of Expression when now there is wrongful termination laws for protection
• Tenure in the name of Freedom of Expression while practicing PC censorship and indoctrination

• Academic gibberish

           “At the heart of the current crisis (in higher education costs) is the higher educations complex’s:

• Addiction to “the law of more” (1)
• Administrative bloat
• Edifice bloat
• More spending
• More students
• Higher tuition.

 The corollary has been academia’s ‘law of less.” In return for all of this spending, academia has been

• Giving less in return
• Lower teaching loads
• A Swiss cheese curriculum
• Dumb-down standards
• Mediocre education masked by inflated grades

 The result is:

• Generation Debt
• Expensive degrees of dubious value”

Fail U, by Charles J. Sykes, p242-243

            So what is college for for?

Knowledge transference?

            Skill acquisition?

            Learning?

            Critical thinking?

            And then answer the reality of what has college become???

            An Accredited Fraud: Merely A Brand – like for detergent, underarm deodorant, or scratchy toilet paper – all hat no learning – lots of stinky unclean skid marks – playing students, parents and legislators as ‘marks.’

Rah, Rah, Sissy, Boom, Fraud On The Public, BAM

Good Old F.U.

Good Old F.U. Uppa U S Ah

Providing your children’s college educations. The hell with it.

Dave Barry

(1)   Bowen’s law “ revenues tend to drive costs higher in both public and private research universities” aka Parkinson’s Law of Parasitic Collegiate Costs  – institutions of higher education will always spend all the money they can possibly raise

(2)   Author is self educated despite graduating Magna cum Laude in Finance, Wall Street Journal Outstanding Senior Finance Student, 1971, and an MBA as well from the University of Denver (DU) where I was very schooled and minimally educated. And by all accounts it’s even worse now. & the new Chancellor wants billion dollar endowment. *** Note The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education gave DU “the speech code rating Red. A red light university has at least one policy that both clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech” DUhhhh.

EpiPen College Education Costs: The Personal Financial Ebola©

EpiPen College Education Costs: The Personal Financial Ebola©

            From 1978 thru 2012 alone, the cost of a college degree rose 1,125%  -  400% of the inflation rate during the period. (Cost of College Degree in Us Soars 12 Fold, Bloomberg, August 15, 2012)

            Question was the college degree worth 400% over inflation in terms of value – be it earnings, learning, skill acquisition? Was it worth 400% over inflation with the quality of the education devalued by reduced teaching loads, increased substitution of graduate students and assistant professors, grade inflation etc.? Or is the acquisition of the degree just a ‘Brand’ -all graduation hat no job (or employment as a Barista at Starbucks living at home with the parents?)

            By comparison, computer power, value & usefulness has risen 10x -50x+ fold (more bang for the buck) at reduced prices during the same period as the cost of the degree  grew 1125% for a devalued diluted product at the expense of  parents’ work free retirement, students effectively indentured to mounting debt with other societal impacts such as deferring traditional first time homeownership & the extension of adolescence & resentment having to live with one’s parents.

            Metaphorically, this ‘higher’ education product is reminiscent of the same size cookie box with 50% less cookies – even worse - “more snowflakes less filling” due to evaporation.

            Whereas the EpiPen price gauging extortion which escalated the price over 500% to $600 for two (when in Canada a two pack sells for $120 and a competitor in Europe, Jext, sells for $30-$60, where is the comparative outrage – at the shakedown by Good Old ‘F.U.’? (*) Instead, the focus is for bailout (the effect not the cause)  by these ‘snowflakes, cupcakes & PC crybullies’ demanding college ‘be free’ (which means someone else is being extorted err paying & forgetting ((due to lack of education)) the most expensive things in life are free) just reinforcing their ‘give me, buy me, take me’ entitlement self absorption. Instead, the structural problems of higher education mooching (theft by personal financial ebola) should be addressed: tenure, subsidized cheap loans incentivizing administrator incompetency, bloat, and lack of unaccountability  , accreditation (rigged accruditation based to process not results), the exemption from taxation of the huge collegiate endowments (which should be going into reduction of tuition) and the cup (buildings, ‘the brand’ & the bureaucracy) being more important than learning & skill acquisition.

            Really, the University of Denver in 1967 had a tuition of $1500. Today, tuition alone is $43,500. Per inflation during this period, the tuition would be $10,300. Thus, the $30,000 a years difference or $120,000 for 4 years (not including earnings on the saving during the period) is a heck of a down payment on a home, and a large chunk going to parents’ work free retirement

            Higher Education’s Personal Financial Ebola is the EpiPen geometrically extrapolated and yet  where is the outrage. If anything, comparatively, there isn’t ‘even a smidgeon’ of fury let alone calls for Congressional Investigation of even the tax exempt status of The Jesse James Edutariat Scholar Barron Shakedown Artists & Moochers: ‘summa cum personal financial ebola.’

Higher Ed EpiPen Personal Financial Ebola: you hold ‘em

 we’ll shtup ‘em for Good Old F. U.

* yes, in part – but the Epipin episode illustrates  – the FDA can make it extremely difficult to get in a generic (hiding behind efficacy and safety) not that there is a revolving door and influence to slow down, delay – keep out generics by the Drug Co. FDA Complex – also using distinctions without a difference. Not that the fact that Mylan’s CEO was formerly its lobbyist in Washington DC, and the same CEO is the daughter of Democrat Senator Joe Manchin has any influence - which I’m sure is just a coincidence.)