Survey: College increasingly important but priced out of reach

[marmar]

Survey: College increasingly important but pricey
By JUSTIN POPE, AP Education Writer


The number of Americans who think a college degree is essential for success has risen dramatically in recent years, a new survey shows, but two-thirds of them also believe that higher education is priced out of reach for some qualified students.

The survey, released Wednesday by the groups Public Agenda and the National Center on Public Policy and Higher Education, underscores the uptick in public anxiety about college affordability during the current recession.

In the 2000 version of the survey, at the end of the Internet bubble and with the success of college dropouts like Bill Gates attracting attention, just 31 percent of respondents called a college degree the only way to succeed in America. That figure jumped to 50 percent in 2007 and 55 percent in the latest survey, conducted late last month.

Perceptions about accessibility are moving in the other direction: Just 30 percent agreed that almost anyone who needs financial aid for college can find it, down from 38 percent in 2007. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090204/ap_on_re_us/college_costs_survey

[KharmaTrain]

1. I've Encouraged My Kids To Stay In School

One of my kids graduated in 2007 and was lucky to land a teaching job, but she's not happy and was accepted in a graudate program that will help her move into other directions. My other kid is in his Junior year and we've already talked about him going on for his Masters rather than try to go into a very hostile job market.

We're very fortunate that we can afford to have this option...I know many too many who don't. Within the past year I've heard of several who had to drop out of school due to either losing their grant/loan or other financial hardship. The financial collapse is making things even worse as I suspect getting college loans for next year are going to be all but impossible and many grants (who lost billions in endowments) may vanish as well. Government aid can't come fast enough.

[JerseygirlCT]

2. Hopefully a good number of those grants will not have been

as directly impacted - they often use a three-year rolling accounting method, so the collapse hasn't necessarily gotten to them in full yet.

But yeah, it's horrible. I know so many really smart kids, who ought to be heading to the best schools - instead contemplating courses online or in community colleges for a while. The near 50k a year those top schools look for is literally a fortune.

We're also getting by, having saved forever to do this, but eek. I get hives every time we write the tuition check.

If things continue as they are, good colleges will find themselves only enrolling very wealthy kids and foreign students.

[HughBeaumont]

3. Good ol' America. If you want success, you'd better be willing to COUGH UP.

Not just talking blood, sweat and tears, here. We're talking about time and most importantly, MONEY. And you'd better have LOTS of it, or get used to flippin' burgers for a livin', brother. Because after the corporatists are through, there isn't going to be a living wage job to be had or a pot to piss in, and the window's fast-a-closin'.

College? COUGH up. Study on your own all you want, blah blah blah, but guess what? Employers want SKINS (even though it's doubtful any of them even check). And you can forget about just associates degrees. Today's bachelor's degrees are yesterday's high school diplomas. Hell, even MBAs are getting laid off with regularity nowadays and a recent article states that PhDs aren't even the guarantee they once were.

Want to start a business? COUGH up. "BECOME the owner". Riiiiiiiiiight. You know, because we ALL have tons of start-up capital, a product to sell, an audience for that product, money to pay for medical care, repeat business and an insane amount of luck which will drive us to be the 1 out of 10 small businesses that DOESN'T fail. We can sure pay the bills on THAT crapshoot. Ask several DUers who own businesses how easy it is. Republican Libertarians think it's easy, so it MUST be so. That's because many of them aren't DOING it.

Want a place to live? You know the drill.

Got a disease or a health condition because you weren't born lucky? SORRY. We're insurance conglomerates. We're too strong, too numerous and you ain't got a SHRED of hope in the world for that "universal health care" nonsense. We're not in business for our health, much less yours. COUGH up, and we're not talking cold germs. Got a couple hundred . . . thousand handy?

We live in a world where mere survival almost completely depends on one being employed. We live in a world where getting sick means the END of your world as you know it. We live in a world where we fear rich people so much we wouldn't THINK of harming them or making their lives less comfortable in ANY way, even if it means losing everything we worked so hard for at their behest. We don't value education, we don't value our brothers and sisters well being, we treat everything as a rigid box rather than a flowing circle, we waste far too much money, time and toil for the needs of an overfed handful and we're too entrenched in vanity wars against sovereign nations that have done nothing to harm ONE American citizen.

It's a disgrace. An absolute fucking DISGRACE.