Principia Discordia

Inquiring minds have to know!

In my world, higher education involves a joint and  couple of tabs of acid while looking at the sky and wondering what it's all about.

What do you mean by "in your world"?  I have many uh ATMOSPHERES in the same world where education has different value and experiences vary widely.

I do expect it for my kids, otherwise their father will probably ship them off to Afghanistan...

But I also want them to avoid the mistakes made by my brothers who hit a glass ceiling i n their careers at 30...

Quote from: Jenne on November 19, 2010, 02:15:46 PM
What do you mean by "in your world"?  I have many uh ATMOSPHERES in the same world where education has different value and experiences vary widely.

I do expect it for my kids, otherwise their father will probably ship them off to Afghanistan...

But I also want them to avoid the mistakes made by my brothers who hit a glass ceiling i n their careers at 30...

what was the nature of the ceiling they hit?  I'm sort of at that point myself, where if I go back and pick up a few more skills I'll be able to command a better salary.

in answer to the OP, I'm the first in my family to attend, and never finished.  I was working full time to support myself and had to bend to any changes in schedule. 

My son will have to option to go, and I'll encourage it, but I wont force him to do it.  I expect the costs will have risen 10x by the time he's old enough.   :horrormirth:

between Infrequent and common. College education in Ontario slightly more common right now thanks to more powerful student unions keeping costs down. Probably take about another 10 years to get caught up with the costs of the US (right now the gov in Canada still pays 40 to 55% depending on province, they pay a little more for me thanks to me being sick in the head) ... don't know where the US will be by then. I suspect "Only for the Rich" category.

Quote from: The Dancing Pickle on November 19, 2010, 02:20:18 PM

Quote from: Jenne on November 19, 2010, 02:15:46 PM
What do you mean by "in your world"?  I have many uh ATMOSPHERES in the same world where education has different value and experiences vary widely.

I do expect it for my kids, otherwise their father will probably ship them off to Afghanistan...

But I also want them to avoid the mistakes made by my brothers who hit a glass ceiling i n their careers at 30...

what was the nature of the ceiling they hit?  I'm sort of at that point myself, where if I go back and pick up a few more skills I'll be able to command a better salary.

in answer to the OP, I'm the first in my family to attend, and never finished.  I was working full time to support myself and had to bend to any changes in schedule. 

My son will have to option to go, and I'll encourage it, but I wont force him to do it.  I expect the costs will have risen 10x by the time he's old enough.   :horrormirth:

It was a salary ceiling.  And for my older younger brother who's in his mid 30's, a hiring ceiling for jobs he needing a higher wage for.  His experience is high, he's owned 3 businesses (all failed, but still), been his "own boss" since he was 19 or 20...and yeah, when he struck out on his own to find work, he found that 1) he was undervalued due to lack of ANY degree or certification and 2) he was considered not a trustworthy candidate for any hiring position entailing leadership of any kind.  He has to prove himself faster and harder and just more more more because he doesn't have a degree.

And the guys interviewing him were very upfront about all that.

I tend to think of it as generational.  I was the first in my family to go to and graduate from college.  I'm talking about extended family too.  None of my aunts or uncles have college degrees.  I'm also the only one with any kind of post-graduate degree.  Now amongst my other high school classmates, I'd say about 85-90% of them went on to college.  So, from my universe, it seems pretty expected these days.  Of course, it is also expected that your parents are going to be too poor to contribute to your education and that you will live under a big mountain of debt for 10 or so years after you graduate.  

Quote from: Thurnez Isa on November 19, 2010, 02:33:07 PM
between Infrequent and common. College education in Ontario slightly more common right now thanks to more powerful student unions keeping costs down. Probably take about another 10 years to get caught up with the costs of the US (right now the gov in Canada still pays 40 to 55% depending on province, they pay a little more for me thanks to me being sick in the head) ... don't know where the US will be by then. I suspect "Only for the Rich" category.

I have a discussion with a friend of mine semi-regularly about the "why" on the 200+% increase in tuition costs in 10 years.  Other than demand, which I can see driving costs up due to limited space in existing universities, what's the real deal behind the nearly overwhelming rise in the costs while the wages paid for the professions have remained stagnant and even decreased?

We kick theories, but never agree on anything precise.

Quote from: The Dancing Pickle on November 19, 2010, 02:41:31 PM

Quote from: Thurnez Isa on November 19, 2010, 02:33:07 PM
between Infrequent and common. College education in Ontario slightly more common right now thanks to more powerful student unions keeping costs down. Probably take about another 10 years to get caught up with the costs of the US (right now the gov in Canada still pays 40 to 55% depending on province, they pay a little more for me thanks to me being sick in the head) ... don't know where the US will be by then. I suspect "Only for the Rich" category.

I have a discussion with a friend of mine semi-regularly about the "why" on the 200+% increase in tuition costs in 10 years.  Other than demand, which I can see driving costs up due to limited space in existing universities, what's the real deal behind the nearly overwhelming rise in the costs while the wages paid for the professions have remained stagnant and even decreased?

We kick theories, but never agree on anything precise.

For state universities in CA, it's all funding.  The CA residents pay LESS tuition by law, and with the fact that The Governator cut funding for state schools FIRST before cutting anything else in education, the state unis and colleges had to fight harder for the same amount of money, plus inflation.

So up go tuition fees, and out go CA residents, in come the out of staters who can pay more.

It's all $.  Not just demand (we graduated the largest class of high school students ever last year in the US), but also the fact that state budets are ass right now.

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on November 19, 2010, 02:39:06 PM
I tend to think of it as generational.  I was the first in my family to go to and graduate from college.  I'm talking about extended family too.  None of my aunts or uncles have college degrees.  I'm also the only one with any kind of post-graduate degree.  Now amongst my other high school classmates, I'd say about 85-90% of them went on to college.  So, from my universe, it seems pretty expected these days.  Of course, it is also expected that your parents are going to be too poor to contribute to your education and that you will live under a big mountain of debt for 10 or so years after you graduate. 

I had an aunt and uncle that went 4-year on my mom's side, but I was the first post-grad on my mom's side and the first university graduate on my dad's, period.  But my brothers had oppotunities and drank the koolaid that they didn't need higher education, because hey, my DAD made it in the wide, wide world with none, so why can't they?

Guess what he's wanting to do once he gets out of the clink, btw?  Yeah, go to college.

(good for him, but he could've started that in the jail system for free)

Quote from: The Dancing Pickle on November 19, 2010, 02:41:31 PM

Quote from: Thurnez Isa on November 19, 2010, 02:33:07 PM
between Infrequent and common. College education in Ontario slightly more common right now thanks to more powerful student unions keeping costs down. Probably take about another 10 years to get caught up with the costs of the US (right now the gov in Canada still pays 40 to 55% depending on province, they pay a little more for me thanks to me being sick in the head) ... don't know where the US will be by then. I suspect "Only for the Rich" category.

I have a discussion with a friend of mine semi-regularly about the "why" on the 200+% increase in tuition costs in 10 years.  Other than demand, which I can see driving costs up due to limited space in existing universities, what's the real deal behind the nearly overwhelming rise in the costs while the wages paid for the professions have remained stagnant and even decreased?

We kick theories, but never agree on anything precise.

I don't know with the US.
Here it's just regular costs, ie technology, and with the baby boomer's kids out of school now there is less political pressure dedicated to education, more towards taxes. There's also a philosophical question: Is education more beneficial to the individual or to the society? And like typical Canadians we can't make up our mind, so we want European style education with American style financial support.

4/10 students who do A levels in the UK go on to University.

That is, if you consider the standard 3 year BA or BSc at a former polytechnic, half remembered through a haze of binge-drinking and drug abuse higher education....most people I know left Uni no smarter than they entered and with little in the way of any extra knowledge.  I would say in terms of actual education, with a facility that holds itself to high standards, probably one in ten A level students get that - so no different from the 50s and 60s.

In my town, most people haven't been to University.  Ironically enough, the most educated segment of the workforce here are the Polish immigrants, the few that are left - there are numerous teachers, engineers and chemists here in particular.  They mostly do factory and retail work, however.  Even at the school where I work, the teachers and myself are the only staff members with a University education - the support staff definitely outnumber us.

University costs are rising, and fewer places are being offered each year.  As a consequence, overall applications are down, even as many Universities are at full capacity.  With the downturn in the job market and insanely high rent prices, many are being put off, knowing that student loans alone wont support them, and that their chances of scoring summer work are slim.

The Polish in the UK sound like the Middle Easterners that came here in the 80's, Cain.  Most shopkeepers in Los Angeles were engineers and university grads.  My husband has SURGEONS who can only work as nurses in his clinic because they are from Mexico, and so is their medical degree.  So they perform surgery in TJ and environs on the weekends, and do nursing duties during the week in CA.

Sounds like it.  Only a few have gone into business for themselves, mostly selling Polish food for those missing the taste of home, but most tend to work the shitter end of the job spectrum for others.  In town here, one of the biggest employers is a factory, and about a quarter of their workforce is Polish.  Or was when I was there, at least.

Personally none of my family has been to University, myself included. Of my high school friends, I know of one who has graduated and is now working in the field, and another who keeps dropping out and going back. Beyond that, I wouldn't put the number of people in my High School class who have continued their education past 10%, mostly due to the town my high school was in offering nearly guaranteed, high-paying jobs at the mine whose company owns the town and trains the schoolkids to love everything about working in the mine.

So in my case, higher education is rare, and doesn't necessarily pay off even if you do it. I make a decent living at a white-collar job despite my lack of formal higher education, but I have no illusions that I got here by any means other than luck (the 13 sacrificed virgins may or may not have influenced it).

Quote from: Subetai on November 19, 2010, 03:23:22 PM
Sounds like it.  Only a few have gone into business for themselves, mostly selling Polish food for those missing the taste of home, but most tend to work the shitter end of the job spectrum for others.  In town here, one of the biggest employers is a factory, and about a quarter of their workforce is Polish.  Or was when I was there, at least.

That's exactly how the Middle Eastern (read:  everything from Iranian (Persian is what they call it), Arab, Indian and Pakistani) stores down here started out.  You talk to the shopkeepers and find out, oh, they were higher-ups in their regional government, or oh, they were engineers in the 70's and 80's.  Very sad, but in a way, good, because they landed on their feet, and they usually own the businesses they are bleeding life into.

And their kids usually end up either running the businesses with them or getting a grand education as well.

I've noticed that from over there, money breeds money, if the first generation are willing to work for it.  A lot of them send the money back, too (it's not just the Mexican's, Folks!  ALL immigrants with families overseas are sending the cash back!), especially if they have wifes, fiancees, children and elderly parents that need upkeep and/or bringing over here still.  In fact, my husband's RICH Afghan family keeps making the mistake of asking for money from their so-called "rich American" brothers over here who actually make less than they do as a collective for the rent in Kabul.

They'll probably be poor again, though, once that real estate bubble bursts.

Quote from: postvex™ on November 19, 2010, 03:39:03 PM
Personally none of my family has been to University, myself included. Of my high school friends, I know of one who has graduated and is now working in the field, and another who keeps dropping out and going back. Beyond that, I wouldn't put the number of people in my High School class who have continued their education past 10%, mostly due to the town my high school was in offering nearly guaranteed, high-paying jobs at the mine whose company owns the town and trains the schoolkids to love everything about working in the mine.

So in my case, higher education is rare, and doesn't necessarily pay off even if you do it. I make a decent living at a white-collar job despite my lack of formal higher education, but I have no illusions that I got here by any means other than luck (the 13 sacrificed virgins may or may not have influenced it).

I'm curious as to what's considered "decent" from your second paragraph.  And I'm curious as to what your colleagues who might be degreed have in common with you re: age, experience and salary.  In my experience, the younger you are, and the more degreed you are, in the white collar job sector, you tend to get hired low and paid higher faster, considered for job perks faster, etc.  Whereas the guys with no degrees have to prove themselves more, even if they got paid more initially due to (possible) more experience in what they're doing.

Poles sent back a lot of money too.  They'd make here in three months what they'd make, in their old jobs back home, in a year.  So it's a no brainer really.  Lots left when the economy crashed though, and while a sizeable number are still earning a living here, I'm sure they realize in the long term there isnt much of a future for this country and so are just trying to wring as much out of it as possible before leaving.

Quote from: postvex™ on November 19, 2010, 03:39:03 PM
Personally none of my family has been to University, myself included. Of my high school friends, I know of one who has graduated and is now working in the field, and another who keeps dropping out and going back. Beyond that, I wouldn't put the number of people in my High School class who have continued their education past 10%, mostly due to the town my high school was in offering nearly guaranteed, high-paying jobs at the mine whose company owns the town and trains the schoolkids to love everything about working in the mine.

So in my case, higher education is rare, and doesn't necessarily pay off even if you do it. I make a decent living at a white-collar job despite my lack of formal higher education, but I have no illusions that I got here by any means other than luck (the 13 sacrificed virgins may or may not have influenced it).

Who wouldn't love working in a mine?  I mean, miner's lung, interminable strikes and having the shit beaten out of you by the police?  Where do I sign up?

Quote from: Jenne on November 19, 2010, 03:45:14 PM

Quote from: postvex™ on November 19, 2010, 03:39:03 PM
Personally none of my family has been to University, myself included. Of my high school friends, I know of one who has graduated and is now working in the field, and another who keeps dropping out and going back. Beyond that, I wouldn't put the number of people in my High School class who have continued their education past 10%, mostly due to the town my high school was in offering nearly guaranteed, high-paying jobs at the mine whose company owns the town and trains the schoolkids to love everything about working in the mine.

So in my case, higher education is rare, and doesn't necessarily pay off even if you do it. I make a decent living at a white-collar job despite my lack of formal higher education, but I have no illusions that I got here by any means other than luck (the 13 sacrificed virgins may or may not have influenced it).

I'm curious as to what's considered "decent" from your second paragraph.  And I'm curious as to what your colleagues who might be degreed have in common with you re: age, experience and salary.  In my experience, the younger you are, and the more degreed you are, in the white collar job sector, you tend to get hired low and paid higher faster, considered for job perks faster, etc.  Whereas the guys with no degrees have to prove themselves more, even if they got paid more initially due to (possible) more experience in what they're doing.

By decent I mean I'm able to afford a morgage, 2 cars, various electronic doodads to amuse myself and my family with, and not starve or freeze to death. Also, it's a single-income household. Money is tighter than I'd like it to be sometimes but that's going to be true no matter how much you make (for most people).

Right now my salary ceiling isn't determined by education or experience but by the amount and types of work that the company has to do. Admittedly I'm feeling a little underutilized, but it isn't because somebody has checked my education record and determined that I'm unsuited for advancement -- there just isn't any advancement to give out without robbing someone who has been here longer than I have. It's also a small business, not a corporation (and I wouldn't want to work for a corporation anyway).

Quote from: postvex™ on November 19, 2010, 04:08:46 PM

Quote from: Jenne on November 19, 2010, 03:45:14 PM

Quote from: postvex™ on November 19, 2010, 03:39:03 PM
Personally none of my family has been to University, myself included. Of my high school friends, I know of one who has graduated and is now working in the field, and another who keeps dropping out and going back. Beyond that, I wouldn't put the number of people in my High School class who have continued their education past 10%, mostly due to the town my high school was in offering nearly guaranteed, high-paying jobs at the mine whose company owns the town and trains the schoolkids to love everything about working in the mine.

So in my case, higher education is rare, and doesn't necessarily pay off even if you do it. I make a decent living at a white-collar job despite my lack of formal higher education, but I have no illusions that I got here by any means other than luck (the 13 sacrificed virgins may or may not have influenced it).

I'm curious as to what's considered "decent" from your second paragraph.  And I'm curious as to what your colleagues who might be degreed have in common with you re: age, experience and salary.  In my experience, the younger you are, and the more degreed you are, in the white collar job sector, you tend to get hired low and paid higher faster, considered for job perks faster, etc.  Whereas the guys with no degrees have to prove themselves more, even if they got paid more initially due to (possible) more experience in what they're doing.

By decent I mean I'm able to afford a morgage, 2 cars, various electronic doodads to amuse myself and my family with, and not starve or freeze to death. Also, it's a single-income household. Money is tighter than I'd like it to be sometimes but that's going to be true no matter how much you make (for most people).

Right now my salary ceiling isn't determined by education or experience but by the amount and types of work that the company has to do. Admittedly I'm feeling a little underutilized, but it isn't because somebody has checked my education record and determined that I'm unsuited for advancement -- there just isn't any advancement to give out without robbing someone who has been here longer than I have. It's also a small business, not a corporation (and I wouldn't want to work for a corporation anyway).

Sounds like a pretty rare company in a flexible field, which again, seems rare.  I hope it lasts and lasts, especially as you're single income and carrying all those large, non-consumables.  That's a really cherry outfit you're with.  I'm serious about that.  Unless you're skilled labor, and that's not considered white collar per se, though I notice that it's not really considered blue collar anymore, either, it's really tough to find a flexible enough job that you can carry one household income on to any successful degree, without 2-year or 4-year college behind you.

Kudos, man.  Esp if you LIKE the fuckin' job to boot.

I'm the  least educated person in my family by far, but in my peer group about 80% have graduate degrees or higher, and the remaining 20% have bachelor's degrees or no degree.

if by "higher education" you mean a college degree, it's fairly uncommon among my peer group aside from the wealthier ones. Though several of my friends have gone back to school to get technical certificates when they hit their salary ceilings. Ironically, I make alot more money than just about every one of my friends and I only have my GED. But I also have a serious drive to educate myself even if that education comes outside the formal system, and I have a work ethic that would make a japanese salaryman cry mercy. There are all kinds of factors that go into your income potential, formal education level is just one of them.

All my immediate family members have gone to college (except one cousin who is a professional dancer)
My high school had a 100% college attendance rate.  I think they would have murdered anyone who didnt go because it would ruin their statistics  :sad:
My parents would also murder me if i didnt go. and now they want to murder me for taking forever to finish  :lol:

In my family, it's expected that you go to college. My parents and their siblings, grandparents, a great grandfather (on my mom's side), and great-great grandfather (also on my mom's side) all went to college of some kind, either for a 4-year or to study law, in the case of the last two. My mother and stepfather would have killed me if I hadn't gone on.

That said, so far, three of my cousins and I are the only ones in college or have graduated from college, out of the ten of us who are old enough to go, and one other cousin is now a plumber. Of everyone else, there are three who I have no idea what they're doing and two who are programmers for Blizzard and Valve. Nearly all my friends from high school are in college, either at the community college level or regular 4-year. Not going makes you the black sheep.

My parents and their siblings all went to college.  As for the kids, most of us went for a time, I think only about 5 of us actually continued and received our degree.  I went for 2 years, took 2 years off to work, then went back and finished with a BS in math and business.  Not that I use my degree for shit tbh, I can't do the banking and I would never be able to teach without going to jail for smacking someone.

I want my kids to go to college or at least a trade school.  I really think my oldest will do the military route, the others both have set career goals so college is their best option to achieve those.  I'm not going to force the issue though, my parents did and now I have dual degrees in subjects I really have no desire to pursue in the professional realm.  :sad: