Student Loan Debt Hell: 21 Statistics That Will Make You Think Twice About College

Makalakumu

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Interesting article with surprising statistics...

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/...l-make-you-think-twice-about-going-to-college

Is going to college a worthwhile investment? Is the education that our young people are receiving at our colleges and universities really worth all of the time, money and effort that is required? Decades ago, a college education was quite inexpensive and it was almost an automatic ticket to the middle class. But today all of that has changed. At this point, college education is a big business. There are currently more than 18 million students enrolled at the nearly 5,000 colleges and universities currently in operation throughout the United States. There are quite a few "institutions of higher learning" that now charge $40,000 or even $50,000 a year for tuition. That does not even count room and board and other living expenses. Meanwhile, as you will see from the statistics posted below, the quality of education at our colleges and universities has deteriorated badly. When graduation finally arrives, many of our college students have actually learned very little, they find themselves unable to get good jobs and yet they end up trapped in student loan debt hell for essentially the rest of their lives.

Read them and weep...

Posted below are 21 statistics about college tuition, student loan debt and the quality of college education in the United States....


#1
Since 1978, the cost of college tuition in the United States has gone up by over 900 percent.

#2 In 2010, the average college graduate had accumulated approximately $25,000 in student loan debt by graduation day.
#3 Approximately two-thirds of all college students graduate with student loans.
#4 Americans have accumulated well over $900 billion in student loan debt. That figure is higher than the total amount of credit card debt in the United States.
#5 The typical U.S. college student spends less than 30 hours a week on academics.
#6 According to very extensive research detailed in a new book entitled "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses", 45 percent of U.S. college students exhibit "no significant gains in learning" after two years in college.
#7 Today, college students spend approximately 50% less time studying than U.S. college students did just a few decades ago.
#8 35% of U.S. college students spend 5 hours or less studying per week.
#9 50% of U.S. college students have never taken a class where they had to write more than 20 pages.
#10 32% of U.S. college students have never taken a class where they had to read more than 40 pages in a week.
#11 U.S. college students spend 24% of their time sleeping, 51% of their time socializing and 7% of their time studying.
#12 Federal statistics reveal that only 36 percent of the full-time students who began college in 2001 received a bachelor's degree within four years.
#13 Nearly half of all the graduate science students enrolled at colleges and universities in the United States are foreigners.
#14 According to the Economic Policy Institute, the unemployment rate for college graduates younger than 25 years old was 9.3 percent in 2010.
#15 One-third of all college graduates end up taking jobs that don't even require college degrees.
#16 In the United States today, over 18,000 parking lot attendants have college degrees.
#17 In the United States today, 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees.
#18 In the United States today, approximately 365,000 cashiers have college degrees.
#19 In the United States today, 24.5 percent of all retail salespersons have a college degree.
#20 Once they get out into the "real world", 70% of college graduates wish that they had spent more time preparing for the "real world" while they were still in school.
#21 Approximately 14 percent of all students that graduate with student loan debt end up defaulting within 3 years of making their first student loan payment.

Thoughts?
 

Sukerkin

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Agreed :nods:. I think your "read 'em and weep" sentiment is pretty much in the money.

I was fortunate in that I took my first degree thirty years ago, in a period when an academic education expected a certain rigour and drive for attainment. I have taken two others since and have found that in each dip into the Ivory Towers' pool that the task was more expensive, less demanding and less rewarding each time.

Present day graduates are being sold a 'bill of goods', to use the American phrase and it is symptomatic of problems all through the 'column' of education. That is one contributory reason as to why youth unemployment is so very high. There is not anything inherently substandard with the 'raw materials' (other than being used to having things too easy) but the end product is very definitely substandard as far as employers are concerned.

A very real problem that has revealed itself, due to the erosion of the value of standards, is that students don't think they are poorly educated because their 'results' are so high. They are trained to pass the tests rather than trained how to learn and think and that severely short changes them when it comes to employment where expertise and knowledge is about the only thing that matters (other than being able to work as part of a team).
 

Ken Morgan

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There are still many very, very good schools out there; one cannot paint them all with the same brush.

Firstly what is your goal of a postsecondary education? To get a job? To stay busy? To find what you like?

Honestly if you take a profession or a trade in school, medical doctor, law, physiotherapist, accounting, education, nursing, millwright, plumber or anything similar, then your tuition is an investment in your future, you will make a decent income and will pay off your debts.

If you take 19[SUP]th[/SUP] century French literature, English, or constructing a cylindrical storage device using various fibrous plant material, then that too was your choice, and you have to live with the consequences.

Yeah student loans suck, but no one forced you to go to university or college.
 

Rich Parsons

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I learned a lot in the first two years of an Engineering program.
I learned a lot in the following years as well.
It did take me 6 years to graduate. Major change from Chem Engineer to Comp Sci and form working part time to full time.

I would like to see the numbers (* some of these are the same data just presented with different words *) based upon degree or major. I would expect it would change for those who were in the STEP classes for a major.
 

Sukerkin

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There are still many very, very good schools out there; one cannot paint them all with the same brush.

I agree with most of what you said there Ken, it is just that the quoted bit is at odds with both my experience in the work place and with the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) and other business bodies. The education system is not providing the 'refined raw materials' that the economy needs to function well.

By the way, I have no disagreement at all with eduction for it's own sake, or the sake of interest alone - if I had the money I'd probably take a look at another degree in History, for example, focussing on different aspects of the profession than I looked at with my curatorial and archaeological studies.
 

Grenadier

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There are a lot of people in college who simply shouldn't be in college.

This isn't to say that they can't be productive members of society, though. After all, there are many other career paths that don't need a college degree, and that they do pay well.

Trade schools / vocational schools are quite useful for learning skills that will help one find a good-paying job in the real world, and can come at a small fraction of the cost of a full-fledged college education. In addition to this, there are many community colleges that also teach vocational skills in a similar manner.

For example, here's a vocational school that offers quite a bit:

http://www.apollocareercenter.com/adult-education-home-page.aspx

There are a lot of good jobs available to those who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty (figuratively speaking), and ones that aren't going to be lost due to outsourcing...


Everyone who goes to college should really take a long, hard look in the mirror every year, and ask himself, "is college really for me? Am I really going to be getting the skills and credentials I need to succeed in the world, doing a job that I would like to have?"
 

Carol

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I went to college for a year, then had an opportunity to play music professionally. I dropped out of school -- which hurt me financially because I lost some scholarship money.

However, it was one of the best things I did. Sadly, I didn't become a rock star ;) However, I learned a lot more about what I wanted to do with my life and education. I appreciated the opportunity more when I did go back and finish. I also learned a helluva lot about what I did NOT want to do.

Finally (bear with me for those who have heard me say this before), college is, at most, 50 percent about what you get to learn. 50 percent or more is about WHO you get to know, and the networks that you can build for life. My C programming final at UMass Lowell was arguably harder than a counterpart's C programming final at Yale. So why is it that no one outside New England associates UMass Lowell as a school for academic rigor, especially in computer science and engineering? Because at Yale you go to school with the kids of old money. At UMass you go to school with the kids of more ordinary folk.
 

Blade96

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There are still many very, very good schools out there; one cannot paint them all with the same brush.

Firstly what is your goal of a postsecondary education? To get a job? To stay busy? To find what you like?

Honestly if you take a profession or a trade in school, medical doctor, law, physiotherapist, accounting, education, nursing, millwright, plumber or anything similar, then your tuition is an investment in your future, you will make a decent income and will pay off your debts.

If you take 19[SUP]th[/SUP] century French literature, English, or constructing a cylindrical storage device using various fibrous plant material, then that too was your choice, and you have to live with the consequences.

Yeah student loans suck, but no one forced you to go to university or college.

i bet people goto college because of a life script, like having kids. they figure its 'what you do.' and they shouldnt be there. Hell, I met people like that.
 

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