Professor Elam

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College Debt

Tuesday May 29, 2012

I am seeing more and more articles about the looming college debt crisis. 

Howard Gold comments on it in this article. He notes the rise in administrative costs.

Mark Cuban doubts the very wisdom of many college programs.

Peter Thiel the Pay Pal founder recently appeared on Sixty Minutes offering students an incentive to discontinue college. He has pronounced this to be a bubble. Indeed students ow more debt than the entire credit card debt in the USA. 

Our point here is that students should be careful in assuming debt. This is another reason we emphasize obtaining certifications so that one will have additional assets to offer in the workplace. 

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3 responses to “College Debt”

  1. C Kingsley Avatar
    C Kingsley

    There are couple of things that I would like to add. I work with and around several recent (last year or so) highschool grads who are now attending College. These kids have different approachs to school. Most notably are those who “JUST” have to go to a four year school anyplace but here in san antonio. They would rather take on debt then attend ACCD for two years and then transfer for to a university later. I tell my daughter “You can attend any college you want as long as you get a full ride scholarship, otherwise you go to the schools we can afford”. The thing is that if planned correctly most college debt can be avoided. Remember the US government will pay for your college in exchange for a brief period of paid service.

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  2. C Kingsley Avatar
    C Kingsley

    And one other thing, a recent story in Yahoo Finance shows that a trade worker with a 1-2 year tech school education out earns the average college grade 4 year university for the first 20-25 years. If you add in debt as a liability to offset income. The summary of the story is get a trade that pays, attend school as you can and marry the two educations to not only have a high starting income but also to make sure that you have a pathway to higher pay once you top out in your trade.

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  3. Luis Martinez Avatar
    Luis Martinez

    Those are two very solid points. Debt is not fun. Get a certification if possible while attending college just in case things don’t work out.

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