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Monday, December 6. 2010

One sad victim of the education bubble

Via Phi Beta Cons,



Listen to this illuminating interview Peter Schiff did with a student who is $200,000 in debt for a sociology degree from Northeastern University. He gets right at the root of the problem: government-guaranteed student loans.


Posted by The Barrister at 13:35 | Comments (14) | Trackbacks (0)

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$200k in the hold for a degree with job prospects, like engineering or medicine, would be risky enough. $200k for a sociology degree? That's taking out a ticket for the dole queue, to quote James Herriot.
#1 Geoff Brown on 2010-12-06 13:38 (Reply)
But a liberal arts education isn't about job training. (Nor is it about "Sociology.")
#2 BD on 2010-12-06 13:47 (Reply)
But "Liberal Arts" has been watered down to the point of being meaningless. I don't know she choose to take, but I'm sure she did not have to take a single class on:

Calculus - or any kind of math
Statistics
Greek and Roman history, language, or philosophy (or any History for that matter)
Business / accounting / economics / finance, or any nasty corporate stuff (too bad for her)
Astronomy or Physics
Biology

In other words, she didn’t receive the classic Liberal Arts education. She paid $200k for a liberal indoctrination program.
#3 NJSoldier on 2010-12-06 14:01 (Reply)
The Northeastern "core" curriculum is outlined online. It requires two mathematics courses, and the 2nd level is polulated by lots of statistics and calculus courses, but also by "MATH 2230 - Mathematical Encounters
Covers interesting and significant developments in pure and applied mathematics, from ancient times to the present. Fundamental mathematical ideas have a power and utility that are undeniable and a beauty and clarity that can be inspirational. Selected topics may include: prime and irrational numbers, different infinities and different geometries, map coloring, and famous unsolved and recently solved problems. Provides students with an opportunity for hands-on experience actually doing some of the mathematics discussed and to research topics in the library and on the Web."
#4 Douglas2 on 2010-12-06 14:10 (Reply)
The root of the problem is not guaranteed loans, it's that people don't expect to have to deal w/ the consequences of their decisions.

A sociology degree is crap. If you want one, understand the time and money cost...then make your decision.
#5 DrTorch on 2010-12-06 15:00 (Reply)
The point about government guranteed loans is spot on, but Schiff misses the rest of the story.
There is a limit to what an individual student can borrow from federal loan programs, and it's magnitudes less than what this student borrowed.
The rest of the story is the outside, private loans, most likely requiring a parent co-borrower (although the student in the interview claims to have received at least some of the loans without her parents having to co-sign.)
If the student defaults, the lenders will come after the parents.
The culprit in this part of the story is not the federal government, but the university financial aid office. They should be discouraging such loans in the strongest of terms, but they don't, because they want the money.
#6 JEG on 2010-12-06 15:08 (Reply)
I graduated from Northeastern in 1966 with a BSCE. Then it was a five-year coop school on a modified quarter system. It served almost enitirely commuter students from Boston and its immediate suburbs. The greater majority of its students pursued engineering and technology. Its enrollment was about 41,000, counting day and night students. Its campus was minimal, industrial white brick and mud parking lots. Robert Parker parodied it mercilessly in "The Godwullf Manuscript."

For my last year, total tuition was less than about $3500. I lived at home and took the bus back and forth. I graduated with $300 in a National Student Loan, which I repaid over ten years. Went to graduate school and enjoyed a productive and comfortable academic career.

Several years ago, Northeastern's Trustees and Administrators got fed up with their reputation as a commuter school. They felt they deserved a higher status among fellow Boston academics who scorned them. So, they went to more selective admissions, got rid of 30,000 commuter students, built an upscale campus with residencies and got really real PC. Current tuition $36,360 plus $12,310 room and board, $762 fees plus books health insurance etc.

I no longer give to NU because it shamefully turned its back on me and people like me just so its administrators and trustees could do some social climbing. Where once it was a way out of the working class, now it is a poverty trap for working class students like this girl. NU is basically a corrupt institution, and it would be better for its students if the school were forcibly shut down by the Commonwealth.
#7 bob sykes on 2010-12-06 16:25 (Reply)
$36k per annum for tuition? Where are they spending the money?
#8 John on 2010-12-06 17:32 (Reply)
Pffhht...$200K? I wish I had spent $200K. Two kids through Tufts pre-med, Tufts Med, George Washington Med and one through Brown.

You don't want to know what that cost - believe me.

As far as the degree goes, it's versatile enough that she can get a job doing something - it's not worthless. I have a very good friend who has a sociology degree and is now working and making some major dollars as a pharmaceutical study analyst using the math and stats courses he studied as part of his curriculum.

If you are looking to the social services, I agree - you are probably dead in the water, but looking beyond to other professional areas that require stats and analysis skills, you are just as likely to be hired as anybody else.

It's not the name of the degree, its what you learn and how you apply it.
#9 Tom Francis on 2010-12-06 20:50 (Reply)
The Mrs graduated three years after you and she says much the same about her Alma Mater.

I always thought of NE in much the same way - sons and daughters of working class people getting a good sound education in the sciences and math.
#10 Tom Francis on 2010-12-06 20:52 (Reply)
Too bad - their students and grads had a good reputation as hard workers with practical knowledge. The first bank I worked at had lots of their grads and interns around.
#11 NJSoldier on 2010-12-06 21:02 (Reply)
I stand corrected on the math and stats - the rest is still true. Modern liberal arts isn't.
#12 NJSoldier on 2010-12-06 21:05 (Reply)
So they talk about math but don't actually do it.
#13 class factotum (Link) on 2010-12-07 09:28 (Reply)
Ha ha! Big joke's on you!

Spending that kind of cash for what? Do they teach a different sort of science at Tufts than they do at UMASS or Fitchburg State?

My sister-in-law is a Tufts Med grad. Now she suffers dealing with the same Medicaid or Health care insurance crap as all physicians and that Tufts Med degree doesn't mean "squat" to the fat, HS graduate, affirmative action hire handling her claims.

Guys like you kill me! All you did was support a bunch of bow-tied snobs and Birkenstock-wearing clowns for 8 years so you could brag at "the Club" how well little Muffy and Lance were doing in their oh-so-selective liberal arts colleges!
#14 Earl T on 2010-12-07 23:10 (Reply)

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