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Had this article forwarded to me this morning:
It's an interesting read and one I'm sure we've all come across at some point with regard to the economy in general. But there's some junk in here that is frankly old news and doesn't explore where the possible fault lies, that being with the choices some young people make. Here's what I think needs to be done to help fix the situation with our post-secondary education in this nation:
1) Stop shoving the whole mantra of "everyone must go to college" down all high schoolers throats. Back in my day high schools had vocational classes, aka "shop" where they might learn some woodworking, mechanical repair (ie: working on your car), hell some of the better ones even had welding. Today these classes are forgotten in so many schools because many administrators see it as a lesser career. That plus many high schools today receive more money if they report a higher percentage of graduates who were accepted for a 4 year college.
2) The .gov backed student loans need to stop. The reason why isn't necessarily because of the level of debt (another reason discussed below) but rather these loans allow students to take any major they want. It could be a major the Intracacies of Early Mayan Lesbians and Integrated Beastiality (pre-1400 AD) and the loans will come through. Kids keep taking these bullshit majors either because they're easy and they just want to skate by, or they believe the brainwashing they receive in high school of counselors telling them "do whatever makes you happy". Well, life is tough sometimes and this isn't helping. Loans need to be made available for actual valuable majors, hard sciences, tech, engineering, etc.
3) Student loan debt is ridiculously out of control. Mostly thanks to the .gov, but again, let's not entirely focus all the blame on the .gov. No one held a gun to the student's head and forced them to sign on the dotted line. Believe it or not I paid my way through college and it can still be done today. It's hard work, and that's part of the problem is that many people are so averse to hard work. They want the loans to make it easy, and bitch and moan when they come due after graduation. Man up you pussies.
4) Finally, the .gov taxes are also get out of control. It's one thing for a free market nation (the USA) to embrace it to its fullest extent, which means if a company wants to outsource some of its labor to Mexico, China, India or whatever, that's fine and they should be able to do that. But it's another when the .gov makes it so cost prohibitive for a company to want to hire a domestic employee, not because they necessarily must pay a higher wage, but instead because of all the additional tax burdens forced upon a business for hiring that domestic worker. You've got the abyss of Medicare and SS taxes to deal with to start, then figure in unemployment and workers comp, and now add on Obamacare and on top of that the employees personal federal taxes are also high....hell that isn't even getting start on state income taxes (thankfully we don't have that in Texas). Look at Russia as a complete opposite...the former motherland of all communism has a flat 17% tax. Not that I'd want to live there mind you, but damn.
The article mentions in the 3rd paragraph that 20% of all people between 19 and 29 are married today? I'd love to see the source for that statistic because I don't buy it.
It's an interesting read and one I'm sure we've all come across at some point with regard to the economy in general. But there's some junk in here that is frankly old news and doesn't explore where the possible fault lies, that being with the choices some young people make. Here's what I think needs to be done to help fix the situation with our post-secondary education in this nation:
1) Stop shoving the whole mantra of "everyone must go to college" down all high schoolers throats. Back in my day high schools had vocational classes, aka "shop" where they might learn some woodworking, mechanical repair (ie: working on your car), hell some of the better ones even had welding. Today these classes are forgotten in so many schools because many administrators see it as a lesser career. That plus many high schools today receive more money if they report a higher percentage of graduates who were accepted for a 4 year college.
2) The .gov backed student loans need to stop. The reason why isn't necessarily because of the level of debt (another reason discussed below) but rather these loans allow students to take any major they want. It could be a major the Intracacies of Early Mayan Lesbians and Integrated Beastiality (pre-1400 AD) and the loans will come through. Kids keep taking these bullshit majors either because they're easy and they just want to skate by, or they believe the brainwashing they receive in high school of counselors telling them "do whatever makes you happy". Well, life is tough sometimes and this isn't helping. Loans need to be made available for actual valuable majors, hard sciences, tech, engineering, etc.
3) Student loan debt is ridiculously out of control. Mostly thanks to the .gov, but again, let's not entirely focus all the blame on the .gov. No one held a gun to the student's head and forced them to sign on the dotted line. Believe it or not I paid my way through college and it can still be done today. It's hard work, and that's part of the problem is that many people are so averse to hard work. They want the loans to make it easy, and bitch and moan when they come due after graduation. Man up you pussies.
4) Finally, the .gov taxes are also get out of control. It's one thing for a free market nation (the USA) to embrace it to its fullest extent, which means if a company wants to outsource some of its labor to Mexico, China, India or whatever, that's fine and they should be able to do that. But it's another when the .gov makes it so cost prohibitive for a company to want to hire a domestic employee, not because they necessarily must pay a higher wage, but instead because of all the additional tax burdens forced upon a business for hiring that domestic worker. You've got the abyss of Medicare and SS taxes to deal with to start, then figure in unemployment and workers comp, and now add on Obamacare and on top of that the employees personal federal taxes are also high....hell that isn't even getting start on state income taxes (thankfully we don't have that in Texas). Look at Russia as a complete opposite...the former motherland of all communism has a flat 17% tax. Not that I'd want to live there mind you, but damn.
The article mentions in the 3rd paragraph that 20% of all people between 19 and 29 are married today? I'd love to see the source for that statistic because I don't buy it.
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