<p>From Time:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yet more than a third of young graduates themselves do not agree that their education has paid off.
[/quote]
</p>
<p><a href="http://time.com/98205/rich-kids-college/">http://time.com/98205/rich-kids-college/</a></p>
<p>There’s little doubt for me that only rich kids should to to CERTAIN colleges: those $60,000 a year places that offer financial aid only in the way of loans. </p>
<p>College is still a worthwhile investment if the school and the major are chosen carefully. </p>
<p>No. </p>
<p>NO! This only considers the financial aspects of a college degree. btw- some rich kids should not go to college- the spots should go to students who will make better use of the educational opportunities. Like the “CERTAIN” qualifier in the above post.</p>
<p>In today’s world many jobs that did not need a college degree now require one. This means that for some who feel they aren’t earning enough they would be earning even less without the degree. A supply and demand situation- employers can get college grads and therefore do so.</p>
<p>Consider this- 2/3 of college grads felt it was worthwhile. That’s twice as many as don’t. You can have all sorts of fun with manipulating statistics. There will always be some for whom college isn’t worth it. These probably include mediocre college students. There are intangible benefits of college that have nothing to do with salary. Students who do reasonably well in college have absorbed a lot of thinking skills along with a lot of other experiences they wouldn’t get by joining the work force straight out of HS. Also- one would need to ask the same people their opinion 10 and 20 years out of HS. That is when the differences may finally make a difference.</p>
<p>I know a lot of kids from my generation who were definitely not rich but a college degree made a huge difference. Consider the vast majority of teachers, engineers, nurses, and so many other college degree professions entered by the middle class (and less economically well off)- many needed loans. Society would also lose a lot if many could not improve their socioeconomic status through education.</p>
<p>For years now there’s been a push for every kid to go to college right out of high school. Traditional 4-year college is not the right path for every kid. Some kids need a break before college. Some need to start at a CC. Some will do much better at a vocational/technical school. I hope that every kid who wants to go to college can, but there needs to be a reality check. Students need to understand - and parents need to better educate - about cost/benefit. Just because you CAN borrow absurd amounts of money to finance a college education doesn’t mean you should. I can’t tell you how many people have told D “You’re so smart - you should go to a better school!”. Well, she goes to a perfectly fine school, and it’s one where she can graduate and not be crippled by debt. A college education is worthwhile, but if you’re taking out private loans to pay for it, then in that case maybe it’s not.</p>
<p>Realistically, high achieving (by standardized tests) students from low income families graduate college at about the same rate as low achieving students from high income families, so it is already the case for many that the income level of your family is a significant factor (relative to measures of one’s own academic merit) in how likely one is to complete college.</p>
<p>Yes, let’s just continue to increase income disparities and strengthen our oligarchy rather than, oh I don’t know, addressing skyrocketing costs.</p>
<p>If your job after high school consists of flying to shareholder meetings, you probably don’t even need college, if you are going to work in the family firm.</p>
<p>Its the kids whose families don’t have money that really need to develop skills & talents they can translate into financial support.</p>
<p>No but people going to college should have a clear understanding of why they’re going. It shouldn’t be just because you finished high school. Especially for lower income students.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As it is today, the scions of wealth likely have the luxury of going to college to find themselves after high school graduation without thinking about the career implications, since they will graduate without debt and likely with plenty of helping hands to find jobs after graduation. For most of those from middle and lower income families, there is enough risk involved that bad decisions or bad luck that the scions of wealth can shrug off can lead to very difficult problems (e.g. graduating in debt with no job to pay it off, or running out of money and dropping out in debt), so more care in making a college and career plan is often needed (even if they can go to a college that they can afford). However, information access that can help with such planning is often less available to those from lower income families.</p>
<p>So the question “Should only rich kids go to college?” is outdated – the reality today is that it is mainly rich kids who actually do go to college and graduate with bachelor’s degrees (so that college is reverting to its historical position of confirming inherited SES, rather than providing increased opportunity for SES mobility as it may have during the 1950s-1980s). The questions should really be, (a) “Should access to college be improved for those from middle and lower income families?”, and (b) “If so, how?”.</p>
<p>I agree with you ucb. Kids from families that can afford college, whether through frugality or trust funds have pretty much always gone to college. The bigger question is how do we help the lower income families. And the kids I feel sorry for are the ones whose parents have always lived alittle on the edge of their means and are now struggling for college tuition. That is no fault of the kids. And sometimes those are the parents that are least willing to admit to themselves or their ‘neighbors’ that they were living on the edge. For those kids, we need a stronger CC to U or State U system much like California has.</p>
<p>I’m also not sure when in life you can actually determine your degree has “paid off”…it’s certainly not in your early twenties.</p>
<p>I’m 23, I think I can say my degree paid off. It’s worked out pretty well. Though perhaps you can’t say if it didn’t pay off so early. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, it depends on what you definition of “rich kids” is.</p>
<p>The majority of students at the Ivies, MIT, Stanford, U Chicago, receive aid, so there is a lot of access to those middle and lower income families that you mentioned. For Harvard, 20% of families pay nothing - I assume they are very low income families…and 70% overall get some aid. </p>
<p>Of course it isn’t perfect, but what we have today is hardly mainly rich kids going to college.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Fault? It is only someone’s fault if it is a requirement for the parent to pay for the college that the kid wants to go to. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Question 0 then, “How is access to college currently for middle and lower income families?”</p>
<p>Because it’s not obvious how it is. There are scholarships and financial aid available at many universities, High academic achievers should not have a problem. Though should middling achievers from middle and low income families go to college where their wealthier counterparts would? I don’t know. And I could be wrong about any bit of this.</p>
<p>It’s hard to answer a without an answer to 0 though. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Harvard gives need-based financial aid up to very high levels of family income (> $200,000, according to its net price calculator), so it is not the case that a majority of Harvard students getting financial aid means that most of them are from middle and lower income families. Indeed, since the threshold for zero family contribution at Harvard ($65,000 income) is rather close to the median income of households headed by people who are likely to have kids in high school or college, one can approximate that only about 20% of Harvard students come from median or lower income families.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>High achieving (on standardized tests) low income students graduate from college at about the same or lower rate as low achieving high income students.</p>
<p><a href=“Who Gets to Graduate? - The New York Times”>Who Gets to Graduate? - The New York Times; (take a look at the graduation gap chart)</p>
<p>There is a big gulf between “median or lower income families” and “scions of wealth”. It is hardly “mainly rich kids” who are going to college unless your definition of rich is a family making more than the median income.</p>
<p>The issue is with the kids who are graduating college with levels of debt that are difficult to pay off given their income after graduation. Rich kids typically graduate with no debt. So there’s no question about ROI for them. Kids from median or lower income families may take on debt loads that limit their futures. That could be because they insist on an unaffordable “dream school”. Or it could be because even the State U. is more than their family can reasonably afford and they take on more debt than they should. Or they complete undergrad, don’t find work, and then finance grad school with excessive loans. For those kids graduating with significant debt (at least in relation to their earning potential), the payoff is much further in the future.</p>
<p>Well, of course the pay-off is further in the future. The rich don’t have debt and can easily afford dream schools and art history majors. The not rich have to be practical. Why is this even surprising? </p>