Why college has become a total rip-off
It’s August. Lots of young people go to college.
Luckily there will be fewer this year.
I say luckily because college is now an overpriced scam.
Overpriced because normal incentives to be frugal and make wise decisions about who should go to college were discarded when the federal government took over student loan allocation.
Why?
Because our government basically spits out money on anyone who applies.
If private lenders were to make the loans, they would assess whether repayment was likely.
They asked questions like, “What are you going to study?” Do you really think that majoring in dance will get you a job that will make you enough money to pay us back?”
The government rarely asks these questions.
Bureaucrats throw money at students. Many do not benefit.
Many shouldn’t even go to college.
Today, almost half of the students who are granted a loan do not graduate even after six years.
Many feel like failures.
College is good for people who want to become university professors or study majors like engineering and computer science that could lead to good jobs.
But that’s not the case for most people. promote government credit all to go to college, even if they don’t have much interest in academics.
The government’s guidelines also call on universities to further increase tuition fees.
In the last 50 years, the cost of college has increased four times the rate of inflation. Four times!
Years ago I reported that colleges were suddenly wasting money on luxuries like fancy gyms and even day spas.
Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that things got even worse: The University of Oklahoma bought a convent in Italy for students studying abroad!
The University of Kentucky built a theater where students play video games.
“Why not Raise tuition?” asks the typical college president. “Uncle Sam pays the bill!”
When I went to Princeton, the tuition was $2,000. Now it’s $60,000.
Universities have little incentive to cut costs or innovate.
Princeton still “teaches” by giving lectures by professors.
Super boring. I slept through a lot.
Although today I should probably thank Princeton, because his lengthy lectures inspired me to try to find better ways of presenting information. That’s what made me successful on TV.
Student loan borrowers have tens of thousands of dollars in debt.
Last year, the President announced that he would forgive up to $20,000 of that debt per person.
Students in debt loved it! A group called the Student Debt Crisis Center called it “a big win for many.”
But for many more it would be a great loss!
Debt relief is unfair to the people who work hard and pay off their debts.
Fortunately, Joe Biden’s plan was rejected by the Supreme Court, which said only Congress had the authority to forgive student debt. Congress didn’t.
Now Biden is trying again.
The government announced that it would forgive anyone who has made payments for more than 20 years.
This is better, but still bad. Perhaps courts will stop these alms as well.
College students take out loans and go into decades of debt believing they need a degree to get hired.
But that’s no longer true. Recognizing the uselessness of many bachelor’s degrees, IBM, Accenture, Dell, Bank of America, Google, and other big companies recently dropped graduate degree requirements.
This also applies to the state governments in Maryland, Utah, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Alaska, North Carolina, New Jersey and Virginia.
Good trades like welding and plumbing don’t require a college degree to get good jobs.
Trade school programs often last less than two years and cost much less than college.
Living the good life or getting a good job doesn’t require fancy dining rooms, video game rooms, or a college degree.
The college has become a government-subsidized rip-off. It’s good that fewer people are going.
John Stossel is the author of Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.
