Tuesday, September 27, 2011

College: An Unfair Ponzi Scheme

It just saddens me to see kids all geared up for college when they're 18. But when they leave school they have $80+ Thousand debts to the Banks for student loans. I understand some gets get Grants, Scholarships and whatnot but still not every kid is able to do that. And if the kid gets married right out of schools we're talking about 160+K debts and we aren't even talking about car and house payments yet.

Here is what is even more sad, some of these kids(already in debt) can't even get a job at the local Walmart, or gas station, let alone their chosen Career Field that they are indebted to in the first place.

Now lets dig a little deeper on how sad this system is, and its down right heartbreaking man.

College's receive $50+ Million in hosting football games, 20+ Million in TV Deals, Billion+ Dollar Endowments for research and on top of that Millions of Dollars Donated for specific functions. And we're not talking about the Millions of Taxpayer Dollars whether its on the Federal or State level given for Education. Lets not forget that Colleges are also Tax Exempt. For example just last week University of Pittsburgh received a $125 Donation for its School of Arts.

What is wrong with this picture, why are kids putting themselves Hundreds of Thousands into debt when Colleges are receiving Billions of Dollars for whatever reason and are Tax Exempt.

I propose 1 of 2 things, either kids should be able to go to college for free or college's lose their Tax Exempt statue.

College's should be able to function just fine even with those revenue losses to its books if kids went to school for free. Remember college's are public Universities funded by the State and Federal Government's. Do Public School Districts charge a fee for kids to go through their education system. Of course not, and the same should apply to public universities.

States like Alaska, and Texas already allow kids to go to school for free. I'm not sure about Living on Campus and other things in that area. But every state in the union should follow Alaska and Texas's method on this issue.

Now if a school was to go Private, I'd revoke their tax exempt status, and Federal and State funding. Therefore a school is going to lose money either way. It would be up to the specific school on what they should do here.

Either way, should we as a society be letting kids getting into Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars and watching Banks profit from this? If there was a moral issue, this is it.

Society in general really needs to get its head out of its ass and do whats best here.

1 comment:

  1. AMEN! I am one of those current students. Would you believe we dont get our federal aid in time to buy books anywhere but the overpriced campus bookstores to boot. Thats no PDF, no ebay/recycled or textbooks.com-- no EBOOKS, a way greener solution. We pay triple the going amount for books w/ our student loans and Fafsa, so there is another revenue for the colleges. :S

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