Have LLNL employees benefited from subsidized college education?
For decades, the University of California and California state colleges were free. Some of you may not have known this. I'm sure some of the students of that era were or are working at LLNL. Since ~1980, college tuition has grown faster than inflation. Many years ago, Peter Schiff said the spiraling cost of college in the USA was largely due to easily acquired federal loans, since that allowed colleges to continue to raise their tuitions and fees. Then colleges could raise costs, the federal loans increased, and the cycle repeated. Something to consider before criticizing the $10K student loan forgiveness.
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Watch for greed to rule over intelligent restraint -- tuition will skyrocket, quickly swallowing up the 10k$ - 20k$ of govt subsidized costs. Biden's crass attempt to buy votes will backfire.
"Then colleges could raise costs, the federal loans increased, and the cycle repeated. Something to consider before criticizing the $10K student loan forgiveness."
Read that again, read again and read again. You see the problem?
Ok I will bite and guess this was a troll post. This is exactly the problem colleges are simply going to raise tuition by 10k. In fact colleges are the ones pushing for the loan forgiveness because they automatically get the money. Additionally students who had doubts about getting a MS degree due to past debt will now say, I just saved 10k, I can afford to take out another loan and get another degree. More people will not be talking out loans because they also think the odds are good that some additional forgiveness will be coming sometime in the future. In economics this is known as a moral hazard.
By the way I am not against the debt forgiveness I simply want colleges to eat these costs not the taxpayers. Universities have been pushing for years that 70% or or more of the population needs a college degree. The realty is at most 20% of adults need a bs degree. Even that seems high. I can understand talking a loan to go to college to get high paying degree that gives you knowledge you actually need to do your job. Very few jobs need 4 years of college training. More and more people are going to college for the "college experience", drinking, parties, road trips, football, a year abroad, friends, a good time. There is also the issue of increasing automation so that less and less people are going be needed to work, which means even less reason for college.
Lets take the labs LLNL, or LANL, what percentage of the people actually need college degree to do their jobs? Not the security guards, not the clean up, not the bureaucracy, even many of the tech support people do not need a degree, not the maintenance. To be clear they could take specific courses and have apprenticeship training but they do not need 4 year degrees. That is more than 50% of the labs, once you get to most other places are you down to 15 precent or less.
The first two years still are in the California Junior Colleges(except for books, etc.). That's all that's needed for the majority of technical jobs.
8/28/2022 9:58 AM
That sounds about right.
As usual the government, regardless of party, addresses a symptom and not the basic issue: in this case, how to fix the ridiculous cost of college. Back in the day (I'm a doddering 91 year old) a student could work his/her way through college. I had the benefit of the GI bill, but as I had a family to support I still had to work at part-time jobs. The point is that it was doable; students could work their way through college without piling up debt.
We need to get back to that instead of handing out money in hopes of buying votes.
Yes colleges are now dropping more and more requirements like certain levels of math. More schools are dropping the SAT, ACT and so on, for various reasons, this is true even in the UC system.
College is increasing about the "experience" which is parties, road trips, football games, a year abroad, clubs, groups, that kind of thing. If there is any work it is summer internships which are a joke half the time. Heck even in the sciences and engineering this is happening more and more.
Take heart though I think all it means is we need less and less people in college even though we more than ever in college.
With LLNS, you can have the credentials to be hired as a security guard, not even "tech support", then seemingly, have the credentials to be the HEAF Facility Manager, when past FMs had either a Masters in Engineering or a PhD. Why go through the rigor of an engineering or scientific degree for career and advancement opportunities, only to work for such an employer? No moral hazard here right? Wrong.