Barnes & Noble is criminal

Here's the fact about attending college right now: The kids get screwed every way they turn.

If your parents are loaded, you're in great shape. But if they're not, and you have to handle the expenses, you're screwed -- BY EVERYBODY. Tuition is up across the board. Rent in a college town is damn near criminal. Books, even used ones, cost three times what they should. Thanks to the fabulous Bush administration, student loans are now more expensive and grants are harder to get.

So, here's what you're looking at if you're a kid from a middle class family attending college: $3,000 per year, minimum, for tuition. $500 per month, minimum, for rent. (If you're in a dorm, you might be able to get away with $400.) $200 per semester for books. Then you gotta eat, pay the light bill, water bill and phone bill.

Yeah, I can definitely see how these kids are a great big bunch of whiners for racking up debt. I mean, hell, there are plenty of jobs out there that will pay them just barely enough to cover the rent. If they worked at two of them and never slept for four years, like, apparently, the kids did in Hondo's day, they could leave college with only $10k in debt. And ready to grab that entry-level position at which they're making about $50 more per week than they were at the fast food place.

I'd almost bet a paycheck that hondo has no kids (if he does, God help those poor bastards), has no one to support other than himself and went to college on some sort of grant. He certainly didn't do it the way I or many others here have. Because if he did, no matter what his financial position is today, he'd never say such idiotic things. But then, I don't know why I would think that. He's still supporting a president that's screwed up everything he's touched for six years. So common sense ain't exactly one of his most noticeable attributes.

 

You hit the nail on the head with that last sentence ... for many the investment in college isn't paying off.

I'm beginning to wonder whether the percentage of college-educated people is going to peak with my generation. I know so many kids who can't afford college, opting to go to a 2-year trade school and make more than I do coming out. It's one reason why enrollment is down at many schools.

And though I think the halcyon "college experience" means a lot to one's development, I can't knock kids who go the other route. At the end of the day, going to college serves a utilitarian purpose as much as an educational one, and a college education in that prism means less and less for more and more money.

 

That's Hondo in a sentence. You want to ignore such a blissfully ignorant man, but he says such stupid shit you can't help but react.

That's almost exactly what my sister and I did, minus the State U part (we went out of state). But yet apparently I'm spoiled and the only thing my friends and I have in common is eating donuts as we mooch off our parents. HEY MA!!! THE MEAT LOAF!!!! FUCK!!!!!!!!

So, once again, to use the most well-worn statement in SportsJournalists.com history: Go fuck yourself, Hondo.

 

I went to in state schools for both degrees. I worked 25 hours a week while I was at Ohio and close to full time while I was at Indiana State. I still racked up over $30,000 in loans. College is pricing itself out of the range of most of the middle class.

Of course I'm sure that's because we've bought too many iPods, PowerMacs and new cars. :

 

You clearly didn't work enough SC. Why, you're not even talented enough to get a gig that pays your moving expenses.

Pass the donuts and the doobie and the IPod. But don't wake up Zeke. He says he's going to look for a job tomorrow, but we know the truth.

 

Damn...looks like the good times are over.

 

Excellent point, Ragu. As was said earlier, "a master's is the new bachelor's." College gets you in the game now -- but that's it. It's just the minimum.

And hell, I don't know that I could have gotten into the school I did six years ago (when I graduated H.S.) if I tried to apply now. That's how quickly the standards -- and the stakes -- have risen.

 

Yes, I'm in school now. Taking a full load. My situation (the Army) takes care of about 90 percent of my expenses. I take care of the rest WITHOUT loans. My wife graduated last May. I worked while she went to school WITHOUT a great deal of loans (about $7,000). She works full time. I work part-time. I'm 28; she's 27. We do have savings .... and a $25,000 truck for which we paid cash, and a $20,000 car, for which we paid cash. And, no, I'm not relying on my parents. The only money I've ever asked my parents for was $100 bucks (from parents and in-laws) so we could purchase a used washer and dryer before we got married. Period. I pride myself on my financial situation. We're certainly not rich .... but we're smart.

 

I think high schools should have more courses - required courses - on money management so that more people could be in this situation. Most people just aren't prepared for the real world. They get out of college and can tell you about Kant's philosophies or William Blake's poetry (stuff I love, BTW), but they have no idea how to navigate the world financially, how to get an apartment, buy a car, etc., etc.

I bristle at agreeing with Hondo, but yeah, "Helicopter Parents" are part of it.

"Mom, how does one go about renting an apartment?"

"Oh, don't worry about it. I'll take care of that. Just pay me and I'll take care of the paperwork, etc."

 

Good lord, Pringle, look what you started with your 25-buck B&N card dispute.

 

I know. I don't know how I became the posterboy for 20something credit-drowned slackers. I pride myself on establishing great credit, which is WHY this pissed me off so much. I'm a credit perfectionist, but I became something else here.