Republicans are ruining American education

Wow, that's a big difference. lol.

 

The idea of a liberal education is largely lost in today's atmosphere of making a buck. The notion that thinking should be an end instead of a means to a good living is regarded as weird and frivolous (It shows on some of these posts). On "impractical" matters like "God" and politics, people tend to plug in some ready-made belief system to fill in the Meaning/values box in their brains so they can devote their full attention to their jobs, sports and hobbies.

 

You could say that, and I get your point, but the reason tuitions are so high is because they can get away with it... You can point at the fancy buildings but it's not like that's where all the tuition money went... Just like any other big business the majority of the money is rising to the top.

It's corporate greed, pure and simple. Also it's not just the schools, the lending institutions for student loans are raking in the dough too. Credit card companies "begging" students to get their first credit card, or more than one... It's become one huge money grab. The students and/or their parents are left holding the bill... literally.

 

I felt that way about my student loans (plural). I was told "you'll only have to pay back $50 per month". What I wasn't told, until it was way too late of course, was that it was $50 per month, per loan. So I did what a lot of people do, I deferred my loan payments until I could find the cushy high-paying job that was just around the corner.

It was about 7 years later that it finally happened. Before that though, after a year of deferment I learned an accounting term I never heard before, capitalized interest. Sallie Mae was doing some kind of accounting magic to turn my interest into loan capital. So I was then charged interest on the capitalized interest and my loan ballooned from $12K to $15k very quickly.

If not for Jane, my wife, I'd have been living under a bridge to get out from under this loan. I saw no end in sight to it. She and I lived on the edge of bankruptcy (a joke since we couldn't afford the legal fees and student loans are exempted by yet another layer of magic from the government) for years. When I attempted to consolidate my loans into a single payment, my credit wouldn't allow it, because I was late on 2 of my loans. It was a perpetual spiral of shit.

But Jane finally saw a path and we locked my credit and started paying only the interest on the loans until everything was current. Then we resumed payments and amortized an additional 15% into the payments (it helped that I got a job in a factory breathing in welding fumes and making car parts, nothing to do with my degree). It took a decade, but we finally paid off my loan and then I went to work for a massive corporation and paid off all of her loans.

I can only imagine what it must be like for college grads today. I hear of loans in the $40K to $80K range with the same bullshit games attached to them. Oh, and the real cherry on top, the college I graduated from, went out of business.

I'm not anti-college. But I am very wary of taking loans to pay for it.

 

I question that statement. Could you cite your source?

 

List of U.S. states by educational attainment - Wikipedia

 

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education

The Most -- And Least -- Educated States In The U.S. In 2018

Quality Counts 2016: State Report Cards Map

 

Goes to american school..

 

And then.... There's this.

Conservatives win controversial changes in Michigan’s proposed new social studies standards

Analysis | Conservatives win controversial changes in Michigan’s proposed new social studies standards

 

As far as the handwriting that is not an indicator of low intelligence. Some very important people in history were known to have terrible hand writing and I do as well. Not to say I am the same but humble brag I have a genius level IQ and it is a scientific theory that smart people have bad hand writing because the brain moves faster than their hand. I am up front with people though if you can not read it ask me I will not be mad. I had a few teachers who said I was just "lazy". Always old women. I did all their stupid cursive exercises guess what it still sucked.

My sister almost lost her first teaching job because she said America "lost" the Vietnam war. This is in Trump farm country and several parents complained. Republicans don't like Democrats and they don't like a truthful account of American history

 

Oh good, so thats why my handwriting is awful. I'm just a genius!

 

Me too!!! Though I'm only medium genius as My handwriting is still readable though it looks like 4th grade level.

 

I didn't say that it was. I'm saying these kids haven't been taught how to write legibly and, apparently, are not used to being held accountable for their work.

 

Gee, Cursive penmanship was on the way out back when I went to school. Unless one went to parochial school.

 

The "Commuter states" have lower HS grads with lots of Post-Grad people.

Would this reflect in-migration of qualified workers to work the city center like New York and Washington?

 

i learned cursive in 3rd or 4th grade, and then it was optional until 6th, when they forced us to do everything in cursive, claiming that in high school cursive would be required for everything. then 7th grade hit and other than signatures, i haven't written a word of cursive since. i have no idea why the 6th grade teachers were so misinformed about future cursive.

i also really don't see the point of learning it. a lot of older people seem to be really upset by the decline of cursive, but i completely fail to see any real benefit to it.