Comments on: College Costs

By: 50+ Tips, Ideas, Resources on Saving Money for College Students — Broke Grad Student

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:37:47 +0000

[...] College Costs at Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge [...]

By: musicgirl

musicgirl — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 23:13:12 +0000

I work in the music business and lots of my interns or young kids I know ask me why they should bother going to college, since you don’t “need” a college degree to work in this business (although really I would argue that point anyway, but that’s a different story). Anyway, I tell them that college is more than just classes – its a chance to try things without worrying too much about failing for four years. Specifically for the kids I know, its a chance to work at the college radio station, or organize a concert for the student activities board, or put on a music festival, without the actual risk of the real world (finances, attendence, etc.). It does not seem to me that JCs, which are usually mostly commuter colleges, offer the same opportunities for that kind of learning.

By: English Major

English Major — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 16:08:18 +0000

This is such a complicated subject–I’ve been trying to comment for awhile and I’m being totally inarticulate in trying to explain what I think about it. Basically, it boils down to that I think the idea that everyone must have a college degree is tremendously damaging–it seems to me to fetishize a simulacrum, a set of watered-down values. The idea that a college degree is always good (always legitimates its holder) is the result of the recognition of the fact that education is a gatekeeper to power, so there’s some sort of status that goes with the degree. But a nursing degree doesn’t earn you that status. It comes from cultural capital: from the shared experiences and shared language that exclusive colleges create.

If parents want their children to have “an education” in that sense, in the way that will move them up the social ladder, they do need to know that telling their child to spend two years at a community college and transfering to state school is simply not going to accomplish that goal. If parents simply want their children to be able to start a white-collar life debt-free, then state school can certainly get the job done.

I’m also an educational elitist in some way: I believe that non-vocational education is beneficial in and of itself. I also have to recognize that it’s socioeconomically beneficial. (I went to high school with a whole bunch of first-generation American kids whose parents worked 80 hours a week to make sure their kids, my friends, could go to Ivy League or Little Ivy schools when they got in, basically in recognition of this: that it would advance their children socially.)

I think, really, parents have to understand what the point of college would be in their child’s life before deciding how to treat college, personally, interpersonally, and financially.

By: FR

FR — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 01:27:26 +0000

Actually, the State of California has a rule stating that if a student attends a Junior College and meets a certain GPA limit (not too high, I think something like a 3.3),that University of California (the UCs) MUST accept the student as a transfer student. This is pretty good deal considering that JCs are generally easier and much much cheaper. This is for ALL UCs… my sister’s boyfriend transferred from a JC in Santa Cruz to Berkeley. And Berkeley has a dorm that is for transfer students-only so that they don’t have to miss out on the dorm life. I am sure a lot of other universities have set up similar programs to help the transfer students adjust. So if your goal is to go to a UC and you live in California, it is not a bad option to transfer from a JC.

But the flip side of it is that I think this generally works for public schools only. I know that my undergraduate institution accepts maybe 2 or 3 transfer students a year, making it extremely competitive for those transfer applicant so we have not seen any JC students transfer to my school. Also, many of my classmates from high school decided to attend JCs for this reason but got distracted by working full time while attending school, and are now on what I call a 10-year track. Some are still working on their AA.

Thanks for that info on 529 though, I wish I had the foresight and had opened one up for myself years ago to fund my schooling next year!