You ignorant capitalist prick - comment from one of our biggest fans.

"Wow. What an ignorant bastard you are. Enjoy your 8-hours-a-day of television you ignorant capitalist prick." Anonymous
Follow us at twitter @ValueOfCollege

Come explore our website at www.ValueOfCollege.com

This blog communicates in tandem with our website http://www.valueofcollege.com/. This blog is updated more frequently but the website is organized around different topics.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Getting youth to pursue entrepreneurial ideas!

"The way I was thinking about it when I was a 17-year-old senior applying to college was I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. I'm just going to go to college. When I was a 21-year-old senior in college, it was I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll go to law school. And there was a way in which education and the university system was sort of a substitute for thinking about what I would do with my life."

A great concept by Peter Thiel about encouraging our youth to pursue new business ideas. He is giving a “scholarship” of $100,000 to 24 current college students that are 20 years old or younger that want to drop out of college and pursue their big ideas.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

85% of the college class of 2011 are moving back home with their parents

Arianna Huffington has some interesting thoughts for those graduating from college in the class of 2011. She does not differentiate between those graduating with degrees in Petroleum Engineering and those graduating with degrees in Gender Studies. After all not all college degrees are created equally - but she does not mention this.

It clearly matters what one spends for a college education and very importantly what one studies. If you study a fun subject for which no one needs your skills then you will be deep in debt, and back living with your parents along with 85% of your classmates.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Marty Nemko has great advice about college

Mary Nemko has the credentials and always writes some of the most objective advice on considering a college education. Always worth a read.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

What Obama didn't tell graduating seniors on Monday

Obama spoke to 155 graduating seniors at Booker T Washington high school in Memphis on Monday, May 16.

"We live in a new world" he told new graduates of a high school in Memphis, Tennessee, warning that when they leave college in four years, they'll be competing for jobs not just against Americans but with the youths in Beijing and Mumbai.

"You're competing against young people in Beijing and Mumbai. That's some tough competition," he said. "Those kids are hungry. They're working hard. And you'll need to be prepared for it."

What Obama didn’t tell the seniors is that: “Since my administration is making it easier for illegal aliens to cross the border and then stay and work, that you will also be competing against these undocumented workers for a job as well.”

One attendee said: “It was just overflowing and exciting, as if Jesus just stepped in the room.”

Monday, May 16, 2011

If you are a sheep - go to college!

Perhaps college is not as good an investment as it used to be. We are producing more college grads than ever before. But more of them have degrees in Psychology and History and have big college debts and not the slightest chance of ever paying off those debts.

Is it time to rethink the entire college value proposition? As this article points out:
“Muller, 26, graduated from Kean University in Union, N.J., yesterday with a bachelor’s degree in communication. She is the first person in her family to graduate from college. Like many graduates, she's now faced with the larger worry of living back at home while also paying down vast amounts of debt. All along, money’s been a chronic source of anxiety. In order to finish, Muller took out more than $70,000 in student loans and has another $10,000 in credit card debt.” OK Muller is screwed. She believed the hype and drank the lemonade without any questions. This is the result.

”A study conducted by Twentysomething Inc., a consultant firm specializing in young adults, reports that 85 percent of this year’s graduating class will be forced to move back home. Meanwhile, 2011 graduates also face historic amounts of student loan debt -- or an average of $27,200 for graduates that borrowed money in order to finish school.”

If you are simply a sheep then you will be sheared.

Advice for entrepeneurs

Some very good advice form Jon Bischke for those those young at heart entrepreneurs on how to get started.

Why not learn by doing rather than learn in a 19th century model in college?

If it fails you can always go back to college.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Mike Rowe talks about need for skilled labor in America

"Right now, American manufacturing is struggling to fill 200,000 vacant positions. There are 450,000 openings in trades, transportation and utilities. The skills gap is real, and it's getting wider. In Alabama, a third of all skilled tradesmen are over 55. They're retiring fast, and no one is there to replace them."

Excellent testimony by Mike Rowe the producer of the "Dirty Jobs" television series. Well worth the read. As a country we need more skilled laborers and fewer college grads in Philosophy. And if you want to make a good living, don't look down on these critical functions.

http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/dirtyjobs/mike-rowe-senate-testimony.html

Saturday, May 7, 2011

All the right questions about college

This mans asks all the right questions about the "college for everyone concept". Very well worth the time.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

How law schools lure in students with scholarships that disappear

An interesting article about how law schools lure in students with promised scholarships that the schools know they will frequently not have to deliver on. Since these law schools grade on the curve, many of the scholarship recipients that had assumed they could achieve a B average (a requirement of keeping the scholarship) are losing their full-tuition rides.