# College is a scam



## mrfunkyg (Jan 18, 2017)

ANy of you college students wonder if its a scam?


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## MechanicallyMinded (Jul 17, 2017)

mrfunkyg said:


> ANy of you college students wonder if its a scam?


It's definitely a scam in some ways.

Why has college tuition risen far faster than inflation (cough cough, government money)?

Why has the college total spending not matched with a great increase in education quality ?

Why do I have to pay for new books from Mcgraw every damn year?

Why are dorms more expensive than apartments?

Why the hell do professors have the right to tell me I didn't work hard enough for the class when I'm the ****ing on paying for it and paying his ****ing salary, it's his/her ****ing fault for not giving a **** if I pass or fail.

What other industry on earth do you pay for a service and have your money basically stolen if you don't do all the work yourself even though you paid them to help you...like what the **** is that.

Is it a scam....yes
Is it helpful and useful....really depends on your major

For me I can deal with it because I know I have a job lined up as soon as I'm done.

For other you really need to realize college isn't everything. It's overrated in most cases

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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

MechanicallyMinded said:


> What other industry on earth do you pay for a service and have your money basically stolen if you don't do all the work yourself even though you paid them to help you...like what the **** is that.


 Healthcare. OK, you don't have to do all the work with healthcare. But you do have to pay people who claim they chose medicine to help people who won't lift a finger to help anyone if they don't get paid hundreds of dollars an hour. Thieves is what they are.


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## andy0128 (Dec 19, 2003)

They are there first and foremost to make money. I went to a so called respectable university but i don't think standards were that high. If you didn't turn up to classes much but did enough to pass no one would care. In my first year i probably skipped about a third of classes. Never got a letter or warning. I hung out with some humanities students who never did any work or probably did on average 1-2h study a day. The whole scene around the student residences was oriented to partying every night. Promotions and cheap drinks at all the surrounding bars. There were loads of drugs and cannibis yet i can't recall of hearing anyone getting pulled up for drug related offences. People will say you should just ignore that lifestyle but its so easy to get caught up in it at a young age. I had a lot of fun from my time at college but i was completely unprepared for a career. Is it a scam? I think it's become too orientated around attracting students (mistly middle class ones who'll invest more in the lical economy) and lowering the bar in terms of discipline to achieve that.


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## Maslow (Dec 24, 2003)

MechanicallyMinded said:


> It's definitely a scam in some ways.
> 
> Why has college tuition risen far faster than inflation (cough cough, government money)?
> 
> ...


I don't think it's a scam. It's just way overpriced.

Nobody who wants should be denied higher education just because they can't afford it or they don't want to incur massive debt. And that's the way it used to be 20 years ago.

Everything now is geared towards helping the rich get richer at the expense of everyone else. And one day, it's all going to come tumbling down.


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## komorikun (Jan 11, 2009)

College gets you prepared for the even bigger scam- work.


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## thisismeyo (Feb 15, 2013)

If you think going to college will make life perfect in terms of money, yeah that belief is a scam.

Think of college like buying a product, and its not a scam. Investing in poetry or feminist dance therapy will not give you high-demand skills. Invest in something the economy needs, and you'll be better off. Paying 10k a year in tuition might seem like a lot as a college student, but when you graduate and start making money, you'll realize 10k is not that much.

You can make it with college, and you can make it without. I think the idea that everyone should go to college and major is something you loveee is a bad idea because what you love might be something no one needs or cares about.


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## funnynihilist (Jul 29, 2014)

The whole culture is a scam, college is but one part of the scam.


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## harrison (Apr 14, 2012)

It's not if you study programming.


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## BAH (Feb 12, 2012)

Itz a scab


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## rabidfoxes (Apr 17, 2016)

thisismeyo said:


> Investing in poetry or feminist dance therapy will not give you high-demand skills. Invest in something the economy needs, and you'll be better off.


As someone who studied poetry as part of my degree, I have to argue with this. At least prospective employers know I can read. What happened to all the business management graduates? Yep.

I think the approach has to depend on your goals. If you want to make wads of cash, you can try 'strategic' studying. If you want to do what you love, you should do just that, because you're the sort of person who would be sitting with those wads of cash and crying twenty years on.

[this is more based on my European experience. If you're in U.S, or Chile or somewhere else where you have to sell a kidney to study, it might not be worth doing at all]


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## thisismeyo (Feb 15, 2013)

rabidfoxes said:


> As someone who studied poetry as part of my degree, I have to argue with this. At least prospective employers know I can read. What happened to all the business management graduates? Yep.
> 
> I think the approach has to depend on your goals. If you want to make wads of cash, you can try 'strategic' studying. If you want to do what you love, you should do just that, because you're the sort of person who would be sitting with those wads of cash and crying twenty years on.
> 
> [this is more based on my European experience. If you're in U.S, or Chile or somewhere else where you have to sell a kidney to study, it might not be worth doing at all]


A high school degree lets employers know I can read.

What happened to business graduates? They have jobs?

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## rabidfoxes (Apr 17, 2016)

thisismeyo said:


> A high school degree lets employers know I can read.
> 
> What happened to business graduates? They have jobs?
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Here you don't get a high school degree. It's a high school diploma. Which doesn't count for much, considering illiteracy rates in the U.K. But sure, if your employer can tell anything from you having a high school diploma, that's swell. Here it's not even recommended to add diploma info to your CV. Some people do that, but doesn't look great if you apply for certain jobs.

There is a running joke about business management graduates working at McDonald's (especially with degrees from certain universities). Except I don't think it's funny. Often these are poor people, who thought these degrees would open up doors for them. Instead they have to deal with drunks who threaten to stab them over a burger at 2am.

The irony? You can have a 30k job with no degree. Hell, if you can put up with the vagaries of a PA job, you could take it up to 50k (I've seen 70k for a PA as well). Your background, social acumen (great for us with SA, no?), ability to Google and willingness to bend the truth often can take you pretty far.


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## Noca (Jun 24, 2005)

MechanicallyMinded said:


> Why do I have to pay for new books from Mcgraw every damn year?


My favorite is having to buy new math textbooks each year.


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## MechanicallyMinded (Jul 17, 2017)

Noca said:


> My favorite is having to buy new math textbooks each year.


Right unless your dealing with some crazy computer generated factoral analysis or something brand new. Core math ideas havent been changing for at least 1000 years, you can get a book from the 80's for $2.00 and still get the exact same information

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## BAH (Feb 12, 2012)

For required General Ed courses, textbooks should be at low cost at least.
Fortunately at some Colleges, they're beginning to offer OER texts, which are pretty much free.


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## CNikki (Aug 9, 2013)

Depends on the major and what you are planning to do with it while obtaining the piece of paper. Many young kids (essentially what they are since high school doesn't teach much of anything) think that they could go to college for the sake of having more time to 'find themselves', while likely to change majors a few times, party throughout most of it and then think that a job will land on their laps once graduation is over. The shock that not everything is catered to someone sinks in and the grandiose dreams that are 0.0001% chance of happening starts to have them spiral down in grief. People who do end up finding their majored jobs within a year likely had connections. (This is all assuming that they didn't work or have internship while attending college, just to add in.)


I give credit to those who do go into higher education and know the shtick of how college needs to be a straightforward path and not something that deals with things that people should've figured out by 18 anyway. I'm a bit glad that I didn't go to college straight out of high school (part of it not being my choice, but that's a long story in and of itself) while most of the friends I had at the time did and either regret the impulsive choice of choosing something because everyone else is going to college, or they have been unemployed for some years because they had grandiose dreams without planning much else to get there. Kudos to those who know that college isn't for them and find other routes that are not as costly, such as trades.


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## Steve French (Sep 17, 2012)

I find the structured environment of university is good for me. Could I have taught these things to myself? Undoubtedly. The information is out there. I lack the drive and organization to self-study though. Having a clear schedule, assignments, deadlines, et al is helpful in actually getting things done and forcing myself to be responsible. Also, having a curriculum means that I get exposed to things that I may have avoided, due to lack of interest or inherent challenge. I figure I'll probably be a much better programmer at the end of it all than if I had taught myself. 



Of course, university and college are considerably cheaper here than in the United States (though I still end up with over 10k in debt for every academic year, which I don't consider insignificant).


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

Life is a scam. College is just one of the consent forms you need to sign so they can pretend you had a choice.


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## FRDSG (Mar 5, 2019)

Unless you want to become a doctor, engineer or computer science or a very specific field then you can just learn everything else in your spare time. Lectures, books, online tutors for 10ph, internet. 

The practical skills you gain + no debt (that you wont have to pay off for half your life) in the space of a 4yr bachelors is much more valuable than a very general degree like in the social sciences (unless you are determined to take it to the phd level).


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

FRDSG said:


> Unless you want to become a doctor, engineer or computer science or a very specific field then you can just learn everything else in your spare time. Lectures, books, online tutors for 10ph, internet.
> 
> The practical skills you gain + no debt (that you wont have to pay off for half your life) in the space of a 4yr bachelors is much more valuable than a very general degree like in the social sciences (unless you are determined to take it to the phd level).


 Of course learning anything becomes a bit of a problem if you can't remember your name half the time and forget your own address and phone number.


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## Canadian Brotha (Jan 23, 2009)

I’d have to agree it’s a scam. The idea that after you turn 18/finish high school you need to go into severe debt(assuming no one made a fund for you) to “hopefully” come out with qualifications that may or may not be useful in getting a decent job is absurd. And if you don’t go you’re ****ed the other way around in terms of job prospects...its crazy. Not to mentioned even if you do get a good job and are starting to manage all your debt from school and your car and whatever else in life that puts you on a hole what if your industry goes under during or after your training is complete or even a few years after you graduate, then you’re told to go get into more debt for hopefully what’ll be a better result that time...

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for proper training and advanced education but for it to be near fact that the only way at a decent life is to go in the hole financially is madness


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## FloridaGuy48 (Jun 30, 2014)

Well looking at the big admissions scandal in the news the last couple days it appear at least the admissions policies to get into college are scams benefiting then wealthy.


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## Disheveled and Lost (May 9, 2015)

I think if you are a jock or star athlete, college will be a big party in some ways because everyone is bowing down to you. If you are a genius and super dedicated to becoming like an astrophysicist or doctor or lawyer or writer, i guess you at least need some college or a bachelors degree. It still doesn't guarantee you anything in the real world. A ton of jobs are because you know someone or have connections. 

Also if you want to be in a fraternity or sorority and get drunk and have fun, if you are a college that is like a structured way to act like an idiot and get laid or have fun. 

I think the whole basic idea of college is completely idiotic, the little college I had under my belt, seemed like very few teachers gave a rat's azz and were just going through the motions. 

I personally am the tall lanky skinny awkward guy so graduating would not have been much fun or would not have been easy to blend in. I think just telling employers you have a bachelors degree 
even if you learned basically nothing is more important than anything. And if you are in college, you have your designated moron friends who are all in the same boat as you that you can hang out with. 
They then ditch you as soon as college ends. 

On a basic level, it is all about money. A university is a business, the teachers are all being paid. If you go on to do incredible things in life, that school will ask you to return and donate money or speak in front of other students to inspire them, like if you become a famous actor or athlete. For 99.9% of the rest of the students, they just will kind of take your tuition money and keep the line moving and forget about you. I mean if you have great potential as an athlete guess what, you can get half or free tuition, not because they care, because if the school team wins the championship, they can recruit even more students in the upcoming years claiming to have won a championship, all about money


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## cybernaut (Jul 30, 2010)

Yes- the job market is too unrealistic these days, in which entry level jobs would rather see you have 3-5 years of experience. Can't get such experience if no one is willing to give you a chance to get such a thing.Having a degree just doesn't cut it anymore. It's now whatever to me though since I don't intend to be a part of the corporate drone and rate race culture all my life anyway.

Indeed colleges are more expensive and a good majority of people will probably end up taking their debt to the grave. Furthermore, colleges place way to much emphasis on the "college experience/get involved" bullsh-t rather than give you the tools, resources, and experience for today's job market. Community college, getting a certified job skill, or learning a trade seem to be best and cheapest way to start out. If only I had a damn time machine.




WillYouStopDave said:


> Life is a scam. College is just one of the consent forms you need to sign so they can pretend you had a choice.


True facts.


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## RSxo (Apr 19, 2018)

For most people, university is still the best route - having a degree is an academic safety net in case you need to change jobs or industry. There are some industries that degrees aren't that helpful for, but having that option to change over is really important, and usually only appreciated in an emergency. The opportunity for the university experience is also great - you can meet some fantastic people, which could change your career/life in some cases!


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## komorikun (Jan 11, 2009)

Holy crap. Talked to my coworker today. She said that her niece is going to college out of state (which means out-of-state tuition), not an ivy league or anything particularly elite. The parents are paying *$20,000 per semester* on tuition alone!! Crazy how spoiled some kids are. If I were a parent no way in hell would I pay for that. Let the kid go to school in-state. If they really want to live out of state they can do that after they graduate.


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## SilentLyric (Aug 20, 2012)

yeah wish I realized this when I was younger. nothing I can do about it now though.


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## nubly (Nov 2, 2006)

This is one of the cases were the government needs to intervene to lower tuition costs. Education shouldn't be expensive.


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## Dan the man (Jul 4, 2013)

In retrospect I liked school best up until high school. I learned the basics of reading and writing. Even high school while I hated at the time prepared me better for life than college. 

We make decisions though that we have to live with and just move forward


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## JerryAndSports (Jul 13, 2018)

Tuition is like 14k a semester at my school. Not including books, other costs. No way in hell it should be this much unless I’m going to Harvard or something...


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## andy0128 (Dec 19, 2003)

I don't get why people are so anti the concept of low or no tuition fees. Are they worried they and their offspring might struggle in a meritocracy?


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

andy0128 said:


> I don't get why people are so anti the concept of low or no tuition fees. Are they worried they and their offspring might struggle in a meritocracy?


Clearly some are:

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/...ow-college-admissions-scam-worked/3142160002/


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