Is College Worth The Cost?

By Jeff Paul

The individual debt for college graduates in the United States is now above $30,000. Meanwhile, all of the world’s knowledge is nearly free because of the Internet. And we’re transitioning from a jobs economy to a skills economy. So we’re at a unique crossroads that creates a new paradigm for teenagers and their parents where college may not be a guaranteed path to a better life. But what choices do we have?

My oldest son is 18. He was homeschooled and has no plans to go to college. Instead of formal school, he traveled throughout his teens with us as a family and with Project World School. He’s already visited dozens of countries. Along the way, he acquired certifications for scuba diving, driving, and as a surf lifeguard — the only three tests he’s ever taken. He’s also started a few side hustles and learned skills like audio and video editing, blogging, and construction. He still doesn’t know what he wants to do (besides travel) for his career. And that’s okay with me.

First, I’m not against college. College is a fine place for young people to grow and learn and build important networks of friends and colleagues.  Yet, because the cost has gotten so out of hand for 4-year degrees, it’s simply a matter of doing a cost-benefit analysis (systematic process for calculating and comparing benefits and costs of a decision) based on the needs and desires of each individual student. Applying to college is only one way for teens to learn and grow after high school. Yet, in the current environment, some alternatives to college may be more fruitful.

Author and businessman James Altucher has been an outspoken advocate for skipping college. He’s even bribed his children not to go, to no avail. But he’s become a leading voice of why college is not necessary for success and what alternatives may be more valuable to pursue. Watch the video below for a quick overview of his take on college:

Altucher’s basic argument is that the cost of college has gone up much faster than inflation and that college debt levels now amount to years of indentured servitude for young people. He claims there are better, cheaper ways for young people to gain skills and knowledge and find success in the economy rather than starting off with a degree and debt. Additionally, he says that even if people still choose to go to college after a couple of years exploring alternatives, they’ll have a much better appreciation for the value of money and debt. So there is little downside for teens to broaden their horizons before getting into student debt.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

The average cost of college plus living expenses is over $20,000 per year. Here are the average tuition costs followed by the average cost of room and board for college students.

Source: Big Future College Board

And according to College Data the cost for room and board is over $10,000 per year:

The College Board reports that the average cost of room and board in 2017–2018 ranged from $10,800 at four-year public schools to $12,210 at private schools.

This $20,000 can be spent doing something else. By starting a job or a business, young people can turn that annual expense into income, all while learning priceless skills and developing an understanding of the value of money.

Here are just a four alternatives to college worth exploring. Their potential rewards may exceed the benefits of a college degree.

Paul Craig Roberts Laments "I Don"t Recognize My Country Today"

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

Having grown up during the second half of the 20th century, I don’t recognize my country today. I experienced life in a competent country, and now I experience life in an incompetent country.

Everything is incompetent.

The police are incompetent. They shoot children, grandmothers, cripples, and claim that they feared for their life.

Washington’s foreign policy is incompetent. Washington has alienated the world with its insane illegal attacks on other countries. Today the United States and Israel are the two most distrusted countries on earth and the two countries regarded as the greatest threat to peace.

The military/security complex is incompetent. The national security state is so incompetent that it was unable to block the most humiliating attack in history against a superpower that proved to be entirely helpless as a few people armed with box cutters and an inability to fly an airplane destroyed the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon itself. The military industries have produced at gigantic cost the F-35 that is no match for the Russian fighters or even for the F-15s and F-16s it is supposed to replace.

The media is incompetent. I can’t think of an accurate story that has been reported in the 21st century. There must be one, but it doesn’t come to mind.

The universities are incompetent. Instead of hiring professors to teach the students, the universities hire administrators to regulate them. Instead of professors, there are presidents, vice presidents, chancellors, vice chancellors, provosts, vice provosts, assistant provosts, deans, associate deans, assistant deans. Instead of subject matter there is speech regulation and sensitivity training. Universities spend up to 75% of their budgets on administrators, many of whom have outsized incomes.

The public schools have been made incompetent by standardized national testing. The purpose of education today is to pass some test. School accreditation and teachers’ pay depend not on developing the creativity or independent thinking of those students capable of it, but on herding them through memory work for a standardized test.

One could go on endlessly.

Instead, I will relate a story of everyday incompetencies that have prevented me from writing this week and for a few more days yet.

Recently, while away from my home, a heavy equipment operator working on a nearby construction site managed to drive under power lines with the fork lift raised. Instead of breaking the wire, it snapped the pole in half that conveyed electric power to my house. The power company came out, or, as I suspect, an outsourced contractor, who reestablished power to my home but did not check that the neutral wire was still attached. Consequently for a week or so my house experienced round the clock surges of high voltage that blew out the surge protection, breaker box, and every appliance in the house. Expecting my return, the house was inspected, and the discovery was that there was no power. Back came the power company and discovered that high voltage was feeding into the house and had destroyed everything plugged in.

 

So. Here we have a moron operating heavy equipment who does not understand that he cannot drive under power lines with the lift raised. We have a power company or its outsourced contractor who does not understand that power cannot be reconnected without making certain that the neutral wire is still connected.

 

So every appliance is fried. Glass everywhere from blown out light bulbs. We are talking thousands of dollars.

This is America today.

And the incompetents ruling incompetents want war with Iran, Korea, Russia, China. Considering the extraordinary level of incompetence throughout the United States, I guarantee you that we will not win these wars.

University Student with 4.0 GPG Drops Out to Tell Others that ‘Education’ is a Giant Scam (VIDEO)

When I was a kid I had this very strong feeling that no matter what, I would be OK if I dropped out of school. Strange! To be so young and yet have those thoughts. But they proved to be one of the biggest inspirations behind what I now do for my life’s work. Which is helping to create a consciousness shift in our world and creating Collective Evolution.

It was strange at the time, because it started when I was in elementary school. Something always made me feel like my potential or my skills were actually being held back in some sense by continuing with school. The more I heard of some of the world’s smartest and most successful people being drop outs, the more I was intrigued.

The older I got, the more I my intuitive feeling about being OK if I left school got stronger. One day, I finally dropped out of college for good and my entire life began to change. I went through a process of unlearning some of what I had been taught in school about myself, my knowledge, my beliefs, and even how I defined my intelligence.

Several times throughout my education I thought I was stupid or not as intelligent as my peers because of the way school functioned and how we were graded. I put faith in what my grades meant and in the importance of what I was learning to some degree. And as I struggled to find interest in memorizing what I felt were useless facts, or supposed facts, I felt I wasn’t smart.

But as I got older that feeling changed. Soon enough I knew more about who I was and what I was good at. I discovered where my brilliance was and what I was meant to do. As I began to act on that how my life unfolded was incredibly. I share my journey and where I ended up in my TEDx talk which you can check out below.

I want to get deeper Billy Willson’s story, because like Billy, I had a near perfect GPA at the time that I dropped out of college.

Guy Drops Out With 4.0 GPA

All of the information you need in to learn things these days is online -or at least almost all of it. Now this isn’t to take away from what valuable things you can learn in school, but this is to say that the way we educate today needs to dramatically change for many reasons. But that is a whole different discussion.

One student, Billy Willson, from Kansas State University, realized after finishing a semester with a 4.0 GPA that college was a giant financial scam.

“I purposely made the post controversial because I knew it would help it spread so much farther,” Willson told USA TODAY College. “My goal with getting it to go viral is to reach out to those students who feel like they don’t have a choice, and to encourage those in similar situations as me to reach their goals and feel comforted in the fact they have someone to relate to.”

Willson made a public notice about his decision to leave college and shared a telling photo and description on Facebook. it went viral and you will see why.

Willson also says he has a problem with the pressure facing students to go to college, and the lack of other options for people for whom college may not be the best path.

“I quickly realized that I was learning so much more outside of class than I was inside of class (by) reading and informational videos on YouTube,” Willson says. “I feel like there are a lot of other students just like me who are really driven to learning and it doesn’t matter what the platform is, they’ll learn anywhere they go.”

“Now that I’ve finished my first semester I think it’s safe to say… FUCK COLLEGE. Now before all you of you go batshit crazy… i have a few points to make.

1. Yes I have dropped out after finishing my first semester (with a 4.0 GPA). And it’s one of the best choices I’ve ever made. Not because I am averse to learning, but actually the exact opposite.

2. YOU ARE BEING SCAMMED. You may not see it today or tomorrow, but you will see it some day. Heck you may have already seen it if you’ve been through college. You are being put thousands into debt to learn things you will never even use. Wasting 4 years of your life to be stuck at a paycheck that grows slower than the rate of inflation. Paying $200 for a $6 textbook. Being taught by teacher’s who have never done what they’re teaching. Average income has increased 5x over the last 40 years while cost of college has increased 18x. You’re spending thousands of dollars to learn information you won’t ever even use just to get a piece of paper. I once even had an engineer tell me “I learned more in my first 30 days working than in my 5 years of college.” What does that tell you about this system? There are about a million more ways you’re being scammed into this.. just watch the video I’m gonna comment if you want to see more.

3. Colleges are REQUIRING people to spend money taking gen. ed. courses to learn about the quadratic formula (and other shit they will never use) when they could be giving classes on MARRIAGE and HOW TO DO YOUR TAXES.”

Though Willson’s math may be slightly off, it is close. One study by the Government Accountability Office saw a 3x increase in tuition, relative to the increase in living expenses.

GAO found that:

(1) between 1980 and 1995, average tuition at 4-year public colleges for in-state, full-time students increased 234 percent, while median household income increased 82 percent and the Consumer Price Index increased 74 percent;

(2) the increase in colleges’ expenditures and a greater dependency on tuition as a revenue source were the two factors most responsible for the tuition increase;

(3) tuition revenues increased from 16 percent to 23 percent during this period, mainly because the revenue share provided by states decreased 14 percent;

(4) student grant aid has not kept pace with tuition levels, so students and their families are relying more heavily on loans and personal finances;

(5) increases in instruction, administrative, and research costs accounted for more than two-thirds of the 121 percent increase in total college expenditures;

Final Thoughts

Unless you want a job that requires a specific piece of education or unless you are very clear on what you want to do (and education is required) don’t rush into school and don’t let society pressure you to take its apparent importance seriously.

I created a very successful business built around my passion. I hired my friends, love what I do and we are changing the world together. Can this be the story for anyone? Sure! Why can’t you do something you love? Why is that even taboo to think?

If you are passionate about something, know how to take action on it and work at it, it will work out. It’s one of the key ingredients to almost every success story you hear out there.

I tell young people all the time now, truly focus on what you love and then make a decision about school. But learn! Learn as much as you can through life experience, work and other interests. More importantly, focusing on developing you! Self awareness, inner peace, knowing who you are, these skills are incredibly important and will take you further than anything else.

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Why Are Universities Arming themselves with Grenade Launchers?

Sending an ominous signal to student protest movements nationwide, universities across the US are once again able to equip their police forces with castoff military gear, tying them ever more intimately into the military-industrial complex.

In August, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced at a Fraternal Order of Police convention that Program 1033 would resume providing ex-military equipment to police organizations, including university police departments.

Program 1033 has been running since the 1990s but was stopped two years ago by President Obama. Part of the program’s initial aim was for “use in drug enforcement by federal and state law enforcement.” As we well know, the “war on drugs” has been an abysmal failure.

AT LEAST 117 EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS ARE NOW ARMED AND ARMORED. THIS IS THE STATE OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE US.

As part of the program, already at least 117 colleges and universities received surplus-military gear. At least 117 places of higher education felt they needed military gear. At least 117 educational institutions are now armed and armored. This is the state of higher education in the US.

Jen Day Shaw, associate vice president and dean of students at the University of Florida, told The Chronicle of Higher Education, “For me, this is a cost savings for taxpayers.”

Meanwhile, Michael Qualls, an associate professor of criminal justice at Fort Valley State University, said, “If we continue on with the 1033 program, as those items become obsolete at the military level and if they become available, why not get ’em? It’s better to be prepared than not prepared."” The flimsy — if paranoid — excuse for obtaining these items is boiled down to its purest essence: Why not?

What Universities Are Receiving

The list of items that are included in these transfers includes things as mundane as gauze — yes, gauze — and some standard pickup trucks. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee received mundane items, such as four adapter sockets, two key set socket heads and fours shelves for food service. No one, I would guess, has any problem with a university owning these items.

At the other end of the spectrum are armored vehicles. As part of the program, throughout the US, in total nine armored vehicles were exchanged — some being armored pickup trucks, and others being “Mine Resistant Vehicles.” MRAPS, as they’re known, were originally designed to withstand improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. The University of Florida was one of the recipients of an armored truck.

TWO UNIVERSITIES — HINDS COMMUNITY COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA — OBTAINED GRENADE LAUNCHERS.

Across the country, numerous universities also received guns and ammunition. These include small arms (pistols) and rifles (M-14), as well as assault rifles (M-16). And two universities — Hinds Community College and University of Central Florida — obtained grenade launchers. For scale, the 2014 report states that 930 guns were provided in total to 87 different universities.

This supply of military gear is part of the process of universities throughout the US taking on various policing roles outside of their buildings. At many universities, these roles addressed issues that fell under the label “public safety” — often mostly about alcohol. In the past 20 or 30 years, universities have begun having increasingly active, working police forces dedicated solely to policing the life and boundaries of the university. It is these organizations that are receiving these weapons and vehicles.

Concerns about this supply of military gear is exacerbated by the reality that many campus police organizations are privatized, leading to less oversight and accountability in many cases. A 2014 Vice article laid out the difficulties faced regarding the University of Chicago Police force, which is privatized, and the fact that these private police forces often have “the legal status of a private police force and the powers of a public one.” How these privatized police forces are themselves policed is a critical question that is still, in many ways, unanswered.

Reinstituting Program 1033

All of this is crucial, as President Trump and Jeff Sessions, making good on a campaign promise, stated that they would be resuming the transfer of weapons to police departments across the country. Jeff Sessions said, “We will not put superficial concerns above public safety…. The executive order the president will sign today will ensure that you can get the lifesaving gear that you need to do your job and send a strong message that we will not allow criminal activity, violence and lawlessness to become the new normal. And we will save taxpayer money in the meantime.”

INCREASED POLICING ACTS AS A DETERRENT TO STUDENT RESISTANCE, AND AS AN OBSTACLE BETWEEN DIALOGUE WITHIN AND OUTSIDE OF THE UNIVERSITY COMMUNITIES.

The assertion that this is about fiscal responsibility seeks to waylay the reality that arming police on campuses has a dramatic impact on the campus community, and an even greater impact on the engagement with communities outside of the student body. The increased policing in all communities is worrying. When on campus, this increased policing acts as a deterrent to student resistance, and as an obstacle between dialogue within and outside of the university communities.

All of this is part of a broader pattern of police enforcement, and is simultaneously connected to unemployment. At this juncture in history, the system is producing not simply excess workers, as capitalism almost always has, but completely expendable workers to a degree that it never has before. And in the US, we are asking many of these expendable workers to pay tens of thousands of dollars to attend university. The average student who graduated in 2016 is left with $37,172 in student loan debt.

THE MAJORITY OF THE MILITARY GEAR REQUISITIONS WENT TO STATES WITH THE HIGHEST POVERTY RATE.

It should not be surprising that the majority of the military gear requisitions went to states with the highest poverty rate. High levels of poverty with increases in military-grade equipment is a recipe for disaster. These weapons are not only designed to keep students in line, they also perpetuate a racial and class divide between campus and community. This is especially true for urban campuses, where brand new multimillion-dollar buildings sit comfortably just inside the invisible walls of campus, while run-down houses and apartments sit precariously just outside. This invisible wall is where many of these police acquisitions will be utilized, as the wall is the most common route for squad cars on many campuses.

University Campuses as Police Zones

The US public should be outraged that colleges are undertaking a militarization of their campuses and that higher education administrators are actively supporting this process. Administrators are actively engaged in violently assaulting and bludgeoning our 17-22-year-olds, demonstrating to them the force of the state. Henry Giroux has written previously about these changes in higher education in his prescient book University in Chains: Confronting the Military-industrial-academic Complex. The continued supplying of weapons to universities now moves the connections between higher education and the military industrial complex even closer.

Academia is now becoming an even more direct part of the violent controlling arm of the neoliberal state apparatus by enmeshing itself in the military-industrial complex. Nowhere is this more clear than in the continuation of Program 1033, where “money savings” is used as a way of introducing the military to campus, and where administrators oversee the elaboration of a system whereby dissent is quelled by a show of direct force. For what else is an armored vehicle besides a show of force? Bringing the military to campus is providing students an education in living in a police state, and giving them a front-row seat in the classroom of neoliberal politics in the 21st century.

WATCH: Police ‘Protect’ Society by Stealing Man’s Money for Improperly Selling Hot Dogs

The University of California Berkeley Police were recently featured in a video that shows their officers serving local citizens by protecting them from the dangers of—a hot dog vendor without a permit.

The video was posted on Facebook by Martin Flores, with the caption, “The sadness to observe UC Berkeley Police give a hotdog vendor a ticket and his hard earned money taken away #Justice4Juan.”

“That’s not right man, that’s not right,” Flores said as he used his phone to record a UC Berkeley police officer issuing a ticket to a hot dog vender outside of a football game at the California Memorial Stadium.

“That’s how it works,” the male officer responded. “Take it to a judge, and the judge can decide whether or not it’s right.”

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The officer then took the money out of the vendor’s wallet, and when he began to protest in Spanish, the officer told him to “Back up.”

“You’re going to take his hard-earned money?” Flores asked. The officer replied, “Yep.”

“People can drink on campus at football games with no tickets, but a hard-working man selling hot dogs, earning a living, gets his money taken away and a ticket,” Flores remarked.

“He doesn’t have a permit,” the officer replied as he rifled through the vendor’s wallet. “Yep. This is law and order in action.”

In response the claim from Flores that officers were targeting a hot dog vendor, while there were other people around who were breaking the law that they were ignoring, they insisted that Flores should have called them, and that they would look into his claims “later.”

READ MORE:  Police Abusing Innocent Poor People to Train K9s by Warrantlessly Raiding Their Homes

As others on the scene watched the officer extort Juan the hot dog vendor, one man began to chime in with comments such as, “You must have voted for Trump,” “Good cop, way to go, good job,” and “Nice work dude, you protected the public.”

Flores, who graduated from UC Berkeley in 1996, said he was “disappointed” as an alumnus, to see the campus in its current state. The officer quickly replied, “Well, I’m disappointed in you … I don’t believe you’re using critical thinking right now.”

In response to the injustice, Flores has started a GoFundMe page to raise money for Juan. The page’s description states:

“This is the official go fund me account for Justice4Juan the hotdog vendor at UC Berkeley. The funds raised will be utilized to cover legal and personal loses. In addition, funds in excess are to cover other vendors who have been robbed of their hard earned living through citations and removal of their carts. It is my goal to locate Juan in Berkeley. Any and all help to support and locate him is welcome. On Saturday, September 9, 2017 I took my children to enjoy a Cal Berkeley football game. We had a great time. After the game I promised them that I would support the hotdog vendors by buying food from them. I captured this video as we were interrupted by UC Berkeley Police officer. Thank you for your compassion to support this effort.”

The GoFundMe page has a goal of $10,000, and over $3,800 has been raised by over 250 people in the last 7 hours.

READ MORE:  Despite NSA Data Collection Being Ruled Illegal, Tyrants in Congress Still Pushing Police State

Phony or Legit? Milo Yiannopoulos Quits Breitbart (VIDEO)

Liberals finally find a ‘pervert’ they don’t like! Libertarian icon Milo Yiannopoulous quits BREITBART over controversial podcast comments — but WHY did Milo quit, and HOW did he rise so quickly in the public eye?

After arriving in the USA from England, Milo Yiannopoulous became an overnight sensation among gay and libertarian youth on the college speaking circuit. After Berkeley riots covered by Fakestream Media and an epic appearance on Bill Maher, Milo became a household name as a so-called ‘Conservative’ leader.

Such prominence for a ‘conservative’ gay triggered a red alert at Soros headquarters. A few days after Milo appeared on Bill Maher, the Soros Uniparty attacked, savaging Yiannopoulous as a pervert who made controversial remarks on a podcast a year prior. The Uniparty isn’t bothered by rampant DC perversion or spirit cooking parties — but nothing panics the Deep State like a renegade homosexual promoting free speech.

CPAC canceled Milo’s keynote speech, then Milo quit Breitbart.

But the question remains: Is ‘Milo’ the real thing (as advertised), or is he another Uniparty puppet promoted by the Deep State to stampede young libertarian voters in the preferred direction?

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