The economy -- are we replacing or repairing?

The contents of pawn shops are another good economic indicator. ^_^

TDD

YET, college enrollment sets new records every year. WTF????

Don't know how the stats are compiled tho -- if they include ivy, public/private, on-line, and these dinky for-profit ripoffs that proliferate/advertise all over.

If the stats are "legit", I find this surprising. They say unemployed people "go back to school", but I wonder if that's really true or part of the current stats. visavis "retraining". I'd like the stats on high-schoolers going to legit 4 year schools, and sep stats for junior colleges. And trade schools.

Personally, I think 4 year colleges are highly over-rated, except as the "entre" they provide for having that piece of paper -- whose value varies tremendously with the school, ivy obviously being the better entre.

But still, something of a benchmark, for, well, something.....

google student loan, you can borrow your way through higher education and then borrow more for graduate degrees. But it's expected to be paid back..... with interest.

new jobs pay far less........

source evening news

You can find the stats you're looking for with a little googling.

Keep this in mind: The unemployment rate for people holding a BA or BS is roughly half that for people who don't have either. For recent graduates, the contrast is more extreme.

If you're a kid graduating from high school, and you have a choice of having a job and having to pay off loans or not having a job, and no way to pay for anything, a lot of them will go for the job and the loans. So would I.

And for those who say "I'll be 35 before I pay off those college loans," my response is, "You're going to be 35 anyway."

I'd rather be a 24-year-old econometrics research assistant at a major think-tank, in grad school and still piling up loans, than asking people if they want fries with that. The former is my son.

Well, some dinky for-profit (i.e., not a government school) don't reall advertise. I'm thinking of Harvard, William & Mary, etc.

The University of Houston ranks number two in the state in the number of warm bodies enrolled. It ranks about ninth in the number of classroom hours of instruction inasmuch as over half its student body attends class at night.

Would you "entre" someone who has a degree in Black or Women's Studies, History of Pellopenesia, Non-Traditional Religions, Gay Literature Studies, Elementary Education, and similar? I wouldn't even hire someone whose name was Chlamydia.

Do you trust Affirmative Action college degrees? I've tried to carry on an intelligent conversation with some recent college graduates and it's quite evident that they only understand about every other word I say and I'm not trying to use a very advanced vocabulary with them. o_O

TDD

It's a real trap for to many,

These are hardly for=profit, at least at the taxing level.

I've seen some lack of eduction in my life, but I didn't know it made it as far as four year degreed persons. That's spooky, to think that the lack of education extends to colleges, also.

Perhaps they have future careers as Occupy Wall Street crowd, and union protest marches?

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

.

Do you trust Affirmative Action college degrees? I've tried to carry on an intelligent conversation with some recent college graduates and it's quite evident that they only understand about every other word I say and I'm not trying to use a very advanced vocabulary with them. o_O

TDD

Yesterday Ellen Degeneris stumped the Jersey Shore girls with this political awareness question:

"There are nine justices on the Supreme Court. Who presides on Judge Judy?"

jsw

Good God. I've got to change my citizenship. It's too embarassing to be USA. Maybe some pacific island where the women wear grass skirts, and the men carry machetes and WWII surplus .45 pistols?

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

.

Yesterday Ellen Degeneris stumped the Jersey Shore girls with this political awareness question:

"There are nine justices on the Supreme Court. Who presides on Judge Judy?"

jsw

Speaking of affirmative action. I haven't eaten in at MacDonalds in the last couple of decades, but I remember they used to have written on their paper place mats, "We are an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity employer". Isn't that a dichotomy?

I The UK, they call it "Positive Discrimination". ^_^

TDD

I think that both of those mean that they give preference to minorities, blacks, and women.

If women are 52% of the population, is that a minority?

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

.

Speaking of affirmative action. I haven't eaten in at MacDonalds in the last couple of decades, but I remember they used to have written on their paper place mats, "We are an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity employer". Isn't that a dichotomy?

No.

From

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order

11246 which required federal contractors to take "affirmative action" to hire without regard to race, religion and national origin.

Then explain why "Minorities" are being accepted into schools while Caucasians with higher test scores and qualifications are being passed over? Is that Equal Opportunity, nondiscriminatory? The same thing has been happening in the work force for many years. o_O

TDD

But then the courts got involved and it has evolved into something more statistical. The original affirmative action was largely that you had go looking for minorities, etc. Now, it is you have to meet certain levels (dare I say quotas?) or run into problems.

That's not true. It's an urban myth perpetrated by the parents of stupid children.