important questions

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Today a little education about education.

First I’ll crunch some numbers, as I like to do.

4,726 = the number of colleges and universities United States.

$589 billion = the amount spent by students annually.

Of that figure,

$393 billion = tuition fees, and

$196 billion = expenses like travel and housing.

538% = the percentage increase of the cost of a college education over the past three decades.

4.5 = the number times more expensive it is to go to college today than it was back in 1985, even allowing for inflation.

So is the cost worth it?

Does the education system make sense?

The vast majority of Americans never even consider these important questions. They are fixated on their kids going to college – end of debate.

Whether they have the ability or not, or whether it is the right career path for them or not, if the parents can afford it and/or the kids can get a student loan (which they usually can) then they go to college.

But there is a heavy cost to pay, as we have just seen above. By the time they graduate 70% of students are lumbered with a loan balance averaging $28,400. Nationwide in the US, student loan debt now sits at a staggering $1.2 trillion, which is nearly 50% higher than all the outstanding auto-loan debt, and almost double credit card debt.

While it is true that college graduates have more opportunities to earn more than those without a degree, the number of those good paying jobs is limited. Most college graduates have to settle for a lot less that they were planning for when they started that expensive college education.

What is often forgotten is that there are many other opportunities out there in the workplace for someone who spends their time and money learning a trade or a skill. A friend of mine who is a plumber earns many times more than many of his contemporaries with college degrees and office jobs.

In fact, since more and more young Americans are turning their noses up at manual type jobs and opting for expensive colleges, there will soon be a shortage of essential trades such as plumbers, electricians and so forth, making those jobs even more lucrative than they are now.

Food for thought for the future perhaps.

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“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

When the new Congress gets itself organized (don’t hold your breath) here are a few important questions I think they should address. The people deserve to know the answers. We have been ignored for far too long!

What do you call male ballerinas?

How does Freddy Krueger wipe his butt? (Ouch!)

Why are the numbers on a calculator and a phone reversed?

(This one in particular has annoyed me for years!)

Do butterflies remember life as a caterpillar?

Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized?

Does the postman deliver his own mail?

Why is toilet bowl cleaner almost always blue in color?

Where do people in Hell tell other people to go?

Is ‘vice-versa’ to a dyslexic just plain redundant?

How come you can kill a deer and put it up on your wall, but it’s illegal to keep one as a pet?

Why do we say we’re head over heels when we’re happy? Isn’t that the way we normally are?

If prunes are dehydrated plums, where does prune juice come from?

Is it appropriate to say ‘good mourning’ at a funeral?

If there is an exception to every rule, is there an exception to that rule and therefore a rule that there is no exception to and does that mean there is not an exception to every rule, or that there is?