Is a college education ~really~ all it’s cracked up to be… anymore? Or, why has tuition increased 300% in 30 years?

College costs expose the false meritocracy of the American dream

The cost of an education in America has risen so much that only the wealthy and indebted can attend. The system doesn’t work

Post by Chris Arnade Photography.

Chris Arnade received his PhD in physics from Johns Hopkins University in 1992. He spent the next 20 years working as a trader on Wall Street. He left trading in 2012 to focus on photography. His “Faces of Addiction” series explores addiction in the south Bronx neighbourhood in New York City. Follow him on Twitter: @Chris_arnade

Chris Arnade

theguardian.com, Wednesday 18 June 2014 07.30 EDT

As a college student, Chris Arnade picked Florida watermelons to pay for school. His daughter can’t do the same.
Photograph: Alamy

When I entered Wall Street in 1993 with a PhD, I was an anomaly. One of my bosses was a failed baseball player, another a frustrated jazz musician. One of the guys running one of the most profitable businesses, in both my firm and all of Wall Street, was a former elevator repairman. Their college degrees – if they even had them – were from all sorts of schools, not simply the Ivy leagues.

By the time I left Wall Street a few years ago, the only people being hired were the “play it safe kids”. The ones with degrees from Princetons and Harvards. You know, the ones who had organized a soup kitchen in eighth grade (meaning, really their parents had) to load their resumes. The ones who had gone to the state science fair (meaning their parents or nannies had spent many weekends and nights helping with a science project).

 Few of these hires where rags-to-riches stories. Most had parents very much like those already working on Wall Street – wealthy and dedicated to getting their children whatever they needed, regardless of cost. Many were in fact the children of Wall Street parents.

It is not just Wall Street. Most of the best paying jobs now require a college degree, or post-college degree, and still rarely hire from state schools. They want Ivy schools, or similar. That feels safe.

This is a problem. Businesses have abdicated their primary role in hiring, handing it over to colleges, which have gladly accepted that role, and now charge a shit-load for it. Want a job kid? Pay $60,000 a year for four years. Then maybe pay for another two to get a MBA.

Yet, those best schools do not teach kids anything radically different from what the average colleges do. They do not prepare them better for the day-to-day work of Wall Street. Those finance skills are learned with experience and instinct after two years of training – on the job.

Rather, a prestigious education is a badge given to students who can follow the established rules, run through the maze, jump through hoops, color between the lines, and sit quietly. It shows that they really, really want to be a grown-up. For that, they pay $60,000 per year.

It has become a test. Are you part of the meritocracy?

It also has become a barrier of entry to professionalism – a very costly barrier of entry.

A rigid system of ‘feeder’ schools is in place for parents who want their children to attend schools like Harvard, which have a reputation for then ‘feeding’ major Wall Street firms. Photograph: Porter Gifford/Corbis

“I don’t consider this an increase.”

I’ll reserve at least four pejoratives for Dr. Mary Jane Caylor, who, along with other Board of Education members – save one –  voted to increase Alabama’s Community/Junior College tuition 27% in two steps, with automatic 2% increases annually beginning in 2011. Fees were not increased.

The subject line is a direct quote from her after she voted to increase costs.

I don’t think I can express adequate contempt for that idiot woman. To call her a “bitch” would denigrate female dogs.

Members of Alabama’s Board of Education oversee K-12 schools and community/junior colleges.

The solitary vote cast against the increase was from Stephanie Bell of Montgomery, who cited students’ economic difficulties not only in her district but statewide.

However Dr. Mary Jane Caylor of Huntsville was quoted as saying, “I don’t consider this an increase. I consider this an adjustment.”

So… what is this, you lying dumbf@#$? A “reverse decrease”?

Board members justified their move claiming state budget cuts amidst difficult economic times had made it necessary, and that it was the first increase in five years.

One doesn’t have to be a rocket surgeon or brain scientist to figure out that if costs are decreased, a certain amount of increase will inevitably result. Consider, for example, what might happen to higher education in Alabama if tuition costs were halved!

Could we actually increase the average level of education in Alabama by so doing?

Community/Junior College tuition per credit hour will cost $85 in spring 2010, and $90 in the fall, making the average student’s tuition $3210 per semester.

The Board members biographies and contact information may be found on the Board’s website: http://www.alsde.edu/html/boe1.asp

The Board’s members include:

• Governor Bob Riley – President;

• Joseph B. Morton – Secretary/Executive Officer;

• Dr. Mary Jane Caylor, of Huntsville, President Pro Tem, serving District 8;

• David F. Byers, Jr., of Birmingham, serving District 6;

• Gary Warren, of Haleyville, serving District 7;

• Ella B. Bell, of Montgomery, serving District 5;

• Stephanie W. Bell (no relation), of Montgomery, serving District 3;

• Betty Peters, of Dothan, serving District 2;

• Randy McKinney, of Gulf Shores, serving District 1; and

• Dr. Ethel H. Hall, of Fairfield, serving District 4.