Monday, March 1, 2010

Blog 8

"The stories can be startling: The John Hopkins valedictorian who borrwoed $101,000 to get his degree, the Boston resident with $80,000 debt load and a 26,000-a-year job, the student with $25,000 in federal loans, who was forced to drop out of school because she was $5,000 behind on her college bills"(Burdman 1).

All around the country people like this are taking out huge loans to pay for college. "about 60 percent of gradutates have debt from their undergraduate studies. For those students, the average total debt is $22,700"(Supiano). In today's econimcal downturn people are more cautious than ever with their money. People without the money to pay for higher education are wondering is college really worth the price of admission? Is the risk of not receiving a high paying job in this economy turning people off to the idea of college? What majors are "recession proof" and will always guarentee good jobs after school if there are any?

2 comments:

  1. OK -- but the questions you pose are really the questions that others are asking. What is YOUR research question? What will your project investigate? I suppose the two could be the same: you could look into whether or not college still makes rational economic sense in the new "jobless economy" and in a system that requires students to take out significant loans to pay for their own educations. You might also broaden your project to include the other rational economic choices that students are making now. In this order of things and this economy, students become extremely career-focused and money oriented. They know they need a well-paying job right after college. So I'm rather surprised that any of them choose liberal arts majors (unless they are planning to finish their educations in graduate school) -- but I'm also not surprised that they are running to nursing, engineering, and pharmacy in huge numbers. I think the rational economic focus is useful for you and makes questions easier to answer. But just make sure they are your questions and framed that way.

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  2. Excellent blog very well & detailed written about the college cost which is very useful for middle class students.

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