25 years old and deep in debt

[CountDeMoney]

Interesting prices: you would think learning to run a company into the ground to increase shareholder value would be more intuitive, rather than requiring a formal education.

[garbon]

Eww, your faux-poverty is showing.

[DGuller]

Interesting prices: you would think learning to run a company into the ground to increase shareholder value would be more intuitive, rather than requiring a formal education.

You need a vastly over-inflated opinion of yourself and your skills to run the company into the ground effectively.  That's not the kind of thing that intuition alone gives you.

[mongers]

Interesting prices: you would think learning to run a company into the ground to increase shareholder value would be more intuitive, rather than requiring a formal education.

You need a vastly over-inflated opinion of yourself and your skills to run the company into the ground effectively.  That's not the kind of thing that intuition alone gives you.

[CountDeMoney]

Interesting prices: you would think learning to run a company into the ground to increase shareholder value would be more intuitive, rather than requiring a formal education.

You need a vastly over-inflated opinion of yourself and your skills to run the company into the ground effectively.  That's not the kind of thing that intuition alone gives you.

This is true.  You also have to learn how to hide it in the books.  There's a trick to that, I suppose.

[Phillip V]

American Colleges Are Over $205 Billion in Debt

'A decade-long spending binge to build academic buildings, dormitories and recreational facilities — some of them inordinately lavish to attract students — has left colleges and universities saddled with large amounts of debt. Oftentimes, students are stuck picking up the bill.

Overall debt levels more than doubled from 2000 to 2011. In the same time, the amount of cash, pledged gifts and investments that colleges maintain declined more than 40 percent relative to the amount they owe.

With revenue pinched at institutions big and small, financial experts and college officials are sounding alarms about the consequences of the spending and borrowing. Last month, Harvard University officials warned of "rapid, disorienting change" at colleges and universities.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/business/colleges-debt-falls-on-students-after-construction-binges.html

Colleges and universities have also borrowed heavily, spending money on vast expansions and amenities aimed at luring better students: student unions with movie theaters and wine bars; workout facilities with climbing walls and "lazy rivers"; and dormitories with single rooms and private baths. Spending on instruction has grown at a much slower pace, studies have shown. Students end up covering some, if not most, of the debt payments in the form of higher tuition, room and board and special assessments, while in some instances state taxpayers pick up the costs.

Debt has ballooned at colleges across the board — public and private, elite and obscure. While Harvard is the wealthiest university in the country, it also has $6 billion in debt, the most of any private college, the data compiled by Moody's shows.
...
The pile of debt — $205 billion outstanding in 2011 at the colleges rated by Moody's — comes at a time of increasing uncertainty in academia. After years of robust growth, enrollment is flat or declining at many institutions, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest. With outstanding student debt exceeding $1 trillion, students and their parents are questioning the cost and value of college. And online courses threaten to upend the traditional collegiate experience and payment model.

At the same time, the financial crisis and recession created a new and sometimes harrowing financial calculus. Traditional sources of revenue like tuition, state appropriations and endowment returns continue to be squeezed, even as the costs of labor, health care for employees, technology and interest on debt have generally increased.

Students are requiring more and more financial aid, a trend that many believe is unsustainable for all but the wealthiest institutions.

[Ideologue]

[Phillip V]

Less Pay for New M.B.A.s

'Soaring tuition costs, a weak labor market and a glut of recent graduates are upending the notion that professional degrees like M.B.A.s are a sure ticket to financial success.'

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324296604578175764143141622.html

For M.B.A. graduates with minimal experience—three years or less—median pay was $53,900 in 2012, down 4.6% from 2007-08. Pay fell at 62% of the 186 schools examined.
...
U.S. schools granted a record 126,214 masters degrees in business and administration in the 2010-2011 academic year, a 74% jump from 2000-2001, according to the Department of Education. The M.B.A. march is part of an overall boom in advanced degrees that took on added steam as some recent college graduates and others sought refuge from the recession by pursuing advanced degrees. Tuition and fees for full-time M.B.A. programs has risen 24% over the past three years.

[CountDeMoney]

Well that just breaks my heart.

[MadImmortalMan]

I'm glad I'm not in college right now. This is seriously crazy.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Colleges Lose Pricing Power

The demand for four-year college degrees is softening, the result of a perfect storm of economic and demographic forces that is sapping pricing power at a growing number of U.S. colleges and universities, according to a new survey by Moody's Investors Service.

Facing stagnant family income, shaky job prospects for graduates and a smaller pool of high-school graduates, more schools are reining in tuition increases and giving out larger scholarships to attract students, Moody's concluded in a report set to be released Thursday.

But the strategy is eating into net tuition revenue, which is the revenue that colleges collect from tuition minus scholarships and other aid. College officials said they need to increase net tuition revenue to keep up with rising expenses that include faculty benefits and salaries. But one-third of the 292 schools that responded to Moody's survey anticipate that net revenue will climb in the current fiscal year by less than inflation.

[Monoriu]

Similar thing happening in HK.  We see too many cases of people borrowing heavily to study a diploma or certificate or associate degree or what not.  They end up doing the exact same basic jobs before and after the studies.  Even the degree holders aren't getting the office jobs anymore, so these guys are hopeless.  People need to wake up and realise that studying a two-year associate degree won't get you into a cubicle. 

[Tonitrus]

PDH and his bloated faculty are living off what amounts to a welfare transfer from student loan debt. 

[Caliga]

I believe I told you people previously that higher ed is a scam.

[Tonitrus]

I believe I told you people previously that higher ed is a scam.

But you probably don't even consider employment for the base scum who hold only associate degrees.