25 years old and deep in debt

[Maladict]

Well yes, now one wouldn't really be able to afford all that extra tuition.

Because we have communism that's not even such a big risk. If you can't afford to pay back your loans the payments are postponed at next to no interest until you can (comfortably) do so. And any amount still remaining after 15 years is cancelled.

How do they assess your ability to pay?

Income. There are four categories iirc, first pays nothing, second to fourth in increasing percentages of gross income.
I'm in the third, paying about 10%, I definitely notice it but it doesn't really affect my spending.

[Phillip V]

Young, Educated and Jobless in France (and Europe)

'A growing problem in France and other low-growth countries of Europe — the young and educated unemployed, who go from one internship to another, one short-term contract to another, but who cannot find a permanent job that gets them on the path to the taxpaying, property-owning French ideal that seemed the norm for decades.

This is a “floating generation,” made worse by the euro crisis, and its plight is widely seen as a failure of the system: an elitist educational tradition that does not integrate graduates into the work force, a rigid labor market that is hard to enter, and a tax system that makes it expensive for companies to hire full-time employees and both difficult and expensive to lay them off.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/world/europe/young-and-educated-in-france-find-employment-elusive.html

The result, analysts and officials agree, is a new and growing sector of educated unemployed, whose lives are delayed and whose inability to find good jobs damages tax receipts, pension programs and the property market. When added to the large number of unemployed young people who have little education or training, there is a growing sense that France and other countries in Western Europe risk losing a generation, further damaging prospects for sustainable economic growth.
...
Throughout the European Union, unemployment among those aged 15 to 24 is soaring — 22 percent in France, 51 percent in Spain, 36 percent in Italy. But those are only percentages among those looking for work. There is another category: those who are “not in employment, education or training,” or NEETs, as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development calls them. And according to a study by the European Union’s research agency, Eurofound, there are as many as 14 million out-of-work and disengaged young Europeans, costing member states an estimated 153 billion euros, or about $200 billion, a year in welfare benefits and lost production — 1.2 percent of the bloc’s gross domestic product.

In Spain, in addition to the 51 percent of young people who are looking for work, 23.7 percent of those 15 to 29 have simply given up looking, said Anne Sonnet, a senior economist studying joblessness at the O.E.C.D. here. In France, it’s 16.7 percent — nearly two million young people who have given up; in Italy, 20.5 percent.

As dispiriting, especially for the floating generation, is that 42 percent of those young people who are working are in temporary employment, up from just over one-third a decade ago, the Eurofound study said. Some 30 percent, or 5.8 million young adults, were employed part time — an increase of nearly 9 percentage points since 2001.

That trend is especially evident in France, where 82 percent of people hired today are on temporary contracts, said Michel Sapin, the labor minister.
...
Ms. Sonnet, the O.E.C.D. economist, said that high youth unemployment is a regular problem in France. Companies are afraid to commit to permanent hiring when economic growth is stagnant and charges for social benefits are so high, and the educational system tends to value liberal arts over technical or industrial expertise.

They “often don’t learn the skills that employers need,” she said. “They’re simply not ready to work.” Ms. Sonnet promotes more use of apprenticeships, as in Germany, where students work part time while they go to school.

François Béharel, the president of Randstad France, a branch of the multinational employment agency, said that the problem of youth unemployment among the educated is worsening at a time when employers are crying out for engineers, computer technicians, electricians and welders.

“We have to begin with parents — ‘Stop dreaming of white collars!’ ” Mr. Béharel said. “Blue collars, there really is a true path for them,” he said. But small and medium-size companies, which are France’s primary employers, do not have the resources or the profit margins to train the untrained.

“We’ve piled up battalions of students in general education, and everyone knows that there aren’t 10,000 among them who are going to find the job that they imagined when they entered university,” he said. Only 40 percent of students entering university get their degree; the rest drop out, trained for nothing.

[MadImmortalMan]

At least the ones following them won't have had to do homework. 

[Ideologue]

I assign a text with 500 pages and a reader with 300 for my first semester class (this is the Western Civ that gets some sort of special magical letter next to it that meets some cultural requirement), a class that is always filled with new freshmen and other types.

While I know they don't actually read this all in 15 weeks (I have been told on evaluations that NOBODY could read this much), it is needed to get a good grade.

Oh, I also assign 2 short papers, 3 essays tests, and they must discuss the reader every week to get good grades (of course, I have 2 GAs to do most of the grading, I am lazy).

It is college, and I find most of the students respond and do put out some effort instead of simply whining.  They want to move beyond 12th grade?  They better learn at least a bit about thinking.

Western civilisation will not falter whilst you are at the helm. 

He teaches history.

[Ideologue]

Anyway, unfair jabs at Peedy aside ( ), I was made aware of a forthcoming critique of Brian Tamanaha's book Failing Law Schools to be published in the Georgetown Journal of Who Gives a Fuck.

Abstract: Professor Brian Tamanaha's book, Failing Law Schools, usefully collects in one place the recent critiques of law schools for reacting excessively to U.S. News rankings, manipulating admissions data, spending excessive amounts of money to hire "star" professors and to circulate glossy brochures and magazines, and in some cases, falsifying graduates' employment statistics. But Tamanaha's main argument is that law school has become unaffordable for most applicants, because it will saddle them with debt that they cannot afford to repay on the incomes that they can reasonably expect. His thesis is based on a misunderstanding of student loan repayment methods. In particular, he erroneously assumes that the only proper way to repay student loans is through so-called "standard" repayment (over a ten year period). Actually, many law graduates will find typically law school debt manageable if they repay federal student loans through income-based repayment plans, particularly the new Pay As You Earn (PAYE) plan. Tamanaha disparages income-based repayment, however, because he incorrectly believes that total debt, rather than the ratio of current repayment obligations to current income, primarily determines a borrower's credit-worthiness for mortgages and other large loans.

Based on his belief that law school is no longer affordable for most students, Tamanaha offers several radical proposals, such as amending accreditation standards to permit a two-tier system, in which only a few expensive law schools would continue as research institutions offering three-year degrees, while most would offer law degrees after two years of classroom study and a year of some sort of lightly-supervised apprenticeship. He would also do away with the standard that requires schools to put most faculty members on tenure tracks and to support faculty research. This review essay questions the need for those far-reaching changes in legal education and concludes with the suggestion that Tamanaha focus his considerable critical skills on the problems not of law students, but of lower-income clients who are unable to obtain the legal services that they need.

LOLOLOL massive wealth transfers for me, welfare for you, and the taxpayer picks up the tab!  What an asshole.

[HVC]

no one made you go to school to be a lawyer

[Ideologue]

I forgive you.  As a Portuguese, you're genetically hardwired not to notice colossal wastes of public funds.

[Neil]

How in the fuck does a law teacher research anything?  Their discipline is not only ridiculous and made-up, but also unscientific.

[HVC]

I forgive you.  As a Portuguese, you're genetically hardwired not to notice colossal wastes of public funds.

Your gripe with education comes directly from your own experiences. If you hadn't gone to law school you wouldn't care. Or perhaps I'm wrong in that view, but this whole education saturation has been a deal since before I first went to university 10 years ago, so at least  7 or so years before you went to law school an i don't recall you bringing it up before.

[Ideologue]

I forgive you.  As a Portuguese, you're genetically hardwired not to notice colossal wastes of public funds.

Your gripe with education comes directly from your own experiences. If you hadn't gone to law school you wouldn't care. Or perhaps I'm wrong in that view, but this whole education saturation has been a deal since before I first went to university 10 years ago, so at least  7 or so years before you went to law school an i don't recall you bringing it up before.

I just wanted to make an ethnic joke.

Anyway, what you say is not untrue, but I serve as sentinel, to warn those that may come after.

Fwiw, though, higher education as a whole is indeed pretty scammy, and in large part superfluous, just not to the same self-parodying degree.

[PDH]

He teaches history.

Stop being so jealous.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Europe is heading towards a revolution.  This may revitalize the American armaments industry if we can sell to both sides. To say nothing of giving Putin another chance to expand his empire.

[Gups]

How in the fuck does a law teacher research anything?  Their discipline is not only ridiculous and made-up, but also unscientific.

I have to say that after 12 years as a lawyer (and one who does deal with law rather than just tick boxes ono a due diligence spreadsheet), I have only ever read one academic paper. And that was useless.

[Malthus]

How in the fuck does a law teacher research anything?  Their discipline is not only ridiculous and made-up, but also unscientific.

I have to say that after 12 years as a lawyer (and one who does deal with law rather than just tick boxes ono a due diligence spreadsheet), I have only ever read one academic paper. And that was useless.

I've read academic papers more frequently but yes, they tend to be useless.

Problem is that the function of an academic paper is divorced from real world applications, and only affects them tangentally. In the real world, people want answers to actual problems. Academic research tends to be about considering interesting questions. 

[garbon]

I forgive you.  As a Portuguese, you're genetically hardwired not to notice colossal wastes of public funds.

Your gripe with education comes directly from your own experiences. If you hadn't gone to law school you wouldn't care. Or perhaps I'm wrong in that view, but this whole education saturation has been a deal since before I first went to university 10 years ago, so at least  7 or so years before you went to law school an i don't recall you bringing it up before.

I just wanted to make an ethnic joke.

Anyway, what you say is not untrue, but I serve as sentinel, to warn those that may come after.

Fwiw, though, higher education as a whole is indeed pretty scammy, and in large part superfluous, just not to the same self-parodying degree.

Are you saying this degree doesn't look useful?

http://www.cca.edu/academics/graduate/comics