Monday, October 21, 2013

College? Maybe, But Most Probably Not

When I graduated college it cost about $1000 a year. I had no debt. I did borrow $800 to establish credit, and I paid it back before I graduated. Now if I had to go today...I wouldn't go.

While I was growing up my father was a general contractor, and I started building houses with him when I was 12. He wanted me to take over the business but I hated it. Sweat in the summer and cold in the winter.

But I can build a house from the ground up. And not too long ago, my father told me, "If I tried to do now what I did when I started, I could not do it." Because the economy is so bad, and has been since 2009. I haven't seen it pick up, either.

Today, I would not go to college unless I got a degree in something that was in demand. Otherwise you are just wasting your time. And I would not go into debt to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars that students are doing today. You cannot discharge those debts in bankruptcy, thanks to George Bush.

However, I did know one woman who owes about $17,000 and will never pay a cent. Because she went on disability. That's better than a 66-year-old man I know who gets $1000 a month of Social Security and gets $250 a month taken out of pay off his student loans.

I do know there are well-paying jobs that don't require degrees. Computer Systems Analyst, for one. But that requires a certain kind of person.

What you really want to do is go into something that cannot be outsourced.

I blame all these problems on the government, which is not your friend. It is your enemy. If we had a real free market we'd have plenty of jobs, including for the stupid who can do little than work at fast-food places (McDonalds is busy hiring the "mentally-challenged," which I have seen myself).

As far as I'm concerned, the State and Corporations want to turn us into impoverished, life-long slaves, to enrich themselves at the expensive of everyone else. And it is always better to be a free man than a slave.

Unless, of course, you want to be a poverty-stricken slave.

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