Mission Statement

[sailaway21]

College costs are completely out of control; they make health care costs seem reasonable. That colleges feel it appropriate to increase their fees 5-15% per annum with no comensurate increase in educational value is a disgrace. To the extent that we do not know what ambitions and capabilities our children will possess at the time we should begin saving for college it still makes sense to do the saving. But the gap between what a plumber makes and what an unused college degree in a less than rigorous field provides is narrowing, and in some cases, already to the advantage of the plumber. It's been my observation that an undirected college student can spend vast quantities of parental monies and end up little better educated than had he stayed awake in high school. Depends on the curriculum and kid needless to say. But there are a lot of schools out there providing more of a finishing school to high school than what we'd traditionally expect out of a four year degree. Enough on that burr under my saddle. (g)

If it is possible to be stunned more than we current college ed. payees are, I suspect that in fifteen years we will be. And that calls in to question the notion of parents providing the whole nut. Colleges have done nothing to disabuse us of the notion that, should we not pay for our kids entire collegiate education, we are somehow short-changing them or are deficient parents. My brother in law, the doctor, was right around forty when he paid off the last of his loans. He did not begrudge his parents one thin dime for not giving more. He had the quaint notion that his father, a German Jew grateful for the timely arrival of Patton's 8th Army, should have something more than a modest retirement. That he himself only lived to his early fifties adds a certain poignancy to the story as well.