I'm generally skeptical of claims that there exist large cultural differences between Canadians and Americans. But there is at least one way in which Canadian and American lives differ radically, at least for the upper middle classes in the two countries: the university experience.
If and when a Canadian decides to go to university, they just... go. Yes, there are some choices to make: Which province do you want to live in, that kind of thing. But for student and parent alike, the process is straightforward, inexpensive and seemingly non-traumatic. Or maybe that's just the grass-is-greener perspective of a parent in the throes of the American college-application maelstrom.
My son Nathaniel and I have spent the past week touring American college campuses, taking trains, planes and automobiles up and down the northeast seaboard. We'll do at least one more such tour before we're done, likely two.
The American journalist Andrew Ferguson has written a very funny new book about the experience, aptly titled "Crazy U." Ferguson details the head-turning dizziness of the experience for those families most obsessed by it: What about Washington University in St. Louis? Or Reed College in Oregon? Perhaps Pepperdine on the California beach? There are standardized tests to write, and letters of recommendation to collect, and clubs to join, and grades to earn -- and an emerging industry of college counselling to guide students and parents through the maze.
One thing you hear often as a parent is that the process has become much more difficult than it was during your day. This claim is both true and deceptive. It's true that colleges turn down a much higher percentage of applications than they used to do: Some of the more selective schools have rejection rates verging on 90 per cent, and many even of the less selective will claim reject rates of over 50 per cent.
But these high reject rates are a statistical artifact, the product of the fact that students file so many more applications than they used to file, back when each application had to be laboriously typed. Ten applications per student is the new normal, and not a few students will file many more.
The mass of applications creates a lot of unnecessary trouble and anxiety. But the closer you get to this process, the more you begin to suspect that the anxiety is -- as they say in Silicon Valley -- a feature, not a bug.
University education can easily add up to the most expensive purchase by an American family: up to $200,000 per student.
College tuition costs have risen much faster than inflation over the past 30 years, and still continue to do so despite the tough economic times in the United States. Yet, as the cost of college has soared, the earnings of college graduates have stagnated. The median pay of an American BA-holder actually declined between 2000 and 2005, adjusting for inflation, according to the 2006 annual Economic Report of the President.
As today's young people contemplate an uncertain job market, many must wonder: Is college worth it? In particular, are the more expensive colleges worth it? There's always a market for a Harvard degree, but America is ornamented by dozens of colleges that charge as much as Harvard, without in fact being Harvard.
For these schools, the anxiety and complexity of the college application process has some of the same function as the absence of clocks in a Las Vegas casino or the fuzziness of prices on a car lot. A disoriented consumer, obsessed over the question, "Will my child get in?" is much less likely to ask the question, "Does this purchase make sense?"
And hey -- it works. My level-headed son is never pushed off his game, but after visiting five schools in three cities in three days, I'm just as crazy as any of the parents in Ferguson's book. I should be asking, "What about hotel-management school?" But instead I'm sweatily fingering the college catalogues in the waiting rooms as my son proceeds from interview to interview.
This system is a bubble, everybody says. It may be headed for a crash -- that seems possible. In the meantime, here we are lofted along for the scary ride.
This originally appeared in the National Post.
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No doubt my own experience helped a lot and I was offered a fulltime job when doing my internship. Some of what I learned in college was directly related to what I did in my job, but now that is all obsolete.
The point I am trying to make is that many times employers will require that 4-year degree to even consider you. As to if it is really necessary to perform the job is another matter. It does worry me about the debt students are racking up for a 4-year degree.
It is a game that feeds the academic system and keeps tenured people who teach yesterday's stuff (like Fourier ) employed and relevant, even if they are only relevant in terms of a requirement for the sheepskin. As new technology comes up new classes are added.
The "victory lap"--the student doing a 5th year for a BS is common now with all the added loans attendant to that.
people who object are reflexively called ignorant folk who don't understand the "value" of a broad education...
it makes you wonder- what exactly is taught in an Indian college? How does it compare?
I've said it before: THIS IS THE BEGINING OF THE END.
Humans are not like horses; rich parents don't necessarily have intelligent offsprings (albeit it's probably true in many cases); moreover, rich intelligent kids may not have the same drive in the pursuit of happiness, as not so intelligent poor kids.
A level playing field in Education is a must, otherwise a lot of the "diamonds in the rough" will end up undiscovered, and eventually would age to become just graphite.
And please spare me the examples of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs; I know about them.
Send your kid to a Canadian college. . You are Canadian therefore your kids are Canadian.
The cost is reasonable and you have family in Toronto. ( They even have Hotel and Restaurant Managerment )
While the none of the current Republican candidates seem to have a real solution student loan debt and the increasing price of higher education, Obama's plan may actually make the problem worse.
His plan does nothing to stop the long term problems of the cost of attending college. Federal subsidies are not an answer to raising tuition prices. Instead, federal subsidies create a a vicious cycle that incentivize colleges to raise tuition because when subsidies students' purchasing power increase they can afford higher rates, in turn allowing universities to raise tuition, which ultimately leads students to demand more student loans.
I spent 10+ years paying off student loans and other miscellaneous debt incurred by weak starting salaries. When the career improved, the banks I spoke to were only willing to help me pay my debt off more expeditiously (via debt consolidation) if I was willing to accept a ridiculous interest rate.This solution would have costed me more than the rate I was already paying. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't. Though I did land in my field, what I do for a living was learned through practical training. I did not need school or debt. I needed a path and a mentor. End of list.
The bottom line is that David Frum is simply too coward to say in a blunt way.
I lived in a country (not Canada or the US) that used to value that ... education and health care were just two. Now it's a Corporate country ... the 'free market' rules and student debt is off the charts. Well done Free Market ... death to social democracies and up with the Corporate states.
Pro Football is "socialist," dispersing its profits and salaries evenly across all markets, for a reason and guess what, it makes the game more competitive. It would work for the economy as well.
2. Money is like morphine.
3. When morphine is used to treat pain, congestive heart failure or a heart attack, good things happen. When morphine is used to feel good, bad things happen.
4. When money is used to assign value to goods and services, and to facilitate commerce, good things happen.
5. WHEN MONEY IS USED TO MAKE PEOPLE WHO ALREADY HAVE PLENTY OF IT FEEL EVEN BETTER BECAUSE THAT IS HOW THEY KEEP SCORE , BAD THINGS HAPPEN.
Employers want CHEAP employees, they don't want someone who might work their way up. They plan on firing them just as soon as they get a few raises, so that they can hire in yet another bottom feeding greenie for less money.
The entire corporate system is so totally flawed it's totally laughable.
I know, I know: excuses, excuses are coming. This kind of stuff is w-a-y over most Americans' heads anyway. (That's why there's "haves" & "have-nots.") Ignorance compounded by extreme lack of discipline...are anything but bliss. No substitution for smarts in the U.S.
Great thought, however, and in theory it works. The problem is that theory very rarely fits comfortably with reality.