Re: interesting article on Obama...

On Sat, 12 Jan 2008, Rita wrote:

On Sat, 12 Jan 2008 08:48:42 -1000, "Alvin E. Toda" <aet@xxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jan 2008, Rita wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:25:06 -1000, "Alvin E. Toda"
<aet@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jan 2008, Rita wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 09:32:33 -1000, "Alvin E. Toda"
<aet@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 9 Jan 2008, John Galt wrote:

"Alvin E. Toda" <aet@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Pine.BSI.4.64.0801090842490.12123@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 8 Jan 2008, John Galt wrote:

[Hiring foreign engineers] lasts as long as
we're considered a better place to live, one or
two decades depending on where the H1B is
coming from. I'd much rather grow our own
talent, I'm sure you'd agree.

That's why you need to consider education to be
a long term investment even if it is cheaper to
import engineers. Education pays off in the far
distant future. Even the college student waits
years before his/her education really begins to
pay off. As in other ROI considerations we need
to consider ALL payoffs both short term and long
term. By long term, I would consider payoffs in
the 6 or 7 years range.

As stated above, I think you have to make
assumptions for the entire working life of the
worker. But, that's neither here nor there -- the
important point is that educational subsidies,
vended in such a way that they are not
inflationary to the cost of the education (very
difficult) SHOULD pay for themselves.

How do you feel about the morality of Harvard
charging 46K per year while holding a 35B
endowment?

IIRC I've heard that tuition is graduated to the
income of parents. Some pay more than that. I
would be for increasing the number and size of
Pell Grants to handle more applicants from poor
families. It wouldn't be inflationary if the
increase can be covered by small tax increases (on
the wealthy. This is justified since most of the
funds go to kids going to private schools on
scholarship that wealthy families send their kids
to) or a small increase in the national debt, or a
combination of both.

In addition, I think that small private colleges
provide as good or better educations than the
large private universities. And if there were more
competition for students of wealthy families, then
the tuitions of schools like Harvard would come
down. It seems like they charge so much because
there is so much demand for admittance.

Few Harvard students pay the full tab. Harvard has
made its tuition far more affordable recently.

From a Harvard website:

More than two-thirds of the Harvard entering class
receives financial aid (including scholarships,
loans, and jobs), with over 50 percent qualifying
for need-based scholarship assistance and an
average total aid package of close to $34,000,
bringing the average cost down to about $12,000.

Other well endowed universities now are under
pressure to do the same.

I first heard this from a son who took his daughter on a college tour over the summer. He said he wouldn't be one of those included as his income was too high but that his daughter was pleased to learn the school did not exclude kids whose parents were unable to pay the full tab. She is a sort of populist -- at age 18. She wanted to consider only state schools because they were non-elitist. My son told her to get the best education she could wherever and then she could work to change things:) She has a pristine record, 4.3 grade point and off the charts almost on the SAT. But Harvard gets many applications from just as well qualified kids.

Good news to me that Harvard takes in so many worthy students. But I would guess that the other 1/3 that pay full tuition, might be kids of former wealthy or influential alumni. All schools have this kind of preference. It's not harm to their parents'pocket books that the tuitions are so high.

Be realistic. The only way Harvard can be as generous to kids from less wealthy families is to keep up its gifts and endowments it receives from the well-heeled. It is a private university and can't draw from the public funds. We have room in our college system for public and private colleges. And it is heartening to know that at least one elite school is opening its doors so widely by drastically lowering the cost of attending it. And of course you are right, the high tuition is no or far less harm to the pocketbooks of the well heeled. But previously they had all the advantage. Now fewer of them are admitted unless they really excel and earn it. It is light years cheaper to attend a community college. But those institutions have their place but don't do the same thing as Harvard and other prestigious universities.

Before she transferred to Cal Berkeley, my sister attended one year of study at USC in LA. She roomed at the student dormotory but thought that the wealthy students were a little odd, and perhaps could use some counseling. A big fear there is not being accepted into one of the prestigious sororities. Guys like W. Bush have no problems getting into them, but others like Kerry probably have to fight their way in. For many like my sister, they couldn't care less, and didn't try. I guess this is the reason the University of Hawaii does not permit national sororities for fraternities on any campus. Student clubs are permitted of course. Honor societies are another story.

My granddaughter would not join a sorority. She would hate it. She would like a lively intellectual environment with a diverse mix of students. A party girl -- that is not her. Now one of her three sisters is. Four girls, four different personalities. Same parents.

Both of my boys like the UC San Diego near you. One was accepted there and the other might have been if he had bothered to call them back. He had written a letter complaining that he was a much better student than his older brother but yet he wasn't accepted. They called back and left a message to do a phone interview of him but he refused to call back. He prefered to attend UC Irvine where all his friends were going while the older brother preferred Hawaii.

The older one left Hawaii much older and missed the islands so had intended to go back if he was accepted. The road trips to all those schools was fun but basically a waste of time, because they decided not to apply to so many of them. For example, they both thought UCLA was too urban and odd that it is so placed in an expensive neighborhood. HOwever, the younger one did do graduate work at UCLA. They thought UC Santa Cruz was too isolated and woodsey-- and didn't like the non-letter grading system. I liked that fact that UC San Diego is so close to the ocean. But CA beaches are in general too cold for me. Schools like Cal Berkeley were too close to home for them-- and what's wrong with that? I tried to interest them in going north to Portland and Seattle and even Vancouver, but they both preferred to check out sunny southern california.

Your grand-daughter might like having her grandmother and relatives living close by at UC San Diego.
.

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