[geeks] Q: Regarding Linux in K-12 education

[Lionel Peterson]

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 6:14 PM,  <gsm at mendelson.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 05:55:18PM -0500, Lionel Peterson wrote:
>
>> Waving my 'one specific instance disproved your generalization' flag,  let
>> me point out that better than 95% of the graduates from my local  public
>> high school go on to college. If course that doesn't mean they  won't wind
>> up with clerical jobs (book store clerks, waitresses and  coffee shop
>> baristas count, right?)
>
> How many of them go to on Rutger's and pay (comparatively) little?
>
> Looking it up, the tutition is around $12k a year (there are other fees,
> etc) Compare that to schools across the river, Penn ($35k), Drexel's around
> $32k and so on. Temple is about the same, but twice that for New Jersey
> residents.
>
> On the other coast, how many California high school students will go on to
> college when the free tution at the UC's is gone (it may be gone already)?
>
> While I am sure that the ones that can afford it will continue to go
> as the price rises and government support drops, what about all the
> people who can't?
> The days of cheap/free college and low interest loans are gone and probably
> won't come back for a long time.

Geoff,

What does cost have to do with it? The issue was percentage of high
school graduates that went on to college, not how much thye pay.

The current administration has plans for lots of taxpayer-funded
"scholarships" that will help keep college affordable for many.

On a related note, I recently met a recent college graduate that was
applying for substitute work in our district, he had student loans
that he had to start paying towards and he wasn't able to find a
better job than substituting - it seems he invested four years of his
life and borrowed $160,000 to get an undergraduate degree in Theater
Arts. When I heard that my first reaction was "Doesn't he have any
parents?!"

Lionel
--
Lionel Peterson
lionel4287 at gmail.com