Cost of higher education too high

Gordon Halloran, Broomfield

Published March 25, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Updated March 25, 2008 at 12:23 a.m.

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March 25, 2008

5:33 a.m.

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Armie writes:

Higher education is out of reach for the average child today!
Get rid of all the perks and graft that goes on in higher education and it will be affordable again.
Have the professors teach instead of their TA's.
Get rid of the Churchill’s.
Spend the money for education not pensions and perks.
Educate the kids not feather the nest of the parasites that live off the taxpayers.
March 25, 2008

5:54 a.m.

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Yankee writes:

Translated from left-wing jargon it is:

We understand that with about half your income going in taxes already it is politically unwise to raise your rates so, we'll have to find new ways to get at your money. The "rising costs" of education is a great scam. It works well because people so love their children that you don't have to do a lot of explaining.

If you raise tuition, they will borrow the money. That is especially true if you use the promise of public funds (you know the tax money we get from them in the first place) to keep the interest rates low and then they think they're getting a great deal. And as a bonus we can assume the old "benevolent ruler" pose and tell everybody we are doing all this for the future of the young.

The people are burdened with debt, there are no new taxes and, best of all, we get a new supply of money. It's just about the perfect scam.
March 25, 2008

6:43 a.m.

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VVVV writes:

So follow supply and demand. Send your kids to an out of state school, let them work there for a year or however you qualify for in-state tuition (some states are better than others), and let the Colorado schools price themselves out of business. There is no reason to continue to think that in-state schooling is unquestionably the cheapest option. There are plenty of places that are a lot more willing to attract your student, offer higher quality education, and often in places that offer fewer distractions to completing a degree. Let the wealthy out of staters send their kids here to party and ski their education away, while we send ours out there to actually learn something.
March 25, 2008

9:14 a.m.

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BetterEducated writes:

You think you're hurting?
Try being married to a DPS classified worker who gave up 23 years of dedicated service to the District while making low earnings, while watching unqualified new people coming in and making more cuz DPS couldn't secure them otherwise -- and THEN putting two kids through college in Colorado.
Are we mad?!!
We shouldn't call it the Colorado Paradox. We should just call it the Colorado Cruelty, that would at least be honest.
What a rotten trick to play on high-achieving students.
March 25, 2008

9:24 a.m.

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Elwood writes:

23 years in the DPS? The worker ought to be ready to retire or at least start recieving their DPS pension while working part time somewhere else.

Must be nice to have a publicly funded pension fund with defined benefits instead of having to put your own money into a retirement account that may or maynot make any money!
March 25, 2008

10:30 a.m.

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Acemon writes:

Perhaps the solution to this problem is to stop believing the never-ending mantra of "You have to go to college to be successful." I'm a 46-year-old high school graduate, have a great career, own a home, pay my bills and taxes, and I'm more successful than most of my peers. Best of all, I'm not still paying off decades-old student loans.

The most-important thing I learned in high school was our country's obsession with athletes. During football season there were many days when the class schedules were abrieviated to allow for "pep rallies" to cheer on the football team. Oddly, we never had rallies for baseball, basketball, or water polo. If you want an affordable college for your children, consider a school that doesn't spend millions on football stadiums, coaching staff, athletic scholarships, or player behavior-related lawsuits.
March 25, 2008

10:42 a.m.

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primafacie writes:

You're kidding, right? College in Colorado is a relative steal. With the state subsidy -- which picks up about half -- I'm paying less than $1,500 a semester at Arapahoe Junior College, and it'll be just a couple hundred more next fall at University of Northern Colorado.

Compare that to nearly $6,000 per year at University of California-Davis or $5,600 per year at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

So, where is the crisis again?

And, no, it ain't cheap. We do without 54-inch plasma TVs and Broncos season tickets. But it's worth every penny.
March 25, 2008

11:02 a.m.

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primafacie writes:

Sorry, make that almost $9,000 per year at UC-Davis.

(That's my public education for you....)
March 25, 2008

1:31 p.m.

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NotYours writes:

College was NEVER affordable or cheap.

It's like everything else -- it's a priority, and whether college happens or not depends mainly on where it's ranked in a person or family's list of **important things**. How important is it? Is it more important than those car leases? Skiing vacations? Is college more important than that new flat-screen TV?

I put myself through undergraduate and graduate school at CU by WORKING FULL TIME, the entire time. Not by government money, not by LOANS -- I did it by WORKING. Education is a top PRIORITY to me.

College isn't a "right". Nobody ever said it'd be "low-cost". And it's definitely not "easy".

So quit whining. You're setting a bad example for your children.
March 25, 2008

1:36 p.m.

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AngelontheSidelines writes:

The only thing left from my college degree is the albatross of a student loan still hanging from my neck.

Kids, don't go to college until you know what you want to study. College straight from highschool is a waste, unless of course you know who you are and what you want in life (rare).
March 25, 2008

1:37 p.m.

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MC2008 writes:

"Having said that, on a relative basis versus its peers, CU was giving it away. They can't afford to do that any longer."

CU-Denver paid 800,000 to a lobbying firm last year and is paying near a million on a new branding campaign to get everyone to refer to UCD as UCD. They spent a huge amount on an extensive search for a new president so that they could end up with only one choice, who doesn't even have a Master's degree (meaning that, by the rules, he can't even head a department...). I guess Benson must be ok, though, since he is getting funding replaced for the new Science building... I wonder how much that is going to cost in tuition increases next year?

They spend and spend and spend on administration and than want the students to keep forking over for less and less educational value. Frankly, CU could stand to give a little away.
March 25, 2008

2:22 p.m.

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BetterEducated writes:

Dear Elwood, my husband quit DPS after his 23 years -- still being short of that magic retirement date -- because he just couldn't keep working for a system that he had become convinced was corrupt. Having 2 high-school-aged children at the time, we desperately needed the pension money, and had to cash it in.
We received back ONLY the contributions the worker himself put in, plus nominal (3.5%) interest. No matching funds like the PERA participants get. (His money stopped earning even the 3.5% interest once he was no longer employed, that's the workers' inducement to take the money out, even if they could otherwise afford to leave it in there.)
Now he is starting to earn social security benefits. He is 50.
Please don't be jealous, neither of us will ever retire. A lifetime of public service for nothing.
And yes, of course he tried to get his job back. Maybe you haven't tried communicating with DPS lately, but suffice it to say: you can call and write all you want, they will never reply. Don't even have the courtesy to say Go to Hell.
March 25, 2008

2:41 p.m.

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Yankee writes:

Angelonthe sidelines is right. No matter what the cost of an education the value is in what each individual makes of it. Most college students never matriculate and a great many of those that do are dismayed to learn they are no more employable when the left high school.

That's because they don't really know why they're in college except that it seemed like the least bad option. If that is the case, do something else.

Heed Mark Twain who said that he never let the schools get in the way of his education.
March 25, 2008

7:42 p.m.

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John_II writes:

College is mostly useless. Does it cost too much? Consider yourself lucky that you are unable to fund such an institution of fools. There is little worth paying for at college that you could not achieve by buying yourself some books and reading them on your own.

I find it humorous that folks will complain about the cost of college rather than find better ways to educate one's self (or child).

Whatever happened to buying books and reading them? Are you telling me that Business Mathematics can only be learned by the aid of an instructor? And history? English grammar? Latin? Logic? Philosophy? Shakespeare? Can we not save $30k by buying some books and an Internet subscription?

Now, if we were able to study economics on our own, we would discover that a government-financed demand for college will cause a continued increase in a college tuition. What incentive is there for a college to cut costs when it knows that the government will continue to finance new students regardless of the cost?
March 26, 2008

9:34 a.m.

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glowrock writes:

John II, too bad most employers won't accept "Masters in Business, self-taught University" on someone's resume... :)
March 26, 2008

10:20 a.m.

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John_II writes:

glowrock,

It worked for me.

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Home › Opinion › Letters to the Editor

Cost of higher education too high

Gordon Halloran, Broomfield

Published March 25, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.Updated March 25, 2008 at 12:23 a.m.

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Published March 25, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Updated March 25, 2008 at 12:23 a.m.