What Happened....

[BlueTrain]

The most important thing you have learned by the time you get your undergraduate degree is the knowledge that you really don't know very much.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In the Era, it was a stereotype of college boys that they didn't wear hats.

"I'm just a college boy
Even at that
I'd tip my hat to you
But I haven't got a hat!

I'm really not a sap
It's plain to see
But if I ever wore a hat
They'd never let me back
In the university.

I think you're swell, I do
I'm standing pat
I'd tip my hat to you
But I haven't got a hat!"

-- popular song, 1935

 

[2jakes]

With the exception of baseball caps, I don’t see many kids wearing hats
today as in the past.

 

[Fading Fast]

In the Era, it was a stereotype of college boys that they didn't wear hats.

"I'm just a college boy
Even at that
I'd tip my hat to you
But I haven't got a hat!

I'm really not a sap
It's plain to see
But if I ever wore a hat
They'd never let me back
In the university.

I think you're swell, I do
I'm standing pat
I'd tip my hat to you
But I haven't got a hat!"

-- popular song, 1935

Which only increases my suspicion that "Apparel Arts -" a progenitor of GQ and more of a true men's fashion magazine in its day - was more aspirational (with an agenda to help sell clothes) than documentary of its time as it would have you believe that many / most college men were wearing hats (and a lot, and I mean a lot, of very stylish and expensive clothing) in the '30s.

My guess is that those magazines were, like today, not reflective of what the regular person wore, but did drive a niche' market of fashion-obsessed people and influenced the look of the normal guys.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Sort of the way the vast majority of women, in their scuffed-up oxfords and their flour-sack dresses, looked nothing like what you saw in Harpers Bazaar.

 

[BlueTrain]

When I started college in 1964, there was an expectation that freshmen would wear beanies but that was a rebellious generation and I never had one. But a hat it wasn't.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I wore something similar to this in college. Not identical: this is a German Prinz Heinrich cap, and what I wore was a student/ worker's cap that my uncle had gotten for me when he worked for a year (1973-1974) in Poland. It was somewhat like a cross between this and a Greek fisherman's cap. Remember the "Ringo caps" of the 1960's? Like that- but brown wool felt.

 

[Paisley]

FF, you've touched on a reason college graduates tend to do better in life than non-graduates: an endeavor that requires ambition, sacrifice and at least an average IQ attracts people who have certain habits and traits to begin with. Engineering attracts all that plus a certain personality type (introverted, frugal, level-headed, traditional) that tends to keep them from making disastrous decisions.

I don't know much about the daughter in question who got a scholarship to BU, so I'm speaking in general terms here. A parent of modest means might send their child to a community college for a year or two and see how it goes. They may have their limits, but (IME) they attract an older, more serious group of students who are there on their own dime and eager to learn. The class sizes are small, the instructors are accessible, and some of the same instructors teach the same courses out of the same texts at four-year colleges. If it works out, it's a low risk to spend some serious money for the child to go on to a more prestigious school. If it doesn't, Mom and Dad at least won't have to move to a third-world country to retire.

 

[Paisley]

On the subject of low-brow food, Velveeta is wonderful over Italian pizza sausage. I need to try it over eggplant and spaghetti sauce.

It's too hot here to wear a hat. What I need are new prescription sunglasses.

 

[Stearmen]

With the exception of baseball caps, I don’t see many kids wearing hats
today as in the past.

I am seeing more young people in hats, then ever before. And I am not talking baseball. Just saw a young man when I went to pickup a pizza, wearing a kilt and a top hat!

 

[Fading Fast]

FF, you've touched on a reason college graduates tend to do better in life than non-graduates: an endeavor that requires ambition, sacrifice and at least an average IQ attracts people who have certain habits and traits to begin with. Engineering attracts all that plus a certain personality type (introverted, frugal, level-headed, traditional) that tends to keep them from making disastrous decisions.

I don't know much about the daughter in question who got a scholarship to BU, so I'm speaking in general terms here. A parent of modest means might send their child to a community college for a year or two and see how it goes. They may have their limits, but (IME) they attract an older, more serious group of students who are there on their own dime and eager to learn. The class sizes are small, the instructors are accessible, and some of the same instructors teach the same courses out of the same texts at four-year colleges. If it works out, it's a low risk to spend some serious money for the child to go on to a more prestigious school. If it doesn't, Mom and Dad at least won't have to move to a third-world country to retire.

That sounds like a very reasonable plan. When you interview / put it on your resume - no one cares where you spent your first years in school (or ever asks), all that matters is where you graduated from. I'm a big fan of community colleges for the reasons you highlight - not a lot of "let's party" nonsense - much more of a let's learn and make this successful approach - for less money.

Also, your first point about why college grads (statistically - many, many exceptions) do better in life is why I think the tsunami push to get "everyone" in to college is a mistake as it mistakes correlation for causation. It correlates college graduation with higher earnings and says, therefore, if we send more kids to college, they'll make more, but it ignores the, IMHO, real causation which is that someone is probably (or used to be before we had the huge push) more motivated to succeed and able to overcome some obstacles if they had the discipline and work ethic to graduate from college.

I think we made the same causation / correlation mistake with homeownership. Growing up, to buy a home you had to save at least 20% for a downpayment and have four times the monthly mortgage payment in gross monthly income (obviously, this is oversimplified, but there were general standards close to these). Hence, someone who owned a home had already shown a decent amount of disciple by saving up the 20% and had a pretty respectable cushion of income to mortgage payment so, if they did lose a job and had to take one for less pay, they might still be able to make their mortgage payment.

Once we - the public and private sector policy makers - started to push homeownership as a societal goal - and encourage low or no down payments, a much smaller income cushion, and less loan to value - many (not all, of course) of the new homeowners hadn't shown the disciple of the former homeowners and, also, didn't have much vested in the home as they had a small or no downpayment. So, like with college, we ignored the true cause of homeowners being, overall, more stable and positives to their communities - they had discipline and a commitment to the home and community - and, instead, thought that just owning a home - no matter how you got there - was the cause.

In the end, we wound up with too much housing debt and too much student loan debt all sparked by public and private good intentions that mistook correlation for cause and, unfortunately, in many cases, hurt those people these programs and intentions were trying to help.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Of course, the original reason the FHA and its loan programs were created was because the high-money-down short-term balloon mortgage system of the 1920s had proven itself unworkable during the Depression. The no-money-down concept was a creation of the Veterans Administration after WWII, so it's been around as long as the Boomer generation, and quite likely a majority of that generation grew up in non-defaulted, VA-financed homes. Unless, of course, they were black and lived in a redlined area, but that's another story...

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^ There is a place for no-down mortgages, but it does require skilled and thoughtful banking prudently assessing the borrower - not the casino, give-'em-all-a-loan nonsense of the early '00s. Balloons, arms, etc., can all make sense if done thoughtful, but the banks (yes) and the government agencies Fannie and Freddie (yes) got stupid for greedy money and greedy political reasons.

And while redlining is disgusting, the response of forcing banks to make a certain percentage of their loans in those areas (I worked for a bank and know this happened) resulted in the banks making loans they knew at the time they made them would default but did so anyway owing to political / regulatory dictate and (besides the bank's shareholder) the biggest victim of this crazy policy was the "homeowner" who ended up losing whatever capital they put in, destroying their credit and emotionally and pragmatically messing up their lives - and they were the ones supposedly being helped.

What happened in the late '90s into the '00s was not thoughtful targeted government programs combining with prudent private sector banking, but a greed free-for-all at both our public and private institutions. When the taxpayer had to write the bailout check, it wasn't written just to the banks but also the government's mortgage agencies.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I don't know much about the daughter in question who got a scholarship to BU, so I'm speaking in general terms here. A parent of modest means might send their child to a community college for a year or two and see how it goes. They may have their limits, but (IME) they attract an older, more serious group of students who are there on their own dime and eager to learn. The class sizes are small, the instructors are accessible, and some of the same instructors teach the same courses out of the same texts at four-year colleges. If it works out, it's a low risk to spend some serious money for the child to go on to a more prestigious school. If it doesn't, Mom and Dad at least won't have to move to a third-world country to retire.

It worked for me, albeit over 40 years ago. Told the tale here several times, but I found that there were a lot of Nam vets and older mom types when I was back in community college who were a hell of a lot more motivated and mature than what I encountered later at university. My state had (and has) a deal where a CC grad with an associate in arts or sciences (not "applied sciences" as that's a vocational track and another topic) receives 60 semester hours of credit, waiver of ALL curriculum requirements, and junior status at all state universities (save the flagship, which still plays the course by course pick n choose game) . I saved by more than 50% by doing that as opposed to the ridiculous path my parents originally wanted to shove me into taking.

There is, however, a stigma that still attaches to attending a CC. Not insurmountable, however: a young lady whom I encourage recently started at Georgetown after transferring from what is essentially a vocational program at a backwater Alabama CC. She is an exceptional person, however, and managed a perfect 4.0 GPA. Convincing the university, grad school, or employer that you're a hard working scrapper who overcame adversity and not a slacker who chose a course of least resistance is part of the community college alum's routine, I suppose.

 

[HudsonHawk]

That sounds like a very reasonable plan. When you interview / put it on your resume - no one cares where you spent your first years in school (or ever asks), all that matters is where you graduated from. I'm a big fan of community colleges for the reasons you highlight - not a lot of "let's party" nonsense - much more of a let's learn and make this successful approach - for less money.

I realize my experience is very atypical, but the saying in my profession was always "nobody cares where you did your undergrad, your grad school is all that matters". Well, I've enjoyed a nice career, and not only does nobody care where I went to school, I've never been once asked by an employer to prove that I even have a college degree. The only time I've ever had to provide proof of degree was when obtaining a Professional Geologists license for the first time. But never from an employer.

 

[Paisley]

After the mortgage debacle happened, I watched It's a Wonderful Life with a different point of view. If people hadn't been so encouraged by George Bailey to own their own homes, many of them could have moved where they could get work, without risking the stigma of bankruptcy, when the factory closed down. Old Man Potter would have been left holding the bag.

Owning a home isn't a smart decision for everybody. If you're in a shaky job situation, if you don't know where you're going to be in five years, if you can't afford repairs and maintenance, renting is probably a better choice.

College isn't for everyone, either. I meet more and more college graduates with all the drive of a wet noodle and the intellectual chops of Deepak Chopra trying to talk about physics. Frankly, they're debasing the currency of college diplomas. And I've never understood people who go to college just to party. For what little effort they put into their classes (they must put in some to avoid being expelled), they could get a job and keep on partying.

In all fairness to renters and people who aren't college material, there's nothing wrong with belonging to either group. Social engineers who try to make people in those groups into something they aren't don't do them any service, and as we've seen, it sometimes puts them under a terrible burden of debt.

 

[Paisley]

For the most part, once you start working, nobody cares where you went to school--unless it was at a very smart place.

 

[EngProf]

For the most part, once you start working, nobody cares where you went to school--unless it was at a very smart place.

I don't want to be too elitist, but Paisley is right, once you get up into the "Top 20" range of Universities, people (employers) start caring about where you go (or went).
I'm fortunate to teach at one of those, and every time we have a Career Fair I have to apologize to the potential employers that we just don't have enough people to meet the number that they would like to hire.
Our admission rate is less than 10%, so there are several thousand people trying for a first-year class of ~300. The employers use us as a pretty-severe first-round screening to get people that tend to be good managers/executives or leaders at the technical level.
A specific example (one of many): One of our Senior Design teams was working on a design problem for Nissan (at the Nissan plant). After developing a successful solution to the problem, it was decided by the staff engineers at Nissan that our team would make a presentation to the Sr. VP of Manufacturing for Nissan North America, who was coming to the plant on an inspection tour.
After their presentation, it was agreed by all that if you didn't already know that they were a team of undergrads, you would not know that they were a team of undergrads.
That combination of technical capability, personality, communications-skills, and maturity is what the employers are looking for.

 

[BlueTrain]

My late father-in-law was an aeronautical engineer who also served in the Army Air Corps in WWII. He would say that having an undergraduate degree just said that you could do a little something but a master's said you could carry a project through to completion, although he didn't have one. He also liked to point out that it's called aeronautical engineering now.

But a degree is no guarantee of anything. Everyone in the family who is old enough has finished college but some have done better than others. One nephew is a lawyer and just about to marry another lawyer. Both of our children graduated from a university named for their great-great-great-great grandfather but they don't make a big deal of it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Owning a home isn't a smart decision for everybody. If you're in a shaky job situation, if you don't know where you're going to be in five years, if you can't afford repairs and maintenance, renting is probably a better choice.

Until the gentrifiers and real-estate speculators show up and drive you out of your rented home, and you end up further and further from your job until you lose that job and have to find one wherever you can manage to find a place to live. We have a real crisis here in affordable rentals and it's only going to get worse if things keep up the way they are. And when that happens, all the nice gentrifiers will wonder why they can't find anybody to unstop their toilets, fix their cars, maintain their roads, plow their snow, or wipe their kids' backsides.