If You Are Working Your Hinnie Off to Pay For Your Kid’s College, Here’s What You Need to Know

How much does a college education cost these days and what do you get for it?

First let me say (hat-tip ZeroHedge), the highest paying starting salaries for college graduates will not be found in fields like gender studies and other useless college majors. In fact, the highest paying fields are pretty much all engineering related. These are very difficult courses and frankly, I doubt if the majority of our US public high schools are turning out very many kids up to the task. We have only the federal government, the NEA and a silly, self-serving concept called tenure to thank for it.

• Petroleum Engineering: $93,500
• Computer Engineering: $71,700
• Chemical Engineering: $67,600
• Computer Science: $64,800
• Aerospace/Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering: $64,400
• Mechanical Engineering: $64,000
• Electrical/Electronics and Communications Engineering: $63,400
• Management Information Systems/Business: $63,100
• Engineering Technology: $62,200
• Finance: $57,400

But you know which very high-paying field of endeavor is not even listed? Politics. Look at our Congressmen/women and Senators’ salaries. The lowest paid among the thieves, the House/Senate & Delegates earn $174,000 in salary alone. I don’t know about you, but some of what I’ve seen displayed in the news and illustrated by the laws they churn out, tells me no higher education or innate intelligence is required.

To wit-Georgia Representative Hank Johnson worried that an over-populated Guam may capsize:

Or how about the former Speaker of the House, Stretch Pelosi:

And to be totally bipartisan in my criticism, I must point out this gem by George Bush:

How’d that work out George? Jes sayin’

Aloha, Mikie ~just a blogger (fightin’ like a girl)

Did You Really Love School Beyond Say, Grade 3 or 4? No, I Didn’t Think So

It was always cool to hate school, but with the regimentation, the dry, dull teaching (to the test) methods and the PC bull-crap, today that hate is real. Top down rules, regulations, and constant assessments from the federal level are boring kids outta their gourds. Good teachers hate it too. The garbage cuts into their real teaching time. Kudos to Megan Fox for her 8 Reasons Homeschooling is Superior to Public Education!

He’s so excited about school

And why do we have a federal Department of Education? Because President (peanut) Carter was pandering to the NEA (National Education Association). You guessed it, a UNION. Tenure became a guaranteed prescription for mediocrity which devolved into achievement expectations of the lowest common denominator -(for students and teachers). Oh BTW, as costs skyrocket every year, test scores and outcomes are continually worse.

The Cato Institute in a 2003 report to Congress recommended that Congress:

• Abolish the Department of Education and
• Return education to the state, local, or family level, as provided by the Constitution

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” 

—Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The 10th Amendment simply means there never was, still isn’t and never will be, a legitimate or a foundational basis for any Department of Education except at State and local levels. Ditto for the Dept of Energy, the National Labor Relations Board (remember Boeing’s little problem opening a car plant in SC?) or the Dept of Agriculture. Need I go on?

So many of our problems today and the excess spending would vanish if    – if we would adhere to that simple, short, very clear document called the U.S. Constitution.

Aloha, Mikie ~just a blogger (fightin’ like a girl)

The Black Hole of Education-Abolish the DOE & Save $100 Billion

Federal spending on education has increased over 44% in the last ten years from $53 Billion to $95 Billion last year. Obama’s new budget proposes another spending (investment) increase of 7.6% for 2012. Prior to the formation of the Dept. of Education under Jimmy Carter in 1979, Stanford President, Richard L. Lyman testified,

“We do not want the kind of education system that such arrangements produce.”

The Cato Institute’s ‘Handbook for Congress‘, policy recommendations for education 4 years ago were simply:

1. Abolish the Department of Education
2. Return education to the state, local, or family level, as provided by the Constitution.

From beginning to end the Constitution never mentions the word ‘education’.

According to Cato report, contemporary editorials in both the New York Times and the Washington Post acknowledged that the creation of the department was mainly in response to pressure from the NEA (the labor union committed to advancing the cause of public education) representing teachers, secretaries and educational support personnel. The Dept. of Education has done nothing to further education for students. It’s just a huge monolithic bureaucracy and a black hole for money.

In the proposed budget, the President wants a major funding increase in the coming year to sustain Pell grants for needy college students and more increases to finance his reform agenda for public schools. One of the reasons the cost of college has accelerated so much is because government grants keep going up with taxpayers on the hook for student loan defaults -not the colleges or the students, encouraging colleges to push tuition skyward.

Housing cost quadrupled over 30 years, tuition increased by a factor of 10!

Now that the government has taken over student loans (like the money-sucking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) we can rest assured knowing that investment will be well spent-ha!

Abolish the federal DOE and save over a $HUNDRED BILLION!

Aloha, Mikie

Dare2Kerr@gmail.com

Like A Slap Upside The Head

Okay, I listened to the President’s message to the school kids a week or so ago and gave him the benefit of the doubt. What I think happened is he got so much flack ahead of time, he toned it down and gave a great speech without the social or political education a lot of us had expected. They also axed the follow-up lessons (likely the true agenda) on how the kids could help the President.

But I’ve seen the light and it reminds me we cannot let down our guard. Two things in particular over the last couple weeks have brought that home to me –like a slap upside the head.

• First was how the uber-left leaning operatives in the Democratic Party enlisted the NEA, (National Endowment for the Arts) an independent agency of the Federal Government, i.e., paid for by you and me, in a conference call (which included the White House) to help get the President’s message (agenda) out. You know, why not create art with a message, never mind that the NEA is supposed to be independent and non-partisan and has no business pushing anyone’s message!
• Second is this way over the top video showing kindergarten kids in a New Jersey public school singing the praises of Barack Hussein Obama to the tune of ‘Jesus Loves Me, Yes I know’! How blatant is that? I kid you not -take a look.

By all accounts, the school principal was aware of this, condones it and now after some uproar from parents is defending it as a part of Black History Month. All I can say is, if you have kids in the public schools, you’d better not just be dropping them off at the door or pushing them in the direction of the little yellow school bus each morning and assume they are learning what you want them to be taught!

That’s it for now!
Aloha, “Mikie”
email:  Mike@MikeSells.com
Now Get Off Your Butts!
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