College Conspiracy
College Conspiracy debunks many myths, including the belief that Americans with college degrees earn $1 million more in lifetime income compared to high school graduates without a college degree.
The most important basic fact that most Americans don't understand about 4-year colleges is that most Americans spend 6 years attending them before graduating. With U.S. tuition inflation for private colleges averaging 5.15% over the past half a decade, assuming this same rate of tuition inflation continues, a college with tuition of $30,000 today will have tuition of $38,563 in the sixth year a student attends it.
In College Conspiracy, NIA analyzes the total cost to attend college by factoring in not just rapidly rising tuition expenses, but also the interest payments on student loans, and the lost income that college students would have earned if they worked at an average entry-level job that doesn't require a college degree.
NIA's investigation has determined that the organizations that helped create and promote the $1 million in additional income myth, included General Equivalency Diploma (GED) recipients as being high school graduates.
The truth is, GED recipients are not real high school graduates and they are being used to unfairly skew down the average income of high school graduates without a college degree.
This has the effect of artificially inflating the amount of additional lifetime income that college graduates earn over high school graduates. College Conspiracy shows the real numbers that never get discussed in the mainstream media.
The college-industrial complex has created not only myths, but outright hoaxes, in order to scam American students into becoming indentured servants for life. Three years ago when 15 new pharmacist schools were about to open in the U.S., the college cartel bribed economists to come out with phony research reports showing that the U.S. was experiencing a huge shortage of pharmacists.
If you didnt go to college or went there with the intention to not learn then you shouldnt talk about college being pointless as you simply dont understand the benefits it provides for someone actually interested in learning. As far as tuition, no one is making you go to private schools, im attending a university in the top 1% of universitys in the world and pay less then 10k with no funding or scholarship
What school are you talking about specifically??? I will go there if you think they are that prestigious! -RH
I cannot believe the number of socialist buffoons there are in this comment section.
Unless our daughter is accepted to a top university in the US, she will go to college in Europe - were we live and plan to stay. Colleges here at excellent and much, much more affordable than in the US!
Good documentary, up until the last 10 minutes. Mike Rowe and other media stars have realized that the growth careers are in manufacturing, plumbing, electrician, HVAC and other blue collar jobs. This documentary focuses on the problems of being too narrowly focused on one career path. In the 'real world,' we need a a few collegiate types, but we need more people that keep things running. Those guys are getting old and need to find apprentices.
I feel the same way. Not everyone has the opportunity as an 18 yr old to go to college. I do HVACR work and make damn good money. There's nothing wrong with a hard day's work. But as well I have not accrued any debt, whatsoever. I get paid to learn.
The documentary has a "dooms day tone" that I believe to be extreme on the matter of inflation. However, I agree that a cost of an education is increasing above the rate of inflation ( based on the major tuition increases at public schools in my state over the past 10 years). This requires every US citizen to ask themselves is the value of this major investment truly worth it? How do we as a society make a college education more affordable and as result a more sound investment for those who will attend college in the coming years?
I have long thought that the 1% club has wanted to return to a system of indentured servitude...This crapumentory makes me wonder no more. Just like in slavery, you can't retain slaves if they are educated! When the "YES MEN" documentary came out, they had commented on just this scenario- This documentary only proves that they knew what they were talking about! What an evil endeavor...setting people up for a life of poverty. I am a Business Relations Specialist, and talk on a daily basis with employers to see what they need now and in the future. I KNOW FOR A FACT that most jobs that allow someone to support themselves REQUIRE that the individual has a Degree of some kind even to be considered for hire. Even in manufacturing, everything that can be done by machines and computers will be. Physical labor that once paid well in the past, now provide flat, or declining wages, and the Service Industry barely pays minimum wage. Because I also provide employment re-training as part of what I do, it is only the individuals with specialized and advanced training and education that are being hired for jobs that allow them to support their families.
So people that do not have a degree aren't successful? Is that what you mean? If so, you're sadly mistaken. I didn't go to college, I do Physically and mentally demanding work. And it pays very well. But that's what happens when everyone wants a desk job or is afraid of sweating. I stress this, people of that kind keep that way. You all pay my bills?
Where is the research, the website for this video, anything that can substantiate this? Are you really expecting me to just buy into this? Remember the zeitgeist project or the venus project. What a load of shit!
I don't give a tinker's cuss what you buy into or not.
This documentary doesn't state the problem clearly enough. We have far too many people going to school to earn degrees with absolutely no commercial value. If you're going to go to school, study something that you can get a job after graduation like Engineering, Medicine, Applied Math, etc. If, however, you study degrees such as political science, psychology, social sciences, don't be surprised when you graduate without a hope of a job. What do you expect for the American Economy to do with you when you studied political science for four to six years?
Public administration, foreign service, community organizing, and so on.
What you imply here is that people don't pursue the job/degree they want, but instead somebody picks out which degree would be best for all? So in your' mind the only thing that matters to the individual is the monetary structure? I think somebody else had this idea before you, but his name slips my mind... Oh yeah I believe it was Karl Marx.
Blah blah blah, there's always at least one of you in every comment section being smug about STEM fields and how they're the only ones worth going after. Maybe they're not for everyone and maybe people realize that some additional sacrifices have to be made along the way. The only difference is the majors that you select for your disdain and the amount of which you seem to relish in making fun of them. In addition 9 times out of 10 it's always some pretentious neckbeard patting himself on the back.
Run for president after sending a few years as a community organizer!
p. s. pretty bs documentary. make education sound like useless thing. the point is that it DOES open larger scope of OPPORTUNITY to get specialized job. good luck having your house planed by guy from high school or your medicine mixed by college drop out. Do they advocate for uneducated society or abolishing tuition fees all together?
You guys need a doze of socialism. Cuba: free education up to Phd,. the most educated country in the world. poor Cuba can afford it but mighty U.S. of A. cannot? some a--holes steel from u big time... enjoy capitalism...
doze - dose.
Cuba: free education up to Phd,. the most educated country in the world -
Cuba, with free education all the way up to the Ph.D., is one of the most educated countries in the world. So why can they afford to provide free education while the mighty U.S. of A. cannot?
These a--holes are STEALING from YOU. Enjoy your capitalism.
Hey Max,
Move to Cuba.
This is the most bull**** propoganda that I've ever seen,this ends up as a commercial fo buying silver and gold. Shame on you.
The system may not be perfect, but education will always be important for our society. I get the feeling that this documentary is trying to persuade people not to go to college, and I feel it's not a good message. Bring down the tuition fee, incorporate more practical material in the curriculum, don't abuse loans, etc... but GO TO COLLEGE!
No. I just finished college and learned during my senior year that I was being conditioned to be a worker in this new world order, monetary scheme. Institutions like education in this country teach kids "right" and "wrong" and do not challenge them to think outside the box and challenge this faulty culture and society. Science is looked down upon in educational institutions, and religion, obedience, seniority, competition, and allegiance is stressed. I have an Advertising and Marketing degree, THIS IS THE EPITOME OF OUR EXISTENCE. We produce more and more unnecessary goods in accordance with the monetary system to sell an image or ego to people to stay distracted, while polluting the earth in the process. COME ON PEOPLE?!?! Do we all realize that we are slaves to this horrific monetary system????Being charged interest on nothing? Money is created from debt and it is IMPOSSIBLE to ever repay all the debt that has accrued.
We need to stand up to this corruption, IT IS THE WORST CRIME IMAGINABLE AND IT PREVENTING THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN BEINGS. IT IS TIME TO GET MAD AND DEMAND OUR REAL FREEDOM.
NIA is a pump and dump operation. They make videos like this pretending to be hard currency advocates. Then they get you to sign up for emails. They buy junk stocks and then advocate that you buy them along with hundreds of thousands of others. They then dump their stock and the price plummets, leaving their followers to hold the bag. Peter Schiff has advocated against them for a long time and reported them to the SEC but no action has been taken. DO NOT BUY ANY STOCKS THE NIA ADVOCATE! IT IS A SCAM!
Education is not all about making money. I don't think it should be.
If these college kids were intelligent and were like the college
students in the 60's, they would literaly shut down in protest
every single college and university in the entire country and
force the government to write off the entire debt...
Ask yourself what kind of a country doesn't invest in it's human
capital, a real BULLSHIT one indeed...
I made the wisest choice when I graduated High School in '76,
I drove taxi and made more money than any college graduate
and accrued the equivelent of numerous fields of academia...
I did attend a communinty college for 2 years at middle age
but they barely scratched the surface of the true reality, they
never teach you that The Federal Reserve bank is no more
part of our goverment than Federal Express is...
And i'm now 15k in debt, and to think they could garnish my Social Security and SSi someday since there are no jobs,
no opportunity and thanks to laws, regulations and fee's
and poor business, driving a taxi again is no longer a viable
dependable occupation...
And these college grads can barely communicate and
articulate a sentence when you try talk to them about
most everything...more proof that a college degree in
a BIG waste of time and money...
These kids need to use their brains to figure out ways to
survive and thrive what will happen someday when our financial
sysyems house of cards fall...
This information is valid and the documentation is real. Unlike the propaganda that is regularly circulating to control our minds and mislead us to think that getting a college education will being a great investment. I know because I fell into to the trap of believing if I were better educated I would get a better job and live a better life. Instead, I have the two of the highest degrees in my field, after countless applications, no interviews, jobs or anyway to pay the cost of my education . It is disceptive mind control, a type of occult, brainwashing us with lies and false hopes. Optimism is being replaced by pessimism with debt that exceeds the promises of wealth.
This could have been a useful doc, but the exaggerations and the silly prognostications, among other things, give it minimal credibility. The filmmaker knows next to nothing about the financial system and its monopoly of the student loan industry -- including its buying of the politicians who passed the bankruptcy law stipulating that neither student loans nor credit card debt are forgiven.
The only unquestionably true statement in the film is that student loan debt is probably the next bubble that's going to burst -- student load debt is now at one trillion dollars.
Fallacy filled. Also, the documentary is presented from the point of view of entrepreneurial, free-market, wealth generators. They hold the same underlaying philosophies (economic liberalism, objectivism etc) whose practical application brought about our financial collapse. Who to believe? Use your own capacity to reason. How do you learn to reason? Pick up a philosophy book. You know, from those worthless philosophy courses that you took in University.
This documentary is just horribly made; just all around bad. I resent some of the underlying messages. My college degree is not a "worthless piece of paper". This documentary does not educate or inform, it does not offer alternatives or solutions. It simply relentlessly bashes higher education.
If you were educated while getting that piece of paper. You would know its up to the people to change how our system functions. The information it talked about regarding economics is spot on. If your comparing schooling information to real world. You have proved the point of the video.
Regardless what you think. Simple math shows money can not work. A better way to say it is money works for those that have no care for its fellow man. scarcity creates that behavior, another underlining issue. Unless you have spent, 10-15 years studying our system. Your comments hold no bearing.
If everyone was to reach a point of the american dream. There wouldn't be enough money to go around or energy. To support that kind of growth. So by default, regardless of your skin color or where you come from. The system needs people to fail.
okay, soo online learning is great for a lot of reasons.... but that doesn't exactly solve the problem that college degrees and such are "worthless". no matter how you get that little piece of paper- in a classroom, or online- that doesn't change the ultimate problem. theres still gonna be a ton of people getting degrees in all the same areas (law, doctors, etc.) and no jobs? and u if u really wanna take this even farther, we cant live in this money based, consumerism society forever anyways. humankind is going to have to change the way they live dramatically. the school system will ultimately end no matter what.
The entire time I watched this film I kept asking myself "So what's the alternative?". They bash higher education relentlessly, but only offer investing in silver or learning to farm as secondary options? I agree with the bulk of the film's message, and think it's important for people to consider before blindly going to college because "that's what you're supposed to do", but let's be honest - most people are far better off taking a chunk of debt onto their shoulders to work jobs they ENJOY and paying it off over time. Some people enjoy jobs that require NO education outside of a trade skill. Some people are content to work retail for life. The way the system is structured, if you want to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer - there is simply no way around an education. Sure, there's free open course ware online. Good luck getting to pass the bar or MCATs by telling the exam proctors you've completed the courses online, though.
SO what am I suppose to do with this BSN in nursing??? Knowing that Beyonce (a millionaire) is now getting her G.E.D.....I'm so sad about all the time I wasted in school.
We still do not have qualified nurses -I think you will be welcomed in any hospital you show up:-) And if you perform well, you will be hired. There are many nurses needed -but who needs Beyonce? ad who cares?
You want a label? Go to college. You want money? Graduate!
higher education is the cornerstone of any civilised society, the problem with the U.S. is that they promise prosperity in a country that is imploding. All jobs have been moved offshore, and any jobs in the U.S. have shitty rates of pay. I hear people on this forum talk about 50 grand a year as if it is something special. In Australia this is seen as a shitty wage. A decent wage is seen as 100 grand +
Student loans in the U.S. are designed to keep the population slaves to the economic system, a person working three shitty paying jobs, struggling to pay down debt is less likely to voice their opinions politically.
However, with over 40 million americans under the poverty line i believe violent civil unrest to be imminent.
no the problem is the system. socialism promotes intelligence and higher learning. In germany, france you can obtain a masters degree for 200 euros almost free. In Canada it is significantly less than the US. If americans weren't so greedy and capitalistic idiots they would have more poor but intelligent kids becoming doctors or entrepreneurs rather than work blue collar jobs to avoid debt
higher education is the cornerstone of any civilised society, the problem with the U.S. is that they promise prosperity in a country that is imploding. All jobs have been moved offshore, and any jobs in the U.S. have shitty rates of pay. I hear people on this forum talk about 50 grand a year as if it is something special. In Australia this is seen as a shitty wage. A decent wage is seen as 100 grand +
Student loans in the U.S. are designed to keep the population slaves to the economic system, a person working three shitty paying jobs, struggling to pay down debt is less likely to voice their opinions politically.
However, with over 40 million americans under the poverty line i believe violent civil unrest to be imminent.
Education is good. Just don't go to collage or university to "get a job". You do that yourself in the work place. Higher education serves one purpose, self improvement. I think it's very sad, that we place all our emphasis on the sciences and maths, and don't give equal energy to arts. There is something wrong with this picture. All aspects are important to a healthy and balanced society. Self education is as valid, if not more so than one given my some institution. Think for yourselves, learn how to learn and be critical thinkers. All our socioeconomic systems will blow up in our faces soon. From markets to education, to community, employment. Everything we know about our way of life is threatened on some level by guess what ... our way of life. Infinite growth on a finite world doesn't work. Consume, consume, consume = an empty and meaningless way of life. When ET visits us, we wont' be impressing him with our technology and maths, our art however, will be uniquely human. Get an education for yourself, not for what "society" thinks you should be getting it for.
I really thought there was a group of folks to pounce on the status quo and show us a better way. Then, the sales pitch came in. After a few attempts to appeal to the political scientists and economists, join now for "free".
Research before clicking the bright red shiny candylike button!
So many people go straight to college out of high school with no idea of what they REALLY want to do, so they end up getting a degree in a subject they have no real interest in and only after the fact and finances do they realize what a mistake they made. I worked straight out of high school and raised a family. I got my Bachelors of Science in Music at the age of 40. It was the best move I made. It's the connections you make in college that are so valuable. Especially if you go to a good school. I am my own boss and I have worked with some major artists and companies. It ALL depends on who you are and what YOU want out of life. To say college is conspiracy, hell I thought that about school period. Before I started reaping the benefits of those seeds. Everything is a seed you can either be fruitFULL or fruitLESS. Either way you are going to reap.
You will get out of college what you put into it; if you go there to party, then guess what you will get. Likewise, study something that will give you a better chance for a job. Don't study the easy subjects just because you don't like math or science or care to work; don't waste you time with what may be nonsense....have a plan based on reality. This was one of the most biased, nonsense documentaries I have ever watched. If college is of no value, why is the rest of the world coming here to become educated? As the saying goes, "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."
Personally, if I had to do it all over again, I would not have gone to college. I spent 4 years getting a degree that was paid for thank god because I was so low income. But I was told "you just need a degree. People will look at that." What a bunch of shit. I got it in history. So then I went back to school and got a Master's in teaching. 60,000 bucks. My "loser" sister who my mom was upset was never going to go to college. Yeah, she spent 3,000 buck and went to truck driving school and had the loan wiped out when she worked for them for 2 years. Oh, and she makes as much as I do and has no debt and goes to Japan once a year on all the money she saves up. My best friend makes 50 grand a year as an IT person. She was self taught, and learned under others. She's never been to school. The funny part is, she makes that 50 grand at a University helping students. Most of whom will never make as much her. I'll become a farmer at this point. I hate the job I do have and can't leave because of the crisis of debt.
Also what were you studying? sure you have a debt loan but you had the opportunity to go to uni. If money was a problem shouldn't you have combined work with uni like most of my friends do and pay off the loan slowly rather than leaving it all to the end? where's the common sense.
????????????? these guys are just selfish idiots. Of course debt is hard, but its just a symptom. I'd prefer a house with sustainable debt and job prospects due to accommodation rather than being homeless, low job prospects and no debt.
???? these guys know nothing of debt. would you prefer somewhere to live and in debt working it off or would you prefer to live on the streets with no house then no job prospects but a good credit rating????
I'm confused, the guy is basically enforcing an argument that a degree isn't properly training the students for the workforce and that it may not be worth it, but at the same time jobs in America is in decline. With a greater labour force, hence competition wouldn't a degree serve better to get into a job than without one?
I agree that a university degree is highly overrated.
I have worked with young men, fresh out of college who are basically sub educated and cannot perform simple analytic functions such as searching a data base.
Also many MBA's come into the workforce with the pre programmed concept that they are about to revolutionize an office of company through worthless functionality of graphs, and repetitive methodologices that serve no purpose other than justify their own position in the company.
I much prefer the apprenticeship program where a young person can start to experience the work experience while going to college - technical or not - to earn a degree specifically associated with the industry.
I went straight into the workforce when I was 18 - tried a few jobs until I found one I liked - real estate and finance - then went to school to get my knowledge and then took my licensing exam and worked for a broker for sometime until I got my brokers license.
I am still in that profession.
The most common 'ex' profession I see in my field are Actors!
The second field I see Actors entering is the psych/therapist field - I guess they think there is a relationship between them play acting on stage and dealing with other peoples problems - all acting I guess!
I do not see the point of taking a 'Fine Arts' or Journalism degree then want to work in internet field.
Most students end up with a worthless degree, and most employers and HR, who themselves have a worthless degree, want you to have one, so they don't look like they just wasted 4-6 years in college!
This documentary is a complete hoax.
It is full of right-wing lies & propaganda.
Turn off Fox News and dont bother watching this pack of lies and right-wing propaganda.
@James,
Bizarre... I seen that docu a little while back and didn't "Detect" any influence emaning from the media's consortiums you mentioned.
And I think that this one was the only docu (On the Internet for the least).
If anything, it was more of the contrary...
I wouldn't say crooked publicity but surely "Frendly", misleading.
It is quite a bit of the same thing all over the G8.
Politicians claiming that "They" have solutions but not much more than a subsidized $ souce for education institution.
Pierre.
What engbro said, they say all that to say "buy silver because its worth what we say its worth in USD" but in the same breath state the USD will collapse making even millionaires broke (and it will collapse I'm not paying debt back!they've already been paid by the fed) watch zeitgeist:addendum documentary for a possible plan once every ones broke. Everyone should know/learn how to farm/survive off the land its the only reason civilization exist!
This all makes perfect sense.
Rather then learning a trade, understanding technology and science, learning to communicate using our newest and admittedly prosperous resource the internet! We want you, to buy silver! We want you to take all of your money and push it into this useless resource that only has value that we impart on it! No not copper, zinc, rare earths, or fossil fuels, we want you to buy silver! That way you can push our commodities bubble even higher, then we can pull out, and cash!
No, don't educate yourself being indoctrinated by books and professors in the system! Let us tell you what to do! Start a farm!
It doesn't matter that today we have more food then we can use, and that starvation is a symptom of infrastructure not supply.
It doesn't matter that we completely rip into higher learning, then say how the future of higher learning is being indoctrinated online, which is equal to being in an auditorium but free for us! No of course the universities won't just keep charging the same amount while offering you less!
This film is the biggest cr*ck of **** I've ever seen. If's an extremely long infomercial to buy silver, and be suckered into their pyramid scheme.
These people are whats wrong with the world, oh, and they condemn lawyers and investors, but what the do these *** holes do?
This documentary is not based on facts. There are plenty of issues with our higher education system, but you are not touching on most of them.
These people are destroying people's motivation to have successful careers and accumulate precious metals with higher salaries. My parents require all 4 of us (their sons and daughter) to go to college and work our way up. We are intelligent students with GPA's bigger than 3.0! If we're unable to find a job with 22% unemployment rate (78% employment), the government will bail us out with entitlements until we find our career somewhere.
22% unemployment in the USA??? You are pushing a little Joshua!
Else, you're living in the middle of the Arizona desert?
Else, you meant % unemployment specific range of age?
As I mentioned in my earlier post, I was lucky to get on the market in the mid 70. All the "Occidental" countries copy their education systems on each others. -Regarding the option to file for bankruptcy when the burden of studies debts get too heavy.
That is even though I didn't need it because of obvious reasons!
Anyhow, I'm replying only because I wonder how much it cost in now days, something like 3 years of specialized technology in pure and applied sciences?
However, I understand that the cost you've encountered already dates back to a few years?
Just wondering...
Pierre.
A bit zealous but explicit and true. Being in pure applied science but 57 Y/O, I do remember that cost of ~$2,000 for my last year, before getting on the market. And my Gov. (Quite a bit of the same as the USA) passed the same law as in the UISA that a graduate cannot file for bankruptcy a few years after I got on the market. We didn't need that in those days.
There was plenty of trainee jobs, assistants...
You'd dumpt one and another one is waiting...
And on top of this, I have the clear feeling that as pure science grows bigger, more complex, the youngsters would need more years of instruction in technology. Once they graduated from technology, they''re simply "Washed Out", with a sense of learning by heart some principles that they forget not long after the exam because they ought to fill their brain for other new concepts!
Then, you ask the individual for some basic day to day tool: -They forgot!
Bwarff! I'll be out of this, wont be so long!
Pierre.
College isn't worth the money it costs to attend anymore. That much is certainly true. I'm already 10,000 dollars in debt for one semester at a state school. One semester! However, they're blaming all the wrong people, and you can tell that the people in this doc are kind of grasping at straws.
My Gosh! When I got on the market some 25 years ago, I owe only $5,500 at most!
Now, in this documentary, they're talking 'bout some ~ $26,000 is it?
Or is that per year of college?
Could it be that Mr. Caveman had a better life than me?
Pierre.
Whats up with the Zionist and Elitist/Illuminati symbolism in the NIA logo? That requires closer investigation.....
Yes... One ought to pounder every comments.
Remain watchfull. But they're right on many topics...
Pierre.
Aren't they supposed to ENCOURAGE people to graduate from College?? I swear, I think they're running out of ideas to broadcast. Hey I have one they could use. Why not make a documentary about why idiots NEED to commit suicide? That'll become popular in no time... unless of course, their audience suddenly dies off. T__T"
This documentary makes some good points but slowly drifts into a bunch of bullshit. I think it is an attempt at targeting people of my (college age) demographic to take out a college loan to buy a bunch of silver at inflated prices, thinking that it will be a good investment if you have a zero interest loan. If you go to the website they wont shut up about in this film you will quickly see that it is fake and designed to convince you to buy their product. silver is just as intrinsically worthless as paper money. A good education is priceless, wherever you may get it from. The internet is proving to be one of the best places to do so. However I know that nothing beats getting taught by an actual persons who can answer your questions. Make sure to ask yourself a few questions about the motivations behind this film.
Actually silver an gold are the only forms of currency that tend to maintain their value over inflationary periods. There is a direct correlation between increasing gold and silver values and the declination of the dollar. There is a finite amount of gold and silver... paper money is limitless. Rarity has always produced value... however... I agree with you... you can't eat gold or silver with the intention of being nutritious. The only real currency is food. I also agree that A REAL education IS priceless. I do not believe this is attainable in college. A real education would teach people how to attain basic needs without the implementation of a cash based system. I don't care if they are trying to sell a product or not... as a college graduate I can attest to the worthlessness of degrees. I graduated with people who were not fit to compete in the special Olympics and they had higher GPAs then I did. I've been very fortunate to work in my field, but have realized (and I have been in my field for 6 years now) that my schooling did not contribute to the understanding of my major. I discourage people from attending college. You can learn faster and more pertinently if you apply your own studies to particular areas of interest and on your own... rather than in a class of 400 where you only exist as a number.
Its true no matter what age group. WE ARE IN THE SAME AGE GROUP BY THE WAY.
wow, this doc is a shameless plug for the creators organization. While I agree with the basic premise that college has become a bad investment in a lot of situations this is a little extreme and clearly meant as something to drive the creators website rather than educate anybody on the topic...
who the f*** cares if they want to promote their website/organization? they're providing accessible and valuable information to people who might not fully grasp our situation. At least they're spreading some awareness and asking people to look around at whats going on in this country .. what have you done lately?
This documentary was incredibly biased and felt like an extended NIA commercial, but they did mention some valid points. However, I don't agree with some of the solutions they've proposed and I don't think using scare tactics to persuade folks to avoid higher education is very helpful. I like the idea of promoting online education, but in fields where hands-on learning is essential it can become complicated. If you want to be a doctor, I'd feel a lot more comfortable with you having had hands-on training in med-school than just taking online classes or not going to medical school altogether. Some form of legitimate education IS needed for specialized fields. One of the major reasons why folks with degrees can't find jobs (other than the economy) is because everyone wants do to the same thing (doctor, lawyer, business), so I don't agree with the NIA's claims that people with college degrees don't make money (but there is more competition). I think that claim is greatly exaggerated. Folks who live in inter-city communities and struggle with two jobs just to make ends meet could certainly use the benefit of having a college education. I do agree that something needs to be done about rising tuition costs and college debt. I feel that we as a country need to reevaluate our current education system/educational loan policies, consider more successful foreign education policies, and encourage more skills-based training/vocational schools. Why don't we look at more successful college education models like those used in France, Germany and Japan. Alongside traditional 4-year colleges, they also have successful skills-based vocational colleges - such as agricultural colleges that teach students on large farms the real-world science and techniques required for farming in the 21st century. These countries have some of the most highly educated professionals in the world, and France pays for 100% of their people's college education which is paid for through taxes. Granted, we may disagree on socializing college as France has done, but it is a major precedent for that educational model's success. The French are happy with it and do not mind paying a little extra so that everyone can be a bit smarter. We also need to appreciate our vocational schools more and encourage students to attend them. Their generally much more affordable than 4-year schools and provide valuable job skills that will serve graduates well in their chosen fields. Perhaps looking at the way others do education and reevaluating what we already do well may help us to find an appropriate solution that works for us all.
One thing is having a college degree and other is being smart enough to practice it.
Of course they say don't go to college, they need people to make their dirty jobs.
This is such a biassed documentary, i wanted it to convince me and after 20 minutes iv completely given up on what it has to say! How a documentary can try and say that we have no need for an education il never understand? dont watch it...
you're misunderstanding the message.
I watched the whole thing and yes i do see some "conservative" bias in it. Thats not the point though.
Its not that theyre saying education is worthless, that would be ridiculous what they are saying is that what we currently CALL education and the entire education business have their priorities mixed up. Just like most things in our world the emphasis is being put on profit instead of quality.
they are using incorrect data as facts. example a high school graduates makes 35K per year avg per year. LOL -- only in fairyland
1 million over a lifetime includes about 35years of worklife & includes millionaires (90% are college graduates). also, who did the NIA speak to??? maybe people who think the same as them?
Some good info, but it is twisted to fit the NIA's views
this is what i dont get, yeah some of the information we learn are worthless, but if you want to major in psychology or a biologist , or whatever..isnt it important to go to school for it?
Why all people in here who are commenting are EMPLOYEES and not business owners? I own many businesses and have many projects going on at the same time. I say school is a waste of time. Which I wasted! Nothing I learnt from school applied to what all the businesses that I'm in right now. Schools are created to make create employees and get private colleges rich. I know this why? I own a private college and a private school. Period. I went to school because my whole family thought me that, and of course they are all employees yes slaves for business owners like. ha ha ha that's how this world works.
You can't even spell much less own businesses and schools. It is not learnt, that is some cajun crap, and its not thought, its taught. You need to get out of Pierre Part, Louisiana and go to college dumba**.
Choot-em Troy Landry!!!
in germany, i get 450 euros each month. half of which i will have to repay at some point. so the government just gives me 12*225 a year. fees are around 750 a year. public transport included. fees are gonna be nill within the next 2 years. i am one lucky f***. i feel sorry for the US
This is an idiotic documentary. The system suggested is the same as the system in the UK- fees are currently capped here, loans are issued at low rates by the government and only paid back once a certain amount is earned. its funny to me that the makers rubbish this system despite low inflation, a recovering economy and a strong pound (compared to the dollar) in the UK. once again we see the results of a system which lacks ANY regulation.
this is retarded.
The only reason they want me to hoard silver is so that the silver they stupidly bought will go up in price
If they believe people can't buy food, why will they agree to buy my expensive silver from me. Plus, depressions destroy paper wealth, what destroys our wealth of knowlege gained over the last 2 millinea. Are people supposed to see $0 dollar balances in their 401ks, and forget how to grow food at the same time?! Plus, employers love objective ways of eliminating applicants. Until the NIA determines a more effective way of doing that with over 7 billion people on the planet, College will be the gateway to prosperity.
The only thing I don't agree with is the comparison of the Indian 'Engineers' vs the amount that graduate in America...1) Engineering is a professional designation...requiring practical hands on knowledge and skill. You won't learn this online. Most Engineer grads are not considered actual engineers until they work under a P.Eng for 5 yrs (In Canada anyway) and in India they don't have this policy. So this film should look at the quality of Indian education with regards to professional professions before slamming and making comparisons to what's going on in N.America when it's not so black and white as it seems.
India is a developing country. It's still in 2nd world status...engineers can come out of school, work on infrastructure projects without proper experience...you wanna go for a ride on a bridge constructed by a newbie? ...see what I'm saying?
A lot of these stats are skewed and are selectively collated to produce dramatic effect. And then at the end the entire pitch for NIA members and silver investment, if you are not questioning that, you probably are not higher education material. DON'T THROW AWAY EDUCATION HOPE because of this video.
I agree that online eduction institutions are the way of the future. And I believe strongly in the quality of education available at Colleges online. I don't rule out you getting an education without ever going to class.
And the truth of indentured servitude is an important one. Very important. Freedom may be a myth. You don't need a university degree to see that a 10,000 's of dollars student loans and $100,000 mortgages are a societal guarantees of servitude.
I was lucky, my inheritance paid my education. I make my living based on experience, and not a piece of paper ( or 5 pieces of paper ). But They certainly helped get people to take me seriously.
DON'T IGNORE EDUCATION.
allow free markets to function and prices go down .....plain and simple
The problem with forsaking formal education for self-learning is that there are some perks to the system that cannot be compensated for. I've learned a good amount of Japanese on my own (over summers) and it helped me get placed a year ahead, but it wasn't exactly a piece of cake. The fact the video ignores is that motivating yourself is NOT easy. There's no magic pill to make you a more passionate, self-motivated person, which may be why self-help books on time management and organization are so popular. The structure of the school day helps you stay organized and keeps you moving forward with your learning. When you're studying on your own it's easy to get distracted, sleep most of the day, lose interest.... No pressure, no pearls, as the oysters would say.
Besides that, teachers are really important. They can inspire you and guide you in helping you find resources and answer questions that you can't figure out on your own. They also help point out your faults, which for activities like writing is completely crucial. For writing especially, it's really helpful to have someone who knows about writing and can talk to you IN PERSON to look over your writing. You may have all the information in world at your fingertips, but if you don't know which information is important you are bound to end up lost and overwhelmed.
Also, CC's figures are skewed as well -- they consider community college graduates on par with university and private school graduates. I bet that 70% would be much less if it were restricted to a higher university level. I imagine it's somewhat more difficult to find a high-paying job with a degree from a cc than from a more rigorous institution.
At first, I thought I would like this, because as a graduate student, a member of the University of California student academic governing body, and future educator, I am concerned with many of the issues presented here; but the creators of this documentary did not do their homework very well and are presenting a somewhat confused and biased message - students should demand lower tuition, but the government should stop "subsidizing" education through loans. They completely avoid the biggest problem about why cost in education are going up so rapidly - state government across the country have been slashing education budgets since the late 80's and early 90's. Something I attribute to free-market liberalism of the Regan era (I know I'm not the only one who thinks this way). The reason is because they are invoking the very same market fundamentalism that pushed our universities into their current predicament.
I cannot speak on the behalf of every university, but I can talk about the University of California system as I'm a part the governing council of one particular campus. Essentially, back when the UC and USC systems were envisioned in the post-war era, they were imagined to be a cheap or free public university system (the idea was to provide equal opportunity based on merit and not on wealth as a benefit to society, but also to keep intelligent impressionable youth from poorer backgrounds from turning to communism). Although this ideal was never fully achieved, university education was still very affordable (and on that issue, the documentary is right); however, in the 80's the whole idea of cutting the taxes for the wealthiest of Americans to push for a more flatter tax rate brought about massive budget shortfalls in many states (and in California, Republicans under Governor Regan back in 74 also made it near impossible to raise taxes by requiring a 75% approval in the state legislature). This made tax raising impossible and political suicide as taxes were gradually chipped away. With smaller state budgets, education budgets were always first on the cutting blocks particularly since teacher's unions in primary and secondary schools in California aren't that powerful, and so therefore can be done quietly (think what would happen if they cut the budgets for police and fire - their unions are very powerful and have a moral high-ground in the media - there would be hell to pay politically). With education budget cuts came lower wages, pushing the best teachers into finding other jobs, lowering standards for teachers, raising class sizes, providing less technical and capital intensive educational resources (like libraries).
It's important to get an idea about how big these budget cuts are: in 1960's, the California state government paid or "subsidized" about 80% of the university, about 15% from tuition, and the rest in various money earning projects. And it was during this time that US public universities were the undisputed leaders in the world. It was during this time that my grandfather, who came from a rural low income family, got his PhD in nuclear physics and would later work on military projects to make submersible launched nuclear missiles. Today, however, California pays for on the books 40% of the UC; though when you look at the real numbers it's more like 14% (the 40% comes from UC owned hospitals which are considered state assets that the state allows the UC to collect revenue from, as well as things like remitting graduate student fellowship tuition, which are purely paper transactions). The majority of the UC's budget now derives from tuition and fees (the creation of the category of "fees" is another story of how the state raised tuition without raising it legally)
These budget comes have essentially turned the UC into two horrific monsters: firstly, a debt machine - something this documentary brings to light, but also at times exaggerates - it's not quite as detrimental as a mortgage and the federal subsidized loans are a way better deal than the private market (the creators don't mention that private loans actually charge 8% on paper but once you graduate knock it up to 20% at will whereas the federal once are locked at 6.9%). Nonetheless, the issue of debt is a serious problem that is getting worse. The UC this year is considering to cut the UC budget by nearly 1/6, and with that a demand for more federally subsidized loans. The solution many educators see is to make up for budget cuts by stacking in more student debt.
The other monster it's created is an elite university for the wealthy and not necessarily the talented - the very thing the founders of the UC wanted to avoid! I cannot help but notice that the quality of students is considerably less than what it was a decade or even two decades ago - reading assignments for a GE class of 100 pages a week are looked upon by students with shock; whereas a decade ago that was the norm; and I've seen class syllabi from the early 90's requiring twice as much reading. Writing issues are another problem. Math capabilities are also much lower. And these are things that can be objectively observed in many comparative studies. On the other hand, I cannot help but notice most of my students are from upper-middle class to upper class ranges. Although student loans are available to all students, I think lower-class students are more hesitant to take out a loan when they don't have a secure family safety net (and in some cases are the safety nets); whereas students from wealthier students feel more secure in taking on debt because they have family to help them if the payments become too onerous. In this respect, I am not aware if there is an objective study on family income and university populations (let me know if you're is aware of any), but this is my own personal observation. It may be that this is something that was the same in the past.
This documentary also seems to be promoting the privatization of universities (part of it's free-market liberalism slant). But private universities, with the exception of private ivy league universities with large endowments, generally have poor academic records and only promote "marketable" jobs - as if that is the sole purpose of universities. Remember that universities are also about research into things that improve our lives both physically and mentally, change our perception of the world, and build together in ways that today don't seem obvious but down the road may lead to mind-blowing results and substantial changes in the way we live. Without universities many of the technical wonders we take for granted wouldn't exist from medical breakthroughs to supercomputers. Ideas like the post-modern critique influence our perception of the world today even when we are not cognizant of it or hardly understand it. These are things that come out universities that impact our lives in incalculable ways that cannot be stamped with a price tag.
Lastly, I just want to point people to another documentary on private universities. A PBS Frontline special called "College Inc." available on their website. This is a well done documentary that hits all the issues right on the nose without entirely condemning private universities. Moreover they do not rely on a couple cooky but dramatic "experts" to explain the issue.
I rest at that.
I fully agree, another fun fact is that college degrees that revolve around creative jobs in writing, art, media, acting, programming, music. And even subjects like psychology, philosophy and history. Are more pricy to attend but weirdly enough also more useless.
I've been in the game industry for almost 9 years and for these kinds of creative jobs; nothing sells you more than your own personal drive. I hardly know anyone with a formal education in any of the fields of; art, programming, design or writing, and this is on a AAA+ level.
But what I do see; are people dropping out of the school system early, due to them "wanting" to work hard and chase their dreams in lousy and hardly creative positions at an early age.
They have the drive and the sheer effort they put into their work shows. These are the one to land the great jobs, these are the ones that rise to the top in the industry in their mid-twenties, while their educated counterparts, at the same age, just got out of school and are thrown into a world, where there appears to be no jobs for them.
Education should only be taken as a hobby if there's a lack of any employment options, while your drive and desire should be your true education.
I belong to the generation of the host. When I attended the University of Ottawa in a five year civil engineering program the tuition was $1,200 a year plus $400 for books. I was able to work during the summer, save the necessary tuition money and attend school full time for the following year. Student debt after my five year program was $0. In fact the University of Ottawa offered a co-op program that found students jobs in their field working on and off every four months. This in and of itself paid for my entire education. 1987-1991
I feel for the students in the United States today who are paying $25,000+ a year for their tuition. $100,000 to $150,000 for their education.
This documentary I have found is not very well done although it has highlighted some key problems with the US education system. The biggest problem is that many students now amass very large debts before leaving school.
These debts are attributed to the government controlling student loans. The larger the loans the more colleges charge.
Colleges then take this money and invest in large building projects such as libraries, residences and so forth. The host explains this is a waste of money. I disagree, it creates jobs and improves the college campuses.
From my experience in Ottawa, Canada and the University of Ottawa, they have had an ongoing project every single year to improve their campus. it never stops as the University of Ottawa grows and expands. The same sounds to be true in US colleges and universities as well.
Where else does college and university tuition money go? A lot goes into research and development. Many of the programs you see on this site follow the research programs at colleges and universities located all across the country. How much of this comes from the student tuition and how much from the US government I have no idea.
My personal opinion when it comes to post secondary education in college and university is that this should be a paid job for students. It is in a country's best interest to have an educated work force. Students should not have to borrow money to pay for post secondary education. Rather they should be paid by the government to get a post secondary education.
The concept behind this is called "Work Credits". And it completely changes how a country values its money supply. In a "Work Credit" based society people become a country's most valuable natural resource. This value is then added to the country's money supply to be paid back to the individual over time to do work which benefits that society. This includes going to school to be educated in the discipline of the individuals choice.
I graduated from Carleton (another uni in Ottawa) in 2005. The tuition was around $5000, I paid about $12,000 total for a 4year Bachelor's degree (I finished in less then 4 years plus I had a scholarship), with no debt. The co-op was offered but due to the dot com bust it was hard to find a placement for Comp Sci students. Then they offered me Master's with THE UNIVERSITY paying me a scholarship, almost equivalent to my salary. I also liked how much they invested into reducing costs by technological means. I had a few courses in Art transmitted on TV, I sent assignments by mail and I had to come only for the exams. It allowed for more students attending. Assignment submission, notes, student forum, instructor assess all were available online for every Comp Sci course.
Although I was a top A+ student, with previous work experience, it was very hard to find a job even in 2005 after the bust. Given Ottawa didn't have an influx of Harvard graduates. After the graduation absolutely nobody was interested in my academic success, my classmates were finding jobs over their relatives and friends. I had one interview where they complained that my excellent transcript made me overqualified. I ended up finding a job with a help of my professor, but I was laid off soon. Then I studied useful skills not provided by the school on my own, taking online courses and writing open source. It helped me dramatically. An year later everybody had zero interest in my education or school projects, but they were much more interested in me as an open source contributor.
I worked with many people with no higher education, and I worked FOR such people. I really liked studying, I got good habits in programming, and I don't regret going to Carleton. But I don't see how a degree in Comp Sci would be worth $30,000 per year, it takes just a computer and a lot of practicing. Many of my classmates didn't have just general [work] skills upon graduation (i.e. getting a project done with no spoon feeding on every step). If I was into getting those monstrous debts in the US, I would've rather studied abroad or found some better paths then college education. I blame helicopter parenting (including the government helicoptering) and parents' insecurities that people are easy to spend a lot of money they (do or don't) have for the most expensive schools.
Nothing in their past can discredit the truth of this documentary. Get over yourself and stop projecting your own hatred on others.
and you two are useful idiots
This documentary has a ridiculous premise and as such the message is contrived. No Child Left Behind has allowed me to gauge our children's actual performance; who says NCLB stifles a teacher's creativity - if you're a good teacher you make it work. Oh, I've been a teacher.
College is basically a ritual of spoon-feeding kids. I worked in corporate video production for 8 years. Young college grads were hired as interns with degrees in video and film production. Their lack of basic practical knowledge left me scratching my head and wondering what they did in college for 4 years. Additionally, a person I know became an attorney through self-motivation and studying on her own to the point that she was able to pass the Bar the first time. The most likely candidate for a good education leading to success is going to be a self-motivated individual who has taken the time to actually work in the target profession as an intern BEFORE committing to the course of study. I have to agree, college is a total scam in many cases.
wow...! it's amazing, well it's rather sad... to see that many people here still believe that college is the way to success, I would actually like to know what are their current situation, securities and savings...
Some have mentioned here that this doc is really about selling you some gold and silver so these guys must be scammers... the truth is I don't see how they could be scammers by selling you what is proven to give you true security and protect you from any kind of crisis (Obviously you haven't done any research about it... I suggest you do)
Being a very successful entrepreneur myself, I can definitely say that my success didn't come from school, but it came from educating myself, finding opportunities, reading books, and by reading many case studies of those who have succeeded as well of those who have failed.
Everything in this documentary everything there I already knew except for some statistics. I knew by simply looking around me.
I would like to go on and on trying to make people realize that college these days is pure BS and and indeed a big scam.
These doc gives the best advice there could be out there like learning and investing in agriculture, silver, gold and other commodities. This is the future that many of us still ignore simply because colleges doesn't teach about those stuff. That is the reason why America is losing the number one spot and that the Chinese are taking over because they are investing in commodities.
Again before criticizing this doc do some research and you'll come to the conclusion that even if these guys were trying to sell you silver and gold, they still doing the right thing.
College isn't a prerequisite for financial success - that's business school;)
I can only speak from my own experience that a liberal arts education has intrinsic worth that is not reducible to any material circumstances of my life. I have been poor and I have had jobs that made a lot of money. At the end of the day, being able to draw on a rich, broad education has been more practical (and precious) to me than the money I earned.
In general, a post secondary education helps someone to learn about their world, develop a love of learning and get better at it so that he/she becomes a force for change and not a victim of it.
Can you have this experience simply by buying books and reading off the internet? Maybe, but I'll venture a guess that every person who has posted on here (including you) has benefited from the classroom experience at some point in their education. Were you not mentored by a teacher? Did you not benefit from the experience of classroom discussions? I'll venture that you did.
Debating about whether or not I should invest (or anyone for that matter) in silver and gold is irrelevant to me. To quote Plato, "the unexamined life is not worth living".
The basic premise of the film is correct. Even if you get a ba in history from Harvard, its going to cost 100k+ over 4 years and what kinda job are you going to get to make up for that debt. I live in Canada and recently graduated and I paid 0 in year 1 about 3k in year 2 and 6k and 7k in year 3 and 4. The full cost in 1st year was 5k at my school and it was the top in the nation. Basically the cost of school here goes up by 1k a year for residents. So I think paying 25k a year like in america is a scam and a rip off- i'd never pay that much for school it ain't worth it.
This so-called documentary is entirely specious. There is not one premise that cannot be reasonably and logically refuted beginning with their main premise - the cost of a college education. Go to 32:23 in the documentary. You will see a graphic that shows the cost per year of an in-state university as being $7020 per year. And this is their graphic!
I understand because you don't have to be a genius to know that America and consequently most of the world has fallen victim to debt based currency, and private banking systems such as the federal reserve. I know probably more than you think about the crisis, as well as what led too it, and who is responsible. If you haven't realized this is SeeUat Videos and there are a lot docs here about the matter. What I find pretty ridiculous at this point is the new wave of docs on the subject are starting to target necessary aspects of life. This is leading me to believe that this documentary is created to promote people not to go school and stay ignorant so that they can easily fall victim to manipulation. The strategy is to target the anger of the people towards the system and use it against them.
Now in response to many magical documents exponentially rising every year.
Everyone knows that besides many graduates who are actually certified, there are many who purchase falsified licenses as well as attain documents through system loop wholes, and these methods are thanks to none other than the system it self which we have determined to be faulty. On the other hand, those individuals will have very limited career options. When applying to any respectable position they will be assessed to see weather they actually possess any real knowledge.
Now in response to "common sense". I will say our education is much cheaper unless you're an international student. Nevertheless, we study many classes which you consider irrelevant. In Russia for instance they study even more of these unrelated subjects in universities. Yet what you don't seem to see is that these subjects are there to improve your overall efficiency as a thinker in your career as well as in life. The more you know the better you will be. Calculus for example is a technical form of mathematics which involves formula manipulation. This is none other than problem solving, which is helpful anywhere and in any job. Six years of college on the other hand seems a little much.
Now although you may not remember everything you have learned in every subject, subconsciously your brain attains a lot of useful information which it taps into in different real life situations. If you pay attention to this sometime you will notice what I'm talking about. Regardless of how much it costs for you if its not private is a college worth attending for the betterment of yourself and the reality you surround yourself with.
rtiom writes, "When applying to any respectable position they will be assessed to see weather they actually possess any real knowledge." Does this apply to the US or University Presidency? or to the Board of Trustees? Are these "respectable" jobs? Was Bush or any other president ever tested for real (as opposed to fake?) knowledge?
What about a honesty? should any "respectable" job test for this?
Should you go to school for this?
College tuition is horribly over priced- true, the student loan industry is a racket that leaves thousands in almost life wrecking debt- was true for a long time and may still be. Obama just removed the middle man so to speak, the banks. In the past a student loan was approved through the government and the money came from the government but, it was administered by a bank for a hefty fee of coarse. Under the new law the bank is cut out of the equation, which has the effect of lowering a students over all debt considerably.Of coarse this still isn't enough. We need to adress the fact that tuition is to high and get the interest rates as low as possible on student loans, as well as improving the education one recieves in public school here in the US.
That said their spill about college grads not making any more than high school grads is ridiculus, at least it is where I live. Here if you don't have a college degree the best you can hope for is a low paying job with no job security and no retirement, nor the money to invest in your own. I have watched countless high school grads go to work at the trailor plants and garment factories, they never stay employed for long because the plants only stay open for an average of five years at the best. They only make enough money to live from check to check, holding thier breath that nothing goes wrong in between. Most end up going to the local junior college eventually to learn a trade and get certified. At least then they are in skilled labor and have some measure of job security, still they rarely find any where to work thats open for more than five to ten years. The ones that do hold on to thier job like it was all they had, making it difficult for new applicants to get those positions. Thats why so many people move away from this area once they get out of school.
Do your self a favor, go to college if you can. Unless you have some kind of family business to become part of or something its by far your best bet. Besides, what happened to education for education's sake? Those that have a more indepth education live a richer life, they understand more about the world that surrounds them, they make life long friends and great business contacts at school, etc. Its not always about making the most money, though it is a well known fact that generally college grads will make more than high school grads- not always but usually.
only granting "qualefyed" students loans leads to elitism in society and wont benefit the country in the long run. U will save money now but later have larger social inequality wiych will lead to a less stable society unable to compite.
u go to collage to find likeminded people to start companys with.
the education is aged and worthless in most cases.
So what are you saying, that we should loan money to go to school to students that do not qualify, thats ridiculus. They don'y qualify because they haven't done well enough in high school for us to trust they will be able to graduate college. If they do not graduate then they have all that debt and no future prospects on a decent job, how would they repay. We would have people trying to get by on a blue collar salary and repay a student loan, sounds like we did them more harm than good. Another reason they may not qaulify is because they have really bad credit, again we can not loan these people money or the system will collapse when they can not or do not pay it back. As far as I know thats about all you have to have to qaulify, decent credit and to have done well enough in high school that you can be trusted to graduate college, that sounds perfectly reasonable to me. If we gave everyone that applied a loan regardless of qualifications the whole student loan industry would collapse in a very short time.
granting loans to everybody regardless of qualifications. why not we did that with mortgages and that worked out fine right?
Not a documentary. This is a commercial for the latest racket - ie gold / silver brokering.
0/10
Bingo. The NIA is ruse
I personally think this is one of the most biased documentaries I saw. What made me really suspicious is that one of their spokesman was Gerald Clenetine, because he is no authority figure on economics & finances and education but simply a forecaster who predicts what events would happen (not to mention he's awfully preachy and a bit self-righteous...but that's a different story). Another spokesman is a woman who is a victim of what she perceives to be an unjust system, and she gives personal testimony on being in debt. I do not deny the truth of her personal story, but I do not see why a single testimony sufficiently confirms a very broad and general statement that educational institutions are putting many people in debt. Some of the speakers in the documentaries are professors, but their field of studies and specialization hasn't been mentioned, which makes it questionable whether they are adequate to be qualified to assess the financial situation.
The documentary consistently appeals to it's own organization's opinion, predications, and statistics, which I find to be unacceptable because it makes the argument very biased without appealing to any other external sources (Again, it's fine if you appeal to your own opinions, but if you want to support your opinion as a FACT you have to find more concrete evidence produced by properly conducted research). When it makes other statistical claims it does not really do a lot of short-handed reference/citation as to where it got it's sources.
Another big problem that made the documentary pretty biased is that it used half of it's own organizational members from NIA (NIA created this documentary) to give personal stories/testimonies about being in debt. There is nothing wrong with having anyone from your own organization as evidence, but it becomes suspicious if this is done consistently since one should also try to find more evidence outside one's sphere of preference.
One of the things that made me pretty suspicious is the libertarian tendency I find in this film. It pretty much makes the argument that government intervention and regulation does not make things better but worse, and that the solution is the free-market system. The problem with this argument is that another documentary from PBS called Colleges, Inc. showed that business companies that decide t own colleges to compete with other colleges have also put students in debt. A well known example of this is Phoenix University which is a virtual internet college, and it is actually owned by big business.The problem is that the requirements are below minimum such that ANYONE can get into the program without any proper qualifications. Another problem with business owned colleges is the example that people who pursue the career of nurse were not provided proper training as the ones in decent medical schools. The ironic part is while state university students were in debt, most of them were able to pay it off in the long run but on the other hand students who applied for universities owned by corporations were unable to pay off the debt; Even if some of them were able to pay it off it would take them decades to do so.
Not to mention, most colleges that exists are actually State Colleges/university meaning they are owned by the federal government. Perhaps it is arguable that the government shouldn't interfere with the free-market, but it is a different story to demand that the government should not even interfere with it's own property. So in a sense there was never really a "free-market" in many colleges/universities to begin with.
I honestly find this documentary suspicious, but I do not disagree with it's claim that colleges and government has been making it difficult for us to pay our debt. This is not a very special revelation, it's something that most of us already know to be obvious. What I do not like about this documentary is how it tried to support and present it's arguments, the reasons which I provided above. If you guys want to watch a better documentary t, you should watch College, Inc. It might be a little boring compare to this documentary which has invested so much effort on making the documentary look flashy, animated, and cool. While I do think that the problem addressed by this documentary is of great value, I do not think how it supported and presented it's argument was good enough, which is why I conclude that the documentary is more of a conspiracy than the phenomena it's criticizing.
This is a very good analysis of this documentary. Actually, this film has much more in common with infomercials than documentaries. I don't fault the website for including this video since I believe all opinions (however misleading they may be) ought to be shown. Furthermore, this film is just begging to be consistently and tenaciously debunked by everyone with the time and ability to do so.
And when the US dollar goes boom, so do their trading partners. Canada is in trouble.
They make great points, to be sure. To pay a year's salary to go to school is ridiculous...and there definitely needs to be change. And their needs to be more education on what students options are.
Yet...why does this also feel like an advert for the NIA? It seems like every time they make a good point, then they make an infomercial style statement? You're telling me to be an open mind, so naturally, you have question at least SOME of the intentions of the documentary itself
Sometimes it goes so far off topic that it seems to forget what it's about 3/4 the way through. It's like a libertarian propaganda film wrapped up in the message of student debt and the education industry...which it strays from, quickly.
This to me looks like an attempt to obscure the issue and look for scapegoats. Try taking the military spending and putting that to free education for everyone, imagine how great a world you could make where anything you want to learn, you can. What would you accomplish?
I think the next step in big business should be some recognition of the self taught. Those that take advantage of the ease of access to quality education organized by sites like Academic Earth, and made available by sites like Youtube. Best step I've seen in a long time towards making the world a better place.
My plan? Take every course I can get my hands on while the lectures are free, then go to my local College and pay the (small by comparison) fee to challenge each exam. Admittedly there are benefits to receiving this education through an institution, but it is by far not the only option. For those in other countries with similar problems (Canada here) that are unable to get a student loan, and that believe the prices are insane, this is the best option I have come up with.
The best way to keep this up is to share everything you learn, to those that are willing to listen. Then burden needs to be redistributed, and the more that take up the goal to help educate everyone, the cheaper and better it will be.
Take more initiative to teach yourself, and you may just save yourself and your country millions of dollars, and at the same time, increase the value and capital of both. The government is only necessary for the lazy. The smart govern themselves.
Instead of sitting down to watch a comedy or talk show after work, try catching a lecture on your favorite subject instead ;)
Wow thank you for mentioning Academic Earth. I had never heard about that but one click and I was immediately forced to thank you :)
I thank you both :) My experience with Academic Earth was quite similar, one of those things that when you find something like that, you just want to share it with everyone, I've already had a good share of the courses from there and think the best way to spread my thanks to them, is to show them to everyone :)
I'm kind of an encyclopedia thumper if there is such a thing :p And for the record I'm not affiliated with the sites, just enjoy them.
Robert as fellow canadian you made my day. I didn't know anything about that Academy Earth and i immediately went to see what it was all about... I have been working for years in starting an uncredited language school to teach French as second language and seeing this Academy earth website just prove me that it can be done.
Even though I have degrees to my name I never did dismissed individual whom can learn out of the designed social agenda... I have learned computers all by myself and was able to configure many Cisco routers without a CCNA certificate... thanks again Robert since I am going to make this site known by all my friends and scholars. School is nice but self learning also has its advantages. Darn it took me 12 years to pay off my student loans (even with a quite acceptable salary) and what is the result... I'm not even working in my field LOL.
The last 2 minutes is a pure infomercial pitch ... interesting stuff, skip the last 2 minutes.
The end message is that the internet will provide the education of the future at a reasonable price, leaving the hyper-inflated education model of today behind.
I have to wonder though: can the internet provide ALL the aspects of university? The social connection, having actual experiences, working with people? Or are we all going to be boxed in at home learning at a computer?
I have learned a lot from the internet, but I don't know if I'd want to learn ALL from the internet. I don't think the answer is getting rid of college, maybe it's reform. But I don't think the concept of higher education is flawed initially...then again, this is a promotion for this organization.
I think the main thing to realize is that it's not one way or the other. Education requires understanding theories and knowing what has already been discovered in your field, but 90% of your true education begins when you get the On The Job training, and you learn much more overall by experience, but without the solid base of understanding to start with, it's difficult to progress much further.
Until you can prove you've taken at least the first steps to train yourself by learning what has already been discovered, you will be hard pressed to find any reliable firm to take you on.
There are many things to learn in life, social aspects are a big part of school, but there are other more suitable places you can also learn this in the world, it's not solely a thing of school. I agree this current aspect of school is very important though.
Very mixed feeling about this one. It was a sales pitch for both an organization and to buy gold and silver. Some of what they say is plausible, even true, like the scam that college has become for those who go into enormous debt for a degree. It's not worth it. I have a master's degree and it's not worth it. But it was a pitch........
Although you may not get a worthless piece of paper known as a degree that you can hang on the wall, I believe that self education is far more effective than regurgitating useless information that you have memorized in order to pass a standardized test, completely devoid of any critical thinking skills at all.
True... look into apprenticeships, you work while acquiring experience and education. Take my advice, don't go to college unless you're absolutely sure what you want to do, don't become professional students.
This doc explains what every American should have already known, but considering most Americans are oblivious to the world around them, they should find this doc informitive. Hey, these are the same people who voted Obama into power. PEOPLE VOTE RON PAUL 2012
The real scam with Pharmacy schools is the change several years back the eliminated the BS Pharmacy Degree, forcing everyone interested in Pharmacy into going to an additional 2 years of school. This when advances in technology has made the job more accurate and requiring less mental activity.
Fear mongering by the fake NIA.
Also if you go too school, you develop your interest in learning, and take a little more time to think things through as well as find things out.
You guys talk about money this money that. Billions of dollars go here so much go there everyone is in debt and broke. Well whats your point? Are you gonna become a broke a** rebel, or are you gonna take advantage of this situation to survive in this crap hole on an economy? Make the best of your situation, and as far as education goes, the more the better.
This Doc is stupid. Maybe 5% of this doc makes a point. All their talking about is the American Federal Bank scam and how the economy of America is screwed up. This has nothing to do with education. Taking post-secondary education helps develop your mind, your common sense and many other aspects of thinking. It helps too broaden your worldly view and mature you mentally into a responsible adult. High school does not do this.In High school you develop your mind learn discipline. Also, you take post-secondary to receive documents stating that you are a capable, reliable, and knowledgeable individual, and can complete your task accurately even without a helping hand. And I live in Canada the cost of education for me isn't ridiculously high as mentioned. In addition, even if you do not end working in the field you studying for, you will be much better suited for any other job you are likely to do. And I speak from experience.
Thank you. University isn't "worthless" for me. I've grown so much between high school and university, that person who lived back then was so different. University helps you become an adult, a critical thinker, a person with an open mind...things that I wasn't in high school, I am now.
Plus, I don't know how it is in the States...but we don't pay a salary to go to uni every year...
With all due respect dear you could have become a critical thinker even without going to university... high school just prepare you for college, but i certainly remember as a kid in high school I could have compete many historians with a degree... university doesn't form your intelligence... it gives you a framework to develop what you already have in an organized way. A medical doctor have certainly been studying alone some topics before deciding to become a doctor... if a psychologist with a degree comes to you saying that violence is not rising versus a non certified psychologist (or free thinker) prove to you that Mr. Doctor in psychology is wrong are you going to believe the one with a degree more than the one without knowing very well that the certified one is off its boots.
I do not condemn university since I went for many years myself... but I came to discover the other way, the way that does not censure information for the sake of an institution's reputation.
I went to school in the state of NY and both systems have similar issues. Also went in school in the famous Sorbonne, France and I've seen similar issues... actually in France it's funny since they have so many people with a Master degree that it's even more difficult to find a proper job with a degree and they are starting to lurk upon the western ways of having French people pay for their tuition.
I don't know, I find in high school you never go in depth into anything. I took a course in Grade 12 that was "university designed" and I realized how different it was from the rest of my courses. It just felt more in depth, encouraged "thinking outside the box", engaging in discussion and touching on controversial issues...
....................................................................................you live in Canada, so how do you understand what the American system is like? think about that before you call the doc stupid.
I do agree with you that college helps to expand your view of the world and does help to transition you into a person capable of being responsible for yourself. However, when the AMERICAN system is looked at from a strictly economical viewpoint it really isn't worth it. and as for the point that the educational entity provides you with "documents stating that you are a capable, reliable, and knowledgeable individual", the statistical amount of people with these magical documents is rising exponentially every year. so if everyone is capable reliable, and knowledgeable what difference did that degree really do?(and besides, I've personally never put much stock into anything on a paper that is handed to me by a salesman). fact is a lot of college graduates will still be working at McDonald's 5 years down the road.
as for the common sense issue you must have a completely different style of university up there in the great white north, because in my experience and my friend's experience (all college grads from various institutions) colleges below the 49th parallel do nothing of the sort.
we are taught useless classes based on core requirements that have absolutely nothing to do with our planned futures. as a physical therapy major I had to complete calculus 2......ask me how many times I've used it in the real world. I've learned more about physical therapy in my year and a half of working and internships than in my 6 agonizing years of college. common sense never enters the picture, it's all about memorizing the useless information then forgetting it after the exam to make room for the meorization of new worthless material.
in short I agree with the documentary, run don't walk away from college. go travel the world with the peace corps or a similar orginization. do some good, or at least attempt to see and do everything you've dreamed of......before it's too late.
I never understood investments in gold and silver. I can't imagine if things get tough why anyone would give a s*** about shiny rocks. I don't know why we tear up the world, kill, and risk our lives for shiny rocks. We are a bunch stupid apes distracted by the reflection of light off dirt. I don't think its the end of the world but i think your better off investing in ammunition and when they come to your door to trade gold and silver for your food and water. Politely tell them get of your property.
College is just so you can prove that you can take and listen to directions, and can stay sitting doing monkey work. Say your school is petroleum engineering: the first 2 years one spends studying history and english, politics and geography. Then people get 1 year of basic math and physics, followed by2 years of some more specific more theory. Basically 90% of the course is useless and you forget 90% of the remaining 10% in a couple years.... Then there you are ready for a job...so you fight for it at that dreamed for oil company. You get the job and what you do all day is use software that does all the work for you, you get really good at MS Excel and you don't use anything you learned in school ever.
Just saying that I wish schooling was a big more hands on..... a bit more technical... a bit more real.
I can confirm the part about students receiving money that they don't need. Before starting my second year in college I was notified by the board that I had $6,900 left over in financial aid and that I could receive that money in a check or have it sent back to the government.
So here they were offering me an interest free loan which I did not ask for or need, but at the same time I needed a car so I took the money and used it for that.
but I'm still not going to become a marketable metric by signing up to the NIA. And I don't take investment advice from advertisers. Up until they began their sales pitch, the documentary was pretty good.
ks devil research Gerard Adams on the net. He's a fraud.
This is nothing more than an infomercial. If you watch carefully you will see the statistics and projections used are ones they appear to have pulled from thin air. The little trick with lost income by attending college is a classic manipulation of basic arithmetic. These people just want to sell you gold and silver at inflated prices. They are a bigger con than the colleges.
I think this person hit the nail on the head.
"I think this person hit the nail on the head."
Nope actually they missed it completely and whacked their thumb instead.
Washtenaw Community college every teacher is against the book store and the vocational classes are about getting out their and making money on your own and not so much working for other people if you don't want to. Perhaps its just preschool, elementary, middle, highschool and college have slightly changed rolls and the colleges are like the new highschool
I can only lol at how universities are overrated!
Not so long ago I have downloaded around 500 books on almost every subject of physics and 300 books dealing with biology, just because I liked those classes in school.
Why would anyone pay money/take loans to gain knowledge, at this day and age?
You're not paying for the knowledge; you're paying for the credentials.
First, the NIA is trying to sell you. But, just like they are... the colleges are too!
Now, on the issue of credentials. While some jobs like R&D in say biology and nanotechnology and such as well as Doctors, Nurses, Dentists etc should require college.
The predominate problem is that most students want to 'get rich' and not really care much at all about the actual subject matter they want to go for. Such students are practically ASKING to get fraud with this mind set. The desire to do something purely for money will only haunt you. You should be doing it for...
A) Food/Water and Survival
B) Wanting to better the situation/fascination with your studies.
College cannot be categorized into ONE class. College means an infinite number of subjects. Some needing skilled trained workers... others not so much.
I will take myself as an example. Computer Programmer / Beta tester. Most good programmers are self taught if not all of them. By trial and error learning process and Internet self studies. You can also get 'certified' in 1 year and have 'credentials' without the 4 year $100,000 debt.
It all depends on your field of study, whether or not a massive investment needs to be made to make you 'marketable'.
Sorry to say, the world IS a market... and marketing is a coveted subject for reasons of manipulation because we all know of 'the classic annoying salesmen' idea. Sales people learn this craft by stealth. (In other words it isn't openly taught out in the open.)
It is a complex thing. But, unfortunately using unbeknown KIDS as a way to make fake digital money off of, is just our current value system, which I believe is in a state of decay and certain coming collapse.
Learn all you can ONLINE... plant a tree or flower or learn about nature and stop thinking MONEY is real. It is not real..what you do is real.
Forget it... makes me sick the more I think about it :)
Interesting doc. Just keep in mind before you watch this that it is not a balanced assessment of the pros/cons of going to college...more about that later.
First, I agree that college tuition is astronomically high. The costs should make any student pause before considering it. Is college for everyone? No and especially due to costs.
On a personal note: when I was 18 I decided to go to a private liberal arts college in the south. I met a graduate from there who was extremely bright, articulate, and a great writer. She was an idol to me. She told me something that stuck with me, "a wide ranging education helps you to understand your world in context." I made my decision to go to that school and never regretted it. Luckily, I was granted a scholarship to attend college and that helped tremendously. I did have some loan debt, but nothing like some people have. Nonetheless, I recognize that a liberal arts education has intrinsic worth far beyond career aspirations. It is not a means to an end, it is an end unto itself. But, If that's how you view education, then a liberal arts education is NOT for you.
As for the documentary itself... Keep in mind several things that they don't cover. 1. Supply and demand has a lot to do with the costs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of high school graduates attending college has increased from 45% in 1959 to 70% in 2009. As demand rises, so does cost. 2. The doc didn't really cover (not in much detail) the issue of state funding cuts. This had a huge impact. The 2009 academic year was pivotal due to the economic crises. Costs just skyrocketed at state schools largely because of state cuts.
On a side note, I found it sad, really, that the Professor Emeritus in the Doc said, "run don't walk away from college." I thought this kind of language from a professor sounded a little dubious, so I did a little research on him. Among many strange ideas, he believes we are about to enter a new "stone age". These are his words. You're welcome to go on his blog "Guy McPherson" and see for yourself. He sprinkles his ideas with a lot of conjecture and flimsy economic theory (psssst kinda whacky).
You should not enter college to become rich or because you don't know what you want to do. If you go, make sure beforehand that you do intensive research into the costs of loans, etc ( a lot of students fail to do this). I started researching my options at the age of 12.
If you want to be a skilled laborer, or a business owner of sorts, then college may not be for you.
Otherwise, let's all demand tuition become more affordable.
trade schools are supposed to be for the educated working class. Colleges are supposed to be for middle management education. University is supposed to be for leadership and cerativity.
However, things have changes a little. All post high school education is now for the debter class. A product to be marketed for the profit of a few. A public relations promise of greater things that ultimatly ends up in perpetual debt for all.
The only ones who don't get caught in that trap and the self sufficient "poor".
A very good doc.
We have exactly the same problem here in the UK, we now have so many young people leaving school & going to universities to get a degree & coming out of it owing thousands of £'s in debt only to end up working in the same jobs as those who did not go to the universities. In a lot of cases they are just wasting 3 - 5 years of their life & are ending up lower down the corporate ladder than those who came straight out of school & went straight into work & have worked their way up to the better positions in the companies. It has got to the stage that most degrees are not even worth the paper that they are written on, experience is worth 10x more than any piece of paper. There is no short cut to wealth, it will only come to you from a lifetime of hard work, if that is all that you want from life.
@zatarra
The government collects no, no interest payments ever..The Bank collects interest and creates the money and the loans. The government works for the bank. The bank is a for profit private operation..When schools begin to teach the trivium and quadrivium again, then they will be a service. For now, they are jello spined cocksuckers, as far as I'm concerned. (Please excuse me for my outburst but, wtf.}
This documentary sucks Big Time. It's a bunch of right wing crap.
This is kind of a goofy documentary, but they do have some good points. I agree that schools need to teach people self-sufficiency, rather than teach obedience and create debt. There is no use to teach useless material that will not apply to the job. You get education to go to work anyway. Experience is the best teacher.
Post secondary schooling should be free to everyone. The reason why its not is because the goverment makes billions of dollars off the intrest on student loans. THE MONEYS GOOD BUT the goverment would rather lure young people to their deaths with the promises of payed training in precision marching techniques, room, board and a chance to travel abroad and meet new people. When we have 35% of student loans in default right now I feel the time will come soon when they will make it even harder to go to college leaving most with the paid training in precision marching techniques, room and board as their only option. I personaly would rather see people in college 4-6 years with 15 years debt to off pay making money paying tax's than to have them marching around the world.
@ zatarra
At last, I knew that if I stuck around long enough that you would eventually come out with something sensible to say. Well done. lol
In Lybia, for example, university schooling is free. Not only it is free, but anyone can choose the country they want to study in and the government pays for all the costs, including the student's monthly 'salary' (which is around 2'500 EUR).
Hey Hey Lybia is not that bad after all! The Lybian desert is to die for.. literally if you're not careful.
az
For those wondering why most your tax money goes to WAR and OIL in LYBIA, here is why.
Qaddafi was creating a coalition of Northern Tribes to trade/sell their OIL in not Dollars... but a type of Gold something er-rather.
Well the US govt can't have that. So now you know.
@ matt kukowski The world cant have that if they want to stay at peace. Because once one starts doing that the "ben hank timmy brain trust" cant just print money anymore and dump it on the world. Plus its a good idea to eliminate all your enemys one at a time rather than fight them all at once when the bubble burst. oh one more thing matt we also tricked moh ma into giving up his HEU so he cant even defend himself anymore, he is toast soon now for being so stupid for thinking he could sell oil in something other than dollars AFTER giving up all his HEU. Even if he did not give it up it might just be "The just cause" the worlds looking for if he lights one of those candles off.
CHILDREN OF CONGRESS DON'T HAVE TO PAY BACK THEIR STUDENT LOANS. ARE YOU KIDDING ME. THIS WORLD IS SO BACKWARDS, AND WE ARE ALL HOSTAGES OF CORPORATOCRACY AS THE ELITISTS SIT BACK AND LAUGH. MANKIND>MONETARY SYSTEM
#ItsTimeToWakeUp