Don't bet the farm on kid's education
Don't bet the farm on kid's education

By Malcolm Berko Comments 2
Published: November 11, 2007

Dear Mr. Berko: My son's grades are not that good but we have some pull to get him into the University of Florida at Gainesville, which is a top school and also the college of his choice. It's going to cost us about $30,000 a year as an out-of-state student and I've arranged to take out a home mortgage to cover the costs. But what I'd like to know is why college costs have increased so much?

When I went to college in the 1970s the cost for all four years was about $35,000. What am I missing? What has caused costs to increase so much? I find it almost impossible to believe that it's going to cost me $120,000, which is nearly four times as much as it cost me for four years.

I'm willing to spend that money because it should give my son a better chance at getting a good job when he graduates. But it's hard to believe that college costs have risen faster than medical costs and inflation.

P.W., Galesburg, Ill.

Dear P.W.: The increase in college costs are because of five factors:

•1. Administration stupidity.

•2. Enormous waste.

•3. Poor planning and lousy management.

•4. The huge number of college loan companies willing to make money easily available.

•5. Your willingness to pay the costs.

It's all a game.

I can take almost any college budget and reduce expenses 25 percent to 35 percent, maintain teachers' salaries, classroom sizes and improve the quality of the education process.

College budgets, with lessons from Congress and state legislatures, contain more pork than a pig farm, more fat than a soap factory and more beeswax than a presidential nominating convention.

The high cost of attending college has little to do with providing an education. College budgets are crammed with runaway expenditures and overblown costs that make the Pentagon spending look like Scrooge.

Colleges have become big business today but they're run by scholars who can't teach or ex-politicians who couldn't get re-elected. That's sort of like putting a sex maniac in charge of a brothel. These idiots don't know bupkis about running a business, analyzing a balance sheet, understanding an income statement or hiring qualified people.

Milton Friedman, the renowned economist from the University of Chicago, commented that universities are big corporations that are best run by businessmen not scholars.

Sorry to give you such a long answer but if you can get this explanation in your head, you should have it in a nutshell. Frankly, you're using good money to purchase garbage if you think spending $120,000 (it now takes most kids six years to get a degree) is going to give your kid a heads-up because he attended the University of Florida.

The University of Florida isn't known for its academics. Rather it's nationally known for its football and basketball prowess.

A lot has changed since you finished college 30 years ago. It's a phenomenon called "the dumbing down of America!”

Today head coaches earn three or four times as much as the college president and lesser coaches earn half again as much as the teaching staff. As a result, teaching skills and course content have diminished and many incoming freshmen lack the IQ tools to match lower course standards.

Some universities have responded with a cure called grade inflation.

Harvard, supposedly a top school, has one of the worst grade inflation records in the country and many large public colleges (including UF) pressure the professor to be "grade generous” because low grades reflect poorly upon the university's image.

Today's university graduate is dumber than a bowling shoe, can't speak or write proper English or complete a simple math problem without a calculator and think a work habit is a garment worn by a nun tending her garden.

Now I'm going to give you some of the best free advice you've ever received.

Forget about a mortgage on your home and tell your boy that he has two choices: attend a community college, live at home and get a part- or a full-time job or join the armed forces, acquire some maturity and allow the government to pay for his college costs.

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 1416, Boca Raton, FL 33429 or e-mail him at malber@comcast.net.