Young People These Days

Aristotle complained about the kids of the time being disrespectful of their elders.

 

Ed Marsh

But I do know the temptations out there....pretty much the same one you and I...and the rest of the world had while growing up. My point is a simple one: Why we didn't succumb to these temptations? Why today's kids can't say "no" as we did?
To think the temptations are an issue of the 21st century is to live in complete isolation.

 

BBBBut….our generation DIDN’T say no.
I do submit that it was our generation that started the sexual revolution. It was our generation who couldn’t say no to mind altering substances such as LSD, Pot and Schrooms.
The “I’m okay, you’re okay” idea was a major proponent of our generation and what we have today is just an expansion of that.

There is virtually nothing that this generation is doing that we didn’t plant the seeds for with the possible exception of our young ones shooting up their schools and even that, I’m not too sure that we aren’t responsible for much of that.

Every generation leaves road apples for the next generation to step in but it would seem that ours left so many behind that it’s impossible for generations that followed Not to step in it.

Now, how to solve the problem of temptation?
Simple. Just start a movement that re-instills the moral and ethical traits that come with spiritual values and not those slide-by worldly traits that always gets us into trouble.

 

Some things were a lot easier for young people in the past. Even girls. After WW2, there were federal and state grants (not loans) to help pay tuition for college as long as you kept a 3.0 average. Particularly if you went into hard sciences or education. That was before Trickle Down Reaganomics.

 

Nancy Hart,

Those grants are still current...they are known as Scholarships...I paid my BS with them. Yes, you need to keep a B / B+ average. I went to school in the 80s. These grants are only for the bachelor level.. I paid my Masters from my pockets.

 

Tuition when I went to school (state college) was approx $450 for 3 quarters. With inflation, that's $4400 in today's dollars. Tuition at the same university today is $12,400 for 2 semesters.

 

Along with basic inflation, a lot of the problem stems from how much students from other countries are willing to pay for a shot in an American college or University.
A student from China, for example, will pay upwards of 3 times what an in-state American citizen pays thereby sending the message to the bean counters that if foreign students can pay $X then American students should be able to pay more also.

Plus….in 2014 the Pell Grant program budget was decreased by around 3.1 Billion Dollars but the student loan programs expanded which again gave the places of higher learning more room to up the ante. After all, it’s only taxpayer money and it IS just a loan..isn’t it?

 

Plus Pell Grants are funded by the federal government. Trickle Down Economics doesn't work in the long term. The "little guy" may get a few hundred dollars in tax breaks, while it costs $12,000 for a year at a state college.

 

The cost of higher education has gone up just like everything else. Inflation, costs to maintain structures, pay salaries, utilities, and so on have gone up so why would the cost of attending college not increase. Rising costs are always passed down to the consumer.

While I agree that "trickle down economics" was not successful policy, I don't understand what that has to do with the increased costs of education.

As for "Young People These Days," I believe that the internet and social media are the main causes of the issues of society, including our children. Their role models are "influencers" and Youtube creators. How inspiring.

 

Trickle Down economics means tax cuts, like the $ 2 trillion federal income tax cut in December 2017, mostly to wealthy and large corporations. Tax Cuts = Reduced Pell grants. More loans, fewer scholarships.

The average cost of college tuition in the U.S. for undergraduate students rose from $4,336 in 1963 to $13,777 in 2020. That's after accounting for inflation. (NCES)

 

Nancy, I understand the trickle down theory, I just don't believe it was a major cause of the increase in college tuition. A pound of butter was 59 cents in 1963 but I paid $5.25 yesterday. Things just cost more after 60 years.

Obama's cut of the Pell Grant program in 2014 was not "trickle down," it was just a budget cut.

 

Not to get too far into national economics but lower restrictions and taxes on major corporations gives more room for expansion and expansion equals more employment and more employment equals more taxes (and social security) are being collected from individuals.

Now, more to the point, right now there’s a definite employment problem in that start up jobs are all over the place and our young people aren’t taking them and businesses are either limiting their ability to serve or closing down entirely.
(Note: It’s going to get worse if Biden gets his way and hammers large corporations for another 3%. The jobs simply won’t be there for anyone much less our young people to have.)

When I go to the grocery or Walmart or whatever store, I see very few young people working. Where is their money coming from? Are kids no longer trying to break out by finding work so they can buy their own clothes, go on dates, buy transportation or save for college?

 

My oldest, who got a scholarship from my husband's company and had money I had saved over the years, said that the states had made major cutbacks to state colleges. That is her explanation for the huge run ups in tuition. We have a vocational school that used to be very inexpensive and now has large charges per credit. Because of state's not funding.
Ivy league schools' increases are probably just inflation.
I could think of a lot of cutbacks the governments could make and it is not the ones they are choosing.

 

When I worked at the NIH, foreign post docs and fellows were everywhere, and I mean everywhere. I visited one lab and noticed there was an American sounding post doc and asked him why, with the NIH being right here, he was such a rarity. He said, compared to foreign universities, it was comparatively much more difficult to get a fellowship or post doc position at the NIH. I didn’t understand the impediments but remembered it as an interesting comment. That was some time ago, things might be different now.