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They are making people pay more while admissions are dropping significantly?

NICE 😑 I feel bad for these kids in the future, they are gonna make it impossible to advance. Between the cost of housing, education, and medical it's like playing spin the wheel of lifetime debt.

Penn state and PSU are the same

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Short term growth at all costs until society collapses. We're probably fucked.

But then all the companies that make weapons for war will be losing out on their trillion dollar contracts and then can't find political campaigns for politicians who will continue to vote to increase the military budget and so on and so forth

Where the fuck is the money going...you can go to school in Europe and Canada for like 1/5 of the US tuition.

Ok. Let’s parse. The word “that” after “kids” implies pretty clearly that it’s a subset. Without that word, your comment would make sense. Read.

LOL

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What’s that? Cut staff and student services and keep those middle-managers making six figures? Got it! -Colleges probably

Maybe they should reduce the required amount of “Gen Ed” requirements to make education more affordable?

> Seems few citizens of the commonwealth find this troubling.

Aren't gas prices, and our ridiculously high gas tax, one of the most common things PA citizens bitch about?

I don't know why it should be considered troubling in and of itself. It could only be 'troubling' if roadway maintenance and construction were particularly cost-inefficient in Pennsylvania or if an excessive amount of work were being done. I am aware of the transfer of Motor License Fund revenues to the Pennsylvania State Police, but I believe that the most recent budgets have kept that in the vicinity of $ 500 million and I doubt that this accounts for the differential. There is also a question of other sources of revenue and use of federal funds.

If you insist upon lower the 'gas tax'^(*), then you must endorse a worse roadway maintenance and slower construction, a severe curtailment of new construction, some kind of miraculous 'efficiency' reform or a combination of the three. Highways are not cheap things and Pennsylvania is a large jurisdiction with some very trying weather and lots of things to bridge over.

^(*Pennsylvania does not, strictly speaking, have 'gas tax' in the sense of an) ^(ad valorem) ^(rate per gallon, but a tax upon the wholesale price of fuel, which is the cost paid by filling stations to their suppliers. Hence why Pennsylvania is) ^(listed by the American Petroleum Institute) ^(as having an excise tax of $ 0.)

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It's not a state school, same with temple. They are public "state-related" institutions, pretty much allows them to get state funding and then blow it on dumb campus building projects and admin bloat. With how their grant structure worked for me, I was able to go to temple and save about 25k over 4 years compared to attending bloomsburg university, a university that is actually in the state system of higher education.

Source: Am temple grad, their current president is garbage right now.

But if we cut the military budget, how will 'Merica be protected?

Fuck that.

I went to Penn State. For what, exactly? More construction and luxury facilities no one asked for (the gyms on campus aren't free for students, by the way) and more equipment for the football team?

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Tuition costs for schools is untenable at this point. I wouldn't recommend anyone go to a university outside of maybe a community college at this point.

And Penn State is already one of the most expensive state schools in the country

Philosophy degrees are extremely useful for going to law school. I’ve heard some lawyers argue it’s better than pre-law at preparing a student for law school.

Communications is useful for marketing, corporate work, and similar applications

Just because it doesn’t have the job title in the name, doesn’t mean it isn’t a desirable education that employers value.

I’m not even getting defensive from the perspective of someone with a degree in one of these fields (I have a science degree). They aren’t useless at all unless you don’t know what you’re looking at. That’s the thing about “common sense”, it can be any bullshit that anyone believes; common sense is just a lovely buzzword to make people look stupid for even trying to challenge it.

I've been told this a few times since I moved to the USA. I have an undergraduate degree in philosophy, so I'm obviously biased on this, but critical thinking, as the major component of philosophical exploration, and all the associated skills are absolutely essential. Critical thinking and common sense are not always the same thing, as evidenced by *gestures broadly*.

These types of soft skills might not always translate into direct $$$ but they are incredibly socially valuable. I've since obtained a Master's degree and am working on a PhD in the mental health field, which again, definitely not tied to financial worth and my experience isn't necessarily generalizable, but worth can be thought of as a lot more than financially valuable career paths when we think more broadly about societal needs.