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Should unemployed grads sue their universities?

Posted by Eudaimonia 10 years, 8 months ago to Politics
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I've been thinking lately about the problem of the glut of unemployed college graduates.

The Marxist non-solution is yet another bail-out: to forgive student loan debt.

However, this does not address the real problem.

Universities are viewed, rightly or wrongly, as the gateway to better jobs.
Students and their families go into ridiculous debt based on this implied promise.
Yet, when at university, students do not receive the training needed to succeed in the business world.
Instead, they are indoctrinated in the ways of anti-business agitation.

Soon, if it hasn't happened already, employers will begin to realize that hiring anyone with a non-tech degree or *any* Ivy League degree is risking hiring an anti-business agitator.

Google has already stated that they prefer hiring people who have not attended college because they are more intellectually curious.

At what point should unemployed grads sue their universities for fraud?

Your thoughts are welcome.


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  • Posted by khalling 10 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Rent seeking is a big part of what goes on. This forces otherwise competent and knowledgeable individuals to pay tens of thousands to have degrees for which in turn are pre-requisites for licenses. The left uses the tactic of lawsuits all the time to get groups to change their behavior. As long as a case can be made, I say use all the tools in your arsenal.
    and btw, state schools are state funded. That is not VOLUNTARY, against your will you support these hallowed halls of indoctrination.
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  • Posted by 10 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I am not suggesting that universities are legally liable for "not guaranteeing employment".

    I am suggesting that they are legally liable for promoting the idea that they improve one's chances at a career in a specific field while they actually:
    1) heavily endebt the believers in their implied claim
    2) prefer taxpayer backed loans to finance the believer's enrollment
    3) deliver a sub-par education for the sake of first rate Marxist indoctrination

    ensuring that:
    1) the believer is unemployable and debt-ridden
    2) the taxpayer is burdened with the default
    3) the university Marxists have a supposedly everflowing government teat.

    This is fraud.
    This is scam.
    This is bait and switch.
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  • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 10 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Better question...are you going to pay back your tax-payer backed loans.

    Your question implies that if he took a loan backed by the government he's not intending to pay back the money.
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  • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 10 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Exactly. Maybe sue the unemployed? Those who don't hire you in spite of your degree? I wonder if we can sue for underemployed as well? I once knew a guy with a masters in archeology but he drove a cab in NYC for many years, perhaps he would have had grounds for a lawsuit? Its absurd.

    What I see in this topic is a shirking of individual obligation to ones own future, the want to blame someone else for your lack of judgment choosing a profession or lack of drive striving to use the tools you earned to achieve the success you want.

    Unless a school is saying "Take our class and you will earn (Not could earn) $XXXXXX" there is no fraud. With no fraud no basis to sue.

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  • Posted by Non_mooching_artist 10 years, 8 months ago
    Sorry, but suing a university for not guaranteeing employment post grad is ludicrous. Going to college is VOLUNTARY. To graduate with a degree in olde English poetry is not likely to be high on an employers list must haves in a prospective employee. And why I am somehow supposed to be on the hook for some person's student loan is ludicrous. Little indoctrination camps is what universities/colleges have turned into.
    Ugh!
    And whatever happened to internships? My son is doing one. It will help him in understanding what he may or may not ultimately choose to do later.
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  • Posted by desimarie23 10 years, 8 months ago
    I am a college student, and I have never been promised or guaranteed a job in the field of my choice. In fact, I was made aware of the greater possibility of NOT getting hired in the state I live in, and would probably have to go elsewhere. When I say 'made aware', I mean by both my own research and by instructors. I CHOSE to continue with my education and do everything in my power to apply my knowledge into that field. If my best efforts get me nowhere, that is not my university's fault. My future was never promised...they merely offer that with higher education comes higher possibility of getting the career you want. A lot of the problem is that people feel as though they deserve a job because they have a bachelors or masters degree.... that isn't the way it works.

    I have always understood that I would need to work very hard to both get a degree, and enter into my field of study with the career that I want...even harder for the latter.

    It's hard work and dedication that land you a job, not your university. The unemployed like to have a scapegoat instead of taking responsibility for their own unemployment.
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    Posted by Esceptico 10 years, 8 months ago
    The answer is market-based education. The professor gets paid according to the number of students who want the class. Not enough professors for the subjects that matter? That is what pricing is all about. Some profs have zero students? Gee, maybe they have to get another job.

    Dump tenure. Dump government loans. Make education the business it ought to be, and it will teach the subjects the market demands and, as a byproduct, the cost will drop dramatically.
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  • Posted by 10 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "Being young means being malleable"
    Yes, it does.

    And being a parent sending their kid off to university means there is a extraordinary level of trust in the delegation and in the assumption of so much debt (now tax payer backed and taxpayer default responsible).
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  • Posted by $ jlc 10 years, 8 months ago
    I find myself unappetizingly 'in the middle' on this issue. I think that the 'required general classes' are (a) a way of subsidizing classes that no one would otherwise take, (b) a way of padding the curriculum so that it takes 5-6 years to get a '4 year degree'. So the first thing I would do is to get rid of the general requirements. Perhaps the major-dependent requirements should stay, though.

    I do think that even STEM degrees are teaching ineffectual work habits. (I speak from having hired these people from top notch tech colleges.) Even colleges which have explicit pro-Entrepreneur classes are generally oriented around group/team work rather than individual accomplishment and there is a pervasive sense that 'work hard whether you feel like it or not' is an evil philosophy.

    It IS the student's responsibility to choose classes according to their own decision. Being young means being malleable, though, and our colleges are still oriented around training English Lords who have a financial independence but need to be able to converse at diplomatic dinners. I do think that the colleges guide students in that direction: "what you need to be a well-rounded person".

    Jan
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  • Posted by strugatsky 10 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The MB is just one example. The Bolsheviks did that successfully, and many other revolutionaries tried to recruit this class. Historically, the US never did have a disenchanted class, so revolution here was difficult; why not make such a class?
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  • Posted by 10 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I think both are related.
    I don't think that the implied promise is one of a job but rather one of increasing one's chances to secure a better job.

    And "the progressive, socialist pablum so many spoon feed" is directly anti-thetical to that implied promise.

    +1
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  • Posted by $ jlc 10 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I was offered a job washing dishes in a laboratory, with the ink not quite dry on the BA in Biology degree. I joined the USAF to get the credentials and experience I needed to actually be employable.

    Jan
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  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 10 years, 8 months ago
    Yes, but not for the implied promise of jobs, but for the progressive, socialist pablum so many spoon feed. :)
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  • Posted by 10 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Not sure if the Muslim Brotherhood reference applies, but for the previous part of your question: Ding! Ding! Ding!
    +1
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