And to add to Donna's point about unions, "professionals" cannot form unions, only "workers" can form unions. When the laws around this were formed, this prevented price-fixing of professional fees, but now it allows owners to take advantage of employees who have full qualifications in their field because many of those professionals are still working for other people. Additionally, laws that allow employers not to pay overtime encourage them to make do with as few staff as possible, but to grossly overwork that staff.
sorry but 'seems like camping' is the kind of comment that makes steam come out of my ears. It's the kind of willfully blind belittlement that is most destructive to the efforts of those who have put their lives on hold, put themselves in a place with potential for arrest, beating, firing, cold, etc, in order to meke the voices of regular people cut through the well-funded media and political noise. i wish i believed it was just apathy, but it comes from the same place as 'occupy: a job' comments. disagreement, with the only way to make it go away being to try to ignore it, show disdain, make it seem petty and silly.
obviously i admire these protests, for all the reasons mentioned above. I hope it continues to grow strong enough to have a real impact and defy the scorn that i've seen exhibited by those who don't agree.
I did not know all that about unions and professionals. Hmmm.
And Rusty, I had not seen that. It seems a bit odd, that the girl had the forethought to tape it, and at first I thought the mom was taking over just to end the beating, but then the dad came back anyway! While I'm fine with spanking, even with a belt, anything more than 3 licks is excessive. And anyone who has been spanked with a belt knows that it's more sound than actual pain. Still sucks. Yeah, that whole thing was just weird. I mean, 2004?! No computers?! Crazy.
i was raised more redkneck than george bush in his dreamy orgasmic farm fantasty but even us hillbillies larned not to hit our chillins. tales of gramma's wooden spoon however are still kinda funny to listen to (but not to practice, cuz that's just child abuse).
on a sidenote, as a person who was raised with occasional licks of the belt i can tell you it hurt like the bejeezus
Maybe I just have tough skin. My students did say I as a Hard-Ass. We only spank Abram in extreme cases, where immediate and sever action is needed. Otherwise, it just doesn't work with him. He learned too early that spankings were quick and easy, and would chose a spanking over standing in the corner, so we nixed it for the most part. But no spoons (those DO hurt), only hands.
oof, don't spank your kids, nice american folks!! you're supposed to be a beacon of enlightenment for the rest of the world...and as sarah's kid wisely shows us, it never really works.
i got my share back in the old country when i made my dad real mad, but eventually learned to manipulate him by holding out until he was the one who felt bad about it...then he realized it was far more effective to not let me watch tv...
my rear was "warmed" a few times as a child but not often and it wasn't the punishment i disliked most... as a parent i don't think I would ever hit my child though.
I was spanked with an antique razor strap - parallel lengths of leather and cotton strapping attached to a metal clasp, used for sharpening razors- that hung off the fireplace mantel.
It sounds, when I describe it, like child abuse both psychological and physical. but it totally was not. For me the pain wasn't as much the punishment as was the fear of it - my mom never spanked us, we would get in trouble and her response was that my dad would spank me when he got home. So it was never in the heat of anger, it was always very controlled. And it was only a few times.
I don't spank Angus, but I've swatted his behind with my hand a few times to get his attention when he was being nutty. Haven't done that in years.
Whoops, I'm going to have to get caught up! I've missed a bunch since I posted my last comment. I'm glad to see I sparked dialogue - that's always good!
Donna, in response to your question:
Don't feel like I'm challenging you to explain your work environment nay further, I don't want you to be concerned about being outed or anything, but I think in this economic climate people with jobs are feeling pressured to hang on to them at any expense.
The boss that said this makes somewhere between $200k and $300k per year and typically gets 100% of salary as a bonus each year. One of my other bosses, as I think I've mentioned on here before, got a $75k signing bonus just for agreeing to work for my company a few months ago. I do not work in architecture at the moment - after getting laid off, I couldn't find an arch gig, didn't feel like competing with 300+ applicants for un-steady jobs with 1/2 the salary I'd been making, and seriously needed a break from the stress of architecture - BUT, I do not work in the financial services industry, or in law or medicine or anything else that you'd expect to command high salaries. My boss is not an executive, just a mid-level manager at a typical corporation. This is the non-99%. My boss cannot comprehend how someone might lose their job. My boss thinks that people are Occupy are dirty hippies who prefer complaining to working. My boss hears the words of Occupy and thinks its the sound of lazy complainers who didn't try hard enough like boss did.
Also, on a side note - I read something in a newspaper recently about how it is impossible for the boomer generation to understand the current student loan debt issue because they simply cannot comprehend how you might have done everything right, and literally picked the cheapest possible college path for yourself, AND worked a student job during school, and STILL come out of school with thousands of dollars of debt. The higher-ed paradigm has apparently shifted so much that the boomer generation literally can't comprehend the ramifications. So they tend to persist in assuming that a) only a fraction of students have student loan debt and b) those students have it because of poor financial comprehension. This is why we get so many asinine comments like "well you should have known you'd have the pay the money back!"
It doesn't help that a lot of the articles written about the student loan debt issue seem to showcase students with poor financial comprehension, instead of literally every single person I know who did not have a choice to pay for college except to take out loans, and fully understood they would have to be paid back.
Going back to TC's original purpose: a person has asked for help in choosing school for an MArch. This person has already "narrowed down" the list to eighteen schools, plus three safety schools.
Narrowed down to 21? How many freaking architecture schools do we have? And why?!
that is more than in all of canada! talk about keeping options open.
@ sarah yeah it is probably the thick skin that saved you the pain of your beatings. or possibly nice parents. i got no problem with beating adults (ref canadian parties above), but hitting kids i don't see as productive.
@manta that is nice bonus ! jerky comments from boss though. also shitty about the school debt. i think the answer is that everyone should go to school in canada. so why is tuition rising so much anyway? is it falling support/subsidies from govt or something else?
Sorry, Steven, I didn't see your post above. I didn't mean to get you steamed, but without understanding what they were doing out there, all I was seeing were tents. It looked like woodstock. Bad analogy since I know they aren't just hippies and bums. I'm sure I'm not the only one who didn't understand what was going on.
It seems in this country we have an attitude that the only people who protest are hippies. I don't know why the Tea Party protests were not categorized as such.
so why is tuition rising so much anyway? is it falling support/subsidies from govt or something else?
Our financial industry has been set up to make money off of failed loans. That's why banks give mortgages to people they know can't repay them, and why credit card companies love college kids even though they don't have income. Student loans are especially attractive because the debt can't be erased from bankruptcy and there are considerable regulations preventing refinancing. So the student loan companies go to the admissions office of the university and say "if you raise tuition a whole bunch we'll provide financing to your students." The admissions people like this because they get piles of money. The banks like this because they get piles of money. Noone gives a shit if the student pays back the note because that's not how banks make money, and the university is paid by the bank instead of the student.
The debt becomes an asset to the bank. The bank can use that asset to buy treasury bonds, micro transactions in the stock market, whatever. If the student paid off the debt, they wouldn't have that debt on their balance sheet to make money off. If someone can explain that a bit better I would appreciate it.
their hats of course. hippies and hipsters always get that part wrong when they head out protesting. also not being sponsored by the koch brothers. thats a big one, actually. if they aren't sending money and pens to make signs with you are probably a bum.
@ sarah, it is not so strange to be confused. the whole things is more of a happening than a protest - it's having an effect though. which is very cool. i was half expecting the whole thing to be shut down by now to be honest.
manta, the other big loan issue that I noticed nobody addressing is the timing of when they explain the loans. When I went to school, the ins and outs of student loans weren't explained until we were already on campus, already committed to going to a school and had rejected our other options. That doesn't seem right to me, if someone is truly supposed to factor that into their decision-making in the way the blamers suggest, that loan counseling should be moved up to the time when a school decision is made, instead of being held once students are already committed and moved in.
Curt, is that fr real? That sucks! I wondered why it cost so much, but figured it was more of a supply and demand thing. People want to go to college more than ever, so make them pay more than ever to keep the riff-raft out. Your model is evil! and Sneaky! Damn.
Yeah Erin that's a problem. Part of the issue for me, and I know for others as well, is that my university raised my cost of attendance while I was still in school. Once you've already invested a year or two years or whatever to a school and taken classes, you can't easily leave until you get your degree. If you transfer, you lose credits ( = lose $$), and if you simply leave without a degree the entire thing is a sunk cost. So they know they have you stuck there. Nobody EVER talks about this and it's a huge problem. As I recall, my 4th & 5th years of my B.Arch degree I had to suddenly drastically increase my loan amount in order to continue attending school. 1/2 of my student debt comes from those two years. ALSO, that increase amount was over the amount I was allowed to take out in federal student loans, so I had to take out a private student loan with MUCH higher interest rate & ridiculously onerous terms which was, COINCIDENTALLY, promoted by my university financial aid department itself which was (I realized later) somehow in cahoots with the private loan company.
I mean, how weird is it that you go to pay your tuition for the next year, and you're sitting in the financial aid office, and suddenly they're showing you a total amount that is higher than what you used to pay, and you're thinking "I have no way to pay this, and I need to finish this degree", and they're like, "welllllll as it happens, we have this Bank of American private loan agreement here that will cover the difference... just sign right here, that's right..."
It's a problem. That's why people are occupying everywhere (in my opinion), even if some people are unsure of the details. Perhaps the best thing that can come from this is, hopefully, the population gets educated. So if you can spare a day or two to learn everything you can about the economy from every source at your disposal, and either verify or refute my comment then it's a big win. After that you'll probably get pretty pissed off and tell you friends and neighbors and maybe even buy a blanket for your local occupier. So far it doesn't seem like the Obama administration, or the potential Cain administration, or potential Romney administration have any intention of actually fixing things (because they get piles of money).
Last week we learned that college tuition costs went up around 5 percent. This week, the Project on Student Debt reports that student debt went up by about the same amount.
AKA: students and their families evidently can only pay a certain amount for school. Therefore tuition goes up X percent, and (surprise!) student loans go up exactly that same percentage. Is the problem that students are not being smart with their money? Or is the problem that college costs too much? And if it costs too much, why is demand still high? Because the loan companies step in to artificially (and temporarily) allow students to "afford" it. The terms are seductive, the university & student loan company in partnership - it's a very symbiotic relationship.
By the way, that 5% increase was over ONE YEAR. AKA from last year to this year. 5% increase.
AND those numbers don't include for-profit colleges, the fastest growing segment of higher-ed, AND the portion of higher ed with the HIGHEST amount of student loan debt.
Part of the issue for me, and I know for others as well, is that my university raised my cost of attendance while I was still in school
exactly - by the time I finished undergrad it had almost doubled. I could have graduated debt free, but my scholarship never went up to match tuition and I couldn't find more sources to cover the rest of my costs (and my family was poor, so there was no way they could have covered the rest of tuition)- my entire debt was from my last two years of school - I'm lucky that it was entirely federal loans, but still...
If I didn't have that scholarship I would have joined the marines and done the GI Bill, but luckily I didn't because I now know that it's barely enough to cover cost of books.
An issue for me that I really didn't know how to address was that I chose a school based on my family's financial circumstances when I was in high school, which were really good. However, two years into my education the tech industry collapsed, and within a year both my parents' companies went under, and I was the only one in our family with a job (that made a total of $14k/year). And yeah, at that point I just had no clue what to do, all of the sudden I went from one of those people who didn't have to worry about loans to one of those who definitely did. I appealed my financial aid decisions the moment I had them in my hand, I stood in line to argue with people about why work-study wasn't going to do me any good since I already had a job that paid me more than work-study, I did everything I knew how to do, and I still had to take out every type of loan available—Perkins, Stafford (subsidized + unsubsidized), and private.
the increasing tuition issue has been covered by the chronicle of high ed numerous times. It mostly comes down to:
decreased state subsidies for public institutions (University of Michigan gets almost nothing from the state, and my school just got a 22% cut).
decreased federal assistance for students/institutions.
increased amenities as colleges compete with starbucks and pampered kids. all those huge fitness centers, single room dorms (I lived in a quad in the early 90s), fancy student centers, classroom technology, and all that other stuff costs $$$$$$$.
increased administration costs (total number of staff + higher compensation for top execs).
At the tier 1 research schools, research is getting more expensive too, so all those labs need to be subsidized by tuition if the external funding doesn't cover enough...
then there are the student loan kickback scandals.
I would say maybe it is time the NCARB take a long hard look at apprentiship as an avenue to Architectural Registration. You know you go get a job at the bottom of the ladder, work in an office for a number of years, and with your learning you work yourself up the ladder making an livelyhood, not inccurring debt and sit for the exam. If you pass it you become registered. Seems like a workable solution to me.
Snook, I worked with a guy who got his license that way. He was only allowed to practice in Texas, and although he was good at details and drafting, he wasn't very imaginative. This could've been just him, though.
Wow. Lot's going on here. I made a hundred bucks before 10 am yesterday. I got up at 2 am and shoveled snow at a strip mall and a 90 unit apartment complex.
And you know how I paid for school? I didn't have shit growing up. If I got $20 bucks from my grandpa, it went into an investment account (back when they made good returns) and it paid for my degree, housing, and then some. And it made me work that much harder than if I had gotten student loans. Now I have the freedom to tell bankers and employers to shove it, and that is what I do.
I'm only about 10% interested in the Occupy stuff myself.
I heard something that made a lot of sense yesterday, and helps me understand wealth disparity and globalization better, which is what the occupiers don't understand and so I will share here. On one hand, you have an accountant, who went to school and took a licensing exam to earn a nice salary, say $60-70k or something. And on the other hand, you have the CEO of Turbo Tax who banked $1.5 million last year. This is globalization and technology that make the disparities. We've seen athletes and celebrities doing this for ages. Same thing.
lots of folks go that route here in japan snook. it is perfectly common. the first office i worked at about 50% didn't have anything more than high school education and 15 years experience. i have tremendous respect for them, but it is not a route to particularly good architecture. after all, what office do you know that has time to teach design to its staff? that's why school is so important. after all the complaining is said and done, and said again, we all learned a lot in architecture school. we just ain't paid well for what we learned and it turns out the profession is more complicated than 5+ years can teach....
thanks barry, that is what i thought the answer would be. it's not just one issue but a big mess of stuff. the loan scandal sounds typical too. am so glad i went to school in canada.
right now i teach at private university in japan that is about 150 years old and the source of prime ministers and other well-healed folk, etc. tuition is considered expensive for japan, and we are facing cuts every year the national budget comes out (yes private schools also get govt money) so i guess it could become more expensive even, but our tuition is still only a third or less than in usa. in spite of the low cost somehow our architecture faculty has 2 pritzker winners (maki and sejima) on board and otherwise remains cool place to study. we don't have a lot of 3d printing equipment though. perhaps that is the difference...
or maybe it is just about valuing education as a nation. i am still amazed that people like perry run for president and he openly spouts about how education is a bad thing. and lots of people agree !
i'm not sure that the occupy folks 'don't understand', there is no there. i've read/heard the same, it makes sense, but i still fully support what the occupy folks are doing. there will be disparity, there will be rich and poor, and the protests aren't solely about resentment of that disparity. (if they were, that would give credence to those who accuse them of all being communists. the occupy movement is about unfairness - illegality, in a lot of cases. it's about who gets help in a crisis and who gets turned out. who gets a windfall, and who gets cut from the payrolls. globalization and scaling/corporatizing of products has its negative effects, sure. but it's not the full story.
On one hand, you have an accountant, who went to school and took a licensing exam to earn a nice salary, say $60-70k or something. And on the other hand, you have the CEO of Turbo Tax who banked $1.5 million last year. This is globalization and technology that make the disparities.
The key difference here is that Turbo Tax makes accountants redundant. While architecture has a creative aspect to it that's difficult to duplicate, engineering does not. And in some of the engineering and computer sciences fields, they are starting to feel what accountants, secretaries, archivists, administrative assistants et cetera have been feeling for two decades.
[Side note: The US is one of the only "advanced nations" where you can't receive social services directly through the internet to the central offices; e.g. applying for foodstamps, unemployment.]
Many often point fingers at immigrants for shrinking the labor pool on both sides of the pond. But it's not that immigrants are really taking up jobs, it's that we're losing job diversification and the number of jobs at a rate disproportionately larger than immigrants taking up other jobs.
We notice this most frequently in the blue collar realm where unions represent workers getting displaced by robots, mechanization and software. But no one protects the white collar realm. We don't have a visual comparison, a secretary's or accountant's version, of Detroit or the Rust Belt. Perhaps the only comparison one could really make, in the white collar realm, is the New York of the 1980s.
But let's say I attempt to retrain myself, if you actually need to, to become a web designer, a social media coordinator, a PHP programmer, an electronics engineer or whatever else is high in demand right now...
... how am I going to know that say WSYIWYG page editors won't actually replace webpage coders, that social media will have died or turned into Augmented Reality, that PHP won't become a dead programming language or that printed circuitry won't radically thin the amount of necessary electronics engineers?
The problem with the U.S. system is many companies have very high expectations for jobs that aren't frankly that hard to do or that difficult to pick up. And businesses, without social safety nets found elsewhere in the world, won't take that chance on hiring someone not 115% qualified for a position.
If the government, instead of paying out so much unemployment or changing the tax policy every 6 months, tried subsidizing people for their first 3 months on a job... I'm sure a lot of these "unqualified people" would surely end up finding meaningful work once they've acquired the basic skills to fulfill their job positions.
Fair enough Steven. But many occupiers want a windfall at someone else's expense (student loan forgiveness for instance), so why are they any better? And if it is about illegality, why aren't they protesting the legal system and government?
Sorry there-there but the accountant and turbo tax guy tale is just plain silly. It's the buggy maker and Henry Ford story all over again. You're missing the next step: financial institutions then take the $1.5M from Turbo guy and through fractional-reserve turn it into $150M, at which point half of the money is spent on derivatives, further half speculating Turbo tax stock going up, and the other half speculating their stock tanking. A win-win.
Through the whole process new money is created (mostly interest) and all of that new money ends up in pockets of investors. Now with more money in circulation, each dollar you have becomes worth slightly less. The value of labor stays the same while the cost of living increases. The wealth gap widens.
It has nothing to do with horse whip makers going out of business.
"...which is what the occupiers don't understand..."
Perhaps, but neither you nor your source of information are doing that much better :)
frustrated... i lost three different bids for salvaged laptop screens for my computer on e-bay. just don't want to cave in to planned obsolescence. these fuckers (e-bay monopolists) bid at the last second and keep outbidding me by a dollar. it is a computer parts jungle out there on e-bay. by the way, i am looking for a used screen for lenevo sl400, vxga 14.1". i know it is a cheapo computer but at least it works (though, now with an external screen) just trying to save meager few bucks instead of "why don't you just get a new laptop they are so cheap these days?"
just trying to solve little problems these days...
aww there-there. no ripping to shreds. Just three licks with a razor belt. Texas style!
Complete student loan forgiveness is silly, but partial loan and interest on loan forgiveness is not (IMHO). Issues presented by occupy are valid. Solutions are more than open to discussion. At least we are starting to finally have those discussions, so that's somethin'.
Orhan, just join us in 21st century already and get an iPad. So easy even a Turk can do it :)
Whew! Relief! I'm ok with consolidating loans and lowering interest rates too! But not forgiveness, maybe only in very, very rare circumstances. Since you are listening, what do you think of this? I have a stimulus plan: if you start and run a business and turn a profit for maybe 2-3 years and can earn a living from it and you hire at least one other person, you could get an interest free loan or grant to help you grow. This kind of plan would help us all out, both directly and indirectly, and wouldn't hurt anyone.
rusty, I would shout for pure joy if they forgave my student loan interest, or even just allowed me to refinance my grad school loans that are sitting at 6.55% interest down to the 2% my undergrad loans are sitting at.
there-there: "I have a stimulus plan: if you start and run a business and turn a profit for maybe 2-3 years and can earn a living from it and you hire at least one other person, you could get an interest free loan or grant to help you grow."
Won't work because financial institutions that prohibit students being given interest-free loans would never go for interest-free business loans.
Why aren't we giving interest free loans to students to begin with? (investment in future and all) Because these loans are huge cash cows. Status quo must be maintained at all cost (until the next recession triggered by student loan defaults).
I have a feeling your stimulus package is custom made for your particular interests. No? :)
rusto, it sure is tailored to me. It would have to be the government offering the loans or grants, of course. Being self employed is a sure fire way to cut yourself off from any and all access to credit, which is absurd. And I don't fit in any of the other groups that are supposed to get relief. I have lots of equity in my house that I can't access and I don't have student loans to get relief from.
I think we should cap public university tuition hikes at, say, 2% a year.
toast, sorry, what I'm saying is that I didn't have a fancy bike, or birthday parties or video games. I saw exactly 3 movies before I went to college. I was quite the square. Not saying you did have stuff. But yeah, my family invested money for me instead of spending it on chikin nuggets and arcade games.
instead of spending it on chikin nuggets and arcade games.
do you actually think this is why some people are poor? not because, for example, someone's parent got really sick and your family had to go live in a church-run flop house in a really shitty neighborhood because after they exhausted all their savings it was either pay for hospital bills or rent?
Thread Central
And to add to Donna's point about unions, "professionals" cannot form unions, only "workers" can form unions. When the laws around this were formed, this prevented price-fixing of professional fees, but now it allows owners to take advantage of employees who have full qualifications in their field because many of those professionals are still working for other people. Additionally, laws that allow employers not to pay overtime encourage them to make do with as few staff as possible, but to grossly overwork that staff.
sorry but 'seems like camping' is the kind of comment that makes steam come out of my ears. It's the kind of willfully blind belittlement that is most destructive to the efforts of those who have put their lives on hold, put themselves in a place with potential for arrest, beating, firing, cold, etc, in order to meke the voices of regular people cut through the well-funded media and political noise. i wish i believed it was just apathy, but it comes from the same place as 'occupy: a job' comments. disagreement, with the only way to make it go away being to try to ignore it, show disdain, make it seem petty and silly. obviously i admire these protests, for all the reasons mentioned above. I hope it continues to grow strong enough to have a real impact and defy the scorn that i've seen exhibited by those who don't agree.
I did not know all that about unions and professionals. Hmmm.
And Rusty, I had not seen that. It seems a bit odd, that the girl had the forethought to tape it, and at first I thought the mom was taking over just to end the beating, but then the dad came back anyway! While I'm fine with spanking, even with a belt, anything more than 3 licks is excessive. And anyone who has been spanked with a belt knows that it's more sound than actual pain. Still sucks. Yeah, that whole thing was just weird. I mean, 2004?! No computers?! Crazy.
"While I'm fine with spanking, even with a belt, anything more than 3 licks is excessive"
Well, in civilized parts of the world, mental and physical abuse is unacceptable. Especially for a family court judge.
Good thing I live in Texas where we cheer punishment!
i was raised more redkneck than george bush in his dreamy orgasmic farm fantasty but even us hillbillies larned not to hit our chillins. tales of gramma's wooden spoon however are still kinda funny to listen to (but not to practice, cuz that's just child abuse).
on a sidenote, as a person who was raised with occasional licks of the belt i can tell you it hurt like the bejeezus
Maybe I just have tough skin. My students did say I as a Hard-Ass. We only spank Abram in extreme cases, where immediate and sever action is needed. Otherwise, it just doesn't work with him. He learned too early that spankings were quick and easy, and would chose a spanking over standing in the corner, so we nixed it for the most part. But no spoons (those DO hurt), only hands.
oof, don't spank your kids, nice american folks!! you're supposed to be a beacon of enlightenment for the rest of the world...and as sarah's kid wisely shows us, it never really works.
i got my share back in the old country when i made my dad real mad, but eventually learned to manipulate him by holding out until he was the one who felt bad about it...then he realized it was far more effective to not let me watch tv...
my rear was "warmed" a few times as a child but not often and it wasn't the punishment i disliked most... as a parent i don't think I would ever hit my child though.
night night.
I was spanked with an antique razor strap - parallel lengths of leather and cotton strapping attached to a metal clasp, used for sharpening razors- that hung off the fireplace mantel.
It sounds, when I describe it, like child abuse both psychological and physical. but it totally was not. For me the pain wasn't as much the punishment as was the fear of it - my mom never spanked us, we would get in trouble and her response was that my dad would spank me when he got home. So it was never in the heat of anger, it was always very controlled. And it was only a few times.
I don't spank Angus, but I've swatted his behind with my hand a few times to get his attention when he was being nutty. Haven't done that in years.
Whoops, I'm going to have to get caught up! I've missed a bunch since I posted my last comment. I'm glad to see I sparked dialogue - that's always good!
Donna, in response to your question:
Don't feel like I'm challenging you to explain your work environment nay further, I don't want you to be concerned about being outed or anything, but I think in this economic climate people with jobs are feeling pressured to hang on to them at any expense.
The boss that said this makes somewhere between $200k and $300k per year and typically gets 100% of salary as a bonus each year. One of my other bosses, as I think I've mentioned on here before, got a $75k signing bonus just for agreeing to work for my company a few months ago. I do not work in architecture at the moment - after getting laid off, I couldn't find an arch gig, didn't feel like competing with 300+ applicants for un-steady jobs with 1/2 the salary I'd been making, and seriously needed a break from the stress of architecture - BUT, I do not work in the financial services industry, or in law or medicine or anything else that you'd expect to command high salaries. My boss is not an executive, just a mid-level manager at a typical corporation. This is the non-99%. My boss cannot comprehend how someone might lose their job. My boss thinks that people are Occupy are dirty hippies who prefer complaining to working. My boss hears the words of Occupy and thinks its the sound of lazy complainers who didn't try hard enough like boss did.
Also, on a side note - I read something in a newspaper recently about how it is impossible for the boomer generation to understand the current student loan debt issue because they simply cannot comprehend how you might have done everything right, and literally picked the cheapest possible college path for yourself, AND worked a student job during school, and STILL come out of school with thousands of dollars of debt. The higher-ed paradigm has apparently shifted so much that the boomer generation literally can't comprehend the ramifications. So they tend to persist in assuming that a) only a fraction of students have student loan debt and b) those students have it because of poor financial comprehension. This is why we get so many asinine comments like "well you should have known you'd have the pay the money back!"
It doesn't help that a lot of the articles written about the student loan debt issue seem to showcase students with poor financial comprehension, instead of literally every single person I know who did not have a choice to pay for college except to take out loans, and fully understood they would have to be paid back.
Going back to TC's original purpose: a person has asked for help in choosing school for an MArch. This person has already "narrowed down" the list to eighteen schools, plus three safety schools.
Narrowed down to 21? How many freaking architecture schools do we have? And why?!
that is more than in all of canada! talk about keeping options open.
@ sarah yeah it is probably the thick skin that saved you the pain of your beatings. or possibly nice parents. i got no problem with beating adults (ref canadian parties above), but hitting kids i don't see as productive.
@manta that is nice bonus ! jerky comments from boss though. also shitty about the school debt. i think the answer is that everyone should go to school in canada. so why is tuition rising so much anyway? is it falling support/subsidies from govt or something else?
Sorry, Steven, I didn't see your post above. I didn't mean to get you steamed, but without understanding what they were doing out there, all I was seeing were tents. It looked like woodstock. Bad analogy since I know they aren't just hippies and bums. I'm sure I'm not the only one who didn't understand what was going on.
It seems in this country we have an attitude that the only people who protest are hippies. I don't know why the Tea Party protests were not categorized as such.
so why is tuition rising so much anyway? is it falling support/subsidies from govt or something else?
Our financial industry has been set up to make money off of failed loans. That's why banks give mortgages to people they know can't repay them, and why credit card companies love college kids even though they don't have income. Student loans are especially attractive because the debt can't be erased from bankruptcy and there are considerable regulations preventing refinancing. So the student loan companies go to the admissions office of the university and say "if you raise tuition a whole bunch we'll provide financing to your students." The admissions people like this because they get piles of money. The banks like this because they get piles of money. Noone gives a shit if the student pays back the note because that's not how banks make money, and the university is paid by the bank instead of the student.
The debt becomes an asset to the bank. The bank can use that asset to buy treasury bonds, micro transactions in the stock market, whatever. If the student paid off the debt, they wouldn't have that debt on their balance sheet to make money off. If someone can explain that a bit better I would appreciate it.
their hats of course. hippies and hipsters always get that part wrong when they head out protesting. also not being sponsored by the koch brothers. thats a big one, actually. if they aren't sending money and pens to make signs with you are probably a bum.
@ sarah, it is not so strange to be confused. the whole things is more of a happening than a protest - it's having an effect though. which is very cool. i was half expecting the whole thing to be shut down by now to be honest.
manta, the other big loan issue that I noticed nobody addressing is the timing of when they explain the loans. When I went to school, the ins and outs of student loans weren't explained until we were already on campus, already committed to going to a school and had rejected our other options. That doesn't seem right to me, if someone is truly supposed to factor that into their decision-making in the way the blamers suggest, that loan counseling should be moved up to the time when a school decision is made, instead of being held once students are already committed and moved in.
Curt, is that fr real? That sucks! I wondered why it cost so much, but figured it was more of a supply and demand thing. People want to go to college more than ever, so make them pay more than ever to keep the riff-raft out. Your model is evil! and Sneaky! Damn.
Yeah Erin that's a problem. Part of the issue for me, and I know for others as well, is that my university raised my cost of attendance while I was still in school. Once you've already invested a year or two years or whatever to a school and taken classes, you can't easily leave until you get your degree. If you transfer, you lose credits ( = lose $$), and if you simply leave without a degree the entire thing is a sunk cost. So they know they have you stuck there. Nobody EVER talks about this and it's a huge problem. As I recall, my 4th & 5th years of my B.Arch degree I had to suddenly drastically increase my loan amount in order to continue attending school. 1/2 of my student debt comes from those two years. ALSO, that increase amount was over the amount I was allowed to take out in federal student loans, so I had to take out a private student loan with MUCH higher interest rate & ridiculously onerous terms which was, COINCIDENTALLY, promoted by my university financial aid department itself which was (I realized later) somehow in cahoots with the private loan company.
I mean, how weird is it that you go to pay your tuition for the next year, and you're sitting in the financial aid office, and suddenly they're showing you a total amount that is higher than what you used to pay, and you're thinking "I have no way to pay this, and I need to finish this degree", and they're like, "welllllll as it happens, we have this Bank of American private loan agreement here that will cover the difference... just sign right here, that's right..."
Sarah,
It's a problem. That's why people are occupying everywhere (in my opinion), even if some people are unsure of the details. Perhaps the best thing that can come from this is, hopefully, the population gets educated. So if you can spare a day or two to learn everything you can about the economy from every source at your disposal, and either verify or refute my comment then it's a big win. After that you'll probably get pretty pissed off and tell you friends and neighbors and maybe even buy a blanket for your local occupier. So far it doesn't seem like the Obama administration, or the potential Cain administration, or potential Romney administration have any intention of actually fixing things (because they get piles of money).
yes, what Curt is describing is true & documented.
Great example, from today's NPR:
Last week we learned that college tuition costs went up around 5 percent. This week, the Project on Student Debt reports that student debt went up by about the same amount.
AKA: students and their families evidently can only pay a certain amount for school. Therefore tuition goes up X percent, and (surprise!) student loans go up exactly that same percentage. Is the problem that students are not being smart with their money? Or is the problem that college costs too much? And if it costs too much, why is demand still high? Because the loan companies step in to artificially (and temporarily) allow students to "afford" it. The terms are seductive, the university & student loan company in partnership - it's a very symbiotic relationship.
By the way, that 5% increase was over ONE YEAR. AKA from last year to this year. 5% increase.
AND those numbers don't include for-profit colleges, the fastest growing segment of higher-ed, AND the portion of higher ed with the HIGHEST amount of student loan debt.
Part of the issue for me, and I know for others as well, is that my university raised my cost of attendance while I was still in school
exactly - by the time I finished undergrad it had almost doubled. I could have graduated debt free, but my scholarship never went up to match tuition and I couldn't find more sources to cover the rest of my costs (and my family was poor, so there was no way they could have covered the rest of tuition)- my entire debt was from my last two years of school - I'm lucky that it was entirely federal loans, but still...
If I didn't have that scholarship I would have joined the marines and done the GI Bill, but luckily I didn't because I now know that it's barely enough to cover cost of books.
An issue for me that I really didn't know how to address was that I chose a school based on my family's financial circumstances when I was in high school, which were really good. However, two years into my education the tech industry collapsed, and within a year both my parents' companies went under, and I was the only one in our family with a job (that made a total of $14k/year). And yeah, at that point I just had no clue what to do, all of the sudden I went from one of those people who didn't have to worry about loans to one of those who definitely did. I appealed my financial aid decisions the moment I had them in my hand, I stood in line to argue with people about why work-study wasn't going to do me any good since I already had a job that paid me more than work-study, I did everything I knew how to do, and I still had to take out every type of loan available—Perkins, Stafford (subsidized + unsubsidized), and private.
the increasing tuition issue has been covered by the chronicle of high ed numerous times. It mostly comes down to:
I would say maybe it is time the NCARB take a long hard look at apprentiship as an avenue to Architectural Registration. You know you go get a job at the bottom of the ladder, work in an office for a number of years, and with your learning you work yourself up the ladder making an livelyhood, not inccurring debt and sit for the exam. If you pass it you become registered. Seems like a workable solution to me.
apprenticeships! can we bring back drafting smocks?
Snook, I worked with a guy who got his license that way. He was only allowed to practice in Texas, and although he was good at details and drafting, he wasn't very imaginative. This could've been just him, though.
Wow. Lot's going on here. I made a hundred bucks before 10 am yesterday. I got up at 2 am and shoveled snow at a strip mall and a 90 unit apartment complex.
And you know how I paid for school? I didn't have shit growing up. If I got $20 bucks from my grandpa, it went into an investment account (back when they made good returns) and it paid for my degree, housing, and then some. And it made me work that much harder than if I had gotten student loans. Now I have the freedom to tell bankers and employers to shove it, and that is what I do.
I'm only about 10% interested in the Occupy stuff myself.
I heard something that made a lot of sense yesterday, and helps me understand wealth disparity and globalization better, which is what the occupiers don't understand and so I will share here. On one hand, you have an accountant, who went to school and took a licensing exam to earn a nice salary, say $60-70k or something. And on the other hand, you have the CEO of Turbo Tax who banked $1.5 million last year. This is globalization and technology that make the disparities. We've seen athletes and celebrities doing this for ages. Same thing.
lots of folks go that route here in japan snook. it is perfectly common. the first office i worked at about 50% didn't have anything more than high school education and 15 years experience. i have tremendous respect for them, but it is not a route to particularly good architecture. after all, what office do you know that has time to teach design to its staff? that's why school is so important. after all the complaining is said and done, and said again, we all learned a lot in architecture school. we just ain't paid well for what we learned and it turns out the profession is more complicated than 5+ years can teach....
thanks barry, that is what i thought the answer would be. it's not just one issue but a big mess of stuff. the loan scandal sounds typical too. am so glad i went to school in canada.
right now i teach at private university in japan that is about 150 years old and the source of prime ministers and other well-healed folk, etc. tuition is considered expensive for japan, and we are facing cuts every year the national budget comes out (yes private schools also get govt money) so i guess it could become more expensive even, but our tuition is still only a third or less than in usa. in spite of the low cost somehow our architecture faculty has 2 pritzker winners (maki and sejima) on board and otherwise remains cool place to study. we don't have a lot of 3d printing equipment though. perhaps that is the difference...
or maybe it is just about valuing education as a nation. i am still amazed that people like perry run for president and he openly spouts about how education is a bad thing. and lots of people agree !
i'm not sure that the occupy folks 'don't understand', there is no there. i've read/heard the same, it makes sense, but i still fully support what the occupy folks are doing. there will be disparity, there will be rich and poor, and the protests aren't solely about resentment of that disparity. (if they were, that would give credence to those who accuse them of all being communists. the occupy movement is about unfairness - illegality, in a lot of cases. it's about who gets help in a crisis and who gets turned out. who gets a windfall, and who gets cut from the payrolls. globalization and scaling/corporatizing of products has its negative effects, sure. but it's not the full story.
On one hand, you have an accountant, who went to school and took a licensing exam to earn a nice salary, say $60-70k or something. And on the other hand, you have the CEO of Turbo Tax who banked $1.5 million last year. This is globalization and technology that make the disparities.
The key difference here is that Turbo Tax makes accountants redundant. While architecture has a creative aspect to it that's difficult to duplicate, engineering does not. And in some of the engineering and computer sciences fields, they are starting to feel what accountants, secretaries, archivists, administrative assistants et cetera have been feeling for two decades.
In the UK, unlike the US, they address redundancy (UK Social Services website). Yes, they will actually treat you like a human being and help you transition into a new job or field. Here's an article-slash-opinion-piece about the challenges of not a shrinking workforce but of a workforce shrinking in options.
[Side note: The US is one of the only "advanced nations" where you can't receive social services directly through the internet to the central offices; e.g. applying for foodstamps, unemployment.]
Many often point fingers at immigrants for shrinking the labor pool on both sides of the pond. But it's not that immigrants are really taking up jobs, it's that we're losing job diversification and the number of jobs at a rate disproportionately larger than immigrants taking up other jobs.
We notice this most frequently in the blue collar realm where unions represent workers getting displaced by robots, mechanization and software. But no one protects the white collar realm. We don't have a visual comparison, a secretary's or accountant's version, of Detroit or the Rust Belt. Perhaps the only comparison one could really make, in the white collar realm, is the New York of the 1980s.
But let's say I attempt to retrain myself, if you actually need to, to become a web designer, a social media coordinator, a PHP programmer, an electronics engineer or whatever else is high in demand right now...
... how am I going to know that say WSYIWYG page editors won't actually replace webpage coders, that social media will have died or turned into Augmented Reality, that PHP won't become a dead programming language or that printed circuitry won't radically thin the amount of necessary electronics engineers?
The problem with the U.S. system is many companies have very high expectations for jobs that aren't frankly that hard to do or that difficult to pick up. And businesses, without social safety nets found elsewhere in the world, won't take that chance on hiring someone not 115% qualified for a position.
If the government, instead of paying out so much unemployment or changing the tax policy every 6 months, tried subsidizing people for their first 3 months on a job... I'm sure a lot of these "unqualified people" would surely end up finding meaningful work once they've acquired the basic skills to fulfill their job positions.
Fair enough Steven. But many occupiers want a windfall at someone else's expense (student loan forgiveness for instance), so why are they any better? And if it is about illegality, why aren't they protesting the legal system and government?
Sorry there-there but the accountant and turbo tax guy tale is just plain silly. It's the buggy maker and Henry Ford story all over again. You're missing the next step: financial institutions then take the $1.5M from Turbo guy and through fractional-reserve turn it into $150M, at which point half of the money is spent on derivatives, further half speculating Turbo tax stock going up, and the other half speculating their stock tanking. A win-win.
Through the whole process new money is created (mostly interest) and all of that new money ends up in pockets of investors. Now with more money in circulation, each dollar you have becomes worth slightly less. The value of labor stays the same while the cost of living increases. The wealth gap widens.
It has nothing to do with horse whip makers going out of business.
"...which is what the occupiers don't understand..."
Perhaps, but neither you nor your source of information are doing that much better :)
frustrated... i lost three different bids for salvaged laptop screens for my computer on e-bay. just don't want to cave in to planned obsolescence. these fuckers (e-bay monopolists) bid at the last second and keep outbidding me by a dollar. it is a computer parts jungle out there on e-bay. by the way, i am looking for a used screen for lenevo sl400, vxga 14.1". i know it is a cheapo computer but at least it works (though, now with an external screen) just trying to save meager few bucks instead of "why don't you just get a new laptop they are so cheap these days?"
just trying to solve little problems these days...
I hear ya rusty, my dear friend. Down with derivatives, shorting stocks and quantitative easing. That is the 10% of the movement I can get behind.
(bracing for next assault from you, because no doubt I said something you are going to rip to shreds)
aww there-there. no ripping to shreds. Just three licks with a razor belt. Texas style!
Complete student loan forgiveness is silly, but partial loan and interest on loan forgiveness is not (IMHO). Issues presented by occupy are valid. Solutions are more than open to discussion. At least we are starting to finally have those discussions, so that's somethin'.
Orhan, just join us in 21st century already and get an iPad. So easy even a Turk can do it :)
Whew! Relief! I'm ok with consolidating loans and lowering interest rates too! But not forgiveness, maybe only in very, very rare circumstances. Since you are listening, what do you think of this? I have a stimulus plan: if you start and run a business and turn a profit for maybe 2-3 years and can earn a living from it and you hire at least one other person, you could get an interest free loan or grant to help you grow. This kind of plan would help us all out, both directly and indirectly, and wouldn't hurt anyone.
rusty, I would shout for pure joy if they forgave my student loan interest, or even just allowed me to refinance my grad school loans that are sitting at 6.55% interest down to the 2% my undergrad loans are sitting at.
Erin, why can't you refinance?
I can, but it won't lower the interest rate at all.
you are right about turks rustola, but how i-pad matches my telephone worries me..
...off to 100$ pp sci arc alumni event which i get in free. i'll just keep asking there about the screen if anybody has one..
there-there: "I have a stimulus plan: if you start and run a business and turn a profit for maybe 2-3 years and can earn a living from it and you hire at least one other person, you could get an interest free loan or grant to help you grow."
Won't work because financial institutions that prohibit students being given interest-free loans would never go for interest-free business loans.
Why aren't we giving interest free loans to students to begin with? (investment in future and all) Because these loans are huge cash cows. Status quo must be maintained at all cost (until the next recession triggered by student loan defaults).
I have a feeling your stimulus package is custom made for your particular interests. No? :)
@there: And you know how I paid for school? I didn't have shit growing up.
wait - you had a grandpa giving you money to invest (and knew enough to invest this money)! not all of us were this lucky. you had help.
rusto, it sure is tailored to me. It would have to be the government offering the loans or grants, of course. Being self employed is a sure fire way to cut yourself off from any and all access to credit, which is absurd. And I don't fit in any of the other groups that are supposed to get relief. I have lots of equity in my house that I can't access and I don't have student loans to get relief from.
I think we should cap public university tuition hikes at, say, 2% a year.
toast, sorry, what I'm saying is that I didn't have a fancy bike, or birthday parties or video games. I saw exactly 3 movies before I went to college. I was quite the square. Not saying you did have stuff. But yeah, my family invested money for me instead of spending it on chikin nuggets and arcade games.
instead of spending it on chikin nuggets and arcade games.
do you actually think this is why some people are poor? not because, for example, someone's parent got really sick and your family had to go live in a church-run flop house in a really shitty neighborhood because after they exhausted all their savings it was either pay for hospital bills or rent?
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