I think there that for many (if not most) in this country school isn't just about getting the highest economic returns. It's also a rite of passage and a status symbol one can't do without. Frankly, if I hadn't gone to college and then graduate school in some field, at some set of "acceptable" schools, I would be something of a pariah amongst my neighbors, friends and family. Heck, in my neighborhood growing up, if you weren't a PhD who'd started his own company and took it public, a medical doctor, a real estate exec with an MBA, or a university professor, you were pretty much unwelcome. Sure, you can run the numbers and probably figure out that spending, in today's dollars, $300k or $400k in today's dollars in combined fees, expenses and lost opportunity costs, on a couple of degrees, doesn't pencil out, and still decide to do it. Fortunately, I managed to do it without any debt, but not everybody is that lucky. My point is, the school debt question a little more complicated than just doing the numbers...
trace, i think your views on education are a bit myopic. if every decision we made about our education were based on "return on investment," the world would be a very sad place indeed. quite frankly, most mba's in my opinion offer this world very little while most liberal arts majors give back much more. now to me, that's roi.
How so? I never said that was the only factor to consider. Far from it. But there is 0, zero, discussion about financial repercussions to the choices we make. This goes all the way to credit cards, borrowing for a car, tv, or whatever.
I am totally for a well rounded education, but there's no reason that there can't be more thought put into it. No one showed me, sat me down and explained, or whatever, when I was in hs. I am thankful I have parents that never spent beyond their means, that rubbed off on me (so no car payments, credit card bills going more than a month, etc.). Most aren't that fortunate.
Our society needs more balance. And yes, some of that requires some financial education (look at the mess we are in now!). Sadly, our world does require money for everything. If you choose to prioritize something else, that's your choice, but it should be an educated one, not one based on idealistic visions of grandeur (like most of us architect's entered into in school).
My point was based on the context of this discussion. "I can't afford the dream". Well, then, there's something wrong with the dream.
$250,000? Wow.....An Ivy League education isn't going to be paid off anytime soon with a degree in architecture. It's an oxymoron because you would expect the best educated to come out of the "best schools" which most people equate with Ivy League. I never have equated best with Ivy, but my debt is still in the high 70k.
But there is 0, zero, discussion about financial repercussions to the choices we make.
You called it, trace. I showed my ProPractice students last semester how a small-ish remodel project of 6-8 months duration would net them about $9,000 in fee - not profit, just fee - and they were quite a bit boggled. No one in 5-6 years of architecture school had ever showed them the numbers!
I called my mother this afternoon after reading this thread and thanked her. It was she, and she alone, who taught me to understand money and its relatiohship to freedom. She especially taught me to understand the crippling effects of debt.
Is it really true that by allowing costs if education to become prohibitively expensive except for the independently wealthy or the select few who are able to obtain scholarships that we are building the strongest student bodies, equipping our youth with the best education?
I actually think the opposite is true... These expensive schools are not getting the best and the brightest but instead are getting those who can afford the price tag or who are willing to be ravaged by debt... It actually means our schools are less competitive, and in fact there is little incentive for schools to compete for the best students, but rather to accept those who can afford the bill...
Wouldn't it be really more competitive to make schools accessible to all, with whatever positions are available, and let individuals compete on performance? Eliminate the air of entitlement that comes with having footed an enormous bill? I think this is what makes education work: take hard work to get into school, and make the school program itself more competitive... Higher education shouldn't be about making money for the institution, it should be about graduating students who are most competitive and ready for careers...
bRink - that's why Harvard and others ask for your parent's financial info. They smart folks over there!
Also good points. How many of us turned down ivy educations? I only know of 2 people (in my class) that chose that path, the rest of us chose public.
And *gasp* what you are suggesting sounds like...like...socialism!! God forbid anything be accessible to all!
DS - good for you! I had big problems with my propractice (although, admittedly, I found a way to learn something valuable) class. Totally a waste of time. I hope to be able to share some knowledge someday.
Trace says that there is zero talk about financial repercussions, at the high school level, well guess what parents do talk to their children, that's why I joined the military, and studied hard for scholarships, I did what I had to do to pay for my education. As a high school student I never expected those teachers to talk to me about personal finance, but they actually did, in Business 101, Economics, I don't know if that has changed ? Thought those were mandatory classes in all high schools. I'm just wondering how true trace's claims are, because we all worry about finances, after all money is what makes this world go round, or are you referring to a specific demographic or group of people? Even then how can you prove this claim that every last one of them did not get the talk about money from their parents , because you would be talking about millions of people trace. And as for Donna, well good job showing your students a little about fees and net profit, thats the kind of thing you learn if you minor in construction management, not to mention during the time we all go through IDP, or better yet you teach yourself.
Try not to sound so gloomy people. Some of us are still optimistic, and hopeful, so cool of this end of the world gibberish its not helping anyone.
It's not gloom and doom to think how things should work better... It's not all bad and I totally respect that you paid for your own education, and the sacrifices you made to make that happen are admirable, but the system could be better... Wouldn't be commenting on the situation if I didn't care about how problems could be fixed... Isn't that about progress? Just a different kind of optimism...
thats a fair assesment bRink, the system is what is the problem, so, fingers can get pointed all around it isn't as simple as saying that there are students that don't know anything about financial management, I mean just think about college tuition it has sky rocketed many times ahead of inflation, I remember in college all the European students, told me they didn't have to pay thousands to go to college it is free, how are they doing it in Europe? I do know its competitive though, but if they get into college its a free ride for all of them, if we as students, or customers of college, if we really want to change this problem, we need to start protesting right now, I'm talking on a scale that would make the 1960's protests seem like a family picnic in terms of size, but will this happen? we need to start asking college reps tough questions. Why do we have to pay over a hundred grand to go to Architecture college? I mean if we think about it, what is the only factor that changes in our courses for Architecture? it is Technology. Architecture offices are the ones making demands of college, they want college to prepare us to be computer monkeys.
Basically if we really wanted to change the system we would have to hang a lot of people by the co ho nes.
I am actually pretty optimistic - I think this recent financial mess, particularly the personal debt people took one, will be a long term wake up call. This is also true of education as people realize that they can't just simply make monthly payments and forget about it.
But yeah, I don't know many that understand the financial world. My parents encouraged me to learn about things, but I didn't learn a thing, not one single thing, from my high school (which was considered a good school, nor did I learn a single financial thing from my 7 years in architecture schooling, that took a minor in business and stacks of books).
I just see no reason why one should not understand how the business world works early in life. Maybe they are teaching it in places that I don't know of, but from how the country has behaved I'd find that hard to believe.
The changes will have to come from the students, talking with their dollars. New schools will keep emerging, via online and flexible programs, and that will put pressure on the established. Already, we are seeing online degrees offered by prestigious schools, with some not ever requiring the same requirements for admission.
If there is one positive to this is that dollars will change things, fairly quickly, and the new, in demand solutions, will prosper.
So yes, I am positive, like bRink notes. Positive that things will change and that there will be a new productivity that enables the younger people to be empowered to not only pursue what they want, but to make a living doing it.
"After the passage of the bankruptcy reform bill of 2005, student loans are not wiped clean during bankruptcy. This provided a risk free loan for the lender, but interest rates remained high, averaging 7% a year."
They have you by the balls. Banks don't care how much tuition costs. Schools have a risk free incentive to raise the cost. I see no positive change until the loophole in the (hopefully well meaning) law is patched.
"For those who are disabled, there is also the possibility of 100% loan discharge if you meet the requirements. Due to changes made by the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, it will become much easier to get one of these discharges as of July 1, 2010."
There! Get your Lamborghini of Arch. degrees, and then throw yourself down the stairs. Act brain-dead for a few years (internship at Steven Holl's office), and you're all set.
Trace,
you sound like a pissed of palin supporter. you say you optimistic? then you go on to say that you are optimistic that this will be a wake up call? something about how people shouldnt make payments and forget about i? and you never learned anything about business? well atleast now you are being more honest, but you are not a sociologist or an economist, how can you go on and assume things about millions of people? even in architecture as and Architect we work based on fact not assumptions. well there are some that assume but those are bad architects.
Goddammit DonQuixote. Was your last post dripping with sarcasm? I really can't tell. It's either that or really poor reading comprehension. Probably too much late night moonshine :)
i'm tired too, bottom line is we architecture people need to hear some good news not some doom and gloom prophet notions. Give us some good news people!
I was one of the pay as you go kids. It took me twice as long, no doubt about it. It took 3 years working in kitchens to pay for first arch. degree, then about 6 years in architecture offices to pay for m.arch. phd was a scholarship. i was 38 when i finished that. my colleagues were in their late 20's. My schooling was cheap though because canada believes in education (i guess). i can't imagine doing it at all if i lived in the usa...especially after hearing the numbers thrown about in this thread. sheesh.
that is cool donna. our pro-practice class was absolutely and profoundly useless.
steelstuds, I rank Steven Holl in my top 5 favorite/best living architects, but this Act brain-dead for a few years (internship at Steven Holl's office), still made me laugh.
Don Quixote, are you a recent grad? Student? 15-year professional?
Good news is this: the world is changing fast for everyone, which means there are all kinds of unpredictable opportunities coming along. I say unpredictable because I have never been one to easily read a trend and foresee what an early response should be: but young grads now, who have never known a world without the internet, will be able to knock my old butt out of the way pretty easily and jump on those trends.
Some people (like trace) were able to do that years ago, and I imagine trace is still pretty well positioned to keep going even now. As a panel discussion of practitioners we had in my ProPractice class last week said: the profession needs new blood, and the older practitioners KNOW and WANT that new blood. Young people have a lot to teach the older guard about how the world of today is going to work. Software is part of it, but it's also the mindset that comes with that software knowledge - an openness to new things, a willingness to grapple with complex ways of thinking. (As a mid-career professional who hasn't even used Autocad since R2002, let alone any 3D software, I see myself stuck in the tar pits while you young mammals scurry around me gleefully!) Software and the internet means you don't in any way need all the trappings of an office to start making/doing things. You can just get dirty out in the world and do it - and unlike 50 years ago, the world is very open to new young ideas, even in the "professional" realm.
Haha, am I angry? I knew I needed to drink less coffee and more alcohol! Still working on acquiring that taste for scotch, now that I think about it...
Palin supporter?! Whoa there big fella!! Now we are going a little crazy. I'll be moving to Canada, or perhaps somewhere in the Caribbean, if that happens!
A shake up, an adjustment, leading to overall improvements is what I forecast. Is that not optimistic? I like to think all bad things, business wise or whatever, are opportunities for learning and emerging with new expertise and focus. The dot com bust, after all, is what prompted me to finally leave the traditional career path and I look at that as a positive outcome (after the messy disaster of a recession).
Live and learn, adjust and grow....or I could just really drink a lot more and pretend nothing has happened.
"Stock futures rose modestly after a big jump in new home construction added more optimism that the economy will not fall back into recession."
"The Commerce Department said construction of new homes and apartments jumped 10.5 percent last month. Economists were expecting a rise of less than 1 percent."
is that right? I'll give that a shot. I did have one Scotch that was good (an expensive one) and keep telling myself there's a reason so many covet it (although I, as yet, fail to see why).
Elmer T. Lee is my current favorite bourbon; thanks to the always-reliable Steven Ward for turning me on to it!
Back to topic. In a recession, liquor stores never take a hit - people still manage to pay for their booze, they just turn to cheaper brands!
So young unemployed architects, get to know your local liquor retailers and put bugs in their ears about doing some remodeling in the store. Surely you have experience with their product from which to draw, no? ;-)
well thanks for being a little positive Trace, sorry if you were insulted, looks like donna got upset and changed the topic on this thread from what it was to asking me about my experience level, oh and her panel in a college got together and they have decided what the profession of architecture needs something about new blood, and then goes on to talk about how technology is changing everything, I think her rhetoric sounds like it needs to find a Zaha Hadid or a Rem thread at the very least,or oh and now it has shifted to marijuana, nice job Donna.
Ps. I was in the military and could probably drink atleast one of you ladies under the table.
New Archinect v.3.0 will work on military time, and any straying away from the topic will be considered treason. Also, everyone will need permission to speak, with women not allowed to speak at all.
Also, for those who was not in the military, pay more respect to those who was in the military. OK!?
Student debt is kind of like insulation in a wall if code is R 20 why on earth would you bother with designing a R35 wall. Why would you get your student loans up to $100k when you'd never pay if off or ever have a job that paid well enough to pay off... mean time with interest it would climb $150K.
Sorry just came out of a seminar on residential insulation types with a speaker who spent wa-a-a-a-ay to much time looking a insulation options that no client would ever pay for.
DonQ, sorry to offend, I asked your experience level because you're asking for optimism and frankly, I'm worried about the young people in our field who are right now facing an incredibly dispiriting reality. Incredibly dispiriting. I graduated into the 90-91 recession which sucked but was a walk in the park compared to what's happening right now.
What's happening right now is, in a nutshell: traditional opportunities are nearly non-existent, but untapped opportunities are vast. You just need to figure out where those untapped opportunities are, and I for one am not good at it, though I'd say small, flexible, extremely low overhead designers will still be able to find little jobs to help build a portfolio of very non-traditional work. See former architect now entrepreneurs here, here, here, here, and here. And these groups are all at least a year or two old by now, practically ancient!
And as a 25 year veteran of this field I naturally perk up when the talk turns to alcohol. Sad truth, but we're thankful for the small pleasures in life.
no worries Donna,
I totally get the situation we are in, after all I am unemployed. We all heard of the lost generation of the 90's during college, never thought id would be like that again, but here we are. Its a real shit storm out here, or as we say in the military Situation FUBAR. I just thought that pointing the finger at students who borrowed money for college and didn't foresee this economic disaster, was a little too simplistic.
Well I'd know how to avoid getting into this kind of situation, and to do that, would probably require an Einsteinean like mind in economics and a whole lot of other professions to analyze numbers which would probably cause any of us to sign up for Alcoholics Anonymous before we came up with an exact answer. So I guess what I am saying is lets move forward and come up with solutions rather than point the finger at each other. Is that a fair thing to say?
Like I told Trace if we really wanted to radically change how much college costs we would have to hang a lot of people by the Co ho nes, all the way from the software companies, employers, to college deans. I'm ready to sign up any time you guys are.
Ps. Steel studs take it easy with that medicated marijuana.
Has anyone here paid their Master with personal savings?
I am thinking about quitting my job next summer and enroll in University again. After 4 years of experience and 3 offices, I definitely hate working in design environment. Planning to pursue Construction/Project Management or R.E. education and jump the boat.
It is a very hard decision whether to decide to spend such a big amount of money in a Master's degree + cost of living for 1 year + opportunity cost (no earnings for 1 year) + praying to get a job just after graduation and quitting a relatively well-paid job with the uncertainty of the getting something after graduation.
This, imho, is the largest problem. How can anyone justify paying 50k for an education in history?! There are many paths like this, but no one pulls the prospective student aside and says "you know, unless your folks can pay the bill without blinking, that's just stupid". No one.
My big point was that the young just aren't educated as to what is valuable later on. Getting an education today, early, is a significant boost in what they'll produce in a lifetime. In that case, some things are worth borrowing for, it just comes down to someone sitting the kids down and explaining it, understanding what is a good investment (career wise) and what is not.
Seriously?!? Seriously? Eat a bag of dicks.
This is why I tried to get banned from this forum. Didn't work!
The entire premise of your argument is based on an intangible concept of a value system that's so completely nonrigid, intangible and amorphic.
The value of knowledge is the sum of knowledge of current interest. Meaning, only what society at a given point in time finds tangible or interesting is of actual value in reference to the point of time.
This doesn't necessarily invalidate all knowledge or label all knowledge as valueless over a significant timeline. The concept is that value is timely rather than timeless.
To quote George Santayana-- "Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Those who get degrees in the humanities learn the humanities simply for the reason to learn the actions, reactions and consequences of past behavior. Is history tangible to today's economy? Absolutely if you're looking for case studies or similar situations that have already occurred in relation to situations that are about to occur.
The humanities have essentially been boiled down into 42 minute long serialized shows about World War II. Seriously? It's been almost 70 years. Do we constantly and consistently have to listen about one single war every single day for the rest of our lives? It was an important war but it was not a singular war or conflict. It was a combination of multiple conflicts with multiple ideological battles that has been essentially reduces down to this-- U.S.A. good, EVERYONE ELSE BAD.
Not to mention the completely inconvenient fact that we only won the Japanese part of the war. You know, we tend to over glamorize our participation without realizing that for everyone 1 person died in the war (including genocide), 2.2 sometime Russians died.
Not only that, all of the allies we had in the war immediately turned on us post war. China? Russia? Korea? Indochine? Wouldn't call that winning.
Now, you may think... what does this have to do with anything? It is to prove the point that, intellectually, only one frame of mind (USA RULZ) is of inherent interest and therefore value to most of us.
I mean... have any of you seriously studied the university system? Even if said study is reading 6 pages on Wikipedia? Universities stopped being noble places roughly 150 years ago.
But the reductio ad absurdum here is that knowledge is only as valuable as the value you place on it.
In the world of automobiles, NASCAR, ESPN, golf, shit architecture and a completely commercialized art industry... no one really has any value of the thousands of years of human history.
But, the eductio ad absurdum
I don't think anybody is arguing that education (much less architctural educational) is wholly or even primarily about the acquisition of knowledge. As I tried to point out in my post above, the social status component is a big factor... and a degree from Harvard has social value, like any other luxury good or brand name status symbol one might choose to purchase. This value is above and beyond any utilitarian value increment a Harvard education gives you, over, say an RPI education.
another way to look at it. One might believe that there is a greater practical value to the firm in hiring an RPI grad over a Harvard grad (having had nothing but good experience with RPI arch grads.. seriously, and mixed experience, frankly, wiwth GSD grads). In fact, many people (who don't have Harvard degrees themselves) are probably of the same mindset. Or, at the very least, it's probably safe to say that an RPI-educated architect is NO LESS competent than a Harvard-educated one, all other factors being equal. I also know of no employer not himself educated at Harvard who would pay more for a Harvard grad over an RPI grad, again, all other factors being equal (and vice versa for an employer educated at RPI).
And yet, people still covet a Harvard degree on their resumes more than they would, say, an RPI degree. Why? Because there is social worth to the Harvard degree above and beyond its utilitarian returns in terms of competence, compensation or career advancement prospects.
But I was merely going apeshit over trace's-- more of a society point of view overall-- point that obtaining education in anything other than what society currently feels valuable in a given timeframe is both pointless and worthless.
Which leads to confounding points:
1) Employers often complain that employees know little outside of their field
2) Potential Employees often complain that potential employers aren't interested in people who have "non-standard" degrees.
But, if we're just going to declare all non-commercialized, non-relevant knowledge worthless of learning and worthless in all other regards...
Perhaps we should just start shutting down museums, trim back libraries, mothball irrelevant memorials and cut funding from universities.
And, per traces ideas, let's just get rid of universities altogether. Let's just turn them in 'workforce' centers where the only thing you can get is degrees in Opening Microsoft Office, How to Program a Router, How to Insert a Catheter and... my favorite... What Do Ditches Look Like.
Lastly, you all as architects are suppose to be masters of programmatics?
Surely, you should know things like the cost of a parking space per student? How many janitors a building needs? The electrical demand of a given building?
Parking alone runs between $250-350 a student a year and that's not even guaranteeing peak capacity. If a student has to occupy space in an actual classroom, lab or library, you're looking at roughly a cost of between $800-1200 a year. We're already upwards of a $1000 for a place to put a car and something with 4 walls and a roof to sit in.
Because, obviously, universities are expensive things to run that are only getting more expensive. And because of the sheer number of universities, each university has to do a little bit more every year to stand out from the crowd.
And since universities aren't civil behemoths and bullies, many of them no longer dabble in property management-- i.e., no other sources of income other than tuition, research and federal funding.
So, their only options are to either improve the quality of their research (LOL) or ask the government for more money (Double LOL)... Or, you know, raise tuition.
Well, duh, only very old state schools, the ivies and a hand full of private colleges play that game. That could explain why those particular schools have incredibly large endowments and the ability to, you know, actually pay for things.
If I remember correctly, Cornell practically owns half of Ithaca.
But that's a distinction I did make between "noble" and "research" institutions-- noble, of course, referring to land owning. Many early established American universities are based off the Oxford/Cambridge model.
And, primarily, the Oxford/Cambridge model was developed to isolate the university from governance. Even still to this day, Oxford only receives less than 1/3rd of its operating income from the government.
UG - that's not at all what I was suggesting, not in the slightest. My point was that we/they/us/them should be given the knowledge to make choices, not live in a lala fantasy world that just "follow your dream" and everything will be dandy. It might, but might not be, and if it ain't what you thought, well, whatcha gonna do?
"This, imho, is the largest problem. How can anyone justify paying 50k for an education in history?! There are many paths like this, but no one pulls the prospective student aside and says "you know, unless your folks can pay the bill without blinking, that's just stupid". No one.
My big point was that the young just aren't educated as to what is valuable later on. Getting an education today, early, is a significant boost in what they'll produce in a lifetime. In that case, some things are worth borrowing for, it just comes down to someone sitting the kids down and explaining it, understanding what is a good investment (career wise) and what is not.?"
it isn't the university's job to do that though. It's the job of NCARB and AIA to encourage/cajole/bribe/pressure schools into protecting professional guild interests. A halt to new program and program expansion accreditatons would be a stop. Setting and enforcing stricter curricular standards for accreditation would be another.
damn this conversation has veered off into the hinterlands...
"What's happening right now is, in a nutshell: traditional opportunities are nearly non-existent, but untapped opportunities are vast. You just need to figure out where those untapped opportunities are, and I for one am not good at it, though I'd say small, flexible, extremely low overhead designers will still be able to find little jobs to help build a portfolio of very non-traditional work."
donna's spot on - forget why one pursue's an education. what matters is how you decide to leverage all that knowledge.
one thing i've really come to believe as a result of living through this particular downturn: most people simply aren't 'wired' (socially mostly) to be entrepreneurial in their outlook on life, much less when pressed by circumstance. they really want the safety of coming in to some office, punching a clock, and doing their 'thing'. and when that disappears, they simply don't know what to do. not because they couldn't figure something else out but because they simply can't think outside of that paradigm. they want the safety and security back. i'm not passing any kind of moral judgement - it's just how things are. and it would be fascinating to have someone do a much more quantifiable study on this. i'm sure the relative, primal need for stability (in whatever form) is an underlying cause, but...
urbanist: "A halt to new program and program expansion accreditatons would be a stop. Setting and enforcing stricter curricular standards for accreditation would be another.
Here we go again. You really believe this don't ya? Cause yo keep saying it over and over. Even when not relevant to the topic at hand. Over-protection of the professional field does nothing but cause more problems. Withes a generation of highly specialized architectural professionals with no clue as to what to do with themselves in times of a recession. We have no friends (and thus opportunities) outside of the profession primarily due to the protectionism.
which links to the other topic:
outed, it's not primal need for stability that's keeping people from 'innovating'. Opportunities are extremely limited any way you look at it, and thus only a small percentage of people who try to do something will actually succeed. Also, you need a healthy dose of sociopath-ness (functioning alcoholic) to be a successful entrepreneur. Our society demands it. Most of us don't have the chops or stomach for that. A book I read by Tom Heartman describes the modern society as being genetically comprised of 80% farmers and 20% hunter/gatherers. That 20% has a great leg up in our current society.
Oh, off to water my herbs! They grew this much today!
let's not bash harvard here. in reality, grads from harvard make more money. it is a simple fact. (perhaps not specific to architecture, but that is one of the things they DON'T teach you in school). so the roi argument sort of goes out the window there. harvard also provides students with pretty excellent financial aid. so, going to harvard was CHEAPER for me than to attend a state school. i belive that is what one calls a "no-brainer."
sadly, i think we are throwing the baby out with the bath water. the name on the diploma does not matter a few years down the road. the connections PROBABLY do. but even then, we all fall to relative equal level of shit in a climate such as this.
i think the bigger question is, what are we going to do about it?
i thought at first, we COULD do something. perhaps even through a site like this. if we organized, maybe we could reform something? but then i realized, the world does not work like that any more. it is sad but true. even simple congregations like a march have been hackneyed to the point of uselessness (thanks glenn beck). it is becoming more and more clear that when the chips are on the table, it is every man (or woman) for him or herself in america now (perhaps always, but we pretended better before). the name of the school on your degree won't matter, and neither will the name of your profession as long as it is not "architecture." i believe there are darkER days ahead of us.
i have officially been given the opportunity to leave architecture forever. i am taking it. good luck to all. but i do not think squabbling on archinect will even make you feel better, let alone change anything. (Hawkin, i feel your pain especially).
I can't afford the dream
I think there that for many (if not most) in this country school isn't just about getting the highest economic returns. It's also a rite of passage and a status symbol one can't do without. Frankly, if I hadn't gone to college and then graduate school in some field, at some set of "acceptable" schools, I would be something of a pariah amongst my neighbors, friends and family. Heck, in my neighborhood growing up, if you weren't a PhD who'd started his own company and took it public, a medical doctor, a real estate exec with an MBA, or a university professor, you were pretty much unwelcome. Sure, you can run the numbers and probably figure out that spending, in today's dollars, $300k or $400k in today's dollars in combined fees, expenses and lost opportunity costs, on a couple of degrees, doesn't pencil out, and still decide to do it. Fortunately, I managed to do it without any debt, but not everybody is that lucky. My point is, the school debt question a little more complicated than just doing the numbers...
trace, i think your views on education are a bit myopic. if every decision we made about our education were based on "return on investment," the world would be a very sad place indeed. quite frankly, most mba's in my opinion offer this world very little while most liberal arts majors give back much more. now to me, that's roi.
How so? I never said that was the only factor to consider. Far from it. But there is 0, zero, discussion about financial repercussions to the choices we make. This goes all the way to credit cards, borrowing for a car, tv, or whatever.
I am totally for a well rounded education, but there's no reason that there can't be more thought put into it. No one showed me, sat me down and explained, or whatever, when I was in hs. I am thankful I have parents that never spent beyond their means, that rubbed off on me (so no car payments, credit card bills going more than a month, etc.). Most aren't that fortunate.
Our society needs more balance. And yes, some of that requires some financial education (look at the mess we are in now!). Sadly, our world does require money for everything. If you choose to prioritize something else, that's your choice, but it should be an educated one, not one based on idealistic visions of grandeur (like most of us architect's entered into in school).
My point was based on the context of this discussion. "I can't afford the dream". Well, then, there's something wrong with the dream.
$250,000? Wow.....An Ivy League education isn't going to be paid off anytime soon with a degree in architecture. It's an oxymoron because you would expect the best educated to come out of the "best schools" which most people equate with Ivy League. I never have equated best with Ivy, but my debt is still in the high 70k.
You called it, trace. I showed my ProPractice students last semester how a small-ish remodel project of 6-8 months duration would net them about $9,000 in fee - not profit, just fee - and they were quite a bit boggled. No one in 5-6 years of architecture school had ever showed them the numbers!
I called my mother this afternoon after reading this thread and thanked her. It was she, and she alone, who taught me to understand money and its relatiohship to freedom. She especially taught me to understand the crippling effects of debt.
Is it really true that by allowing costs if education to become prohibitively expensive except for the independently wealthy or the select few who are able to obtain scholarships that we are building the strongest student bodies, equipping our youth with the best education?
I actually think the opposite is true... These expensive schools are not getting the best and the brightest but instead are getting those who can afford the price tag or who are willing to be ravaged by debt... It actually means our schools are less competitive, and in fact there is little incentive for schools to compete for the best students, but rather to accept those who can afford the bill...
Wouldn't it be really more competitive to make schools accessible to all, with whatever positions are available, and let individuals compete on performance? Eliminate the air of entitlement that comes with having footed an enormous bill? I think this is what makes education work: take hard work to get into school, and make the school program itself more competitive... Higher education shouldn't be about making money for the institution, it should be about graduating students who are most competitive and ready for careers...
bRink - that's why Harvard and others ask for your parent's financial info. They smart folks over there!
Also good points. How many of us turned down ivy educations? I only know of 2 people (in my class) that chose that path, the rest of us chose public.
And *gasp* what you are suggesting sounds like...like...socialism!! God forbid anything be accessible to all!
DS - good for you! I had big problems with my propractice (although, admittedly, I found a way to learn something valuable) class. Totally a waste of time. I hope to be able to share some knowledge someday.
boy talk about looking at the glass half empty.
Trace says that there is zero talk about financial repercussions, at the high school level, well guess what parents do talk to their children, that's why I joined the military, and studied hard for scholarships, I did what I had to do to pay for my education. As a high school student I never expected those teachers to talk to me about personal finance, but they actually did, in Business 101, Economics, I don't know if that has changed ? Thought those were mandatory classes in all high schools. I'm just wondering how true trace's claims are, because we all worry about finances, after all money is what makes this world go round, or are you referring to a specific demographic or group of people? Even then how can you prove this claim that every last one of them did not get the talk about money from their parents , because you would be talking about millions of people trace. And as for Donna, well good job showing your students a little about fees and net profit, thats the kind of thing you learn if you minor in construction management, not to mention during the time we all go through IDP, or better yet you teach yourself.
Try not to sound so gloomy people. Some of us are still optimistic, and hopeful, so cool of this end of the world gibberish its not helping anyone.
yes i meant "cool off"
It's not gloom and doom to think how things should work better... It's not all bad and I totally respect that you paid for your own education, and the sacrifices you made to make that happen are admirable, but the system could be better... Wouldn't be commenting on the situation if I didn't care about how problems could be fixed... Isn't that about progress? Just a different kind of optimism...
thats a fair assesment bRink, the system is what is the problem, so, fingers can get pointed all around it isn't as simple as saying that there are students that don't know anything about financial management, I mean just think about college tuition it has sky rocketed many times ahead of inflation, I remember in college all the European students, told me they didn't have to pay thousands to go to college it is free, how are they doing it in Europe? I do know its competitive though, but if they get into college its a free ride for all of them, if we as students, or customers of college, if we really want to change this problem, we need to start protesting right now, I'm talking on a scale that would make the 1960's protests seem like a family picnic in terms of size, but will this happen? we need to start asking college reps tough questions. Why do we have to pay over a hundred grand to go to Architecture college? I mean if we think about it, what is the only factor that changes in our courses for Architecture? it is Technology. Architecture offices are the ones making demands of college, they want college to prepare us to be computer monkeys.
Basically if we really wanted to change the system we would have to hang a lot of people by the co ho nes.
I am actually pretty optimistic - I think this recent financial mess, particularly the personal debt people took one, will be a long term wake up call. This is also true of education as people realize that they can't just simply make monthly payments and forget about it.
But yeah, I don't know many that understand the financial world. My parents encouraged me to learn about things, but I didn't learn a thing, not one single thing, from my high school (which was considered a good school, nor did I learn a single financial thing from my 7 years in architecture schooling, that took a minor in business and stacks of books).
I just see no reason why one should not understand how the business world works early in life. Maybe they are teaching it in places that I don't know of, but from how the country has behaved I'd find that hard to believe.
The changes will have to come from the students, talking with their dollars. New schools will keep emerging, via online and flexible programs, and that will put pressure on the established. Already, we are seeing online degrees offered by prestigious schools, with some not ever requiring the same requirements for admission.
If there is one positive to this is that dollars will change things, fairly quickly, and the new, in demand solutions, will prosper.
So yes, I am positive, like bRink notes. Positive that things will change and that there will be a new productivity that enables the younger people to be empowered to not only pursue what they want, but to make a living doing it.
"After the passage of the bankruptcy reform bill of 2005, student loans are not wiped clean during bankruptcy. This provided a risk free loan for the lender, but interest rates remained high, averaging 7% a year."
They have you by the balls. Banks don't care how much tuition costs. Schools have a risk free incentive to raise the cost. I see no positive change until the loophole in the (hopefully well meaning) law is patched.
"For those who are disabled, there is also the possibility of 100% loan discharge if you meet the requirements. Due to changes made by the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, it will become much easier to get one of these discharges as of July 1, 2010."
There! Get your Lamborghini of Arch. degrees, and then throw yourself down the stairs. Act brain-dead for a few years (internship at Steven Holl's office), and you're all set.
Trace,
you sound like a pissed of palin supporter. you say you optimistic? then you go on to say that you are optimistic that this will be a wake up call? something about how people shouldnt make payments and forget about i? and you never learned anything about business? well atleast now you are being more honest, but you are not a sociologist or an economist, how can you go on and assume things about millions of people? even in architecture as and Architect we work based on fact not assumptions. well there are some that assume but those are bad architects.
you need to stop being so angry Trace chill out.
Goddammit DonQuixote. Was your last post dripping with sarcasm? I really can't tell. It's either that or really poor reading comprehension. Probably too much late night moonshine :)
i'm tired too, bottom line is we architecture people need to hear some good news not some doom and gloom prophet notions. Give us some good news people!
Good news everyone! Boxed wine totally tastes fine after 3rd glass or so! Go tell your kids! $avings are out of this world.
I was one of the pay as you go kids. It took me twice as long, no doubt about it. It took 3 years working in kitchens to pay for first arch. degree, then about 6 years in architecture offices to pay for m.arch. phd was a scholarship. i was 38 when i finished that. my colleagues were in their late 20's. My schooling was cheap though because canada believes in education (i guess). i can't imagine doing it at all if i lived in the usa...especially after hearing the numbers thrown about in this thread. sheesh.
that is cool donna. our pro-practice class was absolutely and profoundly useless.
steelstuds, I rank Steven Holl in my top 5 favorite/best living architects, but this Act brain-dead for a few years (internship at Steven Holl's office), still made me laugh.
Don Quixote, are you a recent grad? Student? 15-year professional?
Good news is this: the world is changing fast for everyone, which means there are all kinds of unpredictable opportunities coming along. I say unpredictable because I have never been one to easily read a trend and foresee what an early response should be: but young grads now, who have never known a world without the internet, will be able to knock my old butt out of the way pretty easily and jump on those trends.
Some people (like trace) were able to do that years ago, and I imagine trace is still pretty well positioned to keep going even now. As a panel discussion of practitioners we had in my ProPractice class last week said: the profession needs new blood, and the older practitioners KNOW and WANT that new blood. Young people have a lot to teach the older guard about how the world of today is going to work. Software is part of it, but it's also the mindset that comes with that software knowledge - an openness to new things, a willingness to grapple with complex ways of thinking. (As a mid-career professional who hasn't even used Autocad since R2002, let alone any 3D software, I see myself stuck in the tar pits while you young mammals scurry around me gleefully!) Software and the internet means you don't in any way need all the trappings of an office to start making/doing things. You can just get dirty out in the world and do it - and unlike 50 years ago, the world is very open to new young ideas, even in the "professional" realm.
Haha, am I angry? I knew I needed to drink less coffee and more alcohol! Still working on acquiring that taste for scotch, now that I think about it...
Palin supporter?! Whoa there big fella!! Now we are going a little crazy. I'll be moving to Canada, or perhaps somewhere in the Caribbean, if that happens!
A shake up, an adjustment, leading to overall improvements is what I forecast. Is that not optimistic? I like to think all bad things, business wise or whatever, are opportunities for learning and emerging with new expertise and focus. The dot com bust, after all, is what prompted me to finally leave the traditional career path and I look at that as a positive outcome (after the messy disaster of a recession).
Live and learn, adjust and grow....or I could just really drink a lot more and pretend nothing has happened.
"Stock futures rose modestly after a big jump in new home construction added more optimism that the economy will not fall back into recession."
"The Commerce Department said construction of new homes and apartments jumped 10.5 percent last month. Economists were expecting a rise of less than 1 percent."
How's that for optimistic? One step at a time...
trace, I tried hard to love scotch for years. But falling in love with bourbon took no effort at all...
is that right? I'll give that a shot. I did have one Scotch that was good (an expensive one) and keep telling myself there's a reason so many covet it (although I, as yet, fail to see why).
Scotch and golf...I am getting old!
Elmer T. Lee is my current favorite bourbon; thanks to the always-reliable Steven Ward for turning me on to it!
Back to topic. In a recession, liquor stores never take a hit - people still manage to pay for their booze, they just turn to cheaper brands!
So young unemployed architects, get to know your local liquor retailers and put bugs in their ears about doing some remodeling in the store. Surely you have experience with their product from which to draw, no? ;-)
Medical marijuana has been a good business for architects recently, or so I hear ;-)
Is that who is starting all those dispensaries around town, trace? Unemployed architects? Lol. Fastest growing business in the state!
well thanks for being a little positive Trace, sorry if you were insulted, looks like donna got upset and changed the topic on this thread from what it was to asking me about my experience level, oh and her panel in a college got together and they have decided what the profession of architecture needs something about new blood, and then goes on to talk about how technology is changing everything, I think her rhetoric sounds like it needs to find a Zaha Hadid or a Rem thread at the very least,or oh and now it has shifted to marijuana, nice job Donna.
Ps. I was in the military and could probably drink atleast one of you ladies under the table.
Yeah Donna, how dare you!
New Archinect v.3.0 will work on military time, and any straying away from the topic will be considered treason. Also, everyone will need permission to speak, with women not allowed to speak at all.
Also, for those who was not in the military, pay more respect to those who was in the military. OK!?
Student debt is kind of like insulation in a wall if code is R 20 why on earth would you bother with designing a R35 wall. Why would you get your student loans up to $100k when you'd never pay if off or ever have a job that paid well enough to pay off... mean time with interest it would climb $150K.
Sorry just came out of a seminar on residential insulation types with a speaker who spent wa-a-a-a-ay to much time looking a insulation options that no client would ever pay for.
DonQ, sorry to offend, I asked your experience level because you're asking for optimism and frankly, I'm worried about the young people in our field who are right now facing an incredibly dispiriting reality. Incredibly dispiriting. I graduated into the 90-91 recession which sucked but was a walk in the park compared to what's happening right now.
What's happening right now is, in a nutshell: traditional opportunities are nearly non-existent, but untapped opportunities are vast. You just need to figure out where those untapped opportunities are, and I for one am not good at it, though I'd say small, flexible, extremely low overhead designers will still be able to find little jobs to help build a portfolio of very non-traditional work. See former architect now entrepreneurs here, here, here, here, and here. And these groups are all at least a year or two old by now, practically ancient!
And as a 25 year veteran of this field I naturally perk up when the talk turns to alcohol. Sad truth, but we're thankful for the small pleasures in life.
no worries Donna,
I totally get the situation we are in, after all I am unemployed. We all heard of the lost generation of the 90's during college, never thought id would be like that again, but here we are. Its a real shit storm out here, or as we say in the military Situation FUBAR. I just thought that pointing the finger at students who borrowed money for college and didn't foresee this economic disaster, was a little too simplistic.
Well I'd know how to avoid getting into this kind of situation, and to do that, would probably require an Einsteinean like mind in economics and a whole lot of other professions to analyze numbers which would probably cause any of us to sign up for Alcoholics Anonymous before we came up with an exact answer. So I guess what I am saying is lets move forward and come up with solutions rather than point the finger at each other. Is that a fair thing to say?
Like I told Trace if we really wanted to radically change how much college costs we would have to hang a lot of people by the Co ho nes, all the way from the software companies, employers, to college deans. I'm ready to sign up any time you guys are.
Ps. Steel studs take it easy with that medicated marijuana.
Has anyone here paid their Master with personal savings?
I am thinking about quitting my job next summer and enroll in University again. After 4 years of experience and 3 offices, I definitely hate working in design environment. Planning to pursue Construction/Project Management or R.E. education and jump the boat.
It is a very hard decision whether to decide to spend such a big amount of money in a Master's degree + cost of living for 1 year + opportunity cost (no earnings for 1 year) + praying to get a job just after graduation and quitting a relatively well-paid job with the uncertainty of the getting something after graduation.
This, imho, is the largest problem. How can anyone justify paying 50k for an education in history?! There are many paths like this, but no one pulls the prospective student aside and says "you know, unless your folks can pay the bill without blinking, that's just stupid". No one.
My big point was that the young just aren't educated as to what is valuable later on. Getting an education today, early, is a significant boost in what they'll produce in a lifetime. In that case, some things are worth borrowing for, it just comes down to someone sitting the kids down and explaining it, understanding what is a good investment (career wise) and what is not.
Seriously?!? Seriously? Eat a bag of dicks.
This is why I tried to get banned from this forum. Didn't work!
The entire premise of your argument is based on an intangible concept of a value system that's so completely nonrigid, intangible and amorphic.
The value of knowledge is the sum of knowledge of current interest. Meaning, only what society at a given point in time finds tangible or interesting is of actual value in reference to the point of time.
This doesn't necessarily invalidate all knowledge or label all knowledge as valueless over a significant timeline. The concept is that value is timely rather than timeless.
To quote George Santayana-- "Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Those who get degrees in the humanities learn the humanities simply for the reason to learn the actions, reactions and consequences of past behavior. Is history tangible to today's economy? Absolutely if you're looking for case studies or similar situations that have already occurred in relation to situations that are about to occur.
The humanities have essentially been boiled down into 42 minute long serialized shows about World War II. Seriously? It's been almost 70 years. Do we constantly and consistently have to listen about one single war every single day for the rest of our lives? It was an important war but it was not a singular war or conflict. It was a combination of multiple conflicts with multiple ideological battles that has been essentially reduces down to this-- U.S.A. good, EVERYONE ELSE BAD.
Not to mention the completely inconvenient fact that we only won the Japanese part of the war. You know, we tend to over glamorize our participation without realizing that for everyone 1 person died in the war (including genocide), 2.2 sometime Russians died.
Not only that, all of the allies we had in the war immediately turned on us post war. China? Russia? Korea? Indochine? Wouldn't call that winning.
Now, you may think... what does this have to do with anything? It is to prove the point that, intellectually, only one frame of mind (USA RULZ) is of inherent interest and therefore value to most of us.
I mean... have any of you seriously studied the university system? Even if said study is reading 6 pages on Wikipedia? Universities stopped being noble places roughly 150 years ago.
But the reductio ad absurdum here is that knowledge is only as valuable as the value you place on it.
In the world of automobiles, NASCAR, ESPN, golf, shit architecture and a completely commercialized art industry... no one really has any value of the thousands of years of human history.
But, the eductio ad absurdum
Unicorn is back! The unicorn is back! Hide your daughters for the unicorn is back!
And he came back with a bag of dicks. yay!
Woohoo!! I get a bag of dicks (I presume, of course, that you'll be providing)! Certainly making my morning optimistic!
Past that I lost ya, something about Russians, Wikipedia and NASCAR?
Unicorn,
I don't think anybody is arguing that education (much less architctural educational) is wholly or even primarily about the acquisition of knowledge. As I tried to point out in my post above, the social status component is a big factor... and a degree from Harvard has social value, like any other luxury good or brand name status symbol one might choose to purchase. This value is above and beyond any utilitarian value increment a Harvard education gives you, over, say an RPI education.
another way to look at it. One might believe that there is a greater practical value to the firm in hiring an RPI grad over a Harvard grad (having had nothing but good experience with RPI arch grads.. seriously, and mixed experience, frankly, wiwth GSD grads). In fact, many people (who don't have Harvard degrees themselves) are probably of the same mindset. Or, at the very least, it's probably safe to say that an RPI-educated architect is NO LESS competent than a Harvard-educated one, all other factors being equal. I also know of no employer not himself educated at Harvard who would pay more for a Harvard grad over an RPI grad, again, all other factors being equal (and vice versa for an employer educated at RPI).
And yet, people still covet a Harvard degree on their resumes more than they would, say, an RPI degree. Why? Because there is social worth to the Harvard degree above and beyond its utilitarian returns in terms of competence, compensation or career advancement prospects.
Harvard law is what you are referring to urbanist, but Harvard Architecture? we all know it sucks.
any way this elitist mentality is another factor that makes education in the USA, extremely expensive.
I understand that, urbanist.
But I was merely going apeshit over trace's-- more of a society point of view overall-- point that obtaining education in anything other than what society currently feels valuable in a given timeframe is both pointless and worthless.
Which leads to confounding points:
1) Employers often complain that employees know little outside of their field
2) Potential Employees often complain that potential employers aren't interested in people who have "non-standard" degrees.
But, if we're just going to declare all non-commercialized, non-relevant knowledge worthless of learning and worthless in all other regards...
Perhaps we should just start shutting down museums, trim back libraries, mothball irrelevant memorials and cut funding from universities.
And, per traces ideas, let's just get rid of universities altogether. Let's just turn them in 'workforce' centers where the only thing you can get is degrees in Opening Microsoft Office, How to Program a Router, How to Insert a Catheter and... my favorite... What Do Ditches Look Like.
Lastly, you all as architects are suppose to be masters of programmatics?
Surely, you should know things like the cost of a parking space per student? How many janitors a building needs? The electrical demand of a given building?
Parking alone runs between $250-350 a student a year and that's not even guaranteeing peak capacity. If a student has to occupy space in an actual classroom, lab or library, you're looking at roughly a cost of between $800-1200 a year. We're already upwards of a $1000 for a place to put a car and something with 4 walls and a roof to sit in.
Because, obviously, universities are expensive things to run that are only getting more expensive. And because of the sheer number of universities, each university has to do a little bit more every year to stand out from the crowd.
And since universities aren't civil behemoths and bullies, many of them no longer dabble in property management-- i.e., no other sources of income other than tuition, research and federal funding.
So, their only options are to either improve the quality of their research (LOL) or ask the government for more money (Double LOL)... Or, you know, raise tuition.
"universities aren't ... bullies"
Columbia's Office of Institutional Real Estate begs to disagree ;-P
Well, duh, only very old state schools, the ivies and a hand full of private colleges play that game. That could explain why those particular schools have incredibly large endowments and the ability to, you know, actually pay for things.
If I remember correctly, Cornell practically owns half of Ithaca.
But that's a distinction I did make between "noble" and "research" institutions-- noble, of course, referring to land owning. Many early established American universities are based off the Oxford/Cambridge model.
And, primarily, the Oxford/Cambridge model was developed to isolate the university from governance. Even still to this day, Oxford only receives less than 1/3rd of its operating income from the government.
UG - that's not at all what I was suggesting, not in the slightest. My point was that we/they/us/them should be given the knowledge to make choices, not live in a lala fantasy world that just "follow your dream" and everything will be dandy. It might, but might not be, and if it ain't what you thought, well, whatcha gonna do?
I am all for knowledge. It is power, after all.
Do I have to quote this again trace?
"This, imho, is the largest problem. How can anyone justify paying 50k for an education in history?! There are many paths like this, but no one pulls the prospective student aside and says "you know, unless your folks can pay the bill without blinking, that's just stupid". No one.
My big point was that the young just aren't educated as to what is valuable later on. Getting an education today, early, is a significant boost in what they'll produce in a lifetime. In that case, some things are worth borrowing for, it just comes down to someone sitting the kids down and explaining it, understanding what is a good investment (career wise) and what is not.?"
it isn't the university's job to do that though. It's the job of NCARB and AIA to encourage/cajole/bribe/pressure schools into protecting professional guild interests. A halt to new program and program expansion accreditatons would be a stop. Setting and enforcing stricter curricular standards for accreditation would be another.
damn this conversation has veered off into the hinterlands...
"What's happening right now is, in a nutshell: traditional opportunities are nearly non-existent, but untapped opportunities are vast. You just need to figure out where those untapped opportunities are, and I for one am not good at it, though I'd say small, flexible, extremely low overhead designers will still be able to find little jobs to help build a portfolio of very non-traditional work."
donna's spot on - forget why one pursue's an education. what matters is how you decide to leverage all that knowledge.
one thing i've really come to believe as a result of living through this particular downturn: most people simply aren't 'wired' (socially mostly) to be entrepreneurial in their outlook on life, much less when pressed by circumstance. they really want the safety of coming in to some office, punching a clock, and doing their 'thing'. and when that disappears, they simply don't know what to do. not because they couldn't figure something else out but because they simply can't think outside of that paradigm. they want the safety and security back. i'm not passing any kind of moral judgement - it's just how things are. and it would be fascinating to have someone do a much more quantifiable study on this. i'm sure the relative, primal need for stability (in whatever form) is an underlying cause, but...
urbanist: "A halt to new program and program expansion accreditatons would be a stop. Setting and enforcing stricter curricular standards for accreditation would be another.
Here we go again. You really believe this don't ya? Cause yo keep saying it over and over. Even when not relevant to the topic at hand. Over-protection of the professional field does nothing but cause more problems. Withes a generation of highly specialized architectural professionals with no clue as to what to do with themselves in times of a recession. We have no friends (and thus opportunities) outside of the profession primarily due to the protectionism.
which links to the other topic:
outed, it's not primal need for stability that's keeping people from 'innovating'. Opportunities are extremely limited any way you look at it, and thus only a small percentage of people who try to do something will actually succeed. Also, you need a healthy dose of sociopath-ness (functioning alcoholic) to be a successful entrepreneur. Our society demands it. Most of us don't have the chops or stomach for that. A book I read by Tom Heartman describes the modern society as being genetically comprised of 80% farmers and 20% hunter/gatherers. That 20% has a great leg up in our current society.
Oh, off to water my herbs! They grew this much today!
let's not bash harvard here. in reality, grads from harvard make more money. it is a simple fact. (perhaps not specific to architecture, but that is one of the things they DON'T teach you in school). so the roi argument sort of goes out the window there. harvard also provides students with pretty excellent financial aid. so, going to harvard was CHEAPER for me than to attend a state school. i belive that is what one calls a "no-brainer."
sadly, i think we are throwing the baby out with the bath water. the name on the diploma does not matter a few years down the road. the connections PROBABLY do. but even then, we all fall to relative equal level of shit in a climate such as this.
i think the bigger question is, what are we going to do about it?
i thought at first, we COULD do something. perhaps even through a site like this. if we organized, maybe we could reform something? but then i realized, the world does not work like that any more. it is sad but true. even simple congregations like a march have been hackneyed to the point of uselessness (thanks glenn beck). it is becoming more and more clear that when the chips are on the table, it is every man (or woman) for him or herself in america now (perhaps always, but we pretended better before). the name of the school on your degree won't matter, and neither will the name of your profession as long as it is not "architecture." i believe there are darkER days ahead of us.
i have officially been given the opportunity to leave architecture forever. i am taking it. good luck to all. but i do not think squabbling on archinect will even make you feel better, let alone change anything. (Hawkin, i feel your pain especially).
CMNDCTRL what are you venturing into?
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