Question: Perhaps, your daughter might enjoy one of the East Coast all-women’s schools such as Smith, Mount Holyoke, or Barnard. Although the students are free to attend classes at any of the 5 schools in the consortium (for Smith, Mount Holyoke, Amherst, UMass, and Hampshire and Columbia for Barnard), there are few more diverse and universally accepting schools than these. In addition, and more important, the academically challenging curriculum is topnotch. At Smith, almost half the junior class spends a year abroad at one of the Smith-sponsored programs in France, Italy, Germany, or Switzerland, or in programs in virtually any country in the world.
Answer: Well, actually you said college rather than higher education, and that’s what I was referring to. I think it’s fairly clear that I don’t think much of business schools, or the one-size-fits-all graduates they produce–people who too frequently know nothing and care nothing about the businesses they’re hired to run.
As to the student loan thing, I reiterate my belief that the relatively small loans undergraduates take are neither onerous nor difficult to repay. There are undoubtedly exceptions–people who develop serious illnesses or take to the bottle or such–but the same can be said for a car loan or a house. I have a friend who left college with more than $100k in loans. The interest on that alone is probably between $6-$10k/year. She went to Wellesley and she says she should have went to (UC) Davis.
$100k might be a little to some on this newsgroup, but for many people this might be more than their total take-home for the next four years. Sometimes it’s complicated. Once in place, top executives often succeed in making arrangements that shelter them from supply and demand. There can be quite a delay from the first sign of inferior performance to the time when the board (or whoever is making the decisions) finally does overcome its inertia, surmount whatever barriers the executive might have erected, and actually allow the market to supply a replacement. Internal politics are at least as likely as economics to dictate the shape and pace of this process. People around the executive suite tend to have favorites, for reasons that may not depend upon the economic welfare of the corporation.
Even when there is not a mutual back-scratching relationship among the relevant parties, the company may be obligated to pay for the services of the lawyers and consultants who help the executive wring the most extortionate possible compensation package from the company, preferably in unanticipated, creative devices whose true cost will not be obvious to shareholders. Those lawyers will also be on the scene as soon as it begins to sound like the company might be trying to get rid of the exec. All of these things can muddy what may have started as a simple idea that, “Well, we want to hire someone, and we’re willing to pay up to $X for his/her services.”
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- student loan forgivness
- Thought du jour: Rigid Class structure in U.S. Maintained by higher education system
- ED and financial aid
- Auto debiting instead of checks
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