Infographic: Higher Education Is In A Bubble, When Will It Burst?

August 7, 2012 By 2 Comments

“Higher Education is in a bubble. Not only has total student loan debt in the United States surpassed credit card debt, but much of this debt has been taken out for degrees that are not worth the price of tuition. This is due to the fact that many students go to college with the false belief that a degree is a degree. And the colleges and universities profit off this widespread, but mistaken idea. Not all degrees are created equal.

What we’ve found is striking. Not only have tuition and fees have skyrockted at rates much higher than inflation but student debt has grown much faster than consumer debt. As a nation we are investing vast resources into higher education, but what have been the results of this investment?

  • Drop in the quality of education
  • Degrees unmatched to the economic needs of the United States
  • Decreasing graduation rates
  • Declining value of most Bachelor’s degrees due to oversaturation
  • Drastic increases in debt, and the emergence of a wage slave class

Some of have suggested that the United States is currently engaging in a massive mis-allocation of resources – that we’re spending away our wealth on a mis-directed, poor quality, inefficient and unoptimized higher education system. All while the colleges and universities stoke their bank accounts.

Do we think there’ s a solution? Yes. And the first step is to start assigning economic value to specific degrees so that students can make wise decisions about the debt that they take on for education.”

Original Source:  http://www.thebestcolleges.org/higher_education_bubble/

Filed Under: Education, Featured

Corporate Conglomerate Map Gets Huge Engagement

April 25, 2012 By 6 Comments

This photo got huge engagement — 396+ shares in 24 hours on Facebook… now 415.  Even more shared it than Liked it.


Full rez is at this link.
 

You could really see people get engaged, from all over the world.

Dinorah Naieli: holy… wakamole… EAT NO EVIL!!!

Angel Bernal: Es importante realizar una labor en otros idiomas para sensibilizar a otros lugares del mundo.

Laura Saukstelis: Why is there such a strong opposition to accurate labeling…could it be because of greed, uhmmm? Practically EVERYTHING else one buys, lists all of it’s contents…clothing, toys, furniture, purses & on & on.

Some pointed out a few possible inaccuracies, effectively crowdsourcing accuracy.

Simon Felipe Leiderman: I have several problems with this graph: 1) A&W appears twice. One as part of Kraft and one as part of Pepsico. It would be preposterous for Pepsico to not own the drinkbrand, just the rights to the name of the restaurant. Fact is, 2) Pepsico no longer owns Yum Brands. They were spun off last I heard. Last but not least, 3) DOLE IS NOT OWNED BY PEPSICO! Dole is owned by Castle and Cook, which is owned by David Murdock. So there needs to be some education of the education.

Erick Karlen: Well from logos large enough to recognize I can tell you for one that Coca Cola does not own Monster Energy (they are a brand of the independent bottler Hansen Beverage Company) so that kind of makes me question the accuracy of everything else on here. Moreover, knowing that everyday supermarket brands stem from not that many consumer products giants is neither surprising or revealing.

There are a few proud ignoramuses, always… contrarians.

Ryan Meyerhoff: Hey look! A chart of successful companies producing products because they are in demand and being purchased over alternative choices.

Audra Anne: …who cares who makes what? I believe in pro choice so if you don’t want to buy something, don’t buy it. If you don’t believe in animal testing, buy from a company who doesn’t test on animals. If you don’t want to eat chemicals, don’t eat them. And so on. Everything we do is a choice.

Richie Hutchison: really? life’s too short to be worrying about things like ‘don’t buy from these companies” plus it just seems like you’re jealous that you can’t start a business that succeeds well enough to do something like this. How would you feel if you had a very successful business and people started to boycott you because they thought you made too much money? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Republican or conservative, but i think this is overkill. Worry about making yourself better and not bringing others down to your level.

But they weren’t left to just spread their proud ignorance. It’s a teaching opportunity.

OccupyEducated.org: ‎@ Ryan Meyerhoff nice try. Look semi closely, and you will see this “demand” doesn’t come from the sky. It’s a closed-loop cycle — refined sugar demand is powered by marketing and physical addiction, which creates more demand.

“Alternative choices?” Check the aisle supply and then cross check it with the price difference (created by farm subsidies that promote unhealthy “food”), the economy and the addiction created, and tell us how you see it lining up for the average income earner in ‘merica.

OccupyEdcuated.org: @Audra Anne and @Richie Hutchison sounds like you’re made up your minds on this one, considering your passion, but if you allow education to seep in, you will see that while, yes, personal choice as the main determining factor of consumption was available for quite a while, these systems have grown so strong that participating outside this machine is impossible for more than 90% of the people in this country. They’ve grown this strong not because they’re good business people, but because they own your government, and use your tax dollars to subsidize their products, so their toxic, water-destroying, earth-destroying products can still become cheaper and cheaper, while healthy alternatives become more an more expensive.

Free choice is a myth.

It is so very important to get the word out, and lead people to deeper knowledge, especially in these books!

Filed Under: Announcements, Commentary, Corporations, Education, Featured, Food, Government Violence, Money Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Student Debt Stories – What’s Your Story?

February 20, 2012 By 2 Comments

Student debt is bigger than credit card debt — about a $1,000,000,000,000.00, give or take a $1,000,000,000.00 or $2,000,000,000.00 — and apart from the recent PR news that we have a rising economy, it will be impossible for many to pay off that investment.

But so what? Some kid decides to get a college degree in Early Rock Jewelry of Upper-Middle-Earth Hobbits, and they can’t afford it. Why should you care?

For one, if you’re trying to continue a growth-based economy (which, of course, is physically impossible), then having potential consumers taking their money and sending off to the banks, as opposed to investing it into their economy, is a back-breaker for such an economy.

But it goes beyond the numbers you can find in Forbes’ “The American Nightmare”.  Intelligent, well-educated people everyday are choosing between paying their heating bills or student loans. And for those who are lucky enough to skip college, the workforce isn’t going their direction — as enrollment decreases, the amount of jobs for which employers require a degree is not.

One Occupier wrote us and asked us to spread the word about his project. What’s your story?

NewsiT (www.newsit.net) a startup crowd-reporting site covering the
student loan crisis, and we’re looking for students and recent
graduates who can tell us their stories and how student debt is
affecting their lives:
http://newsit.net/assignments/how-will-student-debt-affect-you

Click his link below and fill it in. There’s a lot of storytelling that needs to be done, if we want people to occupy educated.

Filed Under: Articles, Budget, Commentary, Debt and Deficit, Education, Featured, Money, Politics, student debt Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

VIDEO: How to Talk to Your Family about Occupy at Christmas

December 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment


Hold on there, partner. You’ve been marching with that Occupy crowd, haven’t you?

Remember, people don’t necessarily to listen to logic — not to start, anyway. They need to hear the truth in their language. This chuckler, giving tips on how to explain your actions at Occupy Wall Street, has some great counters to some really ignorant retorts we’ve all heard at Occupys, #ows twitter battles and around the table.

Good luck.


Occupy Wall Street: A Holiday Survival Guide

Filed Under: Education, Entertainment, Featured, Teaching About Occupy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Edutainment – The Best Way to Wake People Up?

December 23, 2011 By 5 Comments

 

At OccupyEducated.org, we’re asking people to do what they, statistically, are unlikely to do — read.

Perhaps because of the effects of television, social media, and sites like ours, we’re now left with some staggering statistics.

1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after their college education.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57 percent of new books are not read to completion, over half of those are not read past page 18.

Even if you profess you are reading, there’s a 1 in 3 chance you’re just saying so to make us feel better about these stats.

Take a look at a few examples, to inspired your comments in the forum.

and from friends at New Message Media…

Filed Under: Education, Entertainment, Featured Tagged With: , , , , , , ,