Mainstream Media Finally Acknowledging College Bubble

Mainstream Media Finally Acknowledging College Bubble

The National Inflation Association would like to congratulate its members for helping spread the word during the past week about America's college tuition bubble and how college education is the largest scam in U.S. history. After NIA's release of 'College Conspiracy' on Saturday, May 14th, over 340,000 people have watched the documentary in its first six days of release, with many thousands of Americans tweeting about the movie on Twitter and sharing the movie on Facebook. Because of your help in spreading NIA's message, the New York Times finally felt compelled to admit the truth and write a cover story Thursday morning discussing some of the facts that NIA exposed in 'College Conspiracy'. Bloomberg, NBC News, the Washington Post, and many other mainstream media outlets, also came out with their own reports in recent days exposing some of the facts from 'College Conspiracy'.

On Thursday's cover of the New York Times, Catherine Rampell wrote an article entitled 'Many With New College Degree Find the Job Market Humbling'. According to the New York Times article, only 56% of college graduates in 2010 were able to get a job by this spring, compared to 90% of the graduates in years 2006 and 2007. Only half of those finding a job, found a job where their degree was required. The median starting salary for college graduates last year was $27,000, down 10% from the $30,000 starting income in years 2006 to 2008.

One of NIA's expert guests in 'College Conspiracy' was Brian Mackey, a national recruitment manager for GEI Consultants. He said in our movie that 60% of college graduates are now being employed in low skill jobs where their college degree wasn't even required. NIA's research has uncovered that 70% of high school graduates have been successful at getting these exact same jobs without even needing a college degree. Mackey also pointed out in 'College Conspiracy' that 20% all new waiter and waitress positions are being filled by college graduates. The New York Times article added to Mackey's point, reporting in their cover story that college graduates aged 25 to 34 working in the food service industry at bars and restaurants increased 17% in 2009 over 2008.

Bloomberg aired a live television segment on Thursday, 'Is a 4-Year College Degree Worth the Cost?' and cited a poll that shows 57% of U.S. adults say college is not worth the price with 75% of U.S. adults saying college is unaffordable. Bloomberg had on a guest Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit.com, who said, "there are plenty of students out there who would really benefit from just avoiding a lot of the college stuff and just trying to create something". NIA agrees with Ohanian that the experience of trying to create a job in the real world will do most Americans a lot more good than getting deeply into debt to attend college. Ohanian says that his company and other firms in Silicon Valley hire employees based entirely on their experience and past accomplishments and not a college degree.

NBC News anchor Brian Williams came out with a report Thursday night about the college bubble in a segment entitled, 'Education Nation'. Williams reported many of the basic facts from 'College Conspiracy' including that student loans are one of the few types of debts you can't get rid of in bankruptcy and that total student loan debt is now above $800 billion and exceeds credit card debt. NBC News spoke to one prospective student who has chosen to attend a community college rather than the prestigious $50,000 per year school she was accepted to, saying, "I don't want to graduate with a bachelor's degree with $80,000 worth of debt."

According to the NBC News report, Tidewater Community College in Virginia is now requiring students who apply for a student loan to complete a worksheet detailing their future ability to pay the loan back. Although NIA applauds Tidewater for taking the initiative, we find it absurd that the U.S. government doesn't already do this. The U.S. government gives out student loans to practically anybody, regardless of their future ability to pay the loan back. This is complete insanity, because not only is this the reason tuition inflation is so high, but it will be all U.S. taxpayers and holders of U.S. dollars who will end up paying for these bad debts.

The Washington Post published an article this week entitled, 'The Real Debt Crisis', which reported that 85% of college graduates this year will be moving back home to live with their parents. The Post discussed the stunning growth in for-profit colleges from year 2000 to 2008, which saw a 225% increase in enrollments from 670,000 to 1.6 million. The five largest for-profit colleges are receiving 77% of their revenues from government loans and grants.

In 'College Conspiracy', NIA discussed how an NIA member who is the owner of a private vocational school is forced to raise tuitions every time the government increases financial aid to students. This is due to the 90/10 rule, which mandates for-profit colleges to receive at least 10% of their revenues from private sources. It is insane that the government would even need a 90/10 rule. This is just another example of government legislation that was passed solely to deal with the problems created by the government's own programs and regulations.

Up until this week, the mainstream media completely ignored the college bubble, just like how they previously for many years ignored the Real Estate bubble. Up until the Real Estate bubble began to burst in 2006, the media encouraged Americans to take out no money down interest only subprime mortgage loans to buy a house at a monthly mortgage payment that was double the cost to rent that same house. The media proclaimed that housing prices can only go up and that Americans who didn't buy a house would be priced out of the market forever. The media brainwashed the public to look down at renters as if they were incompetent and throwing their money away, even though they were putting a roof over their head at a very affordable price and are in much better financial shape today.

After the Real Estate bubble began to burst in 2006, which led to the financial crisis of 2008, the media began proclaiming the new best investment to be a college degree. Whereas in the past, Americans didn't need a job, they would simply take out mortgages to buy multiple houses and live off of the appreciation in home values; now that Americans needed to get a job, the media began brainwashing them into believing that college degrees were their passport to prosperity. The media promoted myths that NIA has proven in 'College Conspiracy' to be completely made up lies, like that college graduates earn $1 million more in lifetime income than high school graduates without a degree. The media also frequently cited and gave credibility to phony research reports that projected there to be major employee shortages in different fields, all of which turned out not to be true.

Up until the release of 'College Conspiracy' this week, the mainstream media never did a thing to warn Americans about a college bubble. Not once did anybody in the mainstream media ever connect the dots and tell the truth that college tuitions are rising as a direct result of government financial aid. The media simply published articles on how to save money for college and why parents should setup college savings accounts for their children. The media brainwashed the public to look down at parents who didn't send their kids to college, with the notion that if you don't go to college and get a college degree, you will never have a successful career.

NIA believes the U.S. government needs to end all financial aid to students immediately. There is nothing in the U.S. constitution that authorizes the U.S. government to be in the student loan business. If there were no government student loans and grants, all Americans would be able to afford college and the quality of education would be far superior to what it is today.