Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss said on Fri, 23 Dec 2022 08:33:55 -0700

>In 1978 the UofA was charging $275 a semester.

Was that per credit hour, per class, or for all classes taken in a
semester? If the latter, it was a darned good deal, because in Chicago
at least, rent was about $190/month, so this was a lot less than rent
would have been. In other words, if you could afford rent, you probably
could have afforded $275/semester.

1982-1989 I took classes at Santa Monica Community College (SMC) in
Santa Monica, California. I paid $20/class-semester. Yeah, that's right,
somebody could have given up cigarettes or coffee or booze and afforded
to get educated. Sounds like communism, right? There was a method to
California's madness. At SMC I learned programming and within 2 years
tripled my income, which means I probably paid six times more state
taxes than I had before going to SMC. Both California and I laughed all
the way to the bank. There was a single mother in my Microprocessors
class who was on welfare. She got her 2 year degree, and instead of
being on welfare she made a lot of money, so the state stopped paying
for her and started getting a lot of money from her. She, her child,
and California laughed all the way to the bank.

The beauty of community colleges is the classes are taught be real
professionals who do by day and teach by night. You learn the real
deal, not theory.

This is not to day that 4 year colleges are *completely* useless. For
those few students who want to do a deep dive into theory and can use
such theory to excel. I'd put Trent, who already has a math degree, in
this category of students. Armed with his math knowledge, he could
program things I never could. Also, his math knowledge would make him
great with functional programming.

As for myself, even though I got a 4 year degree in Electrical
Engineering right out of high school, I owe my success to Santa Monica
Community College, that cost me $20/class-semester.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
Autumn 2022 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/thrive.htm
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