The Declining Value Of Your College Degree

[xHarinder_singh]

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/45916

Colleges should plan - and teach - for an oil-scarce world by Scott Carlson

Some years ago, bringing up "peak oil"—the concept that oil production will crest and then decline, leading to all sorts of trouble in society—might have made you seem like the kind of person who frequents Web sites that sell survival books and freeze-dried food.

Today, such discussion has pretty much hit the mainstream. Last month, The Wall Street Journal featured a front-page story about two prominent geologists arguing over how much oil is left in the ground—and it noted that the view of the pessimistic geologist is "ascendant."

Experts famously argue whether oil is past its peak, yet to hit its peak, or destined to hit its peak a long way off—as in, perhaps, a few decades from now. (Alternative fuels may swoop in to save the day, but no one should bank on that.) Here's the bottom line: Oil—our main transportation fuel and an integral part of every product we use—is a finite and dwindling resource. The current price increase should give higher-education institutions an opportunity to think about how they might fare if oil got really scarce.

Robert K. Kaufmann, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Boston University, recently gave a seminar for journalists on the economics of the oil market. As oil goes up, the value of the dollar against the euro goes down; other energy sources, meanwhile, become expensive as they substitute for more-expensive oil. Today's oil prices may be inflated, he said, but they will not collapse as they did in the 1980s. Because demand is going up worldwide, uses for oil have concentrated in transportation and manufacturing (where alternatives to oil are difficult to come by), and oil fields outside of OPEC are in a production decline, what we are experiencing now is very likely a permanent trend.

Mr. Kaufmann gave no date for a world production peak, offering various possibilities between 2014 and 2032. (A report by the U.S. government released last year said that oil production will probably peak sometime before 2040, but it was vague.) According to his analysis, within 10 years of the peak, alternative fuels would have to rise to the equivalent of 10 million barrels a day, or the current production of Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer.

Most campuses plan to be up and running long after 2040. Consider the pain campuses are feeling now and how much worse it could be. Some colleges—like state colleges in Oklahoma—are already raising tuition to cover energy costs.

College leaders, with help from facilities managers, sustainability directors, faculty members, and even students, should think hard about how systems on their campus would operate in an energy-scarce world. That thinking should range beyond running part of the campus fleet on a cafeteria's fryer oil, a seemingly-popular response at the moment. Look at food supply chains, for example, and how far food travels from field to dining hall (1,500 diesel-powered miles, on average). How do you heat and cool buildings, and is that new building in the campus master plan really necessary? (It's regrettable that this energy crisis comes at the end of a campus building boom.) Is your campus an integrated part of the community around it—friendly to pedestrians and affordable to students and staff members? Or is it a destination at the end of a long freeway drive?

Brett Pasinella, a program coordinator at the University of New Hampshire's sustainability office in Durham, is thinking about some of these very issues with his colleagues. "You quickly run into problems and questions that go far beyond the standard internal university thinking and more into how the university fits into its region and its community," he says. "You run into the same problems that a town planner would run into."

The most important question colleges should ask themselves: If students are getting squeezed by high energy prices, what will compel them to pay your tuition?

A looming energy crisis offers a tremendous opportunity for colleges, and not just for the major research universities that are looking into algae biofuels and hydrogen fuel cells. Alternative fuels may not reach levels that will slake our tremendous thirst for oil, which now stands at about a quarter of the world's consumption. Coming generations may live in a world vastly different from the one we see now—more local, more interdependent, more efficient, and more creative. Colleges that offer an education that equips students to live in that world will remain relevant.

[xHarinder_singh]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6112500245.html

http://www.strappedthebook.com/

Why is growing up so hard -- and terrifically expensive -- to do these days, and what can we do about it?

Strapped offers a groundbreaking look at the new obstacle course facing young adults-the under 35 crowd-as they try to build careers, buy homes and start families. As Tamara Draut explains, getting ahead is getting harder. A college degree is the new high school diploma - but it now costs a fortune to get that degree and students graduate with crippling debts. Good jobs are scarcer thanks to stagnant wages and disappearing benefits. And, the cost of everything - starter homes, health coverage, childcare - keeps going up and up. Budding families, even those with two incomes, struggle to pay the bills, while Visa and Mastercard have become the new safety net. Young adults are starting out behind the financial eight ball-borrowing their way into adulthood and wondering whatever happened to the American Dream. Is this the way things have to be? Not at all, argues Tamara Draut, a leading young commentator and a fresh voice for change. She shows how the obstacle course bedeviling young adults didn't just happen - it was allowed to happen by a generation of leaders more interested in serving wealthy interests than in investing in the nation's future. Strapped brims with ideas for a new kind of America where every young person can go to college, buy a home, and start a family.

Strapped will help jumpstart a national conversation about where the country is failing-and how we can make it right again.

[sunnysgrewal]

Scientists have said that if Human Race is too survive, we need to find a habitat beyond Earth, on another Planet.

The Dinosaurs lived for 650 million years and became extinct in a very short span of time. Man has been around for only 20 million years on earth. Someone said that instead of trying to find how the dinosaurs became extinct, we should try to find how they survived for so many years.

In about 100 years man would be fighting for existence. Water resources becoming scarce every day, earth heating up each moment, countries like India, known for water resources would be without major rivers that contribute water. Ganges is going to become seasonal in 25 years, imagine what would happen when that happens? The Artic Circle, for the first time in millions of years, broke up into two halves and ships were able to sail through it's centre without hindrance. On top of that there is going to be major food shortage, there have been riots in some countries over food this year. The major energy source, oil, when it ends everything would stop in developing and under developed world. Nuclear energy can replace oil energy, but Muslims would first want to bomb Europe and America and others if they get Nuclear energy. So, they won't get that, thanks to America. There is going to be major crisis in 100 years.

There are only two solutions as of now. Either, Human population gets reduced to 1/4th of present population (how will that happen? a big Astroid bang could do that but it can also wipe out the entire human race), or we need to move to another planet which is similar to earth in atmosphere, resources etc. (in short which can sustain life), soon. Fingers crossed.

No...homo sapiens have only been around for about 120 000 to 200 000 (at the latest) years.

[xHarinder_singh]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/business...CSSYmny2biy1kHw

[xHarinder_singh]

America's Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor's Degree

http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i34/34b01701.htm

[GABROO KHALISTAN DAH]

People might call me crazy, but I feel in the future there will be terrible energy crisis, energy shortages, resource wars, anarchy and all the college degress, grades, etc will go down the toilet.

So instead of a degree, a person needs to have a real life skill like making weapons, battlefield medicines, farming, welding, carpentary. These skills are going to be of great use in the future.

So idealy sikh bhujangis shud not go to college, but if they want to go, make sure they remain DEBT FREE, and yes do carry a gandassa to ur college as the colleges are not going to remain safe in the future.

How old are you veer ji?

You say Sikh bhujangis should not goto college? what the stuff are you on? Without education you are a nobody.

[xHarinder_singh]

People might call me crazy, but I feel in the future there will be terrible energy crisis, energy shortages, resource wars, anarchy and all the college degress, grades, etc will go down the toilet.

So instead of a degree, a person needs to have a real life skill like making weapons, battlefield medicines, farming, welding, carpentary. These skills are going to be of great use in the future.

So idealy sikh bhujangis shud not go to college, but if they want to go, make sure they remain DEBT FREE, and yes do carry a gandassa to ur college as the colleges are not going to remain safe in the future.

How old are you veer ji?

You say Sikh bhujangis should not goto college? what the stuff are you on? Without education you are a nobody.

First of all, gurmantar and gurbani is the real education. Having said that, please dont mistake me to be someone who is totally against the modern education. The world that we used to live in, the modern education helped people to get many jobs. It was all happening within the divine play of God..But due to the energy crisis and peak oil, college degrees are going to become worthless.. Its not going to get u the jobs it used to... Secondly, most of people are ready to go into DEBT to get a college degree, that might be a suicide the way things are going...

Baki, whatever u feel like u do, whatever I am saying is coming true and will come true as well....

I feel its a waste of time debating about things... If u find the articles I posted useful, take it otherwise ignore it...

[GABROO KHALISTAN DAH]

People might call me crazy, but I feel in the future there will be terrible energy crisis, energy shortages, resource wars, anarchy and all the college degress, grades, etc will go down the toilet.

So instead of a degree, a person needs to have a real life skill like making weapons, battlefield medicines, farming, welding, carpentary. These skills are going to be of great use in the future.

So idealy sikh bhujangis shud not go to college, but if they want to go, make sure they remain DEBT FREE, and yes do carry a gandassa to ur college as the colleges are not going to remain safe in the future.

How old are you veer ji?

You say Sikh bhujangis should not goto college? what the stuff are you on? Without education you are a nobody.

First of all, gurmantar and gurbani is the real education. Having said that, please dont mistake me to be someone who is totally against the modern education. The world that we used to live in, the modern education helped people to get many jobs. It was all happening within the divine play of God..But due to the energy crisis and peak oil, college degrees are going to become worthless.. Its not going to get u the jobs it used to... Secondly, most of people are ready to go into DEBT to get a college degree, that might be a suicide the way things are going...

Baki, whatever u feel like u do, whatever I am saying is coming true and will come true as well....

I feel its a waste of time debating about things... If u find the articles I posted useful, take it otherwise ignore it...

xHarinder singh,

I truley feel that you need to speak to an elder (not nessecarly a sikh) about your feelings. Peak oil is but a figment of someone's imagination at this point. I am a practicing Geophysicist In Training. I studied oil exploration for 5 years, and have been practicing for one year. I will tell you that Peak-Oil if even possible is no were near realization. This debt <banned word filter activated> your talking about is irrelevant, why? Because your going to die. credit is meant to be used.

No Gurban is education and true, but equally important is your education in the material world (if you want to call it that).

Veer please, i think you should talk to someone about your feelings they are to extreme, one cannot predict the socio-economic structure of the world. You must understand, resources which were once to expensive to exploit and now becoming econimcal to exploint due to rising prices(this dip is temp) comodoties will go up and so will our pay, its called inflation, we may suffer temporary recession no one has denied that but to say this si the collapse of a civilization, you are WRONG.

I feel that you are scaring the youngers on this bored with all this doomsday hokie pokie, go watch some cartoons have a hot-chocolate and just relax.

[xHarinder_singh]

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/23/pf/college...dex.htm?cnn=yes

Student loan fugitives

When faced with unaffordable monthly payments and relentless creditors, some see leaving the country as their only way out

[Balait_da_Sher]

Degrees are not worthless, it is what degree you have and whether you got it for the right reasons or not is what matters. I did a software engineering degree and its a performance based field. You have to write software, create websites etc and if you cant do that, despite having a Software engineering degree then you will not find a job.

My lecturar used to call other degrees like History, arts etc colouring in degrees, which have no real value in the world. And sure enough we have seen a lot of these students finish their degree and then not being able to find the job in their related field. So most of these students look for a job in a different field.

I finished uni with students of pretty much all backgrounds. We all finished with decent grades in Software engineering. Now pretty much every person i know has making anywhere from £30k - £60k within the first 5 years of leaving uni.

So my advice is to go to university but do a course which you are interested in and which you know will help you with the career that you want.