Sorry for the recent dry spell here. The dieting & exercising had me a little tired last week (dropped another 5 lbs, after dropping none the previous week) and I wasn’t too motivated to blog. I started to write a “pox on both their houses” post about the set-to-expire Bush tax cuts, but lost interest in it. If anyone is interested in reading it, maybe I’ll finish it up. A few thoughts follow. But first, a word from our sponsor.
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A stripper’s lament
Now, about that stripper’s lament. From Bloomberg: “Stripper Finds Degree Profitable for Goldman Wasn’t Worth It”. Key excerpt below the photo of the stripper.
Carrianne Howard dreamed of designing video games, so she enrolled in a program at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, a for-profit college part-owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Her bachelor’s degree in game art and design cost $70,000 in tuition and fees. After she graduated in December 2007, she found a job that paid $12 an hour recruiting employees for video game companies. She lost that job a year later when her department was shuttered.
These days, Howard, 26, makes her living in a way that doesn’t require a college diploma: by stripping at the Lido Cabaret, a topless club in Cocoa Beach, Florida. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she says. “I’ve got a worthless degree. It’s like I didn’t attend school at all.”
Something I missed
I’ve blogged about the education bubble for almost two years now, but I never acted on it in terms of investing. Hesperian did though: he decided to short the education bubble back in April. I didn’t short anything in that sector because I figured elites continue to think of education as a panacea for economic advancement, and I didn’t see a Democratic administration, in particular, throttling back on education funding. What I missed was the difference in perception about for-profit versus traditional, not-for-profit schools.
Frankly, I think that much of the criticisms heaped on the for-profit schools (students racking up debt for worthless degrees) applies to traditional schools as well, but what I think isn’t important. Kudos to Hesperian for pulling the trigger on this one, a sector bet in which he has been in good company.
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