Feeling blessed today that my kids do not have to borrow money to go to school in 2013.
College students that have to, will see interest rates almost double to 6.8%. This applies to 1/3 of all kids in college that will borrow an average of $6500.00 for the school year.
That will be more than 42 billion dollars borrowed and almost 3 billion owed in interest per year from here on out. Most of these will be paid to colleges and universities that are also subsidized by tax dollars.
After the Affordable Care Act takes effect in 2014 students will come out of college owing more than ever in debt, required to have health insurance whether they have a job or not, expect medicare and social security to still be bankrupt within their lifetime and make less than a student that graduated with the same degree in 2007. They are less likely to buy a home, own a new car or take long vacations in the first 5 years they leave school.
Yes and 50 percent of these students will drop out before they receive a degree. The class of 2013 may create the largest working class poor population of all time and this is just the beginning. College enrollment is declining at 2.3% this year and will continue to fall at a much larger rate as the cost of education goes up. The cost of a 4 year degree at a public school is now above $80,000.00. Many of these institutions have been on a building spree to keep up with other schools and soon will be searching for funds to sustain what they have.
So what will the next crisis be the government will try to solve and be unsuccessful in doing so? You got it, they will try to save the college education.
Institutions that are smart and see this coming will have more and more classes online and less infrastructure. Text books will be digital and professors in lecture halls will become less necessary to the curriculum. Most of them will try to save their precious buildings instead.
The largest union of the government, the department of education will cry foul and sadly find out while they have diverted too many employees to the school lunch program they should have been coming up with a plan to prevent the coming crisis.
My suggestions to students, instead of borrowing money, find a job in or close to the field you would like to pursue and take longer to get a degree. Start at a community college, keep your grades high and finish at a school that is well established in finding jobs for the graduates for the degree program you are in. Look for every scholarship or grant you can get and apply. Or plan to live in mom and dad's basement for quite some time after you leave school. Students still have choices. They are just different than what they used to be. If it takes the student six years to finish college instead of 4 and they come out debt free they will still be ahead by not having to make a student loan payment for 10 years or more. Another option would be military service which still provide for a great subsided education and experience along the way.
Education is not the end all for those that can't afford it. You can self educate yourself online now for next to nothing if you have the desire to do so. Search engines provide answers to almost any given question. You can learn to program a computer or create an app easily now.
The death of the public education is on the clock now. It will come sooner than we think. Make plans to succeed anyway. I know my kids will.
Writer and humorist A. Quintin Smith talks about life, family and those funny things you just can't ignore.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Andy's Top Ten Things to Make Your Life Wonderful
1. Eat everything people tell you not too. Just don't eat to much of anything.
2. Laugh out Loud often. This is the only infectious thing in life that is worth giving and receiving.
3. Make friends that last a lifetime. Stay in touch. It is worth that much.
4. Make a few enemies and then love them like your friends.
5. Dance. Dance. Dance. You will never feel bad when you are dancing and when you move, others will follow.
6. Travel, go places you have never been. Meet the people learn the culture and enjoy the differences from home.
7. Drink water and nothing else. It will save you thousands of dollars over a lifetime and you will be healthier for it.
8, Remember what you work for, your job is there to feed you, clothe you, and put shelter over your head but it should never become so much that you loose yourself in it.
9. Dream, wish, think, plan, take action. A simple model for every thing you do.
10. Love passionately. Find a person you can sleep with, even when they snore, a person you can fight with and is worth fighting for. Find a person that will fight for you and love you with passion back. Love deeply.
11. Believe in God, you will find he listen's when no one else does. He will love you during the times you deserve it and the times you don't. He will give you strength. He will give you peace.
12. Share your gifts. You have talent and others will benefit from it and So will you.
13. Always give more than you promise and take less than you want. © A.Quintin Smith
2. Laugh out Loud often. This is the only infectious thing in life that is worth giving and receiving.
3. Make friends that last a lifetime. Stay in touch. It is worth that much.
4. Make a few enemies and then love them like your friends.
5. Dance. Dance. Dance. You will never feel bad when you are dancing and when you move, others will follow.
6. Travel, go places you have never been. Meet the people learn the culture and enjoy the differences from home.
7. Drink water and nothing else. It will save you thousands of dollars over a lifetime and you will be healthier for it.
8, Remember what you work for, your job is there to feed you, clothe you, and put shelter over your head but it should never become so much that you loose yourself in it.
9. Dream, wish, think, plan, take action. A simple model for every thing you do.
10. Love passionately. Find a person you can sleep with, even when they snore, a person you can fight with and is worth fighting for. Find a person that will fight for you and love you with passion back. Love deeply.
11. Believe in God, you will find he listen's when no one else does. He will love you during the times you deserve it and the times you don't. He will give you strength. He will give you peace.
12. Share your gifts. You have talent and others will benefit from it and So will you.
13. Always give more than you promise and take less than you want. © A.Quintin Smith
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Running Toward the Bomb
I am the guy that heads straight into danger when most everyone else runs away. I don't do it to make people like me or dislike me that is just the man I have become. Why do I stop for a guy changing a tire in a pouring rain on a dark night? Why do I run into the burning building? Why do I say and do things that that others won't?
When I was 15 I was a life guard at a local pool. A ten year old boy who I had seen there a few times left the pool and got on his bicycle to go home. He drove down the hill and out of site. Just then from the pool we could here the screech of a car brakes and then the collisions and a deafening scream. I couldn't see but I knew what had happened.
Some one shouted he has been hit by a car, get the lifeguard, he needs first aid. Many adults stood at the fence looking out. One mother with small children looked at me and said you need to go help. So I jumped off the stand and ran down the hill. A crowd had formed around this small child as he lay crying in the middle of the road. None of them dared to approach him.
It was my job, I was as much as told so but what I learned in Boy Scouts and from the Red Cross did not prepare me for this. He was slumped over a mangled bike his leg broken in two places, blood flowing from his side, head and hands.
I tried to calm him down. I pulled him from the bike and helped him straighten his leg. I removed my shirt and used it to put pressure on the wound on his side, the most critical issue I could see. Then I sat there and held him and talked to him, not really knowing what to say but wanting to keep him conscious until real help arrived.
The ambulance arrived, the real care takers took him from me. They splinted the leg, cleaned his wounds and treated him for shock. Someone told me I was a hero, a few others applauded as I made my way back to the pool. I looked around and most never left the pool deck. The ones that did were merely spectators, curious or otherwise. I felt terrible. How would I know if he was okay, I was not sure if anyone knew his parents or how they would know where their child was.
Someone pointed out I was covered in blood. At that moment I went from hero to almost getting fired because of what I did next. I jumped into the pool.
The mother that had told me "I needed to go help" screamed for me to get out of the pool. She grabbed her children and rushed to tell my supervisor that I had turned the pool into a septic pond.
From that point on I knew that no matter what good I did in life there would be someone that could make it all disappear in a moment. Someone who sat by being both commander and critic but really did nothing of value to improve anyone's quality of life but their own.
I didn't care. That boy needed me. I was there when no one else chose to be.
Six years later I became the boy, I had an accident, crushed by an overturned forklift, my pelvis broken in eight places, my leg dislocated with my foot dangling in front of my face. A crowd gathered round as I screamed and bled from a hole in my back. A man who was with me on the forklift had been thrown clear but he was hurt as well. He could of laid down but he got up. He cared for me until the ambulance arrived. There is more to the story but what matters here is this: the man, my hero was also the driver of the the forklift. It was not his fault it tipped over. It was an unavoidable accident. There were people that wanted to crucify him. They made him feel bad when he should have only been glad he could help.
I have been the hero. I have been the victim. In neither case did I feel like it was my choice. The only person I never want to be is the one who doesn't act but judges those who do. At times I ruffled a few feathers and maybe I meant too. I have made the choice to live big, to say and do the things that many only dream, to be the guy that runs toward the bomb.
When I was 15 I was a life guard at a local pool. A ten year old boy who I had seen there a few times left the pool and got on his bicycle to go home. He drove down the hill and out of site. Just then from the pool we could here the screech of a car brakes and then the collisions and a deafening scream. I couldn't see but I knew what had happened.
Some one shouted he has been hit by a car, get the lifeguard, he needs first aid. Many adults stood at the fence looking out. One mother with small children looked at me and said you need to go help. So I jumped off the stand and ran down the hill. A crowd had formed around this small child as he lay crying in the middle of the road. None of them dared to approach him.
It was my job, I was as much as told so but what I learned in Boy Scouts and from the Red Cross did not prepare me for this. He was slumped over a mangled bike his leg broken in two places, blood flowing from his side, head and hands.
I tried to calm him down. I pulled him from the bike and helped him straighten his leg. I removed my shirt and used it to put pressure on the wound on his side, the most critical issue I could see. Then I sat there and held him and talked to him, not really knowing what to say but wanting to keep him conscious until real help arrived.
The ambulance arrived, the real care takers took him from me. They splinted the leg, cleaned his wounds and treated him for shock. Someone told me I was a hero, a few others applauded as I made my way back to the pool. I looked around and most never left the pool deck. The ones that did were merely spectators, curious or otherwise. I felt terrible. How would I know if he was okay, I was not sure if anyone knew his parents or how they would know where their child was.
Someone pointed out I was covered in blood. At that moment I went from hero to almost getting fired because of what I did next. I jumped into the pool.
The mother that had told me "I needed to go help" screamed for me to get out of the pool. She grabbed her children and rushed to tell my supervisor that I had turned the pool into a septic pond.
From that point on I knew that no matter what good I did in life there would be someone that could make it all disappear in a moment. Someone who sat by being both commander and critic but really did nothing of value to improve anyone's quality of life but their own.
I didn't care. That boy needed me. I was there when no one else chose to be.
Six years later I became the boy, I had an accident, crushed by an overturned forklift, my pelvis broken in eight places, my leg dislocated with my foot dangling in front of my face. A crowd gathered round as I screamed and bled from a hole in my back. A man who was with me on the forklift had been thrown clear but he was hurt as well. He could of laid down but he got up. He cared for me until the ambulance arrived. There is more to the story but what matters here is this: the man, my hero was also the driver of the the forklift. It was not his fault it tipped over. It was an unavoidable accident. There were people that wanted to crucify him. They made him feel bad when he should have only been glad he could help.
I have been the hero. I have been the victim. In neither case did I feel like it was my choice. The only person I never want to be is the one who doesn't act but judges those who do. At times I ruffled a few feathers and maybe I meant too. I have made the choice to live big, to say and do the things that many only dream, to be the guy that runs toward the bomb.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Pointing the Gun at Parents
We have a need for mothers and fathers to make children their priority. It is time to stop the substitution of electronic gadgets for parenting. It is time to get our kids back to the dinner table and converse with them and know what they are doing and where their hearts are. We need to teach them about an all knowing God that has set rules and limits for us to live by so that we may prosper. It is time for grown ups to grow up and be responsible for the generation they are raising. Giving children permission to be and do anything they want needs to be replaced with taking responsibility for their actions and knowing that being the best they can be is some times tough and will take courage to do so. It is time to stop making excuses and using weapons and medicines as scapegoats. The responsibility of children falls directly on the people that care for them. Parents and grandparents, teachers and pastors. It is time for grown ups to be grown up, to set boundaries and expect them to be followed. It is time to educate, to love and discipline our children. It is time to share the message of hope and forgiveness that God has offered willingly. Evil children don't always come from evil parents but they do come from contrite, uncaring and/or overwhelmed care takers that chose to ignore the child when they need them most. They come from allowance and permission that excuse actions that should have consequences. Corporal punishment was replaced by putting a child in time out years ago, time out has been replaced with redirection. We have spared the rod and spoiled the child at the expense of their sanity and well being. I am not suggesting we bring back corporal punishment but children do have to have consequences for wrong action. They have to understand right from wrong. They also need to have a purpose and reason for being the best life has to offer. It may take a village but it starts and ends with the parents.
The parents have given the children the weapon of doing and saying anything they like without consequence and seem to always be surprised when the child takes this weapon and points it back at them.
The parents have given the children the weapon of doing and saying anything they like without consequence and seem to always be surprised when the child takes this weapon and points it back at them.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
Social media works even for the church
Social statistics now says my true reach of people on a daily basis is more than 4 times the number of my facebook friends. That means about 2800 people follow me on a daily basis. That is more than the number of people that go to my church. Or more than go to the local high school and more people than within a mile of my home. I reach people on four continents and 20 US states. I reach ages 13 to 81. Am I saying this to brag. Maybe a little.
My real point is social media works and churches should be using it to reach people. I can ask people on 4 continents and in 20 US States to go to church with me. I think I have a few times but I have not seen a post from a single church in my area, including my own, inviting me to church. I belong to my church's facebook page but don't remember being invited. It doesn't have a schedule or calendar. Post are random and inconsistent.
It is time for churches to use social media to it's advantage. Make friends, stay in touch and invite more each day. A program will only fill up with a good marketing plan. Churches are not exempt from this. They should share there weekly schedule. Invite more than the church body to events and create an inviting and welcome atmosphere. Not one like the church below.
I saw this picture on facebook, Shouldn't it read instead, If your are going to hell, why not come to church with me first.
It is time for churches to step up and step out of their comfort zones. If you haven't looked Jesus Christ is on facebook but he has less than 5 million followers. With half a billion people on facebook, this tells me the church is not doing it's job. It is easy to reach people, stay in touch, and provide all the information they need to bring them into the congregation. Christians should make sure something inviting and welcoming shows up in there feed everyday and it should come from the church they belong too.
My real point is social media works and churches should be using it to reach people. I can ask people on 4 continents and in 20 US States to go to church with me. I think I have a few times but I have not seen a post from a single church in my area, including my own, inviting me to church. I belong to my church's facebook page but don't remember being invited. It doesn't have a schedule or calendar. Post are random and inconsistent.
It is time for churches to use social media to it's advantage. Make friends, stay in touch and invite more each day. A program will only fill up with a good marketing plan. Churches are not exempt from this. They should share there weekly schedule. Invite more than the church body to events and create an inviting and welcome atmosphere. Not one like the church below.
I saw this picture on facebook, Shouldn't it read instead, If your are going to hell, why not come to church with me first.
It is time for churches to step up and step out of their comfort zones. If you haven't looked Jesus Christ is on facebook but he has less than 5 million followers. With half a billion people on facebook, this tells me the church is not doing it's job. It is easy to reach people, stay in touch, and provide all the information they need to bring them into the congregation. Christians should make sure something inviting and welcoming shows up in there feed everyday and it should come from the church they belong too.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
If there is something I want or someone I want to have a relationship with I will make every effort to make it happen.
Ecclesiastes 1
Nothing Makes Sense
1When the son of David was king in Jerusalem, he was known to be very wise, [a] and he said: 2Nothing makes sense!
Everything is nonsense.
2-11 Smoke, nothing but smoke. [That's what the Quester says.] There's nothing to anything—it's all smoke.
What's there to show for a lifetime of work, a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone?
One generation goes its way, the next one arrives,but nothing changes—it's business as usual for old planet earth. The sun comes up and the sun goes down, then does it again, and again—the same old round.
The wind blows south, the wind blows north. Around and around and around it blows, blowing this way, then that—the whirling, erratic wind. All the rivers flow into the sea, but the sea never fills up. The rivers keep flowing to the same old place, and then start all over and do it again. Everything's boring, utterly boring— no one can find any meaning in it. Boring to the eye, boring to the ear. What was will be again, what happened will happen again. There's nothing new on this earth. Year after year it's the same old thing.
The wind blows south, the wind blows north. Around and around and around it blows, blowing this way, then that—the whirling, erratic wind. All the rivers flow into the sea, but the sea never fills up. The rivers keep flowing to the same old place, and then start all over and do it again. Everything's boring, utterly boring— no one can find any meaning in it. Boring to the eye, boring to the ear. What was will be again, what happened will happen again. There's nothing new on this earth. Year after year it's the same old thing.
Does someone call out, "Hey, this is new"? Don't get excited—it's the same old story. Nobody remembers what happened yesterday. And the things that will happen tomorrow? Nobody'll remember them either.
Don't count on being remembered.
Knowing that the world and people never changes is a hard thing to grasp. Understanding that people no matter who they are, are people. Each one seeks understanding, attention, affection and acceptance. If you wanted to be friends with someone and you knew you couldn't fail would you pick up the phone, send them an email, or stop them on the street? Would you share what you have in common? Listen to them? Be compassionate and caring for them? Help them write their life story? You can be friends with anyone you share something in common with, from the homeless to the rich and famous and everyone in between. You have to want what they want and share in what they want to share. You have to be persistent and consistent. Sometimes you will find out they are not the friend you wanted and sometimes you must expect to be forgotten over time.
That is the smoke of life. You rise from the fire, strong and full of hope, you spread over a larger and larger area touching many and thinning out as you go, until you simply disappear. You will just become so much smoke on the water as they say.
If you wanted something you don't have, would you work to find a solution to get it if you knew success was only a few steps away? Who would you ask for it? What reason would you have that you deserve such a thing? Would you be persistent to get it or would you give up if the road gets too hard? Would you change with the wind or get bored? Objects like people have to be wanted, understood and accepted. Each needs attention. If you want something bad enough it will never just happen or fall in your lap. You have to plan for it. You have to ask yourself and others the right questions. You need to be persistent and consistent.
Don't count on being remembered.
Knowing that the world and people never changes is a hard thing to grasp. Understanding that people no matter who they are, are people. Each one seeks understanding, attention, affection and acceptance. If you wanted to be friends with someone and you knew you couldn't fail would you pick up the phone, send them an email, or stop them on the street? Would you share what you have in common? Listen to them? Be compassionate and caring for them? Help them write their life story? You can be friends with anyone you share something in common with, from the homeless to the rich and famous and everyone in between. You have to want what they want and share in what they want to share. You have to be persistent and consistent. Sometimes you will find out they are not the friend you wanted and sometimes you must expect to be forgotten over time.
That is the smoke of life. You rise from the fire, strong and full of hope, you spread over a larger and larger area touching many and thinning out as you go, until you simply disappear. You will just become so much smoke on the water as they say.
If you wanted something you don't have, would you work to find a solution to get it if you knew success was only a few steps away? Who would you ask for it? What reason would you have that you deserve such a thing? Would you be persistent to get it or would you give up if the road gets too hard? Would you change with the wind or get bored? Objects like people have to be wanted, understood and accepted. Each needs attention. If you want something bad enough it will never just happen or fall in your lap. You have to plan for it. You have to ask yourself and others the right questions. You need to be persistent and consistent.
Everything in life takes effort. Friendship, companionship, and anything else you desire can be yours but you have to make time for it. You have to create a plan for success and stick to it no matter what. Sometimes your plan will change or have to be modified but it will be a plan with an end in mind.
Creating a successful life first starts with the understanding the words of King David. You are but a part of a generation that has mostly forgotten what the generation before has done. There is really nothing new, only different than it was before. Time will pass and the sun will rise and fall, the winds will blow and rivers and seas will ebb and flow. The next generation will have forgotten all this again when your time is passed. So what is really important is the here and now.
Write down what your life's expectations are. Make a plan to get the things in life you desire. Choose wisely because your time is limited. Don't count on being remembered. Count on living each day until it is done.
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