Forum Replies Created
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bearishgurl
ParticipantGood post by CAR in response to scaredy’s idea.
One thing, though, which I think would happen when the childbearer (woman) “frontloads” her prices for the tasks they won’t be able to do later in life (mainly childbearing) is that the women would end up seeking out only partner-parents (dads) who could pay them enough (however much “enough” is) for them to bear children for them.
This would encourage “gold-digging” among women, especially those who can bear children but don’t have the skills or experience to support themselves.
BUT …. “gold-digging” (in the context of the business deal that scaredy described) is a two-way street. Both parties go into it with their eyes wide open (barring any problems with pregnancy which could be written into the contract between them) and the prospective dad realizes that if they want their own children, they must pay a certain price to compel a willing woman (with good genes?) to bear them for him.
The men who didn’t make much (or were unemployed) wouldn’t be having any children by women they personally chose to bear them. They would be the ones sued for child support for “accidents” when those moms went on public aid to support their children because they never had any contract for payment for carrying their child(ren) and raising them.
Like Russ said, water seeks its own level.
ParticipantCAR, my kids played outside with other kids where they (and their parent(s)) were home. I just didn’t own a stroller because I didn’t have time to use one. My kids weren’t “latchkey kids” until they were at least in 5th or 6th grade. That’s what afterschool care is for.
My kids were highly socialized from as young an age as possible.
I don’t want to get into “mommy wars” with internet posters, either. There are plenty of other forums for that.
I don’t know how old you are, CAR, so not saying the following is about you, but I do feel that the younger Gen X cohort of parents and the older Gen Y crowd (the ones that have kids) are, for the most part, very well educated (many are still paying on student loans), yet they choose not to work and stay home with their kid(s). That is folly, IMO, while the interest racks up on their (often enormous) student debt due to deferments, partial payments and non-payment for periods of time.
Why even go to college if what you really want to be is a SAHP? Why not go later (or attend a training program) when your kids are in school FT if you later decide to want to work in a skilled job? How much is a college degree worth that has never been used and is now 10, 12, 15 or 20+ years old?
My generation didn’t waste money on college if what they really wanted was to be a SAHP. They simply married during or right out of HS and got on with their adult lives.
I don’t opine that most men require women (their spouses) to stay home when they previously were working and bringing in a good salary. I hear from them that things went downhill in their relationships when their spouses decided unilaterally that they were going to quit work and stay home with kids but refuse to curtail their spending below what it was when they were bringing home a paycheck. Often that unilateral decision to be a SAHP by one parent turns out to be the beginning of the end of the relationship.
If the higher earning parent makes at least $200K, I could see them agreeing that the other parent (their partner) could quit their FT jobs and stay home with kid(s). But even then, it is very difficult for a former career person to alter their lifestyle far below what it was when they were bringing home a decent salary.
The WWII Gen and the boomers (+ some early Gen-Xers) paved the way for equality for women in the workplace and did make a lot of headway in being instrumental in getting family friendly labor laws enacted only to result in LESS women of childbearing age in the FT workforce today.
I haven’t investigated the stats on this but based upon recent articles I read, I strongly suspect that the bulk of women in the FT workforce in the US today either do not have children or all their child(ren) are over the age of 16. The rest of the mostly overeducated crowd of mommies are home with their children. The poor women without higher education and with or without spouses and minor kids at home are working in all the service jobs (essentially grunt work)… PT, FT or both part and FT … anything they can get.
After all their sister predecessors have been through, why did the values of the younger generation of parents (mostly moms) change over the last decade-plus? They prefer modern conveniences and technology much more than their older brethren (many of whom retired with their own pensions) and all this stuff costs money (and many are indebted for their educations) but it seems a good portion of them would rather opt out of the workforce, ignore their debts and attempt to live on less.
It doesn’t make sense.
Participant[quote=Blogstar]Lots of work that people do , especially blue collar men, degrades their bodies as much or worse than pregnancy and/or have high death risk factors. So, if pregnancy is allocated for, how about that?
1 baby=1 decade as an industrial worker.[/quote]
Fair enough. I agree. Except a baby only takes nine months but I feel the new mom should be compensated extra for 12 months due to needing 3 months to hassle with getting rid of any excess weight and toning up. While she’s at the gym five days per week, the employer dad can do his 50% stint with the kid.
The industrial worker can file a worker’s comp claim for any injuries they sustain while on the job or any rehab they need. No such benefit extends to new moms.
That’s because a blue collar job is “valued” by society and the law and bearing children isn’t. It’s assumed a middle school dropout can bear chidren (and be a drain on taxpayers).
This isn’t necessarily my opinion, folks. It’s just the way the world works so I accept it.
ParticipantIn my long post above, I stated that local gubment clerk typists (entry-level position) made ~$16K annually. Actually, the wage was slightly over $5 hr back then. That’s closer to $10,650 yr. I don’t recall any of my co-workers not returning after their (six-weeks disability + any vac hrs left on their books) maternity leaves. A few had a baby per year 3 or more years in a row and still came back to work at their $5 – $6 hr job, five days per week, 8 – 5 pm. Flex time was unheard of and of course, you couldn’t work from home. There were no computers (except the mainframe at work, lol). And a new mom couldn’t pump breast milk at work and a new dad wasn’t allowed time off that was not on their vac balance. The new mom and her new baby made a quick transition to FT daycare and moved on.
If the new mom didn’t return on the designated day when they were out of leave, their position would be mailed out for interviewees still on the list in effort to fill it immediately.
Anyone correct me if I’m wrong here, but I believe active duty military women only get four weeks maternity leave. Not sure if the military participates in state disability insurance programs.
The new-parent Federal labor laws (beginning in the early nineties) were much more family-friendly.
Participant[quote=scaredyclassic]How about this set up. No more marriage. The wealthier spouse simply employs the less wealthy spouse as a domestic engineer. All the household expenses are probably tax deductible, since the business is the business of raising baby. Also satsisfying certain needs of the employer.. the engineer is at a lower tax bracket than the employer, so there’s a tax advantage beyond deducting all sorts of things that otherwise wouldn’t be deductible if this work weren’t employment and valued appropriately. On the bright side for the employer, there’s no community to divide upon divorce, because there’s no divorce, simply employer employee. Also, the employer can just give the employee the boot at any time, assuming we’re in an at will state. Since everything’s being fully compensated at an agreed upon market value, there’s no need to pay any alimony. Child support still applies, but that’s just the cost fo doing business. Check with your acct to see if that might eb tax deductible under these circumstances.
This seems like a better deal all around. No illusions. No uncompensated work. Lesser women will have to work for lesser employers and it may be very lwo wage, but that’s their decision, to work for a very small business. They need to work for a larger more thriving concern if they want their work valued appropriately to what they feel it’s worth. If the employer provides any service to the spouse, that’s service may be deducted from wages. Vacation and various employment rules apply, so more than one spouse for child care may be required, as there are limits on shift work, breaks, etc. [/quote]
scaredy, if you’re saying the payor parent is technically responsible for 50% of the care of kids the parents have together and will compensate the other parent for the other 50%, it would seem to me that the other parent would have a FT job until the last kid was in school FT. After that, they may only have a PT job, depending upon the activities of the children. With HS age kids, the other parent will likely have a part, part time position or even be unemployed, depending on how independent (and sensible) those HS age kids are, lol.
In your scenario, I feel the other parent (if female) should be compensated extra for the time they are carrying children because it is hard to hold down FT work for many pregnant women and can be a hassle to lose all the excess weight afterwards. The woman should set the rate and if the employer parent doesn’t want to pay it, they should decline the childbearing job.
I’m all for streamlining CA child support law but I believe the chief problem is that child support is set solely on custody timeshare percentages and disparity between the parents’ incomes. This invites litigation by both parties to discredit each other in effort to grab as much custody timeshare percentage as they think the other parent will cave to (due to inability to litigate or not having money to litigate the issue). It also invites parents who had little to zero interaction with their kids until the “breakup” to suddenly become “parent of the year” in the eyes of the law and petition to grab their 50%+.
ParticipantI can’t tell you all how many parents I have been acquainted with over the years (newly “single” and the vast majority female), most of them attractive and reasonably intelligent, who USED to have a “nice life” and are now totally screwed. They’re screwed because they did it to themselves. They, like CAR, thought that society and the law valued (or should value) their “soccer mom duties” enough to set them for life.
It doesn’t and they aren’t.
Some have moved back in with their (now elderly) parents. Not because their parents asked them to or necessarily needed their help but because they were desperate and had no choice if they wanted to remain in SD County to have regular contact with whatever children they had who were still minors.
Participant[quote=CA renter][quote=scaredyclassic]
work outside the home is extremely easy to value; as there is a wage attached to it…[/quote]
This is precisely the problem. Since wage-earning is easy to value by default, since one’s paycheck shows the perceived value of the work, there is no dispute that it is “work.”
OTOH, we rarely compute the work that caretakers do if they are working within their own homes or for their own families. How much would you have to pay for someone to be there for your children 24/7? How much to make all the appointments and shuttle people to these appointments and manage all the follow-up? How much to manage a family’s finances — including bill paying, negotiating contracts and doing due diligence on service providers, doing investment research and allocating financial resources? How about a family’s financial/legal business like estate planning, insurance, home purchases, etc…especially if that tends to be managed by one spouse? And even though the subject is taboo, what value do we place on having biological children who will carry our last name…should the person who facilitates this do it for free, especially when they risk their health, their bodies, and reduce their value to future potential suitors?
Is any of this “work”? If so, how should we value it? Because it’s traditionally been done by women (who were owned by men, much like slaves…does a slave’s work have value, even if he/she was not paid?), should we assume that this work has no value?[/quote]
CAR, if you’re a SAHP and you perform all the above business tasks for your family, that is way more than the vast majority of SAHP’s do. They can’t possibly perform these tasks because they don’t have a clue how to do them. The italicized portions of your post (above) DO cost money and those tasks have worth.
As Russ mentioned about the (complaining-about-being overworked?) homeschool moms at his gym, that is a choice. It can’t be monetized because public school in the US is essentially “free.” Sure, property owners pay taxes which go to the school districts but renters and those many public school students living in MX and “stealing” a spot at SD County schools are attending for “free.”
The reality is that the two-earner couple doesn’t do every household task to perfection. They may get someone 2-4 times per month to clean for 7-8 hrs (abt $60 per visit here in Chula Vista). Many homeowners with lots over 10K sf (working or retired) employ gardeners 2-4x monthly. Two-earner families with young children have FT daycare or after-school care. The cost varies wildly in each situation or income level. It is also partially tax deductible for income-qualified families.
It is absolutely worth it for a SAHP to work FT who earns at least $30K per year and who has no more than two children at a time in FT daycare or afterschool care. This is so because the cost of being absent from the workforce for years at a time is very great, especially for a SAHP with limited (or dated) education. The cost to the SAHP is far greater than any perceived “emotional cost” to a kid who must attend daycare or afterschool care during the business day. In CA, this is manifested in the domestic courts where judges (no matter which gender) view each parent as an equal parent. Whether the parents are married or not makes no difference. It doesn’t matter if the working parent EVER had any interaction with their kids and was a road/sky warrior 8-25 days per month for most of their child(ren)s life! They are EQUAL parents to the SAHP in the eyes of the law and deserve 50% custody timeshare because they are the natural parent and they petition for their 50%. The vast majority of the (child-support) payor parents (the ones who are working FT and the other parent is a SAHP) lawyer up immediately in the event they sense a “breakup” and will be counseled immediately to petition for their 50%. They’re allowed to get live in care for their household to take care of their kids if they travel for work frequently or work night shifts and they do. THIS is much cheaper for the CS payor over the long run because it is not court-ordered and garnished from their pay and the amount doesn’t set a precedent for future CS hikes initiated by the receiving parent. The payor can stop it (the overnight childcare) at any time and just pay for the service intermittently when they need it. If the payor should get a new live-in partner or spouse in the future, that new partner may be willing to contribute some child care to the payor’s children.
In nearly all cases, the former SAHP is left with 50% of their time without their children and if they don’t seek any kind of work and begin working (if they don’t have other types of monthly income), they may very well eventually be imputed a salary by the court and that arbitrary salary will be used to compute permanent CS against the payor’s monthly income.
The vast majority of kids (especially toddlers and preschoolers) LOVE daycare with all the attention, toys and other kids once they get used to it … this usually takes 10 minutes to 3 days, lol. These kids are usually highly socialized upon entering kindergarten and don’t have unhealthy attachments to parents and toddler habits they’re still working on getting rid of like many 4-5 yr olds do who always had SAHPs.
The second child in FT daycare is typically discounted 25% if both are at the same facility/home daycare situation. Many, many young parents drop their kids off at a grandparent’s home 2-5 days per week, which cuts their daycare cost significantly. Headstart, DASH and other sliding scale preschool and afterschool programs are available at reasonable prices to income-qualified families. Scouting has daycamp in Balboa park with daycare afterwards for several weeks in the summers. So do the YMCAs all over the county. These non-profits offer sliding scare daycare services, activities and camperships to income-qualified families.
Meanwhile, the $30K FT working parent at the age of 24 (assuming HS Diploma and possibly a 1-yr certificate program at a CC and working as a car dealership bookkeeper) can get raises and attend one CC night class at a time relevant to their job. This could enable them to make $35K in 2-3 yrs time and close to $50K by the time both their kids are in school FT. If they work for any branch of govm’t, they will get step raises automatically and be in line for promotional opportunities which are not open to the public.
H@ll, this same parent could have gotten a degree after their kids were in school FT and started making over $100K by the time their kids were in MS or HS!
I myself worked with many, many parents of babies and young children over the years while working in local govm’t and also long before the FMLA was passed into law in 1993. NONE OF THESE PARENTS EVER QUIT and several had 4-5 kids all born while they were employed FT. Several were military spouses who let their member spouse deploy by themselves repeatedly for up to two years so they could keep their jobs!
When I began working for the gubment, the beginning clerical salary for an “Intermediate Clerk Typist” was just over $16K per year! By the time my co-workers were 50 yrs old, the vast majority had rec’d several promotions and were making $55K to $69K per year. Only a few had furthered their education beyond a HS Diploma but had taken evening classes at CC relevant to their duties. The vast majority of my former coworkers are now retired with pensions and their kids are grown. Most have paid-off homes. Some take care of their grandkids part of the week.
Sorry for the rant here, but I don’t think all simple household tasks can be monetized and like scaredy stated, not every parent cares if their houses and yards are perfect (even if the SAHP does). We must accept that society does not value household work and child care the same as it does working outside the home for pay.
Participant[quote=flyer]I’ve read quite a few articles by psychologists who contend that social media distorts reality for many people. It seems this phenomenon has, sadly, encouraged many to believe they are “stars,” even within their own tiny universe. Many people feel insignificant, and this allows them to be “somebody,” or so the “pros” say. This analysis was not just confined to women.
My wife, who is in the film business, tells me that, whatever the storyline of a project, it must be fully grounded in hyper-escapism before she’ll greenlight it–because that’s what the world wants to see.
When you look at the highest grossing films of all time, it appears most have that element in common, so, seeing this same premise played out on a smaller scale in social media doesn’t really seem too surprising.[/quote]
LOL, flyer, you nailed it. For this reason (and my privacy concerns as well as the daily time element involved), I have never participated in “social media.”
When friends/relatives have logged into FB in my presence, allowing me to see what was “going on” with my kids and people I know, I, too, have seen poster-“friends” telling the (female) friend/site owner (who is fishing for compliments with a new hairdo, etc) that they “look beautiful” when nothing could be further from the truth.
I agree that this phenomenon is not confined to women but is, nonetheless, hilarious!
I’m sure you tell your spouse to continue making her decisions to produce whatever sells … more power to you!
October 19, 2014 at 7:38 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #778992Participant[quote=joec]I’ve posted before that if you can go private, do so. I graduated from a “coastal” UC engineering program. As engineering classes 20 years ago have pre-reqs and you need to take them in order (usually), if you get a C- in any class, you’re guaranteed to stay another year since you need to retake it and they are only offered once a year and never during the summer.
For a UC system where some of your upper division engr classes are curved, this means 1/3 of the class will stay another year or drop out of the program.
Something to consider if you do a STEM major.
All that said, I think “UC” schools aren’t that great and if given the choice or if your kid has the choice, go to a nice private/ivy/stanford/cal-tech/mit/harvey mudd school/program.
I think the kids in those schools will be the future leaders of America and it’s best to be friends with those people.
Also, trying to get hired at the top tech companies or any company is easier at the Ivy’s I feel. Connections are worth a lot more to getting ahead, especially if you want to eventually leave the worker bee/engineer/tech/worker type field and move up to management. You can do a search for Fortune 500 CEOs and many come from elite universities due to connections. A lot of the UC students, I assume tend to be immigrant families (I was one) just looking to be a worker bee, etc…since that’s what their parents did/know/etc…
With grants/loans for kids who are great, a lot of private schools will also cover a lot more expenses now so you may pay a similar amount or even less than a UC or CSU school.
My 2 cents.[/quote]
I agree, joec, but the ivies, Caltech, USC and Claremont Colleges, for example require big loans for most students and parents at some point in their college “career” (if not from day one), greatly hampering the graduate’s ability to get on with their lives after graduation (marriage, kids, home, newer vehicles, etc). Scholarship money is never guaranteed for the entire four years (while the tuition goes up).
My kid(s) were successful in life and can/will be able to support themselves solely BECAUSE they didn’t and will not take out any student loans.
The community work and charitable fund-raising that students who belong to Greek organizations do exposes them to possible internships and later, job interviews due to the “deep pocketed” and “well-connected” individuals who run the charitable organizations and regular interaction with their many regular donors. Becoming a Greek is a way for a kid to get a leg up in life where if they would have stayed home and gone to CC with their HS friends (many of whom they have known all their lives), they would have likely had a much different outcome, including early marriage and children … or just children. A university sophomore, junior or senior attending and out-of-county campus only has to visit their home turf and HS friends around holidays to observe the life they (unwittingly and unplanned) created for themselves.
For the 1-5%er parents or (qualified) kid with a benefactor, the expensive private colleges are a no brainer.
Participant[quote=scaredyclassic]big money flowing into pets cause women believe these dogs are their babies. i know someone who is feeding several very large hounds many pounds of fresh meat a day at lord only knows what expense. she will spend money like crazy on these dogs. this trend is probably only going to get crazier. so.
how to make money off this madness? even below the fresh meat yuppie dog food lifestyle, premium dog food sales are way way up…
people will spend whatever it takes but not sure what to sell them[/quote]
scaredy, premium pet food (cat and dog) is well worth it! Especially the dry variety. Cheap grocery store pet food is full of dyes and filler. You don’t have to spend a lot to get good pet food and coupons are available, both mfrs and store coupons. Nutro and ProPlan are two brands which are reasonably priced and of good quality. I do not feed my pets raw meat but carefully regulate their measured dry food and wet food twice daily to keep their figures. Obesity is a small pet’s worst enemy. The only snacks my dog gets are salad greens without dressing (a handful of calories).
Small pets also need an (expensive) thorough teeth cleaning at least once every two years because their teeth are so close together and their whole mouth can decay easily, causing periodontal abscesses to travel and block their heart valves (I lost a beloved GC show cat from this who died in my arms). All pets need their teeth brushed regularly and (in SD) a monthly flea treatment ($12-18 mo).
Household pets don’t cost anywhere near as much as human babies but still must be taken care of properly and receive proper training and periodic vet care for a long life.
ParticipantWell, scaredy, I didn’t get a small dog (with a BIG presence) until babies were a distant memory for me. I’ve always been a cat person and still am.
BUT, one of my kids loves dogs and has two matching small/med sized dogs instead of kids, which they travel with. That’s fine by me. Dogs don’t require as much work as grandchildren do and when they visit me, they can visit my dog in the backyard because they drive my housecat crazy.
I’m just entering my “free as a bird” stage in my “old age,” lol, and don’t yet want grandchildren to take care of. I spent way too long just raising my own kids, due to too much time elapsing between kids.
Take note, young Piggs. Learn from me. Have kids when young and space them close together. Life can be short. DO NOT spend three decades (++?) raising kids!!
If you would rather have pets than kids, that’s fine. Different strokes for different folks.
scaredy, I know you don’t like dogs, but many men do. Lots of guys even like small dogs. Many breeds of small dogs are smart, but have a “Napoleon complex” and let their owner know that they “own” the perimeters of the house, the front/back/side yards, the sidewalk and street. Some are bossy and have an innate need to supervise the comings and goings of other household pets.
October 19, 2014 at 6:11 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #778991ParticipantHere’s an alternative to (impacted) UC/CSU campuses for your college-bound engineering major, folks.
ASU is now offering a 38.5% WUE discount off out-of-state tuition on three campuses for 33 BS majors (predominantly engineering) and 3 BA majors. The BS majors offered there are all in very employable fields!
How much would I save with WUE?
Resident tuition: $9484
Nonresident tuition: $23136
WUE rate (Resident x 150%): $14226
WUE Savings: $8910Important: The rates shown are taken from WICHE’s Annual Tuition and Fees Report for AY2013 – 14 and do not include fees. Actual tuition rates may vary. These rates assume 30 credit hours per year. We strongly encourage you to verify these rates with the admissions office where you want to enroll.
http://wue.wiche.edu/profile.jsp?id=202
ASU is currently offering about 28 more majors (with a much larger WUE discount) than when I first heard about this program about four years ago!
I have a relative who is a retired HS teacher from the PHX area. She told me that most rural and semi-rural HS students in AZ do not have the qualifications to get admitted to university because they attended HS’s on Native American Indian reservations where the HS dropout rate is high. Although public outreach to convince tribal kids to graduate HS has been in place for several years, some of the tribal-member students and their families do not place a high priority on HS graduation.
Thus, the generous WUE offerings to out-of-state students by ASU, which was one of the first institutions to join the agreement.
October 19, 2014 at 5:44 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #778988Participant[quote=scaredyclassic]mt san jacinto, cc in riverside, just had a bond measure on the ballot for about 300 million for new facility upgrades.
i voted against, ebcause, i dont know, it looked pretty nice when i went to visit a couple years ago. doesnt seem liek they need a construction project seems like they need to just run more classes with more profs. they’re barely paying these teachers anything. just keep the place running doubletime. am i out of line witht hat suggestion. jeez. you got a room, the library is unebelievably gorgreous, just fucking have some goddamn classes!!!! and stop building shit…and the shamelessness the way the ballot is tied to educating returning veterns.
come on…
ah, i guess it’s ok, dumber ways to spend 300 million than a college renovation[/quote]
SWC recently completed the multimillion-dollar renovation of Devore Stadium.
http://www.swccd.edu/index.aspx?recordid=708&page=25
Many of the SUHSD schools use SWC’s auditorium and will also use this new stadium due to having no like facilities of their own.
Yes, scaredy, most of the CA CC’s instructors are “adjunct” instructors (who work a FT job elsewhere or are collecting a pension). They are actually paid by the class taught (as a yoga instructor at a gym would be, for example)!
I believe it is the duty of CA CC’s to prepare FT college freshman and sophomores for CA university admission. Since many CC campuses likely can no longer achieve this on a consistent basis with their many (expensive) classrooms sitting empty due to lack of (cheap) staff, it’s well past time to let the cat out of the bag and tell HS seniors the truth: that they would be MUCH better off applying for university NOW and getting the h@ll out of dodge if that’s what it takes to begin university classes right out of HS.
Bakersfield, Merced and Fresno are actually downright cheap to live in! (No, my kid isn’t attending those campuses but has friends that are.) As you know, several other UC/CSU campus locations only have a slightly higher off-campus cost of living than the above three. I’ve seen the recent improvements of Fresno State and the new UC Merced campus and they are both beautiful and state of the art!
Returning veterans should just enroll in UC/CSU (even if they have to move their families near campus). Many already have college credits from their shipboard and field assignments. They don’t need 60 core units to get admitted and can get admitted under different criteria. They have CalVet or Chapter 35 aid and/or the Montgomery GI Plan. Any UC/CSU would be most happy to have them and would assign them their very own personal academic advisor. As it should be.
I can see no good reason for a returning vet to waste their precious time after leaving active duty service (when many already have children to support) playing endless games at a CA CC unless they are dreaming of becoming an auto alignment specialist or going into construction trades.
October 19, 2014 at 5:09 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #778987Participant[quote=Blogstar]Great public service post, BG.
How about kids declaring a major and then getting most of it finished and then having a hard time getting the last few classes. How much is that happening.
We know a kid who went through a guaranteed placement from high school into an engineering program. He was apparently kicking butt .Recently I found out that it has been taking him a few years to nail down the last requirements due to lack of classes.
Congrats on your kid doing so well![/quote]
Russ, I think I may have posted here a few years ago that I had a kid (a double-major with two business majors) who graduated from SFSU in May 2011 and could not get the last three classes in their senior year that they needed to graduate. They called me in late January of 2011 complaining that they had been crashing classes for a week and couldn’t get in and also could not sign up for the classes they needed online (couldn’t get priority sign up due to mismanagement of scholarship applications which paid the bursar late – that’s why I’m now handling this detail). I spoke to the Dean of the Business School who told me that he had to “lay off” several instructors and not replace several who had retired the previous summer. I told him that it’s not right for juniors to get into the (350+ and 400 level) classes when seniors who have already been in attendance 5-6 years can’t get the classes they need to graduate. He had his assistant find my kid the classes they needed from nearby CSU campuses (Concord and Hayward [CSUEB], who would transfer the credits back to SFSU) and my kid had to pay over $800 (over and above their tuition and fees to SFSU) to take the Hayward class online through their “extension program.” They did so and also attended the Concord campus classes and graduated May 2011. This kid had a great income (~40K) and “rent control” almost all through college. In earning this much, they lost their CalVet waiver for tuition fees, which was worth at that time about $2500 to $3600, but they didn’t care.
NOW, the CalVet waiver is worth ~$5475 year at the CSU, payroll taxes are higher and jobs for students are much harder to find. So it is NOT WORTH IT anymore for the student to exceed the income limits, IMO.
My last kid was admitted to SFSU but their major program was impacted there and the SFSU Business School could not guarantee graduation in any of 8 disciplines they offer in even six years. Life is too short to repeat those frustrations so they are currently attending a CSU campus with more room (both classrooms AND open space) and more individual attention in which were very fortunate to be admitted to (considering the competition).
Folks, be prepared to “helicopter” a little bit for your UC/CSU-bound HS kid during the app process and while they’re a freshman. As a former bureaucrat myself, I consider myself a master at cutting through bureaucracy (2013/14 was the first time I tried this, except for the last semester of senior year for the above kid).
So far, so good. Ask me again next year :=0
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