25- The realized cost of college is not what it used to be

The latest October 2025 NBC News poll about the value of a college degree, nearly 2/3 of registered voters say that a four-year college degree is not worth the cost of attending college. That means that 33% of those polled thinks that a four-year degree is worth the cost.

In June 2013, the spread was much different. Then 53% of those polled said that a 4-year degree was worth the cost and 40% thought that college wasn’t worth the cost.

I have two thoughts about this.

TWELVE YEARS is all it took to destroy the idea of furthering your education. This was not done in a vacuum and certain people have been working toward this for a very, very, very, very, very long time. All the way back in the 1860s when the department of education was first created by President Andrew Johnson. And people railed about it enough then that the department was decreased to the office of education. (I think this is a genesis point of people realizing that LOUD makes right).
This is a problem of the education purveyor’s own making, in part. College has skyrocketed each year for as long as I’ve been a college student.

My final thought is that y’all are playing right into their hands.

They want Americans dumb. A less educated populace asks fewer questions that they don’t want to answer.

They want Americans without education to realize hey, this isn’t right.

They want Americans without education to realize that there is no way to rise above their station so they should just give up and become a corporate drone.

The questions you should be asking yourself are who is pushing the dumbening of America?Which corporations and billionaires stand to profit from keeping us dumb?

It also isn’t too late to ask yourself “how do we stop it?” Nearly but no.

As always follow the money.

And then read a history book and get ready to fight.

My final thought is to caution wariness about the make up of the poll. Who was their sample? How did they know their sample would be representative of the population? Who is asking these question? What is their angle?

Lastly, who is paying for the poll/study? And how do they profit from it?

School Me Saturday 10/11/2025- El Presidente shakedown of Universities

In the so-called OBBB, aka the “big beautiful bill”, where the conservative right laid out most of their demands from Project 2025 that hadn’t yet been begun by the draconian Department of Education policies, the student loans were capped. Yup, at the undergraduate AND the graduate level. This means that the Parent PLUS loans are capped at $20,000 per year, with a lifetime cap of $65,000 per student. For the graduate unsubsidized direct loan limits are $50,000 per year, with a lifetime cap of $200,000.

At first glance, like so much of what this administration does, this is positive. This means that student loan amounts will be limited. That student loans can’t hamstrung young adults and their families long after the principal amount has been paid, often many times over.

But, like so much of what this administration does, this is a poison pill.

You either have to be rich to attend undergraduate and graduate schools, or you have to be able to take out subsidized loans, often from predatory lenders, or you have to have a very robust 529 savings.

Yeah, right, you have to be rich. This decreases the student “talent” pool available for universities and colleges. If you have an unlimited checkbook, you’ll be fine. Otherwise you are fucked.

In all transparency, Creighton cost me about $5,000 a semester when I went there for a total of 4 semesters, or $20,000. Reminder, this was 1993. I had a scholarship from the pharmaceutical company that owned Marshalls at the time for $4,000. I also had an Air Force reserve officer training corps (ROTC) scholarship that began in my second year. I live off campus for the first year and in the dorm for the second year. After I hurt my shoulder (on campus, mind you), I had to leave Creighton and I lost my ROTC scholarship. Don’t worry, the Air Force got their money back in painful $200 amounts over the next TEN YEARS. My next nursing school I paid out of pocket for. This was a community college in California and I don’t recall the per hour tuition from 1998. I had three classes that I took before I was accepted into the program, microbiology lab as I was missing a credit hour from Creighton and CA requires 5 credit hours, algebra, and an English class. Let’s call Napa Valley cost was about $3,000 for the program. My BSN was $24,000 in 2015 that I exclusively used student loans for, and my MSN was $12,000 which I used $5,000 in student loans and paid the rest cash. This was because the student loan disbursement did not jibe with the 8 week quarters. 20,000 + 24,000 + 12,000 + whatever the PhD is costing me= way over the $65,000 lifetime max. Okay, fine, under the $65,000 max for undergraduate and under the $200,000 max for graduate.

Trust me, it was painful to type that out. Imagine students and their families now. I always worked full time except for working part time that first year at Creighton.

But the real meat of today’s post is the shakedown request by the administration to 9 universities to sign a pledge that they (the universities) will uphold the administration’s higher education priorities. Of course, this wouldn’t be a shakedown without the poison pill. If the universities don’t sign this bullshit pledge which is, in effect, a blank IOU to the administration to cleave to whatever subsequent bullshit the administration pleases.

You know, a shakedown.

This is a commitment by the universities to not talk smack about the conservative ideas. I’ve been at five different colleges and universities and I have NEVER heard that there was a concerted effort to silence conservatives.

This is a fever dream, dreamt up by an administration that is so thin skinned that any talk that is not boot licking or ass kissing is seen as an assault.

It isn’t always about you, assholes.

The 9 universities who were tasked with signing this “pledge” were University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, University of Texas, University of Virginia, and Vanderbilt University. The universities would also have to cap foreign student enrollment and give American students an edge in applying.

This is American exceptionalism? Putting the thumb on the scale?

Odd spread, don’t you think? A mix of blue and red and purple states and a mix of Ivies and state universities.

MIT told them to pound salt.

The faculty of the University of Virginia voted overwhelmingly (97%) to say no thank you. But the university itself has not rebuffed the idea.

This is a shakedown at some of the best universities that America has. But it begs the question, why these universities? What can be accomplished by squashing original ideas and original thought in these nine? What about the oldest universities in America? What about them?

The universities have to realize that this is a poison pill. I imagine that the administration thinks this is an iron fist in a velvet glove but no. Excuse me, your iron fist is rusting and your emperor has no clothes.

Citation

Cunningham, M. (2025, October 2). White House asks 9 universities to sign agreement to ensure access to grants and other federal benefits. Cbsnews.com. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-house-nine-universities-compact-federal-funds/

Moody, J. (2025, October 10). MIT rejects Proposed Federal Compact. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.highereddive.com/news/trumps-higher-ed-compact-draws-condemnation-from-faculty-and-college-union/802425

Spitalniak, L. (2025, October 8). Trump’s higher ed compact draws condemnation from faculty and college unions. Higher Ed Dive. ttps://www.highereddive.com/news/trumps-higher-ed-compact-draws-condemnation-from-faculty-and-college-union/802425

School Me Saturday 9/27/25- AI tattles

A tell is something during a game, usually of cards, that indicates what is in your hand. Good or bad. Physical change or behavioral change. It encompasses a lot.

The use of AI, especially in a education setting, has tells as well.

There is the direct copy and paste of the output of a prompt. Warts and all. This is a glaring red flag to the people grading the assignment.

Try a little and reword some of the output.

But this is also a trap. You really should understand what the output says before you throw yourself on the mercy of the thesaurus.

Above all, know the difference in usage between lie and lay and lied and lain. Can’t forget their, they’re, and there. These three little words have forever stymied English speakers, native or not.

And is a giant AI tattle.

3 years into this AI game, universities and colleges are learning how to recognize and grade you accordingly. The university I go to has announced that any AI usage has to be on the university site. I imagine this is so they can keep on eye on who is doing what with what AI generator.

Publishing has also gotten wise to the AI slop that is out there. I have seen the stamp they are putting on some books. It proclaims that the book is “Human Authored”. I think this is smart but also vulnerable to copycat. The seal does have a seal number on it. I am not sure but I bet the numbered seals are searchable on the Writers’ Guild site. Nope, I just checked. They are not easily searchable.

The point is that if you cheat, someone, somehow is going to figure it out. That beggars the question Why cheat? in the first place. It is only your reputation and your admission to the university/college that is at stake.

Darn, I guess you’re just gonna have to do the assignment. With your own brain and your own fingers typing on the keyboard.

Darn.

School Me Saturday 8/2/25- It’s AUGUST, you know what that means?

The summer is winding down.

To the college student that means that the Fall semester is just around the corner.

Back to school things have been the stores for a minute. Yesterday I heard a mom frantically looking for extra long twin sheets and I thought to myself, “Someone is sending their first kid off for their first colleges days.”

The Fall semester will start before you know it.

Make a list of necessary dorm things. Extra long twin sheets, a caddy for the shower, some rudimentary kitchen stuff, and probably a mini fridge. Definitely a microwave.

Make a second list of necessary school things. In my day, this was notebooks and pens and paper and my very first computer.

Don’t forget clothes for the changing temperatures.

Don’t forget quarters for the washing machines. If they even do that anymore that is.

Don’t forget your chargers.

Don’t forget notebooks and pens. You know, just in case.

Don’t forget to download your syllabus when available.

Don’t forget to make a schedule of your classes.

Don’t forget to check out the nearby restaurants or, if you are eating on the meal plan, the hours of the cafeteria.

Don’t forget to be excited about this new chapter in your life. It is okay to be a little scared too.

Above all, don’t forget to reach out for help when you need it.

But these last few days before the hustle and bustle truly starts give yourself permission to finish that book you’ve been reading. Give yourself permission to enjoy this time.

It will be over before you know it and you will be an old hand a the dorm thing. Or at the off campus house thing.

Before the Fall semester starts take a moment and remember yourself just as you are because you will be a different person when you next are home. Also remember to give your parents grace as they learn to understand and accept the new you.

After all, to them, you were just in diapers.

School Me Saturday 7/5/25- students and AI part 2

AI is the newest, shiniest tech toy.

Of course companies are falling over themselves to make it available to us, the consumers.

At a premium of course.

But what are the other associated costs?

According to a report from IBM’s Institute for Business Value, the cost to compute (what it costs the company to make AI possible) was expected to climb 89% between 2023 and 2025.

And guess what? They won’t be interested in footing the bill forever. Nothing is free.

Ever.

So they made it ubiquitous. To make us as consumers dependent on AI. So that when costs to the consumer are introduced we will be convinced we can’t live without it.

Goodness knows, students are already dependent on it.

Especially the younger ones.

I know I am not dependent on it. I find output obnoxious and not a plaything. AI isn’t anything that I am curious about. I wanted to find a workaround with search engines so it would NOT give me AI output. I found one. I put -AI in the search bar and about 70% of the time I do not get an AI output. I have also heard putting a curse word in the search string will allow for AI free output, but that is not my experience.

Hell, Google itself is a kind of AI. That is how we get answers so quickly to a search field. But also less than AI because it didn’t suck up all the world’s literature and art to make a large language model.

In last Saturday’s post I wrote about the my personal experiences with AI since ChatGPT was released in 2022. But it goes farther back than that. Much, much further.

In the 1988-1989 school year, I was an eighth grader. There was no cafeteria at our school. Most schools in California don’t have cafeterias. Students gather on the quad, sit on the grass, lean against the trees, roam the campus, or walked home for lunch. Personally that did not interest me, none of the options were appealing. I usually went to the campus library and read. One day, my computer teacher approached me and my friend Aluminum to run simulations in the computer lab during lunch. We jumped at the chance.

After that, I split my time between the library and the computer lab.

In the library I read.

In the computer lab, Aluminum and I were working a machine learning task that the teacher had asked us to do. Basically we played a version of Connect Four with the computer. As I remember, the goal was to see if the computer could be trained to beat us.

I imagine that there were students in computer labs just like us across the country, training the computers to “think”. This was the way that people originally termed artificial intelligence, thinking.

It wasn’t until 1997 that Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov in chess. But I think the seeds of this computing marvel was in the computer labs at middle schools and high schools in the 1980s. From my first experience with machine learning to this chess match was less than 10 years.

Look how far artificial intelligence has come in just over forty years. It started with nerd students in the classrooms playing with the computer, teaching it to think.

Oh, boy. Hold onto your hats.

School Me Saturday 5/24/25- Graduation month!

With the staggered start times and the staggered lengths of programs of course graduation lasts an entire month.

No, not the graduation itself. That is a very busy day where you wait in the late Spring sun and sweat while listening to all of the speakers and watch the parade of students crossing the stage to receive their diploma. Depending on what level you are graduating at, you might hoist a beer to celebrate.

Whatever level of schooling you’re graduating from, congratulations.

This is the moment that makes all of the late nights and the late assignments (!) and the worry and angst worth it.

Being handed the diploma by the dean or principal is a momentous occasion and should be savored. Until they hustle you off the stage for the next graduate.

But for today, the sun is shining. Today the birds are chirping. Today the flowers are blooming. Today your family is beaming. And sweating a little because, did I mention it, it is nearly summer!

Graduation is a special time. I hope that you had special speakers.

Like the University of Maryland who was able to book none other than Kermit the Frog!

His speech was amazing. Do yourself a favor and google that right now.

Kermit spoke of finding your people and making connections.

This is easy to do at the high school, college and university level. Everyone is there to learn. No one is telling you what you know and what you are learning is wrong. Not so in the outside world.

However, the first point of finding your people aids you in the second point of making connections.

Even if the connections are with people who are decidedly NOT your people. That is what makes the world go around after all, the different species, and types of people.

After all, it is like Kermit closed with, making the rainbow connections is important. And he SANG to the crowd a snippet of his famous song “Rainbow Connections” from The Muppet Movie.

Find your people, make your connections, and I will see you on the other side. Maybe I will get to join you in December. Or next year.

Until then, keep your mind thirsty and filled with new information and don’t let the world’s events and bad crap allow you close off your brain. We need all the open minded people we can get. We also need people who are PAYING ATTENTION.

School Me Saturday 4/26/25- Funding changes, what do we do now?

Yes, I know I have written about this before. I don’t care. It is too important. Every day research that has been in the works for I can’t even tell you, research that has already been paid for, is shriveling in the petri dishes.

Research is expensive. Proper, well structured research is expensive. You have to pay for the researcher, you have to pay for the research assistant, you have to pay any adjunct helpers who are conducting the research, you have to pay for the computer you use to write up the reports, you have to pay for the electricity that run a lot of this, you have to pay for the IRB, you have to pay for the data analysis, you have to pay for the lab time, sometimes you even have to pay to get it published (those are the predatory publishers, don’t give in to them), and if you are offering an incentive to garner participation, you have to pay each participant the incentive.

It gets expensive. Capital red letter expensive.

Oh, not only do you sometime have to pay to publish, you have to pay to present at conferences. With all of those attendant costs as well. At AORN there were several international hospitals and countries and research presented. Each of them had to pay for the conference fee, the flight, the hotel, and the food while they were in Boston. Or Orlando, or Chicago, wherever the conference is held.

Many of these are covered in grant indirect costs. These indirect costs are not well understood and is more than a line item in the grant. Not being understood, like at all, means that people overact when they see the line item.

The hammer has fallen. Nascent grants are not being approved. Existing grants are being yanked, even as the research is underway. That is what I meant when I wrote that research is shriveling in the petri dishes.

Why?

This is a very good question. Because the researchers are daring to research something that isn’t white or male. It is being stripped because of the specter of DEI.

Another not well understood concept that is being used as a bludgeoning tool.

DEI doesn’t mean what they think it means. Inigo Montoya snuck in the chat.

This, of course, has started panic at the research universities. Especially the ones who don’t have billions of dollars in endowments. But even if you have that kind of money doesn’t mean it is just sitting around in coffers, or under a dragon like Smaug.

It has been a long time since the students (hello, that’s me and my cohort), had any guidance in the matter. Probably because those doing the reaping are being mum on the matter.

No DEI is all they know how to chant. Again, it doesn’t mean what they think it means.

Yesterday we had a rare in person day on campus where the second and third years who were interested, were given a ground level “this has happened and this is how we envision going forward” talk.

We had a group discussion about how to find and secure funding. Ideas about other funding sources were floated. It was a good conversation. Remember, all of us are nascent nurse researchers.

I know I left feeling a little more hopeful about this crappy situation we find ourselves in. I hope others did too.

I offered my notes to the rest of the cohort that were not there and I hope to have the notes to them tomorrow. I just want to reflect on it some more.

I wore my “Baking is Science” tee shirt with a baking cat on it. On my husband’s recommendation that I leave the political shirts at home. I think a stronger worded tee would have been better. There is always the August in person day.

School Me Saturday 4/19/26- Fight Fiercely Harvard!

Yeah, I know that Fight Fiercely Harvard isn’t Harvard’s real fight song. But I don’t think 10,000 Men of Harvard sets exactly the right tone.

It’s sexist for one thing and since Harvard is fighting for independence for all of its students, not just the men, I thought Fight Fiercely Harvard was a better fit.

Fight Fiercely Harvard is a satirical song written by an alum, Tom Lehrer. Another song of his that you may be familiar with is The Elements. It is a lilting song with the elements from the periodic table. It is only clocked at 1 minute 26 seconds.

This week Harvard said no, thank you to pressure from the president of the United States. He would not bend the knee and bow to extreme pressure.

Of course, the president whined and threatened (typical). He even went so far as to threaten Harvard’s tax exempt status. This is a “punishment” meant to be punitive for violating tax law. There is no evidence that Harvard has violated tax law.

Side question, if it can be done so quickly, why can’t we do the same to churches and political organizations? I digress.

Apparently there are now pacts between schools where there were rivalries both in the classroom and on the playing field.

According to the Guardian newspaper at least 18 universities have united to defend academic freedom in the fact of these attacks and threats. The universities include 8 universities that comprise part of the Big 10 academic alliance include the University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Iowa, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, University of Oregon, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, University of California Los Angeles, University of Southern California, University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Some of these schools are in red states and some are in blue. To me this is indicative that academic freedoms are cherished, no matter the political leaning.

It also indicates that academic freedoms are to be protected.

Good for them. I hope other universities join and I hope they keep their courage.

I hope that this message is heard loud and clear.

Now I have to learn all of their fight songs too.

But, but, Kate, what about their billion dollar endowments? Why do they need support?

Those endowments are the emergency fund and the funding for programs that allow the universities to continue to admit students from the lower-economic echelons. And to create scholarships to fund these students. And to create labs that make the discoveries that are why these universities have earned the world class reputation that they have.

Maybe, just maybe, they don’t like being told what to do, or who to listen to, or what to teach, or what to read.

It all goes back to book banning, doesn’t it?

Fight Fiercely Harvard! You are not alone.

School Me Saturday 4/12/25- College is for exploration

Maybe what you thought you wanted to be as a grownup no longer appeals. You might’ve thought about being a rocket scientist but were stymied by the sheer amount of math and papers you would have to write.

That might not have been your first choice. It certainly would not have been mind. All that math, the papers I am okay with. But math…urg.

University and college and junior college or even online classes are a chance to explore the you that could be. I am not forgetting trade schools but I feel there is less self-explanatory space there.

Of course, when I first started my college journey it was the early 1990s (shut up, I’m old and the age my mom was when she dropped me off at the plane for my trip to Nebraska) and there were no such things. Your choices were college, university, trade school or junior college. That’s it.

We did all of our paper research in the LIBRARY and copied articles that we wanted to cite. I mean, Google as a search engine wasn’t established until 1998. Yes, I started my school journey pre-internet. Good times.

Instead, you explored due to class selection. If you wanted to learn how to macrame, there was a class for that. If you wanted to learn how to bake masterpieces, there was class for that. If you wanted to write the great American novel, there was a class for that. As in high school, if you needed an easy A, there were classes for that. Students were expected to take at least one-5 electives for their degree.

It was during these elective classes that you got to explore. I took Fencing. Not the yard creation, the exercise. We learned the strict footwork and the styles of fencing and spent some time in the sweaty masks that were used for years. We used the same fencing jackets that had been in use for years, unless we bought our own. We used the electrified lamé, which would indicate that the the electrical circuit had been created when it was touched by metal, such as an epeé. Which was the usual fencing sword.

It was awesome. It remains one of my favorite classes. Ever.

But it wasn’t something to build a career out of as I wasn’t the best in the class. Just one of the more annoying at beating the boys. Nursing was going to be that.

But chemistry for nurses followed by organic chemistry. I was the group tutor for both. That was where I almost chucked it all in and changed my major the chemistry and became a pharmacist. Because the chemical equations and the work in the chemistry lab with the smells and the acids and the Bunsen burner made sense.

But for the fact that my scholarship from the Air Force was for nursing, I might’ve had a very different career.

And the math.

The point is that I got to explore these things. Fun things, different things.

Could I still pick up an epeé and salute an opponent? Yep.

Does it come up often in daily life? Not often enough; the nearest salle is at least an hour away.

Sigh.

School Me Satuday 1/18/25- Under pressure

This is from a note I made last September. I wrote to myself that Under Pressure by David Bowie and Queen just hits different as a student. To quote Darth Vader “Search your feelings and know it to be true”.

Starts with a riff we all know in our bones. At least those of us of a certain age.

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This, like life as an adult student, was a group project.

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I hate group projects. I find they have no redeeming quality. Except for this song. This song is the quality we should hold ourselves to. After we teach the other generations about the song.

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Pressure pushin’ down on me. This can be pressure from teachers, the syllabus, the exam dates, and even ourselves. I have heard that college is like a pressure cooker. There are demands on us from all sides and we just have to tread water.

“Terror of knowing what this world is about, watching some good friends scream let me out!”

As an adult learner, one of the first lessons is that not everyone makes it. This goes for classmates who have to drop out for one reason or another. Or teachers who quit in the middle of the semester. However, we have to soldier on if we want to hit our goals/targets/graduate.

“Chippin around, kick my brains round the floor. These are the days it never rains but it pours.”

This is another absolutely true sentence. Most college students have more than 1 class and they have to juggle their notes, and their reading time, and the tests and papers. There will be nothing but reading/lectures for weeks and then BOOM tests/papers in three classes all due in the same week. This teaches the adult student about time management and pressure management.

“Can’t we give ourselves one more chance?”

The feeling of “I wanna quit” is known to all students. Being an adult learner is hard. But we can absolutely do it. One lecture, one set of readings, one test, one paper at a time.

“Caring about ourselves is the last dance.”

Look at them, singing about self-care before it was cool. Know that being an adult learner is hard. No one is making us do this, unlike high school. Keeping our eyes on the proverbial pie helps immensely. Remember, school can’t last forever.

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