Another thing colleges should cut out but won't is the ridiculous speaking fee (aka kickback)When speakers generally run $5000-25000. someone charging up to $400,000 isn't a fee, it's a barely disguised bribe/kickback. Kind of like how Biden is now one of the most expensive painters ever. Or how many politicians write books no one buys or reads.

Colleges aren't impoverishing students. Dumb decisions by students and their families are impoverishing students.

If enough students don't bite the hook, will rates go down? Maybe. Maybe not. $50,000 per year (and it gets higher) is as ridiculous as a $50 burrito, but there's a reason that $50 burritos aren't popular.

I've gone Galt on all things pedagogical in the United States, but if someone is dumb enough to graduate school with 400 large in debt, that's on them.

Speaking of the importance of getting young people to figure out what to DO with their lives...

What amazes me about this story is that it's about parents who actually managed to do a 180-turn in their attitude, instead of just chickening out, as I assumed they would. (Rosemond has told MANY stories of parents who, when he gave them advice, would say "oh, I could never do that - it wouldn't FEEL right!")

As he likes to say, that's why feelings aren't as important as most American parents seem to think.

https://www.nny360.com/artsandlife/familyandrelations/john-rosemond-kicking-them-out-of-the-nest/article_29b91e9f-db76-52d1-975f-913a95a72c7a.html

“We should, like, what? Give him a year to figure out his life and move out?”

I’m talking to the parents of a 21-year-old male, who instead of going to college or into the military, delivers pizzas, eats pizzas (he gets an employee discount) and plays video games. I’m having deja vu. I’ve had this conversation before, many, many times.

“Why a year?”

“Um, well, that’s enough time for him to figure things out, isn’t it?”

“Why not a month? A year just gives you 12 months to come up with excuses for not following through.”

“A month?”

They look at each other like they’ve just seen a ghost.

“Um, well, um, I mean,” the father stammers, “What if he’s not ready in a month? What do we do then?” He looks at his wife, the child’s mother, who is looking at him somewhat sternly, and then says to me, “Um, I don’t really think a month is enough time.” He can read his wife’s mind, I see.

“Why not? What you do is one day when he’s out delivering pizzas, you go in his room, unplug his video game, gather it up, take it to your workplace and put it in a safe or something. Then, when he comes home and discovers it missing and begins to go into withdrawal, you tell him that when he moves out, he gets his video game console back. Not until then. He’ll probably be gone in a week. You want him gone, right?”

The parents look at each other, then back to me in silent shock and bewilderment. I’m a psychologist. I can read minds. They are beginning to regret they ever sought my advice, especially the child’s mother. She is freaking out. Obviously, I care nothing for her maternal instincts.

She finally speaks up. “John, now really, a month is hardly enough time for him to get his act together.”

“I disagree and I’ve had a lot more experience at this than you have. He’s intelligent. He has a valid high school diploma. He knows the difference between right and wrong. He has no incapacities. He even has a car. When I was 20, a year younger than your son and without a car, my 19-year-old future wife and I figured out in less than a month what you want your son to figure out and we got married and moved into a three-room apartment in someone’s basement and never looked back. Your son can do this. You just have to disappear the video game and use it as a carrot, and a huge carrot it will be.”

Much to my amazement, they did it, probably after throwing up several times. And a month later, their son was gone with his video game, and a year later, he was still gone and figuring it out, one step at a time. He had an apartment, two jobs, a roommate and a car and was playing his video game less and less because sleep was the more pressing priority.

Most important, perhaps, this young adult’s mother was still of sound mind. Sounder, even.

You can do it too. Remember, no pain, no gain.

(end)

Getting your adult Children to move out is pretty simple really especially if you are so short sighted to not realize that you might want them to show up some day when you need them and not just for the reading of your will.

Offhand, I'm pretty sure there are VERY few stories of young adults who stopped visiting or talking to their parents just because the parents felt the need to go beyond a polite, reasonable, clear-cut request and resort to a tiny bit of "tough love." (I certainly never heard of any.)

Especially when it comes to the request for the young adult to do something that most Americans still look down on you for if you DON'T do it pretty early.

The trouble is that too many otherwise smart parents have been brainwashed, by osmosis, into believing that anything that upsets a kid is automatically WRONG (and traumatic), and therefore, you can't do it or even say it, long past the kid's toddlerhood. As in: "yes, you have to do your chores every day," "no, you can't have candy before dinner," "yes, I expect you to go to school and not play hooky," and "no, we're not going to Disneyworld just because your best friend is going."

When one says "no" (directly or not) to a five-year-old and that kid cries buckets for an hour, all it means is, the kid doesn't hear "no" often enough. It does not mean the parent did anything horrible.

(Had it not been for Rosemond, I could easily have been brainwashed myself, as I described, back in the mid-1990s, just from vague hints from the mass media.)

Offhand, I'm pretty sure there are VERY few stories of young adults who stopped visiting or talking to their parents
_____________________________________

To clarify: I meant, of course, "for decades."

Besides, as Dr. Spock said to parents, "you can be friendly but firm (and not worry about the result)."

“Offhand, I'm pretty sure there are VERY few stories of young adults who stopped visiting or talking to their parents just because the parents felt the need to go beyond a polite, reasonable, clear-cut request and resort to a tiny bit of "tough love." (I certainly never heard of any.)”

People for the last 100k years plus or so have thrived in extended families.

The American ideal of independent single adults functioning best as remote autonomous little self sufficient job bots has been pretty much a one way ticket to genetic and cultural oblivion for most of history. And it will be again..

The main thing driving up the price of college is the availability of tax funds, including loans, for the purpose. That funding should go away. In the case of federal subsidies they are not even constitutional, since college is not one of the powers of Congress enumerated in Article I, Section 8.

Of course, most of the colleges in the country and the world are doing their part to render themselves and their degrees worthless by going "woke." Some hiring managers already laugh at anyone who went to college and put it on their resume. That will only increase.

Pissed me off when I taught at Temple, and we switched from a traditional textbook to an online one. It cost the same, but you couldn't resell your online textbook when you were done with it, and your code only lasted a semester or two so you couldn't even look stuff up down the road.

These days it's worse.

Traditional texbooks are back BUT a chunk of them is locked online with a code that only lasts the semester is activated.

And obviously the locked online content changes every semester so if you fail the course you have to buy the same textbook again.

That is so evil.

The American ideal of independent single adults functioning best as remote autonomous little self sufficient job bots has been pretty much a one way ticket to genetic and cultural oblivion for most of history. And it will be again..
_________________________________________

We weren't talking about the future childfree. We were talking about young adults who manage to become assets to society (instead of burdens to taxpayers) and who take pride in paying all their own expenses, including rent, if the parents WANT their children to stay with them.

(That is, the young adults should become capable of supporting THEMSELVES - and their own children, even if they can't support their parents at the same time. If they don't become parents, then they should at least be able to support their own parents, right?)

By sheer coincidence, Dear Abby has a column today about "adults" who don't see why they shouldn't continue to mooch off their UNWILLING parents - if they can get away with it.

DEAR ABBY: What financial responsibility do parents have to their adult children and grandchildren? We are a blended family of 35 years. It is the second marriage for my wife and me, with four children and eight grandchildren. One child insists it is our responsibility to assist with the cost of educating his two children. Over the last 15 years, we have gifted him and his family well over $50,000. We are middle income, and trying to stay solvent enough to assure we are able to meet any unforeseen expenses of senior living while enjoying local arts and educational opportunities in our retirement. What is customary in other blended families? -- WONDERING IN THE SOUTH

DEAR WONDERING: Your son is off base, and you have every right to refuse this demand. The cost of raising and educating children is something that should have been taken into consideration before those children were born. This responsibility rests with him and his spouse, not with you, and I hope you will resist the impulse to alter your lifestyle to placate him. If you do otherwise, you may wind up in financial trouble.

(end)

Plus, today, the comic strip Dustin (about a 20ish, blatantly lazy man whose unwilling parents let him live rent free with them) is taking a slightly different turn - maybe.

https://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/dustin/s-2560524

I wonder how many middle-aged marriages last when BOTH parents disapprove of the situation but are too wimpy to do anything?

Besides, unless we're talking about a family living in a house that has at least three bedrooms (and lots of parents can't afford that), I don't see why anyone who marries into that family - and moves in - would be willing to have children anyway. Since when do parents WILLINGLY share a bedroom with school-age children? For that matter, how often does a married couple share a room with another couple?

In other words, even in cultures of extended families, somebody eventually has to move out. Again and again. Unless people have fewer children - and/or marry less.

In other words, even in cultures of extended families, somebody eventually has to move out. Again and again. Unless people have fewer children - and/or marry less.

Lenona at September 4, 2021 6:02 PM

You have no concept how most of the world lives and takes care of their families, do you?

How do I know YOU do?

You really expect me to believe that adults LIKE having no real privacy for sex, whether the spectators in the bedroom are adults or children? That's a laugh.

As I said, plenty of families can't even afford three bedrooms. I find it hard to imagine that anyone who only has two bedrooms would want more than two generations living in that house.

Even in ancient times, the Greeks and Romans used the contraceptive plant silphium until they exhausted it to extinction in the first century A.D. Why? Because they were desperate for it, apparently, and it couldn't be cultivated. In other words, they used whatever primitive contraceptives they could get their hands on, because they WANTED to control their family sizes.

I don't understand how you can call it "caring" for a family when there's less and less room in the house every year, unless you can afford to get a bigger house. Aren't there fire laws - and other laws - against overcrowding and so on? Not to mention the need for enough bathrooms?

Here you go Lenona.

https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/ageing/household_size_and_composition_around_the_world_2017_data_booklet.pdf

World average household size is over 4. It is inversely correlated with wealth. I.e. the poorer you are the more people live with you.

Why do I have to spell this out? As I said more than once, just because parents might TOLERATE (i.e., put up with a situation they hate) crowded living quarters doesn't mean they LIKE it - or that the adult children shouldn't have to leave when asked to do so.

(Neither should they assume that their parents want them to stay just because they haven't said anything - that's just wishful thinking.)

Btw, more than once, I have put up semi-homeless friends at my tiny place - and I wasn't too happy about it, but I figured that one must live by the golden rule. Since gratitude was in short supply, I made them leave as soon as they could.

Example: the second person had the gall to complain - loudly - about my shortage of classical music CDs. I kid you not. (The first situation was too painful to talk about.)

My father often said that part of his job was to make sure his kids really wanted to leave home at the age of 18.

And as he told me on the day I left for college, if it didn't work out, he'd give me a ride down to the local Navy recruiting office.

That said, my parents have been more than generous over the years with both me and my kids. Far more than I have any right to expect. I owe them everything, and they owe me nothing.

My father often said that part of his job was to make sure his kids really wanted to leave home at the age of 18.

And as he told me on the day I left for college, if it didn't work out, he'd give me a ride down to the local Navy recruiting office.

That said, my parents have been more than generous over the years with both me and my kids. Far more than I have any right to expect. I owe them everything, and they owe me nothing.

ruralcounsel at September 5, 2021 8:14 AM

Yea, me too, and my parents are long gone. But a lot has to go wrong before passive aggressive parents are looking to John Rosemond for weird little strategies to evict adult children from the house.

My point being that turning children into responsible and loving adult family members whether they live with you, near you or across the country is the work of years, and if you need to evict, the battle is already lost.
Being in the house is beside the point, it is the lack of direction and responsibility that is the problem.
Almost every family that I know of has bad seed. In the modern days of smaller and smaller families and too many only children, these sociopaths are capable of inflicting enormous damage. Extended family support groups can often weather this better than mom and dad going it alone. Most single parents and even solitary couples don’t have the tools or the will to cut their losses. And I do mean, cut your losses, not just assume that the working two jobs to support himself alone, and not having time for video games is some sort of path forward.

This is my main problem with Lenona. She is basically a misogynist and a sadist, who takes great vicarious pleasure in people being disciplined harshly for behaviors she disproves of, regardless of whether the correction benefits her or not. It’s a fetish that I find really distasteful.

Correction. I do think Lenona hates other women, especially those she describes as “ breeders”, the more correct term is misanthrope, and a Jack booted one at that.

It is true that even in extended culture families people eventually have to move out.

If you start with an original family, and that family has three kids, and those kids get married and have three kids each, and THOSE kids get married and have three kids each... yeah, people aren't generally living with their fifth cousins.

As Jon Winokur famously wrote, anyone who is not a curmudgeon is not paying attention (to the world in general).
Miss Manners is sweetly curmudgeonly, even though she wasn't quoted in his first curmudgeon book, at least.

Jonathan Swift was famously misanthropic, but, in EVERY century, there has been plenty to be misanthropic about.

Kindly point out when I have ever been misogynist (as opposed to criticizing individual women). There is nothing necessarily feminine about the word "breeders." The verb means "to mate and produce offspring." The insult is used, at Bratfree, to describe those alleged adults who reproduce but don't discipline. As Bill Maher said, in effect, you can't take pride in doing something that is even less than what a dog can do.

What's more, as you know perfectly well, I am a fan of Katha Pollitt, who has plenty of things to say about irresponsible fathers. You may remember the times I've quoted her with regard to "legal paternal surrender," though she didn't use that term. She pointed out, in 1998, that if it became legal, any man could escape paternal support of his out-of-wedlock children by claiming his girlfriend tricked him, even when she didn't.

"if you need to evict, the battle is already lost."

How do you know that? When the slacker-adult phenomenon is common enough for it to have its own syndicated comic strip, as I mentioned, maybe the adult kids are just doing what half of their peers try to do; it doesn't mean that they were spoiled or that once they've been pushed out, they'll become estranged from the parents. (Unless, maybe, the parents actually have to call in the law to evict them, which didn't happen here.) As Dr. Spock wrote, back in the 1940s, all little kids play the game of "how bad do I have to be before someone stops me?"

Even criminals have been known to self-reform, after all.

I'm not sure what you mean by "cut your losses," by the way. There's more than one way to interpret that.

And when people don't comment, loudly, on bad behavior in general, everything gets worse as everyone tries to test boundaries, gets smacked down, and then whines that the line has been "redrawn" when neither the social or business rules were as lenient as they claimed to begin with. (Two examples of such whiners: Packwood and Cuomo.)

Correction: I meant "escape paying child support," of course.

And thank you, NicoleK. As I said, some things shouldn't need spelling out - but they do.

"Why do I have to spell this out?" ~Lenona

Because you are wrong. Your whole concept is flawed. You need things spelled out, even those you yourself say. Otherwise you keep speaking nonsense.

"not just assume that the working two jobs to support himself alone, and not having time for video games is some sort of path forward."

Maybe not "assume," but it has potential, at least. Any psychologist will tell you that it's our actions that mold our attitudes more often than the other way around. That's why it's so important to push kids into good HABITS early in life, such as working and planning ahead instead of goofing off.

But, of course, as Dr. Spock said, it's only natural for kids to rebel against parental guidance, time and again, even in adulthood. It doesn't mean they can't change long-term when forced to do so. The more you have to work (especially if it's just for your own sake and not for, say, the sake of any unwanted children you have), the more you might learn to ENJOY working and accomplishing things that you can be truly proud of.

Why is anything I said nonsense?

How am I wrong about parents wanting at least SOME private space for themselves, expecting their adult kids to start paying rent when needed, to move out when truly necessary, not to take more than they give in general, and not to be helpless should disaster strike the parents?

Again, you're strangely not offering any proof - and that includes that U.N. report, which I read - that most crowded households are WILLINGLY crowded - or happy ones. (There wasn't a word about how much space they would truly PREFER.) One can't even assume that when an elderly parent moves into an adult child's household, that the offspring is happy about that, since in many cultures, you don't say no to your parents, no matter what they demand.

As you said, in effect, those with money USE it - to get more space and privacy, because they can. (Also, the Hunger Project pointed out that hunger drives UP the birth rate in poor countries, to insure that at least one child will survive. When people know their children will not die - i.e., as the society becomes richer - they have fewer children.)

"How am I wrong about parents wanting at least SOME private space for themselves ..." ~Lenona

And there is your nonsense right there. Who cares that they want something? I want a space ship. I aint going to get one. Your basic concept is inherently flawed. Hence your conclusion is worthless.

Schools are already in a financial arms race. Their focus is not on helping students, but winning students. Weinberg notes that at private schools, "the average family pays only 46% of the listed price". When my children were researching colleges, we found the same thing. Private colleges on average were about twice as expensive as a comparable public college and on average offered just enough financial aid to be competitive with their public peers.

The facilities arms race (and the Woke arms race, and the add-an-administrator arms race) all came about because the schools were competing for students. Hiding the cost of schooling (via loans and grants) and focusing on the prestige of the school rather than the economic outcomes of the education enabled those arms races.

Ben, don't play dumb. You know perfectly well that my point was that, just because poor people live in crowded conditions, that doesn't mean they necessarily THRIVE under such conditions (in most senses of the verb). Nothing surprised me about the U.N. report - but again, the report didn't say anything about crowded conditions being BETTER for families than not. (Especially when it comes to one's educational opportunities.)

The logical conclusion is that poor people live without any kind of privacy only when forced to do so - not because it's good for them. As NicoleK pointed out, distant cousins typically prefer to get jobs and get their own homes (when they CAN) rather than live in cramped quarters with relatives they hardly feel connected to.

Whenever parents (and married couples) have been able to get a separate bedroom for themselves, they've seized the opportunity. In other words, kids were expected to revolve around the parents' needs, not the other way around, including in adulthood. This has been true for thousands of years.

Therefore,it's hardly surprising when, as Isab admitted, more or less, even loving parents (in affluent societies) teach their kids (though not in so many words) that being a real adult means either paying rent or moving out ASAP - and paying rent. Those parents are truly putting their privacy/marriage first - and thus, they make it more likely the marriage will LAST. (Isn't that what the kids want?)

But, the fact that so many modern Western parents are too cowardly to say, directly or not: "I expect you to pay all your own bills by age 21 or so" and keep paying their lazy adult children's bills, implies that society has been turned upside down, and things turned upside down don't right themselves - it takes tremendous force to turn them back.

I'm not playing dumb, Lenona. You are. You said something dumb, got called on it, and then came back with a childish response. People want everything and nothing at the same time. People constantly have conflicting desires. This is part of the human condition. Saying people want bigger houses gets you a 'big whoop'. That desire is irrelevant.

What matters is what you can afford.

"Therefore,it's hardly surprising when, as Isab admitted, more or less, even loving parents (in affluent societies) teach their kids (though not in so many words) that being a real adult means either paying rent or moving out ASAP - and paying rent." ~Lenona

There is no 'more or less' or 'though not in so many words'. That was exactly Isab's point. Though she would probably replace 'loving' with 'responsible'.

Either way your point about people having fewer kids is proven false by historical data. It just isn't how things work no matter how much you want it to.

This is why you need to keep spelling things out. You keep talking nonsense. You are complaining you don't like the color of the paint in the room when the next guy over is disturbed by the missing wall. You keep missing the basics while focusing on the irrelevant.

House size and family size are unrelated variables. People with bigger families don't buy bigger houses. People with bigger houses don't then have more kids. The two things are completely unrelated.

House size is a function of wealth.

As for larger houses leading to longer marriages, that doesn't happen. There is actually a negative correlation between house size and family stability.

"Those parents are truly putting their privacy/marriage first - and thus, they make it more likely the marriage will LAST." ~Lenona

This is an example of you missing the point. The preceding line was mostly valid. But here you are wrong. Making kids pay rent doesn't result in longer marriage. It isn't even about the parents or the marriage. You completely missed the point. It is about the kids.