I am being pursued vigorously!

The plethora of opportunities out there is surprising once you dare to make the enquiries. After visiting several university websites I found out they now have enrollment consultants. I entered my name and number and my education desires and the whole day I have been fielding calls from numerous persuasive consultants. And expecting more calls over the next days.

I am being pursued vigorously.

Two things I have learnt. The first is that the federal government has a lot of money to offer. I am being offered loans of between 50 and 100 thousand dollars and all I have to do is pay 45 dollars for university admission. And the consultant will do the rest to ensure I get the loan. One consultant said if I am really serious they can get me in class by mid March …

This is definitely a new trend. I am thinking that the surplus funds are there because not too many people are going back to school. Salaries definitely aren’t going up so the fear of graduating 100 thousand dollars in debt and unable to pay is real.

America unfortunately is no longer the destination of choice for international students with all the stringent regulations that were put in place after 911 to keep track of students. Seems like the universities now have to work that much harder to attract students who have no idea how they will repay the generous debts.

Now the second thing is a real puzzle. Having been out of school for some time as I had the conversations I was using the terms PhD and Doctorate interchangeably until one clever chap told me the difference. It would appear that universities only used to offer a PhD but now the rage is a Doctorate. Apparently the PhD is being phased out slowly and being replaced by the Doctorate. The difference being that the PhD is geared towards teaching at the university and research while the Doctorate is for practitioners. According to the universities the world needs more practitioners than teachers and researchers. Wonder what the trend is in Kenya.

If one begins a PhD program now and completes in 5 years they could find themselves with an obsolete degree and 100k in debt…

Oh yeah one of the reasons I am writing this is because Dan reads my posts nowadays. There is no gentle way to break this kind of news to a spouse. That in five years time they might be owing 100k, Minnesota being a share debts and assets equally State… and totally unable to repay…