Exactly!

That's where our CCV is a complete and total failure.

We could have annexed the four failed VT colleges into the VT State College system, wiped out CCV as it stands, and incorporate trade schools into the State College/CCV footprint.

Every building trade now requires serious knowledge of computer hardware and software in addition to the specific trade.

Every HVAC system, electric supply, plumbing, design/build, solar, everything now requires extensive use of computers, hardware, software, testing equipment, field assembly, etc.

There is only VTC in VT to train young wo/men to break into these fields and these programs don't necessarily lead to an AS degree.

It's not like the good old days where you can pick up a hammer and learn a trade. Who's going to train them? Using what standards?

One school in Williston does not serve the whole state.

Go over to NY and almost every CC has a building trades program. If you're not the most interested in college you can stop at the AS degree. If you want to go on you can take it to engineering, architecture, etc. HVCC in Troy, NY allows you to transfer from CC to RPI's engineering program, one or the best in the country!

Our entire post secondary system in this state is week as hell!

The instate/OOstate tuition gambit is the same at virtually every state university. Total costs are typically 2:1 out vs in state. VT is little different in that regard.

Where VT is unique with the exception of other tiny population states near large population centers like URI and UNH (excluding the military academies) UVM is 4:1 out vs in state. Those students still are admitted need blind (allegedly) and receive financial aid. I would wager, however, that a large percentage of the OOstate students parents just scratch out a fat check come tuition time.

And don't forget the Chinese students who pre-pandemic numbered 500 and received ZERO financial aid. They were the biggest cash cow UVM ever saw. UVM would happily kick an in-stater to the curb in favor of a Chinese if they thought they could get away with it.

The Green & Gold program, Catamount Committment and the UVM Promise (under $60k income) program starting Fall 2023 are all recent programs initiated within the last five years.

I still maintain that $60k is not a lot of income in VT. And realistically $100k is not a lot in certain areas, especially when faced with a $33k four year annual bill, even accounting for aide of as much as half.

If you burden your kid with say $15k x 4yrs, student loans that's still a heavy lode to carry. And certainly weighs heavy on grad school decisions. With so many employers requiring degree inflated credentials of masters degrees, it's a lot of pressure on kids.

VT has a long way to go to educate a workforce, keep the kids in VT, breed more VTers and increase the tax base.

I'm mostly in agreement with you, and very good for your kid!

It's the middle to lower middle class who get pinched. It doesn't take much to get to $60k. Single parents (9 out of 10 are women) OK $60k is more than average. But, godforbid, a two parent household, $60k is easy to get to with two modest incomes.

Also ,VT HS kids matriculate at a lower rate than all other HS students in states with comparable HS graduation rates. What does that tell you?

I agree, not unaffordable, but you gotta convince the VT HS kids of that. The only thing more expensive than going to college in VT is NOT going to college.

I agree, instate tuition should be free up to about $100k family income. Then graduated to about $200k toping out at about $10k/yr instate tuition.

Long story short, my mothers side of the family (Gallant) is at least 7 generations VT. They snuck over the border from Canada some time between the Revolution and the Civil War.

You can't have any substantive discussion of VT policy without first providing your VT bonafides. Unfortunately I grew up on the other side of the lake in NY where my dad is from. I have been a VT property owner for 40 yrs and f/t VTer for 20. I went to an Ivy league school in NY where the total ticket was $7200/yr. You could buy a brand new VW Beetle for $2995 that year.

My fraternity brother and roommate was from the same town as me, yet I had never met him before college. I thought that odd because I new most all the tall black men from my hometown that ran HS track, like me.

Turns out he was new in our town. His family had just moved to town so his dad could take a job with the state. "What agency?" I asked, because many families in my middle class neighborhood worked for the state. "State University" he told me. "Oh, what job?" I asked, my best friends dad worked there, maybe they were acquainted? "Chancellor" he told me.

I was a (lower) middle class kid, from a neighborhood full of state workers and laborers and hourly wage earners, not executives.

His dad had been hired to run the NY State University system. He had been hired specifically to cut costs, close up to a dozen State Colleges and Community Colleges and cut the budget by hundreds of millions of dollars over a period of a few years.

First thing 'Cliff' did was visit every single State College and CC in the state, ALL 64. He spoke with deans, faculty, unions and community leaders. Most of the colleges in NY are actually Upstate. This was during the recession of the 1970's that featured high unemployment AND high inflation, stagflation.

As a Harvard and U of Chicago PhD. trained economist, Cliff understood that the colleges were the economic hub of these small towns. Closures would be devastating. He also understood the value of the human capital created at these colleges. He knew that the only chance many of the students at these schools had of improving their lives was to get a college degree.

When Cliff reported his findings and his decision to the NY Board of Regents who reported to the NY legislature, they were pissed. His mandate was to cut costs and close colleges and he refused to do either. He insisted MORE investment was necessary, not less.

Fortunately he had a reluctant ally in NY Gov Hugh Carey who had been re-elected in 1978. Cliff was able to charm the NY State Legislature through numerous hearings and various types of financial legerdemain to balance the budgets and get the necessary funding.

Cliff could see companies like Corning Glass and Xerox and Kodak and Polaroid and IBM all needed an educated workforce to succeed. They needed to fill jobs that required skills and a technical education. Cliff could see the impending personal computer revolution starting and the economic impact that would have.

Cliff got his funding and got his wish to keep ALL 64 colleges open. Even though the number of HS students in NY is LESS THAN HALF of what is was back then, ALL 64 colleges are STILL open to this day, and thriving.

Cliff went on to receive an honorary degree at UVM in the 80's. He became the Chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation and the CEO of TIAA-CREF and turned that pension fund around, quadrupling it's assets in just a few years and instituting numerous organizational changes. After TIAA-CREF Cliff went on to become the Undersecretary of State in the Clinton Administration.

When he was hired at MSU Cliff was known as 'the the first Negro president of a major predominantly white college in the country.' He insisted on wider financial aid and need blind admissions at MSU. He was then the first African-American to lead a Fortune Fifty company.

VT needs a visionary like Cliff. Or at least someone who understands the value of a college degree. We have a Governor that sees the State contribution to the Univ and State Colleges as a 'gift' a line item expense. He doesn't regard the Univ and State College as an investment in the future. He's a cheapskate who led the charge to withhold more state funding to the colleges when he was in the Senate and he's only now agreeing to pitch in a little extra because the state is flush with Covid Cash.

VT has one of the highest HS graduation rates in the country. But of the top 20 states with high HS graduation rates we rank LAST in percentage of students who matriculate to college. Why is this? Likely sticker shock. Our CCV tuition is near the top of nationwide CC tuition rates. Same with UVM tuition.

CCV offers almost nothing of interest outside classes. They have no gym, no dinning halls, cafeterias, dorms, intramurals, intercollegiate athletics, clubs or extra-curricular activities that help to lure students. Nothing. Go to neighboring states NY and MA and their CC's are like real colleges at less cost.

The State Colleges have changed names three times in the last four or five years. And in that time frame FOUR VT colleges have closed their doors forever!

The state, led by Gov Scott, let four colleges with hundreds of acres and hundreds of thousands of square feet of floor space, and hundreds of employees fall out of active educational space.

With just a little bit of creativity, these spaces could have been part of the State College system. They could have been Incubator Spaces, Co-Working spaces, places for emerging technologies and entrepreneurship.

Our Governors only solution to the aging population and shrinking tax base is to import remote workers. And he'll use the 'Covid exodus' from cities to VT as proof positive that his plan is working.

It's not working. A few areas of the state are doing well while others are floundering. The kids in those areas will not thrive, they will not do well and they will likely leave VT and look for better jobs and lower costs elsewhere, most likely the American South.

In-state education, combined with internships, entrepreneurship, maker-spaces, co-working spaces; these are the things that keep people here and help build and preserve the tax base.

You are correct, that's a small part of it. My point was directed more at the inequity. If your mom and dad are professionals with six figure incomes. Working a p/t job for a pair of ugly yeezys or lululemons might not be necessary for you. You can focus exclusively on your schoolwork.

But if you're a middle class or lower middle class high achieving kid that needs to work 20 hrs a week while in HS you might not be tops in your class. Maybe you're just top 10. You're going to miss out on the free ride.

And I'm aware the kids of faculty and staff (of ALL VT state colleges) get free or significantly reduced tuition.

But the kids of SERVICE staff like Sodexo, who could probably use the help more than Faculty and Staff kids, well, just one more inequity!

That's tuition & fees. Total ticket is $33k if you live on campus and many VT's do.

And, no, they don't always transfer all the HS credits and no all the CCV credits do not articulate.

And the reason so many VT's go tuition free is the green and gold program that allows the Valedictorian (and Salutatorian I think) of each HS class in VT go free of charge.

So, as usual, the high achieving kids that are almost always from high achieving families who could well afford to pay get to go for free.

Where is the equity there?

The real crime is that Erica Caloiero vice provost for student affairs is paid $160,000/yr with another $40k in fringe benefits.

There is at least two dozen VP's of something or associate dean of this, that or the other thing; that earn in excess of $200k per year at UVM.

Not 'educators' just glorified paper-pushers with degrees and splendiferous titles.

Any wonder UVM is the most expensive or consistently near the top of most expensive state universities in the country?

Goddam shame when you consider the whole idea of 'Land Grant College' was dreamed up right here in VT by our own Congressman Justin Morrill, and signed into law by Abraham Lincoln.

Now the cost of a UVM education is beyond the reach of most VT families.

Not in BTV where the Otis Elevator building is only one story tall.

Yeah, no kidding. People think they can build a 'tiny house' or buy a shed at Home Depot and just live in it anywhere and every thing's cool.

This ain't 1969, it's not the summer of Love and you're not Bernie, Jake, Ben or Jerry, so GTF OUT!

Can't do that here. This is a real state with actual zoning laws. No hillbillies allowed...except in NEK.

What were the chances?

So what's new? The people that need it the most, suffer the most.

Grade them? WTF, we just PAVED them last year!

UVM tuition in state = $19k out of state = $43k

Room & Board = $14k

UVM has a new plan where any family earning less than $60k kids can attend tuition free.

Just got two yesterday. It was three weeks.

Fifty percent of the worlds population defecates outdoors.

Their Essex shop is literally next door to the insurance auction IAA. If you want to buy a dinged up car, just go to the auction yourself.

We were just thinking we could use another crazy cat lady or two over here?

The internet story:

https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/some-vermonters-are-living-and-working-better-thanks-to-new-high-speed-internet/Content?oid=36985924

More cows than people.

Depends on what you mean by 'everywhere'. We have high speed internet to over 90% of the population, but that's only 50% of the area. So the more remote you go, the less the chance of high speed internet.

As I understand, the state has received various grants to get everyone up to speed in the nest couple years. Supposedly the cost will exceed $100 mil.

No, I live in Expensive, VT. But if someone wants to move to East Dumbfuck, VT there are plenty of places that meet the stipulated criterion.

You can find a nice little place on a couple acres with no one else around in a place not everybody wants to live in for under $200k. Chances are they won't be reading this because there is no broadband among other inconveniences, but hey?

That's basically ALL of VT.

VT is by one standard the most rural state in the union; percentage of people living in cities or towns of 2500 or less. Whereas WY and AK and MT have similar population size, they have more people concentrated in larger cities further apart.

If you don't like the town you live in here, you can move 10 miles down the road, there's another one just like it. All told there's over 250 cities/towns to rest your soul and be left alone for not that much money.

My personal preference is that you stay where you are.

Dolphins.

I've been a fan for over 50 years. My neighbor in the 60's and 70's was a guy named Charlie. He played for the undefeated 1972 Dolphins. The only team ever to go undefeated and win the Super Bowl.

Charlie never went to college and signed a pro football contract right out of high school. He was a three sport star in high school. Pat Riley (the Miami Heat president) said Charlie was the best basketball player he had ever played against. Riley was a senior all-american heading off to Kentucky. Charlie was a high school freshman. Outscored Riley in both games they played against each other and locked down Riley.

He would come down to my house and play p/u basketball. He could rain in 3-pts all day long like it was nothing. He looked like he was carved from a solid block of granite. Claimed to have never lifted weights a day in his life.

The year they won the Super Bowl Charlie earned $25,000 including Super Bowl bonus. After his playing days were over, he returned to his hometown and did some coaching. He played semi-pro baseball and routinely knocked balls out of the stadium, not into the stands, out of the stadium.

Charlie worked at the city landfill as an equipment operator. He died about fifteen years ago. He was one of the nicest, sweetest most unassuming person you could ever meet. RIP Charlie.