More Awesome Than You!

Does anyone know of a mod that will charge families to send their kids to college?  I know the scholarships are supposed to be for that but IMO I think the scholarships should go towards a tuition charge and not be free spending money.  Parents with underachievers should have to foot the bill themselves. 

It just seems too easy to fulfill those "graduate 3 kids from college" and to make everyone successful by having those extra college years to skill and network.

Right now I am just using the familyfunds cheat to take 10k (minus scholarship funds) away from the family per child and then taking the scholarship money away from the kid once it gets there.  It would juts be nice if anyone else has an easier way for something of this nature.

It'd be nice to have something like this. After all, a real college isn't gonna take a kid who plodded his/her way through school with a D- the whole time.

I think you actually do have to have decent grades to attend Uni.

I'm not sure on the grades because I make everyone do their homework most of the time since most of them have jobs that require their grades be higher than a D (I think it is D anyway). 

I do have several teens who get nothing but the scholar's grant and then get a pretty free ride to college because they were too busy sneaking out and dating instead of skilling.  I'm not sure who's footing the bill but they certainly didn't get recruited by the college.  I do cut my romance sims a break for sleeping with those nasty looking professors.  Kinda like getting a tuition coupon  ;)

Plus, I like to make the kids drop out if their parents can't afford the payments minus whatever money they get each final after living expenses ::).  Add some RL stressors to the game and a much needed way to get rid of some of that excess money floating around I always seem to have after a few generations.

I'll just keep messing around with the money order and familyfunds cheat although I seem to have problems with familyfunds when I have more than one household with the same last name. 

*sigh*

In Greece, education is FREE! I don't get it, aren't the Unis over there State Universities? Why the heck do you people pay to get your kids to Uni? I understand if they are private, but pay for State-owned Unis? There are still no private Universities here in Greece, they're debacling whether to allow them or not over the past few years, so it seems pretty absurd whenever I read about paying for University tuition.

Sigh - America is ANOTHER country.

Mind you the UK is going exactly the same way (which I strongly disapprove of).

In State-owned universities (e.g. the University of [insert state name] system), the tuition is usually cheaper than other universities, but we still have to pay nonetheless.

AFIAK, teens can only not go to college when they currently have an F in school.

Sucks. Sucks big time. Land Of The Free...? Well, obviously not Education!

Nope. It's part of the reason why many young people there are in debt up to their ears before they are 25. I went to a state-run community college because I was just that poor, and I was STILL $2500 in debt after a year, regardless of grants. :P

ur not kidding . i think the average debt for sombody leaving uni in the uk is somthing like 10k(mainly student loans).  its not exactly a good start in life is it. kind of makes me glad i never went to uni   

I"m in debt up to 60k after my college was finished, i'm 28..and it was state...i just attended for a little longer than normal. sucks!

Karen

When I finished college and grad school back in 1993, I was in debt for $35,000 and I had lots of scholarships and tuition-remission benefits during those seven years of schooling.

Having worked in higher ed following that, I've seen kids these days coming out of school with twice as much debt as I had.

Education in the US is definitely not cheap.  Some states are better than others in terms of cost, but lots of big state schools are just as expensive as private schools now.  University of Washington comes to mind.  Also bear in mind that here in the US, you often get a cheaper tuition rate for a state school IF you are a resident of that state.  For example, if you live in Arizona and apply to go to school at University of Colorado you end up paying double what kids from Colorado pay for tuition.

hrm, makes me kindda warm and fuzzy inside to realise just how nice we have it in denmark.

Here not only is the schools free to attend, but you can take extra courses rather cheap, and college / uni is also free. Add tot aht thte possibilty of getting grants to cover your living expences from the state, and we are basically paying people a monthly salary to be a student.

Of course all this is offset by the gargantuan tax we then have to pay, but at least an education is not something that only the rich or privileged ( sp?)can get. we pay roughly between 30 to 50 % tax to pay for this system, but it has saved my a$$ education wise more than once...

Public colleges in the US are not all that cheap either. I'm in New York, and the city/state schools are $2,000 a semester.

Yeah, it sure is insane how much uni costs in North America. I'm going to uni in Canada and I pay $2,500 (Canadian) per semester. And that's not including the books, which cost another $500! AND they're gonna make us pay $200 extra next year (bastards).
I can't even imagine how much it would cost if I had to live in a dorm... thankfully I can just take a bus there and live at home.

Dr.Beast - Back where I come from (Poland) Uni is free too for the state universities... ah, Europe.... But I've heard they're contemplating whether to make students pay in a few years.

Personally I think it's a conspiracy... If they make education expensive then only the rich-elite will be able to go to uni. Then only the rich-elite will have the top jobs and leadership positions... And it will be much easier for them to manipulate the uneducated population..

Ok, rant over  :P

This is cheap compared to most decent colleges in other states. I'd say here in Missouri (where I live), the average per semester for the well-known universities probably hovers around $5000-$7000.

As someone who(se parents) spent close to 120K on 4 years of higher education, I'd like my Sims to feel the burn and the tightening of their wallets from University.  And those semesterly 1200 simoleon grants just pile up in my dorms.  Especially when I'm playing 3 or 4 Sims.

Maybe even the ability to customize tuition per campus.  I can only assume La Fiesta Tech is some Sim version of  UC Santa Cruz (no offense to anyone who might have attended/partied there) and probably shouldn't be as pricey as a first-class institution like Academie Le Tour.

But Academie Le Tour seems European in nature, and things apparently work differently in Europe.

There are places that Uni is FREE!?!?  Now, I know Canada has free medical care and I heard other countries have much shorter work weeks/hours but free education??

*Sigh*  I have paid out the nose for my education and I don't even know much about the world outside the states.  Now I want a refund  :-\

Maybe I should immigrate before my 4 boys get out of public school.... hmmmm

You could easily equate Academie with any of the original Ivy League schools in the U.S.  That's how I think of it.  That's why I only send my Fortune and Knowledge Sims there and every building is a work of art...done by someone else that I just downloaded.

Bear in mind, I'm not talking about private college cost in NY, which is out-of-this-world.

In the UK, we now pay for our higher education (more and more each year it seems) instead of funding people to improve their skills and education and it does discourage people.  OTOH, the government says it wants to increase the proportion of people attending university in every generation and has set universities high admissions targets and created an elaborate system of loans so students can indebt themselves to go.  Students come out of uni with large debts.  The government says this is ok because graduates are capable of earning higher wages than average and can afford to pay it back but doesn't seem to have twigged that more graduates in the working population means employers can offer them less money to do the same jobs because there's more competition.

Rant over?  I've not even started.  I better go and sit down.

Yep, i will finish uni in the uk next year with over £20,000 of debt, not including any overdraft, or credit card bills. I even have to pay half my university fees this year, while i'm out of the country on placements, so im paying £1,500 to get 1 visit and 3 or 4 phone calls every 6 months. Isnt that value for money? And my sister, who will start in september, will leave with over £30,000. It is really stupid, and makes me want to leave the country. Where was education free again?

Greece, scandinavian countries, Germany, France...most of Europe I think actually. Nah, GB is the U.S.A. underdog, they're not Europe!  :P

quote
        Now, I know Canada has free medical care

Not in my lifetime.    We all have our provincial health plans which we pay fees for every month.    If you want extra coverage for glasses, dentures, etc you have to have another policy which again you pay monthly fees for.    The only medical care that people receive free are the ones who have the health insurance paid for by our welfare system.  And again that's not really free.    The working population are actually charged for that when they pay their yearly taxes.

Nothing is really free in any country.  Someone previously said their Uni education was free, but if your taxes are like 50%, well then that's not really free, is it?

Canada doesn't have free healthcare, but it is inexpensive for basic healthcare, and most emplyers have pretty good healthplans (or at least the ones I've worked for).

Well, now that's true but I'd rather pay for it (education or healthcare) through my taxes and have everyone have equal access rather than a system where you get the care/education you can afford to pay for - or not.

Ahhh, I thought Canada had free clinics or something but heck even the US has free medical with welfare (at least for the kids, I don't think they do for adults anymore).

I just had some casual Canadian friends in an online community that talked like they had it much easier than in the US.  Wonderful women who left me with a certain overall respect for Canada.

I don't know on the taxes providing for everyone.  I don't think I like Bush deciding what to do with my money but I guess that is more because of our lousy politics here than anything else.  In theory it sounds good at least.

But - you would think that it would make sense that a country would want it's citizens educated.  I guess a lot of stuff sounds good but just can't really be done in practice.  Such is life.  In the meantime I guess we all just pay off our student loans for the rest of our lives  :-\

Er... it seems to be working pretty well in Finland and some other European countries, as listed in comments above. So it can be done in practice.

I speak only for BC, since that's my only realm of experience.

We do have a far more accessible healthplan than the US does.  There are free clinics, and if your income is lower than the minimum (which I'm not sure of exactly as I've been above the minimum for a number of years), then you don't have to pay for a doctor's visit.  I have no idea how prescriptions and everything works if you're below the minumim as I have been on employer health plans for a long time now.

A big part of it is that to do so is expensive, which is probably why they're trying to move in a diff. direction. In an ideal world, nobody would have to pay for college, but economics of the real world dictate that such programs aren't going to very sustainable, especially when on a large scale involving hundreds of millions of people.

It might work in Finland, but Finland has a national population of 5-6 million people, with annual growth of .16%, according to the CIA Factbook. So it follows that what works in Finland won't necessarily work in the U.S., w/ population of almost 300 million and 5 times the population growth rate. I mean, the population of NYC alone exceeds that of the entire country of Finland. With countries growing and natural economic shifts, a program that pays for free college might be too expensive for some countries to keep.

I mean, just look at GM and their employee pension problem. Back when GM was still the industry leader in America, it was fine and well to give out great pensions and benefits. But w/ foreign cars taking over the market and increased costs and what have you, they're in deep sh*t w/ this program. And while ideally employees would be able to reap all the benefits and still keep their jobs, right now, w/ the billions of dollars in losses GM has, there's no way they can keep this up without going under. Hence employee buy-outs and huge layoffs and overall, restructuring that will more than likely mean the end of benefit-packed pension plans for their employees.

And of course, pple aren't going to be happy when such changes occur, but such is the economic reality. I mean, if you look at France and the current riots - pple are downright pissed about the proposed changes. But when you think about it, France is suffering from a stagnant job market and other related social issues which most likely are a result of, or affected by, policies that make it difficult to fire at will. There was a great article in the NYTimes about it, and a lot of the points it made I think rings true. So while it's easy to say, the U.S. sucks b/c it doesn't provide us w/ this or that, it's really not as simple as that.

The range I floated is what I gather from public colleges in Missouri. I wouldn't even waste my time looking at private ones.

My tuition was just raised by $1000. It is a public school, but we still are not getting enough money from the state to meet expenses, apparently. Although I don't know where the money would come from. Virginia doesn't have a lot of extra cash floating around right now. Just a good bond rating (so far)... And yet it's still a pretty good deal compared to a lot of other schools. There are people here as out of state students because it is still cheaper for them than going in-state...

When I was in Germany, they were proposing to raise tuition from €50 per semester to €500. There were massive student protests. Hippies camping out in the main buildings, etc.  Bastards. It's like they never thought about the cost of a university education, I honestly don't understand how their system is able to pay for it. I mean, I pay something like $7,000 already, and that is still slightly less than half of what the state puts into the total cost of my education. It's not like they make a profit.

Do you know how many people I would KILL to pay a mere 500 euros?

At least three. If I thought it would do any good. :p

Oh certainly it *could* be done. But we're living during a period (in the US - dunno about the rest of the world) where the emphasis is on the individual and the present rather than the society and the longterm. Anything that costs individually and presently (even if it gains societally and longterm) is unlikely to be implemented (imo, of course). Imagine if we didn't already have a societally-backed primary education system, trying to get one implemented for all children. I imagine it would be deemed too expensive, not viable, and not worthy - and what we do have is in danger in any case.

Um, I'm forgetting my own rules about discussing politics :)

So on another note, I'd like to thank you all for this thread. Whether there's a mod or not, I took a piece from your pie and am charging my sim families tuition - if the family is willing and able to pay it, I'm letting the kids keep some of their scholarships for spending money (I like having a couple start off with more and think it's kind of realistic) and if they can't or won't ('pends on the sim), I'm putting the teen-job money away for them in addition to scholarships (including letting them earn extra if they want) if they really want to go. Between this, a few other rules like this, and a bunch of buying lots and stuff for OFB (several times, we keep changing our sim-minds :) and not very profitable but fun businesses, my sims are actually scrambling a bit for money and having to think about which things they want. For now anyway. I love it. :) So I greatly appreciate the suggestion.

Along with the tuition thing, I don't suppose there's any way to have a mod that keeps family funds (teens or other adults living together) finances separate so I don't have to do it manually? (I always lose a bit here and there). Sounds impossible, but I can't resist asking :)

The University that I'm planning on attending in the fall costs about 5k a year, but that's cheap compared to a one in a small town and the one on the other side of my town which is supposedly is supposed to be better.  Those cost 20k a year at least.  I also doubt those private schools have the major that I'm planning I'm going into anyway, since they're both Liberal Arts colleges.

As for the game, the parents should pay.  Especially if they're not attending a "Public" college.

sagana - I have the same problem keeping my funds separate but it is a little easier with Monique's computer.  It has a bank option that I use mostly just for keeping track of cash my teens are saving up but I also like the loan function so that my sims can afford bigger houses and what-not.  Kinda like a mortgage that charges them interest.  When they can't or don't pay I move them to this trashy Salvation Army shelter I have.

I don't have the link anymore but I got it from MTS2 if you haven't seen it.

Here -> http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=64137

I'm using Monique's computer, but that's kinda how I'm losing a little here and there :). If my teen makes $125 for a day's work. I can deposit either $100 or $200, so I put in $100 determined that in 4 days I'll add the extra $100 but I forget :) Every once in awhile I'll add a bit as I know I'm cheating her, or sometimes I just figure she has to give her parents a bit for support or using it for spending money or something, but... and if you have 2 working adults living together and want to keep separate accounts for them, it gets even more complicated :)

To keep funds seperate, you could try buying items equal to the money you want to seperate and storing them in that sim's inventory. I think the items retain their original value as long you you put them directly in.