I read of Connecticut Broadcasting School’s close on Facebook when Geoff Fox posted a update. I really didn’t understand the enormity of the situation. I thought that this was a single school with 50 students who no longer could operate. I just came across the story from WJLA – the ABC affiliate in Washington, DC. JLA reports that CT Broadcasting School operated 26 separate campuses in 16 different states. Geeze, I’m kinda shocked I’ve never heard of them.
The worst part of the story is how the students got treated. Apparently an email was sent to the students after finding the all the doors locked.
…said the school is closed. They’ll be no class until further notice [and to] contact the corporate office.
Wow. Some kids were only weeks away from graduation and won’t be able to get their diploma. The tuition was $12,000 and they won’t even get that back!
The school blames the closing on tightening private student loan markets. The school’s lender, Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial, seized control of all the school’s accounts. This rendered the school unable to proceed.
There is no good way to resolve this. I just sat thinking for 10 minutes on how I’d handle this and I didn’t come up with anything. I guess that’s why I’m not a college president.
As I was driving back from New Haven, I witnessed $1.95 gas. I haven’t seen gas this cheap in, well I can’t remember when. It realy feel good filling up my tank with $35 instead of $70.
Oil prices are now down to $49.55 a barrell, down from the summer high of around $147.00. That is so incredible for me. Just as the housing and credit bubbles have burst, so has the gas bubble. These prices have such a trickle down effect that it will end up effecting everything we as consumers come in contact with. Milk to snickers bars and everything in between should be lower because it won’t cost as much to ship them.
Hopefully now my McDonald’s double cheeseburger will go back to $1.00…
This is scary news for me. GM is burning through its cash like nothing. In 2005, GM was said to have $34 billion dollars of cash on hand. In less than three years, they are down to $15.8 billion. Richard Wagoner Jr, Chairman and Chief Executive of GM, sent out an internal memo on November 7, 2005 reassuring its employees that bankruptcy was unnecessary.
All signs are pointing to GM declaring bankruptcy by mid-2009 if things don’t change significantly. That means more car sales, lower operating costs, etc etc.
What would a GM bankruptcy mean to the world though? This would cause an unthinkable unemployment problem, to the likes of one never before seen. Upwards of 300,000 workers without jobs would cause so much stress to the economy that a collapse would be imminent. With all this news, people are less likely to buy a GM car simply because in six months are they going to be able to honor their warranty? Rental car companies will get rid of any and all GM cars on their lot so they don’t have to go through the trouble of liquidating the cars themselves. The value of GM cars would fall substantially too.
Retirees and the workers of GM would take a hit in bankruptcy. GM could scale down the pension payouts of retirees and the health care benefits of those employed.
Stockholders may be the hardest hit. After everything trickles down to them, there may not be anything left for stockholders.
The prospect of bankruptcy scares the crap out of me. But we, as a country and even on a global scale, may be facing this very soon.
Anyone wanna buy my Hummer off me? It only has a few miles on it and gets great gas mileage!
