Not quite the same - musicians do get paid a decent amount for a gig. The challenge is getting enough gigs to make a living at it.

I've never heard of an actor or musician getting told "yeah, we need you to work next week's performances for free"

I play a lot of Minesweeper?

Companies don't work for free. Why should I? (Actually, once you account for transportation, food, etc, you're actually working *at a loss*)

This goes double or triple if we're talking the second week of employment - I work in a jurisdiction with at least some worker protection, so I'd be making some phone calls regarding employment standards and misrepresentation.

Also, who is crazy enough to take a "salary" deal that specifies minimum but not maximum work hours?

Alternate thought: you have your education in hand, so you don't need another loan for that. If you were repaying the loan you wouldn't be able to afford the house anyway, so delaying that for seven years isn't a burden. And he's writing, which is a telecommuting gig, so as long as he's somewhere with public transport he doesn't need the car either.

So, he's making the same choices the rich and corporations do every day - is it better for *my* bottom line to declare bankruptcy or to pay the debt?

For one, because we don't live in Starship Troopers land? (Remember: Service guarantees citizenship, kids!)

Second - because if you gave an engineering student four years of free tuition, he's still going to take engineering. The future pigfuckers, er, I mean politicians, will still study PolySci and Law. You're just making sure that (for instance) your Med students can actually take up family practices instead of going into plastic surgery because they need to repay their loans.

The really sad thing is, the cost of educating your entire population can be covered simply by deciding to build a few less bombs or maybe not have a base in every country on the planet.

All that said - the points about finding smaller and cheaper places is worth reinforcing. We all know that your high school "permanent record" is BS. Well, unless you're going to hobnob with the hoi palloi, where you got your degree doesn't count for crap either. Better to check and make sure they have a good program in what you're interested in.

Bull - I took a Bachelors in Computing Science and Psychology. Why did I have to take six credits of Physics, which they happily admit is just rehashing Grade 12 again? Plus my "choice" of either Air for Airheads or Rocks for Jocks? I was happy to take my mandatory English (although I wish, again, that it had been something beyond "redo Grade 12 Shakespeare again"). There were piles of science *and* arts options I wanted to take but couldn't because I either had "too many" of one type or had to take mandatory stuff I didn't give a crap about, but it helped fill seats for the school. (When I show up for a required course and it's 450 people in a lecture hall being taught by a TA, there's some money getting funnelled somewhere and it's not to my education).

No worse than the rich who make sure that if the business goes under, all *their* money is safely stashed away. Or corporations (for instance, Target is currently stiffing a lot of Canadian suppliers because Target Canada closed down - so all the profits went back to the mothership, while the losses are left behind to rot in bankruptcy.

I suspect that may be part of the point of the article - why is it that a billionaire can walk away from their debts, but a college student can't? Why shouldn't he be allowed to play by the same rules? (And apparently he can and did - assuming he doesn't just call their bluff and see if they even have the paperwork anymore.)

There are a lot of injuries that happen long before the "lot of money" arrives. You just don't hear about them because they lose their scholarships (or maybe didn't make it to college at all if they got hurt in high school), and they end up working normal day jobs like the rest of us - just with bad backs and trick knees. Maybe their memory isn't all that good.

Just remember - anyone who got hurt in college made *zero* dollars, because the NCAA doesn't allow their athletes to make money. Money is for coaches and schools. Pain and permanent injury is the reward athletes get.

I've watched the odd TF2 match online, and like most sports it depends a lot on the production values - do they get good footage, are the commentators interesting, etc etc.

So, exactly the same as the National $SPORTSNAMEHERE League Associations!

OK, seriously - there's a reason the majority of sports stars retire into obscurity. Worse for college athletes, who get cheated out of an education so they can Play In The Big Game.

e-sports are probably in a better place right now, since there's not enough money involved yet for it to turn into a puppy mill for geeks in the way the jocks get chewed up in sports.

Just to be clear - when you say swimming are you also counting "falling off a cliff gracefully" and "underwater dance"?

They could, but then the equation changes from "I need to know about Bob, go get his lending history from the library" to "I need to do a bunch of paperwork every week, get all the information on everyone, and then store it, in case I someday need to look up Bob (or Sue, or Mike)".

It's the extra layer of hassle that makes all the difference. If Bob suddenly becomes interesting, then they're only going to get his current checked out books. If they want that massive database, they have to be constantly filing paperwork.

I would say we're just becoming more sensitive to weasel-words.

So, there's no "widespread" or "systemic" impacts. That's not the same as saying "no impact" or even "no measurable impact".

Also, when people are setting their water *on fire*, I expect a bit more explanation, y'know?

Unfortunately, they're just as likely to bring the house lawyers in, dig in their heels, and wait for the kid to graduate and it not to matter anymore.

School boards have time on their side. This kid is a senior, so he's going to graduate in a couple months. Once that happens, how much money are the parents going to spend chasing after this? This is why the principal is threatening the suspension and loss of extra curriculars - that tends to include graduation ceremonies and prom night. Why threaten lawsuit when you can just say "nope, you don't get to walk the stage with your peers. Shoulda respected my authoritah." And by the time the appeals get done, it won't change the fact that he missed the event.

And the update on the article, while completely ditching the BS "I'ma gonna call the IRS on you" line, is apparently now claiming that he's in trouble for using school equipment to post non-school work. Which would seem to imply that if he takes the memory card home and uploads them from his personal computer, they don't have a concern? (Which leads to: how do you tell the difference?)

That's because management will choose Getting It Done Now over Following The Rules every time. I've yet to meet a manager who, when it comes down to the deadline, won't tell me to "figure something a way to make it happen".

Which is the unspoken problem in the earlier post - it's all well and good that you updated your documentation, and now all the servers names are ISO certified. But if you forgot to tell anyone you were doing it, and now all the tools and reports that get used to keep the business running break? Don't be surprised when people are breaking rules left, right, and centre in order to get that report on the VP's desk for 3pm.

No, I'd believe it. Even ignoring the obvious reasons like "this security breach makes my life/job/day easier", there's the basic one - when you report a breach, the questions tend to start on "how do you find out?" "What were you doing to notice such a thing?" "That's not part of your job, so what weren't you doing in order to do this thing you're not supposed to do?", and that's if you're lucky enough that it stays internal and you don't get the Full Whistleblower Special.

Counter this with - what's in it for the employee? The best-case scenario is that it's dealt with quietly and you get nothing (because giving you a raise/bonus/cake would require admitting there was a problem). Then we slide very quickly to "major pain in the arse for weeks to come until they finally get over it", through "your career at this company is stalled because you made some boss look bad", and into "dismissal and court cases". There's not enough "win" there.

So I'd probably be one of the 2/3rds, unless I could find a very quiet, very anonymous, and very deniable way of getting word out.