Its been 5 years since I graduated college, where I acquired my bachelor's degree.. and I can't help but feel a little pissed off? I look at my loan payments and I am only 2/3 of the way through paying them. With that "golden job" you ask? No! I have some job (working 40 hours a week) that doesn't require any degree and work amongst those that have any college experience.
All throughout my young days I was encouraged to go to college and if I didn't I would be stocking shelves at Wal-Mart over night. I was thinking of getting my Master's degree, but then I realized, what's the point. Should I just cook meth with Walter White and live life on the edge from here on out?
Is college a huge scam? I'm sure people will give me a lecture on how it's my fault that so many degrees and the rhetorical nonsense you learn from school gets you practically nothing, but I'm sure some people are in the same boat as me. I couldn't believe the amount of worthless classes I took in my college days. Intro to Communication? Women in Society? Social Problems?? Please.
A lot of the time I bump into my classmates who followed the same path and that are paying down their debts until they turn 76. I paid the first 2 years out my pocket and I kinda feel like college was just a place I went to deposit my money and never got it back lol
Unless you are a business owner, it is tough to succeed as an employee without education.
It isn't a scam, but it is a gate that most people have to pass through or else they will find the path much more difficult.
For some people, college is a big waste of money. It is what you make it to be. The movie "Animal House" ruined it for many young people. It is'nt all about parties and alcohol.
My parents went to the same school as I did and my sister and it was $5,000 for 4-5 classes (which included rooming) back in 198-whatever. Now, it's something around $40,000 for the year and my sister is attending. When I was there it was around $3500 cheaper than it was for her. I feel so sorry for her.
"Gotta get that education!"
My parents went to the same school as I did and my sister and it was $5,000 for 4-5 classes (which included rooming) back in 198-whatever. Now, it's something around $40,000 for the year and my sister is attending. When I was there it was around $3500 cheaper than it was for her. I feel so sorry for her.
"Gotta get that education!"
What did you major in?
The degree is important because it's the baseline for every entry level position regardless of your career. You can change careers and start at the bottom, but it's impossible to do that without a degree.
there was a time when recent college grads could buy houses?
Same college in 1981 was $5,000 to live on campus and is whatever-ridiculous-more % than it is today.
Another thing, probably too many people have degrees. Nothing out of the norm anymore.
I mean, yeah, I'm proud of myself for getting school done and consider it an accomplishment. but can I have something cooler than a single piece of paper with my name on it?
All the evidence suggests that acquiring a college degree confers returns, on average, above what you would have earned had you taken the money spent on college and had a lower paying job.
All evidence also suggests that graduating during a recession differentially affects the labor market experience, shaping your views.
So, no, college is not a scam.
Art history. SO. fucking. worthless.
I remember I took that class with my ex-girlfriend in the fall of 2007. I'm just gonna say I'm very glad we took the course together. She bought me the Simpsons movie and a slush one day. Horrible class, lol. D
I did get a job in Chatsworth, NJ testing blueberries. but it's temporary.
It makes you eligible for a skilled workforce. what you do with your skills is up to you. There are a lot of cases where people became successful without going to college, but their path is almost always more difficult or a product of their intense desire to succeed (often at the expense of other life qualities).
Doing what you love is important, but may not pay the bills too well. At the same time, there is nothing wrong with studying what you love and changing gears later either.
It's difficult to foresee what you want to be when you are 18-21 so sometimes it makes sense to not focus on something with limited practical application for financial return. If you decide to change careers for example, just having a college degree and be willing to work hard, can get you where you need to be....without the degree, that can be virtually impossible if there are no lower entry level jobs in that field.
I got a strong liberal arts foundation that has given me a perspective that has been unique everywhere I've been in my 31 year career. I did need to invest in trade education after getting my B.S. But that was focused on my line of work and was also very worthwhile.
Continuing with a lifetime of education is essential, especially in today's evolving economy / society. Don't ever let school get in the way of your education though! ( Samuel Clemens )
Yes there is trade school and under some circumstances it can be a great alternative. But unless that is right for you (and you know it at 18, which most don't) a better option is to take the college education that presents the best value and try to get the most out of it. Work hard, get good grades, build up a resume with internships and extracurriculars, network with alums (most of whom are flattered to be contacted and happy to help out), annoy the f-ck out of your career services folks, use jobs or scholarships or not going to a middling school charging $40K a year to keep your debt burden low.
That said, I have three kids who went to college and it's been a positive for all three of them as well.
And that said too - the idea that college education is somewhat of a "bubble" these days has some foundation to it. The cost is really high in so many cases, even where the value is speculative. And the kids borrow so much of it - student loans are another story (from a credit viewpoint).
Though a significant minority of this difference can be controlled for and is due to higher, on average, abilities, these selective degrees have advantages:
1. It's a lucrative signal
2. Alumni connections
So, while college costs are out of line with the anticipated returns, it is not nearly as large as people commonly state.
If you go to College to just "get a job", It could seem like your 4 years were a collosial waste of time...
Right now, I'm working my dream job; I never thought it would be possible....and what I'm doing for a living now IS FAR FROM what my degree is in
I think that had I started College with definitive purpose to my current career path, I probably could have started in it sooner and could be miles ahead of where I am now....but I went to School as a naive 18 year old punk who said "I'll figure it out as I go along"
Truthfully, I should have found a job out of high school and attended College when I had a definitive Career choice
In short, I'm grateful for my 4 years....I'm ever happy that I went...but if I were giving advice to somebody making a college choice, I'd have them consider what they'd REALLY REALLY REALLY want to do for the rest of their life, not what they're into today
My post-college career has very little to do with those 4 years.
I don't even think my degree contributed to getting my first job, but it was a requirement (need a college degree).
I only even picked my major (accounting) after my sophomore year because it was the one that required the fewest classes for me to take after that point to get y degree, first two years I took all general and business classes.
I have spent 0 days in my life doing anything in accounting.
My biggest regret is I only took 4 years to graduate. Most of my friends took 5 and I would maybe consider that if I wasn't paying for college myself.
Is a degree a Get Rich ticket? No. But it's a path to a better life. What kind of returns were you expecting? You understand you're building a career here, and that you've barely been at it as long as it took you to become qualified to enter your field, right?
One final thought: you're 2/3rds of your way through your loans five years out of school...you don't have a lot of room to bitch. You're better off than the vast majority of graduates with loan doubts. There are people drowning in student loan debt. I know people in their 30s who have been faithfully paying loans since graduation who won't be done with those loans until they're in their 50s.
I'd love to see that, because recent research from the same NY Fed have found that the returns to a college education are still at an all time high.
And that the struggles of the youth labor market are in no way limited to this recession, and instead are a feature of a youth labor market.
To me, that 25%, based on the preponderence of other evidence, is fabricated bullshit based on faulty indicators.
And, considering they talk about the average worker and average college student means that the 25% not obtaining the requisite benefits would be a HUGE finding (i.e., it would be significant at any level).
But, beyond that, the necessary requirement to find observationally equivalent individuals to perform the counter-factual (would have been better with a H.S. degree) doesn't occur in the paper.
They even acknowledge this in subsequent news articles. I mean, this:
directly contradicts what you said.
That does not say that the benefits of the college degree have not been worth it.
College degrees provide signals to employers; it is likely, in fact, that workers who obtain these jobs earn higher pay (if salaried) and are more likely to be targeted for promotion.
The college degree, in these situations, has still been found to be valuable.
This is also evidenced in the fact that individuals who don't graduate from college still earn higher wages than what they would have, because college classes impart some skills that these individuals use later in life.
BUT, I scraped by with good enough test scores to get into a mediocre MBA program, and that ultimately led to a long career in investment research and strategy, from which I will soon retire.
So, I didn't have fun, and I learned almost nothing, but would do it again in a heartbeat.
Just how things turned out.