Thought this was an interesting vid. College really isn’t worth it unless you go for a technical degree.
I didn’t watch it but I thought this a long time ago.
Half the time an employer may just want to know you have a degree just to know you have one.
Like when a bouncer at a bar asks if you have ID and you say yeah so they say go in.
[quote]Nards wrote:
I didn’t watch it but I thought this a long time ago.
Half the time an employer may just want to know you have a degree just to know you have one.
Like when a bouncer at a bar asks if you have ID and you say yeah so they say go in.[/quote]
Lol as a bouncer I can vouch for that, and also state that it is definitely seemingly the case… It really depends though, I think now there is many more opportunities to make money in new ways that the old system just kind of burned itself out… However if you want to be say a Doctor or Lawyer then you best have a ton of education but I suppose that falls under technical degree… I don’t know how someone could major in say philosophy and do something with that though…
Well I dont fully agree on this propaganda video.
I agree school is expensive, but nobody forces you to go to an expensive private school.
If you live in Arizona for instance and get in to University of Arizona, you pay 5k a year for school. If you do well, you might get more grants/scholarships.
In NY there’s lots of good CUNY’s. And the better you succeed, the cheaper it usually gets.
Maybe the wisest thing is not to go get a contemporary-art degree for 60k / year if you dont get any scholarships for that, and the job prospects are low.
[quote]NikH wrote:
Well I dont fully agree on this propaganda video.
I agree school is expensive, but nobody forces you to go to an expensive private school.
If you live in Arizona for instance and get in to University of Arizona, you pay 5k a year for school. If you do well, you might get more grants/scholarships.
In NY there’s lots of good CUNY’s. And the better you succeed, the cheaper it usually gets.
Maybe the wisest thing is not to go get a contemporary-art degree for 60k / year if you dont get any scholarships for that, and the job prospects are low.[/quote]
Lucky for you. PA has some of the most expensive public schools in the nation. Penn State yearly tuition for 2013 = $16,444. That is just tuition, not room and board or books.
Degree’s with worth to the economy have always been sought after.
You can apply for jobs which others without the expertise gained cannot go for. Arts and English language degrees for example are just general degrees.
The longest commercial for silver and gold I have ever seen.
I only watched about the first seven minutes. Definitely there’s a reality there - the cost of a degree is going way up, and employment prospects, particularly non-specialised ones, are way down - but the video is hilariously one-sided and alarmist.
Only technical degrees provide an straightforward, obvious path to a job, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Aside from being an entrepreneur, there are few careers indeed you can get into without a degree of some sort. A friend of mine who dropped out of university has found herself perpetually in menial, low paying jobs, unable to get promoted, despite the fact that she would be a first-rate employee. A philosophy or English degree would change that. Once you have a degree - any degree - there are back doors out there for motivated, industrious people into all sorts of rewarding careers.
Still, the cost of that degree is going up, and every field is more competitive and demanding than it was for the last generation. In many, many cases, being good at what you do may not be enough on its own these days.
[quote]NikH wrote:
Well I dont fully agree on this propaganda video.
I agree school is expensive, but nobody forces you to go to an expensive private school.
If you live in Arizona for instance and get in to University of Arizona, you pay 5k a year for school. If you do well, you might get more grants/scholarships.
In NY there’s lots of good CUNY’s. And the better you succeed, the cheaper it usually gets.
Maybe the wisest thing is not to go get a contemporary-art degree for 60k / year if you dont get any scholarships for that, and the job prospects are low.[/quote]
Tuition is more expensive than that in most states. A year in the UMD system will cost around $10,000. The problem is cost of living and lost time at work. It might not be a problem in Arizona, but in maryland, the cost of living is very high. If you want to go to UMD, even packing a bunch of people in a house you’re going to spend $600/mo+ on rent/utilities. Even if you get a 15-20/hr week part time job, that’s only going to cover your gas, food, books, insurance, phone, etc. You’re going to have to take out loans for your cost of living here if you’re parents don’t live near the school. Even graduating in 4 years and being extremely frugal and working part time, you’re looking at a $50,000 student loan debt upon graduating.
Alternatively, you could skip college. Full time positions are available with decent pay at Trader Joe’s, Costco, Wegman’s, or any of the other stores around here that are willing to pay ~12$/hr with benefits for unskilled (but friendly and reliable) labor. Additionally, you could pick up 2 shifts of restaurant work. Even in a slow restaurant, you should be able to pick up 75/shift in tips and average just under 9 shifts a month (there are 30.333 days in the average month). This would put an extra $650 in cash your pocket.
The $650 could be used to pay your gas, groceries, a little bit of spending money, and have enough leftover to throw your parents a few hundred for rent. At this age you can still be on your parents car insurance, health insurance, and phone plan for cheap, and you can pay them the difference as well.
You could add the bulk of your full-time at 12/hr right into the bank. That’s $25,000 a year. You’ll barely pay any taxes outside of social security and medicare, and assuming you spend a little on a small vacation, a cell phone bill, or car insurance… you can still bank 20k a year.
After 4 years, you’d have $80,000 in the bank (more if you invested) and no degree versus someone who has 0$ in the bank and $50,000 in debt. Not only that, but the person with the money would have interest working in their favor, the person with the debt would have interest working against them.
Not to mention the possibility that the 18 yr old opened an IRA and had an employer that matched contributions or invested the money in stocks. Some of this could then be pulled out for a first time homebuyer purchase.
By the time the 22 year old college student graduates, the 22 yr old hard worker with no degree has plenty of money to put down on a house. Not just any house, but a 3 bedroom house, and he could rent 2 of the rooms out to recent college grads who can’t afford their own home yet.
If you’re smart with your money this compounds throughout life. You don’t need a big income to have big savings and ultimately live entirely off interest and equity… you just need to make more than you spend for a very long period of time and let compounding interest and equity do the rest.
I wouldn’t recommend putting it all in silver or gold though, that’s where the video lost credibility. DRIPs in top tier companies are a better bet over the 20+ year mark.
They should probably stop giving out student loans for degrees with no future and no ability to pay back the loan.
[quote]challer1 wrote:
[quote]NikH wrote:
Well I dont fully agree on this propaganda video.
I agree school is expensive, but nobody forces you to go to an expensive private school.
If you live in Arizona for instance and get in to University of Arizona, you pay 5k a year for school. If you do well, you might get more grants/scholarships.
In NY there’s lots of good CUNY’s. And the better you succeed, the cheaper it usually gets.
Maybe the wisest thing is not to go get a contemporary-art degree for 60k / year if you dont get any scholarships for that, and the job prospects are low.[/quote]
Tuition is more expensive than that in most states. A year in the UMD system will cost around $10,000. The problem is cost of living and lost time at work. It might not be a problem in Arizona, but in maryland, the cost of living is very high. If you want to go to UMD, even packing a bunch of people in a house you’re going to spend $600/mo+ on rent/utilities. Even if you get a 15-20/hr week part time job, that’s only going to cover your gas, food, books, insurance, phone, etc. You’re going to have to take out loans for your cost of living here if you’re parents don’t live near the school. Even graduating in 4 years and being extremely frugal and working part time, you’re looking at a $50,000 student loan debt upon graduating.
Alternatively, you could skip college. Full time positions are available with decent pay at Trader Joe’s, Costco, Wegman’s, or any of the other stores around here that are willing to pay ~12$/hr with benefits for unskilled (but friendly and reliable) labor. Additionally, you could pick up 2 shifts of restaurant work. Even in a slow restaurant, you should be able to pick up 75/shift in tips and average just under 9 shifts a month (there are 30.333 days in the average month). This would put an extra $650 in cash your pocket.
The $650 could be used to pay your gas, groceries, a little bit of spending money, and have enough leftover to throw your parents a few hundred for rent. At this age you can still be on your parents car insurance, health insurance, and phone plan for cheap, and you can pay them the difference as well.
You could add the bulk of your full-time at 12/hr right into the bank. That’s $25,000 a year. You’ll barely pay any taxes outside of social security and medicare, and assuming you spend a little on a small vacation, a cell phone bill, or car insurance… you can still bank 20k a year.
After 4 years, you’d have $80,000 in the bank (more if you invested) and no degree versus someone who has 0$ in the bank and $50,000 in debt. Not only that, but the person with the money would have interest working in their favor, the person with the debt would have interest working against them.
Not to mention the possibility that the 18 yr old opened an IRA and had an employer that matched contributions or invested the money in stocks. Some of this could then be pulled out for a first time homebuyer purchase.
By the time the 22 year old college student graduates, the 22 yr old hard worker with no degree has plenty of money to put down on a house. Not just any house, but a 3 bedroom house, and he could rent 2 of the rooms out to recent college grads who can’t afford their own home yet.
If you’re smart with your money this compounds throughout life. You don’t need a big income to have big savings and ultimately live entirely off interest and equity… you just need to make more than you spend for a very long period of time and let compounding interest and equity do the rest.
I wouldn’t recommend putting it all in silver or gold though, that’s where the video lost credibility. DRIPs in top tier companies are a better bet over the 20+ year mark.
[/quote]
Your post is predicated on the notion that a four year head-start on earning potential (an abysmal earning potential at that) somehow exceeds the investment of higher education. You seem to be forgetting the fact that someone without a college degree is very unlikely to advance in the workforce, and will be stuck making that shitty $25,000 annual salary for a very, very long time, as opposed to a college graduate, who ,though he may have accumulated a sizeable debt, has the earning potential to break even and far surpass the non-college grad many times over within a few years after graduation.
The only people who complain that their college education wasn’t worth the pricetag are the idiots who pursued worthless degrees, because they believed their parents when they told them to do “whatever made them happy.” Unfortunately, this mentality is very common among college graduates of this day and age, and is, in my opinion, completely fucking retarded, unless the degree you seek to pursue is in a highly sought-after field, such as anything in the medical field, technological field, engineering, accounting, etc.
This whole “do what makes you happy” mentality stems from the same idealogy that created today’s generation of self-centered, lazy, entitled little pussies who believe that the purpose of life is to satisfy their desires - they refuse to work hard and sacrifice endless partying just so they can get a degree they find enjoyable, rather than the degree that would have led them to live a productive existence in today’s society, all because mommy and daddy said “do whatever makes you happy.” Yeah, as if the world gives a fuck if you’re happy.
Well, to all those who decide not to pursue higher education: enjoy being “rich” (LOL) making $25,000 a year for a few years, and then having all your college-grad buddies far surpass your earning potential by the time they’re 25.
To the “I’m majoring in a worthless degree because I want to be happy” people, good luck being happy and poor.
I’d rather be miserable for a few years and then come to enjoy the fruits of my labor for the next 40-50 years as well as enjoying the innumerable benefits that higher education has to offer.
[quote]The Greek wrote:
[quote]challer1 wrote:
[quote]NikH wrote:
Well I dont fully agree on this propaganda video.
I agree school is expensive, but nobody forces you to go to an expensive private school.
If you live in Arizona for instance and get in to University of Arizona, you pay 5k a year for school. If you do well, you might get more grants/scholarships.
In NY there’s lots of good CUNY’s. And the better you succeed, the cheaper it usually gets.
Maybe the wisest thing is not to go get a contemporary-art degree for 60k / year if you dont get any scholarships for that, and the job prospects are low.[/quote]
Tuition is more expensive than that in most states. A year in the UMD system will cost around $10,000. The problem is cost of living and lost time at work. It might not be a problem in Arizona, but in maryland, the cost of living is very high. If you want to go to UMD, even packing a bunch of people in a house you’re going to spend $600/mo+ on rent/utilities. Even if you get a 15-20/hr week part time job, that’s only going to cover your gas, food, books, insurance, phone, etc. You’re going to have to take out loans for your cost of living here if you’re parents don’t live near the school. Even graduating in 4 years and being extremely frugal and working part time, you’re looking at a $50,000 student loan debt upon graduating.
Alternatively, you could skip college. Full time positions are available with decent pay at Trader Joe’s, Costco, Wegman’s, or any of the other stores around here that are willing to pay ~12$/hr with benefits for unskilled (but friendly and reliable) labor. Additionally, you could pick up 2 shifts of restaurant work. Even in a slow restaurant, you should be able to pick up 75/shift in tips and average just under 9 shifts a month (there are 30.333 days in the average month). This would put an extra $650 in cash your pocket.
The $650 could be used to pay your gas, groceries, a little bit of spending money, and have enough leftover to throw your parents a few hundred for rent. At this age you can still be on your parents car insurance, health insurance, and phone plan for cheap, and you can pay them the difference as well.
You could add the bulk of your full-time at 12/hr right into the bank. That’s $25,000 a year. You’ll barely pay any taxes outside of social security and medicare, and assuming you spend a little on a small vacation, a cell phone bill, or car insurance… you can still bank 20k a year.
After 4 years, you’d have $80,000 in the bank (more if you invested) and no degree versus someone who has 0$ in the bank and $50,000 in debt. Not only that, but the person with the money would have interest working in their favor, the person with the debt would have interest working against them.
Not to mention the possibility that the 18 yr old opened an IRA and had an employer that matched contributions or invested the money in stocks. Some of this could then be pulled out for a first time homebuyer purchase.
By the time the 22 year old college student graduates, the 22 yr old hard worker with no degree has plenty of money to put down on a house. Not just any house, but a 3 bedroom house, and he could rent 2 of the rooms out to recent college grads who can’t afford their own home yet.
If you’re smart with your money this compounds throughout life. You don’t need a big income to have big savings and ultimately live entirely off interest and equity… you just need to make more than you spend for a very long period of time and let compounding interest and equity do the rest.
I wouldn’t recommend putting it all in silver or gold though, that’s where the video lost credibility. DRIPs in top tier companies are a better bet over the 20+ year mark.
[/quote]
Your post is predicated on the notion that a four year head-start on earning potential (an abysmal earning potential at that) somehow exceeds the investment of higher education. You seem to be forgetting the fact that someone without a college degree is very unlikely to advance in the workforce, and will be stuck making that shitty $25,000 annual salary for a very, very long time, as opposed to a college graduate, who ,though he may have accumulated a sizeable debt, has the earning potential to break even and far surpass the non-college grad many times over within a few years after graduation.
The only people who complain that their college education wasn’t worth the pricetag are the idiots who pursued worthless degrees, because they believed their parents when they told them to do “whatever made them happy.” Unfortunately, this mentality is very common among college graduates of this day and age, and is, in my opinion, completely fucking retarded, unless the degree you seek to pursue is in a highly sought-after field, such as anything in the medical field, technological field, engineering, accounting, etc.
This whole “do what makes you happy” mentality stems from the same idealogy that created today’s generation of self-centered, lazy, entitled little pussies who believe that the purpose of life is to satisfy their desires - they refuse to work hard and sacrifice endless partying just so they can get a degree they find enjoyable, rather than the degree that would have led them to live a productive existence in today’s society, all because mommy and daddy said “do whatever makes you happy.” Yeah, as if the world gives a fuck if you’re happy.
Well, to all those who decide not to pursue higher education: enjoy being “rich” (LOL) making $25,000 a year for a few years, and then having all your college-grad buddies far surpass your earning potential by the time they’re 25.
To the “I’m majoring in a worthless degree because I want to be happy” people, good luck being happy and poor.
I’d rather be miserable for a few years and then come to enjoy the fruits of my labor for the next 40-50 years as well as enjoying the innumerable benefits that higher education has to offer. [/quote]
lol
I have said this before many times, but will do so again: traditional 4 year college and university education is not primarily about job training. It is about education, and it is for people passionate about pursuing knowledge not just looking for a job. Community colleges and technical schools are for job training. Students should study something they are passionate about and have a desire to learn. You can get a degree in any number of in demand fields and get a high paying job, but if you are not passionate about it you are going to hate your life. I have seen many engineers, accountants, lawyers, computer scientists, etc quit their jobs and choose different careers because they hated their jobs. Money is not everything.
That being said, there are a lot of students that have unrealistic expectations about the earning potential of their degrees and that is mainly the fault of primary and secondary school faculty and uninformed parents pushing a four year degree down kid’s throats. Kids should be properly informed about the various kinds of degrees and the pluses and minuses of them. If you really want to learn about philosophy, then by all means study it and enjoy the experience, but understand that there are not going to be a lot of headhunters looking for philosophy majors to come and work for them so you are going to have to put more effort then, say, an engineering major, in finding a job and you will almost certainly have to go outside the specific field of philosophy for a job and start off at a lower salary then you think (think in the range of $20-30k or less rather then the $40-50 that majors in more technical areas can get). That is okay, too. Like I said, college is about learning more then job training. Most places that do not require a large amount of technical training like engineering or accounting or in the hard sciences will take just about any degree and you will receive on the job training.
And the same thing goes for certain undergrad degrees in technical areas that require a lot more then an undergrad education. If you you get a B.S. in my field, physics, you are probably not going to get a job in the field and almost definitely not a very high paying one. But, if studying physics is what you are passionate about then you should do it, but plan on having to look at other fields like engineering or even a corporate job if and when you don’t get hired to work in a lab or other type of research center.
Instead of doing my homework…I watched this
[quote]The Greek wrote:
[quote]challer1 wrote:
[quote]NikH wrote:
Well I dont fully agree on this propaganda video.
I agree school is expensive, but nobody forces you to go to an expensive private school.
If you live in Arizona for instance and get in to University of Arizona, you pay 5k a year for school. If you do well, you might get more grants/scholarships.
In NY there’s lots of good CUNY’s. And the better you succeed, the cheaper it usually gets.
Maybe the wisest thing is not to go get a contemporary-art degree for 60k / year if you dont get any scholarships for that, and the job prospects are low.[/quote]
Tuition is more expensive than that in most states. A year in the UMD system will cost around $10,000. The problem is cost of living and lost time at work. It might not be a problem in Arizona, but in maryland, the cost of living is very high. If you want to go to UMD, even packing a bunch of people in a house you’re going to spend $600/mo+ on rent/utilities. Even if you get a 15-20/hr week part time job, that’s only going to cover your gas, food, books, insurance, phone, etc. You’re going to have to take out loans for your cost of living here if you’re parents don’t live near the school. Even graduating in 4 years and being extremely frugal and working part time, you’re looking at a $50,000 student loan debt upon graduating.
Alternatively, you could skip college. Full time positions are available with decent pay at Trader Joe’s, Costco, Wegman’s, or any of the other stores around here that are willing to pay ~12$/hr with benefits for unskilled (but friendly and reliable) labor. Additionally, you could pick up 2 shifts of restaurant work. Even in a slow restaurant, you should be able to pick up 75/shift in tips and average just under 9 shifts a month (there are 30.333 days in the average month). This would put an extra $650 in cash your pocket.
The $650 could be used to pay your gas, groceries, a little bit of spending money, and have enough leftover to throw your parents a few hundred for rent. At this age you can still be on your parents car insurance, health insurance, and phone plan for cheap, and you can pay them the difference as well.
You could add the bulk of your full-time at 12/hr right into the bank. That’s $25,000 a year. You’ll barely pay any taxes outside of social security and medicare, and assuming you spend a little on a small vacation, a cell phone bill, or car insurance… you can still bank 20k a year.
After 4 years, you’d have $80,000 in the bank (more if you invested) and no degree versus someone who has 0$ in the bank and $50,000 in debt. Not only that, but the person with the money would have interest working in their favor, the person with the debt would have interest working against them.
Not to mention the possibility that the 18 yr old opened an IRA and had an employer that matched contributions or invested the money in stocks. Some of this could then be pulled out for a first time homebuyer purchase.
By the time the 22 year old college student graduates, the 22 yr old hard worker with no degree has plenty of money to put down on a house. Not just any house, but a 3 bedroom house, and he could rent 2 of the rooms out to recent college grads who can’t afford their own home yet.
If you’re smart with your money this compounds throughout life. You don’t need a big income to have big savings and ultimately live entirely off interest and equity… you just need to make more than you spend for a very long period of time and let compounding interest and equity do the rest.
I wouldn’t recommend putting it all in silver or gold though, that’s where the video lost credibility. DRIPs in top tier companies are a better bet over the 20+ year mark.
[/quote]
Your post is predicated on the notion that a four year head-start on earning potential (an abysmal earning potential at that) somehow exceeds the investment of higher education. You seem to be forgetting the fact that someone without a college degree is very unlikely to advance in the workforce, and will be stuck making that shitty $25,000 annual salary for a very, very long time, as opposed to a college graduate, who ,though he may have accumulated a sizeable debt, has the earning potential to break even and far surpass the non-college grad many times over within a few years after graduation.
The only people who complain that their college education wasn’t worth the pricetag are the idiots who pursued worthless degrees, because they believed their parents when they told them to do “whatever made them happy.” Unfortunately, this mentality is very common among college graduates of this day and age, and is, in my opinion, completely fucking retarded, unless the degree you seek to pursue is in a highly sought-after field, such as anything in the medical field, technological field, engineering, accounting, etc.
This whole “do what makes you happy” mentality stems from the same idealogy that created today’s generation of self-centered, lazy, entitled little pussies who believe that the purpose of life is to satisfy their desires - they refuse to work hard and sacrifice endless partying just so they can get a degree they find enjoyable, rather than the degree that would have led them to live a productive existence in today’s society, all because mommy and daddy said “do whatever makes you happy.” Yeah, as if the world gives a fuck if you’re happy.
Well, to all those who decide not to pursue higher education: enjoy being “rich” (LOL) making $25,000 a year for a few years, and then having all your college-grad buddies far surpass your earning potential by the time they’re 25.
To the “I’m majoring in a worthless degree because I want to be happy” people, good luck being happy and poor.
I’d rather be miserable for a few years and then come to enjoy the fruits of my labor for the next 40-50 years as well as enjoying the innumerable benefits that higher education has to offer. [/quote]
Agreed. As a student I can attest to this type of attitude being very prevalent. I know many many people who are going to University with absolutely no idea of what they want to do, or focus on. I can understanding doing this for perhaps a year(especially if your in a position to do so), but to be “searching” aimlessly for years and then complaining that you can’t find a job is a bit ridiculous.
I have friends that have graduated with various degrees and are working odd jobs making 12-20/hour. These are the people though who went through with no game plan and made no attempt to gain extra useful skills ( internships, self-study, part time work, etc)
[quote]The Greek wrote:
[quote]challer1 wrote:
[quote]NikH wrote:
Well I dont fully agree on this propaganda video.
I agree school is expensive, but nobody forces you to go to an expensive private school.
If you live in Arizona for instance and get in to University of Arizona, you pay 5k a year for school. If you do well, you might get more grants/scholarships.
In NY there’s lots of good CUNY’s. And the better you succeed, the cheaper it usually gets.
Maybe the wisest thing is not to go get a contemporary-art degree for 60k / year if you dont get any scholarships for that, and the job prospects are low.[/quote]
Tuition is more expensive than that in most states. A year in the UMD system will cost around $10,000. The problem is cost of living and lost time at work. It might not be a problem in Arizona, but in maryland, the cost of living is very high. If you want to go to UMD, even packing a bunch of people in a house you’re going to spend $600/mo+ on rent/utilities. Even if you get a 15-20/hr week part time job, that’s only going to cover your gas, food, books, insurance, phone, etc. You’re going to have to take out loans for your cost of living here if you’re parents don’t live near the school. Even graduating in 4 years and being extremely frugal and working part time, you’re looking at a $50,000 student loan debt upon graduating.
Alternatively, you could skip college. Full time positions are available with decent pay at Trader Joe’s, Costco, Wegman’s, or any of the other stores around here that are willing to pay ~12$/hr with benefits for unskilled (but friendly and reliable) labor. Additionally, you could pick up 2 shifts of restaurant work. Even in a slow restaurant, you should be able to pick up 75/shift in tips and average just under 9 shifts a month (there are 30.333 days in the average month). This would put an extra $650 in cash your pocket.
The $650 could be used to pay your gas, groceries, a little bit of spending money, and have enough leftover to throw your parents a few hundred for rent. At this age you can still be on your parents car insurance, health insurance, and phone plan for cheap, and you can pay them the difference as well.
You could add the bulk of your full-time at 12/hr right into the bank. That’s $25,000 a year. You’ll barely pay any taxes outside of social security and medicare, and assuming you spend a little on a small vacation, a cell phone bill, or car insurance… you can still bank 20k a year.
After 4 years, you’d have $80,000 in the bank (more if you invested) and no degree versus someone who has 0$ in the bank and $50,000 in debt. Not only that, but the person with the money would have interest working in their favor, the person with the debt would have interest working against them.
Not to mention the possibility that the 18 yr old opened an IRA and had an employer that matched contributions or invested the money in stocks. Some of this could then be pulled out for a first time homebuyer purchase.
By the time the 22 year old college student graduates, the 22 yr old hard worker with no degree has plenty of money to put down on a house. Not just any house, but a 3 bedroom house, and he could rent 2 of the rooms out to recent college grads who can’t afford their own home yet.
If you’re smart with your money this compounds throughout life. You don’t need a big income to have big savings and ultimately live entirely off interest and equity… you just need to make more than you spend for a very long period of time and let compounding interest and equity do the rest.
I wouldn’t recommend putting it all in silver or gold though, that’s where the video lost credibility. DRIPs in top tier companies are a better bet over the 20+ year mark.
[/quote]
Your post is predicated on the notion that a four year head-start on earning potential (an abysmal earning potential at that) somehow exceeds the investment of higher education. You seem to be forgetting the fact that someone without a college degree is very unlikely to advance in the workforce, and will be stuck making that shitty $25,000 annual salary for a very, very long time, as opposed to a college graduate, who ,though he may have accumulated a sizeable debt, has the earning potential to break even and far surpass the non-college grad many times over within a few years after graduation.
The only people who complain that their college education wasn’t worth the pricetag are the idiots who pursued worthless degrees, because they believed their parents when they told them to do “whatever made them happy.” Unfortunately, this mentality is very common among college graduates of this day and age, and is, in my opinion, completely fucking retarded, unless the degree you seek to pursue is in a highly sought-after field, such as anything in the medical field, technological field, engineering, accounting, etc.
This whole “do what makes you happy” mentality stems from the same idealogy that created today’s generation of self-centered, lazy, entitled little pussies who believe that the purpose of life is to satisfy their desires - they refuse to work hard and sacrifice endless partying just so they can get a degree they find enjoyable, rather than the degree that would have led them to live a productive existence in today’s society, all because mommy and daddy said “do whatever makes you happy.” Yeah, as if the world gives a fuck if you’re happy.
Well, to all those who decide not to pursue higher education: enjoy being “rich” (LOL) making $25,000 a year for a few years, and then having all your college-grad buddies far surpass your earning potential by the time they’re 25.
To the “I’m majoring in a worthless degree because I want to be happy” people, good luck being happy and poor.
I’d rather be miserable for a few years and then come to enjoy the fruits of my labor for the next 40-50 years as well as enjoying the innumerable benefits that higher education has to offer. [/quote]
Heavy duty diesel mechanic, 10 months schooling: $40-60k/year
Commercial diver, 1-12 months schooling: $40-90k/year
Pipeline labourer, High school diploma: $30.00-45.00/hour
Electrician, 3-5yr PAID apprenticeship (40-70% journeyman rate): $40-65k/year
Marine Biologist, 4yr B.Sc.: $30-90k
Lawyer, 7 yr B.A,/J.D.: $75k/year
I am not at all opposed to higher education if you have the means and the passion to pursue it. However the whole idea that higher education is the ticket to a better life and that any other path will result in a shitty job with a shitty salary is simply not accurate.
[quote]The Greek wrote:
Your post is predicated on the notion that a four year head-start on earning potential (an abysmal earning potential at that) somehow exceeds the investment of higher education. You seem to be forgetting the fact that someone without a college degree is very unlikely to advance in the workforce, and will be stuck making that shitty $25,000 annual salary for a very, very long time, as opposed to a college graduate, who ,though he may have accumulated a sizeable debt, has the earning potential to break even and far surpass the non-college grad many times over within a few years after graduation.
The only people who complain that their college education wasn’t worth the pricetag are the idiots who pursued worthless degrees, because they believed their parents when they told them to do “whatever made them happy.” Unfortunately, this mentality is very common among college graduates of this day and age, and is, in my opinion, completely fucking retarded, unless the degree you seek to pursue is in a highly sought-after field, such as anything in the medical field, technological field, engineering, accounting, etc. [/quote]
My post is not predicated on a notion, it’s proven via spreadsheet. Your arrogance in assuming that earning power trumps smart investing without even running the numbers yourself is a manifestation of the OP’s video - that the public perceives ROI on a college degree is massive when in reality it is not.
Making money is NOT about earning power, it is about building equity and a principle. This is what they should be teaching in schools. Someone who works hard and saves right out of high school is going to be able to buy a house at 22, right around the same time the college grad is graduating. The non-college homeowner can rent out 2 bedrooms in a 3 bedroom house to cover the mortgage, (or even turn a small profit given the market).
A college grad cannot do this, regardless of major, if you graduate with $50,000 in debt, which we have already established is a likely scenario if you live in an expensive state and have no help from your parents.
That 22 yr old non-college grad is not only going to be making $25,000 a year, but they’re also going to living rent free and building $1000 in equity a month. They’re going to have this advantage until the college graduate in our example finally gets their house at around 30. Theoretically the college grad could have bought a house earlier but that means they’re putting a down payment on the house down while the interest continues to build on their loans. Either way it is not an ideal scenario.
At 30, most people are getting married and having kids and no longer want to live with roommates. The 30 yr old college grad homeowner is never going to be able to collect rent on their property.
Meanwhile the 30 yr old high school student is going to have enough equity and $$ to buy a second house, the ideal house for themselves and their mate to raise their kids. Meanwhile, the original house can be turned into a full rental property, which will continue to build equity and even generate significant income (particularly if the house has appreciated over those 8 years) for the non-college grad.
Consider the 30 yr old high school student should have additional savings and investments which will be generating interest, whereas the college student is just scrapping together enough cash to pay down their student loans and put a down payment on a house.
This compounds throughout life. The person making 25k a year (remember though this example includes about $8,000 extra a year from working a part time restaurant gig) can be a millionaire by 40. It is even more pronounced if the person the non-college grad marries has a larger income. The non college grad can use their money to pay off all debts the college grad has, then use their high combined income coupled with no debt to max out both parties retirement accounts right from whenever they get married in addition to leveraging the income to get a mortgage on a second property. Millionaires by 35.
Also, I used $25,000 plus a really crummy restaurant job as an example of the superiority of even a worst-case scenario. There are plenty of jobs with no education required that pay higher. Costco’s average employee makes $38,000 a year after 5 years. In the example a job at a busier restaurant could be found. The numbers in these scenarios would make going to the ROI of college laughable.
I’m not saying college is bad or wrong, but these are the sorts of discussions that should be had in high schools. The world needs skilled workers, scientists, researchers, doctors, dentists, lawyers and nurses. However, the key word is skill. An undergrad in just about anything is not a skilled laborer in my book, even in engineering. For my business any time I need the skills of someone who just has an undergrad, I’m hopping on odesk or elance and contracting out to someone in another country.
I disagree that the undergrad portion of college is not about the degree but about the education. Maybe 20+ years ago, but now there’s not a damn thing you learn on the undergrad level (aside from the fact that college is expensive) that you can’t learn about on the internet for free.
College should be for those who want to pursue advanced degrees or have a particular field of interest they want to explore in-depth and one day contribute to. If you’re trying to pick up a degree to secure a well-paying job, you’re wasting your time. Run the #s and see for yourself.
The idea that is sold to most high school kids that college is necessary to be financial secure is indeed a myth.
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
I have said this before many times, but will do so again: traditional 4 year college and university education is not primarily about job training. It is about education, and it is for people passionate about pursuing knowledge not just looking for a job.[/quote]
But see that’s the problem Dr. Most of the good jobs out there will require a 4 year degree of some kind. Like you said, they usually don’t even care what it is, so long as you have that stupid piece of paper. I will say this in full confidence about the job I’m in now: I could have started just as well straight out of high school, but I had to get my degree before they’d hire me.
Here I am today in fact WORSE at my job than I would be had I not gone to college, because instead of getting 4 years worth of job experience, I was forced to spend those years reading asinine literature, ruminating over the motives of ancient Grecian farmers, studying Latin, and engaging in other such pursuits with equally dubious application to anything in my future life ever.
You can’t really just choose to go to college if you’re passionate about learning. You are virtually forced to go if you ever want to see a sixth figure on your salary. So if a 4 year college isn’t primarily about job training, but you must have at least a 4 year degree to gain access to most high paying jobs, what in fact is the point?
The only benefit I derived from college directly was that you were inundated with hot girls who had been socially conditioned to believe college was a time when they were allowed to be super slutty and not get judged for it like you would in the real world.
I read somewhere, I can’t recall where, that the reason why college tuition is as high as it is, and why it keeps going up, is because of the ease with which one can get financial aid like loans. Colleges see that students can get up to X loaned to them (guaranteed mind you) so they charge accordingly. The idea of govt student aid had its heart in the right place but it turned out creating a monster.
Here in CT the state universities are regularly raising tuition and/or fees (a way to raise tuition without raising tuition) and cutting staff yet, there is always some new construction going on. So its not about having enough money but the priorities on how it’s spent. Then you have sports programs which claim to bring in revenue which, if it were the case, these schools should be lowering tuition. The highest paid state employee in CT is the UConn basketball coach. I really doubt any big sports program is bringing in so much money that after expenses a significant amount trickles down to the general student body. But someone is making money off of college sports which is why they exist as they do today. In short, once colleges became institutions which people could profit off of, via construction and vendor contracts and sports, they moved away from their original purpose which was producing educated people. Tuition goes up to feed the monster and because of financial aid food is always available. UConn is changing, or has already changed, the design of its mascot (the Husky). In an interview a spokesperson for the project (they actually had a team working on this essential task) stated how it is common practice for schools to re-brand. Re-brand? Once they start using bean counter speak you know what their priorities are.
I believe college in Finland is free, even for foreigners.
[quote]csulli wrote:
So if a 4 year college isn’t primarily about job training, but you must have at least a 4 year degree to gain access to most high paying jobs, what in fact is the point?
[/quote]
How about being a well-rounded, educated person who can speak properly and knows how to think? Can carry on a conversation with adults and come off as an adult? Can look to history to make the right decisions on important matters? Can think abstractly and critically? Can understand the value of things which cannot be measured in dollars? Can walk without dragging his knuckles?
All of those things are helpful when trying to get and keep a high paying job. For some strange reason people today devalue literature, arts and philosophy when the Founding Fathers, who some believe were the best this nation produced, saw value in them.