Posted on 08/25/2014 12:15:58 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
[SNIP]
We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the obvious costs of college: tuition, housing, food, etc. We’ve also looked at a few less obvious costs, like interest on student loans. But there are indirect costs, as well: opportunity costs.
“Opportunity cost” is an economic phrase. Simply put, it’s the cost you incur by doing one thing rather than another. Because our time and money are finite, everything we buy or do prevents us from buying or doing something else. If you take a year off to backpack across Europe, you’re not just losing the money you spend on food or travel; you’re also losing the money you would have earned if you’d worked instead. The benefit of a decision is not just the result, but the result relative to what else you could have done. Needless to say, this concept has huge implications for higher education.
The average full-time college student misses out on a little over $9,000 in earnings for each year they spend in school. That rises to $15,500 for the 25% of students who don’t work at all. And that qualifier—“for each year”—matters more than you might think, as nearly 60% of students take six years or more to graduate. This means that the diligent students who both work and graduate in four years still miss out on over $36,000, and the ones that take their time and don’t work at all can forego over $93,000 in income. And when you combine this with student loan debt, even those who manage to find a substantially better job will be playing “catch up” for a while.
How long, exactly? Laurence Kotlikoff, professor of economics at Boston University, decided to find out.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I think the lost amount is probably closer to 20k per year. If you have any kind of hustle as a full time worker in a low level job, you’re going to get promoted. Also, you can work lots of OT while you’re still young and energetic (and too young to go to bars)!
In less than six months most competent sales trainers can teach someone with even barely average intelligence how to be a six or seven figure commission salesperson. Unless you’re going into a profession college is a massive waste of time and money.
The massive assumption is that a college age student can find a job in the amnesty obamaconomy. Before or after college.
I like how the guy waves his hand and “Presto” he gets the answer he wants.
The other thing is the skewed statistics about the economic advantage of a four year degree. The top tier of students who go to work instead of being the bottom tier of college students do quite well. They avoid that college debt, and if they're good workers with brains and got a solid HS education, they'll be able to succeed. The trick is to find a company which promotes from within.
Without debt, they can take courses as they need them.
Perhaps we've reached the point again where a high priced education only makes sense for those who can afford it.
Ding, ding, ding! And we have a winner!
HEre is how I look at it:
While in university you should work your A$$ OFF and build your experience on self started projects and make sure that they’re promoted and you have all this on your resume (which better be a good one, you have four years to work and perfect it) and be sure that you spend all your time in the library in university and around the various cities.
Then, while doing that you go online and start joining as many associations related to your field of study and make contacts and work on them and learn as much as you possibly can. Then while you’re in class, pay attention, take notes, and spend much of your time grilling the professor when you aren’t showing your projects to the dean for extra credit or at least recognition of your hard work.
You better be making good grades.
That way, by the time you’re graduated you have experience, connections, references, plenty of background to go with your degree. You have no business being in university when you’re spending that much for four years of boozing and getting a degree. Only as a high schooler do you have any business graduating with just a pigskin. Understandable, but university is DIFFERENT and preparation for the real world where experience and contacts are needed.
This isn’t the past where you only made connections in university, you can go anywhere and do anything just by flipping your laptop on. So really, I can’t blame the university, it’s not the job of the school to hold the hand of students, if the students are lazy and worthless. High sticker price, but when I look and observe the facilities and opportunities, I’m astounded.
Perhaps students need ot stop treating a degree as a ticket to a good life and spend four years building REAL experience on their resume through volunteering or projects. Now the degree isn’t enough, if a student spends four years volunteering and doing independent projects they will be just fine.
“Only as a high schooler do you have any business graduating with just a pigskin. Understandable, but university is DIFFERENT and preparation for the real world where experience and contacts are needed.”
If you don’t have these skills and habits in high school, you won’t have them in college.
I dunno; I was medicated as a high schooler (along with the rest of American youth) and got mixed up with a bad boyfriend.
Frankly I’m 31 and fixing to go back to school once my business pays off.
If they could not invest in a good stock you can lose much more. Example: TRW at about $5.50 a share in 2009. If I had bought it instead of Ford as I did which was a similar price. I would have over $250,000 with the 2,000 shares at the $102 it topped out at last month. 5 years = $$$
Now if I had the $50,000 that these students are getting in debt with..... I would not need no college degree.
In my high school college was treated as an absolute certainty. There was no option and hence didn’t even talk about opportunities for those who don’t want to go. I went for a little while but glad I dropped out. I hated being stuck in class rooms and taking tests. I stuck it out until I went flat broke and didn’t have a dime and refused to take on any debt to finish college.
Bogus data. What’s with giving these people 38 years of retirement except to manipulate the data to make his point. A doctor with that projected lifespan and peak earnings would likely work beyond age 62 and blow up his data. So would—and certainly should—the other made-up characters in his analysis. Add just another 10 years of earnings and his results would be quite different.
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