Posted on 06/24/2012 7:09:23 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
No degree guarantees that a college graduate will earn more over a lifetime than a high school student.
Worse still, there are many degrees where the average high school graduate will likely out-earn a college graduate.
If you’ve ever wanted to know the two main reasons why Americans decide not to go to college, the St. Louis Fed presented two convincing explanations. The more frightening of the two scenarios showed that, for students paying their own tuition, most will need a starting salary of $40,000 or better to overcome lifetime earnings of high school graduates.
How can it be that someone with a $40,000 starting salary can’t out-earn the average high school graduate? The reason is two-fold. Most college students forgo income while attending college. Also, given the average annual tuition of $25,000, a student paying his own way is facing a $100,000 college bill. Add the loss of income and the six-digit education tab, and graduates start their professional lives in a large financial hole.
If a starting salary of $40,000 is what it takes to overcome the high costs of going to college, you will want to know what degrees aren’t averaging the benchmark income. Georgetown pulled together statistics on average starting salary for many popular degrees. Below are five degrees with average starting salaries that may not be worth paying the costs for college.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
The plain truth is that kid could go off to the Air Force for four years...get trained as a mechanic...pick up an associates degree that was almost completely paid via AF tuition assistance...get a certificate or two...owe nothing upon exiting the military, and be ten years ahead of any kid about to finish college.
Obviously you’re correct.
The problem now is that the education establishment has created this huge beast (called college/university) that has to be fed.
So we send everybody to college, whether they need it or not, many spend a lot of money and fail to get much out of it.
If you can stand the AF Gay Pride Day, or the Flying Faggots on Parade.
the education establishment = Big Education™
or “transgender studies”, “stick it to Whitey”, “advanced basketweaving”, “inner child studies”....
At least for anthropology and archeology and, to some extent, social work, most people pursuing those degrees understand that graduate school is pretty much required to be taken seriously in the discipline.
They also overlook that teaching and social work are almost certain to be government jobs usually with exemplary job security and benefits packages.
I covered that one with the "Perpetually Aggrieved Minority Studies" degree.
AF is a year in a half just to enlist. They are weeding out big time. ROTC, only 5% make it too.
Students and parents are catching on that not every degree is worth having. These degrees, and several others, should be among the first to go online and free or very cheap. Both the students and the university now have a compelling interest to bring the cost down, because both now know the current model is unsustainable.
The degrees are not worth the cost if what you want is just money.
People attain degrees for all sorts of reasons, and money is not necessarily the primary reason.
There’s a guy I work with. His wife just finished a Bachelor degree in IT. We live in a rural area, and I could probably count on both hands how many IT jobs there are around here(I have one of them lol). After having no luck finding a job, and being unwilling to move, she has decided to go BACK to school for a Master’s degree so she can be a teacher. Our rural backwoods area, and surrounding counties make up the bottom of the state in teacher salary. The girl is going to go through all of that hard work and expense to get a MS degree for a job that doesn’t even pay $25k per year.
.....STUPID (....and she’s going to be TEACHING children)
Ha, ha, you caught that as well. I’d like to see what is the average salary for a gender/black/women’s/ etc. studies major. Or what percentage of grads (morons) with those majors have jobs in that field.
>>or “transgender studies”, “stick it to Whitey”, “advanced basketweaving”, “inner child studies”....<<
All of those people just stay in college until they get their upper degrees, then become professors who TEACH that meaningless crap. It is a self-perpetuating circle that contributes nothing to society.
“I’m not seeing the “Confrontive Militant Feminism” degree or the “Perpetually Aggrieved Minority Studies” degree.”
Those and other similar programs are available in an on-line format at the Jackson-Sharpton School of Social Intimidation Studies. Accelerated degrees are available to allow you to advance your career in the exciting field of confrontational intimiation leadership. Government funded grants are readily available to all minorities, union workers, and non-US citizens. /sarc
(Importantly, China is already doing this.)
What is going to happen nationwide, is that some state legislator will demand a simple list from the state universities.
One column will be a listing of majors offered by that university. The other column will be the number of graduates with that major, who are employed in that field of work within six months after graduation.
Or within a year after graduation, given the economy.
The legislator’s argument will be a simple one.
The state subsidizes a university education with the idea that graduates will be able to get a *better* job with a given degree than they would *without* a degree, and thus it will not just benefit them, but the whole state.
However, at the bottom of this list will be those graduates who *never, ever* get a job based on their major. A big zero. So why is the state subsidizing those students wasting their college education and ending up deeply in debt?
Granted, if students are able and willing to pay the entire cost of a college major in “Historical lesbian basket weavers of eastern sub-Saharan Africa”, good for them. But they should not expect a thin dime from the state supporting them in this utterly worthless endeavor.
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