Posted on 11/25/2019 7:23:21 AM PST by karpov
he College Scorecard, a Department of Education initiative that publishes data on student debt and earnings after graduation for thousands of schools, just got a major update. Previously, the Scorecard’s major shortcoming was that it only reported data at the institution level—so we could see how much a typical graduate from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill earns, but not how much an engineering major earns relative to an education major.
Since the payoff of a college education varies wildly by field of study, the usefulness of this dataset to students was limited.
No longer. Last Wednesday, the Department unveiled a new edition of the Scorecard which allows prospective students to view these outcomes data by both institution and program. The updated Scorecard publishes a dashboard geared toward prospective students, as well as comprehensive files to help researchers and journalists analyze the data en masse. The data includes median student debt and median earnings after graduation for some 41,000 programs.
While the data have limitations—debt and earnings figures are suppressed for small programs due to privacy concerns, and the earnings data only reflects the first year of student income after graduation—the new Scorecard will do much to advance our knowledge of student debt and earnings across tens of thousands of educational programs.
For instance, in the average bachelor’s degree program, students leave school with a debt burden equal to about 80 percent of their salary in the first year after graduating college.
The debt burden for master’s degree programs is about 86 percent of earnings. But for first-professional degrees such as law and medicine, median debt is much worse: it is equal to about 257 percent of earnings after graduation.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
Become a plumber.
What? The degree in Underwater Basketweaving at Haaavaaahd is useless?
LOL
Plumber, Air Conditioner/Heater tech, or Electrician are all good skills to have in both good and bad economies.
Hey, at least it produces a basket. A degree in XYZ studies produces nothing but lawsuits.
Like my first boss out of engineering school said, “Keep the mystery of science alive - support public education. Job security.”
I want to know who asked us to approve the government taking over student loans?
Every thing they touch turns to explosively expensive crap
In all seriousness, the best plan is to have a career goal first, then ask people already in that career what it's like being them (confirming you want to go there). Then talk to the folks in charge of them and ask them what it'd take for them to one day hire you and promote you in that field.
If that's blue-collar, fine. If it's white-collar, fine. Whatever it is, hear from the people that matter on what training/college you need to impress them. Don't ask the colleges -- they'll always tell you that you need them and that they're the best because they have to sell their expensive product. If the managers who'll one day hire you tell you that you need college, what kind of major, what colleges are best, etc., then go for them.
Same for blue-collar training. Now that blue-collar work is in more demand I'm seeing all the junior colleges bragging that they're the best to get you there. No way then can all be right. Ask the blue-collar companies you'll one day work for what the good training is.
“I want to say one word to you. Just one word.....”
Only need to know three things to be a plumber:
Hot on the left.
$hit goes down hill.
Payday is in Friday.
Seriously the human discharge element of plumbing is of no interest to many.
Become a welder. Golden arms are at a premium and you don’t have to deal with fecal matter.
Anything that can be done within the 7 inches between your ears, can be done cheaper elsewhere, all night long by somebody else. But THINGS break. Things cannot be outsourced to Vietnam for repair. SomeBODY has to go to fix or replace the broken thing. And these are skills that can be applied in any market in most cities in the US.
Why we need a huge protectionist tariff now, and for revenue generation.
While being a plumber guarantees work for life, it can be 'unrewarding' as to the stigma.
Being a plumber at a party is not exactly a conversation starter. But if you want to hide what you do for a living, tell people you're a plumber.
The solution to this is quite simple: Require all student loans to come out of the endowments of the university the student attends. Voila! The universities will immediately stop funding all student programs that don’t result in repayment of the loans. None will be able to argue that funding their own students is not a great investment for their own endowments.
What sounds better?
A. My son-in-law is a Plumber
B. My son-in-law is a Lawyer
C. My son-in-law is a CPA
I'm also the perfect example for the use of college if done well (career planning). I've wanted to be a programmer since I was 14. In high school I asked programmers what it was like being them, what training was needed, etc. I got the 4 year computer science degree they recommended from one of the colleges they recommended and have been making nice money since them.
My wife and I told each of our kids they can pick whatever career they want and we'll help them get there. One boy is an airplane mechanic. I even told the girls to be open to blue collar work, imagining a demand in single-mom or stay-at-home mom homes where the women would prefer to have a female plumber or electrician. (None of my daughters pursued that.)
So I'm very open to both blue collar work and white collar work ---- as long as there's career planning involved and nobody 100% trusts the college salesmen, I mean advisors.
Oh I am not saying that plumbing doesn’t pay well. Good for them that they don’t go into the smell zone.
LOL. There is only 1 rule of thumb for high-paying majors.
Is your major hard? You will be paid well.
Is your major REALLY hard? You will be paid REALLY well.
Is your major so easy you can sleep walk through college and get those 60 units of basket weaving, music, philosophy, wymen’s studies, black studies, art, English, History... Be prepared to starve unless you are an extreme go-getter with ambition and love long hours of hard work.
It is all about supply and demand. Hard majors lead to an under-supply of workers requiring employers to pay a premium for them. Easy majors lead to a glut of easily replaceable workers.
College is still worthwhile if you are in STEM and get a degree in something hard enough to limit the candidate pool for jobs. If not, you are better off learning a trade.
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