Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

A new way to gauge the worth of college debt, starting salary
Chicago Tribune ^ | 03/17/2014 | By Steve Rosen

Posted on 03/23/2014 4:35:07 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Here's a typical college scenario: Your daughter's dream job is to be an elementary school teacher and reading specialist. Yet she'll need to dive deep into debt to pursue her undergraduate degree, and borrow more if continuing to grad school.

She's worried -- rightfully -- about her financial future, and she's looking for answers.

How much debt might she be saddled with? How much will her college degree translate into salary once she lands a job? And what budget-squeezing sacrifices might be necessary to repay the swath of loans?

Those types of questions are on the minds of countless college students. And with student loan debt now over the $1 trillion mark, there's a greater urgency for answers and successful outcomes.

A new online service called GradSense connects those costs and benefits questions with helpful data and financial planning advice.

(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Education; Society
KEYWORDS: college; collegetuition; debt; india; offshoring; salary; tuition; workvisas
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-44 next last
To: bert
Starting salary is starting salary. It is not a reflection on any thing except begining. To extrapolate lineraly is stupid

True, but you have to start somewhere. It's possible that in the example, one could become a teacher, then quickly rise up the administration ladder. Or, they could start in teaching, and write a successful book on education, or develop an educational software tool. Those are all possibilities of having one's salary increase, but you have to have a starting point.

It's just like buying and mortgaging a house loan. The bank might not know what you may earn 10 years from now--it may be much, much more that you earn today. But they will offer you a loan at today's salary.

21 posted on 03/23/2014 5:53:01 PM PDT by Lou L (Health "insurance" is NOT the same as health "care")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: Lou L

Depends on the career. Nurses start high but salaries do not grow much at all.

Lawyers often start low and grow tremendously.


22 posted on 03/23/2014 5:59:44 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Error in the first sentence. It says that your daughter will have to go into debt for college.

Uh, no. She will have to serve tables at Los Amigos and change adult diapers at Parkway Care Center until she can pay her way through.

It requires a change in thinking about debt; particularly college debt.


23 posted on 03/23/2014 6:17:19 PM PDT by lurk
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

As someone said on her phony Facebook, her nose is bigger than her knockers.


24 posted on 03/23/2014 6:25:48 PM PDT by Defiant (Let the Tea Party win, and we will declare peace on the American people and go home.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: GrootheWanderer

My daughter noticed a beautiful private college campus we drove past and asked what it was. I said it was a school, a college. She saw it, was drawn toward it, and asked if she could go there. I said I’d have to see how much it cost.
I pulled up the websites for that private school and a local state university with a good reputation. I totalled up the numbers and explained that 12-18 months at that college equaled four years at the public college. If she went to that college, she’d get no better of an education, but I’d blow through the money for all the kids to send her to THAT school. Which I could not in conscience do.
We ran through the numbers for living at home, living on campus, everything for both schools. To my relief, she came to the same conclusion - it costs too much to go to private.
Later I found out how few of her friends have ever had conversations like this. The kids are allowed to go on tours, fall in love with an atmosphere, and parents get hit by a star struck kid advocating for an experience without any regard for a price tag.


25 posted on 03/23/2014 7:00:35 PM PDT by tbw2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

“Those types of questions are on the minds of countless college students.”

WRONG!!! Were that the case, most would not spend $100k for a teaching job, or a history degree, etc. The only way it makes sense is that mommy and daddy foot a good chunk, if not all, of the bill. That is of little risk/liability to junior.


26 posted on 03/23/2014 7:06:08 PM PDT by SgtHooper (If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

I think she did the entire basketball team before yesterday’s game.


27 posted on 03/23/2014 7:07:04 PM PDT by dfwgator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: bert

“There is no way to know.”

Nonsense. There is a ton of data that accurately indicate the starting salaries in most disciplines and in different geographical regions.


28 posted on 03/23/2014 7:09:42 PM PDT by SgtHooper (If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum

There are also those who feel very pressured and freeze during testing.


29 posted on 03/23/2014 7:31:43 PM PDT by pieceofthepuzzle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
How about college cost/major vs. job title:

Such as:

$100K/Engineering ... Design Engineer

or:

$100K/Middle Peruvian Studies ... Barista

30 posted on 03/23/2014 7:34:13 PM PDT by Lmo56 (If ya wanna run with the big dawgs - ya gotta learn to piss in the tall grass ...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: pieceofthepuzzle
Let's just give everybody As then.

It's the only fair thing to do.

31 posted on 03/23/2014 7:37:12 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum ("The man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: Lmo56
$100K/Middle Peruvian Studies ... Barista

maybe a bullsh!t college degree is a job qualification requirement

God forbid they hire a kid right out of high school, they wouldn't be pretentious enough...

32 posted on 03/23/2014 7:41:19 PM PDT by Chode (Stand UP and Be Counted, or line up and be numbered - *DTOM* -vvv- NO Pity for the LAZY - 86-44)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Let’s apply tuition debt, towards institutional success in education. Currently it is a slavery caste system, by which- a social/political inductive mindset has been promoted. How about a critical thinking application/testing; where actual independent thought is recognized as worthy of a degree of education? Nah, that would be backwards/backwoods thinking- according to the last 60 yrs. of US Govt. edumacation.


33 posted on 03/23/2014 7:56:19 PM PDT by RedHeeler
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

I know a girl who went to school for 8 years to earn her PhD in History. She now works as a tour guide at the state historical society and she considers herself lucky to have found that job.


34 posted on 03/23/2014 8:35:48 PM PDT by MNnice
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Bump for later - our nephew gets the news this Thursday online from the seven Ivies he’s applied to - we’re torn as to which will be worse - he gets turned down by them all or gets accepted by at least one - very probable - and has to figure our how to come up with the 80k per year it will cost to attend.....


35 posted on 03/23/2014 9:16:11 PM PDT by Intolerant in NJ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Dilbert San Diego
of course it's going back 30 years, or more, but even at that time, guidance counselors who helped plan a career/course path, had charts of occupations, number of annual job opportunities,starting and median salaries, I recall it was a topic of discussion. Do colleges not have person to person counseling?

Or how about the old-fashioned way of getting the minimum degree to work in the field, then continue schooling part-time while working, accomplishing degrees as promotions come up and gaining experience all the while, instead of going in entry-level with a doctorate and half a million in tuition debt, largely from financing living expenses?

36 posted on 03/23/2014 10:06:38 PM PDT by blueplum
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: blueplum

“Do colleges not have person to person counseling? “

Not really; I ended up going to an counselor and the idiot kept mentioning graduate school while I was trying to find out how to get an education centered on virology.

“how about the old-fashioned way of getting the minimum degree to work in the field, then continue schooling part-time while working, accomplishing degrees as promotions come up and gaining experience all the while”

Most young adults want to extend their high school years. They want to have FUN and ‘find themselves’ and get drunk on a regular basis and rut like animals in heat. The fools didn’t realize that they should have gotten all that out of their system when they were in high school.

As for work, they want the degree to get them a position and income, like a pampered aristocrat seeking favor from the king at a royal court. Actual work is for ‘peasants’ that are now being imported by the millions.


37 posted on 03/24/2014 12:32:52 AM PDT by CorporateStepsister (I am NOT going to force a man to make my dreams come true)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: GrootheWanderer

What a fool and go figure, this is where fools end up.


38 posted on 03/24/2014 12:33:16 AM PDT by CorporateStepsister (I am NOT going to force a man to make my dreams come true)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Lmo56

The ones that end up as Baristas like to put on airs of being able to avoid actual work. Like trustafarians minus the trust fund.


39 posted on 03/24/2014 12:33:56 AM PDT by CorporateStepsister (I am NOT going to force a man to make my dreams come true)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: Chode

In today’s job market, I don’t see the incentive for hiring a kid out of high school - even as a coffee server. When you have 50 resumes come in the door, with 25 (or 10) of them from college grads that live in the area and need a job - at least the grad has shown SOME ambition to at least graduate. And may be more likely to show up on time and not call in sick all the time. Makes it a LOT tougher on the high school graduates that are probably just as capable when they are up against college grads at every turn.


40 posted on 03/24/2014 12:40:53 AM PDT by 21twelve (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2185147/posts 2013 is 1933 REBORN)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-44 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson