Posted on 10/28/2013 4:45:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
The average college graduate holds at least $35,200 of debt and has spent four years out of the workforce, where he or she would be otherwise gaining experience. All this for a piece of paper that by no means guarantees a job. The question that potential and current college students need to ask is: Do the financial costs, opportunity costs, and other factors justify the cost of college? For a select few, the answer may be yes. For a surprising number of people, it will be no.
Does the financial cost justify going to college? It depends on what you want to do in life. If you want to go into medicine (average debt of $170,000, average salary $150,000-$200,000+), law (average debt of $100,433 , average salary $113,310), or engineering (average debt of $52,596 , average salary $91,810) the answer will be yes. This is for two reasons. First, today you cannot work in those fields without a college degree. Second, the average income of those professions quickly pays off debt (assuming you can get the job).
But what about individuals who want to go into art, business, music, humanities, languages, or other fields? The answer will most likely be no. There are alternative options that can prove to be far more useful and financially wiser.
Business students who want to start their own businesses would be far better off leaving the theory back in the classroom and diving in head-first into real-life experience. Most of what an entrepreneur needs to learn can be learned from reading books, taking advantage of free online educational resources like Khan Academy and TED talks, and joining college alternative programs like Praxis. Ive opened two businesses and I learn more from the few months of work I put into them than all the professional education Ive received from my business classes combined.
Real life is the best teacher there is. The average cost of a specialized music school (one most likely to get students a job) can be $81,000. The average salaries of their graduates is around $29,222. Instead getting of a music degree (and tons of debt along with it), students passionate in music should make their own music and post it on YouTube and sell their music on iTunes or other sites. People like Christina Grimmie and Lindsey Stirling have proven the model works, without college.
For learning music, a personal tutor or teaching yourself by using online tools can be just as effective as paying for a college degree. Instead of spending tens of thousands for a degree in philosophy, history or political science, go to Amazon.com and buy a dozen books for a hundred or so dollars and join an online book club to discuss what you read and learn. Or, write a blog or join a forum site to have conversations with other interested individuals. Go other sites like iTunes U if you want to hear lectures from experts for free!
There are cheap and free alternatives to learning the same things you would earn if you went to college and spent tens of thousands on and went into debt for. And this way you can pick exactly what you want to study, study at your own pace and not waste time on pointless projects.
What about the other benefits of going to college, the networking, the friends, the college experience and getting a degree to get a job? This may be the best justification for going to college, but its still not that strong. Most people who graduate from college get a job not because they have a degree, but because they met someone who was able to get them in the door at a company for an interview. But you can meet people at networking events that are held all over the country!
Go to trade shows or industry conferences and network with people there to get a job. Employers are dying for employees with real life experience (I know I am for my businesses). If you can prove that you can do the real life work, they will over look the absent piece of paper. Most people end up working in fields they dont major in. This is because employers dont care about your major, but care about what you can do.
If you feel the college experience is worth massive debt, go for it. If you want to save money, go further in your profession, and start your life early, then rethink going to college. There are so many alternatives that are offered thanks to the freedom of the internet its a shame not to take advantage of them. Degrees dont make you standout anymore, experience does. Get out of the classroom and get started on your real life.
I will agree with you almost 100% but, in HVAC for instance if a building is down and the equipment inside is responsible for bank transactions, you’d better be damned able to trouble-shoot the electronics, fire dampers, shut off valves, chill water pressures and a host of other possibilities. Disaster is only a power surge away. A good HVAC Engineer is rare these days. I know this personally. You don’t go to trade school for this. That is all, carry on.
The way things are now, you've got unqualified and disinterested college students strangling job and education opportunities for those who belong there. Besides that, there aren't enough qualified to do real work.
Is college worth it? Not unless someone is paying the bill. Otherwise, it's best to take night courses, online courses, or whatever else ones budget can absorb. And learn a trade.
JMHO
The more appropriate question is, “Can you afford not to go to college”...Considering that nowadays most jobs require some form of college degree?
You don’t have to go to a big college. There are community colleges that are quite good
Actually, I’m in information systems. I was only in Biology to become a high school teacher. THAT was the wrong career choice, and that’s the danger of “picking a degree that sounds like a job.”
My college education, just 15 years ago, cost me a total of $40,000. TODAY, it would cost me $200,000.
I could never understand why everyone has to go to college. Not everyone is qualified for college and parents having the money to send their off-springs to college does not guarantee that they have the brain that is needed. There are plenty of educated idiots around anyway
—There are great Internet courses.
—Join local art societies for networking and learning about the business of art.
—Look for workshops done by artists that you admire.
—Take **very** carefully selected individual courses at the community college.
—Take **very** carefully selected individual courses at your local state university. ( A degree is entirely unnecessary!)
—If you go to an Atelier use **extreme** caution!!!
Find out how many have graduated from the atelier over the number of years they have been in business. If there are graduates ask how many are financially successful with art. (In my state the master of one atelier has been teaching for 15 years. He has had **ONE** person graduate from his program and this**ONE** person is flamingly unsuccessful.) Ask how long did it take on average for students to graduate. In the case of this atelier it took that **ONE** person 10 years.
Today’s kid should be labeled: Generation DEBT!
Both of my sons graduated from college with ZERO debt... thanks to a little scholarship money and a LOT of sacrificing from their mother and I. We’re PROUD that we were able to do it.
Now, however.... as they are working and going about the business of trying to find wives, they keep running into roadblocks. They meet a cute girl, buy her a few drinks, and then ask, “How much student debt do you have?” (Boy! Have the questions changed since I was young!)
The answers, are amazing.... very often, $30- 50k. Many of these, girls now working in retail. My oldest son USED to say he wouldn’t consider dating ANY girl with debt. Now? He’s raised his limit to $10k. I think, we’ll be LUCKY to find one with less than $20k.
All our hard work, to get them started in life without a mountain of debt, will be undone when the right pheremones hit their mid-20 brains. :-(
I know several electricians and plumbers that earn very good money, set their own hours, and will probably never run out of work. Just sayin’.
Maybe he needs to date some Hillsdale girls, or nurses. Real-estate babes.
I can tell you that the museum in Dumas, TX, is a wonderful place to be for a museum major. Too bad Dumas pays so little
Just this past week I paid $14 more to a plumber than I did to a doctor who does not take insurance. And the plumber probably spent less time with us than the doctor did!
A community college often claims its associate degree grads earn more than $400,000 in a lifetime beyond that of one with a high school diploma. Don’t know if this is “real” as GA Jimmy once said of the “energy crisis”.
Were you in medical technology; I understand that field has almost disappeared, but I don’t know why.
Also, a college student can save a lot by buying few of the expensive “required” textbooks. Most of the “required” texts are required by the college, not necessarily the instructor’s actual preference. Most college textbooks are little used, as the professors use their own accumulated notes over the years.
I have bad news for you:
The annual costs for a San Jose State incoming freshman will be $24,223 per year. (If he can live for free at his parents, it will only be $16,442.)
I believe the article said 35K in debt post college, not 35K for the whole education.
It likely costs twice the cost ( $16,442) to send a kid to their local collectivist indoctrination center ( Oops! “public school”). And...These K-12 indoctrination progs do live at home.
Government schooling accounting from pre-K through grad school would make an Enron accountant blush!
Today? Yes, as companies want to see the paper, even if it means the idiot know nothing.
Tomorrow, I suspect companies will want to pay less so they must let go that paper.
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