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I know the economy's slowly recovering and I have about 2.5 years before I graduate, but is there really any point in going to college if you're not going to be able to find a job or anything?
That plus the cost of tuition keeps rising and all.
My advice is to minimize leverage and plan on getting rich slowly. You can get an associates degree in something like network administration for very little, and get a job in some company's IT department and take it from there. If you're good, you'll rise. If you suck, then no amount of education will help you. Best not to get in debt then.
Well, not everyone wants to be rich, believe it or not, and some people do go to college, choose a particular major, with the full understanding that the ROI may be low or non-existent. And they are cool with that.
I agree that the notion of going to college is being blown way out of proportion, but face it; some people want to go to college regardless, and there are career paths, or certain positions within a career that are only accessible with a degree of one sort or another.
I agree it's a somewhat ridiculous statement, but it's true for some super-competitive lines of work, such as investment banking, corporate law, and medicine, where getting off track in the early stages of your career basically sends you on a different, less desirable trajectory. Also consider that even though the people I speak of have only been working for a few years, their careers started in high school, by taking the right classes, getting the right grades, going to the right schools, etc. Suffice it to say that they are feeling quite let down by the job market, esp. when people born only a few years earlier were able to stay on track and will probably achieve more success over the course of their lives.
Excellent points Peter. It may take me a few posts to organize all my thoughts, I agree with all of your points.
-One of the problems in k-12 is that it so oversimplifies "success", or "big money". Like the media reducing a complex problem down to a 10 second easy soundbite. And passing that soundbite off as knowledge or information.
Why do so many people view success in such a simplistic manner? To be a success, you have to be a lawyer, you have to work on wall st.
What schools don't teach are these larger trends at play. Wall St may boom for 20 years, but the booms can bust. Why aren't more students cogniscent that they're living in a money shuffling era? And the whole game can shift to Asia, or shift to natural resources/hard assets.
-Why don't more people get self educated much earlier at 15 or 16? With so many books available and so many resources.
If we were living in 1940 in a little town, and "education" and those impressive college halls were 500 miles away, I could see it. A scarcity of available information may have limited your self education in an earlier era.
The whole thing seems ridiculous that you have to jump through hoops all through k-12, college, up to grad school. Take the right classes. Get the right grades. Send out the right resumes, etc.
But you could have self educated yourself during a summer when you were 16 and be better off.
-And all of this is against the backdrop of general stupidity in the culture and in the media. You'd think the members of society that want to learn, and are willing to pay the price to learn, who cordon themselves off from vapid television, octomom, tmz, would be much better off at 25 or 28 vs those that dont want to learn, or arent willing to pay the price.
But the gap between the two is not that large in many cases.
-Another factor not addressed is how rapidly the economy and situations can change.
In the 1950 to 80's paradigm, the world existed in an enclosed bubble. Things were so cheap and easy, change didn't really affect the average family, not like it does now.
I know the economy's slowly recovering and I have about 2.5 years before I graduate, but is there really any point in going to college if you're not going to be able to find a job or anything?
That plus the cost of tuition keeps rising and all.
Not Really. If you want to give me $40K, I'll print you out a piece of paper that says you are the world's greatest at whatever...How about a BS Degree? Case in point, Law Degrees are just glorified Masters degrees. Any A-hole can get one and any A-hole usually does.
I know people who have no college degree but own their own business and make four times what I make. So much for those of us who do what they're supposed to only to get the shaft. Is that economics or just the way things are?
Not Really. If you want to give me $40K, I'll print you out a piece of paper that says you are the world's greatest at whatever...How about a BS Degree? Case in point, Law Degrees are just glorified Masters degrees. Any A-hole can get one and any A-hole usually does.
I know people who have no college degree but own their own business and make four times what I make. So much for those of us who do what they're supposed to only to get the shaft. Is that economics or just the way things are?
I hope you weren't overtly serious about the law degree statement.
Well my dad encouraged me to go to law school, but law isn't my thing nor am I interested in anything law related.
I enjoy the business field and the few business classes I have taken, but I don't want to change my major and my goal just because of the recession. I want to do something related to financial security and auditing, which is why I decided to go to Accounting from Finance with a minor in CJ.
I know the economy's slowly recovering and I have about 2.5 years before I graduate, but is there really any point in going to college if you're not going to be able to find a job or anything?
That plus the cost of tuition keeps rising and all.
The answer is self-fulfilling. If you feel you won;t get a job and do not feel there is any point, then college is probably not worth the investment--right now.
But if you are game and determined, then I think most colleges and programs are worth it.
So...which type are you?
S.
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