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Eh. An example...My sister graduated from her expensive private college (which, BTW, like mine, was actually less expensive when scholarships and grants were factored in, than our public school options) at the very beginning of the first wave of the recession, and took a job managing a Starbucks "temporarily." "Temporarily" turned into several years. During this time, she lived independently of our parents, rooming with others who were, like her, underemployed due to the economy. She spent those several years actively seeking employment that pertained to her degree, networking with people she got to know, applying for every better job that came up, going on interviews, callbacks, etc., in a very competitive market...and, eventually, it paid off, with persistence. Was it fun taking a job that's not your particular choice or pertinent to your area of expertise and having to look for a preferred job in your downtime? Not especially. Was it ruinous to her finances, lifestyle, or psyche? Not really. Was she able to put her degree to use in a job she wanted, over time? Absolutely. Would she have her current job without her degree (and, perhaps just as importantly, had she not proven over the past several years that she's resourceful enough to succeed as an independent adult while underemployed)? Nope.
Setbacks aren't necessarily permanent, especially for people who have amassed the tools to handle the setbacks, even if other factors slow the progress toward that. Having a degree never hurt her. Even when she was slinging coffee for a few years b/c the job market tanked and is recovering slowly. You do what you have to, remain flexible, adapt and adjust, and maintain your resilience. College prepared her for that. So did parents who fostered independence.
Eh. An example...My sister graduated from her expensive private college (which, BTW, like mine, was actually less expensive when scholarships and grants were factored in, than our public school options) at the very beginning of the first wave of the recession, and took a job managing a Starbucks "temporarily." "Temporarily" turned into several years. During this time, she lived independently of our parents, rooming with others who were, like her, underemployed due to the economy. She spent those several years actively seeking employment that pertained to her degree, networking with people she got to know, applying for every better job that came up, going on interviews, callbacks, etc., in a very competitive market...and, eventually, it paid off, with persistence. Was it fun taking a job that's not your particular choice or pertinent to your area of expertise and having to look for a preferred job in your downtime? Not especially. Was it ruinous to her finances, lifestyle, or psyche? Not really. Was she able to put her degree to use in a job she wanted, over time? Absolutely. Would she have her current job without her degree (and, perhaps just as importantly, had she not proven over the past several years that she's resourceful enough to succeed as an independent adult while underemployed)? Nope.
Setbacks aren't necessarily permanent, especially for people who have amassed the tools to handle the setbacks, even if other factors slow the progress toward that. Having a degree never hurt her. Even when she was slinging coffee for a few years b/c the job market tanked and is recovering slowly. You do what you have to, remain flexible, adapt and adjust, and maintain your resilience. College prepared her for that. So did parents who fostered independence.
Ask her what her student loan payment is and how many years she has left on it.
Ask her what her student loan payment is and how many years she has left on it.
The post clearly states that she paid mostly with scholarships and grants, and it's highly possible their parents covered the rest - so I would guess the answer to your question is "little to nothing." Many people finish college without debt, myself being one of them - thanks to either scholarships, grants, financial aid, and/or parents. In fact, of all the college-educated people I know, the majority are NOT carrying any debt as a result (and most, if not all, earn more than their/our undereducated peers).
P.S. My sister has her Bachelor's Degree in Psychology, went on to earn a JD, and now makes well over $100K as a professional sports executive... so while the undergrad degree may not mean much in that field, it usually leads to graduate degrees and/or success in another field.
College kids are stupid and their parents are even stupider. I know a LOT of recent grads who majored in useless things, at extremely expensive private schools so they could get "enlightened", have "small class sizes", live on a "beautiful campus", etc. Most are either unemployed or working menial minimum-wage jobs these days. I can't believe that their parents thought this was okay, and even paid for their kids' tuitions! Totally irresponsible if you ask me. My parents made it clear to me that I needed to be in a major with job prospects, and could take whatever fun-and-games classes as electives if I wanted to. Otherwise they would not have paid for my education. That's exactly the same deal that my own kids will get.
I think it stems from the whole "keeping up with the jones's" mentality. Bigger, better, prestigious, is what people think about when college comes up.
I've known people wanting to go to college and expect to make high salary, but they don't make that decision on their own when they have admission staff goading them into enrolling with false promises. On top of the pressure of "If you don't go to college, YOU'RE A LOSER!" mentality pushed on us.
Sure someone can make the decision of not going, but it's a hard one to make considering the social pressure into going to college and most of us are raised into following the herd. Peer pressure is a very overwhelming feeling. The feeling of wanting to do better also.
Not saying every school runs on this trope, but many do. It's all over advertising and the media upselling college. Parents who have no clue about the real world upsell college too. People make decisions based on what they learn from others, even if it's bad ones.
The post clearly states that she paid mostly with scholarships and grants, and it's highly possible their parents covered the rest - so I would guess the answer to your question is "little to nothing." Many people finish college without debt, myself being one of them - thanks to either scholarships, grants, financial aid, and/or parents. In fact, of all the college-educated people I know, the majority are NOT carrying any debt as a result (and most, if not all, earn more than their/our undereducated peers).
Bingo (except for the part about our parents covering the rest; all my siblings took out our own loans for whatever grants and scholarships didn't cover, which was very little, in each case). We all graduated with some debt from schooling, but in all four cases, much less than the equivalent of the average pre-owned car loan. So, not really a hardship or difficult to pay down.
Somebody asked if my sister freaked out when it took a few years to find a position appropriate to her expertise and qualifications...the answer is, yes, as would be the case for most people who feel they have upheld their end of things preparing for a career, and when they are ready to begin, the playing field has significantly shrunk. It's TERRIFYING for most college graduates who join the workforce during a recession, obviously, and people definitely wonder if they will ever be able to put the things they studied and are interested in into practice in a way that's meaningful for them.
But the point is that life doesn't stop because you have to suck it up and gut it out in a job that's not what you would have chosen, due to forces beyond your control, like more people looking for work than there are jobs available in particular sectors and communties, and employers cutting down their hiring numbers. Lesson learned that life requires flexiblity and resilience, and that you have to learn to do more with less, unless you really do want "failure to launch" to describe you. There's no shame in taking a job that you would ordinarily consider to be beneath your skill set when that's the job that's available. There's far more shame in giving up and saying that if you're not handed your dream job right out of school, you might as well just live on beans and rice in your parents' basement, because you're too good to take people's coffee orders, you're too good to have to share rent with a few extra roommates to make up the shortfall. And throwing the blame on the school that you went to is weak.
At any rate, this is only tangental to the original issue broached by the OP, which is that it's somehow the responsibility of institutions of higher learning to get their graduates jobs at their preferred income levels, and personal responsibility on the part of the student has nothing to do with anything. Which is, of course, crap.
There's no shame in taking a job that you would ordinarily consider to be beneath your skill set when that's the job that's available. There's far more shame in giving up and saying that if you're not handed your dream job right out of school, you might as well just live on beans and rice in your parents' basement, because you're too good to take people's coffee orders, you're too good to have to share rent with a few extra roommates to make up the shortfall. And throwing the blame on the school that you went to is weak.
Boy, that sounds exactly like me, except living in a basement, eating rice and beans, and not doing jobs that are beneath you. Still applying for those low paying jobs 6 years after graduating college.
To be honest, I don't find colleges to be at fault for any of this. They are selling a product, after all. However, I think that high school guidance counselors are irresponsible, or at least the ones at my high school were. They solely encouraged naive kids to go into "what they love". Never ONCE did my counselor ever mention to me real life issues... like paying the bills or finding a satisfying career! All they did was hipster mills like Bates, Colgate, Swarthmore, etc. About 10 kids out of my class of 200 went to the state university, but during sophomore year about 15 more transferred back because they came to their senses. I was one of them.
To be honest, I don't find colleges to be at fault for any of this. They are selling a product, after all. However, I think that high school guidance counselors are irresponsible, or at least the ones at my high school were. They solely encouraged naive kids to go into "what they love". Never ONCE did my counselor ever mention to me real life issues... like paying the bills or finding a satisfying career! All they did was hipster mills like Bates, Colgate, Swarthmore, etc. About 10 kids out of my class of 200 went to the state university, but during sophomore year about 15 more transferred back because they came to their senses. I was one of them.
I feel that the parents should be the life guidance counselors. The school and it's staff are great tools in teaching, but should not take away from the fact that the parents are the primary teacher in the end. Let's put the blame where it is due.
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Many people finish college without debt, myself being one of them - thanks to either scholarships, grants, financial aid, and/or parents. In fact, of all the college-educated people I know, the majority are NOT carrying any debt as a result (and most, if not all, earn more than their/our undereducated peers).
