Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
All seniors in high school should learn about ROI. Return on Investment. People must learn that money borrowed must be paid back! Borrow wisely. They should be forced to apply ROI to their future college plans. How irrational is it to take out $200,000 student loans for a "profession" that really doesn't exist in the real world. Just how many high paying "gender studies" jobs are there? Just how many high paying jobs are there for 19th Century French Literature PHDs? Take the HS seniors on a road trip to a couple of Star Bucks .....ask all the highly educated coffee servers about their degrees.
Try borrowing $400,000 to buy a $200,000 house. Try borrowing $100,000 to buy a $25,000 car. This is what is happening within the colleges and student loan programs.
It is what happens when people don't do their research. I agree that you have to look at the ROI. It is not against the law to lend money to people who don't have enough sense to figure out what they are doing.
Academic PhDs are a separate topic since they are generally funded.
]The average starting salary for a new college grad is $55,000. A new high school graduate earns about $27,000 per year. An investment in education pays off for most people. The majority of college grads should easily be able to pay off their loans over a 10-year period. They may have to live on a tight budget for a few years. Big deal.
"The largest concentration of student loan debt is $20,000 - $40,000, which accounts for 9.7 million student loan borrowers."
I don't think USA HS teaches ROI, especially not for education expenses. That is counterproductive to the master plan of the USA educational establishment. (Keep students in school to milk families for perpetual tuition and fees).
Educating for careers that are non-existent is a bonus (Guaranteed to have a repeat customer, within the system)
Claiming that every good paying career requires education is another misuse of guidance from authoritarian figures. (As if schools / colleges have a pulse on what is required to get and perform a real J-O-B..)
I doubt ROI is a very good measure of career performance anyway. Just as 'good grades' is no indication a student has mastered the content in such a way as to utilize the learning's for the betterment of your company. Good grades just indicate you know how to test, or meet the requirements of the instructor (who is seldom an employer, and does not know what an employer requires.).
]The average starting salary for a new college grad is $55,000. A new high school graduate earns about $27,000 per year. An investment in education pays off for most people. The majority of college grads should easily be able to pay off their loans over a 10-year period. They may have to live on a tight budget for a few years. Big deal.
"The largest concentration of student loan debt is $20,000 - $40,000, which accounts for 9.7 million student loan borrowers."
But all the media and politicians want to talk about are the people who went 100K+ in debt for a Liberal Arts degree that lacks specific earning potential. My Alma Matter is 60K a year. I shake my head at the people who pay this kind of money for a "General Studies" degree. There are plenty of reasonable-cost alternatives out there. You pay that kind of money because you want to pay that kind of money.
Starbucks offer tuition assistance so the server may be well educated, but also may not have much debt. Even McDonalds offer some tuition assistance. I point it out to my kids every time I see a sign on the window. Kids can be strategic with who they work for during high school and college.
IIRC, I've read that the biggest problems with student loan debt doesn't come from the caricature of a kid borrowing $100,000 for an undergraduate degree in some esoteric subject. The biggest problem is kids borrowing money to attend for-profit schools, and kids who borrow money for regular non-profit schools--but who fail to graduate. Many of the former degrees are near useless in the job market, while kids who don't graduate face lower earning w/o a degree, and still carry whatever debt they've incurred.
Focusing on ROI misses the point--which isn't necessarily that you borrow as little as possible, but that you go to a reputable institution and actually get your degree. If you do that, it may still be financially tough during your 20s, but it will pay off in the long term as your income increases.
(Of course borrowing heavily for law, medical, dental, business, school or the like--where higher incomes are much more common--is a different story.)
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,585 posts, read 81,186,228 times
Reputation: 57820
Back when I was in college and graduate school, any degree was a key to good jobs. Now the market is flooded with people that have degrees, and employers are being more picky about the major, and how appropriate is is to the work. Back then any degree demonstrated work ethic, perseverance, self discipline and by completing the degree they had to learn critical thinking, and do a lot of reading and writing to get through a program successfully. Even the liberal arts like psychology, sociology, philosophy or history could get you a good job. My director will retire soon, after 30 years in commercial real estate, and her degree was in art. My boss in a previous job in utilities had a degree in history. Now, even the lower level positions I hire for require a degree in business, finance, accounting or a related field.
All seniors in high school should learn about ROI. Return on Investment. People must learn that money borrowed must be paid back! Borrow wisely. They should be forced to apply ROI to their future college plans. How irrational is it to take out $200,000 student loans for a "profession" that really doesn't exist in the real world. Just how many high paying "gender studies" jobs are there? Just how many high paying jobs are there for 19th Century French Literature PHDs? Take the HS seniors on a road trip to a couple of Star Bucks .....ask all the highly educated coffee servers about their degrees.
Try borrowing $400,000 to buy a $200,000 house. Try borrowing $100,000 to buy a $25,000 car. This is what is happening within the colleges and student loan programs.
There are a number of reasons for seeking a bachelor's degree from college. Some do not regard the degree as an end in and of itself. I regarded my degree as something I needed to earn to apply to law school, so I didn't even consider ROI. I can tell you that at age 62 I have had a long and profitable career as an attorney in solo practice.
Others may consider the degree as simply a way of improving promotion opportunities with their current employer. How do you calculate the ROI on that?
One friend got an executive MBA degree while he was working. This lead to other opportunities with other employers. Within ten years, he became CEO of a financial institution. The degree helped this process along, but its hard to say it was the reason he got that opportunity.
Its really pretty complicated. Simple calculation of ROI for earning a bachelor's degree is an insufficient way to calculate the value of the degree in any of the situations I have reported.
Its really pretty complicated. Simple calculation of ROI for earning a bachelor's degree is an insufficient way to calculate the value of the degree in any of the situations I have reported.
Yeah, we are big believers in education for its own worth. My husband was an English major, like my daughter, my son was a history major and I majored in art history.
I found it isn't the undergraduate degree that mattered, but the grad school degree. As my kids said, they couldn't have applied to grad school/student loans - if they had any undergrad student loans. If you have undergrad loans, getting to the next step of grad school is overwhelming.
It seems like so many of these kids with massive undergrad loans, lost their way after graduation day. They had the energy to finish college, but no guidance as what to do next. It's sad. It's not a reflection on the value of French literature or art history major.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hemlock140
Back then any degree demonstrated work ethic, perseverance, self discipline and by completing the degree they had to learn critical thinking, and do a lot of reading and writing to get through a program successfully. Even the liberal arts like psychology, sociology, philosophy or history could get you a good job. My director will retire soon, after 30 years in commercial real estate, and her degree was in art. My boss in a previous job in utilities had a degree in history. Now, even the lower level positions I hire for require a degree in business, finance, accounting or a related field.
I think two things have happened.
The number of college grads expanded and the dumbing down of college standards. When I attended college, there were no remedial classes - either you were ready or you weren't. End of story.
Second, the lost of entry level jobs. When I graduated college, there were still secretaries. Many college grad took secretarial positions, learn an industry, get promoted. With personal computers, these jobs have disappeared. The first rung of the ladder is gone. Many industries now require specific degrees to get that first job.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
)
