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I definite don
t agree. I agree some are worth more tha others . All you have to do is look at the requirements for jobs now days and pay overall. Also look at even trainig that si not a degree that is more and required to get work now days;i nay of the top fields. There is training that people pick or even degrees that have liitle financial reward compared to other non-degreed fields but that is more a choice thing.Picking a degreee really dpends on a persons abilty and preference.
I definite don
t agree. I agree some are worth more tha others . All you have to do is look at the requirements for jobs now days and pay overall. Also look at even trainig that si not a degree that is more and required to get work now days;i nay of the top fields. There is training that people pick or even degrees that have liitle financial reward compared to other non-degreed fields but that is more a choice thing.Picking a degreee really dpends on a persons abilty and preference.
If you want to make good money right out of undergrad, the traditional routes are still consulting or investment banking. But consultancies like McKinsey only actively recruit at a handful of undergrad institutions.
Which is the point of the article.
One of the reasons why the top schools end up paying far more, is because the best jobs and top firms cherry pick out of those, and thats in addition to graduates that already have connections at the top ends of good firms.
This is why a Wharton grad at the top of his class in Finance will fall in to a 100k a year job on Wall Street, and a Finance grad from a third rate school will end up on an A/P desk or a temp job creating spreadsheets, and making $12 an hour.
If you come out of an Ivy League school with no connections, you have pretty much wasted your time there. These schools have dumped out the leaders of industry for decades.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cyclone8570
Unless you go to grad school, but you need a college degree to get there! Once out of grad school, liberal arts degrees...etc. can make good money.
Again, graduate school ads a whole different dynamic. However, salaries for graduate school are starting to see the falls that bachelors degree started to see in the late 80's to early 90's. I have no doubt that over the next 20 years, the difference in pay between a masters and bachelors will almost completely evaporate, while the unemployment rate for people holding bachelors degrees will go up significantly, while high school grads and associates degree holders will have unemployment over 40%.
It's an historic figure, which means it's worthwhile for the purposes of this discussion, but otherwise is basically useless. The S&P did well enough over the last 30 years. Anyone who thinks it's going to do well enough over the next 30 years can give it a shot.
Today, I'd argue exactly the opposite. Skip college and you will lower your chances of being competitive.
Edit: Also the last 30 years were still good years to earn a good living in fields that didn't require education. While there are still jobs available that qualify for this distinction, they are few and far between.
You dont even need to make a "good living". You simply need to make an average living, and have that 20-40k of college money make up the rest of the returns over the time period.
Do you honestly think a 22-23 year old kid making 28k out of college is better off then the kid who is now making about 12-13 an hour in a low to middle management of the job he has been working since he was 18? Come on now.
I will agree with you that so many people are making the terrible investment of a bachelors degree, that people without a degree will need to be concerned about having a job at all. However, that doesnt make a degree a good investment, just a neccessity to work.
I read the article the morning, and what I took out of it was not "don't go to college" but rather "don't go into debt to go to college".
If nobody went in to debt to go to college, it would reduce the supply of bachelors degree holders by way over half, and would completely alleviate the problem altogether. Bachelors degree returns would rebound, and again make them a decent investment.
college dropouts are most certainly calculated in this study. So your thread title -- "College degrees worthless.." is quite misleading, since the study includes individuals who dropped out. Notice how the article never uses the word "worthless", that is something that you threw in there.
Ok, worthless is a bad word.....how about, a terrible investment? That a little bit better?
Quote:
Originally Posted by le roi
Another reason for PayScale's far lower ROI estimate is that it accounts for the fact that many students never graduate—and go on to earn little more than a high school graduate. For them, the ROI on their college education is effectively zero.
Thats a poor assumption. This is assuming that no income from college dropouts is attributable to their partial education. In addition, the total investment in education for those who dropout is likely far lower on average then those who finish.
Quote:
Originally Posted by le roi
Of the 554 schools in the study, the net ROI—for graduates only—was $627,239. But once adjusted for the average six-year graduation rate of 58 percent, the average overall net ROI shrank by 37 percent, to $393,574. Schools with the worst graduation rates—at some schools, fewer than 20 percent of students graduated in six years— fared even worse in the PayScale analysis.
Quote:
Originally Posted by le roi
That is not true.
The article states,
Over the past 30 years, the S&P 500 Index averaged about 11 percent a year. Only 88 schools out of the 554 in the study had a better return than the S&P.
Beating the S&P is completely different than "paying back the investment." Apples and oranges.
In order for the college degree to be worth the paper its printed on, it should beat all comparitable investments. If it doesn't, it was a stupid investment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by le roi
Not to mention it is silly to compare the ROI of college vs. stock market investing in the first place. Sure, if you have $100k in cash laying around when you graduate from high school, go invest it in the stock market. For the rest of us, we use borrowed money to attend college (which otherwise wouldn't be available), or we earn it in scholarships, neither of which are available for equity investing.
When you borrow money it makes it even a worse investment. Then we are talking about the opportunity cost of that money over the payback period of the loan, in addition to the interest.
Quote:
Originally Posted by le roi
Therein lies the problem with your thread. You're projecting your own failures onto everyone else.
No, I am just one of many who have realized that their bachelors degree is absolutely worthless as far as financial return. The only thing it has done for me is give me a leg up when competing with high school diploma holders for low end accounting jobs.
By the way, blame the individual for societies ills guy, Id love for you to explain to me why we are still making the same real wage today as 30 years ago, dispite having a far more educated and skilled workforce, although we have many multiples of debt, with a huge chunk related to student loans?
What do movie theater managers make like $40k? Nothing like reaching for that brass ring in life, or at least every Friday and Saturday night when you're working.
Id rather be making 40k a year with whatever profits I got from that 20k being invested between 1999 and 2010, then making $37,300 with a bachelors degree after 6 years of work experience and spending that 20k getting the worthless degree. Plus Id have the added benefit of not being chronically underemployed, which is mentally taxing.
I would have been FAR better off skipping school altogether. The only thing that saves me at all is that my parents paid for my degree, or Id really be super screwed.
It is an entirely different job market today. A 4-year degree is needed now for positions that never required them in the past.
Which is true, but the only thing that is going to alter is the unemployment rate, not so much the salary levels. Amongst people who are actually employed, the salaries for bachelors degrees are going to be continuously pushed closer and closer to minimum wage and entry level wages, which is pretty much around where a high school grad with limited skills ends up starting.
Now, is it safe to assume that people with just a high school diploma will eventually push past 50% unemployment, yes, but, that wont mean a bachelors degree becomes a good investment. It will still be a terrible investment (it will be even worse at that point), however it will be the terrible investment or starvation.
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