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.
Far too many young people are going to college. There aren't that many jobs you need a college education for. They followed the herd and got trampled in the stampede. The problem is compounded by grade inflation. A local high school had SIX (count 'em) valedictorians last year. What's that about? They couldn't have given one of those a C in PE? The problem carries through to college, where you find some mediocre minds on the dean's list. When the boomers went to school, if you weren't in the top 10% you didn't get an A, and they didn't hand out an A for showing up. In my freshman engineering orientation class there were over 600 electrical engineering majors. When I started my Junior year, there were 43 of us left. One class gave an F to 70% of the class each term. A generation later it was still the same way. I took an assembler language programming class. There were 46 students in the class the first day, and 5 of us finished the term.
There were always "mickey mouse" majors in the liberal arts. They disparaged engineering as "vocational school". We saw liberal arts as a refuge for mediocre minds.
I'm 28, have a solid career, and a net worth near zero. I'm fine with it. I'm 28. I financed land and a vehicle and will finance a house on that land soon. I can easily afford the payments on all of it. By the time I'm 50, everything should be paid off and anything I make will go to taxes savings and fun.
What's wrong with that?
I think those complaining are warped. Warped in the sense that they want what their parents have...but at their age. It's not realistic and it leads to debt and frustration when they try to make it happen.
This sort of long-term plan assumes you'll be able to make a certain level of income for 20, 30, or more years, adjusted for inflation. In some careers that usually works out fine, in others not so much.
"Afford the payments" is not the way to look at it and gets people into trouble in many cases. The question is where are you now, where are you going, where do you want to be, and what (if anything) do you need to change to get there?
I would be in near-freakout mode and selling lots of stuff if I had the kind of debt you do, and for the record, I'm 28 too.
I go to work at noon and work through around 7 or 8pm or when I get done.
What are YOU doing on city-data at 10:06am EST?
Goofing off at work, I betcha!
Sorry.... i'm one of those dreaded boomers..........i'm 64,been retired for 4 years.Where I worked a computer was NOT part of my Job description...........
Another issue is that companies are only looking for someone already skilled with experience for many positions, white and blue collar....
Classic chicken-and egg deal........was not the case in booming times, when training was done in house.
I had many relatives that worked for a lifetime at the old Ma Bell(At&T), who had zero training to start, and learned everything on the job, not to mention a lifetime one with pensions they still enjoy...
Read your own graph. According to that chart, housing went from ~$350K in January 2006 to ~$350K in January 2007. That isn't a collapse.
And again from your graph, the slide doesn't start in earnest until late 2007 and doesn't start to free-fall until 2008. My experience was that 2006 was still part of the "Roaring 2Ks." The music didn't stop until late 2007.
Furthermore, I don't think housing is too expensive. So we don't agree there, either. The real problem is that average wages are too low. Workers didn't receive a meaningful pay raise from the mid-1970s until 2006. And even then, they're not being paid enough compared to productivity, which has skyrocketed.
Housing is still a relative bargain in January 2015. I'd buy three more houses if I had the capital to do so. If wages weren't so flat, we wouldn't have near as many economic problems.
Clearly, it shows that mid 2006 was the high point for housing, and the collapse had stopped a few years before 2011.
If housing were cheaper it would allow those wages to go a lot farther. While I agree that right now housing is a relative bargain and will rise in value, that will hurt people who are trying to buy. For me purchasing a home was a good economic decision, but lower prices would also help a large segment of the population.
I just turned 30. Grew up in a trailer park, no collage fund except what I earn via the military in the GI bill (which I have not really used) Worked my entire life in construction except for a stint in the NAVY and the last 4 year in which I opened and sold a manufacturing company. I retired two weeks before I turned 30.
The point of that was to point out that not all is lost and many in my generation are doing quite well (albeit without degrees). I have several friends who are all home owners and are due to retire from the military in the next 4 to 8 years (military pension) and I have a few friends who did quite well in the software development industry (they have more money than god it seems).
In my experience the people born within 5 or so years of me (1984) are mostly doing quite well if they avoided collage and moved into a particular trade or specialized field (I did not grow up with kids who had affluent families, so for many of us collage was unlikely without outside funding).
From where I sit, it seems everyone born after 1990 are pretty much screwed. Not many construction jobs here in the SF east bay anymore, Unions are floundering, very few collage careers are really paying enough to float the massive student loan debt (specifically PTs, RNs, shrinks, anyone with a polysci or Crim. justice degree) let alone a California mortgage. I have younger friends that have masters degrees making less annually than many construction journeyman (union). And I have one friend that has been a local sheriff (deputy of course) for 3 years and makes 76k annually. After the loan repayment of his 4 year degree and at 31, he has yet to be able to purchase a home.
It seems degrees are becoming so prolific and expensive, that many people would have done much better going into the trades or particular field.
I am basing this off of my area. I do know many people do quite well in other areas, and some that are way worse off. This is just my personal experience.
But you can relax seniors! No populace of any country is more inept at creating successful protests than the U.S., no matter how dire the situation gets for any group of people in this country.
You can thank J. Edgar Hoover for one!
As a senior, I have my moments of guilt, like I when I use my senior bus pass for $1 a ride, while I see these poor minimum wage millenials searching for the coins in their pockets to pay $2 a ride!
"Bless me Father, for I have sinned..............."
When you finish your education, you think you have a marketable skill that can command a higher paycheck and a better life.
What you quickly find out is that the entire system is designed to direct you to the lowest place in the Korporate food chain, and keep you there until your desire for autonomy is broken.
You are forced into a rigid schedule through the requirement for "face time", so that those subjugating you will know where to find you.
You will likely be expected to occasionally surrender some part of your off-duty time for company-backed events -- unpaid, of course.
You are often required to wear an uncomfortable, high-maintenance wardrobe, furnished at your own expense and not even tax-deductible.
And though you could finish your assignments in a fraction of the time if the facts were just available in print, every Dippy Old Bird with Bible tracts and pictures of the grandchildren will find their way to you.
Your boss will charge his customers full fare, of which only a small part (fully taxable) will find its way into your pocket.
And your "penny candy" straight salary will increase, but only so long as you remain a good boy or girl.
This is the way it was when I finished my education forty-three years ago, and surely will be forty-three years from now. If you don't like it, perhaps you should consider learning to drive a truck.
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.
