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I need to have a roof over my head. Apartments where I live average around $500,000 each and go up much higher for places where you could actually raise 2.2 kids.
Meanwhile...
... no I can't move to Kansas because jobs for my specialty would be scare to non-existent over there.
Subtract another 15-20% of their income due to the huge expense that is car ownership. Remember when USA had one of the best public transit systems in the world?
It's not the iPhones or Xboxes.
I agree in many situations this would be ideal, but it depends largely on the financial aid situation. Going full-time qualifies students for more grants, and some scholarships are only available to full-time students. Not to mention that the cost-per-credit is higher for part-time students.
Gotta look long term - in the end, is it more expensive to pay interest FOR DECADES or pay a few dollars more for a course on the front end?
And my personal experience says that is absolutely wrong. Where I earned my degree is actually more important than the degree itself. I'm not currently using my degree professionally. But it still opens doors any time I need to do so.
Not one peep from the anti-education crowd about the fact that a degree like mine is simply unattainable for everyone except the children of the wealthy. (Short of racking up six figures of debt, of course.) And it wasn't unattainable a generation ago. A meaningful discussion about that might cause people to reexamine their political outlook.
Plenty of stereotyping about how millennials aren't capable of putting down the XBox long enough to find a job to pay for school, though. No lack of sanctimony or indignance (particularly about trades). That's for sure.
Your personal anecdote may be interesting, but it doesn't prove anything. Most people seeking a college degree are not seeking one in a career where success depends more on WHERE one went to school rather than the degree itself.
So just keep adding more roommates to deal with never ending housing bubbles? Why not just take this all the way and have everyone live with their parents until they're 35? Why not grandparents too? Because that's the end game here.
My point was that high housing and transportation costs are the reason why young people of this generation are so poor. Stop blaming phones and video games they're peanuts.
What you described above is a myth imo. I graduated high school in 1974. There is no way that I alone or even with the guy I almost married could have bought a house on a 3 acre plot of land. We could barely afford rent.
I don't know anyone I graduated with that was able to do that right away.
I bought my first "house" when I was 30 and it was an 800 square foot condo for $100,000 with a high interest rate and a mortgage of $1000. In the years leading up to that, because I had moved to a high COL to improve my income, I lived in a group house with 5 people and then apts with roomates. I ate a lot of tuna fish which was cheap then or had dinner from appetizers at the local happy hour.
I had to move to make more money because I could see that advancement where I was would be blocked for many years by the Silent and Greatest Generation. No different than what Millenials are complaining about now.
It has never been easy to get started when you have to work for it yourself.
I do think it was easier on low performers (bottom 25%) in the past. They could always find a job that required a strong back and no brains. They could find a job that would let them drive a nice car and show up the next day hung over. Those jobs are gone. Ditch diggers have been replaced by a backhoe and assembly lines have been automated. It used to be a joke that you didn't want to buy a car that had been manufactured on Monday. Now it doesn't matter, because the work is done by machines and Joe Schmoe is on the skids. If they have initiative they can clean swimming pools and mow lawns, for at least a few years yet, but you can forget the nice car.
High performers (top 25%) are still doing about as well as you (or I) did. It takes a few years of self-imposed poverty and creative job hopping to scrape together that first down payment, but with focus and determination they can move into the middle class by the time they are in their 30s.
That leaves the mediocre performers (~50%) who think they are going to find success by doing what everyone else is doing. They don't see the difference between themselves and someone with intelligence, discipline and initiative. Many of them are just slow starters, who will make it to the middle class by the time they are 40 or 50. Many of them never will.
There is a large contingent that is convinced there has been a vast conspiracy to deprive them of the wealth and ease that is their birthright. I have to wonder if that will hinder them in the process of discovering that it's their life and their problem.
There is no educational value in "fair." The primary focus of education should be how to overcome obstacles and obstructions to success.
It is when only athletes in existing sports can get A's in gym despite you showing up to class, being dressed for physical activities, knowing and following the rules of the game, being active, being a sportsman and showing improvement in the sport. I'm not talking about grading someone an A just for breathing like some joke about, especially for other joke electives like "futures."
There is no problems with obstacles and obstructions but that is what school projects, exams, quizzes, presentations, etc. are for. If you missed more than two PE classes per quarter you were supposed to make them up for an A provided you were active, a sportsman, showed improvement, etc.
I'm the "old guy" at work. My coworkers are mostly millennials. Our society has put these kids through a financial wringer. I try to help them get their financial houses in order. But they've got so much student debt (often with brutal interest rates which cannot be refinanced) that they'll be working into their 30s before they work their way up to "flat broke."
A couple coworkers have found out the hard way that they cannot afford to start a family. And forget home ownership.
Society has told them that they need a degree to make it in life. And then like Lucy van Pelt, we yank the football just as they're making a play. I'm very glad I don't have to trade places with them.
The average cost for a degree today in the US is $15,000 a year which INCLUDES room and board (and any adult needs to understand that they are going to have room and board as expenses whether they're in or out of school). Sorry - that's just not unobtainable, between part time work, grants, scholarships, and small loans.
And EVERYONE has been put through the financial wringer over the past 6 years or so. People don't work till they're 75 or 80 years old because they want to, generally speaking. But many people had to rebuild their retirement funds, or try to recover from staggering losses on their homes.
Similarly, I'm older and have several millennial employees reporting to me. They are all in the $55-65k salary range with great benefits. None of them have any student loan debt, in fact, only one has a degree (MBA). The jobs they are in require two years of college and 3 years experience. One is renting a 2 bedroom condo for $1,800, the others are all homeowners. The one making the least owns a 4 plex, lives in one unit an rents out the others. Like my own kids, they are doing just fine and do not fit the victim mentality so commonly portrayed here. It's unfortunate that so many people though a degree was an automatic career, it never has been and never will be.
Right on.
My two sons in law are millennials. Neither of them has ever had one speck of student loan debt. One has a bachelors degree and the other has about three years of college, but then went on to get his HazMat and CDL licenses and got a great job with those rather than a four year degree. Neither of their parents' paid a penny toward their college educations. The one with three years of college actually had a 4.0 GPA while he attended college part time in the evenings - and studied with his little kids rolling around his feet. The other worked his last two years of college in, in a three year period, in the evenings when he got in from work as well, and graduated by the time he was 27 or so. He also managed to support his family, which included three kids, while doing so.
By the way, these are my daughters' husbands and get this - not only did they not have to get any student loans - they were ONE INCOME FAMILIES for most of that time. Now my daughters are ages 32 and 30 and both their husbands work while they enjoy staying home to raise the kids and homeschool.
Like I said, not one dollar of student loans was involved in this. And now one amazing son in law has a professional job (officer in the Air Force) and the other has a well paying job with excellent benefits in a skilled industrial, blue collar field (an environment he much prefers over office work in spite of his 4.0 GPA).
As your experience and mine points out - certainly not all millennials are of the same mindset. There are many exemplary young adults out there who somehow figure out how to BE an adult and make responsible financial decisions while still qualifying to be carried on their parents' health insurance!
The average cost for a degree today in the US is $15,000 a year which INCLUDES room and board (and any adult needs to understand that they are going to have room and board as expenses whether they're in or out of school). Sorry - that's just not unobtainable, between part time work, grants, scholarships, and small loans.
And EVERYONE has been put through the financial wringer over the past 6 years or so. People don't work till they're 75 or 80 years old because they want to, generally speaking. But many people had to rebuild their retirement funds, or try to recover from staggering losses on their homes.
I know several people forced into early retirement who aren't doing well. They expected to have 10 more years to prepare for retirement and found themselves out of a job. I'm a little worried myself. I'm 55 and have less than $400K in my IRA. I have 12 years to figure this out and it took me almost 20 years to save the first $250K on an engineers salary. I may just have to work until I die if social security goes bankrupt. I never wanted to count on it but I'm there. My IRA won't last me 10 years without it unless something happens to allow me to max out a 401k for the rest of my career. With it I can handle about 25 years of retirement before I'm out of money. I'd rather be 35 and just starting to save than 55 and doing damage control.
$40 per credit difference, and several thousand dollars in grants and scholarships? Not to mention staying ahead of tuition increases.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KathrynAragon
Gotta look long term - in the end, is it more expensive to pay interest FOR DECADES or pay a few dollars more for a course on the front end?
Last edited by Ginge McFantaPants; 01-11-2015 at 03:23 PM..
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I know several people forced into early retirement who aren't doing well. They expected to have 10 more years to prepare for retirement and found themselves out of a job. I'm a little worried myself. I'm 55 and have less than $400K in my IRA. I have 12 years to figure this out and it took me almost 20 years to save the first $250K on an engineers salary. 
I may just have to work until I die if social security goes bankrupt. I never wanted to count on it but I'm there. My IRA won't last me 10 years without it unless something happens to allow me to max out a 401k for the rest of my career. With it I can handle about 25 years of retirement before I'm out of money. I'd rather be 35 and just starting to save than 55 and doing damage control.