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Different time periods and mentality, including but not limited to:
-"greed is good" 80s
People were more materialistic back then. Dunno if Madonna's Material Girl released in 84 helped with that, or it was the times that inspired that song
-more stable jobs
Don't have to move around, so you can afford more stuff, furniture, and NOT have to travel. These days, young people "travel light" to maximize their job prospects. There were many stories where parents and grandparents leave them antiques and other stuff passed down, but many millennials think "wtf am I supposed to do with that?". Or they really would like it, but don't have the space for it
-We've had previous generations' worth of experience telling the new generation growing up telling them, AND showing them firsthand just how crazy it can get if you buy too much stuff. Even buying stuff you won't use can add up
Some millennials do splurge on $5 "Fivebucks" coffee, and the latest $1000 iPhone. But honestly, you find those in gen X and beyond also doing that. Many millennials just make their own coffee, and get a $200 used phone and go with that for at least 4 years, or when it stops working/gets lost.
And it is 57,500 for independent students at the undergraduate level. And when they can't find a decent job with their BA in gender studies/philosophy/art history/journalism... I'll give you one guess where many decide to go next.
GRADUATE SCHOOL! For an additional $80,000 line of credit.
I'd point out, as well, that the figures we see of around $18,000-20,000 are for the average amount of money that has been loaned to the student by graduation.
On top of that, the loan has been accumulating interest for four years without payments, so that actual debt may be another $10,000 above the amount loaned.
Consider, too, Kodak, f/k/a Eastman Kodak, who developed the first digital camera. They then proceeded to drop it, as they didn't want it competing against their film. *sigh*
Yes, innovation without a corporation's willingness to alter a longstanding business model, is useless.
Kodak is always presented as the poster child, but Kodak's situation wasn't so simple. Kodak was a specialized brick-and-mortar manufacturing company that was unique in several ways, such as having a division of blind people adept at working in the dark with light-sensitive material.
In order to shift fully to digital production, Kodak would have had to build out an entirely different manufacturing company that would have been "Kodak" only in name and executive management--similar to what happened to Polaroid.
So what ultimately happened to Kodak is what would have happened anyway for all the ordinary working people involved. There was no way to avoid screwing them.
Do you understand the difference between subsidized and unsubsidized federal student loans? Only a portion of the aggregate money available to undergraduates accumulates interest while the student is enrolled, as long as the student maintains full-time hours. For a dependent undergraduate the maximum amount of unsubsidized money is $8k over the course of four years, and it’s not granted all at once.
I understand the situation because we're paying our daughter's loans. With regard to what the student must repay--and that's the point of this discussion, the debt burden on the student--it's irrelevant to the student's burden which part was subsidized and which part was unsubsidized.
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I fully understand the Charlie Fox that is higher education funding, but it’s more than apparent that some posters are misrepresenting the facts to score political points. The few students graduating with Ethnic, Cultural, and Gender Studies degrees are not the problem.
The issue is the great percentage of students who were not prepared for college but were encouraged by government, the education industry, and the banking industry to go into college anyway who eked through remedial classes to a degree that had no immediate or direct marketability.
For sure, the top students in some of those degrees are still able to market themselves because they always were truly highly capable individuals.
But far too many only limped through to get the paper and don't have that individual capability.
You see, here is the problem, baby boomer retire with a nice salary and possibly a good pension based on their salary, but companies and government don’t want to give the same to millennials, and when you do that, the whole economy suffer simply because these millennials have no money to spend. Simple as that.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nybklyn
You see, here is the problem, baby boomer retire with a nice salary and possibly a good pension based on their salary, but companies and government don’t want to give the same to millennials, and when you do that, the whole economy suffer simply because these millennials have no money to spend. Simple as that.
The millennials that work for me here are making $65-83k, with great benefits and yes, a good pension plan. They will be vested after 5 years, and in addition they may contribute to a 401K, a 401K and a 457 which all have employer contribution matching up to a limit based on tenure here. With the exception of one they also have a spouse working elsewhere, own homes, some have kids, and are not having any of the financial difficulties that other millennials are complaining about.
The millennials that work for me here are making $65-83k, with great benefits and yes, a good pension plan. They will be vested after 5 years, and in addition they may contribute to a 401K, a 401K and a 457 which all have employer contribution matching up to a limit based on tenure here. With the exception of one they also have a spouse working elsewhere, own homes, some have kids, and are not having any of the financial difficulties that other millennials are complaining about.
That's true where I am as well. In fact, a bunch of millennials around me are making six figures.
I probably ought to divulge that I'm in the IT department of a Fortune 50 company, though, so I'm not considering my situation as anything near average.
My daughter is making $90K as a social media consultant. Rather, she's the "Better Call Saul" of social media for several corporations, having basically created her worth over the last eight years since she was graduated with a journalism degree.
Her mother then pushed her into working for NPR as a reporter and I pushed her into running a cosmetics blog for a couple of years. She worked both into running blogs for a few companies and now she's a corporate social media "fixer."
That is one of dozens of "useless" degrees (let's just call them "unmarketable"), because that's a lot more fair.
Nationwide, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of these degrees are being churned out year after year. Gender studies is definitely part of the problem.
Correct. There are many more worthless degree tracks than marketable degree tracks offered at colleges and universities these days. This is a huge component of the student loan crisis. The government backstops loads of unmarketable degree tracks that produce no returns in the actual job market.
No student is wracking up six-figure debt on federal loans alone. The aggregate loan limit for dependent undergraduate students is $31k with no more than $23k for subsidized loans. So if you’re concerned about six-figure debt, you need to be looking at the private loan industry.
I know many undergraduate students with over $60K in debt, multiple current graduate students with over $100K in debt, and numerous graduates with PhDs with over $100K in debt. Having worked in higher education for so many years, and having seen these debt totals skyrocket especially over the past 5 years, from my personal experience I believe the average loan totals put out are much lower than reality. It is a much bigger problem than many think.
1) process a large amount of complex information in any given subject, evaluate it/critically analyze it, put in in context, make it useful or valuable somehow (add value) [STEM, arts, and humanities classes]
2) be able to "read between the lines" of said information or communication they receive - related to the critical analysis piece.* [Arts & humanities classes]
3) independently complete complicated, multi-faceted projects or accomplish tasks without constant direction [STEM, arts, & humanities classes]
4) work with a diverse group of people successfully & be able to recognize & adapt to cultural differences [Arts & humanities classes]
5) communicate intelligently in writing and speaking in your native language & at least mediocre competency in another language [Arts, humanities classes]
6) demonstrate quantitative literacy; be able to solve quantitative problems [STEM classes]
It's funny how many people today only want to focus on #6... as if they will never have to deal with another human in their life, or interpret what another human communicates to them. *This is why subjects like literature are important. Often what people communicate on the surface is not what they actually mean. An educated person should be able to figure that out, and one way you practice that skill is by analyzing literature.
See how a liberal, well-rounded education is supposed to work? An educated person should be able to learn how to do almost anything & work with almost anyone. They should be able to do it given enough time and on their own through self-study. College is supposed to train & teach you to do these things. Odds are if you have a college degree on your resume, it's more likely you can do those things than with just high school alone.
If a university does not do those things it should shut down. And we have people here that don't think humanities education should exist.
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