College Rant...

[dave_the_nerd]

This is why the extremely driven and passionate people like Tesla died penniless while folks like Paris Hilton are millionaires.

Business sense.

 

[OutHouse]

not totally. The Budweiser brewery in Ft, Collins Colorado is useing them to deliver beer to Colorado springs. still in the trial phase.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Business sense.

You mean like Ward's, Hostess, Sears...

 

[dave_the_nerd]

You mean like Ward's, Hostess, Sears...

Three companies that went bankrupt trying to sell things people didn't want.

 

[brianmanahan]

You mean like Ward's, Hostess, Sears...

Three companies that went bankrupt trying to sell things people didn't want.

i will never not want a twinkie

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Three companies that went bankrupt trying to sell things people didn't want.

Three companies who went broke because their super star CEO's robbed them blind.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Three companies who went broke because their super star CEO's robbed them blind.

Those CEOs had a product that the board wanted.

 

[WelshBloke]

I've known people who don't even go to their classes. College is a huge haze of partying and screwing off. Drinking and doing drugs. I don't even know why they're in school. Well I do know. Many delay going into the workforce because work ain't exciting and it's hard when you're young.

You say this like its something new! If anything kids nowadays seem to take college far more seriously than they did in previous decades.

 

[who?]

The federal financial aid people believe that you have to attend class to learn. Any college, university or trade school that has students on financial aid is required to prove that they are attending classes or the school has to pay back the financial aid money. As a result, bars near campuses aren't making as much money on school nights.

 

[Kaido]

Back to the video. I agree with Alex. Kids today are brainwashed into believing that you must go to college to be successful. College is a business period. Their objective is to recruit young people into attending their school. I'm not against education. I have a BA, and was going for my Masters before I decided to take some time off. The debt was a big issue for me. There are kids today who are wasting 4 years of their life that they'll never get back. They are going to college because their parents want them to attend. There are many students who don't even attend class. IMO, many don't belong in school. College tuition has dramatically increased by 4X. We have students who are defaulting on their loans. They'll never pay back the money they borrowed. They'd be better off in trade or as an entrapanure. When I taught in South Korea and Thailand I met quite a few graduates who were unemployed and had large amounts of debt. Not good. We have 1.3T in debt and rising.

Like Humpy said, people who are already motivated will be successful no matter what simply because they have a work ethic & won't quit trying. With that said, a large reason why college is important is statistics. Yes, you can be the next Kobe or the next Bill Gates or the next whatever. And yes, you can make serious money as a quality plumber or auto repair technician. But, statistically-speaking, college is hugely important for the vast number of people out there. The government has studied this extensively:

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/fact-sheet-focusing-higher-education-student-success

The first three points:

* College graduates with a bachelor’s degree typically earn 66 percent more than those with only a high school diploma; and are also far less likely to face unemployment.

* Over the course of a lifetime, the average worker with a bachelor’s degree will earn approximately $1 million more than a worker without a postsecondary education.

* By 2020, an estimated two-thirds of job openings will require postsecondary education or training.

That's not BS; that's the facts - on average, having a college degree will net you an extra million over your working lifetime and will open doors to allow you to earn 66% more than people who only have a high school diploma. Now, we've all heard stories of people who weren't superstar successful like Steve Jobs, but still successful in life, but again, statistically speaking, the average person stands to gain a LOT more by going to college. More:

https://money.usnews.com/money/blog...-the-odds-of-succeeding-with-a-college-degree

Georgetown University measured the range of income responses by college education. They found that 14.3 percent of those with a high school diploma or less earn as much or more than the median college student. That works out to a one in seven chance of out-earning the median college student.

If you want to do a personal deep-dive:

https://nces.ed.gov

College is stupid expensive these days. The people who do predatory lending for poor, unaware students who are literally the future of our country should be thrown in jail, imo. But, the numbers say that for the average person, it's plenty worth it, even in today's economy & with today's cost of education.

However, I do agree that we should push trade schools more. Not everyone is suited for college, just like not everyone is suited for manual labor. We need people everywhere. I do freelance IT & most places I work at are chronically under-staffed & need more help, especially the help of qualified & reliable people.

Also, short of being a highly motivated person who is willing to learn on their own & go become an entrepreneur, which is NOT a skill set that everyone has, the world will largely pay you what it thinks you are worth. And we have tools now like Glassdoor for finding salaries, LinkedIn for networking to find jobs, Microsoft Word for writing resumes, etc., so you can basically pick a job, get educated for it, and go get it. The only real disadvantage in today's economy is your personal attitude...are you a victim or a victor?

America is all about being a late-bloomer, too - it took me almost 15 years to finish my Associate's degree because I went to work full-time after my first year of college, and just kept chipping away at classes because I knew that degree was a golden ticket to opening up more doors at more companies in the future. Along the way, I met a lot of adults who had made various mistakes in their lives, but had decided to grow up from being a victim and had matured into a different mentality where they were taking responsibility for their own lives and working towards improving it both financially and day-to-day by getting an education to get a better job.

TL;DR: First, college isn't everything, but statistically, the earning potential is way better even in today's economy. Second, I do think we should push things like trade school as acceptable avenues for getting perfectly legitimate & well-paying jobs instead of pushing college as "THE" answer. Third, people who are self-motivated are going to go off & do their own thing anyway regardless of what anyone else tells them, so the Jobs and Gates and Musks of the world are still going to burn their own path through life no matter what.

 

[shortylickens]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYrhzIi3SJY

PS--> Cursing Galore. NSFW.

Alex Becker goes on a rant here. If you don't know Alex he's a multimillionaire internet marketer. He's worth about $15m, so you can't deny that he's successful. Yea, he might seem scammy especially with his Shopify ads, and the "Make $1k a week as a broke 15 year old." He's a marketer and IMO he does a good job at that.

Back to the video. I agree with Alex. Kids today are brainwashed into believing that you must go to college to be successful. College is a business period. Their objective is to recruit young people into attending their school. I'm not against education. I have a BA, and was going for my Masters before I decided to take some time off. The debt was a big issue for me. There are kids today who are wasting 4 years of their life that they'll never get back. They are going to college because their parents want them to attend. There are many students who don't even attend class. IMO, many don't belong in school. College tuition has dramatically increased by 4X. We have students who are defaulting on their loans. They'll never pay back the money they borrowed. They'd be better off in trade or as an entrapanure. When I taught in South Korea and Thailand I met quite a few graduates who were unemployed and had large amounts of debt. Not good. We have 1.3T in debt and rising.

IMO, society will be taking the brunt. Our taxes will be increasing to cover the loans that are going to be defaulted on. Let's be honest. Many of theese loans will never be paid back. Whose going to cover these loans? We will.

No offense but you have very poor writing skills. Perhaps a college course or two would have been good for you.

 

[lxskllr]

Like Humpy said, people who are already motivated will be successful no matter what simply because they have a work ethic & won't quit trying. With that said, a large reason why college is important is statistics. Yes, you can be the next Kobe or the next Bill Gates or the next whatever. And yes, you can make serious money as a quality plumber or auto repair technician. But, statistically-speaking, college is hugely important for the vast number of people out there. The government has studied this extensively:

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/fact-sheet-focusing-higher-education-student-success

The first three points:

* College graduates with a bachelor’s degree typically earn 66 percent more than those with only a high school diploma; and are also far less likely to face unemployment.

* Over the course of a lifetime, the average worker with a bachelor’s degree will earn approximately $1 million more than a worker without a postsecondary education.

* By 2020, an estimated two-thirds of job openings will require postsecondary education or training.

That's not BS; that's the facts - on average, having a college degree will net you an extra million over your working lifetime and will open doors to allow you to earn 66% more than people who only have a high school diploma. Now, we've all heard stories of people who weren't superstar successful like Steve Jobs, but still successful in life, but again, statistically speaking, the average person stands to gain a LOT more by going to college. More:

https://money.usnews.com/money/blog...-the-odds-of-succeeding-with-a-college-degree


If you want to do a personal deep-dive:

https://nces.ed.gov

College is stupid expensive these days. The people who do predatory lending for poor, unaware students who are literally the future of our country should be thrown in jail, imo. But, the numbers say that for the average person, it's plenty worth it, even in today's economy & with today's cost of education.

However, I do agree that we should push trade schools more. Not everyone is suited for college, just like not everyone is suited for manual labor. We need people everywhere. I do freelance IT & most places I work at are chronically under-staffed & need more help, especially the help of qualified & reliable people.

Also, short of being a highly motivated person who is willing to learn on their own & go become an entrepreneur, which is NOT a skill set that everyone has, the world will largely pay you what it thinks you are worth. And we have tools now like Glassdoor for finding salaries, LinkedIn for networking to find jobs, Microsoft Word for writing resumes, etc., so you can basically pick a job, get educated for it, and go get it. The only real disadvantage in today's economy is your personal attitude...are you a victim or a victor?

America is all about being a late-bloomer, too - it took me almost 15 years to finish my Associate's degree because I went to work full-time after my first year of college, and just kept chipping away at classes because I knew that degree was a golden ticket to opening up more doors at more companies in the future. Along the way, I met a lot of adults who had made various mistakes in their lives, but had decided to grow up from being a victim and had matured into a different mentality where they were taking responsibility for their own lives and working towards improving it both financially and day-to-day by getting an education to get a better job.

TL;DR: First, college isn't everything, but statistically, the earning potential is way better even in today's economy. Second, I do think we should push things like trade school as acceptable avenues for getting perfectly legitimate & well-paying jobs instead of pushing college as "THE" answer. Third, people who are self-motivated are going to go off & do their own thing anyway regardless of what anyone else tells them, so the Jobs and Gates and Musks of the world are still going to burn their own path through life no matter what.

All true, but what irritates me is places requiring college that shouldn't. It's become a checkbox on a form, and an artificial barrier to entry. It's exactly equivalent to paying a bribe. College graduates make more money cause companies won't give anyone else the time of day.

When I was looking for work, I saw tons of positions I could easily do with only basic general orientation, but nope, they want a degree for their shitty $14/hr job...

 

[Kaido]

All true, but what irritates me is places requiring college that shouldn't. It's become a checkbox on a form, and an artificial barrier to entry. It's exactly equivalent to paying a bribe. College graduates make more money cause companies won't give anyone else the time of day.

When I was looking for work, I saw tons of positions I could easily do with only basic general orientation, but nope, they want a degree for their $14/hr job...

Having worked with HR & in hiring programs multiple times in the past, I can tell you this:

1. It's mostly because management hires the talent.

2. Managers are trained to hire college-educated people. Completing a college degree does not mean you are actually qualified, although it does prove that you can finish things, which is a strong positive for hiring someone. Hiring 101 says to hire the most qualified person you can for a position.

3. Managers live in constant fear of embarrassment. "I hired a guy with a Master's degree in Computer Security to manage our Fortune 500 company's IT security team" sounds a lot better on paper & in meetings than "I hired a guy who has a high school diploma but is really experienced, I promise!", even if that person is some kind of crazy awesome ninja hacker with the best skills available. Because then if something DOES blow up, you can CYA by pointing out that you did all of the right things according to the standard corporate checkbox procedure, so nobody can blame you for not doing your job.

4. Thus, for many positions, a college degree is literally the Golden Ticket to open the doors to a good job with good pay. Nobody is saying you can't make it big otherwise, with a trade or an invention or your own business or whatever, but not everyone is into manual labor or running a business. A lot of people just need a job they can go to, do, and then come home and simply provide for themselves & their families. So college isn't really about the education, it's about what having that degree can do for you, and also about networking and learning the tribal knowledge of the field you're interested in and so on. You could probably learn everything you need to know from a 4-year degree in 6 months of solid self-study, if you were really motivated. It's like exercising...walking on a treadmill for 30 minutes isn't the hard part, the hard part is actually doing it every day, consistently, lol. Education is really only one small reason for getting a college degree.

5. On the flip side, in down economies, companies really use it to their benefit to under-pay people with advanced degrees just so they can have over-qualified people working for them for cheap. Unfortunately I have seen some mega-talented people get stuck in jobs like being a Staples or Best Buy technician (note: nothing wrong with those jobs, just using it as an example), when they should really be making $25 an hour instead of $13 an hour. But, life is rough and you do your best.

A college degree is basically the EZ Pass of the working world. Oh, you have a degree? Come right in!

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Like Humpy said, people who are already motivated will be successful no matter what simply because they have a work ethic & won't quit trying. With that said, a large reason why college is important is statistics. Yes, you can be the next Kobe or the next Bill Gates or the next whatever. And yes, you can make serious money as a quality plumber or auto repair technician. But, statistically-speaking, college is hugely important for the vast number of people out there. The government has studied this extensively:

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/fact-sheet-focusing-higher-education-student-success

The first three points:

* College graduates with a bachelor’s degree typically earn 66 percent more than those with only a high school diploma; and are also far less likely to face unemployment.

* Over the course of a lifetime, the average worker with a bachelor’s degree will earn approximately $1 million more than a worker without a postsecondary education.

* By 2020, an estimated two-thirds of job openings will require postsecondary education or training.

That's not BS; that's the facts - on average, having a college degree will net you an extra million over your working lifetime and will open doors to allow you to earn 66% more than people who only have a high school diploma. Now, we've all heard stories of people who weren't superstar successful like Steve Jobs, but still successful in life, but again, statistically speaking, the average person stands to gain a LOT more by going to college. More:

https://money.usnews.com/money/blog...-the-odds-of-succeeding-with-a-college-degree


If you want to do a personal deep-dive:

https://nces.ed.gov

College is stupid expensive these days. The people who do predatory lending for poor, unaware students who are literally the future of our country should be thrown in jail, imo. But, the numbers say that for the average person, it's plenty worth it, even in today's economy & with today's cost of education.

However, I do agree that we should push trade schools more. Not everyone is suited for college, just like not everyone is suited for manual labor. We need people everywhere. I do freelance IT & most places I work at are chronically under-staffed & need more help, especially the help of qualified & reliable people.

Also, short of being a highly motivated person who is willing to learn on their own & go become an entrepreneur, which is NOT a skill set that everyone has, the world will largely pay you what it thinks you are worth. And we have tools now like Glassdoor for finding salaries, LinkedIn for networking to find jobs, Microsoft Word for writing resumes, etc., so you can basically pick a job, get educated for it, and go get it. The only real disadvantage in today's economy is your personal attitude...are you a victim or a victor?

America is all about being a late-bloomer, too - it took me almost 15 years to finish my Associate's degree because I went to work full-time after my first year of college, and just kept chipping away at classes because I knew that degree was a golden ticket to opening up more doors at more companies in the future. Along the way, I met a lot of adults who had made various mistakes in their lives, but had decided to grow up from being a victim and had matured into a different mentality where they were taking responsibility for their own lives and working towards improving it both financially and day-to-day by getting an education to get a better job.

TL;DR: First, college isn't everything, but statistically, the earning potential is way better even in today's economy. Second, I do think we should push things like trade school as acceptable avenues for getting perfectly legitimate & well-paying jobs instead of pushing college as "THE" answer. Third, people who are self-motivated are going to go off & do their own thing anyway regardless of what anyone else tells them, so the Jobs and Gates and Musks of the world are still going to burn their own path through life no matter what.

Let's be fair - you can't use simple statistics when it comes to this shit.

For everyone that is successful and is heavily driven to succeed that did not get a college degree - they get lumped in with lazy fucks who live off the dole. There is a HUGE difference, and they need to be distinguishable.

They should be distinguished by going to trade schools, having certifications, etc... but instead, they get lumped in with the count for McDonald hires - and that simply isn't a reasonable comparison by any means for people to understand what their opportunities are. For fucks sake, you're lumping in Mark Zuckerberg and countless others who dropped out of college.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Let's be fair - you can't use simple statistics when it comes to this shit.

For everyone that is successful and is heavily driven to succeed that did not get a college degree - they get lumped in with lazy fucks who live off the dole. There is a HUGE difference, and they need to be distinguishable.

They should be distinguished by going to trade schools, having certifications, etc... but instead, they get lumped in with the count for McDonald hires - and that simply isn't a reasonable comparison by any means for people to understand what their opportunities are. For fucks sake, you're lumping in Mark Zuckerberg and countless others who dropped out of college.

You have a point, sort of. Yeah, if you draw a bright shiny line at the border between "4-year college degree" and "everything less than that" then sure. But the inverse of your complaint is also true - my Facebook feed is filled with stay-at-home mothers I went to frakking grad school with. They got edumacated and still have effectively zero income. Plenty of people fake their way through a degree at a mediocre school and fall flat on their faces when they get out into the real world - it probably balances out.

But more to your point: you can use simple statistics to analyze that, if you actually break the population up into groups that reflect those differing life choices. Like this:

https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

Which breaks up into BA degrees, Associates (which tend to go hand in hand with vocational certifications, although I would have liked to see a separate category for that too), college dropouts, high school grads, and high school dropouts. The "lazy fucks living off the dole" are mostly confined to the last category or two.

 

[Kaido]

Let's be fair - you can't use simple statistics when it comes to this

I don't disagree, but again, these are the known statistics. For reference, the data was taken from the census:

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_502.30.asp

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau, Current Population Survey (CPS), March 1996 through March 2014. (This table was prepared November 2014.)

That's probably about as accurate of information as we can get on a nationwide scale, including accounting for the outliers and for people who pursued secondary non-college education. The numbers are the numbers - generally-speaking, you will be more financially successful if you have a degree than if you do not. That's not to say a motivated person can't do better, or that you can't do better with an alternative education, but for most of the people most of the time, the bulk of the statistics say that you'll do better financially simply by getting that golden ticket.

* Statistics do not include being an ATOT baller with a minimum wage of 6-figures

 

[Kaido]

But the inverse of your complaint is also true - my Facebook feed is filled with stay-at-home mothers I went to frakking grad school with. They got edumacated and still have effectively zero income.

Which isn't a bad thing. I've had more than one set of friends whose husband was injured or otherwise unable to work & they had to fall back on their wife's education to provide for their family, whereas she'd otherwise be a homemaker taking care of the kids & not generating any income, so it still is pretty useful having both parents acquire an education in a family relationship simply as a safety net. Or for after the kids go to school full-time or leave the house & you need something to do all day.

 

[urvile]

Interesting. I know this forum is US centric and I am not american. In fact we call college university but I can tell you from personal experience that a degree is a good thing and not a bad thing. I can also tell you that a trade is a good thing and not a bad thing. I left high school early because I spent the last few years smoking bongs. I had many a shit job. I found myself earning 35k a year driving a forklift. One morning I though is this it? I am in my early/mid twenties .....and seriously is this it? So I sucked a lot of cock and got myself into university. I have never looked back.

A buddy of mine is a mechanical fitter and he earns 14k US in the hand each month he does have to work in uganda though. Prior to that he worked in mali and they had some dude with an AK47 traveling with them too and from the airport.

I will say though that being a mature age student kind of sucks. I am watching my friends buying houses and stuff while I work at a service station, deliver pizza etc. to make ends meet. In the end though it worked out OK but study is sacrifice. What do you want from your life? Aint nothing easy right OP?

EDIT: I also started a masters and quit. I didn't think it was worth the money but these days I am a pragmatist so.....meh.

 

[Exterous]

Interesting. I know this forum is US centric and I am not american. In fact we call college university but I can tell you from personal experience that a degree is a good thing and not a bad thing.

I don't think anyone is saying having a degree is a bad thing just that it can be obscenely expensive for no guarantee of a well paying job. The average yearly cost is between $10k-$25k depending on whether you live in the same state your college is in. The average Student loan debt is ~$31k. Average starting salary is $50k after you graduate. Over that same time you could be an electrician's apprentice earning $30k-40k and, at the end of 4 years, make right around the same $50k with zero debt and a huge head start on income.

 

[urvile]

I don't think anyone is saying having a degree is a bad thing just that it can be obscenely expensive for no guarantee of a well paying job. The average yearly cost is between $10k-$25k depending on whether you live in the same state your college is in. The average Student loan debt is ~$31k. Average starting salary is $50k after you graduate. Over that same time you could be an electrician's apprentice earning $30k-40k and, at the end of 4 years, make right around the same $50k with zero debt and a huge head start on income.

Sure. There are a lot of pointless degrees. I know a guy who did english literature. Could he get a job with that? No. He ended up getting a dip. ed. in teaching and became a school teacher. Then he did a law degree. That's a lot of education. I did a computing related degree which is a field there is demand in and I had no problem finding a job. How many people with a philosophy degree get a a job? If they do a Phd then they can become an academic same with disciplines like history. We need historians. Just not a lot. The best and brightest will have a career in it. Same with disciplines like marine biology.

Engineering disciplines are practical and sought after to a certain extent. Chemical engineering graduates for example can have difficulty getting jobs so they do accounting masters and become...accountants. The thing is they don't do trades in computer science. A person can do a TAFE* qualification in programming but they don't learn computer science theory which can be problematic. I have worked with a guy who couldn't figure out the complexity/efficiency of his algorithms and this caused issues. He had a masters in software engineering so he wasn't uneducated.

*TAFE is a pragmatic alternative to university as tertiary education. I have a relative who lectures in vet science at a private college. Which is another alternative.

I should also add that my degree. Which was a double major in computer science and software engineering cost me ~25k which I have paid off long ago. The cost of tertiary education in the US is obscene but I don't live there so fuck it.

 

[urvile]

In australia though. The government pays part of the cost for degrees. At one point university education was entirely funded by the federal government. I have members of my family who were part of that generation and they didn't pay a cent for their degree. I guess the theory was. They would contribute later with tax and whatnot.

God damn communists. The lot of them.

 

[highland145]

My bro has a 10th grade ed and has been plumbing full time for 40 years. He has some really nice toys. He is a bit atypical. He likes 14hr work days.

Friends water heater died last week. She called 5 plumbers and they all told her that they were a week out so there is room for more competition around here.

My dental hygienist got a 4 year retail management degree ($100K) and then realized...nights/weekends/holidays, oh, my... Went back to tech school for her hygienist cert ($3K).

 

[Scarpozzi]

http://www.hamiltonproject.org/papers/major_decisions_what_graduates_earn_over_their_lifetimes

There will always be edge cases, but without a clear business plan or a stack of investment cash as seed money, that's a helluva risk and requires more work than most kids are willing to put in. To compound the lifetime earnings data, imagine the difference between first-generation students and those from established education families. Having a steadier stream of income at your disposal growing up can help avoid debt...especially if parents pass financial planning onto their kids at an earlier age.

Millennials are lazy as shit and do everything they can to avoid failure because they've never failed before. Those who attended college in the past 20 years and can't find work, likely majored in some liberal arts nonsense instead of something with a clear career path like engineering or statistics. If you major in art and wonder why you're starving, you should have had better guidance or common sense.

My wife and I have 4 degrees between us and we're making really good money for where we live. I have friends that work in trades....a few have solid jobs. Others get laid off frequently between contracts and draw unemployment 3+ months out of the year....every year. If you have confidence in your abilities to come up with a business that makes money and doesn't expose you to liability....take the risk. If you're not sure what the future holds for you, get a degree in a field you have aptitude for (something you enjoy) and something that has a career path attached to it....hopefully something that pays well. If you can do that, you'll have a higher chance of financial security and freedom when you put your time in.

 

[Majes]

After scholarships I paid about 5 grand a year to go to a private college/university. I started out as a Computer Science/Math double major, and ended up graduating with a degree in Elementary Education. I worked, and had parents who helped out with the 5 grand so I've never had any student loan debt. I've been teaching for 12 years now and have a Master's Degree in education.

My wife went to a school for Music Education and is now in her third year of teaching. Her parents are basically penniless and she took out loans for the whole thing. She owed 120k in student loans at graduation and still owes around 100k.

My sister went to a state school for an art degree. She graduated with less than 10k debt, but worked in restaurants for a few years and now manages the call center at a bank. She recently completed an MBA at an online school.

It's tough for kids to choose the correct path. I sat my wife down (we were dating at the time) and explained to her the costs of going to the school she wanted to. I showed her how much money she would owe, and how difficult it would be to pay off with a teaching job. She admits now that she made the wrong choice. She loves her job and works her tail off teaching music, but she could have had the exact same job with half the debt going to a state school or she could have skipped college altogether and we could live pretty much the same lifestyle without her having a job.

 

[Scarpozzi]

After scholarships I paid about 5 grand a year to go to a private college/university. I started out as a Computer Science/Math double major, and ended up graduating with a degree in Elementary Education. I worked, and had parents who helped out with the 5 grand so I've never had any student loan debt. I've been teaching for 12 years now and have a Master's Degree in education.

My wife went to a school for Music Education and is now in her third year of teaching. Her parents are basically penniless and she took out loans for the whole thing. She owed 120k in student loans at graduation and still owes around 100k.

My sister went to a state school for an art degree. She graduated with less than 10k debt, but worked in restaurants for a few years and now manages the call center at a bank. She recently completed an MBA at an online school.

It's tough for kids to choose the correct path. I sat my wife down (we were dating at the time) and explained to her the costs of going to the school she wanted to. I showed her how much money she would owe, and how difficult it would be to pay off with a teaching job. She admits now that she made the wrong choice. She loves her job and works her tail off teaching music, but she could have had the exact same job with half the debt going to a state school or she could have skipped college altogether and we could live pretty much the same lifestyle without her having a job.

Yeah.....and many students these days also subsidize their on-campus and off-campus living expenses by paying with school loans. We did that for my wife's grad degree, but on-campus rent was way-cheaper than off campus. I just hate that people are quick to accuse the higher education system of offering programs that aren't linked to high-paying careers. Thanks for your examples.

I finished 2 degrees with $1300 of debt. My wife racked up $90k of debt in 28 months for her graduate degree....but she makes nearly double my salary now. I was able to support her through school and within 3 years, we paid off her debt. Too many people don't realize how difficult it is to pay off that kind of debt when interest rates can be so high. My wife's $90k was at 7.5% APR in the beginning and only dropped to 6.5%....no wonder people are going broke. Once again....don't demonize higher education for that. There are cheaper schools available and cheaper ways to live while in school......and you can always work your way through school like I did. I worked full time from the time I was 19 years old and have 15+ years on my pension (I'm 37). I'm not rich, but not doing bad at all....college opened up doors for me that wouldn't have been available otherwise in IT and Business Intelligence.