Depends on what you want to study. Though from a purely financial point of view I agree that trades are damned good earners these days!
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Does anyone else feel that COLLEGE LOANS are a joke
- Thread starter Groovy_Gravy
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Depends on what you want to study. Though from a purely financial point of view I agree that trades are damned good earners these days!
^ Agree and make as much maybe more than say a general BA in buisness or communications. If I had a dollar for all the people I know with BA and high debt flipping burgers or working two small jobs I would be well off.
Today College's set many young people up for a life of debt at a young age. The days of high paying jobs out of college are gone for the most part. There are degrees that pay like medical etc look for those and forget the one's like a Art history degree.
I say learn a trade and you will have work..worked for me.
With the amount of information available for free on the internet these days in the form of MOOCs and online courses, I think it makes a lot more sense for young kids to learn a trade and study on other things after a while. Skilled tradesmen/women can make a lot of money doing their jobs, because there's a serious shortage of them, to the tune of something like 3 million across the country. It's a much better situation to be in when you're in your early twenties than being saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt and "who knows?" for your job prospects.
I worked my way through college.
Some of the places I worked had tuition reimbursement programs.
It helped but it was still hard, slow, and expensive.
The year I graduated, I got a better job that paid back everything I'd invested in the first year's salary differential.
Some of the places I worked had tuition reimbursement programs.
It helped but it was still hard, slow, and expensive.
The year I graduated, I got a better job that paid back everything I'd invested in the first year's salary differential.
I'm more valued by my university?!?! I need to go to the President's office and ask for a year's supply of Sam Adams for the prestige I bring to my school.
Two things here. The loans set up the mindset early in life that you will always carry significant debt and the loans provide a vehicle for another "bubble". Like the real estate bubble. Those education loans will probably be "bundled", sold off as assests, insured, and then default at a higher frequency than expected. That equals profits for the financial/insuring institutions that play the game well.
I think it really depends on what you want to study. Though I do agree that it makes things more comfortable sooner, by learning a trade. It also seems like many go to university for "the experience" or to get any degree they can, which I don't think is the best of moves. Not a fan of the mega prices on education in the US either, though things over here are starting to head that way too.
While they are also becoming more accepted, online courses don't have some of the prestige associated with an attended school. Though they can look good for older folks (not right out of high school), who have been seen to be doing extra work off their own back.
Though I don't think everything needs to be a degree and I think there is too much pressure at high school level telling you that university is the only way to go. Certainly when I was at high school, they made it out that you had to go university otherwise you were a failure.
In my case it was following a field of study because of a strong interest and wanting to work with that particular area. Folks need to find something that they are good at, or interests them (or both). My brother had interests which didn't involve university and he gets paid to spend his days fixing silly expensive cars!
It's really pretty scary how much student debt some of my friends have. When it comes up and they mention they're $20-40 grand in the hole for their education, and they have a job that pays marginally better than mine, I'm flabbergasted.
I have a few thousand dollars in debt, but that's just my car mostly, and am incredibly grateful that that's as much as I've got.
This was my experience as well. I originally thought about going to school to be a mechanic after High School, and was told by my guidance counselor that I was pretty much wasting my potential if I didn't go to college, and that mechanics were for people who couldn't go to college.
My niece racked up nearly $270,000 in loans (she's a lawyer) and works for a county gov't in NY making about $65,000 per year. She's on a gov't loan forgiveness program that was instituted around 2010. She pays a percentage of gross income (I think it's 10%) on an income based repayment plan and after 10 years the rest is forgiven. If you do the math she'll pay back probably under $100,000 over the 10 years.
Law schools are pretty generous with giving scholarships to incoming students, but students need to be upfront with asking the school how many students retain their scholarships in the second and third years. A lot of students lose their scholarships in the second year and then have to pay for their schooling.
I worked my way through college, and still graduated with about $15,000 in student loans. The rates and repayment terms were more than reasonable. Suck it up, go to a less expensive public school, or go get a job.
How long ago was that?
The OP is addressing a symptom, not the real problem, IMO. The real problem is the ridiculous tuition and fees. (I'm about to finish college degree number 3) Brick and mortar colleges are classic bureaucracies. Their first goal is the growth of the bureaucracy. All of that stuff about serving students is hooey. But they are like the dinosaurs watching the meteor crossing the sky. Extinction is near.
But, right now, they are still partying like it's 1999. They keep raising tuition to feed the bureaucracy because... they can. They keep raising tuition and, yet, students keep coming. Under the current U.S. system, they have absolutely no incentive to control costs.
Things that can't last forever, don't. Brick and mortar colleges are no exception to this rule. When will the tuition bubble burst? I don't know when but it will.
But, right now, they are still partying like it's 1999. They keep raising tuition to feed the bureaucracy because... they can. They keep raising tuition and, yet, students keep coming. Under the current U.S. system, they have absolutely no incentive to control costs.
Things that can't last forever, don't. Brick and mortar colleges are no exception to this rule. When will the tuition bubble burst? I don't know when but it will.
I think the main problem is the commoditizing of degrees. As well as the stigmatization of working class jobs.
I was 23 and living in another state, paying my own rent and completely independent of my parents. For Grad school, Boston Univ. still counted my parents income. I was required to include them.
I had massive loans and all my parents did was co-sign. They had given me 10K for undergrad and that was it...so I ended up paying back a total of 90K (plus interest) for 6 years of school. It worked out for me with some luck in the housing market, but I would not wish this type of debt on anyone.
