Many With New College Degree Find the Job Market Humbling

Of course, there are some schools that are well-known in a particular field: Mizzou is the one that jumps to mind in journalism. Syracuse, too. Notre Dame for business grads.

 

The statistician in the room suggests you think of it this way: The people who go to (and finish) college wind up making way more over their lifetime, on average, than those who don't. That's a numerical fact. One can infer that the going to/finishing college leads to the income differential, but that can be a dangerous endeavor, because you haven't controlled for differences in fundamental ability. Maybe the people who go to (and finish) college are simply, on average, more intelligent/energetic/motivated, etc., and therefore would likely out-earn others over time even without the college education. There's some evidence to suggest this might be the case (the evidence is strong that, with respect to the elite-college/nondescript college earnings differential, innate abilities are the true difference-makers).

 

And this could explain the higher average salary for a person with some college. A person who attends college but never finishes could have more intelligence, talent, drive, etc. than a person who never attends college at all. Maybe not as much as the person who completes college, but more than the person who never attends college.
In that scenario, attending college might be indicative of other atrributes that lead to success.

 

Attending college could also suggest the parents are more affluent, successful and mindful of their children, which of course is the greatest success predictor of all.

 

That's the problem with saying that postsecondary education leads to a higher wage.
There are any number of attributes that might lead to a higher wage. Postsecondary education might only be an indicator of those attributes.

 

I think this is kind of interesting. What are some other examples?

Off the top of my head, here are some for discussion:

Broadcasting: Syracuse

Hotel & Restaurant Management: Cornell, Johnson & Wales

Aviation: Embry-Riddle

Culinary: Culinary Institute of America

Sports Marketing: UMass

 

Purdue is a top engineering school.

 

How very quaint of you.

Tell me, what year did you and your brothers go to college? And what was the average tuition of your four-year schools during those years? What about cost of books/living/etc.?

Let me give you a hint at what I'm driving at:
"Over all, the report found, published college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007 while median family income rose 147 percent."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/education/03college.html

Telling your kid to get a part-time job doesn't cut it any more. What they make in a semester won't cover public college tuition, let alone everything else. Tell your kid to get a full-time job and that seriously places their academic performance in jeopardy, plus lengthens the number of semesters it takes to complete the degree.

Financial aid packages rely far less on scholarships and grants than they do student loans these days. Pell Grants are in trouble as the federal government looks to cut spending:
http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/print-edition/2011/04/15/pell-grants-in-jeopardy-as-congress.html

You should be very grateful that your parents helped you through college, and that you are willing to do the same for your children. But a college education is not a parental obligation, and many parents don't help their kids at all. Your sister-in-law probably had a choice between not going to college or taking out loans to do so. It seems like her goal was to become a teacher, and she accomplished that in the best way she could.

 

Show me someone who refuses to try to reboot their professional lives through education due largely to a reluctance to take on student loan debt . . .

And I'll show you people who still argue about unimportant issues like grammar and the importance of baseball box scores even as their industry collapses.

Excessive credit-card debt is dumb. Paying more than you can afford for a car is reckless. If you are wise in what you study and where you study it, student loans can indeed be that cliched "investment in your future."

 

I nearly said that but wasn't sure if it had a national or more of a regional reputation.

 

National for sure.

I think that the key is our last sentence: "... (W)ise in what you study and where you study it."

You've got to have a plan. I think that's tough at 18. Perhaps a whole lot more needs to be directed at parents to educate them on modern education costs and benefits. My parents knew absolutely nothing. Nothing.

 

There is nothing wrong with taking out loans. Going to college on a loan is not evil.
I did it once upon a time, and now I'm in grad. school with loans.
Part of the problem is people taking on more loans than they need, not exploring scholarship options, not accessing financial aid available and not taking advantage of cost-lowering options such as community college for GE requirements.