r/personalfinance • u/calonmawr10 • May 08 '20

Student Loans: a cautionary tale in today's environment Debt

I got into my dream school with a decent scholarship a couple weeks after the stock market crashed in 2008. My parents had saved diligently for myself and my twin sister in a 529 account, but we saw that get cut in half overnight. Despite all that, my mom told me to pick the school that would work best for me and to not worry about the cost because "we'd figure out a way to make it work". I applied for hundreds of external scholarships, but didn't get any. So, I chose my expensive private dream school, signed my life away to Sallie Mae (the solution to pay for it after my savings was exhausted, which I didn't know in advance), and started college in fall of 2009.

I was lucky to graduate with a good job thanks to the school's incredible co-op program, but also saddled with $120k worth of loans ($30k federal, the rest private). I met my amazing husband while there, and he was in the same boat. Together, we make a pretty decent living, but we currently owe more on our student loans than we do on our house. Even paying an extra $1k/month (our breakeven with our budget), it'll still take us many years to pay them off. It's so incredibly frustrating watching our friends from school (most of whom don't have loans) be able to live their lives the way they want while we continue to be slaves to our loans for the foreseeable future. No switching jobs because we want a new career, that doesn't pay enough. No moving to a different city, can't afford the hit to the salary in cheaper areas, or the huge cost of living increase in more expensive ones.

I'm happy with my life and that I was able to have the experiences I did (I absolutely loved my school), but not a day goes by that I don't wonder how my life would have been different if I'd made better financial decisions. Parents, don't tell your kids to follow their hearts if the only way there is through massive student loans, particularly if their career will not let them have any hope of paying them off. Students, have those conversations with your parents. If they say don't worry about it, question what that means and what the plan is. Now is the time to be having those discussions, before you've already registered for classes and are looking to pay that first bill. Don't make the same mistakes we did.

Edit:added paragraph breaks

Edit 2: Wow, I did not expect this to blow up so much! Thank you for the awards! It's reassuring (and a bit sad) to hear so many of your stories that are so similar to mine. For all the parents and high school students reading this, please take some time to go through the comments and see how many people this truly affects. Take time to weigh your college financial decisions carefully, whether that be for a 4 year school, community college, or trade school, and ask questions when you don't know or understand something. I hope with this post that everyone is more empowered to make the best decision for them :)

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u/rubixd May 08 '20 edited May 08 '20

Another thing I might add is that college/university is not for everyone... and that is not to say you're "less than". It means that who you are, your personality, and what you like to do is something that must be considered.

I know a really smart guy, who likes to work with his hands. He's in a union job, making $80k with amazing benefits and he's under a year in.

EDIT: I also want to add that college/university might also not be for you right after high school. For social growth and general how-to-live development it helped me... but I didn't know what I wanted to do when I was 18, I still didn't when I graduated with my degree. If I went to school now, I'd have gone for something else.

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u/Noinipo12 May 08 '20

It's a real shame we pushed 4 year universities and shamed trades for an entire generation of people.

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u/Neyvash May 08 '20

Seriously. Here in NC we have a shortage of plumbers and electricians. My employer has a "university" where they hire people (I think $15/hour) with no experience, train (and pay) them to be a plumber or HVAC tech, have them certified, and then they have a job waiting for them already. All because these professions are scarce here.

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u/Frundle May 08 '20

Anecdotal, but a friend and I started school at the same time in our late twenties. He went into the electricians’ union and I went to a 4 year on the GI bill. Both of us got back into the market at the same time. I started at 50k a year and he landed in a guaranteed job making ~120k a year. He was earning money the entire time, and while I have no debt, he is much much further ahead. I may never catch him.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20 edited May 12 '20

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u/CrissDarren May 09 '20

Not OP, but I had an electrician come to my house yesterday to install a 20 amp outlet for an over range microwave. He was at my house about 3.5 hours and billed me $700—around $200/hr. It took me 4 weeks to schedule him because he is so busy with jobs. Not to mention, he works entirely for himself on his own schedule.

I also had a plumber come out to my house recently to install a shower drain / pan after I ripped out an old surround. Same deal, around $600 for a few hours of work.

Yes, they had to crawl under my house where there are rodent traps and apparently a dead rat (pest guy coming next week), but all-in-all, the trades do very well in my area.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20 edited May 12 '20

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u/CrissDarren May 09 '20

Yeah, those are totally fair points and I'm not arguing the BLS is wrong or that most trades people are making 6 figures, just that there's a lot of $$ for these jobs, but who knows where it ultimately ends up.

My guess is a lot of "plumber" salaries are people who are employed by larger organizations where the people doing the work aren't taking the home the majority of our payouts and are paid hourly or on salary. I believe that was the case with the plumber who just did work for me and likely the majority of reported "plumbers" or "electricians".

On the flip side though, the electrician doing work for me was obviously experienced and well-regarded enough to be working on his own, which means he's keeping the majority for himself.

Let's say this guy works 220 days/year (no weekends/holidays + vacation) and my job was an "average" day for him (seems reasonable given it was < half a day of work, allowing for all other aspects of a job)—that comes out to ~$150k gross per year. Granted, working for yourself comes at a big cost (as someone who has done it) so I would imagine his take home is closer to $100k, but it seems doable if you don't have someone taking a big cut off the top.

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u/deadly_penguin May 09 '20

install a 20 amp outlet for an over range microwave.

Don't you guys have real 240V sockets for the oven anyway?

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u/CrissDarren May 10 '20

The oven has a 240 v outlet, but the microwave required it's own dedicated circuit to be installed new. There was previously an old standalone fan over the range that required less power and was hooked into a circuit with other things pulling power. We pulled the fan and installed the over range microwave in its place and the electrician ran a line specifically for it.

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u/chewypablo May 09 '20

In a high cost of living area where you got a journey man electrician working prevailing wage, this is possible. California is building like crazy right now and a lot of work is prevailing wage. I see a lot of tradesmen make a lot of money but they also work their ass off with insane hours. Lots of demand for tradesmen and tradeswomen.

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u/OzneroI May 09 '20

My father worked as a welder in a pipeline for a couple years. His highest paying job payed close to 6k a week, but most average out around 4K from what I’ve been told by him and I have several electricians in my family who make in the $30s/h not counting per diem and the fact that I don’t know a single tradesman that works less than 60 hours per week so tons of overtime

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u/Frundle May 09 '20 edited May 09 '20

I’m certain, but that is an extrapolated figure. He is hourly, and it is based on his first month of pay including overtime x 12. That was more than a couple years ago now, but he spent more than a year on that site and his hours stayed pretty steady.

Regarding the data: its not uncommon to see 6-figure total earnings for people in the trades in a year. The range for the professions you listed are just really wide. An electrician, for example, can range from hourly guys in small towns working for manufacturers to guys that own a contracting outfit and still perform all their own work. I assume thats why you specified non-owner. I spent my first couple years out of school working in payroll for a big west coast contracting firm, and now work in data analytics for a firm that serves the industry. You’d be blown away what guys are making on all the data* center jobs around the US right now.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20 edited May 12 '20

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u/BirdLawyerPerson May 09 '20

Everyone I know who hit 6 figures in a non-college-required job did it on overtime, not on base pay. That's a good way to get a ton of money in a short amount of time, but it isn't really sustainable beyond the age of 35 or so.

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u/Frundle May 09 '20

I can’t share anything I use because we either sell our data, or buy it from other firms, but one of the things that glassdoor, salary.com, indeed, and others are missing is that some firms will now get supplementary pay from the GC or project owner based on maintaining timetables. I think I can safely ise Facebook as an example. On some of their data centers, the electricians get paid their hourly rate by their company, and the GC as well as Facebook pay additionally for overtime on top of their regular time and a half from their primary employer. It is very difficult to slot their pay cleanly into an average because of the variability and number of sources. I can’t be too specific without ID’ing myself because there aren’t many people who do what I do now. This info is not easy to find online without expensive annual memberships to data firms.

Obviously this doesn’t affect the payroll part of the discussion, but a lot of these are simply working under the table for cash. I’d estimate most small contractors only recognize 50-75% of their actual earnings.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20 edited May 12 '20

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u/Frundle May 09 '20

BLS uses many sources and gathers a lot of data empirically. They gather a lot of information through survey, but they have confidentiality policies that make evaluating those sources as an outsider difficult. They do get IRS info in addition to many other governmental sources. Not sure if you saw the edit I added to the bottom of my response, but another confound for tracking earnings is that there is a prevailing habit throughout most of this industry to under report earnings when possible. If people can work out cash deals, they do.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20 edited May 12 '20

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u/Frundle May 09 '20

Thank you for the conversation :) I’m going to call it a night.

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u/charlesdickinsideme Jun 03 '20

an important thing to note is QOL. If he does his own scheduling etc by himself he’s definitely in a great situation. Not everyone (I’d imagine atleast) has that Luxury and depending on the trade I’ve read that certain people have hand and knee problems starting as young as 30 through 50s, mainly being welders

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20

NC also has a shortage of welders. I was starting welding school and found out that I'd basically make $50/hr out the gate as long as I could actually weld worth a damn. I ended up moving and switching to IT instead because that's more my thing anyway, but it was fun to learn!

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20

Florida too, there is a huge skilled labor shortage and big construction boom happening (pre-COVID, anyway..). It gets so bad sometimes during certain times of the year that subcontractors will "forget" to send new employees to drug testing, forgive week-long unexplained absences, provide personal loans if they have transportation issues, etc, because they literally can't afford to lose employees with experience.

I worked for one sub that would send superintendents to elementary schools to talk to kids about the value of trade work.

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u/_HeadlessBodyofAgnew May 08 '20

PREACH. I was told since day one that trade jobs were for morons and they would all suffer for their laziness in school. Like a good smart lad I went to university and got an engineering degree... only to realize I fucking hate sitting in an office every day all day and hustling people just for another line item on my resume while legitimately feeling like I've done jack shit (consulting in a nutshell). I REALLY regretted it and talked with people who went to trade schools and felt like I really missed the boat, I've had manual labor jobs and they are still and will always be my favorite job.

Luckily, I recently left consulting and found a gig I really enjoy so far. It's not manual labor but it at least uses the skills I learned and is a fun mental challenge everyday, plus I can work remote which is another dream of mine. Maybe it'll all work out fine for me, but if I didn't catch a break with this job I'd still be miserable.

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u/Ctownkyle23 May 08 '20

I feel you, I interviewed for a consulting job straight out of college when I was throwing resumes around and I didn't know what I wanted to do. I knew pretty quick that consulting wasn't it.

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u/seventurtles44 May 08 '20

I fell in love with a manual labor job I had in college and am now working an office job i hate. Luckily i graduated college with no debt and im now in the transition back into manual labor which will pay almost as much as my office job. I live in a family that thinks manual labor is for losers but i really dont care what they think bc in the end of the day im just gonna do what makes me happy

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u/[deleted] May 08 '20

I'm not gonna lie, the second I finish my degree, I plan to transition to manual labor. I'm aware that I could just transition to manual labor now, but, I would like having the backup of a degree available if I get injured, or something along those lines.

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u/SilverRock75 May 08 '20

By far, the best part about manual labour jobs is leaving the job at the job site. With Covid-19 stay at home orders and my ability to work from home, it's especially difficult to leave the job behind after hours, but even when I was going into the office, it sticks in my head and makes some evenings impossible to really enjoy.

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u/at1445 May 08 '20

I've been working from home full-time for a year now. I wound up getting a 2nd pc setup for work. When 5 hits, I just shut it off.

When I had it all on my main PC, I'd work all hours and reply to everyone emails no matter how petty they were or what time they came through. Now I don't see them and they can wait until the next morning.

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u/_HeadlessBodyofAgnew May 08 '20

Yet another reason I'm so glad I left consulting, to get anywhere "respectable" in that position you have to be at conferences, putting "ears to the ground" for the next project you can bid on, networking from sun up to sun down. You have to live the profession, and it's a profession that absolutely disgusts me.

When I worked at a scrap yard or at construction sites, I was outside all day working my ass off, getting a workout, and joking around with coworkers until quitting time and I would get home with a sense of accomplishment and deserved R&R.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20 edited May 12 '20

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u/SilverRock75 May 09 '20

Coding problems, how to implement various things efficiently, and anything in a sprint I've gotta get done.

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u/makeitquick42 May 08 '20

I don't think trade jobs were ever shamed, just no regaled with praise like a high-brow degree.

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u/SilverRock75 May 08 '20

I counter that with all the parents telling kids they didn't want to grow up to be plumbers or electricians.

I don't think trades got shamed as heavily as some others, but there was definitely shade thrown at anything that didn't require a college degree while I was growing up.

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u/MartinMan2213 May 08 '20

You don't want to grow up being a garbage man do you?

Now the garbage men sit in trucks all day with pay and benefits that are better than most other entry level jobs.

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u/Philogirl1981 May 08 '20

My cousin was a garbage man making $50,000 a year. Now he is hauling gravel at 75,000 a year. Go figuire.

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u/Maxpowr9 May 09 '20

And with the shortage in trades, the wages have gone way up. My friend is a master electrician and makes more than me with a masters.

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u/Woodit May 09 '20

I very distinctly remember as a maybe ten or eleven year old watching a commercial for some tech school that made it look cool (robots and shit) and my mom said “you are way too good for some damn tech school.” Thanks mom, my useless 4 year degree at least made the grandparents proud

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u/FixBreakRepeat May 08 '20

Welder here, I can say with absolute certainty that trades were shamed. When I picked a blue collar career path and went to trade school I was told that people were disappointed and that I was wasting my potential. Forget that people I went to high school with got their four-year degrees just to be saddled in debt managing a call center for $30k a year. I'm the disappointment even though I'm making a comfortable living with a useful skill because the trades were seen as a back-up plan for the people who couldn't get real careers.

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u/GOTaSMALL1 May 08 '20

Not to deny your anecdote... but will add mine. IME (as a kid that was college age in the 90's) it wasn't that going into the trades was 'shamed' so much as it was not getting a degree was shamed. 6 one, half dozen the other maybe... but that's what I noticed. The whole, "You're nothing without an education" thing.

I'm degree-less and have made myself a very comfortable living as a carpenter and then as a superintendent. But still... every so often someone (parent, friend, sibling, etc) will ask me when I'm going to go back to school.

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u/DwellhopTim May 08 '20

If you grew up in the suburbs, yes they were. Especially in the late 90s early 2000s. Shit the military in the early 2000s had more respect than the trades, cause Murica! I would agree that in the last 10 years or so, people are realizing the trades are a good dignified well paying career path. The trades aren't for everyone, just like college isn't for everyone either, but are a great option for a lot of people. If your dream is to be a lawyer, doctor, engineer, etc by all means go to college. If your dream is to go to college because you feel like that's what you're supposed to do, look at all your options.

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u/zerogee616 May 08 '20

The fuck they weren't.

"You don't want to be a ditch-digger, do you", was the mantra for my generation, with ditch-digger being a placeholder for any blue-collar labor, regardless of pay or skill.

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u/sinspots May 08 '20

All you have to do is watch some TV (streaming, whatever your choice of comedies and dramas) and see how mechanics, plumbers, etc. have been portrayed for years.

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u/[deleted] May 08 '20

This- my husband's great uncle started out as "just a plumber." He was a young guy, good with his hands and college wasn't really thing for young men in the rural area where he grew up.

He apprenticed with plumber, took a liking to it, eventually opened his own plumbing business, grew it, rolled the earnings of his business into buying and rehabbing commercial and residential properties in the surrounding area (which had become an affluent 'burb over the years) and has been a multi-millionaire for many years.

Pretty awesome for a guy who was "just a plumber."

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u/thejourney2016 May 09 '20

This is a reddit myth/meme. if anything, the trades are are glorified and over-hyped. We have weekly threads on /r/personalfinance where people throw out outlandishly high salary numbers for trade work that has no connection to reality.

Most trade jobs make $30k-$45k a year at the median. Its OK money, but the earnings potential is much higher if you have a college degree. I know that isn't popular to state, because it goes against the circlejerk, but that is the data.

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u/Noinipo12 May 09 '20

When I was in highschool, it was the universities that were emphasized. Sure, it's not everyone's experience, but that was my real life experience years before I had ever used Reddit.

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u/danyaspringer May 09 '20

College is business. Prep up the universities where it’s more expensive and then belittle the trades because it doesn’t have that mystical college atmosphere that everybody wants.

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u/[deleted] May 08 '20

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u/Sockadactyl May 09 '20

I think they were more saying "don't feel pressured to if you're not interested" rather than implying that some people aren't capable of succeeding in college. When I think of the phrase "college isn't for everyone" I read it as acknowledging that some people are more drawn to careers where a degree isn't necessary, not telling them that they're not good enough or smart enough for college.

(I realize that's kind of saying the exact same thing twice, but sometimes I worry that I'm bad at explaining my thoughts so I try it different ways)

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u/rejuicekeve May 08 '20

Even in tech many of us are doing fine without college. College does a really terrible job of preparing people in the tech industry, aside from maybe specifically programming.

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u/DigitalArbitrage May 09 '20

Found the most controversial comment. "Tech" is a very broad term and can mean different things.

It's one thing for a person to self teach themselves how to add HTML and CSS to websites. It's something else entirely if the software runs a real world, mission critical task.

In the first example a website might run slow. In the second example, passenger airplanes crash and kill hundreds of people.

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u/rejuicekeve May 09 '20

Yea except you dont design passenger airline software by yourself, software goes through code reviews and junior engineers are not just building mission critical potentially life ending software alone.

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u/king_27 May 08 '20

Having worked alongside uni students and people who taught themselves programming, I take the self taught guy any day of the week.

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u/[deleted] May 08 '20

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u/Maroon5five May 08 '20

If you can learn it in a classroom then you can probably learn it outside of a classroom too if you're passionate about it. I've worked with several programmers that I would never have known or even suspected they didn't have a degree if I hadn't seen their resume.

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u/king_27 May 08 '20

Easier to learn on the job from the seniors than it is to learn how to program in the same amount of time. It's not the 90s anymore, knowing how to use the newest react framework or Java features is typically more important than knowing how to implement a neural net or calculating the computational complexity of your solution. Sure, some more research or legacy focussed positions may disagree, but someone who taught themselves Angular and a C# backend is going to have a better time picking up new frameworks than a CS freshie that thinks he knows best

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u/SDbadger May 09 '20

One exception to this is any software job which interfaces with HW. Computer architecture, computer organization, compilers, embedded systems etc would be pretty difficult to learn on your own. I would definitely have no shot 1) getting into this part of the industry and 2) succeeding had i not had a formal education in CS/Comp Engineering. Funny enough, it seems web type jobs which are more suited to self-taught folks often pay more. Go figure. I suppose its because these days SW services are the cash cows.

Also, in my experience I have found relying too heavily on a senior is not a great strategy. Might just be my company culture, but if you too heavily rely on people senior to you you may come off as needing too much hand holding.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20

Fellow embedded guy who agree 100%. This stuff is definitely niche and most people don't realize this stuff even exists.

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u/king_27 May 09 '20

Oh yeah definitely not the rule, there are some niche exceptions. Everyone and their grandmother needs software nowadays, so the high demand makes sense.

I of course don't mean sitting on them for every little issue, but everyone at my company is friendly and loves having a chance to talk about how best they think to solve a solution, so usually worth asking if you've got a wall and don't want to waste 10 hours trying to solve it yourself.

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u/uberhaxed May 09 '20

It's not the 90s anymore, knowing how to use the newest react framework or Java features is typically more important than knowing how to implement a neural net or calculating the computational complexity of your solution.

These are two different fields though... That's like equating a cruise ship captain to an officer in the Navy. One is computer science and the other is software.

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u/king_27 May 09 '20

Perhaps I should have stated I was talking about software then, my mistake. As mentioned in my comment, obviously if the position is more theory based then it becomes more important to have someone that studied CS theory.

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u/uberhaxed May 09 '20

It's not about positions, they are entirely different careers in different fields. You wouldn't have a physicist build a bridge, even though they should have the same fundamentals as a civil engineer. Computer Science is a field of study for data scientists. Software Engineering is a field of study for software engineers. If you think a CS degree is training for a software engineering job, the problem is you don't understand what CS is.

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u/rejuicekeve May 08 '20

plenty of that can be picked up on the job or in spare time doing an online class, it doesnt need to be a 4 year thing.

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u/kesselschlacht May 08 '20

Louder for the people in the back!

I experienced both sides. I went for my BA and MA in History with the eventual plan to go for my PhD and teach at the university level. However, in my MA I finally saw the mess that is academia - I really should’ve seen it sooner, but I think I was willingly overlooking it. I finished my MA with $36k in debt, most of it from study abroad. I tried to get a job with my MA but then I followed my dad and brother into the fire service.

Most people don’t think of the fire service as blue collar but generally career departments don’t require degrees and I literally wear a polo with a blue collar to work. My dad and brother are fire fighters but I didn’t want to go into burning buildings, so I went into the fire marshal’s office. I do inspections and fire investigations and I love it. I’n constantly on construction sites and doing cool stuff. I’m bringing in close to $100k and it’s a union career department. I even get a monthly stipend for my degrees that go directly to my student loans.

All of this is to say that I get wanting to go to university. I really do! However, sometimes blue collar jobs are the right choice. I’m in a much better situation financially than I would be trying to get a job with my MA. I’m also doing a job I LOVE with essentially zero stress. My only regret is I wish I would’ve joined the department sooner!!

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u/Anarcho_punk217 May 08 '20

Where and what union? There isn't a single union you start off at 80k a year.

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u/thenormalmormon May 08 '20

I have a friend who is going to school for to be a heavy duty diesel mechanic. His career field makes upwards of $80K/year for half the schooling

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u/FixBreakRepeat May 08 '20

I work for a Cat dealer and when times are good and the OT is there, it's not unusual for the field techs to make low six figures. You have to be willing to put in the hours though, we've got a couple guys pulling regular 14-19 hour days right now and they get paid... but that's not for me.

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u/PM_ME_URSELF May 08 '20

I am a huge proponent of a liberal arts education even without the job benefits. Being a "universal" student broadens your mind and uncovers passions you never knew you had. It also teaches critical and abstract thinking, important for any job.

That said, you don't have to go to a private school to get that, or even a prestigious state school. And it's still not for everyone.

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u/[deleted] May 09 '20

With the incredible wealth of free online resources available now, you can easily get a liberal arts education without setting foot on a university campus if you really want it. Let’s face it, most people aren’t going to college to deepen their intellect. They’re going for frats, social life and degree prestige. Many schools now are glorified degree mills that barely qualify you to actually do any professional work. It’s just a checkbox on your first job resume.

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u/anon99919 May 08 '20

I agree in general, with 2 caveats, if you can afford it, and if that's what you want.

Being well educated is an important thing that can add a lot to one's outlook on life in an expanded awareness. Maybe the societal importance is enough to provide it to all students via government grants, but it really isn't worth going into 5-6 figures of personal debt for. Also lots of students aren't really interested in that and don't seek or acquire it while at university.

Beyond that point. In my experience most universities are de-emphasizing that aspect of education in favor of being run as a buisiness selling degrees at exorbitant prices to students as an integral part of a corporate system which requires these papers to be able to play the professional game, and with easy access to government guaranteed loans that can't be defaulted on there is no real pressure to even try keeping prices down.

The university system is seriously broken and while i agree with your sentiment i don't think it is in general a financially reasonable option if you don't have fuck you money.

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u/buzyb25 May 09 '20

I agree the afford it one is big. If having a good nest egg, safety net, or for sure going to grad or other post-graduate school then yeah a liberal arts degree is great. But for those who dont have these things, it really is an uphill battle esp in a down market. It puts you at a disadvantage before even getting an interview, and then even then it isn't the greatest confidence booster. The workplace seems more like a game these days, and you need the right credentials and tools in order to play, so play smart.

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u/archibald_ May 08 '20

Agreed. I did two years at a junior college preparing to transfer to a 4 year university to finish up, and then only lasted a few months at the 4 year due to some personal issues.

I got in to IT, starting at helpdesk levels, and slowly working my way up. It's been good for me. 10 years later, I'm making $100K/year (though in a high COL area), but I'm happy and haven't regretted not graduating and certainly haven't regretted *not* taking on huge loans.

Sure, I'm a bit locked out of some specific companies or roles that require degrees - especially any government positions, but that's rarely been an issue, and I could always go back and finish my degree if it's really important.

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u/buzyb25 May 09 '20

That's great, it sounds like you found a great company that allowed you to develop and grow internally? Is it like a sys admin position? A CS degree helps, and I wish I had one. But most importantly is the ability and fortitude to continue growing. Microsoft to Linux to cloud, etc etc. It just seems the list will continue to demand more from workers. I admire those who have the enthusiasm and the smarts to be able to advance, while juggling all that life demands.

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u/HeyYoEowyn May 08 '20

How the hell would anyone know what they want when they’re 18? I would’ve gotten a $80K theatre degree if I hadn’t been so unmotivated. I ended up going back to community college at age 30, paid $500 a semester, transferred with a full ride to Berkeley (I was an “aging” transfer student in a small major) and graduated with zero debt. Then I spent a fucking mint on my masters, but I knew what I wanted, got a great career out of it and make enough to pay down my loan. I can’t imagine trying to make a decision about my lifelong career at 18.

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u/DigitalArbitrage May 09 '20

The important things here are that your friend is in a profession and in a union.

Skipping college to work in retail/restaurants is a recipe for minimum wage or unemployment.

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u/Polus43 May 09 '20

Undergrad is in philosophy.

I'd speculate that 90% of students in humanities and social sciences shouldn't have gone to college. I definitely wasn't 'ready' or 'mature' enough for college and am extremely fortunate that my parents saved money and could bail me out of that bad decision.

The real problem with these majors is that you can effectively get all the information off Wikipedia for free. I'm still amazed the number of psychology/philosophy professors grows year-over-year. It feels like a scam.

If I went to school now, I'd have gone for something else.

Went to grad school and definitely fixed this though, so it's all good, but shit I'm lucky.

2

u/[deleted] May 10 '20

This. I went to work after highschool and now my job gives me $10k a year for schooling so I’ll get a free degree. It will take longer but I am getting paid and going for free.

1

u/Jingle_Cat May 08 '20

Absolutely. More kids should consider the trades. Pretty sure my electrician makes as much as many lawyers. Maybe his salary ceiling is lower but it’s a pretty good living, well past $100k.

1

u/Colvrek May 09 '20

This was one of the things I absolutely loved about Yang. His idea on fixing education and jobs? Stop pushing people to college. Get people training and education in trades. Machinists, welders, electricians, etc. Can make an absolute killing.

1

u/dwntwnleroybrwn May 09 '20

It was funny. I didn't care in highschool and did the bare minimum to graduate. Honestly I just didn't like playing the "do all your homework" game. I new my grades weren't great and I also didn't want to go to college without a goal. 100% my choice. Went to CC and earned an associates in a trade. I did end up going to school after finding my passion in engineering and love it. Going back later with a clear goal also made it easier to get grants etc.

The funny part was that all my siblings assumed my parents wouldn't let me go to college. Again it was all my choice, I had a good laugh at that.

1

u/bubblie130 May 09 '20

I had a friend in college who DEFINITELY did not need to be there. She was a bad & lazy student who could not really make the jump from community college to real university. After her first semester I think she should have dropped out. She started college with more credits then me and still left without a degree due to her bad grades. She is just now finishing up her bachelors after 8 years of going full time. And I’m guessing $100,000 in debt.

Furthermore I have a cousin in the same boat who was not ready for college any means. (My big sister sonce that if it where up to her she would have NEVER let him go to university at least in the traditional sense due to the struggles she knew he would face [and she’s a teacher] ).He went for 6 years full time and NEVER got his degree. Due to issues with his grades.

The moral is college isn’t for everyone. I know someone with NO college debt who working at a factory making $70,000. Here I am with a masters and $80,000 worth of debt making $33,000. 🤦🏾‍♀️ lol maybe my sister should have told me not to go too. #Done

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '20 edited May 09 '20

Looking back, I should've just sucked it up and finished school. I decided college "wasn't for me" early on and just dicked around for a few years. Turns out great jobs of any kind, regardless of whether they require a degree or not, do require a lot of work (or luck, I guess) to get. What I want to add to your post, if nothing else, is if a kid thinks school isn't for them simply because it's too much work, they're going to have a bad time.

I beelined for my STEM BS as soon as I woke the fuck up. I always knew I could do it, and do it easily - so why hadn't I? I'm sure I had other choices but a BS was the obvious choice for me, personally, based on my options and goals. Now my career is on a fantastic track for a new grad, but it's hard to feel okay about that when some of my former classmates are now senior engineers and solutions architects. One of them is somehow already a millionaire with five properties looking at retirement. But funnily enough, she had actually "dropped out" too - she got an internship Sophomore year that gave her a full time offer that wasn't contingent on graduation.