College - A Waste of time?

[Rhyis.]

Business related careers are learned 95% on the job. Most of what you can actually apply is just the jargon and some math. Otherwise an MBA just gets you in the door. A sad truth, but there it is.

[Omnipotent]

Just keep talking Woozie, your posts are making us seek an education just to understand the big words you use.

[Pirian]

The idea that you need a degree to succeed in life is kinda disproved: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...t_billionaires

People with a drive to succeed are likely to attend college, so you can't just say that people who don't go to college are not likely to succeed. If college did not exist people would still succeed.

Why can't you prove your "quality" to an employer by working a few months and point to results rather then pointing to a diploma?

This list doesn't prove anything, and the fact that you think it does just shows how little you understand. Nobody is saying that you must attend college to succeed. I am saying that college acts as a signalling device to employers that you are a higher-ability worker than others. Also note that there are 33 people on that list. 33 out of 7 BILLION (read this in Carl Sagan's voice for maximum effect). I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that those are outliers, and play more into my argument than they do yours.

[Pirian]

There is a clear distinction between High School and College. At some point you are starting to learn a skill to land you a job. But do you want to be 20 or 28+debt when you have the job. And yes, I think you can do many jobs with just a few years practice after high school.

The average wage for high school graduates is around $25,000, while for a college graduate is around $46,000, I'll take 20-28+k debt, plus the 4 years in lost wage to make that 46k once I get out of college.

I would also argue that the average high school graduate that does not go on to college (by choice) can do many of the same jobs with just a few years practice after high school, but a college graduate would pick up the job quicker, and reach maximum productivity quicker. I'm not the only one who thinks this, either. If employers didn't think this then they would higher high school graduates for the same job they would higher a college graduate, and pay them a little more than half the wage. Why don't companies do this? Because they know that they are going to get more productivity out of a college graduate.

[test123]

Progressive taxes, rising prices, and rising wages are all factors here.

Consider a High School graduate getting employed at age 20 for the sum of 25k, he has no student loans. As he reaches 25 he has 5 years experience and his wages have probably risen to 30,000. In the mean time he has made a total of 137.5k.

Now a college graduate that is 26 years old gets employed for the sum of 45k. His debt totals 175k and he can expect to pay back as much as 300k.

The high school graduate can enter the housing market early and in the long run, benefit from rising housing prices. While the college graduate must wait maybe 10 years and pay much more then it would have cost at the current time.

So after the progressive taxes you need to be 40+ just to be "even", and then you just bought a house. Meanwhile the high school graduate is way on his way on his down payment on his house.

And this is way below reality, what actually happens is that the high school graduate is making more money then a college graduate when both are 26. The high school graduate may even be your boss for the next 10 years.

[Pirian]

Progressive taxes, rising prices, and rising wages are all factors here.

Consider a High School graduate getting employed at age 20 for the sum of 25k, he has no student loans. As he reaches 25 he has 5 years experience and his wages have probably risen to 30,000. In the mean time he has made a total of 137.5k.

No, his wages have not risen to 30k. 25k is the average, not starting wage. That means that his starting wage was probably around 18k, and over his lifetime rises to around 30k, and averages to 25k for his total life.

Also, if we're trying to be real here, then you start them at age 18, not 20, and the college graduate graduates at age 22, not 26.

Your math is way off, but why am I not surprised? Oh, the irony.


Also, the reality is that the college graduate is going to make MORE coming out of college than the high school graduate, on average. I don't understand what you don't understand about this.

[Pirian]

Forgive the double post, but where the fuck are you getting 175k for the debt of an undergraduate degree? My sister went to Duke for her undergraduate degree, and even that expensive ass private college was only around 100k for 4 years. The figure of 25k average debt coming out of college is your average debt coming out of college, not the average cost per year. And a bachelors degree is 4 years, not 6 years.

[Demosthenes11]

test is literally the dumbest person on this forum.

congrats altwight

[test123]

The real figure after debts and wages, is that a college graduate will end up getting about 500k more in wages then the high school gradute until retirement. The problem is that the 500k is made after you are 50 years old, when you really don't need the money as bad as when you are young.

[tyven]

holy fuck at how fucking stupid this guy is. kill yourself, test.

[tyven]

also anyone incurring 175k debt for student loans prob did so to get into a field where they will make phat loot. stop being such a fucking clown.

[Pirian]

No, the figure is actually around 1.2million for a college graduate, and 2.5 million for a masters degree, also, you're changing the discussion when I'm showing your bad math. That's a naughty test123! Naughty, naughty, test123! Don't make me get the squirt bottle -- I will!

[Demosthenes11]

how has ron paul not been mentioned in the last few pages.

ron paul

[archibaldcrane]

Can you even GET 44k in loans per year?

[Zilong]

depends on whether or not you'd want to risk your kneecaps I'd imagine

[Woozie]

From the age of 25 to 65, a full time (year round) worker with a high school diploma can expect to make $1,226,575, whereas a person with a bachelors degree can expect to make $2,140,864 according to Census data from year 2000. I'm not even going to adjust these figures for inflation. So the actual lifetime earnings of each group is actually higher than the numbers I'm going to work with.

The average debt for a student graduating in 2010 with a B.S. is $25,250. So a college student would actually make 2,115,614. This data is for ages 25 to 65. Assuming a high school diploma holder starts at 18 and a B.S. holder starts at 25 (instead of 22, which would be a more accurate age) and that they start out making their average salary (instead of their starting salary), we get that a high school diploma holder makes $1,441,225.

To see what would happen with taxes, I used paycheckcity.com. The numbers assume that it is 2012. I used the state of Ohio. The numbers would be different depending on state, year, family size, marriage/single status, etc.

Just making up numbers, I used three federal allowances. I divided the lifetime expected income by 40 to get average yearly income, then I deducted taxes to get a monthly salary. I multiplied this number by 12 and then by the number of years a person is working (40+7 for H.S. and 40 for B.S., though in reality it should be 40+3 for B.S.) In this case, the lifetime expectancy of an HS diploma holder is 2252.03*12*(40+7)=$1,270,144.92 and that of a B.S. holder is 3709.34*12*40=$1,780,483.2. A B.S. holder makes 510,338.28 dollars more than a HS diploma holder, enough to pay for college 20 times and still make more than a high school diploma holder.

Obviously I'm not claiming my calculation is perfect. I made quite a few ad hoc assumptions because I'm too lazy to figure out certain things (like the lifetime income from the 2010 census instead of 2000) but I tried to make the assumptions in favor of high school diploma holders. For example, I gave them the 7 years of work from 18 to 25 but did not give B.S. holders 22 to 25. I also assumed that a high school diploma holder's average salary was still 1,226,575/40 = 30,664.38. The figure $1,226,575 from the census data was calculated without using the earnings of a high school diploma holder from ages 18 to 25. If we assume that a person will have a higher income after 7 years of work than the income they started with, then the average income of a high school diploma holder is definitely less than 30,664.38 (the other possibility is that a high school diploma holder does not get any pay raises at all whatsoever in their first seven years of working, or that they actually get a pay decrease. Ruling out those two possibilities implies that my numbers are higher than what an actual high school diploma holder makes. Also, the number for a B.S. holder is less than a B.S. holder makes since I didn't account for three years of earning).

I did not address whether or not the salary of high school diploma holders rose more than that of a B.S. holder since 1999. I implicitly assumed that they don't change by much. It's not clear whether this assumption favors H.S. holders or B.S. holders. This data would seem to indicate that it doesn't change by enough to make a huge difference. College would still be profitable even if it was about 20 times more expensive even if you make assumptions in H.S.'s favor. Also, see the chart on page three of report based on the census data, which indicates that the relative earnings of bachelors degree holders compared to HS diploma holders increases over time, meaning the gap in lifetime earnings is even bigger for 2012 graduates. Even though my calculations are based on some huge assumptions and are definitely not scientifically accurate, it would seem unlikely, given the data cited, that a college degree isn't worth a lot more than a high school diploma.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for HS diploma holders is much higher than that of B.S. holders (typically more than twice as high).

[Renzokuken]

I went to college, and I'm glad I did, but I would be kidding myself if I didn't say it was a waste of time. I knew at 18 I had no interest in the real world and wanted to put it off as long as possible.

I read a popular blogger that often talks about how kids shouldn't go to college anymore. He was also a college graduate.

Source: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2010/02...ds-to-college/

Somehow I went wrong as a father. The other day my two daughters informed me they eventually want to go to college. I said, “No way!” and they attempted to argue with me. I have no problem with them talking back to me but somehow they’ve been brainwashed by society into thinking that college is a good thing for young, intelligent, ambitious young people. Let’s look at the basic facts about higher education.

The average tuition cost is approximately $16,000 per year. Plus assume another $10,000 in living costs, books, etc. $26,000 in total for a complete cost of $104,000 in a 4 year period. Some people choose to go more expensive by going to a private college and some people choose to go a little cheaper by going public but this is an average. Also, a huge assumption is that its just for a 4 year period. According to the Department of Education, only 54% of undergraduates graduate within 6 years. So for the 46% that don’t graduate, or take 10 years to graduate, this is a horrible investment. But lets assume your children are in the brilliant first half who finish within six years (and hopefully within four).

Is it worth it? First, let’s look at it completely from a monetary perspective. Over the course of a lifetime, according to CollegeBoard, a college graduate can be expected to earn $800,000 more than his counterpart that didn’t go to college. $800,000 is a big spread and it could potentially separate the haves from the have-nots. But who has and who doesn’t?

If I took that $104,000 and I chose to invest it in a savings account that had interest income of 5% per year I’d end up with an extra $1.4 million dollars over a 50 year period. A full $600,000 more. That $600,000 is a lot of extra money an 18 year old could look forward to in her retirement. I also think the $800,000 quoted above is too high. Right now most motivated kids who have the interest and resources to go to college think it’s the only way to go if they want a good job. If those same kids decided to not go to college my guess is they would quickly close the gap on that $800,000 spread.

There are other factors as well. I won’t be spending $104,000 per child when my children, ages 10 and 7, decide to go to college. College costs have historically gone up much faster than inflation. Since 1978, cost of living has gone up three-fold. Medical costs, much to the horror of everyone in Congress, has gone up six-fold. And college education has gone up a whopping tenfold. This is beyond the housing bubble, the stock market bubble, any bubble you can think of.

So how can people afford college? Well, how has the US consumer afforded anything? They borrow it, of course. The average student now graduates with a $23,000 debt burden. Up from $13,000 12 years ago. Last year, student borrowings totaled $75 billion, up 25% from the year before. If students go on to graduate degrees such as law degrees they can see their debt burden soar to $200,000 or more. And the easy borrowing convinces colleges that they can raise prices even more.

So what should people do instead?

One idea: start a business. You don’t need to be an entrepreneur to get valuable experience selling a service, or buying some set of goods cheap and selling them expensive. A year or two of that will be a massive education in salesmanship, finance, and how to deal with the ups and downs of any business. And if you’re missing out on the 500 page books on The Deconstruction of Television then buy a Kindle and read in your spare time. Maybe travel a bit. Or learn to paint. All of these things can be done cheap, will provide massive life experience, and maybe even make some money.

He's got several more articles expanding on this idea if anyone is interested. I think he even published a book on this topic recently too.

Edit: Just to be specific, he's talking about ambitious young people who are interested in being successful and argues they will be successful with or without college. Often college can delay the success of these individuals.

[Tarage]

I'm a CS major so I pretty much use almost everything I learned in college on a daily basis. But I guess I'm the exception and not the rule.

[Pirian]

Math.

Thanks for doing the math that I was too lazy to do. I would also like to add that the Gini coefficient for the US between 2000 and 2010 has gone up by a statistically significant amount, which means that the difference in wage between high school graduates and college graduates between 2000 and 2010 has gone up, so the numbers are in fact higher now.

I went to college, and I'm glad I did, but I would be kidding myself if I didn't say it was a waste of time. I knew at 18 I had no interest in the real world and wanted to put it off as long as possible.

I read a popular blogger that often talks about how kids shouldn't go to college anymore. He was also a college graduate.

Source: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2010/02...ds-to-college/



He's got several more articles expanding on this idea if anyone is interested. I think he even published a book on this topic recently too.

Edit: Just to be specific, he's talking about ambitious young people who are interested in being successful and argues they will be successful with or without college. Often college can delay the success of these individuals.

You know, it's funny, because he is arguing a bias, and explicitly states his bias, but you still take his opinion seriously when he quotes averages and accepts what he likes, but then disregards what he doesn't like. He says what you could earn with the 104k used for tuition if you earned 5% interest, but makes no mention of the potential interest earning of the 800k that he acknowledges exists.

[vagus]

I'm a CS major so I pretty much use almost everything I learned in college on a daily basis. But I guess I'm the exception and not the rule.

How much of the stuff you learned in class could you have learned on the job or on your own?

I graduated with a degree in Information Systems. 95% of the jobs I have landed after college had nothing to do with IT. I'd be curious how many of you went to college for X degree and what did you end up doing 5 years after getting that degree. Willing to bet a large % didn't even go into the selected field. I still think some form of education is good to have after HS. There are so many options that college is not the only choice. To be honest, if I could go back i'd take a trades program or become a cop. Lol.