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Our sons' student debt is delaying our retirement

money.cnn.com

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Re: Our sons' student debt is delaying our retirement

#81

Post by enraged_camel »

marknutter wrote: post #19
richerlariviere wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. educationnal system is wrong. If you go to Canada, you will pay less than 30k$ for you entire program. It's illogical to waste 4 years if you don't have solid chances to get a job and make it profitable, maybe it is not the place to go and/or the career to follow.

Getting a journalism degree in Canada doesn't somehow make it more viable. We don't need more journalists, plain and simple. Nobody should be paying money to become journalists.

>>We don't need more journalists, plain and simple.

I disagree. In a country with free press, journalists play a critical role in uncovering truths and disseminating the information among the public.

The problem is that the vast majority of people with the title "journalist" today aren't really journalists. They're just brain-dead writers for news conglomerates and PR firms. And yes, getting a degree just for that is dumb. But if you want to become an investigative journalist, then getting a degree for it is a very good idea.

Re: Our sons' student debt is delaying our retirement

#82

Post by tostitos1979 »

pigpaws wrote: post #77
gd78 wrote: post #54

Wow, living in Germany I graduated in CS with ~7k in loans. Just the idea that a government does not pay its childrens education is freakin me out and from my perspective seems to be a neo liberalism horror story.

college professors in the States need to be compensated at the same rate as company CEOs. EVERYONE 'deserves' a flat screen 4k TV, a brand new car every 3 years and 7%+ gains on any and all investments, otherwise, it isn't "fair".

Umm .. no.

As someone who was a lecturer for a top CS dept, I can tell you that professors do not get compensated the same as CEOs. You can use google to check salaries for public university professors in many places (since this information is public). When a CS PhD accepts a job at a University, they take a pay cut from what the private sector pays. A full professor makes under 200K, and that is at the top of the stack. The average take for assistant and associate profs (at top CS schools in North America) is more like 130-140K. Not what CEOs make!

Re: Our sons' student debt is delaying our retirement

#83

Post by Futurebot »

tostitos1979 wrote: post #82
pigpaws wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

college professors in the States need to be compensated at the same rate as company CEOs. EVERYONE 'deserves' a flat screen 4k TV, a brand new car every 3 years and 7%+ gains on any and all investments, otherwise, it isn't "fair".

Umm .. no. As someone who was a lecturer for a top CS dept, I can tell you that professors do not get compensated the same as CEOs. You can use google to check salaries for public university professors in many places (since this information is public). When a CS PhD accepts a job at a University, they take a pay cut from what the private sector pays. A full professor makes under 200K, and that is at the top of the st…

Not to mention how many professors are being replaced by adjuncts ("Overall, non-tenure- track faculty, often known as adjunct or contingent faculty, now account for three-quarters of the instructional faculty at non-profit colleges and universities across the country."): http://agb.org/trusteeship/2013/5/changing-academic-workforc...

Those adjuncts are often contingent, low-paid workers: http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/in-plain-sight/poverty-u-many...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/opinion/your-waitress-your...

http://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-college-so-expensive...

The numbers you present themselves are in the top 25% or 33% (depending on which measure you look at) of earners as professors, all inclusive. The idea that most professors are well-compensated on the whole is absurd. Wasn't the old deal supposed to be "decent compensation, but not great, made up for with great benefits and tenure?" Now it's "terrible compensation and no benefits, no tenure."

Of course, the person you're responding to seems to be making their comment sarcastically in any case.

Re: Our sons' student debt is delaying our retirement

#84

Post by joshstrange »

Guidance counselors across this country are massively failing the students who turn to them for... guidance. Mine pushed me into AP/Honors classes for subjects I had almost zero interest in causing me to get B's when I could have easily gotten A's in the regular classes (Comp Sci was the exception, I'm glad I took the AP version of that, at both A and AB levels). Even with my score on the ACT being very good I wasn't able to qualify for certain loans through my college (and some privates ones/grants) due to a lower (un-weighted) GPA which increased my tutiation.

This coupled with a complete lack of understanding how student loans work or what I would be responsible for (I take 100% responsibility for this failing I just wish there had been more education on the issue). Now I've got some ~$60K left in student loans and I didn't even finish college because all of my job prospects said they didn't care about a degree if I could do the work required (software engineer). I am, thankfully, able to make the payments on them but (and again, I take full responsibility) student loans were practically billed as "Free money" and just "something everyone did"... The "good debt" to have... What a load of BS.

I liked my college experience and the life-long friends I made but knowing what I know now I might have cut my college even shorter or possibly not gone as I was able to get a part-time job (I could have worked full time if I had wanted) in my first semester at school in my field... This will not hold for all majors of course but the college (and high school) system sells college as a job ticket and that couldn't be further from the truth in today's world.

Re: Our sons' student debt is delaying our retirement

#86

Post by kamaal »

odonnellryan wrote: post #39
monroepe wrote: post #2

A Bachelor's degree doesn't really do that much for you these days. It's become like a high school diploma was 30 years ago (which almost no one paid for). I keep trying to advocate that people not go so far in debt for a college degree. For med school or law school (although I would argue that this is not a great investment with the current glut of law school grads) it makes sense to go into debt of that size. But I…

Few friends went to a state school in NJ and lived at home - literally could not get cheaper than this situation for us - and they ended up with between 20 and 40 thousand of student loans. Yes, they did work part time. But 100-200 a week from a part time job doesn't go far. That's gas and lunch. They certainly got some aid other than loans, but I do not know the level of scholarships they received. Might have been t…

>>and they ended up with between 20 and 40 thousand of student loans.

Doesn't seem much, if you continue the same student life style after getting a job, that kind of debt can be seen through in 1.5-2 years.

After that every thing you earn is yours.

Re: Our sons' student debt is delaying our retirement

#87

Post by dragonwriter »

DickingAround wrote: post #3

$200k for journalism and media studies was a bad investment. It's a tough message, but you have to invest in education more intelligently than 'throw money at it and hope for the best'.

> $200k for journalism and media studies was a bad investment.

It wasn't $200K for the journalism and media studies degree (it was $189k total for two students, only one of which got a journalism and media studies degree.)

And, maybe the journalism and media studies degree from Rutgers would have been a good investment -- if the student wanted to be a journalist; instead, he seems to have wanted a Hollywood film career, but for some inexplicable reason paid for a fairly expensive journalism degree, rather than seeking a film-related degree.

Re: Our sons' student debt is delaying our retirement

#89

Post by kamaal »

ams6110 wrote: post #6

Never cosign a loan. There is one reason that lenders required a co-signer -- they know that the borrower is high risk for defaulting. If you can't afford or didn't save for college, go to a cheaper school. In-state tuition and fees at most state universities is more than it used to be but still generally under $10K a year. There is no reason to go into six-digit debt for an undergraduate degee. With very few excepti…

>>once you get your first job, nobody cares where you got your undergrad degree (if even then).

Sorry, but the whole point of college today is resume padding. So yes your college name matters. Almost every big web company if you belong to their Ivy league alumni.

In India, there are small companies which explicitly state if you aren't from the IIT's you shouldn't even bother applying.

So yes from where you get your degree matters a lot!

Re: Our sons' student debt is delaying our retirement

#90

Post by smet56 »

kamaal wrote: post #89
ams6110 wrote: post #6

Never cosign a loan. There is one reason that lenders required a co-signer -- they know that the borrower is high risk for defaulting. If you can't afford or didn't save for college, go to a cheaper school. In-state tuition and fees at most state universities is more than it used to be but still generally under $10K a year. There is no reason to go into six-digit debt for an undergraduate degee. With very few excepti…

>>once you get your first job, nobody cares where you got your undergrad degree (if even then). Sorry, but the whole point of college today is resume padding. So yes your college name matters. Almost every big web company if you belong to their Ivy league alumni. In India, there are small companies which explicitly state if you aren't from the IIT's you shouldn't even bother applying. So yes from where you get your d…

Thankfully, most hackernews users don't live in India where that applies due to the large diploma mill churning problems they have as well as cheating at the university level.

Sure, it'll help if your parents were rich enough to give you a good chance of going to the Ivies in the states but you can easily do well in the states without purchasing a brand name for your resume. Might be mildly more difficult (more internships!).

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