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I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

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Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#131

Post by seiferteric »

honkycat wrote: post #98
hajile wrote: post #71

And here we have once again why the government shouldn't be subsidizing student loans and shouldn't exclude them from bankruptcy. We need to quit incentivizing sub-prime loans. Unlike the housing crash where the houses retained most of their value and could be sold later, you can't sell your degree to pay back the money. If you're getting a necessary degree, it's very uncommon to default on your loan because you'll b…

I think this trade school obsession is foolish. Everyone cargo-cults it as "pragmatic" without actually analyzing what the jobs entail and what you can actually expect to make. Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. You EARN that pay in the trades, and being an electrician is dangerous. The work is hard on your body. A lot of electricians end up on disability. I wasn't very academic growin…

> Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without.

I would need to see better information on this. I would think a lot of people without a degree don't do much of anything at all and bring the average way down. It would be better to see what the average is for people who complete a trade school program vs the average of people earning a degree.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#132

Post by [deleted] »

honkycat wrote: post #98
hajile wrote: post #71

And here we have once again why the government shouldn't be subsidizing student loans and shouldn't exclude them from bankruptcy. We need to quit incentivizing sub-prime loans. Unlike the housing crash where the houses retained most of their value and could be sold later, you can't sell your degree to pay back the money. If you're getting a necessary degree, it's very uncommon to default on your loan because you'll b…

I think this trade school obsession is foolish. Everyone cargo-cults it as "pragmatic" without actually analyzing what the jobs entail and what you can actually expect to make. Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. You EARN that pay in the trades, and being an electrician is dangerous. The work is hard on your body. A lot of electricians end up on disability. I wasn't very academic growin…

[deleted]

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#134

Post by honkycat »

seattle_spring wrote: post #109
honkycat wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this trade school obsession is foolish. Everyone cargo-cults it as "pragmatic" without actually analyzing what the jobs entail and what you can actually expect to make. Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. You EARN that pay in the trades, and being an electrician is dangerous. The work is hard on your body. A lot of electricians end up on disability. I wasn't very academic growin…

> Part of the reason you go to school as a young person is that you do not have a family to feed or a house to pay off. If you go to art school as a young person, you won't have the problem of paying off a house because you won't have a job that qualifies you for a mortgage.

Agreed, I would never recommend someone go to art school unless they are absurdly talented ( and at that point: The school would probably give you a scholarship. )

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#135

Post by AcerbicZero »

newguy1234 wrote: post #82
hajile wrote: post #71

And here we have once again why the government shouldn't be subsidizing student loans and shouldn't exclude them from bankruptcy. We need to quit incentivizing sub-prime loans. Unlike the housing crash where the houses retained most of their value and could be sold later, you can't sell your degree to pay back the money. If you're getting a necessary degree, it's very uncommon to default on your loan because you'll b…

Military is also a good option to college, especially if your specialty is a skilled trade. My brother did this straight out of high school. Spent a few years overseas and then eventually changed his specialty to biomedical equipment repair. When he left the service he made 60k/year and after 5 years he is at 125k/year. Also when you are in the service, you are getting paid and if you are overseas, all your bills are…

I can second this. Most branches let you select a job (MOS/whatever the other branches call it) that have real work uses, and you can also change your job if you'd like (with some caveats of course). I certainly didn't enjoy many moments of my military career, but I value the things I learned and the opportunities it opened up for me.

Its certainly not for everyone, but with National Guard/Reserve options it's a pretty sweet deal that the vast majority of people could certainly handle.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#136

Post by djaque »

honkycat wrote: post #98
hajile wrote: post #71

And here we have once again why the government shouldn't be subsidizing student loans and shouldn't exclude them from bankruptcy. We need to quit incentivizing sub-prime loans. Unlike the housing crash where the houses retained most of their value and could be sold later, you can't sell your degree to pay back the money. If you're getting a necessary degree, it's very uncommon to default on your loan because you'll b…

I think this trade school obsession is foolish. Everyone cargo-cults it as "pragmatic" without actually analyzing what the jobs entail and what you can actually expect to make. Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. You EARN that pay in the trades, and being an electrician is dangerous. The work is hard on your body. A lot of electricians end up on disability. I wasn't very academic growin…

The other issue is the health toll many of the trade jobs have. See what 40 years of running cable on your hands and knees as an electrician will do to you vs a cushy desk job.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#137

Post by Jd »

hajile wrote: post #124
gen220 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My girlfriend and I have had this discussion a lot, because she went to a top tier art school. I think you might be underrating three factors in your reasoning: One is the value of very direct feedback and guidance from seasoned, respected professionals. The class sizes in top art programs are very small, and most classes have a frequent, intense “critique” portion where the professor and students tear apart each oth…

I think survivorship bias and the need to justify the education necessarily clouds judgement. If there's one thing the internet has taught me, it's that finding legitimate critique about anything is easy and cheap -- just put it out there and ask. There are lots of online art communities that can do this job very well. High-pressure environments may benefit some people, but people with that kind of drive are likely t…

What online art communities do you think give critique as well as professional art schools?

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#138

Post by learc83 »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #126
honkycat wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this trade school obsession is foolish. Everyone cargo-cults it as "pragmatic" without actually analyzing what the jobs entail and what you can actually expect to make. Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. You EARN that pay in the trades, and being an electrician is dangerous. The work is hard on your body. A lot of electricians end up on disability. I wasn't very academic growin…

Is this correlation or causation though? Are young people who get through a degree course then super focused on getting as much money as they can because they have all this debt? As opposed to people who don't have mountains of student debt, and can then afford to take lower-paying, better-for-their-life jobs? Huge debt is really stressful, and hard on mental health. I don't know the comparative suicide rates of elec…

>As opposed to people who don't have mountains of student debt, and can then afford to take lower-paying, better-for-their-life jobs

With income based repayment, you pay 10% of your disposable income (income over 1.5x the poverty rate) , so this isn't really much of an issue.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#139

Post by rayiner »

mnm1 wrote: post #97
newguy1234 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Military is also a good option to college, especially if your specialty is a skilled trade. My brother did this straight out of high school. Spent a few years overseas and then eventually changed his specialty to biomedical equipment repair. When he left the service he made 60k/year and after 5 years he is at 125k/year. Also when you are in the service, you are getting paid and if you are overseas, all your bills are…

Yeah, but you're gambling that you will survive and that you will survive intact. A life full of PTSD or without legs or arms or eyes isn't worth a million a year, let alone $60 to $125k. Then there's the very real possibility of dying. Not to mention the high risk of suicide afterwards. Given those risks, I can't see how the military is a good option.

Mortality rates in the military are actually lower than in the civilian world: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22694586

> Crude mortality rates are lower among U.S. military members than their civilian counterparts; service members must be healthy when they enter service and deaths from illnesses are relatively infrequent.

Suicide rates for veterans is on the high end, but comparable to other highly physical professions. Adjusted for age and gender, the suicide rate among veterans is 50% higher than for the population as a whole: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/26/suicide-rate.... That's on the high end, but not "high" in absolute terms: https://www.registerednursing.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11.... (Scroll down to the chart showing suicide rates by profession for men versus women.) At 40-45 per 100,000, male veterans are about as likely to commit suicide as those in the arts and entertainment and installation/maintenance fields, and less likely than those in construction/resource extraction.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#140

Post by simonsarris »

honkycat wrote: post #98
hajile wrote: post #71

And here we have once again why the government shouldn't be subsidizing student loans and shouldn't exclude them from bankruptcy. We need to quit incentivizing sub-prime loans. Unlike the housing crash where the houses retained most of their value and could be sold later, you can't sell your degree to pay back the money. If you're getting a necessary degree, it's very uncommon to default on your loan because you'll b…

I think this trade school obsession is foolish. Everyone cargo-cults it as "pragmatic" without actually analyzing what the jobs entail and what you can actually expect to make. Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without. You EARN that pay in the trades, and being an electrician is dangerous. The work is hard on your body. A lot of electricians end up on disability. I wasn't very academic growin…

> Statistically, you still earn way more with a degree than without.

This is becoming less and less true for lots of cohorts. I suspect it will stop correlating for everyone soon.

From a few days ago: "Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns" by Center for Household Financial Stability, St Louis Fed

https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/files/pdfs/hfs/is-college...

> The college wealth premium is at a historic low; among other races and ethnicities, it is statistically indistinguishable from zero

> Our results suggest that college & post-grad education may be failing some recent graduates as a financial investment."

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