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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

#321

Post by bonoboTP »

tptacek wrote: post #302
tmpz22 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with vocational training that /r/personalfinance and similar forums trumpet is that it often points directly to manual labor which leads to severe physical decline and often injury. I hope industries such as plumbing, welding, HVAC, construction, etc. have improved and now teach best practices for safe lifting, mandatory physical therapy, and enforce them - but I don't think they do. Effectively what we'r…

I see this argument, about physical demands, a lot, and I don't understand how it's coherent. Somebody is going to do these jobs. Is the argument that it's not fair for kids who could go to college to be that person?

Your kids are your kids. While you as a single person may not do much to improve working conditions across society, you can improve your kids' future by steering them towards less physically demanding jobs.

Especially people who do physical work themselves try to make sure their kids won't have to. E.g. my grandparents, who were simple village folks working in the fields, made sure to support their kids in getting educated. (Despite all its nastyness, one of the few good things about socialist Hungary was that this kind of upward mobility was possible and encouraged).

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#322

Post by Terr_ »

jpmattia wrote: post #80
glangdale wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, come on. Visigothercize is the hottest thing right now: "burn! and loot! and turn! and burn!". Seriously, this is good advice. A lot of young-uns have amazingly naive ideas about both how much money they will make but also how much money they get to keep. Like they will hear about making $70K and imagine that somehow that means that they could pay off, say, a $350K debt "in the order of 5 years" (obviously not th…

> Visigothercize is the hottest thing right now: "burn! and loot! and turn! and burn!". I live in Santa Monica (just a little south of Malibu) and given the number of exercise/barre/yoga/soul cycle/equinox/pilates/crossfit places near me, I have to say: Visigothercize sounds like pure genius and I have no doubt it would IPO within a year or two.

"With ancient and time-tested techniques, we help you get in touch with your inner aggression and fear, channeling them into transformational life experiences."

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#323

Post by fzeroracer »

tptacek wrote: post #315
fzeroracer wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't the same be said about any level of education? The law of averages means that yes, on average not everyone is going to see massive success. That doesn't meant we should deprive them the right to get an education.

What does the law of averages have to say about 435 out of 2 million? My point is that Rayiner was more right than the parent comment: AOC's election doesn't refute the point that a huge number of humanities degree recipients are durably underemployed.

And my point is I'm not sure why that matters. A huge number of highschool graduates are unemployed, therefore does that mean we should start charging for basic education? Just start defunding it further because it has no value?

This linking of career to college education is exactly the problem I'm talking about. People should be free to study what they want, because educated citizens have more value than what they can contribute to the corporate bottom line. European countries understand this and it's time we follow suit. And some of the best software engineers I've known came from education such as the humanities or teaching.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#324

Post by itronitron »

elil17 wrote: post #129
vsskanth wrote: post #4

Serious question: how does a parent deal with their high school kids wanting to pursue college in a field with a low probability of high lifetime earnings (art, theatre etc.) ? Especially when they are middle class without generational wealth to insulate themselves

Show them the website of the American Visionary Art Museum. It’s a museum for art made by people who never went to art school. It’s filled with stories of people who had rich lives as artists alongside other careers. You don’t need art school to be an artist. http://www.avam.org/

incidentally, a folk artist is simply an artist that does not have a formal art education

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#325

Post by qualqual »

rayiner wrote: post #184
criddell wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our economy generates enough wealth to take care of those people too.

Let's convince taxpayers to raise taxes to pay for those things first, then worry about subsidizing four years of binge drinking and sex for middle class kids.

Student debt is a main driver of poverty and homelessness. Solving the student-debt crisis will reduce the poverty and homelessness and reduce the burden placed on programs meant to deal with those issues. It may be cheaper in the short term to just pay into those services, but why should people suffer before getting relief, when suffering could be prevented altogether?

Also, your impression about what college students actually do is completely unrepresentative of the experiences of those who are grateful for the opportunity to have an education, i.e. the people who would most benefit from having the costs of their education subsidized, i.e. those who go in with few opportunities and come out with many more. The only people who party are those who could already afford to live their lives normally after they graduate, or the people getting degrees in high-return fields (i.e. business and engineering).

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#326

Post by pastor_elm »

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…

>If you're getting a necessary degree, it's very uncommon to default on your loan because you'll be in demand and getting a decent wage. Banks understand this fact and will do the math to give a loan anyway.

Why doesn't it make economic sense to declare bankruptcy in any situation, even if you're a CS major from Stanford, at 22 when you have nothing if you've got a loan in the six figures and IF you're allowed to do so, which is what you're implying (loans that aren't guaranteed)?

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#327

Post by learc83 »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #255
learc83 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

To maintain your debt, yes. But to clear it, and finally be free of it, you need to earn a lot of money. That is bound to focus the mind somewhat.

Or wait 20 years until it's cancelled. People regularly take out 30 year home loans much larger than the average student loan debt without debilitating psychiatric problems.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#328

Post by tptacek »

bonoboTP wrote: post #321
tptacek wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this argument, about physical demands, a lot, and I don't understand how it's coherent. Somebody is going to do these jobs. Is the argument that it's not fair for kids who could go to college to be that person?

Your kids are your kids. While you as a single person may not do much to improve working conditions across society, you can improve your kids' future by steering them towards less physically demanding jobs. Especially people who do physical work themselves try to make sure their kids won't have to. E.g. my grandparents, who were simple village folks working in the fields, made sure to support their kids in getting ed…

The idea that people shouldn't do demanding physical work, and that everyone should to the best of their ability make sure their own kids don't, doesn't seem to me like a good way to structure a society.

My uncle was an electrician (he's retired now), and so is one of his sons, and they both seem pretty happy with their lives. Happier than a lot of tech workers I know.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#329

Post by pastor_elm »

vsskanth wrote: post #4

Serious question: how does a parent deal with their high school kids wanting to pursue college in a field with a low probability of high lifetime earnings (art, theatre etc.) ? Especially when they are middle class without generational wealth to insulate themselves

You tell them to pursue it at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc, not at Pratt or Columbia, which are known money pits.

You can do anything with a liberal arts major from Harvard.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#330

Post by tptacek »

fzeroracer wrote: post #323
tptacek wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does the law of averages have to say about 435 out of 2 million? My point is that Rayiner was more right than the parent comment: AOC's election doesn't refute the point that a huge number of humanities degree recipients are durably underemployed.

And my point is I'm not sure why that matters. A huge number of highschool graduates are unemployed, therefore does that mean we should start charging for basic education? Just start defunding it further because it has no value? This linking of career to college education is exactly the problem I'm talking about. People should be free to study what they want, because educated citizens have more value than what they c…

Resources are finite. People should be free to study what they want, but we shouldn't be allocating resources to subsidize all postsecondary study for its own sake. This is why a lot of people think community college should be free: it's largely pin-compatible with the first several years of university education, but has none of the social status and leisure components that have turned college – yes, including state universities – into a Veblen good.
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