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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

#371

Post by RickJWagner »

My oldest child is currently a senior in college. The school is full of kids who think nothing of racking up student debt, and all of them seem to have nice phones, cars and clothes.

It's madness. They'll be paying for that 4-year vacation for the rest of their lives.

And I will be mad as a wet hen if some politician forgives student debts. It's not right that everybody else has to pay for this frivolity. (It's also not right for those kids who don't go on to college-- they miss the free vacation and they are disadvantaged in the workplace.)

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#372

Post by JamesBarney »

roenxi wrote: post #208
marcus_holmes wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is also another aspect to the correlation-causation argument. The kids in college are presumably the smart ones in the cohort. We expect them to have much better outcomes than the rest based on intelligence even without getting a degree.

Conscientiousness is a huge factor too, but almost all of a person's attributes that would increase their earning potential also increase their chances of getting into college.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#373

Post by JamesBarney »

asdff wrote: post #280
jawns wrote: post #104

Perhaps one way to help college-bound teenagers make these sorts of decisions is not by asking, "What careers most interest you?" but "What lifestyle do you want to live as an adult?" and then work backward from there. Teens who envision themselves living in a two-bedroom Manhattan apartment and dining out frequently could then be counseled to pursue jobs that earn enough to support that lifestyle. And teens who woul…

Interesting angle to think about. A lot of high schoolers are applying to majors basically blind of what the job at the other end is like. Everyone wants to be a doctor or a lawyer until the slow realization of the realities of these career paths hit, and in a panic they change to business or econ, wrangle excel macros in a cubicle until 65, and wonder where it all went wrong.

Which is different from the lawyers who know exactly where it went wrong.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#374

Post by helen___keller »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #56
helen___keller wrote: post #20

The author briefly transitions from arts schools to engineering schools which- in my opinion- are a totally different beast. If you graduate with 30k-50k in debt and a six figure salary then it's not too bad

But..you can get a six figure salary with an in-state public school too.

Agreed but the host of smaller concerns that dominate high school college choice advice (eg pick a place you feel you fit in, yadda yadda) make a lot more sense if your debt is a tiny fraction of your future income.

FWIW I went to CMU (non-CS) for some squishy reason, like it "felt right". I realized I needed a better degree for taking on 30k debt partway through freshman year and transferred to CS.

The education was rock solid. If anything it was too good - I spent so much time learning and working that I did very little else.

Debt has not really been a concern post graduation, compared to cost of buying a house where I want to live it's barely worth mentioning.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#375

Post by JamesBarney »

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

One of the great things about those fields is that they don't really require a degree. So one option is let them do it, just without the huge upfront sunk cost.

If it's art, they could live at home, work as a barista, take art classes, and paint as much as they want.

If it's acting they could move to L.A. or new york, wait tables and take lessons while auditioning.

After a few years they'll find a little traction and decide to pursue it a few more or they'll figure accounting isn't so bad. Better to figure that out at 21 than 28.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#376

Post by helen___keller »

throwaway72873 wrote: post #77
helen___keller wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't market nearly as effectively. They don't appear on rankings for top colleges. They don't send leaflets and no one you know goes there. The only European Uni I knew was oxford, and I had no idea that I could save money on a similar education in Europe. In the first place I just assumed I would need to know a foreign language for any non-UK European school.

Why they would market it? Education is subsided by government. Hope is that student will stay after finishing Uni. Mostly it targets students from poorer countries, for example Polish universities are attracting people from former soviet union. Some ignorant american would just drink, cost money and move away at end.

> Why they would market it?

They wouldn't, but American universities do and it works. Thus the answer to GPs conundrum of why don't more students consider school in Europe.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#377

Post by chiefalchemist »

WilliamEdward wrote: post #39
chiefalchemist wrote: post #33

I wish the headline was: "I Helped My Teenager Grow Up. You Should, Too." Student debt sucks. But the myth that these institutions are somehow kidnapping high school students and forcing them to take on massive loans is a myth that needs to be crushed. The market has been flood with cheap easy to get money. Families are lining up to bite off more than they should or could. This (i.e., demand) drives up cost. The cycl…

This myth you've created is a strawman. No one is suggesting colleges physically hold students ransom. The argument is that society is increasingly forcing people to get degrees to keep up with the job climate and it is effectively the same as forcing people into debt.

For the record, the bit about country clue unis is also mentioned in the book The Coddling of the American Mind.

https://www.thecoddling.com/

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#378

Post by JamesBarney »

baron816 wrote: post #155

There’s some weird things about this article. 1) Their daughter likely would’ve qualified for quite a bit of financial aid, which potentially could have brought a fancy art college to within reason for her. That she never even applied to her dream schools means she will never know if they would’ve been competitively priced. 2) Collectively, student debt is $1.6T, but that doesn’t tell you much about the per graduate…

But they're not the median family, sending their median daughter to a median university. They're the Warnick's, considering sending Ella Warnick to Pratt, so the median debt, and median payment isn't relevant.

We know how much the school is,75,000 a year. We know how much they can afford. $15,000 a year. So we know that Ella will probably be in ~ $240,000 worth of debt.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#379

Post by gtfratteus »

swiley wrote: post #285
Grakel wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theatre Professor here. Do not let your kids go to school for acting. Oh, he or she is perfect looking and incredibly talented? Great, they don't need a degree in acting. Go to school in New York, Chicago, or LA, and audition between classes in a real degree. Now if they want to study design and tech, go nuts. The amount of work out there is incredible, there is just so much content being consumed.

I kind of regret doing CS instead of music. Maybe if I had done something more art focused the competition wouldn't have been so bad and I'd probably still have a girlfriend, which is more important to me personally than money.

Music is way more competitive than CS. You have to be a truly elite musician to make a good living in music, but you can be an average programmer and still make a good living in CS.

Re: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

#380

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

hajile wrote: post #191
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…

I worked in that particular trade for quite a while, so I'm not speaking from ignorance. You move away from bucket truck work and the serious injury rates plummet (and bucket truck work -- especially line work -- pays way above average). Work for the union where safety is actually enforced and that rate plummets again. While freak accidents happen, most are due to foolish people doing foolish things. For example, you…

> Work for the union where safety is actually enforced and that rate plummets again.

Not that easy given how weak unions are now in much of the US .

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