Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High • Hacker News Board

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#261

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 5:50 PM UTC

FussyZeus wrote: post #185

epalmer wrote: post #174

I have two girls, 24 and 18 years old. Both live at home right now. The 24 year old graduated from a selective private liberal arts college in 2015 and is working part time in a library. She does not qualify for health insurance or many other benefits. She does not make enough to live on her own. She is also in graduate school online for a Master of Library Science (MLS). She wants to be a librarian and you pretty mu…

I don't understand this situation with your daughter: - Wanted to be a librarian - Studied to be a librarian - Graduated school to be a librarian - Got a job as a librarian - Doesn't make enough to live on her own and pay the cost of her education to be a librarian And this isn't isolated to librarians, it's just a very instructive example. How is it we now have entire classes of jobs where the education they require…

It's not an "entire class of jobs" that caused the situation. The parent and/or student purposefully made the decision to get mired in dtudent loan debt to go to a "selective private college", knowing that the pay wouldn't be good.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#262

Post by stuxnet79 » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 6:01 PM UTC

kayman wrote: post #40

Moved out to college after highschool, never lived home since. Not everyone who lives at home with their parents are the same and in some cases it does make sense, but from my observations of people who live at home: - No skills on managing self: relies on parents to manage - No financial management skills: using all your money for play money and not contributing to the household. - Can't take a date home: unless you…

(1) and (2) make sense to me. They are pretty much the reason why I decided to move out.

(3) is irrelevant. Nobody should intentionally hemorrhage themselves financially just to get the opportunity to take dates home without being hassled. Chances are your date probably lives at home too anyway.

(4) is uncalled for and completely irrelevant. I game, I watch TV, have a healthy social life and I take care of business.

(5) is a very likely outcome as well. Moved out for this reason as well. Could feel the malaise / indifference coming on.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#263

Post by tomjen3 » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 6:04 PM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #9

notyourwork wrote: post #3

Cost of tuition continually grows, most graduates are not falling into extremely lucrative salaries and average salaries are not keeping up with inflation. This is far from surprising but is very concerning. Another avenue to pursue this discussion from is the % of income allocated to retirement savings. I have a sneaky suspicious most of my peers are saving less for retirement than the same demographic 10, 20, 30 ye…

The problem already goes beyond millennials. Increasing automation is going to make unskilled labor a huge liability for countries. This is one reason I don't think some of the anti-immigrant position of many Americans (and Europeans) is unwarranted. Every country should want highly skilled labor to help improve their current account, but unskilled labor is huge future liability. There is already a huge surplus of do…

There is potentially giant market for unskilled labour. From an economic perspective it makes no sense to have an engineer clean his own toilet, wash his own windows or cook her own dinner.

That does require us to overhaul the tax system so that income isn't taxed twice when it is paid directly from one person to another.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#264

Post by pflanze » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 6:10 PM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #256

pflanze wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When that article laid out that it was talking about a survey I sat down and thought about what kind of distribution there likely is. My first guess was: f(x) = 500 / (1-x) where x is 0..1 (excl. 1), 0 being the poorest person and the one right before 1 the richest. This yields 88.8% being owned by the richest 20% when using 1mio slices (the only reason I'm not trying to integrate symbolically is that I'm too lazy to…

>So, what's wrong with this then now? If you think that having wealth should be rewarded more than creating wealth then nothing I guess. Geometrically increasing wealth is caused by the "compound interest effect" where wealth begets wealth. In other words, it's a signal that creating wealth is steadily diminishing in importance while owning it is increasing in importance.

Thanks for your reply. You're giving me some food for thought.

To be clear, I'm poor, i.e. I've failed both at wealth creation and ownership so far. I'll think about how (much) wealth creation can 'distort' the geometric formula.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#265

Post by jdavis703 » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 6:29 PM UTC

epalmer wrote: post #223

jdavis703 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people even spend $200,000 on a degree if they're not rich? I went to community college for my associates degree in IT (about $5000 total), and then went to university for a bachelor's of science in IT (roughly $15,000 all in). Since you work at a university, what does that extra $180,000 buy? What's the sales pitch you'll give to students to get them to pay so much?

My Opinion Only: If you are going to an Ivy League school you are paying for the network / brand. If you are going to a lesser tier selective school you are paying for outcomes. But the outcomes, I believe, are starting to lag the price. At the school I work for about 65% of the students get some financial aid and we are need blind and meet 100% of demonstrated need. They meet need with grants (think scholarships) an…

That makes sense. I was in an engineering department that was being vetted as part of due diligence and me going to a mid-tier state school on the opposite coast was actually raised as an issue. I doubt if I had Harvard or MIT this would've even been raised.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#266

Post by sadface4004 » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 7:14 PM UTC

rarec wrote: post #232

sadface4004 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment makes me sad. Children should be loved and cherished, not abandoned.

You presume being loved and cherished involves having to live together. I moved out quite early on myself, and my relationship with my parents is quite fine. (From the US for context)

> You presume being loved and cherished involves having to live together.

I presume no such thing. Although any feelings a six year old has of feeling being loved and cherished are greatly enhanced by living together with their parent(s). That being said, what I do consider abandonment is being raised by au pairs and shipped off to boarding school by age six.

> I moved out quite early on myself, and my relationship with my parents is quite fine. (From the US for context)

Moving out of your own free will is quite different from being put into boarding school at age six.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#267

Post by sadface4004 » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 7:17 PM UTC

jliptzin wrote: post #233

sadface4004 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment makes me sad. Children should be loved and cherished, not abandoned.

I don't know, it seems to have worked for his family. Maybe his parents realized early on that they were too career focused to be good parents.

Perhaps. But why did they then chose to have a second child?

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#268

Post by raverbashing » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 7:25 PM UTC

FussyZeus wrote: post #257

raverbashing wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, I can't defend being willingly going into a limited career path. And this is not simply "humanities pay less". There are a lot of "different" professions that can evolve and become good (high-paying) positions. Even librarian studies can go to become an archivist, managing some private collection, etc. But requiring an overpriced Master degree for a librarian position IS A SCAM. And getting yourself into a…

Why not just make the education less insanely expensive? STEM fields pay more but we need other jobs filled that are not STEM which is something we forget very regularly. We cannot just expect to have a permanent underclass of essential workers that we then turn around and deride for making shitty choices at every opportunity and basically hold in perpetual servitude.

Being cheap helps however this doesn't matter if you still can't earn a living with the chosen profession

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#269

Post by FussyZeus » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 7:43 PM UTC

gravypod wrote: post #235

epalmer wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Opinion Only: If you are going to an Ivy League school you are paying for the network / brand. If you are going to a lesser tier selective school you are paying for outcomes. But the outcomes, I believe, are starting to lag the price. At the school I work for about 65% of the students get some financial aid and we are need blind and meet 100% of demonstrated need. They meet need with grants (think scholarships) an…

What are the selling points on a societal level. Why is the government, and by extention you and me, supporting liberal arts degrees that will do little to support economic growth? I've never head an argument made against this question.

There are other things to consider besides the economy. The Arts have been a thing forever precisely because they are a good thing to have for a society, and not just for entertainment's sake but also to preserve our own history, to continue building the collective culture we take for granted, and on and on.

Not to mention that in general an educated populace is better at making decisions than an uneducated one, so even a moderately educated Starbucks barista contributes more to our society than an uneducated one, even if those contributions aren't financial.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#270

Post by FussyZeus » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 7:51 PM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #218

epalmer wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a little more complicated and it is not as bad as it sounds for her. Undergraduate degree in sociology and a minor in anthropology. BA in sociology is not very employable but is the most common undergraduate degree for librarians. Once the affordable care act (ObamaCare) was made into law the library (local public library) started making most non-librarian jobs part time so they don't have to provide health ins…

Why do people even spend $200,000 on a degree if they're not rich? I went to community college for my associates degree in IT (about $5000 total), and then went to university for a bachelor's of science in IT (roughly $15,000 all in). Since you work at a university, what does that extra $180,000 buy? What's the sales pitch you'll give to students to get them to pay so much?

While I agree in principle, when it comes to IT where you're learning more or less the same things wherever you go, when it comes to the Arts you're also usually paying top dollar both for networking opportunities, name recognition, and usually a fair number of very high profile professors. Where schools like DeVry and that kind of thing were charging huge prices for relatively identical products to a local tech college, the same can't be said for higher end Ivy League schools.

In my mind it's sort of like buying a Rolls Royce, there are plenty of other cars that can move you, but a Rolls is something relatively unique and very high quality. At least, that's how it goes in theory.