Is a college education worth the money?

[cmpm]

My wife works at the college our sons go to, which was and is our plan.
An Ivy League college that is ranked high.
There is no way we could afford this without the tuition free benefit.
Although there are still costs involved even with the help provided because of our low income. I think it's called 'FAFSA' to help with books and expenses.

I'm glad they have this opportunity that I didn't have.

[Gwen7]

we do have a very small number of positions that don't require a college degree. none of them are very good or well paid jobs.

-Gwen7 (June 07, 2010, 05:24 PM)

Is there any possibility of promotion in your company? Say, after 4 years of work?

-JavaJones (June 07, 2010, 11:07 PM)

yes.

after you've been there for 5 years they give you a new mop.


 

[superboyac]

My wife works at the college our sons go to, which was and is our plan.
An Ivy League college that is ranked high.
There is no way we could afford this without the tuition free benefit.
Although there are still costs involved even with the help provided because of our low income. I think it's called 'FAFSA' to help with books and expenses.

I'm glad they have this opportunity that I didn't have.

-cmpm (June 08, 2010, 03:15 AM)

There you go.  Good job.  The name means a lot, I hate to admit.

[edbro]

An education is a lot more than just a tool to make money. True, educated people make more money on the average. But, there is more to it. I am 52 years old and I have a Bachelors and a Masters. When I was younger, all I cared about was financial success. Now that I'm older, I see that having an education changes how I see the world.

A good analogy is how you dress. Some people groom themselves and dress nicely because it is a means to an end (finding a mate). Most people, however dress nicely because it makes them feel good about themselves. It is the same about an education. It changes how you see the world and how you see yourself.

[40hz]

The name means a lot, I hate to admit.

-superboyac (June 09, 2010, 08:56 AM)

School name means about 20-25% more in your starting salary offer last I heard.

When I graduated, having one got me hired (in a tight job market) by a Fortune 500 company after a twenty minute token interview. The interviewer even said "Oh, you went to ____? Well, we can skip the academic questions then. ______ graduates know their stuff. We hire a lot of them."

So much for "It doesn't matter where you go to college." right?

 

[superboyac]

The name means a lot, I hate to admit.

-superboyac (June 09, 2010, 08:56 AM)

School name means about 20-25% more in your starting salary offer last I heard.

When I graduated, having one got me hired (in a tight job market) by a Fortune 500 company after a twenty minute token interview. The interviewer even said "Oh, you went to ____? Well, we can skip the academic questions then. ______ graduates know their stuff. We hire a lot of them."

So much for "It doesn't matter where you go to college." right?

-40hz (June 09, 2010, 09:17 AM)

OK, yes that's true in general.  However, in some cases, the difference is enormous.  When we start talking about very high paying jobs (>200k) there are several places that will only recruit from Harvard MBA.  They won't even go to #2.  For more "normal" jobs, it is less so.  I'm trying to point out that if you are in the planning stages, keep that in mind, and shoot for the stars.

[40hz]

^Too true. I didn't apply to Harvard because I just assumed I couldn't afford it. Then in my junior year I ran into people I knew who had less money than me or my family that were going there. That's when I found out that most of the student body was receiving some kind of financial assistance. The school had a policy of not letting lack of money prevent a student from completing a degree. The trick was to get a year in and then claim hardship.

It's also important to know (I didn't BTW) that the better and more expensive the school, the greater the number of scholarships and other assistance available. Everybody loves a name and a winner, so when Joe Millions makes a major endowment, he makes it to one if the schools everybody's heard of rather than that small, struggling, but very good college you're thinking of settling on.

SB speaks a major truth. You may not get everything you ask for. But you're certainly not going to get more than you ask for either. What you ask for sets the maximum limit for what you'll be offered. Since you'll usually receive less than you request, don't make the mistake of setting the upper limit too low. That's a lesson I learned far too late to benefit from when I needed it most.    

So dream big - and ask for it all. The worst thing that can happen is they'll say "no."

[JavaJones]

we do have a very small number of positions that don't require a college degree. none of them are very good or well paid jobs.

-Gwen7 (June 07, 2010, 05:24 PM)

Is there any possibility of promotion in your company? Say, after 4 years of work?

-JavaJones (June 07, 2010, 11:07 PM)

yes.

after you've been there for 5 years they give you a new mop.

-Gwen7 (June 09, 2010, 08:41 AM)

Really? Really? Well I guess I won't bother applying then. I'll stick with the places like the $2.5m annual budget nonprofit that promoted me to Assistant Director after 3 years, with a 20% salary increase. Or the (formerly) major computer game publisher where I went from $9/hr to $20/hr in slightly more than a year (from test department to IT). Or the small software company where I went from devoted fan to technical support and documentation, to Business Manager in 3 years, and now have an equity stake in the company. The options are out there in my experience.

- Oshyan

[icekin]

Interesting thread so far. I've lived in a few countries and education is necessary for any white collar job anywhere. It does not have to always be a college degree though, I know a lot of people who have completed advanced diplomas and technical courses at polytechnics or TAFE and are doing well now. Polytechics are also a lot cheaper than universities and a better value for money. Having attended both, I have observed that a polytechnic offers more hands on, practical training while a degree offers more theory and understanding of underlying concepts, which is why a coop or internship is necessary to balance the theory with some real world skills.

academic qualification != Job != success

I see lots of budding entrepreneurs drop out of college every day to start a business. Some succeed, many don't. It proves that with sufficient initiative and courage, a lack of a degree will only be a small handicap. But given that not everyone is born to be an entrepreneur, a degree is quite a good investment for the regular working person.

[superboyac]

The name means a lot, I hate to admit.

-superboyac (June 09, 2010, 08:56 AM)

School name means about 20-25% more in your starting salary offer last I heard.

When I graduated, having one got me hired (in a tight job market) by a Fortune 500 company after a twenty minute token interview. The interviewer even said "Oh, you went to ____? Well, we can skip the academic questions then. ______ graduates know their stuff. We hire a lot of them."

So much for "It doesn't matter where you go to college." right?

-40hz (June 09, 2010, 09:17 AM)

Yup.  I wish I were more convinced of that earlier on.   

let me also add some of my more interesting life experiences, and I'm doing this to give parents something to think about.  What it all means to you individually, I'm not sure, but these are the facts:
--I have several friends in Wall Street that make amounts of money that I can't post because it's just too much.  A couple of them work in a company that will ONLY hire Harvard MBA graduates.  Think about that as it relates to this thread.  And that's just the one I know about, who knows what the others are like.  So you're out of luck if you have a Yale MBA.  And when these companies do these hirings, they generally come to the person...it's not like the individual needs to seek these companies out.  Think about that.  It's one thing to walk around campus and run into somebody who is looking to pay you $200k a year...it's another thing to graduate and send applications around and try to CONVINCE companies to consider you.

[kyrathaba]

I think a consensus of the real experts in this area would be that, on balance, a college education makes for significantly greater lifetime earnings -- although there are certainly the relative few who drop out of college and yet go on to be millionaires.

[Carol Haynes]

I think a consensus of the real experts in this area would be that, on balance, a college education makes for significantly greater lifetime earnings -- although there are certainly the relative few who drop out of college and yet go on to be millionaires.

-kyrathaba (February 17, 2012, 07:11 PM)

The problem in some countries (eg. the UK) is that college education is being seen as a way for politicians to defer unfavourable unemployment statistics. Consequently most kids aspire to go to university now and that means that employers expect degrees where they were traditionally not required.

For example, nursing in the UK is now graduate entry only whereas not so many years ago there were two levels of nursing in the UK one of which required education to 16 (the State Enrolled Nurse) and the other to 18 (State Registered Nurse). They have now dropped the SEN position and if you want to be an SRN you have to get a degree.

You'd think this would improve nursing but in effect what they have done is reduce the number of qualified nurses on each ward and employ a lot of unqualified staff to do the work that SENs and many SRNs used to do as a matter of course.

The other knock on effect is that jobs that genuinely need graduate entry now have too many people with degrees applying so it becomes necessary for people to do higher degrees to stand out, and build up even greater debts before they start work.

[Innuendo]

Because the job market is so lousy where I live you don't see any job postings for anything above menial labor without a requirement of a Bachelor's. An Associate's degree may as well be a unicorn as according to these job postings they don't exist.

They can get away with this because there's more than enough out of work people that have Bachelor's degrees that they don't have to entertain thoughts of interviewing the 'riff-raff'.

Realistically, a college degree isn't necessary to know how to do a job and be good at it. In practice, however, all potential job candidates have to get past the gatekeepers in HR & the HR people are the ones who are demanding the college degrees. Forget about marketing yourself or awesome job experience making up for the lack of a degree, either.

Computers, not people, are the first to lay 'eyes' on your resume. If it scans your resume and doesn't see college listed then your resume shoots off into a black hole never to be seen by a flesh & blood being.