College isn't just "not worth it", unfortunately, it's a negative.

[Wide Tailz]

Engineering degrees are in huge demand. 5 year degree at resident / state university ~$30k (Yes it will take 5 years, typically)

First year income ~$60k

Income after 4 years ~$80-$100k

Granted, they practically break you in engineering school. Most people give up.

My only complaint is the jobs are in shitty places, working for / with people who are not exactly winners (looking at you, managers).

 

[McFadden5252]

College is not worth it. Especially not the expensive D1 schools. Government subsidized loans made tuition prices skyrocket. What ever happened to people working their way through college? No government loans, just working a mediocre job and being able to come out debt free. I'm attending a state school in Pennsylvania. 10K a year... 40-50K in expenses overall. College is the new "social norm" and you are looked down upon if you do not attend college. People are getting stupid though taking up liberal arts and sociology degrees. A study was done showing people entering the work force with a high school diploma versus someone attending 4 years of college first. Guess who had more money until the age of 65? In my opinion, 60% of the students at my college, are not college material. Unfortunately everyone wants an equal opportunity which is cute and all but they come out with no skills. Why look down on plumbers and carpenters? These people acquire skills their entire life which are actually useful. Get a job in the business world with your liberal arts degree... Gen eds are pointless, we watched youtube videos for an hour. This is what my parents and I are paying for? Good thing I'm applying for Army OCS after graduation and banking on my eagle scout to get me accepted. 45K a year should payoff my debt faster than working at Walmart.

 

[Mav88]

Degrees have been promoted as the key to a better life, so there have sprung up too many colleges, too many worthless degree programs, and too many go.

For me, worth it. Schollies and summer work paid undergrad, fellowships paid grad- $0 debt. My PhD professor treated the PhD program (which nobody ever pays for in science and engineering) as an entrepenurial experience. We had to decide what to research, how to do it, what to buy if needed, when to work, and what external meetings to go to. You basically were thrown into the wild to survive. I learned and did many interesting things I could not have elsewhere.

The average mid-career pay in my field is above 6 digits and a few of my classmates are at VP to CEO level. Could I have made more without? Yes, with the right undergrad or by jumping into the right business out of high school. My boyhood friend who could not do algebra to save his life, owns a lucrative (I guess by the looks of his car and house) insurance agency. The dumb neighbor kid is the wealthy owner of some printing business. When I talk to them I realize what a valuable possesion a GOOD education can be, it gives life a richness that you just can't understand if you don't have it.

Personal decision for everyone, it's not all about economics. Of course that's easy for me to say since I'm not in a bad situation. I think enough of it to have paid for most of my son's undergrad and keep him out of debt, I hope that was the right decision for him.

Hot tips for you young guns. These are useful if you just want a better job: advanced welding , petroleum geology, nuclear engineering, or logistics. Then there is always truck driving but who the hell can stand it?

 

[McFadden5252]

all my friends at college are taking sports management. All of them want to be associated with the NFL and NBA.. Unfortunately I don't think they will get anywhere close. As for me, I enjoy Business Management and I am banking on going to grad school for finance and economics. Something more useful in the real world.

 

[bone]

Yes, majoring in liberal arts or sports management is a truly useless endeavor if the idea was to just get a Bachelor's degree and then go find a career in that field.

The OP's conclusion is shallow and pendantic.

 

[sle]

Quote from marketsurfer:

I don't know if this is true, but I was told the guys who operate those high rise crains make 500k per year.

That's only in the New York City and you have to be a union member. Sanitation workers have a great gig too, but you can't get that job either.

I'd make the following "key" statements:
(a) the right education will teach you is how to learn new things, which is very hard without the right foundation.
(b) the whole flexible model of coursework (required courses, counts-for etc) encourages taking the easiest route and learning/working as little as possible.
(c) for a median student, there is a big difference between a degree from Harward and a degree from Penn State.
(d) for the fringes of the intellectual distribution, there is NO difference between a degree from Harward and a degree from Penn State.
(e) most of the institutions that peddle "degrees" have nothing to do with education and are snake oil salespeople.

For the reference, I went to an Ivy school, but my education was free initially (undergrad) and then I was getting paid for it (PhD).

 

[zdreg]

Quote from sle:

That's only in the New York City and you have to be a union member. Sanitation workers have a great gig too, but you can't get that job either.

I'd make the following "key" statements:
(a) the right education will teach you is how to learn new things, which is very hard without the right foundation.
(b) the whole flexible model of coursework (required courses, counts-for etc) encourages taking the easiest route and learning/working as little as possible.
(c) for a median student, there is a big difference between a degree from Harward and a degree from Penn State.
(d) for the fringes of the intellectual distribution, there is NO difference between a degree from Harward and a degree from Penn State.
(e) most of the institutions that peddle "degrees" have nothing to do with education and are snake oil salespeople.

For the reference, I went to an Ivy school, but my education was free initially (undergrad) and then I was getting paid for it (PhD).

"(e) most of the institutions that peddle "degrees" have nothing to do with education and are snake oil salespeople."
isn't this remark like saying that birds fly and fish swim.

 

[sle]

Quote from zdreg:

isn't this remark like saying that birds fly and fish swim.

Well, pretty much every statement there is a truism.

The overall quality and desire to learn is yet another question. For example, I've recently joined a hedge fund, but my junior trader decided to stay at the old shop (idiot). Since most of the work now is development and project-driven, I figured that my best bet is to take a summer intern for now (a college student), employ him/her/it part-time through the year and transition him/her to full time once the development process is complete. Guess what? It's been a month since we first posted the jobs and so far there were no viable candidates - they all look good on paper, but the actual ability to think and learn is just not there. There might be a catch that good people are being siphoned away by Web 2.0 start-ups, but I think it's more than that.

 

[Chuck E. Cheese]

I'm a college grad myself in Civil Engineering, with an Master in MPA (similar to MBA now I need to pass that darn professional license).

But I have mixed feelings about college. What I enjoy is being exposed to a lot of critical thinking skills from a few of the good professors who were not the the usual run off the mill type. They are the one who lecture (well) with out notes and always have long pauses in between trying to teach you about their own life stories and experiences. In a way it has helped me develop my own critical thinking skills and my reasoning in trying to anticipate the market's next move and be able to somewhat grasp this global economy. I've learned so much once I started trading about the economy, currency, geo political, markets, crowd psychology, etc...thanks to some of the good studying habits that I picked up in college. In away, I'm one of the few guys who enjoy the learning experience more than winning $$$. Though winning helps encourage you to learn more, much much more.

It's a humble experience when you loose because you learned the you're not invisible, your past thinking and biases are shite, and that it paid to respect the market and let the market come to you.

As someone said before, at 18, most of us know jack shit, so it does require that couple of years to mature and going to a "transition phase" to the adult life (except for those that think college is an extension of high school). How ever you have to make a conscientious decision about studying what you like and what paid the bills because they often do not match and both require different level of efforts. It's easy to breeze a cross something like journalism vs some of the hardcore major like programing (I tried and crashed) and engineering (don't see too many of these guys at the parties).

I still think it's a good foundation to start if you're not gifted but just don't go broke trying to get that useless degree and don't come out of college dumber than when you went in. Yes it's possible, all that booze, weed, pranks, and partying could do that to ya.

 

[dandxg]

Critical thinking is what I received best from my college experience. I went to a very liberal school and was told I can challenge any of my professors as long as I could make a rational argument. It taught met to look at life more objectively and call people on their BS. So yes I have a degree in Sociology and did social work for a year, until I found that it paid so piss poor relative to the stress level. Then I got smarter and moved in sales and later trading.