Understanding University Degrees.

Are kids today in high school being taught how to write a check or prepare a simple budget? My older brothers taught me.

Posted by: @brush

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@georgeschire  Teach the kids how to use the computer for the 1st - 4th grades and end schooling. Save us millions of dollars wasted on their liberal education. You ask a young person a question and they have to look up the answer on their cell phone, they seem to not retain info in their brain.

AMEN.  I can't say it loud enough!!!

Posted by: @marty-johnson

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I found this topic fascinating and a very interesting read.  My experience, spanning a lifetime of hiring and employing hundreds of people, has taught me that earning college degrees is situational for the individual. 

For most of us, who are older and products of the '40s, '50s, and '60s, a college degree was generally expected if one wanted to be upwardly mobile in the corporate world.  Indeed, any degree would be sufficient.  That paradigm has changed and is often less applicable today than it was for us.  Currently, specialization is the standard entry-level requirement, as employers increasingly seek candidates whose education specifically equips them with specialized skills.  Once in the work world, the paradigm shifts from the prestige of holding college degrees to the actual hands-on work experience a candidate brings to the table.  A college degree gets a candidate in the door.  Once in the door, the employers focus on actual work experience.  

Knowing my history as a lifelong businessperson, many of my social/family peers routinely ask me to speak with and advise their children and grandchildren about working, business, finances, etc.  I enjoy mentoring young people, and when I have an opportunity to speak with them, I have some standard "Marty-isms" that I share with them.   

The major "Marty-ism" is that, if they are college-bound, they should aim to earn double degrees (not double majors) rather than a single one.  One degree is to satisfy their passion, and the other is "insurance" (usually a science), so they can obtain work that enables them to financially provide for themselves in case the "passion" degree fails to work out.  

It is true that having a degree does not guarantee a robust income.  However, a college degree generally provides more opportunities that would be completely closed off to those without one.  The old adage, "It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it," is the rule of the day.  

What are the "Marty-isms?"  Here they are.  

Marty-isms for Young People

Earn a double degree (Forget a Master’s.  They’re a waste of time and provide little or no benefit.) 

Master this adage and make it your mantra:  Successful people do what unsuccessful people are unwilling to do

Learn the SCIENCE of selling (You’ll benefit from it even if you are NOT in sales)

Love what you do and you will never have to work is a myth

Looking for a job is a FULL-TIME JOB! 

Seek mentors and ask for advice.  There is no requirement to follow their advice, but just expose yourself to different perspectives. 

You cannot soar with the eagles if you wallow on the ground with turkeys.  Try to forge relationships with people smarter than you. 

I like your thought out response Marty.  But for me, having spent my career in communication, sales, tutoring, and a desire to succeed, there is no better education.  People can not learn a job by spending four years at a college getting everyone else's opinions and idealisms thrown at them.  College today is the biggest scam of the 21st century.  

I could speak indefinitely about this, but I'll simply say: 

Any accredited college or university is never a waste of time - by this I mean the greatest asset students acquire is the "ability to think." 

One learns that just because it's written in a book, that doesn't make it true.   Or if an authoritative figure espouses the virtues of a particular concept or topic, that doesn't mean their "facts"  are correct.

Far too many today fail to understand that "lines are blurred"  and thus, they become easy prey for those with the gift of gab, or the most popular video, or highly rated podcast, etc.

The dumbing down of America continues and I'm not certain when it will bottom out.  😔 😔 

Way back in the early '80's a collage grad friend spent a bit of time comparing a basic 4 year collage grad with a union tradesman [me] and found it took to the age of 57 before a collage grad started to make more money. Considering a collage grad spent 4 years with negative income while the tradesman earned money as an apprentice. And that was not including the tradesman may move up to a managerial position. 

The only complaint is that a good hard working tradesman's body takes a lot of abuse that most grads don't have to live with. Depending on the trade what body parts ware out.

That was 1980's though, times & figures have changed, trades are less heavy labor intensive these days, less ware on the body and higher wages. Portland, Maine just voted a minimum wage of $19.00 an hour.  $19 for a high school brat to flip burgers, wow!

@brush - Kids have it harder today than we did in our youth.  I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan.  My professional work career began in 1969 when I turned 18 years old.  Since I could type, my father (yes, using nepotism) got me hired in as a clerk typist at the FoMoCo Dearborn Iron Foundry.  A fresh off the street 18-year-old NEVER went from the application office directly into an air-conditioned office.  The ONLY reason I got that position was due to the influence of my father.  But, I digress and back to the point.  

At Ford, and typically in the auto industry, anyone with a high school diploma could apply at any of the Big 3 plants and go to work that very day!  Overtime was plentiful, and if one were so inclined, they could work as much as they wanted.  Want to do 80 hours per week?  It could be done, and overtime would be paid for the extra 40 hours.  It was routine for my friends who went away to college to come home during summer break, get a job at one of the Big 3 plants, work a ton of overtime, and earn enough money to buy a car, pay for next year's tuition, and rent an apartment.  The following year, they'd do the same until they graduated from college.  

Can kids do that today?  Nope!  Those days of walking into a factory and begin earning middle class wages are long gone, and they ain't never comin' back!  At best, the high school graduate's choices are limited, and as a result, many work in fast food.  In California, the minimum wage to flip hamburgers is $20/hr.  However, restaurants that want a higher-caliber employee, like Chick-fil-A or In-N-Out, are paying $22/hr or more.  And that isn't enough money to sustain themselves.  

$22/hr (most pay $20) will equate to $3,813/mo.  Net after taxes is approximately $3,100.  Rent for a 1-bedroom apartment averages around $2,200/mo. That leaves $900 for a car, gas, maintenance, insurance, utilities, communications, clothing, health insurance, and food.  Needless to say, without creating a formula, a quick glance at the realities shows, "That dog don't hunt."  Even if they're earning DOUBLE that, at $44/hr, it is STILL financially challenging.  

When we were young, we didn't face those challenges.  So, yeah, they're getting paid $18/hr in Seattle, but they still don't have enough money to support themselves.    

Posted by: @marty-johnson

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@brush - Kids have it harder today than we did in our youth.  I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan.  My professional work career began in 1969 when I turned 18 years old.  Since I could type, my father (yes, using nepotism) got me hired in as a clerk typist at the FoMoCo Dearborn Iron Foundry.  A fresh off the street 18-year-old NEVER went from the application office directly into an air-conditioned office.  The ONLY reason I got that position was due to the influence of my father.  But, I digress and back to the point.  

At Ford, and typically in the auto industry, anyone with a high school diploma could apply at any of the Big 3 plants and go to work that very day!  Overtime was plentiful, and if one were so inclined, they could work as much as they wanted.  Want to do 80 hours per week?  It could be done, and overtime would be paid for the extra 40 hours.  It was routine for my friends who went away to college to come home during summer break, get a job at one of the Big 3 plants, work a ton of overtime, and earn enough money to buy a car, pay for next year's tuition, and rent an apartment.  The following year, they'd do the same until they graduated from college.  

Can kids do that today?  Nope!  Those days of walking into a factory and begin earning middle class wages are long gone, and they ain't never comin' back!  At best, the high school graduate's choices are limited, and as a result, many work in fast food.  In California, the minimum wage to flip hamburgers is $20/hr.  However, restaurants that want a higher-caliber employee, like Chick-fil-A or In-N-Out, are paying $22/hr or more.  And that isn't enough money to sustain themselves.  

$22/hr (most pay $20) will equate to $3,813/mo.  Net after taxes is approximately $3,100.  Rent for a 1-bedroom apartment averages around $2,200/mo. That leaves $900 for a car, gas, maintenance, insurance, utilities, communications, clothing, health insurance, and food.  Needless to say, without creating a formula, a quick glance at the realities shows, "That dog don't hunt."  Even if they're earning DOUBLE that, at $44/hr, it is STILL financially challenging.  

When we were young, we didn't face those challenges.  So, yeah, they're getting paid $18/hr in Seattle, but they still don't have enough money to support themselves.    

Again Marty, a well thought out response from you and based with facts.  You know from some past talks you and I've had that I worked in the banking field.  Though I didn't have a college degree for that particular line of work, I will tell you that I NEVER got any raises or promotions handed to me through any special favors.  I worked hard, yearned to learn, kept a steady and level head in all situations.  I showed I was reliable and always there to make the bank better. 

Now, I'm serious with what I'm going to say next...so here goes.  It's NOT like that with todays kids!  They won't start at the bottom, have patience, have a positive attitude, and be willing to do what is asked of them at work.  And they want to get paid $22 an hour or they won't work. 

Marty, all of your examples of how the wages today relate to the costs of living are good, but you and I both know that that situation hasn't changed since we were starting out young.  We're about the same age, I graduated from high school in 1970.  The difference between you/me/our generation is that we didn't expect to get everything handed to us with an "entitlement" attitude.  We didn't go in to a job, demand high(er) wages and dictate to management what we will and won't do.  And let's be honest, our government hasn't helped by "giving people free money" to NOT work hard to advance themselves.  LOL, that's a whole other can of worms discussion. 

Obviously, we could talk at length on this great discussion and I'd love the coffee we would down while doing it.  Hope you're doing well my friend.    

@marty-johnson  I understand but it has to stop somewhere. Raise pay and then raise prices, raise prices and then raise pay, is the way it works I understand but which stops first?  What does that do for fixed income people?  

Jobs here in northern New England are quite plentiful, help wanted signs everywhere.  The majority of kids seem to go to  sum form of collage but try to find a tradesman, most if not all companies just can't find people to get into the trades, a decent middle income life, you probably will not get rich but you can live comfortably, or what I consider is comfortable.  

Posted by: @brush

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@marty-johnson  I understand but it has to stop somewhere. Raise pay and then raise prices, raise prices and then raise pay, is the way it works I understand but which stops first?  What does that do for fixed income people?  

Jobs here in northern New England are quite plentiful, help wanted signs everywhere.  The majority of kids seem to go to  sum form of collage but try to find a tradesman, most if not all companies just can't find people to get into the trades, a decent middle income life, you probably will not get rich but you can live comfortably, or what I consider is comfortable.  

Very well said, Marty.

@david-green ....ain't it the truth!     Even if you or your family are extremely wealthy, high school - when put into perspective - is the most carefree time in most everyone's lives!   

I remember being told that as a Junior and, for the most part, I believed it.    Somehow, I intuitively knew that everything else would be "up hill"  after graduation.    😟 😟 

OK, guess I have to chime in on this topic. I am a retired college professor and agree high school is a joke in this country.  In high school they don't teach spelling, proper English, writing, math, reading or business skills.  An issue I have on undergraduate education is colleges now treat students as "clients", students seem to have more rights than professors.  When I retired three years ago more than 50% of my students were classified with learning disabilities that included just stress or anxiety, so they had extra privileges because they were on some sort of medication.  In my program of study full time students were expected to spend 80-90 hours a week on their studies and probably 7 out of 10 students had to have part time jobs to afford college, plus mounting student loan debt.  What 20 year old wouldn't have anxiety issues?  I loved teaching but when I retired at age 70 I had enough of stressed out entitled "client" students whose parents taught them never to accept responsibility, they were never wrong, and they deserved an 'A' because they were paying for it and not earning it.  To wrap up I blame the parents for raising a couple of generations of entitled kids, and the high schools for not preparing students for the rigors of undergraduate education.  When I finished my teaching career about 1/4 of my students were international students and for the most part they were better prepared for college even when English was not their first language.

@abaucom 

Well stated, per enlightened experience!

For me, since I became aware of prices and salaries back in my teens, I've always had one question.  Where is the ceiling?  I rationalize it this way (and these are just rough examples). 

People work in jobs, and eventually they want a raise.  So they get their raise (as does everyone else) and employers (businesses) have to raise their prices.  And this keeps happening over and over and over and over!  So where is the ceiling? 

In the early 1970's when I was starting out, a new home cost around $30,000 and I was making about $6,000 a year.  Today, kids starting out have to pay (on the low end) $250,000 for a new home and they might be making $50,000 (or so) a year.  They are no better off than I was in the 70's starting out.  But they will work, get raises, prices will continue to go up and eventually 50 years from now, people will be making $2,000,000 a year and new homes will be a billion dollars. 

Without a ceiling, it is a no-win situation.  Ever!  And I know it's far more complicated than this, but in its simplest form, I think this explains it.