Just How Hard is University to Overcome
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So, some anecdotal evidence that doesn't substantiate anything but is interesting to discuss....
After this thread, @DustinB3403 and I were at a bar and ended up discussing this topic with the bartender. What makes her interesting is that she was the very first person that we had the discussion with (which is important as this is not cherry picking but only not statistically meaningful), and that her case was far, far more dramatically bad than any reasonably considered scenario... by orders of magnitude.
In her case...
- BS Degree in a technical field that requires a degree by law (giving her the best possible chance of the degree paying off for her, vastly beyond fields where degrees are optional.)
- Did half of her education at an excellent, incredibly low cost community college (same one that Dustin and I attended.)
- Loans came out to roughly $100,000 USD (slightly more)
- Her job in her field (which she got immediately) pays $13/hr USD (same as working in a Texas gas station.)
- She is located in New York, one of the highest tax states with medium cost of living (higher than where in Texas you can make $13 running the till at said gas station.)
- Her loans are from three different places with the lowest interest rate being 9.6% and the highest being just over 10%. Vastly higher than we considered for a reasonable range here. We had only said 4.3 - 8.8%. But this is much higher than even the top of our suggested range.
- She did not manage to graduate until she was 25, which I hear is common today, meaning that the time impact of the degree is seven years rather than four.
So things that are important is that her loan is bigger than we assumed would normally happen, the added increase to earnings is thus far a negative one (she earns far less than she would if she didn't use her degree to do her job which she proves by working a second job that pays more and doesn't use the degree and she could have been doing seven years earlier), and the interest rate is more than double the rate that we had assumed.
This one anecdotal account puts her at not just missing average, but missing it by an insane margin. It's only one case, but it was the first one that we ran across to even discuss and the level to which it suggests that the numbers we have above are very conservative is significant (because we assumed this interest rate wasn't even plausible let alone that it would happen three times without exception!)
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I'm 50,000 in debt from graduate loans. My interest rate is 8%... I literally have nothing to show for it and if I did complete the degree and looked for work with it would be paid less then I am right now. Granted I did go to an expensive private university. So that's all on me and was a mistake I realized too late.
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My niece is in her final year at St. Andrews. She has four hours of lectures a week over two 11 week terms. For this she pays over $12k a year. I worked out that's over $130 PER HOUR! I don't know how that compares with the US, but the Uni is taking the mickey IMO.
Her non-European colleagues are paying double ($24) whilst her Scottish and French colleagues are only paying $2,400 because we have a system where every EU citizen apart from the English, Welsh and Irish pay reduced fees.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
My niece is in her final year at St. Andrews. She has four hours of lectures a week over two 11 week terms. For this she pays over $12k a year. I worked out that's over $130 PER HOUR! I don't know how that compares with the US, but the Uni is taking the mickey IMO.
Her non-European colleagues are paying double ($24) whilst her Scottish and French colleagues are only paying $2,400 because we have a system where every EU citizen apart from the English, Welsh and Irish pay reduced fees.
Similar in the US.... as an American I had to pay far more and had to maintain much higher standards than the Europeans in my classes.
I'm actually expected to be on campus as St. Andrews very soon, like in a month.
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@Carnival-Boy our system is non-uniform. In the NY state system, for example, NY students pay one rate and students from outside of NY pay a different rate (much higher.) Except for one college in the uni where everyone pays the same no matter where they are from. It's weird. And every state handles things differently.
And we have some that have different prices or admissions by the county that you are living in!
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@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@Carnival-Boy our system is non-uniform. In the NY state system, for example, NY students pay one rate and students from outside of NY pay a different rate (much higher.) Except for one college in the uni where everyone pays the same no matter where they are from. It's weird. And every state handles things differently.
And we have some that have different prices or admissions by the county that you are living in!
That's all community colleges in NY. You can get a discount for being in county.
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I haven't heard of the county residence having any bearing on cost, but I'm not surprised at all, Around here, if you're not a NE resident, you pay higher school tuition for sure.
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@coliver said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@Carnival-Boy our system is non-uniform. In the NY state system, for example, NY students pay one rate and students from outside of NY pay a different rate (much higher.) Except for one college in the uni where everyone pays the same no matter where they are from. It's weird. And every state handles things differently.
And we have some that have different prices or admissions by the county that you are living in!
That's all community colleges in NY. You can get a discount for being in county.
Some of the non-CC do that too. I hate that the CCs do that because we have no CC in my county, and no SUNY at all. And the near by counties have worthless schools like GCC. Only ECC and MCC are any good and are both far away. It's unfair that some state residents get the best schools cheaply and that others in the poorer counties get zero schools cheaply and what schools they do get are more expensive, far away and crappy.
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@Dashrender said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
I haven't heard of the county residence having any bearing on cost, but I'm not surprised at all, Around here, if you're not a NE resident, you pay higher school tuition for sure.
Probably just a NY thing. But NY has the largest university system in the country so it leads in a lot of things (structurally.)
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@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@coliver said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@Carnival-Boy our system is non-uniform. In the NY state system, for example, NY students pay one rate and students from outside of NY pay a different rate (much higher.) Except for one college in the uni where everyone pays the same no matter where they are from. It's weird. And every state handles things differently.
And we have some that have different prices or admissions by the county that you are living in!
That's all community colleges in NY. You can get a discount for being in county.
Some of the non-CC do that too. I hate that the CCs do that because we have no CC in my county, and no SUNY at all. And the near by counties have worthless schools like GCC. Only ECC and MCC are any good and are both far away. It's unfair that some state residents get the best schools cheaply and that others in the poorer counties get zero schools cheaply and what schools they do get are more expensive, far away and crappy.
I agree... but seeing as how I got my undergrad for almost nothing because of this, and a few other things, I'm not complaining.
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@coliver said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@coliver said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@Carnival-Boy our system is non-uniform. In the NY state system, for example, NY students pay one rate and students from outside of NY pay a different rate (much higher.) Except for one college in the uni where everyone pays the same no matter where they are from. It's weird. And every state handles things differently.
And we have some that have different prices or admissions by the county that you are living in!
That's all community colleges in NY. You can get a discount for being in county.
Some of the non-CC do that too. I hate that the CCs do that because we have no CC in my county, and no SUNY at all. And the near by counties have worthless schools like GCC. Only ECC and MCC are any good and are both far away. It's unfair that some state residents get the best schools cheaply and that others in the poorer counties get zero schools cheaply and what schools they do get are more expensive, far away and crappy.
I agree... but seeing as how I got my undergrad for almost nothing because of this, and a few other things, I'm not complaining.
CCs are definitely the best way to get maximum potential value from a degree. You often get the best quality of education AND the lowest price.
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I know that Monroe Community College (MCC) had a better freshmen level programming lineup than Cornell had for their Master's program. If you had an MS in CS from Cornell you were just prepared to enter MCC as a Freshman. The difference in expectations of their students was staggering.
OCC in Syracuse is where I sat on the program board for a very long time because I feel that the community colleges do the best for their students and are where we should be focused the most on improving the system.
I would definitely work with SUNY Empire if they wanted me to. Their programs are good enough that they are worth improving and supporting. They take what they are doing very seriously and work hard to offer real value to their students (hence why they are the top ranked school in New York as ranked by those that actually attended.)
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I found this article on the subject to in my LinkedIn feed yesterday. I hope it comes through. Your onto something SAM, Thank you for this talk in Syracuse Spicecorps! https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/make-mistake-student-debt-problem-national-crisis-marta-l-tellado
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Good timing that this just popped up...
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@scottalanmiller and I were discussing this thread today, which is why I resurrected it.
I asked the question ... if college was free, would you still feel this way?
My contention is that the "HS Benefit After Investments" is only applicable if you can bank the $146K in tuition.
Without that, you would only have the additional 4 years of salary to bank over the kid in college not making money. However, most 17 year olds are probably closer to $20K yearly than $38K. And the college goer can offset that by working. They work 20 hours a week? Then the non college goer only gets them by $10K.
And if they are not in college, there are probably a lot of other costs associated which will eat into the $20K, thus making any "HS Benefit After Investment" amount less and less.
I figure they would need to save 20K over the 4 years at the mentioned 8% to break even. But then they are just even, and the college educated person makes much more and can invest much more.
You can also skew this by having the college educated person invest their increased earning amount.
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@brrabill said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller and I were discussing this thread today, which is why I resurrected it.
I asked the question ... if college was free, would you still feel this way?
My contention is that the "HS Benefit After Investments" is only applicable if you can bank the $146K in tuition.
Without that, you would only have the additional 4 years of salary to bank over the kid in college not making money. However, most 17 year olds are probably closer to $20K yearly than $38K. And the college goer can offset that by working. They work 20 hours a week? Then the non college goer only gets them by $10K.
And if they are not in college, there are probably a lot of other costs associated which will eat into the $20K, thus making any "HS Benefit After Investment" amount less and less.
I figure they would need to save 20K over the 4 years at the mentioned 8% to break even. But then they are just even, and the college educated person makes much more and can invest much more.
You can also skew this by having the college educated person invest their increased earning amount.
Those other costs exist regardless. Was the original calculation just tuition or did it also include room and board?
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Or you can pursue a bachelors or masters degree while working full time as well as investing in something like SP500 or 401k.
That's what I plan on doing in the kind-of-near future when my personal life opens up more free time to put in like 22+ hours for studying. I can't find a decent online only offering with good reputation, so may be forced to do it super slowly at a brick and mortar in evenings.
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@tim_g said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
Or you can pursue a bachelors or masters degree while working full time as well as investing in something like SP500 or 401k.
That's what I plan on doing in the kind-of-near future when my personal life opens up more free time to put in like 22+ hours for studying. I can't find a decent online only offering with good reputation, so may be forced to do it super slowly at a brick and mortar in evenings.
What are you going for?
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@coliver said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@tim_g said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
Or you can pursue a bachelors or masters degree while working full time as well as investing in something like SP500 or 401k.
That's what I plan on doing in the kind-of-near future when my personal life opens up more free time to put in like 22+ hours for studying. I can't find a decent online only offering with good reputation, so may be forced to do it super slowly at a brick and mortar in evenings.
What are you going for?
Not sure anymore. All universities call the same programs something different, or add their own spin. So I have no idea anymore. Especially after reading all of Scott's info on college education. I was thinking something science-y and IT-ish. Something to set me up the best in the future in the IT field at a high level, to make more money.
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@tim_g said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@coliver said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@tim_g said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
Or you can pursue a bachelors or masters degree while working full time as well as investing in something like SP500 or 401k.
That's what I plan on doing in the kind-of-near future when my personal life opens up more free time to put in like 22+ hours for studying. I can't find a decent online only offering with good reputation, so may be forced to do it super slowly at a brick and mortar in evenings.
What are you going for?
Not sure anymore. All universities call the same programs something different, or add their own spin. So I have no idea anymore. Especially after reading all of Scott's info on college education. I was thinking something science-y and IT-ish. Something to set me up the best in the future in the IT field at a high level, to make more money.
Recent research, aside from Scott talking about it, has shown that in specific technical industries grad degrees are a net negative. You generally don't earn more money by having a degree.
That being said. I wouldn't go for something IT related. Go for an MBA or something related. It will give you more background on how a business works as well as classes on things like accounting, risk management, and project management.
