The College Conundrum (L-O-N-G)

To go or not to go—that IS a question!

More precisely, we’ve been given numbers that tell us what happens when we DON’T go, as well as how much to spend to make it fit our education budget—the “Kelley Blue Book” number of what a college education is worth to us in terms of earning power.

And let’s not forget the politics of education, as they are left-leaning to the point of falling over. Old hippies from the Haight-Ashbury days, whose parents were rich enough to send them through college without help, took CETA* jobs at campuses, and began teaching us the gospel according to Marx, Lenin, and the like, as well as a thorough indoctrination of ecology. At university level, they published their way into tenure positions, and some are still there today in lofty places of power—department heads, administrators, and deans.

All, of course, are richly-paid union jobs.

The education system of today is rife with leftist, heavily-unionized teachers from kindergarten all the way up to doctorate level. It’s gotten to the point where parents still believe that when their kids get to college, they’ll learn how to think for themselves as adults. Wrong! At least, in public institutions it is. Private ones are another story.

Anyway—back to college: numbers recently released tell us how much a public and private education costs, and how much that Bachelor degree will increase our earning power vs. a high school diploma. This number is our “education budget” of $23,000 (rounding up) for a Bachelor’s, and $49,000 (rounding down) for a Master’s. We should seek to do two things with this number:

1. Try not to go over it unless occupational intentions require it.

2. Make sure your intended field of occupation is going to pay more than the college budget number in starting salary each year. Otherwise, it’d be a wash.
Example: graduating from Harvard with a degree in social work—unless you’re geared for an administrative position, a basic run-of-the mill social worker won’t make much more than $23,000/year, so this would not be a wise move.

The long-held notion of hiring preference by where one graduated from is no longer true—employers don’t care where you went to school, or where your degree is from. All they care about is that you actually graduated, which they will verify. So the old maneuver of starting out in public institutions and finishing at an Ivy League campus should no longer be your aim. Don’t pay for the vanity if you can’t afford it, and I’d say that a $23,000 budget readily says NO.

If that extra earning power is for you, then you need to know a few things beforehand. If you can’t answer that dreaded question we’ve all been asked for time immemorial, then buy yourself a couple of years by taking general required courses that will work for ALL majors, like math, science, a foreign language, English, and so on. When you’ve completed those first two years, THEN you must declare a major before heading out into the wild blue campus yonder—if you STILL have no clue what you want to do, then pursue a Liberal Arts degree and cover your behind for several occasions. Most jobs today only require a degree, and don’t specify which one—just having a verifiable degree is all that’s necessary. If you’re applying for a more specialized job, then a more specialized degree may be called for. Here’s what that Bachelor’s degree is really worth.

If you have absolutely no clue at all about anything, the best place to start is starting salaries—find out where you can earn the most with the least in specialized education. This move will buy you time in the future to save money or find financial aid to pursue further education as you can afford it. Here is a starting salary average for people with a high school diploma only (and it’s barely over poverty level before taxes). Then, when that’s completed, go to your Yellow Pages and see exactly how much established competition there is in your local area—as you can guess, doctors, lawyers, plumbers, veterinarians, and other fairly thick fields (in terms of pages) are pretty much maxed out for new entrants.

Another option: offshore your education by checking out campuses (via web) overseas. The currency exchange rates and residency requirements just might be an affordable way to increase your education. If corporations are off-shoring to save money in labor costs, why can’t you do the same with college tuition?

According to Richard Florida, author of the “Creative Class” books, our system of education in America isn’t really beneficial to anyone until grad school—the elementary school system of France is best, followed by college in Britain, then to America for grad school. We all can’t afford to go globe-trotting just to educate ourselves or our children properly, so perhaps we should just learn to work more efficiently with the system we have.

First off, let’s talk shopping and price comparison—you know, the good old price book method. Compare costs (and I mean ALL costs, not just tuition) per year at campuses just like you would cans of peas and packages of meat. Where in this country can you get the biggest bang for your college buck? There’s a calculator here.

Next, find out what degrees and programs will get you the biggest pay-boosting bang for your 4-year investment (this can also be applied to grad schools).

Finally, who pays the most starting salary and where (choose location and occupation, then on next screen, choose “basic report”—that one is free.)

After the starting salary check, be sure to go to the online Yellow Pages in that area to see the established competition’s saturation point (thickness in terms of pages). This will tell you whether or not to take the entrepreneurial route right away or pull for a corporate team first.

Above all else, remember that learning is life-long. What you do for money isn’t all you are, and it shouldn’t define you as a person. What you sign up for in college is just a starting point—you don’t have to be, say, an accountant for the rest of your life. While accounting pays your bills, you can pursue other training or education that will allow you to make a more personally-satisfying career choice that also pays the bills and puts food on the table.

There really is no need to graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt if you take your time, carefully shop, and make the comparisons about where it’s most likely to pay off for you in the end. The “correct” college search doesn’t end it for you, unfortunately—then comes the “where can I live and work” search. Of course, enough cannot be said for early college prep courses in high school, earning scholarships, and various monetary awards to go towards college costs—all ways to defray expenses.

Just as too many students take the first college acceptance offer that comes in the mail, too many people take the first job offer that comes along. If you’ve prepared by doing careful shopping and program completion, you now need to do one more shop: location. To learn where you can get the biggest bang for your cost-of-living buck (including all taxes), check this and this out.

So all told, you need to do four searches:
1. the college itself
2. the program
3. where to start working (or aim for)
4. established competition in the target area

Next comes the spouse—unfortunately, there are no handy links to turn to for THAT advice. Suffice it to say many people (again) jump on the first bandwagon that rolls through town, meaning the first person to propose. My advice is to look around while in college—yep, the old “mom and dad” advice from yesteryear. The reason: because a better-earning spouse is someone going to college to earn that degree, same as you. If he/she’s in the grad school program, all the better—you WANT someone shooting for success. Two good earners in the family will only help things.

Back to college and shopping—the good old cost-per-unit method of deciphering bang-to-buck ratios will be with you (in different forms) for the rest of your life. All you need to do is fill in the “unit” and apply it: to college, groceries, where to live, what to drive, etc. This system is good for both public and private learning.
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*CETA: Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), U.S. government program designed to assist economically disadvantaged, unemployed, or underemployed persons. Enacted in 1973, CETA provided block grants to state and local governments to support public and private job training and such youth programs as the Job Corps and Summer Youth Employment. In 1982, CETA was superseded by the Job Training Partnership Act, which established the Office of Job Training Programs. In short, it was a government-run “jobs creation” program that put a lot of degreed hippies to work back in its day—now they run our public education system (into the ground).