Often enough, even with the degree, you can end up no better off for some time. If you don’t get a degree and make x/yr, or you get the degree, spend 6~8 years in school and looking for a position that pays 2x/yr but you spend half of the money on paying down your debt for 20 years… That’s a long time to get back into the black, assuming you even went for a degree leading to a position that will pay that much. It is almost criminal that a credit hour learning to work on machine learning systems often has the same cost as one spent learning about art history. Both are valuable to society in their own ways, but they definitely won’t get you the same paycheck, and the cost of entry should reflect that.
Pays for a house and kids. I wasn’t able to finish and with the kinds of jobs I can get I can’t afford a car and struggle with bills even with frugal spending. Even the traded require postsecondary training you usuially gotta pay for
Fair enough. I believe college education stopped being a requirement and more of a hindrance around 2010. The pay didn’t keep up with the loans and education requirements. Nepotism is now the best way to get a high paying job.
In the US, I’d say good health insurance, retirement benefits, and fair pay. Bonus points of it’s something you enjoy, but that’s more rare I think. I’m as close now as I’ve ever been to checking all of those boxes, pay is a little low for what I do, but liveable with a little extra. I got my degree about 13 years ago. I did get a job about 6 months out of school with a livable wage, bad retirement, good health insurance, but I didn’t like it. Took a little over nine years for an opportunity to come up that I applied for and got. Maybe could have moved sooner had I put in effort, but my job now isn’t directly related to my degree and I got it because I know a guy that got my foot in the door.
The thing is, I understood perfectly I was getting fucked, it’s just that without a degree you can’t get a good job. That’s the most predatory part
Trade school grads often getting better pay than ‘degree’ education. Often can get paid internships while learning trade.
Often enough, even with the degree, you can end up no better off for some time. If you don’t get a degree and make x/yr, or you get the degree, spend 6~8 years in school and looking for a position that pays 2x/yr but you spend half of the money on paying down your debt for 20 years… That’s a long time to get back into the black, assuming you even went for a degree leading to a position that will pay that much. It is almost criminal that a credit hour learning to work on machine learning systems often has the same cost as one spent learning about art history. Both are valuable to society in their own ways, but they definitely won’t get you the same paycheck, and the cost of entry should reflect that.
For sure don’t get junk degree on a loan. Maybe go to trade school with paid internship, etc.
What do you consider good job?
Pays for a house and kids. I wasn’t able to finish and with the kinds of jobs I can get I can’t afford a car and struggle with bills even with frugal spending. Even the traded require postsecondary training you usuially gotta pay for
I can promise you you don’t even need a high school diploma to make more than most Americans
Fair enough. I believe college education stopped being a requirement and more of a hindrance around 2010. The pay didn’t keep up with the loans and education requirements. Nepotism is now the best way to get a high paying job.
In the US, I’d say good health insurance, retirement benefits, and fair pay. Bonus points of it’s something you enjoy, but that’s more rare I think. I’m as close now as I’ve ever been to checking all of those boxes, pay is a little low for what I do, but liveable with a little extra. I got my degree about 13 years ago. I did get a job about 6 months out of school with a livable wage, bad retirement, good health insurance, but I didn’t like it. Took a little over nine years for an opportunity to come up that I applied for and got. Maybe could have moved sooner had I put in effort, but my job now isn’t directly related to my degree and I got it because I know a guy that got my foot in the door.