For the folks out there that are truly enterprising, self educated individuals, skipping college can be an option.
HOWEVER, for the VAST majority of people in the U.S., you will make more money as a college graduate than without a college degree or knowledge of a SKILLED trade. Everyone likes to throw out examples of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc, as proof that you don't need a degree. The problem is that most people are not nearly as gifted as those guys.
The key to getting your money out of college is to be smart about it. There is ZERO reason to spend $100K on a bachelors degree from some no name school. Even if you didn't know the ins and outs of how to hack the college education process in order to get a degree for the least cost, you could still just sign up for your local commuter state university and wind up spending in the $30K range. Very reasonable. If you did your first two years at a community college, you could probably knock another $10K off of that pricetag.
If you know how to really play the system, a $10K degree is completely doable. Also, if you are enterprising enough to start your own business, you are enterprising enough to work on you education on the side. If not a formal degree, at least work at developing some in-demand skills.
The reason why college graduate earnings have flattened out is because so many people are college graduates now. If you want to see something interesting look at the change in earnings over time for people WITHOUT a degree. It has gone through the floor. Adjusted for inflation, high school graduates make 25% LESS than they did 30 years ago. College graduates salary has gone up a little (about 6%).
The most recent data that I have seen shows a $22K+ difference in salary between men with just a high school diploma and men with a bachelors degree or higher. Even if we exclude men with graduate degrees and compare men with ONLY bachelors degrees with men who actually have some college but didn't get a degree, the difference in income is STILL $12K.
The article also counters that a large number of new college graduates are in jobs that do not require a college degree. What that REALLY means is that jobs that were previously open to folks without a college degree are now being scooped up by people with a college degree. Since there is an overabundance of college graduates employers can be more selective for jobs that traditionally did not require college.
As an example of this, look at two of the most traditional blue collar jobs, policemen and fireman. Many of the larger departments are requiring 60 credit hours or military service to even qualify. Other departments that don't have that requirement still give a lot of weight to a college degree.
Where folks really get burned for not having a college degree is when they get older. Lacking a college degree often excludes people from qualifying for management positions and higher salaries. Also, much of the status that the non-college graduate has within his organization is lost if he tries to get employment at another company. While your previous employer may have come to realize that you know your job like the back of your hand and don't need a degree, new prospective employers do not have that information, and often times simply dismisses your application based on not having the same academic credentials that your competitors for the job have.
I harp on the power of a degree because I have PERSONALLY seen the power of it. I left school with only a few classes left to work for a dotcom back in 2000, right before the bubble burst. They offered me a ridiculous amount of money and I new that whenever I wanted to go back and finish the degree later I could just take the 2 or 3 classes I needed and graduate.
When the company went bust a year later, I was out of work and looking for a job. I thought that it would be easy given my technical skills and the reputation of my university (even though I hadn't graduated). I was wrong. After 6 months of getting my ass kicked in my job search, I had to take a bullshit administrative assistant job to make ends meat. Lesson learned.
As soon as I got up the money, I took those final classes in the spring semester, while I was working. When I got the degree, and started resubmitting my application with my degree, as well as using my school's formal alumni network, I got interest in my resume in a matter of days and multiple offers for great salaries in a matter of weeks.
The difference was absolutely shocking. Think about this. I was the exact same person I had been before. The courses had NOTHING to do with my career (the courses fulfilled English requirement and a foreign language requirement). Yet the moment I was able to put my completed degree on my resume all of the doors opened up.
At this point my career is going great, I have my bachelors and am finishing up grad school next semester, so I am good. I am not trying to post this to prove that I am right and everyone else is wrong. I just want people to see the whole story. I don't want someone to make what could potentially be a HUGE mistake in their lives without as much information as possible.
The author of the article quoted in the OP, the man telling folks the future value (or lack thereof) of getting a college degree is only 20 himself. He is also an exceptionally smart individual. Someone with his gifts telling folks not to go to college reminds me of Brad Pitt talking about how well dropping out of college to pursue an acting career worked out for him. Most people are not Brad Pitt.
HOWEVER, for the VAST majority of people in the U.S., you will make more money as a college graduate than without a college degree or knowledge of a SKILLED trade. Everyone likes to throw out examples of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc, as proof that you don't need a degree. The problem is that most people are not nearly as gifted as those guys.
The key to getting your money out of college is to be smart about it. There is ZERO reason to spend $100K on a bachelors degree from some no name school. Even if you didn't know the ins and outs of how to hack the college education process in order to get a degree for the least cost, you could still just sign up for your local commuter state university and wind up spending in the $30K range. Very reasonable. If you did your first two years at a community college, you could probably knock another $10K off of that pricetag.
If you know how to really play the system, a $10K degree is completely doable. Also, if you are enterprising enough to start your own business, you are enterprising enough to work on you education on the side. If not a formal degree, at least work at developing some in-demand skills.
Quote: (02-02-2012 09:51 AM)Vitriol Wrote:
I think this is the first article I've seen that acknowledges the statistics about college graduates having lower unemployment and higher earnings are old, and the game has changed.
The reason why college graduate earnings have flattened out is because so many people are college graduates now. If you want to see something interesting look at the change in earnings over time for people WITHOUT a degree. It has gone through the floor. Adjusted for inflation, high school graduates make 25% LESS than they did 30 years ago. College graduates salary has gone up a little (about 6%).
The most recent data that I have seen shows a $22K+ difference in salary between men with just a high school diploma and men with a bachelors degree or higher. Even if we exclude men with graduate degrees and compare men with ONLY bachelors degrees with men who actually have some college but didn't get a degree, the difference in income is STILL $12K.
The article also counters that a large number of new college graduates are in jobs that do not require a college degree. What that REALLY means is that jobs that were previously open to folks without a college degree are now being scooped up by people with a college degree. Since there is an overabundance of college graduates employers can be more selective for jobs that traditionally did not require college.
As an example of this, look at two of the most traditional blue collar jobs, policemen and fireman. Many of the larger departments are requiring 60 credit hours or military service to even qualify. Other departments that don't have that requirement still give a lot of weight to a college degree.
Where folks really get burned for not having a college degree is when they get older. Lacking a college degree often excludes people from qualifying for management positions and higher salaries. Also, much of the status that the non-college graduate has within his organization is lost if he tries to get employment at another company. While your previous employer may have come to realize that you know your job like the back of your hand and don't need a degree, new prospective employers do not have that information, and often times simply dismisses your application based on not having the same academic credentials that your competitors for the job have.
I harp on the power of a degree because I have PERSONALLY seen the power of it. I left school with only a few classes left to work for a dotcom back in 2000, right before the bubble burst. They offered me a ridiculous amount of money and I new that whenever I wanted to go back and finish the degree later I could just take the 2 or 3 classes I needed and graduate.
When the company went bust a year later, I was out of work and looking for a job. I thought that it would be easy given my technical skills and the reputation of my university (even though I hadn't graduated). I was wrong. After 6 months of getting my ass kicked in my job search, I had to take a bullshit administrative assistant job to make ends meat. Lesson learned.
As soon as I got up the money, I took those final classes in the spring semester, while I was working. When I got the degree, and started resubmitting my application with my degree, as well as using my school's formal alumni network, I got interest in my resume in a matter of days and multiple offers for great salaries in a matter of weeks.
The difference was absolutely shocking. Think about this. I was the exact same person I had been before. The courses had NOTHING to do with my career (the courses fulfilled English requirement and a foreign language requirement). Yet the moment I was able to put my completed degree on my resume all of the doors opened up.
At this point my career is going great, I have my bachelors and am finishing up grad school next semester, so I am good. I am not trying to post this to prove that I am right and everyone else is wrong. I just want people to see the whole story. I don't want someone to make what could potentially be a HUGE mistake in their lives without as much information as possible.
The author of the article quoted in the OP, the man telling folks the future value (or lack thereof) of getting a college degree is only 20 himself. He is also an exceptionally smart individual. Someone with his gifts telling folks not to go to college reminds me of Brad Pitt talking about how well dropping out of college to pursue an acting career worked out for him. Most people are not Brad Pitt.