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This. She started down one path, gave up on it to pursue another, gave up on it after getting ill and continue down the original. However this time around she t

This. She started down one path, gave up on it to pursue another, gave up on it after getting ill and continue down the original. However this time around she thought she needed to immediately get her graduate degrees just so she could earn the "highest possible income". Stupid mistake. Let's count the ways she could have prevented this: 1. stick with the original plan of becoming a teacher. Take out minimal loans, work, pay off loans. 2. move towards a degree in law and complete the degree after her illness. Work, pay off loans. 3. get a teaching job after her illness, hold off on the graduate degree, work, pay off loans. I have no sympathy for her. She clearly couldn't afford college (which is acceptable, that's why loans exist); however she also couldn't think to budget or plan financially for the future. She should have stuck to a single path and slowly worked forward rather than trying to do everything in as short a time as possible.

Apocryphon 11y ago
The first problem with college in America is that it assumes college students are fully-formed adults who know what careers they want to have for the rest of their lives. The second problem is that college has become the mandatory mealticket into the middle class.
- bko 11y ago
  Most traditional US colleges don't have students specialize until junior and senior years. There is plenty of opportunity to figure out what you want to do. In addition, many people don't use their majors in their future careers as well: > A new survey from CareerBuilder suggests that plenty of Americans never work in the field that they prepared for in college. Among the 2,134 workers surveyed, 47 percent of college graduates did not find a first job that was related to their college major. What's more, 32 percent of college grads said that they had never worked in a field related to their majors. [0] Also, if the student is not an adult, perhaps granting federally subsidized cheap credit is ill advised. [0] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-study-shows-careers-and-college-majors-often-dont-match/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-study-shows-careers-and-coll...
  - delecti 11y ago
    I've seen studies like that before, but I've never seen it broken down at all. I'm not surprised by someone with a bachelor's in psychology never working in psychology, same for English, but I would bet that a much higher percent of teaching majors actually go on to be teachers. I'd be willing to bet that most majors aren't clustered around a figure of 32% never working in a field related to their major. It's almost certainly a wide spread. That means it's less useful as general advice, and more an indicator that some majors prepare you for a specific career, and some majors are just used as a generic signal that you graduated college.
    - bko 11y ago
      Yeah, it's not a study, it's a survey by CareerBuilder. My personal (anecdotal) experience would suggest that many people don't use their degree directly for their current profession. Examples of jobs for which there doesn't really exist a college major include most service jobs (sales, waiter, etc) and secretarial work. True that many working in those fields don't have a college degree, but since these are some of the most common jobs in America, a large percentage of workers in the field do have some kind of higher education. Also, let's not forget about the immigrants who's previous educational achievements aren't recognized in America (the PhD driving a cab in NY). Depending on the state, working as a teacher requires an advance degree in education. So some people go to college to study English or science and then return to graduate school for an advanced degree in education.
      - Apocryphon 11y ago
        The third problem is that college has become widely regarded as job-training by industry. Broadly, it means non-STEM/medicine/biz students end up underemployed in the service sector, but even narrowly within CS you get the perennial debate about students wanting their college programs to teach them software engineering, instead of fundamental theory.
      - alistairSH 11y ago
        How would one even measure how directly a degree is being used? Outside of pure professional degrees (medicine, law), is it just a gut feel? My degree is Economics. I'm a project manager at a large software company. Am I using my degree? Probably not directly, but I certainly use the critical thinking skills obtained during my years in school. A bit of the math comes in handy as well. The two largest programs at my university were English and Psychology. I guarantee very few of those graduates pursued careers in either field. But, a good psychology degree takes a fair bit of statistics with a dose of scientific method. And the English degree took critical reading and analysis.
- Retric 11y ago
  "The second problem is that college has become the mandatory mealticket into the" lower middle class. So, costs and salary's have diverged rapidly. Worse the government compounds interest while people are in deferrals. At 8% interest the first year of collage loans cost an extra 36% in just 3 years. But, you prepay for each semester which adds even more months on top of that.
- pkaye 11y ago
  On the second problem, there is no reason you have to pick a college far from home. Go with a state university. Certainly don't go out of state and pay higher tuition.
  - sanderjd 11y ago
    Most state universities have been losing public funding and raising tuition. It is not hard to rack up lots of debt going in-state.
    - pkaye 11y ago
      Sure but it is still cheaper than many private universities or out of state. Exception might be if you got a full scholarship to a private university.
      - sanderjd 11y ago
        Maybe, but I find it frustrating that many people seem to believe that in-state universities are the solution for not going deeply into debt while supporting state policies that make them more expensive. I think state-supported higher education should be an important part of the solution to this problem, but policy is headed the opposite direction in most states.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
id 11y ago
>I have no sympathy for her. Tells more about you than about her.

Apocryphon 11y ago

The first problem with college in America is that it assumes college students are fully-formed adults who know what careers they want to have for the rest of their lives. The second problem is that college has become the mandatory mealticket into the middle class.

bko 11y ago
Most traditional US colleges don't have students specialize until junior and senior years. There is plenty of opportunity to figure out what you want to do. In addition, many people don't use their majors in their future careers as well: > A new survey from CareerBuilder suggests that plenty of Americans never work in the field that they prepared for in college. Among the 2,134 workers surveyed, 47 percent of college graduates did not find a first job that was related to their college major. What's more, 32 percent of college grads said that they had never worked in a field related to their majors. [0] Also, if the student is not an adult, perhaps granting federally subsidized cheap credit is ill advised. [0] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-study-shows-careers-and-college-majors-often-dont-match/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-study-shows-careers-and-coll...
- delecti 11y ago
  I've seen studies like that before, but I've never seen it broken down at all. I'm not surprised by someone with a bachelor's in psychology never working in psychology, same for English, but I would bet that a much higher percent of teaching majors actually go on to be teachers. I'd be willing to bet that most majors aren't clustered around a figure of 32% never working in a field related to their major. It's almost certainly a wide spread. That means it's less useful as general advice, and more an indicator that some majors prepare you for a specific career, and some majors are just used as a generic signal that you graduated college.
  - bko 11y ago
    Yeah, it's not a study, it's a survey by CareerBuilder. My personal (anecdotal) experience would suggest that many people don't use their degree directly for their current profession. Examples of jobs for which there doesn't really exist a college major include most service jobs (sales, waiter, etc) and secretarial work. True that many working in those fields don't have a college degree, but since these are some of the most common jobs in America, a large percentage of workers in the field do have some kind of higher education. Also, let's not forget about the immigrants who's previous educational achievements aren't recognized in America (the PhD driving a cab in NY). Depending on the state, working as a teacher requires an advance degree in education. So some people go to college to study English or science and then return to graduate school for an advanced degree in education.
    - Apocryphon 11y ago
      The third problem is that college has become widely regarded as job-training by industry. Broadly, it means non-STEM/medicine/biz students end up underemployed in the service sector, but even narrowly within CS you get the perennial debate about students wanting their college programs to teach them software engineering, instead of fundamental theory.
    - alistairSH 11y ago
      How would one even measure how directly a degree is being used? Outside of pure professional degrees (medicine, law), is it just a gut feel? My degree is Economics. I'm a project manager at a large software company. Am I using my degree? Probably not directly, but I certainly use the critical thinking skills obtained during my years in school. A bit of the math comes in handy as well. The two largest programs at my university were English and Psychology. I guarantee very few of those graduates pursued careers in either field. But, a good psychology degree takes a fair bit of statistics with a dose of scientific method. And the English degree took critical reading and analysis.
Retric 11y ago
"The second problem is that college has become the mandatory mealticket into the" lower middle class. So, costs and salary's have diverged rapidly. Worse the government compounds interest while people are in deferrals. At 8% interest the first year of collage loans cost an extra 36% in just 3 years. But, you prepay for each semester which adds even more months on top of that.
pkaye 11y ago
On the second problem, there is no reason you have to pick a college far from home. Go with a state university. Certainly don't go out of state and pay higher tuition.
- sanderjd 11y ago
  Most state universities have been losing public funding and raising tuition. It is not hard to rack up lots of debt going in-state.
  - pkaye 11y ago
    Sure but it is still cheaper than many private universities or out of state. Exception might be if you got a full scholarship to a private university.
    - sanderjd 11y ago
      Maybe, but I find it frustrating that many people seem to believe that in-state universities are the solution for not going deeply into debt while supporting state policies that make them more expensive. I think state-supported higher education should be an important part of the solution to this problem, but policy is headed the opposite direction in most states.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

id 11y ago

>I have no sympathy for her. Tells more about you than about her.