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This argument is increasingly common, but it misses the actual truth. Sure the difference in salary shrinking will increase the amount of time it takes to pay o

This argument is increasingly common, but it misses the actual truth. Sure the difference in salary shrinking will increase the amount of time it takes to pay off the degree, but that is not the whole story. 1) Unemployment rates are inversly propertional to education level. The worst hit by the recession were those without college degrees. Who is going to bet that trend reverses in the near future? If anything the college grads are just going to suck up high school grad jobs they are overqualified for. 2) Type of job/ceiling. A lot of times you can get the same job with or without a college degree (see: Sales Representative), but the college degree usually means a better compensation structure and pathways up in the organization, even if the salary is not a huge difference for the first 10 years eventually the HS degree will reach a ceiling. I've even seen this in accounting between those that are CPAs and those that just have accounting degrees, or at upper level executives who have MBAs vs those that don't. 3) The cost numbers in these articles are invariably screwed up. $200,000 for a college degree? If you are actually price sensative go to a county college for 2 years and then a state school for 2 years. Total cost would be <$60,000 for the whole thing. In most states you would even have your choice of multiple schools. My theory was that you should go cheap on the undergrad, if the name of the school matters so much, just go there for graduate school. I'd hire a guy with a grad degree and a state school over a really top shelf undergrad (hence, state school for me and I just got hired at my job along with a bunch of guys who paid 4x or more for private engineering schools)

timwiseman 16y ago
My theory was that you should go cheap on the undergrad, if the name of the school matters so much, just go there for graduate school. I'd hire a guy with a grad degree and a state school over a really top shelf undergrad& In technical fields, I agree with you. Having a degree often matters to get in the door and avoid hitting ceilings, as you pointed out. But skill in your actual job and (for better or worse) skill in networking and relationships will win out over pedigree in the long run without problem. It seemst that the situation is different in liberal arts fields though. My wife is a history major and because of her I have many acquantances in the liberal arts. They are all very worried about pedigree, and it sounds like employers looking for that type of employee is also very worried about pedigree. I suspect this is because it is harder (not impossible but harder) to measure productivity and skill in liberal arts than it is in engineering and related technical fields.

timwiseman 16y ago

My theory was that you should go cheap on the undergrad, if the name of the school matters so much, just go there for graduate school. I'd hire a guy with a grad degree and a state school over a really top shelf undergrad& In technical fields, I agree with you. Having a degree often matters to get in the door and avoid hitting ceilings, as you pointed out. But skill in your actual job and (for better or worse) skill in networking and relationships will win out over pedigree in the long run without problem. It seemst that the situation is different in liberal arts fields though. My wife is a history major and because of her I have many acquantances in the liberal arts. They are all very worried about pedigree, and it sounds like employers looking for that type of employee is also very worried about pedigree. I suspect this is because it is harder (not impossible but harder) to measure productivity and skill in liberal arts than it is in engineering and related technical fields.