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My sampling bias is of college grads living dirt poor, had been, have been, will be. Recent friend was praying her car would not break down because she could ha

My sampling bias is of college grads living dirt poor, had been, have been, will be. Recent friend was praying her car would not break down because she could hardly afford gas, let alone to do any kind of repairs. Sampling bias is a bitch. Do you have numbers otherwise that it is really just lifestyle outpacing income for college grads? Perhaps the outcomes of college grads are skewed, devil is in the details. The experience of college grads is pretty certainly washed away when looking at medians of much larger populations.

topkai22 2y ago
The National Association of Colleges and Employers survey puts the average new grad salary at $68,000/year (https://www.naceweb.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/2024/publication/executive-summary/2024-nace-winter-salary-survey-executive-summary.pdf?Status=Master&sfvrsn=b8ff91c4_3 https://www.naceweb.org/docs/default-source/default-document...) That’s ~$7000 more than the median earnings of the overall population (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t01.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t01.htm). There will be college grads struggling and non grads thriving, but on average a person just out of college is doing at least as well as the general population income wise and can expect their incomes to rise with time.
- simoncion 2y ago
  > ...average new grad salary... > That’s ~$7000 more than the median earnings... You shouldn't be comparing an average to a median. You should be using either the average earnings, or the median new grad salary.
0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
Perhaps you should sit down with your friend and see if she can budget her expenses better?
- seadan83 2y ago
  Yeah, not the issue. The issue is she has no extra money. This person is both frugal and broke.
Aeolun 2y ago
> Recent friend was praying her car would not break down because she could hardly afford gas, let alone to do any kind of repairs. She has a car to worry about though. That’s more than I ever had.
- seadan83 2y ago
  Same, but you're only proving the point that our sampling bias is of people being poor when graduating from college. Were you picturing a nice car that is driven around a lot? She was driving from Western NC to volunteer for manual labor in hurricane relief. Otherwise doesn't drive except for groceries and to go to trail heads (which are close by). Like, this is not a pissing match. The person just had no extra money for anything. Just another broke college student.
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    Lol, no, I had in mind a $250 Citroën 2CV that was falling apart to the extend that a second similar car was bought to cannibalize parts from. Which is what people around me had at the time. It’s not a pissing match. Not trying to take away from their experience. I just feels it’s weird that US people always say gas and cars are so expensive when relatively, gas is incredibly cheap in the USA (not sure about cars, but given how many there are, they should be cheaper too).
Schiendelman 2y ago
My bet is that your friend can't really afford a car but is well off enough to try, and instead of taking transit is making a bad budgeting choice. If she ditched the car, fixed her lifestyle so she was using transit or a bicycle or her feet, she would probably be fine. She's just probably signed up for things that are too far apart from each other to do that, and that will be an uncomfortable transition.
- seadan83 2y ago
  > My bet is that your friend can't really afford a car but is well off enough to try It's an old beat up car with 150k miles that was given to them. She goes to Western North Carolina University. There are no buses, there are no sidewalks, every road is essentially a divided highway. It's not a lifestyle choice where they are living 50 miles away from where they work. Even then, the car was used to go to Hurricane Helene Relief volunteering, otherwise it's for groceries, and to take them to trail heads to hike. Even then, I'm speaking to the point that they have NO extra money. The lifestyle of burning $30/month in gas is not the point nor the issue.
- seadan83 2y ago
  > My bet is that your friend can't really afford a car but is well off enough to try Second reaction - jeez - what a garbage assumption to make. Paraphrasing you: "oh, they must just spend too much to have any money. Bad life choices." Garbage assumption dude, you so missed the mark - you would be ashamed if you knew the person in question here. Further, they are not the only person I know in that situation - and if it were just due to excess of spending money; I would have not raised it as an example of "my sampling bias". It's very bad practice to assume and then contradict someone else's lived experience based on that assumption. It's a great way to be wrong, way wrong (and sometimes not even know it). Your bet is bad. I'm sure there are plenty of examples out of the millions of people that we are talking about, where it would be right. In this case, nope - just ignorant and wrong.

topkai22 2y ago

The National Association of Colleges and Employers survey puts the average new grad salary at $68,000/year (https://www.naceweb.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/2024/publication/executive-summary/2024-nace-winter-salary-survey-executive-summary.pdf?Status=Master&sfvrsn=b8ff91c4_3 https://www.naceweb.org/docs/default-source/default-document...) That’s ~$7000 more than the median earnings of the overall population (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t01.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t01.htm). There will be college grads struggling and non grads thriving, but on average a person just out of college is doing at least as well as the general population income wise and can expect their incomes to rise with time.

simoncion 2y ago
> ...average new grad salary... > That’s ~$7000 more than the median earnings... You shouldn't be comparing an average to a median. You should be using either the average earnings, or the median new grad salary.

0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago

Perhaps you should sit down with your friend and see if she can budget her expenses better?

seadan83 2y ago
Yeah, not the issue. The issue is she has no extra money. This person is both frugal and broke.

Aeolun 2y ago

> Recent friend was praying her car would not break down because she could hardly afford gas, let alone to do any kind of repairs. She has a car to worry about though. That’s more than I ever had.

seadan83 2y ago
Same, but you're only proving the point that our sampling bias is of people being poor when graduating from college. Were you picturing a nice car that is driven around a lot? She was driving from Western NC to volunteer for manual labor in hurricane relief. Otherwise doesn't drive except for groceries and to go to trail heads (which are close by). Like, this is not a pissing match. The person just had no extra money for anything. Just another broke college student.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  Lol, no, I had in mind a $250 Citroën 2CV that was falling apart to the extend that a second similar car was bought to cannibalize parts from. Which is what people around me had at the time. It’s not a pissing match. Not trying to take away from their experience. I just feels it’s weird that US people always say gas and cars are so expensive when relatively, gas is incredibly cheap in the USA (not sure about cars, but given how many there are, they should be cheaper too).

Schiendelman 2y ago

My bet is that your friend can't really afford a car but is well off enough to try, and instead of taking transit is making a bad budgeting choice. If she ditched the car, fixed her lifestyle so she was using transit or a bicycle or her feet, she would probably be fine. She's just probably signed up for things that are too far apart from each other to do that, and that will be an uncomfortable transition.

seadan83 2y ago
> My bet is that your friend can't really afford a car but is well off enough to try It's an old beat up car with 150k miles that was given to them. She goes to Western North Carolina University. There are no buses, there are no sidewalks, every road is essentially a divided highway. It's not a lifestyle choice where they are living 50 miles away from where they work. Even then, the car was used to go to Hurricane Helene Relief volunteering, otherwise it's for groceries, and to take them to trail heads to hike. Even then, I'm speaking to the point that they have NO extra money. The lifestyle of burning $30/month in gas is not the point nor the issue.
seadan83 2y ago
> My bet is that your friend can't really afford a car but is well off enough to try Second reaction - jeez - what a garbage assumption to make. Paraphrasing you: "oh, they must just spend too much to have any money. Bad life choices." Garbage assumption dude, you so missed the mark - you would be ashamed if you knew the person in question here. Further, they are not the only person I know in that situation - and if it were just due to excess of spending money; I would have not raised it as an example of "my sampling bias". It's very bad practice to assume and then contradict someone else's lived experience based on that assumption. It's a great way to be wrong, way wrong (and sometimes not even know it). Your bet is bad. I'm sure there are plenty of examples out of the millions of people that we are talking about, where it would be right. In this case, nope - just ignorant and wrong.