It’s early, but Kyle Wingfield, columnist with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, thinks it’s time to address graduates.
His October 2012 column suggests that graduates – mainly high school graduates – think about their options before going to college.
Wingfield suggests that they not end up like Katie Brotherton, a young Cincinnati woman who is $190,000 in debt from college and graduate school. She’s living in her parents’ basement.
Brotherton is “looking for answers.” As Wingfield points out, it started with her decision to go to college with borrowed money.
You can envision a pattern: a person goes to college, thinking she would get a good job when she got out. She doesn’t. So, she decides to go to graduate school, thinking it might broaden her qualifications and buy her time for the job market to improve. Meanwhile, she’s incurring more debt.
She gets out of graduate school with no good job and lots of debt. She moves back home. She doesn’t want to be living at home, but she has no choice. Her debt and lack of employment leave her unable to afford to live on her own. Her parents sympathize with her plight, but they, too, would rather see her out on her own.
A few decades ago, we were told to go to the best college we could possibly get into. The best schools would open more doors, we were told. The best schools, often, were usually the most expensive. But if those schools opened more doors, you’d be able to pay back your education fairly quickly with a good job.
Many of the “good” jobs that students thought would be there are not. In fact, they may have disappeared permanently.
As Wingfield points out, education inflation is rampant. There could even be an education “bubble” getting bigger by the day. We all know what happened with the housing “bubble.” It’s not that students should not get an education, it’s that some education does not provide a great return on investment, in terms of career opportunities.
Certainly, there is nothing wrong with getting a degree in history, literature or some of the other liberal arts. No education is really wasted. But students have to evaluate whether that education is worth the debt incurred, or, worth the sacrifices your family might make to provide it.
ARTS, HISTORY MAJORS: YOU HAVE OPTIONS
If you love history, the arts or psychology, you can still pursue them. But you can do so at less expensive schools close to home. You may be able to parlay those degrees into a good career, but you have to understand that most people with such backgrounds cannot convert them to real dollars.
All is not lost, however. You can get one of those degrees without using it as an income producer. There are many excellent ways to produce income outside your educational background. To check out one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau.
Even if you have a degree in engineering, the sciences, technology, mathematics or other fields in great demand, you might want to have a Plan B if your career plans don’t turn out the way you want them to. There are excellent income streams that can get you out of your parents’ home as an adult.
So, as Wingfield addresses the class of 2013, he suggests that they not lower ambitions, just understand the reality. Not all college degrees are the same. Most college degrees can be obtained from schools that are not cripplingly expensive. Remember that as you get older and proceed in your career, or life, where you went to school becomes less important in terms of whether you get hired. A degree is a degree. You will succeed largely on your experience.
Success comes in many forms. Being a great historian may not produce lots of income, but it may produce great successes. Just realize that you may have to find another way to make a living, or create wealth for yourself.
Educational institutions need to be aware of the “bubble.” It could burst, and they could find themselves with great, expensive programs, and no students that can afford them. Students need to be aware that there are ways to make an income regardless of education. You just have to be willing to check them out.
Peter
Tag Archives: education
YOUNG, ANGRY, VIOLENT
The violence in the Middle East is attributed to lots of things – inflammatory movies or other media, ruthless dictators etc.
But, in the Middle East, the center of the trouble, as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and other experts have said, is angry young men who are fairly well educated, but have no job to go to, and are otherwise inhibited from using their talents most profitably.
In the U.S., we also have many young people who feel left out of the process. They see a few people making lots of money, but don’t see a way to break into the action so they can do the same.
They see that they’ve gotten an education, and all they have to show for it is a big debt and, at the moment, no way to pay it. Perhaps they engaged in a field of study that is not in demand, or cannot be converted to a job that pays well.
Perhaps they grew up in an atmosphere in which competition was de-emphasized. Everyone got something, just for joining the club, or just for showing up. The real world is teaching them that showing up – or getting a good education – may not be enough. The parents have no way to bail them out, except by allowing them to live at home as adults.
We can find much to blame for this predicament. But, let’s not waste a lot of energy blaming someone or something. Let’s focus on where we go from here.
No one wants to see thousands, or even millions, of young people saddled with college debt and no job to pay for it. So, let’s try to solve that problem first.
The best way for a young person to get out of debt is to set up a business that he or she can work. For a look at one good possibility, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. This and other vehicles can help young people start to build their fortunes. The good news about this is that ANYONE can do it. No special background or requirements needed. The person just needs the drive to get it going, and get his or her friends in the same predicament to do the same. It can happen overnight, but typically it takes time and diligence. If things go well, you’ll whittle down that college debt in a very short time. You’ll have ups and downs, but just stay with it.
Remember, when the economy picks up, or when the young person finds work in the regular job market, he or she can take that job, and work their business with whatever other time they have. If they work at it consistently, having a regular job might be unnecessary.
If you are a young person not yet in college, you and your parents need to think not just about what college to go to, but also whether college is right for the student. There are many ways to make money that don’t require education (see above). Think about the job possibilities in the field you want to study. Would it be worth incurring the debt to study that, and risk not having an income to pay for it?
Think of the reverse. Make your money first, then go to college to pursue your interests. You’ll have the money to pay for it and whether you can make a living with it won’t matter.
Don’t get angry. Don’t do things that will set you up to fail. If you are already in a difficult situation, work diligently to get out of it. It didn’t happen overnight, and it probably was not your fault, even though others will blame you. It’s not about how you got there, it’s about how you are going to get out of there.
The alternatives for making money don’t involve government. They are not for the lazy or the impatient. The ambitious young people are just broke. They can fix that with energy, diligence, time and the right vehicle. The lazy and impatient will end up poor, unless they change.
Protests solve nothing and hurt innocent people. Some of the alternatives available to us in the U.S. may not be available to the young folks in the Middle East. In those countries, it may be more about breaking down barriers to success.
There are no barriers in the U.S. There is no need to protest. Use your energy to get out of trouble, or avoid trouble, rather than to blame those you feel got you in trouble.
Peter
EDUCATION VS. FAITH
Most think of education as learning something new. That idea was turned on its head in Texas.
The Texas Republican Party has the following plank in its 2012 platform: “We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) [values clarification], critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) [mastery learning], which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”
The quoted plank comes from The Miami Herald’s Leonard Pitts, in a July 2012 column. Naturally, Pitts is outraged at the thought of this, but let’s take it line by line, shall we?
Higher Order Thinking: Do Texans not want children thinking too much? When students do something wrong, and a parent asks, “What were you thinking,” should the student respond: “I didn’t want to upset you by violating the Higher Order Thinking ban.”
No critical thinking allowed: Despite numerous reports from employers that they are looking for more people who are good critical thinkers, no matter what job they apply for, the students in Texas should NOT be good at this, the plank seems to state.
Outcome-Based Education: Do Texans want their students to have no outcomes from their education, other than, perhaps, the acquisition of a piece of paper that says they graduated? Do they want them to learn NOTHING in school that might encourage them to learn more, perhaps outside of school, the home, or church?
Now, we are getting to the heart of the matter. Some folks out there believe that whatever your mother, father or preacher tells you is the absolute truth. Anything you see or hear that contradicts that is false. We hear people talk about the need for higher education, and at the same time call the institutions of higher education indoctrination centers, whose goal is to poke a million holes in a student’s core beliefs – or, as Texas calls them, “fixed beliefs.”
IRON-CLAD FIXED BELIEFS
There are all kinds of ways to go with this concept. Should all “fixed beliefs” be iron-clad? Do we want our students to respond, “we can’t do it that way, because we were always taught to do it this way,” when their employer shows them a new way to do something that may be more efficient, improve quality or make their lives easier? Or, God forbid, they discover FOR THEMSELVES a new way of doing things? It may be safe to presume that the platform plank is Christian oriented. How would the proponents of this feel if, say, Muslim students could not learn new ways of thinking, so as not to challenge their fixed beliefs and undermine their parents’ authority?
Some private schools are operated by religious establishments. Some allow students who are not practitioners of that religion. In some schools, those students can opt out of religion classes, and still get a good education in practical, secular disciplines.
The public schools, to which the platform plank refers, should contain no religious orthodoxy in any class. They should teach the students of all religions, or no religion, exactly the same way. Decades ago, students had no problem reconciling what they learned in church, at home or at school, regardless of how the material may have seemed contradictory. If they are having that problem today, it may be because of disputes among parents and various institutions.
The definition of faith is to believe something is true without necessarily having proof. The definition of science is to suspect something may be true, then seek to prove it right or wrong. We may never have proof that things in our faith are true. That’s not to diminish faith. Faith can be a powerful, positive motivator and a good foundation for one’s character. But everyone, students or otherwise, must understand the difference between faith and science. Everyone should have some of both in their lives. Beliefs should not be so powerful that they cannot change under any circumstances. Faith should never be so powerful as to inhibit real learning.
Peter
P.S. No matter your faith, or belief system, if you’d like to be educated on a way to become more prosperous, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau.