Toro
Diamond Member
So going to a school that is in the top 25 for graduate salary statistics is a bad investment?So they are dumb because they took out a loan for a college education, which is usually considered a good investment. They didn't say they are getting financial aid, they said they were getting a loan.
What if they said they were paying a mortgage? Would you think differently about this person?
What if this person was a tea party member?
The only problem here, is it is a college student who is taking a loan out to achieve the american dream.
Best Ivy League Schools By Salary Potential
Wouldn't a degree from a Ivy League school be a good investment? Well, at least before Wall Street drove us into a recession.
It is not considered a good investment by anyone with a brain. They probably have a degrees in Elizabethan English.
One has to wonder if you guys think only rich people should get a Ivy League education, and have a better chance at earning a larger income.
My real point is, the only reason most have a problem with this person is they are a college student. If it was a tea party member with a home mortgage it would be a different story.
Wasn't it the tea party, and the right that made a big deal about the bail outs?
Every generation has students that bitch about tuition being too high, loans are too onerous, can't get a job, etc.
However, its an interesting topic.
If you look at the breakdown of income growth over the past 40 years, almost all the gains have gone to those with higher education. For example, if you are a white male high school dropout, your income after inflation has actually fallen during this time, whereas if you have a Masters degree or better, your income has risen faster than growth in the economy.
And if you parse it even further, it appears that much of the gains have been transferred to those who best able to exploit changes in technology. This has been the biggest untold story of the past 40 years. You have those who are beneficiaries of technological change - higher education, Silicon Valley, etc. - and those who have been hurt by it - the uneducated, low-end manufacturing, etc.
And that includes those offering higher education. Tuition has been growing at 7%-8% per year for the past few decades as salaries for professors have risen, post-secondary institutions have expanded, etc.
We've now gotten to a point, I think, where higher education is pricing itself out of the market. For the average college entrant, I don't think it pays to go to the very best universities any more. For example, the difference in tuition between going to an Ivy League school or a state university over four years is upwards of $200,000 for essentially the same degree. For the average college graduate, they will never make up the $200k difference between the two. Thus, it makes more sense for the average college graduate to go to, say, Florida State than it does Duke. It might not for the very top graduates, but it probably does for everyone else.
It will be very interesting to see how this plays out over the next 20 years. Will Ivy League applications fall, for example? I had read somewhere that law school applications are down by 10% compared to a few years ago. I don't know if that's true or not, but if it is, it makes sense because average legal salaries have not kept up with the crushing debt law students often take on for their education. Students may be figuring out law school isn't worth it. I wonder if they will figure that out about the Ivy League as well.