RSS
 

Search results for ‘Is College a Worthless Investment?’

A Look At My Friends. Did College Pay Off?

08 May

So I’ve thought about this some more…does college pay? From my personal stand point, I definitely think it does. My friends that have a college degree are financially much better off than my friends that don’t. Let me summarize some of what I see…

Friend 1
4yr College Degree, spent 2 years at community college, 2 years at regular
College cost: ~$10,000
BA Management Info Systems
~$65,000/yr

Friend 2
4yr College Degree
College cost: ~$60,000
BA Education
~$40,000/yr

Friend 3
2yr Associates Degree
College cost: ~$10,000
Graphics Design
~$12/hr (~$24,000/yr)

Friend 4
No degree, attended some college
College cost: ~$2,000
~$9.00/hr

Friend 5
4yr College Degree
College cost: ~$10,000
BA Human Resources
~$70,000/yr

Friend 6
4yr College Degree
College cost: ~$10,000
BA Management Info Systems
~$55,000/yr

Friend 7
4yr College Degree
College cost: ~$10,000
BA Management Info Systems
~$45,000/yr

Friend 8
4yr College Degree
College cost: ~$10,000
BA Management Info Systems
~$70,000/yr

Friend 9
4yr College Degree
College cost: ~$60,000
BS Computer Science
~$90,000/yr

You can clearly see that having a degree seems to have meant better jobs. Of course, my oberservations are skewed since most of my friends finished college…And most of them are from the same college! The kicker is, we’re all satisfied with life…for the most part, the ones that are making more are often still dealing with the same money issues as those who are making less to some degree…no pun intended.

Some related links:

Don’t get over-educated @ MightyBargainHunter.com.
College – A Financial Decision That Changed My Life.
Is College a Worthless Investment?

 
4 Comments

Posted in Education, Salary

 

Is College a Worthless Investment?

24 Apr

I don’t think so, but apparently it is something to consider. Everyone knows Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft just in case you didn’t know, never finished college. Steve Jobs founder of Apple Computers never graduated from college. Larry Ellison of Oracle Corporation never finished college either! So what does this mean? Should we just skip an expense that can easily add up to at least $100k to work or pursue a trade? Maybe take some classes on the side? I don’t know.

When I was deciding between colleges, not going to college was never an option. I ended up choosing my state university over an Ivy university. It saved me a ton of money, in fact I made some. I wrote about my decision earlier.

I would like to argue that Bill, Steve, and Larry are naturally gifted, just like pro athletes that have some natural born skill. With the combination of skill, drive, and some timing, they made things happen. The path they took to success is much different than most of the general population, so I would say they are exceptions. What about the rest of us?

This MSNBC.com article, Five Reasons To Skip College, says:

Reasons to skip college. Is higher education a good idea?
1. You’ll be losing four working years
2. You won’t necessarily earn less money
3. In fact, you could make more money
4. You can learn outside a classroom
5. Plenty of other people did fine 

I can’t disagree more. Since much of life is about risk minimization, the fact that you have a college degree does in fact minimize the risk that you will not have work, and does maximize your potential to make more. I especially hate reason #5.

But then again, if you have the drive and the ideas, why not skip college? I can’t really argue against that either, but it’s risky. What do you think? If you had a choice, would you go to school again? What about if your kids decided they didn’t want to go to college? Let’s say as the parent you believed they had what it takes to make it without the college degree. What if they were really good at sports, would you let them skip college?

 
5 Comments

Posted in Education