What You Study Matters

Posted on April 24, 2013 // Leave a Comment

In Your Future is Calling I talk about your choice of degrees, careers and colleges. You need to start these decisions with “who you are”. If your degree and career does not satisfy you, money will not compensate you for being miserable everyday. Doing what satisfies you trumps everything else. Given this bedrock starting point, your choice of college, career and major have a big impact on your future. Here we are exploring the major that you pick to study.

  Buzz Today Source: Salary.com College Degrees with Worst Return on Investment

Fine Arts

Artists are respected, revered and celebrated. Here are three jobs commonly held by workers with a fine arts degree:

MUSEUM RESEARCH WORKER
Median Salary: $48,401
30-Year Earnings: $2,854,689
ROI of Degree Earner Attending Public College: 75%
ROI of Degree Earner Attending Private College: 22%

GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Median Salary: $47,753
30-Year Earnings: $2,816,470
ROI of Degree Earner Attending Public College: 74%
ROI of Degree Earner Attending Private College: 22%

PAINTER/ILLUSTRATOR
Median Salary: $37,819
30-Year Earnings: $2,230,563
ROI of Degree Earner Attending Public College: 58%
ROI of Degree Earner Attending Private College: 17%

There are several important things that you need to take from the data in BUZZ Today. The first thing we want to look at is the headline:  “Degrees with the Worst Return on Investment”. The ROI question has to be examined relative to other investment alternatives. As Warren Buffett has stated, the best investment you can make is in yourself. He is right. The annual rate of return on 10 year US government bonds is less than 2% per year.

The thing to note in the BUZZ Today is that even these “worst” investment options represent a significantly higher return than government bonds. In addition, no one can take your education away from you. It is yours forever.

The other thing to note in BUZZ Today, is how sensitive the financial return is to the tuition paid to earn the degree. In the example, Salary.com uses private vs. public to make the point of the cost of the tuition. But your return is not merely about your decision to go to a public university rather than a private university. There are many additional factors that affect how much you end up actually paying to earn your degree. For detailed information on what those are and how you can impact them read Your Future is Calling.

Filed Under: Adult learning, Career, College degrees, Income, Money, Paying for your degree, Uncategorized // Tagged: , , ,

New Shoes

Posted on April 12, 2013 // Leave a Comment

The next series of posts on this blog will look at the three key parts of your degree completion decision:  “who you are”, careers, and universities.      Buzz Today Source:  Your Future is Calling.   The book is a road map for you to earn your degree quickly and efficiently.  It is important that you do the work to find the right fit for you.  Think of your task as if you were shopping for a new pair of shoes.  You have to shop around to find out what is available.  You have to try on the shoes to make sure they don’t hurt your feet.  You have to look at them in the mirror. You have to examine the price tag to see if you can afford them.  The important point is that, in the end only you can tell if those new shoes fit you.  The only difference here is that the new shoes you are shopping for (your degree) you will wear every day for the rest of your life, and if they do not fit, they will not only hurt your feet, they will create pain in every part of your life. 

It is important to begin at the beginning – with “who you are”.  The BUZZ Today talks about why it all needs to start with you.

“Who you are”:  In many ways we are all different.  Our lives and experiences mold us.  What I enjoy may not at all appeal to you.  I like standing in a cold, fast flowing stream and casting a fly over and over again trying to tempt a trout I cannot even see into biting on a glob of thread and feathers only to release the fish once I have landed him in a net.

Most of you would not find this appealing at all.  Some might find it revolting, even barbaric.  But that is exactly the point.  We are all different.  What motivates each of us to do what we do, to be “who we are” is very much about each of us.

When it comes to deciding on a degree, a college, a career you need to start with yourself.  In the end, all of these have to fit you, just as the shoes in the BUZZ Today have to fit you.  No one else can tell you if they fit.  You have to try them on.  To do that you have to have good information.  We will come back to this in posts here over the weeks and months to come.

Filed Under: Adult learning, College degrees, Famous careers, Uncategorized // Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Associate vs. Bachelor Degrees

Posted on April 9, 2013 // Leave a Comment

Associate Degrees vs Bachelor Degrees

Headline: Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders.

This is a rather powerful statement.  It is designed to get your attention. The reason it is so powerful is because it reinforces a common journalist theme today that the cost and debt required to earn a bachelor degree are not worth it.  Buzz Today Source: CNN Money:  “I have a buddy who got a four-year bachelor’s degree in accounting who’s making $10 an hour,” Berevan Omer (a recent community college graduate) says. “I’m making two and a-half times more than he is.” Omer, who is 24, is one of many newly minted graduates of community colleges defying history and stereotypes by proving that a bachelor’s degree is not, as widely believed, the only ticket to a middle-class income.

The use of sweeping generalizations often used around this issue of earning a degree of any kind does not contribute to better decision making.   Here we are talking about decision making that directly effects your future.

Let’s look at the BUZZ Today item more closely.  First of all, it is true that some associate degree holders make more money than some bachelor degree holders.  This is true for lots of situations.  Bill Gates does not have a degree of any kind and I have a Ph.D.  Bill Gates makes a heck of a lot more money than I do.  Does this mean that you are more likely to earn more money by not getting a degree?  Absolutely not.

The tricky part of the BUZZ Today article are the words slipped in to reinforce the popular theme that getting a degree is “not worth it”.  The high impact words are: defying history, stereotypes, proving, only and widely believed.  These are words meant to prove sweeping generalizations in support of the conclusion being advanced.   Especially suspect is the combination of the words “widely believed”.

Belief is like beauty.  It is in the eye of the beholder. There is no evidence in the BUZZ Today quote to support the claim that such beliefs are indeed widely held. It is true that these beliefs are being widely reported but this does not mean that they are widely held beyond the belief of the author doing the reporting.  The facts (in contrast to beliefs) are that since 1988, the number of jobs requiring bachelor degrees have grown 82% while the number of jobs requiring associate degrees have grown by 42%.   Jobs for those with only a high school education have actually declined 14%.  More detail on this data is available in the free Introduction to Your Future is Calling. The data also shows that over a lifetime, the average bachelor degree holder earns far more than the average associate degree holder.

In the end, the defensible conclusion is that some associate degree holders earn more than some bachelor degree holders.   The guidance for you here, is that you make your decision about your future based on hard data, sound reasoning and what fits “who you are”.  Stay away from the sensational sweeping generalizations based on beliefs.  To get important facts you might want to read Your Future is Calling.

Filed Under: Adult learning, Career, College degrees, Income, Money, Uncategorized // Tagged: , , , , , ,

There’s Debt Then There’s Debt

Posted on March 14, 2013 // Leave a Comment

Student debt gets a lot of attention these days and rightfully so. As a country the total bill is over a trillion dollars and growing. Buzz TodaySource: The Wall Street Journal “Young people are racking up larger amounts of student debt than ever before”

The debt is real and a serious issue for both the borrowers and our nation. Here is why.

Under current law, our federal government only has so much money it can lend to college students. I know this seems counter intuitive in our world where the federal government just keeps on borrowing and borrowing as though the bank account is without end. It’s not. In the case of student loans it is easy to see the problem.

A college student can borrow only a specified total amount of loans. When those have all been used, there is no more to borrow. This defines a total amount that the government can lend in total. Over a trillion dollars of that lending capacity has been used. There is a trillion less that can be loaned in the future.

We have already looked at why this is a serious issue for the borrower in the earlier post titled “Debt”. But though we have talked about one aspect of the issue, let’s return to look at it from another perspective. You can reduce the amount of debt needed to earn your degree in the first place.

When you buy a house, you consciously take action to manage the amount of debt you take on with the purchase. In the case of the house purchase you have professional help. The bank is looking over your shoulder. They will not allow you to take on too much debt. They do this by looking at your credit score which tells them about your repayment history. This is to help them determine if you are a good risk which means they have data that shows them you are likely to repay your loan back.

In the case of the home loan, the bank also looks at your personal income. This is to give them (and you) data on how likely you are to have the money to repay the loan. This protects them… and it protects you. It does so by protecting you from your temptation to take out more debt than you can handle.

No such factors exist when it comes to student loans. You are on your own.

Beware, the temptation to take on more debt than is manageable is real. Millions have already fallen into the trap.

So, when it comes to debt, not all debt is equal. Beware. Look hard before you leap into student loans. They can bite like no other.

Filed Under: Adult learning, College degrees, Paying for your degree, Student loans, Uncategorized // Tagged: , , , , ,
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