How to Make Sure College is Worth It and Save Money Too

Posted on July 5, 2013 // Leave a Comment

Make money after college and save money while in college.  Possible?  Yes, if you do the right things at the beginning.  If you do what college students have traditionally done you can wind up with huge debt and low income.  Many have and millions more will without a change in the path to a degree.   Here’s what you need to know.     Source:  The New York Times.   At a time when the value of a college degree is being called into question, and when job prospects for many new graduates are grimmer than they’ve been in years, perhaps it’s no surprise to see a not-back-to-school movement spring up.  The push, which is luring a handful of select students away from the likes of Princeton, Harvard and M.I.T., is the brainchild of Peter A. Thiel, silicon valley billionaire.  A  college education remains essential for people from less privileged backgrounds says Carmen Wong Ulrich, co-founder of a three woman investment firm in New York City. “Many African-Americans and Asians can’t afford to ask the question, “Is college worth it?”  We’re not all starting from the same starting line. “Many of us are the first in our family to even attend college”, says Ms Ulrich.

I assume that you are not one of the select few destined for Princeton or Harvard and that you are, like me, first in your family to attend college.  The challenge for us is to make sure college is worth it.  We cannot afford to do otherwise.  Unfortunately, just going to college is not a guarantee that the degree at the end of the process will be worth it.

Two key factors determine the financial part of the ‘Worth it’ answer.  These are, what you can earn after you earn a degree and how much you pay to earn that degree in the first place.  Let’s begin with the last issue first – how much you pay or the inverse, how much money you can save.  By far, the biggest factor that impacts how much you pay is the college or university you attend.  Sounds simple.  It is if you have the right information.

To begin with, the average net tuition being paid at many colleges and universities is at an average almost 50% off of the listed tuition cost.  That means that you can save almost half of the cost by wisely selecting the college you attend.  Details are available in Your Future is Calling.

There are excellent independent data sources about income earned with various degrees.  We will look at one case study here.  As part of a larger study I was asked to look at the financial potential for a graduate of a two year college program in any one of six careers.

Preschool teacher,Paralegal, Diagnostic Medical Sonographer, Registered Nurse, Dental Hygienist, Occupational Therapy Assistant.

The data sources used for this analysis were O*NET, COLLEGENavigator, and SalarySurfer.  Looking at the income two years before and two years after graduation for California Community College graduates in these six careers show a rate of financial return of over 1,500% for the weighted career average. I know of no other investment that even comes close to this financial return.  The bottom line is that it is possible to make sure college is worth it.  See Your Future is Calling for more details.

Filed Under: Adult learning, Career, College degrees, Debt // Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Is College Worth It? YES – for most

Posted on May 26, 2013 // Leave a Comment

Lot’s of people are jumping onto the question of the value of college education.  In a just released book titled “Is College Worth It?: A Former United States Secretary of Education and Liberal Arts Graduate Expose the Broken Promise of Higher Education” the former secretary of education asserts that the promise of education has been broken.

          Data from the US Department of Labor shows that the conclusions the authors draw in the BUZZ Today quote simply are not true.   Source:   Department of Labor careeronestop
The graph shown here shows that for every level of education, higher levels  of education result in both lower unemployment and higher income for most graduates.  Note that the median is the point where one half of the group is above the value and one half is below.  The conclusion has to be that for most students, higher levels of education result in higher economic benefit to the learner.  Buzz Today Source:   Washington Times – Is College Worth It? book review:   William J. Bennett and David Wilezol’s “Is College Worth It?” asks and authoritatively answers one of life’s biggest questions.  It provides a thoroughgoing deconstruction of the “of course it is” delusion. It turns out that for too many, and maybe even most of our young people, the answer to this central question is, sadly, “no.” “Whether the standard of excellence for higher education is cultivating the mind and the soul or maximizing financial return on investment, most of higher education fails most students,” the authors write.   The Department of Labor data shown here is unambiguous.  For every increase in education level obtained the unemployment goes down and the income goes up.   Under no line of reasoning can one conclude from this data that higher education fails most students. Instead of the sweeping claims that associate degree holders earn more than bachelor degree holders (shown not true in the data above) or that the ROI on an education investment is not worth it financially, the discussion needs to focus on what a student needs to do to make sure that they get the best return on their personal investment. The Practical Guide on how to do that is what Your Future is Calling is about. Instead of making headline grabbing general statements about all and every, we need to be helping individual higher education students make better decisions about their own career choices, college majors and universities that they attend.  This can only be done with specific objective data about the choices each individual faces.

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Your Competition

Posted on May 21, 2013 // Leave a Comment

Many are questioning how wise it is to earn a college degree. Those arguing against the decision cite the number of taxi cab drivers with bachelor degree as evidence on why you should not invest in your own education.

It is true that the most recent recession and high unemployment has made jobs scarce for some time. The result has been more educated individuals taking what ever jobs are available just to have an income.

There is another side to this conversation however. Even in the face of slower job growth, the supply of well educated competitors for your future continues to grow. The data from the Pew Research Center shown in the BUZZ Today insert shows that more individuals are earning a degree.

Buzz Today Source: Pew Research Center Title: American Adults Better Educated Than Ever Before In 2012, about three-in-ten Americans 25 and older had completed at least a bachelor’s degree. In 1971 only 12% of adults ages 25 and older had completed at least a four-year college degree. For 2012, a record share of the nation’s young adults ages 25 to 29 (90%) had finished at least a high school education. And another record share – 63% — had completed at least some college.

For those with some college education the competitive implications are clear. Depending on how many credits you have, the additional courses you might need to take can be significantly less than earning a bachelor degree from scratch. Indeed, there are several very attractive ways to get some of the credits you need to complete your degree.

CLEP and DSST examines allow you to earn credit for subjects you are already proficient in. Prior Learning Assessments (PLA) are available from the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) and some colleges will articulate corporate and/or military training for credit. To see how you can use each of these alternatives to your personal advantage read Your Future is Calling.

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

Getting Silly

Posted on May 20, 2013 // Leave a Comment

It’s very much in fashion today to bash colleges and universities. Headline after headline totes how bad a decision it is to get a college degree. The latest is now being reported as coming from the billionaire mayor of New York City.

Buzz Today Source: Fox News. Pipe dream: “Skip college, become a plumber, NYC Mayor Bloomberg says” reads the headline. “Compare a plumber to going to Harvard College — being a plumber, actually for the average person, probably would be a better deal,” he reportedly said. “You don’t spend … four years spending $40,000, $50,000 in tuition without earning income,” said the Mayor

The US Department of Labor estimates on their O*NET WEB site that plumbing is a profession with growing demand and what they call a bright outlook growing over 20% per year through 2020. The average salary for plumbers is $49,140 per year.

These are attractive prospects, relative to some other career options, but there are two problems here. The first problem is that if everyone were to take the Mayor’s advice and become a plumber instead of going to college there would be millions of plumbers. Furthermore, those persons actually with a plumbing job would be making next to nothing. Why would those working plumbers be making so little? Because supply and demand determines wages. With the demand for plumbers set by the market forces described, the Mayor’s recommendation would result in an explosion in the supply of plumbers, thus driving down the wages paid.

It’s true that the plumbing profession has a bright outlook with projected significant growth. The problem is, that even with all of that growth, the estimated number of plumbing openings is 228,800 between now and 2020. The simple fact is that if the millions of college students that will enroll between now and 2020 actually became plumbers instead, there would be lots of unemployed plumbers.

The other problem with the advice, is that you simply may not enjoy what plumbers do. Here O*NET is again helpful. What the WEB site tells us is that a day in the life of a plumber is filled with activities such as:

  • Measure, cut, thread, or bend pipe to required angle, using hand or power tools or machines such as pipe cutters, pipe-threading machines, or pipe-bending machines.
  • Locate and mark the position of pipe installations, connections, passage holes, or fixtures in structures, using measuring instruments such as rulers or levels.
  • Assemble pipe sections, tubing, or fittings, using couplings, clamps, screws, bolts, cement, plastic solvent, caulking, or soldering, brazing, or welding equipment.
  • Install pipe assemblies, fittings, valves, appliances such as dishwashers or water heaters, or fixtures such as sinks or toilets, using hand or power tools.

Remember, your future is about what you will be doing every working day of your life. If these plumbing activities are not what you want to be doing everyday in your future than the Mayor’s advice is not for you. It just does not match who you are.

The point is, that the sweeping generalizations even thoughtful people are making about your future is not very helpful for the decisions you have to make. After all, it is your future, not that of the billionaire Mayor we are talking about here. You need a clear road map to a future that matches who you are. Go to Your Future is Calling for the best advice I can give you.

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