How to Ignore the Noise and Make the College Choices Right for You

Posted on September 8, 2013 // Leave a Comment

Control what you can control and forget about the rest of the noise in the higher education debate. Is college too expensive?  Yes. Is college worth it? Yes, if you chose wisely. Can you wind up with $150,000 of debt and no job. Yes, if you chose poorly. Here we explore what you can control to get a better outcome for you while the pundits argue about policy and politics.

Buzz TodayThe Tuition is Too Damn High: Source: The Washington Post. “The Tuition is Too Damn High” is a 10 part series that ran in Wonkblog over two weeks exploring the causes and consequences of – and potential fixes for the skyrocketing costs of higher education. In spite of this general conclusion, the series concludes: “Why College is Still Worth It.” So does college raise incomes? Is it investment good enough to make widely accessible? Yes, it is. Period. Even the widely read Megan McArdle quotes James Heckman, the Nobel Prize – winning economist in Newsweek that “Even with these high prices, you’re finding a high return for individuals who are bright and motivated. If your not college ready, then the answer is no, it’s not worth it.”

The advice the experts quoted in Buzz Today here is wise advice consistent with what I am recommending to you. For you to avoid crushing student debt and end up unemployed you have to make good choices before you go back to school. It is only through these wise choices that you can earn a return on your education investment.

It seems like sound advice. The trick is “how do you do that?” Unfortunately the intense debate among the policy makers and the politicians (Is government aid actually making college more expensive?)  about the issues is of little help for the very personal choices you need to make today.

As Heckman, the Nobel Prize economist implies, you have to begin with yourself. In Your Future is Calling, I give you specific tools to do just that. For now, here are a few tips to take away from this post.

1. Make sure you have the motivation you need to do the work. Simply getting a piece of paper (a degree) is a fool’s goal. In the end, what you can do with you talent and skills from your education will determine your success. After the first interview for a job, nobody cares about the piece of paper (degree) hanging on your home office wall.

2. Do your homework. This means that you must know “who you are”. Once you know the important things about what you are good at and what motivates you (see Buzz Today), you need hard data on jobs and employment opportunities. Here I direct you to objective government data about jobs and income in the US economy. The site O*NET provides the data. Your Future is Calling shows you how to use this important data base to your personal advantage.

Start today. The choices are yours.

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

Another Book on the Topic: “Is College Worth It?”

Posted on May 15, 2013 // Leave a Comment

Yet another book is out about the cost and value of a college education.  This one is from former Secretary of Education William Bennett.  Unfortunately, this book, like so many publications before focuses on universities and public education funding issues.  These are important, but they do not help you make better choices about your own future.  You need specific guidance on how to invest in your own future.  Under every scenario, learning is key to that future.  Buzz Today Source:  Washington Times book review – “Is College Worth It?”    College has simply become too expensive… A bachelor of arts degree in political science at a price of more than $150,000 now seems like a bad choice…It is a horrible return on investment to spend four years and six figures on a degree in women’s studies and a minor in religion.

I want to add a few observations to this “Is College Worth It?’ conversation.  I think it is the wrong question.

It is true that in the twentieth century, earning just about any college degree vastly increased the odds of getting a well paying job and a secure future.  The world has changed.  Two important things have happened since these simpler days of old.  First, the world has not only changed it is changing at an ever faster pace.  This makes it more difficult to select a career that make your future more predictable.  Today, every choice involves greater uncertainty.

The other thing that has changed is the cost of education.  A college degree has become very expensive.  This is one of the main complaints of authors like those in the BUZZ Today reference.  It is important to not mix cost with value.  Is it valuable to learn?   The answer without a doubt is yes!  Is it more difficult to decide what to learn?   Again Yes!   Because it is more expensive to take the traditional route of a college degree should you avoid learning?  Absolutely not.

What has not changed, and is important to you, is that the best route to a more prosperous and fulfilling future for you is still through learning.  It is simple to say don’t go to college.  Unfortunately this leaves you with the challenge of deciding how to get to your better future.

One of my strong reactions to the points in BUZZ Today is that it is not for me or anyone else to tell you what choices you should make about your future.  The BUZZ Today authors can help you with facts and data about investments and returns.  Financial costs and returns are appropriate for you to consider in your decision.  What I think is not appropriate is for me or anyone else to tell you that you should not study for a college degree in women’s studies and religion.  If these are subjects that you want to be a part of your future – go for it.  But in the end you have to make choices like this.  No one else can make them for you.

My advice is that your choices involve your journey to your future.  The key elements that I have you focus on are specific choices that make your personal road map from “who you are” to what “you will be doing” in the future.  Help on these important issues are outlined in detail in Your Future is Calling.

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

Selecting A College or University Part III

Posted on March 27, 2013 // Leave a Comment

Price and Quality

Quality of education is one of the most confusing things about American higher education.  There are no good quality measures routinely reported. The most common education quality parameters actually work against the modern learner, especially adult learners.
Buzz TodaySource:   Your Future is Calling   For example, it is clear from comparisons that the cost for a four-year graphic design major varies tremendously. At the low end of our example we have an annual cost of $6,914 per year at Columbia College versus $42,360 at Boston University.

To understand this dilemma, we need merely look at the premiere University in America today – Harvard University.  Beside being the original American university with the largest financial endowment, Harvard is cited as the university giving the highest quality of education.  Unfortunately, actual Harvard quality parameters  cannot even be used by returning adult learners to make a choice.

When we boil it down, the two cited quality parameters most critical to our perception or quality are price and selectivity.  Why?  Because as an adult living in Kansas City, Missouri we do not have the time or resources to travel to Boston and take several days to visit the campus, talk to faculty and sit in one of the dozens of libraries this esteemed institution has on its campus.

Given this reality, it is important to examine what price and selectivity mean to the college selection decision.  When it comes to price, we have a general set of beliefs that apply to nearly all purchase decisions.  Unless we have direct experience with the product or service our general belief is that high price must mean high quality, otherwise why would people continue to pay for it?  In general, this is not a bad assumption, especially for an institution that has been around for hundreds of years as Harvard University has been.

It is the inverse of the high price/high quality assumption that really hurts the average Joe or Jane when selecting a college.  The inverse assumption is that low price (tuition) means low quality.  Now before you come out of your shoes about low cost higher education stop and hear me out.  There are very good higher education options that are available for one half to one third the tuition cost of Harvard.  To consider them you have to know which colleges those are.

The point of this conversation about price and quality in American higher education is that these commonly cited quality indicators simply do not help the majority of adult learners returning for their education.  In the end, these learners need far better information than price to make a quality decision.   See Your Future is Calling for specifics.

Filed Under: Adult learning, College degrees, Price, Quality // Tagged: , , , ,

Controlling Student Debt – First Make Sure Tuition Cost Is Right

Posted on March 14, 2013 // Leave a Comment

College debt is a topic we have been exploring in the last several posts.  The idea that the amount of debt you have when you get your degree is very dependent on the costs you take on at the beginning of your schooling.  Tuition is by far your biggest cost.  Buzz TodaySource:   Jobs.aol.com The annual tuition (Harvard University MBA) is $51,200 and it is severely discounted for at least half the students. In fact, Harvard’s average fellowship support per MBA student was $29,843 last year, essentially a 58.3 percent discount on that annual tuition.

The question you have to be asking is, “how do you control the tuition cost in the first place?”   For every college or university you are considering you must know what the true cost of tuition is.  In BUZZ Today here, we can see what the tuition costs truly are at one of the most prestigious programs in American higher education.  The degree is an MBA from Harvard University.

What the BUZZ data tells us, is that the “list” price of the degree is $51,200 per year.  By list price we mean the price published on the university web site for a year of enrollment in the program.  Every university has a published list price for their tuition.  It is this list tuition that is quoted when referring to the degrees being offered.  If you do nothing, this list price is what you will pay when you enroll.  This is true for every degree from every university.  The point is that what you actually end up paying is entirely dependent on what you do or don’t do.

The debt control comes in with the second half of the BUZZ data.  The actual (discounted) tuition cost for the students enrolled in the Harvard MBA in 2012 is shown to have been, on average $29,843.  This results in $29,843 less debt a student would have to repay after graduation.

The bottom line is that even in the hugely prestigious Harvard University MBA the average actual tuition price paid is 58.3% less than the list tuition price.

No matter where you decide to go to school it is very important that you take full advantage of the discounted versus list tuition cost at every university you are considering.  For detailed information on the list versus discounted tuition for every American higher education institution see Chapter 9 in my book Your Future Is Calling.

Filed Under: Adult learning, College degrees, Debt, Elite universities, Paying for your degree // Tagged: , , , , , , ,
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