College Value?

The average college graduate's debt is $35,000 and many are having a hard time paying off a loan that may not be discharged in bankruptcy.  In spite all the politicians saying they only want to help you they write laws so their side never loses like the banks they disparage.

Nonetheless, college graduates from 25 to 32, working full time, earn  $17,500 more annually than peers with only a high school diploma according to Pew Research, but we wonder about those with the "Studies" and "Environmental" degrees for which there are no to few jobs.  We suspect this is selective sampling which is not uncommon in such research.

Degrees from the more fashionable Ivy League schools can cost $60,000 a year if you live on campus and eat in the school dining halls.  It is cheaper for a group of four or five students to room in a house or apartment, share cooking and get local jobs.  It used to be possible to wind up with a degree in four years and little to no debt, even if you were in a hard science and virtually living in labs.

If your parents are upper class and you are a legacy appointment, slated to get a job in the family business none of this affects you, but no more than a few percent of our students are gagging on silver spoons.  Most struggle and have to pick majors carefully.  

Engineering and computer programming are very good.  Anything with "Studies" after it is not.  The arts are generally dead ends unless you are from those circles.  Teaching is good as less than needed always seem to be interested and it is interesting, enjoyable work.

An engineering graduate from the University of California will be over one million Dollars better off after 20 years than a high school graduate unless he got into a high earning trade like welding.

Arts courses pay off well if you go all the way through grad school to a Ph.D. and are well connected socially.  Fine arts graduates from small colleges and from middle or lower class families will never make make it.  That world will never change; it is generally connections.  There are the occasional clever people who have great ideas and pull them off, these are few and far between.

It is sad, if not criminal, that the cost of college has risen by five times the rate of inflation since 1983, and graduate salaries have been flat for the last decade. Student debt is so great it stops many young people from buying homes, starting businesses or having children.  Those who borrowed for a bachelor’s degree granted in 2012 owe an average of $30,000. The Project on Student Debt found 15% of borrowers default within three years of graduation. At for-profit colleges the rate is 22% and many wonder if they will ever pay of their student loans.

We can expect Democratic politicians to promise debt forgiveness much as they want to admit illegal aliens to enhance their voting base as they have in California where illegal voting has cemented Democrats in place.  This is driving all the "sanctuary" and "secession" talk, but the California economy is unsustainable as several thousand businesses leave every year, stranding employees they cannot afford to move and don't want to as cheaper workers are available in other states.

A recent poll showed students enrolling this year expect to see debts forgiven after 20 years. But nearly a third who take out loans drop out of college without realizing they must repay the debts.  By law they cannot escape!  This is a reality that is not widely realized and it is political time bomb.

A McKinsey study found 42% of recent graduates are in jobs that require less than a four-year college education. Some 41% of graduates from the nation’s top colleges could not find jobs in their chosen field. Half of all graduates said they would choose a different major or school if they could do it over. In many cases there is literally no counseling or aptitude testing. One of the most important decisions in their lives is left to students who are ignorant of their own reality led by school bureaucrats making high six figure salaries with rich benefit packages and doing nothing.

The Chegg company, online help to students, says that only half of graduates feel prepared for a job in their field, and only 39% of managers said graduates were ready for the workforce. They often cannot write clearly or organize time sensibly. Four million jobs are unfilled today because college graduate job seekers lack the skills needed.  What do they teach in those schools?  Don't ask...

We have great hope for online education as it will expose the bad teachers, of which there are many, and extend the reach of the really gifted performers who can "bring it to life."  They exist.  It may be better to be in the room, but there are men and women who can sell it and that is what it takes.

Adrian Vance