[shubi]

For a while i was looking at our education and financial rewards. I know not every body gets a higher education for financial gain, good for them. I see a person completed highschool and takes a trade school or aprentice with some trade person and within a year start making 40 or 50 thousands scaling down for logic sake. In recent sitution i say you are smart.
Then some are going for higher education to obtain degree in 8 to 10 years. Now here comes the math, the person must spend 40 50 thousands for tution and room and board times 8 to 10 years, lost revenue of 40 50 thousands. looks like by the time they got their degree they are in the hole almost 1 million dollars. I say some body should povide these persons with reasonable financial support with out question.

[bid_em_up]

Are you volunteering?

[jtfanclub]

shubi, on Jan 16 2007, 11:16 PM, said:

Then some are going for higher education to obtain degree in 8 to 10 years. Now here comes the math, the person must spend 40 50 thousands for tution and room and board times 8 to 10 years, lost revenue of 40 50 thousands. looks like by the time they got their degree they are in the hole almost 1 million dollars. I say some body should povide these persons with reasonable financial support with out question.

If you can make $40,000 a year out of high school, by all means go for it.

For the rest of us, however, the choice is $50,000 a year on the average out of college, or about $20,000 a year out of high school. Or $80,000 a year for an advanced degree (such as engineering, law, or pharmacy).


Say you work until you're 68.

Work straight out of high school: 50 years x $20,000=$1 million dollars
Wait until after college: 45 years x $50,000= $2.25 million dollars.
Get an advanced degree: 40 years x $80,000= $3.2 million dollars

So as long as college didn't cost you over one million dollars, it was worth it.

P.S. The average cost for college is about $50,000 per year, including the opportunity cost for not being able to work full time while in school. Since you have to live somewhere and eat whether you go to school or not, that's not included in the estimate. For graduate work, most people get sufficient work stipends and scholarships that all that's lost is the $50K opportunity cost.

[barmar]

Another way to look at jtfanclub's numbers is to figure out the break-even point -- how many years do you have to work after graduating college to make up for the tuition and the fact that you weren't earning money during college. The formula is

CollegeSalary*x = NoCollegeSalary*(x+y)+Tuition*y

x is the number of years after college you have to work, y is the number of years of college, CollegeSalary is your annual salary if you have a degree, NoCollegeSalary is what you make if you don't, and Tuition is the yearly college costs (like jtfanclub, I'm obviously treating all the annual amounts as averages, since in real life they usually grow from year to year). The opportunity costs shouldn't be included in the college costs here, because I'm already handling that in the (x+y) factor. Solving this for x you get:

x = y(NoCollegeSalary+Tuition)/(CollegeSalary-NoCollegeSalary)

Plugging in jtfanclub's estimated salaries, $30K/year for Tuition, and 4 years of college, you break even in about 7 years. So by going to college you end up ahead, financially, before you're 30.

Regarding someone providing these people financial support, it's already often available. In the US we have government-subsidized low-interest loans for college, there are many scholarships available, and most universities have their own financial aid programs (mixtures of loans and work-study programs). If you qualify to get into a good university, there's usually some way to make the finances work out.

[shubi]

For higher student sure scholarship, teaching, and marking papers is common, which adds up to below minimum income, and most of these position is taken up by forigin student. they sure know how to live with that amount. For a north american student its burger for 3 days and might as well spend some money by eating fried Chicken next day.

[mike777]

Interesting article by Charles Murray, I think, who writes about IQ levels required for College level learning. He suggests there are already too many students in College who would be better served by vocational schools and other options.

I note the phrase, better served, sinced I think we all can agree we can gain something of value by taking courses that really challenge our normal levels of ability.

btw as a side note for many in the world eating beef 3 days a week and chicken one day a week is a luxury, lets not get too snobby.