I am 100% convinced that the college debt bubble is going to make the housing bubble

[Poonani Maker]

Everyone should see this inspirational video before it's too late since we're all caught in the entertainment DAZE. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6OQzH07u0U A WAKE UP call in 2011? 2012? When will we wake up!?

 

[cordoncordon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEi2hKbgo0c&feature=related
Pour toi. Closest thing to a real gift that I can give you.

You are so gay.

 

[Plinco]

http://nakedlaw.avvo.com/2010/06/8-reasons-college-tuition-is-the-next-bubble-to-burst/

 

[j0n24]

This is what I started thinking when I was planning my college education.

I went first year with my parents paying for my classes. I took art/math/history for physical therapy.

2nd year or semester whatever I took math/history/chemistry

I went the 3rd year and said I wanted to go into physical therapy and told them the pre reqs did NOT require math/history/art so why did I take them?

Their response..."I dont know but taking the BLOCK is a better idea then just picking and choosing."

Colleges are only out to get your money not for you to leave...the longer you stay at one college the more money they get from you.

I also wondered why degrees were not more specalized then all this like someone else said "Fat," Added to the courses.

I know more about physical therapy WITHOUT even taken 1/4th of my required classes due to learning about the gym/hands on time/ getting certs for being a personal trainer then a girl that has been in school and in a classroom trying to be a physical therapist.

IF more things became specialized more people would have jobs and be more proficient in their respected careers.

 

[TheHumanist]

^^^Just to put it out. I believe the reasoning you're required to take such classes outside your major is (originally) for the ideal of "Liberal Arts." A person coming out of college should know not just their profession, but have a reasonable understanding of mathematics, language, and other subjects. The well-rounded individual who, for example, know enough biology so he won't be lost when a doctor start spurting out diseases and other stuff. This ideal was thought up centuries ago during the renaissance.

The problem is, despite all those classes, many aren't really coming out more worldly or knowledgeable. Worse, academia is getting infected with corporatism and political correctness. So students aren't even coming out more critical in thinking.

A few days ago, I was talking to a man who is a biochemical scientist and told me that he was once a tenured professor at one of the local universities, but left. He left during the 80's because of how money grabbing the universities have become and all the politics in academia. And that was from the 80's! 30 years later have only gotten worse as more people in administration are replace with corporate executives in the mission for efficiency, while much of the faculty shifts more to the left without critical thought.

Yet, the costs are ballooning, degrees are getting worth less and less, and many aren't even coming out very knowledgeable.

 

[JT7890]

I think the issue with alot of colleges is the fact that the teacher does MOST of the coursework for the students. We sit in on lectures, we are babysat and told where to find the answers for the homework assignments, and basically you can go through college and just SHOW UP and PARTICIPATE in the class, that's enough to get a 3.0 for the most part. You FORGET damn near everything you just learned all semester because you basically didn't learn anything, you just went through the motions to satisfy the teacher.

I do ALOT of distance learning courses, these courses I think are the college courses of the 21st century. You actually HAVE to learn the subject to pass because, there's no teacher there babysitting you. You actually remember alot of the course material when the class is over because you actually had to engage your BRAIN into the course instead of just showing up and writing down notes (because those notes are answers that will be on next week's exam so, memorize those notes and you'll pass!)

I'm starting my PhD in January 2012 and I'm hearing so many folks crying about how "hard" the PhD program is. Examining the PhD program you find that it's not that it's so hard and impossible to do, instead you don't have a teacher babysitting you and holding your hand! Not to take away from the PhD, it is a very difficult program.

College needs to do more distant learning in my opinion. It forces the student to engage and learn the material.

 

[synergy1]

I think the issue with alot of colleges is the fact that the teacher does MOST of the coursework for the students. We sit in on lectures, we are babysat and told where to find the answers for the homework assignments, and basically you can go through college and just SHOW UP and PARTICIPATE in the class, that's enough to get a 3.0 for the most part. You FORGET damn near everything you just learned all semester because you basically didn't learn anything, you just went through the motions to satisfy the teacher.

Not sure what major you took, but engineers are worked to the hilt and most don't even get close to a 3.0. The motto back in the late 90s was "Lowest GPA, highest salaries". It wasn't just homework and tests that engineers had to complete, most of the time it was fairly exhaustive projects near the semesters end. Senior year we were required to do a project that was the equivalent too, or more difficult than a lot of master work in other fields ( in terms of time spent). What you could learn in class was maybe 60-70% of what you needed to apply, and you needed to learn a lot on your own to succeed. Its just the nature of the subject.

The point is that your college experience will vary depending what you took. Clearly you were exposed to the kind of material where you could just show up and get an A. The root cause isn't the college itself so much as it is the curriculum. You want to be babysit less, take pre med, computer/electrical/chemical/mechanical engineering and that'll do it for ya.

(because those notes are answers that will be on next week's exam so, memorize those notes and you'll pass!)

Open book, open notes, still VERY easy to fail a lot of exams given too us. Fluid dynamics/ Viscous flow, you could have had your best friend telling you stuff, the internet, and your textbook and still gotten an F on those professors exams.

 

[squirrels]

^^^Just to put it out. I believe the reasoning you're required to take such classes outside your major is (originally) for the ideal of "Liberal Arts." A person coming out of college should know not just their profession, but have a reasonable understanding of mathematics, language, and other subjects. The well-rounded individual who, for example, know enough biology so he won't be lost when a doctor start spurting out diseases and other stuff. This ideal was thought up centuries ago during the renaissance.

The problem is, despite all those classes, many aren't really coming out more worldly or knowledgeable. Worse, academia is getting infected with corporatism and political correctness. So students aren't even coming out more critical in thinking.

A few days ago, I was talking to a man who is a biochemical scientist and told me that he was once a tenured professor at one of the local universities, but left. He left during the 80's because of how money grabbing the universities have become and all the politics in academia. And that was from the 80's! 30 years later have only gotten worse as more people in administration are replace with corporate executives in the mission for efficiency, while much of the faculty shifts more to the left without critical thought.

Yet, the costs are ballooning, degrees are getting worth less and less, and many aren't even coming out very knowledgeable.

College is a racket nowadays like anything else.

It's marketed like a big "get rich quick" scheme, kind of like real estate was marketed before the housing bust (and still is to some degree). College used to be about getting educated in a field you were interested in so you could either do research/teach or acquire a required set of skills to operate in a profession.

Eventually, though, society started to notice that a lot of the people who went through college were making LOTS of money. Ignoring the fact that these people put in a lot of hard work and had a genuine interest in their fields, they looked for the "magic bullet" that made these people rich. Oh sh*t...wait a minute...all these rich people went to COLLEGE. I'm gonna send MY kids there so THEY can be rich too!!

The simpletons thus formulate the following equation:
1) Go to college
2) ?????
3) Profit!

Thus it started becoming politically important for kids coming out of high school to start going to college. The government bought into the ideal and started putting out grants for poorer kids, smart or not, hoping that they could send them to college and they could earn some REAL money. At the same time, the rich parents didn't want to see those poor bastards getting a leg-up, so they started sending THEIR retarded kids off to college, damn the expense.

And the colleges and universities...they ATE THIS SH*T UP. They started advertising the numbers themselves...did you know that the average salary of a college-educated kid is TWICE that of someone without a college education?? Suddenly the entry standards are lowered and whole agencies popped up around giving students "financial aid" (i.e. loans) to get them into college. I remember going to my financial advisor and them telling me emphatically how much my parents, who were raising 4 kids and could barely make ends meet, could afford to borrow for my education. It was all I could do to not laugh in their faces. College lenders are as predatory, if not moreso, than mortgage companies.

Even the professors themselves started buying into the idea. I remember sitting in an intro MacroEconomics course and a professor talking about "borrowing against future earnings", as if higher earnings after college were a CERTAIN thing.

Soon, it's about the schools cramming as many people possible into their programs. Don't have the money? They'll loan it to you...you're good for it! Tuition rates SKYROCKETED. The value of the education doesn't matter any more...in the minds of the average person the value of a degree is absolute...you MUST have it, so with the demand inflexible, they charge as much as they can to still be able to fill all the slots they have in the classroom without bankrupting their clientele...basically squeeze them for whatever they've got. This is YOUR FUTURE. You'd better be willing to pay whatever we ask!!

And of course between the enormous class sizes (result of schools cramming as many students in as possible) and the caliber of the students (dumb rich kids and dumb poor kids, as discussed above, always distracting professors with "special needs" and an "I don't get it" attitude), the quality of the education declines. A bachelor's degree is worth no more in REAL terms of education than a high school diploma was 20 years ago.

This has caused a major shift in the work world. White-collar companies virtually will not hire ANYONE who doesn't have at least a Bachelor's degree. There are so many people with BAs and even BSes out there now that businesses can afford to reject people without them out-of-turn.

The blue-collar fields, on the other hand, have suffered DRASTICALLY. They're full of f*ck-ups who didn't have the discipline or the smarts to finish out high-school or the credit rating to borrow enough to go to college. Druggies, ex-cons, etc...I know. I worked in that field to earn money to help finance MY college education 10 years ago. The GOOD people who are left are getting old now and they're starting to wonder why they can never find GOOD help.

Of course, that's the grade-schools' and high-schools' faults. Since college is so politically prestigious, they FORCE all of the smart kids to go on college-hunts. Teachers and counselors feed them crap about applying for college from day one, tell them, "Yes, you BELONG in college!" Why?? Because the more students go to 4-year schools, the better-rated the school and the more "funding" they get. High schools used to have tracks to put good academic students into pre-college programs, put good hands-on students into trade programs, and kind of steer people toward a career that reflects their gifts. Now, all of the kids who would have thrived in the trade-world are forced into academia instead.

Most people I know don't use d!ck's-worth of their college degree. I majored in economics and I work in Info Tech. Picked up most of this crap on the fly by dabbling and hands-on experience. Many businesses have to UNLEARN bad habits out of college grads. In fact, the biggest selling-point for job candidates in this world isn't college education, it's EXPERIENCE. Yet HR departments still wouldn't dare challenge the supremacy of a college degree, so it's still a requirement...albeit one that they flex on more often than they'd admit.

Meanwhile the prices keep going up, because as the population increases, more people = more rich people and the universities aren't growing at the same rate, so why not get the most money possible out of the richest people possible?? The poverty gap continues to widen. But that's another thread.

 

[DJ Logic]

The simpletons thus formulate the following equation:
1) Go to college
2) ?????
3) Profit!

Hahahaahahaa! You gotta love the Underpants Gnomes' model of success.

Me? I went to college for one semester before realizing what a massive waste of money it was. The debt is really not worth it unless you have a clear vision of your career and its absolutely necessary (doctor, architect, etc) Everything else is just resume filler which you can easily make up. It's bullsh-t!

 

[squirrels]

Hahahaahahaa! You gotta love the Underpants Gnomes' model of success.

Me? I went to college for one semester before realizing what a massive waste of money it was. The debt is really not worth it unless you have a clear vision of your career and its absolutely necessary (doctor, architect, etc) Everything else is just resume filler which you can easily make up. It's bullsh-t!

I went to college mostly on scholarship. If I could not get in on scholarship, I probably would have not gone.

My first year I took out like $2,500 in an unsubsidized Stafford loan because I didn't think scholarships would cover it all, but they did. So that's all I ever borrowed...and I paid it back within 3 months of starting work. That was priority #1.

They STILL send me crap about that loan that's been paid off for YEARS, offering to "consolidate my student debt". It just shows me how much of a racket the whole financial system has become. Don't get me wrong, debt is an important part of how an economy works. But it's damned irresponsible the way the lenders act like there is ZERO RISK to it.

 

[j0n24]

I agree with what most people are saying nowadays.

High School- Get a jump start on college planning! It's your future!
College- So how much you want to borrow?
Once they get you to sign that Promissary note they dont give a crap about you let alone if you fail as long as you pay back what you "Needed," For your future.

I signed that note against my better judgement and now I am FORCED to sign a decleration that if there is a draft I'm OBLIGATED to go....yet as it stands today I have not even borrowed a single penny from them.

I pay out of pocket because I am not a moron to go into debt so easily...but try telling the damn financial aid that and saying since I never borrowed money that I want to cancel and destroy my promissary note well they just freak out and say keep it "Just in case."

I agree as well more businesses are looking for experience then a degree nowadays. Which makes sense would you rather hire a guy that knows what the hell he is doing and has experience doing it for 4 years even WITHOUT a degree or a fresh out of college 4yr Bachelor degree with 0 experience.

The degrees are becoming no more then toilet paper but then again our money is slowly going the same route.

 

[JT7890]

Well easy credit and over leveraging caused the crisis in 2008, and that is occurring here in the student loan market. Just as alot of people got mortgages they couldn't afford NOR knew how to manage, the same thing is happening with the student loan market, where students are just enrolling in the college without a clue on how to manage their careers.

Maybe if colleges focused more on career planning for students instead of teaching to the test, alot of those clueless freshmen would have a more focused career path so they COULD pay back their student loans. CNBC did a story on this back in December. It's a shame how alot of students make the mistakes of:

1.) Thinking you need to go to a name brand college

So let's see, you can get the same education for 70% less, with the same value, but yet you want to go pay $20,000 a year for a name brand? In four years that's $80k on a Bachelors Degree ALONE. You could have easily got that same education and value somewhere and paid $6k a year for a total of $24k for the degree.



2.) Not even trying to work while in college nor looking for funding sources

When I first started college there were a ton of opportunities around me to pay for studies and not take out any student loans. From work study, pell grants, university grants, other college campus jobs, and also the Research Department was very good! Plus my university had its own select pool of scholarships for students to apply for every year.



3.) No Career Path At All

If you enroll in college without knowing a damn thing about where you are going in your career, what market you are going into, information on that market and if it might be outsourced to India when you graduate, etc., etc., you are totally stupid lol.

Why alot of college students don't see college as an investment I have no idea. College isn't a job, college doesn't get you a job, college is only a transcript and a qualification that you show to a HR Manager in the FIELD you are trying to get into that says you have TRAINING in the area. On top of that training you need to have some level of field experience and there you go.

But when you do no career planning, have no idea what field you are going into nor how that field works, have no idea about what the pay will be in 10 years, 5 years, and 1 year after college, then you do NOT DESERVE TO BE IN COLLEGE PERIOD.


Similar to the mortgage crisis, we won't have a crisis if the people that SHOULD have mortgages have them. And coming back to college, the people that SHOULD be in college should be there. SOME people are honestly better off just working minimum wage for the rest of their lives because they couldn't manage a lemonade stand nevertheless a business or their career.

 

[JT7890]

synergy1

Not sure what major you took, but engineers are worked to the hilt and most don't even get close to a 3.0. The motto back in the late 90s was "Lowest GPA, highest salaries". It wasn't just homework and tests that engineers had to complete, most of the time it was fairly exhaustive projects near the semesters end. Senior year we were required to do a project that was the equivalent too, or more difficult than a lot of master work in other fields ( in terms of time spent). What you could learn in class was maybe 60-70% of what you needed to apply, and you needed to learn a lot on your own to succeed. Its just the nature of the subject.

The point is that your college experience will vary depending what you took. Clearly you were exposed to the kind of material where you could just show up and get an A. The root cause isn't the college itself so much as it is the curriculum. You want to be babysit less, take pre med, computer/electrical/chemical/mechanical engineering and that'll do it for ya.

Well I disagree with that. I'm a business major but I also have a Bachelors in Journalism as well. The subjects of accounting and finance are very difficult especially when you move up to the Masters and the PhD level in business (where I will be in January). Plus not to mention the countless papers, research, etc. that has to be done.

What I was hinting at was that in traditional brick and mortar schools, the teacher does spend alot of time trying to handhold students and it creates this spirit of dependency on the teacher. Alot of my classmates whine and complain alot because with a number of the MBA courses, there's no teacher to hold your hand due to the distant learning nature. The PhD is even worst due to its research based focus, most students don't even finish the PhD in 7 years and at which time most universities just drop them. I'm getting alot more out of my MBA then I did out of the two Bachelor Degree programs I was in combined, I have a Bach of Science in Business Management also.

You don't NEED to only major in law, med, engineering, or computer related subjects to get a meaningful education of value. It's trips me out when I hear people talking about how if you don't get your degree in those subjects the degree is useless, it just shows that they have no idea what they are talking about. The MBA is a very valuable degree from a business professional standpoint, the benefits are endless. Furthermore, I know a ton of doctors and lawyers that can barely keep the lights on while most of the MBAs I know make well over six figures. College is what you make of it and how you use the experience gained, your major should reflect your talents, passions, income potential, and current market positions.

 

[Julius_Seizeher]

I don't think of consumer debt as being part of a "bubble" per say, because bubbles are usually largely tied to speculation. And since consumer debts and student loans have not been bundled up and sold as CDOs (a bridge too far, even for Wall Street), there is no speculative money chasing these debts and making them worse.

The consumer debt is just a big ugly 800 billion pound gorilla in the room, but it is something that individuals will deal with on their own. The events of the past few years have spawned a resurgence of common sense in Americans, with regard to their finances. The national savings rate has grown over the last few years, leverage is down, and people are pulling their belts tight and paying off their stuff.

 

[Alle_Gory]

I don't think of consumer debt as being part of a "bubble" per say, because bubbles are usually largely tied to speculation. And since consumer debts and student loans have not been bundled up and sold as CDOs (a bridge too far, even for Wall Street), there is no speculative money chasing these debts and making them worse.

Student debts have been securitized, as have credit card debts and auto loans.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Asset-backed_security#Auto_loans


Speculative money making things worse... what do you mean by that? The issue with the recent housing bubble was lenders would give loans to people who couldn't afford them, then the lenders (banks) bundled up all these sh*tty loans and made securities out of them. The credit rating agency goes "yeah, this is a great security AAA rating!" because they're paid by the institutions issuing the securities and the investors bought into it because the returns were great for awhile and so was the rating but they had no idea what was inside the security because the structure was complex containing things like fractions of various mortgages and other securities, etc.

It was all a clusterf*ck thanks to deregulation, greed, and lousy math.

 

[synergy1]

Well I disagree with that. I'm a business major but I also have a Bachelors in Journalism as well. The subjects of accounting and finance are very difficult especially when you move up to the Masters and the PhD level in business (where I will be in January). Plus not to mention the countless papers, research, etc. that has to be done.

I never found material in a business curriculum very difficult to begin with. No offense. What can be said is that research in general can be a difficult beast, especially when ones work is stagnant. If you get a masters, you'll see what I mean. The papers from research aren't bad since you are basically the subject matter expert once you are ready to publish. My publication had to exclude some research just to be within the page limit.

You don't NEED to only major in law, med, engineering, or computer related subjects to get a meaningful education of value. It's trips me out when I hear people talking about how if you don't get your degree in those subjects the degree is useless, it just shows that they have no idea what they are talking about. The MBA is a very valuable degree from a business professional standpoint, the benefits are endless. Furthermore, I know a ton of doctors and lawyers that can barely keep the lights on while most of the MBAs I know make well over six figures. College is what you make of it and how you use the experience gained, your major should reflect your talents, passions, income potential, and current market positions.

To me, a generic major is useless. Its something you can learn on your own time...why bother paying for it? Unless your are at Sloan, or Tuck, its all something you can pick up and understand . Don't get me wrong, it would have been an honor to study securities under Benjamin Graham at Colombia, but he has since passed away and even my GPA would have been hard pressed to get into Colombia. A quantitative background gives you options in ANY field, sales, technical writing, medicine, law, finance...you name it.

The MBA isn't really a program when compared to medicine and law pe say. Its something you get after you finish undergraduate so it supplements ones background, at least in theory. Lets get real though, the MBA is not nearly as prestigious as it once was back 30 years ago. I mean, if you get a company to foot the bill and pay for it, I wouldn't say no, but after looking at some curriculum offered at most schools...it doesn't seem worth it to fork over the money.


It was all a clusterf*ck thanks to deregulation, greed, and lousy math.

Obama promised more regulation and crack downs on the shady derivative practices, but not much has been done here. If indeed student loan debt is securitized and sold by big banks, its very conceivable that a string of defaults from students who are unable to pay their loans ( lack of jobs) could occur in the near future.

In 1998, the private sector had to bail out LTCM ( a hedge fund) to the tune of 300 million dollars each. (some paid less) There were mass warnings about derivatives that were largely ignored back than and now. 10 years later, the SAME thing happened. Very little has changed since 2008, and with public bailouts, these banks really feel they can do no wrong. Are we back on course to repeat the same mistake?

 

[JT7890]

Julius

I don't think of consumer debt as being part of a "bubble" per say, because bubbles are usually largely tied to speculation. And since consumer debts and student loans have not been bundled up and sold as CDOs (a bridge too far, even for Wall Street), there is no speculative money chasing these debts and making them worse.

The central reason the mortgage crisis occurred was because the loans were being held up by people that couldn't afford to payback the loans. They are started defaulting at one time, driving up the default rate, which puts ANY lender out of business.

With the government dishing out billions of dollars in Stafford loans to students and to qualify, the students just need to say "ok" and sign a MPN, without ANY real verification on if that student can handle a loan or even has true career planning to have a good chance of paying it back, I think eventually WILL bring down this house of cards as well.

Our debt it already 14 trillion, I'm not saying get rid of student loans, I'm saying there needs to be additional verification on the student taking out the loan. Like I said earlier, some of those people couldn't manage a lemonade stand nevertheless, trying to manage a career. Some people are better off working 2-3 minimum wage jobs for the rest of their life. It's sad but it's true.

synergy1

I never found material in a business curriculum very difficult to begin with. No offense. What can be said is that research in general can be a difficult beast, especially when ones work is stagnant. If you get a masters, you'll see what I mean. The papers from research aren't bad since you are basically the subject matter expert once you are ready to publish. My publication had to exclude some research just to be within the page limit.

Well you are correct about the research part, but if obtaining a higher level degree in business was a piece of cake everybody would have one.

To me, a generic major is useless. Its something you can learn on your own time...why bother paying for it?

See this is where you are wrong synergy. A degree in business (Bachelor, Masters, or PhD) can be used in a number of ways to further your networking capabilities, credibility, and reach as a business consultant. Furthermore, the countless number of jobs in corporate finance, accounting, or any general business's marketing department or related departments, ALL requires some sort of business related degree.

Yes, you can go to the library or Google search and find alot of the material, the purpose of getting the degree in business honestly isn't to make you a business pro (you learn that from the field), it's to get the "title" so related people in your field will know that you have both field experience and academic experience. Hell MAJORITY of the courses I've taken I've already knew half of the material before I stepped in the classroom.

In some business related positions both are required (field and academic experience), in other business related positions academic experience isn't required per say, BUT, it does make you look a hell of a lot credible compared to some of the other "consultants" running around. To be a business consultant and have "MBA" after your title allows potential clientele to screen you and select you over some "guy" that might be working out of his house and decided to become a "consultant" yesterday after quitting his french fry dropping position. Again I can go on and on about the benefits in this area.

And to add, you can find a quality program these days for around $20k or so which I think is a healthy investment considering the benefits it brings from the title alone around the business community.

The MBA isn't really a program when compared to medicine and law pe say. Its something you get after you finish undergraduate so it supplements ones background, at least in theory. Lets get real though, the MBA is not nearly as prestigious as it once was back 30 years ago.

I disagree with that but, to each his own right? You are basically just stating your personal degree preference, you have no real tangible facts to devalue the MBA. School PERIOD isn't as prestigious as it was 30 - 40 years ago because back then, there were fewer government programs and access to student loans that ALLOWED people to get into college in the first place. Furthermore, 30 - 40 years ago, manufacturing in this country was still somewhat in existence, the average middle class guy didn't NEED to go to college they could go straight down to the plant down the street with full benefits, a good middle class salary, and retirement. Those days are gone! Today, for most positions, you need a college degree, so MORE people are enrolling. Someone mentioned that college has become somewhat of a business and they are capitalizing on this situation, so yes, that's why you see college's spending more money on targeting individuals I can't watch any TV show today without at least 2 or 3 college ads in between. Throw on top of that the government has increased grants and loans to make college accessible for most people that WANT to go, and you have a huge increase in enrollment. Colleges want to look good so they mostly have watered down the programs at some point to increase graduation rates. But today's job market is starting to REQUIRE a Masters level degree as Bachelor degrees are flooding the market now.

So you can't really compare today's college programs to that of 30 - 40 years ago because, we were in a total different market.

But, to say that the Masters isn't prestigious is your own personal opinion. I'm telling you from experience, the benefits of the degree when used in the proper format and setting.

 

[backbreaker]

To me, a generic major is useless. Its something you can learn on your own time...why bother paying for it? Unless your are at Sloan, or Tuck, its all something you can pick up and understand . Don't get me wrong, it would have been an honor to study securities under Benjamin Graham at Colombia, but he has since passed away and even my GPA would have been hard pressed to get into Colombia. A quantitative background gives you options in ANY field, sales, technical writing, medicine, law, finance...you name it.

The MBA isn't really a program when compared to medicine and law pe say. Its something you get after you finish undergraduate so it supplements ones background, at least in theory. Lets get real though, the MBA is not nearly as prestigious as it once was back 30 years ago. I mean, if you get a company to foot the bill and pay for it, I wouldn't say no, but after looking at some curriculum offered at most schools...it doesn't seem worth it to fork over the money.

This is exatly why I did not go to college. I knew what I wnated to do, as a junior in high school. not exactly but I knew, whatever I did, I was in love with technology, computers, the internet. Whatever I did, it was going to do something with that. After a few months of going to the libary and B and N, it did not take me long to realize I could learn everything about everything I needed to know there.

I went to vocational school, while I was a senior, taking 4AP classes at that, I was in school for 11 hours a day as a senior. I wasn't stupid, just prudent. In my junior year I put together a plan, I wanted to be working with computers the second I got out of high school. I was A plus certified like 2 weeks after christmas of my senior year. By This Valentines day I was working part time as a pc technician at best buy. By that summer I was MCSE certifed. I wasn't even 18 yet. But Here I was, 18 years old, I knew what I wanted to do, at the time I didn't care about starting a business,I just knew I loved computers and dammit, now I can work on computers.
About 8 months into my first company, I was working as a commuter tech for GMAC. 19 years old, didn't even want the job just to put food on the table.

My whole point of that is, I'm 27 now. If I never did what I did, I would still be okay financailly, simply beucase, I was good at what I did then and I'm better now at it after a decade of experience. By the time I was 20, I had a 4 year jump in my field on anyone who entered, becuase I was working when I was 17.

my fiancee and i were talking yesterday about this subject, she has a college degree in drama (tell me about it), i pick on her all the time. her parents paid for it, she doesn't owe anything, but still, it's ****ing useless. That's actually why she came to LA in the first place, and supported herself riding horses. She is ****ing horrible. Sorry babe if you are reading this you suck and you know it lol College, is being sold as a short cut for hard work. "The avg 19 year old college kid has this, dream in his head, where he gets out of college when he's 22 years old, gets hired into some place, where he gets to wear a suit to work, go to meetings and feel important, and make 60-70k a year. What they don't realize is that those jobs are few and are between, and they don't hand them out like crackers either. They go to people who deserve them.

As far as a "business administration degree", I have run 2 businesses, I sincerely doubt that there are many people coming out of college that can run my business better than I can at my age. Not saying I'm not still learning, you are always learning, but I have a better idea of what does and what does not work than the avg 27 year old does with a BA degree, with about 6 years of real applied knowledge. lol, I remember when I was 20 years old, and my best friend who was getting a business degree, he was a senior in college, I had to sit down and explain to him the difference between FiFO and LiFO accounting. Because selling computers online that's something I had been dealing with and had to learn on my own, or about a year and a half at that point. Even with that, to him it's just another one of many definitions that he has to memorize for a test. For me it was the difference between showing potential investors that we ran a real tight ship and we knew what we were doing, as well as being as prepared as possible for tax season

 

[backbreaker]

What do you mean I'm not gonna get a 60k-70k salaried job out of college?Damn it, don't tell me Santa isn't real either.


Your friend must not have been paying attention in school. I learned that in my 1st semester of accounting.

That's my whole point. I never said that it wasn't covered. He should have known what it was. And he was no dummie, he left school with about a 3.4GPA when it was all said and done. The point being however, skating through school thinking that just because you have a piece of paper you are going to get all these doors opened for you is hogwash, not unless you re able to actually apply your knowledge, and not just pass a test, which he could not.
I'm sure he did learn what it was earlier, but probably just to pass a test, and not a working definition of what it meant, as which was required when I had to sit down and show him the difference.

That actually brings back some memories. Man, I don't think I ever read as much in my life, in fact I know I didn't as those 3 years from 18-21. Business magazines, I had a subscription mo CFO magazine, all kinds of accounting books, I wanted to learn, bad. Anything, business related I wanted to learn. Six Sigma, productivity management, marketing, advertising strategies, I would get off work and just read for hours everyday. Read stories on other companies and figure out where they went wrong, value america, mci worldcom, figure out where companies went right, amazon, dell. To this day I still wont' watch a dell commerical I despised dell and stil hate their damn products. Because I knew I had to and I wasn't going t let a lack of knowledge be my downfall.

 

[Teflon_Mcgee]

You get out of college what you put into it.

I worked hard through school and graduated with a small enough debt that I could easily pay it off in one year.

The year I graduated I did make over $60,000. And that includes me still being in school (full time) for four months that years.

The bottom line is, if you take responsibility for yourself and actually have a plan then you will be fine. Unfortunately, the world is full of people who refuse to take responsibility for themselves and can't plan beyond their next Mcdonalds combo meal.