25 years old and deep in debt

[Josquius]

Maybe the US is different but certainly in the UK a lot of graduate jobs outright demand as a minimum for even bothering to apply, good grades from a top 20 university.
In Japan too the name of one of the good universities carries a huge amount of weight in job hunting.

Reall? Have you got a source for this?

They may require a 2.1 orr better but I've never, ever seen any company advertise specifically for graduates of a "top 20 unievrsity" (whatever that is). And I really doubt that any of them do.

I've seen lots of ads that ask for a 2.1 from a red brick.

[garbon]

Let's take as an example Texas Tech, which I believe is not even a top 120 nationally ranked school.

Graduates from its engineering school have an 89% one year job placement rate. Some of the large companies that regularly hire TTU grads are Dell, Lockheed Martin, BP, Chevron, Raytheon etc. These grads aren't going to work at some no-name company (well, some are.)

Of course rankings of prestige are a bad way to evaluate a school because all the rankings I'm aware of (Princeton Review, U.S. News) actually don't rank at all based on graduate performance. Maybe some weight is given now in response to the economic downturn, but the last time I looked at those rankings virtually 100% of the score was based on incoming freshman class GPA, incoming freshman class ACT/SAT, and acceptance rate.

So basically the more exclusive, the higher than ranking. No attention was given to post-graduate performance on any form of standardized test or etc (for most fields there is no standardized test to take after graduation so these metrics do not exist.)

Well I don't think universities are trying to position themselves as primarily vocational centers. As I said earlier, a lot of re-tooling would need to be done if the point of college was to prepare one for work.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Also..I'm not trying to shit on elite schools. Most of them have some genuine reasons for being elite. But most people who go to college go to get a job that doesn't require them to wash their hands when they get home from work and that pays a middle class or better wage. With that goal, unless you're from an elite family or are a special project (poor, minority etc) and can get special benefits I do not believe the economics of elite schooling make sense.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Well I don't think universities are trying to position themselves as primarily vocational centers. As I said earlier, a lot of re-tooling would need to be done if the point of college was to prepare one for work.

I agree, but that reason the government started giving the big loans and guaranteeing the private ones wasn't out of some lofty academic goal, but to improve job prospects. Since that is the goal of government and almost all families sending kids to college that is how those families and government should approach the issue. Schools will respond appropriately if society adjusts.

College didn't emerge as a vocational system intentionally, but basically happened incidentally when people noticed "hey, college graduates make more money" a few decades ago and the government started subsidizing it for everyone. Since most people's goals are vocational that is how families and government need to make college financing decisions. The colleges that don't respond to the inevitable market forces would face declining enrollment.

[CountDeMoney]

Also..I'm not trying to shit on elite schools. Most of them have some genuine reasons for being elite. But most people who go to college go to get a job that doesn't require them to wash their hands when they get home from work and that pays a middle class or better wage. With that goal, unless you're from an elite family or are a special project (poor, minority etc) and can get special benefits I do not believe the economics of elite schooling make sense.

It's a lot easier to shit on elite school graduates, for good reason. 

Hiring-wise, I'd take a well-motivated community college grad than some of the colossal dimwits I've met with Harvard or Yale degrees.*



* Never met a bad Princeton grad, though.  Brown grads, a little flaky.  Pointers and Annapolis trump them all, though.

[garbon]

Of course - but that is true whether you actually attend Cal/Stanford or not. Being lazy or unsociable isn't cured at Cal.

You're more likely to fool that first place with a shiny degree though.

I am sure it depends on the job market of course. But the point is that you are going to have a career for some 30+ years. The FIRST job, while it may seem critically important when you are trying to get it...really isn't in the long run.

Except that I do believe there has been work to show that there are economic consequences to putting off "real" (I guess in this case meaningful career type positions) work till later ages - as well as quality of that initial work.

Here are some quick links I could find though not great as one is about Japan and the other is more about the effects that entering into the workforce during bad economic times can have on wages.

http://www.esri.go.jp/en/archive/new_wp/new_wp020/new_wp020-e.pdf
http://mba.yale.edu/faculty/pdf/kahn_longtermlabor.pdf

[Josquius]

In Japan that is a HUGE deal and a well observed problem- not getting a graduate position right after uni. Leave it more than a year or two and you are pretty much screwed for life.
I've no idea how things are elsewhere but I hope its not the same, for my own sake at least....It does seem though that the early years are vitally important. Don't manage to get (/afford ) internships during/just after uni, don't meet the right people in uni when they're there and interested in you, etc.... and that's that.

[Berkut]

But garbon, you are missing my point.

I am sure that if you overall look at how students from Arizona do in their career compared to students from Stanford, the ones from Stanford do better. But that is because Stanford by its nature selects only high achievers to begin with.

But that is not what we are comparing - what we are comparing is how students who could get into Stanford but go to a more affordable school do compared to those who go to Stanford.

The people who can get into Stanford are high achievers, as a group. I submit that as a group they do well because as a group they are smarter, more motivated, and generally going to do well regardless of where they actually go, because after that first job, what matters is how you perform, not what school you attended.

If you are in that high achieving group out of high school, your long term results will be driven by your performance on the job. You can be lazy and unsociable, and that shiny degree might get you in some doors the lazy and unsociable guy from Arizona could not get in...but it won't help you stay there. You will be gone, or not progressing, no matter where your degree was from if you cannot perform.

And if you can, you will progress and have a good career regardless. Because nobody will care you went to Arizona vice Stanford if you are productive.

[Berkut]

In Japan that is a HUGE deal and a well observed problem- not getting a graduate position right after uni. Leave it more than a year or two and you are pretty much screwed for life.
I've no idea how things are elsewhere but I hope its not the same, for my own sake at least....It does seem though that the early years are vitally important. Don't manage to get (/afford ) internships during/just after uni, don't meet the right people in uni when they're there and interested in you, etc.... and that's that.

You do realize that all someone has to do to refute this claim is find one example where it isn't true, right?

[Josquius]

You do realize that all someone has to do to refute this claim is find one example where it isn't true, right?

Which claim? I've not made any claims.
And generally a few exceptions don't disprove general rules.

[crazy canuck]

well ok only really Garbon.

When you say things like "really" you're supposed to actually be representing the views of the person mentioned.

I can understand why you would want to deny saying such a thing

But as Jacob kinda said and I spoke to anecdotally earlier, the kids that go to the cheaper schools don't seem to have much hope either.  After all, employers still often like to select those that went to better schools - so on average you get a kid who spent 4 years at a cheap school who then finds himself without many appealing job prospects.

[crazy canuck]

A better solution would be to cap student loans at some amount driven by the cost of attending a public, mid-level school.

That is the way we do it here.  There is a basic amount of aid which is available in the form of government backed student loans that will assist some but not all of the cost of an undergraduate degree.  Students need to make up the balance through burseries, scholarships, work or parents and for the expensive professional degrees likely other non government backed loans.

[Valmy]

Are you going into crushing debt to be an engineer? I know many engineers that graduated from relatively unknown schools and make more than the average compensation for engineers. Unless you're wanting to work for a small cadre of employers in highly specialized fields of engineering (like going aerospace because you want to work for NASA) then there is no reason to bankrupt yourself to go to MIT. Now if you can go to MIT affordably through scholarships or whatever, that's fine. But there is little evidence that for people just wanting to enter industry a Top 10 Engineering school is worth going into massive debt over.

I am going to a top 10 Engineering School (UT Austin) but I am not going into debt to do it.  I work here and the school gives me a certain number of free credits every semester as a benefit...I just hope I can finish before they take that away.  The rest of the tuition is about $1,000.00 a Semester which even little old me can afford to pay in cash.

[Valmy]

And I mean "massive debt over and beyond average engineering school debt." If you're going to a good school and aren't doing that, there is no problem.

I was more reacting to the idea that those were the only careers where the undergrad degree mattered

I think I know what you were trying to say now.  Gotcha.

[garbon]

well ok only really Garbon.

When you say things like "really" you're supposed to actually be representing the views of the person mentioned.

I can understand why you would want to deny saying such a thing

But as Jacob kinda said and I spoke to anecdotally earlier, the kids that go to the cheaper schools don't seem to have much hope either.  After all, employers still often like to select those that went to better schools - so on average you get a kid who spent 4 years at a cheap school who then finds himself without many appealing job prospects.

Yeah you bolded the bit with either. Meaning that no one really has any hope as what I quoted was Jacob mentioning those with debt with no hope.