25 years old and deep in debt

[Zanza]

Go into medicine. The guy who is dead last in his class is still going to get a job making 150-200k.

I'm graduating in two months and I'm 183k in debt. I'll have to put loans into forbearance for the next six years at 6.8% interest so I'll probably be near 260k in principal by the time I'm done with residency. I can't believe that in the 90s-early 2000s student loan interest rates were around 2-3%.

Is there a risk that the US will eventually try to reign in its runaway spending on healthcare and also cut into the income of doctors?

[Fate]

Go into medicine. The guy who is dead last in his class is still going to get a job making 150-200k.

I'm graduating in two months and I'm 183k in debt. I'll have to put loans into forbearance for the next six years at 6.8% interest so I'll probably be near 260k in principal by the time I'm done with residency. I can't believe that in the 90s-early 2000s student loan interest rates were around 2-3%.

Is there a risk that the US will eventually try to reign in its runaway spending on healthcare and also cut into the income of doctors?

Sure, it's happening already. But doctor's salaries aren't a primary driver of costs. One need only look at Canada where primary care docs make more than their US counterparts, yet the Canadian health care system is much less expensive. Although it's true that specialists there get paid less. They also don't graduate with ~200 grand worth of debt on average.

[Ideologue]

The hospital-industrial complex is more insidious than any individual doctor.  There was a pillow on your bed?  That will be $300.

[Admiral Yi]

But is the doctor-industrial complex more insidious than any individual hospital?

[CountDeMoney]

But is the doctor-industrial complex more insidious than any individual hospital?

Yes.  Because it's bigger.

[Phillip V]

Grad Students Driving the Growing Debt Burden

'The surge in student-loan debt in recent years has been driven disproportionately by borrowing for graduate school amid a weak economy and an open spigot of government credit, according to a report that raises questions about the broader debate about how to resolve Americans' growing burden.

The typical debt load of borrowers leaving school with a master's, medical, law or doctoral degree jumped an inflation-adjusted 43% between 2004 and 2012, according to a new report by the New America Foundation, a left-leaning Washington think tank. That translated into a median debt load—the point at which half of borrowers owed more and half owed less—of $57,600 in 2012.

The increases were sharper for those pursuing advanced degrees in the social sciences and humanities, versus professional degrees such as M.B.A.s or medical degrees that tend to yield greater long-term returns. The typical debt load of those earning a master's in education showed some of the largest increases, rising 66% to $50,879. It climbed 54% to $58,539 for those earning a master of arts.'

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303949704579459803223202602

[CountDeMoney]

Society doesnt want grad debt burdens?  Stop employers from listing grad degrees under "preferred qualifications", which is HR-speak for "minimum qualifications".

Dont hate the player, hate the game.

[MadImmortalMan]

Maybe make degree and professional certification status a legally protected class so it can't be used as a basis for discrimination in hiring. 


It wouldn't work, obviously, but it sure would send all the evil HR drones into an uproar. It's satisfying in a "use their own weapons against them" sort of way.

[Syt]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/03/these-us-colleges-and-majors-are-the-biggest-waste-of-money/359653/

These U.S. Colleges and Majors Are the Biggest Waste of Money

You can major in art at a lower-tier public university if you want to. Just don't expect it to make you rich.

This morning we published a review of recent research by PayScale on the most valuable colleges and majors in America, based on self-reported earnings by individuals who graduated from hundreds of schools.

Some of you asked: What about the least valuable colleges and majors in America? What a mischievous question! So we looked into that, too.

Here are the eleven schools in PayScale's data with a 20-year net return worse than negative-$30,000. In other words: these are the schools where PayScale determined that not going to college is at least $30,000 more valuable than taking the time to pay for and graduate from one of these schools.



It gets worse. The self-reported earnings of art majors from Murray State are so low that after two decades, a typical high school grad will have out-earned them by nearly $200,000. Here are the degrees (i.e.: specific majors at specific schools) with the lowest 20-year net return, according to PayScale. They are all public schools: Bold names are for in-state students.



The same caveats that applied to our first article apply to this one. First, these estimates come from self-reported income. Self-reported income tends to skew up, because humans are a proud species, and we care more about our feelings than strict honesty with anonymous pollsters.

Second, PayScale calculates the next 20 years in earnings by inferring from the last 20 years. Sounds reasonable. But like any assumption, this carries risks. The "most coveted major" changes from time to time. If biomedical engineering becomes the next big VC category, scientists in California will be in higher demand than software engineers, whose earnings forecast might fall. PayScale can't predict that future. Moreover, if a school dramatically expanded a high-value program (like engineering) in the last five years, it might raise the financial value of its students in a way that PayScale doesn't full account for, since this research looks back two decades. In short, like most studies of this kind, the findings are fascinating and worth remembering and quoting—but also worth contextualizing.

Finally, as Jordan Weissmann notes, PayScale can tell us which colleges graduate the richest students. But it can't tell us which colleges make the biggest delta in student outcomes, which might be a more important question for college counselors and families. For that, you would need to study a huge group of similar kids, some of whom went to great colleges, some to middling colleges, and some to bad ones, and measure the difference. When we measure lifetime earnings of students graduating from elite (and poor) colleges, we're measuring both the quality of the college and the earnings potential of the student attending that college before they stepped foot on campus.

[MadImmortalMan]

My mom is still paying for her education degree at Ohio State.   

[Ideologue]

Insert one of my old comments here.

[Savonarola]

Comparing Law School Rankings? Read The Fine Print

When students go to law school, they make a bunch of calculations. A big one is cost: top schools charge more than $50,000 a year, and graduate-student debt is on the rise. Another key calculation: The likelihood of getting a good job after graduation.

Each spring, US News & World Report releases its ranking of law schools. One of the factors that goes into the rankings: the percentage of students employed nine months after graduation.

But the US News rankings don't consider who employs the graduates, so long as they're employed in a professional position. Some schools have been hiring their own students, and rising in the rankings.

These students get a stipend from the school to work for nonprofits or in public service. That stipend can come out of the school's budget or sometimes alumni donations. And when a school hires its own students, it can bump up its ranking. William and Mary Law School, for example, jumped nine spots this year. It employs 20 percent of its students on a fellowship program.

The school's dean says the program helps students succeed by showing potential employers what they're capable of.

But Kyle McEntee, who graduated from law school in 2011 and runs a group called Law School Transparency, says students can't make an informed choice about their return on investment if they can't tell from a school's rankings how many of its jobs are permanent and how many are temporary.

Law schools say it's easy to see a breakdown of employment numbers on their websites. And the students and former students we spoke to love the programs. Brian Daner is now working as counsel on Capitol Hill, which he describes as a dream job. He was able to try out on the Hill thanks to a University of Virginia Law School fellowship. After five months, he was hired.

Andrew Beyda is in his final year at George Washington University Law School. He has a job lined up after graduation. But he says if he didn't, he'd be a candidate for his school's employment program. "It's a tough legal market," he says. "Frankly, lawyers aren't retiring or dying nearly fast enough for us to fill their spots."

We should allow cigarette manufacturers to advertise; but only at law schools.  Everyone wins. 

[garbon]

or Murder Inc.

[Ideologue]

http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/31/news/economy/minimum-wage-college-graduates/index.html?iid=HP_LN

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
If you thought paying tens of thousands of dollars for a college education guaranteed a high-paying job, think again.

About 260,000 people who had a college or professional degree made at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Things may be looking up a little, though -- it's the smallest number since 2008. The worst year was 2010, when the number skyrocketed to 327,000.

Despite the recent improvement, the number of workers with college degrees is still more than double what it was in 2005, prior to the Great Recession.

Related: 2014 minimum wage, state by state

While an improving economy might play a role in graduates snagging better-paying jobs, other less-encouraging factors might also be at play.

A total of 21 states, including New Jersey, New York and Connecticut recently, have higher minimum wage floors than the federal level of $7.25 per hour

Experts point to shifts in the post-recession labor market as the reason for so many college graduates in low-paying jobs.

"The only jobs that we're growing are low-wage jobs, and at the same time, wages across occupations, especially in low-wage jobs, are declining," said Tsedeye Gebreselassie, a staff attorney at the worker advocacy group National Employment Law Project.

Related: Surprising minimum wage jobs

Some 58% of the jobs created during the recent economic recovery have been low-wage positions like retail and food prep workers, according to a 2012 NELP report. These low-wage jobs had a median hourly wage of $13.83 or less.

At the same time, median household income has also dropped by more than $4,000 since 2000, according to the Census Bureau.

This has fed the growing number of college educated workers protesting for higher pay.

Debbra Alexis, a 27-year-old Victoria's Secret employee with a bachelor's degree in health sciences, gathered more than 800 signatures in support of her campaign for higher pay at her New York City store. The store, part of L Brands (LB), ended up giving across-the-board raises of about $1 to $2 per hour to all workers in the Herald Square store.

Related: Millennials turn up heat against low wages

A group of Kaplan tutors in New York City also formed a union to bargain for better wages.

And fast food worker Bobby Bingham, who got a bachelor's degree from University of Missouri in Kansas City, works four part-time low-wage jobs just to barely scrape by.

The consensus among these workers is that they thought pursuing pricey degrees would buy them access into the middle class. But that has been far from the reality in the wake of the recession.

"My family told me, 'just get your degree and it will be fine,'" Bingham told CNNMoney. "A degree looks very nice, but I don't have a job to show for it."

The world needs ditch diggers too, I guess.  260,000 people isn't a ton, in the broad scheme of things, but it's still enough to fill a city and it's still a terrifying indication of the twin threats of the college scam and collapsing economy.

More interesting was a linked article: http://money.cnn.com/gallery/news/economy/2014/02/27/surprising-minimum-wage-jobs/?iid=EL

Only of of their [low-]wage jobs really is surprising.  It includes pilot. :s  I dunno about you, but I would feel a certain trepidation at boarding an aircraft whose pilot makes the equivalent of $10.25/hr, inasmuch as you know that three thoughts out of ten involve crashing into a landmark.

The other four--adjunct prof, home health aide, model (er...), and vet asst.--are known to me as reasonably low-paying positions.  I make only five cents and fifty-five cents an hour less than twice as much as the two vet techs whose wages I know, respectively.  Though in fairness to the field overall their employer pays seriously under market, even for SC.

[Grey Fox]

Go into medicine. The guy who is dead last in his class is still going to get a job making 150-200k.

I'm graduating in two months and I'm 183k in debt. I'll have to put loans into forbearance for the next six years at 6.8% interest so I'll probably be near 260k in principal by the time I'm done with residency. I can't believe that in the 90s-early 2000s student loan interest rates were around 2-3%.

Is there a risk that the US will eventually try to reign in its runaway spending on healthcare and also cut into the income of doctors?

Sure, it's happening already. But doctor's salaries aren't a primary driver of costs. One need only look at Canada where primary care docs make more than their US counterparts, yet the Canadian health care system is much less expensive. Although it's true that specialists there get paid less. They also don't graduate with ~200 grand worth of debt on average.

My survey (1 doctor, my co-workers's son) ~60k