Cashing In Your Diploma

Everyone’s heard one version or another of a statistic that contrasts the earning potential of college grads with that of non-college-educated common folk over the course of a working lifetime, and that difference is typically quoted as being somewhere around the $1MM mark – one hell of a bullet point. Unfortunately, according to this BusinessWeek article, that figure is massively overblown. College grads, with the exception of those coming out of a handful of top tier schools, can expect to make a paltry $400K more than their slack-jawed counterparts over the course of 30 working years. If only I had known then what I know now…

For those recently post-pubescent lurking among us, those dweebie enough to be checking out banking forums while still in high school, I have this advice; bust your ass now and apply to Yale, Harvard, Princeton, etc. If you get accepted, congrats and good luck. If not, go find a job and get a 4 year running start on the other mediocres out there.

 

this ignore the fact that college is a lot of fun, you get a chance to learn about different career oppty's, it is a great place to meet friends/contacts,and I would think not having a degree would lower the "quality" of a girlfriend/date you are able to find, at the very least while you are young and before you are able to make your millions. Also, you may actually learn something! And it gives you the option to get a graduate degree as well.

Sure you could get a running start if you have some nice business ideas right out of high school, but college is still usually a better and more fun stepping stone than working at an unexciting job for 4 years.

 
I Want to Invest:
this ignore the fact that college is a lot of fun, you get a chance to learn about different career oppty's, it is a great place to meet friends/contacts,and I would think not having a degree would lower the "quality" of a girlfriend/date you are able to find, at the very least while you are young and before you are able to make your millions. Also, you may actually learn something! And it gives you the option to get a graduate degree as well.

Sure you could get a running start if you have some nice business ideas right out of high school, but college is still usually a better and more fun stepping stone than working at an unexciting job for 4 years.

I don't know about that, homie. A lot of dudes that didn't go to college still had a great time from 18-22. If you're 18 years old making 30K selling phones or doing construction, you probably have a nice car and nice clothes, and still get to party with college age kids on the weekends. As far as quality females, a lot of chicks at my college messed with dudes that weren't in school anyway. A lot of dudes just rolled up on campus on Friday afternoons, and laid the mack game down. And these were guys with Acura Legends and rocking the newest Coogi, Iceberg, and other high end urban gear (whatever was poppin in the late 90's). So you couldn't even hate if they bagged the honey in your Sociology class. Point is, you don't have to be in college to enjoy your youth.

 
Best Response
Bottles and <span class=keyword_link><a href=//www.wallstreetoasis.com/finance-dictionary/what-is-a-discounted-cash-flow-DCF>DCF</a></span> Models:

I don't know about that, homie. A lot of dudes that didn't go to college still had a great time from 18-22. If you're 18 years old making 30K selling phones or doing construction, you probably have a nice car and nice clothes, and still get to party with college age kids on the weekends. As far as quality females, a lot of chicks at my college messed with dudes that weren't in school anyway. A lot of dudes just rolled up on campus on Friday afternoons, and laid the mack game down. And these were guys with Acura Legends and rocking the newest Coogi, Iceberg, and other high end urban gear (whatever was poppin in the late 90's). So you couldn't even hate if they bagged the honey in your Sociology class. Point is, you don't have to be in college to enjoy your youth.

Wow, that doesn't sound appealing at all. Those guys sound like fucking losers and the girls they're getting with sound like white trash. I'm sorry if that offends you at all but that doesn't sound remotely like a feasible substitute to being a successful college grad...

...wait a sec, I just realized this post was sarcastic. Nevermind.

"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars." - J. Paul Getty
 

High paying jobs for non college graduates tend to be hard working and miserable. That extra 400K doesn't factor in the quality of life. It also probably doesn't factor in benefits and opportunities, both of which are a lot higher with a degree.

It also is an average. Since this is a banking forum and even BO workers make more than non finance grads we can assume that the number for us will be much higher.

 
AnthonyD1982:
High paying jobs for non college graduates tend to be hard working and miserable. That extra 400K doesn't factor in the quality of life. It also probably doesn't factor in benefits and opportunities, both of which are a lot higher with a degree.

It also is an average. Since this is a banking forum and even BO workers make more than non finance grads we can assume that the number for us will be much higher.

All those public workers sure don't look hard working or miserable to me with their 90% pensions and massive overtimes taken if they are police officers/fire fighters.

 

wow. just wow. so 2 very important take-aways:

1) don't major in liberal arts 2) major in something practical, like engineering or accounting.

i don't tend to get worked up about stuff, but this is a big fucking deal. seriously.

how do schools like biola exist? how do they get away with saying things like, 'we make an invaluable contribution to society'???

this wasn't exaclty new news...but holy fucking shit. how obvious is it that romance literature majors get paid less bc they have no practical skills? are kids getting dumber?

--- man made the money, money never made the man
 

Your major means very little in terms of landing a job in finance. This is another area where college kids are sadly mistaken. Going to a good school, getting a solid GPA (3.2 +) and major in whatever it is you're interested in. If what really turns you on is classical studies, major in classical studies and minor in Econ.

Getting a good job is 90% networking. finance majors, whether it be from an ivy or state school, are dime a dozen. I would argue a unique major shows intellectual curiosity. It also shows you are a well rounded person and not an excel geek. Every analyst goes through the same training program. Yeah being an excel wiz is nice, but you end up being the go to person for all excel projects/questions.

 
Gold Man Sack:
JohnnyCage:
If youre concerned about money just cut off that golden man sack and cash the gold!

nope, can't put a price tag on the sack. priority #2: get money. priority #1: protect the sack.

HAHA very well played.

 

I always knew those numbers were inflated. There's plenty of bus drivers, retail managers, BO donkeys etc making 60-100k A good friend of mine dropped out of college (got a girl pregnant, don't ask) started driving a bus in Boston for $18 an hour and sold cars on the weekends. Once he built up his clientele, he sold BMWs FT and drove the bus PT. Granted that is the exception, not the rule it still shows that a college degree can't make or break you. As long as you have the drive, you can make a decent living. The reason why there are so many broke or damm near broke college grads is bc they have this delusional sense of entitlement and think everything is just going to fall out of the sky and land on their lap.

 

I think the important, verifiable fact is that it is indeed possible to be successful without a college degree. Having said that, the probability of becoming successful is dramatically increased when one has a diploma. Of course, if you have a very driven person, they can somehow rise to the top of their circles. However, 1. they will never rise to the very top, merely the 100k jobs mentioned above that are upper middle class (barely upper). 2. if they fail in their limited 100k+ job, they are stuck doing factory work or manual labor because they have little to no marketable skills and 3. id say the vast majority of dropouts and none college graduates do not go to college because of social/economic reasons or are to damn lazy to realize their increased value with a degree. Moral of the story is a college degree is an insurance policy that acts as both a safety net (worst case scenario, you graduate poorly and are the same as a kid without a degree) and its is a catalysts against which non diploma kids can't compete. Therefore, always go to college, and twice on Sunday's.

 

What I find to be the biggest problem with these studies is that they don't control for the fact that more driven people are more likely to go to college.

Stories of the guy from the blue collar family in a poor neighborhood that made it big are nice and everyone loves to talk about those guys, and I think they are inspiring myself. However, far less "sticky" in the mind is the story of the curious middle or even upper class kid who since he was 10 years old has been reading and studying like a fiend and went to a top tier school (or maybe not even a top tier school, but a top 100 or whatever). If you took the college option away from that kid, I wonder how they would fare against those that are in the study that didn't go to college. I have a feeling that there would still be an income gap.

Another thing I would like to see is a study comparing those that went into school with a declared major opposed to those that didn't. People in my class that just seemed to be in college because it was 13th grade and mom said they had to, or those that didn't have direction their freshman year and weren't really sure why they were there, were far less successful right after graduation- most didn't have jobs, fewer had jobs in their chosen field. Most people I know that freshman year said "I want to be a bio/computer science/business major" are finishing up their PHD's, managing small teams, orclimbing the ladder at large companies.

 

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