... Engineering and Sciences are the key for students seeking steady employment after college is over with, while the Arts and Humanities have never paid well and even less so today. ... with the economy tightening and tales of graduates stuck in low-paying jobs with $50,000 in student loans, college doesn’t look like an automatic bargain. Over the past 30 years, the average cost of college tuition and fees has risen 250% for private schools and nearly 300% for public schools (in constant dollars). The salaries of professors have also risen much faster than those of other occupations. At Stanford, to take but one example, the salaries of full professors have leapt 58% in constant dollars since the mid-1980s. College presidents do even better. From 1992 to 2008, NYU’s presidential salary climbed to $1.27 million from $443,000. By 2008, a dozen presidents had passed the million-dollar mark.
I decided to wait before weighing in on this, because I personally did not get a college education, did not want one at the time and was not persuaded into one by my parents...probably in part because they could not have afforded to send me.
After 30+ years of working and supporting myself and then myself & my daughter, I can say that I do ok, but would probably be doing better if I had college. But...what Frank Nitti says above is correct.
My 23 year old niece graduated college in 2009. After 4 years majoring in psychology, 2 years of applications and interviews, she is currently earning $13/hour and has a 2nd part-time job at a local mall. That is because she cannot get the kind of work she studied for without a graduate degree, which she currently cannot afford because she's paying off student loans. I have told her repeatedly to try employment agencies where she might end up with something that would pay at least a few dollars more an hour, but she doesn't seem to want to be stuck in an office job...says that is NOT what she spent 4yrs in college for and would rather work in a school/hospital which would more suit her education so far. Fair enough...but she is living at home, and seemingly caught in an endless circle which I hope she will somehow find her way out of.
While I still agree with all that a college education is certainly important...I can't help but wonder how many recent college graduates are in the same or similar situation.
