I have friends who went to 4 years of college, paid something like $145,000 in total tuition plus books and other expenses. They got their parents to sign the loan forms and now that they’ve graduated from college their loans are due. The payments are approximately $1100 per month (which is more than their parents’ mortgage payment). The only jobs available were with a bank, retail, or packaging plants. Even teaching positions were reserved for the sons and daughters of the current teachers in the schools. The maximum salary offered was $10.00 per hour and that was only because the student had a part time job through high school and college. His parents are paying his loans and he must live at home because he isn’t making enough money to pay the high rents in addition to his student loans. His father was supposed to retire this year and now must continue working at least until his son gets back on his feet.

By contrast, another friend worked at a grocery store all during high school and then continued to work at the same store full time. At the same age as the above friend who graduated from college, my other friend had 9 years employment experience, 4 years of vested retirement contributions (there were 9 years of contributions but it took 5 years for him to get vested. All 9 years count towards his retirement but had he left that job before five years he would have lost those contributions). He started at $5.00 per hour and worked his way up to $15.00 per hour. He got full medical insurance, retirement, 401K with matching contributions, union membership and promotional opportunities. He is not $145,000 in debt and feels as though he has time to enjoy the things he really loves–racing and mechanics.

Unless a person is going to be a physician, a scientist, a rocket scientist, an engineer, or an accountant, something like that, I don’t see the real need for a college education. In fact, when people are over-educated, they are often not hired because the employer believes they will be bored quickly and will leave as soon as something better comes along. Then the employer is out all that training money. If you want to be a mechanic, then the best training is On the job training because it is hands on and hearing, seeing, touching and then looking at the book or looking at the books while doing the work gives you a better leg up. Other jobs can be acquired by taking licensing tests after studying at home or at work. Also, if you are good at what you do, you can start your own business and give all the college people lots of competition.

Figure the opportunity costs of school by adding up all the real costs — tuition, books, expenses, hours spent in class, hours spent studying. Then consider the costs of loan interest and future payments of those loans. For example:

If you were the student who graduated with $145,000 in student loans to repay at $1100 per month and you were lucky enough to get a job paying $5,000 per month, you would really be working for much less because 25% of the $5,000 comes right off the top for taxes. That’s $1250 per month. Add the $1100 payment for the student loan and now you have an expense of $2350 per month. That means that you have $2,650 to live on but you have to pay your own rent and insurance and maybe a car payment and utilities etc. If you back into this and then compare it to the person who has been making $10 per hour for the past 5 years and already has 4 years of vested retirement benefits as well as matched contributions to the 401K, you’ll see that it’s hardly worth the effort. It will take the college graduate maybe 15-30 years to pay off the debt while the one with work experience can become a manager making $60,000 per year with all the benefits and can go home and enjoy his life.

Figure it out. There are 2,080 work hours in a year — if you consider a work week of 40 hours (173.33 hours in a month). The person making $15 per hour is making $2,599.95 per month and paying $649.99 in taxes. That means he clears about $1900.00 per month after health insurance and 401K contributions as well as union dues.

Back into the $145,000 loan and the number of hours of work it will take to pay back all that money and then think about how many hours the young man had to spend in school and doing homework to incurr that kind of debt.

At the end of the day, who is more employable, the one who worked and skipped college or the one who spent all his time in college and incurred all this debt and has no experience? After you figure those costs think about the fact that the young man who didn’t go to college is now taking classes at night and much of those classes are paid for by his employer because they are work related. Now who is more ahead?

As one of our school board members stated — education is big business. Even though 3/4 of our tax dollars (real estate) go to fund the public schools and community colleges, the fees and other expenses of school are paid by the parents. School is big business and schools want to make money. Therefore, if young people can be bullied into going to college despite the fact that being able to count change and be a store clerk or doing landscape work or even construction work doesn’t require a college degree, the schools are going to make out like bandits and the teachers will be able to look forward to a huge retirement at the taxpayers’ expense.

Anyone can learn without going to college. The libraries are funded by our tax dollars. There are apprenticeship programs and other programs that will allow a student to continue his education without paying out huge sums that will need to be paid back probably for the remainder of your life.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have college and professional designations under my belt and I am continually learning. I take advantage of all the free education I can possibly get and there is very little that I can’t do and very little that I am not willing to do. I enjoy working and I enjoy my time off. While my friends are enslaved by their jobs and their bills, I am spending time with my family, learning how to make old machines work better than new ones and I will even be able to patent processes and publish my findings. I am not rich because I haven’t been willing to sell out to become rich. I’ve found that very few honest people can get rich because we see the truth and the borderline lies and illegality that must be done to acquire those riches. If you “owe” favors, then the person you owe “owns” you and can call in those markers at the most inopportune time. So, put all this in perspective and decide what is best for you, what you are willing to give up to get what you want and where you want to be in 20 years.

Oh, and don’t count on that retirement because the government keeps allowing the big corporations and businesses to stop funding pensions and people who worked at businesses for 20 years, 30 years or 40 years are suddenly cut off without a dime when the corporations and big businesses file for bankruptcy. Every loyal employee who got screwed by these corporations (and I include the government in this because these corporations often paid lobbyists to get what they wanted) at retirement and even before retirement can tell you that there is no loyalty to the people in the USA today. Social Security will be nonexistent when we retire so we will have been bilked out of all that money by the government that takes what’s ours and gives it to those who are illegal. When the stock market drops, so does your 401K value and your retirement portfolio. So, you see, the only way you can win is to learn to play by your rules not theirs and you have to learn the game — big time!

We can all find college educated people who haven’t done well and we can all point to Bill Gates as an example of someone who is rich despite being a college drop-out. On the other hand — if he died today the richest person in the world would be Melissa French Gates — who has an MBA from Duke.

Despite what you say, it remains true that the average 25 year old with a college degree makes $20K more than the average 25 year old without a degree. And it is also true that the gap widens as you get older.

The average student graduating from top MBA programs has three job offers with six figure salaries. Your cousin’s inability to get a job may have more to do with him than with the school.

The fact that Maryland has the highest average income and also has the highest average level of education is not a coincidence.

Getting a good job without a college degree is much harder than getting a good job with one.

In many areas of study, a PhD is principally a qualification to teach at a college or university, but it still translates into dollars in the sciences, including, of course, medicine.

It’s not true that graduate degrees always lead to higher incomes. Graduate degrees in the humanities do not lead to higher incomes, and they should be done only by people who really love the subject.