The referenced Goldman Sachs CEO didn’t start at Goldman Sachs as a first job out of college. He did apply to GS, but was rejected. Instead he started at Irving Trust near the time of acquisition, then moved to Drexel Burnham in paper sales and junk bonds, near the time that the criminal charges (centered around someone else who shared his first and last name) and bankruptcy began. He wasn’t hired into GS management until many years later, using connections he developed within finance management at other companies. Goldman Sachs hires many employees besides just new grads. This obviously isn’t a typical outcome for a Political Science major, but no Fortune 500 CEO outcomes are typical.
There were discussions earlier in the thread about which majors GS and similar IB companies hire as new grads. GS does hire a significant number of new grads who are political science majors, but it’s a highly selective process, including for Ivy League grads. Cornell has the largest Ivy sample size I’m aware of. Goldman Sachs was the 5th most common employer, but averaged only ~1 Cornell political science major hire per year. Instead most political science grads did not enter lucrative fields like “elite” finance/consulting and had a median salary of $51k. College Scorecard reports a notably lower median earnings of $40k 3 years after graduation. CS uses a different sample (mostly federal loan/aid recipients) and includes persons working part time.
I agree but would go one step further. I know many who are anxious that this generation won’t do as well as their parents…and I don’t feel like this is just an upper middle class concern.
I know people who worry so much for their offspring that diversity/equity/inclusion seems like a direct attack on their future stability. They resent increased competition but don’t necessarily have ill will towards women and minorities.
I think about the magnet (selective admission) high school I attended in Chicago that started admitting girls a handful of years before I went there. I think about my sister who went to a top law school back in the 80s. There weren’t a lot of women in law and now the numbers have increased tremendously to the point I believe women make up more than half of law school students.
In both cases I think getting rid of the gender barrier was a good thing. Yet I understand that the change doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Boys/men were impacted as “available spots” for them decreased. Competition is an important factor when discussing college majors and future aspirations.
In terms of “doing well”, I’d estimate that the capital gains on our house and retirement accounts matches or exceeds our total cumulative after tax income since 2008 due to massive asset price inflation. That seems impossible for our kids to repeat without a significant economic crash in the next few years to provide room for future price appreciation. OTOH perhaps the easiest way for them to do comparably well without a crash would be for us to die and them inherit those assets. So either way you might want to be careful what you wish for.
Interesting. You’re right, of course. However, if instead our generation lingers with health issues (as many of my contemporaries are now dealing with their parents), there might not be much to inherit. I seriously expect elder care to become even more expensive…more than most can imagine or can manage.
Well, I think that’s an extreme and might be applicable based on your age and your location and your personal income rather than a national thing. I’d guess you are in a state like CA where RE prices have exploded. We have no where near the same economic experience. Although we do live in an area where prices for housing have risen very sharply (300-500% in some cases). Our retirement has also risen sharply and I’m thankful for that.
I’m far more optimistic for the next generation. I think people are better educated than ever and have more work options including working from home, working freelance and starting small businesses at lower costs. I also think that technology will continue to create lots of strong jobs. And many are poised to join the workforce with lots of options. I am worried that inflation is rising faster than wages. But that could change every 4 years.
I feel like my kids will have really good options. They’ll likely have advanced degrees, maybe even doctorates. And they’ll have flexible modes of working. They’ll likely inherit something which will go a long way to long term wealth. Our extended family is the same. Of course, no one can determine what the future will hold, but I think it looks positive for our kids .
Once the baby boomers are gone and the baby bust generation is looking for senior living facilities, with the wave of senior living facilities currently being built, prices could go down.
The concept of my house being worth 3-5x what we paid for it is beyond comprehension. It likely won’t be standing long enough to get there. Many people don’t live in areas with huge increases in housing prices. Zillow says my is worth about 35% more than I paid for it more than 20 years ago. But it wouldn’t sell for that much. Even with their number though it would be 150 years to get to 300%.
Silicon Valley has been even more extreme in the past. There are retirees in my parents’ generation who bought houses in the early 1970s for $20K-$40K and have seen a 100 times increase in the value of their homes (with capped property tax increases that keep those taxes extreme low). By comparison the ~3 times increase in the last 15 years is modest.
I understand that housing prices in certain parts of the country are beyond crazy. But I was responding to someone who acknowledged that everyone doesn’t live in areas with crazy appreciation and then stated 300-500% increases as being more normal. Reminds me years ago (during dot.com bubble craze), listening to someone call into an investment show talking about her friends who were being crazy assuming a 25% return on retirement savings while the caller was being very prudent and assuming an 18% return. LOL
I wouldnt count on eldercare costs going down. 8 years ago we were paying $10k/month per person for dementia care for the in-laws in a low cost of living area. Good luck on that.
I have been hoping for education and health care costs to go down, or at least stabalize, most of my adult life without success.
Agree. I don’t think there are enough people who want to do this type of work. I also hear that with the obesity problem, assisting with common tasks is getting much more challenging.
It’s more motivation to keep the weight off and prioritizing fitness.
Never said “normal”, but did say they have risen sharply see above. I do also know that CA has experienced and more of an extreme increase in prices ( as have some other states and esp. some particular places).
Our first house we paid 350K in 97 and is now worth 1.2 million. Most of that increase occurred in 1997-1999. I know that house could have been hugely modified as it had been owned by an architect before us and the land is tiny so no additions. Even with a new kitchen that’s 3X+ ( We bought in 97. sold in 99). Our current house is worth almost twice what we paid in 2019 (maybe 70-80% increase). That’s insane. But second house only made a little bit over 15 years maybe 2-3% per year.
Real estate markets are fickle and hard to judge. We’ve always bought our house to live in rather than as an investment. Don’t want to lose but never hope to gain a lot.
Does and will push a lot of younger people into working in different states. It’s rare for a young couple to be able to buy a house these days. And that has a lot of ramifications for employers and employees.
That’s one of the main reasons keeping prices so high in some areas. If property taxes for all houses rose by the market, people would either push to get them pushed down or have to sell. Both would let the air out of that market. In some towns in my state, people can defer paying their taxes until they sell the house. Some other towns won’t allow that. Sadly, seems like the wealthier towns have the option to defer.
Sky high home prices may make us feel financially secure, but they’re probably among the worst things that can happen to the future generations. They severely restrict mobility of the younger generations and create wealth gap between the generations. It’s one of the reasons why many of us can’t expect our kids to be better off than we are.
Yes, we live in MA. They never, ever,-- lower taxes. At least in the last 25 years we’ve owned houses. Might keep it slightly higher but always goes up even when real sales prices go down.
Houses are often assessed a couple hundred thousand less than the “real value” The assessed value changes whenever someone buys a house when it resets to the purchase price. Then trails again. Housing prices are extreme. Beyond the ability of most young people to buy.
They also entrench and increase the wealth gap across generations, with some inheriting paid-for houses while others have difficulty affording to buy or rent.
Economics need to point towards lower/stable prices before there will be lower/stable prices. Nothing in the economics of education or health care points to lower/stable prices. That likely will also be the case in the parts of the country over-represented by people on this site in terms of senior living facilities. But may well not be true everywhere. Matter of economics of the given area.
Whatever the reason your niece can’t get it together to be able to rent an apartment on her own six years after college, I’m confident that the blame does not lie with the Humanities Department at Bowdoin College.
Your anecdote smacks of a hyperbolic version of the facts to make a point, including a very obvious political one. Mods or no mods, I don’t buy it. I know people right now who barely graduated from high school renting apartments in Seattle on their own, and rent is mighty expensive here. One of my D’s friends flunked out of college just a few years ago and is a store manager at Nordstrom. She’s not rolling in money, but she is certainly supporting herself.
Maybe your niece is just lazy or unemployable for reasons other than holding a degree from a widely known and respected institution. JC, at my company alone there are many jobs that pay sufficiently well to allow a person to be on their own in Seattle - again a spendy place - that are neutral on course of study. HR comes to mind. And don’t laugh: there are very high paying corporate jobs in HR.
