Retail car sales generally is unlikely to care whether one has a college degree. A quick look at car sales jobs on a large job posting web site indicates that retail car dealers either do not list educational requirements, or list high school diploma or GED. The most common other specific requirement is having a driver’s license and good driving record.
Sales skills are not all that well correlated to other education and knowledge, so a sales job that does not require much else beyond sales skills can be done well even in the absence of other education and knowledge.
Thanks. I read it. With a few exceptions, some of the issues are glaring. Some are making next to nothing and some are making decent salaries but all seem to be whining about their life/lifestyle. Is that the real thing going on? There’s also a lot of stories where there is no issue except the issue they have with money. And very few stories of people working a second job to pay off their student loans. One person said it was going to take 5 years for grad school, what??? Maybe part time but if that’s the case, why not work full time and go to school part time.
I think the idea that things were easier for the generations before you/them isn’t true. Every generation has things to contend with. Some graduate into a recession, others live through years with double digit inflation, some have health issues, some have a business that fails or a job loss, or their career goes away due to changes in the economy. These are things that happen in every life.
We’ve tried to raise our kids to be resilient to things and also be flexible. IF something hits you hard, think about it, then pick yourself up and move on. I worked three jobs at times ( at least one or two most of college), I took a semester off to save, I lived with 4 other people because it was cheaper than a dorm. But I graduated without debt.
My kids have very few friends who work ( other than an internship). The ones who do seem to complain less. There’s a lot of free time in the Summer for high school and college students and tons of places looking for workers. And in some areas they pay quite well.
We need dreamers in the country, but we can’t just be a nation of dreamers. Most dreams unfortunately don’t come true. Chasing a dream without a good understanding of one’s own limitations is foolhardy. One’s interest or passion in a particular area is worth pursuing only if one has some comparative advantage or talent in that area.
I am not sure if the article is unjustified whining or not.
Some of the examples seem well off to me.
Others paid for college degrees they didn’t need for their jobs so maybe could have gone for cheaper options.
Others have quite luxurious lives.
I do remember figuring out quickly that my 47k year job in 1997 (no loans - thank you Canada!) didn’t get me my own apartment in a cool downtown location AND allowed me to save so I went for roommates ($500 rent) and I lived very comfortably on that as a single person.
I then reckoned that to save more $, I had to move to the U.S. so 47kCAD became 65k USD. I still didn’t think I could afford my own apartment and save so had roommates ($400).
As far as having kids and paying for daycare and nannies, that was only possible on a double income or relying on grandparent childcare (an understudied Canadian immigrant phenomenon that drives $$$ property prices IMO).
There are a few different levels of parental assistance, from lowest to highest advantage in getting a job:
Guidance and advice based on familiarity with the type of job, industry, or general job seeking. Applicant knows better where and how to look, etc… A good college career center may be similarly helpful. However, such guidance and advance may be of negative value if it is obsolete or based on assumptions that are not true.
Connections that allow a back door to the interview, bypassing initial screening among hundreds of applicants to the job, or knowing about a specific job opening before it is announced to the public. Applicant still has to earn the job by passing the interview, but has avoided being screened out in typical initial screening, and may have gotten to the interview before other applicants even know that the job exists (hence just needs to meet the bar for passing the interview, not be better than many other applicants).
Connections that basically hand the job to the applicant like political patronage. More likely to occur when the actual qualifications for the job are less well defined and/or less measurable or able to be assessed in interviews. A deterrent against this kind of thing is that patrons usually do not want to be too obviously associated with such nepotism, especially if the beneficiary will be obviously incompetent at the job.
1 and 2 above are probably quite common across many kinds of jobs.
Seems like what’s missing with many of those cited in the article is exactly what you did. Figure out what you had and then how to get to the next step. A move outside one’s country is an excellent example. That’s a big move.
While reading that article, I kept thinking a lot of what they are saying doesn’t apply in other parts of the country. Too many people to be very specific but many had choices that didn’t match their ultimate career, some accepted very low salaries in freelance positions and didn’t stick to working hard in a field before moving on to something else. Some were in fields where it might not be possible to make enough money to do what they wanted to in life. Some were in high paying fields and expected to work 40 hours per week or less with no stress. Those jobs don’t exist until people have decades of experience.
In all cases, no one’s expectations met their lifestyle or work. So they were disenchanted and unhappy.
Your child’s future is an investment in themselves and to the degree that your helping support it your investment in them. I think it’s irresponsible to not discuss the repercussions of a child’s decisions. Supporting your child’s “dream” has to be discussed realistically. I think we also have to discuss expectations and what entitlement means. I told my children they are entitled to what they earn, nothing more. No one is entitled to go to HYP etc. No one is entitled to a good salary or the job of their dreams (even if they went to HYP etc). It seems for many the expectation is to have quickly what parents have worked for decades to earn. The world outside of home and the university seems teach that very quickly. So before you and your child invest hundreds of thousands of dollars for a degree that requires that they are the best (among the best) at what they do or just very lucky, determine now if you are willing to make the investment. They may be paying for it for the rest of their lives.
Rather than encouraging them to change what degree they are seeking why wouldn’t the conversation also include focusing on affordable colleges so one is not straddled with loans if they choose to go into a lower-paying field. Both of my kids are passionate about what they want to do. They will probably not make a ton of money. They are going to/looking at colleges that they will graduate from debt free (with help from a 529 that will fund their undergrad if they plan wisely). Graduating loan free allows a lot more freedom when it comes to employment options after college.
Well said! We encouraged our kids to avoid debt no matter what they were planning on studying. Even if they wanted to go into fields that are very high paying, we still would’ve encouraged them to avoid debt. Even with a high paying career, student loan debt can be quite crippling. I do realize this comes from a place of privilege.
Not just immediate student loan debt, but also ongoing spending habits matter. Lower spending habits will allow a wide range of career paths to be financially sustainable. Higher spending habits will limit the choices of financially sustainable career paths.
It is likely that lower spending habits has some correlation to debt aversion.
I just read "We Aren’t Asking for the Moon. With a few exceptions (some medical issues, some bad luck, some poor choices, and handful of people who needed to help their extended family), I didn’t think there was anything that worrisome in most of the stories. Certainly nothing unusual. There were a few people who seemed more desperate or who were struggling to stay out of poverty because of the economy or their particular jobs, but that wasn’t the overall sentiment that I got from reading the article.
Mostly, it seemed like a lot of descriptions of people who were working in fields that they chose either initially or after switching gears because their first careers didn’t work out as well as they hoped. Most had some concerns about money and overall security as well as some anxiety about not being able to save enough/make ends meet, but then again, don’t most people have money concerns whether or not they are Millennials?
I guess that it didn’t seem like there was much unique about the stories of that particular generation. Aren’t people of earlier/later generations also stressed about money and their students loan debt? And aren’t most Americans in a similar position in that they have not saved as much as they should against an emergency, rainy day or unexpected disaster? For that matter, I didn’t really read most of Millennials in that article as whining or complaining or having too high expectations. They mostly seemed pretty clear-eyed to me.
Like everyone, they were trying to figure out how to live a reasonable quality of life while employed at a job with reasonable expectations. Bonus if they enjoyed (or at least didn’t hate) the job. That all seems quite normal to me. Quite a few described making as much money as I do (and some even more, particularly the two income households). Yes, many have to be frugal to live on their incomes, especially those with student loan and medical debts, but it is definitely possible to live a good quality of life and even get married/have children if you make less than six figures.
I’m not a regular poster in this thread, but I suggested D add a practical/applied minor to her bio major. Statistics was a natural fit since she is planning a career in research not medicine. Now, she will have the option of lab research or biostatistics. She’s also learning other skills in her minor that would be applicable to a career in data science.
Bio and Stats: That’s a great and logical fit and will likely add value to her job prospects. Also, if I were hiring in that field I’d look at her as someone do did something a little extra to be marketable and useful and that would make her a better candidate, IMO>
Statistics combines well with lots of things, because lots of things use statistics in their research.
However, statistics to the level of a major or minor can require more advanced math than many students in biological or social sciences are willing to take.
What struck me was that they were more worried than I was. I think a big $ pit is having your own apartment and car. I found that i could not rent my own apartment and save at a fast enough rate to please me. Having a car was expensive too.
At one point in my 20s, I realized that the banks would lend me $ to buy a house but I had to get roommates to make it work.
For my first child I have worried more about having no debt coming out of school. That will be accomplished next May. She was able to keep the costs low with scholarships. She will double major with Bio and Spanish and minor in Education and Latin Am Studies. What she will do with those degrees I have no clue. She is smart and understands money.
Compare that with my wife and I 28 years ago both with Accounting degrees, but $65K in debt combined. We had to go out and get good jobs right away. That debt constricted us at times. We ended up fine, but we might have wanted to do other things but the debt held us back.
I am happy that my daughter will have the freedom to do things and hopefully find what she wants to do in life. I don’t worry too much as I know she is smart and would do well in the business world.