One older cousin who attempted to follow an older brother into the military while a STEM major at a respectable college was DENIED by ROTC and enlisted recruiters because of severely poor eyesight and a non-waiverable pre-existing health issue.
Ended up being highly successful in the computer tech and is now a technical manager at an engineering/tech company out on the West Coast making a nice upper/middle class living with 1 child at an elite in-state public U on an engineering related full-ride scholarship.
Despite all that, he still has some regrets he wasn’t able to serve in the military.
As an aside, while Army Ranger training is tough, it has become viewed among early-mid career Army officers as a “rite of passage” which must be passed in order to have a viable 20-year career or moreso…to be viable for promotions to regimental/brigade and higher level commands.
Failing to earn the Ranger tab has been perceived by many current Army officers as a serious blemish on one’s career. Especially if they’re aspiring to regimental/brigade level commands or higher.
A HS alum friend who is a Cornell engineering graduate and recently promoted to Captain in the US Army Reserve is waiting for notification for his scheduled Ranger training class. He’s doing it not only to see if he can pass it, but also because earning the Ranger Tab will greatly expand promotion/command opportunities as an Army Reserve officer. He’s doing this while continuing to work as a senior engineering executive at a NYC area tech firm.
dfb it’s a massive number and growing rapidly. I’m really surprised this information seems new to so many. Remember 100k equals a pension of 2.5 million.
Pizza i’m not sure what to say to you. You seem like an honest and sincere person with a great family but your logic is confusing. I have never mentioned making money as a primary goal. I have clearly stated that having an ambition for money alone is a poor goal. But it’s undeniable that a certain level of income provides security and more choices in life.
The truth is that in today’s world 250k is still considered upper middle class by Hillary Clinton and few jobs even for these top graduates guarantee that level of income. I find it strange that parents would argue that they would want to see their children struggle with mortgage payments and future college costs if the child is capable of performing challenging work.
sevmom your example of the Seals is a good example but not the way you intended. These men are superior warriors and would be wasted as regular soldiers. I’ve had the chance to know a number of Seals and they are the top 1% of the military.
Navy Seals and Army Rangers do not all have to be college graduates and have not had to necessarily attend any kind of “elite college” as a prerequisite as far as I know. I’m sure you’ll correct me if that is not accurate.
ubc how is the system going to work out long term if the ultimate jobs don’t justify the cost? This exact situation is shaking out both law school and vet school.
college is a bit different but the exact same principles apply. The system will become unsustainable if the graduates of elite schools don’t end up far better off than less educated workers.
I am familiar with countries without market economy where a bus driver was making more money than engineer or doctor. However college education there was free and students were even getting a stipend.
Something may not be right with this market economy. Is it called overproduction?
ubc I’m not sure what your background is but you are incorrect. There is a huge crisis on the horizon called the college debt bomb. It’s already a huge problem that will totally disrupt education as it’s structured today. The current system will not work if the less educated to out earn the highly educated in
America. The implosion of law schools is just the beginning. Eventually the students and families figured out that the debt required to graduate could not be justified by the level of income generated after graduation. The situation with elite colleges is very similar.
In most other countries…including some self-proclaimed socialist/communist ones, while college education is nominal cost or even free, it is far from a “college for everyone” type deal.
If anything, college in those societies is highly competitive and often only reserved for students who are in the academically 20-50%. Vast majority end up never going to college not only because they were tracked out by the end of middle school, but also because it’s not necessary to earn a decent…sometimes even upper-middle class living.
One can get a decent living even in many industrialized democracies by going off to vocational trade schools which not only provide a viable trade, but are also just as academically rigorous as coursework geared towards honors/AP/IB level students here in the states.
One example of this is a Russian immigrant friend who attended an academically rigorous vocational high school geared towards prepping future officer candidates in the Soviet Armed Forces in twilight years of the Soviet Union before he and his parents opted to escape* and emigrate in the US in the early-mid '90s.
While his academic performance in middle school wasn’t good enough for the academic track for aspiring college students, the academics at his vocational high school were such he had no issues placing out of intro STEM courses at a Top 50 US university and excelling as a STEM major there(CS).
Partially because if he stayed, he'd have been obligated to head off to Russian officer training in the post-Soviet area when chaos and widespread corruption/criminality was such that one may not survive one's stint in the Russian armed forces....even as an officer cadet/commissioned officer.
I believe that the perfect career can be expressed as the intersection of the following five key criteria:
Your desired career allows you to pursue something that you are passionate about
You are actually accomplished at this thing that you are passionate about
A person with your talent is fairly rare, or at least not very common
The income that someone is willing to pay for your talent provides a comfortable life
Your talent benefits in some way society and/or the world
Notes:
Perfect means perfect, not just satisfactory.
No. 2 is fairly obvious; unfortunately, not everyone is talented at the thing that they are passionate about.
No. 3 is there because I personally feel that it’s better to truly stand out (e.g. name recognition). Others may argue though that it really doesn’t matter how many people share your talent.
No. 4 is, of course, subjective – a sliding scale depending on your lifestyle and financial aspirations. The point though is that it’s better to have enough income to at least pay your expenses than to constantly fret about bills.
Some facetious examples that fail the test:
You love to play the harp and are one of the best harp players in the country. However, funding for symphony orchestras is declining and there are no open jobs for harpists. You end up working at Starbucks and only play for cash at the occasional wedding. (Yes on 1-3 and 5, but No on 4.)
You are a drug dealer and relish the power and influence that it affords (e.g., El Chapo). You annihilate your competition and have hordes of cash. (Yes on 1-4 but No on 5, obviously.)
This thread is up to 39 pages but I’m just now contributing because the above may concisely pull together many of the thoughts that other posters have expressed.
Constructive revisions of my perfect-career criteria are welcome. Please play nice.
@blossom No bragging. It was strictly her decision…and her wish is my command.
My point is simply that a well thought out plan executed with discipline can do wonders. For me financial independence is “political” independence. For others the priority may be something else entirely. It’s all good.
The other important skill is the ability to communicate well in both written and oral form. One of my kids entered a field that is quantitative, but it is her communication skills that put her over the top, allowing her to work with colleagues that are more than a decade her senior. In short, the ability to think well quantitatively AND qualitatively is dynamite. I highly recommend it to all students.
Re. Post#572. Let’s not forget “prestige” factor (or its corollary, the “parental embarrassment” factor) in that definition. It’s real. It’s hard to admit that on a public forum like this because you will be called “snobbish” and “elitist.” I wish people would recognize their biases and own up to the fact that they see some jobs as “beneath” them and their highly (and expensively) educated offspring.
I’ve got biases of my own. If my daughter decided to be a dancer, I’d feel better if the title “dancer” was preceded by the adjective “ballet” rather than “pole.” Although the second would probably be decidedly better paying. I know of a student at an oft-discussed elite university who is working her way through school acting in hard-core bondage flicks. Her mother says she is proud of her daughter and finds it empowering. I’ll admit it. I wouldn’t feel the same way. I’d be embarrassed and probably wouldn’t want to talk about it with other moms at my book club. But that’s my own bias.
I suspect there are those in this debate who feel the same way about teaching. Teaching a high school AP English class is not that different from teaching a freshman composition class at the LAC down the street. Except that I’d be called “Mrs. EM” in the first instance and “Prof EM” in the second. And my mom could talk about “my daughter, the professor” instead of “my daughter, the high school teacher.” And that’s important to some people.
I have more respect for people who honestly express their opinions and own up to their own prejudices, popular or not, than I do for those who try to rationalize those prejudices with disingenuous and illogical arguments.
@EllieMom wrote on Post 574 about the “prestige” factor and its corollary, the “parental embarrassment” factor.) And that parents should ‘recognize their biases and own up to the fact that they see some jobs as “beneath” them and their highly (and expensively) educated offspring.’
I absolutely agree. Would I prefer that my daughter marry a plumber or a grad of an elite LAC who teaches AP History at a private school and makes considerably less money? The teacher. Why? For my perceived prejudices for differences in lifestyle, the emphasis on education for my grandchildren, and so on. Would my daughter ask my opinion? No, first, because she already knows it, and second, because she will marry who she wants to marry. Am I a snob? I guess so, but that’s the truth. And it is actually easier to admit on an anonymous forum.
I have an acquaintance who paid for her daughter to attend cosmetology school. The girl graduated and worked briefly at a Super Cuts, but then quit in order to take a retail job at the mall. She is earning the same amount of money as she was because she gets more hours at the mall, but her mother is disappointed because D could have gotten the mall job without the schooling. Therefore, she feels she wasted her money and is making D pay her back the tuition. I don’t think the mom’s disappointment is because she sees working at Super Cuts as much more prestigious than working at the mall. It’s because her D has abilities and training she is not using. Middle class people need and expect a ROI. People whose children will inherit a fortune regardless, like the Springsteens, don’t care as much.
There is no reason anyone with the academic qualifications to be a possible admit to an elite college has to take out unreasonable college debt, since there are full rides available at some other colleges for such students. Such a student has choices – if the elite college is too expensive or not worth the expected return (financial or otherwise), s/he need not go there.
Surely, someone as motivated by money as you seem to be would not feel resentment at the “easy money” in public safety jobs, but would be looking into going into such jobs, rather than looking at spending what you seem to think is an unreasonable amount of money for college. (Of course, a little more digging will find that they are not as “easy money” as you seem to think.)
@ucbalumnus, a little more digging would also show that ROI isn’t the real reason @SAY holds the position he/she does as he/she seems to think that being a museum curator is better than being a HS teacher because that requires a PhD even though it likely isn’t more renumerative (so probably has an even worse ROI).
Seems like @SAY is in to fronting more than anything else, but that is just my personal opinion.