$$$ Ch-ching.
Public pensions are definitely the way to go. At least if federal or state. No provision at this point for federal govt or state to file bankruptcy. Municipalities can file which means city pensions are not necessarily safe. Of course, all of that is for now. There was some talk back in 2008/09 about changing the bankruptcy code to allow for a state to file.
And I think all public pensions should be frozen. Actuarial model no longer works with increasing life expectancies. Though that is a huge political hot button. Ask Wisconsin and Ohio.
All I know is that I could tutor in math and physics all day, every day, and never do much better than ‘pass’ (barely). I just don’t have that type of brain.
Engineers make the bucks and get the jobs because they can do things that others of us can’t do. But like any profession there is a continuum of aptitude and practical ability. And like most fields the job market can be stronger or weaker depending on circumstances.
“Elite as in working with the elite”
That makes no sense. Management consultants are hired by other companies to help them make decisions. Why is it more elite to be the management consultant than it is to be the person who has the money to hire the management consultant, and who runs the business in the first place? That’s like saying that it’s more elite to be the shopkeeper selling the $2000 dress than the person who is actually paying the $2000 for the dress.
I think you guys don’t get that a heck of a lot of grads from “average” schools are the ones with the $$$ without whom management consultants wouldn’t have a job.
I think that’s true of most well paid jobs.
H is an engineer. We have friends who are IE, MechE and EE.
At any given time their bubble has burst. When the design phase of a huge new aircraft is completed, it seems like the MechEs are always cycled through layoffs. When the production phase of a huge defense project is nearing completion, the IEs and the EEs are laid off. Trade agreements and production in Brazil and America has been very very harsh on production in the U.S. and my Hs resume reflects all of the above.
Companies will say they are not age biased but really…why pay a 55 y/o MechE 120K when a 25 y/o will eagerly do the job for 65-75K?? It totally happens.
They do eventually land on their feet but it can take 4-6 months (or longer if they are older and worth more $$$) and it’s brutal having that awesome paycheck just go away. I would say deep down you really have to enjoy the work.
I’d like to hear more about Engineers in Finance that make $300K. How would you advise a student to proceed to achieve this outcome?
Go to an elite school (not strictly necessary but extremely helpful), get recruited by a top finance company (probably need to devote a lot of time to their application process), survive a few years of the 90+ hour work weeks of the entry-level analyst program, and you’re well on your way to $300k, or perhaps much more than that.
Alternatively, be an expert in an important skill that financial institutions would pay for, especially in software. This is the long way around.
Which ones?
STEM jobs do tend to require a certain set of skills that many people are either not able or not willing to learn.
I would include physicians in that group.
ETA: I will say that the two most highly paid people I know - one has an Associate’s degree and one is a college drop-out. So . . . I’m shooting down my own point. 
But both of these people are very entrepreneurial which is an unusual skill set too, imho. They both have a great deal of ‘sweat equity’ in their careers.
Engineering encompasses an almost countless number of subfields that have different degrees of market demand. For example, an engineer that specializes in digital communications design would have different market demand than an engineer who specializes in petroleum drilling. This makes it difficult to give a blanket statement about engineering in general.
Being an engineering major by no means guarantees you a job after graduation. I have relative who received a PhD in an engineering field from the top ranked school in his field with impressive awards and such, yet still spent more than a year after graduating looking for a job. His parents encouraged him to find the perfect job for a career relating to his specialty and research area within his subfield, rather than just taking anything, and he eventually did. Students who are open to a broader variety of job types often get employed sooner,. This relates to why the Georgetown survey found that new grads who majored in psychology/social work or business had slightly lower unemployment rates than those who who majored in engineering fields. Psychology/social work/business majors are more likely to take jobs with less direct relation to their major than engineering majors. That said, engineering majors as a whole have better employment prospects than most grads.
Engineering majors as a whole tend to have a higher salaries than the vast majority of other undergraduate degrees. In the Payscale survey, 9 of the 10 highest salary majors were in engineering fields. However, yes, most engineers are not extremely wealthy.
There are certain engineering subfields with very high salary potential or other ways engineers can become quite wealthy. However, if your main reason for choosing a career is to make a lot of money, I’d suggest something else. If you truly enjoy creative problem solving, then engineering can offer a more pleasant and satisfying day job than you’d find in most careers. In many subfields, it’s also common to have benefits like flexible hours and/or work from home, little micromanagement including flexibility of working on the problems/activities that you’d prefer, unique job perks to make employees more satisfied ranging from everything from having manga/anime reading areas to bowling alleys (varies tremendously by company). In many fields, you also have the option of working/consulting for yourself after gaining experience.
I personally found it easier to maintain a high GPA in engineering classes than humanities classes. However, one does not need an exceptionally high GPA to become an engineer, like in certain elite banking/consulting type firms. Many engineering positions screen new college grad applicants with a 3.0 GPA. Some do not screen GPA at all. Few engineering employers care about GPA after your first job.
I’m not an engineer myself, but H, my Dad, and one Grandfather are/were engineers and HS senior D is going into engineering (EE like her Grandpa), so I’ll play. Our society right now is very much built on technology and I don’t see that changing anytime soon without some huge historical turn of events.
Nothing here has suggested the coming of a bursting bubble. There are higher paying jobs, but so what? An engineering degree has never been seen as the path to millions (even though it has been for a few). It’s about the extremely high rate of employment and salaries equivalent with a nice upper middle class lifestyle. The fact that a highly qualified grad has to wait a year for the perfect position doesn’t change this. A “guaranteed job” != “the exact job you want.” The tech schools D’s been looking at usually have around 95% placement within a year and closer to 97% when broken down and looking at engineering. These are solid but not top tier schools. That’s pretty close to “guaranteed.”
And as for the upturns and downturns and occasional layoffs, that’s not a bubble bursting. I’d be very surprised if engineers do worse than most other occupations in bad economic times. Admittedly I’m too lazy to go find any evidence, but I’d be interested and surprised to see data to the contrary.
Having said that, I think it’s a terrible idea for students to go into engineering just because of it’s very positive job outlook and relatively high pay. Many students are going to fail out because they don’t have the skills or they don’t have the motivation. Students who can get through an engineering curriculum without really caring or trying are almost certainly wasting time and talent that could be put toward a very successful and satisfying job in their true areas of interest.
If they don’t find it interesting, why should they pursue it?
Someone mentioned civil a few posts back - personally I think CE is going to make a comeback because of the many infrastructure projects that are now falling apart. At least in my state, bridges are crumbling, interstates need to be widened, school buildings need updated facilities, public parks need work done on trails and guest buildings - basically just about everything built during the CCC or '60s needs redoing.
I know a lot of people who believe you find a job that provides a great income and do what you love for a hobby. Different strokes.
The need is there and has been for a while. The problem is the money, and how stingy local and state governments are with it.
Which majors are not bubbles?
" Many of them find themselves going back to school for a different bachelors" - I am the one and my first one was in fact engineering. I was fine at college, but hated the job with all my heart. Simply was not for me. I am very happy that I switched to CS, went back to school in my mid. 30s and felt like fish being put back in a water for the next 30+ years.
After saying that, engineering will never ever “burst” This bubble is always half empty so to speak. There is always a shortest of engineers. Good thing about it also that you can attend at any college, so you can choose the one that is cheapest for you. Vast majority of the engineering firms are hiring locally and they do care at all about any type of ranking or name recognition.
There is not an overall shortage of engineers and has not been one since the 1970s, maybe a small blip in the 1990s when the internet buildout was happening. How do I know? Wages have been steadily declining compared to other professional salaries. Entry level nurse practitioners have multiple job offers for over $100k in Seattle, while my company just offered an entry-level electrical engineer $17.25/hour, no signing bonus, no moving expenses. We can’t point to the top percentage of engineers and call that “the job market.”
My brother is a Civil Engineer with a MS. With the sophistication of the new software, he can design in two days what used to take 3 weeks for 6 engineers. I am an old school EE, learned to homebrew controllers from a bag of parts. My methods are obsolete and will probably not make it employed to 65. My income is about what it was 20 years ago. My bosses now all came from sales postions.
If someone does stick with engineering, they will need to change jobs every few years to keep up with technology and chase new skills. None of my kids will be engineers.
What are they studying, @Magnetron?
Dang, typed up a big long thing and accidentally deleted it.
S1 is a senior in MIS with an eye on business consulting. D is a junior in biology looking at grad schools. S2 will be starting his senior year in HS looking for something similar to S1.
My kids knew from early on that an engineering degree is the straightest path to the middle class for a kid with intelligence and a work ethic. My accountant sister retired at 55 and had taken a two year mid-career break. I will likely die at a desk somewhere, writing up why we should use one Chinese part instead of another Chinese part.