NYT Frets About High School Grads Making a Good Living

[ucbalumnus]

<p>

@Vot123

Sort of like a gap year, plus a few.

</p>

<p>A few well paid gap years… (and if they decide to go to college after they turn 24, then their parents are no longer expected to contribute for financial aid purposes)</p>

<p>But yes, it does require foresight to save some of the money while working in the oil fields.</p>

[BCEagle91]

<br>

<p>Oil is predominantly used in transportation these days, since the
first oil shocks of the 1970s drove other energy users (including
manufacturing) to other sources of energy. Oil remains dominant in
transportation because solid fuel (e.g. coal), gaseous fuel
(e.g. natural gas), and electricity storage all have significant
disadvantages in energy density and/or refueling speed and
convenience, compared to liquid fuel.</p>

<br>

<p>“According to the composition of the crude oil and depending on the demands of the market, refineries can produce different shares of petroleum products. The largest share of oil products is used as “energy carriers”, i.e. various grades of fuel oil and gasoline. These fuels include or can be blended to give gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel, heating oil, and heavier fuel oils. Heavier (less volatile) fractions can also be used to produce asphalt, tar, paraffin wax, lubricating and other heavy oils. Refineries also produce other chemicals, some of which are used in chemical processes to produce plastics and other useful materials. Since petroleum often contains a few percent sulfur-containing molecules, elemental sulfur is also often produced as a petroleum product. Carbon, in the form of petroleum coke, and hydrogen may also be produced as petroleum products. The hydrogen produced is often used as an intermediate product for other oil refinery processes such as hydrocracking and hydrodesulfurization.”</p>

<p>– Wikipedia</p>

<p>It is not hard to find web pages listing products made from petroleum.</p>

<br>

<p>New methods of extracting oil won’t necessarily make oil cheap,
since they are relative expensive methods, so that if the price of
oil falls below the marginal cost to extract the oil, the new
methods simply won’t be used to extract the oil.</p>

<br>

<p>Yes. I said this in a subsequent post and have said the same thing in many other threads.</p>

<p>I’ve been trading oil, pipeline, oil services, refinery, electricity,
coal and natural gas companies since 2000 so I keep up with commodity
prices and I like to know how profits are going in general.</p>

<p>Cheap is relative. Today’s price at around $90/barrel would be
considered cheap compared to $140 from several years ago.</p>

<p>I look at the instability in the Middle East right now and marvel that
oil isn’t a lot higher. I imagine the traditional oil countries
noticed this a while ago. Back in 2004, Chavez threatened to freeze
oil exports to the US. Today? Who cares?</p>

<br>

<p>Exactly. And since China and India are going to be increasing
consumption for at least the next decade there is now a floor to the
crude price for the foreseeable future. Add to that Japan’s panicked
(dare I say “headlong”) conversion to Nat Gas and a lot of supply is
getting taken up.</p>

<br>

<p>Fine. What’s the floor? $70 - $90? $150? $200? The US has 1.4 trillion
recoverable barrels of oil. I have seen higher estimates too. World
consumption is about 88 million barrels a day. The US could supply the
entire world’s needs for 44 years. Canada is cranking up shale
production too (I own a company that does pipelines for shale oil
along with Natural Gas Liquids - the idea is to send product through
the pipelines to the west coast and then on to Asia).</p>

<p>At the moment, we don’t export NG though there is some consideration
of offshore tanker plans being used to export as opposed to import
natural gas. I think that we would need legislative work to export
natural gas but I can guarantee you that natural gas companies would
love to work down the massive glut in natural gas storage in the
United States today. The last thing that natural gas companies need is
a mild winter.</p>

<br>

<p>Its not impossible that there will be a bust. But then people have
been waiting for a bust in Microsoft and GOOG for a while. You can
have a pretty nice career while everyone is waiting for the bust.</p>

<br>

<p>I think that producers are pretty happy with a price range of $70 to
$90 and I’d consider that cheap given the amount of currency that
central bankers have been choppering in for the last four years.</p>

<p>BTW, here’s one reality show that I might actually watch:</p>

<p>[Cable</a> TV looks for Bakken oilfield workers to star in reality show](<a href=“http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/cable-tv-looks-for-bakken-oilfield-workers-to-star-in/article_76a33f0e-4df3-11e2-8333-001a4bcf887a.html]Cable”>Cable TV looks for Bakken oilfield workers to star in reality show)</p>

<br>

<p>Now if those young fracking-work workers living in their parents’ basements would
have the foresight to save up a nest egg for a few years rather than buying
motorcycles or whatnot they could then revisit the idea of higher education at
some future time when they might have a better idea of where their lives are going
and have the means to do something about it if they want to change career paths.</p>

<br>

<p>They have options that the graduates and non-graduates don’t have because they didn’t rack up the debt.</p>

[Madaboutx]

<p>I only see one problem in the article. That is the inability of the higher education establishment finding a way to be relevant enough to these kids and the businesses that higher them.</p>

[argbargy]

<p>FYI- 50K is the starting salary.
WSJ has the average oil industry salary at 91K. </p>

<p>By comparrison if you buy as CS degree, everyone is trying to offshore you and you are lucky if your job lasts three years.</p>

[Beliavsky]

<p>Heather MacDonald agrees with argbargy</p>

<p>[A</a> Blow to the College-Industrial Complex - By Heather Mac Donald - The Corner - National Review Online](<a href=“http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/336479/blow-college-industrial-complex-heather-mac-donald]A”>http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/336479/blow-college-industrial-complex-heather-mac-donald)</p>

<p>

Where is a teenager more likely to learn the basic and transferable virtue of showing up every day and on time, not to mention how to get along with a boss and fit into an organization — as a communications and binge-drinking double major at Missoula State University, or as a mechanic fixing broken rig equipment? Too many high-school graduates are reflexively going to college as it is, without a clue what they are doing there or how to take advantage of higher education.

</p>

<p>as does Steve Sailer</p>

<p>[Steve</a> Sailer: iSteve: The jobs Americans just will do](<a href=“http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-jobs-americans-just-will-do.html]Steve”>Steve Sailer: iSteve: The jobs Americans just will do)</p>

<p>(and I).</p>

[BCEagle91]

<p>I wonder what kind of raises these guys get in moving up the career ladder - even one step to supervisor.</p>

<p>BTW, Apple will be manufacturing Mac Minis in the United States. They expect to make 1.8 million of them though I don’t know what the mix of Made in the US vs Made in Asia will be. I think that those jobs would be fine for high-school graduates too.</p>

[Beliavsky]

<p>

@argbargy

By comparrison if you buy as CS degree, everyone is trying to offshore you and you are lucky if your job lasts three years.

</p>

<p>There are lots of employed CS majors in the U.S., and their working conditions are more pleasant than those of oil field workers. It’s good for high school graduates to be able to get middle class jobs, but some people, even in Montana, should still be getting college degrees.</p>

[BCEagle91]

<p>I’ve been at my CS job since around 1986.</p>

<p>They paid for the MSCS degree too.</p>

<p>Not a bad gig.</p>

[argbargy]

<p>In my experience the middle of a raising market is exactly where you want to be careerwise. When there is a lot of growth there is a lot of money and a lot of problems. People who can solve the problems- whether its bringing in a project early or getting an oil well back on line- will get a lot of rewards and advancement. </p>

<p>Compare that to buying a degree in IT or law where you are seen as a cost center and management is constantly looking at moving your position over seas. Advancement and raises will be very hard to get. </p>

<p>

It may be dangerous, difficult work, but oil drillers are well compensated for the job: In 2011 the average salary for rig workers and other industry personnel was $99,175.</p>

<p>That number includes fat paychecks for the highly skilled, like $235,586 for a “drilling consultant” and $139,868 for a “reservoir engineer”, according to Rigzone, an industry information provider that compiled the figures.</p>

<p>But even for someone with less than a year’s experience the average wage was $66,923.

[Oil</a> rig workers make nearly $100,000 a year - May. 10, 2012](<a href=“http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/10/news/economy/oil_workers/index.htm]Oil”>Oil rig workers make nearly $100,000 a year - May. 10, 2012)</p>

<p>Here is a dude making half a million:
[Lonely</a>, hard work on oil rigs, but salaries soaring | Reuters](<a href=“http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/14/us-oil-rigs-idUSBRE89D0GK20121014]Lonely”>http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/14/us-oil-rigs-idUSBRE89D0GK20121014)</p>

[skrlvr]

<p>I didn’t necessarily think that the Times article was ‘fretting’, though I also disagree with the characterization that the choice is ‘risky’ and one that could ‘foreclose on his future’. So, if in a few years the jobs dry up, why not go pursue some higher education at that time? As mentioned above, this is not that different from a gap year, other than it may last longer.</p>

[BCEagle91]

<br>

<p>Compare that to buying a degree in IT or law where you are seen as a cost center
and management is constantly looking at moving your position over seas. Advancement
and raises will be very hard to get.</p>

<br>

<p>I don’t know about law but you can get outsized rewards as a software engineering manager or even just a software company if you get in at the right time. A guy that I used to work with (he’s still with the company), started out in accounting and made $100 million+ many years ago off of stock options (you could see his transaction on Yahoo finance). We have a lot of first and second line managers that have made many millions off stock options too. And even a decent number of non-managers.</p>

<p>If you’re a CS person with a good idea and have an entrepreneurial flair, then you can start your own company.</p>

[argbargy]

<p>I have worked for HP and IBM in the past and I can tell you that if you are in IT, unless you are customer facing or in a real growth BU you are in constant danger of being off-shored. Regardless of rating or skills. IBM has 12% efficiency Y2Y in plan- where is that going to come from but heads? </p>

<p>All of the really best people I know either left tech- either for management, made DE’s (which isnt all that technical) or retired. The most wiz-bang firewall IPS guy is now running IT for a health care chain. The SAP guru is strictly sell-side consulting. </p>

<p>There is always room in any field for a great person who is hard working. And I love computer science. But I’d advise anyone getting a CS degree to mix it with something else. CS + finance, or + biology, or PMP. If you are just generic IT you are going to find a tough road.</p>

[Beliavsky]

<p>Although I think the wording of the NYT is biased, I do wonder about the notion of working full time after high school “foreclosing” on a college education. When I finished high school I thought about taking a gap year to pursue a serious non-academic interest. My parents were horrified and warned that once you are out of the habit of doing academic work, it is difficult to return to it. I heeded them. What do studies say about this? What is the graduation rate of people who start college at 25? I assume colleges that require the SAT require them to have been taken in the last 2 or 3 years. How do SAT scores change from age 18 to 25?</p>

<p>Kids who have been studying hard in high school and doing well may be advised to stay in “academic mode”. Kids who have just been waiting for high school to end may be more serious about studying after having worked a few years. So whether delaying college reduces the chance being successful at college will depend on the person.</p>

[BCEagle91]

<br>

<p>I have worked for HP and IBM in the past and I can tell you that if
you are in IT, unless you are customer facing or in a real growth BU
you are in constant danger of being off-shored. Regardless of rating
or skills. IBM has 12% efficiency Y2Y in plan- where is that going
to come from but heads?</p>

<br>

<p>Pull up a chart of HP and you can get an idea as to management effectiveness. They have been a sinking ship for a while. IBM is well-known for labor practices that aren’t best for their employees.</p>

<p>Are you painting a picture of all companies based on HP and IBM? Perhaps you’d have a different perspective if you worked for Apple, Oracle, Intel, Google, Akamai, Amazon and the many companies that are doing well financially.</p>

<br>

<p>All of the really best people I know either left tech- either for
management, made DE’s (which isnt all that technical) or
retired. The most wiz-bang firewall IPS guy is now running IT for a
health care chain. The SAP guru is strictly sell-side consulting.</p>

<br>

<p>We regularly hire new grad software engineers in my small engineering building. We do lose some to startups too.</p>

<br>

<p>There is always room in any field for a great person who is hard
working. And I love computer science. But I’d advise anyone getting
a CS degree to mix it with something else. CS + finance, or +
biology, or PMP. If you are just generic IT you are going to find a
tough road.</p>

<br>

<p>Well, there’s always software engineering. Demand still seems good there but you often have to be a very good match for what an employer is looking for. My son is working in Computational Biology which looks to be an area with huge potential - he just has a CS degree with a semester of Bio. There are still places that will take the CS degree and teach you the other thing. I guess that some employers will assume that you can learn the other stuff if you have a CS degree.</p>

<br>

<p>Although I think the wording of the NYT is biased, I do wonder about
the notion of working full time after high school “foreclosing” on a
college education. When I finished high school I thought about
taking a gap year to pursue a serious non-academic interest. My
parents were horrified and warned that once you are out of the habit
of doing academic work, it is difficult to return to it. I heeded
them. What do studies say about this? What is the graduation rate of
people who start college at 25? I assume colleges that require the
SAT require them to have been taken in the last 2 or 3 years. How do
SAT scores change from age 18 to 25?</p>

<br>

<p>I think that it depends on what you do with those years.</p>

<p>I worked design and programming jobs after one year at college. In one of the ccompanies that I worked at, there were lots of programmers without college degrees and the company would pay for employees to get their degrees. Lots of employees picked up BS and MS degrees, sometimes in completely unrelated majors. I’d guess that graduation rates were quite good as you had people that were mature through work and people that didn’t have to pay for their university studies. You also only got reimbursed if you received a C or higher (B for grad courses) so there was a financial incentive to do well in courses. You also had other people that you worked with that could provide help with college stuff - sometimes youhad coworkers that knew more than your professors in particular courses.</p>

<br>

<p>Kids who have been studying hard in high school and doing well may
be advised to stay in “academic mode”. Kids who have just been
waiting for high school to end may be more serious about studying
after having worked a few years. So whether delaying college reduces
the chance being successful at college will depend on the person.</p>

<br>

<p>There is a lot in the way of free university course materials available on the internet these days. I was surprised at what Coursera has available in CS. I found a complete bioinformatics curriculum online and free on the web. I don’t know how good these materials are outside of CS but you can certainly learn a lot of university material without going to (or paying) a university. Learning on your own requires a lot of discipline but it is certainly possible.</p>

[argbargy]

<p>“Are you painting a picture of all companies based on HP and IBM? Perhaps you’d have a different perspective if you worked for Apple, Oracle, Intel, Google, Akamai, Amazon and the many companies that are doing well financially.”</p>

<p>True enough. Although IBM is doing well enough financially. </p>

<h2>I work for another Fortune 20 now and the focus on cost take out is similar but not as bad. </h2>

<p>The MIT course ware is awesome. That is the way CS should be taught although they can be deep dive!</p>

[BCEagle91]

<br>

<p>True enough. Although IBM is doing well enough financially. </p>

<br>

<p>They are but they are known for the stuff that you talk about. I saw this stuff when they tried changing their pension stuff back in the 1990s. BTW, I have a small pension with HP and get the annual financial disclosures - I hope that they don’t have too much of their assets in HP stock!</p>

<br>

<p>I work for another Fortune 20 now and the focus on cost take out is similar but not
as bad.</p>

<br>

<p>I think that having a management chain that cares about employees really helps too. It is possible to have a good manager in a bad company and a bad manager in a good company.</p>

<br>

<p>The MIT course ware is awesome. That is the way CS should be taught although
they can be deep dive!</p>

<br>

<p>There’s good stuff from Yale, Berkeley, Stanford too. My son is going through the Bioinformatics course at Stanford right now. I am too - the difference is that he understands all of the bio terms. There are a bunch of papers in a Bioinformatics course from Middle East Technical University that make up their version of a textbook. I had a look at some of the courses available on Coursera. Imagine taking a virtual course with Ullman or Skiena!</p>

<p>The stuff at MIT is nice but it doesn’t cover everything. What I’ve seen in the last two years is that stuff is getting filled in by other schools or organizations. It would be interesting to see actual university certification for free or low-cost online courses. It wouldn’t be the same as being on-campus but it would be great for graduate-level courses.</p>

[MirabileDictu]

<p>I don’t think that the wording of this NYT story is “biased,” any more than the wording of of other NYT stories that “fret” about the daunting debt load being taken on by today’s undergraduates. Taken as a whole, I’d say that the paper’s coverage of the risks and benefits of attending college is balanced.</p>

<p>One thing folks who like the idea of HS graduates heading directly into the work force are not mentioning about this article is that it points out that most of these HS graduates are not getting jobs in the oil industry. They are getting low to no skill jobs in industries that support the boom. There is nothing wrong with taking a few yeas off to work and save, but it is unlikely that the $24 per hour convenience store clerk is positioning herself well for her future career. The article also fails to focus on one of the real risks in delaying a college education; life events can make it very difficult to make the sacrifices necessary to go back to school. After a couple years of work a young person may have a spouse, a mortgage, a child, etc. Commitments like these make it very difficult to leave the work force for four years in order to get a degree. This is not to say that I think all (or even close to all) young people should go to college, it is to say that for a student who intends to go to college, taking a few years off to work can be risky.</p>

[BCEagle91]

<br>

<p>After a couple years of work a young person may have a spouse, a mortgage, a child,
etc. Commitments like these make it very difficult to leave the work force for four years
in order to get a degree.</p>

<br>

<p>Then you get it part-time.</p>

<p>There’s a $2,000/year tax credit that can help and it isn’t limited to four years.</p>

[argbargy]

<p>“The article also fails to focus on one of the real risks in delaying a college education; life events can make it very difficult to make the sacrifices necessary to go back to school.”</p>

<p>I think we need to unpack the bias here. What is deficient about some making $100K working as an oil rigger? Thats a career. Are they some how “Less Than” [tm] because they dont have a sociology degree? They know more about their field than the average person, and less about some academic areas. That would be true of any field. </p>

<p>And doesnt it make sense to spend a lot of money getting a degree when the average grad make $44K/yr? </p>

<p>I think they are missing out on things without an education, but it also the case that everyone makes decisions that cause them to miss out on stuff. Life is necessarily a process of limiting and focusing.</p>

[MirabileDictu]

<br>

<p>Then you get it part-time.</p>

<p>There’s a $2,000/year tax credit that can help and it isn’t limited to four years. </p>

<br>

<p>Of course, and many do. There is, however, no getting around the fact that doing so ratchets up the degree of difficulty (and time to completion) significantly. That’s why I say that this is a risky path for a student who INTENDS to go to college. It’s not an impassible path, or even one without other benefits or attractions, it is simply a more difficult one. There is no easier time to attend college than when you have no significant responsibilities to others. If you know you want a four year degree, it is probably best to get it before you take on those responsibilities.</p>