Sadly, the failure of many white collar professional salaries in occupations like teachers, librarians and social workers to keep up with inflation and provide a middle class lifestyle has made those professions less desirable to many students. Those students then compete for entry into other occupations, primarily through grades. Many employers do use gpa cutoffs to sift through resumes for entry level jobs.
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Well, yes, a family gift of $125k and a year of free childcare would change the equation. So would Canada’s generous safety net, health insurance and cheap college tuition. Not everyone has that.
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To be an RN you need a university degree, a BScN, which can either be done as a straight 4 year university program or as a 4 year university/college collab program. Both are highly competitive to get into. If you want to work in a specialist area (ER, neonatal, pediatrics, ICU, OB/GYN etc) you have to be an RN.
At the college level you can become a Registered Practical Nurse (RPN) or a Personal Support Worker (PSW).
50% in pay for an RN is $40.00/hr (~$78,000), for an RPN it’s around $30/hr (~$58,500) and for a PSW it’s around $25/hr (~$49,000).
There are also Nurse Practitioners who are at a level above RPN’s and who can diagnose and prescribe. That requires a 2 year graduate degree. They make on average about $60/hr (~117,000).
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Totally agree. But in that case, they would have just lived with the family rent-free forever, and just gone on a few more holidays.
I suppose my point is yes - intellectually, they know/knew that higher-paying jobs required better grades, competitive entrance careers but not everyone is capable of competing. So the grade perfectionism thing is simply not a thing for everyone.
At the end of the day, they would have lived quite well with no kids (zero students loans) but decided to have 3 kids because they knew they were going to get family help one way or the other.
Most of the trust fund kids I know are not stressed, about grades, jobs, or anything else. The rest of us who need employment are.
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If I look up all of Hamilton County rather than just Cincinnati, the median home price is still ~$200k. That said, like any metropolitan area, there are more and less expensive suburbs. The more expensive areas often have a high concentration of wealthy persons. You mentioned Blue Ash, which is one such more expensive suburb area. There are still homes for under $400k in Blue Ash, but the median price is quite a bit higher than all of Hamilton County. Some examples are below.
3 bedroom condo for $170k – 9473 Hunters Creek Dr Unit 106, Blue Ash, OH 45242 | realtor.com®
3 bedroom home for $260k – 8872 Cynthia Ct, Blue Ash, OH 45242 | realtor.com®
Yeah, I assumed the couple with a kid needed at least a 3 bedroom detached house. Obviously different assumptions yield different results.
I hope you are not describing my sibling as such! My parents live to give us money. Not because they are wealthy, but they think nothing of more lovely than depriving themselves to give us money. I don’t agree with this attitude, but there it is.
They were upfront with us and told them that they were draining their savings to give us X. Hardly enough to be trust fund babies or to fritter away (as I said this is food out of their mouths), but I don’t think it’s so terrible to get a start on a nice middle class suburban house that way and maybe have 3 kids instead of 1.
At the end of the day, even with a substantial helping hand, they need to work.
Never said it was terrible. It is great if it can be done. Just not the norm
You need at least a mid-80’s (A) high school average to get into a concurrent B.Ed program in Ontario.
Would the US analogies be the following?
| Canada | US | School to attend |
|---|---|---|
| RN, BScN | BSN (with RN license) | university / (US) four year college |
| RPN | ADN (with RN license) | (community) college |
| PSW | LPN/LVN? CNA? | (community) college |
Descriptions of the various nursing education paths and jobs in the US are at Nursing Degrees: Types, Levels & Earning Potential
Surprisingly, it is very close to the norm because the opposite can’t happen. How else would this hypothetical couple get a modest 3-bed house in a good-ish (not top) school district and pay for childcare? Almost all the houses in my parents’ suburb are sold to young families with some parental help. They gripe about this but they are guilty of the same.
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Bingo!!! There we have it-the conclusion that indeed it can’t be done without substantial outside help, which most do not have. No wonder people are stressed
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Agree - over 90s when I went to uni (at places like Queens/UWaterloo) but said in-law got in after finishing degree and had compelling backstory.
Also commuted to undergrad from home, etc. Never cracked an 80 average in HS or uni. But also teaches a hard (HARD) group of kids.
I agree that people are stressed but I don’t know that it automatically leads to student perfectionism. I don’t see that culture so much with that (over-generalizing) group of families.
Where I see the drive is with my classmates’ families. Thanks to the tech boom, most of my classmates live in million+ houses, have retirement paid for, college tuition savings and are VERY worried about their kids’ grades and prospects. Some in Canada, some in the U.S. Having said that, it seems to be working, the kids are getting high enough grades to get into elite Canadian schools for engineering, etc.
Try heading over to r/professors. Anecdotal to be sure, but it seems like many of them are frequently confronted by students grubbing for grades either because they need to maintain a certain GPA to keep their merit based scholarships or because they need a high GPA to get into med school.
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Why does a couple with a kid (or even two kids) need at least a 3 bedroom detached house? Is a guest bedroom required for a middle-class life? Is there something wrong with children sharing a bedroom? Does living in an apartment or a townhouse or a two-family house preclude a family from being middle-class?
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3 kids is 3 x 350 * (1.08)^18 of college expense.
If only I knew kids were this expensive.
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Tell that to the boomer parents (mine). They grew up in poverty and their idea of an optimal life is a brand new (not old) house in a cookie cutter suburb with yards and privacy from others. I can’t argue with that. I didn’t grow up 5 kids and parents to one room.
I think how they grew up was kind of jolly - you could hear the neighbors cooking, banging their pots, arguing, going to the outhouse. They think it’s horrible and I am betting that many of their compatriots did as well - hence the terraforming suburbs with the LR/DR, kitchen, 2.5 baths, 3-4 bedrooms and basement where you absolutely CANNOT hear your neighbors.
Canadia. So college expense not on that level.
Also, their expectation is their kids COMMUTE to a 4-year university or to a community college and transfer. So lower Canadian rates + no room and board.