College

I am really starting to think that College in today's world is a joke! My wife graduated from college last spring with an HR degree from Walsh while carrying a 3.8 gpa. She has been looking for an HR job since then and though having several interviews has been told that she doesn't have the experience! Where is she suppose to gain this experience if she can't get a job? Well coming up here very soon we will be receiving her first $662.00 bill........great! I guess the saying you go to college to get a good job to pay for college is true in a since, but what do you do if you can't get a job? I guess I will have to work a few more hours of OT to pay this $50000 debt! Just a rant, but it pizzes me off that this cuts into my play money when we aren't seeing the results of going to college! You guys have any similar stories?

 

I understand what you are talking about! I went and got a two year degree in refrigeration design worked for about 7 years designing and servicing cryogenic cascade systems and blood banks and then went back to college and finished my engineering degree. After I graduated with a 3.7 gpa half the places I applied to said I didn't have the three to five years experience needed to get back into an engineering position with a cryogenics company. I actually called one Place that I applied and talked to the HR person who stated that my previous experience was without a Bachelors degree and couldn't be counted.

Long story short I went and worked for Honda for 4 years to get my experience and then got hired on the first interview I went to for a cryocooler job because I had 4 years of engineering experiencesn a field which was unrelated to cryogenics. The whole thing was stupid and I feel bad for everyone else going through the same thing.

 

That's my wife in a nutshell! She has always done HR work at her employer and that is why she wanted a degree in it. Well she told me about the money the HR lady makes and I thought sure go ahead and pursue it, and she did and did great in school. Now the time comes to find a new job and she can't, so now the burden of this bill will fall in my lap while she stresses to find a HR job. She does still have a mediocre job, but that wasn't the reason for going to school. I guess I should just be thankful to have a decent job and have food on the table, just hard to swallow the bill!

 

Here's my story.

I graduated in '98 with a bachelors degree in computer networking. I applied for a job at the college I graduated from, for the position of an entry level network engineer and received a letter stating I was not qualified for the position. No interview, no anything.

I took that letter to the associate deans office and proceeded to unload on him, essentially stating that if I wasn't qualified to work for the institution I graduated from, then who was I qualified to work for? I'm surprised I didn't get a visit from security. I wasn't nice to him at all.

I ended up getting a job elsewhere in that line of work but only part time (was working two jobs for quite a while), went full time after a couple months, changed jobs a couple times, landed where I am today a bit over 14 years ago and clawed my way up the ladder, same as I could have done without the degree.

 

I think we will start to see a trend get stronger and stronger, which is getting a general 2 year degree, getting out in the work force to gain experience and then go back to college for the remaining class work for the bachelor degree in a more focused emphasis.

My daughter took this route. The second time around almost all of her classes were online. My middle son is on the same path.

 

I'd rather see my kids learn a trade.

My wife and I did the typical college thing. She's a stay-at-home mom with a $200K college education...which is fine with me...and she got a full ride scholarship. I went to a state school and got a $20K education that I paid for out of my own pocket. We're doing just fine, but if the situation were flipped, we'd be hurting.

 

I did the college thing, got a two year then went for my bachelors in surveying. I paid as I went and right at the end I got on with the gas company! Funny huh........ Well I never did look back, and I think I made the right choice. I have a great job that got us back to our hometown, and things are getting exciting with all this drilling and wells coming on to our system. I'm just bummed for my wife because she worked really hard and so far it hasn't paid off. I know I'm not alone on this and seeing the posts above it confirms my feelings.

 

Think about it, they push college on so many high school students. Colleges can charge a ton of money because of the high demand. If fewer kids went to college the costs would come down. How many stories have you heard of people with useless degrees?

 

I went back with the use of the GI bill and some employer funding. Had a job waiting for me when I graduated. Two of my kids went to College and were in ROTC which paid 50% of the total bill. All three of us in the medical field. absolutely no problem getting a job. I worked extra hours every week for several years to pay the college. In the end, none of us had a debt. All of us had jobs seeking us.
Now two of the grandchildren are going the same path. Yes, we went to the state university. It was just fine for our needs.

 

N/C

 

I have told my wife multiple times that I think my daughter should start out with a two year technical degree before deciding to go to college full time. I guess part of it depends on the degree also. I didn't have a hard time finding an engineering job it just wasn't in the field I wanted to work in at first for completely stupid reasons!

 

Select your school carefully, there are some schools where the focus is to saddle you with debt rather than providing a relevant education that will allow you to better your stock in life.

There is no way I would spend money attending a proprietary "college".

 

I guess that lets Harvard out ....

 

What quote?

 

College costs more cause the states are cutting the budgets and they have to make it up somewhere and that is in tuition.

 

The state's dept. of human services uses the bulk of the state budget.

 

Ok , my point is that take for example clemson university. Let's just saw it costs 12k to educate a student a year and all the costs associated with that. If the tuition is currently 10 k and the state pays the university 2 k per student we get the 12k total right ?? Following? These are made up numbers. But say its a bad year and years and the state legislature decreases funding per student the state provides to $1500 per student. The only other place to make it up for the university is with donations or tuition. So they raise tuition per student. In this case the new tuition is now $10.5k.

This has happened several times since I graduated 10 years ago.

Maybe other states are different.