Just How Hard is University to Overcome
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Where this argument DOES make sense, is when you get to go to university on the company's dime AND time. Then it becomes a very different thing. And yet still, there is a good argument that holding back your career during that time is not worth it.
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@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@tim_g said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
But I would be doing it while working full time and continuing investing in SP500 and 401k... that wouldnt' stop.
Everyone makes this argument. But for this to make sense you have to assume that you could not do other work, could not do other education and so forth. Is that true? Is getting a degree the only means of utilizing that free time?
Well if I want to break into management at some point in my life, an MBA will more likely get me there than an MCSE.
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For example...
if I came to you for a management position with only a bunch of IT experience with MCSEs and Linux certs
versus:
someone else coming to you with a bunch of IT experience, MCSEs and Linux certs, plus an MBA...
Which would you choose?
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@tim_g said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@tim_g said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
But I would be doing it while working full time and continuing investing in SP500 and 401k... that wouldnt' stop.
Everyone makes this argument. But for this to make sense you have to assume that you could not do other work, could not do other education and so forth. Is that true? Is getting a degree the only means of utilizing that free time?
Well if I want to break into management at some point in my life, an MBA will more likely get me there than an MCSE.
Well yes, that much is true. But is an MBA more likely to get you there than compared to other things you could be doing with your time? If your goal was management and you suggested an MCSE I'd say you were crazy. If you suggest an MBA I'd just suggest you consider the range of options.
I got into management, didn't need an MBA. But getting an MBA would have stalled my career a lot.
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@tim_g said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
For example...
if I came to you for a management position with only a bunch of IT experience with MCSEs and Linux certs
versus:
someone else coming to you with a bunch of IT experience, MCSEs and Linux certs, plus an MBA...
Which would you choose?
Depends, are ALL other things equal? Then the MBA is a bonus. But all other things are never, ever equal. That's one of the key tricks of this kind of thing - the MBA or the MCSE or the whatever always comes at a cost of something else. What is that other thing, that's the question.
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@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@tim_g said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
For example...
if I came to you for a management position with only a bunch of IT experience with MCSEs and Linux certs
versus:
someone else coming to you with a bunch of IT experience, MCSEs and Linux certs, plus an MBA...
Which would you choose?
Depends, are ALL other things equal? Then the MBA is a bonus. But all other things are never, ever equal. That's one of the key tricks of this kind of thing - the MBA or the MCSE or the whatever always comes at a cost of something else. What is that other thing, that's the question.
This is actually a really good point I hadn't thought of. And I already disliked college.
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Example, I could go get an MBA when I was 30. What would have happened (maybe)...
- I would not have been able to learn other things as much as I did.
- I would have been preoccupied at work and not gotten offered SVP level before turning 31 - maybe because I would not have moved up as quickly being so busy, maybe because they would have known I wasn't done with school and wanted to wait.
- I would have lost all kinds of money that could have gone to things like labs, volunteer work or whatever.
The list goes on and on. There is always an alternative. Some alternatives are silly like spending all the time and money on beer and watching reality TV. Some are neutral, like getting an MCSE. Some are hugely beneficial, like putting in extra hours, volunteering for projects and trying for a promotion.
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@brrabill said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller and I were discussing this thread today, which is why I resurrected it.
I asked the question ... if college was free, would you still feel this way?
My contention is that the "HS Benefit After Investments" is only applicable if you can bank the $146K in tuition.
Without that, you would only have the additional 4 years of salary to bank over the kid in college not making money.
That's mostly correct. The investments only exist if you have something to invest. Compared to free college, you do not. That one specific factor goes away and, if you are dealing with the full pools including people who will become doctors and people who can't get into college, then the numbers just barely favour getting a graduate degree assuming that the time value of money does not offset that much.
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@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@brrabill said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller and I were discussing this thread today, which is why I resurrected it.
I asked the question ... if college was free, would you still feel this way?
My contention is that the "HS Benefit After Investments" is only applicable if you can bank the $146K in tuition.
Without that, you would only have the additional 4 years of salary to bank over the kid in college not making money.
That's mostly correct. The investments only exist if you have something to invest. Compared to free college, you do not. That one specific factor goes away and, if you are dealing with the full pools including people who will become doctors and people who can't get into college, then the numbers just barely favour getting a graduate degree assuming that the time value of money does not offset that much.
And of course, a wash is still pretty much a loss for the "have to go to college" crowd.
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@brrabill said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
However, most 17 year olds are probably closer to $20K yearly than $38K. And the college goer can offset that by working. They work 20 hours a week? Then the non college goer only gets them by $10K.
This is incorrect. Typically a teenager can work as much as they want, but that's not really the issue as we are really talking about people who are or are nearly full adults. At 17 yes, jobs might be a struggle, but not realistically for anyone that could have gone to college, they are only a struggle for those that could not have. And a college goer cannot offset lost work, ever. That's not possible. This is a myth.
Anything that a college goer can do, a non-college goer can do plus all the college time on top of it. So if a college goer can work 20 hours a week, a non-college goer can do 70 hours a week.
Typically we assume that full time college requires about forty to sixty hours a week of student time. That's how much someone not going to college can put into a job on top of any time that a college goer can put into a job.
When I was going to college triple full time, I was still working 50 hours a week to pay for it (because I had to pay out of pocket.) I could have worked 110 hours a week, made way more money and had more time to relax and learned more (because I learned more on the job than at college) and gotten more career opportunities (I got into my career from my side job, not from college). So you have to compare against the full offset of college.
The trick that people often use to make college sound good is pretending that people who go to college can work twice as hard (college + work) as people who don't go to college. But that is simply not the case. We aren't talking about two pools of people, one lazy and one not. We are talking about a single person considering two different approaches.
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@brrabill said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@brrabill said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller and I were discussing this thread today, which is why I resurrected it.
I asked the question ... if college was free, would you still feel this way?
My contention is that the "HS Benefit After Investments" is only applicable if you can bank the $146K in tuition.
Without that, you would only have the additional 4 years of salary to bank over the kid in college not making money.
That's mostly correct. The investments only exist if you have something to invest. Compared to free college, you do not. That one specific factor goes away and, if you are dealing with the full pools including people who will become doctors and people who can't get into college, then the numbers just barely favour getting a graduate degree assuming that the time value of money does not offset that much.
And of course, a wash is still pretty much a loss for the "have to go to college" crowd.
They will feel like it is a loss. But if it was really a wash, which it is not, then it would be fine and it would be "whatever path makes you happy."
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@quixoticjeremy said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@tim_g said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
For example...
if I came to you for a management position with only a bunch of IT experience with MCSEs and Linux certs
versus:
someone else coming to you with a bunch of IT experience, MCSEs and Linux certs, plus an MBA...
Which would you choose?
Depends, are ALL other things equal? Then the MBA is a bonus. But all other things are never, ever equal. That's one of the key tricks of this kind of thing - the MBA or the MCSE or the whatever always comes at a cost of something else. What is that other thing, that's the question.
This is actually a really good point I hadn't thought of. And I already disliked college.
Says the guy I tried to talk out of going to college for years
Much of my math as to why college is always bad exists because I ran numbers a decade ago to show the family why you would be screwed if you went to college. That's where I took the time to put together the investment numbers and such because you were a case where you had cash in hand that could either pay for college or could have been enough to retire on. It was because I saw that the cash in hand was enough to retire with alone that I put two and two together about how going to college was just losing that money with no way to recoup it.
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@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@brrabill said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
However, most 17 year olds are probably closer to $20K yearly than $38K. And the college goer can offset that by working. They work 20 hours a week? Then the non college goer only gets them by $10K.
This is incorrect. Typically a teenager can work as much as they want, but that's not really the issue as we are really talking about people who are or are nearly full adults. At 17 yes, jobs might be a struggle, but not realistically for anyone that could have gone to college, they are only a struggle for those that could not have. And a college goer cannot offset lost work, ever. That's not possible. This is a myth.
Anything that a college goer can do, a non-college goer can do plus all the college time on top of it. So if a college goer can work 20 hours a week, a non-college goer can do 70 hours a week.
Typically we assume that full time college requires about forty to sixty hours a week of student time. That's how much someone not going to college can put into a job on top of any time that a college goer can put into a job.
When I was going to college triple full time, I was still working 50 hours a week to pay for it (because I had to pay out of pocket.) I could have worked 110 hours a week, made way more money and had more time to relax and learned more (because I learned more on the job than at college) and gotten more career opportunities (I got into my career from my side job, not from college). So you have to compare against the full offset of college.
The trick that people often use to make college sound good is pretending that people who go to college can work twice as hard (college + work) as people who don't go to college. But that is simply not the case. We aren't talking about two pools of people, one lazy and one not. We are talking about a single person considering two different approaches.
But if the answer to making more money is to just "work more" ... then that isn't a good answer.
The same person could work just as many extra house once they leave college, and at a higher average salary.
Have you lost the years at college? Sure, but you could catch up to it pretty quickly in the couple years after.
AGAIN, not considering tuition here. Any time you are throwing 100-200K into this equation, it hugely shifts the balance the other way.
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@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
Some are hugely beneficial, like putting in extra hours, volunteering for projects and trying for a promotion.
Give some specific examples please - not just generic trying for a promotion. i.e. did you go to them and say - hey I'm really good at x and you currently don't have x so you should make me the x doer?
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@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
Example, I could go get an MBA when I was 30. What would have happened (maybe)...
- I would not have been able to learn other things as much as I did.
- I would have been preoccupied at work and not gotten offered SVP level before turning 31 - maybe because I would not have moved up as quickly being so busy, maybe because they would have known I wasn't done with school and wanted to wait.
- I would have lost all kinds of money that could have gone to things like labs, volunteer work or whatever.
The list goes on and on. There is always an alternative. Some alternatives are silly like spending all the time and money on beer and watching reality TV. Some are neutral, like getting an MCSE. Some are hugely beneficial, like putting in extra hours, volunteering for projects and trying for a promotion.
Some good food for thought. (not just this post of yours, but all, and others')
I'm at a point now where I need to figure out... if I wouldn't go for an MBA, what could I realistically accomplish in place of that time spent that would get me further. And if the answer is that I wouldn't do anything better, then the obvious choice would be the MBA.
So, perhaps a fork topic to ask what can one with a really busy home life do at mid-career in place of the time spent getting an MBA?
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@dashrender said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
Some are hugely beneficial, like putting in extra hours, volunteering for projects and trying for a promotion.
Give some specific examples please - not just generic trying for a promotion. i.e. did you go to them and say - hey I'm really good at x and you currently don't have x so you should make me the x doer?
Have you met @scottalanmiller ?
You know the answer to that is probably yes, right?
Or more likely they promoted him to CEO.
(According to his stories...)
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@brrabill said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
But if the answer to making more money is to just "work more" ... then that isn't a good answer.
Funny, because that's all saying "go to college" is... telling someone to work more. So you just highlighted the problem.
I didn't say to work more, I said to work the same, but smarter.
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@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@quixoticjeremy said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@tim_g said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
For example...
if I came to you for a management position with only a bunch of IT experience with MCSEs and Linux certs
versus:
someone else coming to you with a bunch of IT experience, MCSEs and Linux certs, plus an MBA...
Which would you choose?
Depends, are ALL other things equal? Then the MBA is a bonus. But all other things are never, ever equal. That's one of the key tricks of this kind of thing - the MBA or the MCSE or the whatever always comes at a cost of something else. What is that other thing, that's the question.
This is actually a really good point I hadn't thought of. And I already disliked college.
Says the guy I tried to talk out of going to college for years
Much of my math as to why college is always bad exists because I ran numbers a decade ago to show the family why you would be screwed if you went to college. That's where I took the time to put together the investment numbers and such because you were a case where you had cash in hand that could either pay for college or could have been enough to retire on. It was because I saw that the cash in hand was enough to retire with alone that I put two and two together about how going to college was just losing that money with no way to recoup it.
So why are you pursuing college now? Aren't you doing a masters or something?
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@brrabill said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
The same person could work just as many extra house once they leave college, and at a higher average salary.
Well, not really, as my video will explain. That's a false use of the statistic. It doesn't actually mean that. But even if that were correct, it is still $200K of lost income front loaded for the comparison. The lifetime higher weekly income never makes up for that.
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@brrabill said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@brrabill said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
However, most 17 year olds are probably closer to $20K yearly than $38K. And the college goer can offset that by working. They work 20 hours a week? Then the non college goer only gets them by $10K.
This is incorrect. Typically a teenager can work as much as they want, but that's not really the issue as we are really talking about people who are or are nearly full adults. At 17 yes, jobs might be a struggle, but not realistically for anyone that could have gone to college, they are only a struggle for those that could not have. And a college goer cannot offset lost work, ever. That's not possible. This is a myth.
Anything that a college goer can do, a non-college goer can do plus all the college time on top of it. So if a college goer can work 20 hours a week, a non-college goer can do 70 hours a week.
Typically we assume that full time college requires about forty to sixty hours a week of student time. That's how much someone not going to college can put into a job on top of any time that a college goer can put into a job.
When I was going to college triple full time, I was still working 50 hours a week to pay for it (because I had to pay out of pocket.) I could have worked 110 hours a week, made way more money and had more time to relax and learned more (because I learned more on the job than at college) and gotten more career opportunities (I got into my career from my side job, not from college). So you have to compare against the full offset of college.
The trick that people often use to make college sound good is pretending that people who go to college can work twice as hard (college + work) as people who don't go to college. But that is simply not the case. We aren't talking about two pools of people, one lazy and one not. We are talking about a single person considering two different approaches.
But if the answer to making more money is to just "work more" ... then that isn't a good answer.
The same person could work just as many extra house once they leave college, and at a higher average salary.
Have you lost the years at college? Sure, but you could catch up to it pretty quickly in the couple years after.
AGAIN, not considering tuition here. Any time you are throwing 100-200K into this equation, it hugely shifts the balance the other way.
I think Scott's claim here is that the non-college person can make the same as the college person, even after the college person has their degree - so you two fundamentally disagree on this point currently.
