[Yesterday: 3.4 miles; today 3.4 miles]
The Atlantic has an interesting article about how Starbucks is offering to pay for their employees to attend college.
In my family, both of my parents were the first of their family to graduate from college. In my generation, all of us attended college and half got advanced degrees.
So I was expecting my children to go to college too. But the struggle has been more than I was expecting. One of our two is getting close to graduating, maybe next year (yeah!). The other did some college, racked up some student loan debt, and now suffers under the weight of that. It turned out to be not a benefit at all but a ball and chain. If I would have known this outcome I wouldn’t have encouraged her to go.
Both have had to take out loans even though we were able to afford to help them along the way to some degree. And they didn’t go to expensive colleges at all.
I remember my college bill being about $500 per semester. And anything beyond 12 credit hours was the same low price. Books were expensive. But the whole thing really wasn’t that difficult.
My wife went to a private college and she had some loans to pay. We were able to get them knocked out after a few years.
But I expect our student will have $20,000 hanging over his head by the time he is done, maybe more. And the other is still paying for a couple of semesters of the kind of junk classes you get during the first two years of school. It is discouraging.
Anyway, I hope you read the Atlantic article.
The company I work for provides some tuition reimbursement. That is a pretty good perk!
3 replies on “Post-secondary Education”
Times are different than when I first went to college, but the junk classes I was forced to take (and I thought were a waste of time at the time) were ultimately broadening and enriching. Physics (basketball physics), psychology… Taught me things I didn’t really care about – but was good to know.
Where I work, in corporate, the only employees without at least one degree are the executive assistants. It’s pretty much a given that people have a degree – but that may also be owing to geography. It’s expensive to live in the Bay Area. Many speak several languages and have several degrees – it’s not unusual to see that.
The degree may not open doors, but it unlocks them.
Postscript: I read the Atlantic piece on the iPad using the bus WiFi while crossing the Golden Gate Bridge to work this morning and found it interesting.
Related – I seriously doubt I would have been reading it in the place I had if I hadn’t gotten a formal education. I’m a late bloomer like some in the article. Didn’t take the ACT until a year out of high school. Didn’t get the MBA until in my 30’s. Now there’s no debt, home is paid for, comfortable 401K & ROTH balance. And I don’t work very hard (my boss doesn’t read your blog). That’s a testament to the value of an education – one that was delayed. I’d still “encourage her to go” were I you simply because the story isn’t over – it’s still being written.
I appreciate your comments, particularly that the story isn’t done yet!