On a road trip with my daughter, we caught up with each others lives. I told her about writing an article for this blog.
“Sweet! “ she said, “What are you going to write about?”
“Not confusing getting a college degree with getting a career or with earning a living.”
“Amen!” she responded. “Look at me, through my education, I’ve gotten the career I want—but I’m barely earning a living.”
My daughter is a fully licensed family practice doctor in her second year of a three-year residency program. After 4 years of college and 4 years of medical school, her salary is a little over $40,000 a year. She had just informed me that after paying her bills, she had $250 to live on for the rest of the month.
“What? Family practice docs are always listed in the 10 highest paying careers,” I joked.
“In my dreams, Mom. Maybe that will happen, but not for years. If I wanted to earn over $100,000, I should have become an EKG or ultra sound tech. Techs at busy hospitals make that kind of money and the training is only two years.”
Like many young people, my daughter has student loans. She had a scholarship for medical school, but it didn’t pay for everything. She lives in an area where housing costs are extremely high. Her car’s “Needs service” light is always on. She’ll get it checked when she has some extra money. That will be a while.
No matter what you study in college, you will only have a career if you can get a job in that field. You will only be able to earn a living if your salary exceeds your expenses. While some degree programs will qualify for good salaries right out of college, it often take grads several years to find good-paying jobs that use their education and interests. Only 20% of the class of 2009 had found full time jobs by September of 2009. Those jobs didn’t necessarily need a college degree.
In most regions of this country, it takes a salary between $17 and $ 19 an hour to be able to rent a place by oneself. That won’t be enough in the high rent districts of Manhattan, San Francisco or Beverly Hills. A salary of $17 per hour equals $2700 a month or $32,600 a year. That’s assuming a full-time job. Which is no small assumption. Only 40% of today’s employees work salaried, full time jobs.
At $17 an hour, a young adult may be able to rent their own place, but it won’t cover the payments of the student loans ($22,000+) and credit card debts ($4,000+) of the average college grad. Student loans, for academic or technical colleges, aren’t “free money.” Typically, loan repayment begins four months after you leave school. If you borrow more than 2/3rds of your starting salary, you won’t be able to pay your bills, much less afford a place of your own. Many young workers have been surprised by how negatively debt has affected their lives. You can find out more by doing an Internet search using the phrase student loan debt.
Don’t like this scenario? Then plan ahead. Avoid the student loan trap by learning skills or a trade that is in demand in the area you live, or want to live. Some high schools have skill training classes. All community colleges have them.
For example, I recently met Mike, a June high school grad. He’s working at a restaurant while waiting to get hired at a local shipyard. He’s smart and wants to go to college. But first, he plans to work and save money. Mike took four years of welding training, for free, at his high school. His beginning pay will be about $12 an hour. Top pay in this field is $20-25 an hour.
You can also create an education ladder. Nick Mitchell is my poster child for education ladders. I profiled Nick Mitchell at age 19* in What Color Is Your Parachute? for Teens (p. 152). After high school, Nick got a technical degree in two years that qualified him to be a network administrator. His starting salary was over $50,000. Nick used his salary to finance earning a bachelors degree in business administration and his master’s degree. He has no student loans. There’s also a new interview with him, at 26, in the 2nd edition of What Color Is Your Parachute for Teens, which will be available in April, 2010.
For a video of the author explaining career ladders see http://www.igot2know.com/action/viewvideo/586/Education_Ladder/
Need a job to finance your higher education? Find the shortest training that will qualify you for the best paying entry level jobs in fields that interest you. Then, you can work your way through school to qualify for even higher paying and more interesting jobs. Just like Mike and Nick, you can avoid debt and have the lifestyle you want as a young adult.
And, don’t forget to learn effective job search techniques. You can have the best education or training in the world, but if you can’t get hired in the field or industry in which you most want to work, you won’t have a career in that field. Real world job search techniques aren’t taught, either in high school or college. It will be your responsibility to learn this adult survival skill.
