Maybe. But I also think my 3 “twenty something” kids and their peers are more socially aware and involved than certainly I was at that age. Which might make them more selective about their employment and location.
My oldest is gender non binary. They definitely carefully considered where they would and would not work and live. They have found a great community and workplace where they can be themselves and thrive. I have come to appreciate through their eyes how challenging it can be to be perceived as “different” in some places.
Middle kid just graduated with a teaching credential. She is about to move across the country as she has never lived outside of our state. She very much considered where she wants to live and work based on areas which allow teachers to teach without fear of reprisals based on subject matter. She is well aware of the constraints that teachers are under in general and goes into the field with eyes wide open. She is an amazing educator and advocate.
My youngest graduates next week as a classical musician. He knows he will need to patch together various music and some non-music jobs to make it on his own. Thus he too needs to plan his location as it needs to have enough available music related work.
None of my 3 graduated with debt. We adhered to a strict college budget. I am proud of them for their resilience and passion for what they do. All have managed to work and pay their own bills upon graduation. And much as I would welcome them home for awhile if needed, they all wanted to support themselves. There was plenty of barista, babysitting and some miserable restaurant work along the way.
College costs and employment opportunities have changed so much since I was in school. I applaud my kids and their peers for making it. And I learn so much from them by listening to their thoughts on the world we live in. Gives me hope for the future.
It is not necessarily your choice if the level of societal and governmental discrimination based on bigotry against some characteristic of yours is high enough in a given area that (a) it would be unpleasant for you to live there, and (b) your chance of getting a job in that area is reduced anyway due to such discrimination.
Obviously, even though that is not your choice, it reduces your odds of getting a job (or getting an otherwise better job). Of course, it is therefore not surprising that members of groups targeted for bigotry tend to have higher unemployment rates and lower pay levels, including when controlling for educational and job qualification characteristics.
It does seem that more kids are waking up to this. The level of entitlement when my older kids graduated and jobs were plentiful in 2022 was much higher. I’m less sure whether they’ve realized how much being in the office (and getting good at office politics) benefits your career and helps you avoid being a target for layoffs.
If you know you have to limit the areas where you would be able to accept a job, IMO you should make it a point to limit student loans. Maybe you can’t go to the dream school and must pick a more reasonably priced school.
I had to advise my kids on this. One started as an engineer, finished as an engineer and was never going to be anything other than a STEM major. She did as @blossom advised and got the first job still in Florida, worked for 2 years and transferred to a Denver office which is where she really wanted to live. I didn’t have a big issue with her taking out student loans, although they were quite low. My other kid, the history major? Very concerned. We knew that any job she had would be low paying, whether in the middle of no where or in NYC. She had to keep the loans low (and still they crept up).
It is hard to predict where that first job will be, what the economy will be, if there will be a partner to share the bills or want to move with you where the job offer is when you are starting college (or even applying to colleges) as a 17-18 year old. Best to not guess that ‘of course I’ll make $60k so can take $60k in loans (first year salary)’ especially if you aren’t willing to take any job, in any state. If you do end up getting a job in your ideal city for $100k? Fantastic, you’re ahead of the game.
My niece’s first job paid nothing,she lived at home. Her parents paid her student loans otherwise she could never have afforded to live. She did find a job in DC, went to grad school and now makes more. It takes time. She was lucky to have so much help from her parents but she wasn’t living large.
Yes, students who are in second (or third, fourth, etc.) class citizen groups subject to greater societal and governmental hostile discrimination not only have fewer choices of colleges if they want to avoid such hostile discrimination, but also have more limiting financial constraints (compared to others with similar parent money) because of the likelihood that their options for employment after graduation will be more limited.
That was my sister’s major (Mandarin), but other than a couple of freelance literary translation gigs, she’s never been able to turn it into a career or use it in any job she’s had. She only uses it for volunteer stuff like “help elderly Mandarin speakers at the public library.” Just FYI since you mentioned that specifically.
Back in the day (previous administrations) many federal agencies were hiring Mandarin speakers- and not just in DC. Ditto states with large trade programs with China. Law firms which had opened offices in Beijing and Shanghai who quickly learned that “we don’t know what we don’t know”. Etc.
My sister thinks it is easier to use your Mandarin as a job-seeking asset if you are a heritage speaker who also studied something else, instead of an Asian Studies major like her with no prior background who fell in love with Mandarin language and literature in college. But that might be just her!
To address the topic of this thread though, I’m really glad she avoided too much debt… and I think it’s equally important for my STEM-major kids to avoid a big debt load, because the future is unpredictable.
They don’t have to plan for more expensive COL, but IMO it would be smart. Don’t want to live in South Dakota? You don’t have to but the COL might be lower and if you are paying off student loans, it might make the most financial sense. Even if you want to live in a nice blue state like Colorado, there are going to be different job opportunities, more medical options,more social activities in cities where it costs a lot more to live like Aspen, Boulder, and Denver than in some of the smaller towns. Your student loan payment is going to be the same no matter where you live.
A heritage speaker might also be more likely to have had more non-academic life experience with cultural, social, business, political, etc. tendencies among Mandarin speakers that can be valued in some of these employment contexts. Of course, this may not be the case for all heritage speakers, or for all Mandarin speaking locations in relation to a given heritage speaker. A non-heritage speaker may also have gotten such life experience.
For example, a few years ago, a friend of mine at work was telling me about a friend of his who’d graduated with her graduate degree in pharmacology. The pharmacist was working full time in a VERY rural location, like 2 hr drive to civilization & a decent grocery store. Purposely was working there as part of a post-graduation scholarship she’d applied for (and won) in which in exchange for 2 years’ service as a pharmacist in a remote/rural location, the government pays off a significant portion of your graduate student loans.
The pharmacist did not like living there for 2 yr. She’d spend weekends in our city so she could stock up on supplies, go to the movies, stuff like that.
But once those 2 yr were done? She was off to the races. Now makes $$$$ where she’s currently working and has paid off the rest of her grad school loans.
