<p>What does under-reemployment mean and what is the % for this?</p>
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<p>Underemployment to me refers to having a job that you are “overqualified” for. That is, you could have had that job with fewer credentials. According to [this[/url</a>], underemployment was 19.3 - 10.2 = 9.1% last month. Note, however, that their definition is not necessarily mine.</p>
<p>As an example of an underemployed individual under my definition, consider a profile written in the NYT [url=<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/your-money/student-loans/29money.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2]last”>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/your-money/student-loans/29money.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2]last</a> year](<a href=“Best Illinois Sports Betting Sites & Apps 2024 - Top IL Sportsbooks”>Best Illinois Sports Betting Sites & Apps 2024 - Top IL Sportsbooks). Cortney Munna has a degree in religious and women’s studies from NYU, but she worked as a photographer’s assistant at the wage of $22 an hour…in San Francisco.</p>
<p>Do you need a degree in anything to be a photographer’s assistant? No. (I daresay not even a high school diploma is necessary.)</p>
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<p>There are two “bubbles” at play here, that people tend to lump together:</p>
<p>1) The size of the student’s debt at graduation - Will s/he have any? If so, will s/he be able to pay it off with the projected income from his/her employment? and,</p>
<p>2) The parents’ debt at graduation: Will they have any? If so, will they be able to pay it off without sacrificing a secure retirement?</p>
<p>Most people probably have one or the other or both, but not everyone is the same in this regard. Without the actual numbers showing that a large percentage of both students and their parents have an unbearable debt load at graduation is there any way to evaluate whether there is some scary bubble about to burst.</p>
<p>Every kid is different. Although my son would be full pay at a “Premiere” school, as a high gpa NMF, his cost to attend even many out of state flagship U type schools has ranged from 12k/yr (tuition, room and board) in state…to 20k OOS.</p>
<p>I don’t think education itself is “over-priced” any more than cars, gas, milk or anything else is over-priced. Particularly in the US, consumers have a wide variety of choices, some of which, like most community colleges, are very low-cost. Simply because you as a parent choose–as I have–to send your son or daughter to a college with annual tuition over $40,000 does not in and of itself make it “over-priced”. I choose to spend on education because that is what I value. </p>
<p>If you analyze what portion tuition pays of the annual cost of operating the college, you will see in virtualy every case that the cost of education is subsidized by the endowment. I would love to afford two new luxury cars, a vacation home and a larger house. But I do not think that colleges are gouging us parents. Are the elite schools relatively more expensive? Absolutely true. Do they offer a better value than less expensive colleges? In the mind of the consumer who makes this choice without financial aid, the answer is yes. Most parents will not make that choice, which is fine, because they believe a better value will be obtained at a state supported university, where most students attend in any case. There certainly is a bit of a country club atmosphere at some (but not all, by any means) of the elite colleges, but let’s face it, there are country clubs everywhere that we parents choose to spend our money on or not. </p>
<p>While there may be some “bubblish” aspects of education costs, as other posters have stated, look at what happened at the Ivy League colleges this year–highest number of applications ever, and lowest admit rates in most cases. If that number goes down five, ten or twenty percent, there will be no crash akin to the 2008 Bush Crash. Harvard will still be able to admit students with the exact same GPAs and SATs, and the same percentage of families will pay full fare. For the most part I think this “education bubble” theory is journalistic hype.</p>
<p>morganhil, with all due respect, your post is far from an accurate portrayal of the situation at hand</p>
<p>as with any bubble burst, the most fragile producers will be the first to run out of business(unselective colleges with high coa)</p>
<p>the reason why this hasnt happened already is because external forces are still weighing strongly on the demand, hence continuing to decrease PED(price elasticity of demand)
i’m sorry if i’m getting too technical but please bear with me</p>
<p>these external forces refer to the parents, teachers, counselors, etc who continue to drumbeat the infallibilty of the 4-year degree; thereby, as i said making the PED artificially low</p>
<p>in any other normal circumstances, the consumers would have found out by now that they’re getting a rip-off(not all, but many students) and the market would have readjusted.</p>
<p>you say that ivy league continue to see surge in applications, this is all very natural because:
- 2009-2012 grad year has the highest number of high-school leaving seniors; therefore, all applications would naturally rise. Hence, almost every college reported a drop in acceptance rates</p>
<p>2) as word spreads around, people start to look for the supposedly “infallible” brands which would supposedly give th best ROI. if analyzed properly, this is also market irrationality</p>
<p>Dont think this is all hype, I can assure you this is anything but hype. Every major and minor media agency is reportin this. Articles pop up everyweek on nytimes,etc all with the same message-warning people to be careful. even politics’ most honest people are warning about the impending crisis,just google ron paul college debt. Denial, i assure will only make this situation worse</p>
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<p>I have to agree. The Ivies won’t be threatened by any collapse in demand; indeed, demand for the Ivies will almost certainly continue to grow, as some parents and students continue to look for the lowest-risk college diploma that will lead to a job after graduation. Sure it’s true that many kids with Ivy League diplomas don’t find immediate jobs, but they may have unmarketable degrees or lofty job standards, or be at the bottom of their respective classes. </p>
<p>The very top colleges and the very cheapest (community colleges, cheaper public in-state colleges) will continue to get high demand while the undistinguished middle will find it harder and harder to fill their classrooms without offering significant merit or financial aid.</p>
<p>exactly…</p>
<p>This is a very interesting article, with which I agree. I had already been suspecting that higher education has the potential to be a bursting bubble like real estate. As “traditional” investments (stocks, entrepreneurship, etc) go bad, people are caught in the false prospects of “safe” investments. Easily available debt also helps the the bubble along. Unfortunately, there is a very long maturation period for higher ed, even longer than real estate. This makes the economics of college harder to see, and for people to make the grave mistake of forgetting it is an investment. Of course, the picture is complicated by strong social pressures that see college attendance, like home ownership, to be a goal that all Americans should strive for.</p>
<p>Personally, I think that a parallel to the housing crisis is that the luxury homes, or expensive private schools, may also be hit hard. Too often, I have heard people saying that the top 20 schools will keep on doing better and better, so invest in that. I was a student who was looking between $180,0000 to $240,000 over four years at the top 20 schools who admitted me. I ended up going to my flagship State U for free, but only after I “disappointed” my HS professors and college counselors. Of course, I am sure that going to such a school might be a good choice for some people, but many of the bright students I knew (fellow NMS finalists) never even considered going to a public school!</p>
<p>311710rvmt - I think you are correct. Many of my husband’s medical peers’ children are planning to attend State U and some, even local commuter State U (Horrors!). Local commuter State U happens to be a huge med center. They are offering a deal for top students in the state to attend for free, with guaranteed admission to med school after 3years if the student completes undergrad with a 3.6 or above. This brings the education that the top 20 school offers for 400,000, or more, down to a total of 120,000. With even the high paid professional incomes dropping like stones, this is just common sense… Unless you are super rich, or so poor that someone else will pay your bill</p>
<p>debrockman - totally agree. And to illustrate this point, what do you call a student who goes to Local Commuter State U, gets into med school and graduates last in the class? Doctor. QED.</p>
<p>saynotoharvard, lorem ipsum, rvmnt, et al., I could not agree more. :D</p>
<p>Wow a lot of good discussions going on here. Lots of educated people really focusing on the matter at hand, and many opposing viewpoints which reveal both sides of the situation.
Someone should organize these posts and publish them.
I’ve just learned more valuable information from reading 4 pages of this thread than I’ve learned the past two months of high school.</p>
<p>what state do you live in, Debrockman? I think I’m jealous . .</p>
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<p>Doctors may be the few who know the true value of a higher education. They know what a bubble is and they don’t get in.</p>
<p>For the rest of us, the bubble will burst soon in a way like this:</p>
<p>Employers start hiring whoever can do the job, and as the technologies advance so rapidly, you don’t need to spend years in college to get hired. When that happens, the bubble bursts.</p>
<p>You can see that in slow motion in the past, e.g., college dropouts get the hot jobs, remember Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook founders? When Google puts every book on the internet and Facebook leaves no privacy private, the current education system becomes T. rex.</p>
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I think that might better be rephrased as “…that one person is more academic than another”. There are many kinds of “intelligence”… spacial, emotional, physical, mechanical, etc. Even within academia, you’ll find college students with 800CR, 800W, 580M. And the reverse.</p>
<p>I have a friend, college professor in Chemistry, whose wife is also a Ph.D in medicine, whose natural child is in college pursuing chemistry. His adopted son is not academic in the least… not interested, not skilled, etc. He is certain that college is not the best route for this second child. He is pursuing trade training… heavy equipment, etc. His “intelligence” lies in the physical, mechanical areas.</p>
<p>This recognition naturally leads us to our values. Is being “academically intelligent” more praiseworthy than being emotionally intelligent? Does it lead to a more productive (another value), satisfied (another value) life? Is academic accomplishment more important than physical accomplishment? Depends on your environment. It is interesting that the test given prior to fighter pilot training school are a mix of IQ (mini-SAT), and 3-d spacial recognition. The tests for coachability, character, etc. have already been fully passed by such candidates during their Academy or ROTC years.</p>
<p>Do we personally, or as a society, give higher value and recognition to a Ph.D. in chemistry than we do to an accomplished middle school teacher who graduated in the lower half of his/her class in chemistry at Directional state U, but is gifted (read highly intellient) in transferring concepts to learners?</p>
<p>As to the title of this thread, I have no clue if we are in a Bubble… one rarely knows at the time when one is, and one isn’t. I do know what student loan debt feels like… took 15 years paying it off. No fun.</p>
<p>Going back to the discussion about how this bubble will burst, i.e. where the inflation and mania exist…
Do anyone think that at the heavily endowed tippy top schools are becoming like US cities, in a way, where the population is the rich (full-pay and mostly pay) and the poor, with not too much in the middle (who may be heading more and more to State U and possibly full pay at less selectives)?</p>
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<p>I guess that depends on how one defines “middle.” Many if not all of the top 20 schools are close to free for families with incomes under $60,000 a year. That 60k is above the national median income. It may not be enough to live on in NYC and California, but half the US population makes do on that much or less.</p>
<p>As the economy continues to flounder, a lot of two-breadwinner households could find themselves with one unemployed spouse and also newly under the $60k/year threshold. Some families may choose to relocate to where the pay is less, yet the cost of living is even lower in proportion (notably those trying to escape California’s collapsing financial situation).</p>
<p>So I guess the real question is: Will middle-class participation in the top-20 schools continue to fall as they are priced out of the market, or will middle-class participation in the top-20 schools continue to fall because the middle class itself continues to shrink?</p>
<p>Momzie…we’re in Indiana. And we are lucky to be here. Tort reform state. Quality schools. Lower than average cost of living. Not to mention, the state with the Governor we hope to promote. Not because we want to lose him, but because we want to promote him. The rest of the nation needs him.</p>
<p>Since the Governor of Indiana is a Princeton graduate, I wonder whether he thinks there is an education “bubble” today and whether he thinks a degree from his alma mater (or any other Ivies/private institutions) is worth $250K these days? Maybe this should be a question for any POTUS candidate…</p>