I have a BS in Economics, MBA in Finance and now pursuing my MSA to be a CPA. My wife is a RN working on her Masters to be a nurse practitioner. We will teach our kids to do the same. This recession no matter how long is temporary, hard for everyone, harder for the majority.
Trade schools are experiencing the bubble as well. Federally subsidized Stafford loans are granted to both college-bound students and those in vocational programs. There's a private trade school nearby that offers certificates in aeronautical maintenance. These programs run around $20k and the typical starting wage is $12-15/hr. For an extra $10-15k, you may as well attend a state university for a bachelors in mechanical/aerospace engineering. I wouldn't suggest becoming a plumber/electrician unless you have the opportunity to join a labor union.
Just to give people an idea of what's available in the trades, especially if you're willing to travel. I've landed many an opportunity using this site. Management or hands on, there is work in industrial contruction and maintenance. Slower than what it was a couple years ago, but still holding up pretty well. http://www.roadtechs.com/petro/wwwboard/index2.html
Work isn't required. Family income is what is required. Since 1957, when I began to trade, I learned that my work income was less than my commissions for building wealth using capital to make money. An uncle on my wife's side was a prominant banker and we all palyed golf in a family tournament. He took exception to my owning a 1960 Mercedes sports convertable which he knew I bought in Kopenhagen (the license plate had the Kopenhagen red K on a white surround on a black background) and he knew I had made the captial by speculating on stocks in the stock market. My father, at that time, stated that I was stealing hard earned money from others. Times have changed and my broker, at that time long ago was fined by the SEC for extrapolation on my trading and misinforming clients who were coattail trading me (nationally). Why my broker lied to clients was interesting since it represented a broker viewpoint that suggested that they did not understand what I was doing. My views on work and income have been the same since 1957. work income for a family is trivial in size compared to the income a family may earn by partnering with the markets. the fact that decades and generations have passed hasn't changed anything from my viewpoint. Our culture, on a world wide basis does not needfull employment to maintain or advance the global culture. Work on a global basis is so effecient and effective that no one has to work full time if they so decide. Many posters in this thread and including those who dissagree with me probably have not made the decision to not work full time. It is the right of anyone to belief they have to work. My uncle and my father dissagreed with me and my summering in Europe each year and my purchasing sports cars. When I bought a 300SL gullwing, my father brought one of his mechanical engineers over to apply a stethascope to the main bearings of the straight 8 canted 30 degrees to the longitudinal axis of the gull wing sport car. The bearings were in great shape and so were the unusual doors. My wife did not like the car either; she did not like getting in and out while wearing sheath dresses when it was raining. So we avoided that by using another car. It may be possible for anyone to believe and act on thier beliefs and have several work jobs in a given family. The alternative is to have few or no jobs and that the job(s) are contributions to local problem solving as a consequence of having a belief in helping others. I did that in the past with respect to trauma and the operation of trauma centers. The law required me to carry malpractice insurance which I did at my personal expense. But I did not derive any income from my services although it was continually made available. An example of capital income for a family is using PEP and its applications. Anyone can choose to not do this and as an altenative do work for a living. When I worked at EOP I was simply paid the highest non negotiated salary on a 24/7 baia plus al expenses and support services. EOP was insistant on contractual relationships largely from what is now known as National Security reasons. I was given an open account at GSA and the reserve was just refilled occasionally. I was invited to be there because I was a resourse; I was not deployed to do "work". you feel my satements are false. There is one reason for your conclusions. You have assigned yourself the job of being a judge. You have a very low salary as a judge as you spend time which is not recoverable. I agree nobody cares what I think. They may care about how I think, however. Those that interact with me have other strategies they are fulfilling.
consider two things: A. any life style total average daily requirements. B. Net proceeds from an average full day of trading. B always exceeds A. Therefore, trading full time for an expert trader is not one of the trader's requirements. What takes up the remainder of time of expert traders is putting their surplus capital to work to solve problems. Time is what expert traders regard as important for expenditures. the reason is this: time is a nonrecoverable expenditure. The law provides for recovery but it is not possible to recover time directly.
From my experience the cost is worth every penny. My wife got her MBA from harvard in 2003 and she's making 470k a year. I can guarantee you she would not have gotten that job without that degree. I received my MBA from northwestern, though I will never get the opportunities she gets, it still provides for a much better living then if I didn't have a college degree. So suck it up and pay, the price of college is very small compared to the opportunity it provides. Lets put it this way, if harvard offered me the opportunity to get their mba for 1 million dollars. I would pay it, even if it means the entire cost has to be loans.
do you think that people go into those trade schools only after they rejected entry into an engineering program at berkeley or something? are you serious? that's like saying, instead of getting your 2-year AA in nursing you should just pay more to get an MD.. hello!!! those people are in those vocational programs because they're not university material.
Who said it had to be Berkley? Any state university with an ABET accredited engineering program will do. Foreigners with a terrible grasp of the English language are capable of graduating from these programs each year and find jobs. Any American with a little motivation could achieve the same.
you seriously over-estimate how smart americans are or have never studied engineering. those vocational students could not make it through an engineering program. most of them could barely pass high school algebra let alone high school calculus. multiply the difficulty by 50 and that's what they're in for at the college level. foreigners can graduate those programs because they had intense math at the high school level as well as physics and chemistry, plus you don't need fluency in english to understand math/engineering textbooks. the typical vocational student can barely do fraction arithmetic.
When an engineering degree is no longer valuable then you know society is going backwwards. Just about anything in the modern world depends on engineering be it trading, medicine, accounting, flushing the toilet, eating, policing, watching TV, gyming, gaming etc. Aah well there you have it as my background is engineering.