Let’s be Honest DCUM Moms: Half of your kids should not be going to college

[Anonymous]

Majority of SAHM 's have a college degree and because of that they married educated well off people. Or in my BIL case he married my sister with a big job as he had a college degree and was a stay at home dad most of his life.

So there is value even if you dont use it.

[Anonymous]

OP - you sound bitter. Did you get a worthless college degree and then end up not working? Anyway, you're post makes me feel sorry for you.

[Anonymous]

bottom half is attached to the top half... and the top half is attached to the bottom. hard to send only half to college

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We need to stop looking at a degree as an automatic "upward mobility" button and start looking at it as a high-risk capital allocation. The data is clear. we have a massive surplus of low-value degrees and a labor market that is already starting to discount them. Unless your child is attending a top-tier target school where the institutional prestige acts as a hedge against mediocrity, they are likely walking into an underemployment trap. Johnny from State U is graduating with six-figure debt into a world that doesn't need another generalist with a "Business Administration" degree. We’ve flooded the market with credentials, and in doing so, we've rendered the mid-tier degree effectively worthless for anything other than basic administrative work. but no problem….at least they recorded their fair share of TikTok dances in their SEC sororities….
The "dumbification" of American higher ed is the quiet crisis no one on this board wants to admit. To keep the tuition checks flowing, universities have traded academic rigor for "student satisfaction" andt grade inflation. We are producing a workforce that can follow a rubric but lacks the cognitive stamina for first-principles thinking or problem-solving. While parents are busy comparing "Little Ivies," their kids are losing the ability to synthesize complex information without a digital crutch. We’ve turned college into a four-year delay of adulthood where students learn to navigate bureaucracy instead of mastering a competitive skill.
If you think the ROI is bad now, calculate the impact of AI over the next four years. If your kid is a freshman today, they will enter a 2030 job market where agentic AI has already cannibalized the majority of entry-level white-collar tasks. The "junior analyst" or "entry-level coordinator" roles that used to be the traditional starting point for college grads are being automated out of existence. We are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to train kids for roles that a $20 monthly subscription will do better and faster by the time they graduate. If your child isn't in the top 5% of their field or pursuing a specialized technical trade, you aren't buying them a future…… you're buying them a very expensive seat at a table that is being removed from the room….

Anyway…..keep it up….

Your concern is understandable. The reality is our kids generation is going to thrive. Industrialization freed up humanity from mundane daily tasks and gave up plenty of time to focus on next innovation called Internet. Internet provided us access to world's knowledge and made us much smarter. This led to technology evolution and automation of many other human tasks. The knowledge access/automation/technology freed up human time and only led to next Innovation called Artificial Intelligence (AI)/ Robotics / Space Exploration. Before AI, Human still needed to perform the mundane task of going through 100 of blue links (websites) to get the knowledge he/she wants. This takes serious time. AI only frees us up from this mundane task of going through 100's of links. Obliviously the same AI leading us into Physical AI (Humanoid robots, self-driving cars are only the beginning). The next generation of kids will make the STARTREK a reality, weather we believe it or not. The next generation is going to build structures that are so huge and humongous, like we have never seen before (And these will be on earth, space, other planets). They will be super busy (if they are passionate) in the age of AI. So bottom-line is we DO NOT need to worry about next generation. History is the proof. AI will only take away mundane tasks, which may not be interesting to us anymore. AI is just an advanced tool, nothing more, nothing less. The future needs all kinds of expertise, not a single one. Weather you get that expertise by going to business school, technical school, arts school or not going to school at all; it is kids and parents choice. Only bottom-line is ,one need to be an expert, in one of the useful aspect of the society. On top of all these aspects, U.S as a country is getting more powerful and recently we are trying to make more jobs available for our next generation, for the kids born and brought up here. So future is certainly bright for the next generation kids. Unfortunately current parents need to adjust and adopt to the quick moving AI. Good luck and hopefully this response brings you solace.

[Anonymous]

Who on DCUM is graduating with six figures of debt? I don’t know anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We need to stop looking at a degree as an automatic "upward mobility" button and start looking at it as a high-risk capital allocation. The data is clear. we have a massive surplus of low-value degrees and a labor market that is already starting to discount them. Unless your child is attending a top-tier target school where the institutional prestige acts as a hedge against mediocrity, they are likely walking into an underemployment trap. Johnny from State U is graduating with six-figure debt into a world that doesn't need another generalist with a "Business Administration" degree. We’ve flooded the market with credentials, and in doing so, we've rendered the mid-tier degree effectively worthless for anything other than basic administrative work. but no problem….at least they recorded their fair share of TikTok dances in their SEC sororities….
The "dumbification" of American higher ed is the quiet crisis no one on this board wants to admit. To keep the tuition checks flowing, universities have traded academic rigor for "student satisfaction" andt grade inflation. We are producing a workforce that can follow a rubric but lacks the cognitive stamina for first-principles thinking or problem-solving. While parents are busy comparing "Little Ivies," their kids are losing the ability to synthesize complex information without a digital crutch. We’ve turned college into a four-year delay of adulthood where students learn to navigate bureaucracy instead of mastering a competitive skill.
If you think the ROI is bad now, calculate the impact of AI over the next four years. If your kid is a freshman today, they will enter a 2030 job market where agentic AI has already cannibalized the majority of entry-level white-collar tasks. The "junior analyst" or "entry-level coordinator" roles that used to be the traditional starting point for college grads are being automated out of existence. We are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to train kids for roles that a $20 monthly subscription will do better and faster by the time they graduate. If your child isn't in the top 5% of their field or pursuing a specialized technical trade, you aren't buying them a future…… you're buying them a very expensive seat at a table that is being removed from the room….

Anyway…..keep it up….

Are you suggesting that the AI will be so advanced and also obtainable that the majority of companies will be using it, and not employing anyone?

I’m convinced AI is overblown. I use it at work but don’t see how everyone is convinced no one will have a job because of it. Also jobs will be created.

OP you sound hysterical.

[Anonymous]

I think that anyone who wants to go to college should be allowed. Learning is good for everyone. A more educated society benefits everyone. Maybe not everyone ends up using their degree (and the debt is a real consideration), but knowledge should never be denigrated.

[Anonymous]

I think one takeaway is that now, more than ever, graduating with student loan debt is a bad start. We don't know what the future looks like for our kids if they enter the job market in 10 or 15 years. At least we can control for student loan debt and ensure they graduate without it, whether through our 529 savings or by advising them to avoid schools that require loans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:my two kids are at T10 colleges.

we're full pay and I told them both, there's a decent chance that - financially - we would have better off getting you both a Chick Fil A franchise in a medium market city.

but life is about more than ROI. do you want to be a manager at a Chick Fil A? if not, then it's not worth it, even if it's a smarter deal. and college means more than career placement - it's the passions you form, the people you meet, the experiences. So we're paying a (factually) dumb amount of money every day youre at college. We ask you take it seriously and make the most of it. Go to office hours. Read the books. Meet allll the people. Go on the ski trip. The social connections and the development of your own interests are what will make this worth it.

Chick-fil-A franchises are crazy competitive. You need to have leadership and other experience. They don't want investors; they want managers. Is your kid working at a Chick-fil-A now to get some experience, or are they beneath that?

they both worked there in HS, which is why I used the example. anyway. as I said, they're both in college now.

It's not a bad path to gain management experience there first, then you spot them the 10% down payment to become a franchisee. From there, they can buy more.

Nah, they have to have a high NW to even be considered. The 10% is the tip of the iceberg - they are looking for someone who can float the store while draining their assets in a bad year - like Covid.

I'm guessing they'd take a parent guarantor for the NW requirement.

[Anonymous]

You are mostly wrong, OP.

1. Most American kids pay a "reasonable" price for college, thanks to financial aid.
20K a year for a 4 year college, or 15 a year for community college.
I acknowledge it constitutes debt, but hardly anyone pays private college sticker prices.

2. The added income that college graduate can earn still makes up for the difference in costs they incurred attending a 4 year institution. This is true on average for all degrees, but especially true for degrees in the hard sciences, and less so for Humanities degrees.

3. However you are entirely correct that families should avoid debt at all costs, and focus on "practical" degrees at prices they can afford.

I refer you to the recent WaPo quiz (gift link) on the matter, which has very interesting data:

https://wapo.st/45faenF

[Anonymous]

The original post is the "dumbification" or whatever.

What is this nonsense - is this a foreign psyop - telling Americans that education is "dumb" and don't get one?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who on DCUM is graduating with six figures of debt? I don’t know anyone.

Almost no one graduating from undergrad has six figure debt.

The people with six figure debt almost always racked it up in law, medical, and MBA programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The original post is the "dumbification" or whatever.

What is this nonsense - is this a foreign psyop - telling Americans that education is "dumb" and don't get one?

Conservatives who hate an educated populace?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bizzare post. What do you do for living? Where did your kids go to college and grad school? What jobs do they have?

One can only assume OP has taken their own advice and their kids are plumbers and pipefitters.

Not a terrible thing, in fact. In doing college research and reading the news, I have more than once wished DC had interest in and aptitude for a lucrative trade.

That makes two of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:my two kids are at T10 colleges.

we're full pay and I told them both, there's a decent chance that - financially - we would have better off getting you both a Chick Fil A franchise in a medium market city.

but life is about more than ROI. do you want to be a manager at a Chick Fil A? if not, then it's not worth it, even if it's a smarter deal. and college means more than career placement - it's the passions you form, the people you meet, the experiences. So we're paying a (factually) dumb amount of money every day youre at college. We ask you take it seriously and make the most of it. Go to office hours. Read the books. Meet allll the people. Go on the ski trip. The social connections and the development of your own interests are what will make this worth it.

Chick-fil-A franchises are crazy competitive. You need to have leadership and other experience. They don't want investors; they want managers. Is your kid working at a Chick-fil-A now to get some experience, or are they beneath that?

At the risk of sounding pedantic, the last time I checked Chik-fil-A does not follow the franchise model. The stores are run by owner-operators. You are correct that it is very difficult to get a store. I know someone who worked for them for over five years, including their headquarters, and could never get a store.