The divide gets bigger as you get older...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And yet DCUM denigrates the pre professional schools at Penn Georgetown Northeastern in favor of SLACs. It’s all daisies and unicorns to be so idealist in when you are young, until you are 35 and your peers are making 3-5x more than you do….. this is exactly why I told my DC to pursue CS or Business. Let someone else try to save the world, the trees and the whales. In the real world, living real life, with two kids and a mortgage, It’s about making money.

DC is filled with wealthy people who went to SLACs for undergrad.

Yes bc they pursued law or BUSINESS in one way or other.
There are thousands of liberal arts grads in non profits, academia, teaching, making just 100k or less, 10-15 years out, we hear their voices on DCUM, you know we do, and they are mighty bitter

You don’t need to go an SLAC, or an LAC at all to be a k-12 teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As long as you're happy and have a fulfilling career, so what?

That's exactly what I thought at 25, but I didn't realize how much of a difference income makes on every area of your life. Where you can live, where your kids go to school, when or if you can ever retire, if you can travel, if you can afford certain types of healthcare, how you live, the security you feel, the security you can offer your family (parents or children), etc.

It never ends.

I have a hard time understanding how you couldn't see this in your 20s or before, tbh. I have understood this since childhood and is why I chose the career path I did (biglaw). Did you grow up in a very economically homogeneous community? I was a middle class kid at a fancy boarding school so the differences were very apparent to me. Of course it's different if you truly have a passion, but most people don't (or don't have one that is possible to turn into a career).

I sure as hell didn't know any boarding school kids. I grew up thinking $100k was an INCREDIBLE salary, because the richest kid I knew had a dad that made that. So yeah, kind of. I honestly had no perspective at all on this stuff. I was a decade into my career when I learned what a Big Law salary was because I had never met anyone in that career before, at least not well enough to ask their salary.

For me it was like, I was in a nonprofit job making $65k and my law school friends were broke and my friends who went into tech we're making $80k. The differences were there but felt marginal. I do sometimes still feel shell shocked when I hear what other people make in their careers.

Similar story here. We grew up not quite MC (smallest house in a good school district and it was a rental) with no concept of money except that we didn’t have much. Somehow my brother figured out in college what it meant to be rich and that he wanted to be it. He went to law school and then a pretty big firm but not big law because he stayed in our home state. Very lucrative though, and 70+ hour weeks. I still had no concept of what it meant to be rich when I went to law school. But I knew what big law was and I sure as shit knew I didn’t want to do it. So I went to the government. Fast forward to now and my brother is quite wealthy and I am not. I’m not unhappy with my choices, but the amount of money at his disposal is… a lot.

Law school is basically not worth it nowadays unless it’s a t14 school or you get a full ride (not just full tuition) to a t40 school.

[Anonymous]

Is the divide because your friends shoot up last 250k in income or prudent investing? 31 year old who just transitioned to health tech from consulting, bringing my salary from 110 to 150k. Hoping to keep growing or transition to big pharma because I don't want to be priced out. First gen college grad here that's just trying to understand the world.

Seems like it is really hard to plan to make more than that unless you're a law /business partner or owner or a senior tech lead or physician. Getting to 200 otherwise isn't impossible if you're motivated.

Basically what is the income that you see the divergence?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And yet DCUM denigrates the pre professional schools at Penn Georgetown Northeastern in favor of SLACs. It’s all daisies and unicorns to be so idealist in when you are young, until you are 35 and your peers are making 3-5x more than you do….. this is exactly why I told my DC to pursue CS or Business. Let someone else try to save the world, the trees and the whales. In the real world, living real life, with two kids and a mortgage, It’s about making money.

It’s naive to think that people who graduate from SLACs don’t make any money.

I think it's maybe changing, but half the people I know making big money in hedge funds went to SLACs and majored in something like English and effed around for a few years after graduations. Connections though, like colleges, that world is all about the "hook." Not sure it works for your DC though, it's not a meritocracy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, have known this all along. As a first generation American choosing a career without high earning potential was not even an option. We are both in health care and have a very comfortable life due to the direction and guidance that was provided to us early on.

You must become doc or I kill you..!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the divide because your friends shoot up last 250k in income or prudent investing? 31 year old who just transitioned to health tech from consulting, bringing my salary from 110 to 150k. Hoping to keep growing or transition to big pharma because I don't want to be priced out. First gen college grad here that's just trying to understand the world.

Seems like it is really hard to plan to make more than that unless you're a law /business partner or owner or a senior tech lead or physician. Getting to 200 otherwise isn't impossible if you're motivated.

Basically what is the income that you see the divergence?

Another first gen here and I think investing certainly has something to do with it. I'm a bit surprised at all the people saying stuff like "it never occurred to me that I'd have to save for retirement." It makes me think that they took for granted that the money would be there, which was certainly not the case in my family. If you wanted something, it was entirely on you to earn it and retirement was meticulously planned. I make a good but not massive salary, but I have more money in the bank and more overall wealth than many people who out-earn me because I still have the frugal streak from my parents and I've spent very little on stuff to make myself look rich. The divergence is way more complex than who has the biggest salary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the divide because your friends shoot up last 250k in income or prudent investing? 31 year old who just transitioned to health tech from consulting, bringing my salary from 110 to 150k. Hoping to keep growing or transition to big pharma because I don't want to be priced out. First gen college grad here that's just trying to understand the world.

Seems like it is really hard to plan to make more than that unless you're a law /business partner or owner or a senior tech lead or physician. Getting to 200 otherwise isn't impossible if you're motivated.

Basically what is the income that you see the divergence?

Another first gen here and I think investing certainly has something to do with it. I'm a bit surprised at all the people saying stuff like "it never occurred to me that I'd have to save for retirement." It makes me think that they took for granted that the money would be there, which was certainly not the case in my family. If you wanted something, it was entirely on you to earn it and retirement was meticulously planned. I make a good but not massive salary, but I have more money in the bank and more overall wealth than many people who out-earn me because I still have the frugal streak from my parents and I've spent very little on stuff to make myself look rich. The divergence is way more complex than who has the biggest salary.

Much of the divergence stems from getting onto the right track as early as possible. The sooner you're in the right place, the more that accrues to you down the road. Why so many well off people can look like they've always done the right thing is because their families provide the institutional knowledge of how to get onto the right track, including even connections. So many of the kids who went into finance right after college and who studied "business" in college came from families where the fathers worked in finance. I knew numerous kids with parents in finance, so the kid went to a decent college, and in the summers the fathers got them internships at some local finance firm, setting the stage for getting recruited to work on Wall Street after college, or if they weren't Wall Street quality, still get an analyst job at a regional city financial institution, setting up the trajectory for their 20s to end up in a generic but well paid financial consulting or oversight gig by their 30s.

Then you have families (common among Asian American families) who clearly direct their children into professional tracks early on so the kids are coming out of med school or other programs by age 25/26/27, which means by 30 they've finished residency and are now drawing large six figure incomes.

It's the people who took their 20s to figure out "what to do" or to explore different careers that have a much longer time getting established. This is how you find very intelligent people ending up in lowly paid minor roles while the dullards from HS seem to cruise through life in cushy financial or corporate roles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As long as you're happy and have a fulfilling career, so what?

That's exactly what I thought at 25, but I didn't realize how much of a difference income makes on every area of your life. Where you can live, where your kids go to school, when or if you can ever retire, if you can travel, if you can afford certain types of healthcare, how you live, the security you feel, the security you can offer your family (parents or children), etc.

It never ends.

My best friend from college and I both got advanced degrees the same year, she went to a top MBA program and I went to a top public policy school. Fast forward over 20 years and she has a luxurious vacation home, huge savings, multiple kids in private school, and lots of luxuries. I’m doing fine as a GS-15 but our paths diverged a little and then a lot.

Major life decisions and accomplishments that look subtle compound overtime.

Unfortunately so do losses, mistakes and regrets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And yet DCUM denigrates the pre professional schools at Penn Georgetown Northeastern in favor of SLACs. It’s all daisies and unicorns to be so idealist in when you are young, until you are 35 and your peers are making 3-5x more than you do….. this is exactly why I told my DC to pursue CS or Business. Let someone else try to save the world, the trees and the whales. In the real world, living real life, with two kids and a mortgage, It’s about making money.

And yet I'm still advising my kids to look at SLACs. When they save the world, you'll know who to thank.

How many graduates have SLACs produced over the past centuries, yet exactly zero of them have saved the world. It remains unsaved to this day. Think about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And yet DCUM denigrates the pre professional schools at Penn Georgetown Northeastern in favor of SLACs. It’s all daisies and unicorns to be so idealist in when you are young, until you are 35 and your peers are making 3-5x more than you do….. this is exactly why I told my DC to pursue CS or Business. Let someone else try to save the world, the trees and the whales. In the real world, living real life, with two kids and a mortgage, It’s about making money.

It’s naive to think that people who graduate from SLACs don’t make any money.

I think it's maybe changing, but half the people I know making big money in hedge funds went to SLACs and majored in something like English and effed around for a few years after graduations. Connections though, like colleges, that world is all about the "hook." Not sure it works for your DC though, it's not a meritocracy.

I went to a SLAC and make around 525k at 31. I am far out earning my friends who went to Princeton, Dartmouth and Georgetown. Not to brag but where you went to college is almost irrelevant in today's world if you enter a lucrative career and have social skills.

I sit on interviews and we reject many many Ivy leaguers. While they are brilliant, some of them are too rigid..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And yet DCUM denigrates the pre professional schools at Penn Georgetown Northeastern in favor of SLACs. It’s all daisies and unicorns to be so idealist in when you are young, until you are 35 and your peers are making 3-5x more than you do….. this is exactly why I told my DC to pursue CS or Business. Let someone else try to save the world, the trees and the whales. In the real world, living real life, with two kids and a mortgage, It’s about making money.

And yet I'm still advising my kids to look at SLACs. When they save the world, you'll know who to thank.

How many graduates have SLACs produced over the past centuries, yet exactly zero of them have saved the world. It remains unsaved to this day. Think about it.

Well the world is still going, so a lot of people have done it so far.

[Anonymous]

Turning 40 seems to be a year for this. I'm stunned how many of my friends are not in a good place financially-- sometimes despite good jobs! So many years of obliviousness can really set you back. Or if they didn't have a good grasp of the cost of kids, then have them late.

Or if they didn't understand that you can afford SOME of the things your peers are doing, but not ALL of the things. Like if Jen took 6 months off to travel, Sarah got a MFA in poetry, Ashley has a place out by Wisp, and Jessica is a SAHM, my friend Larla will think she can do all of those things at once. Instead of picking just one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And yet DCUM denigrates the pre professional schools at Penn Georgetown Northeastern in favor of SLACs. It’s all daisies and unicorns to be so idealist in when you are young, until you are 35 and your peers are making 3-5x more than you do….. this is exactly why I told my DC to pursue CS or Business. Let someone else try to save the world, the trees and the whales. In the real world, living real life, with two kids and a mortgage, It’s about making money.

And yet I'm still advising my kids to look at SLACs. When they save the world, you'll know who to thank.

How many graduates have SLACs produced over the past centuries, yet exactly zero of them have saved the world. It remains unsaved to this day. Think about it.

Fauci attended Holy Cross.

[Anonymous]

I reject Ivy leaguers from jobs all day. My favorite hires are usually state school honors program kids. Bright, realistic, and hungry!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And yet DCUM denigrates the pre professional schools at Penn Georgetown Northeastern in favor of SLACs. It’s all daisies and unicorns to be so idealist in when you are young, until you are 35 and your peers are making 3-5x more than you do….. this is exactly why I told my DC to pursue CS or Business. Let someone else try to save the world, the trees and the whales. In the real world, living real life, with two kids and a mortgage, It’s about making money.

My DH got into Duke and Penn and Georgetown but chose a SLAC because it gave him a full ride and his parents had no money for college. He still managed to make us one of those families that OP envies.