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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok you go first. Don’t send your kid to college.

Good luck with that!
PS- some of us can afford college.

+1 lol

But, I do agree that going into debt for much lower tiered colleges is not a smart move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:6:38 again, and it is not a financial decision. He has a well funded 529 and is currently in private school. Let that blow your mind, OP. Some pick this path because they want to, not because they have to. We are proud of him.

Your effusive support for his decision to attend trade school makes me think you might be proud of him but you aren't really that proud of him going to trade school. What kind of trade? And by private school do you mean a local Catholic school?

I think it's just really hard for you to understand we give our kids an experience that does not have a ROI just because.

I mean, how many 2nd homes can you really have.

Brother went to trade school and the answer for him is 5. He has 5 homes. Each worth over a million. He went to trade school, worked hard for a guy who retired and sold him (very cheaply) the company. He built it from scratch and wanted to see his employees were taken care of and trusted my brother with everything.

Investment properties or homes? Having 5 homes means a lot of travel to be in those homes.

Homes. His wife doesn’t work and uses them. He also travels a ton and has businesses near 3 of his homes, so he goes to visit them. The ‘local’ business became global.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fromthe OP: "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. "

Clearly, OP has no idea what the purpose of a college education actually is.

Maybe. . . But if that’s true you have no idea what the job of a parent plus a K-12 education is. Like, why the heck are they still teaching cursive writing? What do they really learn in art history class? Most people will never need this garbage. Instead of advanced chemistry, maybe teach investing. We haven’t refreshed the curriculum in decades, yet the skill set we need to be successful has changed dramatically. Let’s make a K-12 education valuable again for the reality we are living in. Most public schools fail to teach real skill and stick kids on an ipad

[Anonymous]

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?

[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….

Yeah, what's the point, huh?:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/60/1292731.page

[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?

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

[Anonymous]

DCUM Moms = ATM Machines

probably already a joke made, but not reading this thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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….

No, Johnny from "Big State U" with a degree in Business Administration is going to be a Surgery Scheduler at a large hospital in the suburbs, where he'll make $60,000 a year and be able to afford a comfortable lifestyle. Hanging drywall isn't as well paying a job as you think it is.

The people hanging drywall weren't straddling the line between higher-education and trade school - they got the gig they could find. And 60k/yr isn't going to rate a comfortable lifestyle, even in the suburbs.

I know more than a few tradesmen who can afford to send their children full-pay to any of the 100k/yr privates, but they're the exceptions rather than the norm, and even then only one of them is a trade-school graduate (plumber) - all of the others have four-year degrees. The kids who can thrive in the trades are those who show the characteristics of future business owners - which is not everyone, regardless of intelligence, work ethic or drive. An average hardworking, employee tradesman is going to have a far tougher road ahead than a mid-tier professional with a degree. Most tradespeople will enjoy few of the benefits professionals take for granted, rarely receiving employee provided health care and retirement benefits, while having less job security. (There are exceptions, of course, particularly in the unions, but they make up a thin sliver of the demographic).

The trades can be great for quite a few people, but they're not an answer for many.

+1 can people stop being weird about trades. It’s a decent option for some people but middling for many others. It’s not some silver bullet.

+1 my immigrant parents who worked blue collar jobs didn't make those sacrifices so that we could end up working in blue collar jobs. Those jobs are hard on the body.

Nothing wrong with those jobs, but like college, it's not for everyone.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is 2-1/2 years through college. The lessons they have learned about how to be independent, dealing with - and conquering - learning challenges, have been absolutely golden. That has been worth the price. There will be no debt afterwards.

I wish you could get an on campus kind of in between kid and adult experience like an undergrad degree but for other professions: carpentry, mechanics, electrical, etc.

[Anonymous]

My kid wants to be a pilot and get a degree in aviation maintenance. Seems fairly AI-proof. This kid could not last a day in a 9-5 office job anyway, so we were never going to waste $300k on a liberal arts degree. The aviation idea is more stable than the other ideas he's thrown out, like a park ranger, ski patroller, or rafting guide.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

My kids can be a plumber, be a mechanic, anything they want --- after they get a college degree

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid wants to be a pilot and get a degree in aviation maintenance. Seems fairly AI-proof. This kid could not last a day in a 9-5 office job anyway, so we were never going to waste $300k on a liberal arts degree. The aviation idea is more stable than the other ideas he's thrown out, like a park ranger, ski patroller, or rafting guide.

He sounds like he’s 10, so I wouldn’t worry about it. I wanted to be a cowboy and I’m a girl. Now I’m a neuroscientist at a pharmaceutical company - go figure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is 2-1/2 years through college. The lessons they have learned about how to be independent, dealing with - and conquering - learning challenges, have been absolutely golden. That has been worth the price. There will be no debt afterwards.

I wish you could get an on campus kind of in between kid and adult experience like an undergrad degree but for other professions: carpentry, mechanics, electrical, etc.

My nephew did very well doing a construction job in the summers and part-time during the school year in high school and college, plus getting a degree in architecture. He used some family contacts to start a business two years after graduating, and he's killing it. He's also successfully flipped a few spec houses in a tough market. People who are willing to learn a trade can do very well, especially if they are entrepreneurial. My parents did very well in a similar business, but they regretted not getting a college degree, and they made sure we did. Not because they didn't want us to go into a trade, but because they wanted us to have the benefit of a college education first.