Anonymous wrote:Pondering "social mobility" as the goal. Sounds weird to me, sounds like the entire plan is about leaving your roots in the dust--your family, people you grew up with. Assuming you grew up in comfortable surroundings with loving parents and friends and neighbors who were good to you, what's wrong with wanting to plant yourself in a similar life?

Sounds like you grew up in a wealthy family in a desirable metro area. Why would you assume the bolded?

Pondering "social mobility" as the goal. Sounds weird to me, sounds like the entire plan is about leaving your roots in the dust--your family, people you grew up with. Assuming you grew up in comfortable surroundings with loving parents and friends and neighbors who were good to you, what's wrong with wanting to plant yourself in a similar life?

Because college is not vocational school. And many of us value education for education, even if we're not uber rich. Our children will go to graduate school, continue to study what they love and are interested in. Eventually teach. Or not. Don't worry, they will be fine.

STEM majors’ salaries start higher, and because of time value of money that is very important to consider. But humanities majors catch up later:


Men majoring in computer science or engineering roughly doubled their starting salaries by age 40, to an average of $124,458. Yet earnings growth is even faster in other majors, and some catch up completely. By age 40, the average salary of all male college graduates was $111,870, and social science and history majors earned $131,154 — an average that is lifted, in part, by high-paying jobs in management, business and law.

The story was similar for women. Those with applied STEM majors earned nearly 50 percent more than social science and history majors at ages 23 to 25, but only 10 percent more by ages 38 to 40.


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/business/liberal-arts-stem-salaries.html

Also, if everybody were to flock to stem majors, stem salaries would go down fast. Not that this matters on an individual level but we should not do some broad initiative to get everybody to abandon the humanities and go to stem. (Or maybe we should and the humanities majors can live the good life.)

Anonymous wrote:
Please share the town which have good schools and $200k homes, I will buy one tomorrow.

DP but… the average small town almost anywhere in America? Seriously, what is wrong with you?

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Anonymous wrote:Not everyone is motivated by money and greed.

This is a really bizarre question to me. A lot of people just want to enjoy their day-to-day life rather than build up a Scrooge McDuck pile of coins to swim in?

Haha, yeah I grew up not worried about money and followed a career I was passionate about. Huge regrets because in this day and age, a modest income consigns you to long commutes, substandard housing, and crummy schools. It’s great if you never plan to marry and have kids; maybe even okay if you marry someone with similar values, but find a DW who is content to live a simple life and doesn’t want kids, that’s a pretty narrow field. And I wanted kids, I just had no idea how expensive they were and neighborhoods with good schools are.

And you can say “move to X” where X is some random place not in a major city, well a) my passion career has no jobs there, I guess I could become a teacher eventually but likely will still be poor there 2) most cheap places, if you want good schools, housing has still gotten really really expensive over the last 10 years, even more so COVID era

I’m the PP you are responding to. Real estate is hot everywhere right now because of the historically low interest rate. But prior to that, you could buy a really nice, updated home with character in my area for ~ 300-400k. 250k if you were willing to do the updating yourself. New construction was running at around 400-500k. We live in a small city near the Finger Lakes in NY. Definitely possible for teachers, nurses, cops, firefighters, professors, social workers, doctors and lawyers with a lot of school debt, etc. etc. to live well here. The public schools are considered very good and it’s a nice area with lots of opportunities for outdoor recreation. Lakes, gorges, ski, etc. You are paying a premium to live in DC. Which is fine but realize it’s your choice and don’t complain about it. There are other nice places to live.

Teachers in rural areas make around $40k, so a $400k house is hardly affordable. Even a $250k fixer upper only works if you are handy; doing things wrong and having to hire someone to fix it is even more expensive.

Nurses I think can get to $80k, same with state college professors.

Now if you marry two professors, maybe they have a chance, but you better not marry a teacher or someone who’s wants to SAH.

I’m from a small town about two hours west of NYC—the most experienced teachers there make $90k+. Houses cost $200k for SFH.

Don’t know what qualifies as “good schools” by DCUM standards, and you specified nothing about that in your original post. Not stating, sorry.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not everyone is motivated by money and greed.

This is a really bizarre question to me. A lot of people just want to enjoy their day-to-day life rather than build up a Scrooge McDuck pile of coins to swim in?

Haha, yeah I grew up not worried about money and followed a career I was passionate about. Huge regrets because in this day and age, a modest income consigns you to long commutes, substandard housing, and crummy schools. It’s great if you never plan to marry and have kids; maybe even okay if you marry someone with similar values, but find a DW who is content to live a simple life and doesn’t want kids, that’s a pretty narrow field. And I wanted kids, I just had no idea how expensive they were and neighborhoods with good schools are.

And you can say “move to X” where X is some random place not in a major city, well a) my passion career has no jobs there, I guess I could become a teacher eventually but likely will still be poor there 2) most cheap places, if you want good schools, housing has still gotten really really expensive over the last 10 years, even more so COVID era

I’m the PP you are responding to. Real estate is hot everywhere right now because of the historically low interest rate. But prior to that, you could buy a really nice, updated home with character in my area for ~ 300-400k. 250k if you were willing to do the updating yourself. New construction was running at around 400-500k. We live in a small city near the Finger Lakes in NY. Definitely possible for teachers, nurses, cops, firefighters, professors, social workers, doctors and lawyers with a lot of school debt, etc. etc. to live well here. The public schools are considered very good and it’s a nice area with lots of opportunities for outdoor recreation. Lakes, gorges, ski, etc. You are paying a premium to live in DC. Which is fine but realize it’s your choice and don’t complain about it. There are other nice places to live.

Teachers in rural areas make around $40k, so a $400k house is hardly affordable. Even a $250k fixer upper only works if you are handy; doing things wrong and having to hire someone to fix it is even more expensive.

Nurses I think can get to $80k, same with state college professors.

Now if you marry two professors, maybe they have a chance, but you better not marry a teacher or someone who’s wants to SAH.

I’m from a small town about two hours west of NYC—the most experienced teachers there make $90k+. Houses cost $200k for SFH.

Yea teachers that have been there 30 years are making $90k; how much are the young teachers with kids making?

Please share the town which have good schools and $200k homes, I will buy one tomorrow.

DC police couples w some years experience are 200k, plus any overtime! Don't even get me started on what plumbers make.

Anonymous wrote:No, there are not “plenty of other paths” to UMC besides STEM. There’s big law and finance and upper admin at an NPO or F500, most of which require connections.

OMG. I guess if you consider DCUM UMC, which is a $500k HHI. But I know loads of dual public school teacher couples with $190k+ HHI.

No, there are not “plenty of other paths” to UMC besides STEM. There’s big law and finance and upper admin at an NPO or F500, most of which require connections.

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Anonymous wrote:Easy reason: Because parents don't pick majors, their adult children do.

Reason in my family: The humanities are critical, and enhance your ability to succeed. DH and I both have jobs that are basically translating STEM concepts into policy and persuasive documents. STEM in the absence of humanities (includes history, communication, ethics, cultural studies, etc) is often useless or harmful.

If there weren't stupid non stem people you wouldn't have a job thus everyone do stem and no translation needed

"Everyone do stem" -- what a nightmare of a society.

Do you not understand that we need diversity in society? Who's going to teach if everyone does STEM? Who is going to create entertainment, publish books and music, make movies, run museums, create theatrical and musical productions, if everyone does STEM? Who is going to grow and make food if everyone does STEM? Who is going to design and make your clothes if everyone does STEM? Who is going to report the news if everyone does STEM? Who is going to run small businesses if everyone does STEM? Who's going to work on public policy or foreign relations if everyone does STEM? Our society would grind to a halt if everyone did STEM and nothing else.

It's just so ridiculous and only someone who has never learned critical thinking would advocate for something like that. Seems like you need some more liberal arts classes.

The trust fund kids can do all that.

Maybe you are trying to be funny? Normal people not trust fund kids do that.

Look STEM is great if you like it and is the fast path to a good job at a high starting salary. STEM will pay a very good wage so that one can med middle class or lower UMC depending on where you live. There are plenty of other paths to do that and more.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Easy reason: Because parents don't pick majors, their adult children do.

Reason in my family: The humanities are critical, and enhance your ability to succeed. DH and I both have jobs that are basically translating STEM concepts into policy and persuasive documents. STEM in the absence of humanities (includes history, communication, ethics, cultural studies, etc) is often useless or harmful.

If there weren't stupid non stem people you wouldn't have a job thus everyone do stem and no translation needed

"Everyone do stem" -- what a nightmare of a society.

Do you not understand that we need diversity in society? Who's going to teach if everyone does STEM? Who is going to create entertainment, publish books and music, make movies, run museums, create theatrical and musical productions, if everyone does STEM? Who is going to grow and make food if everyone does STEM? Who is going to design and make your clothes if everyone does STEM? Who is going to report the news if everyone does STEM? Who is going to run small businesses if everyone does STEM? Who's going to work on public policy or foreign relations if everyone does STEM? Our society would grind to a halt if everyone did STEM and nothing else.

It's just so ridiculous and only someone who has never learned critical thinking would advocate for something like that. Seems like you need some more liberal arts classes.

The trust fund kids can do all that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Easy reason: Because parents don't pick majors, their adult children do.

Reason in my family: The humanities are critical, and enhance your ability to succeed. DH and I both have jobs that are basically translating STEM concepts into policy and persuasive documents. STEM in the absence of humanities (includes history, communication, ethics, cultural studies, etc) is often useless or harmful.

If there weren't stupid non stem people you wouldn't have a job thus everyone do stem and no translation needed

"Everyone do stem" -- what a nightmare of a society.

Do you not understand that we need diversity in society? Who's going to teach if everyone does STEM? Who is going to create entertainment, publish books and music, make movies, run museums, create theatrical and musical productions, if everyone does STEM? Who is going to grow and make food if everyone does STEM? Who is going to design and make your clothes if everyone does STEM? Who is going to report the news if everyone does STEM? Who is going to run small businesses if everyone does STEM? Who's going to work on public policy or foreign relations if everyone does STEM? Our society would grind to a halt if everyone did STEM and nothing else.

It's just so ridiculous and only someone who has never learned critical thinking would advocate for something like that. Seems like you need some more liberal arts classes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not everyone is motivated by money and greed.

This is a really bizarre question to me. A lot of people just want to enjoy their day-to-day life rather than build up a Scrooge McDuck pile of coins to swim in?

Haha, yeah I grew up not worried about money and followed a career I was passionate about. Huge regrets because in this day and age, a modest income consigns you to long commutes, substandard housing, and crummy schools. It’s great if you never plan to marry and have kids; maybe even okay if you marry someone with similar values, but find a DW who is content to live a simple life and doesn’t want kids, that’s a pretty narrow field. And I wanted kids, I just had no idea how expensive they were and neighborhoods with good schools are.

And you can say “move to X” where X is some random place not in a major city, well a) my passion career has no jobs there, I guess I could become a teacher eventually but likely will still be poor there 2) most cheap places, if you want good schools, housing has still gotten really really expensive over the last 10 years, even more so COVID era

I’m the PP you are responding to. Real estate is hot everywhere right now because of the historically low interest rate. But prior to that, you could buy a really nice, updated home with character in my area for ~ 300-400k. 250k if you were willing to do the updating yourself. New construction was running at around 400-500k. We live in a small city near the Finger Lakes in NY. Definitely possible for teachers, nurses, cops, firefighters, professors, social workers, doctors and lawyers with a lot of school debt, etc. etc. to live well here. The public schools are considered very good and it’s a nice area with lots of opportunities for outdoor recreation. Lakes, gorges, ski, etc. You are paying a premium to live in DC. Which is fine but realize it’s your choice and don’t complain about it. There are other nice places to live.

Teachers in rural areas make around $40k, so a $400k house is hardly affordable. Even a $250k fixer upper only works if you are handy; doing things wrong and having to hire someone to fix it is even more expensive.

Nurses I think can get to $80k, same with state college professors.

Now if you marry two professors, maybe they have a chance, but you better not marry a teacher or someone who’s wants to SAH.

I’m from a small town about two hours west of NYC—the most experienced teachers there make $90k+. Houses cost $200k for SFH.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
DH and I are doctors and scientists, definitely not in the 1%, and our teen son is passionate about history. He does LATIN as well, and if his school offered ancient Greek, he'd do that too!

What do you want us to do? Force him into STEM?

That's a bobby

Not for those who teach it.