Is College Worth it?

Idk... I gotta be honest. I don't know if going to college is worth it for the normal person. At this point, as someone who has invested himself into the life. I guess... seems weird calling it "The Life" but, I don't really know what else to call it. I feel like where I am at I want to go through with finishing my education, or rather continue onto getting my PhD.

Why I am still getting my PhD

I want to. That's basically why. I currently have really cool opportunities that are available to me working on projects that involve nano-technology, and Quantum Computing. AND, I am literally getting paid to do it, and I get health insurance. I was also lucky enough in order to get through my college career without acquiring any debt along the way. So I don't have anything that I currently have to payback. That probably puts me ahead, of most people. Specifically financially, I mean, some people are paying back their student loans at a rate at which the interest on those loans is growing. Maybe a better way of conveying that idea is that they are paying less on their loans than what their interest is each payment and as such because of that they will never pay off their loans.

Now, I don't think that's always their own fault. Some people just can't even afford to pay, because of this reason or that, the job that they got might not even be for the degree that they earned and can't pay, (hopefully that's temporary), or the job that they acquired, in the field for which they got their degree, is not paying enough at an entry level to support the cost of living and paying back the loan. Maybe its some sort of intern position, that they are hoping to be hired in or something... Exploitative business practices, that they can't do anything about. So, there isn't much point in blaming these people.

I like I said earlier, don't have to deal with this set back thankfully. Another reason that I want to continue to do my PhD, is for the learning new things, and for the higher salary. Alright, so, why would you not go to college if I just said it will get you a good salary.

Congrats! You Lost!

So, I am just going to rip this off right now. If you do not have rich parents, then you will (probably) never be rich. The probably here is, simply winning some type of lottery. So, the idea that getting a good job will make you rich is foolish. Even if someone could get a job that pays 90k a year salary, it would still take 5 years to become a millionaire. That's not including taxes, and that is not including cost of living. That is including investing. 5 years, to make your first million, investing, while not including taxes, and not including cost of living. If we include cost of living it becomes 7 years with investing. Which is better than I figured but 2 years is 2 years. And it takes a total of 10 years investing, with cost of living in order to be able to retire. With cost of living being projected at being a constant 50k a year. This doesn't account for buying a house, or a car, or having a child. ABC says raising a child is about $389,000 until they are 18 years and Credit Karma says it will cost $318,949 to raise a child born in February 2025 Using Credit Karma, if you instead just invested that money for 17 years (because that's how long they suggest you pay for your kid apparently) you could end with $3748060.39. I understand that is cruel but, its less about look how much money you could have by not having a kid, and its more look how much money you will lose by having a kid. That number isn't adjusted for inflation by the way. I think what I just said might be a bit colder, but what I meant to clear up is that I am not trying to discourage you from having children, I am trying to show how having a child is expensive.

On the level of housing, it is more complicated. I think ultimately it would be an investment, but it has a cost that is too high for most people at this point in time. So, its hard, and in a way its only getting harder because the world population grows 2% every year, and we only have a limited amount of land. Here's a Video that I came across about buying a house vs renting a house, which makes some good arguments both ways and touches on the topic that I am getting at in this article as a whole. But the tldr of the video is that : If you can invest then it is better to invest than own a home. The trick is to keep investing. If you can't and decide to skip on investing it'll be better to own a home, because you are much less likely to skip a mortgage payment than you are to skip putting your money into your investments.

So What?

Well, so what? I mean, if I can't get rich by having a good job, at least I won't be miserably poor, by going to college. Well, IDK. More and more colleges are being run like businesses instead of institutions of knowledge. So tuition will probably just keep getting higher as well. Which means more debt, which means that college overall had less ROI (return on investment). Let's talk the opportunity cost of college.

If your parents, did you a huge solid, and saved up enough money so that you could go to college. Then you shouldn't go. Weird right. Well, you would be better off not going. If you had the roughly $200,000 it would take in order to get your masters from the beginning, then you shouldn't. By the time that you would end your college career, then you would have enough to retire. It took me so far 6 years to get my associates and my bachelors. You would be able to retire in 6 years. Assuming, that you had a cost of living of $30k a year, and that you made $50k a year and invested everything that you didn't use in the cost of living. Btw, I made more than $50k a year on my W2 bartending, and that didn't include the cash that I was given, so it is possible to make that kind of dosh without a college degree. So to simplify what I said, if you invest 20k a year and have that initial amount of $200k from your parents. You would only have to work 6 years of your life in the serving industry. Well, how much would you be able to retire with you ask? You would be making 50k a year just off your investments alone. All this while I would just be (possibly) starting my career, with a salary of approx 50k. Apparently the average salary is around $58k per year according to ZipRecruiter. On Payscale its $97k. (I would put links, but that would show my location so, nah). If you wanted a yearly salary of 90k a year, then you would have to spend 9 years being a bartender with your seed money. So, that time, I could be done getting a masters degree and have 1 year in the workforce. Working for $103k. This isn't even mentioning the other alternative that is, after your original 6 years of working, you stop, and live on your $50k a year in your apartment with a cost of living of $30k a year and just have $20k a year that you can keep investing. You don't have to work after 6 years, and if you don't increase your cost of living by a ridiculous amount then you just keep making more and more money.

So, to recap what we have so far in the simplest terms possible. If your parents give you $200k (the average cost to get a masters degree), and you go and get a masters degree in physics (because that is my current field). You would go to school for 8 years and study your ass of, AND you still have to figure out how to live during this time, and make $103k when you get out. Or, alternatively, you take that money and invest it in a savings account, and work as a server for 6 years, you can retire with an annual salary of $50k and never have to work again or you work for 9 years and have a $90k salary and never have to work again.

Oh, did I forget to mention up to this point I was using a savings account for this investment scheme. Yes, I am using a 4% interest compounding savings account that anyone can sign up for.

For just another point of reference, when I finish with my PhD, it will take me 6 years to be able to retire with a salary of $90k. That is a total of 12 years for classes and 6 more years on top of that in order to retire. As apposed to this person who got $200k in the beginning, worked as a bartender for 9 years and end with the same yearly retirement.

Intelligence Difference

Yeah, you say, sure, but that person won't have the same experience as me, and I'll be smarter at the end of the day. On one level you are right. But, on the other level, there is also not a lot stopping them from going out and getting the education after they start making the $90k salary. But, even disregarding that, it is easier than ever to get an education online. You can subscribe to brilliant.com and effectively get a decent education for STEM. You can go to skillshare.com and take different courses taught by different people that have been in their respective industries. IDK, if either of these places work, I just get ads for them a lot. Also this isn't technically an ad for them, they did not pay me in any way. But, even if you think those sight are scams. You can find courses on youtube about certain topics. You can also just start reading academic papers and books about various topics. It is easier than ever in order to find the information online. Get Audible and download some books. There are so many ways in order to learn things now. On one level, my hardest thing is trying to find the time to learn things outside my area of expertise. I just don't have time, which wouldn't be the case for this person who doesn't have to work, doesn't have to go to school and learn things and learn them well. The person has so much freedom about what they can do. What they can learn. Even for physics, you wouldn't get the same experiment examples by you could still learn a lot of physics concepts just by teaching yourself. Going to college is not the only way to get smarter.

Okay What about the people without the rich mom and dads

Well, they are less of a certain example. Someone who doesn't have a rich parent can do the same thing of working as a server for roughly a salary of 50k and a cost of living of 30k. The other thing about working as a bartender or as a server is that because your income is based on a percentage of the meal, then you automatically get a raise for inflation, and as such we don't really need to enter it into costs. If you work as a server and make 50k a year and have a cost of living of 30k then it takes 11 years to retire with $50k a year and 15 years to retire with $90k a year.

So, it suggest that you should still just be a server right? I mean if you start at 18, you can retire at 29 or 34.While, someone with a PhD could retire at 35. So you are still can retire 1 year earlier than someone who got their PhD. Well, that's the thing, during these comparisons we haven't added in the cost of having kids, and other things, and while the person previous ($200k seed money), can still increase there wealth by the time of their 30's enough to afford kids. If you want kids as a laymen, then you are still going to have to work longer. Why? Well because kids aren't cheap and while technically if you retire at 34 then you have 90k income having a kid wouldn't put you in a deficit it would however put you at stagnation and you wouldn't be able to survive rising costs of living that would occur as you get older. As for the PhD, you can say the same, IF they retired at 35, but you don't have to retire, they can keep working and even just working 1 more year would solve that issue. If they continued to work past the age that they can retire, for example 5 more years you would increase your wealth by 60% and as such increase your salary too.

It is worth noting that someone on $15 / hr working full time would need 30 years to retire still, with a salary of $90k. This of course assumes that the cost of living and his wages increase in such a way that the difference remains the same over those 30 years.

And it is also worth noting how all of these assume that 90k a year will be enough to retire on when they finally do get to retire. For example in 5 years I would say that it is more than likely that you could retire on 90k / year. But in 30 years... whose to say.

Reason's why this doesn't work

Well, the simple one is that you don't stick to the schedule. You don't invest in your savings from year in to year out. It's not the worlds best kept secret that Servers and Bartenders have a stressful job. They are under the same amount of stress as heart surgeons. And so, a common result is for them to go out after and drink. It was more nights than not that me and a group of co-workers where going to bars when I was serving. This as you can imagine was expensive, but I would also argue necessary. Necessary because we needed to de-stress.

The second and probably the most fundamental reason why this won't work, is that you can't manage to put $20k into a savings account each year. It's hard, I get it. I also have the terrible habit of spending when I am stressed out. And, having $20k in an account that would be so easily accessed, and that I would always know about. It would be hard for me not to be like, "I can afford to get that XL Cappuccino from the coffee house." Or, and this is more my speed "I can afford another/ a new computer." I have so many and its gonna become a problem if it continues. Or, "Look, I'll just by this, and use it in order to make a game, and then when I finish the game and sell it online for money, then I will make the money back, and at that point, its not spending irresponsibly, its INVESTING." And none of these reasons, are the one that I actually started this paragraph because.

Take 2

The second and probably the most fundamental reason why this won't work, is that you can't manage to put $20k into a savings account each year. It's hard, I get it. Having 20k more than what you spend, not even on frivolous little expenses that you know you don't need and until you saw that youtube video you didn't want. I am just talking about how, you make X amount of money right now, and you also spend roughly X amount of money. So your basically living paycheck to paycheck, or you make more money than you spend until, your car needs a windshield, or you need a new pair of shoes because frankly, they are more duct tape than shoe anymore. Like wherever you live, it might just not be physically possible in order to make enough money. If that's the case, just invest what you can along the way. Again, I am meaning savings account. All of this has just been put it in a savings account. I have been playing around with stocks, you CAN make so much more with those than 4% per year, yes, but they are infinitely more risky than just finding a good savings account and putting the cash in there. Also, I suppose for legal reasons this isn't financial advice and that this is just educational awareness, so that you can make more informed decisions, and so that I am not liable in any way for any financial decision that you make.

There is also the coming future that may or may not include the mass demise of jobs around the world. Otherwise known as AI. Or, just robots taking peoples jobs. This might do terrible things, this might do great things. Like, Hey, McDonalds fires all of its workers and now a lot of people are unemployed. There's two ways to solve this, 1.) Make people find jobs, or 2.) Start giving people universal incomes. And too be fair, on one level its gonna be McDonalds workers, because you can look up that certain restaurants actually have complete robot cooking like, you order the food to a robot, it then makes another robot cook the food, and then you pick up the food at the exit spot. There is the second level that it there are white collar jobs that involve getting a bachelors or masters degree in order to get, that are being replaced by AI / robots Link. So, I guess that aspect is a pro and a con for getting a college degree.

Employment Rates

Now this might not be the best example of what may or may not happen in the future. Also this is a late addition to this so forgive me if it breaks the flow of the article. But, in China the PhD Employment Rate is at 0%, Masters at 27%. I have no idea if this is indicative of the future. If this will spread to the US, and other places. Or if this will be solved at some point in the future. I doubt the last one though. I think it will end maybe as the computer scientist or developers did. Where we hired too many during a time of growth, and now we cut back, and though we will continue to grow and hire new developers, it will be at a much smaller rate as we now have hit an equilibrium. China PhD Employment Rate 0%

This all has kinda been from experience in my life as well, so your mileage may vary. I was able to make 50k / year. I am able to live for under 30k per year, living in a 1 bedroom apartment, by myself. I could spend even less and have a lot more cash lying around right now that I could just put into a savings account and kick start my retirement just that much earlier if I got into a 2 bed with a roommate or moved into a house with multiple, and I might in the future.

I kinda think that this also highlights the flaw in the human brain where we can't really think that far ahead into the future.

Stay frosty out there. I hope that this helped someone, or helped start some thinking.

Love the Journey