Minium Wage/ McD's/ Sense of Entitlement

[joviroxx]

Are we really back to this. Who gave you the right to play god and dictate how many or if any children people have? Maybe you should just mind your own and take care of your own family and stop worrying so much about others

I don't think anyone is dictating. It's an opinion. And I wish it was as easy as minding your own when those kids that aren't taken care of well, end up our responsibiity, don't they?

BTW, I find it sad when we have a society that thinks having parents who make smart choices, teach well at home and give kids opportunities is lucky. That should be the norm. The more we push the idea that this kind of parent is "luck" and if not you are a victim or bad luck, doesn't do anyone any good.

 

[Colleen27]

Maybe they can all move over here to fill the coming doctor shortage in the US.

And not to worry. I doubt we'll have free University here any time soon. Some may treat it that way with the loans, but they eventually do become due.

And sadly, that's exactly what is happening - when we have shortages in a field, rather than looking at the cost of higher education and figuring out how to make those fields more accessible to Americans with the intellectual capacity for them, we simply import professionals from countries that have better funded/more affordable higher education.

It seems everyone wants a college degree for employees now and its a bit out of hand. Wegmans opened up here not too long ago and they mostly wanted people with degrees. I know people who applied and had years of experience in grocery stores and the departments for which they were applying. Nope, they didn't get hired. There's something wrong when a store won't consider a person with 10 years bakery experience for a bakery position because they want you to have a BA and experience.

The same thing is happening in the IT field. When I was in the field, skills certification was enough to get an entry level job. Now you need a BS for those same jobs, but for the most part the starting wage hasn't increased. So the $30K/year position I held with a $5K community college certification program now requires a $50K degree. That changes the entire cost/benefit balance of going into that field, especially if you have to borrow to cover the educational requirements.

She makes it sound like everybody, but herself, are losers. I am sure they are really a small % in really numbers.

Every college grad y family and friends families have turned out are employed in their field of study. There are all different kinds if degrees. None are flipping burgers. They come from all different economic backgrounds. Many do not live in their hometown. They went where the jobs where. They are getting married, having kids and buying houses. None are sitting on Kim's couch and flipping burgers.

Oh, I'm my own breed of loser... I am working on a third associates degree and am only now starting to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. But I only needed $800 in loans to do it (from the straight-out-of-high-school degree) so I don't have first-hand experience with student loan debt.

I know the biggest thing that most of my friends/acquaintances are doing "wrong" is staying in the rust belt. Some have family reasons for that - parents in poor health - and some just don't seem comfortable taking a chance on a job elsewhere without a firm offer. I've never been in those shoes either (because of another stripe on my special breed of loser - I have a son from a previous relationship and my ex would have me in court so fast my head would spin if I tried to move to a better job market) so I don't feel like I can judge how others make that decision.

 

[luvsJack]

Yes, in some ways I had great parents who taught me good, valuable lessons. But we also had problems growing up. My parents were separated and back together more than once and my dad was a liar and gambling addict. Thanks to that we were not very secure financially. Kids can't control if their parents are good or bad but kids need to learn from a young age, as I had to, how to read situations and figure out what lessons you will be taught and what lessons you had to go out and learn on your own.

It is way beyond this thread but for every lesson I learned because of them and their example there is one I went out and learned for myself despite of them and their example. I made sure I learned that lesson or taught it to myself before I did anything that would effect my life negatively forever. That, in my opinion, is what kids need to do if they weren't taught financial skills by their parents. Get a book or find a mentor or do whatever they need before they make some decision that they will regret for the next 30 years.



Oh, absolutely. I was only addressing the "take the maximum because they can" scenario. I don't think student loans are inherently bad in all situations but I think they are only one option and all other options need to also be addressed. From military to working through school to deferring college a couple of years after graduation. If it does turn that you need loans I feel a student should do everything possible to take the least amount of loans instead of the most.

Getting back to what this thread actually started as, people need to think long term about everything financial, education, and career orientated. Coleen brought up some good points about the shifting societal dynamic but at the same time many of the things we are doing individually is what is pushing that societal trend. We make decisions in our youth that make our lives harder and perpetuate negative cycles and then makes excuses for those decisions. We tend to blame others for circumstances we either put ourselves into or for decisions we made that make leaving those circumstances harder then they had to be. It is like we want society to provide an escape route for our bad decisions yet we don't want to address the poor decision making.

All just my opinion. I'm always willing to agree to disagree.

I agree that each of us should own our choices. Good or bad. And each person has to move forward from the results of those choices. But, for some its very hard to move forward. Things get too bogged down in their lives and they remain on that merry go round of high costs of living and low wages. That is something that is very hard to get out of.

 

[lustergirl]

Oh I'm sorry, I was under the impression this was a discussion board. I never told anyone specific not to, more of a general society thing, I even stayed out of the other thread about it.

God, now that isn't allowed here.

And like you I am stating my opinion.

 

[lustergirl]

I don't think anyone is dictating. It's an opinion. And I wish it was as easy as minding your own when those kids that aren't taken care of well, end up our responsibiity, don't they?

BTW, I find it sad when we have a society that thinks having parents who make smart choices, teach well at home and give kids opportunities is lucky. That should be the norm. The more we push the idea that this kind of parent is "luck" and if not you are a victim or bad luck, doesn't do anyone any good.

Sorry I get a little offensive when ones only opinion is that people shouldn't have children because they can't afford to pay their college education is quite wrong. I don't find other people's children my responsibility I see it as children being born that didn't ask to be here and it is not their fault.

I have learned along time ago that there are some things in life that I can't change. I have neighbors that are losers and their kids suffer every day. Does it piss me off? Yes it does. It pisses me off not because they can't afford to pay for these children's college education but their basic necessities are not being taken care of. I am more concerned about the important things in life, like a child being afforded clothing, shelter, and food: the basic necessities of life.

 

[Colleen27]

Are we really back to this. Who gave you the right to play god and dictate how many or if any children people have? Maybe you should just mind your own and take care of your own family and stop worrying so much about others

Eh, if we all minded our own business there would be tumbleweeds blowing through the Community Board. Different opinions are what make forums fun.

 

[luvsJack]

I don't think anyone is dictating. It's an opinion. And I wish it was as easy as minding your own when those kids that aren't taken care of well, end up our responsibiity, don't they?

BTW, I find it sad when we have a society that thinks having parents who make smart choices, teach well at home and give kids opportunities is lucky. That should be the norm. The more we push the idea that this kind of parent is "luck" and if not you are a victim or bad luck, doesn't do anyone any good.

I don't think that anyone without parents like you describe is a victim. But I do think that someone like Firedancer, me, you and anyone else whose parents took the time to teach their kids and give them opportunities is fortunate.

Kids grow up in all kinds of settings and some are not taught anything about good choices. A kid doesn't get a choice in parents.

It doesn't matter whether its the norm or that, it doesn't change the fact that a child with good parents, smart parents and parents that take the time to teach them these things ARE fortunate.

 

[lustergirl]

Eh, if we all minded our own business there would be tumbleweeds blowing through the Community Board. Different opinions are what make forums fun.

You ae exactly right. I guess I just don't like someone constantly repeating themselves then change their story up when people start to question why this is their opinion.

 

[Jex]

So its a you problem, not an I problem. I never changed my story, I just clarified it a bit.

 

[Colleen27]

Didn't your parents prepay college for all of your kids? I think you have talked about it before. If so, then you did not come from little means.

You also stated that you spend $10-$12k per year on vacations. You choose to vacation. You could save some of that for their college. It is your choice. With four state colleges funded and half of your vacation fund saved, you could fully fund a private college, for your genius middle daughter, too and none would have loans.

Notice I didn't say "can't do it". I said "can't reasonably afford to". Yes, if we didn't travel (and that 10K figure is now, with no mortgage... not 5 years ago when we were lucky if we could scrape together $2K for a vacation, and not a decade ago when we didn't travel at all) and didn't send the girls to private school we could do much more on the college front. But I'm not the one saying that parents shouldn't have kids unless they can fully fund college, nor have I ever made any bones about the fact that I prefer balance over living entirely for tomorrow.

My kids each have modest college funds and pre-paid tuition contracts from my inlaws (who came into that money later in life; when DH was young my FIL was fishing for dinner because they couldn't always afford to buy meat - we both grew up in paycheck-to-paycheck households and learned more "what not to do" than good money management skills from our parents). Pre-paid tuition isn't the same as fully funded college, though; if the kids go in-state we still have the all the non-tuition expenses to contend with, and if they choose private or out of state the contract is only worth the purchase price plus interest. It is a huge help, don't get me wrong, but it is still likely to fall short of the "fully paid" mark at least for the one "genius" (and as proud of her as I am, I read that and think... if she was such a genius, why does she have her heart set on a field that demands a lot of education for very little pay? )

I fully expect my kids to get through school (undergrad, at least) without loans. Between what we have saved, any merit aid they can get (DD in particular is already aware of what she needs to do to make that happen), and the fact that we have fat to cut in the budget to cash flow a significant sum if need be, they should be okay. But our situation is an exception to many of the rules of life in our income bracket, both in having that help from family and in being mortgage-free at a relatively young age.

 

[Colleen27]

What you are describing isn't a student loan problem, it is a poor money management problem. You could substitute "maximum student loan amount" with "maximum pre-approval amount" on a mortgage and have just as many people who saw that big number and took it without any regard to how they'd afford the payment.

These are exactly the kinds of things I spoke about earlier when I talked about not making bad decisions. Whether we are talking about taking on too much debt or ruining your credit before you are old enough to buy a beer these are the kinds of things that even 18 year olds need to think about. Youth isn't an excuse for these kinds of mistakes and I'm quite frankly tired of hearing (not from anyone particular just in general) it used as an excuse for these things.

Except that there is a factual basis for the maximum pre-approval amount. There's consideration of repayment ability, and of credit worthiness, and of the value of the home relative to the amount of the loan. There's none of that with student loans - loans are written to relatively arbitrary federally-defined limits with no regard for real-world financial factors - so there is much greater potential for over-borrowing.

I do think kids need to think about these things. I'm not generally a fan of life skills being taught in school, but I really think some level of personal financial management should be introduced as part of the basic econ/social studies curriculum to reach students who aren't getting those lessons at home. Because many aren't and many see that amount, feel like they've hit the lotto, and act accordingly.