4 year degree vs a 2 year degree

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Thanks for all the opinions guys.
 
I'll add that going away to osu for four and a half years turned me into a completely different person too. I took on a lot more responsibility and matured a lot. Staying on campus is an experience I'll never forget. I don't hear a lot of community college grads throw that around.
 
HCP said:
Would love to get your guys' opinion on this. Obviously everybody's situation is different, but which would be the best way to go? The amount of money a 4 year degree will set you back at say UofO, compared to a trade school or Community College.

What did you guys do and has it worked out? Or did you just go into the world with a HS diploma?

Whats the best plan?

Does a traditional 4 year degree really open more doors?

Does a company not even look at somebody without one?
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I know people who didn't go to college and they are doing great in life. I also know people who did go to college that are in a lot debt.
 
You definitely have more options and a generally higher ceiling with a four year degree -- I'd recommend setting expectations for four years and then going 2 year, if that's a better fit for them. Some of the classes that made me a better, more rounded person were ones outside my major and I wouldn't have taken those with a 2 year degree.

I think a more important thing to emphasize at this point is what they want to study. With apologies to sociology, poli sci, history, communications majors etc, but I think it's important to pick a major that both interests you and leads to a career. Not to say that you can't succeed with those majors, but what you study can be a great launch pad or concrete boots.

Cost shouldn't be the determining factor. If you're smart about it, you can get a four year degree without mortgaging your future. State schools (especially Oregon State!) are good and generally less expensive than private schools. That said, if you're a good student, you can get scholarships that might put you within spitting distance of state schools. Get to be good friends with the scholarship office...friendly calls can go a long way with those guys.
 
JFizzleRaider said:
I graduated four years ago from osu and it was only like 8,000 a year for tuition and books, I don't know where some people get these crazy numbers for what it costs.

I got my first accounting job making 40k a year straight out of college.

My fiancee went to school for like 18 months and spent like 8,000 at Clackamas community college to be a dental assistant and she started at $16/hour.

So she made money faster, but trust me, I'll have the better career in the long run, unless she goes back to school to be a hygienist of course.

It really matters what you study for your four year degree. Accounting and engineering almost guarantee you a good job. General business or ethnic studies guarantees you nothing.
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Yeah, I don't think I spent more than $24-26K on tuition for 5 years. And I'm pretty sure it was a little bit less. And that was just the total paid through the paperwork I'd fill out for my student loans. I'd usually end up with money BACK, which I'd use on books. So, maybe I spent $25-27K for my total education and books. But I'm pretty sure even that is a little bit high. And I could have gotten a little financial help from PSU (they were pretty easy and willing to help out, at least at the time), but was too lazy to deal with it. Of course, in the end, my parents paid the $18K in student loans I had when I graduated as a reward. But still, my tuition is far less than some people are projecting, and I went to school 5 years. I know tuition has increased in the 8-9 years since I graduated, but jeebus.
 
Generally speaking, I think the floor is higher for those that did go to college, and get a 4-year degree. I just don't necessarily think that a 4-year degree means a higher ceiling than those that chose another route.
 
JFizzleRaider said:
I graduated four years ago from osu and it was only like 8,000 a year for tuition and books, I don't know where some people get these crazy numbers for what it costs.

I got my first accounting job making 40k a year straight out of college.

My fiancee went to school for like 18 months and spent like 8,000 at Clackamas community college to be a dental assistant and she started at $16/hour.

So she made money faster, but trust me, I'll have the better career in the long run, unless she goes back to school to be a hygienist of course.

It really matters what you study for your four year degree. Accounting and engineering almost guarantee you a good job. General business or ethnic studies guarantees you nothing.
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$8,000 should have paid for all of it.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dear-class-of-13-youve-been-scammed-2013-05-17?siteid=yhoof2

Class of 2013,

No one else is going to tell you this, so I might as well.

You sit here today, $30,000 or $40,000 in debt, as the latest victims of what may well be the biggest conspiracy in U.S. history. It is a conspiracy so big and powerful that Dan Brown won’t even touch it. It’s a conspiracy so insidious that you will rarely hear its name.

Move over, Illuminati. Stand down, Wall Street. Area 51? Pah. It’s nothing.

The biggest conspiracy of all? The College-Industrial Complex.

Consider this: You have just paid about three times as much for your degree as did someone graduating 30 years ago. That’s in constant dollars — in other words, after accounting for inflation. There is no evidence that you have received a degree three times as good. Some would wonder if you have received a degree even one times as good.

According to the College Board, in 1983 a typical private American university managed to provide a bachelor’s-degree-level education to young people just like you for $11,000 a year in tuition and fees. That’s in 2012 dollars.

Instead, those of you at private colleges paid this year an average of $29,000.

And back then a public college charged in-state students just $2,200 a year in tuition and fees — in today’s dollars. You could get a full four-year degree for $8,800. Today that will get you one year’s tuition, or $8,700.

Notice, please, we are not even counting the cost of all the “extras,” like room and board. This is just the cost of the teaching.

It is, as a result, no surprise that total student loans are now approaching $1 trillion. They have easily overtaken credit-card debts and car loans. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, total student loans have basically tripled since 2004. Fed researcher Lee Donghoon says that in the last eight years the number of borrowers has gone up by about 70%, and the average amount owed has also gone up about 70%.

If you turn to the pages of any newspaper, you will read a lot of hand-wringing about this. You will hear attacks on “predatory” student-loan companies and “predatory ... for-profit colleges.” You will hear about cutbacks in Pell Grants and federal aid and proposals to lower the interest rate on subsidized federal loans. But all of these comments ignore one basic problem.

It’s the cost, stupid.

U.S. colleges are a rip-off. Two decades ago I spent six years at Cambridge and Oxford universities, and it didn’t cost me a nickel. Admittedly, one reason was social policy: The taxpayers paid the bill (and a very good return they earned too, given the British taxes I paid once I graduated and started work). But the second reason was that these universities did not charge an arm, leg and other appendage for the act of teaching.

My undergraduate course at Cambridge largely consisted of one hour a week with a tutor, a weekly essay question and research list, and a library card. This teaching model hadn’t changed much, really, since the days of Aristotle. Student, teacher, discussion. See you same time next week.

How on earth do colleges today ramp up costs to $40,000 a year?
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My advice to the kids is:

1) Go to school only until you know what you want to do. Then quit school and go do it. It took me way too long to figure it out, so I ended up with multiple graduate degrees, but if I'd been smarter I could have been a high-school dropout.

2) Get off my lawn.

barfo
 
You know the guy that invented the pet rock....
 
BLAZINGGIANTS said:
Generally speaking, I think the floor is higher for those that did go to college, and get a 4-year degree. I just don't necessarily think that a 4-year degree means a higher ceiling than those that chose another route.
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Interesting point. I think the truth of it really depends on what you're doing. If you're a child genius computer programmer, you might not need to go to college (2 or 4 year) at all and your ceiling is as high as anyone's. On the other hand, in the biotech world I'm in, your degree pretty well translates to your ceiling. Like crandc said, 2 year degree means your ceiling is being a lab tech, a 4 year degree opens midlevel jobs as a ceiling and a doctorate can get you to the top mgmt levels. Like anything, there are exceptions, but they'd be rare in biotech.
 
This won't be settled until we get to read blazerboys angry take
 
mobes23 said:
Interesting point. I think the truth of it really depends on what you're doing. If you're a child genius computer programmer, you might not need to go to college (2 or 4 year) at all and your ceiling is as high as anyone's. On the other hand, in the biotech world I'm in, your degree pretty well translates to your ceiling. Like crandc said, 2 year degree means your ceiling is being a lab tech, a 4 year degree opens midlevel jobs as a ceiling and a doctorate can get you to the top mgmt levels. Like anything, there are exceptions, but they'd be rare in biotech.
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I did say "generally speaking". All of this conversation should be "generally speaking". Obviously, there are always exceptions, and with this subject, there are a lot of exceptions. I'm just guessing, but I'd be willing to be bet statistics probably support the 4-year degree, but success with a 2-year degree is probably growing quite a bit. I wouldn't be surprised if success without any college degree is also growing. Nowadays, you have a more options for a specific training without necessarily getting some sort of accredited degree.
 
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EL PRESIDENTE said:
Here's a pie chart:

bushfinger.jpg
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HAHAHAHA!!!
 
You know whats better than a 4 year degree is just knowing the right people.
 
My ex cousin in law graduated top of his class in Harvard, then top 10 in Dartmouth. He was an economic analyst.

When the economy took a shit; he got laid off. He now works for a company that pays him 1/2 of what he made at his previous job. He said paying back his student loans are really hard now.

I do believe in higher education; but sometimes that type of educate requires top scale salaries.
 
magnifier661 said:
My ex cousin in law graduated top of his class in Harvard, then top 10 in Dartmouth. He was an economic analyst.

When the economy took a shit; he got laid off. He now works for a company that pays him 1/2 of what he made at his previous job. He said paying back his student loans are really hard now.

I do believe in higher education; but sometimes that type of educate requires top scale salaries.
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He got fired for a reason! Had he been good at his job, he would have seen the crash coming. Kind of ironic, don't ya think?


Sent from my baller ass iPhone 5 FAMS!
 
HCP said:
He got fired for a reason! Had he been good at his job, he would have seen the crash coming. Kind of ironic, don't ya think?


Sent from my baller ass iPhone 5 FAMS!
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I actually joked about it once and it didn't blow over too well. His response was "we weren't assigned to analyze our own company. We were hired to streamline other companies."
 
It really depends on what is most important to each person.

1)What do they want to do for a career? There are some careers that essentially require a 4-year degree or higher. MDs, lawyers, many types of engineers, professors, etc. A 4 year degree will also open more possibilities, where a 2-year degree is more likely to train you for a specific career or job that you may be stuck with.

2) How important is financial success? Probability-wise, they will be more financially successful with a 4-year degree, and more even more financially successful with a grad degree. Yes, there are exceptions, but those are just exceptions.

I think part of the difficulty is that at age 17 or 18, most people don't know what they want to do for the rest of their lives and their priorities are much different than when they are 30,40, etc.

IMO, you should / they should plan for and assume a 4-year degree, and you can always cut back from there.
 
fwiw--I plan on bankrolling my sons to screw around for 3-6 months backpacking around the world right after high school. Well, maybe not bankroll, but I'll help them if I can get them work to help them pay the way. I got a lot more out of backpacking than I did out of any semester in college.

I always respected Australians and the walkabout ethic. You can go anywhere on the damned planet and you'll meet Australians. I want my kids to think about the world like an Australian does, an interesting place to explore and see, and someday down the road you settle down and figure your future out.

The most annoying thing is somebody proud of their country who has no other country to compare it to. I'd hate to see my sons be diehard Englishmen or Americans without seeing how other places work.
 
I agree with blazerboy, overall. He talks probabilities. As a man of math, probabilities and percentages are real things. I know a lot of people making bank. The people that went to school 4 years or more and studied hard, they have jobs that if they lose them, they'll be okay and find other, or similar means, elsewhere. I know a lot of people (a lot of family and friends) with little or no college education. They rode the mortgage wave, and probably made more in 5 years than I will in 10. They weren't educated enough to know that it wouldn't last forever. They spent and spent. Some of them are barely hanging on now.

Shit, I'm trying to be responsible. I could have a decent house fully paid off, instead I'm 35-45% of FMV paid in. But beyond that, I try to be wise with the money. No bills besides the house, so I could float for a bit if I had to. But there are days, if like to cut the house in half and be done.

That being said, it's not how much you make but how much you spend. If you're worried about their future, there are all types of savings accounts you could start to help out. Every little bit helps, even if. You can't contribute as much as they need.
 
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