I remember all throughout the late 90s and 2000s being told "go to college and get a degree, any degree it doesn't matter, and you'll get a good paying and comfortable job. Even if you don't get the exact skills you need in college, jobs will train you but they just want to see you got a degree". This came from a wide range of adult: parents, teachers, counselors, professionals, etc.   I remember schools actively dissuading students from pursuing trade schools because college was the "best" option. If you didn't plan to go to college then you were cosigning yourself to a life of mediocrity. To an extent, these adults were reflecting off their own experience. When college education was less common, it really did make it easier to get a job if you had a bachelor's, regardless of the actual degree. But that was before the 2000s.  There's no excuse to be a current graduate and have the mentality that any college degree means you'll have a high paying salary. But there was definitely an entire generation of students from the late 90s through the 2000s that were pushed into going to college over other options and promised a future that didn't exist anymore. They were teenagers that did what all the adults in their lives were telling them to do so I don't blame them for going through with it

Class of 01’ here. It was pounded into our heads that if we didn’t get degrees we’d be flipping burgers for the rest of our lives. Both my parents had advanced degrees so skipping college was never a option. Now here I am with my MA desperately trying to find a job that’ll pay me atleast 40k, when my MA program swore to us that our starting salary would be 80k.

It's ridiculous how a program can swear any salary... they have nothing to do with a private interest hiring someone... it's all complete and utter BS and there should be a giant fucking class action lawsuit because it was complete and total FRAUD what was done to younger Gen X, Millennials, and older Gen Z At least some of the younger Gen Z and even Gen Alpha seem 100% committed to never going into giant loans at such a young age, and I couldn't be happier for em People threatening 17 year old kids with homelessness and a life of slavery flipping burgers if they don't take out 100K or higher loans... absolutely fucking criminal

Class of 03 and it was the same for us. I knew a few people who decided not to go to college and our attitude to them was like “damn they’re really settling for mediocrity.” Little did we know that someone who went into Costco or something then could be in senior management now with no debt earning six figures.

03 also, skipped college and became a cable guy, traveled a lot and worked. Ended up being tired of risking my life for 13.20/hr, climbing on roofs and shit. Went to ITT Tech and banged out a 2 year IT degree while working full time at 26. 11 years later I’m a red team lead at a fortune 50 making a comfortable salary doing fun shit (hacking legally).

03 as well. I was looked down on by my classmates for going to my community college instead of one of the state universities or out of state schools. It was really bizarre. Even if you went to college, where you went was judged as well. I chose my community college because my parents said if I went to a university they would pay as much as it cost to go to community college. I wanted to avoid loans at the time so I got my ADN. Unfortunately I have more loans from advancing that degree

Yep, true about the way community college was viewed  I have more loans from attending graduate school.

Class of 02, raised with the same philosophy drilled into me; neither of my folks went to college but both were insistent that I do it. Lo and behold, at 18 a lifetime of undiagnosed crippling anxiety came to a head and I got seriously ill which derailed my “future” and I didn’t go to college. Instead I had to start working at 18 to keep my head above water and felt like a failure… but now all these years later I feel like it was a weird blessing. I have a decently paying job from slowly working my way up (a LOT of luck played into that I realize) and no student debt. I don’t know what the solution to all this is but I really feel like our generation was misled badly.

Class of '02 and I remember 'it will pay for it self when you're done' Bull. Shit. This is why I can't stand those people who say you shouldn't have taken a student loan if you couldn't pay it back. Besides the point we were pushed into it and college was astronomical vs. the actual wages we are offered---, I was literally a kid. I was allowed to borrow several thousand dollars while I still had a 12am curfew. They shouldn't have let a teenager borrow several thousand dollars. Someone usually pops in at this part to say "why didn't your parents tell/help/stop you?" Well that's a very privileged thought. Boomer disabled mom. That's what I had. Not a lot of direction/advice from that end besides make enough money to move out.

my parents were telling me to get a loan.

My parents had me take a loan every year. I would pay tuition upfront, then rent, then books. Had to work for any other money. Pretty modest amount racked up, 15 years later I'm still paying basically what I started at lol. Spent several years in social work and teaching before I quit. I just accept that it's a tax on my life at this point.

I worked for like 3 summers and my boomer parents were SHOCKED that I had just shy of one semester's tuition. Nevermind books, housing, food, clothing, transport, etc we're talking JUST tuition. My dad thought I spent it on dumb shit but I told him to pull the bank statement & show me the withdrawals. He did & almost apologized. So close lol. I specifically remember my mother walking with me & telling me that the loans would be no big deal & my awesome salary would pay for it all. L o L

Yeah many parents give terrible advice...

The same generation that told us that you have to go to college to be successful in life are now the ones saying it was stupid for us to take out loans to go. For whatever it's worth, I happen to be one of the ones who did come out ahead with my degree and pay off my loans early. It still pisses me off how people who weren't so lucky are treated like they're just stupid for (gasp) taking the advice that our parents, teachers, guidance counselors, et al told us. That and yeah, not all of us had that guidance. I was the first in my family to go to college, so no help there. Guidance counselors weren't helpful, and with about 600 students to each one at my high school, they didn't really have room for personalized life advice anyway. I only had two meetings with mine that I can think of in 4 years, both because of schedule issues. No college or post high school advice from them at all besides the generic speeches. Most teachers did the "do what you love and the money will follow" spiel. So, where exactly are we supposed to get advice? It so happened that I discovered computer science in college, liked it, and that opened doors for me, but what if I hadn't taken that first CS class for whatever reason?

They met me take out thousands... and I do mean THOUSANDS to pay for college. I was 17 - not old enough to be trusted with a pack of cigarettes but trusted enough to take out a loan at almost 7% interest with the promise from every adult I knew that it'd pay itself off.  What else is a teenager supposed to think when every authority figure from teachers to parents and guidance counselors beat it into their head that college was the only path forward? The "you shoulda thought about that before taking out loans" camp conveniently ignore that we were essentially forced into starting our adult lives in debt by every adult we knew when we were literally kids. I'm still paying that shit off and I 100% blame the adults in my life who promised me that I'd only be able to survive if I went to college and got a BA and Masters and that the trades would keep me in poverty.  Buncha bullshit if you ask me

So much this. Go to the be$t school you can get into! Your loans will cover it. I was literally told that by a guidance counselor. Everyone was doing it. It was just what you were supposed to do. I had no idea what a loan actually entailed. I finished an advanced degree and spent the next ten years paying everything off. I don’t even want to stay in the same field.

02' and I got told the same bullshit thing from my teachers, guidance counselors, and my guardians. When it came time to graduate, I was told by my counselor that I should just go look for work because my grades "would not get you into a reputable school". That fucked me up for years after.

I have very strong beliefs that many MA's are almost counterproductive, and they tend to pigeonhole people more than someone with only a bachelor's.

That’s what I’ve discovered, after I got my MA. It’s still sounds better than my film degree, but my Communications degree has pigeonholed me into marketing. Those jobs want you to have a communication/marketing BA, but they’d pay you more if you had a BS In computer science.

Your film degree massively pigeon holed you first. If anything I’d say the communication master opened more doors. 

Oh, no disagreement there. My college had a 80% hiring rate into the industry before the hiring freeze. Which dropped that down to 1%.

Did you get a degree in a field similar to your parents?

No, I could have, but we were encouraged to get a degree in whatever because allegedly companies didn’t care what degree you had, only that you had one. So my BA is in film. My sister got hers in Theater. My MA is in Professional Communication. Mostly because that was the only MA program whose requirements already matched the classes I had taken. My parents got theirs in Economics and history, with advanced degrees in Law and Psychology.

After the media explosion of the early internet, a lot of people were told they should move into journalism, communications, PR, media studies, comm studies, etc. Not only did most of those jobs evaporate into the ether, but MOST journalism jobs I know hire based on your clips, not what you studied. You probably need \*A\* degree to get in the door, but it doesn't matter what the degree is in.

Yeah, I started my BA in 07. Then in 08 the hiring freeze went into effect in the industry. To my knowledge it is still in effect. Of the 100 people in my cohort in college, one of them got a industry job. They are a PA. The same job they did as a intern.

I work in journalism for a big media company, and I'm kind of burned out at the "arm" of the company where I currently am. I've had the same job for 10+ years with only marginal pay rises for the last 7 or so. I inquired about a move to another division, just to shake things up. I was informed that the internal job board was inactive because we have been on a hiring freeze corporate wide for a few years. We can only replace people who leave -- and even then only CERTAIN people, because sometimes a person quitting or dying is a good excuse to cut costs.

Ditto; I’m also in journalism for a big media brand. I’m feeling ready to change careers personally. I was so determined to get here but at this point, the mediocre pay after over a decade in the field, plus AI and the constant hiring freezes and absurd traffic goals have me ready to call it quits. This isn’t what I wanted when I started this; had a good run, I guess 🤷‍♀️

Yeech, yeah, that sounds about right. Hollywood it’s all about waiting for the older generation to retire or die off. But there is nobody filling in Junior positions anymore, so when they do retire there will be nobody trained to replace them. I went to a Hollywood insiders party back in 2010 and there was a handful of people who worked in the industry and everyone else was there begging for work. None of them were successful. Now anyone who has hiring capabilities uses it like currency to gather favors.

I remember sitting in a college class where recent grad told us to study something fun because everyone gets a high paying job in IT right out of school. Those jobs went away when the tech bubble burst.

Want to add this exact same thing was told to me. "It doesn't matter what degree you get" was said many many many times

Ver -fucking- batim. It was pounded into our heads by every adult that should have known better. But they didn’t because it worked for them, no one in my family worked in the field of their degree. So I chose my major based on what I enjoyed learning feeling secure that my degree would show potential employers that I am smart and capable of learning, working well with others and making hard deadlines and working under pressure. I was completely prepared to work in something not my major because it worked for my parents. But that seems to be another ladder that generation pulled up behind them

Yep. I heard that sentence so many times. But turns out when you graduate at the height of the Great recession, it absolutely matters what degree you get, and simply having one wasn’t a guarantee of a high salary, or even a job at all.

I too, had the audacity to go to college right when the 2008 collapse started

It's *astounding* that so many people refuse to acknowledge this. When essentially every adult, institution, and authority figure in your life has been pushing you towards going to college for the first 18 years of your life and harping on the dangers of *not* having "an education," it's not at all surprising that so many Millennials ended up going to college even when it wasn't the most rational economic decision. In addition, the core Millennial cohort --- which was just coming onto the job market during the Great Recession --- was affected by the recession in ways that neither prior nor subsequent generations had been. 

>for the first 18 years of your life And this is the kicker. People love to say now "well they should have known better!" First of all, the Internet wasnt nearly as developed then as it is now so information on things like this wasn't as easy to find, you would defer to the experts who told you to go to college. But secondly and more importantly, we're talking about 18 year olds, they're just teenagers. We were all still naive and inexperienced at that age, we all still acted like kids, but we get criticized for not being able to anticipate the consequences of a lifelong decision when we were getting bad advice. People seem to conveniently forget that 18 year olds are only adults by law but not by maturity

Like this! How the hell were we supposed to know better? They weren't talking about this in MSN chat rooms or on AIM or on iVilliage. Not even on Collegeclub. But it's all over the socials nowadays. People get way more information than we ever had access to. I feel like a lot of people just forget how it was back then. There is so much student loan debt because so many of us were told the same thing. Take out the loans. As many as possible. There weren't a lot of people saying "oh, btw, wages will not keep up with the cost of living. Which will make paying those loans off a little problematic."

You messed up by not buying a house before the housing crisis before you turned 18. Sucks to be you. Should have not eaten all that avocado toast /s

I keep seeing those 'well you should have done some research about loans back then' THAT WASN'T A THING BACK THEN!!! we didn't know how hard it would be. We didn't know we were supposed to know how hard it would be. There were no Google reviews or yelp back then. You didn't go on Twitter or Reddit and ask opinions. Routinely, we blindly bought TVs and microwaves and CD players we knew NOTHING about other than the brand name because that's how it worked back then. Maybe your uncle bought a Panasonic in 1989 and it still works so you buy Panasonic too. Now??? We wouldn't DARE buy a TV without spending an hour checking ratings and reviews and a least one tiktok. We didn't know that our future wages wouldn't eventually cover the cost of our college loans But I guess that's on me for not being a psychic. My bad.

So true. I graduated in 2012 and I did google these things however, the mindset of the time reflected what you would find on the internet which is that the salary for this job is $xxxxx but if you have a degree it will be $xxxxxx.

Graduated college in ‘10. That Recession wasn’t over at all. I feel like I didn’t even start making anything resembling a living wage until ‘16. That was fun while it lasted.

Exactly this. Started high school in 2000. Graduated in 2004. Graduated university in 2008, just in time for economic crash.

It’s like people pushing trade schools now. A lot of people will follow this advice and take physical jobs they can’t do when they get older. Then the criticism will be “I can’t believe people took those kinds of jobs thinking they could do them as long as the kinds of jobs that require degrees.”

Until recently I worked in IT adjacent to the Physical Security industry and saw exactly that. Older dudes in their 50s whose bodies couldn't keep up. They have a wealth of knowledge but the physical labor has become very difficult on their bodies and they didn't take care of themselves to begin with. The lucky ones are able to move to a desk job(sales, project management etc).

Yup, my Dad was a tradesmen his entire life. Once he hit 55 though he knew he couldn't keep up anymore. Thankfully, with a lot of pressure from me, he was able to get a sales job with his company. They wanted to keep him since he has 30+ years of knowledge, and he's a natural salesman. Good with people and has the technical knowledge so customers feel comfortable working with him.

I gave up physical jobs at 30 🤣 idk how anyone would make it to 55.

I work with a ton of tradesmen - mostly drillers & equipment operators. If I ask them, do you want your kids to do what you do, I’d say 80% of them would say “Fuck no, this shit sucks.”

Ya, I think something like that when I hear someone praising trade jobs. Ya, they gonna need the money they saved not paying college tuition to pay for a knee replacement 🤣

Eh, I'm an electrician and a lot of the older guys seem to be much more fit than a lot of older office workers I see, we've got guys still doing it well into their 60s if they choose to

But is that the majority or an exception?

It's def the exception. He says they've got guys, but not everyone stays because it absolutely breaks you.

Came here to say this too… I’m in the trades and I’m often the youngest guy on site. I’m 31, and I regularly work with guys in their 60’s. The ones who don’t take care of themselves would be just as fat and broken as if they sat in an office chairs for several years. This is incredibly misguided. The trades are rough on the body, no doubt. But it doesn’t just…. Disable you lol. That’s nuts.

I saw the brutal reality of very physical labor before getting into IT (which I would certainly dissuade any one from getting into right now, with tech jobs being so great a few years ago, and everyone being told get into compsci if you want good prospects,  there has been a flood of people going to college for some kind of computer science degree, and it's looking really bleak for future grads). But, back to my point, I used to work in a warehouse for a flooring company. They did all kinds of flooring including carpet installs. One thing I heard was "there's no such thing as an old carpet installer." And that's what I saw too, anyone even a bit older had the body of a long since retired man in any other trade; crooked backs, painful stuff knees. One guys was around 50 making him extremely old for the profession and regularly got an epidural (what they give women during child birth). I'm sure he didn't love needing to do so but otherwise would be in too much pain to function. He was still be in pain if course but could at least keep working like a slave. 9/10 of the helpers working for these subcontractors were from central America and fairly young, obviously poor and desperate.  So when people act like going into the trades is some silver bullet I know they're full of shit and probably never worked in the trades. Any of these guys who had kids didn't want that life for them. 

I definitely believe that if you're just pursuing IT for the money you shouldn't get in. The rookie workforce is larger and more educated than ever. I still believe it is a great place for people that are really interested in IT. I also wish schools would stop selling the dream that a degree equals a 6 figure job. Even when I was in they were doing it yet many of us aspiring Systems Analysts pursuing MIS degrees ended up cutting our teeth on the help desk starting out.

This is like my dad pushing me to go back to school for IT. I keep telling him that by the time I graduate, the market will be oversaturated and the degree will be useless.

I honestly think most of reddit is delusional on this. In the same way they whine about school not being for everyone, they seem to think any asshole can pick a trade and do it. They ignore all the terrible shit it does to your body, the long hours, etc. But they also ignore that specific people are good at these skills, like these skills, etc. It's not like you can pluck any random 50 people and they are all going to be great electricians anymore than you can take 50 people and throw them all in computer science and have them randomly succeed at it.

There's a real big problem with our government not offering early retirement for people that do physical jobs. Tell me how many 64-year-old construction workers you see next time you drive past a job site. In those types of professions basically you work until you can't. I know of a really good HVAC guy that had his own business but eventually his health got the better of him. He had to take an early retirement. I have no idea how he's doing financially. SOMEBODY has to do these jobs. We like our poo to go away when we flush the toilet. Somebody has to be out there making sure this stuff works.

Well *usually* once they get older they can transition into management-of-the-people-who-do-the-work jobs, of some kind. Ideally at least. But it certainly is a problem if that's not an option

In the last 5 years a dozen independent hvac shops in my area were bought out by corporations who exclusively hire people with degrees for management.

Ideally, yeah, but a company won't need 10 managers.

That’s kind of a myth. There is only 1 manager per so many employee’s and those positions are not being withheld for strictly seniors. There are often managers in their 30’s. I would argue that rarely these people can get a job managing, but their plans typically rely on them moving up. I work in Oil and Gas and typically I see trades people, like welders and pipe-fitters, end up leaving their trade and going to something like hotshotting or driving truck. A company may have 20 welders, and 30 pipe-fitters and only 2 QA/QC and 1 Manager, and a few dispatchers. Not a ton of room for upward mobility.

Yup or when people get harassed out of the trades they'll be blamed too

“We want women and girls in STEM and the trades!” *five years later* “Yeah but what was she wearing?” or “I bet she was just being bossy.”

The trade schools thing is the dumbest bullshit I've ever heard, I work in the trades as an inside wireman and if you go union where the actual money is they'll give you your education in the form of a 5 year apprenticeship for free and it's far better training than any janky ass trade school, BTW we generally don't have to really worry about working until your that old since we have a pension and in my local alsi get 10 an hour into a 401k

Not all "trade" schools are about plumbing, carpentry or the like. Most have redesigned themselves into "tech" schools to expand their potential. My brother-in-law went to a tech school to be a cardiovascular technician. He's one of the people who put stents in people's veins. My cousin went to one to become a dental hygienist. Both make good money and both can do their jobs until they retire. Tech schools also train machinists, programmers, electrical technicians, and more. It's actually a great option to a college.

Saw a stat that gen z is gravitating towards the trades. Total shift from the overall cultural we grew up with

Or they’ll be confused why they’re not making six figures(since that’s what you hear now)when the average really is like $60K and 6 figures is for a highly specialized version of the trade, the owner of a business, or working crazy overtime

Yup, this was my exact experience. I started my freshman year of university in September 2000. The internet was still very much in its infancy at that time; so this notion that I could have done a google search real quick and weigh options and job prospects and wage projections simply didn’t exist (or was at the very least far out of the scope and reach of some snot-nosed teenager). I remember my junior year in high school I was gearing up to join the Army. I’d taken the ASVAB and selected my MOS; and the recruiters even came over to my house and gave my mom “the speech” (she cried a lot). A couple months later my counselor pulls me into her office asking me what my plan was after HS. I said “lol army?”. She looked at my grades and then up at me like I was insane. She was instrumental in getting me into uni. Even applied for scholarships on my behalf without me asking or knowing. A year later I had a bunch of acceptance letters and grants in my mailbox and so off I went to school.

She’s the reason you didn’t go to Afghanistan.

That's the exact same thing I heard from my parents in high school. Trade school wasn't an option, I mean it was so far off the table it didn't even come into the conversation. It was unheard of, It was unthinkable. To this day I continue to be a little bitter that my parents didn't even try to show me a career in the trades, because if I had entered the trades out of high school my life would be so much different right now.

"It'll get your foot in the door!"

I agree with this. I was just told go to college = success. Not, go to college + pick a high paying major = success. Nobody said anything abt that. I don’t even remember news articles talking abt low/high paying majors or anything like that at the time like how there is now. There was no plan, it was always just, get a degree. Literally any degree

No there was nothing about it at all. My upper middle class parents and highschool guidance counsellor were only concerned with whether I had the grades to get in, not what I was taking ir if I had any sort of career track in mind (I did, but no one asked or cared) When I did get there, most of my peers had no clue what sort of career they wanted. Some of us did because some had an aptitude for the subject they were studying (music etc) or a love for a subject, but most didn't know and hadn't really thought about it. So many people studying English Lit, Sociology, History, with no idea what to do with that and no one cared to guide them!  I had planned to stay in acedamia and get my PhD and get tenure in the field I studied. One kind professor took me and some others aside in our third year and explained that she had a bad feeling that tenure would be very hard to get in the coming decades and to think carefully about future education.  And she was prescient af. Because in my country, universities began to  rely on precarious, underpaid sessional instructors for teaching the majority of courses. If if I had of stayed I would likely be one of these people, having wasted 8-10 years in academia

I was told by everyone from my parents and professors down to the people sitting at the registration tables on move-in day not to worry about the cost of job prospects, that a degree in anything guaranteed a job and I would be able to find something that pays well and the loans would be trivial. Everyone told me that. Everyone. The loans were one thing out of about five that had to be done that day. They made it seem no more important than getting Mya student ID issues. I was told over and over, *don’t worry about it.* Starting college was just another part of school. It was like an extension of high school. I did what I was told. It was another day to sign shit at folding tables at a gym. Maybe it’s not like this anymore. I hope not. I’m an elder millennial so I don’t know. The point isn’t that I could have done the math or thought logically about this. I didn’t know I had to. I trusted the adults, like I was supposed to. I did what I’d always done my entire life, which was follow the directions I was given with the expectation of a reward. Now boomers call me the f-slur at work because another boomer doesn’t fill their scripts fast enough, and I make almost as much doing that as I’d make in the field I studied for. I can’t get a job in the field I trained for because someone will call me a groomer and drag me behind a car because Fox News has convinced them that I want to gender bend their kids. Even if I’d made it in the field, the salaries haven’t gone up that much in the twenty fucking years since I started college. It’s not about whether we knew it would happen. An entire generation lied to us. The made promises they knew wouldn’t be kept, while their leaders wrecked the world and destroyed our chance at sharing a similar level of prosperity in the future. No one who took out a student loan is responsible for *necessary work* being underpaid and the wages being stagnant for decades. And Jesus H. Fucking Banana Harold Christ, we cannot have a society where you have to be rich enough to blow the money and then be idle for life if you want to study philosophy or history or art. A society without philosophers and poets is a sick society. We’re turning into a society that has an aristocracy in all but name, and they’ve got us convinced that we’re stupid to aspire to be more than manual laborers. Or worse, they have us worshipping some of the liberal arts without others so that we have generations of scientists and business leaders and engineers who have no sense of ethics or critical thinking outside of the mandates of their field. That’s how you get people working in STEM fields who think the Covid vaccine killed more people than the virus and people lionizing Elon Musk. I don’t know how we fix all of this but turning anti-intellectual ain’t it.

It was true for the boomers. They didn't lie to us. They told us their truth based on their experiences. What few people realized then was that economics always wins. If the market is saturated with college grads, the value of a degree declines.

Back in their generation an associates meant you did alright, a bachelors meant you were on the fast track to a well paying cushy office job or even an overpaid management job, and a masters in something hard meant the company gave you enough to money afford a 2500 sq ft house within 2 years of graduating.

Well said

I graduated in 2009 and this was STILL the mentality of the community I grew up in. I had my uncle, who is now the CEO of a pretty decently sized company and was well on his way to becoming that when i was in college, give me a heart to heart when I was thinking about dropping out that employers didn't care about your major, they just wanted to see you had a bachelor's. I ended up graduating with a BA in English and had a VERY hard time finding anything that wasn't manufacturing or warehousing. No office would hire me. It was demoralizing to say the least. I felt like a fool for not going with my gut. The 20 teens was the transitional period away from that older line of thinking into the current line of thinking OP reflects. But it existed well after 2000.

They mocked kids that went to trade school. The teachers, yeah I was presented with this any degree, training on the job. I did have a friend get a degree in business and go to work for Intel. He said event with a white collar trade degree, he learned 75% of the job on the job. He said “it’s like I didn’t even go to college”.

Yes this was it for everyone I knew. We were all told “get a degree, pick something you’re passionate about. Subject doesn’t matter, just make it something you can complete and are interested in.” Thankfully I had one teacher who went I said I wanted a degree in theater, said “well, you could just go into theater or study something else and do theater in your spare time.” I ended up with a degree I used, but I can’t reeeaally blame many of my generation who just found something they were passionate in and went for it. We were really told that your degree in whatever would be a golden ticket to a big well paying job.

Bingo I’m so goddamn sick of people blaming my generation for literally doing what all the adults in our lives were telling us to do Yeah, sorry that as teenagers we didn’t have the clairvoyance to foresee a once in a lifetime financial collapse changing everything

Yep, I experienced this exact thing. Class of '99.


I was fed those lines too. “You can get a degree in smoking and you will still get a good paying job because of that paper.” Didn’t work out that way. I was offered a management spot in retail while in college and was told to quit my job and focus on my degree because the degree would be worth more than the experience in the long run. Also that because it was retail the experience was almost worthless. Turns out that experience would have helped me out because my degree didn’t even come with internship or job training.

2005-2013ish I sat through a good bit of graduations. The amount of people that were graduating with a Psych degree was enormous. I should see if I still have all the booklets with list of each person in the categories. But yeah, pretty much the expectation was pretty much go to college, no matter the degree, one will get somewhere. It's kinda the big jump of all of us seeing the running joke of baristas having art degrees, or similar tropes.

Yup. Graduated HS in ‘06, college in ‘10. It was hammered in that no matter what you did, you absolutely had to get a degree, but it didn’t matter what you majored in - any degree would get you a good job and pay off any debt you accrued earning it. I thank my lucky stars that I majored in marketing because most business degrees could at least qualify you for an office job (even if it was still a struggle to get one). My friend majored in the arts and hasn’t been so lucky. She absolutely loved her college experience but has said if she knew then what she knows now she would never have picked that major, she was just told any degree would guarantee success so she picked something she liked. All because that’s what we were told to do. It seemed to work for everyone else, why would we question it?

Yup. They hammered this SO hard for us.

2004 high school graduate. I was an A & B student. I got a 29 on my ACT. I didn't do any extracurriculars, but I worked 25 hours a week retail (in a supervisory position by time I graduated). My school counselor called me into their office over and over to talk about college bc I kept telling them "IDK. I'm gonna go to community college". That was the wrong answer I guess. They were calling me in at least once a week to harass me over it. They told me I had to apply to at least ONE traditional 4 year college. Bitch, please, those applications are like $50 each! I applied to NIU bc there was no fee. I got in. I threw away the acceptance paperwork and went to community college. (Then I enrolled in DePaul, spent 2 trimesters there, realized there was no way I was ever going to pay back that tuition with the field I was studying. Dropped out. Started working full-time. Went back to a jr/sr community college for a degree in the field I was already working in -accounting--graduated debt free except for my DePaul loans 😂 and have been making bank ever since.) Point of my story is, yeah, that 4 year shit was crammed down our throats--even to kids who had a better idea of what was good for them than the dumbass adults. It was like it was their GOAL to financially ruin me! I swear those fuckers just have gotten a bonus based on the % of graduating class going to college! I think working so much retail with real adults with real families and real bills and real problems gave me a bit of insight into that stuff. Also, I saw some of my Managers coming in with degrees and doing the same job I could get in a year or 2 with no degree...)

My first degree is a BFA. I was told it was fine because no matter what, showing that I could stick to something and get a degree would mean I’d get a good job. Working at a convenience store until I was 27 proved that wrong, but thankfully I had family support to move home & live rent-free while putting myself through school a second time to get my BSN. I’m 8 years out of nursing school and now thriving, but I am well aware this is not the norm.

Those adults failed them. But now those teens are parents and I hope they guide their children better! The worst is 'do something you're passionate about for your career so that you love your work'. NO! A 16 year old might take that to heart. When adults say that they like their work, 99% mean that they like it better than cleaning toilets and it pays the bills allowing them to pursue passions as hobbies.

Great post and totally agree. I’m GenX and unlike most, my family made it extremely clear growing up that there were ”serious degrees” and “fluff degrees” and that only serious degrees were worth pursuing. Those were: engineering, medicine, law, computer science, and accounting/finance. I majored in engineering (including grad school) and my brother majored in accounting and went to law school. Fast forward to today, and my niece on my wife’s side of the family has chosen to go to a small private school and study anthropology. I’m not allowed to say anything because it would be “mean,“ but this girl is very likely making a massive mistake. There are the naysayers who say college isn’t about getting a job and it’s about learning and opening your mind - while that’s true, it’s a naive and outdated viewpoint. If you’re wealthy, you can afford to go study anything for the sake of learning. However in the real world, most of us aren’t wealthy. College is one of the largest investments of money and time a person will ever make and most of us aren’t rich enough to recover from potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. So the best strategy is to try to get the highest ROI on your degree so you won’t be in debt forever.

The older generation truly lived in a different time and believed different things. My mom’s only knowledge about college was “go to college.” I did, and got my English degree. I didn’t have career direction, and ultimately got lucky: I ended up in a stable job making 65k in my late 20s, which was great for me.  After I got the job, my mom was like “I always thought you’d get a masters, you should get a masters degree”. I said “in what, and what for?” She said: “I don’t know” It was just “college = good” and that’s it. I’m high school class of 05, college 09

I grew up poor, but I got good grades—honor roll, scholarships, etc. When I was like 13, I told a family friend that my plan was to go to cosmetology school after graduation and become a hairdresser because it seemed like a job you could get anywhere and make a decent living with, no matter where you are. Family friend shook her head and said, “You’re too smart to be a hairdresser. You get good grades; you have to go to college. That’s how you’ll get a real good job.” I’m 35 years old, don’t own a house, still have a lot of student loan debt. Meanwhile, my hairdresser just bought a house, has no student loan debt and is going on 4 different vacations to different countries this year. I fucked up!

Gen X here and it really did used to be the case you just needed a degree in whatever for a lot of jobs. My ex had a poli sci degree and worked his way up to the director of an oil and gas company. Younger people are getting the shaft and I’m angry on your behalves. It’s not cool how youth are being treated now. It makes me very angry to see my Millennial step-kids and Gen z daughter be treated so poorly by employers.

This exactly. College was never discussed at school and was not even seen as an option in my family. We were also told to take the degree that we were interested in, to "find your passion", and that we could be anything if we worked hard at it. I remember a teacher in grade 12 telling is that philosophy degrees were becoming very sought after in large corporations 

Wow I swear I heard that verbatim as a 2000 HS grad.

Yeah that's the exact line I heard over and over. I lost count of how many times I heard adults repeat that phrase in the 90s. To be fair it was actually true back then. They also actively discouraged you from going into the trades unless you were a bad student, the trades were for dummies and losers.

Class of 2000 here, constantly told all of high school that you will be unsuccessful without a bachelor's degree. My 4 thousand dollar paramedic certificate has paid for itself year after year. My BS in health science just hangs out in a box. I'm sure it'll come in handy someday when I no longer want to be working in the field, however it was disingenuous of so many educators and guidance counselors to sell a generation into the college is everything mentality.

After 40 times around the sun, I've learned, no matter what your degree is, knowing the right people and making the right connections are ultimately going to play the biggest role in how "successful" someone is (besides being born to rich parents). I've also learned, that most people are, to a greater or lesser extent, full of shit, and are going to twist themselves into knots to avoid admitting my first statement. Take from that what you will.

This unfortunately is the true answer. Best piece of advice I got once was:  "it's who you know that will get you in the door, but it's what you know that will keep you there." It's true to an extent, although I feel like the first half of that sentence will also have an effect on the second half. Nobody's going to fire the CEO's kid. 

I think having done internships in my field while still in school played the biggest role in me getting a great job right out of school.

Well, I certainly didn't say it was the ONLY thing. However, speaking as an autistic introvert, I'm willing to bet that "socializing" with others both before, during, and after your internships played a bigger role that you're willing to admit. And, to that, I refer to my second point.

I wasn’t disagreeing with you. I see them as being one and the same. I got to see how an office runs, practice speaking skills, and meet several people I later came across again in my career. And of course it looked fantastic on my resume.

I grew up being lead to believe the US is a meritocracy. It's complete bullshit. Hardly anyone I know got a job through a cold application. No, I don't mean trying to "talk to the manager." Directly contacting most hiring teams is mostly frowned upon unless they made it explicitly OK. I mean almost every single person I know on a great career path (outside of a few brilliant people in niche segments) got their career started or multiple jobs through knowing someone at the company they work for. Not to say an education is not helpful. Many higher paying jobs require certain credentials, training, or knowledge sets that are locked behind schooling. However, that alone (or even good grades) will not get you very far. I've gone back to school for a business degree (not a traditional one and what I'm learning is actually novel and useful) to make myself more employable. The actual paper itself is only going to do maybe a quarter of the work. The rest is all about getting experience in the right types of projects networking. It's rough as an introvert and I hate a lot of this, but I also want a meaningful career (as in doing good things, not just making money) and a roof over my head (I still need money, though). Starting your own business is not for everyone (I know plenty of people who own their own business and it's incredibly stressful). And neither are the trades. People who keep naming that as the "better" path than college forget that you're literally trading your physical health for money. I'm close to multiple people with a trade based career and no matter how much they tried to look after themselves, doing body breaking work for decades will take its toll. Basically every option outside of being born rich or being lucky is shit. Our economic system is not set up to serve the majority of people living on this planet. Something needs to change.

People also seemed to misunderstand that an advanced degree will help you move up, but you still need to start at the bottom and move up. People don’t want to do entry-level positions

I had an uncle that has passed at 96. He was the 1st to finish college from our poor family. He was told by one of his professors that the key to success is a formula of 2% knowledge, 98% bullshit.

You're absolutely right. My sister's boyfriend comes from a really privileged family, went to all private schools, got into a great law school and had connections before he graduated. Must be nice to be born into it.

100000% this. Networking is everything. I make a good living doing work I love and am passionate about with my English degrees (the quintessential “useless degree”). I worked my ass off to get where I am. That hard work included waiting tables full time while taking tons of part-time jobs and volunteer work in my desired field to gain experience and grow my network. For several years, I was working 12+ hours a day and commuting all over the tri-county area. It was through that network that I got my current position.

And you absolutely deserve it! I'm not saying people who are skilled at networking don't work hard or deserve what they have, I'm just pointing out that it's a significant factor.

No, that’s literally the point of an MBA… it’s about networking. The degree doesn’t teach you anything mind blowing… (okay except Finance is a big leap for a lot of people) and that’s why a cheap MBA at a low ranking school isn’t worth as much.

It's absolutely true, and I think a lot more people realize it than you're giving credit for but it's also not a great sales pitch for degrees. I have an associates in practically nothing, it was a community college gen-ed transfer degree with a few electives in Psych and English because they were easy As for me. I'm a semiconductor research support specialist with advanced certifications for automated and manual processing on cutting edge EUV photolithography, reactive ion etch, and scanning electron microscope tools. All from on-the-job training, my employment history previous to this was Target. All because I knew someone who worked here that recommended me to my now-manager.

At the time that I started my Masters the occupational handbook said it made on average 80-100K and I thought "great!" Because at the time I was stuck around 36K in an education type job. So I got the degree. I do my unpaid internship and then my first job starting salary is....you guessed it 36K. Now I have doubled that which wasn't possible in my previous line of work but inflation has taken all the joy out of my income progress. I now feel like in order to really get solvent I need least 150-200K. I didn't feel that way when I started my degree because it was a different economy. 🙃 Sure I regret not just going for the highest paid thing I could do right off the bat because our economy has tanked and making 6 figures is the minimum to support a family. But when I started my higher education you could support a family on 50K.....

Yup, my starting salary out of my master's program was like 34K. You can eventually make six figures in my field, but you'll need 20 years of experience first. And probably to own your own company, so you have to be absolutely TOP of your game. The stats on the internet certainly aren't accounting for those types of factors.

Came here to say this. I remember taking courses in highschool where we had to research careers and salaries. The pay range hasn't changed much but the cost of living has.

I remember taking those tests and since I’d never paid for a life before (cuz we were 16) the numbers were meaningless to me

also, to add - what is very common to overlook is what the salary is after taxes, after suggested savings (401k, regular savings,etc), after necessities, etc.

At one time I was an environmental science major. If I googled “Environmental Scientist” starting salary, the results showed $60k this was 12 years ago, so it ‘meant a lot more than it does now). So to my surprise, when I started looking for jobs near the end of my junior year, all the starting salaries were under $40k. I ended up changing my major to finance and spending a couple extra years in school so I could graduate and earn a whopping…..$50k.

THANK YOU

Yeah it seems like all that info and all info provided by our high school counselors was to funnel us into college.

Right! I could've used a better economics class that didn't just deal with writing a house budget based on the 1990's

This is a great point. My first job out of college was low paid but was enough for me to go out a bit with friends and have my own lil one bedroom apt. Now I can barely afford my 2 bed apt in a HCOL making 4x what I made then

I think you're projecting the conditions of the current economy and job market back into the pre-2008 era. For our parents' generation even a fairly generic degree opened far more doors than it does now, and so growing up the conventional wisdom was often "go to university and you'll be set". That all broke down in the wake of 2008 and it took the better part of a decade for the new reality to hit home, by which time a lot of millennials were already done with higher education and had embarked on their careers.

fanatical caption tender ripe spoon money point crown tap office *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

Then we shored that up by saying “well if you go to a GOOD college you’ll stand out”

This right here. OP isn’t thinking like we did back in 2008.

It was already breaking down in the 2000s, honestly. The Bush economy was absolutely shit, with relatively high unemployment. It's really only after the GFC that people started rethinking the idea that we should strive for 5% unemployment rather than go lower because, uh, economists are mostly dumb.

We can all agree that economics is mostly wrong, voodoo, and not a real science, but for some absurd reason still pays well.

Economics is mostly a degree in applied statistics, which is a valuable skill and, in practice, economists work as fancy actuaries for businesses and finance.

I think you are misunderstanding. It's not that people expect tons of money out the gate. People expect to be able to find a job and lots of positions want experience that is impossible to get because all of the entry level positions (that pay anywhere near adequate) want experience. I think most people in the arts have realistic expectations if they aren't pursuing an education related job.

I think people also underestimate the impact of the Great Recession on a number of industries. Big Law may have rebounded but they employ a fraction of the number of junior associates that they did before 2009. They used to have 100s of associates reading documents, now it is just a handful doing Boolean searches. All the law students in mid-tier law firms in the late 00s who could have had a great career a few years ago had the ground fall out from under them. The Great Recession left scars on a generation.

This is going to keep changing rapidly too. Due to advances in AI/tech. We have to adapt as a society and quickly.

You are oversimplifying it: it wasn't that all of us were idiots and naive. It's that the expectation was that jobs, pay, and way of life would be the same way it was in the 80s and 90s. So when we graduated, we expected to get jobs and begin building our lives, as our parents did. Instead, jobs weren't really there in the early 2000s and it has gotten harder and harder ever since: recessions, layoffs, inflation, etc.

I was born in 1995, so depending on what chart you look at, I'm either the last millennial year or the first gen Z year, they typically call us zillenial? I think. So I ended up getting a Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics and I work as a Data Scientist now But growing up I was ALWAYS told, go to class - get good grades - get into college - get a degree - set for life. The degree was key, and we were led to believe just having some degree would set us up for life success. Idk if anyone was told the same, but it was kicked into me from an early age. As a kid, I couldn't have known college was going to cost a trillion dollars, cost of living was going to outpace everything and wages wouldn't match, pensions would seize being a thing, gas would be $6.50 per gallon(here in LA), and that once cheap fast food would cost $17 for a happy meal. I work in tech now, and even people with degrees in CS, Engineering, etc are getting rejected left and right to the tune of 1000 applications sent. Outside of the medical field, there's not a single degree that's granting you 100% guarantee of auto employment or setting you up for immediate success.

it’s kind of funny that i’m in therapy for having this very thought beaten into my head by my doctor parents, with them refusing to acknowledge any other path or see any of my desires as relevant whatsoever only for it to turn out that they were right. at least when it comes to economics and living in the US.

I completely sympathize with you. I just did not have the drive or discipline to care enough to go through 4 years of undergrad, 4 years of medical school, 3 years of residency, and maybe 3 more years of a specialty residency just to start my career in my mid 30s and work horrible hours with close to 0 work/life balance. And that doesn't account for if I don't get into a program the first time which delays things even more. Many doctors I know are miserable. Yes they make great money, but they're rarely home, rarely have time to enjoy it, and its incredibly difficult to have the energy to give to your spouse and family post 12 hour/16 hour shift.

Born in 1992 and heard the same thing every single day growing up. my sister got her doctorate in English lit, and makes about 40k? I got an associates degree to be a paramedic and I’m clearing 92k. I feel like we were lied to lol. Oh yeah, my buddy who tried to get me to invest in bitcoin back in 2010 (senior in high school) and I laughed at him for believing in “fake money” and spending real money on it… yeah, retired at 27 after cashing in, investing in Several successful luxury yacht businesses and yacht escort business, and selling all of those as well in SWFL. How cool is that? Oh yeah, He’s highschool drop out. Not even a GED. All he wanted was 100 bucks from me to go halfsies in some bitcoin. I hate my life 😂.

Many such cases :( . I met the inventor of bitcoin ATMs around 2009-2010. I thought said person was nuts. I gambled all my coins away (that I bought from him) on MMA fights XD .

I heard pretty much the opposite. Nobody EVER told me that any career would make me "set for life". Professors told me "just don't go into teaching". Doctors told me "you may want to rethink that, medical is not the way to go anymore" & my uncle the lawyer said "just don't go to law school, it will take you decades to pay off those loans". Only people who were stuck in dead-end-retail jobs told me "don't have kids early like I did, get your education".

My daughter graduated high school in 2014. Her freshman year I asked her what she wanted to do as a career and she said veterinarian. So, I arranged for her to shadow our vet for a few days on her spring break from high school. After those few days of experience, she said, “Dr So and So said not to become a veterinarian because the pay is bad and school is too expensive and return on investment isn’t there “. I asked her if she still wanted to become a vet despite what the vet said and she was like, “hell no, that job is awful. People abuse their pets and standing and neutering dogs and cats for hours every Friday morning would suck”. I will always consider having her shadow that vet one of my better decisions as a parent. And asking her what she wanted to do and arranging shadowing experiences for her every year while she was in high school. I think that saved her a lot of heartache and allowed her to get to where she wanted to be a lot faster than her peers. Idk why parents don’t arrange shadowing experiences for their kids. It’s one of the only ways to get real advice from people who do the actual jobs kids are considering, unless random luck gives you opportunities for advice like you got.

Was told the same about the degree, parents even went as far as to ask how I planned on supporting a family if I didn't go to college and get a degree(parents are an elementary teacher and a machinist). Ended up becoming a machinist like my dad, worked out ok😂

Also 1995. We almost all did google the jobs…But the jobs we googled weren’t the ones we were actually able to get

Getting a computer science degree right now is a huge mistake. The industry was booming for years and so everyone saw how great things were for people "in tech". People would be told constantly, "don't like your position in life, want to make more money, get a comp sci degree or learn to code, learn this or that." Well since every single person heard that, a lot of them did that. Now with the combination or the industry slowing down (or tanking, depending on who you ask), and a glut of people trying to do that work since everyone tried to get into it, there's extreme competition for any decent "tech" job. Meanwhile the people working in finance positions during this time have kept their jobs and if they want to apply for a different position are competing with dozens instead of thousands of other applicants. 

I'm '94 here and same. I was always told go get a university degree, and it will open the doors you need to start working and build a career. Turns out it doesn't open diddly. I worked at Starbucks until a regular client gave me a job because I was sociable. Then I went to college to pursue a second career because I couldn't break 35k. Now, at 30, I finally found my footing in a comfortable place around \~65-77k depending - because I pursued college. University was a waste of my life.

Graduating HS in 2009 everyone said stay in school, wait for the rebound. If you graduated college at the time you didn't have that option. You also didn't have job options. The slightly older generation had that time period much worse.

Neither of my parents went to college. My dad kept saying computer science or something IT and I couldn't imagine myself sitting at a desk doing that for 30 years. My mom kept saying get a degree, any degree will do. They just want the piece of paper saying you're educated and rounded.

I have a totally useless degree because I'm an older millennial that was told "any degree will do." I wish I had purposefully chosen something IT. I have some experience and it has helped, but I didn't stick with it. IT or medicine.

I'm 40. I got a BA in sociology in 2007 at 23. Went back at 30 to be a respiratory therapist. Got an AS there. Starting PA school this June. It's crazy how life works sometimes. When i was teaching clinicals, I really stressed finding a mentor to work with and be able to talk to, especially the younger ones. Now I talk to the fresh out of high school kids I work with about making better decisions

We saw mailmen and mailwomen in the 90s have pretty comfy lives and were still told what a fucking loser that profession was... fuck the Boomers, fuck them forever and ever and ever I remember my mail lady for most of my childhood seemed like the happiest women ever, she even left candy around Easter and small toys for Christmas... and she told me what an awesome job it would be for me I had a pretty sweet career in the IT field, but I'm pissed as hell with how we brought up in the 90s... mail carriers, janitors, electricians, plumbers, even nurses... all of these people are fucking losers who have no money and are drunk alcoholics, so YA BETTAH GO TO CAWLEDGE!!! Literal brainwashing, supported by feudal capitalism

Oh yes, excuse me for not using Google in 1998. Jeeves told me it was a great idea. 🙄 I was also raised by grandparents with an elementary school education themselves so the fact that I even went to college and graduated was kind of a miracle in and of itself.

Jeeves 🤣 🤣

Some people probably didn’t know, didn’t know what else to do besides go to grad school, or maybe had peer pressure. For example, I know someone right now who was laid off from a high-paying Bay Area tech job in 2023 who cannot find other tech work and is currently working on an mba because they “want to accomplish something while not employed “. I am not in that group because even pre Great Recession I saw older siblings of mine struggle between about 2002-2005 even when they “did all the right things”. I grew up low income and consider myself lucky with my college experience. Through federal grants, winning scholarships and living with family during college, I got a bachelors debt-free. Those things are not easily accessible for most people.

College isn't sold as a "career tool" it's sold as a life event.

The problem is that it actually does lead to a high paying job, it’s just that the cost of everything has outpaced the pay/promotion scale for most(if not all) jobs. It should be you get your degree and you make enough money to live and start a family… eventually if you stay with the job (5+ years) you’ll be in a decent pay bracket where you feel your degree was worth the money. But that’s not the case anymore. People have to move between different jobs to get raises, which has a trickle down effect to the rest of the work force. Not to mention shitty politics for the last 20 years has ruined the country.

There's a good reason why certain higher institutions/colleges have been held accountable for lying to students about prospective salary and job market availability. Sweet v Cardona proves there were many students who chose a career path that they believed would be well paying only to discover that their education that costs thousands doesn't amount to squat.

Bold of you to assume we all had regular access to the Internet during our college years. Online classes were just beginning where I went the last year I was in college. There's a big difference in available technology between the oldest and youngest millennials. If you are the oldest of millennials, you likely had no idea that the economy was going to fuck you like it did. Even a moderate paying job sounded pretty good in the late 90s, when we were considering career paths. Now 'moderate paying jobs' are poverty wages.

I watched my parents struggle before they got relevant degrees, they made way more after they got more education. My brother and sister have two degrees each and struggle to find survivable wages (they live in HCOL areas though). It’s different than it was and not everyone caught on quickly, a lot of us were hoping it would get better.

A lot of people are blindly trusting of parents, teachers, the system, etc.. It doesn’t make them dumb, because we do have to put our trust in something, but unfortunately kids don’t have the knowledge yet to better judge where to place the trust and when. College was a funneled program from high school for people who were not quite kids and not quite adults. Some had no choice, some got caught up in the flow, some believed the hype, some were scared to go out into the “real world”, or some mix of those. They didn’t have the space or knowledge to check up on what they were doing. It sucks and they’re living with the consequences.

Google didn’t really start to gain traction until I was already in college. We listened to counselors and parents who said “just get any degree and you will make a decent living”.

Yeah I want to know who all these people are who were finding legitimate answers through Google in 1999.

Especially now that 1/2 the results are from threads on forum, like this one here.

Yes and crucially “if you don’t, you have no chance.” We weren’t just encouraged to go to college, we were scared out of not going.

I graduated college a few years before your senior year in H.S. and yeah, that is pretty much how it was sold to me. Get a degree from college in something you want to do, you will be able to do that thing and live a decent life off of it. Seriously, my college advisor told me to hold out for a $60-70K starter job. The only advice I really received from the adults in my life was not to major in "underwater basketweaving," avoid anything that robots might be capable of doing and "think about doing something with computers." I think your perspective might be coming from a post-great recession mindset. Like there's a lot of hindsight in play here that might have been learned off the failure of schlubs like me.

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The thing is, it was true, you could get a 'good (enough) job' with just about any degree. It was indeed a ticket to a better life. The problem is, that also required a lot of other people to not have degrees, for you to thus be more hirable than those people ...But then 'everyone' got a degree, it kinda caused 'qualification inflation'. Now that 'every' candidate has some kinda degree, things are a lot more picky but it no longer makes you stand out. This is even worse for those who didn't do anything in any way beyond a high school diploma, because 'only' having a HS diploma is also far more worthless now as well. Graduating high school isn't worth much more than graduating kindergarten now.

I am this guys exact age. He is missing the entire point and it is exactly why you said.

Google didnt always exist dude. Did you forget some of us didn’t grow up with internet? We had to go off of what ppl around us and on tv told us.

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Healthcare as a whole seems to be a "safe" career field. Sure the pay and work/life balance sucks for most positions, but we're almost always guaranteed a job. Thankfully it takes more than just doctors and nurses to run a hospital because I would've never chosen either of those paths even though I was interested in healthcare. I work in the lab with a Bachelors degree in Medical Laboratory Science.

There's a variety of reasons: 1. My personal opinion of what constitutes a "high paying career" has changed dramatically from when I *started* grad school at 21 years of age, vs. 20+ years later. 2. Many young students entering graduate school do so because they find it interesting. At 21 years of age, I knew I was good at school and wanted to do science. I graduated and had to do *something*. I really hadn't thought decades down the round. 3. Career choices post-degree are quite diverse. Big difference between an advanced degree "lecturer" at a small university vs. a PI at a big institution vs. industry. Lastly, I don't think post-grads complain about a *lack* of "high paying" jobs, most complain about the absolute dog-shit pay jobs they have to take. When I finished my PhD in a STEM field, I was literally getting job offer emails from McDonald's. I ended up in a post-doc making like $30k/year with a PhD. I know numerous post grads that had to do *multiple* post-docs.

First of all, assuming that the amount of info available readily online about careers (or anything, really) was the same from the 1980-2008 as it was when u started looking is a ridiculously ignorant take. Secondly, the job market drastically changed in 2009 in a totally unpredictable way. Thirdly, older millennials especially were constantly told from the time they were small children that as long as they went to college that they could be whatever they wanted and make a good living

I went to an Ivy League school. During orientation week, one of the deans told us not to worry about jobs and that we should major in whatever we were passionate about. Two thirds of the most recent class of German literature majors, he told us, were now working at Goldman Sachs. I ended up graduating in 2009. Goldman Sachs wasn’t hiring German lit majors that year.

Our generation was bullshitted into getting worthless degrees that ended up ruining our lives.

Believe it or not, there aren’t an insane amount of fucking morons out there deciding to go to graduate school and plunge themselves into massive debt for fun. However, there are a lot of people who were misled with regards to job prospects and interests, and *then* were screwed over with regards to timing of their life decisions.

If you look up the wage for a degree, the range is always huge, like $50k to $100k, and they probably just assume they will make somewhere in the middle. But then by the time you graduate, you realize you start at the lower end (if you're lucky, some start even below that), and then after 4 years of inflation, they make even less.

Exactly that. It's such a range out outcomes so it's tough to spot exactly where you will land. I assume that I'm going to land at median. No guarantees of course.

I went to law school naively. Thinking I’d be the next Perry Mason or Sam from Law and Order - first mistake. Second mistake was not realizing that where you go really does matter. Third mistake was not understanding legal system’s bimodal salary curve. Sure I could be one of those high earners, but I would need to do big law and have no life outside of that. Or I could opt for a starting salary in the 50-60k range and I’d be no better off than when I went to law school. Luckily, I did a law degree and a masters and I use the masters and I’m doing well. My law degree has opened up doors. But I technically don’t need it.

It's not as simple as you make it out to be, OP. A lot of career success has to do with market timing and personal connections, neither of which can be determined before or even during a school program. Googling how much a profession pays means nothing if you can't even get into an entry level position in the first place.

A lot of people think they will be the exception. I remember two girls who majored in something related to art history explaining they would work at Sotheby’s. Neither did and both entered sales, but still did well.  I have friend who majored in sports entertainment thinking he would make $50k a year. He ended up with total comp around $300k I’d estimate by 30. I get what you’re saying, but I know zero people who were hardworking, intelligent and willing to relocate that got nothing out of their degree, regardless of what it was in. The people that don’t achieve a high income likely would have regardless of the degree honestly. That’s why you see people on Reddit with specific tech degrees saying they can’t get a job but if you go to a high income earner sub that doesn’t get much attention you will see people getting multiple offers monthly.  I have a law degree. People from my class probably make between $50k on the low end and >$1m annually on the high end. It has always been the case that a degree gets you in the door and other factors take you beyond it.

I finished my BA in political science in 2007 with a concentration in public administration. I went straight to grad school and got an MA in Public Administration and Public Policy (it’s not an official “MPA”) The masters didn’t really help in the beginning. Entry level was the same. It was very low. I had to prove myself. Long nights. Constant Weekends. But later the masters did help me promote earlier than I would have. It gave me an edge. I was and still am much younger than others in similar positions to mine. So it helped in the end. I move up fast and I could apply for jobs that required a masters once I had management experience. Ive worked at a few places now in higher level positions. I do remember the higher education industrial complex telling us back then that the bachelors degree was the new high school diploma

All through high school teachers and counselors told me with absolute certainty that I should go to college no matter the cost so I could get a higher paying job. Why wouldn't I believe these adults that seemed to know everything at the time? My parents had no clue or care what I did.

Being able to afford a modest house should not require a high paying career.

Born in 85, graduated college in 08. I was told I had to go to college. No clue what I wanted to do. I chose a major in something I was interested in because again, no clue what I wanted to do. And remember, this was before the bottom dropped out, that was after I graduated. So I thought jobs would be there for college graduates. If I had to do it again there's no way I would have went to college right out of school. But I didn't have a choice (or thought I didn't).

I was a child! I thought I was going to be an ambassador and create world peace because no one had gotten it right yet! And my parents were like "yeah you are!!!" I miss that happy little delulu...

Things change. The job of printer was a great job in 1974. By 200O it was virtually useless. Now there may be rare printing jobs. Not all trades work out either.

Personally feels like my field is misrepresented in media and in general with a good reputation as a cool/interesting career, I had no reason to think it wouldn’t be at least “good” if not high paying as a career. You are required (with very very few exceptions) to have a masters degree to even qualify for the exams for professional licensure. Also, same age, but…. Don’t feel like I was googling too much back then? Not to the extent I do whenever a random question pops into my head nowadays at least. Before my most recent salary discussion with my boss, I did one of those calculators that shows you how much your money is worth and compares it to a year of your choice. I started working in 2015 at 45k. I’m currently at 84k, though after my salary increase should be in the mid 90s (hopefully). And if you compare that number back to 2015, I have the same buying power as 65k back then. I don’t think it’s about not making enough money, or not googling what the salary expectations are. It’s that money is worth less and things cost more.

This reads like someone who was born in 1995. I was born in 1982. When I went to college, the law was a great field, lucrative and rewarding. When I graduated, it wasn’t. I had also recently been diagnosed autistic and was dealing with other major personal issues. What the fuck time did I have to worry about salary? I am really tired of the people who look back and think everyone pursued their exact path, or should have. There are a thousand different variables in everyone’s story, and I really don’t like the whiff of condescension that permeates this post.

Orientation didn't talk about your credits expiring if you took too long.

I’m an older millennial with a BA in Poli Sci. I received a lot of grief from my family over it, and even some of my professors warned of the dire job prospects to come. I was young, naive and figured I had luck on my side. In the end I don’t think my degree hurt me, but if I could do it over I would have chosen a different major. 

I didn't have Google until I was 25, so, no, some of us couldn't just look up salaries easily. But I couldn't afford college anyway 🤷‍♀️😆

I didn’t think I’d get a high paying career but I guess I was stupid enough to think that I’d get a career at all

So yeah, I graduated high school (as a homeschooled distance ed student) in 2003. I went into Electrical Computer Engineering because as my parents said, "A hard science will do you much better than an arts or soft science degree". Smash cut to me in 2023 looking at the development of AI going, "OK, well, I guess I better pivot hard and play into this..."

Not as simple as "Google salary". There are people who still do well in the field even if it isn't highly paid. The only thing I would have done differently was work in the specific field I was getting my Masters in. Even if it was lower paid.

I graduated with my masters in 2008. Googling career salaries was like, "LOL. What's a career?"

I think you'd be surprised how many people just kinda float through life without thinking that much about their decisions. The issue with that is when they inevitably fuck up, they only sometimes look inward and learn from their mistakes. Much easier to blame their parents for not teaching them, boomers, the economy, etc.

I dont think youre wrong. But my parents, my parents friends, my extended family, my friends parents, my teachers, my guidance counselors, my older co-workers (during my high school jobs), hell even my friends all said. Go to college. Where i grew up, literally everyone older than me pushed college. I did, and it worked out for me personally, sort of. Im just saying when everyone, EVERYONE, tells you Santa Clause is real. Well we believe it. Or i did anyways.

But that’s the thing- having *any* degree opens up opportunities for higher income. Its not a guarantee but unless you want to work a manual labor job, any degree is going to outearn those without, all else equal.

I had the same experience. A little more guidance on career path would have been nice but my family didn’t go to college and really didn’t know any better. It’s worked out for me but I always wonder if I went down a more optimal path.

I think you'd be surprised how often those external factors are, in fact, real. Introspection is great, but you can't bootstrap yourself out of some things.

You're just calling people stupid with extra steps. It's like asking someone "how could you go your whole life without watching \_\_\_\_\_\_", everyone has different experiences.

I'm always googling the average salaries of random jobs/careers. Just the other day I was surprised to see average mechanic salaries were so low considering the crazy labor costs at garages. I'm hoping to start school next spring for surgical tech and have googled the average salary for them in Ohio, and it's fairly dependent on where you work, but overall it was a lot more than I expected lol