Forbes: “People entering the labor market now not only will face a harder time finding jobs, but they also may have difficulty finding the careers they might be hoping for,’’ warns MIT professor James Poterba, president of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Same goes for income. Entering the labor market during a recession means an average of $100,000 in lost lifetime wages, estimates Yale economist Lisa Kahn. (That’s in present discounted dollars, for you finance majors.)
All this is a rude shock to Millennials, also known as Gen Y and, less kindly, Generation Me. They grew up believing they’d be flying high so long as they followed a well-defined path: Notch a high score on the SAT or ACT, go to a good college, earn a respectable GPA and get a decent job. Work a few years, then go to grad school for further seasoning and come out with a job lucrative enough to pay off those hefty loans.
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Rule #2: Don't Hide in graduate school. Fuck.
But at the same time, I have some real issues with the language of this article; though its heart is certainly in the right place. Telling me I should consider borrowing from family instead of Grad Plus is great and all, assuming my family HAS any money to begin with and haven't also been trounced by the economic downturn(s). And actually, the Graduate Plus loans currently have an interest rate of 7.9%, which sucks; but it's better than the ones from five or more years ago, which were sometimes as high as 12% or more (thank you, Student Loans . gov) OR any other interest rate out there these days.
And to assume that a "budding finance banker" will be fine taking out $100K in loans whilst a future journalist would be foolish to do so is admirable advice, but a little misleading. Who in their right mind wants to be go to school NOW to be a finance banker when we can't, as a country, a culture or a PLANET, see the future of finance past new Thursday? Hell, who wants to CONTINUE being a finance banker these days?
All in all, this article tries to help, but with conflicting advice (such as "Do what you love" but "Don't plan on retiring until you're in your 70s") is frustrating and somewhat elitist ("You're probably already taken out student loans," which might as well end with, "So, you're already screwed, aren't you?").
Do what you love, so long as "what you love" doesn't require further education, a decent retirement age or ever expecting yourself to be financially stable.
And PS- Some light internet stalking revealed the author of this article received his master's degree from Yale. So, ultimately, do as he says, not as he does.
It is a little disheartening to hear that the time and money we put into higher education may only leave us overqualified for the jobs we want, and even if we get them, we will still have a mountain of dept to tackle. But the silver lining of the story may be that there are opportunities in the job market.. they just may not be what we expected. This is kind of a reflection of an earlier blog post, about the article that described finding success and happiness by finding the perfect intersection of your genuine interest, skills, and opportunities. Perhaps being part of the millennial generation means taking a new approach to how we find our dream job, and WHY we are searching for that job in the first place.
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