Making The Right Decision
Today’s young adults are feeling the pressure to really choose wisely when picking a major for their future career. I’ve been seeing more and more young adults afraid of picking the right major and fearful that if they pick the wrong one, they will either be miserable or will be stuck in a job without a lot of options for the rest of their life.
When I went to school, a Bachelor’s degree had some clout. This hard earned piece of paper that individuals worked their butts off for, and likely accrued significant student loans for, seemed to demonstrate the grit and tenacity that made them worthy of a decent salary. Most degrees seemed to land people into careers, unless you were someone like me with a psychology degree, or other degrees that require a Master’s Degree in order to get a job.
The Pressure Exists
Today’s society still places so much pressure on young adults to delay their gratification of immediate income in exchange for the broke student -Top Ramen/MacNCheese lifestyle – in hope that their educational sacrifice will eventually provide them the opportunity to live on their own. Yet the cost of today’s living has greatly surpassed the earnings offered at the end of the degree, so many adults are finding themselves unable to support themselves and in significant student loan debt. Many are learning that they don’t have the skills needed to get hired into a decent job and are surprised that many of their friends who skipped college and started learning employable skills had careers that were paying much more.
A Little Bit of Reality
Many parents from my generation value education and therefore encourage their kids to go to college and pick a major that will land them a job right out of college. The top degrees that seem to be marketable today include majors in Engineering, Computer Science, Medical field, Nursing, Education, Human Resources, Marketing, Finance, and Business.
Most of these degrees don’t require higher education initially to land a job right out of college with a competitive edge in today’s market. But if you’re not excited about these areas, you either need to embrace a future career in an abstract field you didn’t study such as sales (which usually doesn’t require a degree anyway), or you are headed back to college for a higher educational degree in order to be seen as valuable in the workforce.
It’s a Tough World
Here’s the sad reality. Our college graduates are expecting to be able to afford to live independently and feel that they have earned the right to a decent salary. But what is a decent salary in today’s inflation world? Here in Idaho, I’ve been studying the job market for college graduates due to the season of life my kids and their partners are in. It’s pitiful to see starting salaries in the range of $35K-45K. I see so many jobs posted requiring a college degree starting hourly at $22/hour. Meanwhile, Amazon and the fast food industry are paying $16+/hour for labor to non-college graduates, and bartenders and restaurant servers are earning a better income with tips.
Let me break this down. Let’s just say a college grad lands a job paying $50K/year. After taxes, they likely are taking home $3K/month. The average apartment in Boise is costing $1800-2000/month. That’s 2/3rds their salary. So that college grad now has approximately $1000 left per month to pay for their car payment, cell phone bill, utilities, and let’s not dismiss astronomical gas and grocery costs. Now if that same college grad has a student loan…forget it! So $50K, which looks like a decent salary, really has this individual in poverty, with really no opportunity to save for that “rainy day expense” when their car needs a repair…hence the need for additional credit debt. Some of these individuals literally are going to the county food bank in order to survive. This is absurd! A college graduate should absolutely be able to afford an apartment and their monthly basic living expenses.
Adulting Isn’t Easy
I think that today’s kids have a right to feel anxious about their future. This adulting sometimes requires making choices that we don’t always love. Yes, life is expensive! Yes, life isn’t fair! Yes, a degree is still valuable in teaching you grit, tenacity, and delayed gratification while being a necessary stepping stone into many careers in the workforce.
If you love a field that pays well… Congratulations! If you don’t love one of these fields, then it’s likely you need to think outside the box, get creative, face fears and swallow some pride and just start somewhere. You might start your own business, or begin working somewhere you never expected and work your way up like previous generations did. Yet regardless of the story, adulting sometimes requires making choices that we didn’t want to make, or didn’t feel we should have to make at this stage of life. Unfortunately in today’s inflation world, that likely means that college grads are still cohabitating with roommates just to survive.