This thread is making me feel really bad for how cheap my school is.
@OP: A degree is proof you can stick to a long-term, high stress project, full of random and annoying twists and turns paved with BS. So yes, it's worth it.
Quote:Original post by Talroth Actually I forgot the big IF in there.
School is worth it, IF you put the time and effort into it to Make it worth it! That is, you need to have done more than what was required to simply pass your classes. Good grades aren't good enough, good grades and several good projects to show you can go above and beyond what they teach in lectures will land you the job.
Hell, crappy grades and great projects are likely to land you a job over great grades and no projects.
Words cannot describe how big and important this IF is.
Right now? No, school isn't worth it if you have to borrow money to pay for it.
The upsides to having a degree are all real: you will earn more, on average, over the course of your career; you will be promoted faster, on average, over the course of your career. The downsides of an educational loan are also real: you will spend years trying to pay back your loan debt, you will start out with debt rather than assets, and will have to wait longer to buy a house and begin to make investments - on average.
If you can get a solid job without going to school, do it. Save yourself the debt, take individual classes to shore up your knowledge on areas where you don't even know what you don't know (artists should take art history and art criticism classes, while programmers should take computer organization, algorithm, data structures and programming language survey classes).
If you can earn a scholarship or you have someone willing to pay for you to go to school for free, then absolutely go - it's totally worth it. Otherwise, pass.
Specifically for you, Insideac, my recommendation would be to take 2 or 3 courses each semester at your local community college while working. Earn an Associate's degree, then transfer your credits to a well-regarded four-year institution where you can work toward your Bachelor's - also part-time if necessary. Find a strategy that will ensure that you graduate with little to no debt, and if you can graduate with a wealth of experience or use your new degree to get a promotion, so much the better.
All I have to say is: thank goodness for publicly-funded education. University fees here are a few thousand dollars, the rest is paid for by the government (ie. the people of Australia).
Quote:Original post by Sc4Freak All I have to say is: thank goodness for publicly-funded education. University fees here are a few thousand dollars, the rest is paid for by the government (ie. the people of Australia).
Public schools are nice (I went to one), but when the government has a budget crunch so do the schools, and some of the programs can suffer. I've witnessed them first-hand in Florida (though we have a special problem with our bright futures scholarship... which makes it impossible to raise tuition too much).
Quote:Original post by Sc4Freak All I have to say is: thank goodness for publicly-funded education. University fees here are a few thousand dollars, the rest is paid for by the government (ie. the people of Australia).
Gotta agree here. My course is paid for by the government until I start earning a certain amount of income, at which point I have to start paying it back. However, $70k for a degree sounds atrocious to me... mine is going to cost me a bit over $20k, I think.
If it weren't for the price of your course, I'd say do it... but that is A LOT of money.
After most of these posts, I was pretty decided to go to school, but the last couple of posts are right :\, that is alot of money to borrow. If I didnt have to borrow it, and instead chose a payment plan, Id have to pay about 1300 a month...I dont even make that much right now!
I have the option of paying my loan starting from when I start school, which I think I will do, so that I dont have AS much as if I waited the 4 years for interest to accrue, etc, but that is still alot of money. I have signed up for the full 4 years, which is about 70k, and gives me a BS..... Should I just go for the associates, which is about 35k?
