I had received this video of a man telling the story about his friend who is being asked to pay for his daughter's "social work" degree at William and Mary College. The story goes on to show that the man is completely owned by the wife, never stood up for himself, and more or less faces the choice of:
Pay the daughter's way through college
or
Get divorced.
He was eliciting advice, so I provided it for him here.
In short, it is too late for this pour soul (his friend, not him) to do anything about it. He married the wrong woman (a social worker, ie - liberal), paid off her student debt (thereby setting a precedent), has failed to bring his daughter up to appreciate and udnerstand basic economics, and never told either his wife or daughter "no." But while it is too late for this poor guy, it is not to late for you my find young friend.
Learn to control the finances of your wife and your family. If you can't do that, then don't get married.
Hey captain,
ReplyDeleteLong time fan but I gotta say, I think you're focusing too much on the worthless major thing.
There is one upside to worthless major.
Nowadays, with university being a mere formality to entry into the labor market, a nice painless degree is often advantageous.
It helps you finish university as quickly as possible so that you can move on to a much more valuable thing: real world experience.
Real world experience is what counts and worthless majors help you get there faster as you tend to graduate sooner and (if you're smart) have more time to network.
And these days, it's all about networking. A history major who ends up shmoozing with the right people is much better off than a chemical engineer holed up studying formulas and who is destined to be piegon holed in a tech position for most of his career.
For most people it's not about choice of major, it's about people-skills and building real world experience.
If you have good people skills you don't need a non-worthless major.
From the original video: UPDATE: He said FUCK IT and moved out this weekend. He did the math, it would be cheaper to divorce his wife than to pay for her to go to college
ReplyDelete"Schmoozing the right people" is how politicians and pointy-haired bosses get their jobs.
ReplyDeleteIf that is what you want for your kid, then, yes, a worthless degree garnered in exactly the right schools is the gateway there, Michael.
Make damned well sure the kid is aware that he is there to suck up to the right people, and not there for "education".
Michael Jarrett;
ReplyDeleteIf you cannot imagine a way to develop people skills and create networks and building ral-world experience without putting yourself into $50,000 worth of debt to do it, then go to town.
CC is, and always has been, in his own snarky, sort of arrogant and a-holish way, just trying to get people to recognize that there are alternatives to going into two-years' salary worth of debt to develop things that you can develop without doing so.
Suppose a girl borrowed 150 grand for a worthless degree. Now she's 23, working at a crappy job, spending her meager paychecks on rent with nothing left to pay her student loans. She has an epiphany - she wants to be a housewife.
ReplyDeleteShe meets a man and they work out a deal. They'll live and raise children together, but her mail will go to her Mom's house. There will be no marriage certificate, and all assets will be in his name only so debt collectors can't touch them. She lets him shoot and encrypt *extremely* embarrassing pictures of her as insurance that she won't renege.
Welcome to slavery, sweetie. Student loans are forever!