Minimum wage: how much is too much?

[Josh]

Yes, I worked there in the early 2010s, in California.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, I don’t advise people on how to get into college in 2021; I would tell such a supplicant to go do something useful with their life instead of getting into $250k of debt (which is what a Bachelor’s costs at that school now).

But needless to say, I have far more experience with the side of admissions that actually matters (the decision making side). Most “advice” for admissions was phenomenally bad, almost to the point of being a joke that would get passed around the crew working very hard during admissions season to scan everything in. The “advice” would say to include tons of extracurriculars. It mostly went in the rubbish.

One extracurricular I remember was an applicant who did a school project against triclosan soap. Personally, I liked it, but that University cared about one thing: results. They wanted to admit students who would make it through all 4 years without dropping our. SAT/ACT scores are the best predictor of that.

Not surprising at all that schools don’t care about results anymore. Colleges are political indoctrination camps now and have nothing to do with actual education. If you’d like to help people you’re advising, help them find alternatives to throwing four years of their life away.

[Ken]

In case you haven’t been paying attention, I don’t advise people on how to get into college in 2021; I would tell such a supplicant to go do something useful with their life instead of getting into $250k of debt (which is what a Bachelor’s costs at that school now).

Since this is a thread about wages, here is some actual data on the "usefulness" of college degrees in terms of wages and employment in this country. If you are advising young people, where on this chart do you suggest they aim for when seeking "to do something useful with their life"

And by the way. Students coming from poverty (which is who we are talking about), generally pay no tuition, room or board to attend highly selective universities these days. For example, here is Stanford: https://admission.stanford.edu/afford/

[Josh]

“Look at how smart I am. I cut and paste links to images with facts and figures that support outdated, conventional opinions.”

The funniest thing you’ve said tho is claiming places like Stanford are free. Yeah, those student loans people are struggling to pay are just figments of their imagination. Most people I know from poorer / disadvantaged backgrounds who tried to go to college are buried in debt from a place like U. Phoenix or Full Sail (which makes zero difference for earning potential, and most students don’t graduate successfully anyway).

College is an obsolete, outdated paradigm, but like most obsolete, pointless things, some people will keep doing it because they believe it will... get them into a job making $1900 a week if they get a Ph.D

[Ken]

“Look at how smart I am. I cut and paste links to images with facts and figures that support outdated, conventional opinions.”

The funniest thing you’ve said tho is claiming places like Stanford are free. Yeah, those student loans people are struggling to pay are just figments of their imagination. Most people I know from poorer / disadvantaged backgrounds who tried to go to college are buried in debt from a place like U. Phoenix or Full Sail (which makes zero difference for earning potential, and most students don’t graduate successfully anyway).

College is an obsolete, outdated paradigm, but like most obsolete, pointless things, some people will keep doing it because they believe it will... get them into a job making $1900 a week if they get a Ph.D

Fine Josh. You are so much smarter than the rest of us so you don't need facts and figures to form your opinions.

Since this thread is about wages and supporting a family I'll give you a real world scenario about an actual girl that I advised this past year. You tell us what your career advice to her would be. And then I'll tell you what she really decided. And then everyone can judge.

The girl in question was a very bright straight-A high school student and child of immigrants. She is an American citizen as is her mother. Her father was deported back to Mexico when she was young where he started another family leaving her, her mother, and two younger brothers to fend for themselves. Her mother works as a lunch lady at the local middle school. The girl helps support her family by working weekends and evenings at Home Depot where they love her because she is good at working the special orders desk and dealing with Hispanic construction crews.

Her dream is to work in healthcare and go to college and study to become a doctor. But understanding that is a difficult road she is exploring other ideas like surgical nursing, nurse practitioner, physicians assistant, medical laboratory science, or physical therapy careers. Or perhaps something in the field of biomedical research.

What is your career advice to this high school student? What path would you advise her to take with her life?

[Josh]

Since this thread is about wages and supporting a family I'll give you a real world scenario about an actual girl that I advised this past year. You tell us what your career advice to her would be. And then I'll tell you what she really decided. And then everyone can judge.

In my universe, I expect men to support their families, not girls.

The girl in question was a very bright straight-A high school student and child of immigrants. She is an American citizen as is her mother. Her father was deported back to Mexico when she was young where he started another family leaving her, her mother, and two younger brothers to fend for themselves. Her mother works as a lunch lady at the local middle school. The girl helps support her family by working weekends and evenings at Home Depot where they love her because she is good at working the special orders desk and dealing with Hispanic construction crews.

Sounds like she's off to a good start. Construction and anything construction related is booming.

Her dream is to work in healthcare and go to college and study to become a doctor. But understanding that is a difficult road she is exploring other ideas like surgical nursing, nurse practitioner, physicians assistant, medical laboratory science, or physical therapy careers. Or perhaps something in the field of biomedical research.

Well, healthcare is a dead-end field to get into, particularly if she wants to "help people". If she likes filling out reams of paperwork, it might be a good fit for her. Wages for things like a G.P. are really bad. There are just too many doctors filling too few spots. The only serious money is in something like being a surgeon (which very few people can attain to), or getting into plastic surgery, etc. where you can charge rich privately outside of insurance.

Biomedical research is a tough field to get into. What is her acumen when it comes to things like math? Does she spend her spare time playing with SPSS and know R?

Physical therapy can be a good career, but I know a guy who hated charting, and it turns out you spend more time charting than you do actually working with patients. He ended up going into a worship-pastor career instead making significantly less money. That's quite a pivot.

What is your career advice to this high school student? What path would you advise her to take with her life?

I would advise her to probably keep doing what she's doing and prepare to have a good healthy family. Most women (and men, too) want to have families some day. Being a very busy doctor is not compatible with being a wife and mother.

One of the reasons women used to go to college was to meet a good husband (presumably, he'd be at least college educated), so if she does go to college, she may want to look out for a school that would attract the kind of men she wants to marry. Watch out for schools that are majority-women, which is getting more and more common.

Of course, maybe she doesn't want to get married at all. I work with a woman who used to be in a medical related career, but really got tired of working long shifts. She pivoted to being on the road selling books (quite a pivot, to be sure). Eventually, she found a specialty in dealing with used books and old books. Books are her passion.

So, I might ask her what her passions are - what she would like to be doing if making money weren't important.

[ohio jones]

I would advise her to probably keep doing what she's doing and prepare to have a good healthy family. Most women (and men, too) want to have families some day. Being a very busy doctor is not compatible with being a wife and mother.

One of the reasons women used to go to college was to meet a good husband (presumably, he'd be at least college educated), so if she does go to college, she may want to look out for a school that would attract the kind of men she wants to marry.

Ah, the good ol' MRS degree. And if they meet at college they can pay off two student loans instead of one, while she takes time off to be a wife and mother.

[Josh]

I would advise her to probably keep doing what she's doing and prepare to have a good healthy family. Most women (and men, too) want to have families some day. Being a very busy doctor is not compatible with being a wife and mother.

One of the reasons women used to go to college was to meet a good husband (presumably, he'd be at least college educated), so if she does go to college, she may want to look out for a school that would attract the kind of men she wants to marry.

Ah, the good ol' MRS degree. And if they meet at college they can pay off two student loans instead of one, while she takes time off to be a wife and mother.

Ideally she can drop out before finishing.

Nightmare scenario is she’s earned an MSW from a third tier school, so she’s got $200k of debt and has qualified herself for a $20/hr job, as opposed to the $15/hr social workers get.

[Ken]

Since this thread is about wages and supporting a family I'll give you a real world scenario about an actual girl that I advised this past year. You tell us what your career advice to her would be. And then I'll tell you what she really decided. And then everyone can judge.

In my universe, I expect men to support their families, not girls.

The girl in question was a very bright straight-A high school student and child of immigrants. She is an American citizen as is her mother. Her father was deported back to Mexico when she was young where he started another family leaving her, her mother, and two younger brothers to fend for themselves. Her mother works as a lunch lady at the local middle school. The girl helps support her family by working weekends and evenings at Home Depot where they love her because she is good at working the special orders desk and dealing with Hispanic construction crews.

Sounds like she's off to a good start. Construction and anything construction related is booming.

Her dream is to work in healthcare and go to college and study to become a doctor. But understanding that is a difficult road she is exploring other ideas like surgical nursing, nurse practitioner, physicians assistant, medical laboratory science, or physical therapy careers. Or perhaps something in the field of biomedical research.

Well, healthcare is a dead-end field to get into, particularly if she wants to "help people". If she likes filling out reams of paperwork, it might be a good fit for her. Wages for things like a G.P. are really bad. There are just too many doctors filling too few spots. The only serious money is in something like being a surgeon (which very few people can attain to), or getting into plastic surgery, etc. where you can charge rich privately outside of insurance.

Biomedical research is a tough field to get into. What is her acumen when it comes to things like math? Does she spend her spare time playing with SPSS and know R?

Physical therapy can be a good career, but I know a guy who hated charting, and it turns out you spend more time charting than you do actually working with patients. He ended up going into a worship-pastor career instead making significantly less money. That's quite a pivot.

What is your career advice to this high school student? What path would you advise her to take with her life?

I would advise her to probably keep doing what she's doing and prepare to have a good healthy family. Most women (and men, too) want to have families some day. Being a very busy doctor is not compatible with being a wife and mother.

One of the reasons women used to go to college was to meet a good husband (presumably, he'd be at least college educated), so if she does go to college, she may want to look out for a school that would attract the kind of men she wants to marry. Watch out for schools that are majority-women, which is getting more and more common.

Of course, maybe she doesn't want to get married at all. I work with a woman who used to be in a medical related career, but really got tired of working long shifts. She pivoted to being on the road selling books (quite a pivot, to be sure). Eventually, she found a specialty in dealing with used books and old books. Books are her passion.

So, I might ask her what her passions are - what she would like to be doing if making money weren't important.

Her passion is science and healthcare. She wants to give back to her community.

In the end she applied to about 10 schools. The public schools here in WA (UW, WSU, WWU) as well as an assortment of private universities on the west coast (Gonzaga, University of Portland, Pacific Lutheran, Santa Clara University, Loyola Marymount, Stanford, and USC). She got into 9 of the 10, Stanford was the only rejection. Two schools offered her full-ride scholarships with no loans. Gonzaga and Santa Clara. She ended up picking Gonzaga over Santa Clara because it is closer to home and has a wide variety of science and health care offerings. Plus her family is Catholic and they like the idea of attending a Catholic school although Santa Clara is also Catholic. It will be significantly cheaper for her to attend Gonzaga than one of the local public universities because of the amount of scholarships she was offered. She should be able to graduate without any student loans. She was tempted to want to go to USC but it is a lot further away requiring airfare to travel back and forth, and their financial aid package included too many loans. So she went with the closer and cheaper option. She easily can take the train or bus back and forth between Vancouver and Spokane.

I'm sure you will tell us how her immortal soul is now in peril since she will be studying with the Jesuits.

[ohio jones]

I'm sure you will tell us how her immortal soul is now in peril since she will be studying with the Jesuits.

I'd be surprised if it wasn't. After all, their chief weapon is surprise ... surprise and fear ... fear and surprise.... Their two weapons are fear and surprise ...

Is the shotgun approach to applications really what's being recommended these days? Seems like a job in itself to submit that many, and it doesn't even pay minimum wage.

[Ken]

I'm sure you will tell us how her immortal soul is now in peril since she will be studying with the Jesuits.

I'd be surprised if it wasn't. After all, their chief weapon is surprise ... surprise and fear ... fear and surprise.... Their two weapons are fear and surprise ...

Is the shotgun approach to applications really what's being recommended these days? Seems like a job in itself to submit that many, and it doesn't even pay minimum wage.

It is all online and there are two big web sites to which you submit your applications. The Common App which over 900 schools use and the Coalition App which about 150 schools use. https://www.commonapp.org/ and https://www.coalitionforcollegeaccess.org/ For most schools it is simply a matter of checking the box that you want to add that school to your application. Others like USC have their own "proprietary" admissions essays and questions so they take more time. Typically schools charge about $60-$80 per application which is a big money maker for them. But they will waive the application fees for economically disadvantaged students. So honestly, applying to 10 schools didn't take any more time and money than applying to 2 schools except for USC which had all its own separate questions.

Schools actually encourage this because it is a big money-maker. For example, NYU got over 100,000 applications in 2021. At $80 each that comes to a cool $8 million brought in by the admissions office.