My IT brehs i need your advice

[platinum f1a$k]

..

 

[Sonny Bonds]

Get a degree in software engineering

 

[Reginald Noble]

I never said getting a college degree resulted in an immediate return on investment.
I'll put it this way. Take two people. One person gets a certification. The other person gets a college degree. After one year, you compare their expenses and their income. The person going to college paid more and earned less. The person with the cert paid money out for the cert, but has a higher gross income for that first year than the college student.
After the second year, the college student still has the same expense and low income from part-time jobs. The other person has no education expense and is earning more than the college student. If this was on a graph, the second year difference would be wider.
Now compare the third year, same thing as the second year. So now after two years, the college student's income to expenses in three years is in the tens of thousands of dollars. The other person is in the black.
Now, fourth year comes around, the college student has graduated at the end of the year. Four years of part-time work plus four years of college expenses. Whether or not that person did school in the summer or worked full-time in the summer, let's just say, total expenses was $80,000 after four years. Total gross income from part-time jobs was $20,000 after four years. That person loaned $60,000. You look at the other person, his total expense was $5,000. Total gross income from full-time work was $120,000 after four years. The $5,000 loan is paid off already so his gross is $115,000.
If you just look at the first four years, the cert person won.
Now, if you start comparing the next four years, that's when the curve starts changing. Total gross income for the college graduate can be double the other dude. Now, if cert dude wants to get a degree, he has to do that part-time. That's an expense. Not all employers pay for education. Some do. How long is it going to take to get a degree while working full-time? You think one course per semester plus summer, that's three courses a year. It's going to take about 10 years to complete. That's not unusual. In that ten year time period, the other dude is going to be able to pay off the loan and live comfortably. After fourteen years, you have two guys with a college degree. One has ten years of experience in a higher position and pay. And the other has 14 years of experience in a lower position and pay. At this point, you could say both won for achieving their goals. But the guy who got the degree first has an step up on the other dude, unless he was foolish with his income and spent it on luxury cars, parties, women, vacations, etc.

Interesting side-to-side and realistic I think.

It's utilizing the same concepts I am using when comparing college vs. trade or prestigious school vs. non-prestigious.

What I found in the comparison with my peers that went to a lower profile local (but still fairly known/respected) school there's basically a few key differences:

- I make more money but have more debt and vice versa so it's net neutral in that aspect short term
- However, longer term (and longer than your timeline of 10 years) when looking at a 20 year timeline I end up making double them
- The biggest thing though is when you get ahead quicker (more possible with a degree from a more prestigious school) your work-life balance begins to improve and if you want to have kids that is a critical aspect. So being able to have flex work, other perks and shyt with say a VP level position 5 years sooner is a big deal especially if your Woman's biological clock ticking and you don't want autism/downe babies from having them too old.