Is A College Degree Right For You?

According to an October 13, 2021 report by CNBC titled: More education doesn’t always get you more money, report finds: “Roughly 16% of high school grads earn more than many workers with a college degree.”

The CNBC report also clarified that financial career success is more complicated than it seems. They stated: “How much you make comes down to your field of study, eventual occupation and other factors, including gender, a new report finds.”

It is highly suggested that you also read this CNBC report to really get a good grasp of your earning potential if ever you decided to invest in a college degree which not only costs a lot of money but also time.

For example, the student debt problem is a trillion dollar problem in the US with many American college graduates unable to pay their student loans or end up paying their student loans well past their middle age years.

The reason why there are college graduates who are now employed are frustrated with their degree and job is because they didn’t research their chosen degree and industry carefully when it comes to earning potential.

Let’s face it, there are students who would gladly pick any college degree as long as it promises to make them a lot of money in the future. There are also parents who try to force their children to select college degrees because of their perceived high earnings potential.

As a result of this money-minded only approach in selecting a degree, many students underperform in their studies because they didn’t like the college courses that they are taking. This is dangerous considering there are employers who only hire graduates with good grades.

Another thing to consider is that when these same students realize that it is practically unbearable for them to solely take a job because its what they studied in college, they switch to their chosen job field which can affect their future promotion in their company.

Given similar performance between two promotion candidates, a company would more than likely select the promotion candidate who has an actual college degree in the job they’re doing. Not having the proper degree for a job could sideline you for top positions in a company.

As has been said before, there are many students who choose a certain college degree because of its perceived high monetary returns. They fail to realize that a college degree is not a guarantee to economic prosperity or even riches.

Popular media is partly to blame for this situation. Popular media always like to portray/report on the top earners in every field of endeavor with or without college degrees. Popular media hardly reports on the high failure rate in terms of earnings in any field of endeavour.

For example, popular media without fail on a daily basis would report on successful actors and actresses. They would report on their latest showbiz projects and their glamorous life but there are hardly any daily news of aspiring and even professional actors who wait on tables just to get by.

The same can be said of sales and marketing degrees. People usually see in popular media the successful sales/marketing employees who earn good commissions and even become rich when they make a high profile sale, but these sales in real life are hard to come by.

There are however careers in medicine like being a doctor or a nurse where the job is high paying and is not risky as well. However, these careers do come at a cost: they are for the most part very stressful jobs.

Did you know that there was a time in Germany when the country had too many law graduates that the country banned the studies of such profession for three years? This is from a story in Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper of Harvard University.

So there is a thing in which a profession can be so saturated that there is virtually no work available for its graduates. Though this is true, it still doesn’t nullify the fact that the luckiest graduates rise to the top of their profession to not only become rich and famous.

But there are jobs where the demand is inexhaustible. For example, there are always jobs available for those with clerical and/or business administration degrees. The proof is in the media job section whether in online job boards or printed newspapers.

There are also inexhaustible demand for sales people. In fact, the demand for qualified sales people are so high that you don’t even need a sales or marketing degree. All you need is proof that you can sell well.

Clerical, Business Administration and even Sales jobs might only pay you pennies when you first start doing it, but once you gain tenure and experience, higher pay and promotion would generally follow.

Thanks to popular media, many people have been led to believe that only white collar jobs such as medicine, law, engineering, business administration and the likes command higher pay and social status. But these degrees don’t necessarily mean riches or even fame.

A vocational degree is shorter to learn which enables you to make money much faster. It’s even worth noting that instead of a student loan you can get a business loan to make your vocational based business grow even bigger, further adding to your income and status.

Another thing to note is that there is a very huge demand for some vocational graduates. For example, both the USA and Australia are in short supply of mechanics, plumbers and electricians that they have to resort to giving work visas to foreigners.

And since in some countries like the two I previously mentioned, there is a shortage of such vocational graduates, the salary of these graduates can be much higher at times to the salary of white collar workers.

This is exactly what I learned in Australia. In the Philippines the pay for vocational graduates is dismal, but once these vocational workers leave the Philippines to work overseas like in Australia, they can usually triple or even quadruple their pay.

One of the big advantage of being a business owner is that you don’t need to be hired because you’re basically hiring yourself. No one can prevent you from running your own business even though you are not a college or vocational graduate.

I’ve known successful business owners who don’t have college or even vocational degrees but they do know how to read and write as well as how to count. An important qualification however of becoming a successful businessperson is the ability to be good with money.

You also don’t need to have a lot of capital to become a business owner. If you’re also short on capital, you can apply for a loan at a bank or anyone with money who would lend to you. There are even business owners who fund their business with cash advances from their customers.

Another benefit of being a business owner is the fact that you are your own boss. No one can boss you around. This is precisely the reason why even seasoned employees start businesses, to become their own boss so that they won’t be bossed around anymore!

Also, unlike being an employee where your financial growth potential is limited only to the regular salary and bonuses you receive, having your own business means that you solely enjoy all the financial rewards of being a business owner!

This is a type of job that is only at most two decades old and even shorter. This has to do with the maturity of the internet in terms of speed and content. In fact, surveys have found that many American kids these days want to be YouTubers instead of being an astronaut!

But who can blame these American kids and their counterpart in other countries especially with the likes of Mr Beast who have millions of YouTube subscribers and earn a lot of money. People have even offered Mr. Beast over a billion dollars to sell his YouTube Channel.

It is even more interesting to note that this is a kind of job which can be self-learned. All you have to do is to watch YouTube videos for example on how to be a content creator or how to be an influencer.

You can also do this job right in the comfort of your own home. It is a well-known fact that there are many teenagers who first started out with online content creation right in their own bedrooms and then later branched out into creating their own multimedia studios.

On the downside, this is an overcrowded job/field because almost anyone can do it: From the very young to the very old on any country with an internet connection. But if you do survive and rise to the top, this could be a job for you for life.

It is understandable that many people choose degrees which supposedly promises wealth and fame. However, most of these people fail to realize that there is no one sure way to wealth and fortune. This is true with college degrees which are investments that could pay out or not at all.

There are equally worthy alternatives to college degrees such as vocational degrees or becoming a business owner. The opportunities for wealth with these two alternatives are very promising. You can also start by being an online content creator to test your skill and luck in making money.

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