What year was that $400? Good source for what good-old-days dollars are worth in todayâs dollars - CPI calculator. Warning: this can become a big time-waster.. Granted tuition was still cheaper at State Schools.
In 1962 (age 8) my father decided if I wanted a higher standard of living and wanted to expand my HO RR rolling stock, that heâd introduce me to capitalism and history via WWII âLend Leaseâ. I could utilize household tribal capital equipment (aka lawn mower) and solicit lawn service business from neighbors. Charging $1.00, which is now equivalent to $8.22, was about an hourâs work. CPS would probably throw his ass in jail for allowing me to touch such a dangerous device (it stayed running if you let the handle go) at that age let alone wandering the street and doing work at other peopleâs homes. I can honestly say I have not seen a kid mow a lawn in my neighborhood for the last 20 years.
In 1971 (HS Senior), being willingly and gratefully enslaved to my motherâs hand-me-down 1959 Ford, another tribal asset bestowed upon me but requiring fuel, insurance, and maintenance on my dime, minimum wage was frozen at $1.65 by President Nixon, but I only made $1.50 + tips since I was bus boy in food service, $9.29 in todayâs dollars to buy $0.25/gallon gas for my 1959 Ford ($1.55/gal equivalent) which got about 12mpg.
EDITORIAL: A Taco Bell Bean & Cheese Gasinator Burrito was 19 cents plus 5% sales tax or 5 for a buck - and enough planet warming methane, that collectively HS kids probably saved us from the Global Winter that climate scientists were just ardently claiming was absolutely going to happen at that time as rising seas are predicted today. We have yet to thanked for this planetary public service.
We could get hamburgers 8 for a $1 if you looked hard enough. If gas wasnât having a price war at $0.15 a gallon we had to pay the whole $0.25 a gallon.
Russell
I remember when theyâd put their signs up GAS WAR!. And those were full service stations. Air and water was free.
@Adam_Oas remembering his age.
@Julie-Harris, love that one as well.
@Photomancer and @Gimli College is crazy. I managed to easilly pay for my college at UNT, it ended up being 3k in tuition and $500 to $800 in books each semester. Plus it didnât try to force you to live on campus at over priced housing. Compared to ASU at 12k per semester. Stay at your state colleges. Also get an A in all you classes it is super easy in college to do, so you can apply for the schoolâs merit based scholarships, they easily paid my tuition and books. But, that was before the club med college experience and UNT was a less expensive school to go to as it wasnât UT or A&M which were a good bit more expensive.
We should all be so lucky. When I attended UTA, it was over 5k a semester for tuition and nearly another grand for books. Working full time at minimum wage, as I was, a year of income wouldnât pay for two semesters, let alone any of my other expenses. I was able to reduce the cost a bit through those merit-based scholarships, but of course, working full time and attending school full time, my ability to pass classes disintegrated. By the time I dropped out, I was over 10k in student debt.
Fast forward a few years, and through the power of Breaking My Dick⢠Iâm out of student debt and working in dev ops for a major IT corporation, making big boy money. Itâs still not the kind of salary Iâd try to raise a family with, but itâs a lot more than I was making turning wrenches on Hondas, and it feels like infinitely more than when I was hocking auto parts from behind a retail counter in college.
The lesson Iâve learned from all of this: the notion that you need college to go into high-paying air conditioned work is a damn lie, made up to trick impressionable teenagers into selling huge portions of their future income to a loan industry that has exempted itself from bankruptcy protections. I couldnât tell you how many people I know with 6 figures of student debt and retail jobs. When youâre in that position, how can you do any of the things that the âMillennials are killing x industryâ headlines want you to do? Thereâs no money, only crying.
Other options many of us have taken advantage of - still available.
ROTC as an undergrad ($100 then - $470/mo 2017 dollars), GI Bill & Reserve duty ($542 then - $1,715 todayâs dollars) paid for law school and qualified for in-state tuition. All classes (Baylor Grad Business school) while on active duty 100% paid for by Army ⌠while being paid ($705 then, $3,000/mo todayâs dollars), fed and housed. No gym fees, but lots of morning nature runs 5 times a week and monthly hikes, Learned to hate camping.
Other benefits:
Had a job when I graduated, got to live overseas, had job experience for resume after getting out. Not for everyone. But if college and have at least two years left this is an option.
Oh if you joined as Texas resident, I wasnât, for those that were covered by Hazelwood Act, no tuition at Texas Colleges for 150 semester hours - your children can use if you donât. Friend used his to put daughter through college at Texas A&M.
Sounds like you and I were in very similar positions. I chose to âBreak My Dickâ during my later time in college. That said, I started the the path with a nest egg and a bunch of Major Fuck Ups. I learned my lessons the hard way and ended my 8 year college experience at UNT on the smarter path, working full time, purchasing my first house, owning my car, ect.
I get the sentiment here. But, I would say that the system isnât setup to trick teenagers. It is setup to trick their parents, their advisers, and their community. These groups aspire for their youth to exceed their current status. But, they have limited resources to push this goal. Pushing the youth into college is among the lowest resource requirement to try and attain the goal of exceeding the current status. This is because the brunt of the cost is forced onto the student, not the parents, advisers, or community. Add to that the fact that most youth have not experienced enough life, to have any real drive towards the experiences needed to succeed in this world. Thus, our current predicament more people leaving college with huge debts and feeling they didnât achieve any step up in society.
College is not required to be successful. Hard work, making good decisions, Improving, and luck are the real requirements. College makes some paths to success easier, while just being a costly detour in others. My Two Pennies.
I like where this thread has gone so far.
When I go to career day, I tell the students you donât have to go to college. College isnât for everyone. But you need to get a higher education.
I actually dropped out of high school in 9th grade. I went to trade school after that, only 13k. I make enough so that my wife doesnât have to work. Iâd say I make a decent living, over 6 figures. However I tell people I got lucky. I certainly donât tell career day I didnât finish high school.
Iâve looked at getting an engineering degree but it would not be worth it. The pay back would be so far down the line.
Yep, but my path ended with âmight as well join the f***ing DMS.â 
And your job canât be exported. Most non-college careers in trades and tech skills canât be.
Crapping on subsequent generations is a time-honored tradition that goes back to the ancient Greeks. And they probably didnât invent the practice - just happened to be the first to write about it as best we know. It can be funny ⌠so long as no one is taking it too seriously since itâs a big country and just being born in a certain range of years isnât a terribly strong correlation.
It doesnât help that the advice my generation (tail end of gen-X) received was to follow our dreams with the blithe assumption that everything would pan out. As a result a lot of people got fluff degrees with little market potential in their field and an academic establishment already packed to the gills with professors in the field swallowed the bitter pill of working outside of their field without the foundational academic pedigree they had hoped for ⌠assuming they found reasonably gainful employment in the first place.
I gather this trend has been sustained with the subsequent generation. This is unfortunate since what you dream of is often unobtainable or so widely sought after as to be rarely available in reality. Ideally one finds fulfillment in oneâs work, whatever it may be. You might be a Fortune 500 CEO, brilliant researcher, engineer, doctor, technician, laborer, truck driver, machinist, volunteer, parent, writer, whatnot. Whether you plotted out this journey deliberately, you arrived there because of a combination of luck and circumstances, or the situation seemingly randomly happened to you is not as important as what you do with the hand youâre dealt. And if youâre unable to find fulfillment in the work that puts food on the table, perhaps you can find it elsewhere be it hobbies, volunteering, or friends.
The cost:benefit ratio for college has been plummeting like a rock for roughly 20 years. States have cut funding for land grant schools, costly amenities have expanded like crazy to attract students - conveniently driving up costs - and the economy just hasnât been so generous since circa the dot-com crash when it comes to creating employment opportunities. With education as a profit center - for at least the debt industry - itâs hard to see too much immediate incentive to fix things unfortunately.
I was fortunate when I acquired my bachelorâs and masterâs not to acquire any debt in the process. I had a combination of a generous tuition assistance program and the income to fill in the gaps.
Anybody read The Muqaddimah? Itâs one of those books I like to drop into conversations oh so casually when showing off. Societies tend to have generational cycles that reset with a war, depression, or government overthrow. Judging by this thread Iâm guessing thatâs going to be the college debt bomb. Makes me proud to be apart of the maker movement and DMS for providing alternatives for those willing to work to make something more of themselves than the traditional college path laid out for us by society.