On the one hand, this article in the HuffPo – which bemoans the notion that new college graduates can’t afford an apartment in the 25 “most desirable” cities – is apparently written by people who were on allowances from wealthy families (emphasis added):
Entry level salaries coupled with sky-high rents in the country’s most desirable cities often makes finding a place more of a headache than a happy ending.
As experts at Trulia found, new grads can’t really afford to live anywhere among the country’s 25 largest rental markets. While the median annual income for new grads ranges from about $16,000 to about $41,000 in these cities, the income needed to afford median rent is two to three times that — assuming grads don’t want to spend more than 31 percent of their income on rent.
On the one hand: Median income? The price in the middle of the range?
Who are the posh little fops who move straight into the middle of the housing market right out of school?
And since when do new college grades move into apartments alone, much less in the middle of the market? Get a damn roommate. Or move to a less “desirable” city!
On the other hand, looking at the list of cities that college grads (or the poor, or the middle class) can’t afford to live in, I think I detect a pattern:
Yes. I believe I do.
Hey Merg, if a college grad can’t afford to buy a home in San Francisco with income from their first job, it proves the American Experiment has been a failure.
When my father came home from the Pacific in 1945 as a 23 year old vet, he lived with his parents and five siblings (of whom one other was also a WWII vet) while he went to college and worked for the next four years. After college, he and his bride rented apartments and houses for more than fifteen years until they had enough to buy their first home.
I realize that our society – with its obligation to provide young people with everything they desire for free (including wi-fi, phone apps and now college*) has changed, but Jay-sus these kids are spoiled.
*Thanks, Obama.
OK, wait a second here. Median income for college grads as examined by Huffington Post and Trulia ranges from $16k to $40k. Now what is the lower bound here?
Yup, 40 hours at a bit above minimum wage. Instead of arguing about why median rent is so **** high, maybe….just maybe….ask why so many college grads are working as baristas and in pizza delivery. Either their degrees are worthless, and shame on Uncle Sam for giving them student loans and grants to get them, or the job market sucks, and shame on Uncle Barack for sticking a crowbar in the spokes of the economy.
What can a Huffpo intern afford?
I challenge anyone to question my disdain for Barry Sotero and the motley crew he rode in on, but c’mon, this isn’t his doing. Kids have been trotting off to college for Tuba degrees long before Wymenz Studies became a thing.
My wife and I sat down with the kids before they headed off to school, and looked at their choices up, down and sideways. Top of the list? “How much does that pay.”
If you allow Jimmy to take out a fat Fannie Mae loan to pay for his degree in the Classics, prepare to house him indefinitely. If keeping him happy is a priority, plan a move to Uptown USA.
Hmm.
How about living a little farther away and having a major that has real world applications?
Accounting and Finance professionals have a near zero unemployment rate right now in the Twin Cities. Starting salaries are nice too.
Desireable??!! By whose standards??!
@DMA, HuffPo interns don’t make LA minimum wage. Most report $10.65/hr, a couple come in at $14.44 if you’re in SanFran.
What, you expect libs to actually pay a living wage?! What planet are you from?
Swiftee; true, but at least 30 years back, we weren’t funding those loser degrees so much, and hence at least the person getting a worthless degree had to look at pathetic facilities and ask himself if the “real world” was going to be any different.
OK, I’m gonna push back just a tad, here.
There are no worthless degrees. Just worthless people.
I’ve known more than a few music majors who were top-notch programmers; folklore majors who are industry leaders in UX design; poli sci majors who make a fortune selling software; classics majors who take home megabucks brokering mortgages; art history majors who make six figures doing corporate training. I’ve done modestly well with my BA in English with minors in History and German.
And I’ve known Computer majors who manage mobile home parks, engineers who limp along on odd jobs, and finance majors who drop out before they ever really dropped in.
And while we’ve discussed this before and the consensus was that’s less possible these days, and the humanities departments are a morass of stupid, I’m not convinced it’s either dead and gone or never coming back.
I’ll stipulate that we have a lot of people who think a degree entitles them to a living in “their field of study”. They are who I’m talking about in the second graf, above. They deserve to starve and be miserable until they get their bells rung enough to pull their heads out of their aßes and grow a pair.
Mitch: “gender and ethnic studies”. ’nuff said?
Seriously, I’m not saying that all people with arts degrees are idiots, or all people with STEM degrees are eminently employable. What I am saying is that there are a lot of people in college who really are better suited for a non-academic study plan, and that the suitable application of green eyeshades at the bank would let them know there ain’t no way in **** they’re going to pay back that quarter million they want to borrow.
What a world. I graduated in ’79 with a Journalism degree and $3000 in student loans (and no financial aid because – at $16k a year – my old man made too much money). My first job out of college I accepted a corporate communications job at an insurance company because it paid $200/week and the best newspaper offer I had was $165/week. I moved to Phoenix for the job and initially found a studio apartment for $230/month. That was more than 25% of my gross salary, so after six months a co-worker and I found a house rental. That saved me nearly $100 a month and cut down the number of times I had to eat refried bean sandwiches to get me through to payday. (I also knew which bars had $1 beer and nachos for happy hour).
To Mitch’s point;
I have three buddies that will retire late this year, first and second quarters in 2016. They have been truck drivers for most of their working lives. One has a degree in music, one in philosophy and one business admin. They all say that anyone that has a commercial truck driver’s license, regardless of class and has a good driving record, will never be unemployed. Based on the shortage of truck drivers today, I would be inclined to believe them.
I’ve known more than a few music majors who were top-notch programmers; folklore majors who are industry leaders in UX design; poli sci majors who make a fortune selling software; classics majors who take home megabucks brokering mortgages; art history majors who make six figures doing corporate training. I’ve done modestly well with my BA in English with minors in History and German.
And I’ve known Computer majors who manage mobile home parks, engineers who limp along on odd jobs, and finance majors who drop out before they ever really dropped in.
Yep. Five years after you’re out of college people stop asking about your degree, because the work you’ve done after you cross the stage (or don’t) is what counts.
Yep. I never used the Journalism degree. It opened the door for my first job, and helped with my second, but it is little more than a curio now, which is fine with me. I knew before my last semester at the J-school that I already detested the profession.