Both the wife and I are engineers. Our daughter shows no interest in tech. She does like to mix stuff, so maybe Chem E. Though I'm not going to prod her. STEM just does not pay over the long term.
Whaa? What's your definition of pay? Anyway, IMO no prodding needed - expose the child to a wide variety of things, and then help them find and nurture their passion.
My coworkers daughter and her husband are both accountants. In their mid 30's they are doing much better than any STEM majors. They will both be firm partners by 40. +200k salaries for two people over 27 years (not that they'd work to 67 anyway).
I know of a mechanical engineer who went into finance. Not a quant, or even in NY. Just a manager for VISA. Her bonus is larger than my salary, and so is her salary.
STEM, well really TE, need to bank that initial high salary for, often forced, early retirement. SM majors, you are just fucked.
Besides that most people will never even make half of your lower end salary during their whole career.
Women or Men, most people I know who go into non-STEM fields sooner or later have to negotiate with the fact there is nothing special going to happen in their lives forever.
Here in India some people even believe its rather better to be a plumber or an electrician than do non-STEM degrees. Former helps you develop some skills. Compared to getting a degree in commerce and finding your whole education could be replaced by spread sheet macros.
That's the advice I would give most people in the United States as well. Plumbers and electricians can make bank, and it is something almost anyone can be trained to do well. Far better than trying to go to college, and either dropping out after a few semesters, or graduating with a useless degree - either way amassing many thousands of dollars of debt.
My advice (not that anyone asked) for STEM graduates:
1) Immediately max 401k contribution. Hopefully you'll get a employer match, but none is common these days. Should have no problem getting $1M by age 55, though more is better.
2) 15 year mortgage on a house. So buying a house in your 30's you'll own it by late 40's
3) Don't have kids until 30's. Tech pays well (initially), but require along hours. Be prepared to do nothing but work in your 20's
4) $80k educational savings for each kid. As they will need that by your late 40's or early 50's. That should minimally pay for 4 year degree at State U, and kept them from being saddled with debt upon graduation.
Remember 55 is elderly. So by early 50's you want no mortgage, no education funding requirements, home ownership, and at least $1M in retirement savings. So when you are targeted for elimination, at least you can join the working poor; i.e. $30k/year household income (401k interest only) and no medical benefits.
Ideally you'd have $2M in savings. That will get you to $60k/year so you can afford health insurance and cruise it out till medicare at 63.
If you have any sort of medical needs at that age, with no health insurance, you are truly fucked, as heart/brain surgery is $300k minimum. Though I believe their are laws to prevent debt collection from retirement savings.
"Should have no problem getting $1M by age 55" is totally not just "middle class." by my definition its "rich as fuck." and I'm saying that as someone who grew up poor and is now "rich as fuck." We can save ~70% of our take home salary and have enough spending cash to, literary, do whatever the fuck we want without ever worrying about the cost.
> Everything else is working poor.
"Yeah, you're poor if you aren't a millionaire by your 50s" is so silly I would believe it to be satire in a different context.
>15 year mortgage on a house.
I could have gotten a 15 year mortgage, strongly considered it, but I went with 30 because the interest rate was absurdly low so I believe I'd make better return investing that money rather than putting it towards my house. It's a risk/tradeoff I was willing to take. Everyone's situation is different.
If you absolutely require a 30 year mortgage on your home to make payments and don't have a good down payment or savings, you probably can't really afford it though.
>Don't have kids until 30's
There's both pros and cons to having kids younger vs older. It's an individual choice if and when to have children.
> Tech pays well (initially), but require along hours. Be prepared to do nothing but work in your 20's
That's silly, it certainly doesn't have to require long hours. I don't work long hours and I certainly didn't in my 20s either. In my 20s I worked less with more flexible hours than most of my peers.
>$80k educational savings for each kid
Oh, God, no!! Paying my own way through school is what made me make good choices. If my parents gave me $80K towards school I would have never taken it seriously nor understood the value of $80k.
>Remember 55 is elderly.
No, its not.
Again, all this stuff about being fired at 55, it's a Silicon Valley startup culture nonsense.
>home ownership
Is certainly not for everyone!!
Upper middle class is retirement and educational savings, and not living paycheck to paycheck.
I believe it's 70% of households could not come up with $1k within 2 weeks. 90% could not miss a paycheck without skipping bills. Middle class these days is living pay-check to paycheck. That used to be working poor. The working poor will rely on housing/food/medical aid.
The 30 year mortgage is fine as long as the investment difference can be liquidated to pay it off at 15 years (or in early 50s.
I paid $100/credit-HR at KU 23 years ago. That did not require debt. I worked a few hrs/week and was able to handle the full engineering course-load. It's now $10k/semester (that includes room). Can't be done debt free with any major, much less STEM course load. Hence my $80k minimum for education. Guy in the cube next to me graduated in 71 and paid full tuition (including room) by only working summers. He is the oldest here at 67. They are running him out; I'm the old man soon. The next oldest is me at 45. Every one else is 20's or just barely 30.
$1M assets is not rich these days; not by far.
I work at old school, boring fortune 50 company. Plenty of people walked out at 55. That won't happen if you are good; I mean GOOD. Eat, sleep, breath circuit design. That's me. Can I keep it for 10 or 20 years; we'll see. About 10% of STEM majors are still in STEM by mid career (40s). 50% are out by 5 years, or never even enter it upon graduation.
For the love of God! Give me a break! If you can't somehow manage to do that while making over $100k you are living way way way above your means, period. You can live over your means at any income level and adding more income doesn't solve that problem.
Sure, maybe if I owned two Beemers, a Cadillac, a boat, and a second home I'd be unable to do that.
>I believe it's 70% of households could not come up with $1k within 2 weeks. 90% could not miss a paycheck without skipping bills.
That says more about spending habits than is does income.
>as long as the investment difference can be liquidated to pay it off at 15 years (or in early 50s.
Your can never know your investment returns.
>Can't be done debt free with any major, much less STEM course load.
So what? I went into debt for an education and it wasn't a bad thing. Its my opinion that downright giving your kids money is a bad thing. I made my choices accordingly. I would be a total loser nowadays if my parents gave me money, for my education or otherwise. Its also in my opinion that parents obsessing over saving money for college is a big cause of rising tuition.
Doing nothing but working in your 20s, after going to college in an all-male environment (as that's what STEM classes are), and planning to not have kids until your 30s means you're going to have a really hard time meeting any desirable women. If you don't get really lucky and somehow make time for socializing in college (between all the hours required by your CS/engineering classes) and meet a wife there that doesn't result in break-up divorce before your 30s, then you're kinda screwed. It's much harder to meet singles after college IME, and if you're "doing nothing but work in your 20s", that's going to put a real damper on your dating life during that time you're looking for a partner to have those kids in your 30s.
I think this whole plan is fraught with huge risk and problems, and shows exactly why, here in America, most people having kids seem to be "working poor" or in other fields than STEM, where they have better career longevity and stability though not as much initial salary (and maybe not as much total salary over the career even), and a lot more free time after work.
I think better advice is: you have a choice: STEM or family/kids. Pick one. You can't have both unless you're really lucky, much like professional athletes. Another alternative might be moving out of the US to Europe, where the far better social systems and working conditions make it much easier to have a family.
$100k - $200k a year puts you, individually, over, at the very minimum, the 75th percentile income for American household.
Also, your friends aren't even close to typical accountant salary, median pay $68,150 per year - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/business-and-financial/accountants-a...
Compare that to the typical software salary, median pay $102,280 per year - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
I think OP is talking relative to other skilled vocations, i.e what a potential STEM student might do instead.
If you have the opportunity to choose STEM, you are already at a certain level of opportunity.
> median pay $68,150 per year
How do you compare medians? What if there are more young software developers than young accountants?
That was true 20 years ago but no longer true today. Russia is in a period of relative baby boom and fertility rate is now higher than in most European countries (except France, Sweden and Ireland I believe). It's already quite difficult to put kids in school!
Of course the effect is bound to peter out in a coming decade.
Europe for the most part has a negative native birth rate, the positive birth rates come from immigrants.
It is still true for _native_ Russians, not Russian-based immigrants from neighbouring states.