Greenspun: Let's stop investing in our kids | Hacker News Reader

Greenspun: Let's stop investing in our kids

blogs.law.harvard.edu

56 pointsnostrademons78 comments

The article pretends

- That the current salaries of recent college graduates represent their probable average output over their lifetime. This is absurd for reasons that I hope I don't need to explain to all you startup founders.

- That the salary of a graduate is a total representation of that person's value to society (and, transitively, of their education). This is wrong even if you think the total value of an education is in employment. Economics teaches us that for all voluntary economic transactions there are producer and consumer surpluses. It must therefore be the case that an employed person's value to their employer is at least the salary the person is paid. And as cynical as I am about college education sometimes, even I don't believe that the complete value of the education is in its utility for the labor market.

- That there is a reliable way to make a ten percent return on investment overseas. Not as far as I've been able to find, and if you can find it you could probably make a lot of money selling the information to a big player in the American bond market.

- And that the normal personal investment into a college education is really $300,000. This is anti-factual. It is probably also wrong that each marginal elementary schooler costs $200,000, but I can't say for sure about that.

As rhetoric, this article plays well. As honest observation of the American educational system, it's a miserable failure.

You're right about the article itself, but you're missing the context. Greenspun has had a long series of nuggets of cynicism that make up most of his blog posts. Together, they paint a picture that gives more excuse for his cynicism.

- Public employees make up an ever growing percentage of the workforce, which still has to be paid for by the private sector.

- Many public employees have large unfunded pension obligations that are very hard to cut.

- As such, new graduates need to have lots of earning power to keep the whole country running.

- His experience with college graduates both in the computer field and the in the context of flight school and his reviews of curricula imply to him that students actually learn very little, and are no more prepared than non-U.S. students to generate lots of value.

- His exposure is mostly to Boston area students, who on average pay a lot for school, or someone else does via scholarships.

So I don't think he means the blog post literally, but in context he's just offering another data point that supports his thesis that the U.S. in economic trouble in the medium to long term.

And the short term.

I made this point under another parent: $300k includes opportunity cost. Adding four years' salary (even with only a high school diploma) to four years' $40k tuition and living expenses, $300k doesn't seem so farfetched.

Of course, that definition of opportunity cost neglects the pleasures (both intellectual and hedonistic) of spending four years on a campus rather than a job site.

Most colleges do not have $40k in tuition, and most people would not be able to make $50k at eighteen years old without a college degree. That's my point. The actual average cost of college is probably overstated by a factor of two.

What this article does successfully through hyperbole is to remind us to add opportunity costs into evaluating the value of an education. Your quibbles about the obviously rough numbers don't subtract much from that key point. It obviously doesn't make sense to abandon education, but it also obviously doesn't make sense to pay $500k for it.

"That the current salaries of recent college graduates represent their probable average output over their lifetime." It doesn't represent that at all. It is saying that the value due to education can be roughly approximated by the starting salary. The gains from there are then more based on experience/work, not the education. Of course, you ignore the money made while you would have been in school. You also ignore the periods of unemployment.

"I don't believe that the complete value of the education is in its utility for the labor market." The fundamental question though is how much we should pay for it. I could read books, do "home work", and watch MIT lectures on the internet for a lower price. Many people are looking for ROI.

"That there is a reliable way to make a ten percent return on investment overseas." A rough number, but definitely too high. The world is over-invested anyway as a result of too much money having been created.

"And that the normal personal investment into a college education is really $300,000. This is anti-factual. It is probably also wrong that each marginal elementary schooler costs $200,000, but I can't say for sure about that." I don't think it says personal investment, the distributed cost counts too. It costs about 20k per year here for elementary school and 25k for high school, to be conservative. You don't need to look at the marginal costs here, because they are your costs.

That is indeed what it says, but that reasoning is wrong.

He's commenting that most of these expensive kids are unemployed and therefore make nothing. That is due to the economy. However the first job they get is likely to be at a higher salary than non-college students, and a college degree enjoys a permanent advantage throughout life in getting jobs and getting raises.

Even several years out of college, many employers will look at the presence of a degree when hiring. And it is an advantage again if you need to switch careers. (Which is becoming very common.)

And it [a college degree] is an advantage again if you need to switch careers. (Which is becoming very common.)

But where's the educational correlation between a degree in a specific discipline and a change to what is presumably a different discipline? If I have a degree in Literature, I'm an editor at a publishing firm, and I get fired and then get a job in, say, the biological sciences, how is my degree intrinsically an advantage other than as a barrier to entry (a weeding-out tool) to the professional class, which is not purely educational in nature?

You've put your finger on an important issue. For the person with a degree, there is an advantage in passing that barrier to entry. But why is that barrier to entry there?

From the point of view of the employer, a degree indicates that the possessor has, among other things, a certain level of intelligence, literacy (not a small deal in a country where over half the country is functionally illiterate!), experience in learning, general background, work ethic, and socio-economic status. It is therefore a somewhat useful filter to apply for many professions.

Of course most of those traits have nothing to do with what you actually learned in university. And there certainly are plenty of successful people with all of those traits who did not bother with university. So even though I believe that for most people, education is worthwhile to that person, I'm far less certain that society as a whole benefits much from all of the money spent on higher education. (And I become even less certain when I look at how wasteful the process has become. Costs have been going up faster than inflation for decades, with no apparent reason than that everyone in the process knows that they are free to raise costs by that much, and it is always easier to spend more money than it is to spend less.)

I paid out the ass for my undergrad and graduate degrees, for neither was the primary benefit economic.

What is the ROI on reading literature, or listening to music, or doing puzzles or making art?

He is right, though, education has inflated at a ridiculous rate, it is a giant bubble, in part fueled by cheap debt.

For those of us that spend most of our income on education and also live in hip urban areas that have seen so much inflation in real estate, our overall inflation rate has been >10% / year for the past decade.

I feel like this article conflates individual cost/opportunity with economy-wide cost/opportunity and then comes to a very wrong and dangerous conclusion.

-The individual case: First, the average graduate with a bachelors earns $50k and the average HS graduate earns $30k (1). So, let's take the worst case scenario, namely that you decided to go out of state without any financial aid. Your opportunity cost is $120k and your out of pocket expenditure is going to be roughly $160k for a total of $280k, which will take 14 years to amortize. I personally came out of college with $4k in debt, and worked p/t and in the summer to pay for rent and food (probably $10k/yr), which I would have had to pay for anyway, so if we adjust the opportunity cost accordingly, that's $80k + $4k = $84k which will take me 4 years to bring to parity. Not to mention, I'll probably enjoy the college educated work quite a bit more. Further, the opportunity cost issue doesn't take into account the fact that I got to spend four years studying abroad, partying with gorgeous coeds, etc.

-The economy-wide case: The key point to note here is that educated workers contribution to the economy is vastly greater than just their salary. If you work at Apple, your work is worth $1.3 million per year (2), and if you work at Matrixx Initiatives your work is worth $3.4 million per year (3). Now, let's say that the $500k figure is accurate. If you're a Matrixx Initiatives employee, in just one year, you justify the entire education of seven people. Of course it's all way more complicated than that: these employees probably have more than bachelors, if they'd started work at six or seven years old in a factory, they would have an extra fifteen or so years of income, etc., but if everyone went to the factories instead of school, our economy would probably look more like Vietnam's.

1. http://www.earnmydegree.com/online-education/learning-center... 2. http://primitus.com/blog/revenue-per-employee-in-china-vs-us... 3. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb100/2006/top_performer...

I think HN has missed one of Greenspun's points - that we always talk about "investing in our children's future" but never actually consider whether the investment (usually of public money, i.e. tax dollars for K-12, then crushing debt from the parents for college) actually stands the test of financial sense.

No, I think that's specifically the point I take issue with. An educated polity is a social necessity in a democracy - and we are failing at creating an educated polity.

So there's no question to me that educating people stands the test of financial sense. It's a question apart from finance, and essential to our future.

However, I do think it's fair to ask whether the money being spent is more than is necessary to properly educate our citizens.

Rather, I would say HN is calling Greenspun on the point that "investing in our children's future" shouldn't be treated as an individaul economic decision but rather as a social decision.

For the individual trying to educate their children, the motivator has historically been the effort to move up in social class but by extension, it's an effort to give the children a richer and more diverse life with more economic opportunity being only a fraction of this. But education has also traditionally been a priority for society rather than simply individuals. Theoretically, the US as a whole benefits if tomorrow more-skilled US workers are paid the same amount for doing the same job than less-skilled US workers were doing yesterday. This works better in practice if we're talking about either auto workers or programmers rather than about fast food workers.

I'm calling Greenspun on the fact that, if you want to make the argument that the investment is bad, using ridiculously overstated made up numbers is not an honest way to do it.

a) He compares a 300k education over 4 yeards with an average master degree income. I have no idea about prices in the US but i would be very surprised if the decent, but not stellar schools have a 50k/year tuition (using 100k as living expenses).

b) We have the same discussion in germany where universities are free. The general consensus about getting a degree seems to be that it is barely worth it (considering opportunity cost and taxes on higher income).

c) I think we see a shift in the value of college degrees and need to change our mindset. In the old days only a small percentage of the population had a degree, yielding a guaranteed job and good career opportunities. Today nearly everybody has a degree and therefore the value goes down. I think people have to learn that a degree is not the road to riches and that they actually have to work and learn to get a good job. Another myth is this: I can have the same job my father had and he didnt need a college degree. That is just plain wrong. To do the same job your father did, you need a much higher education today. Accountant with a short certificate in the old days become B.A. in economics today. Simple configuration which might be done by a clever industrial mechanic in the 60s need a complete engineer degree today.

The $300k includes opportunity cost. That means it's tuition plus living cost plus four years of whatever after-tax salary you can make with a high school degree.

Interestingly I was in Berlin a few weeks ago, people I chatted to said the point of a degree was that you were covered by healthcare (?) while an undergrad, so it was normal to stretch a degree out as long as possible, into your 30s if you could.

I also learnt that Berlin is not at all like Frankfurt, where I've worked!

Or, we just learn to be more frugal when it comes to higher education. It doesn't matter at all where I get my diploma from, I just need one to get anywhere. If I can manage to go to a public college and pay <10k a year for it, that's awesome. If I can get other people, such as scholarship places, or the university itself, to give me enough money, I can essentially get a "free" higher education.

I have a good friend whose family is paying nothing for him to attend UCLA. Personally, I'm not so lucky/dilligent about applying for scholarships.

The value of a Harvard (or any elite college) education is not in what you learn but in the brand name. That is what people are willing to pay a fortune for. And the brand name does have a value associated with it - it cuts down on the friction of getting through the initial stages to an interview at which a hiring decision will be made, for example. Is this right or wrong? Well, if historically graduates from a certain college have been a safe bet, then there is value for an organization in continuing to hire from there (even if only in time saved). If historically access to an alumni network is valuable, then that has value. Etc, etc.

That's not to say they don't offer a great education, and a great experience of being immersed in a world where everyone is smart and ambitious for a few years. Similarly that immersion is part of the education. But that is another little secret: elite colleges only admit students who would succeed regardless.

I attended an elite college for undergrad (which one doesn't matter) and viewed from that side, it's hard to see if it actually made a difference in my career vs any college. I've never explicitly seen an interviewer be impressed by it. But behind the scenes, for example, I don't see if there were a hundred applicants and mine made it through the initial screening because of that.

In some fields the value should be better determined by one's previous work (the portfolio). That has traditionally been true for designers and artist for example, but today it should also be true for software developers.

There are so many open source projects that companies should be asked "what open source project have you contributed to?" and "show and explain that code to me".

Basically that is what got me my job. My GPA was high and I worked my butt off for 5 years to get it, but it was a small open source project that got noticed and used as the basis of selection.

I agree, and 5 years out of college no-one should care where you went, or at least, care very little compared to what you did in the meantime. But like I say, you don't get to see what happens behind the scenes. The truth is, it's human nature to seek out the pre-qualified, and all other things being equal (as they are with a fresh graduate) diploma + brand will always beat diploma alone.

It's interesting you mention open source. Sometimes I interview kids who claim x years experience and what they mean is, "I've been programming since I was 8 years old". Which is great but experience here means a) stuff you were paid to do or b) in a well-known open source package (e.g. Apache). The experience a company is interested in is experience not of coding but of "transforming a spec into a product".

America (and we are not alone) is in a race to the bottom. Just like Coke and Pepsi spend more an more each year on advertising,-- because the other does the same -- doesn’t mean they are making that much more in profits each year. The same can be said for education: Costly perks need to be added because “the other guy is doing it”, and in the end, we just pay more for (mostly) what we had before. Seriously, has basic calculus changed so much in 30 years?

I would hope most students learn a lot more than basic calculus in four years of college.

I went to public schools through high school and then, on scholarship, to the local public university. I doubt my family "invested" more than $10k in my entire education. Whatever it cost, it's certainly repaid itself many times over since then.

The great thing about coding for a living is that most companies care more about what you can do than the name on your diploma.

How about an added value in a well educated person. Like he or she feels better about themselves, is more likely to contribute to society with things as art (or open source software) as well as more likely to succeed starting a new business and bring in even more of that MONEY.

In 1996, Ireland made college education basically free, creating an even more educated work force. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/29/opinion/29friedman.html?_r...

Why not send American kids to China or India for education?

So the only reason for education is to produce more money?

I can't take an article seriously that claims we'd be better off without doctors and hospitals. Whatever fallacy that's called, I'm definitely guilty.

That's not quite what it says.

It says that we're paying too much for the service we get in return.

> Just as we’ve produced a health care system so expensive that we’d be better off without doctors and hospitals

This is what it says.

No one seriously believe we don't need doctors and hospitals, and probably not the author.

But when you say "it's so bad we would be better without", you imply - through exaggeration - that the system is very bad.

It's like when you say "I'd rather die than watch that movie".

It reads to me like he is embracing a belief in a fact, not a rhetorical exaggeration. YMMV. I think the whole article is idiotic so I am perfectly ready to believe that the author has other stupid beliefs as well.

Did you read the other article it was referencing?

The basis of the argument was Mexicans have a life expectancy of 2 years less than Americans, but massively smaller health care bills. The stipulation is that the return we get (2 years more life) is actually smaller than the cost (in terms of time worked, stress, etc) to bring it about. In other words, you give up 4 years of your life to your work so you can live 2 years longer. So, by giving up the 2 years greater life expectancy (cutting out/back/down hospitals and doctors) we'd get more back.

Not necessarily saying I agree, but I did want to point out that the argument isn't QUITE as fanciful as the reference might make it sound.

edit: it's all cool if you know the argument. Just wanted to make sure nobody was going solely off the sensationalist reference.

I did not read that article but I have read enough like it to know the general thrust of the argument. The ones I've read so far have hinged

- on life-expectancy data that is measured differently -- sometimes substantially differently -- from country to country and

- the probably false belief that Americans could continue to lead the same lifestyles they do now and still live about as long under a much smaller healthcare regime.

> the probably false belief that Americans could continue to lead the same lifestyles they do now and still live about as long under a much smaller healthcare regime.

yes, leading the same lifestyles is the rub. Which is kind of annoying now that I think about it. The lifestyles of the masses essentially determines the kind of healthcare everybody else has to pay for. If my gaunt, ever-grumbling stomach is any kind of a sign, I'm going to spend my life resenting that our healthcare system doesn't fit me in the slightest.

I've always been a 'what you do on your own time is your own choice' sort of guy, but I learn more and more that other people make decisions that should be purely their own choice, but in reality impact me all the time, which is confusing my ethical system. You should be allowed to eat what and how you want, for example, but it's becoming clearer and clearer that can have a very real and measurable impact on everybody else.

I don't see any reason to be upset that a civilized society spends a large portion of its output on living longer. It seems to make sense that as the material goods and experiences we want become less expensive that we should start spending more of our money on increasing the time and comfort in which we can enjoy them.

With respect to people living bad lifestyles, you have three unappetizing options.

- Let them die.

- Force them to stop living bad lifestyles.

- Pay the price yourself for the bad lifestyles that others lead.

There isn't really a fourth way. Unless you believe that most people's bad lifestyle choices can be fixed through education or non-forceful conditioning. Which, if you do, I have a bridge to sell you.

Bad behaviors often have a reason behind them: stress. Stress is often created by poorly run, evil, cruel, egotistic societies. Improve social capital - the problems will decrease by themself.

Why you think US is the country with highest incarceration rate? And let's say Norway - much smaller?

I think if you took away drug related arrests, the U.S. incarceration rate would be dramatically lower. So that's a case of stupid, fundamentalist laws more than stress causing crime.

Not sure. Incarceration rate is almost directly tied to rhe level of inequality in the society, so even if USA takes away these laws, will change, but dramatically.

There is compelling evidence that even within the US, we could cut a lot of medicine without any adverse health effects.

http://hanson.gmu.edu/CutMed.htm

He's showing that things are screwed up. We're spending too much on education for what we are getting in return. He's claiming that the system is wholly inefficient. He's just extending that to the health care system in that one-liner.

More generally: "For the amount of money that we are putting into <blank>, we should be getting more value out of it."

That is not what the article _says_, though.

It's just phrased differently. Stating that investing the money in the stock market or in developing nations would have a greater return on investment is just another way of stating that we're doing something wrong that is wasting significant amounts of money.

First of all, that's not the assertion I was talking about in the comment you originally replied to. I was talking about his stated position on doctors and hospitals. But anyway, the rest of the article is crock too, and if you're curious why you can read my other top-level comment.

The article is basically claiming that if a doctor earns $100k a year, and costs, say, $1m in funds to be able to complete his or her extended studies (that take many years), then creating that doctor is not a worthwhile investment for parents or for society.

That's wrong on so many levels that I won't even bother to argue with it.

Maybe there are some highly specialized occupations (e.g. theoretical scientist) where the high cost of education is justified. But the point is that most people don't go into those fields.

> The article is basically claiming that if a {knowledge} earns ${number} year, and costs, say, ${bigger_number} in funds to be able to complete his or her extended studies (that take many years), then creating that notfunh is not a worthwhile investment for parents or for society.

For a given value of {knowledge}, there are values of {number} and {bigger number} for which that statement is true. There are other values for which it is false.

Suppose, for example, it cost $1b to train a straw basketweaver and society was only willing to pay $10k for said basketweaver's output. That's not a worthwhile investment. And substituting doctor for basketweaver doesn't much change things.

Absent force, salary/compensation doesn't capture all of the value that society places on an occupation, but it isn't hugely wrong either.

> For a given value of {knowledge}, there are values of {number} and {bigger number} for which that statement is true. There are other values for which it is false.

Actually, there are values of {number} and {bigger number} for which that statement is true regardless of the value of {knowledge}.

I suspect that there are values for which it is always false as well.

How many doctors are unemployed and living with their parents?

Don't take the statement about hospitals and doctors and try to combine it with the statements about the education system. The former was just a jab at the healthcare system, the later is a jab at spending gobs of money just to end up with people that aren't doing much of anything with their education. Doctors that go out and do something with their education (i.e. work as a doctor) aren't included in that.

He makes that argument in several other blog posts, and the argument is that the cost of doctors and hospitals is so high that the entire thing could be allocated to other initiatives with better overall outcomes.

I think its actually a better argument than this one.

Invest in promising startups not Chinese Pizza Huts, goddammit!

Read the article. Visited link to Wikipedia article? Daymit, how you can SURVIVE on 35K a year in USA??? Maybe somewhere in Mississippi, but not in North USA. Still, you'll have to eat random crap from 7-11 and macdonalds...

I and many of my friends survive on less than 10K in the USA. Even Derek Sivers (from Mixergy interview) claims to live on 20K or less.

And that is able to cover: shelter, food, health care, transportation, electricity, internet? I'd really be interested in seeing a break-down of costs and how that is possible.

[Note: I realize that electricity and Internet are not necessary to survive, but the person claiming to survive on $20K/year obviously has both.]

[Aside: I hope that the answer doesn't come down to something stupid like, "I invested $1-million in making my house/property as self-sufficient as possible." That kinda excludes a good portion of the population from trying.]

A couple friends of mine have done it - they're both physics grad students in Boston. I don't know the full breakdown of their finances (nor would I share it on the Internet if I did), but I know rent and transportation and can fill in the rest from my experience:

  Person 1:
  Rent = $600/month (1 roommate in a small condo on a bus line)
  Transportation = $0 (walks to work/store/bank)
  Health care = ~$0 (grad school presumably covers it, modulo co-pays)
  Food = ~$200/month (guessing at this, lives on lots of rice & beans)
  Electricity = ~$50/month (also guessing)
  Internet = $0 (uses it from work if necessary)
  Total = $850/month = $10k/year

  Person 2:
  Rent = $400/month (basement apartment with 3 roommates)
  Transportation = ~$130/month (T-pass, off Green Line)
  Food = ~$200/month (guessing)
  Health care = ~$0 (presuming he's under the university policy)
  Electricity = ~$50/month (guessing, may be less with 3 roommates)
  Internet = ~$10/month (you could split $40 cable or FIOS among 4 roommates)
  Total = $790/month = about $9500/year.

It's amazing how many necessities really aren't if you're willing to compromise on things like appearances, location, status, etc. Even in Silicon Valley, you can get rents of $600/month if you're willing to share a place in Sunnyvale or one of the poorer sections of Mountain View, and you can get really cheap food if you're willing to eat various rice/beans/pasta dishes. And many people seem to forget that they have two legs and can walk places: I'm in sprawled-out Silicon Valley, not densely-packed Boston, and yet I walk to the bank/library/supermarket and bike to work.

Ok, but they have free healthcare (at least 400$/month worth), live in miserable living conditions (3 roommates in a basement), and have 0 savings. And, apparently they walk naked.

Do not forget to add taxes. And waterbill. And trashbill. And phonebill.

My observations are in total correspondence with Daniel Kanemann's research: For good life in USA you need $60K/year - more will not make you happier, less will make you unhappy.

3 roommates in a basement is only miserable living conditions when compared to the McMansions that people are moving into now. My dad grew up in a 3rd world country. His family would be considered upper-class within their city, and yet they had 10 children crammed into a couple rooms, geckos in their living spaces, and mosquito nets to keep away the malaria. And they got bombed out of their home by the Americans, and had to move up into the mountains, shit in the river, and use stones to wipe their ass.

I included waterbill and trashbill in my utilities estimates; I was basing it off what I paid for utilities when I lived with roommates in California.

Person 1, at least, didn't have a landline - he used his cell (still on his parents plan) or IM from work. Person 1 also did not have zero savings: he managed to save up $20K over 2 years. Remember, a typical grad student salary is about $20k/year, and he was living off $10K/year.

People who make $10-20k/year don't pay much in taxes. Many don't pay anything. That's reverse-income-tax land.

You have a point with clothes, but over the short term, it can be ignored. I'm still wearing some of my clothes from high school, 10 years later. And you certainly have a point about health care, which is the elephant in the room, though that will hopefully get better as Obama's plan phases in.

I suspect that Daniel Kanemann's research could be rephrased as "For a good life, you have to be making more than average." It's not coincidence that $60K/year is just slightly more than median household income in the U.S. I suspect that if he were to run the same experiment in Vanuatu - supposedly the happiest place on earth - he'd find that you need roughly $5K/year for the good life. That's just slightly over their per-capita GDP.

People who make 10-20k a year still pay FICA. I did some rough calculations and someone making $400 a week in California will pay 20% in federal and state taxes, medicare and social security.

> 3 roommates in a basement is only miserable living conditions when compared to the McMansions that people are moving into now.

Unless you are applying the term 'McMansions' to include a single person living in a studio apartment or a 1-bedroom apartment (or even a couple living in a 2-bedroom apartment), then I suggest you revisit that statement. It's obviously not abject poverty, but to say that the only people that would consider your living conditions to be something that couldn't deal with must therefore be living in 'McMansions' is a bit of an overstatement.

I actually really enjoy living with other people. Instant everyday socializing. YMMV, of course.

> I suspect that if he were to run the same experiment in Vanuatu - supposedly the happiest place on earth - he'd find that you need roughly $5K/year for the good life. That's just slightly over their per-capita GDP.

You seem to be ignoring though, that the cost of living is different between the two places (I'm assuming that both of those dollar amounts are in US dollars).

Kanneman said two things: - 60K is a point where bigger income won't make you happier. - GDP higher than 12(?)K Per capita/year will not make big difference on the wellbeing of citizen of the country.

Here's a rough look at my finances. I currently take home $2k a month, and live in the city of Pittsburgh, for reference. I live in one of the nicer neighborhoods in the city, though I managed to find a pretty cheap place.

    Rent: $325/mo ($950 split three ways)
    Student loan bills: $500/month
    Fios/gas/electric: $70/mo, (again, $210 split three ways.)
    Food: I eat out a fair bit, so probably like $500/mo, on average? I could cut down on this a lot if I tried.
    Transportation: I bike everywhere. Spent $600 three years ago.
    Phone: $60/month, Nexus One on T-Mobile with unlimited data/text, small amount of minutes that I never use.

I don't currently have health care.

That puts me at roughly $1450 of spending. I'm sure I'm forgetting something minor. But for just expenses, that'd end up being $17,400 / year.

Jason Rohrer is an American programmer whose family has annual expenses of less than $15k:

http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/supportMyWork...

From the sound of it, they're not living on Big Macs. But they do live an unconventional lifestyle and have made material sacrifices to minimize their consumption.

I think, his parenting rights has to be taken back. He buys toys for kids used - which is very unhealthy. And he will not be able to buy cutting edge or very good stuff this way. No new books kids - Nope! Dad knows better. No new dress - nope! Dad has THE idea! In case of emergency he will not be able to pay for care for kids, unless he depend on government provided healthcare (do not get me wrong, I am "socialist" myself and I am pro-government-run-care), which unreliable, and does not cover many things.

My opinion - yes you have to try to live cheap life, but not by buying used stuff - somebody else, with not really cheap life bought it first, but buying inexpensive stuff and using as long as possible, till it falls apart.

Is this comment serious, or were you just trying to figure out a good way to get downvotes?

Absolutely serious.

There's a difference between survival and a middle class lifestyle. For those of us who have lived poor at some point, it's a point of privilege to have all of these luxuries.

Even so, if you look at the lifestyle of a single person on 35k a year, it's vastly superior to that of someone in the 1980s in many aspects, with health care and real estate as major exceptions.

hmm..Not sure. 35K in 1980 were a lot bigger money :). Superior by the way because of globalization - which created better (?) material supply, but made jobs in USA horrible trash.

Really, it's not that hard. Conservative estimates:

Wages: 35k

Taxes: 10.5k

Rent: 1000/mo = 12k

Utilities: 200/mo = 2.4k

Transportation (car): 200/mo+200/mo = 4.8k

Food: 400/mo = 4.8k

Total: 34.5k

Get a roommate, use public transportation, get rid of TV, make your own meals, and you could probably put 5-8k in the bank each year. Even if you're living in NYC, it should be pretty easy to "survive" on 35k a year.

For me (the differences) --

Rent [1]: 300/mo = 3.6k

Transportation [2]: 100/mo = 1.2k

Food [3]: 250/mo = 3k

Total: 20.7k

Obviously that leaves a lot of things out, but that is what the other $14K+ is for. If you can't live on 35K, I'm guessing it's because you're either carrying too much debt, or you've convinced yourself you need to spend $X/mo on a car/living in <expensive city>/whatever when you really don't.

[1] Right now I actually am renting an entire house with one roommate and we each pay $125/mo, but we are renting from a friend. Before I moved here, I paid about $240 a month. I could easily find a place under $300/mo here in Columbus, OH.

[2] I don't have a car right now; instead I use public transportation or ride with my roommate or other friends. Even giving my friends gas money and renting a car once a month or so would only come to 1-1.5K per year.

[3] I could easily get by on about $125/mo for groceries. Doubling that allows me to go out a couple times a week as well.

People do it all the time.

I had a friend who never made more than $20k her whole life and yet was able to own her own house (a tiny cottage here in the Minneapolis metro area), have a running car (bought used and maintained properly) and eat well (cooked her own meals, rarely ate out). I haven't talked to her in about 7 years, but as far as I know, she's doing fine.

I lived alone with no roommates in Fairfield County, CT (a pretty expensive area) for more than 5 years while making less than $30k and was perfectly happy. It just requires managing your finances well.

I've never made close to 35K. I've been self-sufficient for the last 4 years or so, and I was living on roughly $17k for most of that, and I'm living comfortably on $24k right now.

I mean, Pittsburgh is a cheap city, but still, I live in the city. If I lived in the 'burbs I could do it for less. Well, maybe not, needing a car would probably make up the savings in other expenses.

Lets start investing in our kids across the board.

State and federal funding for schools is inadequate. Wealthy areas invest additional money in education to bring the quality up to acceptable. Poorer areas cannot do so. Its an injustice that children from less affluent areas cannot get a good education in a public school, cannot have the same educational opportunities as students from more affluent areas.

Inequality in education is one of our most pressing problems, and yet nobody talks about it because it doesn't effect the affluent.

If we don't invest enough why are per pupil expenditures highest in poor quality urban districts? Perhaps the "investment" isn't being well-spent--which I believe is Philip's real point in the OP.

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/expenditures/tables/table_03.asp...

$10,300. That is what we actually spend per pupil as a nation.

Look here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/expenditures/tables/table_01.asp

See the large variance in state and local spending? Much of that is inequality.

To address your question: your assertion is factually incorrect. Some cities spend more in inner city schools, and some spend less. The real inequalities lie in rural schools.

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