Extreme Saving: A Man, His Van and Five-Figure Debt
bloomberg.com
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Uh, once Social Security goes bankrupt the practical value of having children will be the same as it always has been: someone to help take care of you when you're old and feeble. And on a macro scale, there is tremendous practical value in ensuring there are 18-25 year old consumers in a couple of decades. Facebook stock would tank if it ever became the case that it's primary demographic was a monotonically shrinking set.
Also, why are college kids today so bad at job hunting? "I applied to 25 paid newspaper internships and got rejected from every single one... So, I got a job at a work camp in Arctic Alaska..."
The only way to job search as a fresh graduate is to treat it like it's a job itself. When I was job hunting during law school, I'd bang out that many applications in a day. I know a lot of people who didn't operate that way: they'd apply to a job a week or so as they found something they thought was perfect (and take forever crafting the perfect application). Those people struggled. Hint: if you're a fresh graduate, and your job search strategy doesn't involve a spreadsheet to keep track of the huge volume of applications you're submitting, you're doing it wrong.
Yes, there aren't enough jobs for fresh graduates out there (outside software engineering anyway). So obviously if everybody treated job searching seriously it wouldn't help anyone. But as long as most grads are like this guy, you have a leg up by not being like this guy.
In any case, that solution doesn't scale. Every form of retirement savings is just a way to earmark the production of someone else's kids (so long as human labor is needed for things, that is). If you invest in Google stock in lieu of having kids, you better hope that everybody doesn't get the same idea because then Google would have nobody to work there, and its advertising affiliates would have no working-age people to advertise to.
>Having a kid is very robust against something like hyperinflation, lol.
While I don't know what the statistics are I don't like the idea of having children in part because of the assumption that they would want to help care for you later in life.
As much as I like and dislike my parents I'd sooner move to the otherside of the world than help them though old age.
This is a common mode of thinking, but I personally find it bizarre. The modern American generational structure is senselessly inefficient. We impose large taxes on workers so their parents don't have to live with them, and then those workers turn around and pay huge amounts for child care because their parents don't live with them.
Now his entire life revolves around being a slave to his debt (living in a van in remote Alaksa, etc).
To each their own. But to me, this doesn't seem more free.
Not paying rent and cooking all your own meals is a great way to save money.
[1] http://theroadchoseme.com/the-price-of-adventure
Coldfoot is not the northernmost truck stop in the world. I drove another 250 miles North from there. http://theroadchoseme.com/the-dalton-highway-to-the-arctic-o...
I can't imagine spending tens of thousands of dollars on something that is monetarily worthless just because it is of personal value to me. That seems incredibly self indulgent.
In farming cultures, the more children you have the more workers you have. That seems practical as well.
I think his analogy is flawed.
The fact that after spending so much money on his libarts degree, he'd use the skills from his "education" to make such a terribly stupid and obviously factually wrong analogy just proves his critics right, invalidating his argument. (Many people have kids because they want to be taken care of. Duh.)
No matter how many of one's fellow liberal arts peers might preen about their fancy, overpriced sheepskins, the fact is that these would be emperors in reality have no clothes. (God forbid you point that out to them, though.)
"We don’t mock people who play the guitar, or go on walks in the woods. Why should we mock people who want to learn about their world and learn about themselves?"
Yes, perhaps, but if someone spent $200,000 on a beginner's guitar, or paid $30,000 for the a membership to a private property to go walk in your everyday typical (and accessible for free at a metro park) woods, we'd definitely be side eying them for it.
Edge cases aside, surely 'learning how to think' or indeed just learning is tremendously valuable - surely the ultimate value that all other kinds are implicitly converted to (cf. heat in thermodynamics[1]) is 'personal value' such as satisfaction?
[1]: A simplistic view, please don't flame me. :/
A lot of things are personally valuable but you don't necessarily spend tens of thousands of dollars on them - especially when they have no monetary value. And you have no real income.
I don't spend tens of thousands of dollars on my hobbies - they're near free.
I sold my car last year and don't plan on buying one again. But when I purchased it, I definitely made a self indulgent choice. I don't claim to be immune to temptation. But more to the point, it was never monetarily worthless and didn't put me tens of thousands of dollars in debt.
Underwear? I'm not sure what kind of fancy underwear would cost tens of thousands of dollars, but I'd definitely like to know more about that.
How? There are people who spend thousands of dollars on shoes, clothes etc. Heck, how many of us here spend tons of money on the latest gadget? Compared to these, spending money learning something just because he wanted to, is way better. And in any case, it is his money (well, it was a loan, still..), so he can spend however he wants (same goes for people who spend tons of money on the latest and greatest fad - it is their money)
And, as for myself, rather than questioning the value of such an education in the first place, I consider it a problem that this it's as expensive as it is.
I also consider myself lucky that my passions and desires happen to align with -- or are at least complimentary with -- my economic interests.
that said, i admit that i'm torn. on the one hand, we definitely need people to study history, language, writing, etc. the arts, and the liberal arts, are what help define a culture and help us develop that culture, those values, and pass them down and create a rich history. i wish our society valued that more, or rather appreciated what we have (and are at risk of losing).
the other side of it is the practical side. when i read that he had difficulty finding an internship at newspapers, that he had to push carts at home depot i thought "shouldn't that have been a sign to him that he's going to have difficulties in finding a role in the job market?" but the risk is that we, as a society, push towards vocational schools and away from developing thinkers, and that we stagnate because of that.
i'm glad he's writing about it and finding traction there, i assume he can use that to pay down his debt. that said not everyone - not by a long shot - can do that. the consumer marketplace just doesn't have that capacity.
this leaves me to wonder, then, about what roles we as a society have for the bulk of the people out there, and how to best serve them for education, expectations, and our future survivability. i am not creative enough to have any good ideas to help solve that challenge.
(Want to get a run-of-the-mill BA from an outrageously-expensive private college? Just sign here.)
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that the government should cap loans by degree-marketability or restrict school selection by a grading of school outcomes, but either a massive social re-valuation of tuition needs to happen, or things along those lines are going to need to be approached.
Our economy can't really grow when every young person is buried under student loan debt for years and years. Particularly not as we've transitioned to defined-contribution retirement plans. A decade of paying off student loan debt would either then be followed by large 'catch-up' contributions to make up the difference -- further delaying/retarding productive economic engagement -- or be underfunded, leading to higher social safety net expenditures when those workers retire without sufficient savings.
It paid off in terms exercising a mind in the craft of delving into an ambiguous question, forming complex ideas out of evidence, and expressing those ideas in a more concise and accessible form. A history degree is about as a good a "pre-law" or "pre-sales and marketing" degree as any other.
As a society, we benefit from people knowing a bit of history. But that is one reason we have public schools, theoretically.
My uncle works in heavy industry, and he says German workers are vastly better trained than any others he's worked with (mostly from South America, and some from US and China).
I've read about the lack of plumbers, carpenters, mechanics and other skilled tradesmen. I believe more people should be taught those (and definitely don't believe them inferior to, say, programming):
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/report-shows-worl...
About Germany:
http://www.imove-germany.de/cps/rde/xchg/imove_projekt_inter...
But does that make it valuable enough to justify the cost? I dunno. Ask Ken Ilgunas.
Or to be a bit less of a dick, I think this is a cross between the ancient philosophical question, "how does one know anything to be true?" and the cliché, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." It only holds this kind of value to an individual if the individual thinks it does. [Edit: And just to avoid the bigger philosophical question let's just say that the individual is or isn't confident that it holds this value, not that they know that it does or doesn't. ;-)]
Either way, there's always the risk that you aren't getting what you pay for.
To put my point differently, this is an example of a market which trades extrinsic value for intrinsic value. Sure, some mechanisms are certainly better than others for this purpose, but as is the nature of intrinsic value, "better" can only be defined on a very individual basis.
Of course this isn't the case for the vast majority of liberal arts graduates.
The statistics definitely don't play out in a vacuum... His kind of determinism holds far more bearing on his successes (financial or otherwise) than any degree (liberal arts or otherwise) ever could alone.
Also, don't ever forget the power of defining your own terms for success. I mean, it's pretty hard to fail when you're successful by definition. Although sadly it's nowhere near as easy to do as it sounds...
Essentially: surely that depends on your notion of value?
[1] http://www.salon.com/2009/12/07/living_in_a_van/
[2] http://blogs.newsobserver.com/campusnotes/duke-grad-school-o...
[3] http://www.amazon.ca/Walden-Wheels-Open-Road-Freedom/dp/0544...
Personally I favor the idea that it is better to focus your energy on earning/producing more, than it is to try to penny-pinch and cut costs. In today's world it seems there are innumerable opportunities to find money/success. But I acknowledge I'm saying that from a position of privilege, sitting here checking HN in my spare time.
Perhaps there was no other easy way for this English major to make more than $8 an hour, or perhaps he wanted the experience of going to Alaska (and also paying off his loan). But I would not suggest this as a first-choice plan to repay student loans!
"Plus, I was graduating with a degree in English and history, which, though valuable to me, is more or less monetarily worthless."
"I have little patience for critics who don’t see the value in a liberal arts education. We don’t mock people who have children -- and there’s no practical value to having children."
"Why should we mock people who want to learn about their world and learn about themselves?"
Because you don't need a damn Liberal Arts degree to do that. It didn't cost me 5 figures to learn about my ego and my id; It cost me 5 figures to get a CS degree while doing so.
I also mock those with children, but only because I currently don't know a single person in my circles that should be having kids now, if ever.
When I hear a friend is pregnant, I just get depressed about all the opportunities they'll never have.
Ultimately, it's about the second part of your comments. You clearly think they are doing something wrong with their lives, or they are not choosing the optimal route for their life.
While you are obviously entitled to your opinion, I do have some reservations about this kind of judgement. People have different views of what is a happy fulfilled life for them, so let it be.
(I know how ironic my "stop judging people" judgement on your judgement must sounds like, it's a fallacy I haven't been able to solve yet)
Sounds fine to me as long as we judge people based on their decisions and the impact those decisions have on a non consenting 3rd party.
I'm concerned with people choosing their preferred route for their own life, as long as its the preferred route with the minimal amount of negative consequences to the rest of society.
I think the concept of "stop judging people" is hugely misrepresented. It should be "stop judging people based on things that do not and will not affect others", because really, telling someone to not judge a rapist for being a rapist is pretty bad.
So sure, they may think the same about myself, however I'm not costing the taxpayers money with my shitty decisions.
And blindly paying down debts is irrational; you need to look at the broader picture, not be intimidated by what you owe. Maybe that money would be better spent on other things in the short term. I have a low interest rate on my student loan and just pay the minimum.