Getting ready for new business ventures...
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
See!?!?????!!?!
Read this today on Facebook, and am totally going to rip the entire thing off because I think that it's incredibly important, mostly how ridiculously expensive education has become (and my friends here in Germany/Europe in general get pissed when they have to pay more than 150 Euros in tuition a semester)....
"DUMB ARGUMENT FROM BABY BOOMERS: “Millennials are so lazy and rely on their parents too much! When I was in college, I worked hard. I worked almost full-time while attending school full-time, and I put myself through college all on my own on minimum wage! It wasn’t easy, but I did it! I graduated with no debt. All of these young people feel entitled to a college education but don’t want to put in the work. Why can’t they just pony up and do what I did?”
"DUMB ARGUMENT FROM BABY BOOMERS: “Millennials are so lazy and rely on their parents too much! When I was in college, I worked hard. I worked almost full-time while attending school full-time, and I put myself through college all on my own on minimum wage! It wasn’t easy, but I did it! I graduated with no debt. All of these young people feel entitled to a college education but don’t want to put in the work. Why can’t they just pony up and do what I did?”
SHORT REBUTTAL FROM A 21-YEAR-OLD: “It’s literally impossible.”
LONG ANSWER: Let me break it down for you. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average cost of a public four-year university during the 1977-1978 school year broke down as such:
Tuition - $1,291
Dormitories - $654
Books - $148 (This figure was found by taking the average books/supplies cost of 2014, which has risen 812% since 1978, and doing the math to find the original cost).
Adjusted for inflation, this comes out to a total cost of about $8,203 per year in 2014 dollars.
Now, for the 2014-2015 school year at ASU (an average public, four-year university), using my own billing history from the university, the cost broke down like this:
In-State Tuition - $10,156
Dormitories - $10,394
Fees - ~$5,000
Books - $1200
Total cost: $26,750
Cool. So, even counting inflation, that’s a 233% increase in total cost. So about that minimum wage.
In 1978, the federal minimum wage was $2.30. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $9.03.
In 2014, the federal minimum wage is $7.25… which would have about $1.99 purchasing power in 1978. Just pointing out that our current minimum wage is worth less than it was in 1978.
A full-time student, on average, takes 15 credit hours per semester. As we all know, for every hour spent in class, you’re expected to complete two hours of homework outside of class. There’s 45 hours a week already occupied with schoolwork, or nine hours each weekday.
Let’s say your class/homework schedule on weekdays was 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. That’s cool, though. You’re a hard worker. You are determined to get through school with as little debt as possible, so you work every day after school from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. and each weekend from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., for a total of 38 hours a week. (Your boss won’t hire you full-time because if you work 40 hours a week, they’ll have to provide you with icky, expensive things like health insurance and benefits and PTO! Boo!)
Assuming this is your schedule for both semesters (32 weeks), you work 1,216 hours per school year.
In 1978, this would have earned you $87.40 per week for a grand total of $2,790 per school year. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $10,207. WOAH. Your total college costs were $8,203! I mean, you’ll probably have to work for a little bit more after you graduate to pay back some of the debt, but you’re just about golden. Your total income exceeded your total billing statement. Congratulations, dude(tte)! 1977-1978 was really good to you.
But it’s 2014! If you worked 38 hours a week at minimum wage, you’d earn only $8,816 per school year. Considering your total school bill was over $26,000, things aren’t looking too good for you. But wait, you say - I’ll just work more! Hey, good for you for taking the initiative, kid. But to cover you school bill by working a minimum-wage job, you’d have to work 3,690 hours per school year. That comes out to 115 hours of work per week. The allotted hours dedicated to schoolwork add another 45 hours each work, coming out to 160 hours per week. Do you know how many hours there are in a week? 168. That gives you roughly one hour a day that you’re not working or going to school. One hour.
If you only wanted to work 38 hours a week and pay off your bill, you’d have to earn roughly $22 per hour. If you, as a 20-something college student, can find a job that will hire you for $22 per hour and let you work nights and weekends that doesn’t involve anything degrading or illegal, hook a sister up.
Of course, these costs are just for school – they don’t include things like food, gas, bills, healthcare, entertainment, etc. So, in reality, you’d have to work way, way harder to survive. At minimum wage, you literally wouldn’t be able to every single hour of a week and still come out of college debt-free. Oh, you wanna talk about private institutions? I DON’T. Because that’s too much math. Rest assured though, it’s worse than everything you’ve read here so far.
Here’s a quick note about financial aid: I’m lucky enough to have received a scholarship that covers my tuition and a grant that gives me about $5,000 a year to go toward my costs. Assuming someone had the same financial aid situation as I do, they’d have to work 50 hours a week on minimum wage, or 38 hours a week at $9.50. That’s definitely far, faaaar more manageable - BUT it’s laughable to assume that you’d get to stow away every penny of that to go toward debt. Y’all need groceries. Y’all need to pay electricity bills. Y’all need to pay the internet bill. Y’all need to go to the doctor. Y’all need to pay for gas or public transportation. By the end of your two weeks, it’s not uncommon to find that your bank account is running on empty.
The notion that we don’t work hard when it comes to helping to pay off our college education is outdated and unfounded. I don’t think I know anyone my age who isn’t working – and if they aren’t, it’s because they have hella rich parents and can do whatever they want forever."
LONG ANSWER: Let me break it down for you. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average cost of a public four-year university during the 1977-1978 school year broke down as such:
Tuition - $1,291
Dormitories - $654
Books - $148 (This figure was found by taking the average books/supplies cost of 2014, which has risen 812% since 1978, and doing the math to find the original cost).
Adjusted for inflation, this comes out to a total cost of about $8,203 per year in 2014 dollars.
Now, for the 2014-2015 school year at ASU (an average public, four-year university), using my own billing history from the university, the cost broke down like this:
In-State Tuition - $10,156
Dormitories - $10,394
Fees - ~$5,000
Books - $1200
Total cost: $26,750
Cool. So, even counting inflation, that’s a 233% increase in total cost. So about that minimum wage.
In 1978, the federal minimum wage was $2.30. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $9.03.
In 2014, the federal minimum wage is $7.25… which would have about $1.99 purchasing power in 1978. Just pointing out that our current minimum wage is worth less than it was in 1978.
A full-time student, on average, takes 15 credit hours per semester. As we all know, for every hour spent in class, you’re expected to complete two hours of homework outside of class. There’s 45 hours a week already occupied with schoolwork, or nine hours each weekday.
Let’s say your class/homework schedule on weekdays was 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. That’s cool, though. You’re a hard worker. You are determined to get through school with as little debt as possible, so you work every day after school from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. and each weekend from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., for a total of 38 hours a week. (Your boss won’t hire you full-time because if you work 40 hours a week, they’ll have to provide you with icky, expensive things like health insurance and benefits and PTO! Boo!)
Assuming this is your schedule for both semesters (32 weeks), you work 1,216 hours per school year.
In 1978, this would have earned you $87.40 per week for a grand total of $2,790 per school year. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $10,207. WOAH. Your total college costs were $8,203! I mean, you’ll probably have to work for a little bit more after you graduate to pay back some of the debt, but you’re just about golden. Your total income exceeded your total billing statement. Congratulations, dude(tte)! 1977-1978 was really good to you.
But it’s 2014! If you worked 38 hours a week at minimum wage, you’d earn only $8,816 per school year. Considering your total school bill was over $26,000, things aren’t looking too good for you. But wait, you say - I’ll just work more! Hey, good for you for taking the initiative, kid. But to cover you school bill by working a minimum-wage job, you’d have to work 3,690 hours per school year. That comes out to 115 hours of work per week. The allotted hours dedicated to schoolwork add another 45 hours each work, coming out to 160 hours per week. Do you know how many hours there are in a week? 168. That gives you roughly one hour a day that you’re not working or going to school. One hour.
If you only wanted to work 38 hours a week and pay off your bill, you’d have to earn roughly $22 per hour. If you, as a 20-something college student, can find a job that will hire you for $22 per hour and let you work nights and weekends that doesn’t involve anything degrading or illegal, hook a sister up.
Of course, these costs are just for school – they don’t include things like food, gas, bills, healthcare, entertainment, etc. So, in reality, you’d have to work way, way harder to survive. At minimum wage, you literally wouldn’t be able to every single hour of a week and still come out of college debt-free. Oh, you wanna talk about private institutions? I DON’T. Because that’s too much math. Rest assured though, it’s worse than everything you’ve read here so far.
Here’s a quick note about financial aid: I’m lucky enough to have received a scholarship that covers my tuition and a grant that gives me about $5,000 a year to go toward my costs. Assuming someone had the same financial aid situation as I do, they’d have to work 50 hours a week on minimum wage, or 38 hours a week at $9.50. That’s definitely far, faaaar more manageable - BUT it’s laughable to assume that you’d get to stow away every penny of that to go toward debt. Y’all need groceries. Y’all need to pay electricity bills. Y’all need to pay the internet bill. Y’all need to go to the doctor. Y’all need to pay for gas or public transportation. By the end of your two weeks, it’s not uncommon to find that your bank account is running on empty.
The notion that we don’t work hard when it comes to helping to pay off our college education is outdated and unfounded. I don’t think I know anyone my age who isn’t working – and if they aren’t, it’s because they have hella rich parents and can do whatever they want forever."
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Today
How I was wanting to think...
Picnic, Lightning
It is possible to be struck by a
meteor or a single-engine plane while
reading in a chair at home. Pedestrians
are flattened by safes falling from
rooftops mostly within the panels of
the comics, but still, we know it is
possible, as well as the flash of
summer lightning, the thermos toppling
over, spilling out on the grass.
And we know the message can be
delivered from within. The heart, no
valentine, decides to quit after
lunch, the power shut off like a
switch, or a tiny dark ship is
unmoored into the flow of the body's
rivers, the brain a monastery,
defenseless on the shore. This is
what I think about when I shovel
compost into a wheelbarrow, and when
I fill the long flower boxes, then
press into rows the limp roots of red
impatiens -- the instant hand of Death
always ready to burst forth from the
sleeve of his voluminous cloak. Then
the soil is full of marvels, bits of
leaf like flakes off a fresco,
red-brown pine needles, a beetle quick
to burrow back under the loam. Then
the wheelbarrow is a wilder blue, the
clouds a brighter white, and all I
hear is the rasp of the steel edge
against a round stone, the small
plants singing with lifted faces, and
the click of the sundial as one hour
sweeps into the next.
~ Billy Collins ~
Picnic, Lightning
It is possible to be struck by a
meteor or a single-engine plane while
reading in a chair at home. Pedestrians
are flattened by safes falling from
rooftops mostly within the panels of
the comics, but still, we know it is
possible, as well as the flash of
summer lightning, the thermos toppling
over, spilling out on the grass.
And we know the message can be
delivered from within. The heart, no
valentine, decides to quit after
lunch, the power shut off like a
switch, or a tiny dark ship is
unmoored into the flow of the body's
rivers, the brain a monastery,
defenseless on the shore. This is
what I think about when I shovel
compost into a wheelbarrow, and when
I fill the long flower boxes, then
press into rows the limp roots of red
impatiens -- the instant hand of Death
always ready to burst forth from the
sleeve of his voluminous cloak. Then
the soil is full of marvels, bits of
leaf like flakes off a fresco,
red-brown pine needles, a beetle quick
to burrow back under the loam. Then
the wheelbarrow is a wilder blue, the
clouds a brighter white, and all I
hear is the rasp of the steel edge
against a round stone, the small
plants singing with lifted faces, and
the click of the sundial as one hour
sweeps into the next.
~ Billy Collins ~
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