It sounds pretty bad out there -- certainly not a good time to be investing in a college education!

The bad part is that I have seen articles like this one OVER, and OVER, and OVER again. It seems to be quite common.

I don't have it much better -- True, I have a way to support myself and all, but I have still been placed in the un-enviable position of "raise a decent sized family on one income -- oh, and make sure you are self-sufficient/retired by age 35." Obviously I won't be able to reach that goal, but it's not MY goal! It was placed on me by the year I was born.

I'm always a bit jealous when I read about Baby Boomers discovering how precarious the world economy, social order, environment, etc. is, and they say, "Oh no, I better prepare!" and they cash out their 401K, all $250,000 of it, and go buy a piece of land, a water catchment system, solar panels, a ton of food, etc.

Or, worse yet, they PUBLICLY MUSE about whether or not they should "take the hit" and cash in their 401K to finance their survival preparations. (When you cash it out early, you have to pay an extra 10% tax)

And I'm thinking "it must be nice to have THIRTY YEARS of adult life to prepare for the coming collapse!"

So far I've had about 3 or 4. And grateful for (and trying to make good use of) every day of it!

I'm in the "starting out" phase of life -- so no matter how "awake" I become, I won't have a large nest egg to play with. I feel like I'm getting gypped out of a normal adult life. I often wonder about how prepared I'd be if I had been born 25 years earlier. Of course, that wasn't God's will. I need to remember that.

I shouldn't be too negative, because there are advantages to being young as well. You can learn valuable skills, one's health is usually better the younger you are, etc.

Matthew

I'm in an opportune time in that my parents are paying for my college, so I can spend time planning and researching this stuff without the ever pressing finance thing over my head.

Pray to God for me that he sends me gratefulness and thanksgiving.

Quote from: Lybus

I'm in an opportune time in that my parents are paying for my college, so I can spend time planning and researching this stuff without the ever pressing finance thing over my head.

Pray to God for me that he sends me gratefulness and thanksgiving.

It depends on what you are going to school for.  I have 9 college graduates out of my 10 children.  Only ONE of them works for corporate America in the field that she went to school for.  Some are stay at home moms, some have their own businesses in a field entirely different from what they were educated for.
I'm an RN.  I have a 3 yr diploma, which  was the way to go in the late 50's.  Nursing still has jobs, in some areas.  

I always thought college ed was a farce. except for the disciplines that REQUIRE education.    My husband disagreed and spent a million dollers educating the brood!  They were resourceful like he was.  He  was an  immigrant with an eight grade education.  He and his 2 brothers built up a milti million dollar  construction company from nothing.  
In todays age, its a combination of resourcefulness, willingness to work hard, and WHO YOU KNOW  helps a lot also.
I made several trips to Italy.
They have so little employment that  you cannot work in their country if you are not a citizen.  Most people there resort to BUYING a job, or continue in their parents business.  Its coming here too.  May be a time coming when you will have to move to China or India to get a job.  The kids in public schools are being brainwashed to accept that idea.

bartering for goods that you need seems like it is becoming a more and more acceptable route these days...

Well, it's bad enough that people see college as a way to make life into something like a "choose your own adventure."

God created each one of us with something in mind for each one of us, and gave us the talents and skills to fulfill that purpose. Then the person He gives them to decides they'd rather do something else, and they go to college for it... as though going there is going to give them all of the gifts and talents they'll need from God to succeed anyway, which it doesn't. Then they're shocked and bewildered when nowhere in the good Lord's divine providence is there an opening for them to just "be what they wanna be". So they have a "wake up" moment, wherein they realize "gee... this doesn't seem to be working out the way _I_ wanted it to. Come to think of it... it doesn't seem to be working out very well for many other people who have lived this way, too..." But then, rather than learning from their mistakes and trying to figure out what God wanted them to do in the first place (however profitable or not), they instead change their ambitions, to say... working up to a manager position at McDonalds.

But none of that has got anything to do with what they were meant and actually equipped by God to do in life.

If you think of it THAT way... it's not terribly mysterious to see that for so many people, all they get out of the deal is a waste of however many years of their lives. Bad economy or good, the Lord does not have to change divine providence to suit what we want to do (for example, just because the paycheck is fatter than it would be for what we SHOULD be doing).

College would be great if people used it to gain the knowledge for things they were actually meant by God to be doing. Sadly, mankind seems to view it instead as a way to (try to) cut the Lord and His will out of the picture entirely, and just do whatever the heck they want to do. Which is probably why there are so many "professionals" out there who seem better suited to janitorial work than to things that take intellect and other divinely-authored gifts they don't have.