Generation Debt: Take Control of Your Money--A How-to Guide
Generation Debt: Take Control of Your Money--A How-to Guide
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Overview
There is a growing financial epidemic -- young adults are taking on more student loan and consumer debt than ever before, but finding it harder to pay it off. With tuition and living expenses rising every year, and the average college student graduating with over $18,000 in debt, many are trapped and can't find a way out.
Now, this definitive book offers the financial advice necessary to help readers navigate their way toward a debt-free future. Informative, timely, and entertaining, Generation Debt teaches readers how to:
- Get a grip, set goals, and make financial plans by identifying
- needs vs. wants
- Employ the "B" word (Budget) to lower bills
- Master loans with payback options and consolidation strategies
- Learn good debt vs. bad debt and be smarter with credit cards
- Understand interest rates and fees, and shop for the best rates and services
- Take advantage of employee savings plans, stocks, bonds, and mutual funds
- And much more.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780446556873 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Grand Central Publishing |
| Publication date: | 02/28/2009 |
| Sold by: | Hachette Digital, Inc. |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 359 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
gener@tion DEBT
By Carmen Wong Ulrich
Warner Books
Copyright © 2006 Carmen Wong UlrichAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0-446-69543-2
Chapter One
Why Do We Have So Much Debt, Anyway?
The Costs of Trying to Make It
In order to master your enemy, it's best to get familiar with its MO.
So before helping you tackle, manage, and come out on top of the eight-hundred-pound gorilla of your personal money situation, let me offer you a quick tour of the confluence of events that have gotten many of us stuck in this tight financial spot in the first place.
Worst-case scenario, the following section will make you look supersavvy at your next cocktail party. Best-case scenario, it will piss you off, make you wise, and get you moving.
WHY AND HOW A COLLEGE EDUCATION HAS BECOME A MUST
Notice how there is less and less mention these days of "upper class" or "lower class"? How marketers and advertisers (and politicians) now segment Americans with phrases such as hippie boomers, soccer moms, NASCAR dads, tweeners, bobos, and urban singles?
Lifestyle has replaced the old-fashioned concept of social class. The very positive power of lifestyle as the standard of social segmentation is that lifestyles can be built by choice, not by birth. And the rest of the world is rapidly following suit. (Hooray for that!)
But here's the kicker: For most Americans, education is the keyto lifestyle. And as we all know only too painfully well, education costs.
The shiny side of this penny-and what we can pretty much deduce on our own-was confirmed recently by the U.S. Department of Labor in its report Working in the 21st Century: College graduates age twenty-five and over earn nearly twice as much as workers who stopped their education with a high school diploma.
Many folks got that notice. The Census Bureau reported in June 2004 that Americans are more educated than ever before, with 85 percent of all adults twenty-five and older completing high school that year and 27 percent having a bachelor's degree in 2003-a historic high.
For comparison, in 1975, 18 percent of men and 11 percent of women had a college degree. In 2000, those numbers rose to 28 percent of men and 24 percent of women. Nice catch-up job, ladies and gentlemen.
Then again, I still (unfortunately) hear ranting justifications like "College is nothing more than a piece of paper." Or another favorite, "I'll learn on my own and start my own business-Bill Gates didn't finish college!" Well, I see men wearing leather sandals, too, but that don't make them Jesus. I digress.
Straight entrepreneurship is a challenging, potentially lucrative, but extremely risky way to go. If you can do it without getting a college degree, more power to you, all the luck in the world. However, if you are planning on joining the workforce and getting a good j-o-b, that "piece of paper" is your key. Why? Because as those of you who have completed college, are in college, or have had any college know, to succeed in undergraduate and especially graduate school, it takes discipline, motivation, dedication, book learnin', and a major dose of experimentation and growing up, not to mention a big chunk out of your and your parents' wallet. So an employer is much more likely to take you (college-educated person) seriously as a job candidate than someone who chose a different path.
Another reason a college education has become de rigueur in the workplace is the shifting focus of the economy over the last several decades.
There are many of us who can say that we are either the first generation in our families to get a higher education, or that our parents were the first to go to college. Alongside the parental (that'd be me) or recent immigration factor, after the 1950s a fundamental shift in the economy and the job market took place. (Before then, if you could imagine, a high school diploma was all you needed to land yourself a good white-collar job-with a pension, no less!) The glory days of behemoth industry and manufacturing are over. Smarty-pants are in. Popular writer-economist Peter Drucker sums this up by saying we've shifted into a "knowledge economy." The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, a division of the U.S. Department of Labor) more generically calls this a "new economy." In 2001, the BLS reported that the importance of a college education in this "new economy" is made salient by the fact that despite a shrinking college population, there has been a tremendous increase in college enrollments.
Census data show that between 1987 and 1997, the college enrollment of twenty- to twenty-four-year-olds increased 30 percent despite the fact that the actual number of twenty- to twenty-four-year-olds in the country decreased by 1.3 million in the same ten years.
Sociologist-economist poobah Professor Richard Florida became very popular recently with his more encompassing stance that not only is the economy knowledge-driven, but it is also-and will continue to be-driven by a combination of knowledge, information, and creativity, fueling a rapidly growing innovation economy. Now, according to Professor Florida, because creativity is valued as much as, if not more than, just knowledge and information on their own, we're heading toward the formation of two interdependent classes of society: the "Creative Class" and the "Service Class."
Florida states that the problem is that those that are left behind (non-college-educated) are going to end up getting sucked into the Service Class because the members of the dang Creative Class make so much money and work such long, encompassing hours that someone is going to have to take care of all the day-to-day stuff (now, who'd that be?). The more money we make and the more educated we become, the stronger the need for a service economy to support us. And so the wheel turns ... Pick a side.
Another raison d'etre for the education push is the upcoming rapid retirement rate of baby boomers. Millions of those boomers will be retiring in the next ten years, leaving heaps of empty job slots. Great news! Lots of jobs! But the majority of these positions require a college degree. According to our friends at the BLS, in the ten-year span from 1998 to 2008 college-level jobs are projected to grow more than 27 percent. And as the Occupational Outlook Quarterly online reported in 2000, "For the first time in years, openings for college-level jobs are expected to nearly equal the number of college-educated labor force entrants."
But it's no time to get lax. The BLS report mentioned above also states that because of this job-exits-equal-job-entries trend, expectations for high salaries and job satisfaction will also increase. This brings about an even more competitive environment not only for the best jobs on the totem pole, but hopefully for employers to satisfy their employees as well.
THE RISING COSTS OF EDUCATION
"Universities share one characteristic with compulsive gamblers and exiled royalty: there is never enough money to satisfy their desires."
So we've established that to make a good buck in this grande land called America, we need at least a college education. And to get this education, what is required of us? Money. Lots of it.
Why does it cost so damn much if it's basically a requirement? We can go to public high schools on our parents' tax dollars because it's required. So why is a college education getting exorbitantly-almost prohibitively-expensive the more we need it?
Well, you can refer to Prof. Bok's dead-on quote above for a quick answer. A bit of a longer, more involved answer is that universities are moneymaking and increasingly commercialized private institutions (even the public ones)-some are even corporations (University of Phoenix, anyone?).
Since the late 1970s, when Pell Grants from the federal government covered up to 84 percent of the costs of a four-year college, the bankrolls and operations of higher education have taken a big, hard right turn. A combo of the feds pulling back on their support of college students and the schools themselves (an energy crisis, crime, and war gobbled up most of the government to-do list in the 1960s and 1970s), universities needing to find alternative funds to support their growth and research (hint: athletics) and a ratcheting up of competition among institutions have created a rising spiral of college costs.
According to CNNMoney.com, the reason tuition costs rose between 4.5 and 11 percent for the 2004-05 school year was a combination of labor costs and health care for staff, student aid (since fewer can afford to go, schools are giving more and more aid-whaaa?), and, as I already mentioned, competition among schools in the battle for the best reputations, best faculties, and best student body (gotta pump out more rich, successful alums).
You can't blame them, really. We've already established that job competition requires higher education levels and training, so universities and colleges are under more pressure than ever to attract top students, athletes, and funding. However, institutions have become so skilled and entrepreneurial in their approach to moneymaking-including corporate sponsorship of research facilities and top students-that they are, for the most part, richer than ever. So again you ask, why the mind-blowing costs?
Well, just how bad is it? (Humor me here.) It got bad enough that in 1998 Congress created an amendment to the Higher Education Act ordering a study of the costs paid by institutions and the prices paid by students. (Just to make sure there wasn't some price gougin' goin' on, no doubt.) The commission that ran this study found that the amount students pay for their college education is increasing faster than inflation (both private and public), and that institution costs are also increasing fast, but not as fast as the payouts made by students.
Our friends at the BLS break it down farther: From 1987 to 1997, the Consumer Price Index for goods and services rose 41 percent, while during the same decade college tuition and fees rose 111 percent! The U.S. Department of Education reported in 2002 that between 1981 and 2000, in both public and private colleges and universities, the average tuition (adjusted for inflation, of course) more than doubled, while the median family income rose only 27 percent in that same time period. Hmm. Quite the gap to close there.
So just at a time where you gotta gotta have that degree, it gets harder and harder to pay for it. And though at least half of students get some or all their tuition paid by their parents and almost a third live at home, too, Mom and/or Dad are becoming less and less likely to help out. Why the tighter wallets? Because parents are living longer and longer, and their retirement accounts got hit hard by the previous recession. Thus, they now have bigger and bigger retirement costs and needs.
So we get resourceful. The Census Bureau says that 75 percent of all full-time college students worked while in college. A staggering 40 percent of these worked full time. (Good Lord-you guys are amazing ...) The BLS puts this number closer to 30 percent, with 53 percent of students working twenty-five or more hours a week.
But there are only so many hours in a day and for now, self-cloning is prohibitive, so loans are rapidly becoming the number one method of paying for a college education (that's not including the wonderfully lucky bunch who just write checks-bah).
Back in the day, the federal government straight up gave money to college students (in the form of grants), but now the government has instead become the biggest lender to college and graduate students. Well, at least they're subsidized loans (see chapter 3 for an explanation of why this is a good thing).
It doesn't really seem to matter too much in dollar amounts due whether you go to public or private schools. Nellie Mae (she probably visits your mailbox every month, or maybe her sister Sallie?) reported in 2003 that the average debt incurred by a graduating four-year college student was $21,200 for private schools and $17,900 for public schools. Yee-ouch.
Let's juxtapose those digits with what Nellie Mae reports as starting salaries after graduation: $26,400 (private) and $26,800 (public).
A moment of silence to digest the shock.
Do I dare even venture into the land of graduate and professional school costs? Heck, as I'm writing this, I've got a supergrand five-figure total for my master's degree. Why not ...
According again to Ms. Nellie Mae, the average debt a graduate student leaves school with-along with that diploma-is $45,900. This same graduate student will average a starting salary of $42,100 a year. That shade of red does not exist in nature.
It's been awhile now since credit cards have become a substantial way of life for graduate students, even just for day-to-day expenses. Undergrads have caught on. The average undergrad now leaves school with $1,843 in credit card debt.
It's a love-hate relationship we have with the debt we incur for our higher education. The bills are a tremendous burden-yet without them, we wouldn't have been able to get that degree that got us that well-paying job, right? Quite the Faustian bargain. But I'll get to show you how to get the upper hand on this smooth devil called debt soon. Stay tuned.
INTERNSHIPS: AKA INDENTURED SERVITUDE
Internships. They can be paid or unpaid, a genuine training and recruiting program, a glorified temp job, or, worst-case scenario, just another form of indentured servitude. For the most wanted, cool jobs and careers, the latter two types tend to be the norm.
According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), in 2004 internships were the top recruiting method used by employers to find new full-time employees. The Financial Times recently reported that half of U.S. college graduates hired have gone through internship programs. Some good news for those on the internship track comes from Business Week online, which says that as we're pulling ourselves out of an economic slump, the classes of '04 and '05 will get 25 to 35 percent more internship offers than in the past several years, and that the number of full-time job offers after completion of an internship will rise the same amount.
Here's the problem I-and a growing, vocal group of others-have with the practice of internships: They remain fairly unregulated, and many continue to be unpaid (especially in the more creative, hot fields such as publishing and music or film production design).
I had a couple of internships. One in my undergrad years did not pay, but I did get full course credit; a quasi-internship after graduate school barely paid a minimum salary. I'm very glad I had these experiences, and there is no doubt that my undergrad internship was a huge factor in getting my first job out of college. However, as the practice of not paying interns grows, and as it becomes more and more important to have an internship-well, let me relay an anecdote:
Several years ago, I caused quite a ruckus at my ridiculously low-paying post-graduate internship when I walked away from a prestigious offer from the top dog to return instead to the world of earning a fair wage. Thankfully my job switch was a good idea for many reasons, not just because I couldn't pay my rent where I was at, but also because as I walked out, looking behind me, what did I see?
At one of the most prestigious institutions in its field, I did not see behind me the creme de la creme of thinkers, healers, and researchers. No. What I saw was the mediocrity left over from the sieve that is formed by the need to survive at a job and profession that leave you with loans up the wazoo, then pay you near nothing for the internships and fellowships required to even officially enter the career. These folks weren't the best and brightest. They were simply the ones who had parents and/or family who could help them financially survive the process. What a shame.
Writer Laura Vanderkam recently agreed with this in her USA Today column on how unpaid or low-paying internships eliminate many of the best-qualified candidates from the hiring pool. The system doesn't get you the best candidates. What you get is the 20 percent or so of the total available candidates whose parents or family are able to bankroll their living expenses. She wrote, "If the interns who would make my life easier are working construction jobs because their parents can't bankroll their unpaid summers doing my research, then I have a problem." Right on, Ms. V.
The New York Times chimed in with a piece titled "Crucial Unpaid Internships Increasingly Separate the Haves from the Have-Nots." The article wondered: If it's becoming more and more important to join the workforce not only with an advanced degree, but with an internship in your industry as well, is there a discriminatory class system being created that undermines potential interns from less wealthy families-who have to turn down these unpaid posts for jobs that pay, but may not be where their career interests lie?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from gener@tion DEBT by Carmen Wong Ulrich Copyright © 2006 by Carmen Wong Ulrich. Excerpted by permission.
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