Re:ROI on a college degree depends what you study, not where
by VLM on Wednesday May 04, 2016 @11:30AM
(#11629037)
"I wish I could find a study of similarly smart and motivated people"
Skilled trades? Some oil field trades at least while there's not a bust going on?
It takes electricians more than four years to own their own company and have a couple guys working under them, but in all fairness many people take a lot longer than four years to get that art history degree and not all electricians want to own a small business and manage employees. Union payscale for 40 hrs no overtime is about twice median income where I live, I make about twice that programming, 2x median sounds bad compared to 4x median, but compared to joe6pack, twice median isn't that bad of a life, and there's something to be said for leaving work at work when you go home at the end of the day.
I have a cousin in law who's a stationary diesel mechanic with decades of experience and certifications, he's running about 8x median income, but that includes overtime and oncall and unlike fields like programming, diesel mechanic work is a profession that values decades of experience so a noob grad is not going to get that kind of pay. Pay might vary based on local values of supply and demand. Stationary diesels run your datacenter and hospital UPS, and corporations at least seem to have a blank checkbook for disaster recovery spending.
Something to think about WRT lifetime ROI is its widely understood that some fields like programming kick the vast majority of declared employees out by age 40 or so... (please no anecdotes about 2% being permitted to remain in the field, etc) That will confuse the results because a contractor / small business owner / manager / project coordinator will not show up in employee salary stats under "programmer", even if they like to call themselves a "programmer".
Skilled trades? Some oil field trades at least while there's not a bust going on?
It takes electricians more than four years to own their own company and have a couple guys working under them, but in all fairness many people take a lot longer than four years to get that art history degree and not all electricians want to own a small business and manage employees. Union payscale for 40 hrs no overtime is about twice median income where I live, I make about twice that programming, 2x median sounds bad compared to 4x median, but compared to joe6pack, twice median isn't that bad of a life, and there's something to be said for leaving work at work when you go home at the end of the day.
I have a cousin in law who's a stationary diesel mechanic with decades of experience and certifications, he's running about 8x median income, but that includes overtime and oncall and unlike fields like programming, diesel mechanic work is a profession that values decades of experience so a noob grad is not going to get that kind of pay. Pay might vary based on local values of supply and demand. Stationary diesels run your datacenter and hospital UPS, and corporations at least seem to have a blank checkbook for disaster recovery spending.
Something to think about WRT lifetime ROI is its widely understood that some fields like programming kick the vast majority of declared employees out by age 40 or so... (please no anecdotes about 2% being permitted to remain in the field, etc) That will confuse the results because a contractor / small business owner / manager / project coordinator will not show up in employee salary stats under "programmer", even if they like to call themselves a "programmer".