I have a soft spot in my heart for Minnesota Public Radio, having spent four years living in Garrison Keillor country back in the early 1990s. If you have that much snow and sub-zero weather in your life, maybe you have to have both an enduring, and slightly wry, sense of humor about things. Or maybe you don't. But ... you betcha ... it certainly helps.
In any event, this piece by Bob Collins of MPR--full of wry insight and humor--is well worth the reading. It came out of a research project MPR did on the optimism or pessimism of current college students, but it would make for a great commencement address, if any college out there is still looking for a speaker.
Collins' point is that while college students may be terrified of the uncertainty they're facing, heading out into the world right now ... their predicament is hardly new. Life has always been uncertain, and the path to one's dreams has never been easy or straight. And--even more importantly--that's okay. A good thing, even.
"It's supposed to be hard to make the transition from college to the working world," Collins admonishes the project's students. "The dream has never been accomplished by taking one giant step, but by taking a series of small steps, some of which can be missteps. That's just how it works. It's the late '90s that were the exception. Don't make me tell you about my first $110-a-week-six-days-a-week job I got out of college."
Navigating your life one step at a time. Collins argues, is both what we end up doing anyway ("Raise your hand," he says, "if life has gone exactly the way you thought it would,") and important if the journey is to be meaningful. "Your mother was a hippie and wants you to be more concerned about settling down than she was? Fine," he says. "Ask her if she'd be a hippie again if she had to do it all over."
Collins acknowledges that humans--himself included-- tend to get more conservative and risk averse as they age. "But," he cautions students, "you're far too young to be 50."
In short, Collins makes a terrific argument for young people to stop worrying about security so much. Or, as Marmee once counseled a restless Jo in Little Women, to embrace their freedom and enjoy the ride, uncertain and challenging as it may be. And while Collins' primary audience may have been college students, there's a spoonful of tonic in there for the rest of us, too. A reminder that a vibrant life is not a pre-planned, predictable, and totally safe Disneyland ride. It's an uncertain journey. Always has been, and always will be. Regardless of what else may be going on in the world.
Perhaps Minnesotans are particularly good at accepting life in all its uncertainty and challenge. This is a place, after all, where it's been known to snow in every month of the year, and people have to shovel their roofs as well as their walks. I'm not kidding. I've done it, myself. If you want an easy ride in life, with palm trees and year-round sunshine, you don't settle in Minnesota. But whatever the reason, Collins' advice is a valuable reality check--not only on the current economic situation, but on how all of us, media included, can or should respond to it.
Lane Wallace
Sure the challenges of adulthood are nothing new, but who over 50 graduated college with $50k in student loans and credit card debt? When you're starting out with that kind of burden, never mind the recession, of course there's anxiety. It has nothing to do with the abstract future or achieving your dreams. It's the present, and working for $110 a week or its modern-day equivalent won't cut it. Collins' advice and this post basically ignore that for a lot of recent graduates, there's no time not to be conservative and risk averse. But if you're 50, established and debt-free, well I guess it's fair to look back and wonder if you could have been more care-free, too.
Ha!
Hey stevebeadle, how about this scenario: doesn't matter whether you graduate or take off a semester or decide not to go to college, you get drafted into the US Army and are sent to Vietnam as an infantryman. Then after two years, if you survived in some fashion, still having to pay off loans [no GI Bill], not being able to get a job, because all Vietnam vets were pot smoking loosers, and along with a jillion other vets during a recession, disliked by the left, and disgusted by the wingnut red necks. Sounds good, huh? You won't find me feeling a nano-second of empathy because of your 50K debt and credit card debt chock full of wants, not needs, of gadgets that are black holes of time.
What 'cuts it' is getting to tomorrow. And for the goofoos doofoos, Lane Wallace, who wrote this useless piece, I'm over 50 [I wish I was 50 again], I'm at least, if not more radical, than I have ever been, and know the definition of 'risk aversion' is a fear of life.
I don't have a clue what 'established' means; it's a made up word by American Corporatism to suck kids into wearing a suit all day and being a loyal employee. Just don't forget that corporate loyalty is one way street. You want care-free? Go to the freekin' movies. Its not in the cards, dood.
//there's no time not to be conservative and risk averse
Let's do the math on that. Let's see, I graduated (1976) with $4,000 in debt and a job that paid $5,720 a year. My debt was 69% of my annual salary.
The average student loan debt last year was not, in fact, $50,000, it was $21,899. The average income for graduating seniors in 2007 was $60,000, or 36.5%/
Are there exceptions? Of course there are. But my point is a simple one to today's kids: You're not the exception you think you are. It's the last thing you will likely learn as part of your college education: Some people do know what they're talking about. The best way to get ahead of the game, is to listen.
But you're right, $110 in today's dollars -- which would be $400 a week -- isn't going to cut it. But here's what you don't understand: It didn't cut it then, either.
That's the point: We weren't entitled then. You're not entitled now.
Go forth, work hard, experience life. Make yourself special.
The average income for graduating seniors in 2007 was $60,000.
This number is completely bogus.
Some real starting salaries are listed here, and they are nowhere close to 60k, except for those with marketable engineering degrees. You may want to also keep in mind that the salary of an unemployed graduate is $0.
chance, don't assume that even if I did have 50k in debt myself, that the money went to "gadgets." I'm a grad student, a bit older than most of my colleagues, and the only thing I spend money on is tuition, food and transportation.
BobCollins, is your starting salary in '76 comparable to the average starting salary for graduating seniors in 2007? Assuming you started in journalism, your salary was probably below average.
Which doesn't change the fact that you had debt to clear and weren't the only one, just as graduating seniors today are no generational exception.
But I think they get that. They didn't graduate in '76, just behind a cohort that thought it could somehow change the world. Just from talking to people a bit younger than me, my gut feeling is that they actually don't see themselves as an unfortunate generational counterpoint, somehow cosmically screwed over by bad economics and timing. In fact, most don't seem all that worried about what they can't control, which is good. They see their way around things.
I've been in school, out of school, worked a bunch of jobs in different countries, and you're right, the road to adulthood can be as rough as it's supposed to be, and working hard is important. But compound interest sucks, as I suspect that plenty of 2009's grads will learn.
One generation's always telling the next generation how the world really is, which is fine because, well, that's how the world works, no?
Don't forget to factor in the social safety net. Did you have health insurance back then? How about pension/social security? As a 30-year-old I have no expectation the government will be there for me by the time I retire, I expect I'll have to take care of myself - and that means survival, not just maintaining the comfortable quality of life I'm accustomed to through good returns on my upper middle class diversified investments.
What "social safety net"? You have to be kidding. I didn't have health insurance until 1976, 7 years after Vietnam, after finishing undergrad and grad work. I didn't have the luxury of even thinking about retirement in 1976 when I was 29. I didn't expect the government to do anything, in fact, I was glad to escape the clutches of the government. I had myself to depend on.
I have heard my son, now 29, say the same thing to me. But we had ample time to discuss all that and he now knows he was running under a plethora of false assumptions.
You are sorely oblivious to what the world view of many people in their late 20's, early 30's was in the '70's. I know you don't have much to go on, besides myth, movies, and TV, but you should dig a little deeper into those years.
I didn't even know what "diversified investments" were until my early 40's and didn't have the discretionary money to put anywhere except the mortgage on our 'starter' house, pay the utilities, buy food, and get to work. It wasn't until the mid '90's that I was able to scrape money together to put in a 401(k).
You may not be a whining child, but as a 30 year old you sure sound that way.
In the end, you have to accept your existential loneliness in this short life, and make your way without depending upon anyone other that yourself. That's all you have.
Hi chance, I only have my own experience to go on, as you have yours. I have several family members in my parents' generation who work in the public sector, they will retire with up to 80% of their salary in perpetuity. There are also all the union jobs with pension that have disappeared in the past 30 years. That's what I had in mind. I understand your POV, I don't expect to be babied, I was lucky enough to have college paid for but otherwise I've made my own way. I just get irritated having my whole generation written off as entitled credit-happy party animals when the reality is most of my peers I know start off with sizeable student debt, face bankruptcy like the rest of the uninsured out there if they get hit with an unexpected health crisis, and can't expect to stop working before 75.
BobCollins where did you get your statistics from? Because if the average income for graduating with a BA was 60k. I and just about every person I know (with the exception of my friends who went into banking, I digress,) seem to have missed that boat. I got a job in defense contracting at a very lucrative salary, that was not terribly close to 60k (45k) and of my graduating class I was in the upper spectrum of earners. And it was decidedly not a reflection on either my education (Top Tier school) or my connections.
I personally was incredibly lucky in that my parents, who funded their own way through university, made it a priority to make sure my siblings and I could go to whatever school we wanted and graduate debt free. I had approxiomately 40k of Loans to cover my 140k 4 year tuition. I graduated with 10 remaining and my parents picked up the tab. I have -alot- of friends who were not so fortunate. And in the current job climate/economy all this did was make me relatively debt free before my partner and I got saddled with even bigger debt in graduate school (to the tune of 50K and counting)
Wherever these magic 60k undergrad jobs are, tell me becuse I want one.
The average graduating income for master level students might start to approach 60k, but certainly not BA students. The average salary of someone graduating with a BA in LAS was 33k last year (http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/worklife/04/28/cb.salaries.grads/index.html).
This leaves us with a nearly identical percentage in loans in your example BobCollins, not counting the present day extreme costs for things like health care or retirement (no pensions here anymore!).
Are things so much worse or uncertain now than before? No, they aren't, but let's not distort facts and make it sound like those 30 years ago had much higher mountains to climb.
In short, Collins makes a terrific argument for young people to stop worrying about security so much.
Many of my college classmates thought this way and graduated with unmarketable, squishy liberal arts degrees. Ten years later, they're still working at Starbucks.
There's a difference between taking a calculated entrepreneurial risk and "embracing freedom" for its own sake. Risking some security makes sense in the first case, but it's harder to justify in the second case if one's life ambitions rise above serving coffee to middle class housewives.
Good points RTalian and FiresinAavalon, I hadn't thought about numbers. I started in book publishing in NYC at $25K (it's a challenge to live in NYC on $25K I can attest, with debt to pay off it would've been really hard - not surprising so many smart kids go into finance and corporate law - maybe that's my fault for getting a squishy B.A.). After 5 years working 55-60 hour weeks I was up to $45K. I do appreciate the gifts from those who came before - I'm grateful not to have a military draft looming (@chance), and as a woman I'm grateful to have access to all the colleges and universities and any profession I'm qualified for. I do not appreciate that the social programs the boomers inherited from their parents are going bankrupt and will not likely be passed on to their children. And it's true in general that there are fewer jobs for college grads than there used to be (partly because there are more of us now) and that overall the individual debt burden is much greater. Every generation has its challenges, I suppose.
The aggressive older posters here really make me queasy.
Not only is the current generation being saddled with upwards of $12 trillion in debt, in the U.S., not to mention some $55 trillion in unfunded Medicare and Social Security obligations. In addition to all that, there is the global warming problem, our oil- and car-dependent economy and the many global security issues that will affect the United States as a result of decades of mismanagement.
We should keep in mind that it is not the current generation that thrust the world into the awful mess that it is in at the moment.
Who is really entitled: the generation that makes the mess or the one that cleans it?
I don't think any generation is "entitled", nor do I see any evidence of that in the US. There certainly are class entitlements, but they are restricted to relatively few with disproportionate wealth and power.
"We should keep in mind that it is not the current generation that thrust the world into the awful mess that it is in at the moment." Do you really believe that one generation created a "mess" for the next generation? That kind of inter-generational squabble is the domain of the old self-righteous furballs who 'used to walk in four miles in their barefeet through the snow to get to school', and the 'don't trust anyone over thirty' pop culturalists.
My experience is that the world is far more complicated than your present conclusions, as well as your future sense of impending doom about national debt and "unfunded Medicare and Social Security" obligations.
When we reflect upon the generation that was born between 1946 and 1956, I think it's wise to see them in context of their times, as it is with every generation. But there is no currency in painting any generation with a broad brush, especially in a country as ours, as its very diversity defies a homogenous mindset.
But if you spend this time of your life embittered by the specious notion of having to clean up a mess created by someone else, you are robbing yourself of the great freedom and joy of your youth. Just clean up after yourself :)
I've gotta go. Gotta get my diapers changed...
Thank you for sharing your wisdom. I'm sure the points I made will go away on their own.