Few milestones in life mean as much to the American Dream as owning a home. And millennials have encountered the kind of trouble totally befitting their generation, which largely graduated into the teeth of the disastrous post-2008 job market. Just as they entered peak homebuying and household formation age, housing affordability is at 40-year lows, and mortgage rates are near 40-year highs.
The anxiety this generation feels about the prospect of never owning their own home affects their entire perception of their finances and the economy, says Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi.
“If they feel like they’re locked out of owning a home it colors their perceptions about everything else going on in their financial lives,” Zandi says.
Millennials have long been dogged by a brutal housing market. They faced not one, but two, cataclysmic economic events—the Great Financial Crisis in 2008 and the pandemic in 2020. Both of which left them reeling financially and struggling to afford a home. The Great Recession decimated the real estate market as the economy nearly collapsed under the weight of tenuous mortgage backed securities. While the pandemic brought with it a remote work boom that caused millions of citydwellers to flee to the suburbs, sending housing prices soaring.
So… you paid for two degrees already and are going for a third, and you are having financial issues?
Do you have all three of your degrees fully paid for (all debt on the first two gone, and enough money for the third without having to take out a loan)?
Otherwise it sounds like you are bad with money. Taking out huge loans you can’t afford isn’t the path to affordability. It’s pretty rare that degrees are a good financial investment.
Degrees are mostly a passion investment. You need to already be well off enough to afford all the extra costs to get the degree, abd you are paying money to do a job you like after.
There’s tonnes of jobs that pay incredibly well that don’t require a degree at all.
Taking out a large loan to get a degree is a terrible financial choice.
If you just care about finances, go work a job that pays well and has a low barrier of entry that anyone with a pulse can get into.
If you want to do something you are really passionate about and it’s financial investment sucks, that’s the tax you simply pay to have a job you prefer.
The intersection of:
Is extremely rare. There’s a couple trades that aren’t too bad, but they usually pay well due to a low demand low supply situation.
Wow, looks like you put a lot of effort into being condescending.
Am I wrong?
“I have taken out three huge loans and now I can’t afford stuff” isnt something I really sympathize with.
That’s a terrible financial decision.
Even if you could afford the loans, wasting all the time in school getting three degrees I stead if, you know, working, is also massjve money lost. Every hour in school is an hour that could’ve been spent at a job instead.
Even at minimum wage you usually “lose” another 10k to 15k a year you spend in school instead of working, best case scenario. If you can make better wage though that can balloon up to like 30k a year in lost potential income.
You sound 4 years doing that a d that’s *120k you can never get back on top of the actual cost of the degree.
And this person did that twice and is gonna do it a third time?
Bruh that’s like 360k+ now, that’s a whole ass house they just lost
Stop jumping between degrees, it’s not gonna magically make you stop hating work. Pick a lane and stay in it. Everytime you jump lanes you set yourself backwards 6-8 years
This person’s indecision and inability to just stick to it, combined with “grass is greener” mentality is why they can’t afford shit.
Terrible financial choices. I’m not being mean here, it’s just a stone cold fact.
I’m hoping they realize this and don’t make the mistake a third time.
No, your not really wrong, it’s just the tone that comes off as blaming others for their failures.
There’s a place for that but it is IMO not really on a public forum. Praise in public and criticize in private is good life advice. Maybe your tone is unintentional due to the nature of internet text communication.
To me, it seems like you could stop and realize that making sound financial decisions isn’t as big of a factor to most people as it is to you. There is more to life than worrying about money.
Corporate media does hyperfocus on that but I don’t think it helps make our (North American) society happy. It distracts us with escapism and temporary happy emotions.
Extra time in college is hugely expensive like you said. This is a cost people don’t realize and don’t like to admit. Each extra year “costs” around 100k between tuition costs and lost earning potential. The people I graduated with that took 7-8 years to get a bachelor’s were so much further behind financially they won’t ever catch up with those taking 4 years.
And those that spent 1 year getting a specialized certificate or two and entering into specialized markers that have low supply are even farther ahead.
Mind you, this isn’t an option for many industries… but it is an option for some and extremely lucrative. (Welding, machining, tonnes of “confined space” jobs, anything in waste management…)
Spending 7 years on a degree to get a high supply low demand job though was and is a scam…
I feel really bad for folks who fell for it though, they trusted people who told them it was a good choice and ot sucks watching so many people suffer for it.
Literally all I did at 19 was crunch the numbers. “Average salary for that field is this, at min wage I would lose this much a year not working and going to school. After paying off my debt it’d cost this, I’d make this much more per year if I get the job asap… so it’d take… thirty years for the investment to pay out? Wat?”
After comparing some costs vs others and contacting people in the fields, it became apparant that my dream field was actually a huge money sink, and my second best wasn’t much better… but my third option was actually very low barrier of entry, growing demand, and paid less but cost almost nothing to get into.
So I went with that.
Thanks for the judgment and assumptions, that really helped me out! I worked throughout my BSC, so yes that was paid for and a must-have starting point for my field, so no way around that. Then i did my Msc which comes with a stipend so I was able to come out of that with a debt that I paid off in 3 months. Right out the gate I was incredibly lucky and was hired at a top research institute and paid well since I was proficient in a relatively niche field. Things were ok then the pandemic blew everything up, my landlord sold my place from under me, rent is crazy high with few alternatives available, buying is out of the question, groceries and bills are insane… I get your point, I’m not exactly out to collect degrees like pokemon, I’m definitely done schooling after this and never again.
Ah, that changes things a lot, upgrading a degree is a bit different than getting another one, that makes more sense.
What’s stopping you from just moving somewhere better and applying your degree in a better market? Chances are there’s a big corporation somewhere that will hire you with your experience and masters degree, with an office in a better location that actually has an affordable cost of living.
Honestly thats not completely off the table, the upgrade will give me some freedom and a lot of options so I’ve been considering a move. Due to the nature of my program I have to be near a hospital, university or major research institute and the best opportunities are unfortunately in major cities, where things are expensive.
What field? There can be surprisingly financial options that are outside these scopes for industries that you typically associate with those.
Many private industries need to contract in specialists in fields for on site work. You end up away from home a month at a time often, but the pay can be very compelling.