Posted on 06/06/2010 10:11:16 AM PDT by STONEWALLS
"For years, Pat Bearce had a message for his daughter Andrea: After her college graduation, she would be on her own financially.
It has been three years, and she isn't quite there yet.
After studying broadcast journalism at Texas Christian University, Andrea decided to pursue a career as a chef, choosing a pricey culinary school in New York City. The restaurant jobs she landed didn't come with health coverage, so, in addition to guaranteeing her apartment lease in Manhattan, her parents covered her health-care costs for a couple of years. They paid her monthly cellphone bill, too. And she still has a jointly held credit card with her mother, Catherine.
"It's pretty hard to get them launched," says Mr. Bearce, a pilot at Boeing Co. in Seattle, who now says he never actually intended to enforce the deadline. "The real bottom line is that when they're done with school, they're not really done."
The latest class of college graduates is entering the real world at a time when parents are finding it more difficult than ever to get their adult children off the family dole—and may be growing increasingly stretched themselves. For decades, the gap between the student years and adulthood has been widening, and the sour economy has only accelerated that trend.
The unemployment rate for 20- to 24-year-olds stands at about 15%, compared with 9.7% for the whole work force. Then there is the worsening indebtedness problem: About two-thirds of 2008 graduates had student debt, and that debt averaged $23,200—up from $18,650 in 2004—according to the Project on Student Debt, a nonprofit group.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I’m not familiar with a SS rule about living apart. Families living together get less social security? Could you elaborate?
In my day it was expected that we’d work when we graduated. Some kids lived at home and paid a nominal rent for their room.
I'll be darned if I'll feel guilty about it, however. It's my money. My kid. My choice. Anyone who doesn't like it can pound sand.
It wasn't the change in regulations governing Home Appraisals that knocked 20-25% off the value of your home - it was the bursting RE bubble.
That 20-25% should never have been there.
Sure, and theres nothing wrong with what youre saying. Whats wrong is for those children to mooch off of their parents. They should be contributing, not asking their parents to pay their health insurance, dammit!
It’s a tough shot out there in the working world. You can’t blame companies that are looking at experience rather than new grads. They are out there and almost free for the picking.
I argued all the time, years ago, with my company about hiring 80% new grads and 20% experienced. I didn’t agree with that since the new grads had to re-invent the wheel in electronics. We tried to hire 20% new grads and let them learn from the experienced. Worked great and we turned product out fast and of higher quality. Face it, companies know that what a kid learns in college, in their books, is outdated when the book is printed. The only thing college proves is that they have the ability to learn. Let them learn from the experienced in the field.
The only way to beat an experiencedperson in an interview is to prove to the company that you can hit the ground running if hired,can out perform someone with 10-20 years experience. Not easy to do these days with all the talent running the streets.
Half my nephew’s friends haven’t even hit adolescence. Most of the time they act like 8 year-olds. They can’t even get the “benefits” of encroaching socialism because they won’t fill out any paperwork for anything ever, apparently forms are complicated and detract from sitting around watching TV time.
When I got my first job as a Student Asst. Lifeguard getting paid minimum wage ($2.75 hr.) part-time, my father told me it was time to start paying my share of the household expenses. He hit me up for ~ 25% of my check for about 2 years.
After I graduated HS, I paid my tuition and books and I went to college for a year and then enlisted in the AF. I haven’t looked back.
My son is going to learn the same lesson. I will not enable the type of behavior discussed in this article. You do more harm to your children by enabling them.
I would suggest avoiding farming like the plague.Trust me on this.
“You might like this article by Glenn Reynolds: Higher Edcation Bubble about to Burst”
good article. too many college dgrees are only good dor recipeints to scam future students. why does anyone need an MFA to teach adobe illustrator at a community college or technical school?
You raise a good point... multiple generations under the same roof used to be the rule, not the exception. The big difference today is that the kids are usually single, and living there not out of strict neccessity, but to maintain lifestyle. “Adult males”... and I use that term loosely... are often more concerned about keeping the Internet and X-Box Live than independence.
My family is much more like the old model... the “Waltons Model” if you will... all adults are married, and everyone pitches in for expenses in the household. My mother in law recently passed, and my father in law has his own separate wing in the house, basically. I think you’re going to see a lot more of this among white families as the whole social security ruse dies off. Older people will again live with their kids for mutual benefit.
More and more, I think the post-WW II family situation... every man with his own home, high paying job, and guaranteed retirement... will be seen for what it was, a Utopian anomaly that was unsustainable in the long run.
I guess youre right. What you say makes sense. No disparagement to the majors mentioned. Its just hard getting a job with em.
LOL - Sorry - forgot my sarcasm tag.
My daughter graduated from UVM a year ago. She lives with us but she got a retail job with health benefits. It’s not her dream job, but for now provides a basis for the future, if we have a future. She pays her college and car loans and car insurance. We don’t ask her to pay any rent or such. I think she likes the middle class standard of living we provide: cable, DVR, high speed internet, washer/dryer, full frig and she comes and goes as she pleases. We like having her around.What a nice post! My best buddy in Malta, who is in her 30s and is a schoolteacher, lives at home with her parents. She told me many in Malta stay with their folks until they marry. Sometimes, I think Americans are too busy shooing their kids away, starting with babysitting as infants, then kids-on-a-rope daycare, nannies, after-school care, more after-school care, then college, and a big boot out the door. (I like having my kids around too! They all work hard, and don't expect anything from us, including money/food/etc.)
Why?
You might not make enough to have a Mercedes every year but I can’t think of a farmer in America today who can’t at least grow the food for subsistence.
If the economy keeps going as down as I see it going I think we’re going to see sharecropping make a huge comeback and if you own even 20 acres, you’ll probably have 2 or 3 recent grads just begging to pick the potatoes and what not just so they can get a 100 calorie meal and a 300 sq ft room for the night.
I heard from all my aunts and uncles who ran sharecropper farms exactly what it was like. Any land thats fertile is land thats power if you can use it right.
I have a hard time feeling sorry for parents like this. Let the kid make his own way, through failures and problems. You don’t do them any favors by coddling them.
Good for you, it sounds like you have raised a smart, motivated daughter.
There’s a big difference between pre-socsec multi-generational living and what’s going on now. In the era you’re talking about the youngest generation contributed to the well being of the household as soon as they were physically able to. These failure to launch kids do nothing, they don’t get jobs, they don’t clean house, they watch TV.
It’s what you have to do in order to grow up.
&&
Exactly. What we have today is a large segment of this generation that are perpetual adolescents with parents who enable their juvenile lifestyle.
Ok. I’m nosy. What about boys?
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