Were We Set Up To Crash and Burn?
I was born in 1978. Depending on whose research you’re looking at, the only thing that’s consistent about my generation is that its definition is fluid and constantly in flux. Sometimes I’m Generation X. Sometimes I’m Generation Y. I’ve also been told that I’m part of the MTV Generation, Boomerang Generation, a Millennial or First Digitals. This list can go on and on and Wikipedia can provide a quick overview of the what’s what.
The year I graduated from undergrad ‘“ which was 2001 ‘“ I was asked to participate in a job fair to speak as a communications student with prospective students and their parents about the department and its program. High school students didn’t really ask me all that much. Parents, on the other hand, were keen to know what kind of job a communications degree would help their kids land.
I was quickly shepherded out of the spokesperson role when I responded that you don’t send a kid to university to get a job. If you want a job with a better salary right after graduation, go to college. University will give you a piece of paper that will open doors in a career further down a road. A university degree is the new entry level requirement, or rather, has the same relevancy that a high school diploma did 20 years ago only with a cost that usually will leave your kid $24,000 in debt.
Universities aren’t in the business of giving practical, hands-on, skills training. At least in the realm of liberal arts. They’re in the business of thought. They can help build the critical thinking capacities that are crucial for a knowledge-based economy. This won’t translate into a notable salary for most kids until many, many, many years post-graduation, if at all. If your kid chooses the university route, make sure they volunteer and land part-time jobs that will help them acquire the relevant employable skills.
Oh, and parents, don’t tell your kids that hard work, a good education and decent grades will hand them a brilliant middle to upper class future. You’re just creating a generation that has expectations, and no amount of hope will ever align those with the reality we face.
Take these kids for example. Er, um, my (sorta) peers. This has been happening to us for years and isn’t just a result of the recent economic disaster.
See I’m part of this generation that feels entitled. I did well in school, hold undergraduate and graduate degrees, and was told my entire life that I could do whatever I want. I’m ambitious and driven. I’m not wired to accept failure or anything less as an acceptable outcome. I’m supposed to have a fantastic future and I’m not going to settle for less.
Right now there is a debate raging across the province. There are many dimensions to what is being dubbed the ‘œWhy Johnny Can’t Fail‘ policy, but of most interest to me is this recognition of the kinds of dangerous attitudes we’re cultivating through our school system and the idealized future we’re helping our kids to create for themselves. Even in extracurricular activities we design fail-safe programs so that everyone can be a winner as a vehicle to improving a much needed self-esteem to succeed in a rosy bright future.
I’m part of this generation that is realizing with shock and horror that we can’t have it all. There is more than just who we are as individual beings that plays into the equation that determines our fate. There’s only so much control we can exert. No matter how hard we work.
The mantra my generation lives goes something like this. Forget about a good job, just be thankful that you have one that will hopefully pay the bills. Your very expensive education may only ever be a ticket to a meal and may never fully pay for itself. A house and family may happen, just don’t count on it till you’re in your 30s.
My children are part of the next generation. What kind of legacy am I going to hand to them. As a parent, what ideologies should I be teaching my children to prepare for their future? How are you going to prepare your kids for their financial future?
It’s not just the 20-somethings and 30-somethings who are crashing and burning. I’m a 40-something, and I left college with the same idea — that a Bachelor of Science degree meant something — and it would positively affect my life. Well, I’m sorry to say that although the degree has helped, it hasn’t given me the solidly middle-class life I expected. I’m supposed to be in my peak earning years now (I’m not, those sadly were gone a decade ago) and I’m struggling to get by.
I expected to be able to achieve a lifestyle better than, or at least equal to, that of my parents. I’m not even close, and I don’t expect to ever reach that goal unless I win the lottery or inherit a big pile of money someday.
Very thought-provoking post, Holly.
I’m part of Gen X, and I’m a lot more skeptical about the world than I think our generation is supposed to be (if you believe the label). I’ve never felt entitled to anything. I grew up with the reality that the whole bootstraps mythology was a crock of shit, and that getting ahead in life requires just as much luck as hard work.
As for what I am doing with my college degree, I’ll answer very honestly. Nothing. I am not “using” my BA in Women’s Studies, or my AA in culinary management. I didn’t pick those degrees because I thought they would earn me a hefty paycheck – I picked them because I was passionate about the subject matter. I’m not a big fan of the debt I incurred to get the degrees, but whatever . . . I “invested in my future,” right?
Holly: You raise some great questions. The media loves to point to Gen Y as having a sense of entitlement, but really, I think every generation thinks they deserve to live better or have it easier than the one before.
I’m in my early forties and this is the age when I really notice a disparity in wealth within my peer group. Sure, “luck, timing and skill,” had a little something to do with the outcome, but more often than not the choices one makes in your twenties and thirties begin to really show up as consequences in your forties.
This, in my opinion, has more to do with how me and my peers have spent our money over the last twenty years… and not necessarily about earnings. I didn’t attend a good University, I had below-average grades, I made a really risky choice about owning a business in my late twenties, and I didn’t start down my current career path until I was thirty. But at thirty, I consciously began and have stuck to a financial plan… which has meant living within my means.
I wish I had started this in my twenties – I missed a decade worth of saving and that consequence will be more apparent at sixty than now, but now is when I’m really beginning to see the value of investments and compound interest at work: “Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe,” said Albert Einstein. Indeed it is!
I’m 42 and definitely agree with Nina that its taken a long time for decisions in my 20s to have an impact. But I do this that’s a generational placement issue. When I talk to boomers, their career paths amaze me. Someone who starts off in the mail room at a tv station gets a chance doing late-night weather somewhere and ends up anchoring a tv show 10 years later. That reflects an expanding economy coinciding with your 20s. By contrast, gen Xers spent years doing volunteer work and get an extra degree to get on set at a local tv station, and if they stick with it they might get a job 10 years later. Gen Y has probably spent all of high school working for free at internships, ditto through university and eventually works on a temp level throughout their 20s and there’s no indication that this is going to change any time soon. So no wonder the boomers thought anything was possible – luck was often in their favour. Gen X is cynical because we got trained for opportunites we were then denied. And Gen Y is used as a supply of free intern labour and can’t understand why they can’t find a real job – because there really aren’t all that many! It has a lot to do with the economy going on in our 20s, which are formative career years.
Take me, I’m a typical gen Xer. I hit late high school in the middle of the 80s recession, so it was impossible to get work experience as a teen who was competing with 10% of adults who were looking for jobs. So I got more education instead. But when I graduated university I was still on the tail end of the boomers who had just finished filling up all the jobs that there ever were. I walked into constant hiring freezes, and like most of my peers I temporary jobs that went nowhere. After a few years in the booming field of environemental activism, I went back for an M.A. and yes, I imagine that does get me some jobs somewhere sometimes, but I was also out and female and that has also curtailed my career choices in a way that isn’t true so much today. I chose to work in non-profits because I had a passion for social justice, plus I could be gay and, bonus, no dress code! The money, however, sucks. After 10 years though, I noticed I couldn’t be director of a large charity because no one was going to have a butch dyke as their figurehead (except a gay charity, I guess, and that means competing for maybe 10 jobs that still didn’t pay that well) So I took up computers since that was expanding as a new form of technology. It was a better-paying lateral move with non-profit clients and that’s been ok. Still, it’s a bit boring compared to what I was trained to do and what I’m capable of.
My peers who’ve made other decisions have often found they spent 10 years in temp limbo as well, waiting for the boomers to clear out so there were opportunities available.
I think how we’ve responded to the choices available has made a big difference in our lives. In terms of earnings, the people who coldly assessed professional outlooks did the best because they seized market opportunities. Rapid technological change, though, has shut down many people with specialized education. I can’t recommend getting that unless you plan on using it right away. The thinking skills of a general degree remain useful for decades, but Holly is right about volunteer and part-time work being needed to leverage it in the workplace.
I think that gen Y is scorned for feeling so entitled, because it distracts them from feeling critical about a system that’s so messed up. My university tuition was $1500 a year. I worked my way through school. I graduated with no debt. Why has our society abdicated responsibility for education? The attitude that ‘hey, don’t we deserve more?’ is a reasonable response when you’re a PhD candidate working as a barista. I think if gen Y ever realizes it’s not about entitlement but about economic literacy and social direction, we might actually see some political action take place.
I am absolutely with you. I’m 23, and I had this picture entering school that the money would just be there, since that’s what a financial aid package is for. What?! You mean I have to work while I go to school?!
Then I graduated last May, and I thought employers would be scrambling all over themselves to get me and my UCB degree. Not so much, it turned out (didn’t help that I graduated into the beginning of this economic downturn). I didn’t get a job until October, and it was through a temporary employment agency, not my own resume and cover letter, once I’d already depleted my savings and was freaking out and crying every night when my girlfriend came home from work.
My eyes have been opened. I hope I can spare myself from learning the hard way again.