For what it’s worth, I was a History major, and my employment troubles weren’t due to that. I never interned, and never really understood that I was still qualified to try and get various living-wage office jobs that were not tied to what I studied. My parents probably thought I knew this, because they think I’m a genius, and they never told me.
Our society is so damned ignorant about history already, and I shudder to think of the consequences of a societal message that says one should only study “practical” things.
I for one think there are too many people that go to college and major in useless degrees and think they are going to get hired upon graduation. The market for art history majors is pretty limited along with journalism and history majors. A lot of people should avoid college and go to trade schools. They get done a lot earlier with a significantly less amount of debt.
The best opportunities for undergraduate degrees go to those with accounting, finance, and engineering degrees. You still need to have a 3.4 and up to get a decent entry level job, making above $45k. My company hires about 150 graduating college students each year with an average starting salary of around $55k (not including benefits or bonus). Less than 1% of these people are living at home with their parents.
My guess is that an individual’s geographic mobility (ie., reduced sentimentality towards any one particular place) is positively correlated with their income level. And your early-to-mid 20s is a great time to be mobile, because this is when a person is less likely to be weighed down by family, SO’s, and dependents. Once adult relationships and responsibilities set in, it becomes difficult to pick up and leave at a moment’s notice. And once you have it in your mind that you have to save some indeterminate amount of money before you can head out into the world, you start focusing on this goal rather than on taking risks that, if successful, could get you there a lot faster.
Maybe there was an idyllic time when you could find your dream job anywhere, at any time, but that time is not now. I kind of get frustrated when I hear about 20-somethings restricting their job searches to their respective metropolitan areas just so they can be close to friends and family. Good family will be there for you whether you’re 30 miles away or 300 miles away, especially in this day of texting/Facebook/discount airfares. But good jobs aren’t so accommodating.
So yeah. I’m firmly in the camp that says young adults shouldn’t be stigmatized for living with their folks. But it would be wrong to say that there are no economic downsides to this “safer” strategy.
I moved into a dorm at 17 and have not lived with my parents since.
Living with my parents means that my parents both need to be and get to be informed about my life in a way that isn’t really conducive to being an adult. If I get a happy hour invite for after work, I can’t go - my mother has planned dinner around me being there. Even working late would have created friction. My parents were a LONG commute away from all my post college jobs. And my romantic life … let’s just say that even though my college and post college romantic life was relatively uneventful, my parents really don’t need to be privy to the few events that happened.
My parents had three kids - not one of us has lived with our parents since the day we packed for the dorm (well, maybe a Summer or two at home during college).
Now, not one of us graduated with a penny of student loan debt - so that payment could go towards rent (mortgage), a car, bus tickets - whatever we needed. And we all scrambled - temp jobs, two jobs, roommates, cheap groceries.
I really can’t imagine what my father would have said if any of us boomeranged back home. That just wasn’t even an option - barring tragedy - and it isn’t tragedy to have to have a roommate and a second job.
I am 31 and dunno much about the economics of this. Once it became legal for me to work in the US I started working and saving for rent/college housing. I moved out for my sophomore year and haven’t lived with my parents since. Back then it seemed to be an end in of itself, I wanted out. My roommates were friends and we could party and chill at our place without parental units harshing our buzz, and I had no desire to slow down once I graduated. If students these days can do that at home, great for them, I just can’t imagine myself having the college/ya experience I did while around my folks for extended periods of time. These days, having gone through six months of unemployment and seen the boom/bust cycle in full effect I can’t rule out ending up living with my parents again. We lead very similar lifestyles now that I am older. I doubt it’ll be completely out of the question until I am able to pay off a mortgage on an apartment I have yet to buy.
This. I was out of the house at 16 (though hardly financially independent) but it’s not for everyone, nor should it be. Beyond that, I’m 32 and next year will be the first where I make over $45k (though it will be a substantial jump over that.)
I don’t know whether her parents are nosy or not- but parents don’t suddenly stop acting like parents just because you past a certain birthday and they continue to expect the same courtesies that anyone else in a shared household would. There wouldn’t be any friction if my adult son decided to go to happy hour rather than coming home for dinner- but there might be friction if he didn’t bother to inform me in the same way there would be friction if my husband didn’t bother to inform me that he wouldn’t be home for dinner and there would probably be some friction if my husband and I went out after work leaving my son wondering where the hell we were. There may be situations where roommates don’t prepare meals together and don’t let each other know when they’re going to be out overnight or away for a weekend- but those aren’t really shared households.
And nosy or not, people tend to notice what's right in front of their eyes and make comments/give unsolicited advice- even if they aren't nosy enough to ask you about if if they didn't see it. Each of my siblings ended up living with my parents after being married and having children for some period of time ranging from a couple of years to forever* . I'm the only one who never went back - and my mother statys out of my life more than theirs. She doesn't see my husband and I argue, so she doesn't know what we argue about and she can't butt in. She doesn't see what we spend our money on/how we eat , so she can't give unsolicted advice about how to spend money or complain that we eat too much/not enough of a particular food type.
And Dangerosa didn’t even get into reasons why someone would want to leave their parents’ home that have nothing to do with privacy. There’s also the issue of living the way you want to- clean or sloppy, beds made or not and even trivial issues like whether the blinds are open or closed . My son wants to move out as soon as he finishes his probation at his job- and the three things that seem to be motivating him are that I don’t want baskets of clean laundry in the living , I like the blinds open, and I want the porch light turned on at night. None of those have anyhting to do with nosiness or privacy- but they very much have to do with him wanting to live the way he chooses
*although that sister now owns the house, so technically my mother lives with her. Which was an unintended result of her not leaving- by the time she was able to leave, my parents needed help ( both financial and caregiving) so she had to stay.
Maybe from the standpoint of learning…but practically from an economic stance the answer is no. Many people get college degrees and do the same work as someone without a college degree. Not only did these individuals delay their earning and saving for retirement by 4-5 years, many of them took on massive amounts of debt, further delaying their savings opportunities.
Ask any retirement financial advisor when the best time to start saving for retirement and they will tell you that the earlier you start will have most significant impact upon how much you have at retirement and allow you to retire earlier.
Having any old college degree will benefit you is a fallacy of the American dream, just like home ownership.
No, why would we want to hire people that don’t really understand the economic impacts of the decisions they are making? And it’s not really advice, just basically facts.
I see a lot of early/mid 20 year olds as lazy and/or scared to face the world. It’s easier to stay in college, change majors a few times, rack up the debt and then rely on their parents housing situation upon graduation. It really isn’t difficult to move out on your own after highschool. There is a division among kids to either move out and do something with their lives or go to school to do something with their lives in the future, or to live with their parents as long as they can before peer pressure and boredom takes over.
There is no reason it should take someone 3 years of working after graduation to save up enough for a house or rent payment, utilities and food.
At a certain point, people crave the independence. You can’t stay with your parents into your late 20s or 30s even if the financial savings are enormous.
Depends where you live. I had to share apartments for many years past 22. The idea that kids fresh out of college could commonly afford to live alone in major cities in the past is a fantasy, as far as I’m concerned.
You are going against the grain of any data I have seen on the subject, do you happen to have any data upon which you are basing these sentiments? Specifically in regards to having no college degree being equal to having a degree.