What's your highest level of education?

[Jack]

Wow.

So a majority of the people on this forum have a Masters or higher. That is a pretty significant statistic considering only 8 percent of the American population has one.

And the poll skews low, since some people (like me) are in the process of pursuing a Masters degree, but had to answer "Bachelors" because they don't have it quite yet.

[Tyson]

Got my masters over the course of 6 years.  The companies I worked at had education benefits if you were pursuing a degree relevant to their field.  They paid enough for 3.5 courses per year.  So I took 4 courses per year and paid for the .5 extra cost out of pocket.  When the company money ran out, I took a break till the next year when the money was available again.  Sure it took extra time, but it was actually a relatively low stress way to get a degree.  Now I have a Masters in Information Systems and zero debt from it. 

One thing I've started to really appreciate about MMM since I've been here is the perspective of thinking in terms of 10 year blocks of time.  6 years seemed very slow at the time, when I was doing it, but those years are now in the past and I have the degree and I know with certainty that I am making more $$ now because I have it. 

[Tabaxus]

Law school, had one year of work between undergrad and starting law school.  Finally got to zero net worth at the age of ~28 (if you include retirement accounts).  Now at about 200k at ~30 (again, if you include retirement accounts).  Here's hoping it's a pretty short runway...

[forummm]

A person with a high school education is statistically less likely to make as much money, but has an extra 13 years to save. 

This is sometimes true, but I don't agree with this as a blanket statement. My coworkers, myself, and my husband all began our masters while working full time, and my boss completed his PhD while working full time. I grew up thinking people go through high school, then get a BA, then advanced degrees, and then join the work force, but I'm not sure whether that's still the norm.

I also worked full time while I got my degrees. So no student loan debt, no taking years off employment to go to school but it did take me much longer to get degree because I had to piece it together over many years due to the nature of my job (constant moves and long deployments).

I also worked full time while I got my degrees, but with a much lower income than if I could have worked regular jobs. Unfortunately, the busy academic life I had was not conducive to working the higher paying corporate jobs I could have taken. So while I ended my long time in school with a positive net worth, I would have much more money right now if I had gone straight to industry after finishing up undergrad, just gotten a masters on the side while working full time, and kept on towards FIRE. Instead I got way more education than I needed, and took jobs that paid much less than I could have earned. So I think in the end I made the right decision for my overall life (including the part to come), but it definitely would have been more remunerative to go in a different direction and get less education.

[aschmidt2930]

I'm surprised on the amount of Masters and above degrees here.  Impressive!

Here's a question:  Is it the intelligence or the debt that leads highly educated people to find MMM? 

[mochila]

My PhD is in a non-lucrative discipline that many regard as a frivolous or vanity degree. I am fortunate to be employed as a tenured academic with an above-average income for the nation and especially for my low-COLA city.

Opportunity costs notwithstanding, grad school taught me how to live comfortably with meager resources--a skill that I consider as important as any I acquired learning how to do academic research. Research skills have served me well in investing, as well as exploiting cost-cutting techniques for travel hacking/credit-card churning and coupons.

[soccerluvof4]

Just HS for me ...worked out just fine for me but I am encouraging my kids strongly to go to college! :-)

[beltim]

A person with a high school education is statistically less likely to make as much money, but has an extra 13 years to save. 

This is sometimes true, but I don't agree with this as a blanket statement. My coworkers, myself, and my husband all began our masters while working full time, and my boss completed his PhD while working full time. I grew up thinking people go through high school, then get a BA, then advanced degrees, and then join the work force, but I'm not sure whether that's still the norm.

Sol was talking about a Ph.D. (hence the 13 years).  In general, people don't work while pursuing a Ph.D. because 1) they're funded by the program; and 2) have to do independent research.  I've never heard of someone working full-time while pursuing a science Ph.D., because if they did they would have no time to do their 5-ish years of full time research.

[wenchsenior]

A person with a high school education is statistically less likely to make as much money, but has an extra 13 years to save. 

This is sometimes true, but I don't agree with this as a blanket statement. My coworkers, myself, and my husband all began our masters while working full time, and my boss completed his PhD while working full time. I grew up thinking people go through high school, then get a BA, then advanced degrees, and then join the work force, but I'm not sure whether that's still the norm.

Sol was talking about a Ph.D. (hence the 13 years).  In general, people don't work while pursuing a Ph.D. because 1) they're funded by the program; and 2) have to do independent research.  I've never heard of someone working full-time while pursuing a science Ph.D., because if they did they would have no time to do their 5-ish years of full time research.

Well, it probably greatly depends on the degree program you are in. I suspect a lot of liberal arts grad students work part or full time outside of school. In the sciences, it would likely be less common, but not impossible. I worked part time during my M.Sci (at a regular job) while still doing classes and fieldwork, but that worked out because my field work was mostly local; my husband took temp contracts during his M.Sci and Ph.D. when he wasn't out in the field. But, when we raised money to fund our degrees, both of us had modest salaries built into the funding grants. That was really helpful.

Other people take teaching positions while they are in grad school, but there aren't a ton of these to go around.

[forummm]

A person with a high school education is statistically less likely to make as much money, but has an extra 13 years to save. 

This is sometimes true, but I don't agree with this as a blanket statement. My coworkers, myself, and my husband all began our masters while working full time, and my boss completed his PhD while working full time. I grew up thinking people go through high school, then get a BA, then advanced degrees, and then join the work force, but I'm not sure whether that's still the norm.

Sol was talking about a Ph.D. (hence the 13 years).  In general, people don't work while pursuing a Ph.D. because 1) they're funded by the program; and 2) have to do independent research.  I've never heard of someone working full-time while pursuing a science Ph.D., because if they did they would have no time to do their 5-ish years of full time research.

Well, it probably greatly depends on the degree program you are in. I suspect a lot of liberal arts grad students work part or full time outside of school. In the sciences, it would likely be less common, but not impossible. I worked part time during my M.Sci (at a regular job) while still doing classes and fieldwork, but that worked out because my field work was mostly local; my husband took temp contracts during his M.Sci and Ph.D. when he wasn't out in the field. But, when we raised money to fund our degrees, both of us had modest salaries built into the funding grants. That was really helpful.

Other people take teaching positions while they are in grad school, but there aren't a ton of these to go around.

The science PhDs are very time consuming. You have to be crazy and work all the time in order to have side employment. And the side employment has to be flexible to fit around when you have time to do it. And you have to be OK with not achieving quite as much with your research in grad school. It is not the traditional path for sure.

[midweststache]

A person with a high school education is statistically less likely to make as much money, but has an extra 13 years to save. 

This is sometimes true, but I don't agree with this as a blanket statement. My coworkers, myself, and my husband all began our masters while working full time, and my boss completed his PhD while working full time. I grew up thinking people go through high school, then get a BA, then advanced degrees, and then join the work force, but I'm not sure whether that's still the norm.

Sol was talking about a Ph.D. (hence the 13 years).  In general, people don't work while pursuing a Ph.D. because 1) they're funded by the program; and 2) have to do independent research.  I've never heard of someone working full-time while pursuing a science Ph.D., because if they did they would have no time to do their 5-ish years of full time research.

Well, it probably greatly depends on the degree program you are in. I suspect a lot of liberal arts grad students work part or full time outside of school. In the sciences, it would likely be less common, but not impossible. I worked part time during my M.Sci (at a regular job) while still doing classes and fieldwork, but that worked out because my field work was mostly local; my husband took temp contracts during his M.Sci and Ph.D. when he wasn't out in the field. But, when we raised money to fund our degrees, both of us had modest salaries built into the funding grants. That was really helpful.

Other people take teaching positions while they are in grad school, but there aren't a ton of these to go around.

The science PhDs are very time consuming. You have to be crazy and work all the time in order to have side employment. And the side employment has to be flexible to fit around when you have time to do it. And you have to be OK with not achieving quite as much with your research in grad school. It is not the traditional path for sure.

Most liberal arts students also do not work through their PhDs; I know very few in English, History, Theology, etc. who are working full-time, and if they are it's because their funding ran out (usually about 4 years). Truth is, these programs offer less funding to PhD students. (There are very few and, typically, poorly funded research grants to liberal arts departments--which is understandable. No one in my department is going to cure cancer.)

The only people I've heard of working through their PhDs with full-time jobs are education PhDs and nursing PhDs, but my understanding is that often those projects use the experience from full-time work as part of their project/research.

[sol]

Here's a question:  Is it the intelligence or the debt that leads highly educated people to find MMM?

As discussed above, I think a big part of it is that people with more education are so far behind the earnings curve that they feel rushed to catch up.  Spending most of your 20s on a $1k/month stipend teaches you to be frugal, and it delays your big earning years.  By the time that post-PhD job kicks in, it feels like an incredibly large amount of money. 

If you can control lifestyle inflation even a little bit, saving 50% of your salary is easy.  When you used to be earning $12k/year, you can triple your spending and still save over half of a typical PhD salary.

There was absolutely no way I could have worked a side job in graduate school.  There were a few months there when I was in the lab for 1 hour out of every 4, twenty four hours per day.  Throw in a half hour commute each way between the lab bench and my bed, and a few minutes for eating and bathroom breaks, and suddenly sleep is a precious commodity.  Working outside of the lab wasn't in the cards.

[wenchsenior]

A person with a high school education is statistically less likely to make as much money, but has an extra 13 years to save. 

This is sometimes true, but I don't agree with this as a blanket statement. My coworkers, myself, and my husband all began our masters while working full time, and my boss completed his PhD while working full time. I grew up thinking people go through high school, then get a BA, then advanced degrees, and then join the work force, but I'm not sure whether that's still the norm.

Sol was talking about a Ph.D. (hence the 13 years).  In general, people don't work while pursuing a Ph.D. because 1) they're funded by the program; and 2) have to do independent research.  I've never heard of someone working full-time while pursuing a science Ph.D., because if they did they would have no time to do their 5-ish years of full time research.

Well, it probably greatly depends on the degree program you are in. I suspect a lot of liberal arts grad students work part or full time outside of school. In the sciences, it would likely be less common, but not impossible. I worked part time during my M.Sci (at a regular job) while still doing classes and fieldwork, but that worked out because my field work was mostly local; my husband took temp contracts during his M.Sci and Ph.D. when he wasn't out in the field. But, when we raised money to fund our degrees, both of us had modest salaries built into the funding grants. That was really helpful.

Other people take teaching positions while they are in grad school, but there aren't a ton of these to go around.

The science PhDs are very time consuming. You have to be crazy and work all the time in order to have side employment. And the side employment has to be flexible to fit around when you have time to do it. And you have to be OK with not achieving quite as much with your research in grad school. It is not the traditional path for sure.

Crazy? Us? LOL. Yeah, it was a pretty intense period of time, all right. Though my husband managed to do excellent research that went above the standard for our department while still working contracts (and published a few minor papers on things not even related to his main research on top of that...I swear, the dude never slept for about a decade), I won't pretend I was that exceptional. In retrospect, there was a side question to my main thesis that I could have pursued, but didn't feel I had time to and I've never been that ambitious.

[rubybeth]

I'm surprised on the amount of Masters and above degrees here.  Impressive!

Here's a question:  Is it the intelligence or the debt that leads highly educated people to find MMM?

For me, it was paying off the student loan debt from my master's and DH's second BA, and being bored with Dave Ramsey that led me to find MMM. So both, I guess. After the debt snowball was done, I lost interest in Ramsey. And the info. I got here lead me to believe we'd be much better off if DH got his graduate degree, too, which he'd been thinking about a lot, so that's in-progress with no loans. Meticulous tracking of expenses helped me see clearly that it was do-able, and our trajectory is very positive. We're 34 and 33, however, so we are a bit older, but we are used to living like students with very little lifestyle inflation since we got married 7 years ago. I genuinely think that has helped us a lot--as soon as we finished school and got jobs, we threw all that extra money at debt, and now we're throwing it at investments and tuition, and after tuition is done, income will be higher than ever and we'll just be investing.

[coppertop]

A person with a high school education is statistically less likely to make as much money, but has an extra 13 years to save. 

This is sometimes true, but I don't agree with this as a blanket statement. My coworkers, myself, and my husband all began our masters while working full time, and my boss completed his PhD while working full time. I grew up thinking people go through high school, then get a BA, then advanced degrees, and then join the work force, but I'm not sure whether that's still the norm.

Sol was talking about a Ph.D. (hence the 13 years).  In general, people don't work while pursuing a Ph.D. because 1) they're funded by the program; and 2) have to do independent research.  I've never heard of someone working full-time while pursuing a science Ph.D., because if they did they would have no time to do their 5-ish years of full time research.

Daughter has a Ph.D. in Immunology and Microbiology.  Fully funded - but her "job" was in the lab and as a TA, pretty much like a full time job.  She lived on a stipend.  Nephew got his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the same university, same deal. 

[coppertop]

Thinking of my husband's parents, who came here as uneducated, nearly illiterate immigrants, but who worked very hard and amassed quite a bit of wealth through a combination of work and frugality.  I'd be willing to bet there are numerous MMM-style folks out there without a lot of formal education, but they are simply less likely to frequent blogs than those with higher education are. 

[beltim]

A person with a high school education is statistically less likely to make as much money, but has an extra 13 years to save. 

This is sometimes true, but I don't agree with this as a blanket statement. My coworkers, myself, and my husband all began our masters while working full time, and my boss completed his PhD while working full time. I grew up thinking people go through high school, then get a BA, then advanced degrees, and then join the work force, but I'm not sure whether that's still the norm.

Sol was talking about a Ph.D. (hence the 13 years).  In general, people don't work while pursuing a Ph.D. because 1) they're funded by the program; and 2) have to do independent research.  I've never heard of someone working full-time while pursuing a science Ph.D., because if they did they would have no time to do their 5-ish years of full time research.

Daughter has a Ph.D. in Immunology and Microbiology.  Fully funded - but her "job" was in the lab and as a TA, pretty much like a full time job.  She lived on a stipend.  Nephew got his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the same university, same deal.

I think you're agreeing with me?  Working in a lab doing research and getting a stipend while getting a Ph.D. is getting a Ph.D. - it is how you do your research.

[I'm a red panda]

I think you're agreeing with me?  Working in a lab doing research and getting a stipend while getting a Ph.D. is getting a Ph.D. - it is how you do your research.

Yep- for most people, doing the PhD IS their job.

I think you really have to question whether a program is worth it if YOU have to pay for it. (Hint, hint cousin getting the PhD in Sign Language Interpretation- 100% out of pocket for tuition, no stipend for living costs.)

In my field (Measurement, which I guess is a branch of education, so part of the exception someone posted, but we are NOT teachers, I work in a corporate environment) it is not uncommon to work a full time job while doing your PhD.  In fact, I'd be stupid to give up my job to go back to school.  If I was lucky, I get a $10-20k stipend in addition to tuition. But my job pays many times that, and my company will pay $25k a year towards a PhD. It will mean NO LIFE during the duration of the degree, but makes a lot more sense than leaving work for it. You don't get time off for writing, but can get flex time for classes. Of my 10 member team, 3 have done their PhDs while working, and 2 are currently doing them.

[mizzourah2006]

I think you're agreeing with me?  Working in a lab doing research and getting a stipend while getting a Ph.D. is getting a Ph.D. - it is how you do your research.

Yep- for most people, doing the PhD IS their job.

I think you really have to question whether a program is worth it if YOU have to pay for it. (Hint, hint cousin getting the PhD in Sign Language Interpretation- 100% out of pocket for tuition, no stipend for living costs.)

In my field (Measurement, which I guess is a branch of education, so part of the exception someone posted, but we are NOT teachers, I work in a corporate environment) it is not uncommon to work a full time job while doing your PhD.  In fact, I'd be stupid to give up my job to go back to school.  If I was lucky, I get a $10-20k stipend in addition to tuition. But my job pays many times that, and my company will pay $25k a year towards a PhD. It will mean NO LIFE during the duration of the degree, but makes a lot more sense than leaving work for it. You don't get time off for writing, but can get flex time for classes. Of my 10 member team, 3 have done their PhDs while working, and 2 are currently doing them.

Yeah I think it greatly depends on the field. My job was my PhD program until I was ABD. Then I started working part-time, teaching part-time and doing research part-time until I proposed my dissertation. While I was finishing up my dissertation I did leave and get a full-time job. That wasn't a ton of fun, working 50 hours a week and then spending the evenings and weekends on my dissertation, but I did get it done.

In my field, unless you are getting an online PhD from a For-Profit university, you aren't working (outside of being an RA or a TA) until you are at least ABD and PhDs end up going about 50/50 Academic/Practitioner.

Are you with one of the testing services companies? My focus is on selection & measurement in I/O.

[I'm a red panda]

Are you with one of the testing services companies? My focus is on selection & measurement in I/O.

I am indeed. And since there are tons of them in Iowa, I feel like I can say that without saying which one.  In fact, I've been with 3 over time...

[mizzourah2006]

Are you with one of the testing services companies? My focus is on selection & measurement in I/O.

I am indeed. And since there are tons of them in Iowa, I feel like I can say that without saying which one.  In fact, I've been with 3 over time...

Haha, yeah I figured. They typically have a good amount of educational psychologists and I/Os on staff with those companies. Sounds like a good gig. I've talked to quite a few people that interned with ACT that really enjoyed it.