Earning over 150K without a College Degree

dancingqueen

Fri, Aug 22 2014, 10:53 am

amother wrote:

All following careers have potential to earn 150K+ a year w/o a degree
Mortgage Broker, Real Estate Broker, Insurance Broker, Real Estate Investor, Stocks, Contractor, Developer, Title Agency, Photographer, Electrician, Plumber, Mechanic, Consultant, etc.

All the following careers are careers with college degrees (masters as well) and not everyone will earn 150K+
Teachers, psychologists, social workers, Health care incl. nursing, this list goes on and on...............

Most of the jobs in your first paragraph do require at least trade school. Wow there is a lot of anti intellectualism on this site. Liberal arts college isn't just about being able to make a fast buck it's also about learning things and broadening oneself. And I think that studies do show that college educated people have more job opportunities and earning potential.

Ruchel

Fri, Aug 22 2014, 11:10 am

Some do not see stats about college/uni helping.
Some absolutely do not believe in chol to the point of insisting on no degree wtv happens.

Some really do not get intellectuality, I have encountering this online, they absolutely don't think one needs further studies for many jobs or one can catch up easily with a small course. Problem is that when ppl start getting low quality quick courses for fields like "paramedical", "health"... it's easy to turn into quackery. So that's the extreme!! but yeah, I have a hard time with this way of thinking.

Sometimes it's also envy from those who didn't get to develop themselves and broaden their horizon.

supty

Fri, Aug 22 2014, 11:27 am

amother wrote:

POTENTIAL being the key word here. Most people don't make even close to 150k in these fields without training or experience. The bottom line is that yes, there is no guarantee that you'll make money with a degree, but it is definitely less risky. You'll find exceptions to every rule (I.e multimillionaires who have zero education), but this is not the norm. Also, I have no proof of this, but from my experience I have seen that most of these young millionaires who never went to school, started their businesses with family money, and are not entirely successful on their own. I believe it is very uncommon to find someone who came from nothing, no education, who is really extremely successful. Sure, it EXISTS, but for every one that you hear about, there are probably hundreds who failed that you don't hear about. I think it is very misleading and a disservice to young people to let them think that they'll be rich without college. It is a big problem with the boys' yeshiva system in today's day and age in my opinion.

Also- op I don't know what your dh's field is but if his salary is capped at around 150k then that's not really so much for a frum family to live off nowadays. With a degree he may have been able to earn much more. Then again, maybe not.

SRS

Fri, Aug 22 2014, 11:39 am

Attitude is all wrong. No matter what you do and how you get there you need to approach a career with the attitude that there is what to learn and what skills to perfect. Someone mentioned basketball players and actors. Yes, you might not have an education as in a BA, but a successful long career NBA player practices and trains a good 8 hours a day and watches hours of tape and has developed soft skills in teamwork, motivation, sports psychology, taking constant critism from coaches. There is a reason that these athletes can often walk into another field upon retirement and do well.

amother

Fri, Aug 22 2014, 11:52 am

[quote="cookiecutter"]What? So now it's a moral obligation to pay more than twice as much as the job is worth "to give a yid parnassa"?(quote)

Don't you pay double for kosher chicken and milk? Doesn't pas yisroel cost twice as much as regular supermarket bread.And the list goes on....
I am not sayi.g that the vendors should take advantage and overcharge , but I am "supposed" to buy cholov yisroel which is a fortune and send my kids to religious school which are a fortune but by all means when my husband needs a job go contract a non jew.

Fri, Aug 22 2014, 11:59 am

I pay for my needs and wants. I. As a frum Jew, only eat specific milk, cheese, chicken and meat. As such, I pay more for it. I do not have any additional requirements for non-animal products, such as flour, sugar, cereal, pasta, and so I don't pay more for them. If I can buy a box of cereal for $2.99 on the local supermarket, I refuse to buy the same box from a Jew for $6.00.

And, because I value my time, I also end up buying my cy milk from the supermarket! (The kosher prices are comparable, and if anything, are still cheaper at the supermarket).

I pay for Jewish education because it's something that I value. I think that the values that are being taught at the school I choose are better, and coincide with my ideals better, than the free public school education.

MaBelleVie

Fri, Aug 22 2014, 12:01 pm

[quote="amother"]

cookiecutter wrote:

What? So now it's a moral obligation to pay more than twice as much as the job is worth "to give a yid parnassa"?(quote)

Don't you pay double for kosher chicken and milk? Doesn't pas yisroel cost twice as much as regular supermarket bread.And the list goes on....
I am not sayi.g that the vendors should take advantage and overcharge , but I am "supposed" to buy cholov yisroel which is a fortune and send my kids to religious school which are a fortune but by all means when my husband needs a job go contract a non jew.

Are you aware that there are halachot for all these things? There are halachic guidelines as to how much you should spend to give business to a Jew vs a non Jew. There are also halachic guidelines as to how much a Jew is allowed to mark up products, and unfortunately many Jews do not adhere to that. Giving a Jew business when his business practices are not in accordance with halacha is nothing to be proud of.

Fri, Aug 22 2014, 12:03 pm

Also, there is a reason that kosher food costs more. Cy milk has constant supervision. You see paying for that. The chicken is slaughtered, and then kashered... no one is stopping you from buying live chickens from a farm, having your husband shecht it, and then check the organs to make sure it was healthy, and then you can kasher it yourself! That might be cheaper... you are paying for a service.

amother

Fri, Aug 22 2014, 12:07 pm

MaBelleVie wrote:

Never mind if I am aware of the halochos...
I would like to have them printed out so I could show my local bakery local butcher and grocer the halachos of overcharching
Dont even get me staryed on prices of matzos wine or esrogim....

amother

Fri, Aug 22 2014, 12:20 pm

amother wrote:

It is not nice to overcharge and then use religion to squeeze money. If the Jewish contractor was 10% over, I could see that. When I hired my painters, the lowest quote from a Jew was $20,000. I paid less than $10,000 directly and hired the same painters.*

Did I understand correctly?
You hired the painters from under the contractor to paint your house
How is that morally ethical?

MaBelleVie

Fri, Aug 22 2014, 12:20 pm

amother wrote:

Halacha is all written down. I can't fathom how a frum Jew can go into business without learning the relevant halachot. FYI your assumption that there is a huge markup on all those products is incorrect. I can tell you from personal experience that sometimes the overhead on these "Jewish items" is astronomical.

amother

Fri, Aug 22 2014, 12:23 pm

Just to clarify , a contractor also offers a service he oversees all the work being done and is the one responsible for dealing with the workers or should any hiccups arise mid construction.
Trust me there always is something going wrong and the headache falls on the contractor to figure it
out. But let me be clear I am NOT advocating for overpricing.
I am just saying contractors need to make a living as well.

amother

Fri, Aug 22 2014, 12:44 pm

amother wrote:

For an electrician to earn that amount he would have to get a license which is quite difficult (and doesn't really make a difference in the actual work), or have a name to work under.

debsey

Fri, Aug 22 2014, 12:46 pm

amother wrote:

Did I understand correctly?
You hired the painters from under the contractor to paint your house
How is that morally ethical?

If you are a business owner - using the example of a painter - and you hire a guy off the streets, teach him how to paint, all your tricks of the trade, etc, and then have him work for you - when someone hires you at 75.00 an hour, and you send that guy whom you pay 25.00 - it is still YOU who is accountable for that work. It's your reputation on the line. The 25.00 worker doesn't have to worry about procuring the paint, the equipment, lining up jobs, dealing with billing etc.
So it's not the boss taking ADVANTAGE of the worker, it's the boss has a different job that ENABLES the worker to have his.
Undercutting the boss by hiring his workers away is a major gray area of halacha and usually prohibited. I know of a case where a sheitel macher had a live-in cleaning lady, and she trained her to wash wigs. Well, a different sheitel macher hired her for a dollar an hour more. Now, the first sheitel macher had substantial costs -all the hours she spent training in the cleaning lady, anticipating being able to have all this help. She took sheital macher #2 to a din Torah, and sheital macher #2 had to PAY sheitel macher #1 a fee for training in her worker! Which is only fair.
So I'm not so sure it's OK to hire away the worker. OF COURSE the worker will take the job (unless he has decent loyalty to his employer or the employer made him sign a non-compete) but it may not be halachically correct.
When I hire "Mr. Simcha's Painting" I assume that Mr. Simcha will send workers, but I also assume Mr. Simcha will be the final say on the quality of the project and stand behind his worker's work.

Maya

Fri, Aug 22 2014, 12:46 pm

amother wrote:

Aren't there entire chassidish communities, that have many very wealthy people, where hardly anyone has gone to college?

"Many" is a misconception. There are some, just like in every community.

Some say the reason for this is because since they can't get regular good jobs in the business world where degrees are required, they're much more likely to try their hand at opening their own businesses in the fields that have been mentioned on this thread. Many succeed in generating very decent incomes, and some make it very big.

But don't forget, for every successful businessman, there are a hundred people in dead end jobs with low salaries.

amother

Fri, Aug 22 2014, 12:53 pm

debsey wrote:

Thank you debsey for expanding the point I was trying to make.
My husband is a strong believer that what is meant to be ours no one can take away, but it doesn't give a license for people to be unethical in business dealings.