Please note that this transcript was auto-generated. We apologize for any minor errors in spelling or grammar.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: [00:00:00] Well welcome everyone. So nice to see. We have a nice group here this morning. Um, for this webinar, will my post-secondary credential pay off in the job market. Uh, so my name is Julie Shields Rina, and I am the director of college Planning education and training here at. And we’ve set this up this morning as a meeting rather than the typical webinar format because we really would like it to be interactive.

And, um, you know, I, I think that’s, that’s the best way to have, um, have this go this morning. So I’m just gonna wait another maybe 30 seconds as I see people joining and we will, we will move from there.[00:01:00]

Alright, well let’s, let’s get started. Um, I’m going to introduce our presenter this morning. We’re so fortunate to have Norma Ray Ali. With us this morning. Hello, Norma. Thank you. Um,

Norma Rey-Alicia: hello? Good morning. Hi everyone.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: And Norma is from, uh, NextGen Talent and is the, uh, the founder and director, co-founder and director.

And I think I’m just gonna pass it over to you to explain a little bit about your work and, um, and this presentation. And we can [00:02:00] move from there and you can talk again about, um, your hope for interaction and engagement. And this is gonna be terrific. I’m excited for it. Thank you, Norma.

Norma Rey-Alicia: Absolutely. Thank you.

Thank you all for, for being here this early in the morning. Um, I, I, I’m not a morning person, so, um, forgive me if I, if I look tired. Um, but I’m super excited to be here. I love, um, working with folks like you who do very important work for our students and very difficult work. Um, and I don’t think it’s. As valued as it should be.

Speaking of value today, um, very excited to be here. I do wanna make this session as interactive as possible, so we’re going to be using the chat here and there. We have an interactive exercise which will require you to get on, um, some different websites, um, that I can, um, prompt you about. But yes, very happy to be here.

And really the main sort of goal that we’re here, um, for is. Talking about sort of, you know, will a post-secondary credential pay off in the job market? Um, this is a really important question, um, for [00:03:00] young people. I think a lot of them are questioning the value of a college degree and other kinds of post-secondary credentials and which path makes the most sense for them.

So excited to be here and talk about this today. My name, um, is Norma. I originally appeared on this. Uh, meeting As, or Montero, who’s actually my assistant director. So I had to quickly rename myself in the box. Sorry about that guys. Um, I am the co-founder and executive director of NextGen Talent. We are a nonprofit, um, homegrown nonprofit here, um, from Greater Boston Mass in Massachusetts that works to empower high school counselors, college access in success advisors and other youth advisors, um, and their students.

Really to do two main things. One is to know, be able to identify easily, like what are the well paying jobs in their region. Um, and secondly, how do you get training for those jobs, whether that’s two or four year college, it’s a firefighter, you know, a training academy, um, a year up type of program in it.

Um, you know, all different, an apprenticeship in the building trades or biotech. So [00:04:00] we like to. Call this post-secondary credential and not just college degree. Um, but obviously I think the biggest concern for young people is whether a college degree, especially a four year college degree, is worth the cost because that’s the most expensive, right?

Um, in terms of cost for young people. So yes, just very excited to be here and thank you, Wendy, for your support today as we work on this stuff. We, um, I would be happy the last slide, which you will have access to this whole PowerPoint after this meeting. Has my contact information, so please get in touch with us if you want more information on our services.

We provide tools and training that help you do all the things that I talked about a little bit earlier. So let me share my screen. Is this the time Julie, to start doing that?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Great.

Norma Rey-Alicia: That’s fine. Okay, excellent. Let me just share my screen with y’all and let me just remember how to do that because I’m Gen X and it takes me a minute.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Okay.

Norma Rey-Alicia: And like I said, I’m going to ask y’all to, um, actually get onto a few different websites too. Um, as you’re [00:05:00] working through this PowerPoint with me, can everyone see this? Um. It

Julie Shields-Rutyna: looks great.

Norma Rey-Alicia: Okay, perfect. Excellent. So here we’re, where will my post-secondary credential pay off in the job market? Again, a really, really important question.

Um, you know, it’s interesting. I, I went, just went to south by southwest edu, um, in Austin, Texas a few months ago and loved being there. I ended up in a workshop that was. Talking about the value of a college degree, right? In a college education. And of course, you know, as we adults do, we, a lot of us were sitting there philosophizing about all the different reasons that students wanna go to college, what the value of a college degree is.

You know, people are talking about gaining more knowledge, getting more experience. The social networks that you can build that can lead to different kinds of opportunities, including job opportunities, right? Um. All of these different things. Obviously the ability to get, um, a job right, and a well paying job.

Um, but really as I was sitting there philosophizing with other people, I was like, you know, if there were students in this room, they would say that the most [00:06:00] important is that they wanna get better job opportunities and higher salaries. And that’s, that’s what you hear more and more, especially as we tackle these issues of the, you know, the, the very big rise in, in, in college tuition costs and other costs.

Um, the student loan debt crisis, et cetera. So before we get into some of the other slides, I really wanted to take some time to play around with you all and, and do this little trivia game. So if it’s okay, if you could enter in the chat, your answers to these questions, we’ll go one by one and I will go through the answers with you.

Um, these are just simple, true or false questions. So I’ll start with this first one. All of these questions have some relevance to what we’re going to be talking about today with the value of post-secondary credential. Um, some of them touch on race, some of them touch on. Low income, um, you know, households, um, and, and students that come from those households and their outcomes, um, et cetera.

And some of the disparities. So number one, college graduates from low income households earn half as much as those from higher income households. Is [00:07:00] that true or false? So 50 cents on the dollar essentially is what they, this is saying they earn compared to those who come from higher income households.

I’ll just give a few seconds. What are we seeing in the chat, Julie and Wendy, in terms of the answers? Are we seeing more truths or falses, or,

Julie Shields-Rutyna: sorry, I was on mute. It’s uniformly yeses and trues.

Norma Rey-Alicia: Very good. You all are very bright. Yes, this is actually true. Sadly, it is true. Um, this is for research, um, conducted by the Upjohn Institute. Um, and yes, it’s very true. There are a lot of different reasons for this, right? So, um, one is, and one important one is the college major that is selected, right?

So if you select a college major, like engineering, you are going to make way more money than a college major, like history, right? Or psychology, for example. Um. You know, access to social capital that has access to sort of networks of power, right? Um, [00:08:00] and oftentimes that’s not as accessible for low income, um, uh, students from low income households or students of color.

Um, lots of different reasons, right? Access, you know, access to internships or work-based learning experiences, um, even geographical, um, sort of barriers. So for example. Students from low income households can’t re move to other states as easily, um, for different kinds of jobs that might pay better, right?

And so, um, all these kinds of things, um, discrimination, right? Um, racism, right? Um, all these kinds of things play into that. But good job guys. Two 39% of college graduates, and this is in the us, are in non-college level jobs a year after they graduate from college. 39% of college graduates are in non-college level jobs a year after they graduate.

This is known as underemployment, is what we call this true or false,

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Norma. Again, we’re seeing all truths. [00:09:00]

Norma Rey-Alicia: We’re seeing all truths. It’s actually false. Um, it’s actually 52%, so more than half, which is really Wow. Depressing. Um, really depressing. And again, is pointing to the fact that, you know, students that are experiencing this and seeing this are saying, wait a second, why did I just spend all that money and time getting a college degree if I’m gonna end up in a job that doesn’t require it?

Right? And so we need to do way better for our young people. Number three, black and LA Latinx students are more likely to pick college majors that result in lower earnings. True or false?

Black and Latino, Latinx students are more likely to pick majors that result in lower pay. Is that true or false? What are folks thinking here?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Everyone’s thinking that that’s true as well.

Norma Rey-Alicia: Sadly, [00:10:00] yes, and I think I kind of hinted at that in what I said earlier. Yes, that is, that is absolutely true. And a lot of that, again, has to do with these structural inequalities, but also the selection of major, right?

We know that students of color tend to pick majors like engineering way less often than their white peers, right? That’s just a reality. Excellent. Number four, true or false when it comes to earnings, where you go to college matters more than what you study in college.

Okay.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: We’re seeing, we’re seeing false is the. Thinking.

Norma Rey-Alicia: That’s right. It is false. In fact, what you study in college matters more. Right? Again, on this idea of like, you know, your college selection, college major selection is important, right? So someone who goes to Harvard and studies in let’s say history is most likely [00:11:00] not going to make as much money as somebody who goes to Northeastern and does studies engineering, or even someone that, or somebody that goes to UMass Boston and studies nursing, right?

Um, what you major in. Um, has a direct correlation with what you’re going to make afterwards. And what I do wanna stress is that I’m not saying any of this, and NextGen is not trying to say that that’s all that matters when it comes to picking a college major. Obviously we want. Folks to like what they’re majoring in because that leads to more, um, the ability to wanna stay in a job and Right.

The desire to wanna stay and, and, and do well in advance. Um, so it’s not that money or earnings are the most important thing, um, or the only thing that folks should think about. But it does matter, especially when it comes to, um, you know, students from lower income households who don’t have the financial safety nuts that their higher income peers do if, if they make a decision that doesn’t lead to good earnings.

Very good y’all. Number five a 2024 Gallup Lum Foundation poll revealed that only 48% of adults in the US have a great deal or quite a lot of [00:12:00] confidence in the value of higher education.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: We’re back to seeing lots of truths. Most all trues.

Norma Rey-Alicia: Okay. It’s actually false. It’s actually a worse stat. So it revealed that only 36% of adults in the US have a great deal, or quite a lot of confidence in the value of higher education. So we’re seeing this happening, um, not just amongst young people, but also adults.

Right. Um, that they’re, they’re just kind of wondering. Whether higher education is worth the time and the cost compared to, you know, some other, like going into the labor market directly or doing um, you know, some other kinds of credentialing. And last one, and this is just a personal one, so this isn’t a stat that you need to know, but was just curious if you had known what you know now, there’s a good chance you would’ve changed your college major.

So is this true or false for you in your life based [00:13:00] on your work experience, your earnings, all of those things, you know, not to. Not to get, not to get too personal and up in your business, but I’m just curious to see what people say here.

Do we have any truths in the chat? I.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: We have a, we have a yes and a no.

Norma Rey-Alicia: Yeah. Okay. Okay. I know it’s a tough question, right? Um, it’s a tough question. I, you know, I definitely feel like I, I might have right? Not, I mean, I love Next Gen Town. I love the work that I do. I’m happy to be here with y’all. Um, but, you know, I definitely think that I think about things a little bit differently now, obviously it might have made some different, some different decisions.

I’m happy with where I landed

Julie Shields-Rutyna: and I’ll just say I didn’t answer because I don’t, I don’t know, you know? Yeah. In some, in some ways of thinking of it, I would have, and in some I wouldn’t have. So it’s, that’s a hard

Norma Rey-Alicia: Yeah,

Julie Shields-Rutyna: yeah. No,

Norma Rey-Alicia: exactly. And that’s why I, I don’t blame people for not answering as much as a tough question.

And sometimes, uh, you know, and again, when we talk about [00:14:00] sort of the value of the decisions we have made, right? There are lots of different kinds of values that we assign, right? Um, and so money isn’t. The only thing, and again, I wanna stress that here, um, but it is important, especially when we see the student debt crisis and all these other things that are going on.

So today, thank you guys so much for playing with me. That was, that was great to see your answers. Um, I wanted to make sure that we hone in, hone in on our focus today. Right? So our focus today for this meeting is, um, that we’re talking about the fact that. Many, many students invest thousands of dollars in hours in their education after high school.

Whether that’s, again, a two or four year college degree, it could be an apprenticeship training. Um, um, you know, it lots of different kinds of things. Well, actually with apprenticeships, usually you get paid to, to learn. So that’s not a great example. But other kinds of right programs that set you up for success in the workforce that do cost money, um, even outside of the two and four year, um, programs, unfortunately, too often their investment doesn’t pay off.

Um, and we’re seeing that again disproportionately with students who come from low income households [00:15:00] who graduate from college. It’s just not paying off in the job market the way that it should and the way that they expect after all their sacrifice. So the main question is, how can we help them assess whether their post-secondary credential will pay off in the job market?

Like what can we do to help them along in that journey? And again, as I said earlier, there are lots of challenges that we’re all seeing. We hear students talk about these, we worry about them. Right? Um, including the fact, I won’t go go through all of them, but including the fact that, you know, really when students are thinking about what they wanna.

Um, major in, in college or what their post-secondary program of study will be. They don’t really think about return on investment. It’s just not the way that we’re taught to think. Right. Um, and we’re very heavy on what’s your passion, what are your interests? And that’s lovely and we need to make sure that students do think about those things, but we also wanna make sure that they can live off of what they make and what they studied.

Right. That’s kind of important. Um. And so, you know, I always say people, you know, talk about how like money doesn’t bring happiness. It’s true, but, you know, I get happiness from eating and I can only eat if I have enough money to [00:16:00] eat. So, um, that’s kind of how I think about this. We’re seeing way too often that college degrees, um, are ending, you know, putting students in a position where, um, they’re ending up in low paying jobs after they’ve invested all of this time and money, and that definitely wasn’t the goal, right.

Because of all of this young people and adults are questioning, we just saw that in that stat, whether a college degree is or was worth their money and time. Right? So I like to show these memes. To young people and to folks like you, right? Like this is this one that says, what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done for money?

Um, and then this one, millennials and Gen Z working on their houses, and you can see this guy painting the air. Um, unfortunately that is, oh my

Julie Shields-Rutyna: goodness, that’s funny.

Norma Rey-Alicia: Oh, it’s really sad, right? It’s funny in sad at the same time I do. Um, because again, the idea is that so much investment, you know, coming out with all this student loan debt and if you have so much student loan debt that you can’t save money and, you know, pay your bills at the same time.

Then what happens, right? Like you’re not able to invest in the stock market, invest in purchasing a home, which we all know is the key, right? To, you know, [00:17:00] creating, you know, wealth, right in a family and inter intergenerational wealth. Um, and so these are things that are constantly on young people’s minds.

Now we know that college degrees payoff, right? There’s a lot of discussion now, and I think we’ve kind of gone too far, um, to the right in terms of worrying that, oh no, the value of a college degree, it’s, it’s not what it used to be. And, um, so now like, maybe we should just look at all these other options, right?

Um, no. There are still a lot of college degrees that pay off in the labor market more often than, than not a college degree does. And we know that over a lifetime you make a lot more money if you have a four year college degree than if you’re just a high school graduate. But the real question is, which degrees pay off the best?

Right? In the labor market, I only listed some here ’cause I could spend a whole webinar, a whole meeting on this topic, but you know, as most of us know, right, the college majors that pay the most. That typically tend to pay the most after graduation, include things like engineering, all different kinds of engineering, computer science, finance, right?

And then the ones that pay the least five years after [00:18:00] graduation include things like English majors or history or psychology, right? Anthropology, sociology, the performing arts. Um, fine arts, hospitality, theology, right? Miscellaneous biological science. So that could just be biology, for example. Right. And we know this from, um, the US Census Bureau and American Community Survey.

They’ve done all of this research. We also know that, you know, the ones that tend, the college majors that tend to, um, provide the lowest starting pay are things like criminal justice, right? Um, or animal science, or again, like psychology. Um, anthropology, but then we know that the ones that you know, start to, you know, that pay off really well very quickly and start off with great starting payer are things like nursing or radiologic technologist or radiation therapist, um, you know, um, mechanical engineer, et cetera.

Um, so important to understand this, right? But we don’t wanna get too much in the weeds here about this because again, we’re not trying to say, study this and don’t study that, right? The message here is. [00:19:00] Just make sure that whatever you choose, you think about your potential earnings, your future earnings, and how much debt you’re getting yourself into before you get to that point when you make decisions.

Right? We want you to be an informed consumer of your post-secondary education. That’s the most important thing, that you have the information to make a wise choice for the financial goals and needs that you have. Okay, so how do we assess whether a post-secondary credential will pay off in the job market?

Two main things I want you to think about. The first is does right this post-secondary credential lead to a well paying job. In the region where you wanna work, for example. Right. So, um, next gen talent, and I wanna be clear about this. We have our own definition of a well-paying job as one that pays at least 80% of the regional median wage.

If you go on to the BLS website, I. You can find what your regional median wages calculate eight 80% of that, and that can be the cutoff, right? So anything that, any job that pays less than that would not be considered a [00:20:00] well-paying job. That’s kind of how we do it in the Boston Metropolitan Statistical Region by, um, um, that’s researched by the BLS.

We know that right now that’s a little over $50,000 a year at median. Um, so it’s a good kind of cutoff to think about, right? Like 52, 50 $3,000 at median. Um, the other regions in Massachusetts will have, will have different regional, um, um, numbers. And again, you can go onto the BLS website, um, to find that information.

The second question I want you to think about and for your students to think about is, will my potential earnings justify my student loan debt? Right. That’s very important. And today we’re going to spend some time on an exercise to help answer that question specifically. So. So I wanted to get into this, um, as soon as possible because these things can take time, these interactive exer exercises.

Um, I learned to be more brief when I tell my stories because I can just go on and on. Um, but this is the, if you don’t remember anything else from today, I, I want you to remember this, right? This is the rule that I tend to go by when I train [00:21:00] counselors and other youth advisors, um, that work with young people in career exploration and post-secondary exploration.

This 8% rule, and this is something that the federal government. Um, um, supports and promotes is something that d the DOE supports and promotes. Um, and this is a rule that is a really helpful guideline for managing student debt after graduation. So the rule is. A student’s monthly student loan payment should not exceed 8% of their total monthly income after graduation.

And that’s gross income. So that’s before taxes. So again, um, the student’s monthly loan payment should not exceed 8% of their total monthly income. Right. And that’s a way to, to really figure out that I can live on this and still, right, I can live on this and I can still pay my student loan debt. In time, and I’m not, you know, put, you know, tightening my budget too much in other areas.

Um, and so I wanted to dig into how to practice this rule, right? So here are kind of the steps for mathematically how to figure this out. [00:22:00] So first step one is you figure out, and this is again, if you’re a student, right? Figure out your estimated monthly loan payment, right? So you can use a student loan calculator.

Now. I have bankrate.com here, but MEFA.com and MEFA MEFA Pathways. Their website also has wonderful student loan calculators. Please, if anything, use those. Um. Bank rate is also a good one. But again, MEFA has great resources in this area. That’s, that’s why we love MEFA. They provide these kinds of resources for us.

You can use any student loan calculator, that’s a legit one. Um, what you’re going to do is enter the total loan amount for all loan amount for all of the years of college or post-secondary. So it’d be. Through all four years, what that total loan amount looks like that you’re taking out, um, or two years or however long the program is.

Um, and then you’re going to enter the interest rate on your loan, right? So for example, one that people use often is 6.53. Um, choose your loan term. So you could select 10 years. You could select, um, less than that. You could select more. Um, and then you’re going to [00:23:00] use whichever student loan calculator to figure out what is the estimated monthly loan payment, right?

So that’s step one. Step two is estimate your monthly income before taxes once you graduate from college or post-secondary. And so people are like, how the heck would I do that if I’m not working yet? How would I know that? Right? And so one helpful way is to try to figure out what are the potential earnings for your desired occupation, right?

So. One resource that can help you do that. There are lots you could use own net online. You could use, uh, career, um, you know, um, career One Stop. There are lots of different websites for this, but the My Next Move website is particularly helpful. Um, I think in terms of the ease of use. Um, so in on the ni, my next Move website, you’re going to go to a search box that says, I want to be a, and you’re going to type in the occupation that you’re interested in.

Then you’re going to look for the job outlook section, click on local salary info. I will go through all this, but I wanted to have this written out for you all. Type in the zip code or state where you plan to work so you can get [00:24:00] regional or state information because again, as you all know, um. Pay can vary widely by even region within a state.

So for example, what a nurse makes in Boston, um, a registered nurse could be sometimes 25, 20% higher than what a nurse makes in Worcester, which is just an hour away. So important to understand the local salary data. Um, you’re gonna scroll down to find the annual 25th percentile salary. That’s a good sort of indicator of what you could make starting out in occupation.

Divide that salary by 12 to get the estimated monthly income, and then you’re gonna calculate 8% of that number. Um, and then you’re gonna compare your answers, right? Does the student monthly student loan payment exceed 8% of your monthly low, uh, monthly income or not? Again, that was a lot of wording, but I’ll give you an example and I’ll show you how we do this.

So step one Sole is the name of our student here uses, let’s say the MEFA.com student loan calculator, right? And she enters a total loan amount for all of the years of college or whatever post-secondary program. Let’s say it’s $42,000. She puts in this [00:25:00] 6.53, um, percent interest rate. Her loan term is going to be 10 years.

Um, and this is what it pops out, right, is that her monthly loan payment is going to be $477 and 54 cents. So we have that number. We’re gonna write that number down. That’s. The right, the monthly loan payment estimated then sole for step two to figure out her monthly income and 8% of that. She goes to that my next MOVE website.

She does all those things I told you. Um, and so you’ll see that she finds that the 25th percentile or sort of early career salary for um, a registered nurse is eight $82,970 in the greater Boston area. She divides that number by 12 to get her estimated monthly income, so it’s almost $7,000 a month, and then she multiplies that number by 0.08 to get $553 and 12 cents.

That’s 8% of her monthly income. Okay, and so then she compares those two, right? She compares them. She sees that her monthly student loan payment, this $477 and 54 cents is less [00:26:00] than 8% of her monthly income. Um, so she can afford right, this program and this plan, and it’s worth the investment. Okay. Um, so what I want us to do now, and this is what I’m talking about with the, uh.

The, uh, the, you know, your turn to do this is, I would love for you all to get on these two websites, or you can go onto the MEFA, again, the MEFA or MEFA MEFA Pathways website, um, to find any student loan calculator that you’re used to using to calculate a monthly loan payment. You’re gonna pretend you’re a student and you’re gonna enter $50,000 in loans over the four years, or whatever number that you think makes sense.

Then you’re going to go onto the My next move.org website to find a job or an occupation that’s of interest to you, um, and look for its earnings right in your region by, you know, the occupation that you’re interested in. Um, and so if we could take a few minutes just to do that. I know it’s hard to kind of do this kind of thing remotely.

But I do think it’s a good, it’s good for you to practice so that you can help your students practice when they think about, [00:27:00] you know, is, is, you know, are my earnings going to justify the debt I’m going to get myself into? So again, if you could go onto any student loan calculator that you like, whether that’s MEFA, it’s bank rate, whatever it is, um, and type in write this information.

And I’ll give you an example. So the one that I just, uh, showed you, for example. Right is $42,000 a loan term is going to be, um, 10 years. Sorry, let me go back because Lemme go back guys. Okay. So we’re going to enter, can you all see this, um, that I’m doing on bank rate?

Yes. Yes. Okay, great. Okay, great. So if I type in.

Remember from this set of slides, we said that Soleil is going to type in $42,000 [00:28:00] at 6.53%. Right? So I’m typing that in now, right? It’s a 10 year term, and that’s the number, right? That’s her monthly estimated monthly loan payment. The 4 77 54. But you could change it. You could do something else. You could do $80,000.

And do it over 10 years, and then you’ll see that it will calculate right, um, that number. And so I want you to write that number down. This is going to be your estimated monthly loan payment, right? So take a little bit of time to do that first, and then write that number down for me if you don’t mind.

And I can go back to show you guys the, uh. The instructions here. So we’re focused right now on step one.

If the interest rate is higher, plug in a higher interest rate, 8% or whatever, you know, whatever else. But this is what you want your students to start doing and [00:29:00] thinking about.

And literally it’s just a matter of plugging. It does all the, the math for you so you don’t have to worry about it, right? Just plug in the total loan amount over the whole course of the post-secondary, you know, um, training. Whether that’s college or something else, the, you know, the loan term, how many years you expect to pay that off.

Um, and then the interest rate and then calculate and it should give you that estimated monthly loan payment.

We feeling good about that? Are we, are we set with that one? Do people have any answers they wanna share with us about what the monthly loan payment they got was? If you could put that in the chat, that would be super helpful.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: I’ll look for that. Let’s see.

Norma Rey-Alicia: Thank you.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: [00:30:00] We do have a thank you. Just that these guidelines are very clear. This is a really good exercise, so,

Norma Rey-Alicia: oh, thank you. I appreciate that. I’m sorry for a second there. I was like, oh man, this is a lot while I was saying it, but. I, I wrote it all out so that when, you know, when we’re done with this meeting, you can go back and like step by step do the math.

Right. And the way I wrote it out probably sounds more complicated than it actually is, which is why I wanted to show you how I do it in the tools. But just wanted to make sure you had a takeaway set of instructions, but that’s, that’s so nice. Thank you so much. I appreciate you guys being here with me this morning.

Did anybody get a calculation. Or if you wanna shout out, maybe if you wanna get on audio, if that’s possible to, to share with us what you got, like what your loan amount was, your loan term, your interest rate, and what that monthly loan payment looks like.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: And I can say one, but if Tara, if you wanna share or I can share yours.

Um, we have a couple.

Norma Rey-Alicia: No, that would be great. [00:31:00]

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Jennifer, you might wanna share.

Norma Rey-Alicia: Sure I could share. Thank you. I would love that.

Jennifer Bento: Hi there. Hi. I used, uh, the MEFA pathway, uh, loan cost estimator beautiful. And I put in a loan amount of $42,000 interest rate 6.53 with 10 years to repay. And the average estimated monthly loan payment is $477 and 54 cents

Norma Rey-Alicia: Perfect.

Jennifer Bento: With just a little over $15,000 being inter uh, interest.

Norma Rey-Alicia: Excellent, excellent.

Jennifer Bento: And

Norma Rey-Alicia: that’s, you know, and I love that you mentioned that, um, the, the interest because I don’t think students understand how much interest you’re actually paying when, when you have these loans. Right. And that’s important for them.

I terrified my son at the age of like, right at the age of 10, talking about college loans and just credit cards and everything and talking about, you know, compound interest and blah, blah, blah, and how these things work and why credit card companies are so rich, right. Um, and banks are so rich because it’s [00:32:00] important for them to understand.

And I’m joking. I mean, it, it’s not to terrify them, but it is for them to understand that, listen, you know, what you choose to do has financial consequences. So you have to take it seriously and you have to plan ahead and think about what does this mean for me? In real numbers, right? In real numbers, not just like, oh, it could be right.

Um, so that you can prepare right, and, and take it seriously. If you know that you know you’re gonna be paying $15,000 in interest, you might. You might take your studies a little bit more seriously, right? And, and not wanna, and also wanna pay things on time and not prolong if, if possible, right? So that you don’t pay more interest in that.

Anyone else I’ll

Julie Shields-Rutyna: share? Tara, um, put in 50,000 at 7% for 10 years, and that came out with a $580 payment.

Norma Rey-Alicia: Excellent. Excellent. Which is not chump change, right? Like this, these are significant payments, right? Um, that students are expected to make as soon as they graduate. And so it’s important, right? Six months after you know, you, you walk down that aisle, you know, people are like, hello, [00:33:00] hi.

You owe money. Um, and so it’s really important for ’em. I just, I just scared my pit bull because I knocked on my table and he thought somebody was here. Um, good thing he didn’t lose his mind and start barking. Um, but, you know, again, just important to take these, these things seriously. Important to talk with students about them and just push them through the exercise.

It’s important for them to see these numbers. Great job guys. So now that we’ve done that. Let’s go back and, can y’all see my screen again for practicing the 8% rule? Now let’s go to the My Next Move website. Again, you could use oad online. There are lots of different websites to find this information, and I want you, again, pretending as a student to think about what is an occupation?

Is it registered nurse? Is it electrician? Is it. Um, is it, you know, um, a help desk support specialist? Is it, you know, what is it, um, that you’re interested in doing potentially as a, as a job or as a career? Um, and I want you to search for that. So here’s the way to do it. If y’all can see this, my next move, can you see my ni my next move on the screen?[00:34:00]

Yes. Just wanna make sure. Okay, perfect. Because sometimes I’ll start talking and then people are like, oh, we don’t see what you’re talking about. Um, excellent. So you can see here, if I go to my next move’s main page, right? And again, this is just one of many resources you can use. Um, MEFA again has a ton of resources, always wanna plug them.

Um, but if you go onto my next move, you can search for careers, right? So if I wanna type in, let’s say in my example that we used registered. Nurses. Right. And you’ll see it already pops up, right? I wanna be a registered nurse. It’s going to give me a profile with lots of information. I wanna scroll down now to this section.

Do you guys see this job outlook section? And I wanna go to local salary info. Why? Again? Because what I make as a registered nurse in Boston is different than what I make in Worcester. Is different than what I make in Amherst, is different than what I make in, uh, Gainesville or you know, Los Angeles. It’s all very different.

I like to do zip code. You could do a statewide number if you want. I’m gonna put in my own home hometown zip code Jamaica, a plane in [00:35:00] Boston. And if I click on go, you’ll see. Now it’s going to show me all of this information, right? On local wages. If I’m a registered nurse, what I could expect to make and what I actually wanna see is, so here’s my region, the Boston, Cambridge Newton region, right?

It’ll show me lots of different ones here. Is this 25th percentile? 77th is the lowest, right? The lowest that folks tend to make. So I, I tend to like to start around here for like early career salary is the 25th percentile. I think that’s helpful for y’all to think about too. When you talk with students about percentile, sometimes they don’t understand what these mean, and so they’ll be like, well, which one is entry level?

And it’s like, you know, sometimes it’s the 10%, sometimes it’s the 25th. Sometimes it’s between the two. But I, I think for the most part, I like to use the 25th. It’s just easier. Um, so this is right what Soleil, in our example, could expect to earn if she lives in the, she’s working the Boston, Cambridge Newton Metropolitan Statistical area.

’cause that’s the one that I chose with my zip code, right? This is what she can make per year, right? Um, [00:36:00] as a registered nurse again. So that’s the number I want you guys to take a look at. Okay, so can folks start doing that? Can you pick an occupation in my next move? Or any other website that can give you this kind of information, get, you know, type in whatever your zip code is or region is that you wanna look at, and obviously the occupation.

And then find out what is the 25th percentile wage for that. Give you guys a minute or two to do that.

I will be happy to answer questions after this. I, sorry, I’m sorry. I wanted, I wanted to make sure we do our exercise first before we get into questions. I’ve learned my lesson that way too, because you know how que q and as can be.

And what is nice, by the way, guys about [00:37:00] resources like this is I can also, like, I can change this to see the hourly wage sometimes students. Understand wages a little bit in, in a different way, right? They might think a bit about, well, what is the hourly wage? So it translates all of that in here for y’all to, if I just click on that, so you’ll see it shows it for Boston Cambridge, 25th percentile.

It’s around $40 for registered nurse, $40 an hour. Can anyone, again, share with us on audio or in the chat what occupation you chose and what you found to be that 25th percentile or kind of early career salary number in your region? And tell us what region that is.

Hi there. Um, I, hi. IU did the school counselor ’cause I’m just, you know, doing That’s right. Absolutely. I love that. And um, the 25th [00:38:00] percentile number was 61,000 120 and I used the Springfield area. Excellent. Okay, great. Excellent. Excellent. That’s a great example. Thank you. I love that you used your own, your own job.

I have a couple seniors who are looking to do this job, so that’s why I also used it. That’s right, that’s right. I love that. I love that. And again, it’s, you know, again, we’re not trying to say that money is all that matters. Not at all. Please don’t. Please don’t take that as my message today. It’s just that.

You know, we wanna make sure that whatever they’re sacrificing to do a post-secondary credential, you know, puts them in a good financial position or at least one where they can survive and be con, you know, be, be okay. Right. Financially, um, in the future I. Um, that’s, that’s very important. I think sometimes students don’t think about this enough, right?

Like, what is the purpose of going to college or getting a post-secondary credential from somewhere else? Um, what is the purpose? And so these are the kinds of things we need to be thinking about. So thank you so much for sharing that. If you could now, as a next step, so yours was [00:39:00] 61,000 or so, right? If you could now to figure out sort of 8% of that number, what we’re going to do is we need to divide that.

So you’ll just use any calculator that you have on your phone or on your computer. Divide that salary, that yearly salary by 12 so that we can find out what is your estimated monthly income in that occupation, in that region that you chose. Okay? So divide that number by 12 by 12 months basically so we can get the monthly income.

And so, um. If you who, just shout it out. If you don’t mind, love sharing that with me. Once you do that calculation, that would be awesome. I’m just gonna keep going with you since you Yeah, sure. It was $5,093. Thank you so much. So that’s estimated monthly own, uh, income. It’s 5,000, right? Four. A full counselor in the Springfield area.

Excellent. And that’s early career salary. So yes, they can expect when they kind of start out or in the first few years. Now, I would like for you to take that number that you just got. Times [00:40:00] it by 0.08, multiply it by 0.08 because that’s going to be 8% of your monthly income, right? Yep. So that number was 407.

407. And so now, perfect. And so now, thank you. You’re fast. So now I want you to compare your answers. Is the monthly student loan payment more equal to or less than the uh, 8% of the monthly income? Mine. So I kind of went on the lower side with the loan. I did a TI did 25,000. Okay. Mm-hmm. And so, ’cause I was thinking, you know, if you wanna be a school counselor, you gotta make a good choice of how much you’re far away.

Um, and so I had gotten 300 per month as the loan amount. Mm-hmm. Okay. Excellent. So what is the final analysis there? Is, does it meet this golden rule? Is the monthly student loan payment, does it exceed 8% of the total monthly [00:41:00] income or does it not? No, it does not. It does not. Now that being said, like you said, you chose a fairly low, I did.

Right. Uh, loan, uh, sort of loan total if it were higher, but that just shows where the tipping points can be, right? Like if we go too far up. There’s a tipping point where you have to decide, you know, you realize like maybe this isn’t worth it, right? In terms of earnings and payoff in the labor market, not that it’s not worth it for other reasons.

There are all kinds of other reasons, and of course, every, every student is unique, right? Some students have financial safety nets or they can choose to pursue their passion because they come from a higher income. Um, household, um, and their parents can help them. Some do not. Right. And that’s where the, the decision, right.

And that tipping point is more critical. Right. Um, and they need to be way more careful and more, you know, more cautious about making these decisions. Mm-hmm. Um, and so yes, that’s, that’s a great example. Anybody else? Does anybody else have an example that they could run through for us, kind of from beginning to end?

Like what loan, you [00:42:00] know, what was your estimated loan payment, and then what occupation did you choose from where, what region, and what was your final math there? Thank you so much. That was so helpful.

Anyone else?

And if not anyone else, that’s okay. Um, as long as you know, now you understand sort of how to do this exercise. Now, one thing I will caution you on, um, is. That there are certain jobs, right? Or occupations that require, you know, higher than a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, a doctoral degree, et cetera, right?

And so then we’re thinking about loans, right? And like longer term, right? Multiple times. Right? So it’s like, it could be your bachelor’s loan, it could be right. In this exercise we wanna focus more [00:43:00] on. Sort of the bachelor’s level, right? Um, um, you know, type just so that we can get a good estimate there.

Um, obviously you have things like medical school, which can cost a ton of money. You can get into a lot of debt very quickly, however, right? And the first few years you might not make very much money. I. Um, but then over time, that will pay off, right? Those are exceptions. Um, nursing sometimes can cost a lot of money, those programs to get into, but generally speaking, nursing does pay off very well over time.

Um, and again, you know, we, we can also talk about lower, um, sort of, um, you know, two year credentials or even certificates, right? Like for example, Franklin Cummings Tech, um, a college out here in Boston has an HVAC program, right? Um, heating, um, ventilation, air conditioning. I mean, refrigeration, it’s a one year certificate program, right?

You can do that. You can do this calculation, you know, the same way. And that program tends to pay off very well. We know from the earnings that students make, we’ve researched that at Next Gen talent, so it doesn’t just have to be a four year. [00:44:00] But, you know, generally speaking, we are thinking about four year and, and lower because for some, for some jobs, like for example, like psychologist or even, you know, speech language pathologist or physical therapist, right?

You’re going to need even higher education to get, to get to those points.

And you can still do it, but again, you wanna factor in all of the loans that come with that. Right. Excellent. Excellent. Thank you guys. Um, before I get into the q and a, I wanted to share a few things. So, first of all. Again, post-secondary credentials have value outside of potential earnings. Right? That’s just one consideration.

We focused on it today because it’s one of the main reasons I hear all the time when I’m out in the field, why young people want a college degree. Um, and it’s also one of the reasons why a lot of people are doubtful because they’re seeing that. For some of their peers, their older brothers and sisters, their neighbors, their friends.

They’re seeing that a lot of them are coming out with a lot in debt and working in low paying jobs and wondering like, did this make [00:45:00] sense for me? Right? And the whole point was I wanted to get this so that I could have higher earnings. And here I am still living in my parents’ basement six years later, wondering if I’ll have to use a paintbrush to paint the air, right?

As we saw in the earlier meme. Um. Teach your students please how to do this math, to assess the return on investment of different post-secondary credentials. Use our exercise from today. Again, it seems complicated when you write it out, but it’s simple as you all saw. It’s simple math. Um, and we have lots of calculators to help us, um, to do that math.

And again, we’re not discouraging. Listen, we’re not students from majoring in the liberal arts. So that, that sort of information I showed you in an earlier slide about. Certain majors that, you know, pay well. Um, when you start out, um, in the job market or pay well over time, you know, we’re not saying not to major in those things or that students that, that have talent or interest in that shouldn’t do it.

The, the, the message there is they should know right. They should know now, they should do the calculations now of like, what could I potentially earn and then how [00:46:00] much debt am I going to get myself into? So that helps them choose like which post-secondary programs they’re going to attend. Right? Some might be less costly and so they don’t have to worry about that debt as much.

And what I would say, a lot of people say to me like, well, Norma, what do I do then If, you know, I know that a lot of these majors in the liberal arts are not going to lead to high wages like. How do I talk with students about dealing with that? And what I always say is, number one, do the math, but also number two, make sure that, um, you talk with students about the importance of internships and networking.

Right. Work-based learning experiences, making connections. Right. Because again, people who major in the liberal arts have a lot of strengths that people don’t, that don’t, um, right, right. Uh, have a lot of strengths that people that don’t major in that. Don’t have. Right. Um, and so, um, we’re not poo-pooing the liberal arts at all.

Um, we want students to be informed consumers of their post-secondary education and to make decisions that are financially literate, right? That are not going to land them in financial trouble or despair. Because if you grow up low income and broke, you don’t need that. You, [00:47:00] you know what that stress is, and you don’t wanna keep going with that stress as an adult if you can avoid it.

And to do that, students need to understand their potential earnings before they choose a program of study. It’s very important. Okay. Excellent. So, any questions? Let me get back on camera. I wanted to give us enough time for questions or just even discussion. Any, any things that you found helpful today or, you know, comments that you wanted to make about anything that I presented?

I appreciate you, um, walking us through the. How to do it because like, thank you. Because reading it is one thing. Yeah. But then actually doing it is another. Yeah. And at first I was like very confused. So yeah. Sorry. Yeah, that’s okay. So, no, that’s great. And I do, I’m trying to think of how I’m gonna use this with my students too.

Um, so it’s not overwhelming, but I appreciate that a lot. I love that. Thank you so much. Yes. I think that slide is very overwhelming. Writing it in plain English is overwhelming, but [00:48:00] I hope that it helps once you leave this to see the instructions written out. Um, but yes, thank you. I, I, that means a lot.

Thank you. That’s what we’re here for.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Yeah. I, I can see that having students do that exercise even once, um, you know, would be very eye-opening and would allow them to be able to do that in different situations as they go forward. Yeah. Yeah.

Norma Rey-Alicia: Yes. Thank you, Tara. Thank you so much and thank you for, for sharing your examples with us.

I also think sometimes students like, they’re like, I don’t want any loan debt. I don’t want anything. And it’s like, well, it’s trying to get them to understand the investment in themselves and then the return on investment, because I’ll think a lot of times they’re like, I don’t want anything. And I’m like, well, I.

You need something. Right. That’s to get to you, to where you need to be, so That’s right. That’s right. Absolutely. I always say to students, this is one of the biggest financial decisions you’ll probably make in your life. Right. And investments. Right. College, not just a house, not just a [00:49:00] car. Sometimes your investment in college is more than financially than in a car.

I. Um, and so we need to take it seriously and do our research and, and do the math. Do the math, right? If the math isn’t math, then we need to change, change our approach, right? Our strategy needs to be different, but absolutely, that’s, that’s very important. Um, and you’re right. I think right now what I hear a lot in the field and from students is like, they’ll say that, you know, loan is the new four letter F word.

Um, and, you know, and, and a lot of students are trying to figure out ways to, to get higher education or some sort of post-secondary training without loans, and that’s, you know, that can be great too. Like I said, apprenticeships in the building trades, we have wonderful union sponsored, you know, apprenticeships in the building, trades here in Massachusetts where they pay you to train, right?

You, you have some fees that you have to pay and the cost for supplies, but at the end of the day, you’re getting paid to train. Um, and you’re not gonna have. You know, this debt, and that’s wonderful. If that’s of interest of you, you like to work with your hands. Um, my son is involved in the trades and he loves it.

Um, and thank goodness, right? He’s not gonna have a ton of debt. [00:50:00] Um, but you know, again, for, for some of these others, like we have no choice but to get into some debt and it’s, and it’s, it, it is worth it Most of the time. I don’t want people to take away that college isn’t worth it. But we do have to analyze which degrees, which programs of study are worth it.

Right. Um, so that students don’t have a negative return on investment. There are college degrees that exist, that have a zero or negative return on investment. Meaning that if they had just graduated from high school, they would make the same amount of money. Right. Um, and so what was the point? That’s that we don’t want students to end up in that.

Again, for a lot of students that are thinking about sociology or psychology, they have their heart set on it. They have skill in that, right? We’re not saying don’t do it. We’re just saying, go to that my next move website and see what your potential earnings are like. Is that gonna be enough money for you to be comfortable and pay your loans off on time?

That’s what we wanna know. And if not, then we have to think about different strategies. Right? There are some students who say, I’m willing to live with three [00:51:00] roommates for the next five years of my life because I really love this work that I’m doing in social work or whatever. Cool. As long as you know that, as long as you’ve done that analysis, that’s all that matters.

Anyone else? Any questions or, or thoughts, comments, anything you wanna fight me about?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Someone brought up the fact that people, um. You know, over time have always borrowed money to buy a house, and that is looked at as a, you know, a good investment, right. A good thing to do. So it’s, it’s good to be able to share with students the nuances around, um, why you would borrow sometimes and why it’s a good investment, so, yeah, that’s

Norma Rey-Alicia: right.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that’s also why it’s so important to make sure that the amount that you borrow is something you can sustain and you can afford. Right. That’s the bigger issue is can you afford that amount?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Yes. And then just lots of thank yous, Norma. Um, people are excited to use this with their students, and in fact, one student was [00:52:00] watching, we know at least one student was watching.

Oh,

Norma Rey-Alicia: I love that. Hi, students. What’s your name? Can you, can you come on audio or did they already leave?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: It’s a counselor with a student there, so I don’t know if they’re there. Okay, let’s, oh, we just left. Oh,

Norma Rey-Alicia: he just left. Oh. Hi, Ruth. Okay. Please tell him I said thank you. I hope that this is helpful.

Excellent. And again and again guys, there are so many, almost too many resources out in, out there in the world, right? For being able to do this kind of work. MEFA, um, has amazing resources that, um, I’ve looked at over the years and they’re always very high quality. If you wanna use their student loan calculators, use those.

Um, you know, they’re very simple calculators, so, um, but you know, make sure you use legit, legitimate ones right as much as you can. Um. Again, my next move is a great place to find local salary data for occupational wages. Um, other websites do that as well. O net online, um, you know, BLS you can find a lot of great information.

The main thing we wanna know [00:53:00] is Will again, to, to, to, to finish up will, um, this post-secondary program that I choose lead to a well-paying job. Right? And again, we have that definition in, in the slide if you wanna take a look at that. Um, and then will the earnings justify the amount of student loan debt I have to take out?

Those are the two things I want students to think about and for you to help them think about as counselors. And I just really appreciate all the great work that you guys are doing, and again, always super thankful to Julie and MEFA for the opportunity to, to connect with you all because I work home remotely and so I’m always staring at a computer and it’s, it’s just nice to see all these different faces and talks, talk with people who are doing the work that, that I’m trying to support, um, with the technology and the tools that we have.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Thank you so much Norma, and we will send a recording of this in case you wanna share it with other colleagues and um, the slide deck. So thank you so much. Thank it. Yes.

Norma Rey-Alicia: So nice to see you all. Thank you. I hope you have a great, a great [00:54:00] day. It’s so gross out here today. I don’t know what it was. So beautiful.

It’s like classic New England. Like we go from like elation to depression, you know what I mean? And then the sinuses start. It’s a whole situation. If I sound nasally today, I apologize. I’m keeping the pharmaceutical industry like going basically now at this point with my sinus infections. But it was so nice to talk with everybody.

Thank you for, for being so interactive. I love that. I love that you haven’t been shy today. And I hope you guys have a great day and, and, uh, and rest of the week.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Thank you so much. Bye everyone. Bye

Norma Rey-Alicia: everybody. Take care.