The AC post was collapsed, and it looked like you were sponging to the post above it. My bad.

Glad for you, but I didnâ(TM)t say that no one could make good money without a degree. Just that on average pay rates are better with college than without. And to a degree that makes college worth it, as long as you get a degree in the right field

Software development is not something everyone can do, and pay rates for software devs have been an outlier when compared to the rest of the economy for decades. Though it looks like AI is cutting that back for those who work at big companies. I donâ(TM)t have the temperament for it, so for me it was not an option. Of the options left, Iâ(TM)d be making far less and working far more if I had forgone my degrees.

Should have been 10 years (BS = 4, MS = 2, PhD = 4) but I took an extra year each on MS and PhD. Job market was not great, and so was not in a rush to finish, since they kept paying me and gave me more projects I could publish to work on.

last salary sure to participated in within my field put the salary range at $150 to $350k, depending on experience, specialty, and role. My first non-academic role was around 100k.

you got me. I used the wrong word on the internet. I fully expect to lose my job and large salary once my employers find out. If only I’d gone to Harvard so that I could learn how to never use the wrong word in writing, even by accident. All that science I did, and papers I’ve written. All that money I’ve made for my employers. All undone by you, brave vocabulary nerd. /s

of course, if I call pull in 250k/yr in-spite of mistakes like that, it makes you wonder how important that really is?

Wtf are you talking about? Who mentioned self driving cars?

As someone with advanced degrees, I have to say that is simply not consistent with my experience

I was basically paid to go to school for 6 years. Getting the degree was my paying job, and cost me almost nothing out-of-pocket (would have been literally zero, if I had not needed a small loan one semester). And now I make north of $250k pre-tax. I actually work far less than 40hr most weeks (generally 25 to 30), which offsets those times when I have to travel for work and rack up more than 40hr if you include travel time. Keeping current in my field is paid time for me, and involves attending conferences and reading relevant journals, both of which I do "on the clock" with work paying for all the costs (membership dues, meeting registration fees, and all travel costs for attended those conferences). I'm am absolutely certain, even with amortizing Twice the costs of my bachelors degree (since I only took out loans for half of my BS), I am certain I make more than a truck driver. In part, because that is what my dad did for the last 4 or so years before he retired.

What you say may be true for some. Likely a subset of folks who get a bachelor's degree only, and maybe not one that is specific to the field of their ultimate employment (saw a lot of that when I worked for a large international conglomerate), or anyone who goes into teaching (my wife's profession, which pays absolute shit). But if you pick a degree where industry is willing to pay for you to get your graduate degrees, then the math has a high probability of totally working out in your favor.

To be clear, there are those I know with advanced degrees like mine in my profession who work the kinds of hours you referred to, but they make significantly more than I do ($300k and up) and so it still likely pencils out in their favor. I prioritize my family time more than most in my field, which is why I don't make as much as I could. I just turned down a job 2 weeks ago (25k more/yr, a 35k signing bonus, and cheaper medical costs) over a 3 day in the office policy, that would have sucked 6 to 7 hrs a week from my life commuting.

Because the lifetime earning potential, even after paying for that devalued degree, is still much higher than can be achieved without a college degree (excluding outliers like tech startup CEOs).

The idea that you need to go to a "Name Brand" school for all 4 years is, unfortunately, a wide-spread misnomer. But a college degree in the right field is still worth the investment over the lifetime of the student post-graduation.

I have a PhD, but only paid for 2.5 years of my 12 years of college education with student loans.

First two years were at a community college, and could be covered out of pocket by my parents (basically my dad just paid my mom his normal child-support check, and she paid most of the course costs with that, with my part time job at a grocery store covering books and fees). Last 2 years of BS did require loans, which were federally backed (not sure how much longer that will be a thing under the current administration). Then I got an MS and PhD in a field where the industry sponsors research at public universities, and their sponsorship is used to pay graduate students course fees and a stipend they can live on. I definitely needed a roommate in grad school, but I was able to get by most of that time without loans. I did need to take out small student loans (again, fed backed) 1 semester due to some unique circumstances such that I could not otherwise make ends meet.

I was able to pay off my loans in less than 10 years. My wife, OTOH, took 5 years to get her BS - on student loans for everything all 5 years - and we are still paying those off today. I am heavily pushing my own kids to look at community college for the first two years. I expect most will do that. The oldest probably won't, but that is because they are looking to move out of the country (escaping persecution in this country), and don't want to be here a day longer than absolutely necessary. And I don't really blame them, as much as it will hurt to see them move so far away.

I will believe you are what you say you are, when you post as something other than an Anonymous Coward.

Strawman much? No one here claimed ALL preschool aged kids require medication.

Yeah, the reason their morbidity is high, is because assholes bully them and make them depressed.

you know, like by outing them unnecessarily and implying there is something wrong with them for being trans. As opposed to the world being unfairly harsh with them being the cause of their elevated mortality.

the gender identity of my children is in no way relevant to the discussion, but you felt the need to comment on it as though it were. And not to be supportive, but to imply there is something wrong in my household for turning out trans kids. You outed yourself as a bigot. So get fucked.

I get that as a bigot, you donâ(TM)t see your bigotry as a bad thing. But you canâ(TM)t help but know others do, and yet you choose to out yourself. Is that compulsive, like do you say the bigoted thing out loud in person, or only online where people canâ(TM)t punch you in the face?

Thank you for explaining to a parent of 4 kids, what parenting requires. I so glad you explained it to me /s

I do supervise him, to the extent possible, but I also have 3 other kids, a job, a wife, and a society crumbling around me that makes 100% surveillance of an 11 year old a mathematical impossibility. Eventually I have to turn him lose on the world and see what he does, then course correct as needed. That is true of all kids, btw, but for ADHD kids there are certain course corrections that take longer to become cemented, and which are easier for them to implement when they are properly medicated.

As an example, I have only recently felt he was able to be trusted riding his bike out of the immediate neighborhood. But since I wasn't sure, I set up my old Apple Watch as a tracker and phone for him. I can check where he is when he does leave the neighborhood, and he can call me if something comes up. I did not need to do that with his 2 older siblings, but for him, it was the only way we could feel safe letting him out of site considering how people drive in our area (suburban NJ). We trust, but verify, and build in a safety net should he need it. So far he's only needed the safety net once. HE gets a taste of independence, and I get peace of mind.

WTF is that supposed to mean?

I did not rely on personal anecdote alone. I also pointed out that the idea a parent would go to drugs without any attempt at behavioral modification is ludicrous, becuase it is. Getting an appointment with a therapist/neurologist is not quick. It is also not something any parent, but particularly a neglectful one, is going to engage in without attempting easier methods of behavioral correction first. And attentive parents are likely to try even more things than the neglectful ones before resorting to medications due to the stigma in our society around mental health, medications for mental health in general, and the stigma around medicating kids in particular.

Yes, they do take time, but not necessarily with the same doctor who is prescribing medications. My son's therapist cannot write scripts for meds. He saw her for years before he went to the neurologist and received medications. The methodology of this survey would put him into the "treated too fast" category, which is a problem that needs to be addressed before taking its findings at face value. You, like the researchers publishing this paper, assume that most of the parents did not do something similar, either referring to books, family members, councilors, therapists, or others before going to the prescribing doctor. I tell you, as someone who had to come to the realization that his kid might be ADHD, that such an assumption is ludicrous. Because before you ever go to the doctor, you need to decide that what you are seeing is something different from the normal behavioral problems of children, and that takes time. My oldest missed out on an earlier diagnosis because we didn't recognize what we were seeing, and my son benefited from the fact that we had already wasted that time on their sibling.

Holy fucking shit are you missing the point.

Kids with ADHD tend to act before they think. They are wired that way in their brain. I can tell my son a thousand times what the right behavior is. I can model it and make him practice it with me. But none of that matters if the part of his brain that seeks out novelty because of a genetic dopamine processing disorder sees the novelty it needs on the other side of the street reacts faster than the part that is supposed to make him look both ways.

I taught all of my kids how to be safe around traffic. The ones with more severe ADHD struggle more with putting the lesson into practice. Particularly when I am not around to reinforce it with them. And that difficulty stems from the very real differences in their brain chemistry. A difference that can be improved with pharmaceuticals.

And what do you think is driving that variation in character if not underlying biology?

There are two main explanations. Nature vs Nurture, Biology vs environment. We all know that complex traits like personality are influenced by BOTH. Kids with ADHD have a biological difference, which manifests in a different personality predisposition. You are attempting to separate biology from character, and that is not actually possible. Kids with ADHD have real differences in the way their brain processes neurotransmitters. The net effect of which, is that they get bored far more easily, and have to actively seek out novel stimulation to achieve a "normal" level of dopamine stimulation. In seeking that "normal" state, they do things that get them into trouble one way or another.

that is not "unlucky" that is exactly how neurodiveristy works. The nature portion of the nature/nurture debate.

On the face of it, no. And I would have to be a moron to believe that no false diagnoses exist. But at the same time, the idea that so many people here seem to think they know better than the specialists and their families what the right approach should be, in the absence of any knowledge of the specifics, would be hilarious if it were not so potentially harmful. We cannot ignore the context that RIGHT NOW an open eugenicist in control of HHS. One who has made no secret of the fact that he intends to come for psychiatric medications once he's done dismantling the vaccine recommendations. I would prefer over prescription by well meaning doctors and parents, who are intimately familiar with the child, their symptoms, and their circumstances who simply got it wrong, than the very real possibility wherein government bureaucrats second guess those folks without ever meeting the child in question, or (even worse) simply withdrawing these medications from the market so that RFK Jr. can put the kids in to abusive re-education camps (a la anti-gay conversion therapy) which kick him back some money.

I get having compassion for these kids. As a parent of 3 of them, I do too. But you, and a lot of other folks here, are expressing that concern as a second-guessing of those best positioned to make the right decision. Specifically the parents and physicians involved. And as someone who was mis-diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder as a teen myself (not ADHD), and went through unnecessary medication, then eventually weaning off and addressing my issues with behavioral modifications/therapy, I have to say that you are putting too much weight on the wrong side of the risk/benefit equation.