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The Government's Career Suggestion For Massively Indebted College Grads: Become Farmers
Last week, we profiled this year’s class of college seniors and congratulated them on being the most heavily-indebted graduating class in the history of US higher education. These students will leave school carrying an average balance of more than $35,000. Of course, one can’t place the blame for this deplorable state of affairs entirely on the shoulders of the students because even as easy access to federal education loans creates the conditions under which students may be tempted to take on more debt than they actually need (because you have to have a MacBook and an iPad), thus borrowing from the future to pay for what, in many cases, are degrees that are not by any means guaranteed to lead to high-paying, full-time employment, the inexorable rise in tuition rates deserves its fair share of the blame as well.
Fortunately for the class of 2015, there’s a way out and it’s called Income-Based Repayment. These plans allow for the discharge of federal education loans after 300 “eligible” payments, a very convenient program for those who, after college, do not make enough discretionary income to service their debt. For these borrowers, a zero payment counts as an "eligible" payment, creating a scenario whereby it is technically possible to make no payments for 25 years and have the debt completely written off at the expense of the US taxpayer. The real beauty of this is that just as we said about student debt discharge in bankruptcy, once colleges and universities know they can charge anything for tuition, room and board because the debt funding it will be socialized and ultimately "forgiven", expect the "up and to the right" tutition rate chart to go vertical.
In any event, total debt forgiveness is a nice fallback plan in today’s economy because as researchers from Georgetown discovered when they looked at the best and worst (in terms of average annual salaries) college majors, there are quite a few disciplines that promise to pay graduates less than the median annual income. And while the takeaway from the Georgetown study was that there’s still money to be made in petroleum engineering, the US government has another modest suggestion for America’s proud graduates: become farmers.
From the USDA:
One of the Best Fields for New College Graduates? Agriculture.
Nearly 60,000 High-Skilled Agriculture Job Openings Expected Annually in U.S., Yet Only 35,000 Graduates Available to Fill Them
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced a new report showing tremendous demand for recent college graduates with a degree in agricultural programs with an estimated 57,900 high-skilled job openings annually in the food, agriculture, renewable natural resources, and environment fields in the United States. According to an employment outlook report released today by USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and Purdue University, there is an average of 35,400 new U.S. graduates with a bachelor's degree or higher in agriculture related fields, 22,500 short of the jobs available annually.
"There is incredible opportunity for highly-skilled jobs in agriculture," said Secretary Vilsack.
"Those receiving degrees in agricultural fields can expect to have ample career opportunities. Not only will those who study agriculture be likely to get well-paying jobs upon graduation, they will also have the satisfaction of working in a field that addresses some of the world's most pressing challenges. These jobs will only become more important as we continue to develop solutions to feed more than 9 billion people by 2050."
There you have it. And while we imagine there aren't that many aspiring college grads out there who envisioned a life on the farm, it might not be a bad option considering occupations like Early Childhood Education all but guarantee your status as a "low-income" American and considering that, unless you're lucky enough to belong to the 17% of non-farm workers who the BLS classifies as "supervisors," you will likey find yourself laboring under non-existent wage growth in perpetuity.
* * *
And meanwhile, at Columbia:
As her May 19 commencement date looms, Yana Dey has begun considering skipping her own graduation.
It’s not that she wants to miss it. She's proud of the work that went into fulfilling the requirements for a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Teachers College.
What's holding her back is the $62 cost of the cap and gown she's required to wear to walk at graduation. “I started to worry, because I just don’t have any extra money to spend right now,” says Dey, who began posting on Facebook groups in May to try to borrow past graduates’ regalia. “I honestly thought about not going.”
Dey isn't alone. The issue garnered increasing attention on Facebook as students posted a flurry of requests—"Anyone have a 5'11" appropriate gown to loan out?"—to borrow garb from recent graduates.
We can only hope Ms. Dey majored in agriculture or petroleum engineering.
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Too bad they spent all that money for college and not a farm in which the EPA can ban.
My last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My sisters friend has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can't believe how easy it was once I tried it out. This is what I do... www.jobs-review.com
By "working online" you mean spamming sites like ZH and annoying people. And why isn't your sister doing it?
Oh hell yes.
What you need to farm is infinite texting experience, zero mechanical skills, and an ego as big as Canada.
Just ducky for Milennials. JesusHFuckaduckgreatceasersghost....
And the minute they graduate, they will open the floodgates for some "highly skilled" import labor to meet the demand. Hey, where's the salary information?
in a series of five-year projections initiated by USDA in 1980. The report was produced by Purdue University with grant support from NIFA. National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA)
Not imported labor (already have that and it's cost prohibitive a lot of the time), rather automation. If a robot can vacuum my house or mow my lawn, why can't it disc a field, plant crops, spray chemicals, apply fertilizer, and harvest the crop? Think about it, if you're a large land owner, would you rather give a farmer 3/4 of the crop share or just take it all for yourself? If you're a farm creditor, then why wouldn't you demand that your farm debtor sign up with the regional management outfit... your management outfit that's controlled by your banker will fly its drones over your field to inspect its collateral... tell you what to plant... tell you when to water... tell you when to market... You just set the parameters in the robots and tell em to get to work... accepting all the risk if things go wrong.
Old Mac Donald had a farm, Eeek! I owe I OWE!
And on that farm he had some chickens who were too afraid to get a brain...
With a stupid chicken here and a stupid chicken there....
Off to Yale they go!
Let's start with replacing stupid commenters with robots, then we can move to replacing farmers with robots.
Farming is far more complex than moving your lawn or vacuuming your home. There is a great deal of science and business savvy required for farming. For example, I find that the leaves of my Eureka lemon tree's leaves have some necrosis on the tips followed by yellow, it could mean that there there is too much boron or sodium in the soil. So to combat this I might need add gypsum.With the weirdening of the weather I also need to do a shit ton of crop planning so that I'll still be able to operate in drought conditions.
On the business aspect I need to network a great deal in order to sell my produce and change my crops in order to suit the demands of my clients.
Believe me -- getting a robot to replace you would be far more easier than replacing a farmer.
There's an app for farming. It tells me when to sow, water, fertilize, pull weeds, harvest, pray to God the locusts don't eat ME....
But does it run on an iCollegeOwnedYou Pad?
Speaking of which I just hired a couple of guys from a local HBCU to help me get a field ready for some sweet potatoes. Told them to go up to the barn and get a couple of hoes. Haven't seen them since.
There's an app for that.
I am a 50 yr old farmer. Here is a list of skills I use every day in order to get the crop in:
parts manager
computer repairman
welder
blacksmith
electrician
electric motor repairman
meterologist
hydrologist
soils expert
agronomist
geneticist
writer
engineer
veterinarian (not really, but you have to know how to give shots, castrate, and something about bovine gynecology)
diesel mechanic
machinist
tool and die maker
plumber
pipefitter
carpenter
musician
poet
heavy equipment operator
painter (buildings and machinery, not canvases)
The list goes on. I have to know how to do these things because the people who would charge me do to them either aren't available, or I don't have the money to pay them. Farming isn't an app, it's not romantic, and I wouldn't do anything else.
Selling your ass online: a new twist on an ancient tradition.
There's a website for that...
Farming is not a bad idea for these younguns. Buuuuuuuut, I wouldn't want to do it with $35k college loan debt.
I have a better idea.
Emigrate and work as a farmer in Russia. I hear they need ambitious young farm workers there.
It is all good for Uncle Scholomo is you use GMO seeds and spray the crops with Mon-Satan products and take out farm loans to keep you in slavery.
The problem for youngins is farming is hard work and requries intelligence. It is not like updating your Facebook page.
That's what I was thinking - got 30 grand in debt? Why not tack on a few million more for farm equipment loans to harvest subsidized corn and soybeans or to pay for the confined feedlot buildings that the mega corporations will just end up abandoning?
So I guess there's a whole mess of new agricultural colleges. Who knew?
The one percenters think of us as serfs anyway. May as well make it official.
I'm just here to observe all the blowhards spout off on farming when most of them think milk comes from the grocery store... let me get my popcorn, this should be amusing...
"I'm earning over $20 a week working only 90 hours as a recent college grad farmer, find out how at www.weareallfucked.com"
Or monsantowillbuyyouafarmandpayoffyourstudentloansplusgiveyouareacharound.com.
Hey, whaddaya expect when you get your degree in agriculture or petroleum engineering from Columbia University’s Teachers College?
So all the prepper commenters who for years have been talking up the value of farmland should be 5-starring this, right? The Feds are telling the college grads to get out and get into agriculture, just like we've heard here for years.
The ag jobs their talking about here are not for self-employed small family farmers - they're for ag specialists working for large operations. It has nothing to do with land value.
Ho Ho Ho. It's Monstanto Claus with lots of gifts for recent college grads.
farmers are not necessarily preppers.
Would this be dept of Ag fedgov jobs harassing those small family farmers?
More than likely they are jobs enforcing the use of pesticides and GMO seeds.
De-facto sales reps for BigAg
Spreading RoundUp by hand?
Tending to Mooch's WH garden when she's out of town skiing and not on her knees picking weeds herself?
Bueller? Anyone seen Bueller?
Someone has to see if the wind blew GMO pollen and seed onto all the small farmers land who need to be sued out of biz by the gov subsidized big britches.
" What's holding her back is the $62 cost of the cap and gown she's required to wear to walk at graduation. “I started to worry, because I just don’t have any extra money to spend right now..."
and there u have it....
this country is sooooooooooo fucked.
The creative solution would be to...
Borrow the Cap & Gown only for the duration of walking up on the Stage to accept the Degree/Diploma, then leave the stage and the pass it to the next person. QED.
But, like you said KS, "this country is soooooo fucked."
Farming is honest work. Working for Monsanto or Cargill isn't farming.
That plus the fact that farmers are allowed to sow their Wild Oats, whereas Monsanto-Cargill employees are not allowed to (do the same).
Besides, Sowing Wild Oats would first require approaching someone of the opposite gender, w/o getting whacked for sexual harassment.
If some of Monsanto's seeds find their way onto your soil, say goodbye to your farm.
Pioneer, Land-O-Lakes, Bayer,or Syngenta, you are all good right?
Didju know that Land-O-Lakes is now planting GMO modidfed chickens upside down that ooze rainbow colored Skittle shaped grade A butter patties?
Well, yeah.
" let 'em eat cake".
Another name for Income-Based Repayment: fuck the taxpayer in the ass.
Taxpayer? You mean the FED?
Who do you think backstops the FED? Unicorns?
So nice having a centrally planned economy like Cuba, USSR...it has a great track record!
Farming? Isn't that like, work, or something?
I totally didn't sign up for that when I got my Ph.D. in Art Herstory.
Any bitch or stupid bastard that doesn't have $62 to buy their cap and gown, but still has the time to post, or even have a FB page is a stupic bitch and bastrd.
What they really mean is .. train for a career in agrobusiness, where the once-fertile soil is little more than a medium to hold synthetic fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides. Grow from sterilized GMO seeds with unknown health consequences. Suck at the government teat and insure yourself to the hilt so you can't lose. Yes, it certainly is food that they grow, in that it will make a turd, but don't be surprised if you develop cancer in your middle age and your kids suffer through autism and/or bizarre allergies. Half of my family are farmers and the ones over 40 all have some serious health issues. Makes you wonder.
Why would anyone with half a brain want to become a farmer when the banks, through futures pricing screw with the price of all commodities including the ones farmers toil to grow??????????? Are you kidding me!!!!!!!!!
Becuz u can gro iPods?
A lot of people with half a brain went into farming. It was the obvious choice.
Because anyone that knows farming and the future wouldn't be looking at the commodity prices representing 1000 acre commercial farm venue.
They would be looking at small local farm market straight to the consumer via CSA's (google farm csa), farmers markets, etc.
No HUGE commercial loans for 100,000$ tractors with GPS steering....
Small, Local, 5-10 Acres, no huge equipment, small over head.
Google Joel salatin. Read his books, "Everything I want to do is Illegal", and "Folks This ain't Normal"
Watch video Food Inc. He's in it.
Hard to make money in sustainable farming. I'd bet Joel makes significantly more money from his writing and speaking engagements. I have a friend with property in Missouri. He wanted to farm, but couldn't come up with any profitable business plan. He's been doing research for two years. I almost had him talked into raising grass-fed beef. Almost.
Lenin must be laughing his ass off in hell: "Comrades, the most glorious work is the work on the collective..."
Castro sent everyone to harvest sugar cane .... and eat rice and black beans .... off stamped steel prison trays .... tres chic !
The new American dream. Student loan debt forgiveness.
Asparagus doesn't pick itself, after all.
But seriously, if I could be a subsistence farmer, I would.
Your comment just made me wax nostalgic. In the spring of 1973, a goodly lot of my dorm mates in Western Massachusetts in a small, but highly selective, women's college got up at hours no current undergraduate would even recognize as a rising hour to harvest asparagus. They got back for breakfast, and classes, at around 7 AM. Yes, we had 8:00 classes back then, and had only recently gotten rid of Saturday morning classes. Most of us had jobs of some sort that were remunerated, including academic jobs, as I did. The school also had a provision dating back to its founder that all undergrads had to donate 20 hours of work a month to help fund costs. This was not a burden at all. Everyone pulled together wonderfully.
The school was founded in 1837. Few needed massive loans, as a result of the compounded school policies regarding work; but tuition and room and board topped back then at around $5K, for those paying full rates, by the time of my graduation in 1975. We had experienced a serious increase during the time of our attendance, largely due to the Arab Oil Crisis. Total fees went from around $4000 to around $5000 over four years. I don't need to parse the percentage increase for this audience, or the impact it had on parents.
I am not an academic, but I am married to one, and I find the changes since then simply amazing. They are largely due to government regulation. If only I'd had that rate of return on my investments!
if only it were viable.
Afghanistan 400,000 football fields of opium calling
Sure come to California and be a farmer. The high cost of water is really good for the bottom line. NFTA means low priced ag products will cause you to drop you're prices below cost. USDA will really be a great partner.
Green acres that's the life.
Yes, this opportunity is for specialized work in agriculture.
Farm work is shunned by the populace as being too hard and dirty, yet most tractors are air conditioned and have auto steering. Pay starts out at around $10/hr and usual weekly time is >50 hours. Yet no one wants it.
Go figure?
Well, if they are planning on getting these kids into family farms, all I can say is FUHGEDDABOUDIT. Agenda 21 will be calling all too soon--Indeed, likely as soon as that Godforsaken TPP is signed.
They are serious .... you go from student loans .... to FDA crop loans, etc. .... just keep borrowing moar .... just like the gov. !
Maybe .guv should just collectivize all farming, forgive all the debts these students have when they get a job on a .guv farm, and be done with it.
[/sarc]
A Liberal Plantation .... put yo hoes down .... and make some corn meal hoe cakes .... cooked over twigs of cotton plants !
Get over the Lib-Con myth and get a life
866 376 7835. If you want to call a student loan collection agency and explain why they are nothing more than mafia type thugs working for the bankers and 1 percent.
WHen you're the 1% living in giant mansions in gorgeous parts of the world while we stay huddled in the dark being forbidden to use more than a quanta of energy due to "climate change", someone will have to do all the work to grow their food. and, the robot technology isn't quite there. Who better than the newest generation of slave?
Isn’t that what they told the Joad family in Grapes of Wrath?
Only this time they’ll be duped into moving to farms in Nebraska, because, all the farms in California are drying up from the drought.
Petroleum Engineer isn't the best Degree right now.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/oil-layoffs-hit-100-000-and-counting-1429055740
" Since crude prices began tumbling last year, energy companies have announced plans to lay off more than 100,000 workers around the world. At least 91,000 layoffs have already materialized, with the majority coming in oil-field-services and drilling companies, according to research by Graves & Co., a Houston consulting firm."
I'm not sure that the agricultural sector has a strong demand for graduates with Gender Studies and Afro-Sensitivity majors.
But I'm told that Darnell the Pimp is hiring recent grads. Apply down at the corner.
Uncle Sam wants them to all be pot farmers using GMO pot seeds.
Right-o. And how does one purchase farm land with nothing but college debt and no assets or capital?
Another empty-headed pile of government claptrap.
LOP, what say you? Do you have any room for new grads? Or can you offer only Sharecropping at this time?
Ok, humor aside... What IS your view on young people trying to get into farming? Suggestions? Besides 'that'.
I see it as an another cosmic sign that we are on the right path. We started down that road a few years ago.
Local food production is a great thing to be involved in. Free range Chickens, pigs, beef, etc. Veg. Too.
Now if we could get the regulations out of the control of Big Ag. We could actually sell more locally.
Know your farmer.
Keep Calm
And
Farm On
I think we'll see more and more local pigs being butchered nationwide in the next few years.
Most people can't fathom how much hard work goes into running a farm operation properly.
Millenials are lazy as fuck. Most won't even run a vacuum to clean a carpet.
My parents have run a 3 acre hobby farm for the past 20 years growing everything you can think of from grapes, to plums, to peaches, apples, etc etc. It's fucking murder and aside from living off of your own crop, selling doesn't make you much more for much else.
Yeah, go into farming and get highly indebted by big biotech businesses.
I agree with this forecast.
With enhanced communication through software services , a group of small or 2015 startup farmers can better organize a legal and local market for their crop. The farming would be decentralized and but organized centrally.
If no sun or bad climate, then low cost solar and Wind Powered LEDS, hydropnics, and aquaponics allow for anyone in the world to enter this market.
With low cost testing becomming more advanced, a network of distributed farmers would likely produce healthier and near pesticide free which can be verified without adding to much cost to the consumer.
All of this doesn't really consider potential innovations in farming: automated lighting based on previous crop data for ideal yield or modifying seeds to produce new and different foods. Food storage is a whole separate issue and likley we will see innovations here.
There is a growing demand for goats and so goat livestock would be an ok investment with farming. Hopefully we end cow dairy and introduce better and healthier options. If more humans populate the earth then more farmers will be needed to supply the demand.
There is constant evolution in food store retail management and inventory sourcing and this will likely continue.
Clearly the potential is enormous. And for those who don't see this as obvious...do know that we haven't even factored in the benefits of cannabis and hemp.
2115 comedy = reading biographies of those who bought gold in 2015
2015 best store of value = sustainable agriculture
The government would love you to become a farmer so they can slam down a hundered pages of reports to fill out. And double it if you try the organic route. Been there done that. Done with that.
That guy above you must be made of money or bullshit.
Get an address, let's fleece him in any case.
i was actually intrested in hobby farming, can you point to any docs related to regulations, what is the minimum size of farmland you need before regs apply, was intrested in heirloom farming, no organic certification which is all AG controlled anyways and most probably BS..,, just a way to over charge the more well to do crowd, the only way to know if the food is pure is to grow it yourself imho.
any books you can point to would be appreciated about how non corp farmers have the deck stacked against them
Are you planning on selling farm products?
I have access to all of the information I need. I don't need someone to certify my ride through life. Fuck debt and the horse it rode in on. Grow what you need and pass the rest on brother.
Increase CO2 emissions -> increased crop yields -> easy to feed 9B?
So how will you increase nitrogen fixation along with the increases in CO2?.... or did you want bigger plants with less protein by weight?
Why not ? Not all are stupid, but many under-informed.
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