So depressing......

[Spanky]

Quote:

As for $93k/yr being not bad for a 30-year old, you're right. But add in the average law school graduate's debt of $85k (which works out to $775/month for 15 years), along with the costs of supporting a family, mortgage, cars, etc... and it's not as nice a salary as you might think.

What is the appropriate compensation? Should it be based on number of years of training or the amount of money spent on the education?

Here are some numbers on college debts for graduate studies according to this article (http://www.nelliemae.com/library/research_10.html):

“Students attending graduate school borrow, on average, an additional $31,700 beyond their undergraduate borrowing, an increase of 51% since 1997. The median debt level for graduate school borrowing is $23,700, an increase of 72% since 1997. Those borrowing for professional study, particularly law and medicine, drive up the average graduate level of borrowing. Law and medical student borrowers report an average accumulated debt from all years (undergraduate and graduate study) of $91,700 while the average combined debt for all graduate students is $45,900.”

If pay is based on the years of spent in education, a PHD graduate should receive the same pay as a lawyer, doctor or dentist. It may be true that a person with a PHD makes more than a person with a BS degree in the same field. However, a person with an MBA from a prestigious college will make a lot more than a person with a PHD. This suggests that the correlation between pay and level and education is low despite countless studies indicate the contrary. Pay or compensation is solely dependent on what the job market is willing to bear. It has nothing to do with how much money, efforts, or sacrifices one have to endure to get the job.

People will always complain that they are not receiving adequate pay commensurate with their experience or education. Doctors will say that they should deserve higher pay because of the years of training, the level of college debts incurred, the low pay during residency, the longs hours, time away from their families. That’s silly. If they ever thought that the compensation isn’t worth the time and effort, they would not have entered medical school or simply have discontinued the pursuit albeit some physicians are truly passionate about medicine and oblivious about the pay.

The bottom line is that pay is based on supply and demand. As long as society depends on the legal means or litigation to resolve conflicts as more complicated or conflicting laws are enacted, the demand for lawyers will continue to rise and therefore the compensation for the legal profession will accelerate accordingly. This is also true for all other professions that are in demand, i.e., doctors, dentists, money managers, top athletes, talented performing artists, gifted managers and so on.

[Rustic23]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spanky The bottom line is that pay is based on supply and demand.

Well put. Just because one chooses to spend a fortune on school does not mean they are entitled to recouping that expense. Supply and demand determines the wage in the work place. Starting teachers are making more now than 50 years ago, why, smaller class size, more opportunities for women in the work force, the historic source for teachers, thus increase demand. Could it be there are too many lawyers and supply and demand is working? There are pilots in the airline industry that do not have college degrees, they have been there for 30 years, they fly really big jets, and are very well compensated.

[SteveR]

Paying huge bucks to get a degree from MIT in underwater basket weaving will not pay any better than getting one from Whatsamatter U.

Like the others have said..it is not the schools so much as the demand for your degree. The exceptions would be law firms, business executives, and maybe surgeons, plus a few others here and there.

If you get a degree in an area that has a glut of workers with few openings you are not going to get an above average wage. If you pick a career that has lots of jobs but no one to fill them then you can punch your own ticket.

Disclaimer: Exceptions are the rule to every example.

[accountingsucks]

I haven't had a chance to check the responses until today to my post, but I'm kinda surprised that people are saying this is a lot of hours.

I get in at 8 AM and work until about 5 and I work through lunches. This gets me to 9 hours a day and I estimated that I put in about 20 hours of OT a month, so I added an hour to round out to 10 hours a day. Are most people at a job putting in much less than this? If you were all to work out the math I'm sure your numbers would be just as high in terms of time spent at work. Also, I get 3 weeks vacation whereas many take 1 or 2 weeks off per year rather than 3.

My current job has much less OT than my old job and that is why I left. I generally only have to work OT one day a month when I close the books for a large publicly traded company and that takes about 14 hours on a Saturday, plus I put in some other OT at year end and at quarter ends..........besides that I have no OT. I normally also get a day off in lieu for doing the month end close.

Also I don't really hate my job, but I don't really like it either. It's simply a paycheque to me and I truly do not have the motivation to climb the ranks to make more money for some additional stress as I feel I am fairly well compensated at my supervisor level.

[BunsGettingFirm]

So the the original post by accoutingsucks is accountingsucks before coffee, and the last post by accountingsucks is accountingsucks after coffee?

I'd say that accounting is a heck of a lot easier way up the corporate ladder than engineering. In accounting, your work (if it's good) gets noticed by important people. In engineering, your work (if it's good) gets noticed by fellow nerds who have little pull.

[Brat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by accountingsucks My current job has much less OT than my old job and that is why I left.* I generally only have to work OT one day a month when I close the books for a large publicly traded company and that takes about 14 hours on a Saturday, plus I put in some other OT at year end and at quarter ends..........besides that I have no OT.* I normally also get a day off in lieu for doing the month end close. Also I don't really hate my job, but I don't really like it either.* It's simply a paycheque to me and I truly do not have the motivation to climb the ranks to make more money for* some additional stress as I feel I am fairly well compensated at my supervisor level.* *

The hours you are now working are very reasonable for a supervisor in your field, and frankly for a supervisor in most fields.* I understand that accounting sucks (my daughter is the Controller for a prominent firm) because it is bound with rules and at one level may be boring.* But, IT IS AN IMPORTANT JOB!!* We all want it to be boring because business financial records need to correctly reflect the results of the business.* It may not be exciting, but you don't want to be put in the position that the Enron accountants were at one time.*

The only thing we all are given is time; you need to find a way to spend your time productively, however you define that.* There are part time and project based accounting jobs out there it the amount of time you are working is an issue.* If you don't like accounting find another field you find more rewarding.* My SIL earned a 4.0 in accounting from a selective university, passed the CPA exam before he got his degree.* Within 4 months he was diagnosed with cancer and was fighting for his life.* That caused him to re-think his goals.* Once he and daughter had enough income he became a high school teacher.* Educating kids was more important to him than the corporate fast track.*

When I considered what positions to pursue my Mother asked me why I was going to work, what I wanted out of a job.* I made a list.* Then she said no job is good (let alone great) all of the time, so what of the positions I was considering best met my needs and had the fewest foreseeable downsides.* You need to ask yourself those same questions, and develop an action plan to achieve your goals.*

BTW accounting and engineering are more similar than different in many ways.

We discussed the choice between stressful job with good pay vs. job you like with bad pay.

Another alternative is starting your own business. Yes, this can be stressful with long hours, but it's a different kind of stress (maybe) and there's the potential that it will really pay off. It can also be very rewarding in non-financial ways.