Why you should not study
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Here is a simple comparison between a O level graduate, diploma and degree graduate to prove that it is not worth spending so much time and money to study.
We shall take a starting pay of $1200 for O level graduate who work as Admin Assistant and give her a 1 month bonus and $100 pay increment every year.
During the 3 years that you take to get a diploma from the polytechnic you will have incureed a cost of $6000 school fees (after government subsidy) and you will have lost 3 years of income as compared to a O level graduate who works during the 3 years that you are studying,
The O level graduate who is a admin assistant will have earned this amount in the 3 years that you spend taking a diploma
1st year: $1200*13 months(including bonus)= $15 600
2nd year: $1300(assuming a $100 increment for every year that he works)*13 months= $ 16 900
3rd year: $1400 * 13 months= $18 200.
In 3 years time, she will have earned $15 600+ $16 900 + $18 200= $50 700.
And in 3 years time due to outstanding performance she got promoted to Admin Executive and given a $300 pay increment and her salary is now $1700 a month.
A fresh diploma holder starts off as a Admin Executive drawing a salary of $1700. Both of them earns the same amount of salary but the O level graduate has worked for 3 years and during this period she have earned $50 700. Plus the diploma holder have spended $6000 on her school fees.
Note that this amount has not include the cpf portion of her employer contribution during the 3 years that she has worked. If we include in this amount it will be higher.
Clearly the O level graduate is at a advantage as compared to the diploma holder.
Now we compare a degree holder who took 5 years to get a degree( 2 years in JC and 3 years in university) with the O level graduate.
Starting from the 4 year onwards, the O level graduate who is now a Admin Executive earns $1700 a month.
4th year: $1700*13 months= $22 100
5th year: $1800*13 months= $23 400
At the end of the 5 years, the O level graduate Admin Exceutive will have earned $50 700+ $22 100+ $23 400= $96 200. Her salary at that time will be $1800 a month.
The university graduate let us give her a salary of $2200 a month. Wow not bad sia she earns $400 a month more than the O level graduate.
But wait. during the 5 years that she took to get a degree, the O level graduate have already earned $96 200.
You go and calculate how long must this university graduate work than she can earn back the loss of $96 200 income that she loss in these 5 years. Not to mention, she started off with a net loss of $30 000( calculated by using $10 000 a year school fee multiply by 3 years course fee. And $10 000 a year school fee is already considered cheap. Some university courses costs more than $10 000 a year).
So after this calculation, you say whether is it worth it to take a degree or diploma anot?
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theoretically , should not study
practically , we should , cause sg wants that piece of paper
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Completely dumb method of comparision. Unless it's meant to be a joke.
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Originally posted by Agenda:
Completely dumb method of comparision. Unless it's meant to be a joke.
Than you come out with a better method or you are the dumbest ass and joker of the year
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You do have to take into account that a degree holder can earn much hire, gaining higher pay increment and more promotions than a O's holder who will be limited in his advancement promotion.
Furthermore, you did not take in the expenses of the O's holder during his years of working, all these will reduce his earnings just like uni and poly grads have study debts to clear.
Lastly and more importantly, these days with foreign labour so easily obtained, without any academic qualifications, a O's holder will easily be replaced by a foreigner that is willing to take the same job for a much lower pay.
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Originally posted by dkcx:
You do have to take into account that a degree holder can earn much hire, gaining higher pay increment and more promotions than a O's holder who will be limited in his advancement promotion.
Furthermore, you did not take in the expenses of the O's holder during his years of working, all these will reduce his earnings just like uni and poly grads have study debts to clear.
Lastly and more importantly, these days with foreign labour so easily obtained, without any academic qualifications, a O's holder will easily be replaced by a foreigner that is willing to take the same job for a much lower pay.
I did not take in the expense of the O level and diploma holder when they are working simply because when you are studying in polytechnic or university you also incur daily expenses just that the difference is you get the money from your parents but its still your family's hard earned money.
And with foreign labour so easily obtained, many companies also can hire a foreigner degree holder who demands a lower salary than a local university graduate.
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Originally posted by automator:
I did not take in the expense of the O level and diploma holder when they are working simply because when you are studying in polytechnic or university you also incur daily expenses just that the difference is you get the money from your parents but its still your family's hard earned money.
And with foreign labour so easily obtained, many companies also can hire a foreigner degree holder who demands a lower salary than a local university graduate.
A working adult tends to have much higher expenses than a student so the expenses are not the same. Furthermore, if you do not know, alot of poly and uni students etc are all teaching tuition to earn pocket money and not everyone live off their parents like what you might be thinking. I've friends who teach tuition and earn more than half of what your 'O's holder' will earn and 1 even earns more than 1k a month so please factor in these facts into your calculations. Holidays is another period many students go out to look for part time work etc.
You do note that its easier to replace a lower level education person than a higher education person. In fact, whats the odds of a O's holder finding an admin job that gives that pay in the first place when theres so much dip holders and degree holders out there. Please factor in supply and demand and not dream that you can always hold on to a job once you got 1. There is no such thing as job security these days.
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Originally posted by dkcx:
A working adult tends to have much higher expenses than a student so the expenses are not the same. Furthermore, if you do not know, alot of poly and uni students etc are all teaching tuition to earn pocket money and not everyone live off their parents like what you might be thinking. I've friends who teach tuition and earn more than half of what your 'O's holder' will earn and 1 even earns more than 1k a month so please factor in these facts into your calculations. Holidays is another period many students go out to look for part time work etc.
You do note that its easier to replace a lower level education person than a higher education person. In fact, whats the odds of a O's holder finding an admin job that gives that pay in the first place when theres so much dip holders and degree holders out there. Please factor in supply and demand and not dream that you can always hold on to a job once you got 1. There is no such thing as job security these days.
If you are the type that got salary only than you will spend more than of course your expenses will be higher than a student. If you are the discipline type, you can be as thrifty as a working adult as a student.
I know of many working adults who remains thrifty even after they started working and their expenses is still around the same as when they were studying. I myself is 1 such example.
Those students that you mention are only the minority. Most students just study in polytechnic or university. They already have so much assignment to do where got time to go and work part time. As for school holidays, it is like a short 2 months time. Even if they go to work it will be a temp job that pays a miserable pay like $9 a hour?
You also need to note that not many people know how to etach tution. There are many university graduates who gets good results in university and are successful in their career but do not make a good tution teacher as they do not know hwo to teach effectively.
The O level can get a admin job simply because his/her starting pay of 1.2k is lower than the pay of the diploma holder and degree holder. But through hard work, he/she proves himself/herself and is given pay increment and promotion until he/she gets the same pay as the diploma hollder of 1.7k after 3 years.
You do note that there are more foreigners coming to our university to study on scholarship given by the government. (You can blame it on the PAP). These people can easily replace our local university graduates in their job so even for university graduates they can still easily replace you with a foreigner.
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Such a naive person. It is clearly that you have not taken into consideration, of the various aspects of finding a job with GCE O qualifications, when there's a large pool of diploma/GCE A/ degree graduates who are vying for your job.
most employers would not even further look at your resume.
Speaking of $100/ year pay increment, there are plenty who don't get pay increments at all. So technically you will just "hen-ta-ka-ki" at your current pay for many years.
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ST has a flawed argument.
- Calculation based on first few years of working.
- $100/$300 annual increment for O level holder is not realistic.
- O level holder has a salary cap (unless a commission based job).
- Career advancement gives higher increment for Degree holders after approx 6 years later.
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Originally posted by kenn3th:
Such a naive person. It is clearly that you have not taken into consideration, of the various aspects of finding a job with GCE O qualifications, when there's a large pool of diploma/GCE A/ degree graduates who are vying for your job.
most employers would not even further look at your resume.
Speaking of $100/ year pay increment, there are plenty who don't get pay increments at all. So technically you will just "hen-ta-ka-ki" at your current pay for many years.
Do you have statistics to prove your naive theory of many companies that don't give pay increment at all?
As what I have mentioned, Diploma holder applys for Admin Executive position and degree holder applys for perhaps Admin Manager position whereas O level apply for Admin Asst position.
You mentioned that there is a large pool of diploma and degree graduates vying for your O level job.
Are you sure there are naive diploma and degree holders who thinks in the same way as you to go and apply for a O level position with a salary of 1.2k when there are better jobs out there to apply for?
Technically speaking, there will be perhaps a small pool of naive diploma and degree holders who goes and apply for O level position and I won't be suprised if you fall into this small category of naive people
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Originally posted by laffin123:
ST has a flawed argument.
- Calculation based on first few years of working.
- $100/$300 annual increment for O level holder is not realistic.
- O level holder has a salary cap (unless a commission based job).
- Career advancement gives higher increment for Degree holders after approx 6 years later.
$100 annual increment is realistic. $300 increment when he/she gets promoted due to outstanding performance is realistic too.
Your last point of career advancement is true.
But who can guarantee that after 6 years later the degree holder will have a career advancement that gives higher increment?
When you are still studying in university can you guarantee that 6 years after you work you will have a good career advancement?
Nowadays with the government bringing in foreigners to steal your jobs, you might not even be able to get a job after you graduate so no need to talk about career advancement etc when it is difficult for you to even find a job in the first place.
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Originally posted by automator:
If you are the type that got salary only than you will spend more than of course your expenses will be higher than a student. If you are the discipline type, you can be as thrifty as a working adult as a student.
I know of many working adults who remains thrifty even after they started working and their expenses is still around the same as when they were studying. I myself is 1 such example.
Those students that you mention are only the minority. Most students just study in polytechnic or university. They already have so much assignment to do where got time to go and work part time. As for school holidays, it is like a short 2 months time. Even if they go to work it will be a temp job that pays a miserable pay like $9 a hour?
You also need to note that not many people know how to etach tution. There are many university graduates who gets good results in university and are successful in their career but do not make a good tution teacher as they do not know hwo to teach effectively.
The O level can get a admin job simply because his/her starting pay of 1.2k is lower than the pay of the diploma holder and degree holder. But through hard work, he/she proves himself/herself and is given pay increment and promotion until he/she gets the same pay as the diploma hollder of 1.7k after 3 years.
Where did you get your stats from? I'm in uni now and i would say almost half my peers are teaching tuition and so are many poly students i know so its definitely not a minority. If it was such a minority, there won't be so much tuition centers being set up these days with new tuition assignments everyday.
A working adult still has to pay for food, transport etc which schools are subsidised. Furthermore in the working world there are often times you need to socialise with your colleages and those cost don't come cheap.
How much is your monthly expenses? My personal expenses for food and transport rarely go over $250 a month. Are you sure a working adult can pay for his meals and transport using that amount unless he stays very near his workplace and live on bread and water of cos.
Where did you get your statistics from to show that a O's holder can get 1.7k pay after 3 yrs? Unless you are 1 yourself, please provide your source and also take into account the proportion of O's holders who do manage to find such a job even with a 1.2k which is rather high when i see more of such pay at 1k or below these days. Ensure that the person can ALWAYS keep that job since your comparisons is base on the person staying in a company all the way and is not replaced by someone of higher qualifications or a foreigner.
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Originally posted by automator:
$100 annual increment is realistic. $300 increment when he/she gets promoted due to outstanding performance is realistic too.
Your last point of career advancement is true.
But who can guarantee that after 6 years later the degree holder will have a career advancement that gives higher increment?
When you are still studying in university can you guarantee that 6 years after you work you will have a good career advancement?
Nowadays with the government bringing in foreigners to steal your jobs, you might not even be able to get a job after you graduate so no need to talk about career advancement etc when it is difficult for you to even find a job in the first place.
There is no way to assure a career advancement so what makes you so sure your O's holder will get his promotion and increment? $100 from a 1.2k salary is almost 10% increment a year, its very unlikely companies would give such a high increment to anyone. All jobs across all levels can be stolen so that does not exempt your O's holder from it.
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Originally posted by dkcx:
Where did you get your stats from? I'm in uni now and i would say almost half my peers are teaching tuition and so are many poly students i know so its definitely not a minority. If it was such a minority, there won't be so much tuition centers being set up these days with new tuition assignments everyday.
A working adult still has to pay for food, transport etc which schools are subsidised. Furthermore in the working world there are often times you need to socialise with your colleages and those cost don't come cheap.
How much is your monthly expenses? My personal expenses for food and transport rarely go over $250 a month. Are you sure a working adult can pay for his meals and transport using that amount unless he stays very near his workplace and live on bread and water of cos.
Where did you get your statistics from to show that a O's holder can get 1.7k pay after 3 yrs? Unless you are 1 yourself, please provide your source and also take into account the proportion of O's holders who do manage to find such a job even with a 1.2k which is rather high when i see more of such pay at 1k or below these days. Ensure that the person can ALWAYS keep that job since your comparisons is base on the person staying in a company all the way and is not replaced by someone of higher qualifications or a foreigner.
Haha. I am a working adult and I will show you my expenses:
$3 transport a day. 1 month transport is $60 excluding weekends when I don't need to work so don't need to take transport. $2.50 on lunch and $2.50 on dinner. So 1 day food expense is $5 a day which makes it $150 a month.
1 month expense is $210.
Show me how is your expenses than you manage to spend less than $250 a month than
You mentioned that you need to socialise with your collegues. don't you need to spend money to socialise with your classmates in university too?
Furthermore you have not come out to work yet so you don't know the real situation. Due to office politics, many people don't even like their own collegues and don't even talk much with tehir collegues other than work purposes so not to mention about socialising with them.
Most working adults also have their own family to take care of after their working hours so they don't have time to socialise with you too even if theya re on good terms with you.
I have many friends who are O level graduates who earns more than 1.7k.
1.7k a month is already low for my O level friends. Some of my O level friends go work as property agent or insurance agent and they can easily earn 5k a month more than what the university graduate earn.
in fact 80% of my O level friends are earning at least 1.7k after working for 3 years. Some lucky ones earn 2k after 3 years
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you have sadly miss the point. studying is not all about salaries. educations is also about knowledge, learning and wisdom. why is your mentality about working for others only? Is that all you have about studying?
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Originally posted by dkcx:
There is no way to assure a career advancement so what makes you so sure your O's holder will get his promotion and increment? $100 from a 1.2k salary is almost 10% increment a year, its very unlikely companies would give such a high increment to anyone. All jobs across all levels can be stolen so that does not exempt your O's holder from it.
So we can conclude that whether a O level or degree holder, there is no assurance of career advancement and no assurance of job stability too?
In that case, than why spend so much money and time to take a degree when you might end up like the O level graduate who can't advance in his career and can't find a stable job too?
You may say that with a degree you got a higher chance of finding a stable job.
What if after spending 3 years and so much money you can't find a stable job?
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Originally posted by SevenEleven:
you have sadly miss the point. studying is not all about salaries. educations is also about knowledge, learning and wisdom. why is your mentality about working for others only? Is that all you have about studying?
There are many ways for you to get knowledge.
You can get it through the internet which is free.
Why must you spend 3 years and 30k just to get knowledge when you can go to the library to borrow books or surf the net for more knowledge and it is free too?
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Originally posted by automator:
There are many ways for you to get knowledge.
You can get it through the internet which is free.
Why must you spend 3 years and 30k just to get knowledge when you can go to the library to borrow books or surf the net for more knowledge and it is free too?
you are not wrong but have you thought about the amount of time you have to go thru , "trial and error" again?. money cannot buy you the time you have lost. -
Automator, I share with you about myself
Because I went through the JC route, I could teach tuition well during army and uni.
So right after uni,
Salary is not $2.2k. It's >$3k. And do include year end AWS and bonuses into calculations.
And because of my uni degree, I can charge a slight premium for tuition, especially when I teach JC. Currently, tuition income is on average >$4k. Only thing is, I started this year only, because I need to make sure my job scope, etc, before I start anything as major as this.
During uni, because I focus on getting a first class, I didn't teach so much. Varies between $400 to $1k for the first 2 years cuz the courses were easier. Then did industrial attachement, which pays about $800 per month for a semester.
Furthermore, study well and you can be like me to achieve a scholarship as well, so uni fees are paid plus get allowance as well.
Also, do take into account that transport fees paid by a student is likely lesser, not to mention many student discounts when you go eat at places. In fact, travel fees in Europe are also discounted, especially when you go travel because of student exchange programmes.
So with the above, I graduated with about $50k in savings, of course with $24k debt in CPF loan, cuz I didn't use the scholarship money to pay the CPF debt. Not a lot though... Forumers like soul_rage managed $100k I believe.
With the savings, I put into certain blue chips which yield me nearly 6~7% p.a. in dividend yield, instead of paying back CPF, which charges interest of only 2.6%. Earn from the interest.
And now, after having graduated in May 08, I'm almost reaching my first 100k in savings and equities (exclude unrealised gains) soon. I'm now aiming for the 2nd 100k by end of next year. But with $17k debt of CPF loan left at the moment... Clearing at about $1k to $1.5k a month after my tuition income took off...
Some might say I siao one, why can go on and on working. But the thing is, such handling of "stress" was trained in uni...
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In my company here, poly grads are capped max at $2.8k I think....
Uni grads can eventually reach $6k?? Not sure
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The only way if you want to achieve high without going through NUS or NTU type of uni is to have your own business.
That just means you are going through the university of life and business.
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Originally posted by automator:
So we can conclude that whether a O level or degree holder, there is no assurance of career advancement and no assurance of job stability too?
In that case, than why spend so much money and time to take a degree when you might end up like the O level graduate who can't advance in his career and can't find a stable job too?
You may say that with a degree you got a higher chance of finding a stable job.
What if after spending 3 years and so much money you can't find a stable job?
Study uni not for the sake of gaining knowledge only
It's for the sake of gaining skills.
One don't need to go to uni to gain knowledge.
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Originally posted by automator:
So we can conclude that whether a O level or degree holder, there is no assurance of career advancement and no assurance of job stability too?
In that case, than why spend so much money and time to take a degree when you might end up like the O level graduate who can't advance in his career and can't find a stable job too?
You may say that with a degree you got a higher chance of finding a stable job.
What if after spending 3 years and so much money you can't find a stable job?
My expenses
Transport - $43 MRT consession. Give it $7 for the occasional bus trips i might take instead of walking due to heavy rain.Food - I can easily get a meal from $1.50-$2.50 depending on what i choose to eat so taking that into consideration would be about $150.
That makes 200 and i leave a $50 buffer for the occasional movie and other entertainment activities i spent with my friends during the weekends etc.
Nothing is assured in this world but with a good education, you have a better demand than someone without. The yearly statistics shows that uni grads have 80-90% hiring rate within the first 6 months of graduation, can you find a similar high % for O's leavers?
Insurance, property agent etc earns depending on how well they can speak and sell their products. Not everyone is capable of that. If you want to talk about such minorities, why don't you talk about uni grads that earns 5k or more a month? $2.2k for a uni undergrad is damn low. I've friends who had starting pay of at least 3k and hes not even a 1st class honours student.
How many O's friends do you have? What % of the nation do they work out to be? Do not think base on what you see and know without taking into account the national statistics even better the global statistics.
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Hi all, I would like to give my take also.
The flaw in the calculations are as follows:
1. O level's career/salary curve against time is very different from Degree's career/salary curve. i.e. one is linear and stagnant, while the other is exponentiallly up and then linear.
2. O levels will be stuck at Asst. Manager as his/her max. potential usually, whereas Degree can be promoted up to close to Director/Senior Manager, this will provide huge salary differences.
Salary structure for most organization are also exponential. e.g. Admin asst: $1200, Admin Exec: $1700, Asst Manager: $2200, Manager: $3000, Senior Manager: $4000+, Deputy Director: $6000, Director: $8000.
From this example you can see that as one climbs in rank/position the salary is exponentially increasing. Same in army also, e.g. 3SG: $2200, SSG: $3800, LTA: $3200, CPT: $5000, MAG: $6000, LTC: $8000, COL:$10,000 etc.
3. In bad times, those that get retrenched are always the rank & file personnel, i.e. production workers, assistants etc, cuz the bigger shots holds more responsibility and is considered a talent.
4. More opportunities abound when you are at a higher position/rank or with a good degree etc, people headhunt you, you get to travel overseas for meeting etc. Nobody will headhunt an admin exec/asst, or ask an admin asst to travel to Europe for conference.
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nightzip
I think LTA for first class honours already >$4k :)
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Originally posted by automator:
Do you have statistics to prove your naive theory of many companies that don't give pay increment at all?
As what I have mentioned, Diploma holder applys for Admin Executive position and degree holder applys for perhaps Admin Manager position whereas O level apply for Admin Asst position.
You mentioned that there is a large pool of diploma and degree graduates vying for your O level job.
Are you sure there are naive diploma and degree holders who thinks in the same way as you to go and apply for a O level position with a salary of 1.2k when there are better jobs out there to apply for?
Technically speaking, there will be perhaps a small pool of naive diploma and degree holders who goes and apply for O level position and I won't be suprised if you fall into this small category of naive people
I do not fall into the category of that bunch of 'navie' people that you have said. Speaking of which, these people are not naive and it is increasing common to see this common occurrence where people apply for O level positions in such bad times. There is no such thing as "O level positions", so technically your whole argument is flawed.