For some fun reading, I recommend these articles written recently and published across the internet.
Estate Planning: Are You Ready When Your Time Comes? Lazy Man narrowly avoided death recently, but it is my grandmother’s condition that leads me to link to this timely post. Here, Lazy Man offers several tips to help prepare the loved ones left behind for handling your responsibilities following your passing.
What Works for Me: Debt Reduction Mindset. It’s always fascinating to see someone else’s motivating factors in any task. Motivation varies greatly from person to person. In this article NCN describes what motivates him to getting out of and staying out of debt. You may come away with some suggestions for keeping yourself on the debt reduction path as well.
Want a High Paying Job? Do the Math. Mr. Tough Money Love points out a recent survey that shows that the college majors resulting in the top job offers in terms of starting salary are strongly weighted towards those requiring strong math skills. Most of these jobs are various forms of engineering.
If the only value of higher education is the money you earn throughout your lifetime with your college degree, then SmartMoney’s recent study might help you decide where to matriculate. Ivy League schools don’t pay off as much as one might expect. The magazine surveyed the annual salaries earned by graduates of 50 of the most expensive four-year schools, three years and fifteen years after graduation. The data were used to determine a “payback ratio.” You can compare payback ratios of different schools to get an idea of whether and how fast the cost of tuition will pay off in terms of income earned.
Here is what SmartMoney has to say about this survey’s approach:
Ultimately, we weren’t trying to measure the quality of education or colleges’ selectivity. Other rankings take ample care of that, and dedicated students will thrive at any of these fine schools. But with boutique private colleges coming under heavy criticism for spiraling costs, our payback numbers certainly raise questions about the actual “return” on an educational investment.
“Return” is more than the financial benefits you receive from an education, and putting that aside to look just at the dollars creates an interesting comparison. But this shouldn’t be the only factor or the deciding factor when choosing a college. There is a tendency for business-minded folk to measure everything through “ROI” (return on investment) or to look purely at numbers through a “cost/benefit analysis.” Decisions based on pure financial anlysis don’t necessarily result in happiness or satisfaction with long-term goals.
Here are the top 5 public schools, liberal arts schools, and Ivy League schools based on SmartMoney’s “payback ratio.”
Top 5 public schools
- University of Georgia: 338%
- Texas A&M: 315%
- University of Texas, Austin: 306%
- Georgia Tech: 263%
- University of Washington: 225%
Top 5 liberal arts schools
- Washington and Lee: 145%
- University of Richmond: 130%
- Lafayette College: 115%
- College of the Holy Cross: 114%
- Bucknell College: 114%
Top 5 Ivy League schools
- Princeton: 132%
- Dartmouth College: 131%
- Yale University: 127%
- Harvard University: 124%
- University of Pennsylvania: 124%
Are gay men discriminated against by employers? Yes, according to a new study which appears in the Journal of Labor Research.
The study, co-authored by Bruce Elmslie, professor of economics at UNH Whittemore and Edinaldo Tebaldi of Bryant University in Rhode Island, contains an in-depth analysis of wage and labor data collected by the U.S. Census in March 2004. The dataset represents over 91,000 heterosexual and homosexual couples.
According to the authors, gay men who live together earn 23 percent less than married men, and 9 percent less than unmarried heterosexual men who live with a woman. Discrimination is most pronounced in management and blue-collar, male-dominated occupations such as building and grounds cleaning and maintenance; construction and extraction; and production.
The authors also found that lesbians are not discriminated against when compared with heterosexual women. They conclude that while negative attitudes toward lesbians could affect them, lesbians may benefit from the perception that they are more career-focused and less likely to leave the labor market to raise children than heterosexual women. According to their study, 18.1 percent of lesbians have children, compared with 49.4 percent of straight women.
Within the study, the authors suggest that employer disapproval of the gay lifestyle, fears about offending customers and concerning the transmission of HIV/AIDS may be affecting hiring and salary decisions. While these are certainly plausible theories, the data they examined does not truly provide any information regarding these potential causes, and more research is needed to justify their assertions.
I believe this study raises more questions than it answers, but the data revealed remains of interest, regardless of the whys.
I’ve long been disturbed that even in 2007, salary and position inequalities still exist between men and women, but until now, I hadn’t realized that homosexual men were affected as well. Gay couples already face unique retirement challenges, and compensation inequities only exacerbate the issue.
Gay men can earn 23 pct less than married men: study [Reuters UK]
New Research Finds Gay Men, But Not Lesbians, Are Discriminated Against in Some Jobs [UNH Media Relations]
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