Dear Readers,

  The last blog, "The Million Dollar Question:  What are you going to do to earn a living?" generated more responses than any other article posted on this blog.  You can read many of them below the article.  It's been so cool to read other people's thoughts on the subject

Marshall Karp is a member of the National Career Development Association.  NCDA is probably the best known professional association for career practitioners.  Marshall's response, or mini-rant as he called it, contains some very helpful additional information. Therefore, I asked his permission to post it.  Here is.  As I've said in other posts:  Read. Memorize. Do.

"This was a great blog post, Carol, and should be required reading for every high school student, as well as the young peoples' version of Parachute.

Just a couple of comments:

Anymore, I am telling young people, parents, grandparents, anyone who will listen to me: Don't take out student loans! Don't do it! They need to be paid back and there is no way out of them!

I know of people who have over $100,000 in student loan debt. I personally know of several people with seventy to eighty thousand dollar student loan debt and they can't find jobs in their field or are still unemployed altogether. When I talk to parents or young people, the comeback to my exhortation of don't do it is, how else are we supposed to do it? Well:

* You could pay as you go along
* You could take time off from school, earn some money, take time off, earn some money
* You may have to go to a local community college
* You may have to work several jobs to pay for school
* You may have to work several jobs while you are going to school
* You could enlist the financial aid of relatives, if they agree on the importance of a college education

That's how else you are supposed to do this. Way too many people are just rubbing the magic student loan lamp to get the money and the problem comes at the other end of trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle. I just think it is outrageous the lack of planning and solid career preparation. So many young people and re-careering adults go off to school on massive student loan debt accumulation and expect the magic to happen when they are done. You quoted the odds of 2:1 against them, you probably got that right.

Just my opinion, or mini-rant. Anyway, keep up the good work and I will continue to read your blog.

P.S. Well, there is an exceptional to every rule. I am open to discussions of manageable debt. A small size student loan with a repayment plan,.  But still, it takes discipline to stick to the plan."
Posted by Marshall Karp