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Always_Ask_Questions
Please name a field thats part time and earns a decent salary even non college educated. That doesn’t exist. You have fields where hours are flexible here and there . That enables these richies to run off to R Shayla for a week, then yrachai kallah for a week. But I don’t know too many that allow that kind of split other than a heimisha store owner who can open at 11 (maybe he selles fleiwhig takeout)
I do agree that I think it would be crazy to reject clients so you only open twice a week. Your solution is great. But I’d add, although noone can predict , IYH you will live till 120. The solution I think is to juice up your 401K. Then at 59.5 retrire and sit and learn all day. There are people I know that did this. I know PS teachers that had juicy pensions and became big talmedi cahchimim via that.
Re the yeshiva system, to my point lets take an accontant. They only need 18 maybe 20 months of college via FDU at PCS. But they need 4 years of yeshiva credits (maybe its 3). I dont see the gain mathametcilly in making them sit in college for 4 years at Touro or Brooklyn college. why not learn full time? Similarly law school grads. I know BMG guys who went to Harvard law. Aron kotler is buddies with Noah Feldman and gets in 2-3 per semester. No Bachelors others than BMG . The only condition is that you need to obtain at least a 177 on the LSAT (I may off be one digit but something like that) The lawyers less smart attend Rutgers but its gets done via BMG. Again why sit in college. I see no point in college other than the parnsa it brings. Otherwise college isa cesspool with anti israel and kefirra . Its mostly nonsense. I Learned much more on my job and slef teaching, (including self trained computers) vs college.
Now lets say you attend college for 4 years after HS (maybe you lean a year first so its 5 years). Now you are 22 and single. Should they go to work before they need to? What about the non tznuis aspect for youngsters? I work in corporate. Its not the boggy monster people say about it. But at the same time the youngsters do hang out together and have a life. This isn’t 100 years ago when you went to work on your farm or printing press.
Post Covid, sure there was a hiring boom not reflective of the silicon valley bubble thats not busting quickly
Re AI, it will takeaway alot of entry level jobs. the savvy ones will now be the ones setting up the AI commands for those their senior levels. They may have to be able to mix coding (python and R) with AI skills. Thats the way forward. Its for sure a huge disruptor particularly on the entry level.This all circles back to the idea that after this whole back and forth, the idea of college degrees for frum jews is questionable if there is a benefit. We definitely don’t believe there is a need for education purposes. There is only a need for parnasa. Now this is where I will agree with you a bit and say that our minds should be more open to college. I mean to say that its really person independent. Some wll make great accoutants. It saddens me a bit that when i started, it was “with it’ to become accontants via FDU. . Now thats less “in”. Its still full but people aren’t banging down the door like they used tyo. I think its a great degree even if you work for frum people. But at the end of the day, many jobs don’t need a degree and we have our won homegrown economy. And I don’t think college wholistically will solve our affordbility issues or that so many of charedim would do so much better. its marginal and helpful some of the time.
I just want to add for those reading this and especially in the Lakewood area. Accounting use to mean working for the big 4 in downtown till 1 AM during tax season when you don’t see your family from shabbos to shabbos. That has somewhat changed.
1) Now even the big 4 have a hybrid remote apporach. Maybe the first year or two you have to come in. But once you prove yourself, you can come in 2-3 times a week only.. You’ll still need to put in those long billable hours but alot more can be done remotely.
2) There are much more frum options out there as our homegrown economy has expanded BH. So fewer have to work for the big 4.
3) The frum jobs used to be mostly in the city too. Now most are in Lakewood with beautful buildings long ave of the americas@Always_Ask_Questions,
Re job security for college educated:Morgan Stanley is laying off roughly 2,500 employees as job cuts continue this year in the financial sector. Like other firms, Morgan Stanley aggressively hired during the pandemic, going from 60,000 employees in 2019 to 82,000 employees by year end 2022. The company had 83,000 employees at the end of 2025.
Tens of thousands of job cuts have already been made just two months into the new year, many of them white dollar. The financial sector has not been immune.
Citigroup and Blackrock have reportedly trimmed back their headcounts, and last week, financial technology company Block,
chaim> but in our own homegrown economy, mnay get hired with well paying jobs in non colllege degree fields too.
I agree. But as I mentioned, we have similar advantages in other fields. You have Jewish connections and family knowledge in various fields. If a family is 3 generations of lawyers or doctors or MBAs, the kids know about the field and can get internships way better than a random 1st-generation MD. I work in a different engineering field than my father, but he was able to give me a wise advice when I described direction I was taking.
> Fair point re the fact that as a business owner its hard to even survive without being gray
That was my main point. Obviously, not every college-ed is a tzaddik and other way around, but as I mentioned when your value is based on your professional knowledge, the yetzer hara is less. And it affects whole line of business, so even if you are not a business owner, then you work for a business owner who does something shady and you may have to be part of it.
Back to the doctor in Taanis who had 7x more heavenly court visits than Abaye – great things he did are really possible to arrange in our times: treat patients with respect, maintain tzniyut, do not see what they pay. And hopefully do better than bloodletting … If you can become a doctor like that – what better job can you have?
Chaim> Please name a field thats part time and earns a decent salary even non college educated.
accountants working for themselves; bookkeepers; SW developers; college professors; nutritionists; physical therapists; maybe postal workers? plumbers;
PS teachers that you mentioned sounds good – even when working full time, you get whole summer when you can learn and a weekend.
on accounting – I know closely my business accountant. He is working for himself, not big 4, serving small/mid-size businesses. He is indeed very busy during various tax deadlines, so I learnt not to bother him at that time.
on college – in theory, I agree with online education – most of my kids do that. But I am suggesting that you’ll get better parnosa if you actually learn “stuff”. Going to Harvard Law after BMG makes sense. Harvard medical school – not so much. But those graduating diploma mills – after having no-English schooling – are not necessarily well prepared. In theory, learning gemora should make you prepared deal with business issues, but in practice, many have hard time passing tests for their professions. There are many online colleges that are not very expensive and have reasonable programs – U of Florida, U of Oregon, Southern New Hampshire, Arizona State. I think they would be better choice than diploma mills for some (again, there are so many different cases, you can’t make one judgment here).
I agree on dangers of in-person college. My daas Torah, who was affiliated with OOT university, recommended sending kids to local colleges (his advice was against his own parnosa, so it was a real one :). In that sense, Touro and YU and Brooklyn college, esp honors, are great places.
> Now you are 22 and single. Should they go to work before they need to?
You don’t have to be. If you are on the way to getting a profession, or in MS/PhD degree, maybe even Rambam will agree that you can get married off student loans :). Maybe with 3.0 GPA.
On your question whether one needs college for more than parnosah. Depends on a person. I think for some people, it would not hurt to learn about the world. R Soloveichik did not seem to regret learning philosophy, that means he found it useful. Rambam knew greek and muslim science and philosophy.
You can see on this site, a certain segment of Jewish velt behaves sociologically very similar to other uneducated social groups – conspiracy theories; rejecting public health advice … so, something is missing in our educational system.On AI, see Rashi and Radak on Elisha’s encounter with naarim ketanim. Turns out these are “union members” who lost their water-carrying parnosa when Elisha cured water of Yericho. They are ketanim because they did not believe that Hashem will send them another parnosah and they would rather see people suffer but them keeping their jobs. As you sare saying, AI opens lots of opportunities to do things better and faster. Maybe work a day a week and then learn.
Now, what about AI answering teikus …
@Always_Ask_Questions
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Re college, I don’t believe that attending an in person college makes someone wiser and more prepared in the working world. Definitely not Touro (not knocking them but I attended that). I could attest to that for a fact. I take many exams for my field and college did nothing for me. It was also a complete waste in term s of tech skills. Its just very abstract and removed from reality. i found it mostly a waste of time to be honest. I don’t see the value in college education. its highly overrrated. I compare myself to my colleges and don’t see their college as adding value either.The fact that many have this wacky anti vax or other odd theories, is more culture than college. Sadly the culture is more and more cult like. My hungarain grandparents with no college education wasn’t as weird.
The pofrssionals you mention most cannot parse thinsg to work part time. Even pirvate accountants, you just have to have your doors open for all. The world doesn’t work that way unless you are highly skilled and sought after you can’t only take 3 clients . Its just not craved that way. You are either full fledge or not credible
College is a scam.
Chaim,
on college – there is no one answer. different people have different abilities and interest. Most decent (top 50-100 in US reports) have capacity to teach professional skills. From what I hear, Touro is not there (yet?). YU is somewhat there. Having several good professors with whom you can interact can help a young person move in a right direction. Higher level seminars at top 50 universities give you access to world-class researchers. All weird stuff can be avoided by attending a local commuting college and attentive parenting.We discussed that professional work is less conducive to yetzer hara in mamanos. Another important aspect – yishuv daas. A professional is way more sure of his employment prospects and can focus on learning/family.
rescue, “if you think knowledge is expensive, try ignorance”
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