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Do you think it’s better to stay in yeshiva without a clear career path or go to college and put off learning until you have a steady career. What if it’s a choice between making 50,000 a year where you can learn half of the day vs making 150,000 where you can only learn couple hours a day (if that) but will be able to live comfortably?
I’m not sure if you’re talking about that salary the first year you are married or already have a few children. $50000 a year is nothing when you have children, tuition, a house… Even $150000 won’t cover these costs but at least you could attempt to live off of it. Go to college, get a degree, get a job and raise a family. You can also learn Torah while doIng all of those things as well.
I think Chazal are pretty clear on this one. Al tomar Licheshefne eshne, shemo lo teepone (sorry about the spelling).
You will not get $50,000 a year part time, very few part time jobs pay that, Expect more like $10,000 or less for a part time job
College.
A salary of $150K means high success. It means you are in the top 10% of all Americans.
If you want to work in the frum community, economic opportunties are lower (but you avoid the hassles of working for the goyim).
If you don’t have a career you aspire to, and only aspire to have a high salary, you should stay in yeshiva until you are mature enough to go to the outside world.
DR: Very few people have that choice. If you value Torah, you will value it no matter what you do.
I think it is best to do something that suits your talents and with which you can contribute to the world. Hashem gives the parnasa.
For those who are not aware, MANY would argue with the view in DaasYochid’s source.
kfb, I’d be very surprised if more than 10% of people in the frum community earn more than $150K a year. Yet somehow they manage the expenses of a house, children, and tuition.
DY: Lulei D’mistifina, I would say that it was a lot easier to make a viable Parnassah back then without college. Nowadays, not nearly as much. In Eretz Yisrael it’s still possible, but not most places in America. Certainly not in New York.
Machshavos, don’t just make assertions, show us what you’ve got.
Sam2, I have no reason to think so.
Agree with Ender.
Daniel Rosen: If you want to run a business, you have your answer. Unless you want to work for a big corporation, for which an MBA might help, you don’t to spend money on graduate school, or even college. There are no academic requirements to run a business. All you need is something to sell and customers.
If you prefer some other line of work, pick the line of work based on what you want to do. Ask yourself about hours of work, risk, whether you could move to Israel if that ever becomes a facot, what are working conditions like, does it interest you. If you are already married with your own household, law school will cost about $250K (remember to include living costs) – that might be tolerable if you really want to be a lawyer, but think of what sort of return you could get if you borrowed that much money to invest in the business – and what you’ll do if you can’t pay back the loans.
I’m about as “modern” as any modern orthodox Jew anywhere, and I am a university Professor, but I personally think that many students would be better off waiting until they are more mature before attending university. Many 17-19 year old students are frankly wasting their parents’ money.
Worth noting prior to the establishment of religious universities such as YU, Touro, and Bar-Ilan, many gedolim attended university after years of yeshiva study, not before.
DY – R’ Elchonon in Kovetz Maamarim, I think the maamar is called Teshuva L’bachur Harotze Laleches L’gymnasia or something along those lines.
I wish I had a family business to go into.
I’d suggest working with your father and using that money to attend a CUNY school. As far as learning, you do that yomam v’ leila by joining a regular shiur, listening to shiurim, maintaining a chavrusa, and developing a plan for bekius/covering ground.
JMH, it sounds like R’ Moshe and R’ Elchonon were talking to two different types of bochurim. I’l try to look at the Kovetz ma’amarim later.
Daniel,
It depends on all sorts of personal factors like age, ability to self-motivate, marital status. In general I would say it is better to delay college until one is sufficiently proficient in learning to be able to learn Shas and Poskim on one’s own.
One never knows the future of course, and you can never know how the shoe store will due in the future, Styles change rents increase (Alot of famous stores have gone out of business because of this) , neightborhoods change.
I cant tell you if a college degree is going to make you more money or not and of course Hashem provides. But if you and another person are applying for a job as a lawyer and the other person has a law degree and you dont, I can reasonably assume he will get the job and you wont.
Agree with benignuman. Then, you can truly use those few hours that you’ll have to the fullest. And in learning, you will gain the maturity necessary to achieve in college.
“Machshavos, don’t just make assertions, show us what you’ve got.”
R. Ahron Soloveichik, I believe, is one name of someone who would differ. (You can look at his Logic of the Heart, Logic of the Mind.)
i absolutely loved this gem from akuperma: “If you don’t have a career you aspire to, and only aspire to have a high salary, you should stay in yeshiva until you are mature enough to go to the outside world.” so true.
DR: You can’t expect us to answer that, we hardly know you. Post a bit more and we’ll be more opinionated about it.
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