Sell gear, or sell stocks, to raise money for son's school fees?

[MikeDimit]

Sell both! Education is not the paper your son will get. Contacts, different friendships and of course possibilities to get a career worths it. There are numerous smart or genius people yet unemployed. Education is about CHANCES that you get, grab or loose.

 

[mackigator]

Good thread!

For me, don't sell anything without a cold hard look at cost/benefit! College is more expensive than it should be, inflated by its own bubble of easy lending and the many, many colleges that seek their own benefit over those for their students.

The other factor is your son, whom we know nothing about but wish all the best - the very, very best. His desire and ability to work hard toward a specific outcome would weigh heavily on my own decision to fund an expensive education.

On that subject (which can be a harsh one), there is a great essay in Galen Rowell's "Inner Game of Outdoor Photography," titled "The Size of the Rat" (p.36). Galen recounts the anecdote of British working class climbers who went on to some fame, while other climbers did not. "... the rat refers to the voracious creature gnawing at a person's stomach from the inside that drives him or her to repeatedly leave the comforts of civilized life to challenge himself or herself in the natural world. Without a big rat, a person stays at home with the family and is content to be a shopkeeper."

Not that there is anything wrong with shopkeepers! Thus if your son's rat is hungry, so to speak, he won't need your help - though, in that case, you should give it. And if the rat is not hungry, you should keep your money.

 

[raytoei@gmail.com]

hi,

like most answers, it depends.

For instance, it depends on your cost base. It also depends on your gear.

For example, currently general film RFs are cheaper to own than say six months ago, however, Leica Lens prices aren't going down anytime soon. So it may make sense to sell off some of your lens collection, or get rid of your generic Leicas (non collectables) before they go cheaper in price.

As for stocks, it depends on how much you paid for the stock, and whether it is currently paying any dividend.

raytoei

 

[Tom A]

Vick, you can't take pictures with stocks - so just unload them.

 

[Al Patterson]

Your son doesn't need both kidneys. Let him finance his own education.

I financed my own and still have both kidneys as selling them was illegal when I went to college...

I would sell some of each, but I am not a licensed securities advisor, so my advice is worth what the OP paid me.

 

[MartinP]

By "school fees" does the OP refer to education before the age of sixteen? It seems odd, but maybe that is how it is in Canada.

If you mean University, then I'd suggest you pay for nothing until he is twenty. Eighteen is too young to go to Uni. There is not enough appreciation of why you might go there, what courses one might choose and what you might achieve.

Give a few hints and pushes to find something he loves to do, and that he should do that for a few years (or change his mind halfway) with the certain knowledge that he won't intend to do the same whatever-it-is for the next 45 years. So far as possible he can work and survive himself for a couple of years. See what happens.

Is there a short-service commission system (officer with limited service time, three or four years) in the Canadian armed forces? That is also an option.

In the current world economic climate of Chicago-school, Friedman-esque planning, there is little to be gained by hurrying into something which becomes the "wrong" area of study for your son. A couple of years will give a better perspective.

 

[Out to Lunch]

You are in Canada and have to sell stuff to get your kid in school? I'd suppose that means a school in the USA. Just for you to know, nowadays, many non-North Americans are globally shopping around to find a reasonable and affordable cost/quality ratio for their kids' education...and there are many options. Cheers, P

 

[Roger Hicks]

While i agree with that, its incomplete. You buy the credential ... The education it represents comes from within. People who assume that the credential IS the education are the ones who are mistaken, who don't know what they're buying.

It's up to the buyer to know what it is they are buying, what its value is, and pay for it with forethought and wisdom. Shysters and crooks have always existed, in all spheres of human endeavor: education is no different. No ones ever going to stop that either ... It's up to each individual to find their way through it.

Two people going to the same college, taking the same courses, getting the same marks, and receiving the same degree — no matter what college, no matter what degree — can finish with two entirely different things. One student can leave with an education, the other a piece of paper. Neither their loving parents who gave them the gift of funding for experience, nor the crooked or honest shenanigans of the institution, are to blame for that. It's up to the students themselves to make the reality of their education, and no one else.

It's a great gift to give your child or some other person that opportunity by giving them the money to pursue an education. If you do it, you should neither expect nor deserve anything in return. It's one of the only things worth having.

G

Dear Godfrey,

We are not really in disagreement. But:

Credential? Non credo. A 'credential' is nothing to do with education, and an educational establishment that promises a 'credential' is missing the point. After the age of (say) 25 there is barely any such thing as a 'credential' (a word far better known in North America than in the UK), except in a very few fields such as medicine and the law. What matters in the real world is (a) how good you are at what you do and (b) whether your new employer is anal-retentive about substantially worthless paper 'qualifications' (English for 'credentials').

Highlight 1 -- I completely agree with Martin about this. Going straight from school to university is a very bad idea, because it treats the university as a finishing school. The vast majority of immediately post-school students are NOT after an education. They're after as much sex as possible (at least, the boys are); a good social life (insofar as the two are separable at 17-18-19); not having to start work; and, all too often, a piece of paper that gives them a head start in the jobs market.

This is not an unfair description of myself at 19. Because I'd done 3 years in the VIth and already had a long-term girlfriend I was ever so slightly more grown up about the sex and social life, and I cynically chose law over art school (an LL.B is an undergraduate degree in the UK) because I reckoned I could teach myself photography a lot easier than I could learn professional-grade BS: unlike most of my fellow law students, I wasn't after a trade school.

Highlight 2: True of any gift. But I tend to give gifts only to those I think may appreciate them. My parents did the same for me when it came to university. I'd talk over a university career VERY thoroughly before pushing a child towards it.

What I detest is the staggering narrowing of ambition that has come with the widening of access to university. Everyone is pushed, more or less unsubtly, in the direction of A Job With Qualifications. Where are the lion tamers, deep sea divers, can-can dancers, writers, photographers? They've got to get bloody degrees in lion taming, deep-sea diving, can-can dancing, 'creative' writing (as if it could be taught), photography (ditto). Even journalism!

This is a bad joke, and a lot of it is down to staggeringly unimaginative careers advisers at school. Another big chunk is down to parents who Want To See Their Children Get Ahead -- while fitting them with a ball and chain. Another huge chunk is down to the academicization of real life. Yet another generous tranche is down to governments who want to disguise unemployment figures.

The four years I spent at university might MUCH better have been spent travelling, taking pictures, writing, drinking... I did all of them anyway, but university REALLY got in the way. My wife feels the same about her time at USC: far better to have gone on the road as wardrobe mistress (or even wardrobe assistant) with a troupe of travelling players, or to have worked in Wardrobe in a real if stationary theatre.

Right now, the lunatics are running the asylum. The 'shysters and crooks' to whom you refer have Ph.D.s and are luring innocent children into dens of -- what? Dens that turn out more shysters and crooks with Ph.D.s, and make them debt slaves. More and more of the young people I know in the UK and the USA (increasingly, of course, the children and even grandchildren of old friends) are deciding not to go to university straight from school. And I think they are making the right decision.

Mackigator's 'inner rat' is also very important. Read either 'White Slave' or 'The Devil in the Kitchen', (auto) biographies of Marco Pierre White, one of the greatest chefs of all time, to see what it means to be obsessed and driven.

Here in France, where education is still regarded as a public good, rather than a private path to wealth for both the universities and their graduates, the situation is a good deal healthier. Frances and I have an 'adopted daughter', actually the daughter of a very old friend, born on my 40th birthday. She has (we all joke) five parents: her biological father and mother, her stepmother, and Frances and me. She finished university last year, debt free (with minimal help from all five parents and a few grandparents as well) and is doing very well in her first 'real' job. But she'd not have gone near it if she hadn't been looking for a very up-market trade school. She is effectively trilingual in English, French and German (one year of her university course was at Magdeburg, where she and Frances and I celebrated her 21st and my 61st -- no other family there, nor boyfriend) though she maintains that she's merely bilingual in English and French and very good in German. She doesn't even count her Spanish, Italian or Russian. She's a translator/interpreter: her degree is in applied foreign languages. Oh: and before she went to university, she picked up an internationally recognized qualification in TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) and used it which further helped her to maintain debt-free status at university.

It's quite interesting talking to her about the difference between education and qualification. She is disinclined to conflate the two.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Phil_F_NM]

I have an unorthodox idea:
Sell nothing. Maybe a rare camera body or lens or whatnot.
Give your son one of the cameras and send him overseas for 6 months to live and shoot (that is, if he's interested in photography.)

When I graduated college early this year, nothing changed. When I talked to a few of the top administrators at the school about jobs and grad school they said that I shouldn't pursue any further education close to journalism because I had come into the school with the knowledge I would otherwise have gained in graduate school due to my previous experience as a photographer in the Navy.

While I learned a bit in college, it was mostly the formal parts of research. How to write in AP and Chicago styles. I became a much better writer and grew just a bit as a photographer. I became a much better leader. All that said, I realized that my education happened not in university but in life. The 10 years before I entered college took this provincial New Mexico native around the world three times and to many different countries. I had the opportunity to call one of them home for a while. I found myself giving directions to tourists and businessmen in Dubai as well as Bahrain for the time I was there.

I learned about wealth and poverty, about bare subsistence and blessed excess. I was witness to both the best and very worst that humanity can do to itself. I became a better person and I like to regard myself as a "citizen of the world" (Paul Robeson) not just an American. None of this can be taught in college.

So I propose that you sell what you want but keep some stuff around. Send your son overseas to live and work and fall in love with humanity and all of our faults as well as strengths.

If he hasn't read it yet, I recommend "Innocents Abroad" by Mark Twain.

Phil Forrest

 

[Roger Hicks]

I have an unorthodox idea:
Sell nothing. Maybe a rare camera body or lens or whatnot.
Give your son one of the cameras and send him overseas for 6 months to live and shoot (that is, if he's interested in photography.)

When I graduated college early this year, nothing changed. When I talked to a few of the top administrators at the school about jobs and grad school they said that I shouldn't pursue any further education close to journalism because I had come into the school with the knowledge I would otherwise have gained in graduate school due to my previous experience as a photographer in the Navy.

While I learned a bit in college, it was mostly the formal parts of research. How to write in AP and Chicago styles. I became a much better writer and grew just a bit as a photographer. I became a much better leader. All that said, I realized that my education happened not in university but in life. The 10 years before I entered college took this provincial New Mexico native around the world three times and to many different countries. I had the opportunity to call one of them home for a while. I found myself giving directions to tourists and businessmen in Dubai as well as Bahrain for the time I was there.

I learned about wealth and poverty, about bare subsistence and blessed excess. I was witness to both the best and very worst that humanity can do to itself. I became a better person and I like to regard myself as a "citizen of the world" (Paul Robeson) not just an American. None of this can be taught in college.

So I propose that you sell what you want but keep some stuff around. Send your son overseas to live and work and fall in love with humanity and all of our faults as well as strengths.

If he hasn't read it yet, I recommend "Innocents Abroad" by Mark Twain.

Phil Forrest

Dear Phil,

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Otherwise: agree absolutely.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Frontman]

- of arrogance and stupidity on the part of the rich, and those who hold themselves in high esteem because of their trivial degrees.

Cheers,

R.

While I agree to much of what you have said, I don't agree with the last part. In my life, and in my current profession, I have become well-acquainted with more than a few rich men. My father-in-law is a company president, and he employs hundreds of people. I had two meetings recently with the chairman of Japan's second largest conglomerate. Besides these, I can add my uncle, grandfather, and a couple others whom I have worked for over the years.

Without exception, none of these men is arrogant or stupid. My father-in-law is well-educated. He graduated number one in his class at a top university, and founded his first company while he was still a student. My uncle and grandfather never went to university, but their success also started at an early age. My uncle had a wife and twin babies at the age of 18, out of necessity he had to work hard to succeed. My grandfather was an entrepreneur who's hobby was simply to take things and make them bigger and better.

I find the rich to be the most generous people I know. When they succeed, those who work for them succeed as well, and this success is good for the population at large.

Generosity has nothing to do with money or things. What all of these men have been generous with is advice, and this advice is precious beyond any value. They could give afford to give a few people a lot of money, but what would these people do with the money? Everyone I know who has inherited cash, won the lottery, or had some other kind of "lucky" break has simply blown it all on toys, and eventually lost those as well. What good is money when one doesn't have the discipline to handle it? If you practice the discipline for it's own sake, you will have money, it's a by-product.

When talking to the conglomerate chairman, I was simply astonished at his ideas, his accomplishments, and his energy. Around the world he is responsible for more than 200,000 people, and the quality of his leadership affects all of their lives. On television there are programs he created, in the city there are buildings he built, in the stores there are products which he directed to sell. The power and success this man has is impressive, but his humility and his openness were even more impressive to me. When I asked what young people nowadays should do for their future, his answer was surprisingly un-Japanese. He said the should become entrepreneurs, and try to be independent.

My uncle spent the first 20 years of his life working from 5 am to 8 pm, six days a week. Most of this time he was weighed down by debt from the money he was constantly borrowing to grow his business. At one point he and his family lived in a trailer; paying his employees came before paying himself. In time he learned from the hardships and setbacks, and eventually became wealthy. But when he looks back on his life, he is most thankful for the difficult times he endured, it was an education behind value to him.

Arrogance and stupidity exist in all classes of people, but are quite uncommon among the rich and successful. The trait I find most offensive is ignorance. Arrogance and stupidity are the two main ingredients of ignorance. Unfortunately, nowadays it is all to easy to be educated, and yet remain ignorant.

Ignorance keeps half the world in poverty, keeps the police busy, and the prisons full. It is all the more vile because it is unnecessary. Anyone can think, anyone can be successful, anyone can be rich, but too few try.

 

[Jbig]

There is some fun to be had comparing return on investment. There a are recent studies that find a associate's degree has a return on investment of about 20% (two years and costs less overall than a four-year degree) and a bachelor's degree at 15%.
In my experience, both of those are better than what one could expect in the stock market at the moment. Leica film gear also seems to outperform stocks--for the time being.
But borrowing a whole lot for college really cuts into the return--or eats it entirely.

 

[Godfrey]

Credential? Non credo. A 'credential' is nothing to do with education, and an educational establishment that promises a 'credential' is missing the point.

Sorry, but a diploma, a degree, a certificate, an accreditation, papers ... they're all credentials. Perhaps I used the wrong word, or it's used differently in English english or French english. When you graduate from college with a degree, you have obtained a credential.

Does that make what I said clearer?

Where I work, both my specific employer and the industry at large, if you don't have a degree you don't get a job. At all. End of story. The competition for positions is fierce and it's a simple first-order gate that any Human Resources department can use, justifiably, to winnow down the incoming applicants to the capable. In other parts of the world and other disciplines, sure: it's less of an absolute. But not in the highly technical field of computer science ... not anymore, anyway.

(A good percentage of my colleagues, coming into this business in the middle 1970s before there were commonly available any degree programs in computer science, are high school dropouts or college dropouts. They've been successful contributors in their careers, but in private, even they will admit that they wouldn't hire their young selves any more. They simply don't have the skills needed now to be at that bleeding edge.)

Highlight 2: True of any gift. But I tend to give gifts only to those I think may appreciate them. My parents did the same for me when it came to university. I'd talk over a university career VERY thoroughly before pushing a child towards it. ...

Of course one gives significant gifts with thought, care, and intent. HOWEVER, having a serious discussion about the future with a "child" is bound to be limited in some respects as to how the child can respond. Sometimes, motivating a child towards an education requires a leap of faith.

I'm glad my parents took that leap. Thank you, mom and dad.

What I detest is the staggering narrowing of ambition that has come with the widening of access to university. ...

While I agree with you in large part, I wasn't intending here to rant about and propose solutions to the general human condition problem. This is, for better or worse, and era of professionalism and specialization. The pendulum has swung that way, it will swing the other way, unless the generations succeeding us are too stupid to keep the environment of the planet from becoming toxic because no one motivated them to learn how not to piss in their beds ...

Speaking of a college degree as a negative, to me, is always self-defeating. It's cutting off your head to coddle your butt. Without education and learning, we as a civilization, maybe as a species, are doomed. It is only through knowledge and learning that we have a hope of survival.

That some people in the business abuse the notion of college with greed and stupidity, and some students waste their college opportunity with lack of motivation, lack of insight and intent, and again sheer stupidity ... that's their problem, not mine to solve or rail on against.

G

 

[user237428934]

If you mean University, then I'd suggest you pay for nothing until he is twenty. Eighteen is too young to go to Uni. There is not enough appreciation of why you might go there, what courses one might choose and what you might achieve.

There are people who don't know what they want and they are in their 40s and there are young people who know exactly what they want. I wouldn't make this a general rule.

If nothing unusual happens my daughter will leave school at 17. If she want's to study right away and she has a plan then of course she can.

And one word about return on investment. Never chose your profession because of ROI reasons. We have so many lousy doctors because of that.

 

[Roger Hicks]

While I agree to much of what you have said, I don't agree with the last part. In my life, and in my current profession, I have become well-acquainted with more than a few rich men. . . . .

You are of course absolutely right about many rich people. I know quite a few too. Rather than referring to the truly rich, many of whom have indeed earned every penny they have, I was thinking principally of those who are Something in The City, to use the old appellation, and of the upper echelons of so-called management: those who earn, in rational terms, virtually nothing, but are still very handsomely paid because they are the ones who set their own remuneration.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Sorry, but a diploma, a degree, a certificate, an accreditation, papers ... they're all credentials. Perhaps I used the wrong word, or it's used differently in English english or French english. When you graduate from college with a degree, you have obtained a credential.

Does that make what I said clearer?

Where I work, both my specific employer and the industry at large, if you don't have a degree you don't get a job. At all. End of story. The competition for positions is fierce and it's a simple first-order gate that any Human Resources department can use, justifiably, to winnow down the incoming applicants to the capable. In other parts of the world and other disciplines, sure: it's less of an absolute. But not in the highly technical field of computer science ... not anymore, anyway.

(A good percentage of my colleagues, coming into this business in the middle 1970s before there were commonly available any degree programs in computer science, are high school dropouts or college dropouts. They've been successful contributors in their careers, but in private, even they will admit that they wouldn't hire their young selves any more. They simply don't have the skills needed now to be at that bleeding edge.)

Of course one gives significant gifts with thought, care, and intent. HOWEVER, having a serious discussion about the future with a "child" is bound to be limited in some respects as to how the child can respond. Sometimes, motivating a child towards an education requires a leap of faith.

I'm glad my parents took that leap. Thank you, mom and dad.

While I agree with you in large part, I wasn't intending here to rant about and propose solutions to the general human condition problem. This is, for better or worse, and era of professionalism and specialization. The pendulum has swung that way, it will swing the other way, unless the generations succeeding us are too stupid to keep the environment of the planet from becoming toxic because no one motivated them to learn how not to piss in their beds ...

Speaking of a college degree as a negative, to me, is always self-defeating. It's cutting off your head to coddle your butt. Without education and learning, we as a civilization, maybe as a species, are doomed. It is only through knowledge and learning that we have a hope of survival.

That some people in the business abuse the notion of college with greed and stupidity, and some students waste their college opportunity with lack of motivation, lack of insight and intent, and again sheer stupidity ... that's their problem, not mine to solve or rail on against.

G

The word 'credential' is seldom used in English -- French English, or Franglais, is another language entirely -- possibly because it is a gruesome symptom of "Where I work, both my specific employer and the industry at large, if you don't have a degree you don't get a job. At all. End of story."

Highlight: people who do not 'rant' about this -- who say "that's their problem, not mine" -- are a major part of the problem.

Although I completely agree that "Without education and learning, we as a civilization, maybe as a species, are doomed", I completely disagree that education and learning are exclusively, or even principally, the province of a university education.

Finally, a 'gap year' between school and university has proven to be invaluable for everyone I know who has tried it. Will your son be taking one?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

There are people who don't know what they want and they are in their 40s and there are young people who know exactly what they want. I wouldn't make this a general rule.

If nothing unusual happens my daughter will leave school at 17. If she want's to study right away and she has a plan then of course she can.

And one word about return on investment. Never chose your profession because of ROI reasons. We have so many lousy doctors because of that.

All indisputably true. But do encourage the dear girl to take a gap year, if at all possible.

Cheers,

R.

 

[user237428934]

All indisputably true. But do encourage the dear girl to take a gap year, if at all possible.

Cheers,

R.

I like the idea of the "voluntary social year" we have here in Germany. Young people can work after school up to 24 month in public organizations. They only get a tiny salary but they have full health- and social insurance. You have a variety of choices in the areas social/healthcare, culture, sports. Culture is interesting because you can work in museums, schools, public broadcasting stations. Perhaps I can motivate her to do this. But who knows what happens, still six years to go 🙂

 

[krötenblender]

Did you consider selling your son? That way you can keep stock and gear!

 

[Roger Hicks]

I like the idea of the "voluntary social year" we have here in Germany. Young people can work after school up to 24 month in public organizations. They only get a tiny salary but they have full health- and social insurance. You have a variety of choices in the areas social/healthcare, culture, sports. Culture is interesting because you can work in museums, schools, public broadcasting stations. Perhaps I can motivate her to do this. But who knows what happens, still six years to go 🙂

What a wonderful idea!

In your situation I'd always refer to it positively, without pushing her to do it. If she decides not to, she'll let you know by the time she's 17!

Cheers,

R.