Maybe I missed it but why would you not continue your RE dreams if you go to X?

You are right that $15K debt is nothing assuming you have a half-decent income.

There are tons of real jobs you can get now without a college degree that will give you skills you can carry forward for the rest of your career. There's no time like the present to learn how to sell and market real estate or how to physically work on properties and build sweat equity (and know what good work vs bad work looks like... the more experience you have with the jobs of the people who work for you the easier it will be to hire and train them).

I'm very anti-college, and that's because I DESPERATELY wish I had believed the people to told me that it was a waste of time before I went.

You can get into the logistics industry without a degree right now incredibly easily. I 100% guarantee TQL would hire you for the next training class without blinking as would many smaller brokers (and you should work for the smaller brokers if you can get on with them instead of TQL).

And that's just one business with higher end college degree level earning power you can get today.

If you're going to go to college go for math, computer science, some form of engineering, some kind of hard science, or worst case accounting. Get a useful skill out of it that you can earn money with. Economics is just business school with a side of math... And business school is where people go to learn things that they really wouldn't need explained to them if they were at all talented in business.

A lot of survivorship bias and extrapolation from anecdotal experience there BoredSocial.

However I am open to the line of argument that his specific industry changes things.

No he's in Cincinnati. The richest man in Cincinnati owns TQL. It's not extrapolation that I know almost no people who actually make a living with their degree.

I suspect you went to good colleges and feel your whole network was built there and are extrapolating that down the ladder. It doesn't work like that down here.

EDIT: And hilariously the people I do know who earn a living with their degree are teachers and nurses who make like 1/15 of what I make... And roughly half of what OP would probably earn his first year selling real estate.

Just bored in class and haven't read the context...but:

It sounds like sampling bias or extrapolation to me. Most engineers have engineering degrees. Most PhDs majored in the subject.

Maybe we are only talking about undergraduate, but many many people in business have MBAs. All lawyers have JDs, medical doctors MDs, etc.

I think an education (ie degree) is important. However I don't believe where you get it from is all that important. Obviously the contacts you make at the upper crust ivy league types of schools can be important. The contacts you make at the Xaviers of the world not so much. There are a zillion not top end private universities and colleges that are no better than good old State U and in many cases worse.

Academia is extremely over rated. Mostly by academia. A few years out and nobody will care where you went although they may care that you went. It's all about what you have done since then. Unless you are talking ivy league or Stanford, Northwestern or University of Chicago or something like that it doesn't really matter. And even then it depends on the contacts you may or may not have acquired there. The better the school the better the door opener but sooner rather than later it depends on how you perform downtown rather than what your diploma says.

OP, what exactly do you intend to do for work after getting your degree?

This is right but for 15k I think the private school is worth it in this specific instance


I only skimmed but is it 15k upon graduating or 15k now + 4 yrs interest?

It's 11K upon graduating ($5.5K each year subsidized) plus $2K each year unsubbed at about 4.5% interest. For a total principal of $15K plus the interest which will be very minor. I'm not sure the grand total but I plan to payoff asap if I go that route so I couldn't imagine paying much more than $2K in interest on top of the principal.

Oh, and it's only two more years bc I am transferring from a CC.

Honestly, I don't know. I choose my major because econ and finance interest me very much and I have spend a lot of time out of class learning about the subjects. Investing also interests me as I've done very well over the last two and a half years starting out with $450 and know I have $20K. Of course I have added to that through working but it hasn't been more than a two or three thousand that I have directly contributed from my part time job. I'm not too hopeful on getting a Wall Street investment job though as I'm not going to an Ivy.

I vote for Xavier. Make connections, bang hot Musketeerettes, enjoy better opportunities for internships. Maybe it's worth sending a PM to that guy who has an AMA thread active in this forum about working at a hedge fund. I don't think you need to be an Ivy League grad to get a job on Wall Street, and I think a job with a good firm would be valuable in getting you where you ultimately want to be, even if you aren't sure at the moment where that will be. This dream of being a local real estate magnate in Northern Kentucky seems less promising than going through Xavier and getting a job on Wall Street. Then you can come back to NK and use your money and finance skills to start picking up properties, but you may find that by then you're no longer interested, and you just want to refurbish old boats or some ****. Such is the nature of life.

I'll toss my two cents about getting a degree in real estate investing: you're joking, right?

I've worked for and personally knew a lot of RE investors. exactly zero went to college for that stuff. Hell, one was a double major in microbiology and art.

Aside from the person in the last paragraph, these people are pretty much the dumbest group of people I've ever met. They happened to get lucky with seed money, but they were smart enough to know that the entire game is jacking up the price until the bottom falls out.

Sounds like you don't get the language of money and don't get why connections matter. Since this is the most valuable lesson you need to learn, go to the prestigious school.

I am not trying to play devil's advocate, but I thought I would phrase things a little differently.

Whether or not it seems like it, the risk adverse strategy is to go to Xavier. The profit maxing strategy (and therefore, typically the riskier strategy) is to go to the cheap school and start hustling real estate ASAP.

So I've got to ask you, do you feel lucky? Well, do ya?

Or put another way, are you a risk taker? If so, has this served you well?

This is pretty much what I've been thinking for the last couple of days. The back and fourth roller coaster that has been going on in my head has finally eased up and I think I'm going to go to X. Then again something could change over the next week but I just want to get this decision over with.

I have had the chance take a couple of my classes at NKU this semester and there is no social life to speak of. Even the frats don't get girls, one of my professors called me by a completely different name for weeks until I finally corrected him (and I am pretty active in class), and all of the students just seem to want to get to class and then get off campus. So not a strong support system IMO. The smaller class sizes and definitely more active student body at X are more attractive. Plus they have a whole trading floor and Bloomberg lab. NKU doesn't even have one Bloomberg terminal in the whole school.

I'm not getting a degree in real estate investing. I'm majoring in economics and want to use career/salary job to fund RE investing activity while working until it becomes no longer necessary. The local market here isn't like on the west coast in LA and Seattle flipping isn't a great strategy bc this market isn't a giant inflating bubble. It's slow and steady here that's why you create a rental portfolio rather than a flipping operation. Flipping in LA is like playing PLO in 2010, buying and holding in Cincy is like FL Hold'em in 1995.

Maybe I don't get the language of money and have only gotten lucky 44x my brokerage account in a few years, or probably not considering how I've done it consciously. What I do understand about connections is that they're un-quantifiable in my position meaning it probably makes more sense to chase them bc I can quantify the opposite down to a reasonable dollar amount.

Actually, you're totally right. I spent a good few days trying to convince myself that forgoing the money in my pocket and going to Xavier would be a like taking a bigger risk. This was me trying to convince myself that I wouldn't feel left out not being able to invest in the market anymore for a few years. But, I've came to the conclusion that the risk is greater with going to NKU bc I could not get an internship (or at least a good one) next summer, not get a job within the first year of graduation, or fail at RE investing and wish I had an XU degree to fall back on for a good paying day job.

Going to X is less of a risk though bc the connections I could make aren't quantifiable at this point, my internship opportunities will be better, 97% of grads are employed within a year of graduating, and XU grads make on average $20K more per year by age 35 than NKU grads. So you're 100% right.

Averages can be deceptive. A program that attracts highly motivated people will have higher salaries even if the networks/courses are practically identical.

The internet has done a lot to level the playing field of networks and if you have what a company wants they’re not going to put too much stock in what school you want to all else equal. The most important thing is not to just blindly get a degree for the sake of a degree. There’re Professional designations that build on the foundation of an econ degree that you can get as part of your degree that will guarantee a decent starting salary.

This. OP thinks critically so he was already going to make good money. The real question is how much value you place on signalling for your first job.

I wish more people took this stance, especially my own parent. I was pushed into going to school when I didn't want to. I will say after going for two years I am happy about it and finally enjoying the process.

Things we've learned:

- OP is a snob (wants to have the salespeople work for him, none of that pesky sales stuff for him)
- OP doesn't have that much drive to strong achievement (had to be coerced into going to college)
- OP can't cut it in the rough and tumble pootang competition of normal school. Further, he forms totally irrational opinions on the basis of incomplete evidence:
I'd bet the intercourse frequency at X vs NKU is nearly identical. Possibly edge to NKU.

- OP needs more personal attention and to feel special and attended on as a human being, in a way that public school doesn't fill:
OP reads heaters as skill and gets prissy when people call him on it
- OP has an unreliable memory for numbers and/or questionable attachment to truth when his ego is called into it:
This is a classic "cuck on a heater in a bull market" monologue. And the "two or three thousand" is worrying for someone who wants to do RE investing and econ. Don't you know? How the **** do you not know?

Put all together with this:
He needs the structure and job placement and attention, the gentle hand beneath his bottom, the warm smile, he needs the "my **** doesn't stink" peers to feel special. He's a wannabe landlord, not one of the serfs/peasants.

I think I nailed his personality from my first post which makes X a no brainer imo. Like seriously a no brainer. You gotta be happy where you go to school and it's gotta fit your personality (not hating, just describing). I didn't like public school and grew a lot more both academically and personally at a private one. I think OP will be similar.

You should definitely read through the RE thread by spex x before planning on doing RE as your way out of the 9 to 5. That thread is maybe the best thread in this entire forum and the pros and cons of RE investing are beaten to death there. In fact, reading through the thread and the recommended RE books by John T Reed convinced me not to do RE investing at all, except for handicapping when to buy and sell my primary residence.

It is a very time consuming side gig in which if you are not willing to chase someone down the street with a baseball bat over $400, then you shouldn't bother with it.

RE is like the worst entrepreneurial activity you can do. Low upside, time consuming, EVERYONE tries to rip you off, substantial uncontrollable risk if you're levered via loans - which you will be, little peaceful time to yourself, stress. All for a lower return than passively investing in the stock market, leverage adjusted. Pass. You will do better with a small business or just focusing that extra time on a career to improve your salary + passive market investing.

I know a guy who started off early in life with a $500K inheritance wanting to build an RE fortune and ended up six years later driving a vending machine stocking van after the market cooled and some of his houses turned into costly problems, and shoddy builders and accountant took him for the rest. It's just a **** job full of **** people and a lot of risk. It's basically a lotto on the housing and rate cycle and economy you end up in.

Seriously though you're actually pretty much right.

...
This though, you're very wrong about this lol. OR at least maybe the frequency is in NKU's favor but the quality isn't. Trust me I've been on both campuses and there are some fine girls at NKU but there's definitely a lot more at X.

I will have to do so, thank you for recommending!

I haven't heard it was that bad but I'm sure it can be. Really the only reason I want to switch to RE investing is for the leverage ability. Stock market investing is definitely better all around but the price of margin makes it practically seem like a scam. I mean look at this:

E-trade
Debt Margin Rate
$50-100K 9.25%
25-49 9.75
10-24 10
0-10 10.25

Who would take these loans?

Knowing how not to get screwed is part of the game and if you're chasing people down for rent your business model sucks.

You don't really think that the ceiling for returns is lower than if passively invested do you? There're specific time frames where specific geographical regions are all overvalued but there's always opportunities somewhere.

Yeah can we talk about this for a second? I thought most good landlords collect the necessary info on a tenant when they apply, then if the tenant fails to make rent they have x number of days to pay on top of a late fee. If the tenant fails to pay with the late fee the landlord sends the tenants info to an attorney and the attorney evicts and goes after the back rent?

The great deals are usually in areas that have crap tenants so if you did want to rent it out delinquency goes with the territory. I more meant that if you’re actually getting good deals you should be able to hire people to do that kind of work for a price that won’t cripple your margins.

I know some people who do that. They regularly have to put out eviction notices and accept losses that arent worth chasing. You generally don’t get huge returns on the process of renting itself but rather because you bought the place at a great price and turned it into a functional income generating property. Thats the difference between being a real estate investor and being a property manager.

How does that not decide it? Teen and early 20s men are best civilized by the company of intelligent pretty young women. There's nothing comparable.
You can get 3% margin at Interactive Brokers. They pretty much crush the competition on fees. Only need $10K minimum deposit to sign up.

But yeah the real estate attraction is easy access to leverage. I don't think it's a no brainer. It depends. Buy cheap? Good neighborhood and economy? Lock in low rates? Competent person who doesn't mind work and doesn't need vacations? Good stable job and not much starting capital? Yeah, ok, real estate might be a good play for you.