I was just on here doing some reading and stumbled across this thread. Just felt the strong need to sign up and weigh in on the topic.
I'm not any kind of student yet, I attended a community college about 10 years ago. I earned about 40 credits and then my parents earned too much one year, I lost financial aid and that was the end of that. (Long story short, parents don't care about college and didn't support that at all)
When I lost my financial aid, I took the best job I could find at the moment. Disappointingly, it was an overnight stocking job at a Walmart. I started at $8.50 an hour and worked full time. Despite what you may hear about available benefits at Walmart, in all reality the 'health insurance' they have is not attainable for most employees. I had the health insurance plan back when you could still afford to pay for it out of your earnings and still have some take home pay. I broke my arm and had to pay $5000 out of pocket AFTER the insurance paid their measly portion. It would have cost me less to just go in without insurance and then I would have qualified for a payment plan. Because I had insurance, I didn't qualify for a payment plan with the hospital and they were threatening to send my account to collections if I didn't pay within 30 days. So, I put it on a credit card to preserve my credit.
Funny thing is, $5000 on a credit card when you only make about $15,000 in take home pay is a lot. While $5000 isn't much, fact of the matter is you already couldn't afford basic necessities like a car that functions and decent clothing to wear for interviews to try to get a better job.
Fast forward 7 years. Wow, now I'm making a whopping $12 an hour at Walmart as a middle manager. Any dreams of moving into upper management are gone because now they only hire college graduates for those positions with exception of a couple token employees so that they can still say they 'promote from within'.
That $5000 in credit card debt didn't go away. It slowly grew because just about no one can live on less than $20,000 a year. The only way it works is if nothing bad ever happens to you. That cheap beater car needs a new water pump, well, it goes on a card. Heating oil goes up in price, well, the thermostat's set at 40 degrees and you still can't afford that so it goes on a card.
Then, 3 years ago when it all started hitting the fan, I was laid off 2 days before Christmas with a bunch of other employees so that Walmart could boost 4th quarter numbers. I wasn't laid off by a person, I was randomly selected by a computer at corporate.
Interesting thing is, with the current economic state, Walmart has realized they can do better for their money. They have a new policy, if your laid off from or quit Walmart and come back more than 60 days later they can start you off at 'base rate' all over again.
I was called back to work 62 days later and offered my job back for $7.00 an hour. Yes, that's $1.50 less per hour than I started at 10 years ago. I walked out, but many of my old coworkers stayed and took the minimum wage offer.
I know this is a long story, but, I felt obligated to share it. To me, even if the standard retail pharmacists income drops to $60,000 per year it is still worth attending. Why? Heck, it's one of the few jobs that can't be outsourced.
My husband is a welder. Seven years ago he was earning $25 an hour. Today, he can't find a job for over $11 an hour because most manufacturing jobs have either outsourced to China or gone out of business completely. Even that measly $11 an hour job isn't a year round thing. They run out of contracts and he gets laid off and then called back. Last year he only worked 6 months of the year.
The only good thing to come of all of this is that there is a state university nearby with reasonable tuition and being completely impoverished means that you qualify for a lot more aid. My goal is to get into the pharmacy program. It probably won't happen, but, I'm working hard to try to get there. The only thing really in my favor is my 4.0 in high school and my 3.5 for the 40 hours I did in community college. I realize that's probably not enough.
I've submitted over 500 applications over the last 2 years and haven't even been able to find a minimum wage job. Before you assume that my work record must be terrible, I submit my 7 years of employment reviews that were all "exceeds expectations" and all my special letters from district managers and other higher ups when I won production awards.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the job field is tough on pretty much every level. I doubt that there's really any profession at the moment that doesn't require a substantial amount of effort to land a job. Around here, nurses had spades of available sign on bonuses 10 years ago. But, recently the local hospital had to lay off nurses because they lost some funding. Nursing will probably be back in demand again at some point, but, really no one is in demand right now due to hiring freezes at many places.
Yes, education is expensive and nothing is guaranteed. But, pharmacy still seems like a very solid gamble. Didn't the length of time you had to attend increase in the last few years? I want to say that my cousin only has a bachelors in pharmacy and works as a pharmacist. It would seem like the length of time alone might be a discouragement.
Anyways, I'm not feeling very 'talked out of' pursuing pharmacy. What I was paying in interest on credit cards that I used to buy things like gas and food is still more than I would have been paying on a $100,000 student loan.
I guess on the bright side, I've gotten a lot better at living on nothing. We earned $12,000 last year, still managed to pay rent, paid off our ancient car and didn't use anything in the way of government assistance other than my husbands unemployment for when he was laid off.
So, yes, to someone like me, having to spend a while looking for a job, potentially having to relocate and having a student loan still really doesn't sound all that scary. My current reality is a lot scarier.
After my long stint in low paying retail the idea of retail pharmacy is not daunting at all.
rolleyes
