My colleague, good friend and ex-classmate is going to get married (finally).
He went to an Australian uni, not sure which one be he stayed 3 years. Actually his course was 2 years 6 months or something but coz not enough accreditations and also to repeat some module or something, so needed to stay 3 years total. (plus he took the chance to travelling ard to pass time)
Then it just hit me and i did some calculations....
2.5 years spent there (plus another ~ 6 mths redo module, backpacking tour etc), course fees/makan/lodging/etc : Lets round it up to 120k. This is a slightly low figure, but just take it to be this value. Of course there are courses that cost more and courses that would cost less.
I think when he came back from Australia he had great difficulty in finding a job coz that time 2003 SARs period mah. 6 months without a job - I finally recommended him the job in my company, so happened got vacancy. I heard from some contract staff that they went 9-12 months without a stable job, they did part-time mainly.
The difference in pay between me as a dip holder and him is about 1k generally, through all the years. It's a GLC, so you know the pay structure etc, all pretty standardised and "I-know-you-know".
Other than this 120k "cost", there is lost opportunities. Lets take my salary, say I earned 90k in those 3 years (again a very average figure for a dip).
120k+90k = 210k. He takes in 16k per annum more in salary than me. So it'd take 13 years for him to net an advantage from the Uni course.
Some people might say that's bullsh*t coz he could be earning a lot more like eg 20k per annum more and if he job hopped then it'd be more. Well that's not possible in this case, Since the both of us did not job-hop and we'll leave it at that as a direct A-B comparison....and somemore I have not factored in the interest from the study loan and that 6 months of not having a job during the 2003 short recession and you know during recession time the salaries were generally adjusted quite a lot.
He's getting married now. And now you know how much housing has shot up, I am surprised that his 4-roomer in Macpherson Residency BTO costs S$450k on average (it's 420k to 480k IIRC from what he said). When I got married in 2005, a 9 course dinner with the cheapest menu was S$688 + 17% GST = S$800 per table @ Intercontinental Bugis. Now it's like 1.4k minimum. I know ang pows would "cover", but for those who have married you'd know how's the going like (not to say that i am stingy to treat people to my wedding!). And by hook or by crook, you have to go through the dinner.
It was a friendly TCSS kopitiam session and I know it's quite bad, but it seems like young couples have it very much worse nowadays.
And my friend is quite pissed that the local salaries are like stunted and that his so-called university degree certainly did not give him a better life as envisaged <- I know it definitely does not sound right to say that but well I'll cut him some slack. Govt is asking folks like him to have more babies.
He went to an Australian uni, not sure which one be he stayed 3 years. Actually his course was 2 years 6 months or something but coz not enough accreditations and also to repeat some module or something, so needed to stay 3 years total. (plus he took the chance to travelling ard to pass time)
Then it just hit me and i did some calculations....
2.5 years spent there (plus another ~ 6 mths redo module, backpacking tour etc), course fees/makan/lodging/etc : Lets round it up to 120k. This is a slightly low figure, but just take it to be this value. Of course there are courses that cost more and courses that would cost less.
I think when he came back from Australia he had great difficulty in finding a job coz that time 2003 SARs period mah. 6 months without a job - I finally recommended him the job in my company, so happened got vacancy. I heard from some contract staff that they went 9-12 months without a stable job, they did part-time mainly.
The difference in pay between me as a dip holder and him is about 1k generally, through all the years. It's a GLC, so you know the pay structure etc, all pretty standardised and "I-know-you-know".
Other than this 120k "cost", there is lost opportunities. Lets take my salary, say I earned 90k in those 3 years (again a very average figure for a dip).
120k+90k = 210k. He takes in 16k per annum more in salary than me. So it'd take 13 years for him to net an advantage from the Uni course.
Some people might say that's bullsh*t coz he could be earning a lot more like eg 20k per annum more and if he job hopped then it'd be more. Well that's not possible in this case, Since the both of us did not job-hop and we'll leave it at that as a direct A-B comparison....and somemore I have not factored in the interest from the study loan and that 6 months of not having a job during the 2003 short recession and you know during recession time the salaries were generally adjusted quite a lot.
He's getting married now. And now you know how much housing has shot up, I am surprised that his 4-roomer in Macpherson Residency BTO costs S$450k on average (it's 420k to 480k IIRC from what he said). When I got married in 2005, a 9 course dinner with the cheapest menu was S$688 + 17% GST = S$800 per table @ Intercontinental Bugis. Now it's like 1.4k minimum. I know ang pows would "cover", but for those who have married you'd know how's the going like (not to say that i am stingy to treat people to my wedding!). And by hook or by crook, you have to go through the dinner.
It was a friendly TCSS kopitiam session and I know it's quite bad, but it seems like young couples have it very much worse nowadays.
And my friend is quite pissed that the local salaries are like stunted and that his so-called university degree certainly did not give him a better life as envisaged <- I know it definitely does not sound right to say that but well I'll cut him some slack. Govt is asking folks like him to have more babies.
