Dorchester Times: Students: Want To Earn Great Money When You're An Adult? Read This

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Students: Want To Earn Great Money When You're An Adult? Read This

Attention all Dorchester students who are old enough to read: You should read this. (If you're a parent who doesn't want your child living at home when they are 30 or older, you should read this, too.)

Over the last few decades, our society has been brainwashed into believing a four-year college is the only path to a lucrative career and comfortable living. But recent years have proven that's not the case.

Our country is drowning in $1.5 TRILLION of student loan debt. We know personally many young people who are saddled with big debt (more than $100,000) because they have one or more degrees in subjects like sociology, psychology, English, theater or history -- only to find they aren't employable in careers that command more than $25,000-$35,000 a year.

Well-paying job demand is currently highest in the trades and technical vocations -- careers in welding, construction, electrical, plumbing and the like.

These careers often lead to business-ownership opportunities. Best of all, they only require a two-year degree that can be attained without using student loans.

However, for those who want a four-year degree -- or who've been told by their parents that they most obtain one -- here's an article we found at Kiplinger, the finance publication. Kiplinger looked for courses of study that tend to lead to fat paychecks -- both right out of school and farther along in a career path. They also sought out majors that are in high demand based on recent online job postings as well as long-term growth expectations for related occupations.

Here are Kiplinger's top 10 majors with the best shots at success in the workplace, complete with generous incomes and an abundance of job opportunities:

10. Nursing. Starting salary: $56,900

9. Actuarial Mathematics. (Work in the insurance and finance industries analyzing the costs of risk and uncertainty.) Starting salary: $60,800

8. Civil Engineering. (Energy projects, city planning.) Starting salary: $55,100

7. Statistics. (Data collection for businesses and government.) Starting salary: $54,900

6. Physics. Starting salary: $57,200

5. Finance. Starting salary: $50,900

4. Economics. Starting salary: $51,400

3. Software Engineering. Starting salary: $61,700

2. Management Information Systems. (Computer and information systems managers.) Starting salary: $56,300

1. Computer Science. Starting salary: $61,600

No comments:

Post a Comment

Village Dweller checks all reader comments to determine if they are appropriate for print.

Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."