Roughly 2,000 students have to decide by Sunday whether to accept a spot at Harvard. Here’s some advice: Forget Harvard. If you want to earn big bucks and retire young, you’re better off becoming a California prison guard.
The above is the lead of a Wall Street Journal article by Allysia Finley. Once upon a time, the rule of the interaction of supply and demand had much to do with the salary or wages that a person could expect to receive in the job market. For example, there is no end to the number of people who have the skills to push a broom but there is only a relative handful that have the skills to perform neurosurgery, which is why neuro.surgens make much more than a person who pushes a broom. Apparently the rules of supply and demand do not always hold-up. This is especially true when unions enter the picture with their concepts of equality. Here are some excerpts from Ms. Finley’s article that explain what I am talking about:
The job might not sound glamorous, but a brochure from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations boasts that it “has been called ‘the greatest entry-level job in California’—and for good reason. Our officers earn a great salary, and a retirement package you just can’t find in private industry. We even pay you to attend our academy.” That’s right—instead of paying more than $200,000 to attend Harvard, you could earn $3,050 a month at cadet academy.
Training only takes four months, and upon graduating you can look forward to a job with great health, dental and vision benefits and a starting base salary between $45,288 and $65,364. By comparison, Harvard grads can expect to earn $49,897 fresh out of college and $124,759 after 20 years.
As a California prison guard, you can make six figures in overtime and bonuses alone. While Harvard-educated lawyers and consultants often have to work long hours with little recompense besides Chinese take-out, prison guards receive time-and-a-half whenever they work more than 40 hours a week. One sergeant with a base salary of $81,683 collected $114,334 in overtime and $8,648 in bonuses last year, and he’s not even the highest paid.
Most Harvard grads only get three weeks of vacation each year, even after working for 20 years—and they’re often too busy to take a long trip. Prison guards, on the other hand, get seven weeks of vacation, five of them paid. If they’re too busy racking up overtime to use their vacation days, they can cash the days in when they retire. There’s no cap on how many vacation days they can cash in! Eighty officers last year cashed in over $100,000 at retirement.
Do read the article to learn more about the benefits of guiding your sons and daughters to life on easy street. Tell your children that they can relax and stop worrying about their grades and SAT scores and whether or not they will be accepted by the college of their choice. And you, my friends, won’t have to take out a second mortgage on your house to pay for your children’s higher education. Isn’t America great! Or is it only California that is great?
Asylum Watch 
That is a little depressing. Ok a lot of depressing. I am in graduate school right now, and hope to someday make six digit figures. It is a little frustrating that with all my schooling and hard work I will likely make less than a prison guard. I understand that is a hard job, but still. Or you might recall the story of the New Jersey toll booth person that made six digit figures last year, thank you government!
I feel for you Jona. It’s not your fault that the country is in the shape that it is in. It’s the fault of my generation. Hopefully, in 2012, we can begin to turn back the tide of socialism that has been rising for decades before that tide becomes a tsunami. Prepare yourself for the worst and hope for the best. Good lick, Jona.
I am constantly told that I should go back to school and get a Masters or PhD. What for? So I can do what I really want to, which is write political-history books. Oh, I’m already doing that, though the extra “credentials” might help me sell a few more books.
I’d say you’re doing just fine as you are, Michael.
And the state of California can’t afford to pay all of their own expenses. We, er, I mean the Fed, have to help out….
Nice of them to spend our, er, the Fed’s, money like that.
Doesn’t it make you feel all warm inside.Gwaaaaa!
Just crazy isn’t it, mind you, you might learn more about real life from a california prison than at harvard.
A college degree was never a guarantee in life but was supposed to help open some doors. Now the doors are being slammed in their faces of our young graduates.
So true! Those of us with college degrees are now overqualified for many of the easiest best paying jobs out there.
Not only that, Michael, but there are jobs for skilled craftsmen and technical specialist that are going unfilled or employers are having to bring in from other countries because we are not producing enough of them.
According to a Cyclopedia of Education Vol. 1 (1919), adolescence extends from 18 or 24 to 30. It thus stands to reason that college has become the functional equivalent of high school. Therefore, it’s not surprising that people holding paper equal to the old high school diploma cannot hope to compete with a highly trained Left Coast civil servant.
Do you mean to tell me, Bob, that our liberal dominated education system is less than mediocre? Really?
Damn, I seriously don’t want to move to California, but that sounds like a pretty sweet gig! 7 weeks of vacation a year! Plus, given a couple weeks, my Spanish should be back in good shape.
If you don’t here for me a bit, I am packing my stuff, lol.
Don’t forget to get your passport and visa updated.
My best friend from HS is a California prison guard. At the prison he is at, the guards all have to have a college degree. The pay and benefits are great–courtesy of the state of California–but the working conditions are truly terrible. The prisons are overcrowded and so everyone is nasty and in a bad mood. The guards are targets of the prisoners, and there is little or no way to get most prisoners to cooperate apart from force or the threat of force. There is no real thought of rehabilitation–the prisoners would first have to want to be rehabilitated–and they don’t. As a result, the prison is a self-imposed cesspool–a cesspool the guards have to clock into everyday.
On the other hand, it is a job, and so many in California are out of work.
John, thank you for sharing a different and real perspective. All is not exactly roses, is it?
http://teconom.blogspot.com/2011/05/jim-gourdie-talks-about-californias.html
Jim Gourdie talks about California’s pension woes.
Why do they have to have a college degree. when all they do is use force on inmates. oh I know so the union members can demand higher wages then the union gets richer and pays the politicians more money.
It’s an upside down world, Nate. especially in California.
I do not know if every prison in California requires that their guards have university degree. In this particular case, the need for a university degree has nothing to do with the unions, but has everything to do with past problems in the prison system. While being willing and able to use force is a necessary adjunct to the job, there is considerably more to being a successful prison guard. For one thing, the guards are outnumbered, so they cannot use force and force alone to control the prison population. For another, even though the prisoners have lost many of their rights, they have not lost all of their rights, which means that the guards are legally allowed to use only the force necessary to maintain control, and no more. Someone with a university degree is more apt to have an understanding of human psychology, will probably be more intelligent, and have more maturity and self-control than a person who just has a high school diploma. They do not need guards who are all brawn and no brains–it would be a disaster.
plus alot of jobs have aspects that suck but they do not have enar as great benefits as this. Should the guy who stands out side the burger joint with a costume on get paid 40000 a year becuase people yell at him and throw sodas and it get hot and the job flat out sucks no. The market shoudl determine his wage and as we can see hunreds of thousands of people apply for the job while less then two percent get the job conclusion these guys are way over paid.