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It's not just a cheesy saying, school is
really cool and here is why: |
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You can benefit so much by completing high school. High
School is the gateway to adult life, self-sufficiency and, of
course, to a career. What do you now effects every
aspect of where you will go later. We all dream of having
a nice house, taking vacations, pursuing our favorite activity
and living out our dreams, but how are we going to fund our
extravagant adventures? By getting an education and
working hard for what we want. If you think there are
other ways to do it, there isn't. Don't fool yourself get
the ... |
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Cold Hard Facts
First lets review expenses: |
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Rent an average size apartment
(in
this area)
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Have cable
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A home phone
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A cell phone
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One car
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Car insurance
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Clothing
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Food
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Electric
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Natural Gas
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All these things will cost you on average $2,000.00 a month. |
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| If you add children into the mix, you can tack on an extra
$600.00 a month (for each infant needing day care). These
figures show the bare minimum and are generally specific to the
Western New York area. If you are planning on moving to a more
populated area, you can probably increase those figures by 25% on
average. |
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| Pricey huh? Just think that is without fun money,
electronic gadgets, expensive clothing and trips to special events.
Well now lets see how we should plan on paying for this each month.
Here are some examples: |
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Without a high school diploma you can make minimum wage, which currently is
$7.15 and hour. If you work an average 40 hour work week, you will
gross (before taxes) $286.00 a week. Your take home pay will be around
$210.00 to $230.00. If we use the $210.00 example, lets see how close
we are to paying those bills. At $210.00 take home pay per week, you
will average $840.00 a month. That will not even cover half of the
bills listed above and definitely not if you have a child. With a GED
(Graduation Equivalency Diploma) chances are you will not get as good of a job
as someone with a high school diploma. A high school diploma will
usually get you a better job because the employer knows you had a four-year
commitment to finish high school. You can make slightly better than
minimum wage. Lets say you will average $8.50 an hour. That will
give you a gross of $340.00 a week, which will leave you with about $280.00
a week as take home pay. Now you're up to $1,120.00 a month.
You're getting closer to being able to pay your bills, but you still are not
there yet.
With a high school diploma you will average 2 to 5 dollars an hour higher
than minimum wage. So lets say you're getting $10.50 an hour.
That's $420.00 a week (gross) and about $330.00 take home. You're now
up to $1,320.00 a month. You are still lacking roughly $700.00 a month
(without children). |
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| Now lets see what a little higher education can do for you... |
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| With an Associate's Degree and working in your related field,
you can average somewhere around 12 to 16 dollars and hour. So
lets say you get $14.00 an hour. That gets you $560.00 (gross)
a week. Take home will be around $470.00 a week, which is
$1,880.00 a month. You have now almost crested the $2,000.00
mark, but you still need to keep going in order to live comfortably. |
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To continue on would be difficult, being that different degrees get you
different amounts of pay, but you get the idea. You will need to make
at least $16.00 an hour to scrape by without kids. Even with $16.00 an
hour you don't have much left for gas money, fun or wanted items. The
Cold Hard Facts are that life requires
higher education in order for you to obtain all the things you want in life.
The better the education, the more money for you make. |
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So is school cool? Yes, why yes it is! School gives you a chance to review
many aspects of education so you can choose your course of study later, It
allows you to have a solid background on which to base your further studies
and most of all what you take with you and where you go with it will
determine how much money you have to enjoy the life ahead of you. |
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Stay in School, because School is
Cool! |
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"The direction in which education starts a man will
determine his future life."
written by Plato |
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