It’s looking more and more that if you have discipline and want to save for the future, going to college may be a bad investment. A four year college degree costs too much and proves too little. It has become increasingly unlikely to be able to make up the cost of a college degree, even with the fact that college grads get paid more.

In an example for the New York Post as written by SmartMoney associate editor Jack Hough, if you look at two people from similar backgrounds each of whom save $16,594 for college. One decides to not go to college and invests his savings in a mutual fund that tracks the broad stock market. He ends up making an average pay that peaks at $32,538. He adds to his savings 5% of his after-tax income and it returns 8% a year.

His friend goes to college. He goes to public school and transfers to a private school. He ends up spending $48,286 in tuition and fees. These fees do not include room and board. He ends up spending $34,044 after grants. When he finishes school he owes $17,450 at 5% in student loans. He starts making just over $23,000 a year after taxes and peaks at almost $57K. Like his friend, he sets aside 5%. It will take him 12 years to pay off his loans. When he finally escapes from the debt at age 34, he starts investing in the same fund as his friend. He is able to make bigger monthly contributions. However, when they reach 65, the friend who didn’t go to college will have saved almost $1.3 million while the one with the degree will have less than a third of what his friend saved.

I believe that this all comes back to the fact that many people don’t think about saving rather they want to have a comfortable lifestyle while they can enjoy it. I’m not saying that you can’t enjoy things when you’re 65, but you can enjoy travel and have more ability to do so when you’re younger.

On September 15th Ben Bernanke said that the recession is basically over in a statement that rang so loudly, the stock market shot up like a weed after a rainstorm. Well, it was just over half a percentage point for the Dow today, but up is up, right (I really just wanted to use an illustrative language today and that was what came to mind also)?

So, on top of Bernanke’s statement about the recession being over, there was also new data to come out that said consumer sales were up. Sales rose in the past month the most they had risen over a single month in three years.

All of this news put together made for a pretty good day on Wall Street, but the statement about the recession being over was what made headlines that day. So, do I feel like the recession is over or that it may as well be over?

I think we may have seen the bottom. All indicators are pointing to the fact that we have bottomed out. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is well above the lowest point of the year and the overall stock market is doing well. Job losses have slowed down (although unemployment continues to increase). Consumer spending is starting to climb back up, homes are beginning to pick up in sales (and in return the amount of existing homes on the market is finally beginning to decline), and new construction has started once again on projects all across the country. Even auto sales have been kind of stirred after the Cash for Clunkers program.

But before we can all pack up our briefcases and drive to TGI Friday’s for Happy Hour, we have to remember something, it’s not over until it’s over and there are plenty of people out there who don’t have jobs and can’t pay their mortgages. I hate to be a buzzkill for those who felt like celebrating when Bernanke said the recession was basically over, but there are so many things still going on not only in the U.S. but all around the world that show the global recession is not over and that it will be a long road to go down before we actually see the end (and by the end, I mean economic growth like we were seeing prior to the beginning of the recession).

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