80k advice often seems geared to people with quite a particular educational background. I’m keen on earning to give even if my earnings can only be moderate (a different course seems better if they might end up lower than that). But while I’m unusually smart I don’t like school, don’t have very good A levels (Bs and Cs), and prefer to be self-directed—so I decided to skip university to do self-employed start-up business work. However I figure I could go back, or perhaps do an accelerated business course. How can someone in my general situation best get an outside view of their expected mean/median earnings, if they’re willing to do any job to maximise these?
One quick thing is that although our career profiles (currently) focus on those kinds of people, a lot of our advice is more general e.g. our framework, strategy advice, how to choose pages.
There’s also some literature about whether doing a degree boosts your earnings:
https://80000hours.org/2014/01/the-value-of-a-degree/
It generally finds that it does, on average, but whether it’s worth it for you will depend on your situation. If lack of a degree isn’t a blockage with respect to your current set of opportunities, then it might not be an issue. It also depends on what areas you want to enter. It will also depend on which program you could get into and your chances of finishing it.
There’s also some literature about whether being self-employed boosts your earnings. It finds that on average self-employed people earn less, though those who own incorporated companies earn more.
If you’re smart but you don’t like school, maybe you have a comparative advantage in doing independent research and blogging about EA topics? Just a thought.
Well you could start by assuming you become a better than average programmer in your country? Bureau of Labor Statistics is very handy if you’re in the US, but there are equivalents. If you decide to make a business, then you might want to look at 80k’s research into startup earnings (I helped with this), although beware that the variance is very high and failure is near certain.
Other outside views: what are average earnings given your IQ? What did your parents earn?
80k advice often seems geared to people with quite a particular educational background. I’m keen on earning to give even if my earnings can only be moderate (a different course seems better if they might end up lower than that). But while I’m unusually smart I don’t like school, don’t have very good A levels (Bs and Cs), and prefer to be self-directed—so I decided to skip university to do self-employed start-up business work. However I figure I could go back, or perhaps do an accelerated business course. How can someone in my general situation best get an outside view of their expected mean/median earnings, if they’re willing to do any job to maximise these?
Hi there,
One quick thing is that although our career profiles (currently) focus on those kinds of people, a lot of our advice is more general e.g. our framework, strategy advice, how to choose pages.
If you’re trying to figure out your next step, then the first thing I’d recommend is working through the process on our how to choose page: https://80000hours.org/career-guide/how-to-choose/
After you’ve done that, let me know what your key uncertainties are.
Turning to expected earnings directly, there’s doesn’t really exist a general model for someone’s expected earnings. You can get an idea of potential earnings of different jobs with these kinds of resources: https://80000hours.org/2013/02/how-to-find-out-earnings-for-different-jobs/
There’s also some literature about whether doing a degree boosts your earnings: https://80000hours.org/2014/01/the-value-of-a-degree/ It generally finds that it does, on average, but whether it’s worth it for you will depend on your situation. If lack of a degree isn’t a blockage with respect to your current set of opportunities, then it might not be an issue. It also depends on what areas you want to enter. It will also depend on which program you could get into and your chances of finishing it.
There’s also some literature about whether being self-employed boosts your earnings. It finds that on average self-employed people earn less, though those who own incorporated companies earn more.
Ben
If you’re smart but you don’t like school, maybe you have a comparative advantage in doing independent research and blogging about EA topics? Just a thought.
Well you could start by assuming you become a better than average programmer in your country? Bureau of Labor Statistics is very handy if you’re in the US, but there are equivalents. If you decide to make a business, then you might want to look at 80k’s research into startup earnings (I helped with this), although beware that the variance is very high and failure is near certain.
Other outside views: what are average earnings given your IQ? What did your parents earn?